While general nearness, meaning God’s nearness to creation, encompasses everything and every person, particular nearness depends on belief and can be acquired by doing whatever God has decreed as good and right. This nearness to the Almighty is possessed by those who have discovered the way of nearness and, having entered the corridor leading to eternity, reach every morning and evening with a new, deep dimension of belief. Such people are included in the verse: “God is with those who keep from evil in reverence for God, and are doers of good” (16:128). Those who have obtained this rank recite: “Surely my Lord accompanies me and will guide me” (26:62) while inhaling, and: “Surely God is with us” (9:40) while exhaling.

In particular nearness, consciousness of belief and perfect goodness have the same worth and significance as light to seeing and soul to body. Performing obligatory and supererogatory religious duties with this consciousness are like wings of light that carry one toward the “skies” of infinitude. The safest, most acceptable, and direct way of nearness to God is performing obligatory religious duties; however, performing supererogatory religious duties, which have no limit and show loyalty and devotion to God, results in true nearness and the rank of being loved by God Almighty.

A traveler to God enters new corridors leading to eternity on the wings of supererogatory duties, and feels rewarded with new Divine gifts, which engender an even greater desire to perform obligatory and supererogatory duties. One awakened to this truth feels in his or her conscience the love of God in direct proportion to his or her love of God. As stated in the hadith qudsi¹:

“My servant cannot get near to Me through anything else more lovable to Me than doing the obligatory religious duties. However, by doing supererogatory duties he gets nearer to Me, and when he becomes near to Me, I shall be his eyes to see with, his ears to hear with, his hands to grasp with, and his legs to walk on.”

In short, such a believer is directed to act by the Divine Will.

Nearness acquired through performing obligatory duties is another title of the rank of one’s being loved by God, and is included among those loved by God. As for nearness acquired through performing supererogatory duties, this is the rank of all one’s acts being ascribed to God. It is a particular Divine bestowal and honoring, as pronounced in: “You (Believers) slew them not, but God slew them. And you (Muhammad) did not throw when you threw, but God threw” (8:17).

Nearness, a particular gift of God, cannot be credited to one’s actions without considering its Divine origin. Nearness to Him originates in His Greatness and Mercy, and remoteness from Him is one of the weaknesses and “dark pits” of our character or nature. The writer of Gülistan (The Rose Garden) aptly expresses the origin of nearness and remoteness:

The Friend is nearer to me than myself;
How strange it is that I am remote from Him.
What can I say and what can I do, that
While He is with me, I am distant from Him.

Remoteness means being distant from God and perishing. According to Sufis, the first indication of remoteness is the cessation of Divine gifts, and the final indication is that if a particular Divine help does not come, the person seeking it is completely lost and perishes. Just as degrees of nearness are based on whether one is an ordinary believer, a saint, a good and righteous person, or one brought near to God, remoteness also has its degrees in a line descending to Satan, who occupies the lowest point of perishing.

Nearness to God is a Divine favor, and remoteness from him is a deprivation. However, one cannot always feel his or her personal nearness to or remoteness from Him. The greatest favor of God is that He does not allow one to feel His (special) favor (e.g., being a saint or near to Him), lest the believer so honored should feel pride and thus lose such favor. As a result, those nearest to God are usually unaware of their nearness. However, one’s unawareness of his or her personal remoteness from God is a Divine reprisal. There are still others who, intoxicated with the love of God and making no distinction between nearness and remoteness, neither show desire for nearness nor worry over remoteness. The following couplet expresses the thoughts of such intoxicated souls:

Jami, worry yourself about neither nearness nor remoteness;
There is neither nearness nor remoteness, nor union nor parting.

It is an acknowledged fact that remoteness denotes horror and deprivation. However, some shiver because of the winds of awe blowing from nearness and feel themselves caught in the clutches of Divine wrath and destruction. Nearness to the King is a burning fire may express this mood. Nevertheless, if nearness may be likened to the slopes of Paradise that open to breezes of Divine familiarity and friendship, remoteness should be regarded as the pits of deprivation and loss.

¹ A Prophetic Tradition whose meaning belongs directly to God and the wording to the Prophet.

A being that covers half the remaining distance with every step can reach its destination only if it can walk for infinity. When the ability to walk is limited, irrespective of the length of the steps taken, one will only be able to cover half the remaining distance, not the entire distance. In other words, there will always be a distance that remains to be covered. To cover more than half would be nothing less than attempting the impossible, because no being lives long enough to do this. With every step that the being moves forward it can only cover half the distance between the location and the destination.

In the light of this mathematical perspective, we can analyze the deeds we carry out and the steps that we have already taken, and those that we will take in our journey through life that is to be carried out towards God. I wonder if the steps we have already taken are enough to acquire His love and consent at the end of the journey. Answering this question in a conclusive way is difficult, because in the end this situation depends on God’s will. Moreover, God informed us of what needs to be done when he sent the Prophets and Books. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, encouraged us to increase our steps in one of his hadith: “He whose two days are equal is at a loss.” As life passes by, we may be satisfied with our performance so far and we may be sure that we will reach our goal, but if our steps which we make for the sake of God are abating, then we are deceiving ourselves. After some time, our steps become so small as to disappear and it becomes impossible to attain our goals. There is no doubt that such a break in our actions creates a lack of progress, and this in turn induces us to take no further steps. In this saying the Prophet, peace be upon him, highlights this danger and advises us to take more steps than the day before.

In another hadith qudsi (a saying uttered by the Prophet but the meaning of which belongs to God) related to the subject, the Prophet describes how to acquire God’s love in the following manner:

“My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. (I protect her/him from hearing, looking at, touching forbidden things and walking on the wrong path.” (Bukhari, Tawhid, 15)

Certainly, there are occasions when we become so enthusiastic that we lose ourselves in the desire to gain the consent of God and to be reunited with God. On special days and nights and at holy times, we push ourselves; at such times we might perform supererogatory prayers. We hope that God the Almighty accepts these prayers; but if this worship is short-lived, it will not be enough to help us reach our goal. As we can understand from the above hadith, what is important is that prayers are constant. In another hadith, the narrator Abdullah bin Amr bin As reports that our Prophet, peace be upon him, told him “O Abdullah! Do not be like such and such a person who used to pray during the nights but gave up later” (Bukhari-Muslim). Again, according to a narration by Aisha, the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, carried out twelve cycles of prayer to compensate a night in which he had been unable to pray because of pain or some other reason (Muslim).

All of this shows us how important it is to be steadfast in prayer. Taking control of one’s carnal self, the believer should walk toward God with constant steps. To attain the prosperity of the servant described in the above hadith qudsi, a person should make obligatory and supererogatory prayers a habit. Although sometimes the carnal self, nafs, and the Devil try to imprison one in hopelessness, the believer should do whatever they can in order not to lose their zeal and enthusiasm. Even if, from time to time, they stumble or fall, they should never fall into a whirlpool of despair and should not be overcome by pessimism. Thoughts about the brevity of their steps or the inadequacy of their worship should never slow the servant down nor should they be a reason for the servant turning back on the road to which they have devoted their lives. We should not forget that “our Lords’ most beloved worship is the one that is consistent, even if it is small.”