All That Is Upon it Is Passing Away

Kullu man ʿalayha fanin.

Outward existence imprints its marks upon the canvas of being. Whoever looks at outward existence with the physical eye will behold it as an engendered realm of being insofar as he affirms his own attribute of being. He will observe the individual "ships towering aloft" (Q Rahman 55:26) upon the visual appearance of the ocean of existence and subsistence.  But the engendered realm of being never was and will never be. And as Junayd, may God be pleased with him, said, “that which is situated between the two edges of annihilation is annihilated.” Engendered existence therefore only became manifest on account of the ripples of waves of the ocean of the Real. That is, the engendered realm of being at its root is a site of manifestation for the movement of stillness of the ocean of the Real. For the ocean of the divine Essence is absolute stillness. It has neither movement nor sound. But the waves of love cause movement in the midst of this fathomless and all-consuming stillness. Thus, the ocean began to ripple with the movement of yearning that yielded the waves of existence. 

This is all to say that anything that is qualified by location is also permeated by the property of annihilation in respect of its form. It assumes the property of existence within an illusory world. For upon close examination, the herebelow is a dream. As report [ascribed to the holy Prophet (s)] states, “People are asleep, and when they die, they awaken.”  Moreover, the hereafter is a result of the herebelow, and it too is a dream since its root is a dream. However, there hereafter assumes the attribute of subsistence more intensely than the herebelow. This is because of the descent of celestial realities down to the outer realm of named things.

Know, moreover, that an illusion is the result of an outpouring from the names of the Real. It this through this outpouring that concrete entities (aʿyan) in existence disclose themselves. Moreover, each concrete entity in existence is sustained by one of the divine names, and it discloses itself within one of the loci where the realities of that name become manifest. Thus, concrete entities are passing away with respect to their outward form, and subsistent with respect to their inward essence.

For instance, the name the Provider (al-Razzaq) has many disclosures which are evident in scores of concrete entities. The name the Provider manifests itself in food, wealth, children, and health. However, all of these self-disclosures are passing away with respect to their forms. Money decreases when it is spent, health is overcome by illness, and food spoils with the passage of time. Yet, the reality of the name the Provider subsists. It does not pass away. This is because it is the one of the sites of manifestation (maẓhar) of universal reality that is referred to as the "ever-remaining Face of God" (wajh Allah al-baqi).

Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi Al Karkari (Kaf al-astar)