To understand who Al Khidr was we have to understand the physiology of man in relation to Allah creating us in His image, and in order to understands how this image is similar to Allah we have to understand the physical attributes of human consciousness and what our imagination is.
Imam Ibn Arabi in his work al Fusus al Ahkam explained what Man is, the work can be summarize in the following manner:
We should Know that the Most Beautiful Divine Attributes, demand in themselves the existence of the Universe. So Allah brought the Universe into being as a “body” made complete and made Adam its spirit; what is meant by “Adam” is the existence of the human microcosm (a place, community or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics of something much larger) Allah created both the universe and Man with his Attributes. “And He taught him the Names, all of them” (2:31), he gave Adam the names so he could know all He created, what Man came to understand of his own self and Attributes he used to understand creation around him. Because the spirit governs the body through its faculties, just as the Attributes are like faculties for the Perfect Man (one who has reached completeness, Ihsan). Therefore, it can be said that the Universe by similitude is a “great man”, but on condition of Man’s existence within it, he was created to know Allah and Allah created his creation so man could know Him. Man is the epitome (a perfect example) of the ontological plane (relating to or based upon “being”, or existence, the nature of “being” or the kinds of things that have existence) of Allah (no other being can know Allah as well as us) And therefore He singled him out for the Form, For He said “Verily Allah created Adam in His form” and in another version, “in the form of the All-Merciful”. And He made him, the sought-after goal (He asked the Angels and Jinn to prostrate to him), the Universe (that everything else should look to), like the rational soul, the human individual, (unique in his creation like everything else Allah created is unique in its manner of existence).
Therefore this Universe will be destroyed with his (Man’s) disappearance (from creation, when no person believing in Allah remains alive on earth) And the edifice (this creation, Universe) is transferred to the hereafter because of him (creation will no longer have a purpose, we are the last to be created and the last to know it, while we have come to know all that came before us everything that Allah created up to our time of existence would always look to see what Allah would create next, then He made them all focus on us), and when man leaves the lower world to reside in the hereafter (this world that is the lowest of the low will be moved to the next world), and when no one remains among men who is qualified by the divine perfections (when no one is alive who embodies good qualities) and able to take man’s place, and when Allah makes him the treasurer of His own treasuries (The inheritor of the Garden), then all of the perfections and meanings which exist in the treasuries of the world are removed along with that Perfect Man, the small amount which is in the world (the one mercy from his one hundred mercies he sent down to us) joins that which is waiting in the hereafter, and the work of keeping the treasury and being the vicegerent goes to the next world. Hence he is the first in intention (the reason Allah created the universe, and) the last in creation, the outward form and the inward in station or rank. So he is a servant of Allah and a lord (ruler) in relation to the world (Allah’s Khalifah).
For that reason He made him a vicegerent and his sons vicegerents And therefore none of the creatures of the world has claimed for himself lordship except man, because of what he possesses of power, And no one in the world consolidated the station of servanthood (enslaving his nature to his ego) in himself except man, Therefore he worshipped stones and minerals (Idols), which are the lowest and the most debased kind of being.
So there is nothing greater than man in his lordship (Khalifa) and nothing more lowly than him in his servanthood. So if you have understood, I have explained to you what is meant by “man”. Look at his grandeur, through the Most Beautiful Attributes and the fact that they seek him (The Jinn and Angels).
Through their seeking him you will come to understand his majesty, and through his appearance through them (His dependance on Angels and Jinn), you will understand his lowliness, So understand!
From this it is understood, that he is a copy of the two forms, Allah and the Universe. (Taken From Imam Ibn Arabi’s summary of his work al Fusus al Ahkam, and rephrased for clarity, may Allah excuse any shortcomings in these words, there is nothing in likeness to Allah.)
