Alif lām rāʾ: [the rāʾ is] an allusion to the mercy that is the Muḥammadan essence, since He says We did not send you except as a mercy to all the worlds [Q. 21:107]. As for alif lām, they have already been mentioned. Those, that is, what is being alluded to by these letters is the pillars of the universal Book that contains wisdom, or the one whose differentiations have been set clear and precise. Or [it means]: I swear by God — in consideration of the ipseity of exclusive unity (aḥadiyya) in concentration and the attribute of inclusive unity (wāḥidiyya) in differentiation within the inner aspect of the realm of divine power (jabarūt) and the outer aspect of the realm of divine mercy (raḥamūt) — to what is being mentioned, or to that those signs mentioned in the sūra, are the signs of the Book, containing wisdom.

Is it for the people a wonder, to the end of this [verse]: He censures their wonder, since God’s way has always followed this method of inspiring men. Their wonder is because of their remoteness from his [the Prophet’s] station and the non-correspondence of their state to his state and the incompatibility of what they believe with what he has brought them. [‘Warn the people and give good tidings to those who believe] that they have a prior [promise of] truth with their Lord’?, that is to say, a tremendous precedent [of merit], in accordance with first [divine] solicitude, or [that they have] a station of propinquity to Him the like of which no one else enjoys and which God has specified for them from pre-eternity through pure selection, for otherwise they would not have been believers in it [the Qurʾān]. The disbelievers, who have been veiled from God and have not become aware of the manifestation of His attributes in the Muḥammadan soul, say, ‘Truly this, which he has brought, is manifest sorcery’, that is, something beyond the power of mortals, and can only be the work of devils. They say that because devilry [itself] holds sway over them and they are veiled by it from God, and because of their worship of Satan, such that they have not arrived at any stage of spiritual beings beyond him [Satan] in terms of power, which is why they ascribed what was beyond the limit of mortals to him by nature.

He directs, the affairs of the heavens and the earths in accordance with His wisdom by the Hand of His power. There is no intercessor, to intercede for anyone by effusing perfection and extending a light with which to bring that person close to God and deliver him from the darknesses of the soul and purify him from the abomination of its attributes, save after, He grants [His] permission by bestowing preparedness, then by facilitating the causes [for that intercession]; that, one who is described by these attributes, is God, your Lord, who nurtures you and directs your affair, so single out worship for Him and know Him by these attributes. Do not worship Satan and do not veil yourself from Him through one of His attributes such that you then ascribe His words and His acts to Satan.

To Him is the return of all of you, in the return to the source of non-delimited union at the minor resurrection, as is the case now, or to the source of the Essential union through annihilation in Him at the major resurrection: God’s promise, in truth. Truly He originates creation, at the first creation (nashʾa), then recreates it, at the second creation, that He may requite, the believer and the disbeliever according to their faith and their righteous deeds or [according to] their disbelief and corrupt deeds [respectively]: this is [the reading] according to the first interpretation. According to the second [possible interpretation]: He originates creation by hiding Himself and manifesting them, then recreates them by annihilating them and manifesting Himself, so that He might requite those who believe in Him and perform righteous deeds in the way that rectifies them for the encounter with Him in terms of deeds that remove their veils and draw them closer [to Him], with justice, in accordance with the stations which they have attained through their deeds by means of His bestowals of states and tastings, [bestowals] which are entailed by their station and their yearning. Or [it means] that He might requite those who believe with real faith and performed through God deeds which make servants righteous, that is to say, [so that He might requite them] with a requital of perfecting [them] for their justness, that is, because of their equitableness during the time of uprightness, or a requital commensurate with their level and station in terms of uprightness. And those who, are veiled in any given station, for them will be a draught of boiling water, for their ignorance of what is above that [station] and [for] their doubt and anxiety, since if they had arrived at certainty they would have tasted its coolness, and a painful chastisement, by way of privation and abandonment and the loss of the spirit of ecstatic consciousness because of their being veiled.

He it is Who made, the sun of the spirit the radiance of existence and the moon of the heart His light and determined [the extent of] its journeying in the wayfaring to Him, as mansions, and stations, so that you might know the number, of the ages of your levels and stages in journeying to God and in God, and the reckoning of your degrees and where you come to stand at each stattion and level.

