🕋 تفسير سورة النساء
(An-Nisa) • المصدر: EN-KASHANI-TAFSIR
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اتَّقُوا رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُمْ مِنْ نَفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَخَلَقَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا وَبَثَّ مِنْهُمَا رِجَالًا كَثِيرًا وَنِسَاءً ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ الَّذِي تَسَاءَلُونَ بِهِ وَالْأَرْحَامَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَلَيْكُمْ رَقِيبًا
📘 O people, be wary of your Lord, who created you from one soul, created from it its mate, and scattered forth from the two many men and women. And be wary of God, whom you ask against one another, and of the wombs. Surely God is watcher over you. “O center point of human nature, O attribute of mortal nature, make godwariness your shelter and cling to it, for the life of the servants is through it and the deliverance of the travelers in it.” Godwariness is for the servant to make the commands of the Shariah into his shield so that the arrows of prohibition may not reach him. It has three levels: First, he takes refuge in the sentence of tawḤīd and avoids every associationism. Second he takes refuge in obedience and steps away from the path of disobedience. Third he takes refuge in caution and flees from ambiguity. Anyone who climbs these way stations of godwariness with truthfulness will inescapably reach deliver- ance, for the Qur'an gives this report: “God will deliver those who were godwary in their place of security; ugliness will not touch them, neither shall they sorrow” [39:61]. In another place He says, “Whosoever is wary of God, He will appoint a way out for him and He will provide for him from whence he never reckoned [65:2-3]. Whenever someone takes hold of godwariness, We will ease for him the road of deliverance from every suffering and We will send him provision from whence he has no hope.” It has been said that the sister of Bishr Ḥāfī went to see AḤmad Ḥanbal. She said, “O Imam of the Muslims! I work a spindle on the roof of my house. When the torch of the Tahirids passes by, it may happen that I join threads with the rays of that torch. Is this permissible or not?” AḤmad said, “First tell me who you are. Are you in a walkway of being able to tolerate such godwariness?” She said, “I am the sister of Bishr Ḥāfī.” AḤmad wept and said, “Godwariness like this is permissible only in the household of Bishr Ḥāfī! It is not worthy of you, so be careful not to do it, and Bishr Ḥāfī will be happy with you. Emulate your brother so that perhaps you may be like him.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَأْكُلُونَ أَمْوَالَ الْيَتَامَىٰ ظُلْمًا إِنَّمَا يَأْكُلُونَ فِي بُطُونِهِمْ نَارًا ۖ وَسَيَصْلَوْنَ سَعِيرًا
📘 Surely those who eat the property of orphans wrongly will be eating only fire in their bellies and will roast in a blaze. The majestic compeller, the great Lord, the renowned keeper of servants, the clement, the gener- ous, the loyal, the tremendous, the lord of everyone, the carrier of everything, who takes the hand of the weak and joins with them in love, in this verse caresses the weak and shows love to the orphans. As for those wrongdoers who skewer the livers of orphans and drink the blood of the indigent, He threatens them and warns them of a fearful punishment. He acts as the deputy of the helpless and disputes with the wrongdoers for their sake. For He is the companion of the weak, the helper of the despairing, the responder to the call of the distressed, and the listener to the voice of the grieved. He loves the servant who, when battered, incapable, and destitute, lets out a cold sigh, sheds warm tears, and lifts two empty hands toward Him, asking again to be excused. It has come in the traditions that a man was saying, “O Lord, O Lord! You have written, You have measured out, and You have decreed!” O God, all that was, is, and shall be is what You want, what You bring about, and what You write for the creatures. O God, none of this is outside Your predestination, nor does it happen without Your decree. A call came in his secret core, “That is tawḤīd. Where is servanthood?” What you have said is nothing but tawḤīd and is fit for My Godhood. What then is the mark of your servanthood? The man said, “O Lord, O Lord! Surely I have disobeyed, I have sinned, and I ask.” O God, what comes from me is fitting for me. O God, I have broken the covenant, I have no loyalty, I am disloyal and everything worse. What can I do about this story-I'm all artifice and color. I'm altogether too lame to walk on the straight road. Greed has made me all grasping claws, I'm all war with the Apportioner's apportioning. Surely those who eat the property of orphans wrongly. It is harsh to eat the wealth of orphans and foolishly crave their possessions. They say that once the marvel of the empire, the pure Jesus, was passing by a graveyard.
۞ وَمَنْ يُهَاجِرْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ يَجِدْ فِي الْأَرْضِ مُرَاغَمًا كَثِيرًا وَسَعَةً ۚ وَمَنْ يَخْرُجْ مِنْ بَيْتِهِ مُهَاجِرًا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ ثُمَّ يُدْرِكْهُ الْمَوْتُ فَقَدْ وَقَعَ أَجْرُهُ عَلَى اللَّهِ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا
📘 Whosoever emigrates in the path of God will find in the earth many a road and expanse. In this verse the Lord of the Worlds, the God of the world's folk, the keeper of all, the knowing and lovingly kind, gives a mark of His mercy and shows His gentleness to the servants. He invites the faithful to emigrate and praises those who do. The emigrants are of three sorts: One sort emigrates for the sake of this world. They under- take trade or the search for livelihood. Even though this is allowed in the Shariah, it is not clear where it will lay down its head at the end and what its outcome will be. MuṣṬafā said, “Love for this world is the beginning of every offense.” He also said, “Do not take a landed estate, lest you become eager for this world.” This sort of emigrant is always in suffering and hardship, caught in the hands of thieves and on the verge of destruction. Hoping to gain something that is allowed, he leaves aside something obligatory. Then he burns, and he loses the basis for both. God says, “You desire the chance goods of this life, and God desires the afterworld” [8:67]. The second sort are the renunciants. Their emigration is for the sake of the afterworld and their traveling goes by way of meanings. They pass over the way stations of obedient acts and tra- verse the stages of worship on the feet of aspiration. Sometimes they make the hajj, go off to battle, struggle, make pilgrimages, perform the prayers, remember God's name, and meditate on God's blessings. Concerning them God's Messenger said, “Travel! The solitary will be the preceders.” They said, “O Messenger of God! Who are the solitary?” He said, “The engrossed-those who are engrossed by the remembrance of God. Remem- brance has lifted away their loads, and they come forth unburdened on the Day of Resurrection.” The Exalted Lord says about them, “Whosoever desires the afterworld and strives after it with proper striving while having faith-those, their striving shall be thanked” [17:19]. The third sort are the recognizers, whose emigration is for the sake of the Patron. They emi- grate within their own makeup. They emigrate inside the curtains of the soul until they reach the heart, they emigrate inside the curtains of the heart until they reach the spirit, and they emigrate inside the curtains of the spirit until they reach union with the Beloved.
وَإِذَا ضَرَبْتُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ فَلَيْسَ عَلَيْكُمْ جُنَاحٌ أَنْ تَقْصُرُوا مِنَ الصَّلَاةِ إِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَنْ يَفْتِنَكُمُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا ۚ إِنَّ الْكَافِرِينَ كَانُوا لَكُمْ عَدُوًّا مُبِينًا
📘 And when you are journeying in the land of preparedness along the path of knowledge in pursuit of certainty, you would not be at fault if you shorten, that is, [if] you curtail the corporeal deeds and the fulfilment of the duties of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya) such as gratitude and presence, for the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said, 'Whoever has been given his [full] share of certainty, let him not be [overly] concerned with what he has missed of prayers and fasting', if you fear that you may be afflicted, that you may be deceived and led astray, by those who do not believe, that is, [by] those that have been veiled such as the faculties of estimation and imagination and the human devils who are astray and who lead [others] astray, given what we know from the words of the Prophet, 'A single man of [deep] understanding is more difficult for Satan [to lead astray] than a thousand worshippers'.
فَإِذَا قَضَيْتُمُ الصَّلَاةَ فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَىٰ جُنُوبِكُمْ ۚ فَإِذَا اطْمَأْنَنْتُمْ فَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ ۚ إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى الْمُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَابًا مَوْقُوتًا
📘 When you have completed the prayer, remember God, standing and sitting and on your sides. Know that the prayer is secret whispering between God and the servant. In this secret whisper- ing, there is both need and joy. Today there is need, tomorrow joy; today suffering, tomorrow the treasure; today a heavy burden, tomorrow repose and ease [56:89]; today toil and work, tomorrow pleasure and the bazaar; today bowing and prostrating, tomorrow finding and witnessing. Part of the eminence of the prayer is that the Exalted Lord has mentioned it 102 times in the Qur'an and given it thirteen names: prayer, devotion, Qur'an, glorification, book, remembrance, bowing, prostration, praise, asking forgiveness, declaring greatness, beautiful deeds, and subsistent things. MuṣṬafā said, “The prayer is the miʿrāj of the person of faith.” He said, “The prayer is God's banquet in the earth.” The ulama of the past have said, “The prayer is the throne of the desirers, the pleasure of the recognizers, the means of approach of the sinners, and the scented garden of the renunciants.” They have also said, “The person performing the prayer has received seven generous bestow- als: guidance, sufficiency, expiation, mercy, proximity, degree, and forgiveness.” The first step in associationism is not to say the prayers, for the Exalted Lord will say, “'What brought you into Saqar?' They will say, 'We were not of those who said the prayers'” [74:42-43]. And He placed the name faith in the prayer, where He says, “But God would never leave your faith,” that is, your prayer, “to waste” [2:143]. He promises daily provision with prayer, where He says, “And command thy folk to the prayer, and be thou patient therein. We ask thee for no provi- sion. We shall provide for thee” [20:132]. The number of obligatory prayers came as five in conformity with the roots of the Shari'ite rules. Concerning the roots of the Shari'ite rules MuṣṬafā said, “The submission is built on five.” The roots of the obligatory prayers are five prayers in one day and night. In other words, when the servant performs these five prayers with their stipulations and at their times, the Exalted Lord will give him the reward of all the roots of the Shari'ite rules. The guises of the prayer are four: standing, bowing, prostrating, and sitting.
إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ لِتَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ بِمَا أَرَاكَ اللَّهُ ۚ وَلَا تَكُنْ لِلْخَائِنِينَ خَصِيمًا
📘 Surely We have revealed to you the Book, that is, the knowledge of the differentiations of the attributes and the rules governing their self-disclosures, with the truth, apparelled in justice and sincerity, or [it means] upheld by the Truth and not by your soul, so that you might judge between creatures, by that which God has shown you, of His justice. And do not be, for traitors, those who do not restore to God the trust which He has deposited in them since pre-eternity by virtue of the possibility embedded in their preparedness of knowing Him perfectly, but who have betrayed their souls and [those of] others by pillaging what is their due and expending it in inappropriate ways, a disputant, who wards off [their] chastisement for them and the fact that God has given power to [other] creatures over them to hurt them, [or a disputant] who remonstrates in defence of them against others or against God by objecting that he has put right their [state of] having been forsaken and vanquished [by God]. For verily they are the evildoers. They have no argument [against God], rather the [burden of] proof is against them.
وَاسْتَغْفِرِ اللَّهَ ۖ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا
📘 And pray for forgiveness from God, for your soul by refraining from objecting and remonstrating on their behalf so that We might forgive you your variegation, which has manifested itself on you by the presence of your heart and its attributes.
وَلَا تُجَادِلْ عَنِ الَّذِينَ يَخْتَانُونَ أَنْفُسَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ مَنْ كَانَ خَوَّانًا أَثِيمًا
📘 And do not dispute: the interpretation of this has become clear from this [preceding statement].
يَسْتَخْفُونَ مِنَ النَّاسِ وَلَا يَسْتَخْفُونَ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَهُوَ مَعَهُمْ إِذْ يُبَيِّتُونَ مَا لَا يَرْضَىٰ مِنَ الْقَوْلِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطًا
📘 They hide themselves from people, by concealing from them their vices and the attributes of their souls, which are the sources of their shame; but they do not hide themselves from God, by eliminating them and eradicating them, even though He is the witness over them, knowing their inner selves, while they contrive, [while] they lend weight to, in the world of the darkened soul and nature, what is displeasing to Him of suppositions, in the way of illusions and corrupt machinations which they string together in order to actualise what they desire of the transient things of this world and its pleasures. God is ever Encompassing of what they do, recompensing them in accordance with their attributes and their deeds.
هَا أَنْتُمْ هَٰؤُلَاءِ جَادَلْتُمْ عَنْهُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فَمَنْ يُجَادِلُ اللَّهَ عَنْهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَمْ مَنْ يَكُونُ عَلَيْهِمْ وَكِيلًا
📘 Ah! There you are: [the interpretation of this is] clear from what has already been mentioned.
وَمَنْ يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا أَوْ يَظْلِمْ نَفْسَهُ ثُمَّ يَسْتَغْفِرِ اللَّهَ يَجِدِ اللَّهَ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا
📘 Whoever does evil, by the manifestation of one of the attributes of his soul, or wrongs his soul, by diminishing something of his [potential] perfections, [perfections] entailed in his preparedness by falling short [of something] therein or by committing a deed that is incompatible with it, [but] then asks God to cover up that attribute or configuration that is concealing his perfection by orienting himself towards Him and renouncing sinful behaviour, he shall find God is Forgiving, covering up that evil deed and dark configuration with the light of His attribute, Merciful, bestowing [on that person] what his preparedness entails.
وَمَنْ يَكْسِبْ خَطِيئَةً أَوْ إِثْمًا ثُمَّ يَرْمِ بِهِ بَرِيئًا فَقَدِ احْتَمَلَ بُهْتَانًا وَإِثْمًا مُبِينًا
📘 And whoever commits a mistake, by manifesting his soul, or a sin, by effacing what is in his preparedness or by acquiring a configuration that is incompatible with [the realisation of] his perfection, and then casts it upon an innocent one, by saying [something like], 'So and so drove me to do it, or so and so prevented me from seeking the truth, or this is the crime of so and so', as is the habit of those who are given to brandishing excuses, he has thereby burdened himself with calumny, by [falsely] attributing his own [mis]deed to another. For had there not been a proclivity in his soul towards what is opposed to his perfection and a correspondence to those who agree with him and obey him [in that], it would not be accepted from him. So it is only of the doing of his own soul, as Satan says to them, 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 your own souls [Q. 14:22]. For if there had not been a darkness in their souls which they had acquired and which resulted from the manifesting of their attributes, there would not have been in them a locus for his [Satan's] evil whisperings or a receptivity for his call; and a manifest sin, one that is manifest and multiplying, composed as it is of the configuration of the mistake and their refusal to confess [their sin] and to ascribe the shortcoming to their own souls so that it might be broken and become too weak to hold sway over the heart or to prevent it from perfection.
