2:1 Alif lām mīm.

Addressing one another with individual letters is one of the customs of lovers in their love. These are the lovers’ secrets with each other so that no one watching will be aware.

Between them lovers have a secret not disclosed

by word, nor does creation have a pen to record it.

*

Of the sort of hidden message that He gave

not one will be given up for a hundred thousand lives.

In the scroll of friendship there is the imprint of a script whose interpretation none but the passionate read. In the secluded cell of friendship, there is mystery between friends whose murmur none but the recognizers know. In the picture-gallery of friendship there is a color of colorlessness that none but the enraptured have the eyes to see.

If you want to see the beauty of the beloved’s face,

blind the eyes of your head and look with the eye of your intellect! [DS 495]

Though Moses heard a thousand words in a thousand languages, this mystery was given over to Muḥammad in the seclusion of Or closer [53:9] on the carpet of expansiveness: “Alif.”

I said to her, “Halt [qifī].” She said, “qāf.”^{1This Arabic hemistich is often cited to show that the Arabs used letters to make allusions. Qushayrī (LI 1:66) cites it in the passage from which Maybudī is drawing here. He explains: “She did not say, ‘I have halted,’ thus curtaining from the onlooker, nor did she say, ‘I will not halt,’ out of consideration for the lover’s heart. No, rather, she said, ‘qāf.’”}

Those thousands of words came to Moses, but the veil stayed in place. This mystery came to Muḥammad at the moment of face-to-face vision. Moses heard the words but did not see the Speaker, Muḥammad heard the mystery while gazing on the Keeper of the Mystery. Moses in seeking was delighted with the seeking; Muḥammad in the Presence was delighted with the Friend. Moses had not found the pleasure of contemplation, so he did not know its taste. He had not gone beyond listening and remembering; his repose was in hearing, which is why He spoke so much to him. But Muḥammad had gone beyond the limit of hearing to the center point of togetherness. The jealousy of the Remembered did not leave him in the remembrance and the wave of light lifted him up from love, so remembrance became lost in the Remembered and love in the Light. The spirit was lost in face-to-face vision, and face-to-face vision is far from explication. When a heart finds delight in His grasp and is inundated by face-to-face vision, what will it do with reports? When the spirit rests in the embrace, why should it busy itself with much remembrance?

For him who must have face-to-face vision, reports are the bane.

Why would a heart alone with face-to-face vision cling to reports? [DS 110]

It has been said that Alif lām mīm caresses the paragon of the world in the tongue of allusion. It means, “Isolate [afrid] your secret core for Me, loosen [layyin] your limbs in My service, and stand [aqim] with Me, effacing your own traces and gaining proximity to Me!” O Master, pass all at once beyond the curtain of Gabriel’s intermediacy so that the attribute of passion may pull off the mask of inaccessibility and show you the wonders of the Treasuries and the pearls of the Unseen that He has prepared for you.

If Gabriel bothers you there, spill his blood—

pay Gabriel’s blood-price from mercy’s treasure. [DS 592]

O paragon, take one step outside of dust so that, when face-to-face vision gives you access, you will be all set and released from others. O paragon, what those chevaliers [the Companions of the Cave] drank down in sleep over three hundred nine years—drink it down in one moment in wakefulness, for the house is empty, and the Friend is yours.

It’s night, there’s wine, and the lover’s alone—

get up and come, pretty idol, for tonight is our night.

It has been said that alif is an allusion to “I” [ana], lām to “My” [lī], and mīm to “from Me” [minnī].

I: It is I who am the Lord, I who join with the servant in love. I am the light of the name and the light of the message. I am the repose and ease [56:89] of hearts, I am the intimacy and rest of spirits.

My: Whatever was, is, and will be is all My kingdom and property, decreed by My prescription and subjugated to My determination. That which overpowers it is My command, that which penetrates into it is My will. It has its being by My keeping, it is preserved by My help.

From Me: Whatever has come has come from My power, whatever has gone forth has gone forth from My knowledge, whatever has been has been from My decree.

All this is to admonish the servants: “You should dismiss your own intellect and knowledge so that you may reap the fruit. Leave the work to Me so that you may take a portion. Keep your service limpid so that you may gain access. Take veneration as your companion so that you may be worthy of the gateway. Sit upon the mount of love so that you may quickly reach the Presence. Keep your aspiration one-pointed so that you may look first upon the Friend.”

The Pir of the Tariqah, the beauty of the Folk of the Haqiqah, Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī, has some fine words in unveiling the mysteries of alif and removing its curtain of obscurity. He said, “Alif is the imam of the letters and is well-known among the letters. Alif does not join with the other letters, but the other letters join with alif. Alif has no need of the other letters, but all the other letters need alif. Alif is straight. At first it is one, and at last one. It has one color, but words are many-colored. Alif is the cause of recognition, but its straightness does not accept any cause. In the place where it finds a place, no other letter finds a place, but each letter has a known station in the tablet. In reality it is together, but in gazing it is separate. It descends into each of the stations of the one, so all are one, and duality is unreal.”

It has also been said that each letter is a lamp lit from the Greatest Light. Each is a sun risen from the east of the Haqiqah that has advanced to the heaven of jealousy. All the attributes of the creatures and the opacities of mortal man are the veil of that light. As long as the veil is in place, hoping to find the light is an error.

The bride of the Qur’an will throw off her veil

once she sees the kingdom of faith empty of tumult. [DS 52]

2:2 This is the writing in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the godwary.

It has been said that This is the writing is an allusion to what God has written against Himself for Muḥammad’s community: “Surely My mercy takes precedence over My wrath.” God does that in His words, “Your Lord has written mercy against Himself” [6:54]. It has also been said that it is an allusion to the faith and recognition that God has written upon the hearts of the believers. Thus He says, “He wrote faith in their hearts” [58:22].

In this verse, it is as if God is saying, “My servant, I have written the imprint of faith in your heart, I have mixed in the perfume of friendship, I have decorated paradise for you, I have adorned your heart with the light of recognition, I have lit up the candle of union with Me, I have stamped the seal of love on your heart, and I have written the inscription of passion in your awareness.”

“He wrote faith in their hearts: I wrote in the Tablet, but I wrote only your description. I wrote in your hearts, but I wrote only My description. I wrote your description in the Tablet, and I showed it to Gabriel. I wrote My description in your heart—how could I have shown it to an enemy? In the Tablet I wrote your loyalty and disloyalty; in your heart I wrote laudation and recognition. What I wrote about you has not changed. How could what I wrote about Myself change? Moses carved out a stone from the mountain, and, when I wrote the Torah therein, the stone turned into emerald. The recognizer’s heart was made of harsh stone—when I wrote My name therein, it turned into a notebook of exaltedness.”

A guidance for the godwary. In another place, He said, “It is a guidance and a healing for those who have faith” [41:44]. He is saying that this Qur’an is guidance for the godwary, healing for the faithful, the cause of familiarity, assistance for clarity, a key for the ears, a mirror for the eyes, a lamp for hearts, a healing for pain, a light for the eyes of the familiar, springtime for the spirits of the friends, admonition for the fearful, mercy for the faithful. It is a Qur’an whose eternity’s rising place is the brilliance of the Divinity, a book whose coming down was made easy by the Lordhood, a writing whose guardian and protector is the exaltedness of Unity by virtue of jealousy. It is found in the house of the decree and guarded inside the curtain of the Real’s guarding. God says, “Surely it is We who have sent down the Remembrance, and surely it is We who are its guards” [15:9].

Since you know that the Qur’an is guidance for the godwary, you should establish the lineage of godwariness so that it may take you inside the curtain of its protection. God says, “Surely the noblest of you with God is the most godwary” [49:13]. Tomorrow at the resurrection, every lineage will be broken except the lineage of godwariness. Everyone sheltered by godwariness today will be the neighbor of the Patron tomorrow. Thus it has been reported, “The people will be mustered on the Day of Resurrection. Then God will say to them, ‘It is a long time that you have been speaking and I have been silent. Today you be silent and I will speak. Surely I took away your lineages but you refused all but your own lineages. I said, ‘Surely the most noble of you with God is the most godwary,’ but you refused and said, ‘So-and-so, son of so-and-so.’ So I took away your lineages and put in place My lineage. Today I will take away My lineage and put in place your lineages. The Folk of the Gathering will come to know who are the possessors of nobility and where are the godwary.”

ʿUmar Khaṭṭāb said to Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, “Speak to me about godwariness.”

He said, “O ʿUmar, have you ever passed through a field of thorns?” He said that he had. He said, “What did you do? How did you go into that field of thorns?”

ʿUmar said, “I set forth briskly, I kept my clothing close to me, and I avoided the thorns.”

He said, “ʿUmar, that is godwariness.”

Concerning it a poet said,

Let go of sins, the great and the small, for that is godwariness.

Be like a walker in a thorn bed, cautious with what he sees.

Do not look down on the small—a mountain is made of pebbles.

Then He begins with the attribute and adornment of the godwary. He says,

2:3 Those who have faith in the Unseen and perform the prayer and spend of what We have provided them.

They love God without having seen Him. They attest to His uniqueness and they believe in His oneness in Essence and attributes. They hold firm to His Messenger without having seen him, they accept his messengerhood, and they walk straight on the road of his Sunnah. After five hundred years of blackness on whiteness, they accept him with spirit and heart. The message he conveyed, the reports he gave of the World of Dominion, the Lote Tree of the Final End, the Gardens of the Refuge, the Throne of the Patron, the outcome of this world—they bear witness to its truth and they believe in all of it. They are the ones whom Muṣṭafā called his brothers: “Oh, the yearning to encounter my brothers!”

And perform the prayer. They do the prayer such that you would say they are gazing on God and whispering secretly with Him, confirming the truth of the Prophet’s words, “Worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, surely He sees you.” He also said, “When the servant stands for the prayer, he is before the eyes of the All-Merciful. When he looks around, God says, ‘Child of Adam! At whom are you looking? Are you looking at someone better for you than I? Child of Adam! Look at Me, for I am better for you than the one at whom you are looking.’”

Strive at the time you come to the prayer to keep your thoughts in the prayer and to turn your heart away from the bazaar. Have courtesy, turn your heart away from blessings, and know the worth of whispering secretly with the Patron of Blessings. For it is person of low aspiration and meanness who finds secret whispering with the Patron of Blessings and then busies his heart with the blessings.

And spend of what We have provided them. He adds to the attributes of the godwary, saying that the caresses He has placed upon them and the blessings He has given them—they undertake to show gratitude for these blessings and, by the command of the Shariah, they caress the poor, give comfort to them, and consider them the Real’s deputies in receiving charity. This indeed is the road of Muslims generally, who discharge the obligatory or add something to it voluntarily.

As for the road of the folk of the Haqiqah in this regard, it is something else. Whatever they have they give away and still consider themselves to have fallen short. Someone asked Shiblī, “Of two hundred dirhams, how much alms tax is mandatory?”

He said, “Are you asking about yours or mine?”

He said, “I did not know that my alms tax is one thing and yours something else. Explain that to me.”

He said, “If you give it, five dirhams is mandatory. If I give it, the whole two hundred, with five more as a token of gratitude.”

It is mandatory for the common people of the community to discharge the obligatory act of alms tax. The outcome of their work is that they say, “Lord God, are You approving and satisfied with what we have given?” The fruit of the deed of the elect, who give away all their possessions, is that God says, “My servant, are you approving and satisfied with Me in what you have done?” How far apart are the two!

The description of the state of Abū Bakr gives witness that this is so. After he had given away all of his possessions, he came one day into the Prophet’s presence draped in a white blanket with a pin of date-palm sticking out from the front of the blanket. Gabriel descended and said, “O Muḥammad, God sends you His greeting and says, ‘What is it with Abū Bakr that his cloak is pierced by a pin?”

He said, “O Gabriel, he spent his possessions before the conquest.”

He said, “God says, ‘Give him My greetings and ask him if he approves of Me in this poverty of his, or is he angry?’”

He said, “What, should I be angry with my Lord? I approve of my Lord.”

It has been said that the servant stands upright and straight in his states through three things: heart, body, and possessions. As long as he does not have faith in the Unseen, his heart will not go straight in the religion and neither clarity nor familiarity will appear in him. As long as he does not discharge the obligatory prayers, the soundness and straightness of his body will not be set right with continuity. As long as he does not separate the alms tax from his possessions, these possessions will not settle down with him.

2:4 And those who have faith in what has been sent down to thee and what was sent down before thee and who are certain of the next world.

This verse is also the attribute of the godwary and the affirmation of their faith in the Qur’an as well as in all the messages and marks that came down from heaven on the tongue of the prophets. The Lord of the Worlds praises them and approves of them because of that, and He accepts their faith. Every eminence and nobility possessed by past communities He gave to them and added to it, and every burden and hardship they had He lifted away from them. Those had longer days of practice, but this community has more reward for obedience. Those had a moment for repentance, but then the punishment of the Hour, but this community’s opportunity for repentance of sins extends to the moment of death, and punishment belongs to the Will.

Then too the Lord of the Worlds laid a favor on Muṣṭafā and said, “Thou wast not on the side of the Mount when We called out” [28:46]. O paragon, you were not present on that corner of the Mount when We were speaking of you to Moses and talking about your community.”

Moses said, “Lord God, in the Torah I read the mention of a community extremely adorned, refined, and approved. They have beautiful conduct and flourishing secret cores. Who are they?”

God said, “That is the community of Muḥammad.”

Moses began to yearn for this community and said, “Lord God, is there any way You can show them to me?”

He said, “No, for it is not the moment for them to come out. If you want, I will convey their voices to your ears.” Then God Himself let out a call in the world, “O community of Muḥammad!” Everyone who would be his community until the coming of the Hour said, “Here I am, obeying Thee!” Since He called them out, He did not send them back without a gift. He said, “I bestowed upon you before you asked from Me, and I forgave you before you asked Me to forgive you.” It is not surprising that God called out to Moses after he had come into existence and received the eminence of prophethood and messengership and whispered prayer at the edge of the Mount. More surprising is that He called out to a handful of the tainted, who were not yet created and still in the concealment of nonexistence, though existent in God’s knowledge, and He caressed them as servants.

And who are certain of the next world. And they have no more doubt concerning the resurrection and the unseen states than Ḥāritha when Muṣṭafā asked of him, “How did you wake up, O Ḥāritha?”

He said, “I woke up with true faith in God. It was as if I was visiting with the folk of the Garden, as if I was howling with the folk of the Fire, and as if I was gazing on the Throne of my Lord standing forth.”

Muṣṭafā said to him, “You have recognized. Cling to that!”

This is like ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd al-Qays saying, “Were the covering removed, I would not increase in certainty.”^{1This section of the commentary is taken from LI 1:70.}

2:5 Those are upon a guidance from their Lord.

Here you have the great triumph and the worthy praise. Here you have good fortune without end and generous bounty without limit. He has opened up the door of perspicacity for them and put into effect the gaze of solicitude inside their hearts. He has lit up the lamp of guidance in their hearts so that what is unseen for others is apparent to them. What for others is a report is for them face-to-face vision. Anas ibn Mālik said that he went before ʿUthmān ʿAffān, having seen in the road a woman and considered her beautiful traits. ʿUthmān said, “One of you who has entered in upon me has the traces of adultery appearing in his eyes.”

Anas said, “Is there revelation after God’s Messenger?”

He said, “No, but there is insight, proof, and truthful perspicacity. The Prophet said, ‘Be wary of the perspicacity of the man of faith, for he gazes with the light of God.’”

A pir was asked what perspicacity is. He answered, “Spirits that move about in the Dominion gazing on the meanings of the unseen things. Then they speak about the secrets of the Real with the speech of contemplation, not the speech of opinion and reckoning.” In this meaning someone sang,

May I be a ransom for the men dwelling in the Unseen,

their secret cores roaming in all that is there!

In the Unseen their secret cores crave from the Real

a locus of witnessing to which the people have no access.

They encounter the holy spirit in their secret cores

and in meaning they remain dwelling with it.

They are men who have proximity and presence in the Unseen,

while their souls have been slain by their finding.

Sarī Saqaṭī was Junayd’s master. One day he said to Junayd, “Speak to the people and give them advice, for it is time for you to speak.”

Junayd said, “I did not see myself like that and saw no worthiness in myself. Then one night I saw Muṣṭafā in a dream, and it was the night before Friday. He said to me, ‘Speak to the people!’ That same night I got up and before morning went to the door of Sarī. I knocked at the door, and Sarī said, ‘You will not assent to me before they tell you to do so?’”

The next day Junayd sat in the congregational mosque and news spread in the city that he was going to speak. A young Christian man came in disguise and said, “O shaykh! What is the meaning of the Messenger’s saying, ‘Be wary of the perspicacity of the man of faith, for he gazes with the light of God’?

Junayd looked down, then he lifted up his head to him and said, “Submit, for the time of your submission has arrived.” So the young man submitted.

Beware, do not object to their states, and do not deny their perspicacity, for this human substance is like a rusted mirror. As long as it has rust on its face, no form appears within it. When you polish it, all forms appear within it.

As long as the opaqueness of disobedience is on the faithful servant’s heart, none of the mysteries of the Dominion will appear within it. When the rust of disobedience is removed from it, the mysteries of the Dominion and the states of the Unseen will begin to show themselves. This is the “unveiling” of the heart.

Just as the heart has unveiling, the spirit has face-to-face vision. Unveiling is the lifting of the barriers between the heart and the Real, and face-to-face vision is mutual seeing. As long as someone is with the heart, he has reports. When he reaches the spirit, he reaches face-to-face vision.

The knower of the Path and leader of the Folk of the Haqiqah, Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī, has let out the secret here in the tongue of unveiling and lifted from it the seal of jealousy. He said:

“On the first day of the beginningless covenant a tale unfolded between heart and spirit. No one was there—not Adam and Eve, not water and clay. The Real was present, the Haqiqah was there. And We bore witness to their judgment [21:78].

“No one has heard such a marvelous tale. The heart was the questioner, the spirit the mufti. The heart had an intermediary in the midst, but the spirit had a face-to-face report. The heart asked a thousand questions from the spirit, and they all turned to nothing—with one word the spirit answered them all.

“For its part the heart did not have its fill of asking, nor the spirit of answering. The questions were not about deeds, nor were the answers about rewards. Whenever the heart asked about reports, the spirit answered from face-to-face vision. Finally, the heart came face-to-face. Then it brought back the report to water and clay.

“If you have the capacity to hear, listen. If not, don’t hurry to deny, just stay silent.

“The heart asked the spirit, ‘What is loyalty? What is annihilation? What is subsistence?’

“The spirit answered, ‘Loyalty is to bind the belt of love, annihilation is to be freed from selfhood, subsistence is to reach the reality of the Real.’

“The heart asked, ‘Who is the stranger, who the wage-earner, who the familiar?’

“The spirit replied, ‘The stranger is the one driven away, the wage-earner has stayed on the road, the familiar has been called.’

“The heart asked the spirit, ‘What is face-to-face vision? What is love? What is joy?’

“The spirit replied, ‘Face-to-face vision is the resurrection, love is fire mixed with blood, joy is the handhold of need.’

“The heart said, ‘Add to that.’

“The spirit answered, ‘Face-to-face vision does not get along with explanation, love is paired with jealousy, and wherever there is joy, the story is long.’

“The heart said, ‘Add to that.’

“The spirit replied, ‘Face-to-face vision cannot be explained, love takes the sleeper in secret, and anyone joyful in the Friend will never die.’

“The heart asked, ‘Has anyone ever reached that day by himself?’

“The spirit replied, ‘I asked that from the Real. The Real said, “Finding Me is by My solicitude. Fancying that you can reach Me by yourself is sin.”’

“The heart asked, ‘Is there permission for one glance? I am tired of the spokesman and the reports.’

