The ‘Point’
It is said:
What begins at the point ends at the alif[1].
That is, everything begins at the point of Oneness (ahadiyyah) and ends at the alif of Unity (wahidiyyah). The whole of existence is only one reflection, referred in Sufism as the One Theophany or the Divine Self-disclosure of Allah (Tajalli Wahid).
It is also said:
What begins at the point ends at the sīn[2].
Where sīn means human in Arabic and the point is the One (Ahad).
The Quran begins with the letter bā[3] of the Basmalah[4]. To be more precise, the point beneath the bā. When this point is extended it becomes an alif!
Just like when one wants to draw a line one begins at a point, which then becomes the source from which the line extends. The bā of the Basmalah is the source point of all of the characters in the Quran. The point never changes. Every character is a series of points that come together and seem like lines. In their essence, they are repetitions of the same point!
Hadhrat Ali says:
“I am the point beneath the bāʾ”, perhaps to mean, “I am none, yet I am all… I am the alif.”
The last chapter of the Quran is called Nâs, which means mankind. As mentioned, the letter sīn is representative of a single human. Hence, the chapter Yasīn means O humans (or O mankind).
Eventually what we have is a semi-circle, going from the point to man, and the journey of man through consciousness back to the point.
Uniting with Allah, in essence, comes about in man with the knowledge of the point.
Will the knowledge of the point make mankind (nâs) obsolete?
Since, in terms of their actual reality, humans do not have an independent existence, it makes no sense to talk about losing something that doesn’t exist in the first place.
The Earth…
And the sun, to which the Earth is bound, 1,333,000 times bigger than the Earth…
A galaxy comprised of 400 billion stars like the sun…
The Universe, which contains billions of such galaxies…
Infinite other universes that are perceived by infinite other systems of perception…
Universes within universes…
And finally, a single point, forming the angle, from which all of these infinite universes originate… A single POINT, a single INSTANCE… DAHR!
The name ALLAH… to denote the creator of these infinite points, instances, and all the angles projecting from them to form the infinite number of universes within universes!
[1] Alif (ا) is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and represents unity depicted by its single stroke.
[2] Sīn (س) is the twelfth letter of the Arabic alphabet. As a word ‘sīn’ means ‘man’ or ‘human.’
[3] ‘Bā’ (ب) is the second letter of the Arabic alphabet, and the first letter of the Quran. It holds a symbolic value in Hadhrat Ali’s acclaimed saying “I am the point beneath the bā”, the point referring to individual experience being the result of their intrinsic reality.
[4] The Basmalah is an Arabic noun used to refer to the Quranic phrase “b-ismi-Allah-er-Rahman-er-Rahim” found in the beginning of every chapter of the Quran, which literally means “In the name of Allah who is Rahman and Rahim.”