Awakening (yaqaza)

"Awakening" (yaqaza) is the first of the stations of servanthood for Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya in Madarij al-Salikin, his commentary on the Manazil al-Sa'irin of Abu Isma'il al-Harawi. Introducing the stations, he notes that people have said much about their nature and number – some counting a thousand, some a hundred – each describing them according to his own journey; he then defines awakening as "the heart's being startled by the shock of waking from the sleep of the heedless". ¹

For Ibn al-Qayyim whoever feels this shock has felt success; otherwise he remains in the throes of heedlessness. Once awake, he sets his resolve on the journey back to his "first dwellings". ¹ He orders what follows: awakening brings "reflection", the heart's gaze fixed on the goal it has prepared for in outline without yet finding the detailed way; sound reflection brings "insight" (basira), a light God casts into the heart by which one sees the reality of what the messengers reported as though witnessing it; and with awakening one moves to "resolve", the firm commitment to travel and to leave every obstacle – the more complete the awakening, the stronger the resolve. ^{1 2} He divides insight into three degrees: in God's names and attributes, in command and prohibition, and in promise and threat. ^{2 3}

Ibn al-Qayyim quotes al-Harawi: awakening is the "rising for God" mentioned in the verse of Saba' – waking from the slumber of heedlessness and rising from the pit of slackness, the first light in the servant's heart – and it rests on three things. ⁴

Regarding God's favour. The heart regards God's favours, despairing of counting them or reaching their limit, devotes itself to recognising the grace in them, and knows its own shortcoming in their due. Ibn al-Qayyim explains that this produces love of the Giver, constant remembrance of Him and self-reproach, so that the servant realises the meaning of the "master supplication for forgiveness" and knows that he travels to God between beholding His grace and witnessing his own shortcoming. ⁴

Considering one's offences. He looks at what he has done before, grasps its danger, sets about remedying it, frees himself from its bondage and seeks salvation by its purging (tamhis). Ibn al-Qayyim explains purging as freeing faith from the dross of offence, as gold is refined, and holds that it happens in this world through four things – repentance, asking forgiveness, good deeds that erase, and expiating afflictions; if these do not suffice, in the barzakh through the believers' funeral prayer and prayers for forgiveness, the trial of the grave, and works gifted to the dead; and if not, at the Standing through its terrors, intercession and God's pardon. ^{4 5 6} Here he notes the jurists' disagreement over which rewards reach the dead: agreement on charity and prayer, the majority including pilgrimage, and Ahmad's school being the broadest. ⁶

Recognising the gain and loss of one's days. He becomes aware of what he has gained and lost in his days, makes up what he missed in the rest of his life, and is miserly with his hours – indeed his breaths – lest they be spent on what does not bring him nearer to God. ^{6 7}

Ibn al-Qayyim's account of purging may be compared with Ibn Taymiyya's causes that remove punishment for sins: both list repentance, asking forgiveness, good deeds, afflictions and what follows death as stages in clearing sins. ^{5 8}

Al-Harawi's own text of the Manazil al-Sa'irin, the other commentaries on it, and academic studies of the ordering of the stations have not yet been added.