Alif lām rāʾ. A Book We have revealed to you that you may bring forth mankind, from the darkness of the multiplicity to the light of the unity; or, from the darkness of the attributes of origination to the light of primordial nature; or, form the darkness of the veils of acts and attributes to the light of essence, by the leave of their Lord, by His facilitation in depositing that light in them in the form of preparedness from the Holiest Effusion drawn from the World of the Divinity, and by His granting of success in preparing the means of its emergence into actuality from the Presence of the Lordliness. For His leave is the gift of preparedness and the preparation of the means: otherwise there would be no one to bring them out; to the path of the Mighty, the Strong who vanquishes the darkness of the multiplicity with the light of His unity, the One who is Praised, for the perfection of His Essence. According to the second meaning: the path of the Mighty who vanquishes the attributes of the soul by the light of the heart, the Praised one who bestows the graces of virtues and forms of knowledge when the primordial nature is pure. According to the third: the Mighty who by the august glories of His essence vanquishes the lights of His attributes and annihilates by the Reality of His He-ness all of His creatures, the Praised one who bestows the subsisting existence that is perfect, after the annihilation of vices and the one that is deficient by the existence of His essence and the beauty of His countenance.

And woe to the disbelievers, those who are veiled from the unity, or primordial nature, or the self-disclosure of the Essence and His unveiling. The levels of chastisement are dependent on [one of] these three aspects. Thus it is either the chastisement of the love of rivals [set up for God] in the Hell-fire of contrareity; the chastisement of configurations of vices and the fires of the attributes of the soul and the entailments of natures; or the chastisement of the veils of the acts and the attributes and privation from the light of the Essence;

those who prefer the, sensory, life of this world, over the rational once and the formal one over the spiritual one, by virtue of His description of being astray as being remote and by virtue of the fact that the world of the senses is the most distant of the levels from God, exalted be He.

And We have not sent any Messenger except with the tongue of his people, that is, with speech that corresponds with the state in which they are in, in accordance with their preparedness and commensurate with their intellects. For otherwise they would not understand, as that meaning would then be remote from their understanding and would not correspond with their station; and he would not be able to make clear for them the potential in their first preparedness in the way of perfection that befits it and what their ipseities entail according to primordial nature; God then sends astray whomever He will, because of the disappearance of that person’s preparedness through dark configurations that have taken deep root [in him] and false beliefs that have settled [in him]; and He guides whomever He will, whomever has remained upon his preparedness, or in whom the veils of his configurations and the forms of his beliefs have not taken deep root; and He is the Mighty, the Strong whose will cannot be overcome and so He guides whomever He wishes to send astray and sends astray whomever He wishes to be guided; the Wise, who manages the affair of guiding the one to be guided by all manner of graces and the affair of the sending astray of the one to be sent astray by all manner of forsaking, as required by [His] ultimate wisdom.

Surely in that are signs for every man enduring, grateful, that is, for every believer with faith in the Unseen, since endurance and gratefulness are two stations for the wayfarer that precede arrival, right after the compact of faith and the journeying in the acts in order to actualise the level of trust [in God]: at that point His signs he [the wayfarer] heeds and draws on, and which he holds on to and supports himself on during his wayfaring, [these] constitute the acts. And so everytime he sees a grace or hears of one or one reaches him, such as guidance or otherwise, he gives thanks with the tongue and with the heart by conceptualising that [grace] as being from God, and [thanks] with the limbs by means of [his] virtuous reception and acceptance [of that grace] as well as obedience and conduct in accordance with the requirements of that [grace] in the way necessary. And everytime he sees an affliction or hears of one or one befalls him, he endures patiently by guarding his tongue from anxious fear and by saying: surely we belong to God and to Him we will return [Q. 2:156]; and by fortifying the heart [with patience] and conceptualising that in that [affliction] there is good and welfare for him, for otherwise God would not have tried him with that, and by preventing the limbs from restlessness.