Truly in the alternation, of the night of the victory of the darkness of the soul over the heart and the day of the irradiation of the light of the spirit upon this [heart] and [in] what God has created in the heavens of spirits and the earth of bodies, there are signs for a people who fear, the veils of the attributes of the commanding-soul and who have attained the level of the self-reproaching soul and have recognised these signs.

their supplication therein, that is, the supplication of their preparedness in the three Gardens to which God guides them in accordance with the light of their faith [is]: ‘Glory be to You, that is, it is their exalting of Him in the first [Garden] as transcendent above having associates in [His] acts by declaring themselves quit of any might or strength, and in the second [Garden] as being above having associates in His attributes by stripping themselves away from their attributes, and in the third [Garden] as being above having associates in existence by means of their annihilation; and their greeting therein, that is, the greeting of the one of them to the other at every level therein will be the effusion of the light of self-cleansing and the extending of self-purification by one to the other; or, that God’s greeting to them therein will be the irradiation of [His] self-disclosures and the extending of disengagement [to them] and the removal of defects by the Truth, exalted be He, from them. And their final supplication will be, that is to say, the last of what their preparednesses entail and their plea to God, exalted be He, by requesting effusion will be their subsisting through God in the manifestation of His perfections and the attributes of His majesty and beauty upon them, which is the true praise from Him and for Him. The specification of that praise for Him in undifferentiated mode then in differentiated mode is first in consideration of His absolute ipseity, then in consideration of His lordship over the worlds.

And if God should hasten for mankind evil, to the end of this [verse]: since preparednesses were created as naturally disposed (mafṭūra) to relative good, whether formal or supra-sensory, in the measure commensurate with their degrees from pre-eternity, then every supplication such [a preparedness] makes and [every] request for good, by the configuration of its receptivity and its purification and yearning for that [good], necessarily brings about the actualisation of that [good] for it promptly and its being effused upon him from the Effusing Principle who is the source of good things and blessings, as He says: And He grants you of all that you ask of Him [Q. 14:34]. Every time that good is effused upon him by virtue of his meriting it because of the existence of purification and cleansing, his preparedness increases by the joining of that good to him, becoming thus stronger and more receptive than the former, and so the Principle, exalted be He, is quicker to respond to him and more effusing upon him. Accordingly with the increase in preparedness comes the increase in effusion until it reaches its [full] extent, which is the significance of ‘the doubling of good deeds’ and the significance of His words: whoever brings a good deed shall have better than it [Q. 28:84]. As for evil things, these are nothing but the veils of preparedness and the impediments to receptivity and the barriers to effusion. When these [evils] are actualised, what takes place because of them is simply the non-receptivity for good things, whereby they are prevented from the effusion of these [good things] and the preparedness remains as the veil constituting what has been actualised by that [evil] and nothing else. If, in accordance with correspondence, that [preparedness] entails the effusion of evil, then there is nothing in the effusion of the Principle that corresponds to that [evil effusion] and so nothing is effused upon the latter from Its genus, and this is the significance of His words: and whoever brings an evil deed shall only be requited the like of it [Q. 6:160], unless, perhaps, if he has gone to excess and transgressed the bounds of mercy, eliminating [his] preparedness totally, thereby corresponding to devilry and drawing upon its world, as He says: Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? They descend upon every sinful liar [Q. 26:221-222]; it would already have been concluded for them, the extent of their preparedness would have been terminated and thus the reinforcement of true life would have been cut off from them and the reinforcement of good [would have been cut off] from their preparedness totally and the possibility for its being purified would have been eliminated entailing as it would have evil, Thereafter there would not reach them any good, neither formal nor supra-sensory. But He gives them respite as long as there remains in them the smallest glimpse of their preparedness and the possibility of receptivity for the slightest good. But We leave those who do not expect to encounter Us, from among those, that is, those who are not in the least bit concerned because of their being engrossed in evil acts and do not expect any light from Us and never awaken from their heedlessness by returning to Us and seeking Our mercy, in their insolence, and their extensive indulgence in evils to wander perplexed, so that the reinforcement of formal good things sought by their preparedness by the tongue of its state is cut off from them, such that, by this engrossment and immersion in the things of physical nature, the light of their preparedness disappears totally by virtue of the actualisation of rust [on their hearts], whereafter [their] obliteration becomes deserved and they are turned on their heads to the lowest of the low.

