Categories of Souls
God created different types of souls in different time frames. Upon creation of each category of souls, there was a specific divine mindset. God must have had some idea of what he wanted.
A Sufi must understand that God does not create anything without a purpose. The purpose is not about a common person’s notion of their purpose of life. This purpose is about the groups of souls God created.
Phase 1 of Creation: the Foremost Ones (Sabiqoon)
God created souls in two phases. In the first phase, he created souls of three types.
He created souls who would stay in his very close proximity and vicinity; they are called Muqaribeen. Their purpose of creation was to stay close to God. This is their nature. Then he created yet another group of souls who would have the ability to forbear his majesty and remain attached to his different manifestations as he manifests one of his attributes. Those souls would flock around his different manifestations. The third group of souls were created for his love.
Souls of the Close Proximity (Muqaribeen)
Souls of the Manifestation
Souls for Love
The souls of these categories are like experts in their field.
Some of the messengers, prophets and saints of God would lay more emphasis on acquiring nearness to God because this is their field. Since they are experts in that field, hence, they invite others also to adopt God’s close proximity.
All these three categories of souls are the elite of the elite. It is said that God is before the before and after the after. Similarly, these souls are 'before the before and after the after'.
Perhaps this is why Jesus said, ‘I am the alpha and omega'. Revelation 22:13
Bulleh Shah, one of the saintly figures in Pakistan, said, ‘When God created souls with the Command Be, to me it looks like it was done yesterday. My relationship with God is based on love. It is way beyond the creation of the souls with the power of the Command Be.’
Bulleh is revealing that he was from among the souls of love.
All the prophets, messengers and elite saints of God are from among the three above-mentioned categories of the Foremost Souls. None of the souls created with the Command Be became great saints of God (however, some were granted minor sainthood where they did not witness the divine splendour).
We tend to think that ‘Sabiqa’ means ‘former’ but this is wrong. This word comes from Arabic and it means ‘the foremost’. So Sabiqoon means ‘the Foremost Ones’. The ones who were created first. There are three categories of the Foremost Ones: Qurb (proximity), Mohabbat (love) and Jalwa (manifestation). 124,000 prophets came from among these souls. Many saints from among the Foremost Souls are given the title of Muraqibeen or Sauliheen.
People like Sultan Haq Bahu, Bulleh Shah, Sayin Saheli Sarkar, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jillani (ra) and his Spiritual Mediator, Usman Harwani (ra); Ghareeb Nawaz, Baba Farid, Nizamuddin Auliya, Chiraghuddin Dehlwi, Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki (ra) and Sabir Piya Kalyari are examples of souls from the Foremost Ones.
Phase 2 of Creation: Souls Created with Command Be
The ordinary souls have divided into three categories automatically when God showed them the scenes in the Primordial Times. First, God showed the modelled luxuries of the world.
For example, if there is a car auction, the clever bidders would go around the back to check out the car before they bid. However, even then they are only able to see the body of the car, not what the engine looks or sounds like. That can only be determined once the car is brought out onto the podium. If there are 10 cars in the compound and they are all brought out at the same time, it is easy to compare and choose.
Apple give their consumer an option on their website to compare the phones and decide what is best for them. No such option was available in the Primordial Times; God didn’t show all the luxuries at the same time.
