🕋 تفسير سورة النحل
(An-Nahl) • المصدر: EN-KASHANI-TAFSIR
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ أَتَىٰ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ فَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلُوهُ ۚ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَىٰ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
📘 The command of God is coming, so do not seek to hurry it. God's command is many-colored, and obeying Him is many-hued. The servant's outwardness was commanded one thing, his inwardness something else. The outwardness was commanded to stay with tightened belt on the threshold of worship in the way station of service. The inwardness was commanded to stay quiet on the carpet of recognition with the quality of veneration. The heart was commanded to be constant in watchfulness. The secret core was commanded to seek limpidness in the station of recognition. And the spirit was commanded to cling to the Presence in contempla- tion itself. So do not seek to hurry it. Do not hurry to find what is desired and do not go beyond the measure of the command, for everyone truthful will one day reach what he desires, and everyone obedient to the Real has the promise of vision.
هُوَ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً ۖ لَكُمْ مِنْهُ شَرَابٌ وَمِنْهُ شَجَرٌ فِيهِ تُسِيمُونَ
📘 He it is who sends down water from heaven.... Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect... signs for a people who use intellect... a sign for a people who remember. He is an allusion to the Essence, who is an intimation of the attributes, and sends down reports about the acts. Thus you will know that God has Essence, attributes, and acts. He is eternal in Essence, noble in attributes, wise in acts; without associate in Essence, without ambiguity in attri- butes, and without cause in acts. The servants gazes upon His artisanry, then flee from the artisanry to gaze upon the attributes, then flee from the attributes to gaze upon the Essence. These are the stations of the wayfarers' traveling and the degrees of the recognizers' recognition. One must have reflection in gazing upon the artisanry, knowledge in gazing on the attributes, and remembrance in gazing on the Essence. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect.” Then, after that, He says, “signs for a people who use intel- lect.” Then, after that, He says “a sign for a people who remember.” In other words, recognition will be gained in this order: first reflection, then knowledge, then, at that point, he will remember through the continuity of knowledge. First he reflects, putting his gaze in its place. If no defect falls into his gaze, then inevitably he gains knowledge; and in reality there is no difference between intellect and knowledge. Then, after that, the gaze becomes continuous, and the continuity of the gaze is the remembering of which He speaks. It has been said that He says “signs for a people who use intellect” in the plural only because someone gains many knowledges in order to become a recognizer, and every part of knowledge is gained through a different sign and indicator. The knower has signs and indicators before he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, because the indicator for one question is different from the in- dicator for another question. With one indicator he knows the necessity of gazing on Him, with many indicators he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, and with one indicator he knows that it is necessary to remember the various sorts of his knowledge.
إِنَّمَا سُلْطَانُهُ عَلَى الَّذِينَ يَتَوَلَّوْنَهُ وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ بِهِ مُشْرِكُونَ
📘 His [Satan's] power is only over those who choose him as [their] ally, at the station of the soul by virtue of the correspondence that is between them in terms of darkness and impurity, since the adoption of an ally is dictated by the genus-correspondence [between a person and his ally], and those who associate him [with God], by attributing power and effect to him, nay by obeying him and complying with his commands by virtue of the alliance mentioned [above].
مَنْ كَفَرَ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ بَعْدِ إِيمَانِهِ إِلَّا مَنْ أُكْرِهَ وَقَلْبُهُ مُطْمَئِنٌّ بِالْإِيمَانِ وَلَٰكِنْ مَنْ شَرَحَ بِالْكُفْرِ صَدْرًا فَعَلَيْهِمْ غَضَبٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
📘 Whoever disbelieves in God after [having affirmed] his faith, by virtue of the fact that darkness in his case is essential as per his first preparedness and the light accidental, and so he is in a creational veil from the light of faith. If he is touched by a holy ray [of light] from the prophet's soul or from the holy effusion, or if he is affected by the promise [of reward] or the threat [of punishment], or [if he is affected] by a word of truth while being summoned to the truth, in a state in which his heart is open [to it], and an ego-centric motivation urges him because there is some benefit to be actualised or some harm to be warded off relating to his property or reputation or [the actualisation of] some glory [for him] by means of submitting [to Islam], he manifests faith outwardly but his station and abode is [still] that of unbelief, then he has merited God's wrath since he is veiled, as per his preparedness, from the first of the levels of faith which is the presential vision of the acts by deducing the Creator from [His] handiwork; thus his punishment will issue from the acts and the attributes; but not him, who is compelled, to disbelief as a result of being warned and being made fearful, while his heart is at rest, firm, fixed and filled, with faith, by the luminosity of his primordial nature from origins and the fact that in his case light is something essential, as per his primordial nature, while disbelief and veiledness are accidental [in his case] precipitated by the exigencies of createdness, and the accidental veil has been removed - but he who opens up his breast to unbelief, that is, the one whose soul delights in it, is satisfied and reassured [by it] due to the fact that it constitutes that person's residence and original refuge, upon such shall be, terrible, wrath from God, and there is a great chastisement for them, for being veiled from all of the levels of light, such as the acts, the attributes and the essence: how thick is their veil and how awful is their chastisement!
ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمُ اسْتَحَبُّوا الْحَيَاةَ الدُّنْيَا عَلَى الْآخِرَةِ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الْكَافِرِينَ
📘 That, opening up of the breast to unbelief and contentment with it, is because they have preferred the life of this world to the Hereafter, since it constitutes the limit and ultimate extent of their knowledge and their knowledge does not extend to the Hereafter because the insights of their hearts are blocked and their preparedness corresponds to the dark lower matters such as corporeal substrata and so they have come to love what they can sense and this suits their state, even though the love of this world is the source of every sin as that [love] necessitates the thick veil behind which and in the folds of which lies all sin, and because God does not guide the disbelieving folk, that is, those who are veiled by the thickest veils since it is impossible for them to receive guidance.
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ طَبَعَ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ وَسَمْعِهِمْ وَأَبْصَارِهِمْ ۖ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْغَافِلُونَ
📘 They are the ones on whose hearts God has set a seal, by virtue of the hardness and impurity of these [hearts] from the outset such that the paths of inspiration, understanding and unveiling are not open to them, and on their hearing and their sight, by the blocking the path of the desired meaning from their ears and the path of conceptual consideration from their eyes to their hearts such that none of the means to guidance have any effect on them, neither inwardly through the effusion of the spirit and the angelic casting and the rising of the light, nor outwardly through instruction and learning or conceptual consideration from the vestiges of the [divine] handiwork, and it is they who are heedless, in reality since they are completely inattentive and are utterly incapable of waking from the sleep of ignorance.
لَا جَرَمَ أَنَّهُمْ فِي الْآخِرَةِ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ
📘 Without a doubt in the Hereafter they are the ones who will be the losers, those who have forsaken their life of this world by exhausting all their capacities in actualising it and destroying their lives in pursuit of it. There is nothing for them in the Hereafter except the chastisement of the configurations of attachment and the evil consequence of anguish.
يُنْبِتُ لَكُمْ بِهِ الزَّرْعَ وَالزَّيْتُونَ وَالنَّخِيلَ وَالْأَعْنَابَ وَمِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ ۗ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَةً لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
📘 He it is who sends down water from heaven.... Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect... signs for a people who use intellect... a sign for a people who remember. He is an allusion to the Essence, who is an intimation of the attributes, and sends down reports about the acts. Thus you will know that God has Essence, attributes, and acts. He is eternal in Essence, noble in attributes, wise in acts; without associate in Essence, without ambiguity in attri- butes, and without cause in acts. The servants gazes upon His artisanry, then flee from the artisanry to gaze upon the attributes, then flee from the attributes to gaze upon the Essence. These are the stations of the wayfarers' traveling and the degrees of the recognizers' recognition. One must have reflection in gazing upon the artisanry, knowledge in gazing on the attributes, and remembrance in gazing on the Essence. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect.” Then, after that, He says, “signs for a people who use intel- lect.” Then, after that, He says “a sign for a people who remember.” In other words, recognition will be gained in this order: first reflection, then knowledge, then, at that point, he will remember through the continuity of knowledge. First he reflects, putting his gaze in its place. If no defect falls into his gaze, then inevitably he gains knowledge; and in reality there is no difference between intellect and knowledge. Then, after that, the gaze becomes continuous, and the continuity of the gaze is the remembering of which He speaks. It has been said that He says “signs for a people who use intellect” in the plural only because someone gains many knowledges in order to become a recognizer, and every part of knowledge is gained through a different sign and indicator. The knower has signs and indicators before he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, because the indicator for one question is different from the in- dicator for another question. With one indicator he knows the necessity of gazing on Him, with many indicators he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, and with one indicator he knows that it is necessary to remember the various sorts of his knowledge.
