ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the maqāmāt are the stages through which the wayfarer must pass in his strivings after perfection and in his efforts to dispose himself for the flooding in of mystical graces. Being moral and spiritual purifications and rectifications which can and must be brought about by the disciple’s own efforts, they are known as ‘acquired’ (iktisābi) and not ‘infused’, the nearest word to which is, perhaps, ladunni. We come now to the aḥwāl (pl. of ḥāl), which, according to the customary Ṣūfi interpretation, represent mystical graces, sheer gifts of divine grace and generosity to a soul stripped of all self-seeking and self-regard. Henceforth, it is not so much the earnest striving and pressing forward of the pilgrim himself that is in the foreground, as the victorious and irresistible attraction of the divine beloved (Jānān), sweeping the traveller off his feet and carrying him along in a state of utter bewilderment.
