2:218 Surely those who have faith, those who emigrate, and those who struggle in God's path-it is they who hope for God's mercy, and God is the Forgiving, the Ever-Merciful.
After faith, He spoke of emigration. Emigration is of two sorts: one outward, the other inward.
Outward emigration has two sides: One side is to emigrate from one's home, homeland, and means and to go forth seeking knowledge. The other side is what comes to be known by seeking. Any traveling that is outside of these two has no weight or worth. The Prophet alluded to this with his words, "People are knowers or learners; the rest of the people are rabble."
You should not say that the seeker of knowledge and the seeker of the Known have one level. The seeker of knowledge is himself traveling, and the seeker of the Known is being pulled by the Real. He who is himself traveling dwells in suffering, distress, and hunger, like Moses in the journey in which he was seeking knowledge: "Bring us our lunch. We have certainly met with weariness on this journey of ours" [18:62]. Another time, when he set off seeking the Known, he was confirmed to such a degree by the Real's protection and pulling that he stayed thirty days waiting for the Real's speech, and he was not aware of being tired or hungry.
The master Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq said, "The caressing of the seekers of knowledge reaches a place such that tomorrow, when they rise up from the dust, they will be mounted on the feathers of angels, according to the Prophets words, 'Surely the angels will put down their wings for the seeker of knowledge, approving what he is doing.'" Then Abū ʿAlī said, "Since the seekers of knowledge will be mounted on the feathers of angels, how can anyone imagine what the seekers of the Known will be mounted on?"
Did we but know that the visit is true,
we would make our face an earth so that You might approve.
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Beautiful idols walk on forbidden ground.
I will make my eyes the ground-come stroll on my eyes!
This then was the explanation of outward emigration. Inward emigration is that one goes from the soul to the heart, from the heart to the secret core, from the secret core to the spirit, and from the spirit to the Real. The soul is the way station of submission, the heart the way station of faith, the secret core the way station of recognition, and the spirit the way station of tawḥīd.
In the traveling of the wayfarers one must emigrate from submission to faith, from faith to recognition, and from recognition to tawḥīd. This is not the tawḥīd of the common people. On the contrary, this tawḥīd is pure of water and dust, limpid of Adam and Eve-attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, limits come to nothing, allusions ended, expressions negated, chronicles transformed.
One day the master, Imām Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq, was drowned in the ocean of love and speaking of tawḥīd. He said, "If you see one of the honored pearls placing his foot in the lane of making claims and talking about tawḥīd, be careful not to be deceived. Know that tawḥīd's meaning is pure of water and dust, for it is the beauty of Unity that went into the field of the Beginningless to gaze on the majesty of the Sanctum. It spoke mysteries to Itself in the attribute of inaccessibility."
Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī alluded to this tawḥīd and said,
No one has voiced the unity of the One,
for everyone who voices it denies it.
The tawḥīd of those who talk of its description
is a loan voided by the One.
His tawḥīd is His voicing unity-
its describer's description deviates.