Mankind was but one community, upon the primordial nature which God created in mankind, oriented towards the unity, illumined by the light of original guidance, then they differed, by the exigencies of creation and the different constitutions and desires, habits and [social] interactions. And had it not been for a word that had already preceded from your Lord, that is, [were it not for] a decree that had preceded from pre-eternity to designate terms [of life] and provisions and that every fortunate one and every wretched one should fulfil the limits of what has been determined for him in terms of the things he does, it would have been decided between them regarding that over which they differed, imminently and the fortunate one would have been distinguished from the wretched one, as well as truth from falsehood in terms of their religions and communities. However, God’s wisdom has entailed that every one of them should attain the direction to which he has turned his countenance through the deeds which he performs and to manifest what is hidden in his soul.

And when We made people taste of mercy after adversity that had afflicted them: it has already been mentioned how different types of trials in the way of adversities and hardships and all kinds of severe distress [serve to] break the soul’s enthusiasm for evil (shirra) and make the heart more tender by removing the veils of the soul’s attributes, thinning the densities of nature and lifting of the coverings of vain desire. That is why their hearts incline by nature to their point of origin when in that state [of tasting mercy], since they are then returning to the entailments of their primordial nature, their original luminosity and their primordial faculty, and they are inclining to ascending, something which is rooted in them, once the impediment has been eliminated. Nay to incline to the upper aspect and to the luminous points of origin is a predisposition created in the nature of all spiritual faculties, even the animal soul, if it should cleanse itself of dark corporeal configurations. For to tend to what is low belongs to corporeal accidents. So much so that even beasts and wild animals when in hardship during times of scarcity and days of drought, [you see them] gather in groups with their heads raised towards the heaven as though their spiritual connection senses the coming down of an effusion from the upper aspect so that they might then draw on it [for relief]. Similarly, when outward graces are plentiful for people, the resources of nature in full supply for them and [their] corporeal needs [satisfied], the soul is strengthened [and emboldened] by the reinforcement of the lower aspect and its faculties become arrogant and overbearing towards the heart, the veil becomes denser and harsher, vain desire acquires mastery and becomes victory such that corporeal nature holds sway and dark corporeal configurations pile up. And thus the heart becomes shaped by the configuration of the soul, hardening, becoming harsher and insolent, made recklessly arrogant by [the plentifulness of] grace to the extent that it becomes ungrateful, blind and inclines to the lower aspect remote as it is to luminous configuration in such instances. In the measure that the soul acquires mastery over the heart, so too does the estimative faculty acquire mastery over the intellect, whereupon devilry becomes master, given that the rational faculty is now captive in the shackles of estimation and under its command, exploited by it for its own pursuits and rendering its goals palatable to it as it actualises the pleasures of the soul, reinforcing it [the rational faculty] from the world of abomination and strengthening its attributes with equipment from the world of natural character and tools of the substrata of [worldly] shares through reflection, such that the heart becomes veiled through [the accumulation of] rust to the receptivity of the attributes of the Truth totally. That is the significance of His words: behold! they have some plot concerning Our signs. Say: ‘God is swifter at plotting, by concealing the true vanquishing power within this formal graciousness, while [simultaneously] preparing the chastisement of the fires of privation, the snakes and the black scorpions of the configurations of vices, as well as the garment of boiling pitch within this outward mercy. Surely Our messengers are writing down that which you are plotting’: you have already come to know that heavenly spiritual realm is engraved with every event that occurs in this world. Thus every good or vile deed that issues from someone has already been inscribed for him in those Tablets. The spiritual realm for every body has been connected to those spiritual (malakūtiyya) points of origin. Consequently, whenever we aspire to do a good thing or a wicked thing, its form is etched out in the spiritual realm of our bodies as an incoming thought initially whereafter we reflect upon it. Once the engraving is firmly established and resolve issues forth from it so that we live up to the initial thought [itself] with unequivocal will, it becomes imprinted as we embark on that act; except that if it is a good deed it is instantly imprinted in the direction of the heart, which is adjacent to the spirit and the tablet of the inner heart illumined by its light. The practical rational faculty, which is the angel of the right-hand side, from the two [guardian] angels charged [with every human being] — the ones alluded to in His saying: on the right and on the left [there is one] seated [Q. 50:17] — then records this [act]. For the inner heart is the stronger of the two sides. If it is an evil deed, it does not become imprinted immediately because of the remoteness of the dark configuration from the heart and its non-correspondence to it in essence. If that the divine granting of success overtakes that person and one of the lights of spiritual guidance shines over him and he is remorseful and seeks forgiveness, that [evil thought] will be erased and he will be pardoned; but if it does not reach him, that [thought] will keep repeating itself until the soul reinforces it by the darkness of its attributes whereupon it will be come to reside in the tablet of the breast which is that aspect of the heart that is adjacent to the soul and which is dark because of the darkness of the soul that overwhelmed it when that act issued forth from it. The imaginative faculty, which is the angel of the left, since this is the weaker of the two sides, will record that [deed]. This is what they mean when they say that the angel on the left does not record an evil deed until six hours have passed: if during this that person seeks forgiveness it is not recorded, but if he persists it is recorded. From this statement one is able to understand the [meaning of the] bringing of the book to the Muslim by his right hand and to the unbeliever by his left. As for the [actual] form of this bringing and its modality, this will be mentioned in the relevant place, God willing.