‘Can there be doubt concerning God, despite the obviousness of Him? In other words, how can you doubt that to which we [the messengers] are calling you to when there is no room for doubt concerning Him on account of the extent of His manifestness? Rather it is that it is necessary to clarify that which clarifies Him. He calls you so that He might forgive you your sins, so that He might shield by His light the darkness of the veils of your attributes so that you do not have any doubt concerning Him at the disclosure of certainty, and defer you to, a felicitous end entailed by your preparedness, since every individual has designated for him, in accordance with his first preparedness, a perfection which constitutes his spiritual term. Likewise for every person, in accordance with his first constitution, there is an end to his life that constitutes his natural term. And just as interfering terms severe life before arrival at that appointed end because of some particular cause, likewise calamities and impediments, which are the veils of preparedness, prevent a person from arriving at that designated perfection.

And they sally forth to God all together: there are three sallies for creatures.^{1In keeping with the exigencies of the English translation of the Qurʾān, the expression ‘sallying forth’ has been retained in the commentary in order to maintain the connection with the scriptural narrative. The term burūz, however, is a technical term denoting ‘projection’ or ‘exteriorisation’ of creatures, which properly refers to the unfolding of the divine essence in creation.} A sallying forth at the minor resurrection upon the death of the body; the sallying forth of every person from the veil of his body onto the open space of the Reckoning and the Recompense; and a sallying forth at the middle resurrection upon voluntary death to the veil of the attributes of the soul and the sallying forth to the open space of the heart at the return to primordial nature; and a sallying forth at the major resurrection upon pure annihilation from the veil of the ego to the space of the real unity, which is the sallying forth referred to in His saying and they sally forth to God, the One, the Vanquisher [Q. 14:48]. Those who belong to this [latter] resurrection, He will see them exteriorised (burūz), nothing of them being hidden to God. As for the manifestation of this resurrection for all and the exteriorisation of all before God and the incidence of the speech between the weak and the arrogant, that will be with the presence of the Messiah (mahdī), the one who subsists by [upholding] justice, the one who will discriminate between the inhabitants of the Garden and those of the Fire at the conclusion of the divine affair with the deliverance of the fortunate and the sending of the wretched to perdition.

And Satan says: the authority of the Truth triumphs over the Satan of illusion, whos is illumined by His light and so submits and complies, and becomes truthful, knowing that the definitive argument [truly] belongs to God in His calling of creation to the Truth and [belongs] not to him [Satan]; and his [Satan’s] call to falsehood by seducing [them] with what is evanescent and adorning for them the life of this world is groundless and devoid of proof. So he [Satan] affirms that His promise, exalted be He, of subsistence after the decay of the body, and of reward and punishment at the sending forth [at the Resurrection] is [a promise of] truth which has been fulfilled; whereas my [Satan’s] promise that there is only the life of this world is falsehood, which I invented, and those who deserve to be blamed are only those who accepted the call that was devoid of proof and responded to it and turned away from the call that was accompanied by evidence and did not respond to it: so do not blame me, but blame yourselves.

a goodly word, that is, a goodly soul, as has already been mentioned in the naming of Jesus, peace be upon him, as ‘a word’ [from God] [cf. Q. 3:45], is as a goodly tree, likened by Him to an olive tree in the Qurʾān and a date-palm in the ḥadīth; its root set firm, through reassuredness and the firmness of conviction through proof, and its shoots are in, the heaven of the spirit;

it gives its produce, of the fruits of gnoses, wisdoms and realities [at], every, moment, by the leave of its Lord, by His facilitating and expediting [of that] by the successful bringing together and setting up of the means.

And the similitude of a bad, soul, is as a bad tree, like colocynth or solanaceae, uprooted from upon the earth, deracinated because of its inconstancy, perturbed belief and lack of stability regarding anything.

