If that secret can be reached by rational inquiry, one must inevitably attain it; if it is to be known through transmitted report, no sound report on the matter exists; and if it is said to be grasped by spiritual state and direct gnosis, that is nothing but a bare claim. Perhaps, then, what he meant by “disclosing it” was our plunging deeply into the subject of predestination and probing it.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm (1) narrated to us; Abu l-Ḥasan al-Sakhāwī narrated to us; Ḥaṭlabā ibn Qamriyya the Sufi narrated to us; Saʿd ibn Aḥmad al-Isfarāyinī—through my own recitation—narrated to us; Abu Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī narrated to us, saying:
“Know that the religion is two halves: one is to refrain from the prohibitions, and the other is to perform the acts of obedience. Refraining from what is forbidden is the more difficult, for anyone can carry out acts of obedience, whereas only the ṣiddīqūn—the most truthful of the believers—can renounce their appetites. Hence the Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: ‘The emigrant is the one who abandons evil, and the warrior is the one who strives against his own desire.’ (2)”
(1) The author sketches his life in his Mashaykha, fol. 140: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim ibn Ali ibn Ahmad, the long-lived Qurʾan-reader Nizam al-Din Abu Abd Allah al-Tabrizi, later al-Dimashqi, a Shafiʿi. Born about 610 AH/1213 CE under the Ayyubid ruler al-ʿAdil. He used to travel with his son for business. He told me that he completed a full recitation (khatma) for Abu ʿUmar under Abu al-Qasim al-Safrawi, and he showed me his ijaza from al-Sakhawi in the seven canonical readings dated 635 AH/1237 CE. He also read four riwayat with al-Muntakhab al-Hamadhani, and in Aleppo he heard hadith from Abu al-Qasim ibn Rawaha and others. He held a prominent study circle and maintained a mosque near the Maristan; he was devout and humble. I myself recited a khatma to him for the elevation of his isnad. He lived on, but extreme old age and illness overcame him; he spent nearly a year in the Nuri hospital and became destitute. He died in Rabiʿ II 704 AH/1304 CE.
(2) Sound (sahih). Imam Ahmad transmitted it (6/21) through Layth ibn Saʿd → Abu Haniʾ al-Khawlani → ʿAmr ibn Malik al-Janbi (miswritten al-Jabni) → Fadala ibn ʿUbayd: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said during the Farewell Pilgrimage, “Shall I not tell you who is the believer? It is the one whom people trust with their wealth and lives; and the Muslim is he from whose tongue and hand people are safe; and the mujahid is the one who strives against his own self in obedience to Allah; and the muhajir is he who abandons sins and offenses.” Declared sahih by Ibn Hibban (no. 25) and by al-Hakim (1/10–11), whose judgment al-Dhahabi endorsed. It is corroborated by a hadith of Anas in Ibn Hibban (no. 26) and al-Hakim (1/11).