[O mankind] your insolence is only against your own souls, to the end of this [verse]: insolence is the opposite of justness. So just as justness is a virtue that subsumes all other virtues and configuration from the [inclusive] unity that procures an effusion from the light of the Oneness for the soul, so insolence can only be the result of utter engrossment in vices such that it requires all of them. The one so [insolent] is at extreme distance from the Truth and utter darkness, as it is said [in a ḥadīth]: ‘Injustice shall be [a heap of] darknesses on the Day of Resurrection’. That is why He says ‘against your souls’ and not against the victim of the injustice, because the one suffering the injustice will end up fortunate thereby while the unjust one will be utterly wretched. It is but the enjoyment of the life of this world since all excesses and acts of immoderation that are the counterpart to justice are mere natural enjoyments and animal pleasures that will perish with the perishing of sensory life whose similitude in being quick to disappear and of little endurance is given in the similitude here in which the earth adorns itself with its ornaments by [receiving] rainwater but is then quickly destroyed by some ruinous matter before there is time to profit from the plants [that had shot forth with the rain]. There then follows eternal wretchedness and everlasting painful chastisement. According to the ḥadīth it is said that the good that is quickest to receive reward is kindness to relatives; and the evil that receives its punishment most promptly is insolence and the perjurious oath, since against this latter there accumulate the dues of people and so his punishment cannot be delayed for the length of time that a due of God, exalted be He, can. I have heard one [Sufi] shaykh say: ‘Rarely does an insolent [tyrant] die a natural death and rarely does a wicked person reach old age’, and that is because they both challenge God, exalted be He, by trying to demolish the order which God’s solicitude is devoted to keeping in check and because they both contravene His wisdom and His justice.

And God summons to the Abode of Peace: He summons all to the abode of the peace of the spiritual world in which there is no calamity, no deficiency, no misery and no perishing, but instead there is safety from every defect and security from every fear, and He guides whomever He wills, of the prepared folk from among them, to, the path of [His] Oneness.

For those who do good, that is, for those who do that by which their [spiritual] state becomes fairer in the way of good, whether in deed or speech or knowledge, and which is the cause of their perfection, [there shall be for them], the fairest reward, in terms of the perfection that will be effused upon them as a result of that good, and an increase, in the way of level than the preceding one, either by rising [to the next station] or an increase in preparedness for the receptivity of goodness and perfections by adding this perfection and this light that is being effused upon them to their former preparedness as mentioned; neither dust from the impurities of the soul’s attributes and the rising of its overwhelmings, shall overcome, the faces of their hearts, nor ignominy, from the inclination of their hearts to the lower aspect. Those, they are the inhabitants of the Garden, which their state and their elevation entail of the mentioned Gardens, wherein they will abide.

And for those who earn, all kinds of, evil deeds, in the way of deeds, words and beliefs that veil their preparedness from the reception of perfection, [there shall be] the requital of an evil deed by the like thereof, in terms of the configuration that has been perpetrated by their hearts by way of their evil deeds, preventing them from purity and light, and ignominy, inclination to the lower aspect, shall overcome them — they have no protector against God, to protect them from that ignominy and forsaking on account of the presence of the veil and the non-receptivity for protection by virtue of the impurities becoming fixed [therein] — as if their faces had been covered with strips of darkest night, because of the excessive extent to which they have acquired that dark configuration through their natural inclinations and despicable deeds. Those, they are the inhabitants of the Fire, which their state entails in tending to the lower [aspect] in the way of the fires of [their] vestiges and [evil] acts.