ثُمَّ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لِلَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا فُتِنُوا ثُمَّ جَاهَدُوا وَصَبَرُوا إِنَّ رَبَّكَ مِنْ بَعْدِهَا لَغَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ
📘 Then surely thy Lord-toward those who emigrated after they were tormented, then struggled and were patient-surely thy Lord after that is forgiving, ever-merciful. The reality of emigration is that you emigrate from your own makeup, you abandon yourself and your desires, and you place the foot of nonbeing on top of your own attributes. Beginningless love may then lift the curtain and endless passion may show its beauty. How beautifully that chevalier spoke! Endless passion has nothing to do with a heart that stays firm in its own attributes. [DS 209] The paragon of the world and master of Adam's children, who was the goal of existent things and the center point in the circle of newly arrived things, always used to recite this supplication: “'O God, do not entrust us to our own souls for the blink of an eye, or less than that!' Lord God! Re- move from before us this makeup stamped by createdness and the relationships of opposition! Lift the burden of our souls away from us so that we may travel in the world of tawḤīd!” The command came, “O master, before you wanted, My want took care of your work and put aside the burden of you-ness from you. [Did We not] lift from thee thy burden? [94:2]. O MuḤammad! If anyone came by his own selfhood, you did not come by yourself, because I brought you: Who took His servant by night [17:1]. Nor did you come for yourself, because you came as a mercy for the world's folk: We sent thee only as a mercy to the worlds [21:107]. The state of Abraham was the same. Adam was still in the concealment of nonexistence when the Exalted Lord inscribed the stamp of bosom friendship on that paragon. He placed the fire of yearning for Him in his inwardness, and the beauty of beginningless passion toward him. He al- ludes to this with His words, “We gave Abraham his rectitude from before” [21:51]. Then, when he came into existence, on the day when he stood in the desert of bewilderment, his heart was lit up with love for the Eternal and his spirit was drunk with the wine of nonbeing. At the moment of the morning draft of the passionate, the shouting of the drunkards, and the uproar of the heart-lost, he was driven by craving the wine of nonbeing to say with the tongue of helplessness concerning whatever he looked upon, “This is my Lord” [6:76]. He saw himself consumed in witnessing the Real's majesty and beauty and was unaware of creation's being and his own being. Hence the Exalted Lord increased His caressing of him and counted him as one community:
وَضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا قَرْيَةً كَانَتْ آمِنَةً مُطْمَئِنَّةً يَأْتِيهَا رِزْقُهَا رَغَدًا مِنْ كُلِّ مَكَانٍ فَكَفَرَتْ بِأَنْعُمِ اللَّهِ فَأَذَاقَهَا اللَّهُ لِبَاسَ الْجُوعِ وَالْخَوْفِ بِمَا كَانُوا يَصْنَعُونَ
📘 And God strikes a similitude, of the prepared soul that is receptive and clear of impurities, draws on the effusion of the heart, remains firm along the path of earning virtues, is secure against the loss of these and their passing away and is reassured in its convictions: its provision, in the way of profitable forms of knowledge and praiseworthy virtues and noble lights, coming to it plenteously from every place, that is, from every aspect, [from] the coporeal paths, such as the senses which provide it with the nourishment of forms of particular knowledge, the limbs and the instruments which obey it in [the performance of] virtuous deeds and train it in qualities of excellence, if it is compliant with the heart and obedient to it, receptive of its effusion and subsisting in its conviction with regard to the truth by way of imitation, and from the aspect of the heart, such as the reinforcement of lights and configurations of excellence; but then it manifests itself in its attributes with arrogance and with vain pride in its ornament and perfection, inspecting its essence in its bliss and splendour so that it ends up becoming veiled by its evil attributes from those lights and inclines to base matters that pertain to the adornment of this world and sensory pleasures. The reinforcement of the heart is then cut off from it and the meanings that come to it by means of the senses are transformed into the dark configurations that are the forms of sensory objects to which it has become attracted; so God made it taste the garb of hunger and fear, by the cutting off of reinforcement in the way of meanings, qualities of excellence and lights from the heart and by making it fear the loss of its acquisitions in the way of [its] sensory lusts and familiars as well as the objects of its passionate desires, [all] because of what they used to do, in the way of ingratitude towards God's graces by using these to pursue sensory pleasures and worldly ornaments and because of its manifesting itself in its attributes and admiring its perfections and resting in peace with this world and its pleasures, and because of its mastery over the heart with its configurations and acts, veiling that person from its [the heart's] light and reinforcement by seeking its passionate desires - as the Commander of the Believers [ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib], peace be upon him, said: 'We seek refuge in God from going astray after having been guided' - in a town the attribute of which is that which has been mentioned.
وَلَقَدْ جَاءَهُمْ رَسُولٌ مِنْهُمْ فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَخَذَهُمُ الْعَذَابُ وَهُمْ ظَالِمُونَ
📘 And verily there came to them a messenger from among them, that is, of their own genus, being the faculty of reflection which belongs with the totality of the soul's faculties, with rational concepts and truthful opinions, but they denied him, by failing to be affected thereby and to obey its commands and prohibitions, both the rational ones and those of the Law, and by refraining from conducting themselves according to its requirements and by being little concerned therewith and not caring in the slightest to turn their attention away from that in which they were engrossed, and so, the chastisement of being veiled and deprived from the pleasure of perfection, seized them, while they were unjust and deviating from the path of virtue and failing to fulfill the dues of their companion [the messenger].
وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ ۖ وَالنُّجُومُ مُسَخَّرَاتٌ بِأَمْرِهِ ۗ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُونَ
📘 He it is who sends down water from heaven.... Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect... signs for a people who use intellect... a sign for a people who remember. He is an allusion to the Essence, who is an intimation of the attributes, and sends down reports about the acts. Thus you will know that God has Essence, attributes, and acts. He is eternal in Essence, noble in attributes, wise in acts; without associate in Essence, without ambiguity in attri- butes, and without cause in acts. The servants gazes upon His artisanry, then flee from the artisanry to gaze upon the attributes, then flee from the attributes to gaze upon the Essence. These are the stations of the wayfarers' traveling and the degrees of the recognizers' recognition. One must have reflection in gazing upon the artisanry, knowledge in gazing on the attributes, and remembrance in gazing on the Essence. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect.” Then, after that, He says, “signs for a people who use intel- lect.” Then, after that, He says “a sign for a people who remember.” In other words, recognition will be gained in this order: first reflection, then knowledge, then, at that point, he will remember through the continuity of knowledge. First he reflects, putting his gaze in its place. If no defect falls into his gaze, then inevitably he gains knowledge; and in reality there is no difference between intellect and knowledge. Then, after that, the gaze becomes continuous, and the continuity of the gaze is the remembering of which He speaks. It has been said that He says “signs for a people who use intellect” in the plural only because someone gains many knowledges in order to become a recognizer, and every part of knowledge is gained through a different sign and indicator. The knower has signs and indicators before he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, because the indicator for one question is different from the in- dicator for another question. With one indicator he knows the necessity of gazing on Him, with many indicators he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, and with one indicator he knows that it is necessary to remember the various sorts of his knowledge.
إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ أُمَّةً قَانِتًا لِلَّهِ حَنِيفًا وَلَمْ يَكُ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
📘 Surely Abraham was a community, devoted to God and unswerving, not among the associaters, grateful for His blessings. He chose him and guided him to a straight path. Abraham said, “O Lord, You were all [that I saw], and You are all.” So God said, “The community is you yourself. You are the togetherness of all, and that's it.” Indeed, “When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.” Then He says, “grateful for His blessings.” Abraham discharged gratitude for blessings, for he recognized the Patron of Blessings. He accepted the decree without protest and he approved of whatever came forth without unwillingness. He chose him and guided him to a straight path. He saw the road of servanthood and he went straight in servanthood. He knew that he did not see that road by himself, for it was shown to him, nor did he reach it by the effort of servanthood, for he was made to reach it. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, do You know what has made me happy? I did not fall to You by myself. O God, You wanted-it was not I who wanted. I saw the Friend at my pillow when I woke up from sleep.” Her love came to me before I knew love- it came across a carefree heart and took possession.
