📘 And the preceders, the first among the emigrants and the helpers and those who followed them in beautiful doing-God approves of them, and they approve of Him.

📘 And others who acknowledged their sins; they mixed a wholesome deed with another that is ugly. Perhaps God will turn toward them. Surely God is forgiving, ever-merciful.

📘 And others who are made to hope for God's command; either He will chastise them or He will turn toward them. And God is knowing, wise.In these verses the Generous Lord, the lovingly kind, the able, the pure-knowing knower, the oneand unique in name and mark, divides MuḤammad's community into three groups according to the degrees of their faith, the disparity of their acts, and the difference of their character traits. This is the same classification that He provided in detail elsewhere: " Among them are wrongdoers to themselves, among them are moderate, and among them are preceders in good deeds " [35:32]. There He mentioned them together and here apart, but the classification and the ranking in terms of virtue are the same. First are the preceders, the first, and they are the preceders. Second are others who have acknowledged their sins, and they are the moderate. Third are others made to hope for God's command, and they are the wrongdoers.He begins with the preceders. In the beginningless they have the precedence of solicitude and the bounty of guidance from God. They are the first chieftains and the forebears of this commu- nity, the best of creation, the lamps of guidance, the signposts of the religion, the treasurers of the Real, the pillars of the submission, the masters of this world, the interceders of the next world, the chosen of mortal man, the boast of Adam's children. They are the Companions of MuṣṬafā and the chosen of God, the leaders of the submission and the Sunnah, the first in the religion and recogni- tion. They were the first to hear the Real's message and they were the first to accept the message- bringer and to welcome the Real. One group are the Emigrants. They left behind their homes and families and lost their means and homeland for God's sake. Another group are the Helpers, who accepted MuṣṬafā with heart and spirit and gave his companions refuge. As a bird nurtures its chick, they nurtured the submission. They made their bodies and spirits shields for the religion of the submission. They took this world as lowly and they placed their love in the religion. Another group are the Followers who came later: and those who followed them in beautiful doing.

📘 Surely God has bought from the faithful their souls and their possessions so that they may have the Garden.... So rejoice in your sale you have made to Him.In the tasting of the recognizers and the path of the elect, this verse is a place for the joy of the friends and a playing field for the secret cores of the sincerely truthful. It is felicitation for the faithful, a fitting felicitation and an appropriate bestowal of eminence. It is a felicitation that is the heart's intimacy and the spirit's message, the ornament of the session and the capital of the indigent, the adornment of tongues and the life of hearts. It is a generous felicitation, from a gen- erous Lord-generous in Essence, generous in attributes, generous in love, generous in caressing, generous in bestowal.The servant himself is bestowed by His bounty, and then He buys back what He Himself be- stowed. He makes the transaction, but He bestows all the profit on the servant and accepts the loss for Himself. This is beautiful doing and generosity, loving kindness and gentleness.In the Torah of Moses God said, " The Garden is My Garden and the possessions My posses- sions. Buy My Garden with My possessions! If you profit, that is yours, and if you lose, that is Mine. O children of Adam, I did not create you to profit from you. I created you only so that you would profit from Me. "In the Beginningless, before the servant's existence, the Lord of the Worlds bought him. He was the seller and the buyer. He Himself sold and He Himself bought.In the Shariah of MuṣṬafā, it is not permitted for the buyer and seller to be the same, unlessit be a father, for whom it is permitted on condition of tenderness, negation of suspicion, perfect loving kindness, and fatherly love. What then do you say about someone who is more clement and merciful toward the servant than a father, a God whose loving kindness has no bounds and whose love is greater? Given that it is permitted for a father, it is more appropriate and more complete in the case of the loving Creator.Moreover, the Exalted Lord knew that the servants are bad-tempered, breakers of the Cov- enant, and disloyal to it.