“The spirit replied, ‘Here we have a sleeper, running water, his fingers in his ears. Will he hear the sound of the Pool of Paradise?’

“The discussion of heart and spirit was cut off. The Real began to speak, and spirit and heart listened. The tale unfolded until the words became elevated and the place was emptied of listeners.

“Now the heart finds no rest from joy, and the spirit from gentleness. The heart is in the grasp of generosity, the spirit in the embrace of the sanctuary. No mark of the heart appears, no trace of the spirit. Nonbeing is lost in being, and reports in face-to-face vision. From beginning to end the tale of tawḥīd of simply this. ‘I am his hearing through which he hears’ gives witness that this is so.”

2:6 Surely it is the same for those who disbelieve whether thou warnest them or thou warnest them not; they will not have faith.

From the beginning of the surah to this point is an allusion to the Lord’s bounty and gentleness with familiars and friends. This verse alludes to His severity and justice toward the strangers and enemies.

God has both bounty and justice. If He acts with justice, that is fitting, and if He is bounteous, that is suitable for Him. But not everything that is fitting in justice is suitable for bounty, whereas everything suitable for bounty is fitting for justice. He calls one to bounty, and the decree is His. He drives another to justice, and the will is His. What is good is that bounty rules over justice, and justice is caught in bounty’s hand. Justice is silent before bounty, and the ring of union is in bounty’s ear. Do you not see that justice travels along with Him, and happy is he whose refuge is bounty? The fruit of bounty is felicity and triumph, and the result of justice is wretchedness and estrangement. Both are deeds already done. “The Pen has dried on what will be until the Day of Resurrection.” It is a beginningless decree and a work discarded and finished. “When someone’s lot has set him down, his eagerness will not stir him up.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, what will come of what You do not want? And when will he come whom you have not called? What does the unplanted get from water? What answer is given to the unworthy? What use to the bitter that sweet water is its neighbor? What gain to the thorn that the rose’s fragrance is next to it? The apportioning has gone before, nothing to be added or taken away. What can be done? The Greatest Judge wants it this way. Satan lived in the highest horizon and performed thousands of acts of worship. What profit did it have, for he was not worthy. ‘Since approval and wrath are beginningless attributes, there is no profit in shortened sleeves and determined steps.’”

One day ʿUmar Khaṭṭāb came across Iblis. He seized him by the collar and said, “I have been seeking you for a long time. I want to take you home so that the children can play with you.”

Iblis said, “O ʿUmar, have respect for your elders! I worshiped God in the seven heavens, in each heaven for one hundred thousand years. I kept on going up, and I fancied that my going up was an honor and a caress. When I looked closely, the meaning was that the higher I went, the worse and the harder I would fall. O ʿUmar, you did not see my seven hundred thousand years of worship, but I saw you prostrating yourself before an idol.”

ʿUmar let him go, while the tongue of Iblis’s state was saying in his abandonment,

“I said, ‘My heart wants to be Your comrade,

so I will be worthy of thanks and applause.’

By God, I did not think, O Spirit of the world,

that all my hopes would come to this.”

2:7 God has sealed their hearts.

The seal of estrangement was placed on someone’s heart, and he remained in unbelief. The seal of perplexity was placed on another’s heart, and he remained in lassitude. That one was a stranger, driven away, the road lost, and this one was helpless, stuck in the road, kept back from the Friend by other than the Friend.

Any talk that keeps you back from the road—let it be unbelief or faith.

Any picture that holds you back from the Friend—let it be ugly or beautiful. [DS 51]

Not everyone who escapes from unbelief joins with the Real, unless he has escaped from himself. Someone who escapes from unbelief reaches familiarity, but someone who escapes from himself reaches friendship. A thousand way stations stand between familiarity and friendship, and a thousand valleys between love and the Friend.

In love for You I have never arrived at a way station

in which the mind was not bewildered at the arrival.

2:8 Among the people are those who say, “We have faith in God.”

This is the story of the hypocrites. The secret of the hypocrites’ hypocrisy goes back to the eminence of Muṣṭafā in two respects, one in respect of jealousy and the other in respect of mercy.

Muṣṭafā was the Real’s beloved. His beauty and perfection passed beyond the limits of understanding and imagination, so by virtue of jealousy God kept him behind the curtain of His protection and made the hypocrites’ hypocrisy the mask of his beauty. He was veiled from the world’s folk so that no one recognized him in reality, and He did not show him to anyone as he was. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. If the hypocrites’ hypocrisy had not been the mask of that shining face, all the creatures would have thrown dust on the light of the Unseen. With such a sun, such a light, and such a brilliance, a hypocrisy was needed such as that of ʿAbdallāh Ubayy Salūl and his likes. Otherwise, the radiance of that beauty would have done more to the Adamites than the beauty of Jesus did to his people such that they said, “The Messiah is the son of God” [9:30].

This can be said with a simile: The sun’s disk, whose rays shine forth from the fourth heaven, has turned its face toward the fifth heaven. God created angels and entrusted that disk to them, and He created deserts full of snow in front of those angels. They lift mountain after mountain of snow from those deserts and dash them against the sun’s disk so that its heat will be broken. Otherwise, the world would burn because of its shine and heat. In the same way, the hypocrisy of the hypocrites was thrown against the presence of that sun of good fortune. Otherwise, the creatures would all have bound the belt of associationism. But, that paragon of the world was all gentleness and mercy, as he said: “I am a guided mercy.” God says, “We sent thee only as a mercy to the worlds” [21:107].

2:13 And when it is said to them, “Have faith as the people have faith,” they say, “Shall we have faith as fools have faith?” Surely it is they who are the fools, but they do not know.

O generous Lord, O renowned, wise Enactor! O You who are true in promise, pure in justice, complete in bounty, and eternal in love! Whatever You want You show, and as You want, You adorn. Each has a name, and in the heart of each is Your mark. The stamp of worthiness is upon some people, and the brand of unworthiness on others. The worthy are brought by the road of bounty on the steed of approval with the escort of gentleness in the time of generous bestowal at the turn of proximity. The unworthy are driven into the street of justice on the steed of wrath with the escort of abandonment at the turn of deprivation. This deprivation and that proximity did not come from water or dust, for on the day when the two were written out, there was neither water nor dust. There was beginningless bounty and gentleness and everlasting severity and justice. That was the portion of the self-purifiers and this the portion of the hypocrites.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Alas for the apportioning that has gone before me! Alack for the words spoken by the Self-Seer! What profit if I am happy or distraught? I fear what the Powerful said in the Beginningless.”

The hypocrites, who had fallen under the garment of justice, approved of themselves and deemed themselves to have a good name. The purifiers, the truthful, and the Messenger’s Companions they called “fools.” The Lord of the Worlds in His generosity acted as their deputy in this and answered them: “Those are not the fools, the fools are those who call them fools.” Indeed, when someone does not belong to himself, God belongs to him. When someone tightens his belt in obeying God’s commands, God joins with him. “When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.”

The unbelievers said to Muṣṭafā, “You are possessed: O thou unto whom the Remembrance has been sent down, surely thou art possessed [15:6].” God said to Muḥammad, “They call you mad, but you are not mad: Thou art not, by the blessing of thy Lord, possessed [68:2]. You are My friend, approved of by Me. What harm will come to you if they do not approve of you? What you must have is that I approve of you. The friend must be approved of by a friend, not by the city.”

2:22 He who made for you the earth a carpet and the heaven a building, and who sent down from heaven water by which He brought forth fruits for you as provision. So do not set up peers for God knowingly.

The wonders of power and the marvels of wisdom in earth and heaven are evidence of a Lord and Creator and witness to His oneness, knowledge, and ability. He placed those seven green domes upon the wind, one on top of one another, without pillar or joint, as a mark of His power. He placed these seven dust-colored hills on top of the water as a clarification of His wisdom. About the one He says, [“We set in heaven constellations] and We adorned them for the gazers” [15:16] and about the other He says, [“And earth,] We laid it out—what excellent spreaders!” [51:48].

Look then at this likeness: two doves, one black and one white, which have come forth within the space of the blue dome. On the wings of one is Then We effaced the sign of the night [17:12], and on the wings of the other We made the sign of the day, giving sight [17:12]. The black was born of the white, and the white appeared from the black: He rolls up the night in the day, and He rolls up the day in the night [39:5]. He makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night [22:61]. How pure and faultless is the God who brought forth the brightness of day from the pitch black night and made the darkness of the pitch black night appear from the brightness of day! More wondrous than this is that He placed the brightness of knowing in the center point of the black blood of the heart and the brightness of seeing in the center point of the eye’s pupil. Thus will you know that He is the perfectly powerful, the bountiful and bounteous bestower.

This bright day is the mark of the compact of good fortune, and this dark night is the likeness of the days of tribulation. He is saying, “O you who have the good fortune of ease in the day’s brightness, do not feel secure, for the darkness of tribulation’s night is upon its tracks. O you who have been without ease in tribulation’s night, do not despair, for the bright day is on its tracks.”

Such are the states of the heart: sometimes it is in the night of contraction, sometimes in the day of expansion. In the day of contraction there is awe and confoundedness, and in the day of expansion there is mercy and intimacy. In the state of contraction the servant has nothing but the weeping and the pleading of a wounded heart. In the state of expansion he is all delight and restfulness.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, if I weep for You, weeping is sweet, and if I delight in You, delight is sweet. O God, I am happy because I am weeping at Your threshold in the hope that one day I will delight in the field of Your bounty, that You will receive me and I may turn myself over to You. If You gaze at me once, I will throw the two worlds into the ocean.”

The lords of the realities have given this verse another commentary and have seen another intimation. They say that God has placed likenesses in this verse. The earth is the likeness of the body, the heaven the likeness of the intellect, the water that comes down from heaven is the likeness of the knowledge that is gained by intellect, and the fruits are the likeness of the servant’s beautiful deeds done as the requisite of knowledge. He is alluding to the fact that God is the Lord who created you as a person, form, and body, and adorned the body with the beauty of the intellect. Then by means of intellect He bestowed knowledge, cleverness, and learning. From that knowledge great fruits grew forth. Those fruits are beautiful deeds, within which are found your soul’s nourishment and your goodly life [16:97]. Since the Lord shows such loving kindness and mercy to you, why do you associate others in worship of Him and take partners along with Him? So do not set up peers for God knowingly.

2:23 If you are in doubt about what We have sent down on Our servant, then bring a surah the like of it.

The previous verse was an affirmation of tawḥīd, an argument against the Arab associaters. This verse is an affirmation of prophecy, an argument against the Folk of the Book and the Dhimma. The formula of the Shahadah comprises two sides: the affirmation of tawḥīd and the affirmation of prophecy. As long as the servant does not acknowledge and believe in both and does not act as demanded by both, he has not entered into the circle of the submission.

Affirming prophecy is to know that Muṣṭafā is the chosen of the Real and the best of creatures. You accept his prophecy with spirit and heart. You take his words, deeds, customs, and conduct as your leader and guide. You know in reality that his words are the revelation of the Real, his explanation the road of the Real, his decree the religion of the Real, and his utterances and conveyance of the message in the state of life and death the argument of the Real. Adam was still inside the curtain of water and clay when the secret of Muḥammad’s created disposition had bound its waist before the Exalted Threshold and the gaze of the Real’s gentleness had reached his spirit. This is alluded to in his words, “I was a prophet when Adam was between water and clay.”

Then bring a surah the like of it. This spreads the carpet of the Qur’an’s exaltedness from the folds of its holiness. Thus the non-privy will place the hand of rejection on their breasts and He may remove the mask of its beauty for those burnt by passion.

Then you will see the unmasked beauty of the Qur’an’s face—

when it shows its face, speak with the tongue of remembrance. [DS 495]

2:25 And give good news to those who have faith.

This verse is a caress for the friends, giving them hope for everlasting largesse and bliss, and an encouragement to the faithful, inciting them to obey and to seek increase of blessings. The previous verse warns the strangers against confusion in the heart and associationism on the tongue, and it threatens with the fire of punishment and the harshness of being cut off from the Real. The person of faith is he who becomes frightened and without ease when he hears the first verse and thinks about the chastisement of hell. He becomes happy when he hears the second verse, he makes his heart fast and his hope strong, and he brings ease into his heart. The Lord of the Worlds praises both the frightened and the one at ease. Concerning the frightened He says, “The faithful are only those whose hearts quake when God is remembered” [8:2]. Concerning the one at ease He says, “Those who have faith and whose hearts are serene in the remembrance of God” [13:28]. The custom of the Generous Lord is that whenever He sends a verse of fear with which He frightens the servants, after it He sends down a verse of hope and mercy to give ease to their hearts so that they will not despair.

And give good news to those who have faith. Let there be good news for all those who are today in the playing field of service, for tomorrow they will be in the assembly of repose and ease [56:89]. Not everyone who reaches the paradise of approval will reach the generous gift of repose and ease. The paradise of approval is the furthest limit of the pleasure of the worshipful servants, and repose and ease is the kiblah of the spirits of the lovers. The paradise of approval is the High Chambers and the Abode of Peace. Repose and ease in the Presence of At-ness is the gift for the spirit of the passionate. Everyone who watches over his actions will reach the paradise of approval; everyone who watches over his breaths will reach repose and ease.

Who can explain this repose and ease and how can it be given expression!? When something does not come to the tongue, how can it be explained? A wind begins to blow from the World of the Unseen that is called “the wind of bounty.” Clouds begin to gather that are called “the clouds of kindness.” A rain begins to fall that is called “the rain of gentleness.” The rain brings forth a flood that is called “the flood of love.”

A flood must take away both worlds

so that no one again may suffer the world’s grief.

The flood of love that is appointed for this makeup of water and dust leaves no mark of water, no news of dust. No name of mortal nature remains, no trace of human nature. Put aside every preoccupation that arises from water and clay and every confusion that comes from mortal and human nature so that you may reach nonbeing. Then pass beyond nonbeing to reach repose and ease.

I saw in secret the world and the root of the universe,

I passed beyond defect and repute with ease.

And that black light—know that it is beyond the non-pointed—

that too I passed; neither this nor that remained.

2:28 How do you disbelieve in God, seeing that you were dead, and He brought you to life. Then He shall make you dead, then He shall bring you to life.

By way of allusion He is saying, “O you who have lost the end of your own thread! O you who have fallen into the well of your own mortal nature! If you want the road clearer than this, why do you not go forward? If you want the field wider than this, why do you not mount up? If you want the candle brighter than this, why are you falling off the path? O you over whom so many years have passed and you have still not caught a scent! O you who have sat at so many tables and are still hungry! O you who have worn a thousand clothes and are still naked! O Muslim! The playing field is open, where are the mounted riders? The tribunal is open, where are the plaintiffs? The physician is present, where are the ill? The beauty is unveiled, where are the passionate?”

You were dead, and He brought you to life. “You were dead, but I brought you to life. Why do you not look? You were ignorant, but I made you knowers. Why do you not perceive? I showed you the road, why do you not go?”

It wants a man to catch the scent—

otherwise, the world is full of the east wind’s fragrance.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, how can the servant overcome the beginningless decree? When he does not have, what can he do? What is the servant’s effort? The work is done by what You want. How can the servant save himself with his own effort?”

Then He shall make you dead, then He shall bring you to life. It is said that death is of three sorts: death by the curse, death by regret, and death by generous gift. Death by the curse belongs to the disbelievers, death by regret to the disobedient, and death by generous gift to the godwary.

Life also is of three sorts: first the life of fear, then the life of hope, then the life of love. The life of fear appears in kindness, the life of hope appears in service, and the life of love appears in remembrance. Those who live in fear will be given security on the day of death: “Fear not and grieve not!” [41:30]. Those who live in hope will be caressed on the last day: “Rejoice in the Garden that you were promised!” [41:30]. Those who live in love will receive from the Friend this generous gift on the carpet of generosity in the session of intimacy: “Return to thy Lord, approving, approved!” [89:28].

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, O worthy of generosity and caresser of the world! There is no happiness with other than You, and no grief along with Your remembrance. You are the plaintiff and the interceder, the witness and the judge. As long as I breathe along with Your love, I will be free of the bonds of existence and nonexistence, released from the bother of Tablet and Pen—the cup of happiness in hand again and again in the sitting place of intimacy!”

May there be no king in my heart’s kingdom but passion for You!

May no one be aware of the secret between me and You!

May passion for You never leave my wounded heart!

May my hand never fall short of Your long tresses!

2:29 He it is who created for you all that is in the earth, then He went up to heaven and proportioned it as seven heavens, and He is knower of everything.

In another place He said, “He subjected to you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, all together, from Him” [45:13]. He is saying, “I created everything in the empire of the earth for you and subjected it to you. My bestowal is not tiny, My generosity toward those who are burnt for Me is not trivial. There will never be any backsliding in My caressing you. Nor is it as if I limited Myself to the empire of the earth, for I also set up the heavens for your gaze, for the pleasure of your eyes, and as a storehouse for your daily provision. My servant! When you step into the street of My covenant, you do not know what good news reaches the heaven-dwellers and the earth-dwellers and how they congratulate each other. I know, for I know everything and reach everyone.” And He is knower of everything.

In this verse there is a subtle point. He did not say, “Who created you for all that is in the earth.” He said, “Who created for you all that is in the earth.” In other words, “I created everything that is in the empire of the earth and the heavens for your sake, and I created you for My sake.” Do you not see that He said specifically to Moses, “I chose thee for Myself” [20:41], and generally to the creatures, “I created the jinn and mankind only to worship Me” [51:56]? It was Muṣṭafā who understood the worth of this declaration and gave thanks for this one of His blessings. On the night of proximity and generosity when he was taken to the heavens, all of creation and the empires of the two worlds were scatted at the feet of his truthfulness. That paragon did not look at it from the corner of his eye. He said, “I was not created for this.” The eyesight did not swerve, nor did it trespass [53:17]. Hail to him!

Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī, who beautifully traveled in the road of Muṣṭafā’s Sunnah and beautifully observed courtesy toward the Presence, said, “I kept on crossing perils until I found the empires. Then I left the empires behind and arrived at the marks giving witness to the King. I said, ‘The prize.’

“He said, ‘I have given to you all that you have seen.’

“I said, ‘You are the desired.’

“He said, ‘Then I belong to you, just as you belong to Me.’”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, when a breeze blew from the garden of friendship, I made my heart its sacrifice. I found a scent of friendship’s treasury and called out in kingship over the world. Lightning flashed from the east of the Haqiqah, and with little thought of water and clay I left the two worlds behind. You gazed once, and in that gaze I burned and melted. Add another gaze and make it the salve of this burned one! Grasp this drowned man, for the remedy and salve of the wine-stricken is wine!” In this meaning Majnūn sang,

I treated love for Laylā with Laylā

just as the wine-drinker is treated with wine.

2:30 And when thy Lord said to the angels, “Surely I am setting in the earth a vicegerent,” they said, “What, wilt Thou set therein one who will work corruption there, and shed blood, while we glorify Thy praise and call Thee holy?” He said, “Surely I know what you do not know.”

There was a world at ease. No heart burned with passion and no breast was deluded by mad fervor. Then the ocean of mercy began to boil. The treasuries of obedient deeds were full, and no dust of lassitude had settled on the foreheads of the obedient in their obedience. The banner of their boastful claim, “We glorify Thy praise,” was raised to Capella.

All those in the cosmos who had any subtle substance began craving for their own selves. The majestic Throne was looking at its own tremendousness and saying, “Perhaps the script of these words is written for me.” The Footstool was looking at its own amplitude—“Perhaps this sermon is being read in my name.” The eight paradises gazed on their own beauty—“Maybe this rulership will be given to us.” None wanted anything to do with dust. Each fell into delusion, each caught by mad fervor.

