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The Hidden-Treasure hadith (kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan)

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كنت كنزا مخفيا

The Hidden-Treasure hadith (kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan)

Kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan

Arabic · first attested in 12th-13th c. Akbarian transmission · canonical

Attributed hadith qudsi (12th-13th c. Sufi transmission); authenticity contested

كُنْتُ كَنْزًا مَخْفِيًّا فَأَحْبَبْتُ أَنْ أُعْرَفَ
I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be known,
فَخَلَقْتُ الْخَلْقَ لِكَيْ أُعْرَفَ.
so I created creation that I might be known.

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About The Hidden-Treasure hadith (kuntu kanzan makhfiyyan)

"I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the creation in order to be known." This sentence, the Hidden Treasure tradition, is among the most cited in all of Sufism, and the metaphysical cornerstone of the Akbarian school.

As a formal hadith its chain is contested; traditional critics judged it without sound isnad. Ibn al-Arabi and his successors cite it anyway, for what it states rather than its provenance: that creation is the self-disclosure (tajalli) by which the hidden God comes to be known, and that human knowing (marifa) is the very purpose for which the world exists.

Hekhal's apparatus is candid about both facets at once -- the weakness of the chain and the weight of the doctrine. The phrase "hidden treasure" (kanz makhfi) is read as the pre-manifest, batin ground from which all manifestation flows.

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