Dhikr and Prayer

Like everything, remembrance too has a beginning and an end. The beginning or remembrance is the cause of the love of God and the end of remembrance makes this love a necessity for the heart, and this very love is the highest end of a devotee.

on la-ilaha illa Allah:

It is the very essence of all dhikr. It is the hub of the unity of God, tawhid, and it is a resplendent light. The entire quran explains in detail its meaning and significance. It negates all false deities and affirms the One reality.

From "Contemplative disciplines in sufism" by Dr. Mir Valiuddin

Purification of the self - Nafs

Suluk consists of

1. cleansing of the heart - removing the love of the ephemeral world
2. purification of the self - embellishing the self with laudable and angelic attributes
3. emptying the sirr - emptying it of all thoughts that would divert it from God
4. illuminating the soul - filling the soul with the effulgence of the vision of God and the fervor of His love.

Attributes of the "imperious self" (nafs-i ammara) as listed by Mahmud ibn Ali al-kashani:

1. slavery to carnal desires
2. hypocrisy
3. ostentation or dissimulation (riya)
4. Claim to godship (uluhiyya)
5. parsimony and avarice

From "Contemplative disciplines in sufism" by Dr. Mir Valiuddin

Who seeks God, and takes the intellect for guide,
God drives him forth, in vain distraction to abide:
With wild confusion He confounds his inmost heart,
So that, distraught, he cries, 'I know not if Thou art'.

-Al-Hallaj

In "Contemplative Disciplines in Sufism" by Dr. Mir Valiuddin.

Silsilah

In him the lost perfection is remanifested. It corresponds to the culmination of the flow of the wave, the point from which the ebb begins. We have already seen that the ideal is 'earthly plenitude' combined with 'readiness to leave' and it is to this perfection, poised between flow and ebb, that the initial aspiration of the mystic must be directed. The Divine Messenger enters and leaves this world by the celestial gate towards which all mysticism is oriented. But the mystic himself, like other men, has entered this world through a gate that is merely cosmic; and to avoid ebbing back through such a gate, his little individual wave of entry must reach the culminating point of the great wave in order that its own relatively feeble current may be overpowered by the great current and drawn along with it. Not that the mystic could ever reach this central point of perfection by his own efforts. But the Prophet himself is always present at this centre, and to those who are not, he has the power to throw out a 'life-line', that is, a chain (silsilah) that traces a spiritual lineage back to himself. Every Sufi order (tariqah) is descended from the Prophet in this way, and initiation into a tariqah means attachment to its particular chain. This confers a virtual centrality, that is, a virtual reintegration into the Primordial State which has then to be made actual.

From "what is sufism" by Martin Lings, in the chapter "The Messenger"

Ammar's link

As requested by ammar (how sad), here is the link to ammar's photography portfolio.
http://www.ammarasfour.com/