- To benefit from them in both religious and worldly matters
- To fulfill the command of the Prophet ﷺ when he said, “Be in the company of the great ones.”
- To attain from them (i.e. from being in their presence) the mercy that descends upon them
- To obtain a gaze from them by which Allah will rectify your state and all of your affairs [1]
- Intend to be in the gathering of the righteous
- Intend that Allah may purify your heart
- Intend that Allah will bring you together (with the shaykh) inwardly, as He has brought you together outwardly.
[1] The gaze of the ‘ulama’, who are established in ‘ilm, and men who have arrived at the hallowed precincts, is a beneficial theriac. If one of them gazes at a truthman he can, by the light of his inner eye, discover the aptitude and competence of the sincere man to receive Allah’s special gifts. There then comes into his heart love for the genuine aspirant, and via the inner eye he gazes at him with the gaze of love. Such [elite] are amongst the soldiers of Allah, the Exalted, and they thus confer, through their gaze, sublime states [to people] and raise their stations. What does a rejecter reject of Allah’s Power? Indeed Allah, Transcendent and Exalted be He, in the same way as He has given some snakes (known as al-Silanah) [the power to destroy a man by a mere look], He has also given the power of the gaze to some of His elect servants such that when they gaze at a sincere seeker, they accord him a state and a life [an eternal life of the heart, is what is meant here says al-Habib ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Mustafa al-‘Aydarus]. And it was the custom of our Shaykh, may Allah bestow mercy upon him, to walk round the masjid of al-Khif at Mina looking at the faces of the people. When he was asked about this he said, ‘Allah has indeed servants who when they gaze at a person according him bliss (sa’ada).’
[Taken from Imam al-Suhrawardi’s ‘Awarif al-Ma’arif and al-Habib ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Mustafa al-‘Aydarus’ Al-‘Arf al-‘Atir.] [Al-Habib Muhammad bin Alawi al-Aydarus, al-Kitab al-Niyyat (The Book of Intentions)]
Image taken from: @Misrawi