Suddenly, from the Presence of Exaltation and Majesty, this report was given to the world of the angels: “Surely I am setting in the earth a vicegerent.” It was not that He was consulting with the angels. Rather, He was laying the foundation of Adam’s exaltation and tremendousness. He was not asking for help, but spreading the carpet of Adam’s dignity. He was saying, “The ruling property of My severity has acted. I have commanded the pen of generosity to write out an inscription from the beginning of the world’s ledger to its end. This resolution is written for the inhabitants of both worlds, from the top of the Throne to the bottom of the Carpet: ‘The dust-dwelling Adam is granted chieftainship over all the empires. His exalted breast will be bright with the light of recognition. In him the subtleties of My generosity and the artifacts of My bounteousness will become apparent.’”

This exalted declaration caused the hearts of the proximate angels to quake with awe. They said, “What is this all about? He has not yet been created.”

The exalted Qur’an was beating the drum of his vicegerency at the threshold of his beauty even though he had not yet entered into the bonds of creation. The majesty of predetermination was reporting on the basis of the hidden affairs of the Unseen: “You must not come around the field of Adam’s good fortune, for you do not recognize the secret of his innate disposition. No falcon of anyone’s mind has sat upon the branch of Adam’s good fortune! No eye of anyone’s insight has grasped the beauty of Adam’s limpid sun!”

Where did this eminence come from? From whence did this good fortune arise? It came from the fact that Adam was the oyster shell of the mysteries of lordhood and the treasury of the jewels of the empire. How many precious pearls and royal sparklers were placed in that oyster shell! Along with every pearl He arranged a black bead on the string. Along with the pearl of every prophet He placed a black bead as its counterpart: With a pearl like Adam the chosen was a bead like Satan the wretched; with a pearl like Abraham the bosom friend was a bead like Nimrod the rebellious; with a pearl like Moses of ʿImrān was a bead like Pharaoh the unaided; with a pearl like Jesus son of Mary was a bead like the tribe full of misguidance and transgression; with a pearl like Muṣṭafā the Arab was a bead like Abū Jahl full of ignorance.

When the angels heard this terrifying declaration, settledness and repose fled from them and they lost the composure of their intellects and their patience. They all spoke up with questions and said, “What, wilt Thou set therein one who will work corruption there, and shed blood? O Lord! O King! O Magnanimous! O Creator! This dust-dwelling Adam will stain the embroidered robe of proximity with disobedience. He will pull his head out from the collar of obedience. You have created us from holiness and declaring holy! You have adorned our breasts with reciting the formula of tawḥīd and glorifying! You have made all these our means!”

It is said that a fire appeared from the hidden affairs of the Unseen and incinerated a tribe of the angels. This declaration was made with the attribute of exaltedness: “Surely I know what you do not know.”

“You who are gazers, just keep on gazing! What do you have to do with the secret treasuries of the divinity? How can you intervene in the hidden affairs of Our unseen lordhood? It is We who know the preparations of Our divinity and the hidden affairs of the mysteries of Our lordhood. How can insignificant minds, the sciences and intellects of anyone other than Us, defective understandings and newly arrived insights, find a way to the mysteries of Our divinity? With Him are the keys to the Unseen—none knows them but He [6:59].

“In the beginningless We decreed that We would light the lamp of the realities of recognition in the breast of the dust-dweller Adam, turn over to him the edict of rulership, and plant the flag of the earthly empires in his soldierly heart.

“You who are the proximate angels of the Empire, be serving-boys, spread the carpet in front of the throne of Adam’s good fortune, and prostrate yourselves before him!

“You who circumambulate Our Throne, ask forgiveness for the not-yet-committed sins of Adam’s progeny, who have not yet come into existence! Ask for safety in their going forth, and say, ‘Peace be upon them, peace be upon them,’ so that when they come into existence, their feet will not slacken on the carpet of servanthood.

“You who are in charge of the veils, weep for the folk of heedlessness among Adam’s progeny so that We may conceal their disobedience with Our forgiveness because of your weeping!

“You who are the folk of the cushions, take up this pure water whose waves are lapping around Our Throne with water-bags of light and, when they lift up their heads thirsty from the earth on the Day of Resurrection, provide water for them!

“You who are the sinless of the Lote Tree of the Final End, wait until the Greatest Fright appears at the resurrection, when awe and punishment’s holding and grasping, taking and seizing, all come forth, and then give the faithful among them security from that Fright and convey to them Our greeting of Peace!

“We have commanded all this so that you angels may come to know the eminence of these dust-dwellers and make no protest at Our decree.”

There is a sound report that the Supreme Plenum and the proximate angels of the Exalted Threshold said, “O Lord, You have given the dust-dwellers the low world. Give us the high world, for we are the birds of the Presence and the peacocks of the Exalted Threshold.”

The answer came to them, “I will not make the wholesome progeny of him whom I created with My own two hands like those to whom I said, ‘Be!’, so they came to be.

“I am the intimate of passion, and you’re just passing by

unaware of the tale and state of the passionate.

Why do you grieve for the ugliness of My beloved?

Come into My eyes and gaze upon him.”

2:34 And when We said to the angels, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam!”

Majestic and all-compelling is the God of the world and the world’s folk, the Enactor, the renowned knower of the hidden, the eternal in beautiful doing and tremendous in rank, never ignorant of what He knows, never regretful for what He bestows, never at a loss over what He has done. He is a Lord who adorns what He disapproves for some and makes ugly what He approves for others. He created the despairing Iblis from fire, gave him a place in the Lote Tree of the Final End, and sent the proximate angels of the Presence to seek knowledge from him. Despite such distinction and level, He wrote out the inscription of wretchedness for him and bound his waist with the sash of the curse. He pulled Adam up from dark dust, made the Higher Plenum the bearers of his throne, clothed him in the cape of exaltedness, placed the crown of generosity on his head, and said to the proximate angels of the Presence, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam!”

It has come in the traditions that Adam was placed on a throne that had seven hundred legs, the distance of one leg to another a seven-hundred year journey. The command came: “O Gabriel, O Michael, you chiefs of the angels! Lift up Adam’s throne and carry it around the heavens so that his eminence and rank may be known to those who said, ‘What, wilt Thou set therein one who will work corruption therein, and shed blood?’” [2:30].

Then they placed that throne before the Majestic Throne. The command came to the angels, “All of you go to Adam’s throne and prostrate yourself before Adam.” The angels came and gazed upon Adam, and they all became drunk with his beauty.

A face adorned by the God of heaven

has no need for a hairdresser’s touch.

They saw a beauty without end, the crown of “He created Adam in His form” on his head, the garb of “I have blown into him of My spirit” [15:29] on his body, the embroidery of the solicitude of “He loves them, and they love Him” [5:54] on the sleeve of his sinlessness.

Though we’re strangers and our hearts are upset,

we’re serving-boys of that world-adorning face.

Concerning the description of Adam, Wahab ibn Munabbih said, “When God created Adam, He created him in the most beautiful form and dressed him in the ornaments of the Garden. He put rings on ten fingers, anklets on his legs, and dressed him with bracelets on his arms. He attended to the crown and diadem on his head and forehead and gave him as title the most beloved of names to Him. He said to him, ‘O Abū Muḥammad! Go around the Garden and look to see if anyone is similar to you or if I created any creature more beautiful than you.’

“So Adam wandered around in the Garden and became conceited. He strode proudly in the Garden. God deemed that beautiful in him, so He called to him from beyond the Throne: ‘Be conceited, Adam, for the likes of you are conceited. I loved something, so I created it solitary for the Solitary.’ Then God conveyed that conceit to his offspring. It is arrogance in the ignorant, pridefulness in kings, and ecstasy in the friends.”

Good fortune in the spirit and the world is not a game, and felicity is not to be bought. Iblis saw the suffering of the passing days and the toil of the work, but Adam went to paradise. Iblis had obedience without cease, but Adam received this address:

2:35 Dwell thou and thy spouse in the Garden!

It has been said that once Iblis met Adam and said, “Know that you have been given a white face and I a black face. Do not be deluded, for our likeness is that of an almond tree planted by a gardener. The tree bears fruit, and the fruit is taken to a grocery shop. Some of it is sold to a customer who is a happy man, and some to a customer who is afflicted. The afflicted man blackens the face of the almonds and scatters them on the casket of his dead one. The happy man mixes them with sugar and distributes them with their white faces in his happiness. O Adam! I am the black almonds scattered over caskets, and the almonds distributed by happiness are the work of your good fortune. But you should know that the gardener is one, and we have drunk water from the same stream. If someone should fall to the work of roses, he will smell roses, and if someone should fall into the gardener’s thorns, his eyes will be struck by them.”

I said, “In my passion I will be like Your hair,

always before Your face.”

I thought wrongly and fell far away—

I’ll be the slaveboy of Your street’s watchman.

Dhu’l-Nūn Miṣrī said, “I was in the desert and saw Iblis, who had not lifted his head from prostration in forty days. I said, ‘Poor wretch, after disownment and the curse, what is all this worship?’

“He said, ‘O Dhu’l-Nūn, though I have been dismissed from servanthood, He has not been dismissed from lordhood.’”

O lovely one, my times and yours are in turmoil,

talk of us has filled my city and yours.

Union was apportioned in the beginningless,

and now separation has come and the talk is of you and me.

Sahl ibn ʿAbdallāh Tustarī said, “One day I came across Iblis. I said, ‘I seek refuge in God from you.’

“He said, ‘O Sahl, if you are seeking refuge in God from me, I am seeking refuge in God from God. O Sahl, if you say that you are seeking help against the hand of Iblis, I say that I am seeking help against the hand of the All-Merciful.’

“I said, ‘O Iblis, why did you not prostrate yourself before Adam?’

“He said, ‘O Sahl, let go of these foolish words with me. If I have a road to the Presence, tell me. Do you not want to lay the pretext on me? O Sahl, just now I was at the grave of Adam. I made one thousand prostrations there and placed the dust of his grave on my eyes. In the end I heard this call: “Don’t take the trouble. We don’t want you.”’”

I appear to You as so despoiled

that all my obedience is taken as sin.

If this story did not turn out like the moon,

it is because my carpet’s color is black.

Sahl said, “Then he gave me a writing and told me to read it, and as I began to read it he disappeared from my eyes. On it was written this:

“Though I erred, destiny did not.

Blame me if you want, Sahl, or leave me be.”

Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī said, “I asked God to show Iblis to me. I found him in the sanctuary at Mecca and began talking with him. He was speaking clever words. I said, ‘O wretch, with all this cleverness, why did you keep back from the Real’s command?’

“He said, ‘O Abū Yazīd! That was a command of trial, not of a command of desire. If it had been a command of desire, I would never have kept back.’

“I said, ‘O wretch, is it opposition to the Real that has brought you to these days?’

“He said, ‘Come now, Abū Yazīd! Opposition is one opposite against another opposite, but God has no opposite. Conformity is one similar with another similar, but God has no similar. Do you think that my conformity with Him is from me and my opposition to Him from me? Both are from Him, and no one has any power over Him. And I, despite what has come to be, hope for mercy, for He has said, “My mercy embraces everything” [7:156], and I am a thing.’

“I said, ‘That is followed by the condition of godwariness.’

“He said, ‘Come now! The condition is for him who does not know the outcomes of affairs, but He is a Lord from whom nothing is hidden.’ Then he disappeared from before me.”

2:36 Then Satan made them slip therefrom.

Look at this wonder: First He caressed the servant and put all his little jobs in order, then He sent him into tumult and overthrew what He had done for him, and then He rebuked him.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, You show your friends to the enemies and You turn the poor ones over to heartache and grief. You make them ill, and then You take care of them Yourself. You make them helpless, and then You heal them Yourself.

“You made Adam out of dust, and then You acted so beautifully toward him. You placed his happiness at the top of the ledger and made him the guest in paradise. You sat him in the garden of approval, You made a compact with him not to eat the wheat, and in Your unseen knowledge You hid the fact that he would in fact eat the wheat. Then You put him in prison, and You made him weep for years. Your all-compellingness does the work of compellers, Your lordhood does the work of lords. All of Your rebukes and war are aimed at Your friends.”

The Pir of the Tariqah was asked, “What do you say: Was Adam more complete in this world or in paradise?”

He said, “He was more complete in this world, for in paradise he fell into suspicion because of himself, but in this world he fell into suspicion because of passion.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Take care not to have the opinion that Adam was taken out of paradise because of his lowliness. It was not that. Rather, it was because of the grandeur of his aspiration. The petitioner of passion came to the door of Adam’s breast and said, ‘O Adam, the beauty of meaning has been unveiled, but you have stayed in the abode of peace.’ Adam saw an infinite beauty, next to which the beauty of the eight paradises was nothing. His great aspiration tightened its belt and said: ‘If you ever want to fall in love, you must fall in love with that.’”

If there’s no escape from feeding passion to the spirit

I’ll suffer passion’s grief for the likes of You.

The command came, “Adam, now that you have stepped into the street of passion, leave paradise, for it is the house of ease. What do the passionate have to do with the safety of the Abode of Peace?” May the throats of the passionate always be caught in the noose of trial!

Your passion came to my door and began to knock.

I didn’t open it, so it burned it down.

Adam himself did not go—he was taken. Adam himself did not want—he was wanted.

The command came: “The veiled virgin of recognition wants a mate to be her fiancé.” They sifted the eighteen thousand worlds looking for a mate without finding one, for the majestic Qur’an gives news that “Nothing is as His likeness” [42:11].

The cherubim and the proximate angels lifted up their heads at the Exalted Threshold hoping that this crown would be placed on their heads and the veiled virgin of recognition would become their fiancé. The call went out, “You are the sinless and the pure of the Presence, You are the glorifiers of the Exalted Threshold. If I make you the fiancé, you will say that it is because you match her in holiness and purity. Far be it from the Unity that it should have a match or an equal! He begets not, nor was He begotten, and equal to Him is none [112:3-4].”

The Throne with its tremendousness, paradise with its adornment, heaven with its elevation—each fell to wishing, but to no avail. The call came: “Since the veiled virgin of recognition has no match, We in Our bountifulness will lift up the thrown-down dust and make it her fiancé.” He fastened to them the word of godwariness, to which they have more right and of which they are worthy [48:26].

This is like a king who has a daughter and can find no match for her in his empire. He raises up one of his slaves and bestows on him possessions, position, and exaltedness and appoints him to be the commander and leader of the army. Then he gives his daughter to him. Thus his generosity will appear, and the slave will have the worthiness for union.

The likeness of Adam the dust-dweller is exactly this. God made him the target of His arrow from the first. He fired one arrow of eminence from the bow of special favor with the hand of the attributes. The target of that arrow was Adam’s makeup.

Take an arrow from the quiver in my name,

then place it in Your mighty bow.

If You need a target here’s my heart.

Yours—a strong shot. Mine—a sweet sigh.

The arrow reached the target. Hence Muṣṭafā reported this judgment to the world: “God created Adam in His form; his length was sixty cubits.” It is a sound report that the Lord of the worlds took a handful of dust with which He sculpted Adam. Adam’s boldness and nearness reached the place that, when He told him to travel from paradise to the earth, he said, “O Lord, travelers don’t go without supplies. What supplies will You give me for the road?”

He said, “O Adam, your supplies in the land of exile will be My remembrance. After that, on the day of Return, I promise you will see Me.”

2:37 Then Adam received from his Lord some words.

Then He spoke with the lid on, not letting out the details, lest the secrets of love fall into the open and so that love’s story would stay concealed.

I said to her, “Halt [qifī].” She said, “Qāf.”

She did not say, “I have halted,” thereby keeping the secret from the watchers. Nor did she say, “I will not halt,” thereby showing consideration for the lover’s heart.^{1The half-line (quoted also under 2:1) and this sentence are from LI 1:66.}

Although the tongue of commentary does not speak of it, the folk of allusion say that it is likely that at the moment of farewell lovers say, “‘When you depart from me, do not forget my covenant. Even if awareness of me dwindles one day, do not prefer another over me.’^{2LI 1:95.} O Adam! Do not forget Our compact and do not choose anyone over Me.” The tongue of his state replied,

“My heart is Your fellow-traveler and companion—

how could it attach its love anywhere else?

A heart for whom You are both spirit and awareness—

how could it forget Your remembrance?”

2:40 O children of Israel! Remember My blessings with which I blessed you. And be loyal to My covenant; I will be loyal to your covenant. And of Me have dread.

This is an allusion to the Real’s gentleness, generosity, and loving kindness toward the servants. He reminds them of His favor toward them: “I am the generous Lord, the thankful, the forgiver of the servants. I have come forth with kindness despite every disloyalty, I invite the servants to praise Me despite all their offenses, and I ask them to be grateful for My blessings.” This is why He says to the children of Israel, “Remember My blessings! O children of Israel, be grateful for My blessings and recognize your duty toward Me so that you will be worthy of increase and have good name and good fortune.”

There is a great difference between the children of Israel and this community. To them He said, “Remember My blessings!” To this community He said, “Remember Me!” [2:152]. He gave them blessings and He gave this community companionship. He kept those away from Himself by the witnessing of blessings, and He kept these with Himself by stipulating love. The tongue of this state says,

“I traveled to you seeking the highest things,

but others traveled seeking a good life.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, the one who does the work is he who has work with You, the one who has a friend is he whose friend is the likes of You. How could he who has You in the two worlds leave You aside! The wonder is that he who has You weeps more than anyone else. He who has not found weeps at not having found—why then does he who finds also weep?”

When the like of You is someone’s friend,

if he complains, that’s disgraceful.

And be loyal to My covenant; I will be loyal to your covenant. There are many verses like this in the Qur’an: “Supplicate Me; I will respond to you [40:60]. So remember Me; I will remember you [2:152]. My servant! Open a door so that I may open a door. Open the door of turning back so that I may open the door of good news: They turned back to God, and for them is good news [39:17]. Open the door of expending so that I may open the door of replacement: Whatever you expend, He will replace it [34:39]. Open the door of struggle so that I may open the door of guidance: Those who struggle in Us, We will guide them on Our paths [29:69]. Open the door of asking forgiveness so that I may open the door of forgiveness: And then asks forgiveness of God, he will find God forgiving, ever-merciful [4:110]. Open the door of gratitude so that I may open the door of increased blessings: If you give thanks, I will surely increase you [14:7]. My servant, come back to My covenant so that I may come back to your covenant: Be loyal to My covenant; I will be loyal to your covenant.”

It has been said that God has many covenants with His servant and, in each covenant in which the servant has loyalty, the Lord of the Worlds has a loyalty as its counterpart. First is that the servant makes manifest the words of the Shahadah. Its counterpart from the Lord of the Worlds is the rightful due of blood and property. That is in His words, “When someone says ‘No god but God,’ his wealth and property are protected from Me.” The last is that if the servant keeps his gaze pure and watches over his thoughts, its counterpart from the Lord of the Worlds will be this: “I have prepared for My wholesome servants what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.” Between that beginning and this end are many intermediaries, and these are God’s covenants with the servant in which the servant’s part is deeds and words, and God’s part is reward beyond reckoning.