وَلَوْلَا فَضْلُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكَ وَرَحْمَتُهُ لَهَمَّتْ طَائِفَةٌ مِنْهُمْ أَنْ يُضِلُّوكَ وَمَا يُضِلُّونَ إِلَّا أَنْفُسَهُمْ ۖ وَمَا يَضُرُّونَكَ مِنْ شَيْءٍ ۚ وَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَعَلَّمَكَ مَا لَمْ تَكُنْ تَعْلَمُ ۚ وَكَانَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكَ عَظِيمًا
📘 Were it not for God's bounty to you, that is, His granting [you] of success and His reinforcement [of you] for the wayfaring along His path with what brings out your perfection [from potentiality] into actuality and accentuates the knowledge that is latent within you; and His mercy, His gift [to you] of that absolute perfection which He has deposited in you from pre-eternity, that mercy beyond which there is no [greater] mercy; but they lead only their souls astray, since that errancy the product of their original preparedness, moulded as they are upon wretchedness from pre-eternity: how then can that errancy that has been kneaded into them affect anyone other than themḍ God has revealed to you the Book, that is, the complete differentiated knowledge after the existence bestowed [on you from Him], and wisdom, knowledge of the rules governing the differentiations and the self-disclosures of the attributes and how to implement this [wisdom], and He has taught you what you did not know, since it is God's knowledge, which only He possesses, and so when He revealed to you His Essence upon your annihilation in Him, then made you subsist through the existence derived from [His Name] the Truth and your heart came to be and He veiled you with the veil of that heart, He taught you of His knowledge, as the attribute is consequent to the essence, and God's bounty, in manifesting that perfection upon you by facilitating for you the performing of deeds that have helped you arrive at where you have arrived, is ever great.
۞ لَا خَيْرَ فِي كَثِيرٍ مِنْ نَجْوَاهُمْ إِلَّا مَنْ أَمَرَ بِصَدَقَةٍ أَوْ مَعْرُوفٍ أَوْ إِصْلَاحٍ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ ۚ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ ابْتِغَاءَ مَرْضَاتِ اللَّهِ فَسَوْفَ نُؤْتِيهِ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
📘 No good is there in much of their whispering, except for him who bids to charity, or the honorable, or making things wholesome among the people. Whosoever does this, seeking God's approval, We shall give him a tremendous wage. The best deeds of the servants are the three things in this verse: charity, the honorable, and making things wholesome among the people. The good in this verse is not specified for one individual, but rather its profit reaches others. The wonder is not that you should open a door for yourself, the wonder and chivalry are that you should open a door to yourself for another. Pir Bū ʿAlī Siyāh said, “So what if you make yourself happy? The work is done by making someone else happy.” MuṣṬafā alluded to this: “The worst of men is he who eats alone.” As for charity, it is of three sorts: with possessions, with the body, and with the heart. Char- ity with possessions is giving comfort to the poor by expending blessings. Charity with the body is undertaking for them the duty of service. Charity with the heart is being loyal to the beauty of intention and the consolidation of aspiration. This is charity toward the poor. There is also charity toward the rich. It is that you act with munificence toward them and do not expose your need to them; you take back your hope from their charitable gifts and do not covet anything from them. When charity, the honorable, and making things wholesome come together in someone, from head to foot he becomes veneration itself, the oyster shell for the mysteries of lordhood, and he is accepted by those who bear witness to the divinity. His name is given out as “sincerely truthful,” and tomorrow he will be gathered up along with the sincerely truthful. This is the great wage that the Exalted Lord has promised: “We shall give him a tremendous wage.”
إِنْ يَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِهِ إِلَّا إِنَاثًا وَإِنْ يَدْعُونَ إِلَّا شَيْطَانًا مَرِيدًا
📘 What they pray to instead of Him are but females, that is, [these are but] souls, since anyone who associates others with God is a worshipper of his own soul by his obedience of its caprice and a worshipper of the Satan of estimation by accepting its misguidance and obeying it; or [females means] all that is worshipped besides God, since that [object of worship] is a contingent being and every contingent thing succumbs to the effect of another and is liable to its effects, in need of it, which is an attribute of females.
لَعَنَهُ اللَّهُ ۘ وَقَالَ لَأَتَّخِذَنَّ مِنْ عِبَادِكَ نَصِيبًا مَفْرُوضًا
📘 [And he [Satan] said, 'Assuredly I will take to myself] an appointed portion, that is, other than those who shall be saved because they have been sincere in their religion by their affirmation of the Oneness.
وَلَأُضِلَّنَّهُمْ وَلَأُمَنِّيَنَّهُمْ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ ۚ وَمَنْ يَتَّخِذِ الشَّيْطَانَ وَلِيًّا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ فَقَدْ خَسِرَ خُسْرَانًا مُبِينًا
📘 Surely I will misguide them and fill them with wishes. When misguidance is consigned to Iblis, this is because of the secondary cause. Otherwise who is Iblis? Yes, he instills disquiet, for that is his job, and then, in the tracks of this disquieting, the Exalted Lord creates misguidance, for guidance and misguidance, felicity and wretchedness, come from God: Whomsoever God guides, he is guided, and whomsoever He misguides, you will not find for him a guiding friend [18:17]. Then He mentions the outcome, the end, the final issue, and the returning place of the two groups: About the misguided sort He says, “Their refuge is Ge- henna” [4:121], and about the guided sort He says, “We shall enter them into gardens underneath which rivers flow, therein dwelling forever and ever” [4:122].
۞ وَلَكُمْ نِصْفُ مَا تَرَكَ أَزْوَاجُكُمْ إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُنَّ وَلَدٌ ۚ فَإِنْ كَانَ لَهُنَّ وَلَدٌ فَلَكُمُ الرُّبُعُ مِمَّا تَرَكْنَ ۚ مِنْ بَعْدِ وَصِيَّةٍ يُوصِينَ بِهَا أَوْ دَيْنٍ ۚ وَلَهُنَّ الرُّبُعُ مِمَّا تَرَكْتُمْ إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ لَكُمْ وَلَدٌ ۚ فَإِنْ كَانَ لَكُمْ وَلَدٌ فَلَهُنَّ الثُّمُنُ مِمَّا تَرَكْتُمْ ۚ مِنْ بَعْدِ وَصِيَّةٍ تُوصُونَ بِهَا أَوْ دَيْنٍ ۗ وَإِنْ كَانَ رَجُلٌ يُورَثُ كَلَالَةً أَوِ امْرَأَةٌ وَلَهُ أَخٌ أَوْ أُخْتٌ فَلِكُلِّ وَاحِدٍ مِنْهُمَا السُّدُسُ ۚ فَإِنْ كَانُوا أَكْثَرَ مِنْ ذَٰلِكَ فَهُمْ شُرَكَاءُ فِي الثُّلُثِ ۚ مِنْ بَعْدِ وَصِيَّةٍ يُوصَىٰ بِهَا أَوْ دَيْنٍ غَيْرَ مُضَارٍّ ۚ وَصِيَّةً مِنَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَلِيمٌ
📘 For you half of what your wives leave, if they have no children. Inheritance and worthiness to receive it are established either by means of a cause or by way of a lineage. The cause is marriage and the lineage is kinship. Marriage is the cause of love, as God says, “He placed between you love and mercy” [30:21]. Lineage is assistance and strength, as has come in the report: “A man is many through his brothers.” When one of the relatives by lineage or one of the near ones by cause dies, that will be a wound on a person's heart and a pain in his spirit. The Lord of the Worlds places balm on the pain. After this suffering He commands consolation through the wealth of the person who passed away. Thus, just as pain came from his passing, so also balm comes from his wealth. This is the custom of the Lord with His friends: If He places suffering on them by prescribing the Law, after the suffering He makes a treasure appear with the attribute of alleviation. Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “How should I have known that suffering is the mother of happi- ness and that beneath one disappointment lie a thousand treasures? How should I have known that hope is the courier of union and that beneath the cloud of munificence despair is impossible? How should I have known that the Lovingly Kind is so forbearing that His gentleness and loving kind- ness to the sinner are beyond reckoning? How should I have known how servant-caressing is the Possessor of Majesty and how much joy His friends have in Him? How should I have known that what I seek is in the midst of the spirit, and that the exaltation of union with Him is my opening?” In my whole life one night at the time of dawn, the image of that comfort of the spirit came to me And asked, “How are you, wounded one?” I said, “In my passion for You, that is the first opening.”
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَنُدْخِلُهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا ۖ وَعْدَ اللَّهِ حَقًّا ۚ وَمَنْ أَصْدَقُ مِنَ اللَّهِ قِيلًا
📘 But those who believe, with [that] true faith, the affirmation of the Oneness, since they are the antitheses of those who associate [others with God], and perform, what sets them on the right path to arriving at the union, or what sets people right all together by making them upright before God and in God after the annihilation and the actualisation of subsistence, We shall admit them, to the three mentioned gardens.
لَيْسَ بِأَمَانِيِّكُمْ وَلَا أَمَانِيِّ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ ۗ مَنْ يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا يُجْزَ بِهِ وَلَا يَجِدْ لَهُ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا
📘 It, the actualisation of what is promised, is not according to your desires nor the desires of the People of the Scripture, that is, [it is not by] your subsisting in your souls, their attributes and acts, for your will is merely wishful desire, and wishful desire is to ask for what habitually is not forthcoming.
وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ دِينًا مِمَّنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ وَاتَّبَعَ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۗ وَاتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ خَلِيلًا
📘 Who is more beautiful in religion than he who submits his face to God while he is a beautiful-doer and follows the creed of Abraham, an unswerving man? And God took Abraham as a bosom friend. In this verse the Lord of the Worlds, the God of the world's folk, the Enactor who knows the hid- den, praises the self-purifiers and shows that He is pleased with self-purification in deeds. The first person to dress the Kaabah of deeds in the cloak of self-purification was MuṣṬafā, who said, “Deeds are only through intentions.” Self-purification in deeds does the work of color in jewels. Just as a jewel without the cape of color is a worthless stone, so also deeds without self-purification is to knock oneself out without hitting the mark. Maʿrūf Karkhī used to beat himself with a whip and say, “O soul! Purify thyself and be de- livered!” It has been said that knowledge is the seed, deeds are planting, and self-purification is the water. The work is done by self-purification, salvation lies in self-purification, and endless felicity lies in self-purification, but self-purification itself is exalted and does not come down just any- where, nor does it show its face to just anyone. The Exalted Lord said, “It is one of My secrets that I deposit in the hearts of those whom I love among My servants.” There was a worshiper among the Children of Israel. He was told that in such-and-such a place there is a tree that people worship. For the sake of God and the zeal of the religion he became angry, left his place with a mattock over his shoulder, and went to dig up the tree by its roots. Iblis went into the road with the attributes of an old man. He asked him where he was going and he replied, “To that place to dig up the tree.” Iblis said, “Go, busy yourself with your worship, for this will not done by your hand.” Iblis struggled with him and fell, and the worshiper sat on his chest. Iblis said, “Let go of me and I will speak some beautiful words to you.” He let go of him, and Iblis said, “O worshiper, God has prophets. If this tree needs to be dug up, He will command a prophet to dig it up.
وَلِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ مُحِيطًا
📘 To God belongs everything in the heavens and everything in the earth, and God encom- passes everything. In these verses, He says three times “To God belongs everything in the heavens and everything in the earth.” Each is an admonishment for a different group and specific to a designated meaning. The first is an admonishment for the common Muslims, the second an admonishment for the wor- shipful servants and godwary, and the third an admonishment for the sincerely truthful and elect. First He says for the common Muslims, “Everything in heaven and earth is My possession and kingdom. All is My creation and artisanry. My knowledge reaches all and I am aware of all. I have made certain rightful dues incumbent among you and set apart obligatory acts for you. So comply with the rightful due of women, orphans, and the weak and put My commands into action. Strive to give comfort and achieve peace. Whether you do good or bad, whether you are at peace or war, know that in reality I know and I see, for all is My creation and My artisanry. How can My creation and artisanry be concealed from Me? Does He who created not know, while He is the Gentle, the Aware? [67:14].” In the second verse He says,
وَلِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ وَلَقَدْ وَصَّيْنَا الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ وَإِيَّاكُمْ أَنِ اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ وَإِنْ تَكْفُرُوا فَإِنَّ لِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَنِيًّا حَمِيدًا
📘 To God belongs everything in the heavens and everything in the earth, and We have charged those who were given the Book before you, and you, to be wary of God. “You who are worshipers and abstainers, come totally into the street of godwariness and make godwariness your shelter. Leave aside the road of uncertainty and suspicion.” He says this and commands it. Then He gives success to one group, and He puts another group into the road of abandonment. To all of them He gives awareness: “I am without needs. I have no benefit from the obedience of the one given success, nor any loss from the disobedience of the one abandoned. Everything in the heavens and the earth is My possession and kingdom. All are My predetermined things and artifacts. Had I wanted, I would have created all successful, or all abandoned. No one can protest against Me, and there is no turning away from My decree.” In the third verse, He says,
وَلِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ وَكِيلًا
📘 To God belongs everything in the heavens and everything in the earth, and God is suf- ficient as a trustee. This is an admonishment to the sincerely truthful and the lovers: “The seven heavens, the seven earths, and everything within them all belong to Me. I did not create them that you should turn your face toward them and attach your heart to them, remaining with them and being held back from Me. Rather, I created them to show them to you and to adorn them for your soul. Then, when you put aside everything and bring your face to Me, I will bring all of them into your service and put them all in your hands.” This meaning is in the report, “O this world! Serve those who serve Me, and trouble those who serve you!” The story of Sahl Tustarī is well known. The caliph of the day offered great wealth to him, but he did not accept anything. Someone asked him why he had not accepted. Sahl called upon God to lift the veil from the eyes of the questioner, who then looked and saw a world full of gems and pearls. Sahl said, “O chevalier! I have no need for the wealth of the caliph. The whole world is at my command. The storehouses of the earth have been offered to me, but I do not want them.” Why do you stay in this low place like crows looking for carrion? Break the cage and fly at once like peacocks to the heights. All on the face of gold and gems is unbelief and satanity- if you have the religion's fervor, step beyond the gold. [DS 52]
مَنْ كَانَ يُرِيدُ ثَوَابَ الدُّنْيَا فَعِنْدَ اللَّهِ ثَوَابُ الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ سَمِيعًا بَصِيرًا
📘 Whoever desires the reward of this world, satisfied to remain with the caprice of the soul: why does such a one seek the vilest of things and remain at the lowest levelsḍ then God has the reward, of both abodes at once, if he should desire it [the reward of this world] by being annihilated in it, for He is the Existence that encompasses everything and nothing escapes Him. God is ever Hearer, of the conversations of your souls, Seer, of what your intentions and desires are in your deeds.