Imam Ibn Arabi often refers to the famous saying, (Allah said) “I was a hidden Treasure but was not known, so I loved to be known; I created the creatures and made Myself known to them, so they came to know me,” the saying has no known chain of transmission (isnad) that can be judged (either sahih or otherwise) but its meaning is true according to the majority of scholars and is inferred from the saying of Allah Most High, “I created the Jinns and humankind only that they may worship Me” (51:56), meaning “that they may know Me” as Ibn ‘Abbas (r.a) the companion of the prophet (saws) explained.
A scholar explained the significance of the verse “He taught Adam the Names, all of them” (2:31), its meaning is “He placed within Adam’s primordial nature the subtle essence (characteristic, latifah) of each of His Attributes, and through those subtle essences (the core of what the attributes are) prepared him to realize (as he embodied qualities through his actions in life) all of the Attributes of Majesty (jalal) and Beauty (jamal), which He (Allah) referred to as His two hands. For He said to Iblis, “What prevented thee from falling prostrate before that which I created with My two hands?” (38:76). Everything other than Adam had been created with one hand, because it was the locus of manifestation (the place where something is situated or occurs, a center of activity) of either Allah’s attributes of Beauty, like the Angels of Mercy, or those of Majesty, like the Angels of Chastisement and the Satans (Jinn).”
The creation of the Jinn and Angels wasn’t encompassing all of Allah’s Attributes (created in Allah’s image), by similitude the Angels and Jinn, though more powerful are “one dimensional” and not created with Allah’s two hands. They are created from Light (an electromagnetic wave) or Fire (Thermal Energy), both of which are quantum matter, while we are “two dimensional” in who we are, created with Allah’s two hands, physical, and embody the complete spectrum of matter. So we have the capacity to understand more of what we perceive in creation from our perspective and experience.
On the other hand the Angels of Mercy, this is there primary concern in life and all they take care of, the Angels of Majesty that is there primary concern in life and all that they take care of, from this comes there strength because of specializing in one thing and experiencing it. Through this manner of existence they can come to earn what Allah has given them of qualities, while we receive it through his mercy. Human beings go from experiencing one quality to another, from receiving Mercy or creating Beauty to deserving Chastisement, while for each of Allah’s 99 attributes he has specific Angels dedicated to each of them.
Allah brought forth his creation from the darkness of non-existence into the knowledge of existence so it could know him, our study of the universe is that knowing. “In time We shall make them fully understand Our messages
Imam Ibn Arabi said about creation, You should know that (all) the possible things are the words of Allah that do not run out (Q 31:27). Through the possible things (that can exist) the capacity of the words (of Allah) for manifestation is revealed, a capacity that is never exhausted. They [the possible things] are compound things, since in their compoundness lies their capacity for bestowing benefits…You should know that when Allah made manifest His words (through what He created), He assigned to them levels. Among them are the luminous (Angelic), the fiery (Jinn), and the earthy spirits (Mankind). He veiled Himself from them within themselves. Then He ordered them to seek Him, and set up “stairs” (degrees) upon which they ascend in seeking (knowing) Him. He assigned for them hearts through which they employ inteligence (Q 22: 46). (Imam Ibn Arabi, al-Futuhat al-Makkiya)
The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “When any one of you fights his brother, let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in His image.” (Muslim), and “When any one of you fights let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in the image of His Face.” and “Do not say ‘May Allaah deform your face’ [a form of cursing in Arabic], for the son of Adam was created in the image of the Most Merciful.” (Ibn Abi ‘Aasim narrated both in al-Sunnah, sahih), the face of man has ears to hear, a mouth to speak, a nose and tongue to sense and taste, a mind with an intellect and two eyes to see, eyes to see the physical world and an inner eye (how man sees the image in his mind) that sees our imagination. The scholars defined knowledge as the image that occurs to the mind, our inner eye sees the image of our intellect, and that image is the culmination of our knowledge and understanding derived from our senses.
