Holding fast (i'tisam)

"Holding fast" (i'tisam) is the ninth of the stations in Madarij al-Salikin. Ibn al-Qayyim says the heart settles in it after the stations before it, and that it is of two kinds: holding fast to God and holding fast to God's rope, citing Al Imran 103 and al-Hajj 78. ¹

Ibn al-Qayyim explains that i'tisam is the eighth verb form of 'isma, protection: clinging to what protects you and keeps you from what is feared. 'Isma is shelter, i'tisam is taking shelter, and fortresses were called al-'awasim because they hold out and protect. ¹

For Ibn al-Qayyim, happiness in this world and the next turns on holding fast to God and to His rope, and only one who clings to both protections is saved: holding to His rope protects from going astray, holding to Him protects from ruin. He compares the wayfarer to a traveller who needs both guidance on the road and the equipment and weapons that keep him safe from highwaymen. ¹ Holding to God's rope brings guidance and following the evidence; holding to God brings strength, equipment and arms. ²

Ibn al-Qayyim gathers the early authorities' wordings, which, he says, differ while all pointing to one meaning: Ibn Abbas, holding to God's religion; Ibn Mas'ud, the community (jama'a); Mujahid and Ata', God's covenant; Qatada, al-Suddi and many exegetes, the Qur'an; Muqatil, God's command and obedience to Him. He cites hadiths on this, some of which the edition's editor marks in a footnote as weak in their chains, among them the hadith of the Muwatta' and Muslim that God is pleased for people to hold fast to His rope all together. ²

Ibn al-Qayyim quotes the definition of al-Harawi in Manazil al-Sa'irin: holding fast to God's rope is keeping to His obedience while heeding His command. ² He explains "heeding the command" as performing an act of obedience because God commanded and loves it, not out of habit or any other motive, citing Talq ibn Habib on piety; this, he says, is the "faith and seeking reward" of the hadith on fasting Ramadan and standing the Night of Decree, and holding fast to God's rope protects from innovation and from the defects of deeds. ³

Ibn al-Qayyim defines holding fast to God as relying on Him, taking refuge and protection in Him and asking Him to shield and preserve the servant; its fruit is that God repels from His believing servant doubts and desires, the plotting of his outward and inward enemy, and the evil of his own self, in proportion to the strength of his holding fast. ³ He then quotes al-Harawi's saying that holding fast to God is "rising above everything imagined", explaining that "the imagined" for al-Harawi is everything other than God and that this points to annihilation (fana'). Ibn al-Qayyim holds that perfection is rising above willing anything but God to willing what He wills, and notes that the adherent of union (ittihad) reads the phrase as rising above the existence of anything but Him, so as to see no existence but His – a reading he rejects and mentions to set it apart from al-Harawi's meaning. ^{3 4} The editor notes that al-Harawi's text has an addition here that Ibn al-Qayyim does not comment on. ³

• The holding fast of the common people: to the revealed report, in surrender and compliance – affirming the promise and the threat, venerating command and prohibition, and founding one's dealings on certainty and fairness. Ibn al-Qayyim rejects here the way of those who keep the command and prohibition only as a precaution, in doubt. He explains fairness as giving servanthood its due, not contending with one's Lord for the attributes of grandeur and pride, and treating people as one would wish to be treated. He adds that what al-Harawi calls the holding fast of the common people is in truth that of the elite of the elite, and that al-Harawi was one "for whom the banner of annihilation was raised, so he strove towards it". ⁴
• The holding fast of the elite: by cutting oneself off – guarding the will by restraint, extending good character to people by openness, and rejecting attachments by resolve. Ibn al-Qayyim cites Abu Yazid's "I want not to want" and Abu Bakr al-Kattani's saying that Sufism is character. He holds that the root is cutting the heart's inward attachments: wealth in the hand and not in the heart does no harm however great; he cites the answers of Ahmad and Sufyan al-Thawri on whether a wealthy man can be an ascetic, and holds that cutting outward attachments is praiseworthy in two cases: where they threaten harm to one's religion, or where they bring no outweighing benefit. ⁵
• The holding fast of the elite of the elite: by connection – for al-Harawi, witnessing the Truth as alone after "istihdha'" towards Him in veneration and being occupied with Him in nearness. Ibn al-Qayyim takes "istihdha'" as full facing, meaning nearness and the lifting of intermediaries, and cites the hadiths on nearness in prostration and in the last part of the night. ^{6 7} A footnote reproduces a remark by Rashid Rida that this sense is not found in the dictionaries and that al-Harawi's word may be "istikhdha'" (with kha'), meaning humble submission, followed by a comment signed "al-Fiqi". ⁶

Ibn al-Qayyim makes this the occasion for his well-known distinction between annihilation from witnessing anything else, which he ranks as intermediate, and annihilation from willing anything else, the higher, in which the servant's will becomes one with the Lord's religious, revealed will. This he calls "sound union": union in what is willed, not in the one who wills nor in the willing – and he warns that this is a place where "the feet of wayfarers have long slipped". ⁷ He ends the station by explaining "being occupied with Him in nearness": nearness to the Truth occupies the servant with nothing else, as one close to a king and facing him attends to nothing besides. ⁸

Al-Harawi's own text of Manazil al-Sa'irin, the other commentaries on it, and the sourcing of the hadiths cited from their original collections have not yet been added.