Al-Nūrī said, “If you see someone claiming, with reference to Allah, a spiritual state that falls outside the Sacred Law, keep your distance from him.”

Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAṭāʾ relates: “I heard Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī say, ‘There was in my soul a craving for these saintly miracles, so I took a reed from some children, stood between two boats, and declared: “By Your might! If You do not bring forth for me a fish weighing three pounds, I shall drown myself.”

‘A fish of exactly three pounds surfaced for me. When this reached Junayd he remarked, “What ought to have come out for him was a viper to bite him.”’

Al-Nūrī also said, ‘The way of those who are annihilated is fanāʾ (annihilation) in their Beloved; the way of those who abide is baqāʾ (abiding) through His abiding. Whoever rises above both annihilation and abiding—then there is neither annihilation nor abiding.’

Al-Qannād recounts: ‘While still a youth I wrote to al-Nūrī:

If the whole of a man perishes within the Whole,
explain to me: of which of the two modes of existence does he speak?

‘He answered immediately:

If you are annihilated in what lies beyond description,
then, in my view, your moment among descriptions is bewilderment. ⦗1⦘’

I say: This topic requires a lengthy discussion and vigilance against imagining total annihilation. What they mean by fanāʾ is the disappearance of the soul’s qualities and the like, and their being forgotten through absorption in Allah—Exalted is He—and in His worship. The gnostic’s essence and body do not cease to exist so long as he is alive, and the cosmos and all it contains are created; Allah is the Creator and Originator of every thing—may Allah protect us and you from the assertion