📘 Surely We have sent the Book down to thee with the truth, so worship God, purifying the religion for Him.�O MuḤammad, We sent this Qur'an down to you so that you may call the lost to the road of salva- tion, bring the deprived from the intrusion of deprivation to the comfort of union, bring the suffer- ing from the darkness of misfortune to the courtyard of prosperity, complete the noble character traits with this Qur'an, and arrange the Shariah in accordance with it. O MuḤammad, when a place does not have the light of your creed, all will be the darkness of associationism. When a place does not have the intimacy of your Shariah, all will be the intrusion of doubt. O MuḤammad, We have joined your exalted good fortune and your eminent messengerhood to the Endless.�So worship God, purifying the religion for Him. Now belong fully to Me, turning your secret core toward Me, your heart lifted up from all others, released from the bonds of yourself and your own controlling power.�With this command, the Messenger became so courteous that Gabriel came and said, �O MuḤammad! Have you chosen to be a prophet king, or a prophet servant?�He said, �O Lord, I want servanthood. I do not want kingship, for kingship is entirely turned over to You, and servanthood is entirely turned over to me. I have no refuge but Your gentleness and no shelter but Your exalted presence. If I were to choose kingship, I would stay with the king- ship and boast of my kingship. Rather, I choose servanthood so that I may be under Your kingship and boast of Your kingship.�This is why he said, �'I am the master of Adam's children without boasting': The boasting that I have is of the Friend, not of other than Him. When someone boasts, he boasts of something that is above him, not below him. In the two worlds, no one is above me except Him. If I were to boast of other than Him, I would have looked at other than Him and left aside the command, 'So worship God, purifying!' But there is no command to leave it aside, and no stipulation to look at other than Him. Hence there is no boasting in other than Him.�You name me �master,� but my master is the one You know.If You examine my heart, You will see Your remembrance in my breast.

📘 Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission, so he is upon a light from his Lord? Woe to those whose hearts are hardened against the remembrance of God.Know that the Adamite's heart has four curtains: The first curtain is the breast, the lodging place of the submission's covenant, in accordance with His words, �Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission?� The second curtain is the heart, which is the locus of the light of faith, in ac- cordance with His words, �He wrote faith in their hearts� [58:22]. The third curtain is the mindful heart, the pavilion of contemplating the Real, in accordance with His words, �His mindful heart did not lie about what he saw� [53:11]. The fourth curtain is the smitten heart, the place of put- ting down the saddle-bags of love, in accordance with His words, �He smote her heart with love� [12:30].Each of these four curtains has a characteristic, and the Real gazes upon each. When the Lord of the Worlds desires to pull one who has fled from Him with the lasso of gentleness into the road of His religion, He first gazes upon his breast, so that it may become pure of caprice and innovation and so that his feet may go straight on the avenue of the Sunnah.Then He turns His gaze to his heart so that it may become pure of this world's defilements and of blameworthy character traits, such as self-admiration, envy, pride, eye-service, greed, enmity, and frivolity. Then he may go forth on the road of scrupulosity.Then He gazes on his mindful heart and keeps him back from attachments and created things. He opens the fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom in his heart. He bestows the light of guid- ance on his heart's center point, as He said, �so he is upon a light from his Lord.�Then He gazes on his smitten heart-a gaze, and what a gaze! A gaze that embellishes the spirit, brings the tree of joy to fruit, and awakens the eye of revelry; a gaze that is a tree whose shadow is companionship with the Friend, a gaze that is a wine whose cup is the recognizer's heart.When this gaze reaches the smitten heart, it lifts it up from water and clay, and the lover steps into the street of annihilation.

📘 Does not the pure religion belong to God?What is worthy of God is pure worship without hypocrisy and obedience along with self-purifica- tion and without eye-service. When the pearl of self-purification is found, it is found in the oyster shell of the heart and the ocean of the breast. This is why Ḥudhayfa said, �I asked that paragon of the engendered beings what self-purification is. He said that he asked Gabriel what self-purifica- tion is. Gabriel said that he asked the Exalted Lord what self-purification is. He replied, 'One of My secrets that I deposit in the hearts of those whom I love among My servants.'� He said, �It is a pearl that I have brought out from the treasury of My secrets and deposited in the core of the hearts of My friends.� This self-purification is the result of friendship and the trace of servanthood. When someone puts on the garment of love and takes off the robe of servanthood, he does whatever he does from the midst of the heart. Friendship for the Real does not come together with scattered desires in one heart. The obliga- tory acts of the body are prayer and fasting, and the obligatory act of the heart is friendship for the Real. The mark of friendship is that when something comes from the Friend that is disliked by your nature and makeup, you place it upon your very eyes.Were the Beloved's hand to pour poison for me, poison from His hand would be sweet.*The heart that You burn thanks You, the blood that You shed boasts.*The blood that You spill thanks You,the heart that You scare praises You.*The poison I drink in remembrance of You is sweet, the mad man who sees You comes to his senses.