شَاكِرًا لِأَنْعُمِهِ ۚ اجْتَبَاهُ وَهَدَاهُ إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ
📘 Surely Abraham was a community, devoted to God and unswerving, not among the associaters, grateful for His blessings. He chose him and guided him to a straight path. Abraham said, “O Lord, You were all [that I saw], and You are all.” So God said, “The community is you yourself. You are the togetherness of all, and that's it.” Indeed, “When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.” Then He says, “grateful for His blessings.” Abraham discharged gratitude for blessings, for he recognized the Patron of Blessings. He accepted the decree without protest and he approved of whatever came forth without unwillingness. He chose him and guided him to a straight path. He saw the road of servanthood and he went straight in servanthood. He knew that he did not see that road by himself, for it was shown to him, nor did he reach it by the effort of servanthood, for he was made to reach it. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, do You know what has made me happy? I did not fall to You by myself. O God, You wanted-it was not I who wanted. I saw the Friend at my pillow when I woke up from sleep.” Her love came to me before I knew love- it came across a carefree heart and took possession.
وَآتَيْنَاهُ فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً ۖ وَإِنَّهُ فِي الْآخِرَةِ لَمِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ
📘 And We gave him in this world good, by allowing him to enjoy shares so that his soul might be strengthened for the establishing of the divine canons and the fulfilment of the dues of servanthood at the station of uprightness and to make it able to bear the burdens of the Message, and We gave him a mighty kingdom alongside prophethood, as He has said [elsewhere]: and We gave them [the house of Abraham] a mighty kingdom [Q. 4:54], so that he might be able to affirm the Law and apprise himself of the rules of the mission and fair remembrance, as He has said: and We assigned for them a worthy repute [one] that is lofty [Q. 19:50], and may blessings and peace be upon him, as He has said: And We left for him among posterity: Peace be upon Abraham [Q. 37:108-109]; and in the Hereafter, that is, in the world of spirits, he will indeed be among the righteous, those enjoying fixity at the station of uprightness by fulfilling the dues of every deserving one and making him attain his perfection and preserving him thereupon as long as possible.
ثُمَّ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ أَنِ اتَّبِعْ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۖ وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
📘 Then We revealed to thee, “Follow the creed of Abraham, an unswerving man.” “O MuḤammad, go in the tracks of Abraham's creed.” Abraham's creed was upright character, generosity, largesse, and loyalty. So the Prophet followed him and surpassed him to the point that he gave away the two worlds in exchange for the Real. God says, “Surely thou hast a tremen- dous character” [68:4].
إِنَّمَا جُعِلَ السَّبْتُ عَلَى الَّذِينَ اخْتَلَفُوا فِيهِ ۚ وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَيَحْكُمُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فِيمَا كَانُوا فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ
📘 The Sabbath was only prescribed for those who differed concerning it, in other words, what was prescribed for you was prescribed for them and so you are not obliged to follow Moses in that respect, but to follow Abraham.
ادْعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ ۖ وَجَادِلْهُمْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِمَنْ ضَلَّ عَنْ سَبِيلِهِ ۖ وَهُوَ أَعْلَمُ بِالْمُهْتَدِينَ
📘 Invite to the path of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful admonition. In another place He says, “Say: 'This is my path. I invite to God upon insight, I and whosoever follows me'” [12:108]. Inviting to God's road is one thing, and inviting to God is something else. The former has an intermediary in the midst, and the latter has the Real as spokesman. The result of what He said with intermediary is obedience and abandoning opposition. The fruit of what He said without intermediary is solitariness and abandoning self-governance. Solitariness is to make the aspiration one-pointed in both remembrance and gazing. In remembrance it is that you want only Him in remembering Him and you fear none but Him in remembering Him. In gazing it is that at whatever you gaze you see Him and you put down your head before no one but Him. The secret of these words is that whenever He brings an intermediary on the path into the midst, of all His names He mentions Lord, for it is the portion of the common people, and its mean- ing is nurturing. Whenever the path has no intermediary, He says God-of Him the creatures have no portion, and in His beginningless majesty He is without need. O chevalier! Were it not for His intimacy with the spirits of the passionate, why did He dis- close the beauty of the name God in the unneediness of His majesty and exaltation to the spirits and hearts of the passionate? If not that it would be a salve for the pain of the burnt and a mercy on the weakness of the helpless, why did He say, “Invite to the path of thy Lord”? Yes, He calls and invites to see who is worthy to accept and answer the Real's call with heart and spirit. The world's folk are two groups: One group came forth and placed their own spirits and hearts like incense on the fire of love in the censer of recognition, and they burned. They are the ones who heard the Real's call, accepted and responded to the Messenger's invitation with spirit and heart, and came back to the loyalty of the day of Yes indeed [7:172]: They are loyal to God's covenant and do not break the compact [13:20].
وَإِنْ عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ ۖ وَلَئِنْ صَبَرْتُمْ لَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لِلصَّابِرِينَ
📘 And if you retaliate, to the end [of the verse]: in other words, adhere to the path of justice and virtuousness and do not overstep its bounds, for it constitutes the least of the degrees of your perfection. Thus if you have a precedence in chivalry and a vein deeply rooted in virtue, generosity and manliness, then shun [the desire for] victory and retaliation against one who has committed an act [of wrong] against you. Stand up to him instead with forgiveness, even as you are able [to retaliate], and endure patiently wrong [committed against you], for: verily that is better for the patient. Do you not see how He has emphasised this [fact] by [the use of] the oath and the lām in the response [to the oath] and moved from the covert [noun] to the overt such that He does not say, 'verily that is better for you', but rather, 'verily that is better for the patient', in order to put on record that they are being praised and extolled for the attribute of patienceḍ For the patient one has risen above the station of the soul and has responded to the act of the soul of his counterpart with the attribute of the heart and is not tarnished by the manifestation of the attribute of [his] soul and he has countered the darkness of the soul of his counterpart with the light of his heart. It often happens that the person is remorseful and bypasses the station of the soul and the vehemence of his wrath is broken so that he becomes righteous. If you are not at this noble station, then [at least] do not retaliate against the evildoer by the vehemence of [your] wrath with more than what was committed against you so that you end up being unjust or fall into the vilest and most indecent of vices and your state is corrupted and the evil consequences for you become the greater than those of the one who [initially] wronged [you].
وَاصْبِرْ وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ ۚ وَلَا تَحْزَنْ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا تَكُ فِي ضَيْقٍ مِمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ
📘 So be patient, and your patience is only by [the help of] God: know that patience is of several types: patience for God, patience in God, patience with God, patience away from God and patience by God. Patience for God is one of the concomitants of faith and the first degree for the people of Islam. The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him: 'Faith consists of two halves: half is patience and half is gratitude'. This [kind of patience] is to restrain the soul from anxiety when a desired thing has eluded [it] or when something undesirable has befallen [it], and this is one of the most excellent of character traits bestowed [as gift] from the bounty of God for the folk of His religion and His obedience, and is [the patience] that entails the plenteous reward. Patience in God is to remain firm in wayfaring along the path of the Truth and to habituate the soul to spiritual struggle voluntarily and to refraining from familiars and pleasures and to [train it to] endure afflictions and [to exercise] strong resolve in orienting itself to the source of perfections, and this is a station belonging to the wayfarers which God bestows [as gift] upon whomever He will from among the people of the [spiritual] path out of His bounty. Patience with God is for the people of the Presence and the Unveiling upon [their] disengagement from the garments of the acts and the attributes and [upon their] exposure to the self-disclosures of the Beauty and the Majesty and the flow of the inrushes of intimacy and awe - thus this [type of patience] comes with presence of the heart, for the one who has a heart and with guarding against forgetfulness and absence during variegations resulting from the manifestation of the soul, which is more exacting upon the soul than being beaten on the head, even if it be extremely pleasurable. Patience away from God is for the people of crudeness and of the veil, whether it be luminous or dark, and this [type] is very loathsome and the person in question is deservedly blameworthy; and the more that he exercises this [kind of] patience the worse and the more remote that his state becomes, and the more that he is vehement therein the more blameworthy and the cruder he is; or it is for the people of the eyewitnessing and the witnessing from among the fervent lovers and the yearners who are turned about between the various stages of the self-disclosure and the self-concealment and who shun the human realm and are illumined by the light of the divine realm, subsisting without a heart and without a description.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ مُحْسِنُونَ
📘 Surely God is with those who are godwary and those who are beautiful-doers. This is one of the all-comprehensive verses of the Qur'an. All of God's caresses of His servant in the two worlds, the rewards and the generous gifts, are included in what He says: “Surely God is with.” Every sort of service, every type of obedience, and all the roots of worship that the servant performs for God come under godwary. All that is rightfully due to people from each other in the various sorts of interactions come under beautiful-doers. In reality the godwary and the beautiful-doers are such that the scent of love's breeze comes from the dust beneath their feet. If the tears of their eyes were to fall on the ground, the narcissus of desire would bloom. If the disclosure of their present moment were to fall on a stone, it would turn into a carnelian. If it fell on water, it would become wine. If the fire of their yearning were to flame up, the world would burn. If the light of their recognition were to shine, the universe would be radiant. They have no station in the cities, no ease with the people. The common people have two festivals in the year, but they have a festival with every breath. The common people have festivals because of seeing the moon, but they have their festival because of contemplating God. The common people have festivals because of the turning of the year, but they have their festival because of the bounteousness of the Possessor of Majesty. For thousands of years the moon-faced beauties of Firdaws and the houris of paradise have been standing in wait in that busy bazaar: When will they convey the fortunate procession of the godwary and beautiful- doers to High Chambers so that they, as hangers-on, may step into the pageant of good fortune in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].