God confirms those who believe, with the faith of certainty by a real proof, in the, sensory, life, for their uprightness with regard to the divine law and for their wayfaring along the path of virtue and justice as they [seek to] secure livelihood, and in the Hereafter, in other words, [and in] the spiritual life, for their being guided by the light of the Truth in following the [Sufi] path, and for following an insight from God and a clear proof from their Lord as they [seek to] actualise gnoses; and God sends astray the evildoers, in both lives, because of the diminishing of their preparedness by the shares of the soul’s attributes and their subsisting in bewilderment because of being veiled from the light of the Truth.

[Have you not seen those] who exchanged God’s grace, which He bestowed upon them from pre-eternity in terms of original guidance and the light of preparedness which is the merchandise of salvation, for unthankfulness, that is, [in return] for veiledness and misguidance, as He has said, those are they who have bought error for guidance; so their commerce has not profited them, nor are they guided [Q. 2:16], having forfeited the subsisting light and exchanged it for transient sensory pleasure, remaining thus in everlasting darkness; and who caused their people, those of the faculties of their souls or those who follow their ways, emulate their example and imitate them in that, to take up residence in the Abode of Ruin?

And they have set up rivals to God, in the way of the enjoyments of this world, its wholesome and appetising things, loving these as they love God, since anything the love of which overwhelms becomes an object of worship. God, exalted be He, has said, Beautified for mankind is love of lusts — of women, children to the end [of the verse Q. 3:14], that they might lead [others] astray from His way, all those who look to them from among the juveniles who are prepared and those who follow their religion. Say: ‘Enjoy!, go the whole way with that [error of yours] by the command of illusion, for your enjoyment shall be shortlived, quick to disappear, imminently evanescent and its consequence an evil one by ending up in the Fire.

God it is Who created, the heavens of the spirits and the earth of the body, and He sends down from, the heaven of the world of the Holy the water of knowledge, and with it He brings forth, from the earth of the soul, the fruits of wisdoms and virtues, as sustenance for you, and fortification for the heart. And He has disposed for you, rivers of knowledge by means of reasoning, inference, derivation and differentiation.

And He has disposed for you, the sun of the spirit and the moon of the heart, constant, in journeying through unveilings and witnessings, and He has disposed for you, the night that is the darkness of the soul’s attributes and the day that is the light of the spirit in order to seek livelihood and [means to] the final return, as well as rest and illumination.

And He gives you of all that you ask of Him, by the tongues of your preparednesses, for every thing that asks of Him perfection by the tongue of its preparedness, He effuses upon it at the request without delay or languor, as He has said, All that is in the heavens and the earth implore Him. Every day He is upon some matter [Q. 55:29]. And if you were to enumerate God’s grace, of those matters that precede your existence, effused from the Divine Presence, and of those [matters] that come to you in the way of the reinforcement of [spiritual] nurturing that arrives [to you] from the Lordly Presence, you could never number it, because of its endlessness, as affirmed by [His] wisdom. Lo! man is verily a wrong-doer, by placing the light of preparedness and the substratum of subsistence in the darkness of nature and the locus of annihilation and expending that [light] therein, or by diminishing what is due to God or what is due to his own soul by annulling his preparedness, and unthankful, for those graces, which cannot be enumerated, by using them for what they should not be used, and [unthankful] by being heedless of the One bestowing these graces on him and veiling himself from Him with these [graces].

And when Abraham, of the spirit, said, by the tongue of [his] state upon orienting himself to God and seeking presential vision: ‘My Lord, make this land, that is, the land of the body, secure, from the overcomings of the attributes of the soul, the mutual conflict of the faculties and the mutual attraction of vain desires, and turn me and my sons, the rational faculties, both the considerative and the practical, reflection, intuition, remembrance and others, away from serving, the idols of multiplicity, away from sensory lusts, corporeal desires, the familiars of nature through love.