The Prophet (saws) said “Allah created His creation in darkness, then He sprayed (cast) them with His light. Those whom this light reached became rightly guided, while those it did not went astray.”[Tirmidhi] The Prophet (saws) said “The first thing that Allah created was the Intellect,”[Tirmidhi]. He also said, “The first thing that Allah created was the Pen,” The scholars such as Imam al Ghazali, Imam Ibn Arabi, Shaykh Abdul Qadir al Jilani among a vast number of others explained that the Pen and the intellect amount to the same thing, they are both made from light, since the first intellect is the primordial (Ancient) light in its passive aspect as recipient of the knowledge of what is to be (essentially Allah created Light and placed with it knowledge), while the Pen is this primordial light in its active aspect of writing this knowledge on the Guarded Tablet at Allah’s command (The “Pen” is always understood as a simile). This is apparent by understanding that mans intellect is the light he sees with his inner eye, the images that form, form the knowledge he knows so we can then imagine that the light of our intellect is the same as the first intellect Allah created and the Pen is that same light being given the knowledge of Allah to write.
“The first thing that Allah created was the Pen and He said to it: Write! So it wrote what is to be forever.”[Tabarani and Abu Nu’aym], The Prophet (saws) said, “The first thing created by Allah was the pen, then, He ordered it to write, so it wrote everything that will happen till the Day of Judgment.” (narrated by Tirmidhi, Abu-Dawud, and Ahmad). This Hadith is narrated in another way by Imam Bukhari that explains further, the Messenger of Allah (saws) says, “Allah (swt) said to the pen write my knowledge about my creatures until the Day of Judgment.” When Allah (swt) commanded it to right it wrote his knowledge, the knowledge He gave it, so the Knowledge the Pen rights is reflective of Man and his intellect that creates the images in his mind from the knowledge he has gained in life.
The Pen, Light, and Intellect all amount to the same thing in what they are (a the type of light), and from the light of the intellect, all of creation, with all its varied forms and meanings unfolded as Allah willed, in this manner Imam Ibn Arabi likened Allah’s act of creating to mans imagination and called it the Creative Imagination or the Devine imagination (al Khayal) depending on the translation.
Our mind can conjure what we would like to imagine at will, that image is created from something we identify as light, and then out of that light the objects we wish to imagine are created in our mind. But we have been conditioned to think of this as “imagination”, and worse still, we have been conditioned to associate imagination with things that are “not real”. But physics and science tell us that the light in our mind is a real light just like the light produced by the sun or a torch, the image is made up of photons and other quantum particles in space, literally there is nothing imaginary about what it is created from.
Researches are realizing that human consciousness is born out of quantum phenomena, the same quantum mechanics that govern the sub atomic world because essentially the Light in our Mind is a photon, an electromagnetic wave. This isn’t to say an image of a cat in the mind is now as sold as the cat in real life but matter and particles are being altered and changed in the mind to form the image, the body itself does this.
We Know Angels are created from Light (an electromagnetic wave) but not just any light the best form of light that Allah honoured, Imam al Ghazali (r.a) explained that Angels are created from the light of the intellect. To understand the significance of the light (electromagnetic waves) Angels are similarly created from that is within our self we have to understand the universe and what moves it. Just as Allah said in the Quran “In time We shall make them fully understand Our messages [through what they perceive] in the utmost horizons [of the universe] and within themselves, so that it will become clear unto them that this [revelation] is indeed the truth. (41:53)
The Messenger of Allah said: ‘The angels are created from light, just as the jinn are created from smokeless fire and mankind is created from what you have been told about.’ (Muslim).
If we contemplate on this a little further we will begin to see the picture of the universe the Scholars of Islam saw more than a thousand years ago. Angels and Jinn are created from a type of energy and both are quantum particles (light is made from Photons), and the Angels are created from the light of the intellect, the Pen is a Light and an intellect that Allah instructed to write his knowledge, the universe that we see around us is the work of the Devine Imagination that our imagination reflects, “Allah created Adam in His image”, and so as many scholars understood and realized, the world our inner eye (how man sees the image in his mind) and intellect look into is the unseen world, Barzakh.
