Among the stations of “You we worship and You we supplicate for help” is the station of fear.
Fear is one of the most distinguished stations on the path, most beneficial for the heart, and an obligation upon all. Allah the Exalted has said: “So fear them not and fear Me (khawf ) if you are believers” [3:175]; and said, “And Me [alone] you must fear (rahba)” [2:40]; and said, “So do not fear people, but fear Me (khashya)” [5:44]. He has praised and applauded its people and said, “Indeed, they who live in awe for fear of their Lord, and they who believe in the signs of their Lord, and they who do not associate anything with their Lord, and they who give what they give while their hearts are fearful because they will be returning to their Lord—it is these who hasten in every good work, and these who are foremost in them” [23:57–61].
In a tradition narrated in al-Musnad [of Aḥmad] and al-Tirmidhī, on the authority of ʿĀʾisha, Allah be pleased with her, said: “I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, does the verse “And they who give what they give while their hearts are fearful” refer to he who commits fornication, drinks alcohol, and steals?’ He said, ‘No, O daughter of the Truth-lover [Abū Bakr] but to a man who fasts, prays, and gives charity, and fears that it may not be accepted from him.’ ” (Aḥmad 6:205)
Al-Ḥasan, Allah be pleased with him, [commenting on this verse] said, “By Allah, they obeyed Him and strove hard in it, yet they feared it might be rejected. A believer combines righteousness with fear, while a hypocrite combines evil with impunity.”
The terms wajal, khawf, khashya, and rahba [are all used to indicate kinds of fear in Arabic, and] have similar meanings without being synonyms. Abū al- Qāsim al-Junayd said, “Khawf is the anticipation of punishment with every passing breath.” It has been said, “Khawf is the disruption and movement of the heart upon the cognizance of that which is feared.” It has also been said, “Khawf is the strength of the knowledge of the path of destiny;” this, however, is the cause of fear, not its definition. It has also been said,“Khawf is the fleeing of the heart from the occurrence of what is disliked upon its cognizance.”
Khashya (reverential fear) is more specific than khawf, for it is specific to the true knowers of Allah—as Allah the Exalted has said, “Truly, the ones who fear Allah from among His servants are only the knowers” [35:28]. Hence, khashya is fear associated with the intimate knowledge of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ, said, “I am most mindful of Allah among you, and most fearful of Him.” (Bukhārī #5063)
Khawf is movement, while khashya is withdrawal, stillness, and rest. For the one who sees a fierce enemy or a flood or something like that has two states. First, movement in order to flee from it—and this is the state of khawf. Second, his stillness and settling in a place safe from the danger— and this is khashya. From this it is said, inkhashā al-shayʾ: he entered and hid into something; [the meaning of this root kh-sh-y is same as inkhashsha from the root kh-sh-sh because] the repeated [ faʿʿala] and omitted [ fʿa, fʿw, or fʿy] forms are [grammatically] kin, such as taqaḍḍā and taqaḍḍaḍa al-bāzī, [both of which mean: he released the falcon.]
As for rahba, it means the urge to flee from what is disliked—which is the opposite of raghba, which means the journey of the heart toward that which it likes. Thus, between al-rahb and al-harab [fleeing] there is a connection both in expression and meaning, united as they are by the “intermediate derivation,” where the ordering of two letters between two roots is reversed but the meaning remains the same.
As for wajal, it is the trembling and splitting of the heart upon remembrance or vision of someone whose power or punishment one fears.
As for hayba (awe), it is fear associated with awe and glorification, and it mostly occurs with inner knowledge, love, and recognition of glory, that is, a sense of greatness along with love.
Thus, khawf, then, is for the common believers; khashya is for those endowed with [scriptural] knowledge and inner awareness; hayba is for the lovers; and ijlāl (i.e., wajal) is for those near to Allah.
The extent of one’s khawf and khashya is proportional to one’s [scriptural] knowledge and inner awareness. As the Prophet ﷺ, said, “I am the most knowledgeable of Allah among you, and most fearful of Him.” (This tradition appears with khashya instead of khawf in Bukhārī #6101 and Muslim #2356)
He also said, “If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much; you would not enjoy intimacy with women; and would go out wandering in the wildernesses, beseeching Allah.” (Aḥmad 5:173)
When faced with his object of fear, a man who possesses khawf may find refuge in fleeing or he may be petrified, whereas a man with khashya seeks the support of knowledge. Their likeness is of one who has no knowledge of medicine and a skilled physician; the former seeks refuge in prevention and fleeing, whereas the physician turns to his knowledge of medicine and diseases.
