🕋 تفسير سورة آل عمران
(Aal-E-Imran) • المصدر: EN-KASHANI-TAFSIR
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ الم
📘 Alif Lām Mīm.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَنْ تُغْنِيَ عَنْهُمْ أَمْوَالُهُمْ وَلَا أَوْلَادُهُمْ مِنَ اللَّهِ شَيْئًا ۖ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمْ وَقُودُ النَّارِ
📘 As for the unbelievers, their possessions will not take away their need for God, neither their children, and it is they who will be fuel for the Fire. What a majestic God, generous, lovingly kind, who promises the faithful in the midst of warning the unbelievers and who caresses these while blaming those! He is saying, “Tomorrow at the res- urrection possessions and children will be useless to the unbelievers and will not profit them.” In other words, they will be useful to the faithful whenever they have carried out what is rightfully due to them, making them the snare of their own religion and seeking through them their endless felicity. MuṣṬafā said, “How excellent are wholesome possessions for the wholesome man! What ex- cellent assistance are possessions for being wary of God!” This is just what the Lord of the Worlds says: “And, with what God has given thee, follow after the Last Abode” [28:77]. He is saying, “In that of this world which He has given you, bring the next world to hand! Seek the felicity of the next world!” The felicity of the next world lies in recognition of God. Recognition comes from the light of the heart. The light of the heart comes from the lamp of tawḤīd, and the root of this lamp is the divine bestowal. As for its material, that comes from the deeds and obedient acts of the body. Obedient acts come from the strength of the soul, and the soul's strength comes from food, drink, and clothing. Food, drink, and clothing are nothing but possessions. Hence possessions, by this series of steps, are the cause of endless felicity. But, one must not pass beyond the measure of sufficiency, for then these will become the cause of rebellion, just as He says: “No indeed; surely man is rebellious because he sees himself without needs” [96:6-7]. This is why God's Messenger supplicated, “Lord God, make the food of Muhammad's family in the measure of sufficiency!” When the measure of sufficiency is for the leisure to worship, then it itself is nothing but worship, for it is the supplies for the road, and the road supplies are also part of the road. Shaykh Abu'l-Qāsim Kurragānī had a lawful landed estate from which he received his suffi- ciency.
وَكَيْفَ تَكْفُرُونَ وَأَنْتُمْ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتُ اللَّهِ وَفِيكُمْ رَسُولُهُ ۗ وَمَنْ يَعْتَصِمْ بِاللَّهِ فَقَدْ هُدِيَ إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ
📘 Whoever holds fast to God, by severing himself from all that is other than Him and [by] holding on to true affirmation of Oneness, he is guided to a straight path. For the straight path is the way of the Truth, exalted be He, as He has said: Surely my Lord is on a straight path [Q. 11:56]. Thus whoever severs himself in devotion solely to Him through annihilation in the Unity, his path becomes the path of God.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ
📘 O you who have faith, be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness. When He says, “O people,” He says, “Be wary of your Lord” along with it. When He says, “O you who have faith,” He says, “Be wary of God” along with it. Be wary of your Lord is addressed to the common people. Their godwariness is based on seeing blessings, and their aspiration is nurturing the body to serve the Real. Be wary of God is addressed to the folk of caresses and generosity. Their godwariness is based on being watchful of the Beneficent and their aim is the repose of the spirit in witnessing the Real. What a difference between the two! Be wary of your Lord is addressed to the wage-earners, and Be wary of God is addressed to the recognizers. The wage-earners are seeking joy and blessings, and the recognizers are seeking the mystery of the Beneficent. From God the wage-earners want other than Him, but the recognizers want God Himself. AḤmad ibn Khiẓrūya saw the Real in a dream. He said, “O AḤmad! Everyone is seeking something from Me, except Abū Yazīd. He is seeking Me.” People are wishing for repose and comfort, but I, O Exalted One, wish to encounter You empty. * On the day I reach union with You I will disdain the state of the paradise-dwellers. It has been said that godwariness is of three sorts: One is wariness of God's punishment by having patience against acts of disobedience, as He says: “Be wary of the Fire that has been prepared for the unbelievers” [3:131]. Second is the godwariness of gratitude for blessings, as He says: “Be wary of your Lord” [4:1]. Third is godwariness at the vision of Unity, without taking into account reward or punishment, as He says: “Be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness.” The first is the godwariness of the wrongdoers, the second the godwariness of the moderate, and the third the godwariness of the preceders.
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا ۚ وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءً فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا وَكُنْتُمْ عَلَىٰ شَفَا حُفْرَةٍ مِنَ النَّارِ فَأَنْقَذَكُمْ مِنْهَا ۗ كَذَٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
📘 And hold fast to God's bond, together, that is, [hold fast] to His covenant, the one [mentioned] in His statement: Am I not your Lord [Q. 7:172], united in affirmation of [Hi] Oneness; and do not separate from one another, with disagreeing opinions, for to be separated from the truth results from the divergence of natures and the pursuit of caprice as well as the mutual attraction of faculties. The affirmer of [His] Oneness is far removed from such [a predicament], because his heart has been illumined by the light of the Truth and his soul has been irradiated by the effusion of the heart, such that his faculties are at peace and in friendship with one another. And remember God's grace upon you, by way of [His] guiding you to the affirmation of Oneness that entails love in the hearts, when you were enemies, because of your being veiled with egocentric veils and the coverings of nature, far removed from the light, and [by] the universal goals that allow for association and which remain, by consensus, in the abyss of darkness; and He brought your hearts together, by making you love one another for God's sake so that these [hearts] might be illumined by His light; so that by His grace you became brothers, in religion, friends through God; and you were upon the brink of a pit of fire, which is the abyss into which fall wicked nature and the locus of privation and chastisement; but He delivered you from it, as a result of your true closeness with one another in pursuit of the Lote-tree of the station of the spirit and the spirit of the Paradise of the Essence. So God makes clear to you His signs, by means of the self-disclosures of [His] subtle attributes and [by His] luminous irradiations, that you might be guided, to His beauty and the self-disclosure of His Essence.
وَلْتَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ ۚ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ
📘 Let there be a community of you inviting to the good. This is an allusion to peoples who stand up for God in God. They are not taken aback by the blame of any blamer nor cut off from God by relying on any causes. They have seen the shortcomings of their own souls and immersed their lives in gaining God's approval. They act for God, give counsel for God's religion, and call God's creatures to God. Their trade has profited them and they do not regret their handshake. This is the description of a people who stand through the Real's making them stand and who have been freed from their own power and strength and disengaged from their own desires and aims. They are outside the circle of deeds and states, free of the captivity of choice and self- determination. They know God, they call upon God, and they strive in God's religion. They do not think about people or their blame. In their hearts they have friendship for the Patron and in their eyes the collyrium of Self-disclosure. They see everything just as it is. Others look from the artisanry to the Artisan, but they look from the Artisan to the artisanry. They are the elect of the Presence, branded by the Empire. Be the elect servant of the king-with his brand you're safe from police by day and patrols by night. They are the ones burnt by union and killed by love. Their blood has been spilled and their prop- erty destroyed, but their hearts are in His grasp, their spirits in His embrace. This is why they say, You have a Heart-taker better than life. Don't grieve-let go of life. “When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place.”
وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ تَفَرَّقُوا وَاخْتَلَفُوا مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَاءَهُمُ الْبَيِّنَاتُ ۚ وَأُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
📘 And do not be like those who became dispersed and disagreed. Dispersion is one thing and disagreement something else. Dispersion is the opposite of together- ness and disagreement the opposite of agreement. Dispersion is the scatteredness of the folk of the Tariqah and disagreement the scatteredness of the folk of the Shariah. Dispersion is that the servant desires one thing and the Real desires something else. Togeth- erness is that the servant's desire and the Real's desire are one. According to the report, “When someone makes his concerns one concern, God will spare him the concerns of this world and the next world.” It has been said that dispersion is to gaze on the creatures and to see the secondary causes such that you are never relieved of suffering and creaturely antagonism. Togetherness is to gaze on the Real and to know that the Real is one, the work comes from one place, and the decree comes from this one door. As for the disagreement of the lords of the Shariah, that is of two sorts: One is in the principles of the religion, the other in the branches. Disagreement in the principles is terrible and dangerous, since one must be right and the other wrong. When someone's goal lies in the west and he takes the road east, how can he ever reach the goal? The more he goes, the more he moves away from the goal day by day, and he falls farther behind. This is alluded to in His words, “Surely this path of Mine is straight, so follow it. And do not follow the paths, lest they disperse you from His path” [6:153]. As for the disagreement of the community on the branches, it is like a group who set out for one goal by disagreeing roads, some going nearer and some farther. Although they disagree in the traveling, they arrive at one goal and come together. This disagreement is mercy itself. To it the Prophet alluded: “Disagreement in my community is a mercy.” In other words, this disagreement in branches is God's mercy toward the creatures, so that the work of the religion would not become narrow for them and its road would not be difficult. This is in His words, “He placed no hardship upon you in the religion” [22:78]; and in God's words, “God desires for you ease and does not desire for you hardship” [2:185].
يَوْمَ تَبْيَضُّ وُجُوهٌ وَتَسْوَدُّ وُجُوهٌ ۚ فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ اسْوَدَّتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ أَكَفَرْتُمْ بَعْدَ إِيمَانِكُمْ فَذُوقُوا الْعَذَابَ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْفُرُونَ
📘 The day when some faces are blackened, and some faces whitened: the whitening of the face is a reflection of the illumination of the countenance of the heart by the light of the Truth by virtue of its [the heart's] orientation toward it and its turning away from the lower egocentric darkened aspect. That can only come about as a result of affirming the Oneness [of God] and remaining upright upon it by the illumination of the soul, in addition, with the light of the heart, so that the totality becomes illumined by the light of God. [As for] its blackening, that is [the result of] the darkness of the countenance of the heart when it pursues the soul that seeks its shares [of this world] and turns away from the luminous aspect of the truth, the consequence of its [the heart's] befriending of the soul and the following after desires in order to actualise pleasures, all of which ensues from following the divided satanic paths. As for those whose faces are blackened, it is said to them: 'Did you disbelieve after you had believedḍ, that is, have you veiled yourselves from the light of the Truth by the dark attributes of the soul and have taken up abodes in these darknesses after you had been guided and illumined by the light of preparedness and the purity of primordial nature and the guidance of the intellectḍ Then taste, the chastisement of privation for veiling yourselves from the Truth.
وَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ ابْيَضَّتْ وُجُوهُهُمْ فَفِي رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ
📘 But as for those whose faces are whitened, they shall be in God's mercy, which is the spirit of connectedness and the holy light and the presential visions of [God's] beauty, abiding therein.
كُنْتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ ۗ وَلَوْ آمَنَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ ۚ مِنْهُمُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَأَكْثَرُهُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
📘 You are the best community [brought forth to men], by virtue of being affirmers of the Oneness and upholders of justice, which is His shadow, enjoining decency and forbidding indecency, since none but the just one who is an affirmer of the Oneness is able to do that, since he knows what is decent and what is indecent, as has been mentioned already in the interpretation of His words Thus We appointed you a midmost community [Q. 2:143]. The Commander of the Believers [ʿAlī], peace be upon him, said, 'We are the midmost saddle, with whom the [ultimate] interpretation ends and to whom the zealous extremist refers�. Thus upon the one who has fallen short [in his behaviour] they enjoin the decency that will help him attain the station of Oneness; and they forbid the zealous extremist veiled by the union from [the level of] differentiation and by the Oneness from [the level of] multiplicity; and believing in God, that is, you stand firm at the station of the Oneness which is the midmost. Such [you are] in every act of excess, immoderation and moderation in matters of character traits. Had the People of the Scripture believed, they would have been like you.
لَنْ يَضُرُّوكُمْ إِلَّا أَذًى ۖ وَإِنْ يُقَاتِلُوكُمْ يُوَلُّوكُمُ الْأَدْبَارَ ثُمَّ لَا يُنْصَرُونَ
📘 They will not harm you, except with a little hurt, because they are severed from the basis of strength and power; in affairs they follow their soul, which is the locus of enfeeblement and evil, while you are protected by God, drawing your strength from Him, in affairs following the truth, which is the source of vanquishing. Thus their power does not exceed the level of slander by the tongue, wickedness and causing hurt, which is the utmost limit of the soul's capacity. Your power surpasses every [other] power by its ability to vanquish and utterly destroy by virtue of your assumption of the attributes of God, exalted be He. No doubt they retreat before you in battle and are not aided [to victory].
ضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الذِّلَّةُ أَيْنَ مَا ثُقِفُوا إِلَّا بِحَبْلٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَحَبْلٍ مِنَ النَّاسِ وَبَاءُوا بِغَضَبٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الْمَسْكَنَةُ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا يَكْفُرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ الْأَنْبِيَاءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِمَا عَصَوْا وَكَانُوا يَعْتَدُونَ
📘 Abasement shall be cast upon them, because might belongs, altogether, to God [Q. 4:139] and none can have a share in it except the one who assumes those character traits [derived] from His attributes by effacing the attributes of mortals, as is the case with the Messenger and the believers, who constitute loci for the manifestation of His might, as He, exalted be He, says: Yet the [real] might belongs to God and to His Messenger, and to the believers [Q. 63:8]. Thus the one who opposes them stands in contrareity to the attribute of might, at variance with the mighty ones, such that abasement necessarily attaches itself to him and subsumes him in whatever state he might be, except for a connection that ties him to the people of might, as where God says save by a rope of God, and a rope of the people, that is, [except for] some protection-guarantee or covenant; but that tends to me a transient affair without [solid] foundation, dependent on a contrived connection. Their essential attribute is not accepted, that [attribute] which adheres to them that is the abasement originating from the origins of their soulsl. They have merited severe wrath from God by their distance and their turning away from the truth. Poverty attaches itself to them because of their severance from God in favour of their souls and so He leaves them to the devices of their own souls.
۞ لَيْسُوا سَوَاءً ۗ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ أُمَّةٌ قَائِمَةٌ يَتْلُونَ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ آنَاءَ اللَّيْلِ وَهُمْ يَسْجُدُونَ
📘 Yet they are not all alike; some of the People of the Scripture are a community upright, that is, [upright] upon [the path of] God. He then describes them with [reference to] the states of those of uprightness. In other words, there are among them affirmers of Oneness and people of uprightness.
وَمَا يَفْعَلُوا مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلَنْ يُكْفَرُوهُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِالْمُتَّقِينَ
📘 And whatever good you do, you shall not be denied it: in other words, everything that issues from you that brings you nearness to God is joined to its reward from Him. You shall not be denied anything of that [reward]. God, exalted be He, said: 'Whoever draws near to Me by an inch, I shall draw near to him by an arm's length. And whoever draws near to Me by an arm's length, I shall draw near to him by a fathom. And whoever comes to Me walking, I shall come to him hurrying'. He has also said, 'I am in the company of the one who remembers Me, the intimate of the one who gives thanks to Me, and the obeyer of the one who obeys Me'. In other words, just as you obey Him by purifying your preparedness and orienting yourselves towards Him, He indulges you by effusing [upon you] the effusion in kind and [by] turning to you; and God knows, those who guard against that which veils them from Him and so He discloses Himself to them in the measure that the veil recedes.
مَثَلُ مَا يُنْفِقُونَ فِي هَٰذِهِ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا كَمَثَلِ رِيحٍ فِيهَا صِرٌّ أَصَابَتْ حَرْثَ قَوْمٍ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ فَأَهْلَكَتْهُ ۚ وَمَا ظَلَمَهُمُ اللَّهُ وَلَٰكِنْ أَنْفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ
📘 The likeness of what they expend in the life of this world, [the life] that is evanescent and its shortlived pleasures, lusting after passions or for show or for a reputation out of vanity, seeking people's praise without seeking God's face thereby, and [seeking] what destroys and totally annihilates of the wind generated by the desires of the soul, [a wind] that carries the cold of your corrupt intentions and false goals, such as the making of a show [infront of others] and the like, is as the likeness of a wind wherein is a blast that smote the tillage of a people who have wronged themselves, through associating [others with God] and through disbelief, such that it destroyed it, as a retribution from God for their wrongdoing. God did not wrong them, by destroying their tillage, but they, were wronging themselves, because that [destruction] was caused by their wrongdoing, as they say: be careful, for your hands seal your mouth while you blow.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا بِطَانَةً مِنْ دُونِكُمْ لَا يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالًا وَدُّوا مَا عَنِتُّمْ قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاءُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ ۚ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ الْآيَاتِ ۖ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
📘 [O you who believe] do not take as intimates anyone apart from yourselves: a person's intimate is his closest and most faithful friend, the one who keeps him hidden and is privy to his secrets. Such a friend cannot exist unless the two are united in their purpose, are in accord on religion and in attribute, loving one another for God's sake and not for some [other] purpose, as is said of friends [that they are] one soul in separate bodies. And if he happens not to be a believer, then it is far more likely that he will be secretly an enemy. He then makes clear his hypocrisy and secret enmity with His words: such men spare nothing to ruin you � to the end [of the verse]. For true and pure love can only be between believers in [God's] Oneness, since it is the shadow of [the very] Oneness: it cannot be between those who are veiled as they inhabit the world of contrareity and darkness. Where in this world of theirs is there purity and harmonyḍ Nay, it may be that the all-inclusive human genus brings them close together, sharing as they do in that species, and [in] benefits and delights, and in their need for cooperation therein. But once what they have sought of benefits and delights is not actualised, they quarrel and fall into mutual hatred. And that [initial] closeness between them dissipates, since it had been the result of something that undergoes change, because the soul is the origination point of change. This-worldly benefits do not remain in the same state, while egocentric pleasures are fleeting; therefore love based upon it does not endure, unlike the former [type of] love, since this [latter] is based on something that by its essence never changes. That [kind of enmity] ensues when it is a matter between them: how [much worse] would it be when the matter is between them and those who oppose them in principle and in attribute. How can light and darkness be of the same nature and how can the sublime and the low be compatibleḍ Thus between those [aforementioned] men there exists real enmity and essential disagreement, the effects of which cannot be hidden, as God makes clear in His words: Hatred is [even] revealed by their mouths, because the description of [a person's] essence cannot be concealed. The Prophet said: 'Never does a person hide something except that God makes it manifest in slips of the tongue and the expressions of the face; and what their breasts conceal is yet greater, because it is a fire and this is the spark: that is the source and this is its offshoot. Now We have made clear to you the signs, the proofs of love and enmity and its causes, if you understand, the import of these words.
هَا أَنْتُمْ أُولَاءِ تُحِبُّونَهُمْ وَلَا يُحِبُّونَكُمْ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْكِتَابِ كُلِّهِ وَإِذَا لَقُوكُمْ قَالُوا آمَنَّا وَإِذَا خَلَوْا عَضُّوا عَلَيْكُمُ الْأَنَامِلَ مِنَ الْغَيْظِ ۚ قُلْ مُوتُوا بِغَيْظِكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ الصُّدُورِ
📘 Ha! There you are: You love them, but they do not love you. The faithful had limpid hearts and generous natures, and they did not keep tenderness and mercy back from the estranged. They wanted good for them and attached their hearts to their submission. They wanted their salvation and did not hold back God's mercy from them-whether they were acquaintances or strangers. This kept on crossing their minds: Bring the sweetmeat, for it is the heart's beloved, suited for both the elect and the common. This is the same tenderness that MuḤammad showed to the estranged. He said, “O God, guide my people, for they do not know.” As for the unbelievers, those who had no limpidness in their hearts or loyalty in their natures, they never wanted good for the people of faith, nor did they love them. They grieved at the good that reached them and became happy at the bad. God says, “If something beautiful touches you, it vexes them, and if something ugly strikes you, they rejoice at it” [3:120]. Indeed, everyone does what is fitting for him, for “The pot pours what is inside it.” The person of faith is generous and lovingly kind, for what is fitting for faith is generosity and chivalry. The unbeliever is base and bad-wanting, for what is fitting for unbelief is baseness and unseemliness. The person of faith calls God's creatures to salvation and deliverance. The unbeliever calls them to the Fire and captivity. To this He alludes with His words, “O my people! What is it with me that I invite you to salvation and you invite me to the Fire?” [40:41].