۞ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامِينَ بِالْقِسْطِ شُهَدَاءَ لِلَّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَىٰ أَنْفُسِكُمْ أَوِ الْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ ۚ إِنْ يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقِيرًا فَاللَّهُ أَوْلَىٰ بِهِمَا ۖ فَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا الْهَوَىٰ أَنْ تَعْدِلُوا ۚ وَإِنْ تَلْوُوا أَوْ تُعْرِضُوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا
📘 O you who believe, with the affirmation of the Oneness through knowledge and by the desire for the reward of both abodes, be, firmly established at the station of justness, which is the noblest of virtues, upright, in fulfilling its duties such that it becomes a deeply-rooted trait in you alongside which no injustice or tyranny can issue from you in any matter nor the manifestation of a soul-attribute as a result of the pursuit of some whim in order to draw some worldly profit or to ward off some harm.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا آمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ مِنْ قَبْلُ ۚ وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِاللَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ ضَلَالًا بَعِيدًا
📘 O you who have faith! Have faith in God and His Messenger. Faith is two sorts, one based on proof, the other on face-to-face vision. Faith by proof is the road of inference, and faith by face-to-face vision is finding the day of union. Faith by proof is to employ the evidence of intellects, and faith by vision is to reach the degrees of arrival. In terms of allusion He is saying: “O you have acquired faith by proof, strive to acquire faith by face-to-face vision!” What is faith by face-to-face vision? Gazing with the eye of response on the Responder, gaz- ing with the eye of solitariness on the Solitary, gazing with the eye of presence on the Present, being near to God's nearness by being far from self, being present with His generosity by being absent from self. He-majestic is His majesty!-is not far from the strivers nor absent from the desirers. He says, “We are nearer to him than the jugular vein” [50:16]. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O Lord! You are found by the souls of the chevaliers, You are present to the hearts of the rememberers. They give marks of You up close, but You are far beyond that. They fancy You from afar, but You are closer than the spirit.” Lovely idol! Are you then my beloved? Now that I look close, You are my spirit. It is also said that the meaning of the verse is this: O you who have faith by assenting, have faith by realizing! You have accepted the Shariah, now accept the Haqiqah. What is the Shariah? What the Haqiqah? The Shariah is a lamp, the Haqiqah a burn. The Shariah is a bond, the Haqiqah advice. The Shariah is need, the Haqiqah joy. The Shariah is the outer pillars, the Haqiqah the inner pillars. The Shariah is not having evil, the Haqiqah is not hav- ing self. The Shariah is service based on conditions, the Haqiqah exile based on witnessing. The Shariah is by intermediaries, the Haqiqah by unveiling. The folk of the Shariah keep obedience and leave aside disobedience, the folk of the Haqiqah flee from themselves and take joy in oneness. The folk of the Shariah hope for everlastingness and subsistent bliss, the folk of the Haqiqah boldy busy themselves with the Cupbearer.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا ثُمَّ كَفَرُوا ثُمَّ آمَنُوا ثُمَّ كَفَرُوا ثُمَّ ازْدَادُوا كُفْرًا لَمْ يَكُنِ اللَّهُ لِيَغْفِرَ لَهُمْ وَلَا لِيَهْدِيَهُمْ سَبِيلًا
📘 Verily, those who believed, and then disbelieved, to the end [of the verse]: in other words, those who were perplexed and wavered between the two aspects of the upper lordship [of God] and the lower one [of themselves] by the intensity of their hypocrisy, with at times the victory of the light of the primordial nature and at others the mastery of the darkness of the soul and caprice. That is because both states were equal in them until [finally] the darkened configurations were able to establish themselves [in their souls], veils multiplied, corrupt beliefs and stagnant disposition took deep root as a result of the sway and absolute mastery that the attributes of the soul acquired [over them], such that they rusted over their hearts; it was not for God to forgive them, because of the veiling rust, the corruption of the heart's substance and the disappearance of preparedness, nor to guide them to a way, to truth, to perfection, or to the original primordial nature because of their non-receptivity to guidance and their chastisement is described as painful because of the status of their preparedness at the point of origin.
الَّذِينَ يَتَّخِذُونَ الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۚ أَيَبْتَغُونَ عِنْدَهُمُ الْعِزَّةَ فَإِنَّ الْعِزَّةَ لِلَّهِ جَمِيعًا
📘 Those who take disbelievers for friends, by virtue of their correspondence to them in terms of being veiled, instead of believers, because of the lack of [their] generic compatibility [with believers] - do they desire, to assume power through them in this world and to draw strength from their assets and their statusḍ There is no possibility of that. Moreover they are mistaken, because power altogether is one of God's attributes, exalted be He, unassailable is He in His powers and might. His is the power to vanquish and to overwhelm all. Therefore power is actualised [for a person] in the measure that one is near to Him, receptive of His light and strength, and possessive of His attributes. So the people of faith are more deserving of this [power], while the people of the veil and disbelief are more deserving of making errors.
إِنَّ الْمُنَافِقِينَ يُخَادِعُونَ اللَّهَ وَهُوَ خَادِعُهُمْ وَإِذَا قَامُوا إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ قَامُوا كُسَالَىٰ يُرَاءُونَ النَّاسَ وَلَا يَذْكُرُونَ اللَّهَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا
📘 [When they stand up to pray] they stand up lazily, because the lack of yearning on their part for the presence and their aversion towards it which is due to the darkness of their preparedness that is the result of the mastery [over them] of caprice.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۚ أَتُرِيدُونَ أَنْ تَجْعَلُوا لِلَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ سُلْطَانًا مُبِينًا
📘 [O you who believe] take not the disbelievers as friends, lest their disbelief and their veiledness infect them through [their] companionship and mixing with them. For there nothing influences more than companionship. Moreover, the tendency towards friendship of them cannot [ultimately] be free of a generic compatibility between [the disbelievers and] them, as there must exist with them [these believers] some latent caprice and a voracity for a vile habit that subsumes [both of] them. One cannot be assured that they will not fall into disbelief [by such friendship] as a result of the overpowering of caprice and the soul; [do you desire to give God over you] a clear warrantḍ, a manifest argument in favour of requiting you, as a result of the taking root [in you] of that configuration through which you incline to friendship of them by being their companions and mixing socially with themḍ
إِنَّ الْمُنَافِقِينَ فِي الدَّرْكِ الْأَسْفَلِ مِنَ النَّارِ وَلَنْ تَجِدَ لَهُمْ نَصِيرًا
📘 [Verily, the hypocrites will be] in the lowest level [of the Fire], on account of his increased chastisement, the severity of his torture and burning, and not on account of its being the lowest level, for the effect of the Fire on the hypocrite is more severe and more painful given that there is a remnant of preparedness in him. As for the original bovine disbeliever, because of the lack of any preparedness in him does not suffer in his chastisement the pain which the hypocrite suffers, even if he should be in a worse state than him and endure a greater chastisement and degradation; [and you will never find for them] a helper, to help them from God's chastisement, because both their connection and the raising of their love [to God] together with [that of] the folk of God are severed [from them].
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ تَابُوا وَأَصْلَحُوا وَاعْتَصَمُوا بِاللَّهِ وَأَخْلَصُوا دِينَهُمْ لِلَّهِ فَأُولَٰئِكَ مَعَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۖ وَسَوْفَ يُؤْتِ اللَّهُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
📘 Save those who repent, [those] who return to God through a remnant of the light of [their] preparedness and [their] acceptance of the support of divine assistance, and make amends, for what they have corrupted of their preparedness by curbing caprice, breaking the attributes of the soul, and eliminating the veils of the faculties by means of renunciation and spiritual discipline; and hold fast to God, by grabbing hold of the rope of volition and the strength of resolve in turning towards Him, and make their religion purely God's, by annihilating the impediments to wayfaring such as the attributes of the soul, and [by] eliminating subtle idolatrous association and desisting from the contemplation of the other [than God] during the wayfaring, those are with the believers, who are certain, and God will certainly give the believers a great wage, in the way of witnessing the self-disclosures of the attributes and the garden of the acts.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَكْفُرُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَيُرِيدُونَ أَنْ يُفَرِّقُوا بَيْنَ اللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَيَقُولُونَ نُؤْمِنُ بِبَعْضٍ وَنَكْفُرُ بِبَعْضٍ وَيُرِيدُونَ أَنْ يَتَّخِذُوا بَيْنَ ذَٰلِكَ سَبِيلًا
📘 Those who disbelieve, [those] who veil themselves from the Truth and from religion, and from the union and from differentiation, and seek to divide between God and His messengers, by veiling themselves from religion but not the Truth and from differentiation but not the union, and so deny the messengers estimating that unity is incompatible with multiplicity and that union is inconsistent with differentiation: that is how they end up believing in some things and disbelieving in others: [and say, 'We believe in some, and disbelieve in some'] and seek to adopt, a way between total faith, in union and differentiation, and total disbelief.
أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْكَافِرُونَ حَقًّا ۚ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِلْكَافِرِينَ عَذَابًا مُهِينًا
📘 Those are the disbelievers, the ons who are veiled, truly, by their essences and attributes, for their knowledge [of God] is illusory and erroneous, their affirmation of Oneness a clandestine unbelief. They are following neither religion nor truth; [and We have prepared for the disbelievers a chastisement] that is humiliating, humiliating them by the existence of the veil and the ignominy of the soul and its attributes.
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَلَمْ يُفَرِّقُوا بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِنْهُمْ أُولَٰئِكَ سَوْفَ يُؤْتِيهِمْ أُجُورَهُمْ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا
📘 And those who believe in God and His messengers, at the levels of union and differentiation, [We shall surely give them] their wages, in the way of the three gardens. God is ever Forgiving, concealing from them their essences and attributes, which constitute their sins and their veils, with His essence and attributes, Merciful, to them by granting them the bliss of the three gardens and of the existence that is bestowed from [His Name] the Truth and of timeless subsistence.
يَسْأَلُكَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ أَنْ تُنَزِّلَ عَلَيْهِمْ كِتَابًا مِنَ السَّمَاءِ ۚ فَقَدْ سَأَلُوا مُوسَىٰ أَكْبَرَ مِنْ ذَٰلِكَ فَقَالُوا أَرِنَا اللَّهَ جَهْرَةً فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ الصَّاعِقَةُ بِظُلْمِهِمْ ۚ ثُمَّ اتَّخَذُوا الْعِجْلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا جَاءَتْهُمُ الْبَيِّنَاتُ فَعَفَوْنَا عَنْ ذَٰلِكَ ۚ وَآتَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ سُلْطَانًا مُبِينًا
📘 [The People of the Scripture will ask of you to cause] a Book from the heaven, a certain knowledge, [to be revealed to them], by means of an unveiling from the heaven of the spirit. [They asked Moses for] something greater than that, since witnessing is greater and more exalted than unveiling, [for they said, 'Show us God openly' so the thunderbolt seized them] for their evildoing, for demanding the witnessing while their essences subsisted, because the existence of remnants at the moment of witnessing is to have something in a place where it does not belong. To demand a witnessing while there are remnants is a tyranny of the soul that arises from its contemplation of the perfections of the attributes for itself, and that is an injustice; [and We bestowed upon Moses clear] authority, the capacity to have mastery over them through a proof against them after his return to consciousness.
بَلْ رَفَعَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَيْهِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا
📘 [From where He says] Nay, God raised him [Jesus] up to Him, to where He says, but will assuredly believe in him: the raising of Jesus, peace be upon him, is the conjunction of his spirit to the upper world upon separation from the lower world; his being in the fourth heaven is an allusion to the fact that the source of the effusion of his spirit is the spirituality of the solar sphere which is the equivalent of the heart of this world and to which was his [Jesus'] return. This spirituality is a light that puts the said sphere into motion by virtue of its being the lover and the irradiation of its rays on his soul, which carries out the moving of that [sphere]. Since his return was to his original resting place and he did not arrive at true perfection, it is necessary that he will come back down at the end of time by attaching himself to another body. Thereupon everyone will know him and the People of the Scripture will believe in him, that is, the folk of knowledge, the knowers of the origins and the final return every single one of them before Jesus [finally] dies by being annihilated in God. When they believe in him that will be the Day of Resurrection, that is, the day in which they will emerge from their corporeal veils and their rise from their state of forgetfulness and the life of ease in which they are now.
وَإِنْ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ إِلَّا لَيُؤْمِنَنَّ بِهِ قَبْلَ مَوْتِهِ ۖ وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ يَكُونُ عَلَيْهِمْ شَهِيدًا
📘 [he will be] a witness, witnessing them, the Truth disclosing Himself to them in his form, as has been alluded to.
فَبِظُلْمٍ مِنَ الَّذِينَ هَادُوا حَرَّمْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ طَيِّبَاتٍ أُحِلَّتْ لَهُمْ وَبِصَدِّهِمْ عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ كَثِيرًا
📘 And for the wrongdoing of those who are Jews, We forbade them certain good things. Embarking on prohibited things necessitates the forbidding of licit things. If you see gentleness and generosity reaching a servant, it is because he has preserved the outward of the Shariah and has wanted to show reverence to it in spirit and heart. Inevitably, he has reached the repose of whispered prayers and the gentle favors of union's gifts. In contrast, if you see harshness and severity, it is because he has looked with denial on the sanctuary of the Shariah and has put to work the religion's prohibited things in following the commanding soul. Yes, that is the way it is: When someone holds back from the outward of the Shariah, the beauty of the Haq- iqah veils its face from him. If someone disdains commands and prohibitions, what wonder if faith and recognition take their bags away from his heart? If not for the Shariah, the turning wheel would stop; if not for the religion, the Twins would quit the sky. [DS 56]
وَأَخْذِهِمُ الرِّبَا وَقَدْ نُهُوا عَنْهُ وَأَكْلِهِمْ أَمْوَالَ النَّاسِ بِالْبَاطِلِ ۚ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِلْكَافِرِينَ مِنْهُمْ عَذَابًا أَلِيمًا
📘 And because of their taking, the usury of the excesses of knowledge, such as disputation and argumentativeness, corporeal pleasures and shares from which they had been forbidden; and their consuming people's wealth through falsehood, through the vice of covetousness and [their wicked] nature, as in the acceptance of bribes and wages for falsification and deception, or [through] the use of the knowledge of the spiritual faculties from reflection to speculative or scientific reason in order to secure foods and drink, and the acquisition of the useless ephemera [of this world], as well as the actualisation of sensory pleasures and lusts and predatorial and beastly goals, [We have prepared] a painful chastisement for the existence of their preparedness.
لَٰكِنِ الرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ مِنْهُمْ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ ۚ وَالْمُقِيمِينَ الصَّلَاةَ ۚ وَالْمُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ أُولَٰئِكَ سَنُؤْتِيهِمْ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
📘 But those who are firmly rooted in knowledge The firmly rooted in knowledge are those who have obtained the varieties of knowledge: knowl- edge of the Shariah, knowledge of the Tariqah, and knowledge of the Haqiqah. Knowledge of the Shariah is to be learned, knowledge of the Tariqah is to be practiced, and knowledge of the Haqiqah is to be found. Concerning knowledge of the Shariah He says, “Ask the folk of the remembrance” [16:43]. Concerning knowledge of the Tariqah He says, “Seek the means of approach to Him” [5:35]. Concerning knowledge of the Haqiqah He says, “We taught him knowledge from Us” [18:65]. He turned knowledge of the Shariah over to a teacher, He turned knowledge of the Tariqah over to a pir, and He turned knowledge of the Haqiqah over to Himself. Whoever fancies that he has no use for the intermediary of a teacher in knowledge of the Shari- ah is a heretic. Whoever claims that knowledge of the Tariqah is possible without a pir is a tempter. Whoever says that the teacher of knowledge of the Haqiqah is other than the Real is deluded. It has been said that those firmly rooted in knowledge are those who learn the knowledge of the Shariah and then put it into practice with self-purification to the point that they perceive the knowledge of the Haqiqah in their secret core. Thus MuṣṬafā said, “When someone acts on what he knows, God will bequeath him knowledge of what he does not know.” When someone does not put the knowledge of the Shariah into practice, he has wasted his knowledge, and it becomes an argument against him. When someone puts it into practice, his outward knowledge becomes an argument to his benefit, and he receives the knowledge of the Haqiqah as a gift.