My Lord, truly they have led astray many of mankind, by causing them to be attached to these, being attracted to them and being veiled by them from the unity. So whoever follows me, in the wayfaring along the path of the affirmation of the Oneness, verily belongs with me, and whoever disobeys me, truly You are Forgiving, concealing for him that dark configuration by Your light, Merciful, to him by effusing upon him perfection after forgiveness.

Our Lord, indeed I have made some of, the seed of my faculties, to dwell in a valley where there is no sown land, that is to say, the valley of corporeal nature that is devoid of the sown land of perception, knowledge, gnosis and virtue, by Your Sacred House, which is the heart, our Lord, that they may establish, the prayer of communion and unveiling. So make some of the hearts, of the men of the senses, yearn towards them, so that they are provisioned with all types of sensations, reinforced with the capacity to perceive particulars and take their side to avoid contravention by inclining to the lower aspect and to corporeal pleasures. And provide them, with the fruits of gnoses and realities of universals, that they might be thankful, for Your grace and thus use those perceptions to seek perfection.

Our Lord, You know what we hide, of what is in us in potential, and what we proclaim, of what we have projected into actuality of perfections. And nothing is hidden from God, in the earth of preparedness or in the heaven of the spirit.

Praise be to God Who has given me, at the advanced age of perfection, Ishmael, the considerative rational faculty, and Isaac, the cognitive one. Lo! my Lord is indeed the Hearer of supplication, that is, [He is indeed] the Hearer of the supplication of the preparedness, as one [of them] said, ‘Suffice it as my supplication [of Him] that He should have knowledge of my state’.

My Lord, make me an establisher, of the prayer of presential vision, and [also] of my seed, each one of them an establisher of a prayer specific to him. Our Lord! And accept my supplication, that is, my request for complete annihilation in You.

Our Lord, forgive me, with the light of Your essence the sin of my existence so that I might not become veiled in insolence, and my parents, and the causes of my existence in the way of recipient entities and agents, such that I do not see anything other than You and that I might not turn my attention to anything besides You, lest I be afflicted with deviating vision, and [forgive also] the believers of the spiritual faculties, on the day when, the reckoning of luminous spiritual configurations and ego-centric dark ones — depending on which is the preponderant — shall come to pass’.

The day when the earth will be changed to other than the earth: the earth of nature is changed to the earth of the soul upon the arrival at the station of the heart and the heaven of the heart [is changed] to the heaven of the mystery. Similarly, the earth of the soul is changed to the earth of the heart and the heaven of the mystery to the heaven of the spirit. Likewise is the case with every station which the wayfarer crosses: what is above it and what is below is changed, as with the changing of the heaven of trust, in the affirmation of the unity of the acts, to the heaven of satisfaction in the affirmation of the unity of the attributes, then the heaven of satisfaction to the heaven of the affirmation of Oneness upon the unveiling of the Essence, whereafter all is ‘rolled up’^{1Cf. Q. 21:104 The day when We shall roll up the heaven as the Scribe rolls up the written scroll. As We began the first creation, We shall repeat it — a promise binding on Us. Truly We shall do [that].} and they (people) sally forth to God, the One, other than Whom there is no existent, the Vanquisher, by Whose self-disclosure all that is other than Him is annihilated.

And you shall see the sinners, those veiled by the attributes of the souls and the configurations of vices, coupled, in their places in the Sijjīn [cf. Q. 83:7-8] of nature and the Abyss [cf. Q. 101:9] of the vain desire of the soul in the chains that are the attachments to natural things and the halters that are the love of lowly things;

their shirts [made] of pitch, by virtue of the mastery acquired [over them] by the blackness of dark configurations from the attachments to substances that cast their darkness on them, and their faces are engulfed, by the fire of being vanquished, humiliated and veiled from the pleasure of perfection. Therein lies another mystery which is only unveiled to the folk of the resurrection, those who have witnessed the sending forth and the rising. But God knows best.