إِنْ تَمْسَسْكُمْ حَسَنَةٌ تَسُؤْهُمْ وَإِنْ تُصِبْكُمْ سَيِّئَةٌ يَفْرَحُوا بِهَا ۖ وَإِنْ تَصْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْئًا ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌ
📘 Yet if you endure, with patience what God tests you with in the way of hardships, trials and calamities, and remain firm as required by belief in Oneness and obedience [to God], and guard against, seeking their assistance in your affairs and resorting to friendship with them, their guile will not hurt you at all, because the one who trusts in God, who endures His test and seeks His assistance and not that of another, shall succeed in securing what he demands, vanquish his opponent, receiving his share of his Lord's good protection. The one who seeks the assistance of another shall be forsaken, left to the devices of his own soul, deprived of the aid of his Lord, as the poet says: 'he who seeks the help of any other than God in what he wants, shall surely have [nothing but] failure and forsakenness for his assistants. Of what they do, in the way of schemes, God is indeed encompassing, invalidating them and destroying them. They say that if you want to curb [the evil of] the one who envies you, then grow in virtue in yourself, for patience and God-consciousness are among the most beautiful virtues. If you adhere to them, you shall be victorious over your enemies.
وَلَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ اللَّهُ بِبَدْرٍ وَأَنْتُمْ أَذِلَّةٌ ۖ فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
📘 God surely helped you at Badr while you were abased. He wrote this inscription of abasement for them in respect of number and the view of the common people. But, in respect of the view of the elect and the reality of the work, how can it be said that someone is lowly and abased when God is his helper? The Pir of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayers, “O Lord, in recognizing You we are alive, with Your help we are happy, with Your generosity we are joyful, through Your exalting we are exalted. O Lord, in You we are alive, so how can we ever die? In You we are happy, so how can we ever be sorrowful? In You we are joyful, so how can we live without You? In You we are exalted, so how can we ever be abased?” A man entered in on Hārūn al-Rashīd and commanded him to do the honorable. Hārūn be- came angry and put him inside a room with a lion, with the door firmly shut. The lion entered in upon the man with humility and did not harm him. After that, they saw him in the midst of the gar- den, happily gazing at it, and the door to the room was firmly locked as it had been. They reported his state to Hārūn, and he summoned him. He said, “Who let you out of the room?” He answered, “The one who brought me into the garden.” He said, “Who brought you into the garden?” He said, “The one who brought me out of the room.” Hārūn commanded that they should put him on a seat with exaltation and honor and carry him around the city, with a caller going before him saying, “Behold, Hārūn al-Rashīd wanted to abase a servant exalted by God, and he was unable to do so.”
بَلَىٰ ۚ إِنْ تَصْبِرُوا وَتَتَّقُوا وَيَأْتُوكُمْ مِنْ فَوْرِهِمْ هَٰذَا يُمْدِدْكُمْ رَبُّكُمْ بِخَمْسَةِ آلَافٍ مِنَ الْمَلَائِكَةِ مُسَوِّمِينَ
📘 Yea, if you are patient and fear, and they come against you � to the end of the verse: to endure with patience the hardship of struggle and to expend the soul in obedience of God and to bear discomfort in pursuit of God's satisfaction can only take place when there is God-consciousness with the support of the Truth and illumination by the light of certainty and its sureness, and by the sending down of the divine peace and reassurance upon that person. But to be conscious of God while contravening the command of the Truth and inclining to profit and gain, fearing the ruination of the soul can only come about when the soul is broken by the subjugating authority of the heart and the spirit. For constancy and dignity are the attributes of the spirit, while inconstancy and restlessness are the attributes of the soul. Once the authority of the spirit has acquired mastery over the heart and takes its seat [there], it protects that [heart] from falling under the mastery of the attributes of the soul and the [soul's] hosts, such that the heart becomes enamoured of it [the spirit] and feels at peace with it because of its luminosity the pleasures of which are beloved. It is able to fortify itself with it [the spirit] against the soul and its faculties, defeating it, breaking it, thwarting its [potential] overpowering and [repelling] its darkness from itself, rendering it instead meek, obedient and reassured so that it is no longer agitated and it [the soul] becomes illumined by its [the heart's] light. Thereupon mercy comes down and the heart corresponds to the heavenly spiritual realm with respect to its [the soul's] luminosity, its capacity to vanquish what is below it and its love and yearning for what is above it. Thus by that correspondence it [the heart] becomes joined to it [the illumined soul] and is able to draw on its [this soul's] faculties and [draw] its attributes into its [the heart's] acts especially when it [the heart] is stirred and spurns the lower aspect and severs itself in exclusive devotion to the higher aspect by the power of certainty and the trust. It is then able to draw upon the faculties of its [the illumined soul's] capacity to vanquish against the one with whom it [the heart] is angry: this is [the moment of] the coming down of the angels. But when it [the heart] is anxious and alarmed, changes and becomes fearful or inclines to this world, it is overpowered by the soul and subjugated by it and ac quires mastery over it, veiling it by the darkness of its attributes from the light, such that that correspondence is no longer there, the reinforcement [from the spiritual realm] is severed and the angels do not come down.
وَمَا جَعَلَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بُشْرَىٰ لَكُمْ وَلِتَطْمَئِنَّ قُلُوبُكُمْ بِهِ ۗ وَمَا النَّصْرُ إِلَّا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ الْعَزِيزِ الْحَكِيمِ
📘 What God ordained was only as a good tiding to you, that is, He made that reinforcement [to you] with angels only so that you might rejoice at this good news and the strength of your hearts, your valour, your succour, your vitality might be enhanced in your orientation towards the Truth and disengagement [in preparation] for the wayfaring, and so that your hearts might be at peace, and so that the effusion is realised thereby in accordance with the purification [effected] and the successorship [of the earth is granted] in accordance with the relinquishing [of the worldly]. Victory comes only from God, not from angels or from any others. So do not be veiled by multiplicity from unity, nor by creatures from the Truth, for these are [merely] loci of manifestation without reality or effect; the Mighty, the strong who is victorious by His vanquishing, the Wise, who veils His vanquishing power and His assistance in the form of angels out of His wisdom.
لِيَقْطَعَ طَرَفًا مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَوْ يَكْبِتَهُمْ فَيَنْقَلِبُوا خَائِبِينَ
📘 And that He might cut off a party of the disbelievers, that He might have some of them slain in order to strengthen the believers, or suppress them, degrade them and humiliate them with defeat to make the believers glorious.
لَيْسَ لَكَ مِنَ الْأَمْرِ شَيْءٌ أَوْ يَتُوبَ عَلَيْهِمْ أَوْ يُعَذِّبَهُمْ فَإِنَّهُمْ ظَالِمُونَ
📘 Whether He relents to them, through their submission, to bolster the numbers of the believers, or chastises them, because of their wrongdoing and their persistence in disbelief in order to bring joy to the believers. His words it is no concern at all of yours have fallen between both parts of the coordinated sentence within the narrative as a parenthetical lest the Messenger of God lapse and suppose that he is able to have any effect in these matters, and [lest he] become veiled from the affirmation of the Oneness and remains so, and his witnessings in all oaths are changed. In other words, their affair is not your concern, whatever the situation. You are but a mortal commanded to warn. Your duty is to deliver [the message to them] and their affair is with God.
قَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ آيَةٌ فِي فِئَتَيْنِ الْتَقَتَا ۖ فِئَةٌ تُقَاتِلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَأُخْرَىٰ كَافِرَةٌ يَرَوْنَهُمْ مِثْلَيْهِمْ رَأْيَ الْعَيْنِ ۚ وَاللَّهُ يُؤَيِّدُ بِنَصْرِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ ۗ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَعِبْرَةً لِأُولِي الْأَبْصَارِ
📘 There has already been a sign for you, O wayfaring folk, [a sign] that is proof of your perfection and your attainment of the affirmation of Oneness, in two hosts that met, one group, constituting the spiritual faculties, which are God's folk and His hosts, fighting in the way of God; and another, constituting the hosts of the soul and the assistants of the devils who are veiled from the Truth. You will see the former group twice the number of these [latter] when the two [groups] meet one another in the battle of the body, [and that is] because of the former group is aided by the light of God and His granting of success, while the latter group is forsaken and abased, incapable, too weak and severed from the world of [divine] aid and power. Thus the former group defeat the latter and subdue them with God's aid and assistance, and expend their property, namely, the objects of their perception and the objects of their knowledge in for the cause of knowing God and affirming His Oneness; for God confirms with His help whom He will, from among the recipients of His solicitude who are prepared for His encounter. Surely in that is a lesson, that is, a consideration or something to be considered in order to arrive at the truth for those endowed with the faculty of vision, the eyes of whose insights have been opened and coloured by the light of the certainty that comes from knowledge, from among the people of the spiritual path (ṭarīqa), by which they consider their states at the end.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَأْكُلُوا الرِّبَا أَضْعَافًا مُضَاعَفَةً ۖ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
📘 O you who believe, do not exact usury, in other words, put your trust in God when seeking provision and do not try to acquire it through usury. That is a duty [enjoined] upon you just as it is your duty to trust in Him when seeking victory and [pursuing] the struggle against the enemy, lest you be cowardly despite the protection and the preservation of God [over you]. Know that the recompense of the usurer is the [same as] the recompense of the disbeliever. So beware of [being] such [a person] as he is veiled from His acts, exalted be He, in the same way that the disbeliever is veiled from His attributes and His essence. And the one who is veiled in unable to receive mercy despite its all-encompassing nature. Therefore, remove the veil through acts of obedience and refraining from contravening [God and the Messenger] so that God's mercy might reach you.
۞ وَسَارِعُوا إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ أُعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ
📘 And vie with one another hastening to, conceal your acts, which veil you from the witnessing of the acts of the truth through His acts. For you are deprived from trusting [in God] and from the garden of the world of the kingdom, which is the self-disclosure of [His] acts, by your inspection of your acts. That is [vie in hastening] to what necessitates the concealment of your acts by His acts and then [to] the garden of the acts by means of acts of obedience, as mentioned [in the ḥadīth]: 'I seek refuge in Your pardon from Your retribution'. Since what is meant by the garden here is the garden of the [divine] acts, the width of which has been described as equal to the width of the heavens and the earth, because the unity of the acts is the unity of the world of the kingdom. As for its length, it has been [left to be] reckoned because acts are considered in relation to a widening chain in which every act depends on another act confined to the world of the kingdom [the extent of which] people attempt to reckon. But in terms of length, these [acts] cannot be confined therein or reckoned, because the act is the locus of manifestation for a description and the description is a locus of manifestation for the essence and as such is infinite and limitless. Thus the ones who are veiled from the essence and the attributes can only see the width of this garden, whereas for those who are apparent before God, the One, the Vanquisher, the width of their garden is its very length and since its length is without limit, neither its length or its width can be reckoned; prepared for those who are wary, those who guard against the veils of their acts and the idolatry of ascribing acts to other than the Truth.
الَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ فِي السَّرَّاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ
📘 Those who spend in prosperity and adversity, those who curb rage, and those who pardon people-and God loves the beautiful-doers. Those who spend in prosperity and adversity. It has been said that in this station people are three groups: First are those who spend nothing, whether in prosperity or adversity, whether in the vast- ness of blessings or in the days of famine and hardship. They are called “base” in an unqualified sense. They have seized the branch of niggardliness, which is a tree whose roots are in hell and whose branches are in this world. This is according to what Anas ibn Mālik reported from God's Messenger: “Openhandedness is a tree in the Garden whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Garden. And niggardliness is a tree in the Fire whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Fire.” Second are those who spend in vastness of blessings but not in narrowness and hardship. Most of God's creatures among the world's folk and those who take care of this world are in this station. In the work of this world they do not have the confidence for open-handedness and they are always in fear of poverty. To them alludes His words, “If He asks you for them, then presses you, you are niggardly, and He brings out your rancor” [47:37]. Third are those who spend in both of these states, both in ease and difficulty. Such a person has one of two states: Either he is an impudent and impure man who does not know whence he takes and where he gives and does not think about the outcome. He is numbered among the broth- ers of Satan. That is in His words, “Surely the squanderers are the brothers of Satan” [17:27]. Or he is a man who is confident in the sufficiency of God and His assignment of daily provision. He has recognized the secret of this report from MuṣṬafā: “Surely the holy spirit breathed into my mind that no one will die until his provision is complete. So be wary of God, and go lightly in your seeking. Never let the tardiness of provision make you seek something of God's bounty through disobedience, for what is with God will only be reached by obeying Him.
وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً أَوْ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ ذَكَرُوا اللَّهَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا لِذُنُوبِهِمْ وَمَنْ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَلَمْ يُصِرُّوا عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلُوا وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ
📘 And who when they commit an indecency, a grave sin by considering their acts as issuing from power within them, or wrong their souls, [those who] stint what is due to these by committing minor sins and the manifestation of their souls in these, remember God, upon the issuing forth of their acts by seeing them as having occurred as a result of God's power and [who] absolve themselves of these [acts] before Him, seeing that these are a trial for them from Him, and pray forgiveness, asking for their acts to be concealed, [acts] which constitute their sins, by His acts, absolving themselves thereof by affirming that might and power are His alone; and who shall forgive sins, that is, the existences of acts, but Godḍ In other words, they have realised that there is none to forgive [them] except Him - and who do not persist in what they did, when they were unaware and when their souls were manifest, but who repent and returned to Him in terms of their acts, knowing, that only God acts.
أُولَٰئِكَ جَزَاؤُهُمْ مَغْفِرَةٌ مِنْ رَبِّهِمْ وَجَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا ۚ وَنِعْمَ أَجْرُ الْعَامِلِينَ
📘 excellent is the wage of those who work, according to what the [true] affirmation of the unity of the acts entails.
قَدْ خَلَتْ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ سُنَنٌ فَسِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ فَانْظُرُوا كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الْمُكَذِّبِينَ
📘 There have passed away before you [many] ways of life, smites and calamities from among the things that God has established in His acts as ways of dealing with those who deny the prophets when these affirm the unity of [God's] acts; so travel in the land and behold, the vestiges [of those ways] therein so that you might know how was their end came about.
هَٰذَا بَيَانٌ لِلنَّاسِ وَهُدًى وَمَوْعِظَةٌ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ
📘 This, that has been mentioned, is an exposition for mankind, of the knowledge concerning the affirmation of the unity of [God's] acts and a differentiating of the God-fearing who are the people fixed (tamkīn) in that [knowledge], [from] the repentant who are the people of variegation (talwīn), and the persistent [in sin] who are veiled from that [knowledge], being deniers of it. This [exposition] is in addition a guidance, an unveiling for eyewitnessing, an ascertainment and an admonition for those who guard against seeing their acts; or it is guidance for them to the affirmation of the unity of the [divine] attributes and the essence.
وَلَا تَهِنُوا وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا وَأَنْتُمُ الْأَعْلَوْنَ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 Faint not, in the struggle when the disbelievers have mastery, neither grieve, for what has eluded you of victory and [for] those brethren of yours who are injured or who have been martyred, for you are the uppermost, in [terms of] level because of your nearness to God and your more exalted degree as the people of God, if you are, affirmers of the Oneness; because the affirmer of Oneness considers that what befalls him of trials is from God and so the least of his degrees, if it is not satisfaction [with that predicament], is patient endurance from which he draws strength in such a way that he does not grieve or faint.
زُيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ حُبُّ الشَّهَوَاتِ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ وَالْبَنِينَ وَالْقَنَاطِيرِ الْمُقَنْطَرَةِ مِنَ الذَّهَبِ وَالْفِضَّةِ وَالْخَيْلِ الْمُسَوَّمَةِ وَالْأَنْعَامِ وَالْحَرْثِ ۗ ذَٰلِكَ مَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا ۖ وَاللَّهُ عِنْدَهُ حُسْنُ الْمَآبِ
📘 Adorned for people is love of appetites, like women, children, heaped-up heaps of gold and silver, horses of mark, cattle, and tillage. That is the enjoyment of the life of this world. The paragon of the world and master of the children of Adam, MuṣṬafā, reported that when the Eternal Enactor created paradise, He said to Gabriel, “'O Gabriel! Go look at it.' Go gaze on this paradise and see once what I have made and created for My servants and friends.” Gabriel went and saw those adorned paradises with their infinite joy and bliss, that place of revelry made and prepared in the neighborhood of God's Presence for the exalted ones of the road and God's friends. When Gabriel came back he said, “Lord God, 'By Thy exaltedness, no one will hear of it and not enter into it!' By the exaltedness of Your Lordhood, no one will hear the attributes of this para- dise without aiming for it and becoming obedient so that he may enter it.” Then the Lord of the Worlds surrounded paradise with all the hardship and suffering of unwor- thy things and unreached desires, and He made its road a bridge of trial so that everyone who aims for the Patron must first pass over that bridge of trial. Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “How should I have known that suffering is the mother of hap- piness and that beneath one disappointment lie a thousand treasures? How should I have known which gate this is or what is the answer to the story of friendship? How should I have known that companionship with You is the greatest Resurrection and that the exaltation of union with You lies in the abasement of bewilderment?” O spirit of the world! The Kaabah is a sweet place, the nest of God's friends and the lodging place of the sincerely truthful, but there is a man-eating desert before it, mile after mile and way station after way station. Who in the end will have the seeking to pass over all those miles and way stations until he reaches the magnificent Kaabah? A world is wandering in the desert of Your love- who will be given access to the Kaabah of Your acceptance? [DS 210] After He made the road of paradise that of unreached desires and disappointment, the command came, “O Gabriel: Look again.
إِنْ يَمْسَسْكُمْ قَرْحٌ فَقَدْ مَسَّ الْقَوْمَ قَرْحٌ مِثْلُهُ ۚ وَتِلْكَ الْأَيَّامُ نُدَاوِلُهَا بَيْنَ النَّاسِ وَلِيَعْلَمَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَيَتَّخِذَ مِنْكُمْ شُهَدَاءَ ۗ وَاللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ
📘 [Such] days: [such] events. Any tremendous affair that occurs is called 'a day' or 'days', as [in the expression] where God says And remind them of the Days of God [Q. 14:5]. The explanation of 'that God may know' has already been given to mean the manifestation of knowledge at the level of differentiation that is subsequent to the eventuality of known things; and that He may take witnesses from among you, those who bear witness to the Truth such that they are distracted from their souls. In other words, We deal out [such] events among mankind for various purposes and [on the basis of] many wisdoms which are not mentioned, from [allowing for] the actualisation of what [potential] is [contained] in their preparedness, to action in the way of patience, endurance, the strength of certainty and little concern for the soul, its being mastered and suppressed by the heart and so on; and also for the two reasons mentioned [in the verse] and to deliver the believers from sins and coverings that distance them from God through punishment and trial, when these [days] are against them; and to obliterate the disbelievers, to vanquish them and destroy them when these [days] are in their favour. Between the reasons given [by God] comes a parenthetical: and God loves not the evildoers, in order that it be known that the one who lacks the attribute of faith and witnessing, as well as [the capacity] to examine [his] sins and [lacks] the strength of steadfastness to perfect [his] certainty, but is present at the battle in pursuit of spoils or for some other purpose, such a person is an evildoer and that God does not love him.
وَلَقَدْ كُنْتُمْ تَمَنَّوْنَ الْمَوْتَ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ تَلْقَوْهُ فَقَدْ رَأَيْتُمُوهُ وَأَنْتُمْ تَنْظُرُونَ
📘 You were longing for death before you met it, [to the end of] the verse: every person of certainty whose certainty is not a natural disposition but a passing inclination will always in some of his states long for things and claim certain states in accordance with [the desires of] his soul; likewise [when he is in] a state of other than certainty. When the heart comes forward then he is sincere, so long as he is qualified by that [state of certainty]. But when in another state and at the turning away [of his heart], there remains no trace of that [certainty]. Similar is the case with the one who has not witnessed a [particular] state or experienced it. It may be that he longs for it by virtue of its being formed [as an image] in his soul and the fact that he is not harmed by it when it is [simply] an image. However, when it does take place and he is tried [with it], he is unable to bear its hardships, as is related of Sumnūn the lover, may God have mercy upon him, when he said in one of his verses:'However You wish, then test me!'He was then afflicted with urine retention (asr) but was unable to bear the trial. He would wander the streets and give children things to play with such as walnuts, saying to them, 'Pray for this old man of yours, the liar'. It is in this sense that the poet says:'[Only] when the coward finds himself alone in some place, does he seek the challenge and lines up for battle, all alone'.Thus a state is of little concern until it becomes a station and can only be considered a station when the person has been tried in that very abode. If he makes it through the trial then it [his station] is good. This is one of the benefits of the dealing out of the days between them, that they might be trained in [the presence of] death and their certainty be strengthened, their patience abound and their station realised through the witnessing, as He says: Now you have seen it, with the slaying of your brethren before your, as you, witnessed that. Therein is a rebuke for them, for that their certainty was a state and not a station, which is why they have failed [to dwel] in the abode [of that station].
