When God considered the House’s original shape, He made the Ḥijr according to that shape and named it ḥijr because He barred anyone other than prophets and messengers from attaining that rank, through His wisdom, glory be to Him. The friends have divine preservation, and the prophets have protection from sin.[1]
(A Story of Preserving the Heart of God’s Friend)
One of the friends among the people of God, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ustādh al-Mawrūrī, told me that the master ʿAbd al-Razzāq or someone else, the doubt is mine, or rather someone else without doubt, for I have remembered, saw Iblīs. He asked him, “How do you fare with the master Abū Madyan?” He was a righteous servant, an imam in affirming unity and trust, who lived in Béjaïa.
Iblīs said, “In what I cast into his heart, I compare myself only to someone who urinates in the encircling ocean.” He is asked, “Why do you urinate in it?” He says, “To make it impure so that purification with it becomes impossible.” Have you seen anyone more ignorant than this person? Such am I with Abū Madyan’s heart. Whenever I cast something into it, he transforms its very reality. He thus reported that he casts into the hearts of God’s friends, as we mentioned, while he has no way to the prophets.
(The House’s Dimensions and the Heart’s Stations)
The House is twenty-seven cubits high, with a further cubit for the upper enclosure, making twenty-eight cubits. Each cubit is the measure of a divine matter known to those of unveiling. These measures correspond to the heart’s stations, crossed by the wandering stars of faith to manifest events occurring in the self, exactly like the stations of the moon and wandering stars in manifesting
Notes
[1]
(The context distinguishes preservation for the friends of God from protection from sin for the prophets. The pronoun in “they have” is read in light of this preceding distinction.)
