Mean­ing some­thing kept hid­den from the knowl­edge or view of oth­ers. sir (se­cret) is a spir­it­u­al fac­ul­ty de­pos­it­ed in the heart as a Di­vine trust. As a Di­vine trust it has the same sig­nif­i­cance for the heart as spir­it has for the body. Will-pow­er the mind feel­ings and the heart are the four pil­lars of the con­science and hu­man con­scious na­ture -these are called “the heav­en­ly fac­ul­ti­es”-that are giv­en by the Lord in the same way that a se­cret is a fac­ul­ty and di­men­sion of the heart..

Each of the pil­lars of con­science has a func­tion and goal par­tic­u­lar to it with re­spect to the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Lord and His ser­vants. Will-pow­er is charged with sub­mis­sion and de­vo­tion to the Lord the mind with ac­quir­ing the nec­es­sa­ry in­for­ma­tion to know God the feel­ings with love of God and the heart with a vi­sion of God’s “Face.” As for se­cret it is open to and in­nate­ly charged with dis­cov­er­ing Di­vine se­crets.

All cre­a­tion has been brought in­to ex­is­tence by the Pow­er of the Nec­es­sa­ri­ly Ex­is­tent One. This gives rise to a re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Cre­a­tor as Lord (One Who sus­tains brings up and pro­tects the cre­a­tion and ad­min­is­ters life) and the cre­a­tion the things and be­ings of which He is Lord. This re­la­tion con­tains se­crets that are con­cerned with God’s Lord­ship and which are called the “se­crets of Lord­ship.” Lord­ship man­i­fests it­self first of all in the heart: the seek­ers feel this man­i­fes­ta­tion de­vel­op­ing as they learn more about Him and in a deep­er man­ner un­til the point where they ex­pe­ri­ence the con­cen­trat­ed man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Di­vine Names in them­selves and see the whole of cre­a­tion in­clud­ing them­selves as con­sist­ing on­ly in the man­i­fes­ta­tion of those Names. Fi­nal­ly they ob­tain the pleas­ure of wit­ness­ing the Lord in ev­ery­thing with all His Names. This wit­ness­ing opens to them the door of some Di­vine se­crets called the “se­crets of manifes­ta­tion.”

Some have in­ter­pret­ed se­cret as mean­ing a heart that is pu­ri­fied of all car­nal vi­ces and stains caused by at­tach­ment to any­thing else oth­er than the Lord and which has a clear re­la­tion­ship with the world of spir­it.

Based on the verse (11:31). God knows the best what­ev­er is in their in­ner worlds we can de­scribe a se­cret as be­ing a pure bos­om full of loy­al­ty and faith­ful­ness open to Pro­phet­ic mes­sa­ges and pre­fer­ring God and the oth­er world to all else. We can re­gard se­cret in this sense as be­ing the heart at the lev­el of se­cret.

Some have viewed the qual­i­ties men­tioned here as the rea­sons or means of a se­cret’s ris­ing in the heart. When God pre­pares a heart to have these qual­i­ties en­dow­ing it with the pos­si­bil­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty of ac­cept­ing re­li­gion the ac­cept­ance of God’s Ex­is­tence and One­ness the con­fir­ma­tion of the aft­er­life and the af­fir­ma­tion of the Pro­phets the heart im­me­di­ate­ly us­es this pos­si­bil­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty and tries to achieve the goals that can be achieved through se­cret. In oth­er words since God knows that such a heart will use this Di­vine trust -se­cret-in the best way pos­si­ble out of His spe­cial grace. He caus­es it to flour­ish. For it is He Him­self Who de­clares (6:53): Does God not know best who are the thank­ful?

Such a pure el­e­vat­ed heart or its own­er are in­di­cat­ed some-times by. Sure­ly God loves a ser­vant who is pi­ous in­dif­fer­ent to all save Him and has un­known depths.[1] and some­times by. How many ser­vants there are whose hair is un­ti­dy and who are re­pulsed from doors and de­nied re­spect and at­ten­tion but if they swear by God for some­thing. God does not prove them to be un­true.[2]

In view of the above ex­pla­na­tions the peo­ple of se­cret can be di­vid­ed in­to three class­es:

  • The peo­ple of truth whose eyes do not see any save God and who al­ways pur­sue His good pleas­ure and know how to re­sist the car­nal self. Their aims for which they make ev­ery ef­fort are so sub­lime that they can­not be pre­vent­ed by any world­ly de­sire and are so pure that they are in ac­cord with the Di­vine com­mand­ments and their lives are or­dered to gain eter­nal hap­pi­ness. The ways they fol­low are free of any doubt and they are al­ways aware of God’s pur­pose in any of their acts even for a mil­li­sec­ond. They avoid fame and any dis­tinc­tion know­ing that servanthood to God is the aim of their ex­is­tence; they val­ue it above all world­ly and oth­er world­ly con­sid­er­a­tions. Their dai­ly lives are de­scribed in the fol­low­ing verse (24:36-37):
    In hous­es which God has al­lowed to be ex­alt­ed and in which His Name is men­tioned: there­in are men who glo­ri­fy Him in the morn­ing and even­ing and whom nei­ther trade nor buy­ing pre­vents from men­tion of God and es­tab­lish­ing the Prayer and pay­ing the pre­scribed Alms; who fear a day when hearts and eyes will be over-turned.
  • The faith­ful souls who try to hide from oth­ers their de­gree of re­la­tion­ship with God and their rank with Him: they keep the Di­vine gifts grant­ed to them con­cealed from oth­ers as if they were guard­ing their chas­ti­ty and al­though each is a star in the heav­en of saint­hood they all try to ap­pear as if they were but fire­flies. Though each is a dove striv­ing on God’s way they pre­fer to ap­pear like mag­pies know­ing them­selves to be noth­ing even when they are de­clared in the heav­ens to be so ho­ly as to be among the wor­thi­est in the sight of God. In serv­ing on God’s way they are ex­tra-or­di­nar­i­ly ac­tive dy­nam­ic and hum­ble al­though they out­strip all oth­ers; they are al­tru­is­tic and dis­in­ter­est­ed when it is their turn to re­ceive wa­ges; they have no ex­pec­ta­tions in this world. They are de­scribed in the fol­low­ing verse (5:54):
    A peo­ple whom He loves and who love Him and who are most hum­ble to­wards the be­liev­ers and dig­ni­fied and com­mand­ing in the face of the un­be­liev­ers con­tin­u­ous­ly striv­ing in God’s way in sol­i­dar­i­ty and fear­ing not the cen­sure of any­one to cen­sure them.
    When they are alone with God in de­vo­tion they are ex­tra-or­di­nar­i­ly pro­found while be­ing ex­cep­tion­al­ly wise and suc­cess­ful in world­ly af­fairs. They are re­mark­a­bly care­ful and de­ter­mined when guard­ing the hon­or of their com­mu­ni­ty and they hold them­selves as aloof as pos­si­ble from mean acts which may bring dis­grace up­on them or may cause oth­ers to feel sus­pi­cious.
  • The he­roes have reached the sum­mit of per­fec­tion un­der the care and pro­tec­tion of the All-Pre­serv­ing and with the help of the All-Help­ing: they do not spend even a mo­ment with­out Him and use ev­ery event thought and con­sid­er­a­tion as a means to men­tion Him. Self-an­ni­hi­lat­ed in His com­pa­ny they live un­a­ware of them­selves. What­ev­er good they do for oth­ers and what­ev­er serv­ice they rend­er on God’s way they con­ceal it not on­ly from oth­ers but al­so from them­selves. Even if they some­times feel some pride in them­selves they re­gard this as if it were a ter­ri­ble afflic­tion and im­me­di­ate­ly try to es­cape. They spend their lives amidst ec­sta­sy and ex­hil­a­ra­tion and re­joice in the Divine com­pli­ments and in His spe­cial help and per­fect care.
    These he­roes are un­known among peo­ple and re­main hid-den en­vel­oped by se­crets al­though they are God’s fa­vor­ites and among the most vi­tal el­e­ments of ex­is­tence. God the Truth looks at things with their eyes and the uni­verse is fed with the pure wa­ter of their se­crets.
O God! Help us with men­tion­ing You and be­ing thank­ful to You and wor­ship­ping You prop­er­ly.

And may Your bless­ings and peace be on our mas­ter Mu­ham­mad the mas­ter of those who reg­u­lar­ly wor­ship God in the best way pos­si­ble and with sin­cer­i­ty and on his fam­i­ly and all of His Com­pan­ions.


[1] Al-Muslim. “Zuhd.” 11.
[2] Al-Muslim. “Birr.” 138; Al-Tirmidhi. “Manaqib.” 54.