وَمَا مُحَمَّدٌ إِلَّا رَسُولٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ مِنْ قَبْلِهِ الرُّسُلُ ۚ أَفَإِنْ مَاتَ أَوْ قُتِلَ انْقَلَبْتُمْ عَلَىٰ أَعْقَابِكُمْ ۚ وَمَنْ يَنْقَلِبْ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ فَلَنْ يَضُرَّ اللَّهَ شَيْئًا ۗ وَسَيَجْزِي اللَّهُ الشَّاكِرِينَ
📘 MuḤammad is only a messenger. Messengers have passed away before him. What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? If anyone turns back on his heels, he will not harm God in anything, and God will recompense the grateful. As much as MuḤammad is praised and chosen among all men and caressed by the God of the world's folk, as much as he is the pole of the world and the lamp of heaven and earth, the chieftain and full moon of the universe, emulated by the creatures, the paragon of the engendered beings, and the Seal of the Prophets-despite all this, he is a mortal man. Death is fitting for him and an- nihilation applies to him. As many prophets as there have been in the world, all of them went. The Real did not disappear, nor was God harmed. The Real remained after all of them, and God is their keeper in the perfection of His exaltedness. By way of allusion, the folk of realization are being addressed: “The perfection of Our ex- altedness is free of need for that which was not, then came to be. There is no link between Our lordhood and that which was not, then came to be. Our unity does not call for an existence-giver, and Our Being does not need a strengthener. Our exaltedness recognizes Our magnificence, and Our Unity knows Our exaltedness. Her own face had itself as a moon, her own eye had itself as collyrium. A sound report has come that He says, “O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most godwary man among you, that would add nothing to My kingdom. O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most depraved man among you, that would take nothing away from My kingdom.” What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? This verse provides evidence for the eminence of Abū Bakr, for when MuṣṬafā was taken away from this house of decrees and the steed of death was sent for his prophethood's shining face, then in the attribute of exaltedness the Divine Pres- ence snatched that shining face away from the steed of death and took him into the embrace of Unity.
وَمَا كَانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَنْ تَمُوتَ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ كِتَابًا مُؤَجَّلًا ۗ وَمَنْ يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا وَمَنْ يُرِدْ ثَوَابَ الْآخِرَةِ نُؤْتِهِ مِنْهَا ۚ وَسَنَجْزِي الشَّاكِرِينَ
📘 It is not for any soul to die, save by the leave of God, a prescribed term, and so the one who has certainty shall witness the meaning of this and find himself the most valiant of men, as Ḥātim b. al-Aṣamm related of himself in what he witnessed with Shaqīq al-Balkhī, may God have mercy on both, in one of the campaigns into Khurāsān. He relates, 'Shaqīq found me as the battle was raging. He asked me, �How do you find your heart O Ḥātimḍ�. I replied, �Like on my wedding night, [wavering] between two states�. He then put down his weapons, saying, �As for me, mine is like this�, and laid his head down on his shield. He slept [so deeply] as the battle raged, you could hear him snoring. That is the ultimate in terms of the heart being reassured by God and its confidence in Him by virtue of the strength of its certainty.
فَآتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا وَحُسْنَ ثَوَابِ الْآخِرَةِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ
📘 God gave them this world's reward and the beauty of the next world's reward, and God loves the beautiful-doers. Concerning the reward of the next world He said “beauty,” which is to say that the reward is beauti- ful, but He did not say that about the reward of this world. This is because the reward of the after- world is lasting, but the reward of this world is passing. The former comes into being constantly without blight and without trouble, but the latter is soon cut off and has blights and tribulations. God loves the beautiful-doers. The beautiful-doers are the “grateful” who are mentioned in verse 3:144. The “recompense” to which He alludes there is the love that He explains here. Beautiful doing is what MuṣṬafā said in answering Gabriel: “It is that you worship God as if you see Him.” Beautiful doing is the attribute of the self-watchful, the state of the finders, the station of the approving, and the mark of the friends. Love for God is their watchword and remembering God their blanket. God's love is pouring down on them, and this pouring is like a sweetheart inside their spirit. From it the tree of happiness gives fruit and the spirit has a happy springtime. Hail, O sweet breeze of early spring! You give off the scent of that idol's tresses.
۞ قُلْ أَؤُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِخَيْرٍ مِنْ ذَٰلِكُمْ ۚ لِلَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ جَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا وَأَزْوَاجٌ مُطَهَّرَةٌ وَرِضْوَانٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بَصِيرٌ بِالْعِبَادِ
📘 Shall I tell you of something better than that? For those who are godwary there shall be with their Lord gardens beneath which rivers flow, therein dwelling forever, and spouses made pure, and approval from God. After talking about the enemies, describing their life, and explaining their furthest goal, God in this verse comes back to the story of the friends. Tomorrow, the final outcome of those whose watch- word today is godwariness will be paradise and approval. He says, “For those who are godwary there shall be with their Lord gardens.” Just as godwariness has levels, so also paradise has degrees. The first degree is the Garden of the Shelter, and the first level of godwariness is to avoid the forbidden and the soul's caprice. The Splendorous Qur'an ties the two together in its words, “As for him who fears the standing place be- fore his Lord and prohibits the soul its caprice, surely the Garden shall be the shelter” [79:40-41]. The highest degree is the Garden of Eden, and better than the Garden of Eden is the Greatest Approval. So, the furthest goal of the paradise-dwellers is the Greatest Approval, just as the Lord of the Worlds says: “And goodly dwellings in the gardens of Eden; and approval from God is greatest” [9:72] The Greatest Approval belongs to those who reach the utmost godwariness. The utmost god- wariness is that someone takes whatever has the scar of new arrival and the mark of creation as his own enemy, as Abraham said: “Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds” [26:77]. You must turn away from all things and, with detached heart, busy yourself with the suf- fering of passion for the Haqiqah. You must know for certain that the intrusion of others finds no room in passion's suffering. You must cut off your heart and spirit from everything. The heart is Your garden-take it all, for this heart has room either for my intrusion or Your image. In gratitude I will also send my spirit to You- a whiff of union with You does what a hundred spirits cannot. Tomorrow, all will be taken to the furthest limit of their goals and aspirations. Here someone hopes for the Garden of the Refuge and is told, “Flee from the unlawful and be just, and that will not be held back from you. ” Someone hopes for the Abode of Everlastingness and is told, “Avoid the doubtful and be a renunciant, and that will not be held back from you.” Someone else desires Firdaws and is told, “Keep back from the lawful and be a recognizer, and that will not be held back from you.” A group remain who have no hopes and no desires. They desire what the Beloved desires and choose what the Beloved chooses. The paradises are presented to them, and the maidens and serv- ing boys are made to sit on the turrets scattering precious gifts for them, but they are detached from it all and turn their faces away. They say, “If we must give our heart to someone, well, let us give it to someone who will enslave it.” Suddenly I gave my heart to the one with the tulip face. She was worthy of my heart-that's why I gave it. Let me now speak of the Greatest Approval and finish with that. It is narrated from Anas ibn Mālik that he said one day God's Messenger kept them waiting. When he came out, they asked him what had held him back. He said, “That was because Gabriel came to me holding in his hand something like a mirror with a black spot. He said, 'This is Friday, within which there is an hour of good for you and your community. The Jews and the Christians desired it, but they missed its mark.' “I said, 'O Gabriel! What is this black spot?' “He said, 'It is an hour of Friday with which no Muslim will keep company asking for good from God without God's giving it to him, or storing away the like of it for him for the Day of Res- urrection, or averting from him its like in ugliness. It is the best of days with God, and the folk of the Garden call it “the Day of Increase.”' “I said, 'O Gabriel, and what is this Day of Increase?' “He said, 'Surely there is in the Garden a valley in which flows white musk. Every Friday God descends into it and sets up His Footstool. Then pulpits of light are brought and placed be- hind it and surrounded by the angels. Then footstools of gold are brought and put there. Then the prophets, the sincerely truthful, the witnesses, and the faithful, who are the folk of the chambers, are brought and they sit. Then God smiles and says, “O My servants, ask of Me!” They will say, “We ask You for Your approval. He will say, “I have approved of you.”'”
سَنُلْقِي فِي قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا الرُّعْبَ بِمَا أَشْرَكُوا بِاللَّهِ مَا لَمْ يُنَزِّلْ بِهِ سُلْطَانًا ۖ وَمَأْوَاهُمُ النَّارُ ۚ وَبِئْسَ مَثْوَى الظَّالِمِينَ
📘 We will cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers, [to the end of] the verse: He has ordained that the terror cast into the hearts of the disbelievers be caused by their association of others [with Him]. For valour and all the other virtues are forms of moderation within the faculties of the soul against that the shadow of the Oneness should be cast on it upon its illumination by the light of the heart which is itself illumined by the light of the Oneness. As such these [virtues] can only be perfected for the affirmer of the Oneness who has certainty in his affirmation of the Oneness. As for the one who associates others [with God], because he is veiled from the source of strength and power by what he associates with God of existents that are blemished by nonexistence and the contingency (imkān) of whose existence is [necessarily] subtle and weak and which in itself possesses no strength, existence or essence in reality and regarding whose existence God has not sent down any definitive proof of its existence in the first place, given that its nonexistence has been realised in accordance with [the nature of] its [contingent] essence, such [an associating person] possesses nothing but incapacity, cowardice and all vices, since he cannot be stronger than the object of his worship, even if he should be given a turn of fortune, a show of force or a dash of bravery then this will be something without foundation, fixedness or endurance, like the [short] fire of the arfaj bush; such were the [shortlived] fortunes of the [Meccan] polytheists.
وَلَقَدْ صَدَقَكُمُ اللَّهُ وَعْدَهُ إِذْ تَحُسُّونَهُمْ بِإِذْنِهِ ۖ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا فَشِلْتُمْ وَتَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ وَعَصَيْتُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا أَرَاكُمْ مَا تُحِبُّونَ ۚ مِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرِيدُ الدُّنْيَا وَمِنْكُمْ مَنْ يُرِيدُ الْآخِرَةَ ۚ ثُمَّ صَرَفَكُمْ عَنْهُمْ لِيَبْتَلِيَكُمْ ۖ وَلَقَدْ عَفَا عَنْكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ ذُو فَضْلٍ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 Among you are those who desire this world, and among you are those who desire the next world. The worth of someone is his desire, and the want of someone is his leader. One person wants this world, another the afterworld, another the Patron. Wanting this world is all trickery and delusion, wanting the afterworld is all occupation with the work of wage-earners, and wanting the Patron is all celebration and joy. A seeker of this world is wounded by fantasy and delusion, a seeker of the afterworld is attached to palaces and houris, and a seeker of the Patron is in the ocean of Solitari- ness, inundated by light. Dhu'l-Nūn the Egyptian said, “O God, if I have any share of this world, I have given it to strangers. If I have anything stored up for the afterworld, I give it to the faithful. In this world, remembering You is enough for me, and in the afterworld seeing You is enough for me.” This world and the afterworld are two precious commodities, and vision is the hard cash that is given. The broker of this world is Iblis. He offers his wares at auction in the bazaar of abandon- ment and adorns them for the people. God says, reporting from him, “I shall surely adorn for them what is in the earth”[15:39]. Iblis's buyer is the unbeliever. The price is abandoning the religion and sheer associationism. As for MuṣṬafā, he is the broker of paradise. He makes his offers at the auction of solicitude in the bazaar of the afterworld. The buyer is God and the sellers are the faithful. The price is the formula, “There is no god but God.” The Prophet said, “The price of the Garden is There is no god but God.” The Pir of the Tariqah said, “I see a group distracted from Him by this world, a group dis- tracted from Him by that world, and a group distracted from both worlds by Him. They are waiting to see when the breeze of felicity will blow from the side of proximity and the sun of union will shine from the mansion of solicitude. They weep with the tongue of selflessness and say in hope, 'O generous one! How can someone who yearns for You put up with life? He who hopes for you has a breast full of blood at the hands of Your friendship!'” Without You, O ease of my spirit, how can I live? If You are not by my side, how can I be happy?
۞ إِذْ تُصْعِدُونَ وَلَا تَلْوُونَ عَلَىٰ أَحَدٍ وَالرَّسُولُ يَدْعُوكُمْ فِي أُخْرَاكُمْ فَأَثَابَكُمْ غَمًّا بِغَمٍّ لِكَيْلَا تَحْزَنُوا عَلَىٰ مَا فَاتَكُمْ وَلَا مَا أَصَابَكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ
📘 so He rewarded you with grief for grief, that is, He turned you away from them and rewarded you with grief because of a grief that befell God's Messenger from your part when you disobeyed him and lost heart and quarreled. Or [it means] grief after grief, doubled, so that you might be trained to be patient and to remain firm in adversity, and so that you might become accustomed to seeing power, victory and spoils and all things as being from God and not from your own souls, so that you might not grieve for what eluded you, of shares and benefits, neither for what befell you, of grief and harm.
ثُمَّ أَنْزَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ الْغَمِّ أَمَنَةً نُعَاسًا يَغْشَىٰ طَائِفَةً مِنْكُمْ ۖ وَطَائِفَةٌ قَدْ أَهَمَّتْهُمْ أَنْفُسُهُمْ يَظُنُّونَ بِاللَّهِ غَيْرَ الْحَقِّ ظَنَّ الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ ۖ يَقُولُونَ هَلْ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَمْرِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ الْأَمْرَ كُلَّهُ لِلَّهِ ۗ يُخْفُونَ فِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ مَا لَا يُبْدُونَ لَكَ ۖ يَقُولُونَ لَوْ كَانَ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَمْرِ شَيْءٌ مَا قُتِلْنَا هَاهُنَا ۗ قُلْ لَوْ كُنْتُمْ فِي بُيُوتِكُمْ لَبَرَزَ الَّذِينَ كُتِبَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَتْلُ إِلَىٰ مَضَاجِعِهِمْ ۖ وَلِيَبْتَلِيَ اللَّهُ مَا فِي صُدُورِكُمْ وَلِيُمَحِّصَ مَا فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ الصُّدُورِ
📘 Then, He spared you the grief by [granting you] security and casting sleep upon the truthful party and not the [party of the] hypocrites, whose own souls distressed them, not the soul of the Messenger, nor indeed those who manifested an indication [that they were deserving] of [God's] pardon; those for whom it had been appointed that they be slain would have sallied forth to the places where they were to lie, because of His statement No affliction befalls in the earth or in your souls but it is in a Book, before We bring it about [Q. 57:22], that God might try what was in your breasts, in other words, so that God might test what is in your preparedness of [the potential] truthfulness, sincerity, certainty, patience, trust in God, and disengagement, and all the other [virtuous] traits and stations, in order to bring them forth from potentiality to actuality; and that He might prove what was in your hearts, meaning, so that He might deliver those [potentials], which have sallied forth out of the hiding place of the breast and into the storehouse of the heart, from the stumbling blocks that are the evil whisperings of Satan, base states and the passing inclinations of the soul�For the trial is one of God's scourges by which He drives His servants towards Him by purifying them of the attributes of the soul and making manifest the perfections [dormant] in them so that they are devoted completely to Him instead of creatures and to the Truth instead of the soul. That is why it has always been the prophets, followed by the friends [of God], and then the most exemplary [of servants] that have been charged with such [trials]. The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, as an illustration of his excellence said, 'No prophet has suffered hurt to the extent that I have'. It is as though he were saying, 'No prophet has been purified like I have'. Good are the words of the one who said:'How excellent are calamities, for verily they bring rust to the ignoble, but lustre to the free'.For whatever manifests on either of the two [of rust or lustre] is only what is hidden in that person's preparedness, in the same way that they say, 'At the test a man is either honoured or disgraced'.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَلَّوْا مِنْكُمْ يَوْمَ الْتَقَى الْجَمْعَانِ إِنَّمَا اسْتَزَلَّهُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ بِبَعْضِ مَا كَسَبُوا ۖ وَلَقَدْ عَفَا اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ حَلِيمٌ
📘 [Satan] made them slip, that is, he asked them to slip and called them to do so, the slip being the turning away [from the battle], through some of what they had earned, in the way of sins. For Satan is only able to whisper to people and to fulfil his task when there is an opportunity through the smallest darkness in the heart resulting from a sin or a motion of the soul, as they say: the sin that follows a sin is the punishment of the former [sin]; but God pardoned them, by their apology and their remorse;
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَقَالُوا لِإِخْوَانِهِمْ إِذَا ضَرَبُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ أَوْ كَانُوا غُزًّى لَوْ كَانُوا عِنْدَنَا مَا مَاتُوا وَمَا قُتِلُوا لِيَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ حَسْرَةً فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ
📘 so that God may make that anguish in their hearts, in other words, that He might make that statement and belief a constraint, a straitening and a grief in their hearts for considering that death or slaying is caused by an act [of man]. Had they been people of certainty affirmers of the Oneness they would have seen that it is [all] from God and their breasts would have been expanded [embracing God]. For God gives life, to whom He will, be they on journey or in a struggle or otherwise; and He gives death, to whom He will in the towns or otherwise.
وَلَئِنْ قُتِلْتُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَوْ مُتُّمْ لَمَغْفِرَةٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَرَحْمَةٌ خَيْرٌ مِمَّا يَجْمَعُونَ
📘 [And if you are slain in God's way, or die] forgiveness from God and mercy, that is, your bliss in the Hereafter in terms of the garden of the acts and the garden of the attributes is better for you than that [bliss and reward] of this world, since you are working towards the Hereafter.
وَلَئِنْ مُتُّمْ أَوْ قُتِلْتُمْ لَإِلَى اللَّهِ تُحْشَرُونَ
📘 [And if you die or are slain] it is to God you shall be mustered, [you shall be mustered] to the place of your affirmation of the Oneness. Thus your state after death will be better than your state before it.
فَبِمَا رَحْمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ لِنْتَ لَهُمْ ۖ وَلَوْ كُنْتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ الْقَلْبِ لَانْفَضُّوا مِنْ حَوْلِكَ ۖ فَاعْفُ عَنْهُمْ وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ ۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْمُتَوَكِّلِينَ
📘 It was by a mercy of God that thou wert soft with them. Hadst thou been harsh and hard of heart, they would have scattered from around thee. So pardon them, ask forgiveness for them, and consult with them in the affair. And when thou art resolved, trust in God. Surely God loves those who trust. “O master of masters! O paragon of engendered beings! You are generous and lovingly kind, gentle and ever-merciful to everyone. You drive everyone by customs that hit the mark. You call everyone to the table of exaltedness and convey to everlasting felicity. You are like a father for the orphans, a husband for the widowed. You caress the familiar and you show the road to the estranged. You are mercy itself for the world's folk, a cause of generous giving to all the servants. O master, there is all of this, but take care not to see yourself. Do not consider these as your own acquisitions, for all of them are I. It is I who was, I who caressed, I who made, and I put you to that. I gave you a sweet disposition. O paragon, keep on being this way to the faithful and the friends-with the same loving kindness and the same sweet disposition: And lower thy wing to the faithful who follow thee [26:215]. But, with the unbelievers and hypocrites, you should be a bit harder and struggle against them: O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be hard with them [9:73].” There is a great difference between the Beloved [MuḤammad] and the Speaking Companion [Moses]. He commanded the Beloved to be harsh with the unbelievers and he called him back from cajolery, for in his disposition all was softness and benevolence. To the Speaking Companion He said the opposite: “Speak to him with soft words” [20:44]. He commanded him to softness and benevolence, and He called him back from the sharpness and hardness that was within him. Then He says, “Hadst thou been harsh and hard of heart, they would have scattered from around thee. O master, if you were to give the unmixed wine of tawḤīd to your companions, with- out the admixture of their own shares, they would flee and no longer come around you. O master, they do not have the capacity to put up with what your capacity puts up with.
الَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا إِنَّنَا آمَنَّا فَاغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ
📘 Those who say: �O, Our Lord, we believe, in the lights of Your acts and attributes, so forgive us our sins, that is, the sins of our existences by Your essence, and guard us from the chastisement of the Fire�, that is, the fire of abandonment and the existence of those who remain,
إِنْ يَنْصُرْكُمُ اللَّهُ فَلَا غَالِبَ لَكُمْ ۖ وَإِنْ يَخْذُلْكُمْ فَمَنْ ذَا الَّذِي يَنْصُرُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِهِ ۗ وَعَلَى اللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ
📘 If God helps you�to the end [of the verse: then none can overcome you; but if He forsakes you, then who is there who can help you after Himḍ Therefore on God let the believers rely].