The inner eye is not the “third eye” that some associate with inner perception, its conception is limited in scope and simple in comparison to what Imam Ali and the scholars said about the minds vision, it is literally the imagination itself that every person already sees with.
They locate this eye in the forehead incorrectly assuming that is the source of inner vision or claiming it is the pineal gland, while Allah says that area of man is the center of the ego and cause for sin and the location where the Dajaal (Allah’s curse be upon him) will have Kafir (كفر) written in relation to this fact, inner perception has no shape like the “eye” to limit its peripheral vision. The inner eye responsible for our inner perception is connected to the heart, Allah mentions often in the Quran it is not the eyes that go blind but the hearts.
Allah said in the Quran about Abu Jahl one of the unbelievers who used to stop the Prophet Muhammad from praying at the Kaaba “No! If he does not stop, We will take him by the naseyah, a lying, sinful naseyah! (96:15-16). Naseyah means front of the head, literally where the “third eye” is meant to be the source of inner vision, this association with the third eye lacked understanding in human anatomy, simply because we perceive the image in our mind is inside our head it doesn’t mean the matter is as simple an “eye” existing their.
Why did Allah describe the front of the head as being lying and sinful? Why didn’t He say that the person himself was lying and sinful? What is the relationship between the front of the head, lying and sinfulness?
If we look into the frontal lobe of the brain, we will find the prefrontal area of the cerebrum. “The motivation and foresight to plan and initiate movements occur in the anterior portion of the frontal lobes, the prefrontal area. This is a region of association cortex…In relation to its involvement in motivation, the prefrontal area is also thought to be the functional center for aggression.”
“The act of lying is initiated by the mental activities in the frontal lobes, and their instructions are then carried out by the speech organs during the act of lying. Similarly, sins are planned in the frontal lobes before they are carried out by the eyes, hands, sexual organs, etc”.
A hadith of the Prophet (saws) mentions that the forehead represents the center of direction and control. He (saws) said, “No distress and grief occurs to anyone who says (in prayer), ‘Oh Lord, I am your slave and the son of your slaves, my forehead is in your hands, firm in your ruling, and my destiny from You is just'”. The hadith indicates that the fate of man is in his Lord’s hand, it mentions destiny and the decree (fate) in relation to the forehead.
This indicates that the forehead plays a great role in the control and direction of human behavior and we should surrender it to Allah, which is the intention behind the Dua (prayer) and the spiritual significance of mentioning the forehead in it.
After Allah mentions the “naseyah” has the role of control and direction in mans life, as he singled it out in relation to Abu Jahl’s actions, Allah orders us to perform sujood, (place our foreheads on the ground in prayer) “Then let him call his associates. We will call on the angels of punishment. Then follow not him, but prostrate yourself and draw nearer to Us.” (Quran 96: 17-19)
The order to perform sujood means we should place this center of will and decision making upon the ground in acceptance of Allah, and because of this Man will draw closer to Him. Islam means the surrender of man to Allah “Whomever Allah wishes to guide, He expands His breast unto the Surrender (Islam)”(6:125). This is the meaning of sujood (prostration) in prayer, Allah accepts man’s surrender to his fate through this act, as everything has an impact and effect, Sujood (prostration) protects man from sin in life. These sinful acts originate from our senses and feelings in our heart, prostration purifies the unseen quantum aspects of our bodies that influence it.
The unseen quantum world is the “Barzakh” or “intermediate world” for the souls and Angels, of the Divine Imagination (al-khayal), if the light of our intellect lights up our inner eye and imagination, in similitude the light of the ‘Divine Imagination’ is the light of the heavens and the Earth, Allah says he is “the light of the heavens and earth”(24:35). Imam Ibn Arabi said “Between this world and the (time of) Resurrection, for whoever reflects, there are intermediate (barzakhiya) levels, each with their limits, they are the realms of Authority over this realm because the revelation came through them”, this is the world Angels and Jinn exist in, created from the same quantum particles in the universe that our imagination is born from.
