This is the tenth figure from the ‘Tawasin’, notice in the center of the circle of transcendance, the ‘circuit of completion’, locked-in itself. The ‘La‘s that surrounds it represent negation (nafi) of all directions (jihat). The two ‘Ha‘s on the sides represent the blockades (or obstacles) set before the undesirable, before all strangers. Only remains ‘Tawhid’ (Unity), and what lies below, is ephemeral.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is an excerpt from Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj’s’ ‘Book of Tawasin‘, about ‘Moses & the Forty Stations’, here taken from Stephane Ruspoli’s French edition, published in 2007 by Albouraq Publications. From pages 124 & 125, in our Via-HYGEIA working English translation.

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From Book II,

‘Tasin of the Quest after Truth’

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Moses’ Forty Stations &

the Call in Front of the Burning Bush

(878) 11. Quite elusive is the truth to grasp and narrow are the paths that lead to it. We meet there whirring fires and deep desert. The exiled eager to follow these paths is instructed about the ‘forty stations‘ that he must cross. Here they are: The station of the good behavior (towards God), the station of fright, the station of the expedient, the station of the search, the station of astonishment, the station of exhaustion, the station of enchantment, the station of greed, the station of deprivation, the station of purity, the station of sincerity, the station of benevolence, the station of aging, the station of the solemn declaration, the station of relaxation, the station of the wish, the station of the testimony, the station of existence, the station of the calculation of time, the station of the burn-out, the station of refusal, the station of over-time, the station of expectation, the station of loneliness, the station of the directive, the station of rebellion, the station of presence, the station of asceticism, the station of precaution, the station of misguidedness, the station of resistance, the station of circumspection, the station of stupefaction, the station of reflection, the station of patience, the station of endurance, the station of the forcing-through, the station of rejection, the station of febrility, the station of the watch-over, the station of deference, the station of guidance, the station of the return to the beginning. Such are the stations of the adepts of purity & integrity.

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(879) 12. Each station includes specific sciences, some are understandable, while others are beyond comprehension. After that, the exiled penetrates in the desert where he acquires these sciences, he will then gift them to his people and to the dwellers of the mountains and of the plains. ‘When Moses had completed the appointed time’ (Qur’an, 28:29). He immediately left his kind behind and journeyed towards truth. Despite this, all were content with the ‘news’ without having actually seen it-this to mark the difference between Moses and the best of Men. Then Moses declared to them: ‘Perhaps will I bring you back a news (a truth)‘ (Qur’an, 28:29). If the guide is satisfied with the good news (the given truth), how would the guided not rely upon the ‘relic’ (of His Word) that came out of ‘the tree on the side of the Mount‘ (Qur’an, 28:29)? What Moses has heard came from this tree, but it is truly his Lord he heard. It is the same for me or for this tree: It is about His Word!

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Upon Election & Divine Attraction

(880) 13. Truth is truth, the creature is the creature. Withdraw the creature so that your ‘you’ becomes ‘Him’, and that ‘Him’ becomes ‘you’ in truth. Because ‘I’ qualifies, and qualification is owned by the one who qualifies truth, how ‘I’ would be the qualifying subject? Then God told Moses: ‘You guide towards the proof, or towards the proven thing, and as for Me, I AM the ‘proof of the proof‘.

Towards Him, God transported me until the ‘ha’ of truth through the promise, the pact and the given assurance. My secret being has testified without my consciousness. This secret of mine is beyond the path. God has called me out from the garden of my heart, then His Word lands on my tongue (Via-Hygeia note: Stephane Ruspoli writes ‘my science’. In the context developed by Hallaj, we chose: ‘His Word’ which is the inner meaning intended). He brought me closer to Him, after a distancing. God has elected me. God has chosen me.

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Stephane Ruspoli’s French Translation

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Source

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‘Kitâb al tawâsîn‘

edited & annotated by Louis Massignon (in Arabic and French)

(includes Persian translation and commentary by Ruzbihan Baqli).

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