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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Adab as-Salat: The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition Chapter 4: Some Disciplines Of Testifying To The (Prophet’s) Messengership Implying Testifying To The Guardianship Be aware that this spiritual journey and faithful ascension cannot be made with this broken leg, ruptured reins, blind eyes and lightless heart: “ And whomever Allah has not given light, for him there is no light” – (Surah Nur, 24:40) .

Therefore, in setting off upon this spiritual road and ascending to this gnostic mi'rāj , it is a must to adhere to the spiritual state of the guides along the ways of knowledge [ ma'rifat ] and the lights [ anwār ] of the road of guidance, who are the devotees and the attainers to Allah. If anybody tries, depending on his selfishness and without clinging to their guardianship, to tread upon this road, his journey will be to Satan and to the pit (of hell) [ hāwiyah ].

Scientifically speaking, to connect between the novel [ hādith ] and the Eternal [ qadīm ], the changing and the Unchanging, there should be an intermediate, a connector, with the characteristic of being unchanging and changing, eternal and novel. Without such an intermediate, the Emanation of the Eternal and the Unchanging would not pass to the changing and the novel in the divine law, and the universal and existential connection would not take place.

As regards the connector between these two, the scientific opinions of the experts in the evidential knowledge [' ulūm-i burhānī ] are diverse, as the gnostic taste is different, to give the details of which is out of the scope of these papers.

In the gnostic taste, the connector is the Sacred Emanation [ fayd-i muqaddas ], the Expansive Existence [ wujūd-i munbasit ], which has the position [ maqām ] of the big isthmus [ barzakhiyyat-i kubrā ] and the great intermediate [ wasatiyyat-i 'uzmā ], and it is the very position of the spirituality and the guardianship of the Seal of the Prophets, which is united with the position of 'Alī's General Guardianship [ wilāyat-i mutlaq-i 'Alawiyyah ].