۞ إِنَّا أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ كَمَا أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَىٰ نُوحٍ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ مِنْ بَعْدِهِ ۚ وَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالْأَسْبَاطِ وَعِيسَىٰ وَأَيُّوبَ وَيُونُسَ وَهَارُونَ وَسُلَيْمَانَ ۚ وَآتَيْنَا دَاوُودَ زَبُورًا
📘 Surely We have revealed to thee as We revealed to Noah, and the prophets after him. The two worlds are built on the foundation of prophethood's exaltedness, and prophethood's fruit is the beauty of the Shariah. The Shariah is the right path, and the prophets are the marks of the path. Until the leader sees the road, he does not lead. I invite to God upon insight, I and whosoever follows me [12:108]. The Exalted Lord sent the prophets to the people so that they would make apparent the road of obedience, and the servants, on the basis of that obedience, might reach gener- ous bestowal and reward; and, so that they would make apparent the road of disobedience and warn against it. Then the servants may avoid disobedience and not be deemed worthy for punishment. This then is infinite bounty and endless generosity. If He had left the servants in place, not sent the Messenger, and not held the lamp of guidance with the hand of the Messenger in their road, the servants would have remained within the wrap of their createdness and the darkness of their own opinions. They would have eaten everything that is their poison and done everything within which is their destruction. So, you should believe that the prophets are mercy and leaders for the world's folk. They are the best of the creatures and the chosen among mortal men. They are the callers at the top of the street of friendship and the cupbearers at the lip of the water of life. They are the title-page of the Shariah and the proof of the Haqiqah. If there is a goal in creating the engendered beings, it is they. If the Haqiqah has a treasure, they are its keepers. Surely We have revealed to thee…. The command came, “O paragon of east and west, O emulated in the two realms of being! A shining light has reached you from the world of revela- tion called 'messengerhood.' Before you We gave to the messengers, each in his own measure. As for that which is beyond the world of messengerhood and accords with the drinking place of your good fortune, it was not fitting to reach any wrongdoer or be grasped by the good fortune of any traveler.” The allusion to this by the paragon of the world was this: “I was given the Qur'an and the like of it along with it.” In other words, “As much as I have spoken to you from the world of prophethood with the tongue of messengerhood, just as much has been spoken to me from the world of the Haqiqah with the tongue of revelation.” This is exactly what he said elsewhere: “I have a moment with God embraced by no proximate angel, nor any sent prophet.”
رُسُلًا مُبَشِّرِينَ وَمُنْذِرِينَ لِئَلَّا يَكُونَ لِلنَّاسِ عَلَى اللَّهِ حُجَّةٌ بَعْدَ الرُّسُلِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا
📘 messengers bearing good tidings, of the self-disclosures of the attributes of [divine] gentleness, and warning, of the self-disclosures of the attributes of the [divine] vanquishing, so that people might have no argument against God, [no] manifestation [of their souls] or mastery by the existence of some attribute after these have been removed and effaced as a result of the [spiritual] reinforcement of the messengers. God is ever Mighty, Powerful, vanquishing them by effacing their attributes and annihilating their essences, Wise, only doing that out of the wisdom entailed in their assumption of His attributes or their subsistence in His Essence.
لَٰكِنِ اللَّهُ يَشْهَدُ بِمَا أَنْزَلَ إِلَيْكَ ۖ أَنْزَلَهُ بِعِلْمِهِ ۖ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ يَشْهَدُونَ ۚ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ شَهِيدًا
📘 But God bears witness with what He has revealed to you, since you are at the station of the union, while they are veiled and do not affirm it [the revelation]; rather He Himself bears witness that, He has revealed it through His knowledge, clothed with His knowledge, that is, in the state of His being Knower, such that it constitutes knowledge specifically His, neither your knowledge nor that of anyone other than you other than Him; and the angels also bear witness, because of your being mindful of the differentiated modes outside the union. Thus He is the witness through His Essence, His Names and His Attributes, and God suffices as a Witness, in other words, the Essence together with the Attributes suffice as testimony since there is no existent other than Him.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَصَدُّوا عَنْ سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ قَدْ ضَلُّوا ضَلَالًا بَعِيدًا
📘 [Surely those] who disbelieve, [those] who are veiled from the Truth by virtue of their errancy being, far gone.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَظَلَمُوا لَمْ يَكُنِ اللَّهُ لِيَغْفِرَ لَهُمْ وَلَا لِيَهْدِيَهُمْ طَرِيقًا
📘 Surely those who disbelieve, [those] who have been veiled from religion, and who have done wrong, who have prevented their preparednesses from [realising] what is their right in terms of [realising their] perfection, by committing vices and unleashing the attributes of the soul upon their hearts, it is not for God to forgive them, because the configurations of these vices are firmly rooted in them and their preparedness has been invalidated, nor to guide them to any path, because of their composite ignorance, their corrupt belief, and their lack of knowledge of any of the paths of perfection,
إِلَّا طَرِيقَ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا ۚ وَكَانَ ذَٰلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسِيرًا
📘 except for the path of Hell, the fires of the yearnings of their souls for their pleasures while they are deprived of them; and that is, an easy matter for God, because they are by nature drawn to these [pleasures].
إِنَّمَا التَّوْبَةُ عَلَى اللَّهِ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السُّوءَ بِجَهَالَةٍ ثُمَّ يَتُوبُونَ مِنْ قَرِيبٍ فَأُولَٰئِكَ يَتُوبُ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمًا
📘 It is for God to turn only toward those who do the ugly in ignorance and then soon turn. Those-God will turn toward them. And God is knowing, wise. Turning/repentance [tawba] is the mark of the road, the leader to the court, the key to the treasure, the intercessor of union, the head of every happiness, and the basis of freedom. First is regret in the heart, second apology with the tongue, and then cutting off from bad things and bad people. It has come in the report that when someone repents but does not put aside bad friends, he is not a repenter. When someone repents but does not put aside food and drink, he is not a repenter. When someone repents but does not put aside his bedclothes and empty his eyes of sleep, he is not a repenter. When someone repents but does not expend the wealth left over after food, he is not a repenter. The precondition of repentance is that you detach your heart from all existent things and turn it toward the Real. You discipline all the blood and flesh in your seven bodily members. Repentance is the precursor of the fire that comes from the bottom of hell so that today you will do to yourself with the water of your eyes what will be done to you tomorrow by the fire. Repentance is a mes- sage sent to you from the Presence: “O chevalier! How long will you make war? How long will you break the covenant? Come back, make peace! “O falcon taken to the sky, come back, don't go! My fingers hold the end of your thread! “O free man! How long have you been asleep? Wake up, it's morning, and you are thirsty for the wine of yearning. Look, it's time for the morning draft! How long will your heart and covenant stay broken? It is time to accept advice and to repent sincerely.”
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ قَدْ جَاءَكُمُ الرَّسُولُ بِالْحَقِّ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ فَآمِنُوا خَيْرًا لَكُمْ ۚ وَإِنْ تَكْفُرُوا فَإِنَّ لِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمًا
📘 O people, the Messenger has come to you with the truth from your Lord, so have faith; that is better for you. But if you disbelieve, to God belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. The allusion of the verse is that the threshold of Lordhood and the majesty of Unity has no need for the obedience of the obedient. He is pure of the worship of the creatures in heaven and earth. If all that is creation-the spheres and heavens, the existing things and the things coming to nothing- ness-went back to the concealment of nonexistence, that would not harm His purity and lordhood. There is no need for them to be joined with Him. The beauty of His Unity is His eternity, and the majesty of His eternity is His solitariness. There is a sound hadith from Abū Dharr Ghifārī, from God's Messenger, from God, that He said, “O My servants, I have forbidden Myself to do wrong, and all of it is forbidden to you. So My servants, do not wrong each other! Surely you are the ones who err by night and day, and I am the one who forgives sins and does not care. So ask forgiveness of Me, and I will forgive you. “O My servants, if the first of you and the last of you and the men of you and the jinn 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 and the men of you and the jinn of you had the heart of the most depraved man among you, that would diminish nothing from My kingdom. O My servants, if the first of you and the last of you and the men of you and the jinn of you were to ask from Me and I were to give every man among them what he asked for, that would diminish nothing from Me, except as the ocean is diminished when a needle is dipped into it once.” But if you disbelieve, to God belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. He is saying, “If all creatures were to put aside the activity of servants and loosen the belt of obedience, they would not be able to go outside of servanthood, nor could they lift away from themselves the bonds of slavehood in respect of creation.
يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ لَا تَغْلُوا فِي دِينِكُمْ وَلَا تَقُولُوا عَلَى اللَّهِ إِلَّا الْحَقَّ ۚ إِنَّمَا الْمَسِيحُ عِيسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ وَكَلِمَتُهُ أَلْقَاهَا إِلَىٰ مَرْيَمَ وَرُوحٌ مِنْهُ ۖ فَآمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ ۖ وَلَا تَقُولُوا ثَلَاثَةٌ ۚ انْتَهُوا خَيْرًا لَكُمْ ۚ إِنَّمَا اللَّهُ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۖ سُبْحَانَهُ أَنْ يَكُونَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ ۘ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ وَكِيلًا
📘 O People of the Scripture, do not go to extremes in your religion: as for [the extremism of] the Jews, it is their absorption in the exoteric and the denial of the esoteric aspects [of things], and [their] demotion of Jesus from the rank of prophethood and the station of the possession of the attributes of lordliness. In the case of the Christians, it is their absorption in the esoteric aspects and their denial of the exoteric as well as the elevation of Jesus to the station of divinity; and do not say about God except the truth, by combining [belief in both] the exoteric and esoteric aspects as well as the union and the differentiation, as is the case with the Muḥammadan affirmation of Oneness and with the statement that Jesus was the locus for the manifestation of the divine attributes, drawing life from His life and calling to the station of the affirmation of descriptions; and [Jesus is] His Word, a disengaged soul, a word from among the words of God, that is, one of His spiritual realities, a spirit from among [many] spirits. So believe in God and His messengers, at the level of union and differentiation, and do not say, 'Three', by adding life and knowledge to the essence such that the divinity becomes three things and Jesus becomes a part of His life at the breathing [into Mary]; or [do not say 'Three'] by differentiating between the essence of the Truth and the world of light and the world of darkness such that Jesus becomes generated by His light; rather believe in all [as one], since He is all and hence knowledge and life constitute His very essence, as well as the world of light and that of darkness, and Jesus becomes annihilated in Him, existing by His existence, alive by His life, knowing by His knowledge, all of which constitutes His essential unity, expressed in His words: Verily, God is but One God. Glory be to Him, exalted above that there should be an existent other than Him such that it can be generated from Him, separate itself [from Him] and share in His genus by being an existent like Him; nay, He is the [only] existent in the sense that He is existence. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens, spirits, [and in] the earth, bodies, being His Names and His exoteric and esoteric aspects; [God suffices] as a Guardian, standing in for creatures in terms of their acts, their attributes and their essences upon their annihilation in the affirmation of the Oneness, as the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī [b. Abī Ṭālib], peace be upon him, said, 'There is no god except God after the annihilation of creatures'.
لَنْ يَسْتَنْكِفَ الْمَسِيحُ أَنْ يَكُونَ عَبْدًا لِلَّهِ وَلَا الْمَلَائِكَةُ الْمُقَرَّبُونَ ۚ وَمَنْ يَسْتَنْكِفْ عَنْ عِبَادَتِهِ وَيَسْتَكْبِرْ فَسَيَحْشُرُهُمْ إِلَيْهِ جَمِيعًا
📘 The Messiah would never disdain to be a servant of God, at the station of differentiation, since if one considers the union neither the Messiah nor anyone else has any existence, and so it is impossible in the first place [for him to disdain anything]. If one considers the level of differentiation, any thing that has become manifest through entification is [necessarily] contingent and a contingent thing has no existence in of itself independent of any thing other than it, and so it is a needy, lowly servant that is dependent and is not disdainful of the submissiveness entailed in servanthood, even if it should have no need of being attached to a body by virtue of pure disengagement and being sanctified from the impurities of [physical] nature, such as the nigh angels, who are the disengaged spirits and the pure lights Whoever disdains to worship Him, by the manifesting of his ego, and waxes proud, in the tyranny of manifesting himself through his attributes, He will assuredly muster them to Him, all of them, by manifesting the light of His countenance and [by] His self-disclosure in the attribute of His vanquishing power so that they might be annihilated totally in the source of the union, as He has said, To whom does sovereignty belong todayḍ To God, the One, the Vanquisher [Q. 40:16]. The Prophet said, 'God, exalted be He, has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness. If He were to remove them, the august glories of His countenance would burn up everyone whose eyesight perceived Him'.
فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ فَيُوَفِّيهِمْ أُجُورَهُمْ وَيَزِيدُهُمْ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ ۖ وَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ اسْتَنْكَفُوا وَاسْتَكْبَرُوا فَيُعَذِّبُهُمْ عَذَابًا أَلِيمًا وَلَا يَجِدُونَ لَهُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا
📘 As for those who believed, in the annihilation at the source of the union by the effacement of attributes and the obliteration of essence, and who did righteous deeds, by being upright in [their] deeds and mindful of the differentiations of [God's] attributes and their self-disclosures, He will pay them in full their wages, and their attributes from the gardens of His attributes, and He will give them more of His bounty, by means of the existence that is bestowed on the essence after annihilation, and as for them who disdain, by manifesting their ego, and are too proud, becoming tyrannical upon the self-disclosures of the [divine] attributes and their being illumined by their light by manifesting themselves in these [attributes] and ascribing them to their own souls, as with [Pharaoh] the one who said I am your most high lord! [Q. 79:24], He will chastise them with a painful chastisement, for their veiling themselves behind the remnants of their essences and attributes, depriving them of the station of union; and they shall not find, besides God, any supporter, to support them in removing the veil of the essence, or helper, to help them [successfully] remove the proof-veil of the attributes, which is the affirmation of the Oneness of essence and the clear light, that is the differentiation at the source of the union, namely, the QurÌān, which is the knowledge of the union, and the Distinguishing Criterion, which is the knowledge of the differentiation.
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ قَدْ جَاءَكُمْ بُرْهَانٌ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ وَأَنْزَلْنَا إِلَيْكُمْ نُورًا مُبِينًا
📘 O people, a proof has come to you from your Lord, and We have sent down to you a clear light. The majestic Unity is placing a favor on the center point of mortal nature: “We have lit two lamps for you, one in the heart, the other in front of you. The one in front of you is the lamp of the Sun- nah, which is the proof itself, and the one in the heart is the lamp of faith and the shining light. Happy is the servant who walks between these two lamps! Who is more exalted than he in whose heart the greatest light is shining and the eyes of whose heart sees the eyes and face of the Friend face-to-face! One breath with the Friend is worth the two worlds. One vision of the Friend for a hundred thousand spirits is gratis!” In gratitude I will also send my spirit to You- a whiff of union with You does what a hundred spirits cannot.
فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَاعْتَصَمُوا بِهِ فَسَيُدْخِلُهُمْ فِي رَحْمَةٍ مِنْهُ وَفَضْلٍ وَيَهْدِيهِمْ إِلَيْهِ صِرَاطًا مُسْتَقِيمًا
📘 As for those who have faith in God and hold fast to Him, He will make them enter into mercy from Him, and bounty, and He will guide them to Him on a straight path. From the servant come faith and holding fast by way of servanthood, and from the Exalted Lord bounty and mercy in the attribute of loving kindness. Then He says, “He will guide them to Him on a straight path.” He will give them the guidance and rectitude to know that the recompense they find and the generosity they see come from God's bounty and mercy, not from their faith and holding fast. As the Prophet said, “There is none of you who will be saved by his deeds.” They said, “Not even you, O Messenger of God?” He said, “Not even I-unless God envelops me with His mercy.”
