Ibn Ajiba's The Book of Ascension to the Essential Truths of Sufism
When the Sufis speak of “effacement” or “extinction” (fana’) they are reffering to effacement in the divine essence, meaning the effacement of traces and forms in the concsciousnesness of God, or the dissolution of the physical before the manifestation of the intelligible.
To quote Abul l-Mawahib: “Fana’ is effacement, disappearance, leaving yourself behind, ceasing to exist as an individual entity.” And Abu Sa’id b. al-A’rabi said, “It is when the immensity and greatness [of God] appear to the servant causing him to forget this world and the next, states, degrees, stations, and invocations, effacing him from everything, from his own mind and individual self, and effacing him from this effacement, and effacing him from his effacement from effacement, as he is immersed in the divine immensity.” This is to say that the majesty of the essence is revealed and effaces him from seeing created things, including his own self. Thus does he become essence itself, drowned in the ocean of unity.
The also speak of fana’ in respect to effacement in God’s acts—that there is no Doer except God—and God’s attributes—that there is no other One who is Able, no Hearer, and no Seer except God. [Whoever is granted this effacement] sees creatures themselves as being lifeless, powerless, unable to hear or see except by God. Then comes effacement in the essence, or as a poet has said:
He is effaced, then effaced, then effaced And his effacement becomes his very subsistence
As for subsistence (baqa’), this is a return to consciousness of existent things after having passed away from it, to consciousness of the sensory (al-hiss) after having passed away from it in consciousness of the intelligible, except that the servant then sees it as subsisting through God and as one of the lights of His epiphanies: were it not for the sensory, the intelligible could not be manifested, or [to paraphrase Ibn Mashish], ‘were it not for the mediator (al-waasitatu), the One for whom he mediates could not be known.’
God most high thus reveals Himself between two opposites: between the sensory and the intelligible, between power and wisdom (qudra wa hikma), separation and union (farq wa jam’). To be absented from one of these is effacement, while to see them both is subsistence. to be absent from the sensory, from divine wisdom, and from separation is effacement, while to perceive them both is subsistence.
Subsistence, therefore, encompasses effacement. [For the one who is granted this station], union does not veil separation, effacement does not veil subsistence, and the consciousness of divine power does not veil the consciousness of divine wisdom. Rather, “he gives to each that has a right its right,” gives to each what is merited. (Sahih Bukhari.)
The terms effacement and subsistence are also used to mean the process of “emptying and beautifying” (takhliyya wa tahliyya) and so they may say, “He was effaced of his reprehensible traits and sustained in his praiseworthy traits.” And God most high knows better.
Fana’ is derived from the root f-n-y, “to pass away, die, vanish, become extinct,” and it occurs once in the Quran in the verse quoted below. Baqa’ is from the root b-q-y, “to remain or to last,” forms of which appear 21 times throughout the Quran, including the oft-quoted verse which combines them both: All that is upon [the earth] is passing away (faan) and the face of your Lord remains (yabqa) full of majesty and geneosity (55:26).
Ibn Ajiba quotes from Ibn al-Farid a few pages later regarding the subtle reality of ma’rifa that is something to chew on in relation to the realities above.
Ibn al-Farid, The Poem of the Way
Beyond quotations from books and talks;
Dwells a knowledge so subtle it eludes the soundest minds.
Source @ahmadibnajibaBookAscensionEssential2011
Ahmad ibn Ajiba. The Book of Ascension to the Essential Truths of Sufism: (Mi’raj al-Tashawwuf Ila Haqa’iq al-Tasawwuf) A Lexicon of Sufic Terminology. Translated by Mohamed Fouad Aresmouk and Michael Abdurrahman Fitzgerald. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011.