📘 The repenters, the worshipers, the praisers, the journeyers, the bowers, the prostra- tors, the commanders to the honorable and prohibiters of the improper, the keepers of God's bounds-give good news to the faithful!These are the attributes of the faithful, the conduct of the familiar, and the custom of the friends, who are the hindmost in this world and the foremost in that world. They are the witnesses among the prophets and the interceders for the people, the masters of this world, the lovers of the religion and the beloved of the Real. In this verse their grades are mentioned in a pleasing arrangement. He praises them and bears witness to them, beginning with the lowest of them. First He mentions the lower ones, those who repent and turn back from sin, so that they will not stay ashamed and stricken in heart, but will have new hope. He is saying:" The repenters, those who have turned back from sin, who apologize and are regretful; the worshipers, those who worship, observe the commands, and do service; the praisers, those who praise, extol, and laud; the journeyers, those who go on the hajj, keep the fast, and seek for knowl- edge; the bowers, those who are humble, who serve others, who obey the commands of a pir they have reached; the prostrators, those who say the prayer, who plead, and who put their faces in the dust for the sake of My majesty; the commanders to the honorable, those who command the people to the religion, who call out and invite to obedience, who give good counsel and advise each other; and prohibiters of the improper, the just sultans, those who call to remembrance and who bring the people away from evil and who receive them with spirit and heart. Give good news to the faithful! Give good news to the faithful that whatever shortcoming they may have, My unneediness is equal to it. Whatever may be displeasing from them, My loving kindness is on top of that. Whatever the servant may hope, My bounty is greater than that. Give good news to the faithful that when I chose them, I saw the faults. I did not approve before I had examined the hidden things. With My own unneediness I bought the servants as they are.

📘 O you who have faith, be wary of God and be among the truthful!This is a command, a bestowal of eminence, and a felicitation: a command of God, a bestowal of eminence through good news, and a beautiful felicitation; a lovingly kind command, a heart- holding bestowal of eminence, a magnificent felicitation. He is commanding to bring the servants near to Himself, bestowing eminence so that the travelers will give their hearts to His love, giving felicitation so that they will seek His companionship. The servants who get the work done are those who have His love in their hearts. Those who reap the Real's fruit are those who have living hearts. Those who remember Him are those who receive eminence from the Real. They pass their days in the world with the world's folk like strangers.O you who have faith! This is a call of generosity and an infinite caress. The ears for the Real's call are the seven members of the body. When He discloses Himself, the sorrows of the two worlds are forgotten. He put the call of generosity in front so that hearing it, the servant would find it easy to carry the burden of the decree. What is the decree? " Be wary of God and be among the truthful! " He commands to godwariness, and He commands truthfulness in godwariness.Godwariness is the basis of the submission, truthfulness the perfection of faith. Godwariness is the beginning of familiarity, truthfulness the mark of love. Godwariness is the capital of the wor- shipers, truthfulness the mark of the light of recognition. Godwariness belongs to the travelers in the world of the Shariah, truthfulness belongs to the pain-stricken in the world of the Tariqah. When someone comes to possess the good fortune of godwariness and he is shown the beauty of truthful- ness, his mark is that he strikes fire into the hut of his own existence, launches the ship of createdness in the ocean of nonbeing, makes his children into orphans, bids farewell to his near ones and family, and cleanses his inwardness of habits and customs. His outwardness comes to be adorned with the light of the Shariah, his secret core filled with love for the Real, his heart emptied of love for this world, his secret core of desire for the afterworld-he has no joining with this world or the folk of this world, and no ease with the afterworld.Remembering the two worlds is no doubt to be pregnant.If you claim to be a man, do not be pregnant. You were good-do not be bad for the sake of talk.You were a man-do not be a woman for color and scent. [DS 326, 325]