Imam Ibn Arabi (d.1240AD) explains: The word “barzakh” is an expression for what separates two things without ever becoming either of them (it is a barrier in one sense and also came to be the name for that world), such as the line separating a shadow from the sunlight, or as in His Saying–may He be exalted!: “He has loosened the two Seas. They meet: between them a barzakh, they do not go beyond” (55: 19-20)–meaning that neither of them (fresh and salty water) becomes mixed with the other…it has been given the name “Barzakh” as a technical term. It is intelligible in itself, yet it is nothing but the imagined-image (al-khayal)! For when you perceive it–assuming you are in a rational state–you know that you have perceived something existent on which your gaze has fallen; indeed you most definitely know that there is absolutely something there…For this Imagination-Image (al-khayl) is neither (entirely) existent (physical) nor nonexistent (non physical), neither (entirely) known nor unknowable, neither (entirely) affirmed nor denied.
This is like a human being perceiving their (reflected) form in the mirror. The person definitely knows that they have perceived their (own) form in a certain respect (the Image in the mirror), while they know just as absolutely that they have not perceived their form in another respect (it isn’t a real physical person but we know the image is made up of quantum particles), because of the smallness of the image they see in the mirror…So what is that reflected form? And where is it actually located? And what is its status? For it is both affirmed and denied, both existent and nonexistent, both known and unknown.
Now Allah may He be praised!–has made this reality appear to His servants, by way of making a fitting image , so that they might know and come to realize that if they are bewildered and incapable of grasping the reality of this phenomenon, which is (only) part of this world, and cannot attain full knowledge of its reality–then how much more incapable and ignorant and bewildered they must be regarding the Creator of that reality! In this way Allah has pointed out to (His servants) that the divine Self-manifestations (tajalliyat al-Haqq) to them are even more subtle and delicate than this case, in which their intellects are already so bewildered and incapable of perceiving the reality of things.
It is to something like this reality that each human being goes (to) in their sleep and after their death (cf. 39:42). So that person sees qualities and characteristics as self-subsistent forms (in the dream) that speak to him and with which he converses, as being (human) bodies without any doubt. And the person of spiritual unveiling (al-mukashif) already sees (here), while they are awake (as the prophet (saws) saw on his Isra Wal Miraj the unseen aspect of the universe), what the sleeper sees in their dream state or the dead person sees after they have died.
Likewise they will see the forms of their actions being weighed in the other world (the “Scales”)–despite their being (non- substantial) qualities and characteristics (Deeds will be weighed literally even though in this world they are not objects, but they have quantum form that Allah will measure) and they will see death (according to the description in a famous hadith) as “a spotted ram being sacrificed,” even though death is (really only) a relation (between two states of being, life and death)…. So praise to the One Who remains unknowable, so He is not known (completely)–and Who is known (in part), so that He is not (entirely) unknown (to his creatures)! “He it is who shapes you in the wombs as He wills. There is no deity save Him, the Almighty, the Truly Wise”. (3:6)!
Imam Ibn Arabi explains that when Allah opens the inner eye (how man sees the image in his mind) of one of his servants to see the unseen world of this Universe He shows them this world through knowing him…For none other than Him (Allah) perceives Him (how he is), so it is with His (own) “eye”–may He be praised!–that I see Him, as in (the famous Hadith Qudsi) the sound report: “…I (Allah) was his gaze through which he sees.” So wake up, you who are asleep and heedless of all this, and pay attention! I have opened up for you a door to forms of awareness and inner knowing that thoughts can never reach, though intellects can come to accept them.
