So turn thy face

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. 26-10-07.


Fa-wallu-wujuhukum-shatrahu-wa-innallazina-utul-kitaaba-la-ya’lamuna-annahul-haqqu-mir-rabbihim-wa-ma-allahu-bighafilin-amma-ya’malun. Surah 2-Verse144.

So turn thy face toward the inviolable place of worship, and ye [O Muslims], wheresoever ye maybe , turn your faces toward it. Lo! Those who have received the scripture know that this is the Truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do.

This means: turn the divine face which is particular to you---of which God has said, "Only the Face of your Lord subsists." S 55:V 27.

Which face is being referred to? This face is infact the "sirr" secret through which your spirit subsists. Just like the body only subsists through your spirit.

In the above verse the command is concerning this source of man’s being.

Abdul Kader As-Sufi. r.a




There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save He.

The God of the Sufi is the God of every creed, and the God of all. Names make no difference to him. Allah, God, Gott, Dieu, Brahma, or Bhagwan, all these names and more are the names of his God; and yet to him God is beyond the limitation of name. He sees his God in the sun, in the fire, in the idol which diverse sects worship; and he recognizes Him in all the forms of the universe, yet knowing Him to be beyond all form: God in all, and all in God, He being the Seen and the Unseen, the Only Being. God to the Sufi is not only a religious belief, but also the highest ideal the human mind can conceive.

H.I.K.

Man has worshipped God, beholding the beauty of sun, moon, stars, and planets; he has worshipped God in plants, in animals; he has recognized God in the beautiful merits of man, and he has with his perfect view of beauty found the source of all beauty in the Unseen, from whence all this springs, and in Whom all is merged.

The Sufi, realizing this, worships beauty in all its aspects, and sees the face of the Beloved in all that is seen, and the Beloved's spirit in the Unseen. So wherever he looks his ideal of worship is before him. 'Everywhere I look, I see Thy winning face; everywhere I go, I arrive at Thy dwelling-place.'
H.I.K.
God said, "And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him", S17:V23. For in reality it is this divine face alone which is worshipped in every creature---fire, sun, star, animal or angel. The consideration of this face is necessary in every act, religious or not.
Abdul Kader.

God does not consider your exterior form but only your heart-------which is the Divine face proper to each of you, and it is this Divine face , which in you contains God, even though His sky and His earth cannot contain Him. When God commands that we turn toward the Qibla, He intends that it is this face which turns.
Abdul-Kader.

Tasbih phiri dil na phirya ------ki karna tasbih phar ke huuuu
Sultan Bahu.

Therefore the one who lives the inner life is all things; he is as a physician who knows things that a physician cannot know; an astrologer who knows much more than the astrologer; an artist who knows that which an artist could not know; a musician who knows what a musician does not know; a poet who knows what the poet cannot perceive. For he becomes the artist of the entire world, the singer of the divine song; he becomes an astrologer of the entire cosmos, which is hidden from the sight of men. He does not need outer things as the signs of knowing the eternal life. His very life is the evidence of the everlasting life. To him death is a shadow; it is a change; it is turning the face from one side to the other. To him all things have their meaning, every movement in this world: the movement of the water, of the air, of the lightning and the thunder and the wind. Every movement has a message for him, it brings to him some sign. To another person it is only the thunder, it is only a storm, but to him every movement has its meaning. And when he rises in his development, not only has every movement its meaning, but in and above every movement there is his command. It is that part of his life which brings him mastery.

Besides this, in all affairs of this world, of individuals and multitudes, which confuse people, which bring them despair, and cause them depression, which give joy and pleasure, which amuse them, he sees through all. He knows why it comes, whence it comes, what is behind it, what is the cause of it, and behind the seeming cause what is the hidden cause; and if he wished to trace the cause behind the cause he could trace back to the primal cause, for the inner life is lived by living with the primal cause, by being in unity with the primal cause. Therefore the one who lives the inner life, in other words, who lives the life of God, God is in him and he is in God.
H.I.K

He who turns toward the Qibla with his body alone , without also turning this face , has not truly turned. He who looks only with his eyes of flesh, without looking with this face also, does not truly look. Thus God has said in the Quran: You see all those who look at you but do not see you at all. S7:V198.
This is because they look only with their bodily vision and not the face particular to them, their secret. Similarly one who listens with only his bodily hearing independent of this face does not hear. "They have ears but they hear not." S7:V179.
He who turns towards God only with this conical organ which is his heart of flesh does not grasp or understand, "They have a heart but they do not understand." S7:V179.
He who looks with his finite eye only sees finite things, bodies, colours, surfaces. He who looks with the eye of his hidden spirit sees the hidden things---spiritual beings, forms of the world of the absolute imagination, jinns, all of which are still only created beings and therefore veils. But he looks with his face , that is to say his secret, sees the face which God has in each thing; for in truth only Allah sees Allah, only Allah knows Allah.
Abdul Kader.

Fa-aynama-tawaalu-fa-thamma-wajhullahi.
Wheresoever you turn there is Allah’s Face. S2:V115.

These three eyes are actually only one. The physical, spiritual and secret eyes. You can tell one from the other by only observing the difference in the objects of perception.
When we look at a person, situation, emotion…what do we see? Do we see the limited physical only? Do we see the dual nature of Creator/Creation? Or do we see from the unitive vision of Divine Oneness and Reality?

When God says, " O son of Adam! I was sick and you did not visit Me. I was hungry and you did not feed Me.I was thirsty and you did not give Me to drink…", it is this face that He refers to.


When the Gnostic or the Arif turns toward the Qibla to accomplish the ritual prayer, he sees that he who turns is God and towards that which he turns is also God. When he gives alms he sees that he who gives is God, and to whom he gives is also God.
"Do they not know that it is Allah himself who accepts the repentance of His servants and who receives the alms." S9:V104.
Abdul Kader.

This is seeing God through God. But be careful not to confuse this with union or infusion in the sense of incarnation. It only means that you are not and He alone is.

The Sacred Mosque refers to the literal Qibla , but it must also be understood as implying that degree of divinity , which is the totality of all Divine Names, as the place of prostration of the Heart. The word sacred "haram" means that a heart which has not disengaged itself from the sphere of the soul and of the created beings is forbidden to enter this place. Wherever you are, turn your face toward the sacred mosque, means , wherever you are in the accomplishment of the acts of worship, or in the ordinary acts of life, contemplate Him alone. Abdul Kader.
…..in all you eat, drink, marry, engage with…see the Divine Face.


When that ray we think of as man’s individual consciousness, merges into its origin, the Divine consciousness working through him, he is carried beyond himself, he is able to see what God sees;but as soon as he circumscribes himself again within his notion of himself, then that which he saw no longer makes sense because he has cut himself away from divine consciousness. Seen from the vantage point of the sun, the rays are extensions of itself, but if one isolates oneself into the consciousness of a particular ray, it appears as a cylindrical volume in which the sun is threaded. This accounts for the fact that the mystic, at a certain stage of realization, may think he is the eyes through which God sees, and at a more advanced stage realize that he is the Divine Glance.
H.I.K.




Humanities greatest necessity today is the exploration of the human personality to find the latent inspiration and power, and upon this to build the whole structure of life. Life is not only to live, but also to ennoble oneself and reach that perfection which is the innate yearning of the soul.

The solution to the problem of the day is that the consciousness of humanity may be awakened to the divinity of the human being.

The undertone of all religions is the realization of the one life which culminates in the thought of unity. It is to raise humanity to this consciousness that the efforts of the Sufi movement are directed.
H.I.K.