يَسْتَفْتُونَكَ قُلِ اللَّهُ يُفْتِيكُمْ فِي الْكَلَالَةِ ۚ إِنِ امْرُؤٌ هَلَكَ لَيْسَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ وَلَهُ أُخْتٌ فَلَهَا نِصْفُ مَا تَرَكَ ۚ وَهُوَ يَرِثُهَا إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ لَهَا وَلَدٌ ۚ فَإِنْ كَانَتَا اثْنَتَيْنِ فَلَهُمَا الثُّلُثَانِ مِمَّا تَرَكَ ۚ وَإِنْ كَانُوا إِخْوَةً رِجَالًا وَنِسَاءً فَلِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ الْأُنْثَيَيْنِ ۗ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ أَنْ تَضِلُّوا ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ
📘 They will ask you for a pronouncement. Say: 'God pronounces to you concerning indirect heirs. If a man perishes, having no children, but he has a sister, hers is half of what he leaves, and he is her heir, if she has no children. If there be two sisters, theirs are two-thirds of what he leaves; if there be siblings, men and women, then the male shall receive the equivalent of the portion of two females. God makes clear to you, lest you go astray; and God has knowledge of all things'.
وَلَيْسَتِ التَّوْبَةُ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السَّيِّئَاتِ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَهُمُ الْمَوْتُ قَالَ إِنِّي تُبْتُ الْآنَ وَلَا الَّذِينَ يَمُوتُونَ وَهُمْ كُفَّارٌ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ أَعْتَدْنَا لَهُمْ عَذَابًا أَلِيمًا
📘 This turning will not belong to those who keep on doing ugly deeds until death is present for one of them, and then he says: “Surely now I have turned.” In the tongue of learning, one must repent before death, even if it be one moment. In the tongue of practice, one must repent before the soul has the habit of seeing itself and worshiping itself. When someone is pleased with himself and gazes upon himself habitually, the door to repentance has been shut to him and the water of deliverance taken away from him. Quit being the companion of self-nurturing habit-worshipers! Kiss the dust beneath the feet of those who have disowned self! [DS 972] Not everyone who has repented in the road of the Shariah, thereby reaching pardon and forgive- ness, has reached truthfulness in love in respect of the Haqiqah. For a long time David the prophet wept and pleaded. At last it was said to him, “O David! Why do you weep when I have forgiven you, made your adversaries content, and accepted your repentance?” He said, “Lord God, I know, but give me back those sweet moments I had in Your companion- ship and those breaths I had with You in seclusion!” He said, “David, take heed! That is a love that has passed.” From now on leave the way open for the eyes to weep for the days of limpidness have no way to return. * Oh pain, Oh regret-of that standing and sitting in prayer I have dust on the head and wind in the hand.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَنْ تَرِثُوا النِّسَاءَ كَرْهًا ۖ وَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ لِتَذْهَبُوا بِبَعْضِ مَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ إِلَّا أَنْ يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُبَيِّنَةٍ ۚ وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ ۚ فَإِنْ كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا
📘 O you who have faith, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will, neither debar them from marriage that you may go off with part of what you have given them, unless they commit a flagrant indecency. Consort with them honorably. For, if you are averse to them, it may be that you are averse to something within which God has placed much good. This is a call, an admonishment, an allusion, a bearing witness, and a ruling. O is the call, you is the admonishment, who is the allusion, have faith is the bearing witness. It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will is the ruling. The explanation of the ruling is that women are considered weak, and they are imprisoned beneath your severity. Beware of tormenting them, and do not rule over them by way of scheming and deceit. Do not be severe, and do not ask of them what the Shariah does not approve. On the contrary, live with them honorably. Consort with them honorably, that is, with the teachings of the religion and by modeling one's courtesy on the character traits of the submitted.3 Show them the road of the religion and religios- ity and teach them the courteous acts of being a Muslim and the Shariah. And protect them from the Fire, as He says in another place: “Shield yourselves and your families from a fire” [66:6]. Preserve the courteous acts of companionship when consorting with them and tolerate suffering from them, but do not place on them the burden of your service, making them suffer for you. Although outwardly and specifically He is talking about women, by way of allusion He is talking generally about all Muslims. He is saying, “Watch out so that you never see yourself as having a mandatory rightful due from, or an excellence over, any other Muslim. Do not ask those above you to serve you, and do not push yourself on those beneath you. Do not use force against the folk of weakness, but rather strive to show consideration and give comfort to them and seek proximity to them.” Revelation came to David: “O David, if you see someone broken in My road, or someone whose heart has been lost in My work, take care to serve him.
وَآتُوا الْيَتَامَىٰ أَمْوَالَهُمْ ۖ وَلَا تَتَبَدَّلُوا الْخَبِيثَ بِالطَّيِّبِ ۖ وَلَا تَأْكُلُوا أَمْوَالَهُمْ إِلَىٰ أَمْوَالِكُمْ ۚ إِنَّهُ كَانَ حُوبًا كَبِيرًا
📘 Give, your orphaned spiritual faculties, who have been severed from the nurture of the holy spirit, their father, their property, that is, their objects of knowledge and perfections and use these to nurture them; and do not exchange the evil, that are the sensory objects, the imagined things, evil insinuations and the exigencies of estimation and all the [other] faculties of the soul, these being its [the soul's] property, for the good, that is their property; and absorb not their property into your property, that is to say, do not mix these such that truth and falsehood come to resemble one another and use these [properties] to actualise sensory pleasures and egoistic perfections in order to profit from them in your despicable this-worldly pursuits so that you end up making them the nourishment of your souls: surely that is a great crime, a cause for veiledness and privation.
وَإِنْ أَرَدْتُمُ اسْتِبْدَالَ زَوْجٍ مَكَانَ زَوْجٍ وَآتَيْتُمْ إِحْدَاهُنَّ قِنْطَارًا فَلَا تَأْخُذُوا مِنْهُ شَيْئًا ۚ أَتَأْخُذُونَهُ بُهْتَانًا وَإِثْمًا مُبِينًا
📘 If you desire to exchange a wife in place of another... This is the realization of generosity in the religion of friendship and the smoothing of the founda- tion of chivalry. He is saying, “Do not join the cruelty of separation with taking back livelihood, for this is not the work of the generous and it is unworthy of the chevaliers! You have put the scar of separation in the poor woman's heart, so do not cut off the hand of her expenditures! If you take back what you gave, you will place a scar on her scar.” Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī had a wife whom he divorced, and then he sent her plentiful wealth. He said about her, “The tribulation of our separation is enough. I must not put upon her the suffering of neediness as well.” They say the wealth was 40,000 dirhams. The woman dumped that wealth on the ground and said, “Paltry goods from a departed lover!”
حُرِّمَتْ عَلَيْكُمْ أُمَّهَاتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُكُمْ وَأَخَوَاتُكُمْ وَعَمَّاتُكُمْ وَخَالَاتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُ الْأَخِ وَبَنَاتُ الْأُخْتِ وَأُمَّهَاتُكُمُ اللَّاتِي أَرْضَعْنَكُمْ وَأَخَوَاتُكُمْ مِنَ الرَّضَاعَةِ وَأُمَّهَاتُ نِسَائِكُمْ وَرَبَائِبُكُمُ اللَّاتِي فِي حُجُورِكُمْ مِنْ نِسَائِكُمُ اللَّاتِي دَخَلْتُمْ بِهِنَّ فَإِنْ لَمْ تَكُونُوا دَخَلْتُمْ بِهِنَّ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَحَلَائِلُ أَبْنَائِكُمُ الَّذِينَ مِنْ أَصْلَابِكُمْ وَأَنْ تَجْمَعُوا بَيْنَ الْأُخْتَيْنِ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ سَلَفَ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا
📘 Forbidden to you are your mothers and daughters, your sisters…. The allusion in this verse is that the Shariah is built on making oneself a servant, not on self-exer- tion; the canon of the religion is transmitted, not rationally derived; and the basis of the Sunnah is surrender, not looking for reasons. Surrender is an easy road, its domicile flourishing, its goal the approval of the All-Merciful. Self-exertion and self-determination are a difficult road, their domicile in ruins, their goal un- wholesome. Watch out! Jump away from the road of self-exertion and cling to surrender. Avoid self-determination and looking for reasons. Whatever the Shariah has declared forbidden, consider it forbidden-a consignment by the Desire, built upon the Will. If it had been permitted in place of forbidden, the same would be the case, for it would have been current in the holy Shariah and would have no cause or ambiguity. For He is the Real-majestic is His majesty! He does whatso- ever He wills [3:40] and decrees whatsoever He desires [5:1]. He forbids what He wills to those whom He wills and He allows what He wills to those whom He wills. His artisanry has no cause and His decree no protester.
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ أَنْ يُخَفِّفَ عَنْكُمْ ۚ وَخُلِقَ الْإِنْسَانُ ضَعِيفًا
📘 And man was created weak. Wherever the name “man” comes in the Qur'an, a displeasing attribute is linked to it. Thus He said, “Surely man is a great wrongdoer, ungrateful” [14:34]. “Surely man was created anxious” [70:19]. “Surely man is rebellious” [96:6]. “Surely man is ungrateful to his Lord” [100:6]. “Sure- ly man is in loss” [103:2]. This is because man comes from dust, and dust is the basis of density and the root of opacity. The servant's hope is that on the day He created, He saw the faults, and then He bought along with the faults. You bought me with my faults on the first day! The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O Lord, you called me ignorant. What comes from the ignorant other than disloyalty? You called me weak. What comes from the weak other than error? O Lord, take our inability to overcome ourselves as stemming from that weakness. Take our boldness and inso- lence as stemming from that ignorance. 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 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.
إِنْ تَجْتَنِبُوا كَبَائِرَ مَا تُنْهَوْنَ عَنْهُ نُكَفِّرْ عَنْكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَنُدْخِلْكُمْ مُدْخَلًا كَرِيمًا
📘 If you avoid the great sins prohibited to you, We will acquit you of your ugly deeds and admit you to a generous admitting place. The great sins of the folk of service in the path of the Shariah are what you have heard about. The great sins of the folk of companionship in the street of the Tariqah and in the tongue of allusion are another sort and have another tasting, for the folk of service are one thing, and the folk of com- panionship something else. Those who serve are the wage-earners, and the companions are the proximate. In the traditions has come the saying, “The beautiful deeds of the pious are the ugly deeds of the proximate.” Of the same sort is the saying of the Pir of the Tariqah, “The hypocrisy of the recognizers is better than the self-purification of the desirers.” The basis of this rule is the subtle point MuṣṬafā reported about cloudiness and his asking for- giveness for it. He said, “My heart becomes clouded, so I ask forgiveness from God seventy times a day.” Abū Bakr al-ṣiddīq said, “Would that I could witness that for which God's Messenger asked forgiveness.” The mark of the recognizers' great sins is that lassitude sometimes comes over them in the world of their own traveling, and thereby their innate disposition is overpowered by human attri- butes. Their life becomes susceptible to customs and habits, and the realities of their faith come to be mixed with the contaminants of personal motives and marks giving witness to their own shares. In this state of theirs, if a messenger of sound discipline, truthful poverty, and the joy of ecstasy does not come out to welcome them and take their hands, they will not emerge from the pit of their own selfhood. If you want to come out of the pit of status like a man, grab hold of the pearl-encrusted, musk-wafting chain. [DS 719] The great ones of the religion have said that as long as a man does not reach this place of danger and leave behind the station of lassitude, he will not become a pir of the Tariqah and will not be suited to take disciples. A man must have lost the road a thousand times and then returned to it if he is to bring someone who has lost the road back to the road. What is needed first is the road to the road, then the road is needed. Someone who has always been on the road knows the road, but he does not know the road to the road. The secret of the slips of the prophets and their falling into lassitude is this. And God knows best. This is knocking at a magnificent gate. Happy is he for whom it is opened and who is guided to it!
وَلَا تَتَمَنَّوْا مَا فَضَّلَ اللَّهُ بِهِ بَعْضَكُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ ۚ لِلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا اكْتَسَبُوا ۖ وَلِلنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا اكْتَسَبْنَ ۚ وَاسْأَلُوا اللَّهَ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمًا
📘 Do not wish for that whereby God has preferred some of you over others. Men shall have a portion of what they have earned, and women shall have a portion of what they have earned. But ask God of His bounty. Abū Bakr Kattānī said, “When someone has the opinion that he will arrive without expending ef- fort, he is a wisher, and when someone has the opinion that he will arrive by expending effort, he is a drudge.” Whoever fancies that he will reach the goal without toiling is a wisher, and “The incapable are those who follow their own caprice and wish for God.” Whoever fancies that he will reach the Sought by toil and by seeking the Sought is a drudge. Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “He is not found by seeking, but the seeker finds. Until he finds Him, he will not seek. Whatever can be found by seeking is of little worth. The servant finds the Real before the seeking, but for him seeking is the earliest step. The recognizer finds seeking from finding, not finding from seeking. In the same way, the obedient person finds obedience from self-purification, not self-purification from obedience; he finds the cause from the meaning, not the meaning from the cause. O God, since finding You is before the seeking and the seeker, I am seeking because unsettledness has overpowered me. The seeker is seeking and the Sought is obtained before the seeking. This is a most marvelous business! What is even more marvelous is that finding has become hard cash when seeking has not yet arisen. The Real is seen but the curtain of exaltedness is in place.” You are a sea of loveliness, a wave of beauty, the law of generous acts, the essence of life. The lovers seeking You are full of longing like Alexander seeking the water of life. It has also been said that the meaning of the verse is this: “You wish for the station of the masters without traveling in their path, clinging to their conduct, and practicing their practices.”4 You want the state of the great ones, but you have not gone on the great ones' road. You search for the Kaabah of union with eyes that have not undertaken struggle. You see the great good fortune of the friends, but you have not seen their tribulation.
الرِّجَالُ قَوَّامُونَ عَلَى النِّسَاءِ بِمَا فَضَّلَ اللَّهُ بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ وَبِمَا أَنْفَقُوا مِنْ أَمْوَالِهِمْ ۚ فَالصَّالِحَاتُ قَانِتَاتٌ حَافِظَاتٌ لِلْغَيْبِ بِمَا حَفِظَ اللَّهُ ۚ وَاللَّاتِي تَخَافُونَ نُشُوزَهُنَّ فَعِظُوهُنَّ وَاهْجُرُوهُنَّ فِي الْمَضَاجِعِ وَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ ۖ فَإِنْ أَطَعْنَكُمْ فَلَا تَبْغُوا عَلَيْهِنَّ سَبِيلًا ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَلِيًّا كَبِيرًا
📘 The men stand over the women through that with which God has preferred some of them over others and that which they expend of their wealth. He gave the men more than the women because the burden is all on them, for theirs is the perfec- tion of strength and the eminence of aspiration. They carry burdens in the measure of strength or in the measure of aspiration. “Resolutions are made in the measure of the folk of resoluteness.”