Allah made this Imagination as a “light” through which could be perceived the Bringing-into-form (taswir) of every thing, whatever that might be, as we’ve already mentioned. His Light passes through the absolute nothingness so that He might shape it into the forms of being. Hence the Imagination (intellect) is more deserving of the (divine) Name “the Light” (al-Nur) than all the created things ordinarily described as “luminous,” since Its Light does not resemble the (created) lights and through It the divine Self-manifestations (the attributes and signs of Allah) are perceived….(Imam Ibn Arabi’s al-Futuhat al-Makkiya)
Elsewhere the Imam explained, Know, my brother—may Allah take charge of you with His mercy— that the Garden (Heaven) that is reached in the Next world by those who are its folk is witnessed by you today in respect of its locus (a center of activity, attention, or concentration, i.e the effect of its presence on the rest of the universe), not in respect of its form (literally it’s location).
Within it you undergo fluctuations in your states (Human consciousness and the self are influenced by it), but you do not know that you are within it (it’s influence), because the form within which it discloses itself to you veils you. . . . Most of the folk of unveiling see this at the beginning of the path. The Shariah has called attention to this with the Prophet’s words, “Between my grave and my pulpit is one of the garden plots of the Garden (Al Rawdah).” The folk of unveiling see it as a garden plot as he said, (“Between my house and my pulpit lays a garden from the gardens of Paradise, and my pulpit is upon my fountain (Al-Kauthar, it is a river)”, Bukhari). (Imam Ibn Arabi’s al-Futuhat al-Makkiya)
The Prophet (saw) told us clearly about the rivers of Paradise. He said that during his Isra’ (Night Journey):”…I saw four rivers flowing out from beneath Sidrat al-Muntaha (the Furthest limit in Heaven), two visible and two hidden. He asked, “O Jibril, What are these rivers?” He said, “The two hidden rivers are rivers of Paradise, and the two visible rivers are the Nile and the Euphrates”.(Bukhari)
The Messenger of Allah (saw) said,”Sihran, Jihran, the Euphrates and the Nile are all from the rivers of Paradise” (Muslim).
Our world, as Imam Ibn Arabi says is the locus of manifestation for the quantum world, Barzakh (unseen quantum world), most know about the particles that form matter but there are also forces and fields that permeate the entire universe which create these particles and by there interaction with these fields, matter itself manifests into the physical shapes we know around us.
This full spectrum of reality can be understood by the verse “You did not throw, when you threw, but Allah threw” (8:17) “Allah is described as the First (al-Awwal) and the Last (al-Akhir). The question is how Firstness (awwaliyya) is negated from Allah’s existence and yet is a description of him (there is no point in Time that he was created, and he isn’t subject to Time).
The answer is that the Firstness and the Lastness of Allah are identical on account of Allah being a barzakh between his two names, the First and the Last. As such, Allah is the Essence of both. He is like the instant of time (al-an) that can be divided into past time and future time, although it is the present state (hal) in both (Allah sees all time at once, but what is real is the present). In the verse “You (Muhammad) did not throw, when you threw, but Allah threw,” the affirmation of the being of Muammad (when Allah says “You” in the verse) signifies the Being of Allah (Allah’s Attributes manifest in Man). The Being of Allah is a Limit (Barzakh) between his finite being in the past, which is expressed in the conditional negation of Muammad’s being (“did not throw”), and his infinite Being in the future, which is expressed in the absolute negation of Muhammad’s being” (“but Allah threw”).
(Allah is not bound by time but his creation that is living in the present is bound between the first and the last moment of time, living the current life, while Allah is a barzakh (barrier) between these two moments, in a Hadith Qudsi he said “I am Dhuhr”, the span of time, He is al Hay al Qayyum (The living subsistent), His actions are in the present time, the past moments of time are gone and the future moments are yet to be created. All matter is (occupied) in the present time that is entangled (a property in physics) to it, matter can not be destroyed or created you can only alter it’s state, “He who has created death as well as life”(67:2) these states, death and life, would not have meaning if all existence exited all at once. Seeing the future in a dream is not seeing a future world that already exists it’s akin to how the pen knew and wrote down all that will be and was knowledge from the creator of it all, who placed this attribute to know the future in the universe that the Pen and Angels take from, wallahu allam.)