And the day on which We shall gather them all together, at the greatest gathering, the source of the non-delimited union of existence; then We shall say to those who associated others [with God], from among them, that is, the veiled ones who have halted with the other in love and obedience: ‘In your place!, that is, hold your place. You and your associates!’: the meaning [of this] is that they are made to halt with that with which they had halted [in their idolatry] at the halting place in addition to the severing of the union (waṣl) and the means (asbāb) which are the very causes of their love and their worship, with the worshipped being dissociating from the worshipper because of the absence of corporeal instruments and natural individual desires which necessitated that union. That is the meaning of His words: Then We shall make a separation between them, in other words, even though they are together at the halting place, We shall make a separation between them in terms of direction, in that the level of the worshipped ends up being higher while the level of the worshipper ends up lower in addition to the discrepancy between their two states, if the worshipped being was a noble being, such as the angels, Jesus or Ezra and their like from among those who have a preceding reward from God, as He says: Indeed those to whom [the promise of] the fairest reward went beforehand from Us, those, they will be kept away from it [Q. 21:101]; and their associates will say: ‘It was not us that you were worshipping, rather you were worshipping Satan by your obedience of him and what you fancifully invented by your estimations in the way of corrupt falsehoods and fallacious wishes.

God suffices as a witness, to the end of this [verse]: in other words, God knows that we did not command to you this and we did not desire that you worship us.

There, that is, at that halting place, every soul, shall be tested and made to taste, what it did before, in this world, and they shall be returned to God, at the halting place for recompense having been cut off from their deities and being isolated from them [and along with], their rightful Lord, who takes charge of requiting them justly and equitably, and that which they were forging, in the way of their fanciful inventions, the principles of their religion, their creed, their fictitious estimations and false wishes, shall fail them.

And this Qurʾān is not, a fabrication [concocted], besides God; but it is a confirmation of what is before it, of the Preserved Tablet, and a detailing of the Book, which is the Mother, as where He says: And it is indeed in the Mother Book, with Us, [and it is] indeed exalted, full of wisdom [Q. 43:4]. In other words, how can it be discordant [with previous revelation] when it has already been confirmed previously in two Books, in terms of detailed knowledge as in the Preserved Tablet and in terms of undifferentiated knowledge as in the Mother Book the detailing of which is this [Qurʾān].

Nay, but they denied that, the knowledge whereof they did not comprehend: in other words, since they did not know the modality of its confirmation according to God’s knowledge and its revelation to our master Muḥammad, blessings and peace be upon him, and [since] their knowledge fell short of that, they denied it; and whereof the interpretation has not yet come to them, that is, [before there has come to them] the manifestation of what it [the Qurʾān] alludes to of promised eventualities and similes, the affair and knowledge of which constitutes its unfolding (taʾwīl) whereat they would not be able to deny [it], because once its realities are manifested no one will be able to deny it. The like of that tremendous denial, did those who were before them deny. Behold then what was, their sequel when they did evil by [their] denial.

And of them are some who believe in it, that is, who will believe in it because of the thinness of their veil, and some who would never believe therein, ever, because of the thickness of their veil.

And of them are some who listen to you, but do not understand, either because they lack preparedness originally, or because dark configurations that veil the light of preparedness are firmly rooted in them, or because of both of these coming together, as in the case of one who is deaf and without reason, such that he cannot hear and cannot comprehend any gesture: how can such a one be made to understand?

And of them are some who look toward you, but do not perceive the truth nor your reality, because of one of the two mentioned reasons or both, as in the case of the blind person to whose loss of sight is added the loss of insight so that he neither sees nor perceives: how can such be guided?