📘 Now there has come to you a Messenger from among yourselves; what troubles you is difficult for him; eagerly desirous is he for you, clement and ever-merciful toward the faithful.He is in contact with you through mortal nature, but he is different from you in election." O MuḤammad, keep on saying, 'I am a mortal like you' [18:110]. I will keep on saying, 'Did He not find thee an orphan and shelter thee?' [93:6]. You are the orphan pearl, the like of whom is no other. How can a mortal reach the forefront of the Real's acceptance such that He puts up with his disdain? By thy life! [15:72]. How can a mortal be worthy for the grasp of the attributesto explain the polish of his heart's mirror by virtue of solicitude? Did We not expand for thee thy breast? [94:1]. How can a mortal be such that the auditor of the beginningless and endless register turns over the acceptance and rejection of the creatures to his threshold? Whatever the Messenger gives you, take; whatever he prohibits you, forgo [59:7]. O Muhammad! You are something dif- ferent, and your work is different! "You are a tongue other than the speech of every mouth,you are a soul other than the gentleness of anyone else.You are a thought other than in anyone's mind.How can they reach you? You are indeed another world.It has been said that in friendship are both separation and union. In the era of the Beginningless, when love was apportioned, the wail of separation's pain rose up from the house of Abū Jahl, and the glitter of union's sun shone from the chamber of MuḤammad the Arab. From that separation was created a hell in the heart of the estranged, and from this union was affirmed a paradise in the breast of the friends.After the sun of union shone on that paragon, the world's folk were bewildered in his work. The wish for his beauty and for following him rose up in the prophets. Moses the Speaking Com- panion said, " Lord God, make me one of his community! " Jesus the Spirit of God said, " Lord God, make me the door-keeper of his threshold! " [Abraham] the Bosom Friend said, " Lord God, make my mention flow on the tongue of his community! "More wonderful than all this is that the paragon himself became bewildered in the steps of his own path.

📘 God has already helped you in many homesteads, and on the Day of Hunain, when you admired your own multitude.Self-admiration is the ghoul of the road. It is the blight of the religion, the cause of the disappear- ance of blessings, the key to separation, and the basis of heedlessness. Self-admiration is that you consider your own obedience important, you consider yourself the source of your service, and you look upon your service with the eye of approval. By the decree of the reports and the fatwa of prophethood, the obedience of such a person will never go any further than his own head.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I am trying to avoid two claims, and from each I ask the help of Your bounty: fancying that I have something of my own, and fancying that I have a right- ful due against You.�O God, I have risen up from where I was, but I have not yet reached where I want to go.�O God, anyone who has not yet been killed by selflessness is a corpse. When someone's por- tion of friendship is talk, he has been defrauded. When someone's religion is not the road of spirit and heart, what business has he with the Friend?�MuṣṬafā said, �If you did not sin, I would be afraid that you would have something worse than sin: self-admiration! self-admiration!�He also said, �What a bad servant! A servant who imagines, becomes conceited, and forgets the Great, the Transcendent. What a bad servant! A servant who dominates, transgresses, and for- gets the All-Compelling, the Highest. What a bad servant! A servant who is negligent, inattentive, and forgets the tomb and disintegration. What a bad servant! A servant who is worried, oversteps, and forgets the beginning and the end.�

📘 The freewill offerings are for the poor, and the indigent.... and the son of the road....O you whose heart has never for one day walked in poverty and who, in your whole life, have never for one hour sat like Jacob in poverty's house of sorrows! O you who have never for one day placed your own attributes with the description of poverty in the mangonel of struggle and never for an instant sacrificed your spirit in the cave of exile and the state of indigence by following the beloved Prophet and the sincerely truthful Abū Bakr. You suppose that without tasting the drink of poverty and wearing the clothes of discipline today you will dwell tomorrow in the domiciles of the High Chambers with the poor among the Companions and the men of the road of poverty. Your supposition is erroneous and your self-governance wrong. They were a thousand times more passionate about that poverty of theirs than you are about being a chief.ʿAbd al-RaḤmān ibn ʿAwf was one of the paragons among the Companions, but the beauty of poverty had hidden its face from him. One day he came in to the presence of MuṣṬafā, and Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, a poor Companion, was present. Words came forth from ʿAbd al-RaḤmān that made the poor man sad, and he became ill. Then ʿAbd al-RaḤmān made one-half of his wealth a sacrifice for the suf- fering of his heart, but he would not accept. God's Messenger said, " O Saʿd, why will you not accept? "He said, " O Messenger of God! The pearl of poverty is too exalted to be sold even for the whole of this world. "For a hundred years the sun must rise in the east and set in the west before the beginningless decree gives a recognizer the eyes to see the beauty of poverty and recognize the exaltedness ofpoverty. He must have a pain that makes him familiar with seeking. But this seeking is not like the seeking of other things. This pain is not like other pains, which arise from the vapor of forbidden morsels and appear at the top of the stomach. The pain of the religion and the vision of this seeking arise from the level of the liver of the free man, and the exaltedness of the poverty in the hearts of seekers appears in the measure of their pain.