The Imam continues: The narrations of the Prophet regarding Jannah (Heaven) and Barzakh (the unseen world) depict real things, but that their reality is different from the reality of objects that are perceived by our senses and perception (they are made from quantum substances).
Imam al Ghazali explains, [Even if a person] does not see them with his eyes, which is impossible in the case of Angelic things . . . he can follow the example of the companions who believed in Gabriel’s descent, which they did not witness but only the Prophet had witnessed. He who believes in angels and other things which the Prophet but not his Umma has seen, ought also to believe in these things . . . especially as the snakes of (punishing man in) the grave (after death) are of quite another kind, than those known on earth, just as the angels are beings different in kind from human beings.
You witness how a sleeper in his sleep sees a snake that bites him, at which you hear him cry, see the sweat break out on his forehead, and see him roll over from his place (his body reacts physically to what his conscious is experiencing). . . . You, on the other hand, will find everything outwardly quiet, no (physical) snake wriggles round the man. The snake only exists within his imagination while punishment is going on (in his sleep), but there is nothing to be seen in your (physical) sphere. And with regard to the pain itself of the snake-bite there is no difference whether the snake exists according to an imagination or an observation (the punishment in the grave after death is in this manner). (Imam al Ghazali, Ihya Ulum al Deen)
Imam Ibn Arabi calls death the greater death while sleep is the lesser death because they both take a person to barzakh, “Do you not see that, when he is transferred to the barzakh through the greater death or the lesser death, he sees in the lesser death affairs that he was considering rationally impossible in the state of wakeful- ness? Yet, in the barzakh, he perceives them as sensory things, just as, in the state of wakefulness, he perceives that to which his sensation is connected, so he does not deny it. Despite the fact that his rational faculty proves to him that a certain affair cannot have being [wujud], he sees it existent in the barzakh. There is no doubt that it is an affair of being [wujud] to which sensation becomes connected in the barzakh. After all, the homesteads of sensation are diverse, so the properties are diverse”.(Imam Ibn Arabi, al-Futuhat al-Makkiya)
It is established that our intellect and inner eye is looking into the unseen world by the Hadith Qudsi where Allah takes control and guides mans every sense and perception so he knows how to see. The Messenger of Allah (saws) said “Allah (mighty and sublime be He) said: Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory (unobligatory) works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. I do not hesitate about anything as much as I hesitate about [seizing] the soul of My faithful servant: he hates death and I hate hurting him. (Bukhari).
Becouse our knowledge is derived and related to our experiences in life these are what shape the image of our inner eye and imagination, Allah says after man draws close to him with acts of worship, He first loves him, after this He guides mans every sense and perception until his inner eye knows how to see the unseen world and all fantasy and illusion (false images) are removed from him, his inner eye becomes focused when before his vision was blurred and veiled.
Imam ibn Arabi goes on to say, “So understand this! For if you understand how (the divine) Imagination is Light, and you know in what way it is (always) correct, then you will have an advantage over those who don’t know that–the sort of person who says: “that is only a false imagination!” That is because such people have failed to understand the perception of the light of imagination which has been given them by God. This is just like their saying that our senses are also “mistaken” in some of their perceptions, when in fact their sense-perceptions are sound, while the judgment (regarding the meaning of those perceptions) belongs to something else, not to the senses themselves. It is the judgment that is false, not the sensation. Likewise the imagination perceives with its light whatever it perceives, without passing judgment. The judgment only belongs to something else, which is the intellect, so the error can’t be attributed to the imagination”. (Taken from Imam Ibn Arabi’s al-Futuhat al-Makkiya)
To understand who al Khidr (r.a) is we have to know some of the encounters the scholars reported having, of which we have only narrated a few.