وَمَا ذَرَأَ لَكُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ مُخْتَلِفًا أَلْوَانُهُ ۗ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَةً لِقَوْمٍ يَذَّكَّرُونَ
📘 He it is who sends down water from heaven.... Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect... signs for a people who use intellect... a sign for a people who remember. He is an allusion to the Essence, who is an intimation of the attributes, and sends down reports about the acts. Thus you will know that God has Essence, attributes, and acts. He is eternal in Essence, noble in attributes, wise in acts; without associate in Essence, without ambiguity in attri- butes, and without cause in acts. The servants gazes upon His artisanry, then flee from the artisanry to gaze upon the attributes, then flee from the attributes to gaze upon the Essence. These are the stations of the wayfarers' traveling and the degrees of the recognizers' recognition. One must have reflection in gazing upon the artisanry, knowledge in gazing on the attributes, and remembrance in gazing on the Essence. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect.” Then, after that, He says, “signs for a people who use intel- lect.” Then, after that, He says “a sign for a people who remember.” In other words, recognition will be gained in this order: first reflection, then knowledge, then, at that point, he will remember through the continuity of knowledge. First he reflects, putting his gaze in its place. If no defect falls into his gaze, then inevitably he gains knowledge; and in reality there is no difference between intellect and knowledge. Then, after that, the gaze becomes continuous, and the continuity of the gaze is the remembering of which He speaks. It has been said that He says “signs for a people who use intellect” in the plural only because someone gains many knowledges in order to become a recognizer, and every part of knowledge is gained through a different sign and indicator. The knower has signs and indicators before he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, because the indicator for one question is different from the in- dicator for another question. With one indicator he knows the necessity of gazing on Him, with many indicators he becomes a recognizer of his Lord, and with one indicator he knows that it is necessary to remember the various sorts of his knowledge.
وَهُوَ الَّذِي سَخَّرَ الْبَحْرَ لِتَأْكُلُوا مِنْهُ لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا وَتَسْتَخْرِجُوا مِنْهُ حِلْيَةً تَلْبَسُونَهَا وَتَرَى الْفُلْكَ مَوَاخِرَ فِيهِ وَلِتَبْتَغُوا مِنْ فَضْلِهِ وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
📘 He it is who subjected the sea so that you may eat from it fresh flesh. Outwardly, He subjected the oceans of the earth to the creatures, ships running upon it and ben- efits appearing from it. Inwardly, He created oceans in the Adamic soul in which the Adamite is drowned: First is the ocean of preoccupation, second the ocean of sorrow, third the ocean of avarice, fourth the ocean of heedlessness, and fifth the ocean of dispersion. These oceans have ships. Whoever sits in the ship of trust on the ocean of preoccupation will reach the shore of detachment. Whoever sits in the ship of approval on the ocean of sorrow will reach the shore of security. Whoever sits in the ship of contentment on the ocean of avarice will reach the shore of renunciation. Whoever sits in the ship of remembrance on the ocean of heedlessness will reach the shore of wakefulness. Whoever sits in the ship of tawḤīd on the ocean of dispersion will reach the shore of togetherness.
أَفَمَنْ يَخْلُقُ كَمَنْ لَا يَخْلُقُ ۗ أَفَلَا تَذَكَّرُونَ
📘 Is He who creates like him who does not create? Will the created thing ever be like the Creator? Will the enacted thing ever be similar to the Enac- tor? In the seven heavens and seven earths, it is God who is one and unique. In Essence He is without similar, in measure without equal, in attributes without peer. Fancying that the Creator is like the created is an error, and the road of declaring similarity is disloyalty. But affirming at- tributes is not declaring similarity, and to declare holy by negating attributes is nothing but the position of Iblis. Declaring similarity does not come by way of saying that there is, but rather by saying that there is similarity. Whoever declares similarity is an unbeliever, just as whoever says that there is no similarity is an unbeliever. Whenever someone says that God is like himself has said that God has more than a thousand associates. Whoever declares God's attributes ineffectual has abased himself in the two worlds.
يُنَزِّلُ الْمَلَائِكَةَ بِالرُّوحِ مِنْ أَمْرِهِ عَلَىٰ مَنْ يَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ أَنْ أَنْذِرُوا أَنَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا أَنَا فَاتَّقُونِ
📘 He sends down the angels with the spirit from His command upon whomsoever He will of His servants: “Give warning that there is no god but I, so be wary of Me.” The reality of the spirit is that within which is the life of the heart and the life of the religion. It is the beauty of the Qur'an's exaltedness, which reached MuṣṬafā from the Divine Presence with the attribute of the message by the emissary Gabriel. Give warning that there is no god but I, so be wary of Me: “Report to My servants that I am the One Lord, I am without peer in attributes, I am separate from anything's resemblance to Me, and I am loyal to My assurances. Whenever someone says these words bearing witness and places the seal of tawḤīd on his heart, he has entered into the pavilion of the submission's exaltedness.” But you should know that this pavilion of the submission is set up only on the plain of god- wariness, for He says, “There is no god but I, so be wary of Me.” The reality of godwariness is the heart's purity of everything other than the Real. Just as submission is obligatory for the world's creatures, so also godwariness is obligatory. When the foundation of the religion was put down, it was put down on godwariness, for everyone who be- came a possessor of friendship became so through godwariness. “Surely His friends are only the godwary” [8:34]. Tomorrow the friendship of the next world will be assigned to those who are called godwary: “The outcome belongs to the godwary” [7:128]. The first condition of godwariness is that you be the guardian of your own heart and do three things: You do not give yourself over to wishing, you avoid everything that is not approved, and you not be heedless of the Real for one moment. On the day when Abū Bakr was buying Bilāl, Bilāl said, “O chief of the sincerely truthful! If you are buying Bilāl for the sake of the business of this world, do not buy him. He can perform no service that you will approve, for Bilāl has dedicated himself to the business of the afterworld.” God's mercy be upon those chevaliers who do not turn away from serving the Real to serving the creatures! Every single part of each of them is busy with service, and all their moments are im- mersed in observing the rightful dues of the Real. None of their parts is free to serve the creatures, none of their moments is wasted in antagonism toward the creatures. A great man was asked, “Do you love God?” He said, “I do.” He was asked, “Do you hate his enemy Iblis?” He said, “I am too busy with love for the Real to occupy myself with enmity toward someone else.”
الَّذِينَ تَتَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ ۖ فَأَلْقَوُا السَّلَمَ مَا كُنَّا نَعْمَلُ مِنْ سُوءٍ ۚ بَلَىٰ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
📘 those whom the angels take [in death] while they are wronging their souls'. It has already been mentioned that the foremost affirmers of the Oneness are received [in death] by God, exalted be He, through His Essence, whereas the pious and the felicitous divide into two groups: as for those have risen from the station of the soul by disengaging and have arrived at the station of the heart by means of knowledge and virtues, they are received [in death] by the Angel of Death. As for those who are at the station of the soul from among the righteous, the pious renouncers and the followers of the law who have not disengaged from the attachments of the body by means of self-cleansing and adornment, they are received [in death] by the Angels of Mercy who give them the good tidings of the Garden, that is, the Garden of the soul which is the Garden of the acts and the effects. As for the evil ones, the wretched, they are received [in death] however they may be by the Angels of Retribution. For the angelic faculties that are conjoined to souls taken on the configurations of those souls. Thus if these [souls] are veiled and dark, then their configurations will be dark, shadowy and horrible, and so the angelic faculties that seize their souls will take on those configurations by correspondence. That is why it is said that the Angel of Death appears in the form of the character traits of the dying person: if these are vile and dark, then his [the Angel's] form will be dreadful and eerie. Fear and terror will overcome the one whom he [the Angel] is visiting and that [dying] person will submit meekly and relinquish his arrogance and will manifest incapacity and meekness. That is the significance of His words: Then they will offer submission, in other words, they will seek peace, pathetic, yielding and abandoning obduracy and rebelliousness and they will say: 'We were not doing any evil', and they will receive the response of their [the angels'] words: 'Nay! Surely God is Knower of what you used to do'.