📘 And he who brought truthfulness and he who assented to it, those are the godwary.Know that truthfulness [ṣidq] means truthfulness [rāstī]. There is truthfulness in four things: words, promises, resoluteness, and deeds. Truthfulness in words is what the Real says about MuṣṬafā: �And he who brought truthfulness.� Truthfulness in promises is what He says about Ishmael the prophet: �Surely he was truthful in the promise� [19:54]. Truthfulness in resoluteness is what He says about the Messenger's companions: �Men truthful in the covenant they made with God� [33:23]. Truthfulness in deeds is what He says about the faithful: �It is they who have been truthful� [2:177].When these traits are brought together in someone, he is called �sincerely truthful.� Abraham was in this station, for the Exalted Lord said concerning him, �Surely he was sincerely truthful, a prophet� [19:41].MuṣṬafā was asked, �What is the perfection of the religion?� He said, �Speaking with truth and acting with truthfulness.� A pir was asked, �What is truthfulness?�He said, �You do what you say, you have what you show, and you are whence you call out.� Truthfulness in words is that the servant in whispered prayer with the Real seeks truthfulness from himself. If his face is turned toward this world in the state when he says, �Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth� [6:79], then that is a lie. When he says, �Thee alone we worship� [1:5], if he is in bondage to this world and to appetite, then he has spoken a lie, for a man is the servant of that to which he is in bondage. This is why MuṣṬafā said, �Miserable is the servant of dirhams, miserable the servant of dinars!� He called him the servant of gold and silver because he is in bondage to gold and silver. The servant must be free of this world and appetites as well as himself if servanthood to the Real is to be set right for him.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, �The Real made me stand before Him in one thousand standing places. In each standing place He offered me the empire. I said, 'I do not desire it.'�He said to me in the last standing place, 'O Abū Yazīd, what do you desire?' �I said, 'I desire not to desire.

📘 Say: �O My servants who have been immoderate against yourselves, despair not of God's mercy. Surely God forgives the sins altogether.�Know that among God's creatures, perfect honor belongs to two groups: angels and Adamites. This is why He appointed prophets and messengers from among these two groups rather than any others. Their utmost eminence lies in two things: servanthood and love. Sheer servanthood is the attribute of the angels, and servanthood and love are both attributes of the Adamites.He gave the angels sheer servanthood, which is the attribute of creation. Along with servant- hood He gave the Adamites the robe of love, which is the attribute of the Real. Thus He says con- cerning this community, �He loves them, and they love Him� [5:54]. He also gave the Adamites superiority over the angels in servanthood, for He said that servanthood is the angels' attribute, but without ascription to Himself: �Nay, but they are honored servants� [21:26]. He ascribed the Adamites' servanthood to Himself: �O My servants!�Then, according to the requirement of love, He completed His bounty on them. He concealed their defects and disobedient acts with the lights of love and did not tear away their curtain. Do you not see that He decreed slips for them, yet, despite all those slips, He did not remove the name servant from them? Despite mentioning the slips and disobedience, He did not take away the eminence of ascription? He said, �O My servants who have been immoderate against yourselves, despair not of God's mercy.�Then He kept the curtain over them and did not make the sins manifest, instead mentioning them in sum, with the lid on. He concealed them and said, �who have been immoderate.� They were immoder- ate, they were extravagant. But He desired to forgive them, so He did not tear away the curtain, nor did He throw away the name servant. Glory be to Him-how clement He is to His servants!It has been related that Moses said, �'O God, You desire disobedience from the servants, but You hate it.' The servants disobey because of Your desire, but then You hate it and You make the servant Your enemy because of the disobedience.�The Real said, �'O Moses, that is the foundation of My pardon.' That is to lay the foundation of My pardon and generosity.

