Translator's Preface

Dear Friend,

We are informed by RasulAllah Mohammed Mustafa (peace be upon him) that:

“ALLAH sends a Mujaddid (Master Spirit of the Age, ―literally, he who brings renewal―) at the beginning of every century and renews the understanding of The Religion!”

This statement signifies the essentiality of a review and update as regards the “interpretation of the Religion” in order to properly understand and practice it in due course of time...

With reference to this message, an updated consideration of the “Deen,” a renewal in the approach to and in the way of “understanding” the Religion is required for a contemporary “evaluation” and “appreciation” in present conditions.

Deep spiritual understanding of Religion, that is the most profound information explaining the mysteries of the Deen of ISLAM has come to our day mainly through the interpretations of the “spiritual people of truth (haqiqat),” who completed their journeys on the path of Sufism (tasawwuf), and informed their findings with a loving and enlightening attitude.

Having grasped the message in the teachings of RasulAllah and having experienced the effect of its practice, they perceived that man in reality is a spiritual and even an “ideational” being, that is, he is “a being of consciousness” beyond the physical which is observed through the five senses. They have then perceived and have become aware that there is nothing outside the Wholeness of “ALLAH” and that the entire existence belongs to “ALLAH” alone. Furthermore, having understood that there is only the ONE all alone, the entire existence is an illusion and the concept of individual separateness is nothing but a product of observation, they have stated that “ the actuality of the worlds is just an imagination” since the ancient times... Advancing one step beyond this even, they have witnessed that every particle in the universe enfolds all the qualities of the Whole, in parallel with the statement communicated some fourteen hundred years ago by RasulAllah Mohammed (peace be upon him) that “a particle mirrors (enfolds) the Whole.”

Today, also a number of distinguished scientists, from Physicists to Neuropsychologists, conclude at the same reality and state that “the objective world does not exist, at least not in the way we are accustomed to believing,” and that “the whole universe is a kind of giant hologram.” All particles are interconnected with each other and the universe viewed as composed of “parts” is in fact organized by a basic WHOLENESS.

To communicate with international readers the obvious integration of the findings of Western Modern Sciences with the Eastern spiritual understanding of reality in Sufism from a place where East and West is connected, when I published my translation of Ahmed Hulusi’s marvelous book entitled “MOHAMMED's ALLAH” onto our web page on the Internet in 1995 first, it attracted attention of many people all over the world, ranging from America to South Africa and Mauritius... Our readers asked me for more of the Author's works... In response, I began translating and emailing them the articles he wrote for a column in a Turkish daily newspaper during the month of Ramadhan in 1996. These articles have now made this book.

No sooner it is understood that the name “ALLAH” refers neither to a substitute for a previous concept of “God,” nor to a title of a new image of god, than it matters to comprehend how should one reform his perspective of life and himself or herself in connection with that true understanding and how should the understanding of the Deen-i Islam be applied to life based on the same truth! What kind of a perspective shift should come indeed following the recognition that “ALLAH” is the unseparated whole One and is within the essence of existence and therefore within human’s own Essence, and is not a separate god afar off as imagined?

If you are familiar with the core of the perspective of remarkable Sufis, all ranging from Imam Jafari Sadiq, to Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Yunus Emre, Hadji Bektashi Wali, from Imam Ghazali to Abdulkadir Geylani, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, Shahi Nakshibandy and Ibrahim Hakki of Erzurum, you will find the answer to this question and their views reflected in this book.

There are several things I should say about the translation.

Please, note the effect that any reference to “men” or “him” also means “women” or “her” throughout the book.

The personal pronoun “He” is habitually used in English to denote a “God.” However, as “ALLAH” is not a separate entity as a “god,” it is not correct to employ the pronoun “He” to denote ALLAH. Therefore, I have imported in our works the original pronoun used to denote “ALLAH” in the Koran, which is “Hu.” “Hu” originally denotes the “oneness within the essence of existence,” without implying a separate third being...

Also… As the Koran informs that “at the sight of “ALLAH”, the Religion (Deen) is Islam” and as Mohammed (peace be upon him) confirmed all scriptures revealed before him, it is not correct to consider Islam as a religion beside many other religions. Therefore, to keep the reader aware of its quality, I translated the “Religion of Islam” as the “Deen of Islam” throughout the book. As you will see in the foregoing pages, after the ONENESS of ALLAH is understood as originally informed by RasulAllah, Islam, an information based on the undivided and unseparated oneness of ALLAH, cannot be considered as a separate religion, as it is the understanding of religion at the sight of Oneness.

Here also I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my friends who helped revise and edit this translation.

We need to emphasize that there is no other way of liberation for all people including Muslims than to review the “Deen-i Islam” and understand the very basic point that no god ever existed to be pleased by worshipping and there is only “ALLAH” alone and nothing apart from HU!

May “ALLAH” enable us all to appreciate “Islam” in the best way and make us comprehend and realize the value of the gift that already lies in our hands…

Ahmed BAKI,
August 1, 1996
Gayrettepe, Istanbul