Safeguarding (ri'aya)

"Safeguarding" (ri'aya) is the twenty-third of the stations in Madarij al-Salikin. Ibn al-Qayyim defines it as observing knowledge and guarding it by action, observing action by excellence and sincerity and guarding it from what spoils it, and observing the state by conformity and guarding it by cutting off dispersion: "safeguarding is protection and preservation". ¹

Ibn al-Qayyim sets out three tiers of knowledge and action: "transmission" (riwaya), merely carrying and passing on what is reported; "understanding" (diraya), grasping its meaning; and "safeguarding" (ri'aya), acting on what one knows. "Transmitters aim at transmission, scholars at understanding, and the knowers of God at safeguarding." ¹

Ibn al-Qayyim cites al-Hadid 27, where God blames those who did not observe as it deserved the monasticism they had invented, and pauses on its grammar: "monasticism" is in the accusative governed by "they invented it" – either by the stated verb, as the Kufans hold, or by an implied verb that the stated one explains, as the Basrans hold – and not by "We placed"; so the full stop falls after "and mercy". ¹ On the accusative of "except seeking God's good pleasure" he gives three views – an object of purpose, or a substitute for the object of "We prescribed it" – rejecting both and preferring a disjoined exception: they invented it only to seek God's pleasure, and were then blamed for not observing it. ^{1 2}

From the verse Ibn al-Qayyim infers that whoever commits himself to an act of devotion God did not require of him must observe and complete it. He notes that many jurists hold that one who begins a recommended act of obedience must complete it, treating commitment by beginning like commitment by vow, and ascribes this to Abu Hanifa, Malik and Ahmad in one of two reports, saying it is a consensus or near-consensus for one of the two pilgrimage rites – without going into the question fully. He then argues: if God blamed those who did not keep a devotion they had invented, what of one who does not keep a devotion God Himself prescribed? ² A footnote signed "al-Fiqi" attacks Christian monasticism sharply and links the Sufis to it – the annotator's judgement, not Ibn al-Qayyim's words. ²

Ibn al-Qayyim quotes al-Harawi: safeguarding is "preserving through care", in three degrees – safeguarding deeds, states and moments. The editor notes that for al-Harawi it is the first station of the third part of the Manazil, the part on dealings. ² Ibn al-Qayyim explains "preserving through care" as keeping something by attending to it and fulfilling its due – whence "shepherd" (ra'i al-ghanam). ³

For al-Harawi it is rendering them in full while thinking them small, performing them without looking at them, and carrying them out according to knowledge, not for show. Ibn al-Qayyim explains rendering in full as avoiding both falling short and adding beyond what is prescribed, and thinking them small as holding one's deed slight, since what befits God's majesty is something else. He reports that a sign of a deed's acceptance is that its doer thinks it little, citing the Prophet ﷺ's asking forgiveness three times after the prayer's closing salutation, the command to seek forgiveness after the pilgrimage, and the praise of those who seek forgiveness after night prayer. "Without looking at them" means not counting and recalling them for fear of self-admiration and of reminding God of one's favour; "according to knowledge" means according to the knowledge drawn from the lamp of prophecy, in sincerity, not to be admired by people. ³

For al-Harawi it is counting one's effort as showing off, one's certainty as false display, and one's state as a mere claim – that is, suspecting oneself in one's effort, so as neither to be puffed up by it nor to rest in it. ³ Ibn al-Qayyim explains "false display" (tashabbu') by the hadith "one who displays what he has not been given is like one wearing two garments of falsehood", and gives two senses for counting certainty as false display: that whatever certainty one has is God's gift, not one's own possession; or that one suspects one's certainty of not being as it should. He extends this to truthfulness, sincerity and knowledge. Counting one's state a claim purifies the self of "the folly of claiming", which he calls Satan's share. ⁴

For al-Harawi it is pausing at every step, then becoming absent from one's presence by being purified of one's trace, then passing beyond witnessing the purity of one's purity. Ibn al-Qayyim explains: one pauses before every outward and inward movement until it is set right in intention, sincerity and following the Sunna, not stepping "rashly and aimlessly"; then one ceases to witness oneself advancing – that is purification from one's trace, which is the self; then one does not turn even to that purity, since it too is a remnant of the self. The editor notes that the Manazil's wording in his copy differs slightly. ^{4 5}

Directly after safeguarding comes the station of vigilance (muraqaba), which Ibn al-Qayyim defines as the servant's constant knowledge that the Truth sees his outward and inward. ⁵

Al-Harawi's own text and the treatment in the fiqh books of whether beginning a supererogatory act makes it binding have not yet been added.