وَمَا كَانَ لِنَبِيٍّ أَنْ يَغُلَّ ۚ وَمَنْ يَغْلُلْ يَأْتِ بِمَا غَلَّ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ ۚ ثُمَّ تُوَفَّىٰ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ
📘 It is not for a prophet [to be fraudelent], given the remoteness of the station of prophethood and the immunity of prophets from all vices and the impossibility of such [behaviour] issuing from them, removed as they are from the attributes of mortals, immune to the effects of the summonings of the soul and Satan on them, subsisting in God and possessing of His attributes; [whoever defrauds] shall bring what he has defrauded, that is, he shall appear in the form of his defrauding, exactly in [the form of] what he had defrauded.
أَفَمَنِ اتَّبَعَ رِضْوَانَ اللَّهِ كَمَنْ بَاءَ بِسَخَطٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَمَأْوَاهُ جَهَنَّمُ ۚ وَبِئْسَ الْمَصِيرُ
📘 Is he who follows God's beatitude, namely, [is he who follows] the prophet through the station of beatitude, which is the garden of the attributes, by his [the prophet's] possession of the attributes of God, and the defrauder who is at the station of wrath by virtue of his being veiled by his own attributes, and whose abode is, the lowest pits of the dark soul: are they the sameḍ
هُمْ دَرَجَاتٌ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بَصِيرٌ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ
📘 They are of degrees: that is, each of the people of the beatitude and the people of wrath are of varying degrees, or they differ from each other by a variance in degree.
أَوَلَمَّا أَصَابَتْكُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ قَدْ أَصَبْتُمْ مِثْلَيْهَا قُلْتُمْ أَنَّىٰ هَٰذَا ۖ قُلْ هُوَ مِنْ عِنْدِ أَنْفُسِكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
📘 Say: It is from yourselves: this [statement] does not contradict [His other statement] Say: Everything is from God [Q. 4:78], because the agent cause in all cases is the Truth, exalted be He, while the receptive cause is themselves. The agent effuses only in the measure that befits the [receiving] preparedness and is required by it. Thus from the perspective of the agent it is from God and from the perspective of the recipient it is from themselves. The preparedness of souls is either innate or accidental. The innate derives from His holiest effusion in accordance with His will. The accidental issues as required by His decree, which aspect also ultimately derives from Him. From another perspective, what is from themselves is also from God, if one considers His Oneness, for there is nothing else there.
وَمَا أَصَابَكُمْ يَوْمَ الْتَقَى الْجَمْعَانِ فَبِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَلِيَعْلَمَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 and that He might know the believers.
وَلِيَعْلَمَ الَّذِينَ نَافَقُوا ۚ وَقِيلَ لَهُمْ تَعَالَوْا قَاتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَوِ ادْفَعُوا ۖ قَالُوا لَوْ نَعْلَمُ قِتَالًا لَاتَّبَعْنَاكُمْ ۗ هُمْ لِلْكُفْرِ يَوْمَئِذٍ أَقْرَبُ مِنْهُمْ لِلْإِيمَانِ ۚ يَقُولُونَ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ مَا لَيْسَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا يَكْتُمُونَ
📘 And that He might also know the hypocrites, that is, so that the believers and the hypocrites might be distinguished at the level of differentiated knowledge.
وَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتًا ۚ بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ
📘 Count not those who were killed in God's path as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for. O life of the spirit, what is it with me that I know nothing of my state? The spirit from You fills me, but my heart's blood is empty of You. O God, our life lies in remembering You, our happiness in finding You, our spirit in recognizing You! The Pir of the Tariqah said, “The living are three: one lives through the spirit, one lives through knowledge, and one lives through the Real. He who lives through the spirit lives on food and wind. He who lives through knowledge lives on love and remembrance. He who lives through the Real is happy indeed with Him. “O God, if the body's spirit is deprived of You, it will be a captive corpse, but if someone is killed in Your path hoping for union with You, he will live forever.” You said, “Don't pass by my street drunk lest you be killed, for my suitor is jealous.” Let me say a word, my dear, perhaps I'll be excused- “Killed in your street is better than far from your face.” Indeed, when friends are wounded in the Friend's street, that is a good omen, for gambling away the spirit in the gaming-house of passion is their habit and disposition. Wealth, gold, things-gamble them away for nothing. When the work reaches your spirit, gamble it away! Beware, beware! Take care not worry that your spirit will perish in the Friend's path. When the spirit perishes in loyalty to the Friend, that is true eminence. The precondition for your spirit's undertaking friendship's rightful due is its destruction. Love is intoxication, its craving destruction, its wilting and emaciation beautiful. He has clothed me with abasement in His love- abasement in love for the likes of Him is eminence. That tumultuous one of the time, Shiblī, said, “When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place.” When you are loyal in friendship and gamble away your spirit, you will receive good fortune for free, for you will have the Friend in place of the spirit. If you had a hundred thou- sand spirits, you should sacrifice them to this union, for in truth that would still be something for nothing.
الصَّابِرِينَ وَالصَّادِقِينَ وَالْقَانِتِينَ وَالْمُنْفِقِينَ وَالْمُسْتَغْفِرِينَ بِالْأَسْحَارِ
📘 The patient, the truthful, the devoted, the expenders, those who ask forgiveness at dawn. The patient, that is, with their hearts, the truthful with their spirits, the devoted with their souls, the expenders of what they are able, those who ask forgiveness with their tongues.2 The chevaliers are those whose speaking is this and whose doing is this. In the heart they are patient with the Real's command, in the spirit they walk straight in the Real's covenant, in the body they observe the right- ful due of the Real's command, with wealth they spend in the Real's road, with tongue they ask forgiveness and seek from the Real's generosity. The patient: That is, they are patient in trial and they reject complaint until they reach the Patron, nothing of this world or the afterworld holding them back. They are patient in every trial and put aside complaint. They turn their faces away from both this world and the afterworld until they reach the Patron. The truthful: That is, they speak the truth in seeking, so they aim straight, then they speak the truth until they witness. They speak truthfully and begin traveling. They travel truthfully to reach the domicile. They think truthfully to reach the destination. Then they put aside the marks bearing witness to truthfulness and throw themselves into the ocean to reach the shore of security and the seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55]. The devoted: That is, in clinging to the door, drinking down sorrow, leaving aside loved ones, and rejecting companions until they realize proximity. They put on the clothing of poverty and hold up the hands of need at the door of the house of generosity: “Until You open, we will not leave, and until You caress, we will not go away.” Sometimes they are in prostration, sometimes standing, sometimes in fear, sometimes in hope. From the Exalted Presence comes this caress: “The field of friendship's road is solitariness, and the drinker of its wine is promised vision. Who- ever is truthful will one day reach his desire.” Some day good fortune will enter my door, some day the sun of elation will rise, Some day You will cast a glance at me, some day this sorrow of mine will end. The expenders: That is, they are munificent with their property to the extent they are able, then with their souls in respect of deeds, then with their hearts through truthfulness of states.
فَرِحِينَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ وَيَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِالَّذِينَ لَمْ يَلْحَقُوا بِهِمْ مِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ أَلَّا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
📘 Joyful in what God has given them of His bounty, in the way of an honouring, graces and nearness to God, and rejoicing for, the state of their brethren, those who have not joined them but are left behind, and have not yet attained degrees like theirs [being as they are] behind them, because they will be made joyous soon with the like of their state and will join them, that no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve: an inclusive substitution for 'those who' (alladhīna), that is to say, they rejoice [for them] that they shall be safe and that no fear shall befall them, and that neither shall they grieve.
۞ يَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِنِعْمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَفَضْلٍ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 They rejoice in blessings from God and bounty, and that God does not leave to waste the wage of the faithful, those who answered God and the Messenger after the wound had befallen them. Those who bow their heads before the command of God and the Messenger in passion for the religion made their own dear spirits the target of the enemy's arrows. They made their spirits a gift, their bodies a path, and their hearts a sacrifice. They bought that suffering and wounding with spirit and heart. Sarī SaqaṬī said, “God appeared to me in a dream saying, 'O Sarī! We created the creatures. Some of them saw this world and clung to it. Some of them saw trial, and they fled to paradise and well-being. Some of them thought nothing of trial and took the tribulation into their spirits and hearts, asking for union with Us. Which one of these are you? What do you want?'” Sarī said, “I answered, 'You know what I desire.'” How often will you ask, why do you make me suffer? In truth you know my state better than I. “He said, 'O Sarī! By the majesty of Our measure, We will strike your head with the whip of trial, and We will make the millstone of tribulation revolve on your head.'” Sarī said, “I replied with the light of recognition by lordly inspiration, 'Are You not the one who sends trials?'” The lover's soul is patient with illness- perhaps He who made him ill will one day make him well. * Since the healing, O Heart-taker, is from Your wound and pain, make no balm for the wounded, don't cure the pain!
الَّذِينَ اسْتَجَابُوا لِلَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا أَصَابَهُمُ الْقَرْحُ ۚ لِلَّذِينَ أَحْسَنُوا مِنْهُمْ وَاتَّقَوْا أَجْرٌ عَظِيمٌ
📘 They rejoice in blessings from God and bounty, and that God does not leave to waste the wage of the faithful, those who answered God and the Messenger after the wound had befallen them. Those who bow their heads before the command of God and the Messenger in passion for the religion made their own dear spirits the target of the enemy's arrows. They made their spirits a gift, their bodies a path, and their hearts a sacrifice. They bought that suffering and wounding with spirit and heart. Sarī SaqaṬī said, “God appeared to me in a dream saying, 'O Sarī! We created the creatures. Some of them saw this world and clung to it. Some of them saw trial, and they fled to paradise and well-being. Some of them thought nothing of trial and took the tribulation into their spirits and hearts, asking for union with Us. Which one of these are you? What do you want?'” Sarī said, “I answered, 'You know what I desire.'” How often will you ask, why do you make me suffer? In truth you know my state better than I. “He said, 'O Sarī! By the majesty of Our measure, We will strike your head with the whip of trial, and We will make the millstone of tribulation revolve on your head.'” Sarī said, “I replied with the light of recognition by lordly inspiration, 'Are You not the one who sends trials?'” The lover's soul is patient with illness- perhaps He who made him ill will one day make him well. * Since the healing, O Heart-taker, is from Your wound and pain, make no balm for the wounded, don't cure the pain!
الَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسُ إِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ فَاخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ
📘 Those to whom people said, before their arrival at the witnessing, 'The people have gathered against you, therefore fear them', in other words, they have taken into account your existence and reckon with, so you reckon with them; but that, statement, increased them in faith, that is, in certainty and in affirmation of the Oneness by negating any other [than God] and not being concerned by it. By negating what is other than God they attained the very affirmation of God when they said: 'God is sufficient for us. So they witnessed Him before returning to the differentiated mode of the attributes with uprightness, saying: an excellent Guardian is He', which are the words that Abraham, peace be upon him, said when he was cast into the fire and it became coolness and safety for him [cf. Q. 21:69].
فَانْقَلَبُوا بِنِعْمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَفَضْلٍ لَمْ يَمْسَسْهُمْ سُوءٌ وَاتَّبَعُوا رِضْوَانَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ ذُو فَضْلٍ عَظِيمٍ
📘 So they returned with grace and bounty from God, that is, they returned by means of the existence deriving from [His Name] the Truth to the garden of the attributes and the Essence, as was mentioned earlier; and evil, the remainder and the sight of other [than God], touched them not, and they followed the beatitude of God, which is the garden of the attributes during their state of wayfaring when they did not know what had been hidden for them of things that delight the eye, and that is the garden of the Essence referred to in His words: and God is of bounty abounding. For 'bounty' is an increase [granted] over beatitude.
إِنَّمَا ذَٰلِكُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ يُخَوِّفُ أَوْلِيَاءَهُ فَلَا تَخَافُوهُمْ وَخَافُونِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 [That is only Satan] giving fear to [or of] his friends, those people who are veiled by their own souls like him, or [it means] that he is making you fear his friends; therefore do not fear them, and do not reckon with their existence, but fear Me, if you are, affirmers of the Oneness. In other words, do not fear anyone other than Me, because that [other] has no existence in itself and no effect.
وَلَا يَحْزُنْكَ الَّذِينَ يُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْكُفْرِ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ لَنْ يَضُرُّوا اللَّهَ شَيْئًا ۗ يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ أَلَّا يَجْعَلَ لَهُمْ حَظًّا فِي الْآخِرَةِ ۖ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
📘 Let them not grieve you those that vie with one another in unbelief, given their innate veiledness and essential darkness, for fear that they might hurt you; they will not hurt God at all: the indulging of the disbelievers and the extending of their lifespans are [in fact] a cause for the intensity of their chastisement, their utter ignominy and abasement, since the longer their lifespan the more they become veiled and distant and the more they become distant from the Truth, with His unassailable might, the more they increase in ignominy.
مَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيَذَرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَىٰ مَا أَنْتُمْ عَلَيْهِ حَتَّىٰ يَمِيزَ الْخَبِيثَ مِنَ الطَّيِّبِ ۗ وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيُطْلِعَكُمْ عَلَى الْغَيْبِ وَلَٰكِنَّ اللَّهَ يَجْتَبِي مِنْ رُسُلِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ ۖ فَآمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ ۚ وَإِنْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَتَتَّقُوا فَلَكُمْ أَجْرٌ عَظِيمٌ
📘 It is not God's purpose to leave the believers in the state in which you are, of outward submission and affirmation [of belief] by the tongue, till He shall distinguish the evil, in the way of the attributes of the soul, the doubts of estimation, the shares of Satan, or the exigencies of desire, from the wholesome aspects of the attributes of the heart, such as sincerity, certainty, unveiling, the witnessings of the spirit, the sweet talk of the innermost heart and its night conversings, so that gnosis and love of God might be made pure through the testing [of you by God] and the befalling among you of trials and afflictions. And it is not God's purpose to apprise you of, the Unseen of your existence in terms of the realities and states that are dormant in you without the medium of the Messenger, because of the great gulf that separates you from Him, the nonexistence of any correspondence [between you and God] and the absence of preparedness to receive from Him; but God chooses of His messengers whom He will, and apprises him of His mysteries and realities through the unveiling so that He might guide you to what is hidden from you of the treasure troves of your existence and His mysteries on account of the generic compatibility in terms of the soul between you and him that necessitates the possibility of your being guided by him. So believe in God and His messengers, with an affirmation of the heart and a will and adherence to the divine law so that you might be able to receive and accept [such things] from them; and if you [continue to] believe, after that faith through verification and wayfaring towards certainty and observance of the spiritual path, and are wary, [guarding against] the egocentric veils and the bars to wayfaring, then yours shall be a great wage, by way of the unveiling of reality. The bounty that God has granted them in the way of property, knowledge, power and soul, which they do not expend in the way of God on those who deserve [them], and the [spiritually] prepared, as well as the prophets and the truthful ones in order to protect them or to be annihilated in God,
شَهِدَ اللَّهُ أَنَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ وَأُولُو الْعِلْمِ قَائِمًا بِالْقِسْطِ ۚ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ
📘 God bears witness that there is no god but He-and the angels, and the possessors of knowledge-upholding justice; there is no god but He, the Exalted, the Wise. The Real bears witness to the Real that He is the Real. He Himself praised Himself and He Him- self gave witness to Himself concerning His attributes as is worthy of Himself. In His speech He reported of His existence, His self-sufficiency, His self-standingness, and His self-lastingness. He bore witness to the majesty of His measure and the perfection of His exaltedness while there was no refusal, no ignorance, no recognition by any created thing, no intellect, no conformity, no hy- pocrisy, no new arrival, no heaven, no space, no shadows, no brightness. There was no universe and no Adam, no air and no space, no land and no sea, no light and no darkness, no understanding and no virtue, no conformity and no hypocrisy when the Lord of the Worlds spoke in the majesty of His measure and the perfection of His exaltedness, giving witness to His oneness and peerlessness and reporting of His attributes and Essence. Today He is exactly what He was and will be forever. It has never been that He was not, and it will never be that He will not be. He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. He is the First who always is and who knows the beings and nonbeings. He is the Last who always will be, and He will know what He knew. He is the Outward through His enactorship, dominating over everyone through His all-compellingness and above everything through His greatness. He is too inward for the percep- tion of how, outside the reasoning of imaginations, and pure of supposition, fancy, and being thus. In Your subtle Essence thoughts are bewildered, in Your eternal knowledge hidden things appear. And the angels, and the possessors of knowledge. Great is the eminence of the angels, the prophets, and the knowers, and magnificent the result of their work, that God should join their bearing witness to His bearing witness! This is not because His bearing witness to His unity needs to be joined with bearing witness by created things. No, no, for it is His exaltedness that recognizes Him and His exaltedness that knows His unity.
وَلَا يَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ يَبْخَلُونَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ هُوَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ ۖ بَلْ هُوَ شَرٌّ لَهُمْ ۖ سَيُطَوَّقُونَ مَا بَخِلُوا بِهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ ۗ وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ
📘 Let not those who are niggardly with the bounty that God has given them reckon that it is better for them. In the language of knowledge and according to the Shariah, “niggardliness” is withholding the in- cumbent. The incumbent in wealth is a little bit of a lot, so a man gives the poor a little and keeps a lot for himself. But in the language of the Tariqah and the folk of allusion, niggardliness is leaving a little for oneself, a tiny amount of property, or a moment of the state. “The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed.” Wealth and states in the path of these chivalrous men have the form of a dog, and passion in its own world has the form of an angel. MuṣṬafā's Shariah reports that the angel gets along badly with the dog and never descends into a house that has one. “No angel enters the house within which there is a dog or pictures.” When will the angel come forth if you do not take the dog from the door and the painting from the wall? When will you arrive at AḤmad and Abū Bakr, with a spider spinning its web at the door of the cave? Lift up the veil so that down may come a litter of magnificence to the bench of the threshold. [DS 200]
لَقَدْ سَمِعَ اللَّهُ قَوْلَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ فَقِيرٌ وَنَحْنُ أَغْنِيَاءُ ۘ سَنَكْتُبُ مَا قَالُوا وَقَتْلَهُمُ الْأَنْبِيَاءَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ وَنَقُولُ ذُوقُوا عَذَابَ الْحَرِيقِ
📘 [Regarding His words from] verily God has heard to where He says:
الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَهِدَ إِلَيْنَا أَلَّا نُؤْمِنَ لِرَسُولٍ حَتَّىٰ يَأْتِيَنَا بِقُرْبَانٍ تَأْكُلُهُ النَّارُ ۗ قُلْ قَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رُسُلٌ مِنْ قَبْلِي بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ وَبِالَّذِي قُلْتُمْ فَلِمَ قَتَلْتُمُوهُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
📘 if you are truthfulḍ': it is related that for the prophets of the Children of Israel the miraculous proof [of their prophethood] was that they would bring forth an offering and invoke God whereupon a fire would come down from the heaven and consume it. The interpretation of this is that they would bring forth their souls seeking nearness to God by them and they would invoke God through renunciation and devotion whereafter the fire of love would come down from the heaven of the spirit and consume this [offering of theirs] and annihilate it in the Oneness, whereupon their prophethood would be [proven as] authentic and would become manifest. The common folk of the Children of Israel came to hear of this and came to believe in its outward form, even if this should be possible in the world of [God's] power. They thus required from every prophet that sign. They also falsely believed that 'to lend to God' - which means to consecrate wealth in the way of God by expending in order to receive the full reward, and to consecrate [one's] acts and attributes by effacing them through the wayfaring and replace them with the attributes of the Truth and His acts and to actualise the station of the substitutes (abdāl) - meant that the Truth was poor and that they were rich. Or, it means that they contested contemptuously the prophets in both instances after they had understood.
