Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari, a prominent Sufi saint and scholar of the 13th and 14th centuries in Egypt, is celebrated for his contributions to Islamic spirituality. Born in Alexandria, he dedicated himself to the path of Sufism under the guidance of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi. His most renowned work, “al-Hikam al-Ata’iyya” (The Book of Wisdoms), distills profound spiritual insights into aphorisms, emphasizing sincerity, humility, and surrender to the Divine Will. Ibn Ata Allah’s teachings center on spiritual purification and inner transformation, guiding seekers on the path of closeness to God. His timeless wisdom continues to inspire spiritual seekers worldwide, transcending cultural and linguistic boundaries. Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari is revered as a profound spiritual teacher, exemplifying the depth and beauty of Islamic spirituality through his life and teachings.
Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari Quotes
01. “Sometimes He gives while depriving you, and sometimes He deprives you in giving.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
02. “No deed is more fruitful for the heart than the one you are not aware of and which is deemed paltry by you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
03. “Whoever is not thankful for graces runs the risk of losing them, and whoever is thankful fetters them with their own cords.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
04. “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, since he is the One alongside of whom there is nothing?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
05. “Cling to the attributes of His Lordship and realize the attributes of your servanthood!”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
06. “Many a life is long in years but meager in fruits, and many a life is short in years but rich in fruits.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
07. “How can you seek recompense for a deed He bestowed upon you out of charity? Or how can you seek recompense for a sincerity He gave you as a gift?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
08. “Whatever is deposited in the invisible world of innermost hearts is manifested in the visible world phenomena.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
09. “After the flights of inspirations have rayed out and their mysteries have been deposited, do not seek their continuance, for you have in God one who enables you to dispense with everything; but nothing enables you to dispense with God.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
10. “Nothing pleads on your behalf like extreme need, nor does anything speed gifts to you quicker than lowliness and want.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
11. “Let not our asking be the cause of His giving, for then your understanding of Him might diminish. Let your asking be for the sake of showing servanthood and fulfilling the rights of Lordship.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
12. “When He knew that you would not renounce Him, He made you contemplate that which issues from Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
13. “Only His extreme nearness to you is what veils God from you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
14. “He who has been blessed in life attains, in a short time, to such gifts from God that no expression or symbolic allusion could describe.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
15. “There is a light wherewith He unveils for you His created things, and there is a Light wherewith He unveils for you His Attributes.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
16. “Were it not for the kindliness of His veiling, no deed would be worthy of acceptance.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
17. “Your requesting Him is suspecting Him. Your seeking Him is due to your absence from Him. Your seeking someone else is because of your immodesty towards Him. Your requesting someone else is on account of your distance from Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
18. “Appeal to no one but Him to relieve you of a pressing need that He Himself has brought upon you. For how can someone else remove what He has imposed? And how can he who is unable to free himself of a pressing need free anyone else of one?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
19. “When you seek recompense for a deed, the existence of sincerity in it is demanded of you in return. As for the insincere, the feeling of security from chastisement suffices him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
20. “It suffices as a reward for the doers of good that He has inspired obedience to Him in their hearts and brought upon them the existence of His reciprocal intimacy.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
21. “If you want a glory that does not vanish, then do not glory in a glory that vanishes.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
22. “Sometime He reveals to you the invisible domain of His Realm but veils you from knowing the secrets of servants.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
23. “The hearts and the innermost centers of being are the places where lights arise.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
24. “He only made affliction come at the hands of people so that you not repose in them. He wanted to drive you out of everything so that nothing would divert you from Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
25. “Nothing benefits the heart more than a spiritual retreat wherein it enters the domain of meditation.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
26. “When He alienates you from His creatures, then know that He wants to open for you the door of intimacy with Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
27. “Sometimes He opens the door of obedience for you but not the door of acceptance; or sometimes He condemns you to sin, and it turns out to be a cause of arriving at Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
28. “To soften for you the suffering of affliction, He has taught you that He is the One who causes trials to come upon you. For the one who confronts you with His decrees of Fate is the same who has accustomed you to His good choice.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
29. “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, since He is hearer to you than anything else?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
30. “The best that you can seek from Him is that which He seeks from you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
31. “Actions are lifeless forms, but the presence of an inner reality of sincerity (sirr al-ikhlas) within them is what endows them with life-giving Spirit.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
32. “When He makes you submissive to His command outwardly and provides you with resignation to His power inwardly, then He has enhanced the greatness of the favour accorded you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
33. “No search pursued with the help of your Lord remains at a standstill, but any search pursued by yourself will not be fruitful.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
34. “Do not deem Him giving to be slow; but rather, deem your approaching to slow.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
35. “No deed arising from a renouncing heart is small, and no deed arising from an avaricious heart is fruitful.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
36. “A gift from man is deprivation, and deprivation from God is beneficence.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
37. “There is a light deposited in hearts which is nourished by the Light coming from the treasuries of the invisible realms.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
38. “When He gives you obedience, making you unaware of it because of Him, then know that He has showered you liberally with His graces both inwardly and outwardly.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
39. “Through the existence of joy, the soul gets its share in expansion, but there is no share for the soul in contraction.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
40. “So long as you have not contemplated the Creator, you belong to created beings; but when you have contemplated Him, created beings belong to you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
41. “He made an inspiration come upon you so as to take you out of the prison of your existence to the unlimited space of your contemplation.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
42. “Real humility is the one which arises from the contemplation of His Sublimity and illumination of His Attribute.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
43. “Praise be to Him who has hidden the inner reality of holiness by manifesting the quality of human nature, and who has appeared in the sublimity of Lordship by manifesting servanthood!”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