Among these intermediaries are these, as one of them has said: “Be loyal to My covenant by presence at the gate; I will be loyal to your covenant with great reward. Be loyal to My covenant by guarding the secrets; I will be loyal to your covenant with My beautiful acts of kindness. Be loyal to My covenant by not preferring any other to Me; I will be loyal to your covenant by not holding back My gentleness and good. Be loyal to My covenant with beautiful struggle; I will be loyal to your covenant with constant contemplation. Be loyal to My covenant by truthfulness in love; I will be loyal to your covenant with perfect proximity. Be loyal to My covenant in the abode of My tribulation on the carpet of serving Me by venerating Me; I will be loyal to your covenant in the abode of My blessings on the carpet of proximity with the joy of union. Be loyal to My covenant that you accepted on the Day of the Compact; I will be loyal to your covenant that I have assured for you on the Day of the Encounter. Be loyal to My covenant by saying endlessly, ‘My Lord!’; I will be loyal to your covenant by saying to you, ‘My servant!’”^{1This paragraph is taken from a much longer passage juxtaposing the two halves of the verse in LI 1:96-97.}

And of Me have dread. This is the same as His saying, “And of Me be wary” [2:41]. Dread and wariness are two of the stations of the fearful. There are six degrees of the fearful in the road of the religion: the repenters, the worshipers, the renouncers, the knowers, the recognizers, and the sincerely truthful.

The repenters have fear, as He says: “They fear a day when eyes and hearts will be turned about” [24:37]. The worshipers have quaking: “Those whose hearts quake when God is remembered” [8:2]. The renouncers have dread: “They were supplicating Us in eagerness and dread” [21:90]. The knowers have fright: “The only ones of His servants who are frightened of God are the knowers” [35:28]. The recognizers have trembling: “Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord” [23:57]. The sincerely truthful have awe: “And God warns you of Himself” [3:28].

Fear is the fear of the repenters and beginners, the fortress of faith, and the cure-all and weapon for the person of faith. Anyone without this fear has no faith and has no way to security. Anyone who has it has faith in the same measure.

Quaking is the fear of the living-hearted. It releases them from heedlessness, opens up the road of self-purification to them, and curtails their wishing.

Just as quaking is greater than fear, dread is greater than quaking. Dread cuts off a man’s delight in life and cuts him off from people. In the world it separates him from the world. When someone fears like this, he sees his own soul as a debt to be paid, all his words as complaint, and all his acts as offenses. Sometimes, he seeks aid like the drowning, sometimes he beats himself in the head like the mourning, sometimes he sighs like the ill.

The fear of the recognizers, which is trembling, appears from quaking. This is a fear that places no veil before supplication, no mask before perspicacity, and no wall before hope. It is a melting and killing fear that does not relax until this call is heard: “Fear not and grieve not, and rejoice!” [41:30]. This fearful person is sometimes burned, sometimes caressed, sometimes called, sometimes killed. He does not sigh from the burning, nor does he complain of the killing.

How You kill me! And how I love You!

O marvel! How I love the killer!

After trembling comes awe, the fear of the sincerely truthful. This fear rises up from face-to-face vision, the other fears from reports. Something flashes in the heart like lightning. The body cannot bear it, and the spirit does not have the capacity to remain with it. Mostly this happens during the time of ecstasy and listening [samāʿ], just as it happened to Moses at the Mount: And Moses fell down thunderstruck [7:143]. Never say that this awe comes from threats; rather, it comes from being aware of the Compeller.

When a speck of actual face-to-face vision is unveiled,

neither heart escapes nor spirit, neither unbelief nor faith.

It is this that is alluded to in the Prophet’s words, “His veil is light. Were it removed, the glories of His face would burn away everything perceived by the eyes.”

2:42 And confuse not truth with falsehood.

Be careful not to mix truth and falsehood. Do not put truthfulness together with lying, the approved together with the unapproved. I do not say not to recognize falsehood. You must recognize it so as to avoid it, and you must recognize truth so as go after it. Muṣṭafā said, “O God, show us truth as truth and provide us with choosing it, and show us falsehood as falsehood and provide us with avoiding it.”

Concerning the verse, “And confuse not truth with falsehood,” the masters of the realities have said that the meaning is that you should not mix together the share of the soul and the food of the heart, for the two do not get along. The owner of the heart is elated at the rightful due of truth, but the servant of the soul is bound by the share of the soul. How can the two come together? This world is trifling and the next world precious. How can the two get along? Friendship with the Creator is beginningless and endless felicity, but friendship with the created is a ready bane. How can the two come together? God has not given any man two hearts in his breast [33:4]. God-worship and self-worship are opposites. How can the two be brought together in one makeup?

Love for both self and the loving Friend won’t reach you.

Want either this or that—you won’t reach both.

2:45 And seek help in patience and the prayer, though it indeed is hard, except for the humble.

The command came to him, “O Master, tell your community to have patience in their affairs so that they may reach what they desire. ‘Patience is the key to relief.’”

If someone does not have the patience of the Men, let him not come to the Men’s playing field.

You have not the legs of men—don’t put on men’s clothing!

You have not the means of no means—don’t brag of selflessness! [DS 491]

Once that paragon of the world stepped into this playing field, he was not left for one hour without sorrow and grief. If he sat for a while cross-legged, the address came, “Sit like a servant!” If once he put a ring on his finger, the whip of rebuke would come down: “What, did you reckon that We created you aimlessly?” [23:115]. If once he placed his foot on the ground boldly, the command would come, “Walk not in the earth exultantly” [17:37]. When the work reached the limit and he was being tried from every corner, he sighed and said, “No prophet whatsoever has been tormented as I have been tormented.”

The address came from the Exalted Presence, “O paragon! When someone’s heart and spirit witness Me, will he complain of the burden of trial?” All the venom of grief in the treasuries of the Unseen was poured into one cup and placed in his hand, and then a curtain was lifted from his secret core: “O paragon! Drink all this venom while contemplating My beauty! And be patient with thy Lord’s decree, for surely thou art in Our eyes [52:48].” The tongue of the state was saying,

“Were the Beloved’s hand to pour poison for me,

poison from His hand would be sweet.

*

“Though Your hand is fire, it is my bed of roses.

All that comes from You is sweet, whether healing or pain.”

Though it indeed is hard, except for the humble. Humbleness is a stipulation of the prayer. It is a mark of the servant’s need. The humble in the prayer are praised by the Real and chosen among the creatures. Prosperous are the faithful, those who are humble in their prayers [23:1-2]. Humbleness in the prayer is both outward and inward. The outward is that you keep your limbs within the stipulations of courtesy. You do not look right and left. You keep your eyes on the spot of prostration while standing, on the feet while bowing, on the tip of the nose while prostrating, and on your side while bearing witness. God’s Messenger said that looking around during the prayer is to give Iblis a portion of it. He also said, “When the servant stands to pray, he is before the eyes of the All-Merciful. When he looks around, God says, ‘Child of Adam! At whom are you looking? Are you looking at someone better for you than I? Child of Adam! Look at Me, for I am better for you than the one at whom you are looking.’”

Inward humbleness is the fear of the heart, whether from remembrance and reflection or intoxication and gratitude. When God’s Messenger prayed, his inward humbleness was such that everyone heard his heart’s boiling, as has come in the report: “His breast used to boil like a cooking pot from weeping.”

One day the Messenger passed by a man in prayer whose hand was playing with his hair. He said, “If his heart had humbleness, his limbs would be humbled.” If this man’s heart had fear, his hands would stay firm in the attribute of humbleness.

It has come in the traditions that in one of the battles, ʿAlī was struck by an arrow. The arrowhead was so stuck in his bone that as much as they tried, it could not be separated. They said, “Unless the flesh and skin is taken away and the bone broken, this arrowhead cannot be separated.” His elders and young ones said, “If this is the case, we must wait until he is praying, for we always see that in the devotions of the prayer it is as if he has no awareness of the world.”

They waited until he was finished with the obligatory acts and customs of the prayer and began with the supererogatory and additional acts. The physician came, opened up the flesh, broke the bone, and took out the arrowhead while ʿAlī remained as he was in the state of prayer. When he gave the greeting to complete the prayer, he said, “My pain has eased.”

They told him what had happened to him while he was unaware. He said, “When I am in whispered prayer with God, the world might turn upside down, or they might strike me with swords and spears, but I would not be aware of the bodily pain because of the pleasure of the whispered prayer.”

This is not so strange, for the splendorous revelation reports that when the women of Egypt blamed Zulaykhā for being in love with Joseph, she wanted to make them pay for that blaming. She invited them, prepared a place for them, sat them down in order, and gave each of them a knife in the right hand and an orange in the left. Thus He says, “She gave each of them a knife.” Once they had settled down, she brought Joseph in his finery and told him to pass by them: “Go out to them!” When the women of Egypt saw Joseph with that beauty and perfection, he appeared magnificent to them: When they saw him, they admired him greatly [12:31]. They all cut their hands and, because of contemplating Joseph’s beauty and gazing on his perfection, they were unaware of having cut them.

So we know that in reality the contemplation of God’s majesty, beauty, exaltedness, and awesomeness by the heart and secret core of ʿAlī’s spirit was greater than the contemplation of the created Joseph by the estranged women. They became selfless like that and were unaware of their own pain. If it happened that ʿAlī’s flesh and skin were cut open and he was unaware of the pain, this is not strange or marvelous.

2:53 And when We gave Moses the book and the discernment.

He gave Moses’ folk the discernment outwardly, and He placed the discernment in the inwardness of Muḥammad’s folk in addition to their outwardness. The inner discernment is a light in the heart of the friends through which they separate truth from falsehood. It is alluded to in His words, “If you are wary of God, He will appoint for you a criterion” [8:29]. This is why Muṣṭafā said to Wābisa, “Ask for a pronouncement from your heart!” He also said, “Be wary of the perspicacity of the man of faith, for he gazes with the light of God.” When this discernment appears in someone’s inwardness, his drinking and aspiration are purified of the dust of others; the walkway of his desire is protected from the debris of customs, the carpet of his days is shaken loose of the opacities of mortal nature, and the eyes of his moment are kept away from the hand of newly arrived things. Then, things that are reports for others are for him face-to-face vision; what had been the knowledge of certainty becomes the eye of certainty. No newly arrived thing enters existence in the empire without his heart being aware of it. Muṣṭafā was asked if this has a mark. He said, “When light enters the heart, the breast is expanded.” Its mark is that the breast is opened up to the divine light. When the breast is opened up, the aspiration becomes high, every sorrow is comforted, scatteredness turns into togetherness, the carpet of subsistence is spread, the rug of annihilation is rolled up, the corner of heartaches is closed off, and the door to the garden of union is opened. In joy and coquetry, he says with the tongue of the state,

“In the quarter of hope, I have a delightful home,

in the story of passion, I have a delightful problem.

Why do you ask details about my heart, O spirit of the world?

Know, in short, that I have a delighted heart.”

2:54 When Moses said to his people, “O my people, you have wronged your souls by taking up the calf, so kill your own souls! That is better for you with your Creator.”

Moses said to his people: “Take care not to suppose that your worship of the calf has harmed the majesty of the Self-Sufficient or that it is a defect for His kingship and lordhood. Rather, the harm and bad fortune belong to you. If something bad has happened, it has happened to you by your being held back from a Lord like Him. Otherwise, He has plenty of servants like you.

Sahl ʿAbdallāh Tustarī said, “God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, and the exaltedness of the Lord God’s speech made that mountain like carnelian. Moses’ turned his gaze to himself: ‘Who is like me? For the God of the world and the world’s folk is talking to me without intermediary, and my standing place has turned into carnelian!’

“God did not let that pass. He said, ‘O Moses, look once right and left. What do you see?’

“Moses looked around and saw a thousand mountains of carnelian like Mount Sinai, on each mountain a man in the form of Moses, wearing a blanket like him, a hat on his head, a staff in hand, and talking to the Lord of the universe.” The tongue of Moses’ state was saying,

“I fancied that you were one body with me.

How could I know that you’re everyone’s familiar?”

A poor man was seen whispering secretly with God and saying, “O God, approve of me as your lover. If You do not approve of me as a lover, approve of me as Your servant. If You do not approve of my as a servant, approve of me as Your dog.” He was saying, “O Lord, accept me for friendship. If I am not worthy of friendship, accept me for servanthood. If I am not worthy of servanthood, accept me for doghood, so that I may be the dog of Your threshold.”

O Friend, if you do not give me the forefront of respect,

at least keep me outside the door like the dogs.

So kill your own souls! That is better for you with your Creator. By way of inwardness, this is addressed to the chevaliers of the Tariqah: “Cut off the heads of your souls with the sword of struggle so that you may reach Me. Those who struggle in Us, We will guide them on Our paths [29:69].”

Be careful not to say that this killing of the soul by way of struggle is easier than the killing that happened among the Children of Israel. Their killing was only once, and after that, everything was ease and repose.^{1In Stage Two, Maybudī explains that at God’s instruction, Moses commanded those who had not worshiped the calf to execute those who had. When he became deeply sorrowful at all the killing, God revealed to him, “Will you not be content that I will place both the killed and the killers in the Garden?”} But these chevaliers have a killing at every hour and every moment.

He who dies and reaches ease is not dead—

the truly dead is dead among the living.

What is strange is that the more they see the blows of trial’s sickle, the more their passion increases day by day. Like a moth with the candle, every day they are more troubled by their trouble.

You are my heart’s light, though You pair me with fire,

my head’s crown, though You keep me in dust,

As dear as the eye, though You keep me lowly—

You make me happy, though You keep me mourning.

It is as if every hour the postman of the Presence sends a message of inspiration from the Exalted Threshold to the spirit of these dear ones: “O chevaliers, the beginning of this work is killing and the end is joy. The outwardness of friendship is peril and its inwardness mystery. ‘When someone loves Me, I kill him, and when I kill him, I am his wergild.’”

The wergild of him killed by hand is dinars,

the wergild of him killed by passion is seeing.

2:57 And We shaded you with clouds.

This is an allusion to the Lord’s gentleness and generosity. His loving kindness toward the servants is such that the Lord of the Worlds says, “O hapless child of Adam! Why do you not love Me? For I am worthy of love. Why do you not trade with Me? For I am munificent and bounteous. Why do you not engage in transactions with Me? For I am a bestower who is ample in bestowal. My mercy is not tight, nor do I hold back blessings from anyone.

“Look at what I did with the Children of Israel, how many blessings I poured down upon them, how much I caressed them in that empty desert! After they had turned away and disobeyed My command, I did not let them go to ruin. I commanded the mist to cast a shadow over them, I commanded the wind to place roasted birds in their hands, I commanded the clouds to rain down manna and honey on them, I commanded the pillar of light to give them brightness on the nights when there was no moon. When a child came into existence from its mother in that empty desert, it came into existence with the set of clothes that it needed. Then, as the child grew up, those clothes never became too old for it, nor did they become dirty. In the state of that person’s life, the clothes were his ornament, and in the state of his death, his shroud. What blessing was there that I did not pour down upon them? In what manner did I fail to caress them? Yet they did not know My measure, nor did they show gratitude for the blessings.

“O hapless one! No one wants you the way I want you. When you come, no one will buy you the way I buy. When you sell yourself, others will buy only the faultless, but I buy the faulty. Others call out for the loyal, but I call out for the disloyal. If you come in old age, I will adorn the whole empire to honor you, and if you talk to Me in the fullness of youth, I will take you into My shelter tomorrow on the Day of Resurrection.”

People disobey for a lifetime, then return in shame—

We say to them, “Welcome, be at ease, greetings!”

2:67 And When Moses said to his people, “God commands you to sacrifice a cow.”

This story of the cow of the Children of Israel in these verses and the mention of its attributes is one of the subtle points of wisdom and exalted pearls of the Qur’an. The Qur’an itself is the all-encompassing ocean. Many are the kingly pearls and night-brightening gems found in the ocean’s depths.

You should read everything that the Exalted Lord said about the cow of the Children of Israel as an allusion to your own attributes. Then you will reach the station of worthiness to dive into this ocean and He will give you access to its deposited wonders and unseen pearls.

Altogether the attributes that He clarified in these verses are three: first, neither old nor virgin [2:68]; second, golden, bright her color [2:69]; third, not abased to plow the earth [2:71].

First, neither old nor virgin. He says it should not be broken down and old, nor newly born and immature. In other words, the feet of these chevaliers will go straight in the circle of the Tariqah when the intoxication and greediness of youth no longer veil them, and when the weakness of old age does not hinder them. Do you not see that revelation reached Muṣṭafā when he was not a newly born youngster, nor had his days reached the worst state of life [16:70]? If there had been a state more complete, revelation would have reached him at its time.

Whenever desire for God pairs itself with the intoxication of youth, there is fear of the highwaymen. It is rare that a youngster in his new desire remains secure from the highwaymen. If it does happen in the empire, it seldom does. This is why Muṣṭafā said, “Your Lord marvels at a young man who has no youthful fervor.”

The second attribute is golden, bright her color, gladdening the gazers. When the chevaliers step into the field of the Tariqah in the state of the perfection of mortal nature and stand straight in it, the Unity will bring them into the color of love, and the color of love is colorlessness. It will wash them of anything mixed with colors—We shall strip away all the rancor that is in their breasts [7:43]. They will become pure spirit. Their makeup and their meanings will all take on one attribute. Any eye that gazes on them will be brightened, and any heart that ponders their work will feel familiarity.

Sufyān Thawrī became ill and was taken to a Christian physician. The Christian examined him and meditated. Then he said, “This is a wondrous state I see. This man’s liver is bleeding because of his fear of God, and the blood is coming out with his water. The religion that he has can only be true. I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muḥammad is His Messenger.”

When that Christian physician looked at the evidence, he felt familiarity. When someone looks at the faces of the Real’s friends with pure belief and meditates on their conduct, what will happen to the love in his heart? This is why He says, “bright her color, gladdening the gazers.” The color that makes lookers happy is the color of familiarity and friendship. Today He brings them forth in the color of familiarity and friendship, and what color is more beautiful than that? Who is more beautiful in color than God? [2:138]. Tomorrow He will color them with His own color. The Prophet said, “They will be colored with the light of the All-Merciful.”

The third attribute is what He says: “not abased to plow the earth or to water the tillage, secure with no blemish on her.” They are pure, virtuous, fortunate, beautiful in conduct, increasing day by day. They have not been tainted by the defects of the mimickers, nor have they fallen to the station of low in aspiration, nor have they been inscribed by friendship for the others or branded by the secondary causes. The sultan of mortal nature does not hold them in its hand, nor does the judge of appetites issue its rulings to them. They do not incline to figures and likenesses, nor do they lean on their own choice and contrivance. Just as they recognize that He who is worshiped is one, so also they know that the Intended is one, the Witnessed one, the Found one.

Everyone’s busy with his own affairs

and I aspire to the helping Friend.

*

Each has a prayer-niche in some direction,

but Sanāʾī’s prayer-niche is Your street. [DS 1004]

2:74 Then your hearts became hardened after that, so they were like stones or even harder. And there are stones from which rivers come gushing, and among them are those that split and water comes forth from them, and among them are those that fall down in fear of God.

In the case of the ignorant, the hardening of the heart is unkindness, lack of mercy, and distance from the path of the Real. In the case of the recognizers, the purifiers, and the limpid, hardening is the strength of the heart, the state of stability, the perfection of knowledge, and the state of limpidness. Abū Bakr used to show it from himself. Whenever he saw that someone was weeping and twisting in himself because of listening to the Qur’an, he would say, “I was like that until the hearts became hardened.”

This hardening is an allusion to the perfection of the state of the recognizers and the majesty of the level of the sincerely truthful. At the beginning of the work and the outset of desire the beginners shout, wail, cry, and weep, for passion has not yet fully established its rulership. When the work reaches perfection, the limpidness of recognition becomes strong and the ruling power of passion fully establishes its rulership. Then that shouting and wailing are put aside, and joy and revelry arrive. With the tongue of their state they say,

“At first when passion for that beauty was new

my neighbors did not sleep at night because of my weeping.

