The Two Wings

The believer then journeys towards God on these two wings [al-janahayn] – which show an awareness of his own faults and recognition of his Lord’s grace. He cannot journey without them, and if he denied one of them, he would be like a bird that had lost a wing.

The Shaykh of Islam – Abd Allah al-Ansari al-Harawi [1] - said, ‘The Gnostic travels to God between the recognition of God’s grace, and the awareness of the flaws of his own soul and deed.’ This, then, is the sense of the words of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ recorded in the sound hadith of Buraydah [ibn Husayb]: “The best way for the servant to ask Allah’s forgiveness is to say: ‘Ya Allah, You are my Lord. There is no deity but You. You created me, and I am your servant. I am keeping my pledge and promise to You as much as I am able. I seek refuge in You from what evil I have wrought. I acknowledge to You Your Grace to me, and I acknowledge my sin, so forgive me. Truly, no one forgives sins but You.’” [2]

His words “I acknowledge to You Your Grace to me and I acknowledge my sin” combine the recognition of divine grace with the awareness of the defects of the person's soul and its deeds. The perception of Allah’s grace engenders love, praise and gratitude for the One to whom belong this grace and generosity, and awareness of the soul’s defects entails humility, need and repentance at every moment.

It also entails that the servant sees himself and impoverished. The closest door to Allah is impecuniousness, wherein the servant sees in himself no state, station or reason to which he could become attached, or any means with which he might be favoured. Rather, he comes to Allah by the gate of indigence, adversity and pure poverty [al-iflas al-mahd].

He enters as one whose heart has been broken by poverty and indigence, until neediness reaches his inner depths and he is completely shattered. Destitution envelops his from all sides and he feels his utter need for Allah, complete dependence upon Him. He feels that every whit of his inner and outer being is completely in need of and dependent on his Lord. He feels that if he is left to himself for even the blink of an eye, he will perish, lost beyond help – unless his Lord returns to him in His mercy to salvage him. There is no shorter way to Allah than that of servitude, and no thicker veil than pretension.

So servitude rests on two supports, which are its very principles: complete love and complete humility. These two principles arise from the other two sources we mentioned earlier – perception of (Allah’s) blessings (which engenders love and awareness of the defects of the soul and the acts (which engenders complete humility). When a person bases his journey towards God on these two principles, his Foe – the Devil - will not overcome him, except in moments of absent mindedness. But just as quickly, Allah shall come close to him, awakening him and indemnifying him in His Mercy.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, The Invocation of God