۞ وَاعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ وَلَا تُشْرِكُوا بِهِ شَيْئًا ۖ وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا وَبِذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَالْجَارِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْجَارِ الْجُنُبِ وَالصَّاحِبِ بِالْجَنْبِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ مَنْ كَانَ مُخْتَالًا فَخُورًا
📘 Worship God, and associate nothing with Him, and act beautifully toward parents, and toward kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, and the neighbor who is of kin, and the neighbor who is a stranger, and the companion at your side, and the son of the road, and what your right hands own. This verse begins by mentioning tawḤīd, which is the root of the sciences, the secret of the recogni- tions, the basis of the religion, the foundation of being a Muslim, and the partition between enemy and friend. Any act of obedience without tawḤīd has no value or weight, and its outcome will be nothing but darkness and captivity. Any act of disobedience along with tawḤīd will yield nothing other than familiarity and brightness. TawḤīd is that you say that God is one and that you be one for Him. Saying one is the submit- ter's tawḤīd, and being one is the basis of the recognizer's tawḤīd. The submitter's tawḤīd drives away the devil, washes away sin, and opens up the heart. The recognizer's tawḤīd cuts away at- tachments, washes away the creatures, and brings forth the realities. The submitter's tawḤīd takes advice, opens the door, and gives fruit. The recognizer's tawḤīd effaces the customs of human nature and burns away the veil of mortal nature so that the breeze of familiarity may blow, the beginningless reminder may arrive, and the friend may gaze upon the Friend. The submitter's tawḤīd is that you bear witness to God's one Essence, pure attributes, and beginningless names and marks. He is the God other than whom there is no god, the Creator of heaven and earth other than whom there is no enactor. No one has loyalty like Him in the whole cosmos. He is a Lord who is above all in measure, beyond all in Essence and attributes. From the Beginningless to the Endless He is the greatest Lord. When intellect holds that something is impossible, God has perfect power over it. His power makes no use of contrivance, and His self- standing has no change of state. In the kingdom He is safe from disappearance, and in Essence and attributes He is transcendent. You will never see any created thing without marks of deficiency and fault, but the Eternal Enactor is pure of deficiency, incomparable with fault, free of blights. He does not eat or sleep, nor is He the locus for newly arrived things or changing states. He is not new in attribute, nor does He accept alteration. He stands before “when,” acts before activity, creates before creation, and is powerful before the artisanries. In His Essence, attributes, and perfection He has always been just as He is now. Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “The tawḤīd of the Muslims amounts to three words: affirmation of attributes without excess, negation of similarity without declaring ineffectuality, and going for- ward according to the outwardness without mixing.” The reality of affirmation is that you acknowledge and surrender to whatever God said in explanation and whatever MuṣṬafā said plainly about Him. You stand firm in the outwardness, you offer no likenesses for it, you do not turn it away from its formulation, and you do not wander around it with imagination, for God comes into knowledge but not imagination. You avoid reflec- tive thinking about how it can be so and you do not seek any self-exertion or interpretation. You do not turn away from saying it or listening to it. You know that in reality whatever creatures know about God's attributes is only the name. To perceive it is to accept it. The stipulation is surrender, and the commentary is to remember. Know God's Essence in God's measure, not as rationally understood by creatures. Know His attributes as is worthy of Him, not as reflected upon by creatures. Know His ability in His measure, not with the artifice of creatures. He is a Being that is one, outside of imaginations and apart from qualification. Whatever He wants, He does, not because of need, for He needs nothing. Rather, He puts things straight by want, pure knowledge, precedent wisdom, and penetrating power. His speech is true, His promise correct, and His Messenger trustworthy. His speech exists in the earth in reality, always joined with Him. His argument stands through it, His decree is irrevocable, His commands and prohibitions firm. Surely His are the creation and the command. Blessed is God, the Lord of the Worlds [7:54]. This is tawḤīd as transmitted and recognition as reported. Through this tawḤīd people reach paradise, escape from hell, and stay free from the Real's anger. The opposite of this tawḤīd is the great associationism. Whoever is held back from this transmitted tawḤīd remains in the great as- sociationism, far from God's forgiveness.
الَّذِينَ يَبْخَلُونَ وَيَأْمُرُونَ النَّاسَ بِالْبُخْلِ وَيَكْتُمُونَ مَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ ۗ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِلْكَافِرِينَ عَذَابًا مُهِينًا
📘 Those who are niggardly, at the first instance by withholding their perfections and forms of knowledge in the hideaways of their innate dispositions and the mattamores of their natural impulses, failing to manifest them by working with them at the [right] moment; then [they are niggardly] by failing to procure the rights of those to these are due and do not consecrate their attributes and essences to the annihilation in God because of their love for them; nor do they expend of the substance of their knowledge and character traits and perfections on the deserving, in the way mentioned; and bid other people to be niggardly, inducing them to states like theirs, and conceal what God has bestowed upon them of His bounty, in the way of the affirmation of the Oneness, gnoses, [virtuous] character traits and realities in the recesses of preparedness and the darknesses of faculty, as though non-existent. And We have prepared for those that disbelieve, those who are veiled from the Truth, a humbling chastisement, in the light of their disgraced countenances and disfigured attributes.
وَالَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ أَمْوَالَهُمْ رِئَاءَ النَّاسِ وَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَلَا بِالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ ۗ وَمَنْ يَكُنِ الشَّيْطَانُ لَهُ قَرِينًا فَسَاءَ قَرِينًا
📘 And those who expend of their substance to show off to people, that is, who manifest their perfections from the concealment of non-existence and bring them out into actuality, veiled by their seeing these as being of their own souls and make a show to people that these [perfections] are theirs, and believe not in God, with true belief so that they might know that absolute perfection can only be His - what existence does anything other than Him possess so that such [perfection] might belong to itḍ - and that they might be rid of the veil of seeing perfection as that of their souls and might thus be delivered from the sin of vanity; and the Last Day, that is, the annihilation in God and the issuing forth before the One, the Vanquisher, that they might thus be quit of the sin of associating [others with God]. And that is because of their comradeship with the satan of estimation. Whoever has Satan for a comrade, then an evil comrade has he, because he [Satan] leads him astray from guidance and veils him from the Truth.
وَمَاذَا عَلَيْهِمْ لَوْ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَأَنْفَقُوا مِمَّا رَزَقَهُمُ اللَّهُ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ بِهِمْ عَلِيمًا
📘 And what burden is on them if they were to believe in God, that is, if they were to be true to God through affirmation of [His] Oneness and annihilation in Him and the effacement of the perfections which God has provided them by attributing them to God. God is ever Aware of them, recompensing them with subsistence after annihilation and [aware] of their possessing those attributes and perfections through God and not through their own souls.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ ۖ وَإِنْ تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُضَاعِفْهَا وَيُؤْتِ مِنْ لَدُنْهُ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
📘 Surely God shall not wrong, that is, He does not diminish anything of those perfections with the annihilation in Him, so much as the weight of an atom, rather, He augments them by means of the reinforcement of [His Name] the Truth; and if it be a good deed, He will double it, and it cannot be a good deed unless it is [done] for Him, and He will give from Himself a great wage, namely, what He has hidden for a person of what delights the eye, that is to say, the witnessing of the essence in which there is no veiledness from the differentiations of the attributes.
فَكَيْفَ إِذَا جِئْنَا مِنْ كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ بِشَهِيدٍ وَجِئْنَا بِكَ عَلَىٰ هَٰؤُلَاءِ شَهِيدًا
📘 So how shall it be when We bring forward from every community a witness, to the end [of the verse]: a witness (shahīd) or a sign (shāhid) is what is present to every person of the degree of gnosis which he has attained and that which prevails on him, thereby revealing his state, his work, his endeavour and the extent of his efforts, whether it be in terms of station or one of the attributes of the Truth, or essence. Thus for every community there is a witness commensurate with that to which their prophet called them and that which he has made known to them; he only calls them to that station of gnosis at which he has arrived. A prophet is always sent in accordance with the preparedness of his community. And so they know God by the light of their preparedness in the form of the perfection of their prophet. That is why it is mentioned in a ḥadīth, 'Indeed God discloses Himself in [a manner commensurate with] the form of their belief, such that members of all religious communities and schools know Him; but He then changes from that form and emerges in another form whereby the only ones who know Him are the affirmers of [His] Oneness, who enter into the Presence of the Exclusive Unity (aḥadiyya) from every gate. Just as every community has a witness, so every member of a legal school also has a witness who unveils the state of the object of the witnessing. As for the Muḥammadans, their witness is God, the beloved Who enjoys the descriptions of all attributes and that is because of the stature of the perfection of their Prophet, being the beloved [of God and of his community], the one who has been given the sum of all [excellent] speech, the completer of [virtuous] character traits. There is no doubt that they can know Him in all the forms of His transmutation if they follow their Prophet with a veritable following and are affirmers of His Exclusive Unity, beloved [to God] like their Prophet.
يَوْمَئِذٍ يَوَدُّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَعَصَوُا الرَّسُولَ لَوْ تُسَوَّىٰ بِهِمُ الْأَرْضُ وَلَا يَكْتُمُونَ اللَّهَ حَدِيثًا
📘 Upon that day, those who disbelieved, by choosing to be veiled from the Truth, those who disobeyed the Messenger, by veiling themselves from religion, will wish that the earth, of preparedness, might be levelled with them, so that their souls might be obliterated or become innocent free of the engravings of corrupt creeds and ruinous base traits. And they will not hide from God any talk: they will not be able to suppress the words of those engravings in order to avoid being chastised by His punishment.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقْرَبُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنْتُمْ سُكَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَعْلَمُوا مَا تَقُولُونَ وَلَا جُنُبًا إِلَّا عَابِرِي سَبِيلٍ حَتَّىٰ تَغْتَسِلُوا ۚ وَإِنْ كُنْتُمْ مَرْضَىٰ أَوْ عَلَىٰ سَفَرٍ أَوْ جَاءَ أَحَدٌ مِنْكُمْ مِنَ الْغَائِطِ أَوْ لَامَسْتُمُ النِّسَاءَ فَلَمْ تَجِدُوا مَاءً فَتَيَمَّمُوا صَعِيدًا طَيِّبًا فَامْسَحُوا بِوُجُوهِكُمْ وَأَيْدِيكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا
📘 O you who have faith! Do not approach the prayer when you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying, or defiled-except for travelers on the road-until you have made the full ablution.... Surely God is pardoning, forgiving. Intoxication is drunkenness. Drunkenness is disparate, and the drunkards diverse. One is drunk with the wine of the grape, another with the wine of heedlessness, another with love for this world, another with the frivolity of the soul and self-love. This last is the most difficult, for self-love is the basis of idol-worship, the seed of estrangement, the curtain of ill fortune, and the root of every darkness. If you are martyred a hundred times a day in the path of God you will still be an idol-worshiper if you see yourself in the midst. When will you be the man to want the heart without caprice? When you will have the pain to see the body with contempt? [DS 708] When someone is drunk with wine and is fearful and shaking in dread of punishment, the end of his work will be burning in the fire of punishment-if He does not forgive him. But He may indeed forgive him, for He says, “Surely God forgives the sins altogether” [39:53]. When someone is drunk with the soul's arrogance and with pride and self-worship, his work is in peril. His basis is loss, his deeds damage him, and he dwells in the peril of being led on and deceived and the danger of everlasting separation. Or defiled-except for travelers on the road-until you have made the full ablution. If the religion were based on reasoning, then the greater ablution would be incumbent after urination, and the minor ablution after ejaculation. Urine is impure and semen is pure. With impure urine, the lesser purity is mandatory, but with pure semen the greater purity. This is so that you will know that the religion is founded on the transmitted, not on the rationally derived; on the Book, not on reasoning; on making oneself a servant, not on self-exertion. The origin of the major ablution is from the era of Adam. When Adam came from paradise to this world, he fell into companionship with Eve. Gabriel came and said, “O Adam, make a full ablution, for God commands you to do so. ” Adam obeyed the command and then said, “O Gabriel, what is the reward for this ablution?” Gabriel said, “For every hair on your body, a one-year's reward will be written for you in the ledger. For every drop of water that passes over your body, God will create an angel that will obey and worship until the Day of Resurrection, and He will give its reward to you.” He said, “O Gabriel, is this for me specifically? Or is it for me and my children generally?” Gabriel said, “It is for you, the faithful, and your children until the resurrection.” Thus the ablution for defilement was made mandatory in all the shariahs of the prophets from the era of Adam until the time of the Master of the World-upon all of them be God's blessings and peace! One of the imams even said, “The Trust that Adam lifted up, concerning which God said, 'And man carried it' [33:72], was the trust of the ablution for defilement.” Then at the end of the verse He says, “Surely God is pardoning, forgiving.” God passes over sins, curtains the defects of those who apologize, and conceals the offenses of the sighers. The meaning of bringing these two names of pardon and forgiveness in this place is this: “Before I sent the commands and prohibitions I took away whatever you have done up until today, and I have passed over you. My servant, no one's sin can overcome My solicitude. And who finds My bounty other than the one on whom the sun of solicitude shines? My servant, if you straighten your aim, I am there for you in the road. If you ask forgiveness from Me, I am aware of your heart's thoughts. I am the forgiver of your offenses and I want good for you. Wherever there is someone with ruined life and destitute days, I buy him. Wherever there is a poor man, wounded by offenses, helpless in the hands of an adversary, I am his Patron! Wherever there is someone weeping in shame, his head bowed because of not having anyone, I am his proof. Wherever there is someone burnt because of having lost his heart, someone in pain from selflessness, I am the happiness of his spirit.” Be wherever you will in the land and you will be near My remembrance.
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا نَصِيبًا مِنَ الْكِتَابِ يَشْتَرُونَ الضَّلَالَةَ وَيُرِيدُونَ أَنْ تَضِلُّوا السَّبِيلَ
📘 Have you not seen those who were given a share of the Book, that is, some part [of It], which is their admission of the truth despite their being veiled from religion, purchasing error, choosing to be veiled from religion, which is the path of the truth, in exchange for the guiding light of their preparedness and desiring that you should do the same. They are your enemy and God has knowledge of their enmity for you, then
وَاللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِأَعْدَائِكُمْ ۚ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ وَلِيًّا وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ نَصِيرًا
📘 God suffices as a Protector, protecting your affair by granting your success in finding the path of the affirmation of His Oneness and [He suffices] as a Helper to help you against your enemies by repressing them.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ آمِنُوا بِمَا نَزَّلْنَا مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا مَعَكُمْ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ نَطْمِسَ وُجُوهًا فَنَرُدَّهَا عَلَىٰ أَدْبَارِهَا أَوْ نَلْعَنَهُمْ كَمَا لَعَنَّا أَصْحَابَ السَّبْتِ ۚ وَكَانَ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ مَفْعُولًا
📘 O you who have been given the Book, the Book of preparedness, believe, a true belief of eyewitness by bringing out what is in the Book of your preparedness [from potentiality] to actuality by the affirmation of the oneness of the Essence, before We obliterate faces, by the removal and effacement of their preparednesses, and turn them on their backs, which is the lowest of the low in the world of bodies which is posterior to every [other] world, or We curse them, We chastise them by transforming [them] as We transformed, those of the Sabbath, and God's command is done, that is, fulfilled for all eternity, none able to change it or revoke it.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَغْفِرُ أَنْ يُشْرَكَ بِهِ وَيَغْفِرُ مَا دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ ۚ وَمَنْ يُشْرِكْ بِاللَّهِ فَقَدِ افْتَرَىٰ إِثْمًا عَظِيمًا
📘 Surely God does not forgive that anything be associated with Him, but less than that He forgives for whomsoever He wills. The associationism of the common people is one thing, and the associationism of the elect some- thing else. The associationism of the common people is the greater associationism, and the asso- ciationism of the elect the lesser associationism. The greater associationism is that they should say that the tremendous Enactor, the eternal Artisan, has an associate and partner, or they should consider Him to have an equal and peer, or they should make Him similar to something of creation. Whenever someone says this, he is not a worshiper of God, for he has called upon an idol. In reality, he has been held back from the religion of guidance. The right belief and pure religion is that you consider the God of the world's folk and Creator of all to be pure of and incomparable with spouse, child, and partner. He did not give birth, nor did anyone give birth to Him. He is free of new arrival, change, and birth, hallowed beyond defect, incapacity, and need, pure in attribute, fitting in artisanry, sweet in speech, and complete in love. He is pure of fault in attributes, pure of blunder in deeds, pure of negligence in speech, and pure of doubt in love. He is a God who is outside of imaginations, and no one knows how He is. He is worthy of Godhood, knower of God-work, separate from faults, without peer in Essence and attributes. Whoever believes this has been released from the greater associationism and has joined with the root of faith. As for the lesser associationism, it is of two sorts and belongs to two groups. For the faithful it is eye-service and letting go of self-purification in deeds. For the recognizers, it is paying regard to deeds and seeking deliverance thereby. Its trace in the faithful is to decrease their faith, to bring fissures into their certainty, and to close down the door of clarity. MuṣṬafā said, “I am very fright- ened of the ancient associationism for my community.” He was asked what ancient associationism was, and he said, “That someone does good deeds along with eye-service in the deeds.” Shaddād ibn Aws said, “I saw God's Messenger weeping.