Verily God is not unjust towards mankind in any way: since there is mention of deafness and blindness, both of which indicate a lack of preparedness for perception, one is given to think from these statements that an injustice has taken place by virtue of the fact that some possess preparedness while others do not. However, He disavows any [suggestion of] injustice with regard to Himself because the lack of original preparedness is not [an act of] injustice [on His part], on account of the non-existence of the possibility of better [preparedness] than that with regard to that person’s specificity and ipseity: thus his entified reality entails that [preparedness] at some level of contingency. It is like in the case of an ass which, given its asinine nature, cannot possess preparedness entailing human perception and its entified reality requires the asinine preparedness entailed therein: nothing is demanded of it that would be beyond [the capacity of] its preparedness. Hence there is no injustice in this case, since there had not been any at the outset. If, however, it [the preparedness] is invalidated by dark configurations taking firm root, then [the matter is clear and] there is nothing more to be said about this. In both cases, that person is unjust to his soul. As for the former, [he is unjust] because he has fallen short in terms of the degrees of contingency and his deficiency relative to what is above him, as, for example, with the ass falling short of [the level of] man and its being deficient in relation to him but not in relation to itself: in terms of itself it [the ass] has neither fallen short nor is deficient. As for the latter, it is obvious.^{1This is the case of the person who is unjust to his own soul by ruining his preparedness as a result of accumulating dark configurations.} According to this sense then: they [mankind] are unjust to their own souls. They diminish their shares. Or, it is that God does not wrong mankind in any way by demanding of them what is beyond their [individual] preparedness and then punishing them for [failing] that. It is that mankind wrong their own souls by using their preparednesses for things other than for which these were created.

And on the day when He shall gather them as if they had not tarried but an hour of the day, since they do not sense motion, a concomitant of their obliviousness (dhuhūl) to [the passage of] time. For the one who is oblivious to motion will [also] be oblivious to time. Thus a single hour or interminable ages are all the same to them; they recognise one another, by virtue of their former companionship and the exigency of vain desire that is a corollary of the original correspondence [between them] [and recognising each other] by the sign of the ominous fate [that awaits them]. Then if the original genus-correspondence and correspondence of primordial nature remain by virtue of their having the one orientation and coincidence in terms of goals the mutual recognition between them remains. If it does not remain because of the variance of desires and difference of opinions as well as the discrepancy in terms of the configurations deriving from the appendages of creation and the accidents of substrata, this [mutual recognition] turns into mutual denial; those will verily have lost who denied the encounter with God, because of their having fallen under the loneliness (waḥsha) of mutual denial in that case and their veiling themselves with the veils of their wicked habits and the configurations of their corrupt beliefs, and they were not guided: and the light of their preparedness is invalidated so that they are not guided to God nor to mutual recognition and are thus made to slink in a loathsome state, banished, having no intimate with whom to be familiar nor any acquaintance to give refuge to.

And for every community there is a messenger, who corresponds to them in terms of ego-centric states so that he might make possible between them that familiarity which leads to their being able to learn from him and so that he might be able to descend to the limits of their intellects and the levels of their comprehensions and thus cleanse them by means of what will rectify their states and remove their veils and teach them that which will result in their elevation from their stations and guide to God. And when their messenger comes, judgement is passed between them, with the guiding of those who have accepted guidance and the sending astray of those who have chosen to stray and the felicity of the fortunate ones and the wretchedness of those who are damned by the manifestation of all of that in his presence, some obeying him because of their closeness to him, others denying him because of their remoteness from him, justly, that is, with equity, that which prevails in the state of a prophet, being as it is the outward aspect of his affirmation of [God’s] Oneness, his conduct and his chosen path, and they are not wronged, by having other than what is their state ascribed to them and then being requited for it. Or, it is that judgement is passed between them by delivering and confirming those who have found guidance through him [the messenger] and destroying those who have gone astray and chastising them on account of the manifesting of the causes for such [chastisement] through his presence [among them].

And they say: ‘When will this promise come to pass, if you are truthful?’: a disavowal [on their part] because of their being veiled from the resurrection and their failure to become aware of its meaning, since had they known its modality by the lifting of their veils through disengagement from the garments of the soul, they would have believed them concerning that [promise] and would not have disavowed [it].

Say: ‘I have no power to hurt myself, to the end of this [verse]: he approximated for them the presential vision of the [divine] acts by denying that he has power or effective agency and that if such does come about from him it must necessarily be through God’s will, so that they might recognise the vestiges of the resurrection. He then intimates [to them] that the minor resurrection will take place at the termination of their appointed times, which are determined by God as in where He says: For every community there is an appointed time, to the end of this [verse].

