desiring Allah, or anything other than loving Allah.” The meaning is the same. Whether or not this is called annihilation, it is the beginning and end of Islam, the inward and outward reality of religion.

As for the second kind, it is “ceasing to perceive anything other than Allah.” This happens to many who follow the spiritual path. Their hearts are so intensely drawn to remembering, worshipping and loving Allah, yet too weak to perceive anything besides the One they worship or behold anything besides the One they seek, that nothing other than Allah enters their hearts. Indeed, they are not even aware of anything else. Thus, concerning His words:

“The heart of Moses’ mother became empty. She almost disclosed his identity, had We not strengthened her heart.”

They said: “Empty of everything except the thought of Moses.”

This often happens to someone overwhelmed by a concern—whether love, fear or hope—which turns his heart away from everything except what he loves, fears or seeks. When entirely absorbed in it, he is unaware of anything else. If this state intensifies in someone experiencing annihilation, he becomes so absorbed in the One he finds that he loses awareness of his own existence; in the One he beholds, of his own beholding; in the One he remembers, of his own remembrance; and in the One he knows, of his own knowledge. Eventually, that which once did not exist—the created beings other than Him, all subject to Him—vanishes, and He who has always existed—the Lord Most High—remains. What is meant is that these beings vanish from the servant’s awareness and remembrance, and that he ceases to perceive or behold them.

When this intensifies, the lover grows weak until his discernment becomes impaired. He may then imagine that he himself is his beloved, as in the story related of a man who threw himself into the sea, whereupon the one who loved him threw himself in after him. The first said: “I fell in, but what made you fall in after me?” He replied: “I became so absorbed in you that I lost awareness of myself, and thought that you were me.”