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ يُزَكُّونَ أَنْفُسَهُمْ ۚ بَلِ اللَّهُ يُزَكِّي مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ فَتِيلًا
📘 Hast thou not seen those who deem themselves pure? No, God alone deems pure whom- soever He will. Do not praise yourselves, do not approve of others deeming you pure, do not look at your own good deeds, give no weight to your own traveling, and consider yourselves lower than everyone low. A friend asked, “Which group is it who have stolen reality's ball from the world's creatures?” I said, “Why do you ask for the marks of that group, for they have not shown themselves to themselves for the sake of showing. They never walk on the edge of making claims, nor do they ever sleep in the circle of meaning. More wondrous is that their worthlessness and abasement makes them like Christians and Jews in people's eyes.” Yes, at the threshold of a generous man, the more abased you make yourself, the more exalted you become. Your abasement is not despair of the Friend. Rather, it testifies to your truthfulness and straightness. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, I lament at my abasement, for I have seen no one with misery like mine. I lament at the burning because You are lost to my spirit. There is no one in the world to have pity on my days and time. O God, I wept so many tears in longing that I sowed the seeds of pain with my eyes' water. If I find endless felicity, I will approve of all this pain. If my eyes fall upon You once, I will not have seen myself with those eyes.” No, God alone deems pure whomsoever He will. When God's deeming pure reaches someone, its mark is that he is released from companionship with the scatter-hearted ones who have stooped to the path of demons and idols [4:51] and he does not again open himself up to them. But you should not fancy that the worshipers of demons and idols are simply those idol-worshipers. Any- one who is at ease with the caprice of his own soul and remains bound to what his soul desires is a man of idols and a servant of demons. The creatures are at ease in the ruins of their own makeup- wink once and throw the creatures into turmoil! [DS 696] In the tongue of the folk of allusion, placing your foot on your own soul and bringing your caprice under your own severity is the tremendous kingdom concerning which God says,
انْظُرْ كَيْفَ يَفْتَرُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ الْكَذِبَ ۖ وَكَفَىٰ بِهِ إِثْمًا مُبِينًا
📘 Consider how they invent falsehood against God, by claiming to purify their souls of their attributes when they have not been purified, or, because of the existence of their souls, by falsely ascribing God's attributes to their own souls.
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا نَصِيبًا مِنَ الْكِتَابِ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْجِبْتِ وَالطَّاغُوتِ وَيَقُولُونَ لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا هَٰؤُلَاءِ أَهْدَىٰ مِنَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا سَبِيلًا
📘 Have you not seen, to the end [of the verse where it says]: they believe in al-Jibt and al-Ṭāghūt, by their affirmation of the existence of other [than God], and that is the way in which they lead [others] astray from religion, which is the path of the affirmation of [His] Oneness, and say, to those who have been veiled from the Truth, 'These are more rightly guided, than the affirmers of the Oneness, in their way'ḍ, since they are like them in associating [others with God], in contrast to the believers who are opposed to them in both way and goal. For when those who affirm the Oneness go astray in their way, they do not arrive at the goal which they affirmed. They are thus guilty of a subtle association (shirk) that approximates the state of those who are veiled from the Truth, those who have committed a manifest association, and thus they correspond to them and are directed towards them, claiming to be the most rightly-guided of the affirmers of Oneness, as we see is the case with certain exoterics [today] who belong to the Muslim community.
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ لَعَنَهُمُ اللَّهُ ۖ وَمَنْ يَلْعَنِ اللَّهُ فَلَنْ تَجِدَ لَهُ نَصِيرًا
📘 Those are the ones whom God has cursed, by transfiguring [their] preparedness: the one whom God banishes, none can help him through guidance or bringing [him] near or deliverance.
أَمْ يَحْسُدُونَ النَّاسَ عَلَىٰ مَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ ۖ فَقَدْ آتَيْنَا آلَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَآتَيْنَاهُمْ مُلْكًا عَظِيمًا
📘 And We gave them a tremendous kingdom. It has been said, “The tremendous kingdom is having an overview of the secrets of the creatures,” or it is “gazing upon the secrets of the empire such that nothing is hidden.” This is why Abū ʿUthmān Maghribī said, “When someone responds to the Real, the empire re- sponds to him.” In other words, when something appears to him in the empire, he is given news of it. Ibn al-Barqī was one of the great shaykhs of Egypt and possessed perspicacity. Once he became ill and was given medicine. He said, “I will not drink it, for some disaster has happened in the em- pire. Until I find out what happened, I will not drink it.” Thirteen days passed before news arrived that the Qarmatians and fallen on the Sanctuary, killed many people, and worked great destruction. Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “Servanthood cannot bear more than knowing some and not knowing some, for God says, 'He does not show His unseen to anyone except someone He ap- proves as a messenger' [72:26-27]. 'And God will not inform you of the unseen' [3:179]. God knows all-no one else.” It has also been said that the tremendous kingdom is recognition of the tremendous King. When someone recognizes Him, he has found the kingdom of both worlds. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, who is like me in becoming worthy for this work? Enough for me is that I have the worth of Your companionship.” Tell them to call me nothing but lord- that's a name suited for Your serving boy.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِآيَاتِنَا سَوْفَ نُصْلِيهِمْ نَارًا كُلَّمَا نَضِجَتْ جُلُودُهُمْ بَدَّلْنَاهُمْ جُلُودًا غَيْرَهَا لِيَذُوقُوا الْعَذَابَ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا
📘 Surely those who disbelieve in Our signs, that is, [those] who have been veiled from the self-disclosures of Our attributes and acts, since the point of departure of the verse is His being self-disclosed through knowledge and wisdom in the family of Abraham - We shall expose them, to the fire of the yearning for perfection since this is what is entailed in their natural impulses and traits in accordance with their preparedness in addition to the deep-rootedness of the veil and its adherence [to them]; or [We shall expose them] to the fire of vanquishing through the self-disclosures of the attributes of His vanquishing power, [a fire] that corresponds to their states; or to the fire of the evilness of their souls and the vehemence of their yearning and pursuit of the perfections of their attributes and their lusts which have been provoked in them but of which they are deprived; as often as their skins are consumed, [as often as] their corporeal veils are removed [from them] when they abandon them, We shall replace them, with new veils other than those, that they may taste the chastisement, the fires of privation. Surely God is ever Mighty, powerful. He vanquishes them and disgraces them by abasing the attributes of their souls and He burns them with the fires of their longing for their perfections by depriving them [of these] forever; Wise, requiting them with the chastisement which is appropriate to them and which they have chosen for their souls by their irascible and concupiscent exigencies and other [such motivations] and their inclination to corporeal pleasures; that is why veils of darkness are successively replaced for them.
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَنُدْخِلُهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا ۖ لَهُمْ فِيهَا أَزْوَاجٌ مُطَهَّرَةٌ ۖ وَنُدْخِلُهُمْ ظِلًّا ظَلِيلًا
📘 And those that believe, by affirming the unity of [God's] attributes, and perform, what makes them righteous by virtue of [their] acceptance of the self-disclosures of these [attributes], We shall admit them to the Gardens, of those who have assumed these attributes and the stations thereof, underneath which rivers flow, that is, the rivers of the knowledge deriving from the self-disclosures of these [attributes] in the way of the knowledge of the heart. Here the [purified] spouses are the sanctified spirits which are the loci of the manifestations of the divine attributes that are purified through the corporeal configurations; and We shall admit them to plenteous shade, that is, [to] the shade of the divine attributes whose spirit lasts forever by the effacement of the human attributes.
۞ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تُؤَدُّوا الْأَمَانَاتِ إِلَىٰ أَهْلِهَا وَإِذَا حَكَمْتُمْ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ أَنْ تَحْكُمُوا بِالْعَدْلِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ نِعِمَّا يَعِظُكُمْ بِهِ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ سَمِيعًا بَصِيرًا
📘 Surely God commands you to deliver trusts back to their owners. In this verse the lovingly kind Lord, the generous and right-knowing, the care-taker of the servants, commands His servants to give back trusts. He is saying, “Return the trusts at your own liability to their folk.” In other words, do not intervene in them, and avoid betrayal, for after the faith and recognition of the servant, there is no attribute greater than holding in trust; and after unbelief, there is no attribute uglier than betrayal. The servant's obedience comes forth from holding in trust, and disobedience comes from betrayal. Betrayal is the basis of corruption, the beginning of every mis- fortune, and the foundation of disobedience. Holding in trust is the pillar of the religion, the per- fection of tawḤīd, and the attribute of the prophets and the angels. In the firm text of the revealed book, the Lord of the Worlds describes Gabriel by saying, “brought down by the trustworthy spirit” [26:193]. In another place He says, “obeyed, and also trustworthy” [81:21]. He reported from the daughter of Shuʿayb that she said to her father about Moses, God's speaking companion, “O my father, hire him! Surely the best you can hire is the strong, the trustworthy” [28:26]. And in describing Joseph the sincerely truthful He says, quoting the king of Egypt, “Surely today with us thou art emplaced, trustworthy” [12:54]. The trusts about which the Book and the Sunnah talk are three things: One is obedience and the religion, for the Lord of the Worlds calls them a trust. He says, “Surely We offered the Trust” [33:72]. Next are women, who are held as a trust by men. MuṣṬafā said, “You have taken them as a trust from God, and you have made their private parts lawful to you by God's word.” Third is the property you leave with someone, or the secret you tell to him, for that is a trust. The Lord of the Worlds says, “Let him who has been entrusted deliver back his trust” [2:283]. MuṣṬafā said, “Deliver the trust back to the one who entrusted you.” He also said, “If a man relates some words, pay regard, for it is his trust.” Mustāfā also said, “Sitting together is a trust.” In other words, when you sit with people, it must be on condition of holding in trust.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنْكُمْ ۖ فَإِنْ تَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ وَأَحْسَنُ تَأْوِيلًا
📘 O you who believe, by [your] affirmation of the unity of [His] attributes, obey God, by affirming the unity of the essence and by being annihilated in the union, and obey the Messenger, by observing what is due at the level of differentiation at the source of the union and taking note of the hierarchy of the attributes after being annihilated in the essence, and those in authority among you, of those who deserve spiritual guardianship (walāya) and leadership [over you], as has already been mentioned in the story of Saul.
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ يَزْعُمُونَ أَنَّهُمْ آمَنُوا بِمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ يُرِيدُونَ أَنْ يَتَحَاكَمُوا إِلَى الطَّاغُوتِ وَقَدْ أُمِرُوا أَنْ يَكْفُرُوا بِهِ وَيُرِيدُ الشَّيْطَانُ أَنْ يُضِلَّهُمْ ضَلَالًا بَعِيدًا
📘 Have you not seen, that is, have you not marvelled at, those who claim that they believe in what has been revealed to you, of the knowledge of the affirmation of the Oneness, and what was revealed before you, of the knowledge of the point of origin and the final return, desiring to take their disputes to a false deity, when it is incompatible with their claim. For if their faith was sound, they would not have affirmed an other [in the first place] for that [other] to then have any power to arbitrate. Indeed they, by virtue of true belief, are obliged to disbelieve in any other than Him. The one who has not been stripped of his attributes and acts and whose essence has not been obliterated in God, exalted be He, constitutes some other [than God]; and the one who orients himself towards some other has verily obeyed Satan. But Satan only desires that they be led far astray, which is to deviate from the truth through association [of others with God], since to incline away from religion is to be in clear error.
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ رَسُولٍ إِلَّا لِيُطَاعَ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۚ وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذْ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ جَاءُوكَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا اللَّهَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ الرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُوا اللَّهَ تَوَّابًا رَحِيمًا
📘 We sent not any messenger but that he should be obeyed by God's leave. From the first to the last of this section is an allusion to the greatness of MuṣṬafā's rank in God's sight. It is one of the robes of honor given to him by God, for He has lifted up the intermediary and made his decree equal to His own decree. Just as approving of the Real's decision brings about the certainty of the tawḤīd-voicers, so also approving of the Messenger's decree brings about the faith of the faithful. Thus the world's folk will know that obeying the Messenger is to obey the Real, disobeying the Messenger is to disobey the Real, the words of the Messenger are the revelation of the Real, the explanations of the Messenger are the road of the Real, the acts of the Messenger are the argument of the Real, the Shariah of the Messenger is the creed of the Real, the decree of the Messenger is the religion of the Real, and following the Messenger is friendship with the Real. Thus He says, “Follow me; God will love you” [3:31]. He is saying, “O master of masters! O paragon of engendered beings! O center point of the circle of newly arrived things! Say to My servants, 'If you want God to give you access to His friendship and approve of your servanthood, travel in my tracks, for I am His Messenger. Bind the belt of following me, receive my decrees in spirit and heart without resistance. Put forth your body, put down your neck, throw yourself into the decree, and do not give narrowness and tightness any access to yourself.'” This is why He says,
فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ حَتَّىٰ يُحَكِّمُوكَ فِيمَا شَجَرَ بَيْنَهُمْ ثُمَّ لَا يَجِدُوا فِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ حَرَجًا مِمَّا قَضَيْتَ وَيُسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا
📘 Then they will not find in themselves any tightness from what thou decreest and will sur- render with full submission. “Do you not know that all the work has been bound to my tracks, and both houses have been at- tached to my street?” What rank and good fortune! What nobility and excellence! From the era of Adam until today, who has had such complete bounty and such well-arranged work, such celestial exaltedness and such god-like luster? After 500 and some years, the pillar of his Shariah's good fortune is flourishing, his branches blooming, his wood yielding fruit, his eminence elevated, his decree predominant. His splendor is in this world, his fame in the next. Each heart has a lamp from him, each tongue a burning brand from him, each heart a splendor from him, each head a call from him, each spirit a place for him. If you fancy that there is none of God's gentleness-there is. That above the world's beauties there is no king-there is. If you suppose that the spirits of good men in their passion have no familiarity with the beauty of the dust of your feet-they do. And if you think that when you lift up your tresses from your cheek the lamp of the spheres has no brightness from you-it does. [DS 821-22]
وَلَوْ أَنَّا كَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ أَنِ اقْتُلُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ أَوِ اخْرُجُوا مِنْ دِيَارِكُمْ مَا فَعَلُوهُ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ مِنْهُمْ ۖ وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ فَعَلُوا مَا يُوعَظُونَ بِهِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ وَأَشَدَّ تَثْبِيتًا
📘 And had We prescribed, that is, [had] We made it obligatory, for them: 'Slay your souls', by curbing the caprice that is their [the souls' source of] life and by annihilating their attributes, or 'Leave your habitations', your stations, which are patience, trust, satisfaction and the like, because of their veiling [of the soul] from the affirmation of Oneness, as al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr [al-Ḥallāj], may God sanctify his spirit, said to Ibrāhīm b. Adham, may God have mercy on him, when he asked him about his state and [al-Ḥallāj] responded by saying, 'I wander the deserts and roam the open lands where there is neither water nor trees, and neither meadows nor rain: am I right in assuming a state of trust [in God] or notḍ', to which he [Ibrāhīm] replied, 'If you were to spend your entire life cultivating your belly: where [in all of that] is the annihilation in the Onenessḍ'; they would not have done it, save a few of them: and these [few] are the lovers [of God], those prepared for His encounter, the greatest in power, the smallest in number, as God says but few are they [Q. 38:24]; it would have been better for them, in terms of the perfection that would have been actualised for them upon the removal of the veil of the attributes of the soul by the assumption of the attributes of the Truth or by the arrival at the source of the union, and stronger in establishing, by making [them] upright in religion upon subsistence after the annihilation.