O people! There has come to you an admonition, that is, a [means of] cleansing for your souls by way of [the mention of] promise and threat, warning and glad tidings, restraining from sins that lead to punishment and incitement to deeds that result in reward, so that you might conduct yourselves on the basis of fear and hope, and a healing for what is in the breasts, that is, [for what is in] the hearts of sicknesses, such as doubt, hypocrisy, rancour, deception and the like thereof, [a healing that cures by] instructing [people] in the realities and the wisdoms that necessarily result in certainty and [by] purifying these [hearts] for the reception of gnosis and illumination by the light of the Oneness and being prepared for the self-disclosures of the attributes, and a guidance, for your spirits towards the presential vision of the Essence, and a mercy, by way of the effusion of the perfections that befit every one of the three stations after the actualisation of preparedness at the station of the soul through admonition, and at the station of the heart through purification and at the station of the spirit through guidance, for those who believe, by way of affirmation first, certainty second and eyewitness thirdly.

Say: ‘In the bounty of God, that is, in His facilitating the reception at the three stations, and in His mercy, in the bestowals relating to character traits, knowledge and unveilings at the three levels let them concern themselves; and if they are to rejoice, in that let them rejoice, and not in transient matters that amount to little and are of lowly worth and weight: it is better than what they hoard’, in the way of vile corrupt things and evanescent degrading things from among the sum total of the ephemera [of this world], if they are truly folk of knowledge and perspicacity and possessors of esteem and aspirations.

Say: ‘Have you considered what God has sent down, to the end of this [verse]: that is to say, inform me: that which God has sent down in the way of spiritual provision, such as the realities, forms of gnosis, states, and bestowals and [provision] such as refined manners, divine laws, admonitions and counsels, how you have made some of it unlawful, as in the case of the first group, and some lawful?’, as in the case of the second group. Say: ‘Has God given you permission, to judge what is unlawful and what is lawful, or do you invent lies concerning God?’

And what do they suppose, those who invent lies concerning God, [will happen to them] on the Day of, the middle, Resurrection?, at the disengagement of the heart from the garments of the soul and the actualisation of certainty; or, on the day of the major resurrection at the affirmation of the Essential unity and the manifestation of eyewitnessing. In other words, their supposition shall not endure and will amount to nothing then. Or, [it is] on the day of the minor resurrection at [the point of] death and the actualisation of privation: in other words, their supposition shall have an evil consequence for them and will be a chastisement then. Truly God is Bountiful to people, with both kinds of worlds, effusing both [onto them] and facilitating [for them] the reception of both and setting up the preparedness to accept the two; but most of them do not give thanks, for His graces and so they use what He has bestowed on them of preparedness and knowledge in order to actualise particular benefits and sensory goals, becoming ungrateful for His graces and hence prevented from increase.

Assuredly God’s friends, those immersed in the source of the ipseity of [exclusive] unity through the annihilation of the ego, no fear shall befall them, since no remnant of them remains by which they might fear privation, nor [do they have] any ultimate goal beyond what they have attained so that they might then fear the veils of this [pursuit], neither shall they grieve, because of the impossibility of anything in the way of perfections and pleasures eluding them that they might then grieve for it. It is related from Saʿīd b. Jubayr that the Messenger of God, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, was once asked, ‘Who are these [friends]?’, to which he replied, ‘They are the ones the sight of whom provokes remembrance of God’, which is a subtle allusion from him, peace be upon him. It is also related from ʿUmar [bin al-Khaṭṭāb], may God be satisfied with him: ‘I heard the Messenger of God say, “Verily there are servants of God who are neither prophets nor martyrs but are envied by the prophets and the martyrs on the Day of Resurrection for their place with God”. They asked [the Prophet], “O Messenger of God, pray tell who are they and what [sort of] deeds did they perform, that perhaps we might love them?” He said, “They are a folk whose love for one another is through God and not on the basis of any kinship or any business they conduct with one another. By God their faces are light and verily they stand upon minbars of light, fearing not when people have fear, neither grieving when people grieve”, whereupon he recited this [above] verse’. As for his saying that they are ‘upon minbars of light’, he means by this that they are connected to the higher spiritual principles, such as the First Intellect and what comes after that.

