Muraqaba

Murāqabah (Arabic: "to observe") is Sufi meditation. Through murāqbah a person watches over their (spiritual) heart and gains insight into the heart's relation with its creator and its own surroundings. Murqābah is a core concept in commonly found ṭarīqas (Arabic: "Sufi orders").

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Irfan . Muraqaba

Are there any practical step by step resources on Irfan, such as how to start Muraqaba and methods of practicing and progression?

Zoheir Ali Esmail, Shaykh Zoheir Ali Esmail has a Bsc in Accounting and Finance from the LSE in London, and an MA in Islamic Studies from Middlesex University. He studied Arabic at Damascus University and holds a PhD... Answered 3 years ago

Bismillah

Thank you for your question. Practical irfan is a complex area and each person depending on their constitution and the specific path that they are to embark on, have a program that is suitable for them.

As such the closes thing to step by step guides are generally concerned with what a person may experience in terms of states as they progress, rather than guiding people as to how to practice at those stages. Some well known books are Manazil al-Sa'irin of Khwaja Abd Allah Ansari and Risala fi sayr wa suluk of Mehdi Bahrilulum. But like i said generally these books are not written in what would be expected in a step by step guide book.

It is usually recommended that a person begins their journey by performing the obligatory acts and refraining from forbidden ones, improving their akhlaq and following the general practices of spirituality, such as praying salat al-layl, fasting mustahab fasts, practicing a level of mubasiba and muraqaba and paying attention to the important times of year, while supplicating for a spiritual guide to take you on the path of irfan, as a certain level of expertise and experience is needed to safely walk that path.

May you always be successful