فَادْخُلُوا أَبْوَابَ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا ۖ فَلَبِئْسَ مَثْوَى الْمُتَكَبِّرِينَ
📘 So enter the gates of Hell-fire, of the acts. As for those who guard against acts of disobedience and things that are forbidden, those who halt at [the bounds delimited by] the stipulations of the Law, who acknowledge the affirmation of Oneness and the prophethood by way of imitation, but not by way of verification - for otherwise they would disengage from the attributes of the soul to the station of the heart by means of the knowledge of certainty - those they will be received [in death] by the angels while they are goodly [souls] in the form of their character traits and their beautiful goodly deeds, rejoicing and anticipating good tidings,
الَّذِينَ تَتَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ طَيِّبِينَ ۙ يَقُولُونَ سَلَامٌ عَلَيْكُمُ ادْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
📘 [with the angels] saying: 'Peace be on you!; Enter the Garden, that is, the Garden they are familiar with, which is the Garden of the souls from among the Gardens of the acts, because of what you used to do'.
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا لَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ مَا عَبَدْنَا مِنْ دُونِهِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ نَحْنُ وَلَا آبَاؤُنَا وَلَا حَرَّمْنَا مِنْ دُونِهِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ فَعَلَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ ۚ فَهَلْ عَلَى الرُّسُلِ إِلَّا الْبَلَاغُ الْمُبِينُ
📘 And the idolaters say, 'Had God willed we would not have worshipped anything besides Him: they only say this out of obduracy and sinful disobedience in excessive ignorance and in order to force [the argument upon] the affirmers of Oneness on the basis of their beliefs. For had they said that out of knowledge or certainty, they would have been affirmers of the Oneness [too] and not idolaters by their attribution of will and effect to another. Because the one who knows that nothing can happen without the will of God, will [also] know that if every person in the entire world were to will something which God does not will that thing will not happen; and that person will acknowledge [His Oneness] by denying power and will to all that is other than God, exalted be He. Then he would no longer be an idolater: God, exalted be He, says Had God willed, they would not have been idolaters [Q. 6:107] - So did those before them, [do the same] by denying the messengers out of obstinacy.
إِنَّمَا قَوْلُنَا لِشَيْءٍ إِذَا أَرَدْنَاهُ أَنْ نَقُولَ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ
📘 All that We say to a thing, when We will it, is to say to it 'Be', and it is: the difference between God's will, exalted be He, and His knowledge and power can only be one of conceptual consideration (iʿtibāran) For God, exalted be He, knows every thing and knows that it will come to pass at a designated time by a designated cause in a designated manner. If we were to consider His knowledge of such [aspects], we would say that that is [taking place] by His being the Knower; if we were to consider His specification of a designated time and designated manner, we would say that it is by His will; and if we were to consider the necessity of His existence in relation to the existence of that whose existence is dependent on Him at that time and in that known manner, we would say that it is by His power. Thus all three refer back to [His] knowledge. Were our knowledge to entail the existence of a thing and were it not to change or require thought or resolve, except that it be a thing known, or [require] the movement of [our] instruments, it would be the same case with us.
وَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا فِي اللَّهِ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا ظُلِمُوا لَنُبَوِّئَنَّهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً ۖ وَلَأَجْرُ الْآخِرَةِ أَكْبَرُ ۚ لَوْ كَانُوا يَعْلَمُونَ
📘 Those who emigrate in God after they were wronged-We shall surely build for them something beautiful, and the wage of the next world will be greater. Anyone who emigrates from the homelands of heedlessness will be taken by the majesty of Unity to the witnessing places of union. When someone emigrates from the homelands of heedlessness, the majesty of Unity will con- vey him to the witnessing places of union. When someone emigrates from companionship with the created, the gentle favors of generosity will give him access to His companionship. When some- one emigrates from himself and is displeased with dwelling with himself, his heart will become the place where passion for the Haqiqah puts down its saddlebags. Today he will be delighted in the secluded solace of “I am the sitting companion of him who remembers Me,” and tomorrow he will take his ease on the carpet of the expansiveness of “The patient poor are the sitting companions of God on the Day of Resurrection.” This emigration has a beginning and an end. Its beginning is that his makeup becomes obe- dience itself, not from habit and not from wanting the reward, but rather from being drowned in contemplation itself. Thus it is recounted of the recognizer Sultan MaḤmūd that he never sat in a session of intimacy with any but Ayāz. The boon companions and special friends began to mutter. The sultan became aware of their jealousy, and he commanded that all the boon companions and special friends be present in a session. Then he had a goblet made of ruby-worth the taxes from one of his prov- inces-brought forth, along with an iron anvil, and put before him. He commanded the vizier to smash the goblet on the anvil. The vizier, “Protect me, O Sultan! Though the sultan's command is higher, I do not have the gall to be so bold.” In the same way, he commanded the other boon companions and special friends. All took off their hats, began to tremble, and did not have the gall to break it. Then he pointed at Ayāz. He said, “Slave, strike the goblet on the anvil and break it.” Ayāz struck the goblet on the anvil until it broke into tiny pieces. Then MaḤmūd said, “There are four thousand way stations between obeying the sultan's command and seclusion with him. When someone still avoids obeying MaḤmūd's command, how can he have the gall to talk of seclusion and seek companionship?” As for the end of emigration, it is three things: veneration in seclusion, being ashamed in service, and seeing nothing but shortcoming in oneself despite much obedience.
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ قَبْلِكَ إِلَّا رِجَالًا نُوحِي إِلَيْهِمْ ۚ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
📘 Ask the folk of remembrance if you do not know. This alludes to the fact that knowledge of the Shariah is to be learned and is not correct without an intermediary and teacher. Anyone who fancies that the intermediary is useless in knowledge of the Shariah has no portion of the religion. In short, know that knowledge is of three sorts: knowledge of the Shariah, knowledge of the Tariqah, and knowledge of the Haqiqah. The Shariah is to be learned, the Tariqah is to be prac- ticed, and the Haqiqah is to be found. Concerning knowledge of the Shariah He says, “Ask the folk of remembrance.” Concerning knowledge of the Tariqah He says, “Seek the means of approach to Him” [5:35]. Concerning knowledge of the Haqiqah He says, “We taught him knowledge from Us” [18:65]. He turned knowledge of the Shariah over to a teacher, He turned knowledge of the Tariqah over to a pir, and He turned knowledge of the Haqiqah over to Himself. When someone obtains these three knowledges, a light shines in his heart through which he recognizes the essence of prophethood. When he is given this recognition, he finds this eminence and special favor from the threshold of prophethood: “The men of knowledge are the heirs to the prophets.”
أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا إِلَىٰ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ مِنْ شَيْءٍ يَتَفَيَّأُ ظِلَالُهُ عَنِ الْيَمِينِ وَالشَّمَائِلِ سُجَّدًا لِلَّهِ وَهُمْ دَاخِرُونَ
📘 Or have they not observed what God has created of things, such as a created essence or reality, whatever created essence it may be, how their shadows incline, that is, [how] their frames and forms are embodied and imaginalised - for every thing has a reality which constitutes that thing's origin in the [dominion of the] angelic realm (malakūt) and which gives it its ipseity, as God, exalted be He, has said in Whose hand is the dominion (malakūt) of all things [Q. 36:83]; and [every thing has] a shadow which constitutes its attribute and its locus of manifestation, that is, its body by which that thing becomes manifest, to the right and to the left, that is, to the orientation of good and that of evil, prostrating to God, obedient to His command, fully compliant, not refusing what He wants from it. In other words, [have they not observed things] the frames of which move towards the orientations of good acts and evil ones by His command, and [how] they are subject, abased and humbled before His command, [totally] subjugatedḍ
وَلِلَّهِ يَسْجُدُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ مِنْ دَابَّةٍ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ وَهُمْ لَا يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ
📘 And to God prostrates, [to Him] are obedient, whatever is in the heavens, in the world of spirits in the way of the inhabitants of the realm of invincibility and [those of] the angelic realm and [of] the disengaged holy spirits, and whatever is on the earth, in the world of bodies in the way of legged animals, humans, trees, and the entirety of earthly and heavenly souls and faculties, and they are not arrogant: they do not refrain from being obedient and humbled before His command.
يَخَافُونَ رَبَّهُمْ مِنْ فَوْقِهِمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ ۩
📘 They fear their Lord, that is, they are broken, effected and acted upon by Him in the way that a fearful person is acted upon [by the thing that causes in him fear], from above them, from His subjugation, influence and exaltedness over them, and they do what they are commanded, in obedience and compliance in such a way that they are unable to do anything else.