Now I weep less because my passion has increased—

When fire takes over, there’s little smoke.”^{1The quatrain and most of the preceding paragraph are derived from Aḥmad Ghazālī, Sawāniḥ, p. 23.}

There are stones from which rivers come gushing, and among them are those that split and water comes forth from them, and among them are those that fall down in fear of God. He made hard stones more excellent than cruel hearts and superior to them. He is saying, “Water comes from stone, and it becomes soft, and in fear of God it falls into the desert. But a cruel heart in the makeup of an estranged man does not moan in fear of God or weep in remorse, nor do mercy and tenderness enter into it.”

The stories say that one of God’s prophets was passing through a desert and saw a small stone from which was flowing a great deal of water, much greater than the measure of the stone. The prophet stood there and wondered at its state. “What is the state of this stone? What is this water flowing from it?”

The Exalted Lord brought that stone into speech for him. It said, “O prophet of the Real! This water you see is my weeping. From the day it reached me that the Exalted Lord says, ‘Its fuel is men and stones’ [66:6], I have wept in remorse and fear.”

The prophet said, “Lord God, give it security from the Fire!”

Revelation came to him, “I have given it security from the Fire.”

The prophet went away and came back another day. He saw that the stone was weeping just like before—the water was flowing. He remained in wonder at that. The Exalted Lord made the stone speak again. It said, “O prophet of God! Why do you wonder at my weeping? God has given me security from the Fire. My first weeping was from remorse and sorrow, but this weeping is from happiness and gratitude.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, I have a long weeping in my head. I do not know if I weep from remorse or from joy. Weeping from remorse is the portion of an orphan, weeping from joy the portion of a candle. What is it to weep from joy? That story is long.”

2:77 Do they not know that God knows what they keep secret and what they announce?

This is the speech of the Lord who is worshiped by the tawḥīd-voicers, responds to those who call, knows the state of the servants, is aware of the apparent and hidden, and calls back those who have turned away. One He calls with explicit expressions, presenting Himself as the Nurturer. He says, “Be penitent toward your Lord!” [39:54]. Another He calls with His exalted allusions and turns the face of his heart away from others to Himself. He presents His lordhood and kingship to him and says, “Do they not know that God knows what they keep secret and what they announce?” For the recognizers, this is sufficient allusion. When the Lord of the Worlds says that He knows the secret cores and is aware of the hidden things, they sweep the dust of the others from their secret cores and give scatteredness no way into their hearts. When He says that He knows the apparent, they bring truthfulness to bear in their outward interaction with God’s creatures. This is why the folk of allusion have said that He knows what they keep secret is a command to watchfulness between servant and Lord, and what they announce is a command to truthfulness in interactions and settling accounts with the creatures.

In one of God’s books has come, “If you do not know that I see you, that is a defect in your faith. If you do know that I see you, why do you make Me the lowliest of gazers upon you?”

Equivalent to this verse is what the Exalted Lord says: “He knows the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal” [40:19]. There are diverse treacheries in the eyes of the lookers, because the travelers are diverse.

The treachery of the eyes of the worshipers is that in the dark night, when it is time for whispering to God, they fall asleep and the intimacy of seclusion is lost to them. The prophet David received the revelation, “O David, he who claims to love Me is a liar if night comes, and he goes to sleep on Me. Does not every lover love to be secluded with his beloved?”

God praised Abraham for this attribute when He said, “When night darkened over him” [6:76]. When night came over him, sleep fled from his eyes. All his vision was turned toward the traces of His handiwork, and he found solace in that. God lauded the believers and praised their arising at night with his words, “Their sides shun their couches [32:16]. They are awake, they rise up at night—all the world goes to sleep and they tell Me secrets. They talk of their grief and joy. I will give them whatever they want, and I will keep them secure from whatever they fear.”

The treachery of the eyes of the recognizers is that they do not weep the bloody tears of grief when they fail to find union with the Friend. A man claimed to love a creature, and the two of them were separated. When they were turning away from each other, one eye of the lover shed tears, the other did not. He closed that eye for eighty-four years and did not open it. He said, “An eye that does not weep at separation from the friend is worthy of no punishment less than this.” In this meaning they composed these poems:

My eye wept tears on the morning of separation,

but the other was stingy with weeping.

I punished the one that was stingy

by shutting it the day we met.

*

One of my eyes wept at separation from my friend

and the other became stingy and did not weep.

When the day of union arrives, I will give it its recompense—

“Well, you didn’t weep, so you mustn’t look.”

They say that one must weep so much in separation from the Friend that you imagine that the Friend is mixed with the tears and that He will fall to your side with the teardrops.

From the time, O my Life, You took up residence in my heart,

I made my eyes rain down pearls.

Perhaps once as companion to my tears

You will come by way of my eyes to my side.

The treachery of the eyes of the sincerely truthful is that something in the universe should appear beautiful to them and they should gaze at it. When love for God is someone’s reality, his eyes are sewn toward all others. This is why Muḥammad said, “Your love for a thing makes you blind and deaf.”

O light of my eye, ask my eye: “Have you feasted on

a beautiful scene since I parted from you?”

2:78 And among them are the unlettered.

In this verse the attribute of unletteredness is a censure of the estranged and a mark of their shortcoming. In the verse where He says, “Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet” [7:157], it is a praise of Muṣṭafā and a mark of his perfection. This alludes to the fact that having the same name does not mean being of the same kind. The congruence of names does not require the congruence of meanings. The position of the Folk of the Sunnah in affirming the attributes of the Real was established according to this rule: the agreement of one name with another does not bring about the agreement of meanings. God has attributes and descriptions fitting for Godhood, and creatures are far from that. Created things have created attributes, and God is pure of that. Do you not see that “exalted” is a name of God, and He called Joseph exalted [12:78]? God’s exaltedness is worthy of Him and the created thing’s exaltedness is worthy of it.

By the agreement of the Muslims and the attestation of most of the unbelievers, God is existent and the creatures are existent. But, the creatures exist by God’s existence-giving, and God exists by His own abidance and His own being and subsistence. The Muslims agree that God is alive, and there are many living things among the created. The created thing is alive through breath and through appropriate and timely nourishment, but God is alive through His life and subsistence and through His firstness and lastness—without when, how many, or how. All the opponents of the Folk of the Sunnah say that God is maker and the created thing maker. But the created thing is maker through artifice, instrument, striving, and measure, and God is maker through power and wisdom—whatever He wants, as He wants, and whenever He wants.

There are many similar things in the Qur’an. In short, God knows how He is, and He is just as He said He is, but the servant is incapable of knowing His howness. What God said about Himself should be accepted from the eyeteeth and assented to from the depth of the spirit. When someone fancies that having the same meaning is to be of the same kind, that is to go by the road of the roadless, and it is nothing but rebellion. Hoping to grasp God by imagination and seeking is absurd, and everything gained in this way will be faulty. Safety in the religion lies in accepting the message, approving of him who conveyed it, bowing the head, and putting aside seeking. Anyone who has this as his belief has gone on the right path, and his outcome will be as the Exalted Lord says:

2:82 Those who have faith and do wholesome deeds—those are the companions of the Garden, and they shall be there forever.

It has been said that those who have faith is an allusion to the tree of faith and its being planted in the heart of the faithful. Do wholesome deeds is an allusion to the branches of that tree and its nurturing and growing. Those are the companions of the Garden is an allusion to the produce of the tree and the ripening of its fruit. This is the tree about which the Lord of the Worlds speaks and reports in another place: “Its roots fixed, and its branches in heaven. It gives its fruit every season by the leave of its Lord” [14:24-25]. The fruit of this tree is not like the fruit of other trees, which bring forth fruit once year after year. Rather, this tree brings forth new fruit every hour, or rather every moment. Each has another color, another taste, and another fragrance. The sweetness of worshipers is a fruit of this tree, the feast of the desirers’ heart is a fruit of this tree, the limpidness of the recognizers’ present moment is a fruit of this tree. Today in the house of service on the carpet of obedience they have the paradise of recognition, neither turned aside from them nor veiled. Tomorrow in the house of union on the carpet of friendship they will have the paradise of approval, neither cut off nor withheld, and upraised carpets [56:33-34].

2:97 Say: “Whoever is an enemy of Gabriel—he it is who sent it down upon thy heart.”

Magnanimous and beautiful is the Qur’an that Gabriel brought down from the All-Merciful. It is the repose of the spirit of the friends, the healing of the hearts of the ill, a mercy to the faithful. This is why God says, “he it is who sent it down upon thy heart.” Elsewhere He says, “Brought down by the trustworthy spirit upon thy heart” [26:193-94]. When Gabriel conveyed the pure revelation, sometimes he came in the form of a mortal man, sometimes in the form of an angel. Whenever he brought verses about permitted and forbidden and the explication of the shariahs and rulings, he would be in human form, and there was no talk of the heart. Thus He says, “He it is who sent down upon thee the Book” [3:7]; “Does it not suffice them that We sent down upon thee the Book?” [29:51].

Then again, whenever there was talk of love, the attributes of passion, and the intimations of friendship, he would come in the form of an angel, spiritual and subtle, and he would join with Muṣṭafā’s heart. He would convey the revelation of the Qur’an secretly to his secret core, and no one else was aware of him. When he returned and left behind the realm of his heart, Muṣṭafā would say, “He broke away from me while I was aware of him.”

It is said that when he was inundated by contemplation in this speech, the revelation would first descend to his heart, for He said to him, “who sent it down upon thy heart.” Then it would turn away from his heart to his understanding and his hearing. Then he would descend from the summit of companionship to the lowland of service for the sake of the people’s shares. This is the level of the elect. It may also happen that revelation descends on the hearing of certain people first, then on their understanding, then on their hearts, advancing from the lowness of struggle to the highness of contemplation. This is the level of the wayfarers and desirers. How far apart they are!

2:106 Whatever verse We abrogate or cause to be forgotten—We bring better than it or its like.

By way of allusion He is saying, “We never make you advance from the locus of servanthood without setting you down in the courtyards of freedom. We never remove from you any of the attributes of mortal nature without making you abide through one of the marks that give witness to the Divinity.”^{1LI 1:124.}

In terms of allusion He is saying, “O paragon of the horizons, O messenger to jinn and men, O quintessence of predetermination, O luminous full moon, O totality of perfection, O kiblah of prosperity, O basis of bounteousness, O displayer of gentleness and majesty, O you whose branch of union is blooming and whose star of exaltedness is always shining, O you whose good fortune has gone beyond the clouds of being and become specific to the marks giving witness to the Lordhood and the confirmation of the Divinity! Instant by instant the work of your good fortune is advancing. What others have as crowns, you have as sandals.

“The sandals that your steed threw from its feet

became the crown of sultans—and may it ever be so! [DS 838]

“O paragon! Even though the stations beyond which We make you advance are the beautiful deeds of all the friends and the limpid, they are your ugly deeds as long as you remain within them. When you pass beyond them, ask forgiveness for them!”

Muṣṭafā said that he asked forgiveness for them seventy times a day: “My heart becomes clouded, so I ask forgiveness from God seventy times a day.”

Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq said, “Would that I could witness that for which God’s Messenger asked forgiveness!”

Concerning His words, “Whatever verse We abrogate,” it has also been said, “That is, the servant is not transferred from a state without being given what is above and beyond it. ‘Whenever We abrogate any trace of worship, We replace it with one of the lights of servanthood. Whenever We abrogate one of the lights of servanthood, We put in its place something of the moons of servitude.’”^{2There are textual problems with this Arabic quotation, so I have corrected them by following the original text as given in LI 1:123. The three degrees of worship, servanthood, and servitude are explained by Qushayrī in his Risāla as pertaining respectively to the common people among the faithful, the elect, and the elect of the elect.} So he continues, being transferred from the lower to the higher, until he falls under one of the attractions of the Real. And “One attraction from the Real is equivalent to all the deeds of jinn and men.”

When someone is lifted up by the court of Lordhood and received by the marks bearing witness to Divinity, Unity nurtures him in the domes of exaltation with the attribute of love and takes him from state to state, conveying him from this station to the next station until he falls under the attraction of the Real. After having been a traveler, he is snatched away. Then, wherever he may have gone in his whole life in the state of traveling, he is taken beyond that at the first step in the state of being pulled, for “One attraction from the Real is equivalent to all the deeds of jinn and men.” Indeed, just as He is not similar to anyone, so also His pulling is not similar to the traveling of the creatures. To the lords of traveling, He says, “Preserve the commands and prohibitions.” To the commands and prohibitions He says, “Preserve the lords of attraction, for in the world of realities the descendents of Adam remain alive through them. The well-trodden path of truthfulness is filled with the firm fixity of their feet.”

In the world of realities they are called “the strangers among the tribes”—like Bilāl from Abyssinia, Ṣuhayb from Byzantium, Salmān from Persia, and Uways from Qaran. How beautifully has this been said by that chevalier:

Nothing comes from a handful of frivolous seekers of leadership—

learn being a Muslim from Salmān and religion’s pain from Abū Dardā. [DS 55]

It is they who knew the worth of Muṣṭafā’s Shariah and recognized the rightful due of his Sunnah. When the limpidness of the secret core of such sincerely truthful men shines on a thorn, it becomes the jasmine of the religion. If it shines on the obedient, they are accepted; if it shines on the disobedient, they are forgiven; and if it shines on the ungodly, they become friends. Thus it is told that Ḥātim Aṣamm and Shaqīq Balkhī went on a journey. An ungodly old man, a minstrel, became their companion in the road. Most of the time he was busy with the tools of corruption and the instruments of ungodliness. Ḥātim kept on waiting for Shaqīq to prevent him from doing that and to blame him, but he did not do so, and the journey came to an end. At the moment of parting, the ungodly old man said, “What kind of people are you? I have never seen anyone heavier. You never danced once, you never clapped your hands.”

Ḥātim said, “Excuse us. I am Ḥātim, and that’s Shaqīq.”

When the old man heard their names, he fell to their feet in repentance and became their disciple, eventually becoming one of the friends. Afterwards Shaqīq said to Ḥātim, “I saw with the patience of Men and I hunted with the hunting of Men.”

2:112 No, whosoever submits his face to God, doing the beautiful, shall have his wage with his Lord, and no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve.

The work is the work of the purifiers, the good fortune the good fortune of the truthful, the conduct the conduct of the pure, and the hard cash the hard cash in their purse. Today they are on the carpet of service with the light of recognition, tomorrow on the carpet of companionship with the joy of union. Surely We purified them with that which is pure [38:46]. He is saying, “We made them pure and brought them forth pure from the crucible of testing so that they would be worthy for the Presence,” for the Pure Presence gives access only to the pure. “Surely God is goodly and accepts only the goodly.” Nothing is of any use with the Pure Presence save pure activity and pure speech. Then you must become so purified of that pure activity that you do not seek it out in this world or the afterworld. Then you may reach God pure. Surely he shall have nearness to Us, and a beautiful return [38:40].

The secret of this talk is what was said by Abū Bakr Zaqqāq: “The defect in the purity of every purifier is to see his purity. If God desires to purify his self-purification, He will eliminate the seeing of his self-purification from his purification. Then he will be ‘purified’ [mukhlaṣ], not ‘purifying’ [mukhliṣ].” He is saying that your self-purification will be pure when it is pure of your seeing it.

Know also that this self-purification is not in your hands, nor in your capacity or possession. Rather, it is a secret of the Lord placed there by the Glorified. No one is aware of it, and no one else has any access to it. The Unity says, “It is one of My secrets that I deposit in the hearts of those whom I love among My servants.” He is saying, “I choose a servant and approve him for My love, then I place my deposit in the core of his heart. Satan has no access to it so as to destroy it, nor does the soul’s caprice see it so as to change it, nor does the angel reach it so as to write it down.”

This is why Junayd said, “Self-purification is a secret between God and the servant. No angel knows it that he might write it down, no satan that he might corrupt it, and no caprice that it might make it deviate.” Dhu’l-Nūn Miṣrī said, “When this deposit is placed within someone, his mark is that people’s praise and censure have the same value. He sees their applause and their curses in one color. He does not become happy from the former, nor does he shrivel from the latter.”

Thus on the night of proximity and generosity, all creatures were reciting the edict of Muṣṭafā’s ruling authority, but he did not look at anything from the corner of his eye. He was saying, “You who are the proximate of the Presence are saying, ‘Peace be upon the wholesome Prophet, who is the best of those in heaven and earth.’ But I am waiting to be taken back to the doorstep of the cruelty of Abū Jahl so that he may say, ‘O sorcerer! O liar!’ Just as I strike the ‘best of those in the heaven and earth’ against the touchstone, so also I strike it against ‘sorcerer, liar.’ If the two do not have the same value, I will take off the hat of my claims.”

Go, you’re still in bond to attributes, still in love with yourself,

if you find the pulpit’s exaltation sweeter than the gallows’ abasement. (DS 210)

Someone like this is called “purified,” not “purifier,” as Abū Bakr Zaqqāq said: “Then he will be purified, not purifier.” The purifier is someone in a whirlpool in the middle of the perilous ocean. The life-snatching sharks come to him from right and left. He cuts through the water and he is fearful about how and when he will reach the shore of security. This is why the great ones of the past have said, “The purifier is in great peril.”

The purified is he who has reached the shore of security. The Lord of the Worlds has shown that Moses had both states. He says, “Surely he was ‘purifier/purified’ and he was a messenger, and prophet” [19:51]. This has been read as both mukhliṣ and mukhlaṣ.” If you read it as purifier, then it is the beginning of his work. If you read it as purified, then it is the end of his work. He was a purifier when the work of prophethood joined with him and the caress of Unity showed its face to him. He became purified when the work of prophethood took flight and he became bold toward the Exalted Presence. This is indeed the state of someone who first had traveling and then reached the pull of the Real.

What a difference there is between him and our prophet Muḥammad! The difference between Muḥammad and Moses is such that he was protected by the lasso of the Real’s pull before the era of Adam’s clay, as he said: “I was a prophet when Adam was molded of clay.” This is why Shiblī said, “Everyone will have an antagonist at the resurrection, and I will be Adam’s antagonist, for he made my road steep, because I was stuck in his mire.”

Concerning this Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “Do you know when the realizer reaches the Real? When the flood of lordhood arrives and the dust of mortal nature disappears, when the Haqiqah increases and the pretext decreases. Body does not remain, nor heart, nor spirit. He stays limpid, released from water and clay. Light is not mixed with dust, nor dust with light—dust is with dust, and light with light. The tongue is lost in remembrance, remembrance in the Remembered. The heart is lost in love, love in the Light. The spirit is lost in face-to-face vision, and face-to-face vision is far from explication.”

If you want this day, come out of yourself like a snake from its skin. Abandon yourself, for it is not beautiful for you to be ascribed to yourself. This is exactly what that chevalier said:

“Endless passion has nothing to do with a heart

that stays firm in its own attributes.

No friend in passion’s road has ever embraced

the realm of meaning along with the realm of form.” [DS 209-10]

2:114 Who does greater wrong than he who bars God’s places of prostration?

In terms of allusion, He is asking, “Who does greater wrong than he who ruins the homeland of worship with appetites? Who does greater wrong than he who ruins the homeland of recognition with attachments? Who does greater wrong than he who ruins the homeland of contemplation by glancing at others?”

The homeland of worship is the soul of the renunciants, the homeland of recognition the heart of the recognizers, and the homeland of contemplation the secret core of the friends.

When someone keeps his soul away from appetites, the homeland of his worship flourishes and his name is written in the register of the renunciants. Thus Mālik Dīnār lingered in Basra for forty years and never ate or tasted the dates of Basra, dried or fresh, before he died. He was asked about that and he said, “The possessor of appetite is veiled from his Lord.”

When someone keeps his heart pure of attachment, the homeland of his recognition flourishes and he belongs to the ranks of the recognizers. Thus one of them said about Ibrāhīm Adham, “I was with Ibrāhīm Adham in a journey, and we were afflicted with hunger. After we settled in a mosque he brought out some sections of the Qur’an he had with him and said, ‘Go and pawn these sections and bring us something to eat, for hunger has stricken us.’ I went out, and someone came forward to me in front of a fully laden mule. He was saying, ‘The one I am seeking is a light-complexioned man called Ibrāhīm ibn Adham.’”