وَإِذًا لَآتَيْنَاهُمْ مِنْ لَدُنَّا أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا
📘 And then, We would have surely given them from Us a great wage, in the way of self-disclosures of the attributes upon the slaying of the soul.
وَلَهَدَيْنَاهُمْ صِرَاطًا مُسْتَقِيمًا
📘 And We would have guided them to a straight path, upon their departure from their homes, that is, [from] the waystations of the soul and the stations, which is the path of the Oneness and [the path of] uprightness in the affirmation of the Oneness.
وَمَنْ يُطِعِ اللَّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ فَأُولَٰئِكَ مَعَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ مِنَ النَّبِيِّينَ وَالصِّدِّيقِينَ وَالشُّهَدَاءِ وَالصَّالِحِينَ ۚ وَحَسُنَ أُولَٰئِكَ رَفِيقًا
📘 Whosoever obeys God and the Messenger-they will be with those whom God has blessed: the prophets, the sincerely truthful, the witnesses, and the wholesome. What beautiful compan- ions they! Ibn ʿAbbās says that this verse came down concerning Thawbān, who had become wasted and weak in love for God's Messenger, his back bent and his face yellow. One day the Messenger said to him, “O Thawbān, what is it with you? Has your face turned yellow because you stay awake at night?” He said, “O Messenger of God, this and that, as you know.” He said, “O Thawbān, are you placing a great deal of suffering on yourself through various sorts of discipline? You have become so weak and your back is bent over!” Thawbān said, “Yes, O Messenger of God, it has been something of all that.” The Messenger said, “O Thawbān, is it that you are desiring?” Thawbān's eyes filled with tears when he heard talk of desire. How long will you ask me, “Why are you suffering?” In truth, you know my state better than I. “O Messenger of God, I do not know how the nights pass until day comes and I see you again.” Wishing for you by day is the veil of my idleness, aching for you by night is the chamber of my wakefulness. Separation from you is the adornment of my sorrow, fervor for you is the capital of my awareness. “O Messenger of God! The hardest sorrow is that in the next world you will be in the highest of the High Chambers, and I will be held back from seeing you.” While they were in the midst of this came Gabriel, the messenger of the Presence, the courier of mercy, bringing a verse: “Whosoever obeys God and the Messenger-they will be with those whom God has blessed,” and so on to the end. God's Messenger recited it to him and made his heart happy, placing a balm on his woundedness. Yes, it wants a pain like this for there to appear a balm like that! Until you burn, you will not find a way out. Until you drown in Remember Me! in the ocean of remembrance, you will not reach the shore of security by the hand of I will remember you [2:152]. A man with nothing will never find an accomplished friend- pain for Ishmael calls for the burn of Abraham.
ذَٰلِكَ الْفَضْلُ مِنَ اللَّهِ ۚ وَكَفَىٰ بِاللَّهِ عَلِيمًا
📘 That bounty, in other words, [that] facilitation granted for the actualisation of perfection by which they have acquired a correspondence to prophets and those with them, thus becoming their companions [is from God]; [God suffices] as Knower, knowing the potential in their preparedness for perfection and thus makes it manifest upon them.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا خُذُوا حِذْرَكُمْ فَانْفِرُوا ثُبَاتٍ أَوِ انْفِرُوا جَمِيعًا
📘 [O you who believe] take your precautions, that against which you exercise caution, such as Satan's casting [of his insinuations] and his evil whisperings and his leading of you to perdition by means of [his] deception, and [such things as] the manifestation of the attributes of your souls and their acquisition of mastery over you, for these are the most hostile of all your enemies; then move forward in companies, wayfare in the path of God in groups, each party [following] the spiritual path of a perfect, knowledgeable shaykh, or move forward all together, along the path of the affirmation of Oneness and that of submission (islām) following closely [the path of] the Prophet.
أَيْنَمَا تَكُونُوا يُدْرِكْكُمُ الْمَوْتُ وَلَوْ كُنْتُمْ فِي بُرُوجٍ مُشَيَّدَةٍ ۗ وَإِنْ تُصِبْهُمْ حَسَنَةٌ يَقُولُوا هَٰذِهِ مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ ۖ وَإِنْ تُصِبْهُمْ سَيِّئَةٌ يَقُولُوا هَٰذِهِ مِنْ عِنْدِكَ ۚ قُلْ كُلٌّ مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ ۖ فَمَالِ هَٰؤُلَاءِ الْقَوْمِ لَا يَكَادُونَ يَفْقَهُونَ حَدِيثًا
📘 And if a good thing befalls them, they say, 'This is from God', to the end [of the verse]: proving that they are Qadarites, since they ascribe good to God and evil to man, imitating Magians in affirming independent efficient causes in existence and ascribing evil to the Messenger but not to themselves, since he was the one who sent them forth [to battle] and who incited them to [suffer] the evil that they encounter because of him. Thus the Messenger is commanded to call them to the belief in the unity of acts and the denial of efficient cause on the part of others and to the affirmation that He is the agent of good and evil by His words Say, 'Everything is from God'. What is wrong with this people that they do not understandḍ, because of their being veiled by the attributes of [their] souls and [by] the failure of the hearing of their hearts which are the vessels for audition and understanding. Then it is made clear that God is bounteous and just by the fact that good things and perfections are all out of His bounty, and that evil things are from His justness. In other words, He decrees them for us and afflicts us with them because of a preparedness and a meriting [of that] in us that requires it be so. That meriting occurs by the soul's manifesting of itself in its attributes and its commission of acts of disobedience and sins that necessitate punishment and not because of any other act, as when they attributed the evil that befell them to the Messenger. For the meriting [of such evil] is dependent on the preparedness [of that individual], such that what is entailed by the preparedness of one person does not interfere with another, just as God says And no burdened soul shall bear the burden of another [burdened soul] [Q. 6:164]. Thus He has shown them to be liars in their ascription to � by proving that the efficient cause for [both] good and evil is none other than God alone as required by His bounty and justice. As for the receptive cause, even if in reality that is also from Him, the receptivity for good relates to the original preparedness [of an individual], that derives from the holiest effusion on which our acts and choices have no bearing. Receptivity of evil derives from the preparedness temporally created by the soul's manifesting itself in its attributes and acts, which veil the heart and tarnish its substance such that it needs to be polished by means of calamities, afflictions, trials and misfortunes, and does not derive from the part of the Messenger or anyone else.
وَإِذَا حُيِّيتُمْ بِتَحِيَّةٍ فَحَيُّوا بِأَحْسَنَ مِنْهَا أَوْ رُدُّوهَا ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ حَسِيبًا
📘 When you are greeted with a greeting, greet with one more beautiful than it, or return it. In this verse, the majestic compeller, the magnificent God, the lovingly kind beautiful-doer, teach- es His servants the courteous acts of social intercourse and companionship, for anyone not adorned with courtesy is not worthy of companionship. Companionship is of three sorts: the courtesy of conformity with the Real, the courtesy of sincerity with people, and the courtesy of opposition to the soul. Anyone not nurtured by these sorts of courtesy has nothing to do with the path of MuṣṬafā and has no worth in the world of No god but God. The exalted Lord first adorned MuṣṬafā with courtesy, as his come in the report: “My Lord taught me courtesy, so how beautifully I have been made courteous!” Thus on the night of the miʿrāj in that most tremendous station, he acted courteously toward the Presence, such that the exalted Lord says about him, “The eyesight did not swerve, nor did it trespass” [53:17]. He observed the courtesy of companionship with people, such that He says about him, “Surely thou hast a tremendous character” [68:4]. The principles of the courteous acts of companionship in interacting with the Real are that you put knowledge to work in every interaction, you revere the Shariah, you avoid putting into practice what your wishes command, you honor the Sunnah and its folk, you avoid innovation and its folk, you leave aside suspicion and supposition, you stay far from disquieting thoughts and the habits of eye-service, ignorance, and laziness in worshiping God, you avoid adorning yourself as a worship- ful servant in other than the Sunnah, you keep supererogatory acts hidden, you not mention the name God in heedlessness, you not mix levity with seriousness, you not play with the Shariah and the religion, and you put scrupulosity to work in speaking, acting, seeing, eating, sleeping, moving, and resting. Even if you pass your days with truthfulness and limpidness, you never approve of yourself. Rather, you must always be displeased with yourself, and you must make it incumbent upon yourself to repent in every state. The Messenger said, “My heart becomes clouded, so I ask forgiveness from God one hundred times a day.” Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī was so displeased with his own limpidness and self-purification that his glorification sometimes consisted of pointing at himself with his finger and saying, “You are the miserable man of the time.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا ضَرَبْتُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَتَبَيَّنُوا وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَنْ أَلْقَىٰ إِلَيْكُمُ السَّلَامَ لَسْتَ مُؤْمِنًا تَبْتَغُونَ عَرَضَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فَعِنْدَ اللَّهِ مَغَانِمُ كَثِيرَةٌ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ كُنْتُمْ مِنْ قَبْلُ فَمَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ فَتَبَيَّنُوا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا
📘 O you who have faith! When you strike forth on the path of God, look clearly, and say not to him who offers you peace, “You are not of the faithful,” seeking the chance goods of this world's life. By way of allusion, He is saying that when you go on a journey, go for the sake of reaching one of the friends of God so that he may be the intimate of your days and the witness of your heart and spirit. No matter how far you go, never be at ease from seeking and do not hold back the foot of effort. The friends are the favorites of the Exalted Threshold and accepted by the Presence of Divinity. Not everyone sees them, not every eyesight perceives them. When you find them, give ear, and when you see them, cling to them, for the brightness of the heart lies in witnessing them and endless felicity in being their companion. The pir of the Tariqah Junayd was asked, “Which do you prefer? Two cycles of voluntary prayer or an hour of witnessing the poor.” He said, “An hour of witnessing the poor, for witnessing the poor is God's love, for He says, 'It is incumbent on Me to love those who love each other in Me and who visit each other in Me.' Bringing God's love to hand is an obligatory act for everyone. Leaving aside this obligatory act and choosing a supererogatory act is not the work of the clever and the conduct of the chevaliers.”
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ قَالُوا فِيمَ كُنْتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا كُنَّا مُسْتَضْعَفِينَ فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا ۚ فَأُولَٰئِكَ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ ۖ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا
📘 And those whom the angels receive [in death], to the end [of the verse]: al-tawaffī is to receive fully the spirit (istīfāÌ) from the body by having it seized from it, which can be in one of three ways: the reception of [it by] the angels, the reception of [it by] the angel of death, and the reception of [it by] God. As for the angels' reception [of the spirit], that is for the folk of the souls who are either fortunate, being the good folk, those of the praiseworthy attributes and virtuous character traits from among the righteous, the Godfearing, those whom the angels receive [in death] while they are goodly, saying to them, 'Peace be upon you! Enter Paradise because of what you used to do' [Q. 16:31-32]: their final return shall be to the garden of the acts. Or they are the damned, the evil folk, those of the base attributes and the wicked character traits, whose spirits are only received by the powers of the angelic realm which in this world are the equivalent of their faculties which constitute their station, veiled as they are by attributes of the soul and the pleasures of the imaginative, estimative, predatorial and bestial faculties, the disbelievers, those whom the angels receive [in death] while they are wronging themselves [Q. 16:27-28]: their final return shall be to the Fire. As for the reception of the angel of death, that is for the possessors of hearts, those who have emerged from the veil of the soul to the station of the heart and have returned to the primordial nature and have become illumined by it. The spirits of these [latter] are seized by the universal rational soul, which is the heart of the world, because of their conjunction with it; this is the case if it is the angel of death himself who seizes their spirits. If he seizes [these spirits] by means of his assistants and their powers, then they belong to the first group [mentioned above]. He [the angel of death] may seize them himself and turn them over to the angelic realm of chastisement so that they might be brought to reckoning and requited in accordance with their vices and be rid [of them]; that will be on account of [their] perfection or deficiency of knowledge, as in the case of the one who is delivered from ignorance and associating [others with God] and becomes adorned with knowledge and the affirmation of Oneness, but upon whose heart there had accumulated dark configurations and base natures because of wicked deeds and reprehensible character traits; or on account of having knowledge of the affirmation of the Oneness but ignorance of the final return, as in the case of the affirmer of the Oneness who denies the [final] recompense and is ensconced in acts of disobedience, as God, exalted be He, says Say: the angel of death, who has been charged with you, shall receive you [in death] [Q.
إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةً وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًا
📘 Except the oppressed among the men, that is, those of strong preparedness, those whose concupiscent and irascible faculties have been strengthened while their preparedness has also been strong but who have not been able to curb these by wayfaring along the path of truth; nor have they turned to their estimative and imaginative faculties and invalidated their preparednesses with corrupt beliefs. They have thus remained captive in their corporeal faculties, their preparedness illuminated by the light of knowledge but unable to remove their fetters in order to wayfare; women, those whose preparedness falls short of the level of perfection of knowledge and wayfaring along the path of realisation, those of weak faculties and the simple-minded regarding whom it was said, 'The majority of the inhabitants of Paradise shall be those simple souls'; and children, that is, the deficient who fall short of attaining the degree of perfection because of a jealousy (ghayra) on the part of the attributes of the soul that affects them; who are unable to devise a plan, because of their inability and incapacity to break the attributes of the soul or curb caprice through spiritual discipline, and are not guided to a way, because they do not know how to wayfare and because of their being deprived of the light of the guidance of the religious law.
فَأُولَٰئِكَ عَسَى اللَّهُ أَنْ يَعْفُوَ عَنْهُمْ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا
📘 As for such, perhaps God will pardon them, by effacing these dark configurations because these have not taken deep roots [in their souls] and because of the soundness of their beliefs, for God is ever Pardoning, of sins as long as the primordial nature has not changed, Forgiving, covering up the attributes of their souls with the light of His attributes.
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