۞ وَقَالَ اللَّهُ لَا تَتَّخِذُوا إِلَٰهَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ ۖ إِنَّمَا هُوَ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ فَإِيَّايَ فَارْهَبُونِ
📘 And God says, “And take not two gods. Surely He is only one God, so be in awe of Me.” This is an affirmation of tawḤīd. TawḤīd is the basis of the religion and the great pillar of the submission. Without tawḤīd obedience is not accepted, and along with associationism worship is useless. Know that the reality of tawḤīd is of two sorts: saying one and knowing one. Saying one is the beginning of all the sciences, the basis of all the recognitions, the foundation of the religion, and the partition between enemy and friend. It has three descriptions: first, testifying to God's oneness in Essence and His being pure of spouse, child, and peer. Next is testifying to God's oneness in attributes and to the fact that nothing is similar to or like Him. His attributes are not intelligible, nor is their howness understood, encompassed, or defined. They are outside imagination and no one knows how they are. Third is testifying to God's oneness in His true, beginningless names and the fact that for Him these names are realities and for others they are loaned and created. The names He has are His names in reality-eternal and beginningless as is fitting for Him. The names of the creatures are created and newly arrived as is fitting for them. “God” and “All-Merciful” are His names by which no one else is called. Dost thou know any named by His name? [19:65] As for knowing one, that is in service, practice, and aspiration. In service it is abandoning eye-service and observing self-purification. In practice it is to make the secret core limpid and to realize remembrance. In aspiration it is to lose everything other than Him and to be released through freedom of the heart from everything other than Him. Become free of everything in the realm of being- be that Heart-taker's “companion of the cave.” The Pir of the Tariqah said, “In all things expression is easy but finding is difficult. In tawḤīd finding is easy but expression is difficult. The expression of tawḤīd is outside of intellect, the es- sence of tawḤīd is safe against imagination, the newly arrived things are lost in the Beginningless. TawḤīd is that there is no more than one. There is the Recognized, but not the recognizer; there is the Intended, but not the intender.
ثُمَّ إِذَا كَشَفَ الضُّرَّ عَنْكُمْ إِذَا فَرِيقٌ مِنْكُمْ بِرَبِّهِمْ يُشْرِكُونَ
📘 [Then when He has rid you of the misfortune] behold, a group of you attribute partners to their Lord, by ascribing grace to other than Him and seeing that [grace as coming] from that [other]; likewise [they attribute partners to Him] by ascribing harm to another and referring the sin of that to that [other] and seeking the help of that [other] in removing it. God, exalted be He, said: 'I, the jinn and humanity constitute an awesome tiding: I create, yet other than Me is worshipped and I provide, yet other than Me is thanked'. That is [true] ingratitude for [His] graces and obliviousness to the Gracious one, both of which are alluded to in His statement:
لِيَكْفُرُوا بِمَا آتَيْنَاهُمْ ۚ فَتَمَتَّعُوا ۖ فَسَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ
📘 in order to deny that which We have given them. So enjoy, for soon you shall know, the evil consequence of that belief for them. Or [it is that]: you shall know at the manifestation of [His] unity that nothing other than God has the power of effect over anything.
وَيَجْعَلُونَ لِمَا لَا يَعْلَمُونَ نَصِيبًا مِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ ۗ تَاللَّهِ لَتُسْأَلُنَّ عَمَّا كُنْتُمْ تَفْتَرُونَ
📘 And they assign, to what they do not know, existence of what is besides Him, a portion of that which We have provided them with, and so they say: 'That one gave me such and such', and 'were that one not to give me [that thing] it would have been thus', or 'a particular individual provided me [with this] and helped be', in effect, assigning to others the power of effect with regard to that thing reaching him. Even if they were not to affirm an effective agency for that [individual] with regard to the coming into existence of that [thing], they would [nevertheless] assign him a portion of what God had provided them.
وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا جَمَالٌ حِينَ تُرِيحُونَ وَحِينَ تَسْرَحُونَ
📘 And in them is beauty for you when you bring home to rest and drive forth to pasture. Some people attach beauty to possessions, some to states. The wealthy find beauty when they bring home to rest and drive forth to pasture, and the poor busy themselves with their Patron when they wake in the morning and rest in the evening. The rich consider the perfection of their beauty to lie in possessions, and possessions are one of two: permitted or forbidden. If they are permitted, they are a tribulation, and if they are forbid- den, they are a curse. The poor consider their status and beauty to lie in union with the Patron and see perfect intimacy in companionship with the Patron. It is said that Rābiʿa ʿAdawiyya was cut off from a caravan and was wandering lost in the desert. She sat down under a thorn tree and put her head on the knees of remorse. She heard a call from the air of exaltedness, “You feel terrified when I am with you?” On the night of the miʿrāj all the beauty and wealth of jinn and men were offered as ransom for one footstep of the Master of the Children of Adam, but he did not glance at it. His boast was this: “Replete one day, I praise Thee; hungry one day, I thank Thee.”
وَإِنَّ لَكُمْ فِي الْأَنْعَامِ لَعِبْرَةً ۖ نُسْقِيكُمْ مِمَّا فِي بُطُونِهِ مِنْ بَيْنِ فَرْثٍ وَدَمٍ لَبَنًا خَالِصًا سَائِغًا لِلشَّارِبِينَ
📘 And surely in the cattle there is a lesson for you: We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies, between feces and blood, pure milk, delicious for the drinkers. Two impurities came together, one feces and the other blood. God with His power made pure milk appear between the two. In the same way, two drops came together in the womb. God's determi- nation and form-giving made a form of such beauty appear from the two! He formed you, so He made your forms beautiful [40:64]. He brings together two difficult tasks for the servant, one the burden of disobedience, the other shortcoming in obedience. Then God's bounty makes mercy and forgiveness appear between the two: He will make your deeds wholesome for you and forgive you your sins [33:71]. In what preceded all precedents and began all beginnings, the Pen wrote in the Tablet that the candle of the Shariah and the lamp of faith and certainty would light up in someone's breast. It does not matter if he falls asleep. When he wakes up he will see the lit candle next to his pillow. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, do You know what has made me happy? I did not fall to You by myself. You wanted-it was not I who wanted. I saw the Friend at my pillow when I woke up from sleep.” By way of allusion God is saying, “I took milk, which is your nourishment and your share, and passed it over feces and blood, preserving it from both. As for tawḤīd, it is My rightful due, so it is much more deserving of being preserved by Me. It will pass over this world and the afterworld and not receive any trace. Were the trace of this world or the afterworld to sit on tawḤīd, it would not be worthy of Me. TawḤīd is pure of this world and the afterworld. The light of tawḤīd is the destruction of water and dust. Turning the eye of the heart away from self is to perceive the finding of tawḤīd.”
وَاللَّهُ فَضَّلَ بَعْضَكُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ فِي الرِّزْقِ ۚ فَمَا الَّذِينَ فُضِّلُوا بِرَادِّي رِزْقِهِمْ عَلَىٰ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ فَهُمْ فِيهِ سَوَاءٌ ۚ أَفَبِنِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ يَجْحَدُونَ
📘 And God has given more bounty in provision to some of you than others. The provision of the soul is one thing, the provision of the heart another, and the provision of the spirit still another. For some the provision of the soul is the success of obedience and for some it is abandonment to disobedience. For some the provision of the heart is the heart's presence with constant remembrance and for some it is the attribute of heedlessness with constant hardness. For some the provision of the spirit is the perfection of recognition and the limpidness of love and for some it is love for this world and occupation with attachments. Fuẓayl said, “The greatest thing provided to man is deeds that will lead him to rectitude and recognition that will bequeath on him contemplation of his Lord.” The Prophet said, “I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink.”