📘 Be penitent toward your Lord and submit to Him before the chastisement comes to you- then you will not be helped.Penitence is of three sorts: one is the penitence of the prophets. He says about Abraham, �Surely Abraham was clement, a sigher, penitent� [11:75]. He says about David, �He sank down, bowing, and was penitent� [38:24]. He says quoting Shuʿayb, �In Him I trust and toward Him I am peni- tent� [11:88]. The mark of the penitence of the prophets is three things: having fear along with the good news of freedom, serving along with the eminence of prophethood, and bearing burdens in the heart along with happiness. Other than the prophets, no one has the capacity for this penitence. Another is the penitence of the recognizers. It is to turn toward God in every state with the whole heart. God says, �None will remember but those who are penitent� [40:13]. The mark of the penitence of the recognizers is three things: being in pain from disobedience, being ashamed of obedience, and being intimate with the Real in seclusion. Rābiʿa ʿAdawiyya reached the point in the state of intimacy where she said, �'Enough for me in this world is remembering You and in the next world seeing You.' O Lord, in this world Your remembrance is enough for me, and in theafterworld Your vision is enough for me.�O chevalier, when someone is intimate with the mystery of the Patron of Blessings, how could he be quenched by seeing the blessings and bliss of paradise?The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, how could I be joyful with paradise and houris? If You give me one breath, from that breath I will build a paradise!�By God, the sun has never risen or setunless Your remembrance was linked to my breaths.I never sat with people talking to themunless You were my talk with my companions.O Majestic One! When someone turns his face to Your Presence, all the motes of the world make the dust under his feet the collyrium of their eyes. Whenever someone seeks shelter in the thresh-old of Your exaltedness, all creatures attach themselves to the saddle-straps of his good fortune. From his own state of intimacy a dear one advises,�If you are given access one day to the palace of the yearning,what will you have to do with the grief of passion for this sorcery?If you see one hue from the rose-garden of His talk,all the roses of the garden will be thorns in your eyes.

📘 He created you from one soul and then made from it its mate.He created heaven and earth and day and night to show the creatures the attribute of His power. They come to know that He is perfectly powerful, an artisan without contrivance, and they take His artisanry as evidence of His unity. He created Adam and the Adamites to make them the treasury of the secrets of Eternity and the target of the gentle favors of generosity. �I was a hidden treasure, so I loved to be recognized.��I had an incomparable Essence and attributes, so there had to be recognizer. I had infinite majesty and beauty, so there had to be a lover. I was an ocean of mercy and forgiveness beating its waves, so there had to be an object of mercy.�The other created things had nothing to do with love, for they never saw in themselves a high aspiration. The one with high aspiration is you. The angels have straight and orderly work because there was no talk of love with them. The treasures and intimations put into the Adamic makeup were not placed in them. The ups and downs of the Adamites, their bewilderment and confounded- ness, contraction and expansion, sorrow and joy, absence and presence, togetherness and disper- sion; the drafts mixed with poison in their hands, the swords hanging over their necks-they have all these because a whiff of love's rose reached their nostrils.Passion for You turned me into a tavern-goer like this- otherwise I was safe and orderly.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, �Once I was craving the wine of passion in the seclusion of 'I am the sitting companion of those who remember Me.' I was bold, and I carried a heavy load of trials for my boldness. I had tasted many drops of tribulation. I said, 'O God, Your stream is flowing-how long will I be thirsty? What sort of thirst is this that I see one cup after another?�Who has ever had a state rarer than this?I'm thirsty and clear water is flowing before me.�'Exalted of the two worlds! How often will you become hidden, how often apparent? The heart is bewildered, the spirit distracted. How long this curtaining and self-disclosing? When at last will there be the everlasting self-disclosure? O God, how long will You call and drive away? I have melted in wanting the day in which You stay.

📘 Is one who does devotions throughout the night, prostrating himself and standing, cau- tious about the next world and hoping for the mercy of his Lord? Say: �Are they equal, those who know and those who know not?��Devotion� is undertaking the courteous acts of service outwardly and inwardly without slacken- ing or shortcoming, being cautious because of the threatened chastisement and hoping for the promised reward.This is the attribute of a group who are constantly at God's threshold in the station of ser- vice. Their makeup at the time of prayer becomes entirely reverence itself, and they are always burning in remorse because of shame for sin. One of the great ones of the religion said, �You must show reverence for God's commands, for it is not apparent which command brings proxim- ity to God. You must avoid all prohibited things, for it is not apparent which prohibition brings distance from God.�It has been said that putting God's commands into practice is of two sorts, one according to the property of servanthood, the other according to the property of love. The property of love is higher than the property of servanthood, because the lover's constant wish is for the Friend to command a service. Hence his service is all voluntary and nothing of it is coerced. He acknowledges the favors done to him, and he never lays favors on God, nor does he look for recompense.In contrast, a service that is done because of servanthood has both free choice and coercion.The person is seeking a reward and expecting recompense.The latter is the station of the worshipers and the common faithful, and the former is the at- tribute of the recognizers and the sincerely truthful. The two groups can never be equal. The worshipers are satisfied with the blessings and held back from the Beneficent, but the recognizers have reached the Presence and take ease in contemplating the Friend.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �How should I have known that reward is a freckle on the face of friendship? I always fancied that the greatest robe of honor was the reward. Now I have found out that in finding friendship all found things are nothing.�Say: �Are they equal, those who know and those who know not?� Knowledge is three: report- ed knowledge, inspired knowledge, and knowledge of the Unseen.