“The rank of the Companions in relation to nearness to God cannot be reached by the path of sainthood. For God Almighty is nearer to us than anything else; yet we are infinitely distant from Him. Attaining His nearness happens in two ways.

The first is through the unfolding of God’s nearness. The nearness found in Prophethood looks to this, and the Companions were granted a share of this mystery through their inheritance of Prophethood and their companionship with the Prophet.

The second way is to cross the degrees of our own distance from God and thereby be honored with a degree of nearness. Most spiritual journeying in sainthood proceeds in this way, whether through the inward journey or the outward journey.

The first way is purely God-given; it is not acquired. It is attraction, a merciful drawing by God, and a state of being loved by Him. The path is short, but very firm, very lofty, very pure, and without shadow. The other is acquired, long, and shadowed. Even if it contains many extraordinary wonders, it cannot equal the first in value or in nearness.”¹⁾

“The Ascension, being the greatest miracle and highest rank of the Ahmadi sainthood of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), was transformed into the rank of Messengership. The inner dimension of the Ascension is sainthood: going from creation to the Real. Its outward dimension is Messengership: coming from the Real back to creation.

Sainthood is a journey through the degrees of nearness. It requires the traversing of many levels and, to some extent, time. Messengership, however—the greatest light—looks to the mystery of the unfolding of God’s nearness, for which a single flowing instant is enough. That is why the hadith says, ‘He returned in an instant.’”²⁾

“The sainthood of the Companions is a ‘greater sainthood’ that comes from the inheritance of Prophethood. Without passing through the intermediate route of the Sufi path, it goes directly from the outward to the inner reality and looks to the unfolding of God’s nearness. Though this path of sainthood is extremely short, it is exceedingly high. Its wonders are few, but its virtues are many. Unveiling and miracles appear there only rarely.”³⁾

“For example, the sun is near to us, because its light, heat, and image are in our mirror and in our hand. Yet we are far from it. If we were to perceive its nearness through its luminosity, understand our relationship with its reflected image in our mirror, and come to know it through that means—if we came to know what its light, heat, and form are—then its nearness would unfold for us, and we would know it as something close to us and related to us.

But if we wanted to approach and know it from the standpoint of our own distance, we would have to undertake a long intellectual journey and rational ascent: rising mentally to the heavens through scientific laws, imagining the sun in the sky, and then, through lengthy scientific investigations, understanding the light and heat in its nature and the seven colors in its light. Only then could we attain the spiritual nearness that the first person gained with a little reflection in his own mirror.

In the same way, the sainthood found in Prophethood and in the inheritance of Prophethood looks to the mystery of the unfolding of God’s nearness. Other kinds of sainthood mostly proceed on the basis of qurbiyat, the servant’s drawing near to God, and therefore require spiritual journeying through many stages.”⁴⁾

“A small superiority in the share of the two great Caliphs from the ‘gold’ of the unfolding of God’s nearness—which manifested through their inheritance of Prophethood and their establishment of the rulings of Messengership—outweighs much of the unfolding of God’s nearness, the perfections of sainthood, and the jewel of personal spiritual perfection that arise from sainthood.”⁵⁾

“Even the highest people of truth have proceeded along two paths—not in mere gnosis or conception, but in something far loftier and more precious: faith and affirmation.

One path is to study the Book of the Universe, looking outward to the horizons through works such as Ayat al-Kubra, Hizb al-Nuriyya, and Khulasat al-Khulasa.

The other path is to study the map of human reality, the index of the human ego, and the nature of the self—at the strongest level of conscience-based and felt certainty, even to a degree of direct witnessing. Through this, one rises to a level of faith free from doubt and satanic whispering, a level that looks to the mystery of the unfolding of God’s nearness and the inheritance of Prophethood.”⁶⁾

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