44. “Do not keep company with anyone whose state does not inspire you and whose speech does not lead you to God.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
45. “Your striving for what has already been guaranteed to you, and your remissness in what is demanded of you, are signs of the blurring of your intellect.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
46. “How can the laws of nature be ruptured for you so that miracles result, while you, for your part, have yet to rupture your bad habits.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
47. “How astonishing is he who flees from what is inescapable and searches for what is perishable! ‘For surely it is not theteyes that are blind, but blind are the hearts which are in the breast.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
48. “The real journey is when the world’s dimension is rolled away from you so that you see the Hereafter closer to you than yourself.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
49. “When He opens up your understanding of deprivation, the deprivation becomes the same as the gift.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
50. “He who knows God, contemplates Him in everything. He who is extinguished by Him is absent from everything. Who loves Him prefers nothing to Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
51. “When the forgetful man gets up in the morning, he reflects on what he is going to do, whereas the intelligent man sees what God is doing with him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
52. “Ritual prayer is a purification for hearts and an opening-up of the door of the invisible domains.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
53. “Suffice it as a recompense for the doers of good that He judged you worthy of obedience.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
54. “When it pains you that people do not come to you, or that they do so with rebukes, then return to the knowledge of God in you. But if the knowledge of Him in you does not satisfy you, then your affliction at not being content with that knowledge is greater than your affliction at the pain coming from people.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
55. “Do not request Him to get you out of a state to make use of you in a different one, for, were He to desire so, He could make use of you as you are, without taking you out!”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
56. “Only the contemplation of His Attribute can dislodge you from your attribute.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
57. “He made the devil your enemy so that, through him, He could drive you toward Himself, and He stirred up your soul against you so that your drawing near to Him would be permanent.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
58. “He knew of the irresolution of servants in dealing with Him so He made obedience to Him obligatory for them. Thus, He drove them to obedience with the chains of obligation. Your Lord is amazed at people who are driven to Paradise with chains!”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
59. “For those who do good, finding the fruits of acts of obedience in this world is glad tidings of their recompense in the Hereafter.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
60. “Only because of the intensity of His manifestation is He veiled, and only because of the sublimity of His light is He hidden from view.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
61. “When He loosens your tongue with a request, then know that He wants to give you something.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
62. “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, since were it not for Him, the existence of everything would not have been manifest?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
63. “Sometimes you will find more benefit in a state of need than you find in fasting or ritual prayer.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
64. “If you want gifts to come your way, then perfect the spiritual poverty you have. ‘Alms are only for the poor.'”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
65. “Light is the army of the heart, just as darkness is the army of the soul. So when God wishes to come to the help of His servant, He furnishes him with armies of Lights and cuts off from him reinforcements of darkness and alterities.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
66. “Do not seek recompense for a deed whose doer was not you. It suffices you as recompense for the deed that He accepts it.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
67. “He who is illumined at the beginning is illumined at the end.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
68. “Beneficial knowledge is the one whose ray of light expands in the mind and uncovers the veil over the heart.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
69. “When two matters seem confusing to you, see which is heavier on the ego and follow it through. For, indeed, nothing weighs on the ego but that which is true.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
70. “If what was promised does not occur, even though the time for its occurrence had been fixed, this must not make you doubt the promise. Otherwise, your intellect will be obscured and the light of your innermost heart extinguished.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
71. “Actions differ because the inspirations of the states of being differ.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
72. “Sometimes lights come upon you and find the heart stuffed with forms of created things; so they go back from whence they descended. Sometimes darkness comes over you in order that He makes you aware of the value of His blessings upon you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
73. “Do not lose hope in the acceptance of an act of yours wherein you found no awareness of the Divine Presence. Sometimes He accepts an act the fruit of which you have not perceived right away.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
74. “If you want the door of hope opened for you, then consider what comes to you from Him; but if you want the door of sadness opened for you, then consider what goes to Him from you.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
75. “The point at issue is not the existence of searching. The point at issue is only that you be provisioned with virtuous conduct.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
76. “Your union with God is union through knowledge of Him. Otherwise, God is beyond being united with anything or anything being united with Him!”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
77. “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, since He is more manifest than anything?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
78. “If you want to know your standing with Him, look at where He has made you abide now.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
79. “Do not attest to the validity of an inspiration whose fruits you know not. The purpose of rainclouds is not to give rain; their only purpose is to bring forth fruit.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
80. “Everything depends on the Divine Will, but Itself depends on nothing at all.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
81. “Nothing pleads on your behalf like extreme need, nor does anything speed gifts to you quicker than lowliness and want.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
82. “When He gives, He shows you His kindness, and when He deprives, He shows you His power. And in all that, He is making Himself known to you and coming to you with His gentleness.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
83. “Your obedience does not benefit Him, and your disobedience does not harm Him. It is only for your own good that He commanded the one and prohibited the other.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
84. “Amongst the signs of success at the end is the turning to God at the beginning.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
85. “Deprivation hurts you only because of the lack of your understanding of God in it.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
86. “One of the signs of relying on one’s own deeds is the loss of hope when a downfall occurs.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
87. “God was, and there was nothing with Him, and He is now as He was.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
88. “His Sublimity is not increased when someone draws near to Him, and His Sublimity is not decreased when someone draws away from Him.”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
89. “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, since He is the one who manifests everything?”
— Ibn-E-Ataullah Sikandari