لَا تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ يَفْرَحُونَ بِمَا أَتَوْا وَيُحِبُّونَ أَنْ يُحْمَدُوا بِمَا لَمْ يَفْعَلُوا فَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّهُمْ بِمَفَازَةٍ مِنَ الْعَذَابِ ۖ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
📘 Do not reckon that those who rejoice in what they have brought, those who are delighted by what they have done of acts of obedience or selflessness and every good deed and are veiled by the sight of these [deeds], and who love to be praised, that is, that people should praise them, and who are thus veiled by the accidental praise and commendations of people, or [who love] that they should be praiseworthy in the eyes of God for this same reason, for what they have not done, but what God has done through their hands, since there is no act that is not God's - And God created you and whatever you do [Q. 37:96] - [do not reckon them] saved from the chastisement of privation, and there shall be a painful chastisement for them, because of the place of their preparedness and their being veiled from what is in it. They should have by right attributed [all] merit and virtuous act to God and declared themselves quit of any power or strength on their part not being His, and not to have become veiled by seeing the act as issuing from themselves and to expect thereby commendation or praise.
وَلِلَّهِ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
📘 To God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth: nothing of it belongs to anyone else that they should then give of it to another person and be self-satisfied with their gift; and God has power over all things, no one other than Him has the power to act in anyway that he should then be pleased to see it and rejoice in it a rejoicing of self-centered admiration.
إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ الْإِسْلَامُ ۗ وَمَا اخْتَلَفَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَاءَهُمُ الْعِلْمُ بَغْيًا بَيْنَهُمْ ۗ وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ
📘 Surely the religion with God is the submission. The approved religion-by which people look up to God in servanthood, worship Him according to His decree, seek for His approval, and go back to Him-is the religion of the submission. The submission has three way stations. The first way station is the acknowledgment that spares blood and wealth: the person's neck is safe from the sword and his wealth is left with him, whether he is a conformer or a hypocrite, a follower or an innovator. The next way station is the acknowledgment that is right belief, following the Sunnah, and the loyalty of deeds. The third way station of submission is surrender, which is the utmost end of the work. It is pleasing to God and is the refuge of recognition. It is to throw oneself on the Real's exalted thresh- old and follow Him, approving of His decree, not protesting against it or turning away from it, and having reverence and respect for it. What Abraham asked for himself and Ishmael in his supplica- tion-that they be submitters-is the utmost end of this third way station: “Our Lord, make us submitters to Thee!” [2:128]. This is the same as when it was said to him, “Submit!,” he said, “I submit to the Lord of the worlds” [2:131]. It is also alluded to in His words telling about Joseph: “Receive me as a submitter and join me with the wholesome” [12:101].
الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللَّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَٰذَا بَاطِلًا سُبْحَانَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ
📘 Who remember God, standing and sitting and on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth. Those who remember are three: One remembers God with the tongue and is heedless with the heart. This is the remembrance of the wrongdoer, who is aware neither of the remembrance nor of the Remembered. Another remembers Him with the tongue and is present with the heart. This is the remem- brance of the moderate and the state of the wage-earner. He is seeking reward and excused in his seeking. The third remembers Him with the heart; the heart is filled with Him, and his tongue is silent in remembrance. “When someone recognizes God, his tongue is mute.” This is the remembrance of the preceder. His tongue is lost in the remembrance, and the remembrance is lost in the Remem- bered. The heart is lost in love, and love in the Light. The spirit is lost in face-to-face vision, and face-to-face vision is far from explication. Remembrance set a trap whose bait was jealousy. The wage-earner saw the trap and fled, the recognizer saw the bait and clung to the trap. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Remembrance is not simply what you have on the tongue. True remembrance is what you have in the midst of the spirit. TawḤīd is not simply that you know that He is one. True tawḤīd is that you be one for Him and a stranger to other than Him.” And reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth. Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq asked Abū ʿAbd al-RaḤmān Sulamī whether remembrance was more complete or reflection. Abū ʿAbd al-RaḤmān answered, “Remembrance is more complete than reflection because remembrance is an attribute of the Real and reflection an attribute of creation. That by which the Real is described is more complete than that which is specific to creation.” Reflecting for the heart is like sniffing for the breath. Reflecting on one's own deeds and words is mandatory, on the artifacts of the Artisan recommended, and on the Artisan's Essence for- bidden. In the report has come, “Do not reflect upon God, for surely you are not able to judge His measure.” He is saying: “Do not reflect on God's Essence, for you will not reach His measure, nor will you recognize Him as is proper to Him, nor will you perceive the foundations of His majesty and tremendousness.
رَبَّنَا إِنَّكَ مَنْ تُدْخِلِ النَّارَ فَقَدْ أَخْزَيْتَهُ ۖ وَمَا لِلظَّالِمِينَ مِنْ أَنْصَارٍ
📘 Our Lord, whomever You admit into the Fire, by way of privation, You will have abased him, by the existence of the remainder that is entirely humiliation, shame and disgrace; and none shall they have, these evildoers, who have associated others [with God] by seeing the other absolutely or [seeing] the remainder, as helpers.
رَبَّنَا إِنَّنَا سَمِعْنَا مُنَادِيًا يُنَادِي لِلْإِيمَانِ أَنْ آمِنُوا بِرَبِّكُمْ فَآمَنَّا ۚ رَبَّنَا فَاغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَكَفِّرْ عَنَّا سَيِّئَاتِنَا وَتَوَفَّنَا مَعَ الْأَبْرَارِ
📘 Our Lord, we have heard, with the hearing channels of our hearts, a caller, from our innermost secrets, which constitute the shore of the right valley of the spirit, calling to, the belief of the eyewitnessing, saying, �Believe in your Lord!�, that is, �Witness your Lord�, and so we witnessed. So, our Lord, forgive us, the sins of our attributes through Your attributes, and absolve us of, the evil deeds of our acts by a vision of Your acts, and receive us, from our essences among the company of the pious substitutes whom You receive from their essences with Your essence, and not those pious who remain in the same state at the station of the effacement of the attributes who are not ready to be received totally.
رَبَّنَا وَآتِنَا مَا وَعَدْتَنَا عَلَىٰ رُسُلِكَ وَلَا تُخْزِنَا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ ۗ إِنَّكَ لَا تُخْلِفُ الْمِيعَادَ
📘 Our Lord, and give us what Thou hast promised us through Thy messengers. O Lord, bring to pass the promise that You Yourself made, bring to fruit the tree that You Yourself planted, brighten the lamp that You Yourself lit, and keep the blight of us away from the love that You gave by Your own bounty. O Lord, we are happy that You were and we were not. Your work caught on and ours did not. You put forth Your own worth, You sent Your own Messenger. O Lord, You lifted us up and no one said, “Lift up!” Now that You have lifted up, don't put down! Keep us in the shadow of gentleness and entrust us to none but Your bounty! If You water, You Yourself planted. If You flatten the foundation, You Yourself raised it. I the servant am just what You fancied. Don't throw me down-You lifted me up.
فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّي لَا أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِنْكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنْثَىٰ ۖ بَعْضُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْضٍ ۖ فَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا وَأُخْرِجُوا مِنْ دِيَارِهِمْ وَأُوذُوا فِي سَبِيلِي وَقَاتَلُوا وَقُتِلُوا لَأُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ وَلَأُدْخِلَنَّهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ ثَوَابًا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عِنْدَهُ حُسْنُ الثَّوَابِ
📘 And their Lord responded to them, “I will not waste the deed of any doer among you, male or female. The one of you is as the other. And those who emigrated, were expelled from their homes, were tormented in My path, who fought and were killed, I shall surely acquit them of their ugly deeds and enter them into Gardens under which rivers flow, a reward from God.” This is loyalty to the promise that He gave to the faithful: “Supplicate Me; I will respond to you” [40:60]. The verification of this loyalty is that He responded to the caller, He bestowed upon the asker, He assisted the striver, He gave increase to the grateful, He bestowed insight on the patient, He rewarded the obedient, He absolved the disobedient, He had mercy on the regretful, He honored the lover, He gave vision to the yearner. The command came, “O MuḤammad! There is no reason for despair. In triumph the work of the servant is not outside of three traits: If he is obedient, then his reward is in place. If he is dis- obedient, then your intercession is in place. And no matter how much he is held back, My mercy toward him is in place.” If I wipe clean all the sins of the creatures, what will be lost from My kingdom? A handful of clay. And those who emigrated, were expelled from their homes, were tormented in My path, who fought and were killed. This is the attribute of the friends, the custom of the yearners, the story of those who gamble away their spirits, and the final outcome of the work of the passionate: They have given away their hearts and gambled away their spirits. Wounded by the arrow of trial, their status and respect overthrown by the sword of the decree, they have been exiled from their homes and families. Totally effaced in the ocean of thought, of themselves they recite for all, “No home, no possessions.” Sometimes burning and melting, sometimes weeping and wailing, they see the burn but not the burner, they see the tumult but not the tumult-inciter, they see the pain but not the remedy. What is even more wondrous is that they are happy with their pain and lament at the lack of pain.
لَا يَغُرَّنَّكَ تَقَلُّبُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فِي الْبِلَادِ
📘 Do not be deluded by the going to and fro of the disbelievers, those who have been veiled from the affirmation of the Oneness, which is the religion of the truth with respect to all stations and states;
مَتَاعٌ قَلِيلٌ ثُمَّ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ ۚ وَبِئْسَ الْمِهَادُ
📘 a little enjoyment, that is, this veiledness by stations and fluctuation within them is but a little enjoyment, then their abode is Hell, privation - an evil cradling!
لَٰكِنِ الَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا رَبَّهُمْ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا نُزُلًا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ ۗ وَمَا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ خَيْرٌ لِلْأَبْرَارِ
📘 But those who fear their Lord, from among the believers, that is, those who have disengaged from the three forms of existence shall have the three gardens - a hospitality, prepared, from God Himself.
وَإِنَّ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ لَمَنْ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْهِمْ خَاشِعِينَ لِلَّهِ لَا يَشْتَرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا ۗ أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ
📘 Verily, there are some among the People of the Scripture, that is, the ones who are veiled from the affirmation of Oneness and the ones described with the attribute of fluctuation in states and stations, who believe in God, [who] verify the affirmation of the unity of the Essence, and what has been revealed to you, of the knowledge of the affirmation of the Oneness and uprightness, and what has been revealed to them, of the knowledge of the origin and the final return, humble before God, receptive to the self-disclosure of the Essence, not purchasing with the verses of God, which are the self-disclosures of His attributes with the price of the remnants (baqiyya), described here as a paltry one. Those - their wage, of the mentioned gardens, is with their Lord. God is swift at reckoning, reckoning with them and recompensing them such that He requites the remnants of those of whom something has remained, or He rewards these remnants in accordance with the degrees merited in the three abodes.
اللَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ
📘 God! There is no god except Him, the Living, the Eternal: the interpretation of this [verse] has already been [given].
فَإِنْ حَاجُّوكَ فَقُلْ أَسْلَمْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّهِ وَمَنِ اتَّبَعَنِ ۗ وَقُلْ لِلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ وَالْأُمِّيِّينَ أَأَسْلَمْتُمْ ۚ فَإِنْ أَسْلَمُوا فَقَدِ اهْتَدَوْا ۖ وَإِنْ تَوَلَّوْا فَإِنَّمَا عَلَيْكَ الْبَلَاغُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ بَصِيرٌ بِالْعِبَادِ
📘 So if they dispute with you, say: 'I have surrendered my countenance to God and whoever follows me'�
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اصْبِرُوا وَصَابِرُوا وَرَابِطُوا وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
📘 O you who have faith! Be patient, vie in patience, be steadfast, and be wary of God. Perhaps you will prosper. This again is another balm, another caress, a call of bounteousness, an address of generosity, and it gives witness to the servant's faith and obedience. Be patient is addressed to the soul, vie in pa- tience to the heart, and be steadfast to the spirit. He says to the soul, “Be patient in obedience and service.” He says to the heart, “Be patient in trial and adversity. He says to the spirit, “Be patient with the burn of yearning and the pain of love.” And God it is who is patient. If like Joseph you want to come out of this prison, be patient like Zulaykhā in the pain of distance from Joseph. It has also been said, “Be patient in God, vie in patience through God, and be steadfast with God.” Patience in God is the patience of the worshipers in the station of service with the hope of reward. Patience through God is the patience of the recognizers in the station of honoring with the hope of union. Patience with God is the patience of the lovers in the state of contemplation at the moment of self-disclosure, when they are looking with gazing eyes, their hearts bewildered in what is seen, their spirits lamenting at the hand of love. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, everyone is burning in separation, but the lover in vi- sion. Now that he has come to see the Friend, what does the lover have to do with patience and settledness?” And be wary of God. Godwariness is a tree whose roots are in the earth of loyalty, its branches in the air of approval, its water from the wellspring of limpidness. It is not reached by the heat of regret, nor the cold of quenching, nor the wind of farness, nor the blight of scatteredness. The fruit it brings forth is the fruit of triumph, endless prosperity, everlasting worthiness, subsistent bliss, and the kingdom of forever. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Perhaps you will prosper.” The Prophet said, “You should be wary of God, for this brings together every good; you should have struggle, for it is the submitter's monasticism; and you should have the remembrance of God, for it is your light.”
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَكْفُرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ النَّبِيِّينَ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ وَيَقْتُلُونَ الَّذِينَ يَأْمُرُونَ بِالْقِسْطِ مِنَ النَّاسِ فَبَشِّرْهُمْ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
📘 Those who disbelieve in the signs of God, that is, those who are veiled from [the true] religion, and slay the prophets without right, veiled as they are by their [own] religion, refusing all except that to which they are delimited [of beliefs] and which they follow by imitation, while the prophets summon them to the affirmation of Oneness and prohibit them from delimitation, and so they slay them; and slay those who enjoin to equity, from among their followers, for equity is the shadow of the affirmation of Oneness - thus he for whom this [affirmation] has not been perfected is not capable of being equitable. For they, by their delimitation to their religion have become veiled and are consequently veiled by their injustice from equity. That is why they oppose them and slay them.
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ حَبِطَتْ أَعْمَالُهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ وَمَا لَهُمْ مِنْ نَاصِرِينَ
📘 Those are the ones whose works have failed, those [works] which they performed while following the religion of their prophets and that is because while they were following blindly their prophet they were still saved by virtue of their following [him], since their prophets were their intercessors mediating between them and God in order to procure for them the [divine] effusion; but when they denied the prophets and their just followers they were contravening their particular prophet, since all prophets follow one creed in reality, namely, the belief in the Oneness [of God], without distinguishing between them, being as they are [all] upon the one [single] truth. Thus he who contravenes one [prophet] has in effect contravened all. Likewise, he who contravenes the upholders of justice from among the followers of the prophets is himself unjust and he who is unjust has, by virtue of his injustice, abandoned the following [of prophets]; similarly the denier of the followers is a denier of those who are followed, and the denier of the shadow [of God's Oneness] is a denier of the Essence, abandoning Its light. Once they have contravened their prophet there no longer exists any contact or correspondence between them and him that enables [the procurement of] effusion from His light and they are thus veiled from His light. Although their works had been illumined by His light by virtue of their following [the prophet], not because of any essential light that these [works] possess, since they are not produced out of certainty, once they are veiled from their prophet the accidental light [of these works] disappears and they become dark and like all other evil deeds from among the attributes of the commanding soul. Here [the following comes to mind], something which I have heard on more than one occasion: the slaying of the disbelievers of the faculties of the commanding soul at the hands of the prophets of the hearts and the justice-commanding spiritual faculties.
قُلِ اللَّهُمَّ مَالِكَ الْمُلْكِ تُؤْتِي الْمُلْكَ مَنْ تَشَاءُ وَتَنْزِعُ الْمُلْكَ مِمَّنْ تَشَاءُ وَتُعِزُّ مَنْ تَشَاءُ وَتُذِلُّ مَنْ تَشَاءُ ۖ بِيَدِكَ الْخَيْرُ ۖ إِنَّكَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
📘 Say: 'O God, Possessor of Mastery, You possess mastery of the world of bodies absolutely, disposing of it [however You wish], there being none who have mastery or disposal or effect in it other than You. You give mastery to whom You will, granting him disposal over some of it; and seize mastery from whom You will, by assigning that [power of] disposal in the hands of someone other than him, except that there really is no other [than You] there, rather You turn it about from one hand to another, for You are the [only] disposer in all cases in accordance with the different loci of manifestation; You exalt whom You will, by casting upon him a light from the lights of Your glory, for Truly glory belongs altogether to God [Q. 4:139]; and You abase whom You will, by stripping him of the garb of Your glory leaving him abased; in Your hand is good, all of it, and You are the absolute Powerful One, giving in accordance with Your will, at times self-disclosing Yourself in a certain locus of manifestation with the attributes of glory and grandeur, garbing that [locus] with the vestment of glory and splendour, and at others with the attributes of vanquisher and abaser, garbing that [locus] with the vestment of ignominy and lowliness; sometimes with the attribute of exalter but You are [in reality] abasing, and sometimes with the attribute of abaser while You are exalting; sometimes with the attribute of independent and You give wealth, sometimes with the attribute of availer but You make [that person] poor, that is, You avail him of wealth, indigent without need of anything.
تُولِجُ اللَّيْلَ فِي النَّهَارِ وَتُولِجُ النَّهَارَ فِي اللَّيْلِ ۖ وَتُخْرِجُ الْحَيَّ مِنَ الْمَيِّتِ وَتُخْرِجُ الْمَيِّتَ مِنَ الْحَيِّ ۖ وَتَرْزُقُ مَنْ تَشَاءُ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ
📘 You make the night to pass into the day and You make the day to pass into the night: You make the darkness of the soul enter the light of the heart rendering it dark, and You make the light of the heart enter the darkness of the soul so that it is illumined by the mixture of the two despite the lack of correspondence between them. You bring forth the living, that is, the one whose heart is alive, from the dead, that is, from the one whose soul is dead, [and You bring forth] the one with the dead soul from the one with the living heart; indeed, You bring forth the one who is alive with knowledge and gnosis from the one who is dead with ignorance, and You bring forth the one dead with ignorance from the one alive with knowledge veiling him from the light, as was the case with Balʿam b. Bāʿūrā; and You provide whom You will, in the way of both outward and inward graces, or in the way of one of the two, without reckoning'.
لَا يَتَّخِذِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۖ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ اللَّهِ فِي شَيْءٍ إِلَّا أَنْ تَتَّقُوا مِنْهُمْ تُقَاةً ۗ وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللَّهُ نَفْسَهُ ۗ وَإِلَى اللَّهِ الْمَصِيرُ
📘 Let not the faithful take the disbelievers as friends instead of the faithful…. And God warns you of Himself, and God is clement to the servants. The reality of the servant's faith and the final goal of his traveling on the path of tawḤīd takes him back to God's friendship. The reality of friendship is conformity, that is, being a friend of His friend and an enemy of His enemy. The master of the Shariah alluded to this with his words, “The most reliable handhold of faith is love in God and hate in God.” The traditions say that the Lord of the Worlds sent a revelation to one of the former prophets: “Say to the servants, 'In this world you have taken up renunciation in order to hurry to your own comfort and be relieved of this world's suffering. With your obedience and worship you have sought your own exaltation and your own good name. Now look: What have you done for Me? Have you ever loved My friends? Have you ever taken My enemies as your enemies?” This is exactly what He said to Jesus: “O Jesus, if the worship of all the inhabitants of heaven and earth accompanies you in the path of the religion, but you have no love for My friends and no enmity for My enemies, then your worship has been useless and without profit.” It is reported that Abū Idrīs Khawlānī said to Muʿādh, “I love you in the path of God.” Muʿādh said, “Let it be good news! I heard God's Messenger say that on the Day of Resurrec- tion, God will place seats around the Splendorous Throne for a group whose faces will be like the full moon. Everyone will be fearful because of the awe of the resurrection, but they will be secure. Everyone will be in dread, but they will be still. It was said, 'O Messenger of God! Which group is this?' “He said, 'Those who love each other in God.'” It has also been related that God says, “I have obligated My love on those who love each other in Me, sit with each other in Me, visit each other in Me, and spend freely on each other in Me.” Mujāhid said, “When God's friends smile in each other's faces, their sins fall away like leaves from a tree.