“I said, ‘What do you desire from him?’

“He said, ‘I am the slave of his father, and these things belong to him.’ So I led him to him. He entered the mosque, put his head and hands on the ground and kissed him. Ibrāhīm said, ‘Who are you?’ He said, ‘I am your father’s slave. Your father has died, and I have with me 40,000 dinars, your inheritance from your father. I am your slave. Command me as you wish.’

“Ibrāhīm said, ‘If you speak the truth, then you are free, for the sake of God. And what you have with you is all a gift to you. Leave us.’ After he left, he said, ‘My Lord, I spoke to You about a loaf of bread, so You showered this world down upon me. By Your rightful due! Even if You make me die from hunger, I will not again undertake to seek anything.’”

When someone keeps his secret core pure of glancing at others, the homeland of his contemplation flourishes and he becomes one of the friends. Thus Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī turned the eyes of his aspiration completely away from all others, stuffed the ears of striving, and pulled the tongue of loss into the mouth of disappointment. He extracted the intrusion of the commanding soul, put himself in the ballista of meditation, shot himself into every valley, melted his body with the fire of jealousy in all the crucibles, and drove the horse of seeking into the space of every desert. With the tongue of solitariness he was saying,

“People are wishing for repose and comfort,

but I, O Exalted One, wish to encounter You empty.

*

“Each has a prayer-niche in some direction,

but Sanāʾī’s prayer-niche is Your street.” [DS 1004]

Abū Yazīd said, “When this claim appeared from my makeup, the Unity made me taste the blow of jealousy. He questioned me with awesomeness to show me how to come out of the furnace of testing. He said, ‘Whose is the kingdom?’ [40:16].

“I said, ‘Yours, O Lord.’

“He said, ‘Whose is the free choice?’

“I said, “Yours, O God.’

“When He saw and knew my weakness and need, He was aware that my attributes had reached His attributes. He said, ‘O Abū Yazīd! Now that you have come to have nothing, you have everything. Now that you have come to have no tongue and no spirit, you have tongue and spirit.’”

Other than this tongue we have another tongue,

other than hell and paradise, we have another place.

Men of free lineage live with another spirit—

their pure substance has another source.

“Then He gave me a tongue of self-sufficient gentleness, a heart of light, and an eye of divine artisanry such that if I speak, I speak with His assistance. I walk with His strength, I see with His light, I take with His power, and I sit in His session: ‘I am his hearing and he hears through Me, his eyesight and he sees through Me.’

“When I reached this station, my tongue became the tongue of tawḥīd and my spirit the spirit of disengagement. I do not speak for myself, nor do I come back to myself. In reality the speaker is He, and I am a spokesman in the midst.” This is what the Unity said: ‘Thou didst not throw when thou threwest, but God threw’ [8:17].”

“I am his hand and he takes through Me” is this, if you have recognition.

The outside of both worlds is the inside of my heart—

my place is one step beyond the created world.

Tribulation lies only in the makeup of my water and clay.

What was before water and clay? That is what I will be.

2:116 They say, “God has taken a son.” Glory be to Him! Rather, to Him belongs what is in the heavens and the earth; all are devoted to Him.

He is pure, without fault, incomparable, the one Lord—one in forbearance, one in loyalty, one in love.

If the servant does harm, He does not cut off from him, for He is one in forbearance. If the servant inclines toward another, He does not so incline, because He is one in loyalty. If the servant breaks the covenant, He does not break it, because He is one in love.

He is one in Essence, one in attributes, rid of causes, incomparable with obsequiousness, praised by all expressions, fitting for all allusions, the creator of time and the hours, the determiner of instants and moments. His artisanry has no defect, His determining no contrivance, His description no likeness. He is a determiner who has always been.

Powerful, Knowing, Alive, Desiring,

Hearing, Seeing, clothed in majesty,

Hallowed beyond having an equal,

transcending opinion and talk.

*

O Essence of perfection lacking nothing!

The effusion of generosity comes from Your hand alone.

He is a lord without associate or partner, a king without equal or need. His promise is no lie, His name is no metaphor. The door of withholding is shut and the door of His munificence open. He is a forgiver of sins, a caresser of the faulty. He knows without cause, He is able without artifice. He is alone without paucity, spreader of the creed, outside of number, artisan without toil, self-standing until the Endless, hallowed beyond envy. His name is Subtle, Self-Standing, and Self-Sufficient; He begets not, nor was He begotten, and equal to Him is none [112:2-4].

So much are You face-to-face in my heart,

so much hidden from my eyes,

that your describer cannot describe You—

in Your attributes You are as You are.

A renowned Lord, caring for His servants—ears are open to His name, hearts imprisoned by His message, tawḥīd-voicers fallen into His snare, yearners drunk with the love from His cup. He is the lovingly kind such that no one in the universe is like Him in loving kindness. The disobedient and destitute have hope in Him, and the poor are happy in the subsistence of His majesty. Their domicile is at His threshold, their sitting in hope of union with Him, their being in bonds to His loyalty, their ease with His name, marks, and remembrance.

The two hundred spiritual worlds are the luster of His bounty,

the two hundred luminous worlds are from the light of His beauty.

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “O God, for a while I delighted in remembering You—then I chose resurrection. Who is fitting for this work like me? Enough for me that I am worthy of Your companionship.

“O God, there is no heart aside from remembering You, no spirit aside from finding You. How can one live without heart and spirit?

“O God, I have remained apart from the world’s folk, for my eyes are empty of You and I see You face-to-face!”

“You are not empty of me, but I do not see Your face.

You are a spirit with me, but not seen by me.

“O good fortune of the heart and life of the spirit! O found without being perceived and face-to-face without being seen! Your remembrance is in the heart and on the tongue, Your love in the midst of secret core and spirit. Finding You is a day that comes forth suddenly by itself. He who finds You busies himself with neither happiness nor grief. O Lord, complete for us the work that cannot be expressed! Finish for us the work with You that is hidden from the two worlds!”

The folk of wisdom have spoken of a marvelous intimation and a beautiful subtlety in the verse, “They say, ‘God has taken a son.’ Glory be to Him!” This subtlety is that God has made apparent a seed and set up a successor for everything in the world headed for annihilation. Thus its species will remain in the world and it will not totally cease to be. This is the universal motivation for the existence of the child—so the species may remain, the child may succeed its father, and descendants will not be cut off. Do you not see that the sun, the moon, the stars, and their likes have no way to annihilation in the redoublings of the days until the resurrection? Hence He did not make seeds for them or set up successors. In contrast, since the species of plants and the kinds of animals are annihilated during the days, it was imperative for them to have seeds and successors. From here it is known that it is not fitting for God to take a child, and He has no use for a successor. He is a living one who subsists and an enactor who continues. The defect of annihilation has no way to Him, blight and disappearance have no place in His majesty, and the fault of defectiveness does not fit into His perfection. He always was and always will be. Why should He need a child? How should that be appropriate? Greatly exalted is God beyond that!

Then He added to the argument and said, “Rather, to Him belongs what is in the heavens and the earth; all are devoted to Him.” If a child is needed, it is needed to serve the father, to support and help him. Thus the Exalted Lord says, “He has made for you from your wives children and grandchildren” [16:72]. Also, a father is not complete in himself, nor can he do without helpers. He needs others to make up for his poverty and weakness. So, what need does the Lord of the Worlds have for children? He has neither poverty to be made up for by someone, nor incapacity to take help from someone. Along with His lack of needs, the heaven, the earth, and everything within them are His possession and kingdom. All are His slaves and servants. All serve Him and obey Him, whether willingly or unwillingly. He alludes to this with His words, “To God prostrate themselves all in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly” [13:15].

2:121 Those to whom We have given the Book and who recite it with the rightful due of recitation.

The rightful due of recitation is that you recite the Qur’an with burning, need, limpidness of heart, and pure belief, with a remembering tongue, a believing heart, and a limpid spirit—the tongue in remembrance, the heart in grief, the spirit with love; the tongue with loyalty, the heart with limpidness, the spirit with shame; the tongue in the work, the heart in the mystery, and the spirit in joy.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “In the remembrance the servant reaches a place where the tongue reaches the heart, the heart reaches the spirit, the spirit reaches the secret core, and the secret core reaches the Light. The heart says to the tongue, ‘Silence!’ The spirit says to the heart, ‘Silence!’ The secret core says to the spirit, ‘Silence!’ God says to the traveler, ‘My servant, you have been speaking for a while. Now I will speak, you listen.’”

2:124 And when his Lord tried Abraham with some words.

It has been narrated from al-Ḥasan that he said, “God tried him with the stars, the moon, and the sun, and he spoke beautiful words in that, for he knew that His Lord was constant and never ceasing. He tried him with the sacrifice of the son, and he was patient in that and did not fall short.” He is saying that the shining stars and brilliant sun were adorned, and Abraham was tested. “That was so that the one tried would know, not that the one trying him was ignorant.” In other words, this was to show him what comes from him and how he was walking on the road of servanthood.

Abraham came out of it extremely virtuous, fortunate, and felicitous. He said, “This is my Lord” [6:76]. It is said that here there is an ellipsis. He means, “They say, ‘This is my Lord.’ These estranged ones say that this is my God. But it is not, for this is one of the low ones, those taken down. I do not love the low ones and the taken down.”

Well done Abraham! He spoke a splendid point. It rose up from the low, but he knew that the Lord is high, beyond His servants. Again, when it went down, he turned away from it and said, “I do not love the low ones, for they are not worthy of Godhood.”

Here the lords of realization have voiced another intimation and have seen another subtle point. They say that from the first Abraham’s dust was mixed with the water of bosom friendship, his secret core was burned with the fire of passion, his spirit was lit up with the love of eternity, and the ocean of passion was stirring up waves inside him. Then at dawn, at the moment of the morning draft of the passionate, the shouts of joy of the drunkards, and the uproar of those who have lost their hearts, he opened his eyes from the giddiness of the wine of bosom friendship and the drunkenness of passion and said, “This is my Lord.” This is as they say:

Your image has so taken my eyes

that wherever I look I fancy it’s you.

Both drunkenness and passion are paths of trial and the basis of trouble. Do you not see where passion by itself threw Joseph of Canaan, and what drunkenness by itself did to Moses of ʿImrān? In the case of Abraham, both were together. Why then is it strange that drunkenness and the uproar of heart-lostness should make him gaze on the moon and the stars and say, “This is my Lord”? This is exactly what they say about a drunkard—that he does not know what he is saying. If he did know, then how could he be drunk?

You said, “I’m drunk.” By my soul if you are—

he who is drunk does not know drunkenness.

As for Abraham’s being tried by the sacrifice of his child, that is because he gazed on the beauty of Ishmael and began to pay regard to him, for the sword of Ishmael’s beauty wounded Abraham’s heart. The command came, “O Bosom Friend! Did We preserve you from Azar and Azari idols so that you could gaze on the face of Ishmael? The stamp of bosom friendship with Me and glancing at others cannot be combined, whether you gaze at the Azari carvings or Ishmael’s face.

Any talk that keeps you back from the road—let it be unbelief or faith.

Any picture that holds you back from the Friend—let it be ugly or beautiful. [DS 51]

It was not long before a sword was placed in his hand and it was said, “Sacrifice Ishmael, for two friends will not fit in one heart.”

With two kiblahs you can’t walk straight on the road of tawḥīd—

either the Friend’s approval, or your own caprice. [DS 488]

In terms of the outward meaning, the story of the sacrifice is known and famous. Concerning the inward meaning and in the tongue of allusion, it has been said, “Cut off your heart’s attachment to your child with the sword of truthfulness.” “Truthfulness is God’s sword in His earth. He does not place it on anything without cutting it.”

Abraham heard the command and with the sword of truthfulness cut his heart off from his child. He separated love for Ishmael from his heart. The call came, “O Abraham, ‘Thou hast been truthful to the vision’ [37:105]. The tongue of the state was saying,

“I separated from creatures, sharpening my love for You.

I made my child an orphan in order to see You.”

2:129 “Our Lord, and raise up amidst them a messenger from among them, who will recite Thy signs to them, teach them the Book and the Wisdom, and purify them. Surely Thou art the Exalted, the Wise.”

2:130 And who shrinks from the creed of Abraham but one foolish in himself? We chose him in this world, and in the next world he shall be among the wholesome.

One of these two verses is in praise of the Beloved [Muḥammad], the other in praise of the Bosom Friend [Abraham]. Although both are caressed and worthy prophets, adorned by the generous bestowal and the bounteousness of the Lord, there is a difference between the Beloved and the Bosom Friend! The Bosom Friend is the desirer, and the Beloved the desired. The desirer is the wanter, and the desired the wanted. The desirer is the traveler, and the desired is the snatched away. The desirer stands in the station of service in his traveling, and the desired stands on the carpet of companionship in the pulling of the Real. When someone is in his own traveling, his road will not be empty of deception. This is why the Bosom Friend’s road, despite the greatness of his state, was not empty of deception. Thus, when the star of deception came into his road, he said, “This is my Lord” [6:76]. In the same way, the Lordhood kept on opening up ambuscades of deception by means of the moon and the sun. Finally protection took the reins of his bosom friendship and pulled him to itself from the world of deception. He said, “Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth, unswerving” [6:79].

Muṣṭafā, however, was in the pull of the Real. The ambuscade of deception was not able to make his road steep. Rather, on that night everything that was not and then came to be sought his help from deception. They had recourse to the lights of his Shariah against deception and backsliding. He was confirmed by the Real’s pull to such an extent that he did not look at any of that from the corner of his eye. The eyesight did not swerve, nor did it trespass [53:17].

There is as much difference between the Bosom Friend and the Beloved as there is between the traveler and the snatched away. The Bosom Friend had the attribute of servitors at the threshold of Lordhood, standing on his own feet: “Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth, unswerving.” The Beloved was sitting in joy in the Presence of Unity in the row of the near and the confidants: “The blessed salutations and the goodly prayers belong to God.” This sitting is the place of the snatched away, and that standing is the station of the travelers. The Bosom Friend was in his own traveling when he said, “And who I hope will forgive me my offense on the Day of Doom” [26:82]. The Beloved was in the pull of the Real when it was said to him, “So that God may forgive thee thy sins” [48:2]. The Bosom Friend said, “Disgrace me not on the day when they are raised up [26:87]: O Lord, do not shame me on the day of the Upraising.” About the Beloved He said, “The day when God will not disgrace the Prophet [66:8]: We will not shame him.” The Bosom Friend said, “God suffices me” [39:38]. It was said to the Beloved, “O Prophet, God suffices thee” [8:64]. The Bosom Friend said, “Surely I am going to my Lord” [37:99]. It was said about the Beloved, “Who took His servant by night” [17:1]. What a difference between the two!

The Bosom Friend is the one who acts so that God will approve of him. The Beloved is the one for whom God decrees what is approved and desired by him. This is why He says, “Thy Lord shall bestow upon thee so that thou shalt approve” [93:5].

Our Lord, and raise up amidst them a messenger from among them, who will recite Thy signs to them, teach them the Book and the Wisdom, and purify them. Concerning the reason for the arrangement of the words of this verse, the folk of the meanings have said that the first way station of Muṣṭafā’s prophethood is that he made manifest the signs and marks of his prophethood to the people and recited God’s Book to them. This is why He says first, “who will recite Thy signs to them.” Then, after reciting the Book, teaching is needed, that is, he should teach the Book’s realities and meanings to the people so that they may perceive them and put them into practice. Teaching them the Book conveys them to wisdom. For, if someone recites the Book, perceives its realities, and puts it into practice, inescapably the knowledge of wisdom will show itself to him. Then through the knowledge of wisdom he will become pure and virtuous, worthy of the neighborhood of the Real. This is the reason for the arrangement of the verse—first He said recitation, then teaching, then wisdom, then purification. And God knows best.

2:131 When his Lord said to him, “Submit,” he said, “I submit to the Lord of the Worlds.”

When the Bosom Friend began to travel, the command came from the Exalted Presence, “O Abraham, anyone who wants Me must belong to Me totally. As long as a sliver of mortal desires and soulish resistance remains with you, you will not pass from the suffering of striving to the ease of the pull. ‘The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed.’”

If you want Me, you must want what I desire.

You must leave aside yourself totally.

The Bosom Friend said, “O Lord, Abraham no longer has any self-governance, any free choice. Now I have come on the feet of poverty, in the state of brokenness, to see what You command. I submit. I have overthrown myself and entrusted my work to You. I have come back to You entirely.”

The command came, “O Abraham, that is a very great claim. Every claim must have a meaning, and everything rightfully due a reality. Now watch out for the testing!”

He was tested by other than himself, by part of himself, and by his whole self. The test by others was that he had plentiful possessions. They say he had 70,000 sheep in seven thousand herds. Each herd had a dog with a gold collar around its neck. He was commanded to detach his heart from all of it and to toss it away in the path of God. The Bosom Friend tossed it all away and left nothing for himself.

In the traditions it has come that the angels said, “Lord God, ever since this call was given out in the World of the Dominion, ‘And God took Abraham as a bosom friend’ [4:125], our spirits have been in a whirlpool and our gall-bladders have been melting because of this special favor. How is the Bosom Friend worthy of this generosity?”

The call came, “Gabriel, open up your peacock-feathers and go from the top of the Lote Tree to the summit of that mountain and test the Bosom Friend.” With the divine determination and facilitation Gabriel came down in the form of a child of Adam. He stood beside that mountain and shouted, “O Holy One!” The Bosom Friend fainted from the pleasure of hearing that. When he came to, he said, “O servant of God! Say that name again, and this herd belongs to you.” Gabriel again shouted out, “O Holy One!” The Bosom Friend was rolling in the dust like a half-slaughtered chicken. He was saying, “Say it again, and another herd belongs to you!”

You spoke of Him to me, O Saʿd, and you increased

my madness. So increase that speaking, O Saʿd!

In this manner he was asking for loans, and each time he gave to him a herd with the dog and the gold collar, until he gave it all and lost it all. When he had lost all of it, the knots became tighter, passion and destitution joined together. The Bosom Friend said, “O servant of God! Recite the name of the Friend one more time, and my spirit is yours!”

Wealth, gold, things—gamble them away for nothing.

When the work reaches your spirit, gamble it away!

Gabriel became happy. He spread his peacock feathers and said, “He was right to take you as a bosom friend. If there is any shortcoming, it is in our eyes. You have passion to perfection.”

When Gabriel appeared to him, he said to him, “O Bosom Friend, I have no use and no need for these sheep.”

The Bosom Friend said, “Even if you have no use for them, there is no option in chivalry to take them back.”

Gabriel said, “Then let us scatter them in the deserts and the wildernesses so that they may pasture as they desire. The world’s folk will benefit from that until the resurrection.” The mountain sheep that are now scattered throughout the world all come from that lineage. Until the resurrection anyone who hunts and eats one is a guest of the Bosom Friend and consumes the food at the table of the beautiful doing of that majestic angel’s presence.

As for Abraham’s being tested by a part of himself, it is that he was shown the sacrifice of his child in a dream and instructed to do that. The whole of that story will be told in its own place, God willing.

As for his being tested by his whole self, it is that the rebellious Nimrod was persuaded to light up a fire and build a mangonel in which to throw him. The divine address came to the fire: “O fire, be coolness and safety” [21:69]. In that state, Abraham began to weep. The angels thought that Abraham was weeping because he had been thrown into the fire. Gabriel came and said, “O Abraham, why do you weep?”

