TheRamadanOfShaykhAl-hadithMuhammadZakariyyaKandhelviAndOurEldersByShaykhDrMuhammadIsmailMemonMadani

Chapter Eightwould be that a person who knows the rulings of śalāt but does notpray is never deceived into thinking he prays only because he hasknowledge of the rules of śalāt.On the other hand, an internal action manifests itself in thesame place where its knowledge is stored- the heart. This is whymany people, even if intelligent and well educated, were deceivedinto thinking they had achieved perfection in the internal actionsbecause they had complete knowledge of the internal actions. Forexample, it is known about Ibn ‘Alī Sīnā [Avicenna] that because ofhis knowledge regarding internal actions and their deeper aspects,he thought he had attained perfection of the internal actions,though in fact he was far from this. This is the same deception thescholars who teach the hadith of Jibrā’īl e fall into, as do thosewho learn some aspects of taśawwuf from the shaikhs and writearticles and books on the subject. There are other reasons whypeople fall under this deception. A few are mentioned below:1. The first reason, as mentioned previously, is that knowledgeof the internal actions and the place where that knowledgebecomes action is one and the same. Also, the first stage ofīmān by which one enters into the folds of Islam is inclusiveof the highest level of iĥsān. In the hadith of Jibrā’īl e, thehighest level of īmān is mentioned distinctly in the followingaya of Qur’an under the word āminū,يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِ‏ ينَ‏ آمَنُوا آمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ‏Shāh ‘Abd al-Qudūs translated this as, “Oh People of īmān, gaincertitude [yaqīn].”As the highest and lowest level of the knowledge of theinternal action of īmān derive from the same source, likewisetheir manifestations also seem the same; even though inactuality the difference between a person who possesses thehighest level of īmān and the one who possesses the lowest isgreater than the difference between a mountain and a granule.71