Abū Ḥafṣ [Abū Ḥafṣ ʿAmr b. Salam or Salama (d. 264/878) was titled the shaykh of Khurasān and was said to have been the first to introduce taṣawwuf to Nisābūr. See Siyar 12:510.] said, “Khawf is Allah’s lash with which He sets right those fleeing from His door.” He also said, “Khawf is a lamp in the heart by which the good and the evil inside the heart can be seen; you flee from everyone you fear except Allah: when you fear Him, you run to Him.”
Hence, the one who fears flees from his Lord to his Lord. Abū Sulaymān [al-Dārānī] said, “When fear abandons it, a heart is ruined.” Ibrāhīm b. Sufyān said, “When fear resides in the hearts, it burns away the sources of lust and eradicates worldly attachments.”
Dhū al-Nūn, Allah have mercy on him, said, “People will stay on the [right] path so long as they have fear; when this fear abandons them, they go astray.” Ḥātim al-Aṣamm [Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḥātim b. ʿUnwān (d. 237/852) was dubbed the Luqmān of his time for his wisdom, and was known for his exhortations and words on asceticism. See Siyar 11:484.] said, “Do not be deceived by a good status: there is no status better than the Garden, but Adam there encountered what he encountered; nor by the abundance of worship, for Iblīs after his long worship did what he did; nor by the abundance of knowledge, for Balʿām b. Bāʿūr faced what he faced while knowing the Greatest [Divine] Name; nor by the meeting and seeing of the righteous, for no man is more righteous than the Prophet ﷺ, but meeting him did not help his enemies or the hypocrites.”
Fear, however, is not the end in itself, but a means towards an end. When that which is feared goes, so does the fear, for the people of the Garden experience neither fear nor grief.
Fear is associated with actions, and love with being and attributes. When the believers enter the abode of bliss, their love for their Lord will multiply but fear will not touch them. This is why love is higher and nobler than fear.
The true and praiseworthy fear is that which comes between a person and the prohibitions of Allah. When it exceeds that, hopelessness and despair may result.
Abū ʿUthmān [al-Ḥīrī], Allah be pleased with him, said, “True fear is vigilance against sins, open and secret.”
I also heard Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya, may Allah honor his soul, say, “The praiseworthy fear is that which prevents you from the prohibitions of Allah.”
The author of al-Manāzil, Allah have mercy on him, said, “Fear is to do away with the tranquility of security by contemplating the great news.”
He means parting from the complacency of one’s sense of being safe by recalling what Allah has declaimed of the promise and the warning.
He [further] said, “It has three levels. The first level is the fear of punishment, and this kind of fear establishes the soundness of faith, and it is the fear of the commoners. It is born out of the affirmation of the warning, and remembrance of the crime, and the consideration of the punishment.”
This fear is preceded by cognition and knowledge—for a man cannot fear what he has no cognition of. It has two attachments. The first is that which is disliked and whose occurrence is feared. The second is the cause and the way that leads to it. One’s fear depends on his awareness of the connection between the cause and that which is feared as well as the magnitude of what is feared.
The lack of knowledge of either of these leads to a concomitant lack of fear. If one does not know that a certain act leads to a feared outcome or he knows so but does not know the magnitude of that which he fears, he does not have true fear. When he is aware of the magnitude of what he fears and is certain about the connection between the cause and its feared outcome, he acquires fear.
This is the meaning of its being “born out of the affirmation of the warning, and remembrance of the crime, and the consideration of the punishment.”
The “consideration of the punishment” involves that [the seeker] recalls what is feared, making it the center of one’s focus that is never forgotten; for even if one knows it, its forgetting and failure to keep an eye on it comes between the heart and the fear. This is why fear is the index of the soundness of faith, and its parting from the heart is tantamount to the departing of faith.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Madarij al-Salikin Ranks of the Divine Seekers Vol 2 p159-166
honey for the heart 