۞ ضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا عَبْدًا مَمْلُوكًا لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَىٰ شَيْءٍ وَمَنْ رَزَقْنَاهُ مِنَّا رِزْقًا حَسَنًا فَهُوَ يُنْفِقُ مِنْهُ سِرًّا وَجَهْرًا ۖ هَلْ يَسْتَوُونَ ۚ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ۚ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
📘 God strikes a similitude: for the disengaged one and the confined one, the idolater and the affirmer, a slave who is a chattel, lover of other than God, preferring him with his desire, for the one who is confined to something follows its religion and issues forth on the basis of its judgement and behaves according to its command and is thus its slave, since every person who loves something will obey it and if he obeys it he worships it. And so among them is he who worships Satan and another who worships passionate desire, while there is one who worships this world, or the dinar, or garments, as he [the Prophet], blessings and peace be upon him: 'Wretched is the worshipper of the dinar. Wretched is the worshipper of the dirham. And wretched is the worshipper of the embroidered wool garment'. God, exalted be He, says Have you then seen him who has taken as his god his [own] vain desireḍ [Q. 45:23]; and if he were to worship that he would become its chattel and its bondman, having no power over anything, because the lover [of something] or the worshipper, his aspiration, his influence and the faculty of his soul does not rise above the object of his love or worship, for otherwise he would not be subjugated by that [thing] and captive in its fetters; nay he is diminished by [his worship of] that, while his very object of worship is powerless and possesses no effect, not even existence whether it be inanimate or animate, a human or whatever you like. Indeed, he is more powerless than that [worshipped thing] and more ignominious. That is why they say that this world is like a shadow, if you chase it, it eludes you and if you leave it, it pursues you. The pursuer of this world is more contemptible than this world and of less worth than it; this world has no power of effect and so how can it be the cause of actualising something for that personḍ Indeed this world is a fading shadow and so he [its pursuer] is thus the shadow of a shadow; but there can be no shadow for the shadow of a shadow. The shadow belongs to an essence and it [this world] possesses no essence and so he can enjoy neither possession nor power; and one on whom We have bestowed a fair provision from Us, and one who loves Us and turns to Us with his heart, who disengages from all that is other than Us and devotes himself exclusively to Us, We shall give him reinforcement, power and provide him with kingdom and wisdom, showering him with outward and inward graces, since he will have turned towards the Master of the Kingdom, the Gracious to all, the Invincible in strength and power, and who has thus earned for his soul faculty, effect and power from Him so that engendered beings and bodies are affected by him and the kingdom and the angelic realm obey him, in the same way that God, exalted be He, inspired to David, peace be upon him, [that He has commanded]: 'O world, serve him who serves Me and wear out him who serves you'.
وَضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا رَجُلَيْنِ أَحَدُهُمَا أَبْكَمُ لَا يَقْدِرُ عَلَىٰ شَيْءٍ وَهُوَ كَلٌّ عَلَىٰ مَوْلَاهُ أَيْنَمَا يُوَجِّهْهُ لَا يَأْتِ بِخَيْرٍ ۖ هَلْ يَسْتَوِي هُوَ وَمَنْ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ ۙ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ
📘 Similarly, the idolater is like one who is dumb who never possessed in his creation a preparedness for speech since he [the idolater] was not prepared for perception or [for] the intellect, which is the specific quality of the human being, in order to perceive the necessity of the existence of the Truth, exalted be He, and His perfectedness or the contingency of the other and his deficiency, such that he could dissociate from what is other than Him and take refuge with Him instead of with the strength or might of his soul or those of another; having no power over anything, because of his incapacity and the failure of his faculty due to the deficiency that adheres to his [defective] preparedness, and who is a liability to his master, because of his inability by nature to actualise his need; and so he is naturally a slave [to him], needy and submissive before the other, lagging behind the level of everything since he is less than nothing as the contingent being which he worships is nothing, whether that [contigent thing] be a king, a celestial sphere, a planet or an intellect or otherwise; wherever he directs him, he does not bring any good, because of his lack of preparedness and his evilness by nature, such that he corresponds only to evil which is non-existence. How then can he bring any goodḍ Is he equal, to the affirmer of Oneness who subsists in God and who is annihilated to what is other than Him and even to his own soul, one who upholds the truth, treats creatures with justice and enjoins justiceḍ For justice is the shadow of the unity in the world of multiplicity. Thus wherever he upholds the unity of the Essence, the shadow of that [unity] falls upon all, and so he is always an enjoiner of justice, and follows a path that is straightḍ, that is, the path of God upon whom are His elect from among the folk of subsistence after annihilation, the one stretched out for the folk of the reality over the hellfire of nature and which they cross [as quickly] as a lightning flash.
وَلِلَّهِ غَيْبُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَمَا أَمْرُ السَّاعَةِ إِلَّا كَلَمْحِ الْبَصَرِ أَوْ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
📘 And to God belongs the Unseen of the heavens and the earth: in other words, to God belongs the knowledge of what is hidden in the heavens and the earth pertaining to the matter of the major resurrection or the knowledge of the levels of the seven unseens to which we have referred, such as the unseen of the jinn, the soul, the heart, the mystery, the spirit, the hidden and the unseen of unseens, or what is unseen of the reality of both, namely, the dominion of the world of spirits and the world of bodies. And the matter, of the major resurrection in comparison with matters that belong in time, is but, as the closest time which the similitude of the twinkling of an eye expresses, or it is [even] nearer. This is [expressed] on the basis of simile, for [in reality] the matter of the Hour is not a temporal one and what is atemporal is perceived by the one who perceives it outside time. Truly God is has power over all things, with power to bring death, give life and reckon outside of time, as is witnessed by His folk and His elect.
أَلَمْ يَرَوْا إِلَى الطَّيْرِ مُسَخَّرَاتٍ فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ مَا يُمْسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ ۗ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ
📘 Have they not observed the birds, the spiritual and ego-centric faculties such as reflection and the intellect, both the considerative and the practical, nay indeed, estimation and imagination, [how they are] made subservient in the air of heavenḍ, that is, [in] the space of the world of spirits. Nothing holds them, without attachment to substrata and without dependence on some heavy body, except God.
يَعْرِفُونَ نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يُنْكِرُونَهَا وَأَكْثَرُهُمُ الْكَافِرُونَ
📘 They recognize God's blessings, then they deny them. Some people say that this concerns the Muslims. For a time they occupy themselves with obedi- ence and undertake the path of discipline and struggle according to the Shariah. But in the end, self-admiration comes and ambushes them, destroying their obedience. Their self-admiration is that they consider their obedience and worship as service pleasing to God, and this brings them to exultation and happiness: “This is my attribute and my strength.” They remain heedless that it is God's blessings and bounty toward them. Then they do not fear the disappearance of the blessings and they go forth feeling secure. MuṣṬafā said, “A man's destruction lies in three things: One is niggardliness that he obeys, another is the soul's caprice that he follows, and the third is admiring himself.” One of the great ones of the religion said, “If I sleep all night and in the morning feel broken and fearful, I like that more than spending the night in prayer and admiring myself in the morning.” ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd said, “The destruction of a man's religion lies in two things: self- admiration and despair.” He said this because anyone who loses hope will stop seeking and be overcome by lassitude, so he will not worship. So also, anyone who admires himself will fancy that he does not need to seek, for his work is right and he has been forgiven.
وَيَوْمَ نَبْعَثُ مِنْ كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهِيدًا ثُمَّ لَا يُؤْذَنُ لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَلَا هُمْ يُسْتَعْتَبُونَ
📘 And the day We shall raise up from every community a witness: that is, [when] We send forth their prophet in the maximum perfection which his community is able to arrive at or to draw close to and orient themselves toward by the possibility of their recognition of him and so they recognise him. That is why for every community there will be a witness other than the witness of the next community, so that every person who has fallen short or contravened his prophet by rejecting the perfection to which he calls and by halting with the bottommost pits of defeciency shall come to recognise his shortcoming and his veiledness. Thus he will have no argument and nothing to speak, remaining bewildered and full of anguish. That is the meaning of His words: then the disbelievers will not be given permission. Nor will he have any means of comprehending what has eluded him of his perfection, because of the lack of instrument; but nor will he be able to accept his state, because of the potency of his primordial preparedness to which he moulded and his original instinctive yearning for that [perfection]. Thus he remains in suppressed anger, neither being asked to make amends nor his satisfaction being sought.
