The Language of the Future
Sufi Terminology
by Murshid F.A. Ali ElSenossi

raki'un
Those who bow

(Rak'iun). The raki'un are the friends of Allah who never consider the cosmos in respect of its entity but only as a place of manifestation of Allah, the Real. They are humbled before Allah's Magnificence and Inaccessibility.


See also: Grandeur Incomparability
('Azamah). Grandeur and Tremendousness. This is Allah's Majesty which overwhelms His slaves and fills them with awe.
(Tanzih). Incomparability or Transcendence or Unknowableness or Remoteness. Tanzih is to declare that Allah transcends every quality or attribute possessed by His creatures. The word tanzih derives from the word nazzaha, which means to keep something away from anything contaminating or impure. The rational faculty declares Allah's Incomparability, but this is only half of the Absolute Truth, because Allah has both Transcendence and Similarity (tashbih). Allah says in The Qur'an, "Nothing is like Unto Him" (42:11). This is Allah's Incomparability (tanzih). But the same verse continues, "and He is the all-Hearing, the all-Seeing". This is Allah's Similarity (tashbih). The Absolute Truth is Allah's Incomparability and His Similarity. The 'knowers through Him' know Allah through Allah, by combining the declaration of His Incomparability (tanzih) with the affirmation of His Similarity (tashbih). Allah as the Essence Itself is Utterly Incomparable, while Similarity is attributed to Allah as the Divinity.

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