He said, “Because I am being burnt and beaten, but the Real has called out to the fire! O Gabriel, if I were to be burnt a thousand times and the call was for me, I would love that more. O Gabriel, this weeping is not for the loss of the spirit and the burning of myself, it is for the loss of the gentle subtleties of the Real’s call.”

It is said that Gabriel came to him and said, “Have you any need?” He answered, “Of you, no.” Gabriel said, “No doubt you have need of God. Ask from Him.”

He said, “I am surprised at you. Is He asleep such that I should wake Him up? Is He uninformed such that I should let Him know? Sufficient asking from Him is His knowledge of my state.”

The angel of oceans and storms came and said, “O Bosom Friend, do I have permission? Hold firm and I will bring this fire to nothing with one glance and I will destroy the estranged.”

The Bosom Friend said, “All are His servants and creatures. If He wants to destroy them, He Himself can do it.”

In heaven an uproar fell into the ranks of the angels: “Lord God, on the face of the earth it is Abraham who recognizes You and attests to Your oneness. But You know better. Will You burn him?”

The command came from the threshold of unneediness, “Be still and at ease. You have no news of the secrets of this work. He is seeking a secluded place of friendship. For a moment he wants to busy himself with Me in that secluded place without the intrusion of others.”

That is why, when the Bosom Friend was asked later, “What was your sweetest and most congenial day?”

He said, “The day when I was in Nimrod’s fire. My present moment was empty and my heart limpid. I was near to the Real and far removed from the creatures.”

How blessed was the time of Your covenant, without which

my heart would have no place for ardor!

When Abraham was brought forth pure from the crucible of testing and said, “I submit truthfully,” the Lord of the Worlds wrote out the inscription of bosom friendship for him and commanded the world’s folk to be his followers. He said, “So follow the creed of Abraham, an unswerving man, and he was not of the associaters” [3:95].

2:137 If they have faith in the like of that in which you have faith, they will have found guidance; but if they turn away, they will have split from you. God will suffice you against them; He is the hearing, the knowing.

“O master of the east and west and messenger to men and jinn! We have placed these tasks in your tracks and commanded the world’s folk to follow you. We wrote the Compact of Love for your servitors and brought them under Our gaze. We threw your opponents into the lowland of abasement and feebleness. Whoever opposes you is on the side of the enemies, and whoever serves you is on the side of the friends. When someone wants you, We want him and give him access to Us. When someone turns away, We burn him and throw him down. Whoso obeys the Messenger has obeyed God [4:80].

“O paragon! Do not let your heart be tight because these estranged people have turned away and spoken ill. We will suffice you against their business and We will remove their torment from you. God will suffice you against them.”

2:138 God’s color—and who is more beautiful in color than God?^{1The verse is often translated “The baptism of God; and who is better than God in baptism?” Maybudī and other commentators explain that the verse refers to a Christian practice of baptism with yellow water. The Qur’an is saying that God’s color is better than the color of baptismal water. In Stage Two Maybudī says the verse can also be interpreted as a reference to the notion of fiṭra, the innate disposition or original creation that inclines to tawḥīd, in keeping with the hadith, “Every child is born according to the fiṭra, and then its parents turn it into a Jew, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian” (KA 1:382).}

“Then We will bring a people who have come out in the color of tawḥīd and who are adorned with the attribute of love and clothed in God’s color, which is colorlessness. Whoever is pure of the color of the color-mixers is colored by God’s color.”

He who has painted a thousand worlds with color—

why would He buy my color and yours, O bankrupt man!

So, when someone reaches God’s color and falls back on Him, He colors him in His own color. In the same way, the elixir makes copper and iron the same color as itself and they become precious. If the estranged fall back on Him, they become His familiars, and if the disobedient fall back, they become obedient.

On this topic many stories are told about the shaykhs. One of them is narrated from Ibrāhīm Khawāṣṣ. He said, “Once I went into the desert and saw a Christian, who had his sash around his waist. He asked if he could accompany me, so we walked for seven days. He said, ‘O monk of the unswerving folk! Bring forth what you have of expansiveness, for we are hungry.’

“I said, ‘O God, do not disgrace me before this unbeliever.’ Then I saw a tray, upon which were bread, roast meat, dates, and a pitcher of water. We ate and drank, and we walked for seven days. Then I became hasty and I said, ‘O monk of the Christians, bring what you have, for my turn is finished.’ He leaned on his staff and supplicated, and lo there were two trays with double what there had been on my tray.

“I was bewildered and upset, and I refused to eat. He insisted, but I did not respond to him. He said, ‘Eat, for I have two pieces of good news to give to you. One is that I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muḥammad is God’s messenger,’ and he took off the sash. ‘The other is that I say, “O God, if there is any danger here, then I will begin with this.”’ So he began.

“We ate and we walked, and then we made the hajj and took up residence in Mecca for a year. Then he died, and was buried in al-Baṭḥāʾ—God have mercy on him.”

2:143 Thus We appointed you a midmost community.... Surely God is clement, ever-merciful toward the people.

It is the wise Lord, the knowing King, whose power and existence-giving bring forth beings. The newly arrived things exist through His exaltedness and His making them manifest, and the earth and the heavens stand forth through His keeping. He created the newly arrived things and chose from among them the animals. From among the animals He chose the Adamites, from the Adamites He chose the faithful, from the faithful He chose the prophets, and from the prophets He chose Muḥammad. He chose his community above the previous communities. This is why Muṣṭafā said, “I was brought forth from the best generation of the children of Adam, generation after generation, until I came to be in the generation in which I am.” He also said, “Surely God chose my companions above all the world’s folk save the prophets and the envoys. He chose four of my companions and made them the best of my companions—and in all of my companions there is good—Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī. He chose my community over the other communities, so He sent me forth in the best generation. Then there will be the second and third in succession, then the fourth, one after another.”

What is understood from this report is that Muṣṭafā is the best of the Adamites, the chosen from among the world’s folk, the leader of the creatures, the adornment of the world, the weighty one of the time, the lamp of the earth, the full moon of heaven, the shelter of the disobedient, the interceder for the sinners, the master of all the messengers and their seal.

After Muṣṭafā the best of all creatures is Abū Bakr the sincerely truthful. The Lord of the Worlds placed the cushion of his imamate on the throne of Muṣṭafā’s Shariah, turned the lodging place of his servanthood into self-purification and truthfulness, and made trust and certainty the keeper of the rank of his friendship.

After him the best of creatures is ʿUmar Khaṭṭāb. The Lord of the Worlds placed the reins of lowering and raising the legal rulings in the hand of his sufficiency and pulled the robe of his rulership over the forehead of the creed. With his harshness and awesomeness the smoke of associationism was subdued by its own misfortune.

After him the best of creatures is ʿUthmān ʿAffān. The Lord of the Worlds spread the carpet of his dignity and honor in the seven heavens and in the era of his reign the lights of Islam were lit up in the regions of east and west.

After ʿUthmān the best of creatures is ʿAlī Murtaḍā. The Lord of the Worlds unveiled the realities of the Shariah and the marks bearing witness to the Tariqah through his conduct and secret core and made trust and godwariness his watchword and blanket.

Muṣṭafā placed each of these masters and caliphs in a rank and gave each a specific characteristic. Concerning Ṣiddīq he said, “O Abū Bakr, God has bestowed upon you the Greatest Approval.”

It was said to him, “O Messenger of God, what is the Greatest Approval?”

He said, “God will disclose Himself generally to His faithful servants on the Day of Resurrection and specifically to Abū Bakr.”

Concerning ʿUmar he said, “Were there to be a prophet after me, it would be ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.”

Concerning ʿUthmān he said, “Every prophet has a close friend, and my close friend in the Garden will be ʿUthmān.”

To ʿAlī he said, “In relation to me in my community you are like Aaron in relation to Moses, except that there will be no prophet after me. You are of me, and I am of you.”

Concerning all of his Companions generally he said, “None of my companions, dying in the earth, will be stirred up on the Day of Resurrection without having a leader and a light.”

He said, “My companions in my community are like salt in food—food is not wholesome without salt.”

He said, “Fear God, fear God in my companions! Fear God, fear God in my companions! Do not take them as extraneous after me! When someone loves them, I will love him with my love. When someone hates them, I will hate him with my hate. When someone troubles them, he has troubled me. When someone troubles me, he has troubled God. And when someone troubles God, he will be quickly taken to task.”

He said, “Do not revile my companions, for by Him in whose hand is my soul, were any of you to expend the like of Mount Uḥud in gold, you would not reach the extent of one of them, or half.”

All of this he said concerning the Companions specifically. Concerning the whole community he said, “There is no community but that some are in the Fire and some in the Garden, but all of my community will be in the Garden.”

He said, “The Garden will be forbidden to the prophets until I enter it, and it will be forbidden to the communities until my community enters it.”

He said, “Surely my community will be shown mercy. When the Day of Resurrection comes, God will bestow on every man in this community a man from the unbelievers and will say, ‘Here is your ransom from the Fire.’”

Anas said, “I went out with God’s Messenger, and suddenly a sound was coming from a ravine. He said, ‘O Anas, go and see what that sound is.’

“I went and there was a man performing the prayer before a tree and saying, ‘O God, make me belong to the community of Muḥammad, those to whom mercy and forgiveness are shown, those whose prayers are answered and rewarded.’ I came to God’s Messenger and told him about that. He said, ‘Go and say to him that God’s Messenger greets him with peace and asks who he is.’ I went and told him what God’s Messenger had said. He said, ‘Greet God’s Messenger with peace from me and tell him that his brother al-Khiḍr asks him to ask God to make him belong to your community, those to whom mercy and forgiveness are shown, those whose prayers are answered and rewarded.’”

It was said to Jesus, “O Spirit of God! Will there be a community after this one?” He said yes. He was asked which community, and he said the community of Aḥmad. He was asked what is the community of Aḥmad. He said, “Knowers, wise, pious, and godwary, as if in their knowledge they are prophets. They will be content with little provision from God, and He will be content with few deeds from them. He will take them into the Garden by their witnessing that there is no god but God.”

The Exalted Lord did not give these eminent qualities and generous bestowals to Aḥmad’s community because they have a precedent obedience or the rightful due of service. Indeed, no service comes from them that would be worthy of God, nor does God’s lordhood and kingship need any connection with their obedience. No matter how He may caress, He does so by His own bounty; no matter what He gives, He gives it by His own generosity; no matter what He prepares, He prepares it with own His mercy and loving kindness. For He is a Lord who is recognized as servant-caressing and described by loving kindness. This is why He says at the end of the verse, “Surely God is clement, ever-merciful toward the people.”

God is great in bestowal toward His servants and always lovingly kind. The bestowal of creatures is from time to time and the bestowal of the Real is everlasting. The mark of the Real’s bestowal and loving kindness is that He does not give the servant the ability to disobey and He does not put him face-to-face with sin, so the servant does not become worthy of punishment. In terms of mercy, this is more efficacious than forgiving disobedience.

He may also place the servant before disobedience and put the traces of abasement in his outwardness so that people find him repellant. Then the precedent mercy in the beginningless wisdom arrives and takes his hand. In this meaning a story is told about Ayyūb Sakhtyānī. He said, “I had a neighbor who was an evil man. The traces of slipping and disobedience were obvious in his outwardness, and I was exceedingly repelled by him. In the end he left this world. When they lifted his bier, I went off to the corner. I did not want to pray for him. Then someone else saw that evil man in a dream, in a beautiful state and a pleasing guise. He asked him, “What did God do with you?”

He said, “He forgave me with His mercy and He passed over all those improprieties.” Then he said, “Say to Ayyūb the worshiper, ‘If you owned the storehouses of my Lord’s mercies, you would hold them back in fear of spending them.’”

It may also happen that He brings the causes of tribulation around the servant and shuts the door of ease and solace to him until, once despair appears, He opens the door of mercy and clemency, as the Exalted Lord said: “He it is who sends down the rain after they have despaired and spreads forth His mercy” [42:28]. In this meaning it has been narrated from one of the wholesome that he said, “I saw one of them in a dream and said to him, ‘What did God do with you?’

“He said, ‘He weighed my beautiful and my ugly deeds, and the ugly deeds preponderated over the beautiful deeds. Then a purse came from heaven and fell into the pan of good deeds, and it preponderated. I opened the purse, and within it was a handful of dust that I had thrown into the grave of a Muslim. Glory be to Him! How clement He is to His servant!”

2:144 We have seen thy face turning about in heaven. Now We shall turn thee toward a kiblah that thou shalt approve.

He had let him know that he was in the sight of the Real so that he would model his courtesy on the Real’s courtesy. When he put courtesy into practice, he did not ask the Real for what his heart wanted and did no more than gaze upon heaven. Then He gave him better than what He gives to those who ask.

When the Lord is generous and the servant exalted, He keeps the servant within the stipulations of courtesy, shows him the road of deeds, and gives him success. Then He rewards him for the deeds and praises him for his veneration. He says, “How excellent is the wage of the doers!” [3:136]. “How excellent a servant he was; surely he kept on returning” [38:30].

In the same way, He reported to Muṣṭafā, “You are in My vision and My exalted witnessing. Be careful to recognize the respect due to the Presence and to ask in keeping with courtesy.” Hence when his heart was intent on the kiblah, he did not make this manifest, in keeping with courtesy. He kept that wish in his heart and then the Exalted Presence addressed him: “Now We shall turn thee toward a kiblah that thou shalt approve. We have come to know that wish in your heart and We have admired your beautiful courtesy in not asking. We will bestow upon you that of which you approve in the work of the kiblah. O Muḥammad! All the servants in the world are seeking My approval, but I am seeking your approval. All are searching for Me, but I am calling for you. All wish for My caresses, but We are caressing you. Thy Lord shall bestow upon thee so that thou shalt approve [93:5]. Now consider the Kaabah as the kiblah of your soul and Me as the kiblah of your spirit.”

When those caresses came forth from the Presence of Unity and those generosities reached him, the tongue of his state said in his yearning,

“When your heart reaches out once in love for me,

suffering separation from You becomes easy, sweetheart.”

Abū Bakr Shiblī said, “The kiblahs are three: the kiblah of the common people, the kiblah of the elect, and the kiblah of the elect of the elect. The kiblah of the common people is the Kaabah at the middle of the world. The kiblah of the elect is the Throne on top of heaven, upon which is sitting the God of the world. The kiblah of the elect of the elect is the heart of the desirers and the spirit of the recognizers, for they are gazing on their Lord with the light of their hearts.”

I said, “Where should I seek You, O heart-stealing moon?”

He said, “My resting place is the spirit of the friends.”

It has been said that when Muṣṭafā supplicated at the beginning of revelation and the outset of messengerhood, he would speak with explicit expressions of the tongue, and the supplication would be answered immediately. Thus the Exalted Lord recounts about the Day of Badr that Muṣṭafā wanted help for the army of Islam. He says, “When you sought the aid of your Lord, He responded to you” [8:9]. Afterwards his state reached a place such that the Exalted Presence would respond to his delicate allusions without explicit expression, as He says in this verse: “We have seen thy face turning about in heaven.” Then he became such that He would respond to his mere thought, without allusion or expression. Thus it came to his mind, “What would it matter if these sinners of my community were forgiven?” This verse came in keeping with this thought: “Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget or make mistakes” [2:286]. Then the work reached the point that neither allusion nor the heart’s thought was needed. Thus once it was heavy on his heart that the Companions were sitting in his room. The Lord of the Worlds sent down the verse that says, “When you have eaten, disperse” [33:53].

2:148 Everyone has a direction to which he turns.

The creatures have five kiblahs. First is the Throne, second the Footstool, third the Inhabited House, fourth the Holy House [Jerusalem], and fifth the Kaabah. The Throne is the kiblah of the angels who carry it. The Footstool is the kiblah of the cherubim. The Inhabited House is the kiblah of the spirituals. The Holy House is the kiblah of the prophets. The Kaabah is the kiblah of the faithful. The Throne is of light, the Footstool of gold, the Inhabited House of carnelian, the Holy House of marble, and the Kaabah of stone.

This is an allusion for the faithful servant: “If you cannot come to the Throne to circumambulate, or to the Footstool to visit, or to the Inhabited House to worship, or to the Holy House to serve, then at least you can turn your face five times a day toward this stone, which is the kiblah of the faithful, and receive the reward for all of them.”

Everyone has a direction. One of them has said that the allusion here is this: “All people have been distracted from Me by something that has come between Me and them. So, O faithful, belong to Me and be through Me.”^{1LI 1:147.}

In terms of allusion, He is saying, “All the people have turned away from Me. They have become familiar with others without Me. They have made their sweetheart other than Me and accepted the other in friendship.

“You who are the chevaliers of the Tariqah and claim friendship with Me, lift up your eyes from anything beneath Me, even if it be the highest paradise. Then you will go straight in following the Sunnah and conduct of Muṣṭafā and you will perform the rightful due of emulating that paragon of the world. For, as the greatest of the prophets, his conduct was to turn his eyes away from all beings and not to see any refuge nor to approve of any resting place other than the shelter of Unity.”

When a man wears down his spirit in passion’s road

he’d best incline toward none but the Friend.

In passion’s road the passionate

must not think of hell or paradise.

When someone puts himself right in following Muṣṭafā, the candle of friendship with the Real will be lit in his road and he will never fall away from friendship’s avenue. To this is the allusion in the verse, “Follow me; God will love you” [3:31]. Whenever someone goes straight on friendship’s avenue, he will be secure from all the directions that are the kiblahs of the mimickers. One of the distracted said in his state,

“So what if I don’t have the world’s kiblah—

my kiblah is the Beloved’s street, just that.

Take this world, that world, and all that exists—

the passionate have the Beloved’s face, just that.”

Ḥallāj alluded to the kiblahs of the mimickers when he said, “The desirers have been turned over to what they desire.” Everyone has been sat down with his own beloved.

The truth of this work is that all creatures have claimed friendship with the Real, but there was no one who did not want to be someone in His court.

Whoever finds a name for himself finds it from that Court—

belong to Him, brother, and think of no one else.

Since all claim friendship with the Real, He strikes them with the touchstone of trial in order to show them to themselves without Him. He threw something into them and made it their kiblah, so they turned their faces to it. In one it was wealth, in another position, in another a spouse, in another a lovely face, in another boasting, in another knowledge, in another renunciation, in another worship, in another fancy. He threw all these into the people, so they busied themselves with them, and no one spoke of Him. They all stayed empty of the road of seeking Him.

This is why Abu Yazīd Basṭāmī said, “I passed by His gate, but I did not see any crowding there. The folk of this world were veiled by this world, the folk of the afterworld were veiled by the afterworld, and the Sufi claimants were veiled by eating, drinking, and begging. There were others among them of a higher level who were veiled by music and lovely faces. But the great leaders of the Sufis were not veiled by any of these. Rather, I saw that they were bewildered and intoxicated.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said something with the taste of these words: “I recognize the drinking place, but I’m not able to drink. Heart-thirsty, I weep in hope of a drop. The fountain cannot quench me—I’m seeking the ocean. I passed by a thousand springs and rivers in hopes of finding the ocean. Have you ever seen someone drowning in fire? I’m like that. Have you ever seen someone thirsty in a lake? That’s what I am. I’m exactly like someone lost in the desert. I keep on saying, ‘Help! I’m at wit’s end! I’ve lost my heart!’”

2:152 So remember Me; I will remember you. And be grateful for Me and not ungrateful toward Me.

This is to remember the lovingly kind Friend, the heart’s ease and the spirit’s food. Remembrance is the polo-ball and familiarity with Him is the bat. Its steed is yearning and its field love. Burning for Him is the rose, and recognizing Him the garden.

This remembrance makes the Real apparent. It is joined with the Haqiqah and separate from mortal nature. This remembrance is the watering place for the tree of tawḥīd, the fruit and produce of which is friendship with the Real. This is why the Lord of the Worlds said, “My servant does not cease remembering Me, and I remembering him, until he is passionate for Me and I passionate for him.”