نَزَّلَ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَأَنْزَلَ التَّوْرَاةَ وَالْإِنْجِيلَ
📘 He has revealed to you the Book by the truth, He has elevated you from level to level and from grade to grade by sending down the Book to you showing the way to the knowledge of the affirmation of the Oneness which is the Truth with respect to the union called the Gathering-intellect (ʿaql qirānī), confirming what was before it, of the pre-eternal affirmation of Oneness that has preceded, and which is known in the first covenant that is stored in the Unseen of preparedness, and He revealed the Torah and the Gospel,
يَوْمَ تَجِدُ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ مُحْضَرًا وَمَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ سُوءٍ تَوَدُّ لَوْ أَنَّ بَيْنَهَا وَبَيْنَهُ أَمَدًا بَعِيدًا ۗ وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللَّهُ نَفْسَهُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ رَءُوفٌ بِالْعِبَادِ
📘 On the day when every soul shall find the good it has done made present, and the ugly it has done. It will wish that there were a far interval between itself and that. God warns you of Himself, and God is clement to the servants. He said this here so that the servant would fall into changing states-sometimes fear, sometimes hope; sometimes contraction, sometimes expansion; sometimes harshness, sometimes generosity. The severity and harshness of God warns you about Himself throws the servant into confounded- ness and bewilderment and he becomes selfless of self. Then He caresses: “And God is clement to the servants.” He sits him on the ship of gentleness and takes him from the whirlpool of con- foundedness to the shore of intimacy. One of the pirs among the great ones of the religion said, “I wonder if I will ever escape the whirlpool of self in the ship of deliverance. Will the hand of compassion ever take my hand among the waves of wishes? Will the proof of unity ever lift the veil of dispersion from before my eyes? Will this heart ever come to rest in this body?” In the road of avarice the purses of a hundred thousand merchants have been emptied of pure gold in search of this alchemy. [DS 210]
قُلْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ
📘 Say: If you love God, follow me; God will love you and forgive you your sins. In terms of the Haqiqah this verse has another intimation and another taste. He is saying: “Who- ever has fervor in his breast because of these words, say to him: 'Come out in my tracks, for all the work has been made ready in my footsteps. Do not bind your heart to intellect, for intellect is a watchman, not a leader to whom the reins should be given. It is not a road that you should set out in. Do not seek what you are seeking from intellect, seek it from prophethood. Intellect carries the saddle-cloth of the religion's ruling. The exalted magnificence of the religion does not fit into the scales of intellect, nor does it come under the confines of substance and accident.'” Our religion is the same as the religion of the 124,000 prophets and messengers. The testi- mony of the Qur'an contains these words, for He says, “He has set down for you as the religion that with which He counseled Noah” and so on [42:13]. That which holds up the level of our religion is two things: “God said” and “God's Messenger said.” If everything that is the basis of the religion of the innovators-the substances, accidents, and specific differences of the Kalam experts and the determinations of their intellects-suddenly ceased to be in creation, came to nothing, and entered into the concealment of nonexistence, not an iota of deficiency would reach the threshold of the religion's exaltedness or the gate of the Sun- nah's tremendousness. By the decree of good fortune this address has come from the Exalted Lord to the folk of the Sunnah: “Today I have perfected your religion for you and I have completed My blessings upon you” [5:3]. Here there is no room for the Kalam of the theologians and the med- dling of the philosophizers, nor for their explanations of substance and accident. The path of Kalam is the path of shadows, and the worst shadows are the shadows of Kalam. You should take the road of the folk of Hadith- it is enough to have MuṣṬafā as imam. Put away confusion, for this is “the religion of old women.” You should have that, and the religion of servants.
قُلْ أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ ۖ فَإِنْ تَوَلَّوْا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ الْكَافِرِينَ
📘 Say: 'Obey God, and the Messenger', in other words, if you are not loving [of him] and are not able to follow My beloved, then the least that you can do is to be willingly obedient to what you have been commanded, for the willing one must necessarily follow the command and comply with what he has been commanded to. But if they turn their backs, God loves not the disbelievers, that is, if they also refuse to do that, then they are disbelieving deniers who are veiled and God does not love the disbeliever. Refraining from obedience necessarily entails disbelief, whereas refraining from following [the prophet] does not necessarily entail that, because the one who refrains from following [the prophet] may still be obedient by following the command. The meaning of 'obey God and the Messenger' is 'obey the Messenger of God', because of God's saying: whoever obeys the Messenger, verily obeys God [Q. 4:80].
۞ إِنَّ اللَّهَ اصْطَفَىٰ آدَمَ وَنُوحًا وَآلَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَآلَ عِمْرَانَ عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ
📘 Lo! God has elected Adam and Noah: 'election' is more general than love or friendship and extends to include all prophets since they are God's elect and elite. Their levels vary in excellence, just as God has said: Those messengers some We have preferred above others, and so the most specific of levels is [that of] love, alluded to by His [subsequent] words and some He raised in rank [Q. 2:253], which is why the most excellent of them was God's beloved Muḥammad, may God bless him and grant him peace; next [in rank] comes friendship, which was the attribute of Abraham, peace be upon him, while the most general is election, that is, the attribute of Adam, peace be upon him;
ذُرِّيَّةً بَعْضُهَا مِنْ بَعْضٍ ۗ وَاللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
📘 the seed of one another, in terms of religion and in reality, since generation by birth [read: wilādaḍ] are of two types, formal and spiritual. Every prophet is a successor to another prophet in terms of the affirmation of Oneness, gnosis and what relates to the esoteric principles of religion and is as such that [other] prophet's son, similar to the [case of] sons of [Sufi] shaykhs in our times. As they say, you have three fathers, a father that has given birth to you, a father that has nurtured you and a father that has given you knowledge. So just as the existence of the body in the formal birth is generated within the womb of the mother from the seminal infusion of the father, so the existence of the heart in the true birth becomes manifest within the womb of the preparedness of the soul [generated] by the [spiritual] infusion of the shaykh or teacher; it is to this [latter] birth that Jesus, peace be upon him, alluded in his saying: 'He who has not been born again shall not enter the kingdom of heaven' [cf. John 3:3]. Know then that spiritual birth mostly ensues from the formal one by procreation, which is why outwardly prophets were also the progeny and the fruit of a single tree: ʿImrān son of Yaṣhur, father of Moses and Aaron, was a descendant of Levi son of Jacob son of Isaac son of Abraham; and ʿImrān son of Māthān, father of Mary mother of Jesus, was a descendant of Judah son of Jacob. It is also well known that Muḥammad, blessings and peace be upon him, was a descendant of Ishmael son of Abraham, and that Abraham was [a descendant] of Noah, peace be upon him. The reason for [all of that] is that in terms of purity and impurity the spirit corresponds to the constitution in terms of equitability or lack of it at the moment of engenderment. For every spirit there is a corresponding constitution that is specific to it, since the [divine] effusion arrives in proportion to the correspondence and the varying quality of spirits from pre-eternity according to their kinds and levels in terms of proximity or distance [from the divine]. Hence constitutions vary accordingly in sempiternity so that they are connected to these [spirits].
إِذْ قَالَتِ امْرَأَتُ عِمْرَانَ رَبِّ إِنِّي نَذَرْتُ لَكَ مَا فِي بَطْنِي مُحَرَّرًا فَتَقَبَّلْ مِنِّي ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ
📘 Lo! It is You Who are the Hearer, the Knower. Know that the intentions and configurations of the soul have an effect on the soul of the child, just as foods have an effect on its body. Thus the one whose food is licit and wholesome and the configurations of whose soul are luminous, and whose intentions are sincere and directed towards the Truth, his child will be a believer, a truthful one, a saint or a prophet. The one whose food is forbidden and the configurations of whose soul are dark and vile, whose intentions are corrupt and despicable, his child will be corrupt or a vile disbeliever, since the semen from which the child issues is generated by that food, nurtured in that soul and thus corresponds to it. That is why the Messenger of God said, 'A child is the innermost secret of its father, and so the truthfulness of Mary and the prophethood of Jesus were the blessing of the truthfulness of her father.[Q. 3:37] [Whenever Zachariah went into the sanctuary, where she was,] he found her with provisions: it is possible that what is meant by this is spiritual provision in the way of gnoses, [spiritual] realities, knowledge and wisdoms that were being effused upon her from that which is with God. Since to be designated specifically by [divine] withness (ʿindiyya) is proof that these [provisions] were provisions directly from God (laduniyya).
هُنَالِكَ دَعَا زَكَرِيَّا رَبَّهُ ۖ قَالَ رَبِّ هَبْ لِي مِنْ لَدُنْكَ ذُرِّيَّةً طَيِّبَةً ۖ إِنَّكَ سَمِيعُ الدُّعَاءِ
📘 Then Zachariah prayed to his Lord: Zachariah was an extremely old man and a leader and guardian of the people. He requested from his Lord a true child who would take his place in nurturing and guiding people, as alluded to in sūra Kāf-hāÌ-yāÌ-ʿayn-ṣād. He then bestows upon him the gift of John (Yaḥyā) from his own loins through his own ability after he had been commanded to cleave in spiritual retreat for three days. At this point you might seek the interpretation [of this] by seeking a correspondence [with this story] to your own states and the details of your existence as you have come to know. That is to say, the corporeal nature, that is, the corporeal faculty is [represented by] the wife of ʿImrān the spirit, who vowed as an offering what was in her faculty of the reassured soul to God, exalted be He, by complying with the command of the Truth and by her obedience to it and so she gave birth to the female of the soul. God thereupon placed the Zachariah of reflection in charge of her after He accepted her [offering] on account of her being pure and holy. Whenever the Zachariah of reflection entered into the sanctuary of the brain, where she was, he found her with provisions of intuitive meanings which had been unveiled to her [simply] as a result of her purity without any distinction of reflective capacity on her part. Then the Zachariah of reflection called upon the compositions of those meanings and sought from God as a bestowal a wholesome child sanctified from the pollutants of nature. God heard his call, that is, He responded. Thereupon the angels of the spiritual faculties called to him as he stood fulfilling His command putting together the components of knowledge, communing with his Lord, seeking that the lights descend upon him and approaching Him by orienting himself towards the world of holiness in the sanctuary of the brain;
فَنَادَتْهُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ وَهُوَ قَائِمٌ يُصَلِّي فِي الْمِحْرَابِ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُبَشِّرُكَ بِيَحْيَىٰ مُصَدِّقًا بِكَلِمَةٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَسَيِّدًا وَحَصُورًا وَنَبِيًّا مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ
📘 that 'God gives you good tidings of John, of the intellect in act, confirming, Jesus of the heart, believing in him, as he is Word from God, sanctified as he is above the world of bodies and material generation, a lord, to all kinds of faculties, and one chaste, preventing his soul from engaging [his] corporeal nature or clothing himself in the natures of the corporeal faculties, and a prophet, informing [as he will] of forms of gnosis and universal truths and teaching virtuous character traits and correct manners of governance by the command of the Truth; of the righteous', of the dispersions and disengagement that by virtue of their acts merit being among those brought near to the divine presence after the reflection [sc. Zachariah] had attained the old age of the limit of its [creational] stage but had not reached the ability to perceive the holy truths and the universal gnoses; while his wife, who constituted the nature of the ego-centric spirit being the locus for the disposal of reflection, barren by [pure] disengaged light. The indication of that, namely, the indication of the actualisation of the disengaged light and its becoming manifested by the pure soul is the abstention [by Zachariah] from communing with the corporeal faculties as these seek to actualise their demands and desires as well as [abstaining from] mixing with them with regard to the surpluses of their pleasures and lusts for three days, each day constituting a full decade of the [various] stages of his life, ten years [in all], except for gesturing to them by some subtle token, commanding them to [perform] the glorification specific to each one of them - without drawing near to any of them with regard to their goals - and occupying himself for three days, the duration of which is thirty years starting from the age of discernment which is [after] the first ten [years], with the remembrance of his Lord in the sanctuary of the brain and [with] the glorification specific to that always. Likewise the angels of the spiritual faculties said to Mary of the pure wholesome soul:
مِنْ قَبْلُ هُدًى لِلنَّاسِ وَأَنْزَلَ الْفُرْقَانَ ۗ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَزِيزٌ ذُو انْتِقَامٍ
📘 before, in that way, [as guidance to people] then, He revealed the Criterion, that is, the differentiated affirmation of Oneness with respect to the dispersion called the Differentiating-intellect (ʿaql furqānī), which is the source of uprightness and the starting point of the mission. As for those who disbelieve in God's signs, that is, those who have veiled themselves from these two aspects of the affirmation of the Oneness by the loci of manifestation and the engendered things which in reality constitute the signs of the affirmation of the Oneness, for them awaits a terrible chastisement, by way of distance and privation, for God is Mighty, that is, vanquishing, Lord of Retribution: whose description cannot be made nor its quintessence fathomed nor its like be paralleled by any retributer.
قَالَ رَبِّ اجْعَلْ لِي آيَةً ۖ قَالَ آيَتُكَ أَلَّا تُكَلِّمَ النَّاسَ ثَلَاثَةَ أَيَّامٍ إِلَّا رَمْزًا ۗ وَاذْكُرْ رَبَّكَ كَثِيرًا وَسَبِّحْ بِالْعَشِيِّ وَالْإِبْكَارِ
📘 He said, “My Lord, appoint for me a sign.” He said, “Your sign is that you shall not speak to the people for three days, except by intimation. And remember thy Lord often and glorify Him at evening and dawn.” Zachariah asked for a mark of his child's existence. It was said to him, “The mark is that I will stop your tongue from talking to the people for three days so that all your secret whispering will be with Me, and all on your tongue will be talk of Me.” By way of allusion He is saying, “I will give you a child whom I will cut off from this world and the creatures and the face of whose heart I will turn toward Me. Then he will know that his kiblah is nothing but My Presence and he will be at ease only in talking with Me.” Only Your name, image, and passion, O Spirit of the world, appear to me in speech, heart, and eyes. This is why He commanded Zachariah, “And remember thy Lord often and glorify Him at evening and dawn.” He commanded the faithful in general to the same thing: “And remember your Lord often” [8:45]. He is saying, “Remember God, and carry out your days in obedience and service to Him. Belong totally to Him, calling upon Him and knowing Him in every state and every work! If you are at ease, be at ease with His remembrance and message, and if you are joyful, be joyful in His name and mark. Once in a while knock on the door of My house- it is not right to pass by like a stranger. And if you talk, talk only of Me, and if you drink, drink only in remembrance of Me. And remember thy Lord often. It is said that remembrance of God has three degrees: The first is outward remembrance with the tongue of laudation and supplication. God says, “And remember thy Lord often.” Second is concealed remembrance in the heart. Thus God says, “Or with more intense remem- brance” [2:200]. The Prophet said, “The best remembrance is the concealed and the best provision the sufficient.” Third is true remembrance, which is witnessing God's remembrance of you. That is His words, “And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest” [18:24].
وَإِذْ قَالَتِ الْمَلَائِكَةُ يَا مَرْيَمُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ اصْطَفَاكِ وَطَهَّرَكِ وَاصْطَفَاكِ عَلَىٰ نِسَاءِ الْعَالَمِينَ
📘 God has elected you, because of your being above lust, and made you pure, from the vices of reprehensible character traits and attributes, and He has chosen you above the women, of the concupiscent souls variegated by despicable acts and vile natures.
يَا مَرْيَمُ اقْنُتِي لِرَبِّكِ وَاسْجُدِي وَارْكَعِي مَعَ الرَّاكِعِينَ
📘 O Mary: be obedient to your Lord by [the fulfilment of] the duties of acts of obedience and worship, and prostrate, at the station of brokenness, humility, poverty, incapacity and pardon-seeking, and bow, at the station of submissiveness and heartfelt humility with those who submit.
ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ أَنْبَاءِ الْغَيْبِ نُوحِيهِ إِلَيْكَ ۚ وَمَا كُنْتَ لَدَيْهِمْ إِذْ يُلْقُونَ أَقْلَامَهُمْ أَيُّهُمْ يَكْفُلُ مَرْيَمَ وَمَا كُنْتَ لَدَيْهِمْ إِذْ يَخْتَصِمُونَ
📘 That is of the tidings of the Unseen, that is, the states of the unseen aspects of your existence. We reveal it to you, O prophet of the spirit, for you were not with them, [you were not] with the spiritual and ego-centric faculties, that is, at their rank or station, when they were casting their quills, which of them should have charge of Mary: that is, [when] they were vying against one another with their arrows and hurrying with their shares, which of them should govern Mary the soul and take charge of it in accordance with his opinion and what his nature entails, to preside over it and command it to what he sees as beneficial to his affair; nor were you with them, at the station of the breasts, which is the locus for the conflict between the spiritual faculties and the ego-centric ones, the locus of the their conflict being the breast, when they were disputing, in conflict back and forth seeking to be in charge when this [possibility] became manifest, before [engaging in] spiritual discipline, when the angels of the spiritual faculties were victorious with the success granted by the Truth after spiritual discipline and said to Mary the soul:
إِذْ قَالَتِ الْمَلَائِكَةُ يَا مَرْيَمُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُبَشِّرُكِ بِكَلِمَةٍ مِنْهُ اسْمُهُ الْمَسِيحُ عِيسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ وَجِيهًا فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ وَمِنَ الْمُقَرَّبِينَ
📘 When the angels said, “O Mary, surely God gives thee the good news of a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, celebrated in this world and the next, and one of those given proximity.” In this verse the God of the universe, the enactor of the world's folk, the assigner of daily provi- sions to the servants, the bestower of bounty and the lovingly kind, the caresser of the friends, caresses Mary and honors her. With this honoring He gives her excellence over the women of the world and separates her from all of them. First, He calls her with the vocative of honor, saying “O Mary.” Exalted is this address! Exalted is this call! Thousands of thousands of prophets and friends went, either in the repose of having found it, or in remorse and hope for it. O spirit of the world! If a thousand times you call on Him saying, “My Lord, my Lord,” that is not like His calling on you once, “My servant, My servant.” Even if you accept Him in lordhood, that gains you nothing, for in any case His lordhood is inseparable from you. What does the work is that once He should accept you for servanthood. Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, “God stood me before Him in a thousand standing places, presenting the empire to me, but I was saying, 'I do not desire it.' In the last standing place He said to me, 'O Abū Yazīd, what do you desire?' I said, 'I desire not to desire,'” that is, I desire what You desire. “Then He said, 'You are My servant in truth.'” Even if you do not have the gall to speak with God like Abū Yazīd, you are not too small to present your need to Him, to show Him your burning and hope, and to say, “O Lord, a name and mark is enough for me! You have come from Your threshold to place a name on me. Whatever name You want, let it be.” A man went to the bazaar to buy a slave. They presented the slaves to him and he chose one to buy. He said, “O slave, what's your name?” He said, “First buy me so that I may belong to you. Then call me by whatever name you want.
وَيُكَلِّمُ النَّاسَ فِي الْمَهْدِ وَكَهْلًا وَمِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ
📘 He shall speak to mankind in the cradle, of the body, and in his manhood, as one having attained the stage of the shaykh of the spirit overtaken by the brightness of his light, and he is of those who are good, for the station of gnosis'.
قَالَتْ رَبِّ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لِي وَلَدٌ وَلَمْ يَمْسَسْنِي بَشَرٌ ۖ قَالَ كَذَٰلِكِ اللَّهُ يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ
📘 She said, 'Lord, how shall I have a child when no mortal has touched meḍ': the soul marvels at its bearing child and giving birth without having been touched by a mortal, that is, without having been nurtured by a shaykh or taught by a mortal teacher, this being the significance of her virginity. He said, 'It is such. God creates what He will, that is, He elects whom He will through divine attraction and unveiling, endowing that person with the station of the heart without nurture or pedagogy, as is the state with [God's] beloved and some of the loving ones.
وَيُعَلِّمُهُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَالتَّوْرَاةَ وَالْإِنْجِيلَ
📘 And He will teach him the Book, the wisdom, the Torah, and the Gospel. Until the end of these verses are all his miracles. Because it was in God's knowledge that the Christians would exaggerate concerning him, the Lord of the Worlds gave him speech in the cradle in the state of infancy to reject those Christians, so he said, “Surely I am the servant of God” [19:30]. In other words, it is not as the Christians say. Rather, “I am the servant of God, created by Him, and He is my Lord.” It is also a rejection of those who criticized his mother: “O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a man of ugliness” [19:28]. The Lord of the Worlds declared her in- nocence and, to brighten her eyes, He made those words come to his tongue in the state of infancy. Here there is an exalted point: Since it was in God's knowledge that Jesus would be the brightness of Mary's eyes and the joy of her heart in this world and the afterworld, the Lord of the Worlds placed the burden and pain of Jesus on her at the time of birth. That is in His words, “And the birth pangs took her to the trunk of a date palm” [19:23]. Thus what was rightfully due became incumbent for her. As the counterpart of that suffering and hardship, blessings and ease reached her. MuṣṬafā's state with his mother was the opposite of this. Since it was in God's knowledge that his mother would have no portion of him, whether in this world or in the next, He did not place the burden of MuṣṬafā upon her, and at the time of birth no suffering reached her, so that no rightful due would become incumbent for her. Similar to this is the story of Noah and his community and that of MuṣṬafā and his community. It was said to Noah, “Do not let yourself suffer for the community and do not carry the load of their trial, for they will never give you brightness of the eyes and joy of the heart: None of your community will have faith except those who already have faith” [11:36]. It was in keeping with this address that he supplicated, “My Lord, leave no disbeliever dwelling on the earth” [71:26], and God did that.
