Sayings 48-49 173 ‘SAYING 49: man ‘ddd It wallyan ... kuntu sam‘ahu alladkt yasma'u biki eT ab Oy sok Jb DIS ate Dry, uve. sae Sle by ee cops LS We Ba oe Se ey TF es eel ip a Ge Ghat Ge ae Ob bee cet A dey be he I tas 6 ae sll tay CG Ui ye weeds by Sad Yslet oy GY Ql tle oS Ub eS oe bled & volp.» the Apostle of God said: “God said: ‘Whoever treats a friend of Mine as ‘an enemy, on him I declare war. My servant draws near to Me by means of nothing dearer to Me than that which I have established as a duty* for him. ‘And My servant continues drawing nearer to Me through supererogatory acts*™ until I love him; and when I love him, I become his ear with which he hears, his eye with which he sees, his hand with which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks. And i he asks Me [for something], I give it to him. ifindeed he seeks My help, I help him. { have never hesitated to do anything as hesitate [to take] the soul of the man of faith who hates death, for I hate to harm him.”” i. Bukhari 81:38:2, isndd 7 (AbO Hurayrah). li, Musnad, V1, 256, isndds 153, 153a (‘A’ishah): variant wording throughout; the entire second segment (kuntu samtahu .. wa-rijlahu allart yamshi biké) is not present in this version, however (see commentary). Other References: The two citations above are apparently the only occurrences of this badith in full or nearly full form in the standard and early sources. None~ theless it ranks as perhaps the most famous and most frequently quoted of all Divine Sayings among later Muslim writers, especially theorists of mysticism (asawwuf), Ritter, Meer, p. $59, gives numerous references. Other instances occur in the following: Ibn al-‘Arabi, Mishkdr, p. 38; Ibn al“Arabi, Rit al-bayan (in Massignon, Receuil, p. 118); a-Madani, pp. 18-19, 36, 68, 75; al-Mupasibt (in an unidentified quotation in Massignon, Essai, pp. 127. 252, where Massignon says that Muhasibt identifies the Saying as a revelation to John the Baptist reported by Ibrahim b. Ad’bam); al-Makkl, Qut, U1, 109; as-Sarraj, Luma‘, p. 383; Ghazzili, iva’, 1V, 327, 328; Atti, Musitatnéme (quoted in Ritter, Meer. p. 28); ‘Nawawi, Arba‘in, no. 38; Iba Taymiyah, Mujizdt, p. 15 (where itis attributed to174 The early Divine Saying Tirmidht); Qushayr!, Ridiah, p. 157 (one of the few instances cited bere in which the entire badith as cited by Bukhari in the text above is quoted, rather than only ‘one portion of it: see the commentary telow on the composite nature of this Saying); Kalabidhi, pp. 121, 123, 136, 149. ‘The use of wall, “friend”, with respect to either God or man in the Divine-human relationship goes back to the Qu?’én: “His (God's) friends (awiiy@uhu) are only the god-fearing (al-muttagiin)” (8:34), and “Surely the friends of God (awiiyd Allah shall have no fear [weigh] upon them, neither shall they sorrow” (10:62). Note that in the former passage, the translation depends upon construing the pronominal suffix as the referent of the antecedent AUldk in the previous verse (so Tabarl), not masjid al-hardm, which would yield “its {the mosque’s] protectors” (so Arberry, Koran, p. 201), not “His friends” (numerous references in Paret, Kommentar, p. 188). Most of the numerous occurrences of walf and awliy? in the Qur'an refer to man having no other friend save God. Some refer to the friend(s) Of the faithful or the unfaithful (kdfirs); others speak of the friends of the devils, or shayféns; and still others state simply that God is the wall of the faithful (see Mi'Jam, pp. 766-167). Cf, the discussion of walt in the commentary to Saying 4 above.