اَصَلٰوةُ وَاسَلاَمُ عَلَيكَ يَا سَيِدي يَا رَسول الله

In Al Ibriz, Al-Lamati mentions the Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, “This Quran has been sent down upon seven letters (ahruf)”. Al-Lamati poses the hadith to Sidi Abdul Aziz Ad-Dabbagh, asking for an explanation of the Hadith-e-Rasul ﷺ. Al-Lamati says that they were given several answers by Sidi Abdul Aziz Ad-Dabbagh, yet still their soul went on longing for that unequivocal answer.

What caused the difficulty was that despite the word harf being clear linguistically and contains no such difficulty as exists with regard to the opening letters (fawatih) of certain surahs, despite this linguistic clarity the religious scholars differ greatly in their opinions regarding it and have formed upto 40 different explanations generating further ambiguity and obscurity of the Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. And so, anyone who studies the problem only experiences greater confusion and difficulty as a plethora of explanations results in ignorance, whereas the Prophet ﷺ only intended a single meaning.

Al-Lamati asked on several occasions for an explanation of the Hadith and each time Sidi Abdul Aziz Dabbagh would give an answer, until one day Al-Lamati said to the Shaykh, “I only wish to ask you about what the Prophet ﷺ meant!”. Sidi Abdul Aziz Dabbagh replied, “I will give you an answer tomorrow – if God is willing!”

The next day, Sidi Abdul Aziz Dabbagh turned to Al-Lamati and said, “I asked the Prophet ﷺ what He meant in this hadith and He ﷺ explained its meaning to me”. Al Lamati mentions they discussed this for 3 days, and from it he gained a phenomenal understanding of the hadith and its great importance, revealing indescribable secrets within it that cannot be sustained or comprehended by the mind.

In explanation of the Hadith, Sidi Abdul Aziz Dabbagh Says, “In the Prophet – God’s blessings and peace be upon him – there is a power with which his noble body (dhat) has been imbued. The lights of this power are divided into seven kinds (awjuh), and these seven lights possess two directions. The one goes from the Prophet – God’s blessings and peace be upon him – to the True – He is exalted! And the other goes from the Prophet – God’s blessings and peace be upon him – to creation.

The power in the first direction is forever overflowing; it never subsides and never slackens. If God the sublime wishes to send down the Quran to His Prophet – God’s blessings and peace be upon him – He sends down the verse and with it some of the light of the first direction for example, not all of it since this light never slackens and never subsides in the direction of God the sublime. Only a part of it appears in the direction of creation. Then He sends down another verse – He is exalted – and with it part of the light of the second kind. Then a third verse and with it a part of the third light, and so on”.

I asked, “What are these seven lights which are referred to as the seven letters (ahruf)?”. He replied – God be pleased with him: “They consist of the letter of Prophethood (al-nubuwwa), the letter of apostleship (al-risala), the letter of Adamhood (al-adamiyya), the letter of the spirit (al-ruh), the letter of science (al-ilm), the letter of contraction (al-qabd), and the letter of expansion (al-bast). Sidi Abdul Aziz Dabbagh ends by saying, “If I wished to fill seven notebooks with dictation on this subject, I could do so, but the barrier referred to above (need for secrecy) restrains me”.