وَرَسُولًا إِلَىٰ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنِّي قَدْ جِئْتُكُمْ بِآيَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ ۖ أَنِّي أَخْلُقُ لَكُمْ مِنَ الطِّينِ كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَيْرًا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۖ وَأُبْرِئُ الْأَكْمَهَ وَالْأَبْرَصَ وَأُحْيِي الْمَوْتَىٰ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۖ وَأُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِمَا تَأْكُلُونَ وَمَا تَدَّخِرُونَ فِي بُيُوتِكُمْ ۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَةً لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ
📘 To be a messenger, to the spiritual ones who are prepared from among the children of Jacob the spirit: 'I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, that proves that I have come from His part; I will create for you, through [my] nurture and acts of purification and practical wisdom, out of the clay of the souls of the deficiently prepared ones, like the shape of a bird, the one that flies off to the Holy Side by the intensity of its yearning; then I will breathe into it, of the breath of divine knowledge and an infusion of the true life by the effects of [divine] company and nurture, and it will be a bird, that is, a living soul, flying away with the wings of yearning and aspiration towards the Side of the Truth. I will also heal the blind, the one veiled from the light of the Truth whose insight has never opened up [to the truth] and the sun of whose face has never seen the Truth or His light and has never known His folk adorned as they are by the light of guidance; and [heal] the leper, whose soul is disfigured by the sickness of vices and corrupt beliefs and the love of this world and the pollutants of lusts, with the medicine of the souls; and I bring to life, the dead of ignorance by means of the life of knowledge, by the leave of God. And I will inform you too of what things you eat, [of what things] you partake in your pursuit of lusts and pleasures, and what you treasure up in your houses, that is, in the houses of your unseens in the way of motives and intentions. Surely in that is a sign for you, if you are believers.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَخْفَىٰ عَلَيْهِ شَيْءٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِي السَّمَاءِ
📘 Truly God, nothing whatever is hidden from Him, in the worlds, knowing as He does the times and places of retribution.
وَمُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيَّ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ وَلِأُحِلَّ لَكُمْ بَعْضَ الَّذِي حُرِّمَ عَلَيْكُمْ ۚ وَجِئْتُكُمْ بِآيَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
📘 Likewise, confirming that which was before me of the Torah, that is, of the Torah of exoteric knowledge, and to make lawful for you some of that which was forbidden to you, of the inner lights; I have come to you with a sign, a proof, from your Lord, namely, the proclamation of Oneness concerning which no prophet has ever disagreed with me. So fear God, if you oppose me, for I am upon the truth, and obey me, when I call you to the proclamation of Oneness.
۞ فَلَمَّا أَحَسَّ عِيسَىٰ مِنْهُمُ الْكُفْرَ قَالَ مَنْ أَنْصَارِي إِلَى اللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ الْحَوَارِيُّونَ نَحْنُ أَنْصَارُ اللَّهِ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَاشْهَدْ بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ
📘 And when Jesus, the heart, sensed, on the part of the ego-centric faculties, disbelief, veiling, denial and opposition, he said, 'Who will be my helpers unto Godḍ', that is, he demanded from the spiritual faculty what he required to assist him against them in his orientation towards God. The disciples said, that is, the purest and best aspects of the mentioned spiritual elements [said]: 'We will be helpers of God; we believe in God, through proofs and by being illumined with the light of the spirit; witness that we have submitted, [that] we are obedient and compliant.
رَبَّنَا آمَنَّا بِمَا أَنْزَلْتَ وَاتَّبَعْنَا الرَّسُولَ فَاكْتُبْنَا مَعَ الشَّاهِدِينَ
📘 Lord, we believe in what You have revealed, of the knowledge of Oneness and the effusion of [Your] light, and we follow the Messenger; inscribe us therefore with those who bear witness', those who are present before You, observing Your command, or of those who bear witness to Your Oneness.
وَمَكَرُوا وَمَكَرَ اللَّهُ ۖ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ
📘 And they deceived, and God deceived, and God is the best of deceivers. Ibn ʿAbbās said, “The deception of God is that when they increased in unbelief and sin, He in- creased their blessings until He pulled them into total recklessness. They brought immense unbe- lief and applied their heads to rebellion and misguidance. Then He took them little by little from whence they did not know.” It has come in the traditions that someone tormented Abū Dardā. Abū Dardā said, “Lord God, bestow upon him a healthy body, long life, and great wealth!” An intelligent man who ponders these words will know that this is the worst of supplications. When anyone is given this, recklessness and heedlessness will make him heedless of the next world so that he will be de- stroyed.
إِذْ قَالَ اللَّهُ يَا عِيسَىٰ إِنِّي مُتَوَفِّيكَ وَرَافِعُكَ إِلَيَّ وَمُطَهِّرُكَ مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَجَاعِلُ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوكَ فَوْقَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيَّ مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَأَحْكُمُ بَيْنَكُمْ فِيمَا كُنْتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ
📘 'I shall gather you, that is, I shall seize you unto Me from among them, and raise you to Me, that is, to the heaven of the spirit alongside Me, and I shall cleanse you of, the impurity of being alongside, those who disbelieved, from among the vile faculties and their scheming and [from] the vileness of their company; and I shall set those who follow you, of the spiritual ones, above those who disbelieved, of the ego-centric ones until the Day of the Greater Resurrection and the arrival at the station of the Unity. Then, on that Day, to Me shall be your return, and I will decide between you, in truth, as to what you were at variance about, before unity, in terms of the contention and conflict that resulted from [those] faculties. I shall then establish each one in its rightful abode there and shall grant it what is appropriate for it from that which is with Me, whereafter disagreement and conflict shall be removed.
فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فَأُعَذِّبُهُمْ عَذَابًا شَدِيدًا فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ وَمَا لَهُمْ مِنْ نَاصِرِينَ
📘 As for the disbelievers, I will chastise them with a terrible chastisement, by depriving them of the station of the heart and veiling them in the guises of their deeds.
وَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ فَيُوَفِّيهِمْ أُجُورَهُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ
📘 But as for the believers, from among the spiritual ones, who do deeds of righteousness, of all sorts of acts of [spiritual] augmentation, adornment and purification in order to assist the heart against the soul and remaining closely behind it as it orients itself towards the Truth; He will pay them in full their wages, by way of the holy lights and spiritual illuminations that radiate upon them; God loves not the evildoers, who stint what is due by right of wages. As for the intepretation [of this verse] without [effecting] correspondences, it is that they schemed to send someone to slay Jesus, peace be upon him. But a corporeal form was presented to them as a likeness, which was the manifestation of Jesus, the spirit of God, peace be upon him, in the real form of Jesus such that they supposed it to be Jesus and so slew it and crucified it, when God had raised Jesus, peace be upon him, to the fourth heaven as his spirit, peace be upon him, was an effusion of the spiritual aspect of the sun. But in their ignorance they did not know that the spirit of God could not be slain. When he was certain of his state before being raised, he [Jesus] said to his companions: 'I am departing to my father, your heavenly father', that is, I am seeking purification from the world of impurity and connecting to the holy spirit, bestower of forms, effuser of spirits and perfections, nurturer of men by means of infusing [their] spirit with the breath. I shall reinforce you with that effusion. At that time his call was not heeded and his example was not followed and so he commanded the disciples to disperse after him across the land and to call [people] to the Truth. They said, 'How are we to do this if you shall not be amongst us and now when you are our call is not heeded'. He said [to them]: 'The sign of my reinforcement of you is that people will accept your call after me'. After he was raised, his companions would not leave anyone until he heeded their call. Acceptance of their call appeared amongst people, their word prevailed, and their religion spread in all corners of the world.
إِنَّ مَثَلَ عِيسَىٰ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ كَمَثَلِ آدَمَ ۖ خَلَقَهُ مِنْ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ
📘 Truly, the likeness of Jesus, in other words, his attribute in God's sight, his being created by [divine] power without a father, is as Adam's likeness, in having been created without parents. Know that the marvels of [divine] power are endless and there can be no analogy in this respect to the effect that there is an analogue from the world of wisdom for the creation of a human being without parents, since there are many deficient animal beings of unusual nature that are generated from the point of creation in a short period of time then reproduce and propagate [further]. Likewise, a human being can come into being by being generated in one of several cycles, then through propagation. Similarly is engenderment without a father, for the seminal fluid of a man is much hotter than that of a woman and contains a more powerful capacity for coagulation, just as in the case of rennets with regard to [the curdling of] cheese, whereas in the woman the more powerful capacity is that of being coagulated, as is the case with milk. When the two come together coagulation takes place, the fluids coagulate and the embryo is engendered. It is possible to have a strong female constitution that corresponds to a male constitution as can be seen in the case of many women, to the extent that what is generated in her right kidney [read: ovaryḍ] is equivalent to male seminal fluid on account of its extreme heat sitting as it does next to the liver in the case of the woman the constitution of whose liver is sound and sufficiently hot, and that what is generated in her left kidney is equivalent to female seminal fluid. So when she experiences seminal emissions as a result of a male form overwhelming her imagination during sleep and consciousness because of her spirit's being joined to the holy spirit and to another angel and [by] the imagination's reproductive imitation (muḥākāt) of that [male form], as God, exalted be He says: and he became imaginalised to her as a man without fault [Q. 19:17], the two seminal fluids from both sides proceed to the womb. In the setting place on the right side is formed the stronger capacity for causing coagulation and in the setting place on the left side is formed the capacity for becoming coagulated whereupon the embryo is engendered and the spirit is attached to it.
هُوَ الَّذِي يُصَوِّرُكُمْ فِي الْأَرْحَامِ كَيْفَ يَشَاءُ ۚ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ
📘 He it is who forms you in the wombs as He wills. Talk of this has two sides: the affirmation of the form of the Creator, and the explication of His power over creatures and favor toward them through predetermination and form-giving. As for affirming the form of the Creator, in a sound report MuṣṬafā said, “God created Adam in His form, and his height was sixty cubits.” It has also been narrated as, “in the form of His face.” The folk of interpretation-the foundation of whose religion is adulteration, interpretation, and negation-have turned the referent of the pronoun away from the Real and rejected the out- wardness. The folk of the Sunnah-the foundation of whose religion is hearing, accepting, and surrendering-have left aside interpretation and gone by the outwardness. They say that in this report the pronoun refers to God, that investigation, reflection, and interpretation are not allowed, and that fancying similarity is an error, for the Real is without peer in all attributes. Concerning vision there are many reports that the Real has a shining face and form. Ibn ʿAbbās narrates that MuṣṬafā said, “I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form.” In the narrative of Abū Umāma Bāhilī, MuṣṬafā said, “My Lord was shown to me in the most beautiful form. He said, 'O MuḤammad!' I said, 'Here I am, obeying Thee.' About what are the Higher Plenum disput- ing?” This report is a long one and will be discussed in its place, God willing. The narrative of Jābir ibn Samura is this: “Surely God disclosed Himself to me in the most beautiful form.” The narrative of Anas is this: “My Lord came to me in the most beautiful form.” Anas also said, “Among the favors God will bestow on Adam on the Day of Resurrection is that He will say, 'Did I not bestow upon you My form?” Ibn ʿAbbās said, “Moses was angry with the Children of Israel, so when he came down with interdiction, he said to them, 'Drink this, you donkeys!' God said to him, 'Do you liken creatures whom I created in My form to donkeys?'” It is well known that in the reports of the resurrection MuṣṬafā said, “God will come to them in other than the form in which they recognize Him.
الْحَقُّ مِنْ رَبِّكَ فَلَا تَكُنْ مِنَ الْمُمْتَرِينَ
📘 The truth is from thy Lord, so be not among the doubters. “O MuḤammad, take care not to suppose that I have associates and partners in the power of ex- istence-giving. I do not need or require anyone in that. No one besides Me has the power of existence-giving and devising.” One of the pirs of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayer, “O Lord, the one who does the work is the one who can, and the one who bestows is the one who has. What do I have and what can I do? Who has ability like Your ability? In praising You who has a tongue? Without Your love, who has the joy of spirit?” Without the breeze of the heart-taker's love, the garden has no ease, without the radiance of that rose-colored face, there's no light or fire.
فَمَنْ حَاجَّكَ فِيهِ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَاءَكَ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ فَقُلْ تَعَالَوْا نَدْعُ أَبْنَاءَنَا وَأَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَنِسَاءَنَا وَنِسَاءَكُمْ وَأَنْفُسَنَا وَأَنْفُسَكُمْ ثُمَّ نَبْتَهِلْ فَنَجْعَلْ لَعْنَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَى الْكَاذِبِينَ
📘 And whoever disputes with you concerning him, that is, concerning Jesus. [As for the intepretation of the rest of] the verse: mutual imprecation (mubāhala) against prophets has a tremendous consequence the cause of which is the connection of their souls to the holy spirit and God's reinforcing theirs with this [latter] which is the cause of effects in the world of elements and so the world of elements is acted upon by it in the way that our body is acted upon by our spirit by means of the configurations that occur to it such as wrath, grief, reflection upon the states of the beloved one and so on in the way of the movement of limbs when will and resolve arise and human souls act upon them just as our senses and all our other faculties are acted upon by the configurations of our spirits. Thus if a holy soul is joined to it or to certain spirits of the celestial bodies and souls of the angelic realm, its effect on the world upon the joined orientation is the effect of that to which it is joined and so the elemental bodies and deficient human souls are acted upon by it in the way that it wants. Have you not seen how the souls of the Christians were acted upon by his [Muḥammad's] soul, peace be upon him, with fear and thus refrained from the mutual imprecation [against the Prophet] and sued for peace by accepting to pay the poll-tax (jizya).
إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَهُوَ الْقَصَصُ الْحَقُّ ۚ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ إِلَّا اللَّهُ ۚ وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ
📘 There is no god but God, that is, Jesus has nothing to do with divinity and ought not to be worshipped just by virtue of the disengagement of his essence, for the world of the angelic realm and that of the realm of the divine attributes are all similarly [disengaged].
قُلْ يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ تَعَالَوْا إِلَىٰ كَلِمَةٍ سَوَاءٍ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ أَلَّا نَعْبُدَ إِلَّا اللَّهَ وَلَا نُشْرِكَ بِهِ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُنَا بَعْضًا أَرْبَابًا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ ۚ فَإِنْ تَوَلَّوْا فَقُولُوا اشْهَدُوا بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ
📘 Say: “O Folk of the Book! Come to a word common between us and you: that we worship none but God, that we associate nothing with Him, and that some of us not take others of us as lords apart from God.” In terms of realization, this is addressed to the folk of tawḤīd and the desirers on the road of the Haqiqah. He is saying, “If you who are traveling on the path of truthfulness today want to be dwellers in the seat of truthfulness [54:55] tomorrow, be careful to protect your walkway from the debris of customs, to sweep away the opacities of mortal nature from the carpet of your present moment, and to make the drinking place of your aspiration pure of the dust of others. Be one in heart, one in desire, and one in aspiration. 'When someone comes to have one concern, God will suffice him against the concerns of this world and the next.'” This is why He says, “and that some of us do not take others of us as lords apart from God”: Do not settle down in every street with each scatteredness of the heart. Do not obey the commanding soul, do not worship blameworthy caprice, and take not two gods; surely He is but One God [16:51]. As long as the talk of some defiled fellow grabs you, you're the servant of your own fancy, not a servant of God.
هُوَ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ مِنْهُ آيَاتٌ مُحْكَمَاتٌ هُنَّ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ ۖ فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ زَيْغٌ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَابَهَ مِنْهُ ابْتِغَاءَ الْفِتْنَةِ وَابْتِغَاءَ تَأْوِيلِهِ ۗ وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ ۗ وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ يَقُولُونَ آمَنَّا بِهِ كُلٌّ مِنْ عِنْدِ رَبِّنَا ۗ وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّا أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ
📘 He it is who has sent down upon thee the Book, wherein are firm verses, which are the mother of the Book, and others ambiguous. He is neither a name nor an attribute. Rather, it is an allusion to being. It means that our Lord is, He is fitting to be, and He has been-beyond location and transcendent in attributes. ShurayḤ ʿābid said, “I saw a dervish in the mosque of the Sanctuary calling upon God by saying, 'O He who is He! O He other than whom there is no he! Forgive me.' A voice came from the Unseen: 'O dervish, you received so much reward for saying that the first time that the angels will be writ- ing it out until the resurrection.'” Huwa is two letters, h and w. The place of articulation of h is the last part of the throat, and the place of articulation of the w is the first part of the throat. This alludes to the fact that the letters begin from Him at first and return to Him at last. From Him they begin and to Him they return. It has also been said it alludes to the created things and engendered beings: all things come in the beginning from His power and return in the end by His decree. A dervish in the state of rapture was asked, “What is your name?” He answered, “He.” They said, “Where have you come from?” He said, “He.” They said, “What do you want?” He said, “He.” They said, “Perhaps you mean 'God'.” When the dervish heard the name God, he gave his spirit to the name and left this world. The painters depict Your name in a hundred meanings; remembering You and Your name they give up their spirits. They scatter their lives for the scent of union with You with nothing in hand of Your description but incapacity. Wherein are firm verses, which are the mother of the Book, and others ambiguous. These are the two great divisions of the Qur'an, one apparent and clear, the other abstruse and difficult. The ap- parent belongs to the majesty of the Shariah, and the difficult belongs to the beauty of the Haqiqah. The apparent is so the common people may reach joy and blessings by perceiving it and putting it into practice. The difficult is so the elect may reach the mystery of the Beneficent by surrendering and attesting to it. From the place of blessings and joy to the place of intimacy and mystery are numerous ups and downs. Given the exaltedness of this state and the eminence of this work, He did not lift up the curtain of abstruseness and ambiguity, lest any of the non-privy walk into this street, for not everyone is worthy to know the secrets of kings. Go, don't wander round the pavilion of secrets! Why try? You're no man for this battle. It needs a man cut off from both worlds to drink down the dregs of the friends' draft.
وَلَا تُؤْمِنُوا إِلَّا لِمَنْ تَبِعَ دِينَكُمْ قُلْ إِنَّ الْهُدَىٰ هُدَى اللَّهِ أَنْ يُؤْتَىٰ أَحَدٌ مِثْلَ مَا أُوتِيتُمْ أَوْ يُحَاجُّوكُمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّكُمْ ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ الْفَضْلَ بِيَدِ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
📘 Do not have faith in any but those who follow your religion. Say: “Surely the guidance is God's guidance,” lest anyone should be given the like of what you have been given, or dispute with you before your Lord. Say: “Surely the bounty is in God's hand. He gives it to whomso- ever He wills.” And God is all-embracing, knowing. Some of the commentators have said that here God is addressing the Muslims and caressing the folk of recognition and faith. He is reminding them of His favor toward them with the religion of the submission. The address then has two paths. In one respect it is addressed to the common faithful of this community, and in the other respect it is addressed to the recognizers and the elect among the folk of the Tariqah. The first respect is this: “O assembly of submitters! Do not suppose or hold firm that anyone has been given what has been given to you. There is no religion like the religion of the submission, and it was given to you. There is no book like the Qur'an, and it was given to you. There is no prophet like MuḤammad, and he was given to you. There is no month like Ramadan, and it belongs to you. There is no day like Friday, and it belongs to you. All the shariahs have been abrogated by your shariah, and all the compacts have been abrogated by your compact. The perfection of the religion and the Shariah and the beauty of the Tariqah and the Haqiqah are all in your covenant.” This is in His words, “Today I have perfected your religion for you and I have completed My bless- ings upon you and I have approved the submission for you as a religion” [5:3]. “Now give gratitude for this blessing, give thanks to your Object of worship, and obey the command. The command is this: 'Do not have faith in any but those who follow your religion.' Do not exercise friendship with any but those who share your religion, and do not show brother- hood to any but the faithful. Keep away from the irreligious and the estranged.” This is just what He says in this verse: “Do not lean upon those who do wrong, lest the Fire touch you” [11:113].
