They are like a mirror – whoever looks at them sees themselves. The faults and mistakes they see on them will be their own faults and mistakes.
If you are like all the other people of your time, you will see them, the saints, no different to yourself. If you are of the people seeking the hereafter, who fear punishment and desire pleasure, again, you will see them in the same way. And if you are neither of these, but one who has gone beyond both, again you will find them at your station of arrival… This is one of the divine veils preventing them from being recognized. The other is their physical form and appearance.
Because the majority of people cannot transgress a set level of comprehension, they are unable to think about the innumerable forms of creation outside their perception range, they judge according to what they see. Thus, with such judgments, they deceive themselves. But this actually serves them. Their dress code, lifestyle, environment and the way they appear does not in any way give the impression that they are saints. They do not need to show and reveal themselves.
Most of them have attained insight into the mystery of fate. Hence, they do not busy themselves with others. Even the Nabi are informed of the mystery of fate after some time into their Nubuwwah, in order that they may be able to fully fulfill their duty.
If you are thirsty for the Truth, seek them and, despite all impediments, try to get to know them… Become like them so that the way to becoming ‘moralized with the morals of Allah’ opens to you.
They are the people of ‘Fardiyyah’! They only follow the Rasul and their Rabb. None can interfere. They know and recognize each other and oftentimes meet. But they are aware that they are all manifestations of the same reality.
They are those to whom Rasulullah (saw) refers with his words, “The mufarrid (the people of Fardiyyah) have surpassed you” when talking with his disciples.
They neither follow a particular path or a school of thought.
Like Ghazali (salam upon him) who placed the Quran on his chest before passing away and said, “This is my school”, they also live by this Truth.
They have come into form and they have ‘died’ of their illusory identities, and thus they no longer think or fret about death… For they will not taste death again…
“They will not taste death therein except the first death (they are immortal)! And He will have protected them from the suffering of burning.”[1]
They have long tasted death and have moved on to the realms of bliss, paradise. They are busy with the observation of their Rabb… At every instance they are in contact with their Rabb… Thus are the saints, the truthful, the mufarridoon, hidden beneath the veil of the Rabb.
Dear reader…
The Rasul of Allah (saw) was asked, “Who are the mufarridoon?” He answered, “Those who remember Allah frequently!”
Know that there is not a single creation that does not exalt (tasbih) Allah:
“There is nothing that does not exalt (tasbih) Him with hamd (evaluation of the corporeal worlds created with His Names, as He wills)! But you do not perceive their functions! Indeed, He is the Halim, the Ghafur.”[2]
The entire creation is constantly glorifying and exalting Him. Some knowingly, some unknowingly… Humans, animals, stones, the mountains, plants, the air… everything! But those to whom divine knowledge has not been bestowed will not be aware of this.