Those who believe and fear [God]: if [this clause is] understood as an adjectival qualification of ‘God’s friends’, then the meaning is: those who believe with the faith of the Truth and who guard against any remnants from themselves or the manifestation of any variegations in them;

theirs are good tidings in the life of this world, by the coming into existence of uprightness [in their case] with regard to deeds and character traits that are good tidings [for them] of the Garden of the souls, and in the Hereafter, by the manifestation upon them of the lights of the attributes, the spiritual realities and the gnoses deriving from the Truth, all of which are glad tidings of the Garden of the hearts and the actualisation [for them] of [spiritual] tasting and pleasures through these two [Gardens]. There is no changing the Words of God, His realities that come upon them, His Names that are unveiled to them and the judgements of His self-disclosures that descend upon them. If the beginning of each [of the clauses] is taken as a [new syntactical] subject, then the meaning is: for those who believe with the faith of certainty and guard against the veils of the soul’s attributes and the impediments to unveilings in the way of illusory doubts and satanic evil whisperings there are good tidings in the life of this world by means of the ecstatic consciousness of the pleasure of the coolness of certainty in the soul and its reassurance by the descent [upon it] of the divine peace, and [good tidings] in the Hereafter by means of the ecstatic consciousness of the tasting of the self-disclosures of the attributes and the effects of the lights of unveilings. [And it means that] there is no changing the Words of God in terms of their God-given knowledge and judgements of certainty or the primordial nature which God has created in them, every soul being a Word [of God].

And let not what they say grieve you: in other words, do not be affected by it, for it is [mere] contentiousness [on their part]. Rather, witness the might of God and His vanquishing power so that you might look upon them in light of the annihilation and see their deeds and statements and their threats to you as [scattered] dust. For he who witnesses God’s power and might, will see that all power and might belongs [only] to Him and that there is no power or strength in anyone else. He is the Hearer, of what they say about you and will requite them [for it], the Knower, of what ought to be done with them. He then demonstrates their weakness, incapacity and the impossibility of their overcoming him with His words:

Why, surely to God belongs all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth, all being under His dominion, disposal and subjugation and have no power over anything other than through His Essence and His will and His empowering of them. Those who call upon besides God are not following associates: what thing can those who call upon besides God follow as associate? In other words, if all are under His subjugation and dominion, then what they call upon besides God cannot be anything, nor can it have any effective agency or power; they are following nothing but, the illusions of their conjecture and what they conjure up in their imagination, and they are but reckoning the existence of something which has no existence in reality.

He it is Who made for you the night, of the body, that you should rest therein, and the day, of the spirit that you should perceive thereby the realities of things and that by which you might be guided to Him. Surely in that are signs for a folk who are able to hear, the speech of God and thus understand its esoteric meanings and bounds and discover thereby His attributes and His names and thus witness Him as He is described and qualified by these.

They say, ‘God has taken [to Him] a son’, that is, a defective [thing] to correspond to Him in genus. Glory be to Him!: declare Him as transcendent above correponding in genus to anything. He is Independent, One who exists by His own Essence and by Whom everything comes to exist. How then can anything be like Him? And the One to whom all existence belongs: how can anything correspond to Him?

And recite to them the story of Noah, with regard to the soundness of his trust in God and how he looked upon his people and their associates through the eye of annihilation and [how] he was not concerned with them or with their scheming, so that they might consider thereby your state [with regard to them], for all prophets are one in terms of the creed of the affirmation of Oneness and their subsisting in God and not being concerned with [the machinations of] creatures.

And Moses said, ‘O my people, if you have believed in God, a faith of certainty, then put your trust in Him: he has made trust as one of the concomitants of submission [to God], and it is the submission of one’s countenance to God, exalted be He. But he did not make submission as a concomitant of faith, in other words, if your faith and certainty have become perfect in such a way that this has had an effect upon your souls and made them purely for God, annihilated in Him, then trust in Him must necessarily follow [from that]. For the first level of annihilation is the annihilation of acts, followed by the attributes then existence. Once annihilation is complete then trust must follow, which is the annihilation of the acts. If what is meant by islām is obedience, then it is a precondition for trust and not a concomitant thereof, in which case the meaning would be: if your faith is sound in terms of certainty, then trust in Him on the condition that you do not act and that you do not see yourselves or others as having any power or effective agency, but that you become obediently submissive, as one who is dead. For the precondition for the soundness of trust [in God] is the annihilation of the remnants of acts and the faculties, as they say, ‘If you do not like this [kind of] tree, then pull it out if you can’. As for the remainder of the sūra to the end, some of it cannot be submitted to allegorical interpretation, and the rest is known from what has already been mentioned.