1) Imam Sakhawi relates about Imam Nawawi: “It is well-known that he (Imam Nawawi) used to meet with al-Khidr and converse with him among many other mukashafat” [Cf. Al-Sakhawi, “Tarjimat shaykh al-islam qutb al-awliya Abi Zakariyya al-Nawawi”, p. 33].
2) Shaykh Khusraw, who was one of the most important companions of Shaykh Bahauddin Naqshband (the Naqshbani Tariqah is named after him) said:
“One day I went for a visit to the shaykh and I found him standing at the edge of a basin, while he was speaking to an unknown person. When I greeted him, the stranger walked away and went to another part of the garden. The shaykh told me: “That man is Khidr!” He said it twice. I, however, did not reply and remained silent and with the assistance of Allah it so happened that I experienced neither any outward attachment nor any inward inclination in my soul to Khidr (as al Khidr did not want to be payed attention to by him).
After about two or three days I saw him again talking to the shaykh in the garden of the khanaqah. Two months later I met Khidr in the open air marketplace of Bokhara. He then gave me a smile, I greeted him and he embraced me, talked to me and asked how I was. When I returned to Qasr-i-‘Arifan (the place where shaykh Bahauddin Naqshband was teaching his murids) and met the shaykh, he said to me: “You have met Khidr in the marketplace of Bokhara.”
3) Hakim at-Tirmidhi was taught by Sayidinah Khidr in his youth. The Imam wanted to leave his hometown in order to go to the centers of learning. Because of his mother, who was sad to see him leave, he decided to stay. When the disciple is ready, the teacher arrives and in his case it was a very remarkable teacher, al Khidr, When his heart could not take staying anylonger and saw his friends had left to study Sayidina al Khidr came to him to teach him.
Hakim at-Tirmidhi described his teacher as the one who travels over land and sea, mountains and valleys searching and longing to meet the friends of Allah (This is his role to teach each new generation of Awliya). According to him Sayidina al Khidr wished to see in his own life what would become of the work of these awliya. That is why al Khidr received such a long life, so that he could experience all of it up to the End of Times.
In the later period of the life of Hakim at-Tirmidhi, for some reason or other he had not seen Sayidina al Khidr for a long time, this did not change until a servant girl cleaned the latrines. She came out with a bucket filled with filth. At the same time Hakim at-Tirmidhi passed her by. He was on his way to the mosque. He was wearing white clothes.
The girl asked him for some money, but he did not have any money to give to her. She became so angry with the shaykh that she threw the dirty contents of the bucket she was carrying, all over his clean clothes. The shaykh did not become angry at her. At that very moment Sayyidina al Khidr reappeared and greeted him.
4) Ibrahim ibn adam, was sitting in a forest clearing when two wandering dervishes approached him. He made them welcome, and they talked of spiritual matters until it was dusk. As soon as night fell, ibrahim invited the travelers to be his guests at a meal, immediately they accepted, and a table laid with the finest of foods appeared before their eyes.
“how long have you been a dervish?” one of them asked ibrahim. “two years,” he said.
“i have been following the sufi path for nearly three decades and no such capacity as you have shown us has ever manifested itself to me,” said the man. Ibrahim said nothing, when the food was almost finished, a stranger in a green robe entered the glade. he sat down and shared some of the food. They all realized by an inner sense that this was al Khidr, the guide of all the Awliya. They waited for him to impart wisdom to them, when he stood up to leave, al Khidr simply said, “you two dervishes wonder about ibrahim, but what have you renounced to follow the dervish path?
“you gave up the expectations of security and an ordinary life, Ibrahim ibn Adam was a mighty king, and threw away the sovereignty of the Sultanate of Balkh (His country) to become one of the people of Tasawwuf. This is why he is far ahead of you, during your thirty years, you have gained satisfactions through renunciation itself. this has been your payment. He has always abstained from claiming any payment for his sacrifice.” after having said that at the next moment Sayidinah al Khidr was gone suddenly.