al-Qabd — Spiritual Contraction: The Inward Pull and the Heart's Night

Al-Qabd (القَبض — contraction, compression, grasping; from *q-b-d* meaning to grasp/contract; the Sufi technical term for the state of spiritual contraction — when the heart feels closed, compressed, unable to experience divine sweetness, seemingly far from Allah — as opposed to *bast* (spiritual expansion), when the heart feels open, expansive, and close to divine presence) is one of the paired states that the Sufi tradition recognized as the natural rhythm of the interior life. The Quranic ground: *'And Allah contracts and expands (yaqbidu wa yabsutu), and to Him you will be returned.'* (2:245) — divine qabd and bast as attributes of divine action, applied in Sufi psychology to the states of the believer's heart. Al-Junayd's analysis: the great Sufi master identified qabd and bast as a fundamental spiritual rhythm — the heart oscillates between them, and both are divinely given; the spiritually immature person mistakes qabd for divine abandonment (and becomes despairing) and mistakes bast for spiritual advancement (and becomes arrogant). The mature mystic recognizes both as divinely ordered states: qabd purifies from the subtle ego-gratifications that creep into bast; bast provides the energy and sweetness that sustains through qabd. Classical symptoms of qabd: inability to concentrate in prayer; lack of spiritual sweetness in dhikr; sense of divine distance; flatness in devotional practice. Classical symptoms of bast: spontaneous sweetness in worship; sense of divine nearness; ease in dhikr; spiritual energy. The night of qabd: the classical comparison to the 'dark night of the soul' in Christian mysticism — the period of seeming divine withdrawal that typically precedes a new depth of spiritual vision.