Gifts for the Seeker

This book answers many of the questions often asked by seekers of inward illumination.  What are the real implications of the doctrine of divine unity?  How can proper concentration be achieved during spiritual exercises?  When should one avoid participating in Sufi gatherings?  What is the relationship between the tongue, the mind, and the heart?  How is one to understand visions received in sleep?
 
The work also includes the author’s commentary on a poem on inner wayfaring which speaks of the most exalted stations of the path and goes on to explain a number of paradoxes of the Way, such as the reason as why the saints usually refuse to deploy their miraculous powers, preferring to concentrate on self-scrutiny and the compassionate guidance of others.  These points are illustrated with references to the famous mystical poems of Ibn al-Farid and  Abu Madyan.

The author Imam Abdallah Ibn-Alawi Al-Haddad (d. 1720), lived at Tarim in the Hadramaut valley between Yemen and Oman, and is widely held to have been the ‘renewer’ of the twelfth Islamic century. A direct descendant of the Prophet, his sanctity and direct experience of God are clearly reflected in his writings, which include several books, a collection of Sufi letters, and a volume of mystical poetry. He spent most of his life in Kenya and Saudi Arabia where he taught Islamic jurisprudence and classical Sufism according to the order (tariqa) of the Ba'Alawi sayids.


Mostafa al-Badawi, a disciple in the Sufi order of Imam al-Haddad, is one of the world's premier translators of Islamic spiritual texts. He is a Consultant Psychiatrist and member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He studied under many shaykhs, foremost among whom is the late Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad.
His other translations include: Book of Assistance, The Lives of Man, Two Treatises, The Prophetic Invocations, and Degrees of the Soul. He is also the author of Man and the Universe: An Islamic Perspective, recently published. He resides in Madinah.