وَأَلْقَوْا إِلَى اللَّهِ يَوْمَئِذٍ السَّلَمَ ۖ وَضَلَّ عَنْهُمْ مَا كَانُوا يَفْتَرُونَ
📘 And on that day they will offer to God submission, and obedience. Their denial has already been mentioned, as in where He says: the day when God will raise them all together, whereupon they will swear to Him just as they swear to you [now] [Q. 58:18]. That is according to the halting place [at the Resurrection]. The denial at that first halting is at the moment of the potency of the configurations of vice and the intensity of the unyieldingness of the soul in its devilishness and at its utmost remoteness from the divine light because of its being veiled with thick veils and dark coverings such that he is not even aware that he is inspecting and contemplating it, and [it is at the moment of] the extreme sulliedness of the light of preparedness such that he is even able to manifest the opposite of what it [that preparedness] entails. Submission at the second halting place takes place after the passage of several ages of the hours of that Day, 'whose span is fifty thousand years' [cf. Q. 70:4], when the configurations have dissipated and the natural inclination of the soul to vices has thinned and weakened, and [when] he has drawn close to the world of light because of the thinness of the veils and the flashing of the light of his first primordial nature, whereupon he will admit [the truth] and yield - that is if the submission and the denial are on the part of individual souls: submission then can be in the case of those in whom the configurations of their vices have not taken deep root, their veils have not become thick and the light of their preparedness has not been extinguished; while denial is in the case of those in whom the configurations have taken deep roots and have become potent, so that devilishness has overcome them and established itself [in them], their veil being dense and their preparedness having failed. But God knows best;
وَيَوْمَ نَبْعَثُ فِي كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهِيدًا عَلَيْهِمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِهِمْ ۖ وَجِئْنَا بِكَ شَهِيدًا عَلَىٰ هَٰؤُلَاءِ ۚ وَنَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ تِبْيَانًا لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَهُدًى وَرَحْمَةً وَبُشْرَىٰ لِلْمُسْلِمِينَ
📘 and We shall bring you as a witness against these: this has already been mentioned in sūrat al-NisāÌ. And We have revealed to you the Book, namely, the Discriminating Intellect after the existence that is bestowed by the Truth, as a clarification of all things, explaining and verifying the truth of all things, and as a guidance to his perfection for whoever submits and yields to the soundness of his primordial nature, and a mercy, for him by making him attain that perfection by means of [spiritual] nurturing and reinforcement, and as good tidings to him that he will subsist in that perfection forever beyond time in the three gardens.
وَعَلَى اللَّهِ قَصْدُ السَّبِيلِ وَمِنْهَا جَائِرٌ ۚ وَلَوْ شَاءَ لَهَدَاكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
📘 It is for God to point out the path; and some [paths] deviate. The straight road and approved path is that which goes toward the Real and passes over the Real. That road can be traveled with three things: first knowledge, second state, and third eye. Knowl- edge cannot be put in place without teacher, state cannot be put straight without conformity, and the eye is alone and does not get along with attachment. In knowledge there is fear, in state there is hope, and in eye there is straightness. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “None of His friends traveled this road without first seeing three things together: release from the ruling power of his soul, a heart joined with the Patron, and a secret core adorned with awareness.”
۞ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَيَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ ۚ يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ
📘 Surely God commands justice and beautiful doing and giving to kinsmen, and He pro- hibits indecency, the improper, and rebelliousness. And He admonishes you, that perhaps you may remember. In this verse the Creator of the world and the world's folk, the lovingly kind Lord, brings together in succession the foundations of service and the guideposts of interaction. He makes the faithful aware of the pleasing character traits and He honors them by letting them recognize the causes of His approval. He instructs them in beautiful worship of Him and in living with His creatures. We have already explained some of this in the tongue of unveiling according to the Shariah. In terms of the Haqiqah and the tongue of allusion, it is that God commands the servant to have justice in interaction with the Real, in interaction with people, and in interaction with the soul. Interaction with the Real is through acknowledgment, interaction with people through justice, and interaction with the soul through opposition. One must have conformity with the Real, sincerity with the people, and opposition to the soul. The meaning of conformity is for the servant to welcome the Real's decree before it appears and to leave aside free choice, such that he recognizes all of it without having perceived it and loves it not having seen it. The meaning of sincerity is that he walk straight with the people in word, deed, aspiration, and resoluteness. He is fair to them, he does not place his burden on them, he conceals their faults, he does not take back his tenderness no matter what states he sees, he does not hold back his good from them, he lives with character, he respects elders, and he is tender toward young people and merciful toward children. This is the meaning of justice in interaction with people. As for the reality of justice in interaction with the soul, it is to hold back the soul from that in which its destruction lies. God says, “As for him who fears the standing place before his Lord and prohibits the soul its caprice, surely the Garden shall be the shelter” [79:40-41]. Ibrāhīm Adham said, “In my whole life in this world, my heart was happy three times, and in those three times I was happy because I acted with severity toward my own soul.
وَأَوْفُوا بِعَهْدِ اللَّهِ إِذَا عَاهَدْتُمْ وَلَا تَنْقُضُوا الْأَيْمَانَ بَعْدَ تَوْكِيدِهَا وَقَدْ جَعَلْتُمُ اللَّهَ عَلَيْكُمْ كَفِيلًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَفْعَلُونَ
📘 And fulfil God's covenant, which is the remembering of the former covenant and the renewing of it through the later pledge to remain upon His judgement in rejecting all that is other [than Him] and disengaging from impediments and attachments in orienting oneself to Him; when you made a covenant, that is, [when] you remembered Him by the rising of the light of the Prophet over you and his reminder to you [of Him].
مَا عِنْدَكُمْ يَنْفَدُ ۖ وَمَا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ بَاقٍ ۗ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّ الَّذِينَ صَبَرُوا أَجْرَهُمْ بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
📘 What is with you runs out, but what is with God subsists. What is with you runs out is the attribute of this world, its annihilation; and what is with God sub- sists is the attribute of the afterworld and everlasting subsistence. Jesus was asked, “Why don't you make a house for yourself?” He said, “I have no stomach for busying myself with something that will not be my companion forever.” The Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī put a dinar in his hand and said, “'O yellow thing, make my face yellow. O white thing, make me white and delude other than me.' O world and O bliss of this world! Go, for you are an adorned bride, and you cannot break the claws of a lion with a bride's fingers. Go, delude someone else, for the son of Abū Ṭālib has no stomach for falling into the snare of your delusion.” The life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion [3:185]. What is with you runs out, but what is with God subsists. In other words, “What is with you, namely the yearning you have to encounter Me, is susceptible to disappearance and accepts cessa- tion. But My description of Myself subsists, namely in the tradition, 'Surely the yearning of the pi- ous to encounter Me has become protracted, but My yearning to encounter them is more intense.'” Whatever comes from the servant-obedience, service, affection, love-even if it is continu-ous, is susceptible to disappearance, for it is an attribute of newly arrived things, and annihilation has access to them. It is only the welcoming of the divine majesty and exaltation and the Lord's caressing of the servant that never finish and remain untouched by annihilation. Whatever comes from us is suited to us, infected by our own shares and described by dispersion. Whatever comes from God comes with the attribute of infinite exaltedness and majesty, for the reality of together- ness is that it is necessarily subsistent and permanent. These generous, gentle favors, infinite caresses, and lordly welcoming that set forth from the side of All-compellingness lodge only at the core of the friends' hearts. It is they whose life in this world is the goodly life and whose conduct and path are wholesome deeds along with faith; this is their attribute, for the Exalted Lord says,
مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِنْ ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنْثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَنُحْيِيَنَّهُ حَيَاةً طَيِّبَةً ۖ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْرَهُمْ بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
📘 Whoever does a wholesome deed, male or female, while having faith, We shall surely give him to live a goodly life. The wholesome deed is that which is worthy of acceptance, for it accords with the command. Then He says, while having faith, that is, assenting to the truth that his salvation is by God's bounty, not by his own deeds. He is saying that the goodly life is appropriate for him whose deeds are beautiful, whose conduct is pure, who has the togetherness of aspiration, and who believes that his salvation is by the divine bounty, not by the activity of servanthood. We shall surely give him to live a goodly life. Today there are the sweetness of obedience, the breeze of proximity, and the reminder of the Endless, and tomorrow there will be the Palisades of Holiness in the Presence of At-ness with blessedness, nearness, and the most beautiful.
فَإِذَا قَرَأْتَ الْقُرْآنَ فَاسْتَعِذْ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ
📘 And when you recite the QurÌān, seek refuge in God: rise from the station of the soul by ascending to the Side of the Holy, for the soul is the refuge of every impurity and the spring of every abomination, corresponding to the evil whisperings of Satan and disengaging them with its conversations. Once you rise above its abode, Satan has no power over you since he is unable to bear the light of the presence of the Truth and the presence of the heart, the landing place for His lights, the side of His holy attributes and the locus for His luminous self-disclosures. So seek refuge in these [luminous self-disclosures] and seek refuge with the light of God in them so that the edifice of your faith remains sturdy through certainty. For the faith alongside which there no longer remains the power of Satan - as God, exalted be He, says,
إِنَّهُ لَيْسَ لَهُ سُلْطَانٌ عَلَى الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ
📘 Indeed he has power over those who believe - its least degrees is cognitive certainty whose locus is the pure heart; but this certainty is not enough to preclude his [Satan's] power unless it is joined with the presential vision of the acts, which is the station of trust, as God, exalted be He, says: and who put their trust in their Lord. Annihilation in the acts is not possible while the attributes of the soul subsist, since the subsistence of its attributes necessitates [the subsistence of] its acts. That is why it is said that it is not possible to fulfil the due of a station, to certify it and consolidate it except after rising to the one above it. Thus by rising to the station of the attributes, the acts are annihilated and thus [the station of] trust becomes valid.
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