يَخْتَصُّ بِرَحْمَتِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ
📘 He singles out for His mercy whomsoever He will. That is, He singles out for His blessings whomsoever He will. He singles out a group for provisions, He singles out a group for the blessing of character traits, He singles out a group for the blessing of worship, others for the blessing of desire, others for the success of outwardness, others for the realiza- tion of the secret cores, others for the gift of outer skins, others for the encounter with the secrets. God says, and His words are truth: “If you count God's blessings, you will not enumerate them” [14:34].7 He singles out for His mercy whomsoever He will. He brought them together obscurely and did not specify anyone so that the hopeful would increase in their hope and the fearful would not remain in their fear. In the station of worship and obedience the servants will not find any states better than hope and fear, for the Lord of the Worlds praises the servants in these two states and says, “They hope for His mercy and fear His chastisement” [17:57]. He is also calling attention to the fact that even if the servants strive to the utmost in obedience and perform all the conditions of servanthood, in the end it is God's mercy that will deliver them. Concerning this the following has been narrated from the Prophet: “No one will enter the Garden by his deeds.” It was said to him, “Not even you, O Messenger of God!” He said, “Not even I, unless God envelops me with His mercy.”
مَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَنْ يُؤْتِيَهُ اللَّهُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحُكْمَ وَالنُّبُوَّةَ ثُمَّ يَقُولَ لِلنَّاسِ كُونُوا عِبَادًا لِي مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلَٰكِنْ كُونُوا رَبَّانِيِّينَ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تُعَلِّمُونَ الْكِتَابَ وَبِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَدْرُسُونَ
📘 It belongs to no mortal man that God should give him the Book, the judgment, and prophet- hood, and then he should say to the people, “Be servants of me instead of God!” But, “Be you lordly ones from having taught the Book and from having studied!” Before giving existence to the universe and creating Adam, the majestic compeller, the great God, the renowned enactor, knew in His eternal knowledge who among the children of Adam would be worthy of prophethood and friendship and who would be qualified for love and suited for messen- gerhood. God knows better where to place His message [6:124]. How can he upon whom He has placed the brand of deprivation and the inscription of unawareness be sinless and truthful on the road today? And how can he to whom He has given good fortune gratis and whom He has placed on the road of truthfulness and sinlessness be roadless and bad in state today? So, what will take form and how can it enter into imagination? It could never happen that the chosen MuṣṬafā and the caressed Jesus, after the honor of prophethood, the confirmation of sinlessness, and the strength of messengerhood, take a step out of line and say to the people, “Be servants of me instead of God!” By virtue of the beginningless choice and eternal solicitude, the Lord of the Worlds answered on their behalf as their deputy: “They do not say this. Rather they say, 'Be you lordly ones!'” In other words: Be among those singled out for God, those who are described by His words, “When I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears and his eyesight with which he sees.” In keeping with the tasting of the folk of recognition, the lordly ones are those who become one for God with disengaged intention, sound trust, and intimacy's breeze. They step beyond the two worlds and seize hold of the gentleness of the Patron's love. They say the prayer of the dead for their own attributes. When someone steps into the field of passion for the beautiful, night and day will recite for him the prayer of the dead. [DS 210] They have souls undergoing annihilation and hearts full of thirst. They have burnt souls, secret cores lit by passion, and spirits hanging in hope.
رَبَّنَا لَا تُزِغْ قُلُوبَنَا بَعْدَ إِذْ هَدَيْتَنَا وَهَبْ لَنَا مِنْ لَدُنْكَ رَحْمَةً ۚ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْوَهَّابُ
📘 Our Lord, let not our hearts stray after Thou hast guided us, and give us mercy from Thee. When they were truthful in the beauty of asking for help, He assisted them with the lights of suf- ficiency. When the heart is limpid, the present moment empty, and the tongue flowing with the Real's remembrance, the arrow of supplication inevitably reaches the target of response. But the work is in this: When will this limpidness, loyalty, and supplication come together and how will they join with each other? The meaning of this supplication is this: “O God, keep our hearts far from confusion and straying and make us firm on the carpet of service with the stipulation of the Sunnah.” And give us mercy from Thee: And give what you give, O Lord, as Your bounty and mercy, not as the recompense for our works or the compensation for our acts of obedience! Our acts of obedience are not worthy for the Presence of Your Majesty, so the only thing to do is to efface them and ignore them. One of the pirs of the Tariqah said, “The gall-bladders of the travelers and the obedient ser- vants burst in fear at the verse: 'We shall advance upon what deeds they have done and make them scattered dust' [25:23]. But, of all the Qur'an's verses, I find this the sweetest.” He was asked, “What does it mean?” He said, “We will finally be released from these displeasing deeds and unworthy acts of obedi- ence and attach our hearts totally to His bounty and mercy.”
وَلَا يَأْمُرَكُمْ أَنْ تَتَّخِذُوا الْمَلَائِكَةَ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ أَرْبَابًا ۗ أَيَأْمُرُكُمْ بِالْكُفْرِ بَعْدَ إِذْ أَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ
📘 He would never order you, to a particular devotion and to confine yourselves to a [particular] form for that is a veil and disbelief, nor would the Prophet order you to veil yourselves after you have submitted that your existences belongs to God.
وَإِذْ أَخَذَ اللَّهُ مِيثَاقَ النَّبِيِّينَ لَمَا آتَيْتُكُمْ مِنْ كِتَابٍ وَحِكْمَةٍ ثُمَّ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مُصَدِّقٌ لِمَا مَعَكُمْ لَتُؤْمِنُنَّ بِهِ وَلَتَنْصُرُنَّهُ ۚ قَالَ أَأَقْرَرْتُمْ وَأَخَذْتُمْ عَلَىٰ ذَٰلِكُمْ إِصْرِي ۖ قَالُوا أَقْرَرْنَا ۚ قَالَ فَاشْهَدُوا وَأَنَا مَعَكُمْ مِنَ الشَّاهِدِينَ
📘 And when God took the compact of the prophets, “I have given you of the Book and wis- dom. Then a messenger will come to you confirming what is with you. You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.” In the whole Qur'an, there is no verse more complete in explaining the excellence of MuṣṬafā, to whom this verse is devoted without the association of anyone else. The Lord of the Worlds made two covenants with His creatures and took two compacts from them. One was the compact He took from the creatures concerning His Godhood and Enactorship, as He said: “When your Lord took from the children of Adam, from their loins, their offspring and made them bear witness concern- ing themselves. 'Am I not your Lord?' They said, 'Yes indeed'” [7:172]. The other is the compact He took with the angels and the prophets concerning MuḤammad's prophethood and helping him, as He says, “And when God took the compact of the prophets.” This is an utmost bestowal of eminence and a perfect acknowledgment of excellence, for He made his name great with His own name and lifted up his measure with His measure. Several thousand years before the existence of MuḤammad, a command came, “O Gabriel! I will have a friend whose name is MuḤammad. He will be praised and caressed by Me, his name will be placed next to My name, his measure will be lifted up by My bounty, his being obeyed will be obedience to Me, his words will be My revelation, and following him will be friendship with Me. O Gabriel! You make a covenant with Me to have faith in him and help him.” This was when He said, “You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.” Gabriel said, “O Lord, I make a covenant that my hand will be one with his hand, I will help, and I will have faith in him.” God said, “O Gabriel! Keep to this covenant and do not oppose it.” He said, “O Lord, who would have the gall to oppose You?!” Then He said, “O Michael! You be a witness to Gabriel's covenant.” Then in the same way He made a covenant with Michael, and He told Gabriel to be witness to Michael's covenant.
فَمَنْ تَوَلَّىٰ بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
📘 Then whoever turns his back after that, that is, after having known God's covenant with the prophets and the prophets' communication to him of what God has pledged to them, those they are, the ones who have departed from God's religion, and there is no other religion in reality on which to rely except that it be illusion.
أَفَغَيْرَ دِينِ اللَّهِ يَبْغُونَ وَلَهُ أَسْلَمَ مَنْ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ طَوْعًا وَكَرْهًا وَإِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُونَ
📘 What! Do they desire other than God's religion, when all who are in the heavens and the earth abide by His religion, willingly, such as [all those] other than human beings and Satan, or unwillingly, such as human beings and Satan, since disbelief cannot embrace any other existent. All [these other existents] comply with what God has commanded them obediently. Man, on the other hand, veils himself of his own free will and because he has forgotten God's covenant and has accepted the call of Satan, corresponding to him by virtue of his [man's] ego-centric darkness: he does not believe, nor does he comply except unwillingly, God knows, except the one whom God has protected [from such sin] and chosen [for such protection]. Satan, on account of his veiling himself with his conceit and ego, when he said I am better than him [Q. 7:12], and because of his refusal and arrogance, disbelieved even as he knew that he was being disobedient, realising that his disbelief took place by God's will: that is the essence of faith, as God says: like Satan when he says to man, 'Disbelieve!'� he [then] says to him, 'Lo! I am absolved of you. Indeed I fear God, the Lord of the Worlds [Q. 59:16]. He also says: And that Satan adorned their deeds for them and said, 'Today no person shall overcome you, for I shall be your protector'. But when the two armies sighted each other, he turned his back in flight saying, 'I am quit of you, for I see what you do not see. I fear God and God is severe in retribution' [Q. 8:48]; and in another place: And Satan says, when the issue has been decided, 'Truly God promised you a promise of truth, whereas I promised you, then failed you, for over you I had no warrant, except that I called you and you responded to me. So do not blame me, but blame yourselves. I cannot heed your [distress] call, nor can you heed mine. Lo! I disbelieved in your making me an associate of God before [Q. 14:22]. All of these verses are proof that he [Satan] has faith, but when it shall not profit him; and to Him they shall be returned, in the final sequel, when there shall be no religion other than God's religion. Nay, all upon this return shall be upon His religion:'All are followers of the religion of the Truth if they [only] could discern, for a religion that is not for [sake of] the Truth, is not one that is lawful'.
وَمَنْ يَبْتَغِ غَيْرَ الْإِسْلَامِ دِينًا فَلَنْ يُقْبَلَ مِنْهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ
📘 Whosoever wants a religion other than the submission, it will not be accepted from him. Any religion that is not the submission is false. Any deed that is not following the Sunnah is the seed of remorse. The submission is the tree, the Sunnah is its water source, faith its fruit, and the Real the one who planted and nurtured it. When the wellspring of the Sunnah takes replenishment, it takes it from divine solicitude. If-refuge in God!-He should take back the solicitude, the wellspring would go dry. The tree would become ineffectual and barren, it would not give the fruit of faith, and it would be on the verge of disappearance and destruction. This is like the group who became apostates and turned away from the submission. Again, if the lordly solicitude should go forth and replenish the wellspring of the Sunnah, then the branches of the tree will be made from the goodly word [14:24] and its fruit from pure belief. The heaven of guidance will make the branch into a ladder, and in the state of life and death its fruit will become constant and never be cut off. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says by way of similitude, “God has struck a similitude: A goodly word is like a goodly tree, its roots fixed, and its branches in heaven. It gives its fruit every season by the leave of its Lord” [14:24-25]. It has also been said that if a similitude is struck for the submission, it is a lamp that has been lit by the Most Tremendous Light, its material and nurture made to appear from the light of the Sunnah. To this is the allusion in His words, “Is he whose breast God has expanded for the sub- mission, so he is upon a light from his Lord [...]?” [39:22]. He is saying, “Whenever the Exalted Lord lights the lamp of the submission in a breast, assistance from the light of the Sunnah makes it appear so that the breast may always be adorned and lit. Hence, whenever someone does not have a whiff of the Sunnah, he will have no portion of the submission. It is narrated from Shāfiʿī that he said, “I saw God in a dream and He said to me, 'Ask a wish from Me.
كَيْفَ يَهْدِي اللَّهُ قَوْمًا كَفَرُوا بَعْدَ إِيمَانِهِمْ وَشَهِدُوا أَنَّ الرَّسُولَ حَقٌّ وَجَاءَهُمُ الْبَيِّنَاتُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الظَّالِمِينَ
📘 How shall God guide a people, to the end of the verse: He denies His guidance to a people whom He had guided initially by the light of preparedness to faith, then by the light of faith until they witnessed with their own eyes the truth of the Messenger and acquired certainty to the extent that they no longer had a single doubt; and this [certainty] was supplemented by [their] acquisition of rational proofs from clear signs. But then after all of these testimonies their souls manifested themselves in obstinacy and obduracy. The lights of their witnessing hearts, intellects and spirits, all three of them, were veiled by the Truth for the sake of the Truth, on account of the misfortune of this [act of] injustice of theirs and the mastery which their [evil-] commanding souls acquired over them, that which constitutes the utmost in evil deed. Thus God says: God guides not the evildoing folk, because of the harshness of their veil and the great extent to which they are distant from the Truth and from the reception of the light. And these [evildoing folk] are of two classes. For one class the configuration of the mastery of the commanding soul over their hearts has taken deep root and become fixed in them. They have engrossed themselves excessively in error and the pursuit of evil and have reached extreme distance [from the Truth] and obstinacy until such [behaviour] became an inherent trait that does not abandon them. In the case of the other class, that configuration has not taken deep root in them yet and their hearts have not become rusted over; [for these] there remains behind the veil of the soul a ray of the light of their preparedness that perhaps a mercy and a gift of success from God should reach them that they might then become remorseful and feel shame by virtue of the innate disposition of the intellect. He thus alludes to the first class in His statement surely those who disbelieve after they have believed to the end of that verse [Q. 3:90], and to the second [class] with His statement:
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ تَابُوا مِنْ بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ وَأَصْلَحُوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ
📘 But those who repent thereafter, and make amends, for what they had rendered corrupt, by pursuing devotedly [good] deeds and acts of spiritual discipline.
رَبَّنَا إِنَّكَ جَامِعُ النَّاسِ لِيَوْمٍ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُخْلِفُ الْمِيعَادَ
📘 Our Lord, You shall gather mankind for a day of which there is no doubt, that is, He will gather them for the Day of Gathering which is the arrival at the station of the unity that comprehends the entirety of creation, the first and the last, such that they shall have no lingering doubt in that locus of witnessing of theirs.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَمَاتُوا وَهُمْ كُفَّارٌ فَلَنْ يُقْبَلَ مِنْ أَحَدِهِمْ مِلْءُ الْأَرْضِ ذَهَبًا وَلَوِ افْتَدَىٰ بِهِ ۗ أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ وَمَا لَهُمْ مِنْ نَاصِرِينَ
📘 [Surely those who disbelieve, and die disbelieving,] the whole earth full of gold shall not be accepted from any one of them, because at that instant only subsisting luminous matters are accepted, as the Hereafter is the world of light and subsistence wherein perishing matters of darkness shall have no effect or bearing. Besides, was the cause of their disbelief and their being veiled anything but their love of these wicked and transient thingsḍ So how then could these constitute the cause of their salvation, nearness, acceptance and remorse when they are the very cause of their destruction, distance, loss and privationḍ
لَنْ تَنَالُوا الْبِرَّ حَتَّىٰ تُنْفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ ۚ وَمَا تُنْفِقُوا مِنْ شَيْءٍ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ بِهِ عَلِيمٌ
📘 You will not attain piety: any act that brings a person closer to God is piety (birr). The only way to become closer to Him is to absolve oneself (tabarrī) of all that is other than Him. Thus when one loves something he becomes veiled thereby from God, exalted be He, and is guilty of a subtle associationism (shirk) because his love is attached to something other than God, as God says Yet there be people who take to themselves compeers besides God, loving them as God is loved [Q. 2:165], preferring that their souls love these over God. Such a person has become distant from God on three accounts: the love of other than the Truth; association of others [with God]; and preferring one's soul over the Truth. But is such a person were to prefer God over his soul and voluntarily give away that [love of others to God], expending it [for God], then that distance would disappear and nearness would ensue. Otherwise, he will remain veiled, even if he were to expend many times over of something else, and will not attain piety because God knows what is being expended and [knows of] his being veiled by something other than Him.
۞ كُلُّ الطَّعَامِ كَانَ حِلًّا لِبَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ إِلَّا مَا حَرَّمَ إِسْرَائِيلُ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ تُنَزَّلَ التَّوْرَاةُ ۗ قُلْ فَأْتُوا بِالتَّوْرَاةِ فَاتْلُوهَا إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
📘 All food was lawful to the Children of Israel, that is, [to] those possessing intellect, by virtue of [its] being the foundation, since the intellect judges that things were created for the benefit of servants absolutely and hence what pertains to the category of things eaten was created to be consumed; save what Israel, the spirit, forbade for himself, through rational consideration by trial and comparison, ascertaining what is harmful and what is beneficial at the level of differentiation after the undifferentiating stipulation that it is all lawful was made. For the intellect judges that what is harmful or what brings about ruin should be forbidden; before the Torah was revealed, that is, before the divine [prescriptions of the] law was revealed in the Torah and all of the other divine scriptures. People fell into disagreement after they had been one community following the religion of the Truth, as has been mentioned. God then sent prophets to guide them and to put right the states determining [both] their livelihoods [in this world] and their final return [in the next], and to make them return the [path of] truth and agreement. What divine wisdom required that it be forbidden was indeed forbidden, in accordance with their imbalanced states and the foolish natures of their hearts and their diseased souls, in the way of things to which they were accustomed and things which turned [them] away from the Truth and constituted veils between them and God, and which incited caprices and passions and all manner of corruptive acts and temptations that prevented them from [realising] their perfections and [achieving] guidance.
إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَهُدًى لِلْعَالَمِينَ
📘 The first house established for the people: they say that it was the first house to appear on the surface of the water at the time of the creation of the heaven and the earth. He created it 2000 years before the earth; it had been a clear froth on the surface of the water under which the earth was then spread out. The House then is an allusion to the real heart; its appearance on the surface of the water constitutes its attachment to the drop of [creational] fluid at the heaven of the animal spirit and the earth of the body; its creation before the earth is an allusion to its eternity and the temporal incidence of the body; the specification of 2000 years is an allusion to its precedence over the body in two modes, the mode of the soul and the mode of the heart, a precedence of level, since 1000 constitutes one complete level, as has been alluded to before; its being a clear froth is an allusion to the purity of its substance; the spreading out of the earth below it is an allusion to the engenderment of the body by effect and the fact that its [the body's] figures, delineations, and the forms of its limbs follow on from its configurations. That is the interpretation of the narrative. Know also that the locus for the attachment of the spirit to the body and the joining point of the real heart to it is at first the formal heart, which is the first of the organs to undergo engenderment and the first to function and the last to become still, hence its being the first house established for people: was that at Bakka, the breast as a form, or the first locus of worship and place of prayer established for people, [that is] for the real heart that is located in the Bakka of the spiritual breast. That [spiritual] breast is the most noble station of the soul and the place in which swarm the faculties that are oriented towards it; a blessed place, possessing divine blessedness emanating from the effusion that it connects to all existence, faculties and life. For all of the faculties that are contained in the organs proceed to these [organs] first by way of that [place]; and a guidance to all worlds: a cause of guidance and a light by which one is guided to God.
فِيهِ آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ مَقَامُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ۖ وَمَنْ دَخَلَهُ كَانَ آمِنًا ۗ وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّ الْبَيْتِ مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا ۚ وَمَنْ كَفَرَ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ عَنِ الْعَالَمِينَ
📘 Therein are clear signs, in the way of forms of knowledge, gnoses, wisdoms and realities, the station of Abraham, that is to say, the intellect which is the foothold of Abraham the spirit, meaning the locus wherein the light of that [house] is joined to the heart; and whoever enters it, of the wayfarers and the perplexed who wander in the deserts of ignorance, shall be secure, from the misguiding enticements of scheming demons and [from] the afreets of the insinuations of the soul and the snatches of the satans of estimation and the jinn of imaginations and the slaughter by the beasts of prey of the egocentric faculties and their attributes. It is the duty of people towards God to make the pilgrimage to the House, [to] this [House], and to circumambulate it, if he is able to make his way there, of the wayfarers who are prepared and who are sincere in their will, and have the means of the provision of piety and the mount of powerful resolve, to the exclusion of others who are of a weak preparedness and who stay behind because of weakness and [spiritual] sickness and [because of] all barriers pertaining to character traits or those egocentric or corporeal [barriers] that are accidental. As for the one who disbelieves, that is, the one who has veiled his preparedness despite its having the capacity [for spiritual growth] and who turns away from it out of the caprices of the soul, God is Independent of, him, and of, the worlds, all of them. In other words, He is not concerned with him because of the latter's distance [from God] and his being unreceptive to His mercy [existing as he does] under the ignominy of the veil, which is that privation [from God] entails being forsaken and rejected.
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