This is not the remembrance of the tongue that you know—this is inside the spirit. The time came when Abū Yazīd was remembering little with the tongue. When he was asked about that, he said, “I am in wonder at this remembrance of the tongue, and I am more in wonder at him who is a stranger. What would a stranger be doing in the midst? Remembrance of Him is in the midst of the spirit.”

In the story of passion for You, many are the hardships.

I’m with You, but many are the stations between us.

*

I wonder at him who says, “I remember my Lord.”

Should I forget, then remember what I forgot?

That great man of his time said in a whispered prayer, “O Lord! How can I remember You when You Yourself are remembering and I am crying out from forgetfulness. You are the remembrance and the remembered, You are the help in finding Yourself.

“O Lord! When someone reaches You, his sorrows are finished; when someone sees You, his spirit laughs. Who has more joy in the two worlds than he who remembers You? Who is more worthy of happiness in You than the servant?”

O poor man, you are remembering yourself. What do you know about remembering Him? Not having traveled, what do you know about the way stations? Not having seen the Friend, how can you be aware of His name and mark?

You are your own object of worship—you worship yourself:

whatever you do, you do it for yourself.

If you pass into the spirit, you will gain dignity. If one day you pass by the street of the Haqiqah and remember Him in your secret core, you will see “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.”

Just once pass by Our street

and gaze on Our subtle artisanry.

If you want roses, pass into the spirit

and make the heart aware of union with Us.

It is written in one of God’s scriptures, “‘My servant! You will remember Me when you have tried out the others. I am better for you than anyone else.’ My servant, when you have seen and tested others, then you will know My worth and recognize My rightful due. In other words, once you have seen their lack of loving kindness and you have grasped My loving kindness and loyalty, then you will know that I am more lovingly kind to you than anyone else and I am more useful.

“‘My servant, did I not remember you before you remembered Me?’ My servant, one mark of My loving kindness is that I remembered you first, then you remembered Me.

“‘Did I not love you before you loved Me?’ First, I wanted you, then you wanted Me.

“‘My servant, have you turned away from Me and toward another because you are ashamed to face Me? Where are you going? My door is open, My gifts are bestowed on you.’” This is as someone said:

You have all your brightness from Me,

you wander around, then you come back to Me.

By the exaltation of the Exalted! If you take one step in His path, a thousand generosities will reach you from Him. “From you a little service, from Him much blessing! From you a bit of obedience, from Him great mercy!”

The Prophet alluded to this in recounting from God: “When someone remembers Me in himself, I remember him in Myself; and when someone remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in an assembly better than his. When someone comes near to Me by a span, I come near to him by a cubit, and when someone comes to Me walking, I come to him rushing.”

And be grateful for Me and not ungrateful toward Me. It has been said that “I was grateful for Him” is gratitude at seeing blessings and in respect of activity. But “I was grateful to Him” is gratitude at seeing the Patron of Blessings and contemplating the Essence. The latter is the gratitude of the folk of the end, and the former is the gratitude of the companions of the beginning.

The Lord of the Worlds knew that most servants do not have the capacity for the gratitude of the folk of the end. He made the work easy for them and put aside the great gratitude. He did not say, “Be grateful to Me,” but rather, “Be grateful for Me.” In other words, be grateful for My blessings, recognize what is rightfully due for them, and then, by recognizing what is rightfully due, despair of what is rightfully due for Me in the contemplation of My Essence. That is not the work of water and clay, nor the talk of spirit and heart. Indeed, what weight has clay, what trace has heart, in this talk? Throw both into the ocean, and give union with the Beloved access to yourself!

How long with low aspiration will we make our homes in the spirit?

Let us pack our bags from spirit and aim for the Beloved!

The mark of “Fear not!” [41:30] has come out from behind the mask.

Lift your heads, cloak-wearers, so that we may throw away our spirits!

2:154 Say not of those who are slain in the path of God, “They are dead.” No, they are alive, but you are unaware.

The life of this world has left them behind, but they have reached endless life.^{1LI 1:150.} What have they lost by being released from this world’s abasement? They have reached union with the exaltedness of the Patron.

If I die, don’t say about me, “He’s dead.”

Say, “The dead man came to life in the Friend who took him.”

Alive is the one who lives through Him, not through the spirit. Whoever comes to life in the Friend lives forever.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O Lord, if someone is occupied with You, how could his occupation come to an end? When someone lives through You, how could he ever die? If the spirit in the body is deprived of You, it is like an imprisoned corpse. Alive in reality is he who lives with You. God’s praise be on those slain concerning whom the King says that they are alive.”

No, they are alive, but you are unaware. The cloak of awe is on the shoulders of their exaltedness, the shadow of the Tremendous Throne is their resting-place of intimacy, and the Presence of the Real’s majesty is the place of their spirit’s repose, in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].

2:155 And We will indeed try you with something of fear and hunger, and decrease of wealth, souls, and fruits; and give good news to the patient.

The custom of the Lord is that whenever He threatens the servant and shows harshness in a verse, then, right after that or before it, He caresses the servant and gives him hope. Thus in this verse He breaks the servant by mentioning those harsh things and varieties of trial. Then He gives good news, He caresses, and He says, “and give good news to the patient.” And, at the beginning of these verses He says, “Surely God is with the patient” [2:153]. Glory be to Him! How gentle and how merciful He is to His servants!

And We will indeed try you. He says, “We will test you, sometimes with fear, sometimes with dread, sometimes with poverty, sometimes with hunger, sometimes with outward affliction, sometimes with inward sorrow.” The outward trial and evident affliction are in fact easy work, for sometimes they are there and sometimes not, like the trial of Abraham and the trial of Job. The complete trial is inward sorrow, which does not leave its place for a moment. When someone is closer, more worthy of friendship, and more suitable for union, his sorrow is more. Such was Muṣṭafā’s sorrow. He had no capacity for it on the highest horizon, nor did he have any rest from it on the expanse of the earth. He was like a moth before a lamp: It does not have the capacity to stay with the lamp, nor the remedy of staying away from the lamp. With the tongue of his state he was saying,

“In separation I make do because of shame before Your image,

in union I burn in fear it will cease.

Such is the state of the moth with the candle—

in separation it burns and in union it burns.”

“Yes, everyone who seeks union with Me and wants proximity with Me has no escape from taking on the burden of tribulation and tasting the drink of sorrow.”

Āsiya, the wife of Pharaoh, sought for the Real’s neighborhood and asked for His proximity. She said, “My Lord, build for me a house with Thee in the Garden [66:11]. O Lord, I want a room in Your neighborhood, for it is beautiful to have a room in the street of the Friend.”

“Yes, it is beautiful, but its price is very expensive. Everything is sold for gold and silver, but this is sold for spirit and heart.”

Āsiya said, “That’s nothing to fear. And if its price were a thousand spirits instead of one, there would be no holding back.”

So they crucified Āsiya and drove iron nails into her eyes. But she, in that chastisement was laughing and happy. This is as they say:

When it’s the heart-taker’s desire,

one thorn is better than a thousand dates.

Bishr Ḥāfī said, “I was passing through the bazaar in Baghdad. They were whipping someone with one thousand strokes, but he did not let out a sigh. Then they took him to prison. I went in his tracks and asked him, ‘Why all those blows?’ He said, ‘Because I am entranced by passion.’

“I said, ‘Why did you not weep so that they might lighten them?’ He said, ‘Because my beloved was watching. I was so drowned in the contemplation of my beloved that I had no concern for weeping.’

“I said, ‘If you had been gazing on the Greatest Beloved, how would that have been?’ He cried out once, then he died.”

Yes, when passion is truly there, trial takes on the color of blessing. This is great good fortune: the beauty of the Beloved gives you access to itself so that in contemplating Him, you will take all severity as gentleness. But,

Not just any piece of straw comes near You—

to suffer grief for You it needs a man.

2:163 And your God is one God. There is no god but He, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.

This is the description of the one Lord, the one Lord God and King. He is one in magnanimity and governance, one in forbearance and beautiful doing, one in generosity and peerlessness, one in loving kindness and servant-caressing. Every magnificence is the mantle of His majesty, and in that He is one. Every tremendousness and all-compellingness is the shawl of His lordhood, and in that He is one. He is one in Essence, one in attributes, one in deed and mark, one in loyalty and compact, one in gentleness and caressing, one in love and friendship.

On the day of apportioning, who was there but He, the One? Before the day of apportioning who was there? That same One. After the day of apportioning, who handed over those portions? That same One. Who shows? That same One. Who adorns? That same One.

He is more apparent than everything in the world of apparentness, and in this apparentness He is one. He is more hidden than anything in the world of hiddenness, and in this hiddenness He is one.

O You who are more face-to-face than anything in the world!

You are more hidden than the world’s most hidden thing!

O You who are more distant than all that the servants suppose!

You are closer to the servants than the spirit’s vein.

How disloyal the Adamite who does not know the worth of this declaration and the exaltedness of this ascription! God says, “And your God is one God.” The wonder is not that He ascribed the servants to Himself, joined them to Himself, and said, “Surely My servants” [15:42]. The wonder is that He ascribed Himself to the servants and joined His name to their name, saying, “Your God.” This is not because His lordhood must be joined to the servant’s servanthood, or that the servants are deserving of that. Rather, in generosity and loving kindness He Himself is unique and one. In magnanimity He is worthy of every generous bestowal and every gift.

In the place of our Heart-taker’s beauty and loveliness,

we are not suited for Him—He is suited for us.

And your God is one God. There was no world and no Adam. There were no tracks and no traces, there was no one in the house. He was the care-taking and loving Lord, writing out your good fortune and accepting you to be His friend while you were still in nonexistence.

O You who were there for me

when I was not there for You!

On the night of the Prophet’s ascent to God, when secrets were told to the Master of the world, one of them was this: “Belong to Me as you always were, and I will belong to you as I have always been.” Belong totally to Me and be nothing, just as you were; then I will be for you as I was in the Beginningless.

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said in his whispered prayers, “I am happy that You were there at first and I was not. Your work took effect and mine did not. You put forth Your worth and You sent Your Messenger.

“O God! Whatever You have given us without our seeking—do not ruin it with what we deserve! Whatever good You have done for us—do not cut it off because of our defects! Whatever You have made without our worthiness—do not separate it from us by our unworthiness!

“O God! Do not bring to fruit what we ourselves have planted! Keep blights away from what You planted for us!”

There is no god but He, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. Other than He there is no Lord, and other than He there is none worthy of worship, for no one caresses and bestows bounty like Him. He is the All-Merciful who gives when they ask of Him, and He is the Ever-Merciful who becomes angry when they do not ask. A report has come, “When someone does not ask from God, God becomes wrathful toward him.”

He is the All-Merciful who accepts the servants’ obedience, even if it is little, and He is the Ever-Merciful who forgives their disobedient acts even if they are great. He is the All-Merciful who adorns outwardness and sculpts the form, and He is the Ever-Merciful who makes inwardness flourish and guards the hearts in His grasp. He is the All-Merciful who makes subtle lights appear in your face, and He is the Ever-Merciful who places the deposits of secrets in your heart.

2:164 Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth, the alternation of the night and the day, the ships that run on the sea with what benefits people, the water that God sends down from heaven giving life to the earth after its death, the scattering of every beast therein, the shifting of the winds, the clouds subjected between heaven and earth—there are signs for a people who have intellect.

In this verse the Lord of the Universe shows the generality of people the road to Himself, so that they will gaze upon the wonders of the dominion of heaven and earth and on the artisanries of land and sea and then recognize the Artisan and attest to His oneness.

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ said, “He made Himself recognized to the common people with His creation, to the elect with His attributes, and to the prophets and the elect of the elect with His Essence.” The gaze of the common people is on the artisanry, the gaze of the elect on the attributes, and the gaze of the prophets and the elect of the elect on the Essence. The generality of the faithful look at the artisanry and from the artisanry reach the Artisan. The elect among the faithful know the attributes and from the attributes reach the Object of attribution and from the name the Named. Thus it was said to the Children of Israel, “Sacrifice a cow” [2:67], but they did not recognize it. So the cow was described to them, they recognized it, and they sacrificed it.

As for the prophets and the sincerely truthful, they recognize Him through Him, not through other than Him. They look from Him to Him, not from the other to Him. God alludes to this state when He says, “Dost thou not see thy Lord, how He stretched out the shadow?” [25:45]. He did not say, “Look at the shadow so that you may see My artisanry.” He said, “Look at Me so that you may see My artisanry. O paragon of the world! Look not at Gabriel’s coming, look at My sending. Look from Me to him, not from him to Me.”

Consider for a moment the female companions of Joseph. When the very entity of Joseph was unveiled to them, they were annihilated from themselves and became absent from Joseph’s attributes. When they saw him, they admired him greatly [12:31] and they cut their hands instead of the oranges. They were unaware of themselves and made absent from Joseph’s attributes. At the moment of face-to-face vision they said, “This is no mortal!” [12:31]. They saw Joseph as an angel and were unaware of his human attributes. They were so busy contemplating Joseph that they did not attend to the attributes. If the essence of a created thing can have this sort of effect on the heart of female companions, what wonder is it that the self-disclosure of the Creator’s Essence to the secret core of the elect should do much more?

Then, at the end of the verse, He says, “there are signs for a people who have intellect.” There are all of these, but it wants clever people to know, it wants seers to see. From every side is a road to the Real’s courtyard—it wants travelers! The whole world is table upon table, dish upon dish—it wants eaters! The beauty of the endless Presence is unveiled—it wants gazers!

It wants a man to catch the scent—

otherwise, the world is full of the east wind’s fragrance.

Intellect [ʿaql] is the fetter [ʿiqāl] of the heart. In other words, it ties the heart back from everything but the Beloved and prevents it from unworthy follies. In the creed of the Sunnis, intellect is a light and its place is the heart, not the brain. It is the precondition for being addressed by God, not the cause of being addressed. It is merely the instrument of recognition, not the root. The basis and profit of intellect is that the heart comes to life through it: that he may warn whosoever is alive [36:70], that is, whosoever has intellect. Hence, those who have no intellect are not counted among the living. Do you not see that the mad man is not addressed, nor the corpse? This is because they have no intellect.

Intellect is three letters: ʿa means it “recognizes” [ʿarafa] the Real in the unreal; q means it “accepts” [qabila] the Real; l means it “clings” [lazima] to the Real.

The servant’s intellect is a divine bestowal and a lordly gift. The servant’s obedience is earned, but obedience cannot be set right without that bestowal, and that bestowal is useless without God’s success-giving. Thus it has been reported that the Exalted Lord created the intellect. He said to it, “Stand up.” It stood up. He said, “Sit.” It sat. He said, “Come.” It came. He said, “Go.” It went. He said, “See.” It saw.

Then He said, “By My exaltedness and majesty, I have created nothing more eminent and honored than you. Through you I shall be worshiped and through you I shall be obeyed.”

Because of these caresses, intellect began to admire itself. The Lord of the Worlds did not let that pass. He said, “O intellect, look behind yourself. What do you see?” The intellect looked behind itself and saw a form lovelier and more beautiful than itself. It said, “Who are you?” The form said, “I am that without which you are useless. I am success-giving.”

O intellect, though you be eminent, become low!

O heart, no longer be heart, but blood, blood!

Enter the curtain of that waxing sweetheart!

Come in without eyes, leave without tongue!

2:165 Among the people are some who take peers apart from God, loving them as if loving God. And those who have faith are more intense in love for God.

If this were the only verse in the whole Qur’an about the faithful and God’s friends, their eminence and honor would be complete, for the Lord of the Worlds is saying, “They love Me intensely and more completely than the unbelievers love their objects of worship.” Do you not see that every once in a while the unbelievers set up another idol and take up another object of worship. Like poor people, they are content with something carved of wood. Then, when they can, they take down the wooden one and make another from silver or gold. If their love for their object of worship is real, why do they turn away from it toward another?

They say that a man met a woman recognizer, and her beauty exercised its influence over his heart. He said, “‘My all is busy with your all.’ O woman! I have lost myself in love for you.”

She said, “Why don’t you look at my sister, who is more beautiful and lovely than I?”

He said, “Where is your sister so that I may see her?”

She said, “Go, idler! Passion is not your work. If your claim to love me were true, you would not care about anyone else.”

And those who have faith are more intense in love for God. The Lord of the Worlds says, “The love of the faithful for Me is not like the unbelievers’ love for idols, such that every once in a while they incline toward another. Rather, the faithful never turn away from Me and never incline toward anyone else. For, if they did turn away, they would never find someone like Me, no matter how much they sought.”

Poor man, God has many servants like you. If something bad is to occur for you, it will occur. How can you turn away, for you will not find a Lord like Him.

Shiblī said, “I learned Sufism from a dog that was sleeping at the door of a house. The owner came out and was driving the dog away, but the dog kept on coming back. I said to myself, ‘How base this dog is! He drives him away, and he keeps on coming back.’ The Exalted Lord brought that dog to speech and it said, ‘O Shaykh! Where should I go? He is my owner.’”

I will not leave the Friend at a hundred iniquities and cruelties.

Even if He increases them, I will not be troubled,

It is I who chose Him over everyone else;

if I complain about Him, I will have no excuse.

2:166 When those who were followed declare themselves quit of those who followed them.

The unbelievers loved idols in keeping with caprice and nature, not reality. Hence, when they see the beginnings of the chastisement at the resurrection, they will know that they have no place on which to stand and will disown the idols. As for the faithful, their friendship is the fruit of the Real’s friendship—as He says, “He loves them, and they love Him” [5:54]. Therefore the steep roads and trials that come to them do not bring any defect into their love, so they do not turn away from the Real.

First they see the agonies of death. Then their pure spirit is snatched away from them. They are kept for many years in the dust. Then they are frightened many times at the resurrection in those diverse stations. They are rebuked while severity of many sorts is shown to them, and then they are kept for a time in hell. Despite these tribulations and trials that come into their road, at each moment they fall more into passion and expend their spirits and hearts even more in friendship for the Real. With the tongue of the state they say,

“If You’re happy with my grief, give me grief upon grief!

Away with a passion that decreases with a hundred cruelties!”

This is why He says, “Those who have faith are more intense in love for God” [2:165].

2:177 Piety is not that you turn your faces to the east and the west. Rather, piety is he who has faith in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; who gives wealth despite loving it to kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, the son of the road, beggars, and slaves; and who performs the prayer and gives the alms tax; those who are loyal to their covenant when they make a covenant; those who are patient in misfortune, hardship, and moments of peril. It is they who have been truthful, and it is they who are the godwary.

You have learned what the Shariah stipulates in terms of the outward meaning of this verse. Now listen to the inner meaning in the tongue of allusion and recognize the signs of the Haqiqah, for the Haqiqah is to the Shariah as the spirit is to the body. What is a body without a spirit? Such is the Shariah without the Haqiqah.

The Shariah is the house of the servitors. All the people are gathered there. They keep it flourishing with service and worship.

The Haqiqah is the house of the sanctuary. The recognizers are gathered there. They keep it flourishing with veneration and contemplation.

The distance from service and worship to veneration and contemplation is the same as that from familiarity to love. Familiarity is the attribute of wage-earners, and love is the attribute of recognizers.

The wage-earner brings all the varieties of piety mentioned in the verse. Then he says, “Oh, if the wind blows against it, or something of it is taken away, I will lose the wage for that.” The recognizer performs all of it according to its stipulations. Then he says, “Oh, if any of it remains, I will be held back from good fortune.”

Any talk that keeps you back from the road—let it be unbelief or faith.

Any picture that holds you back from the Friend—let it be ugly or beautiful. [DS 51]

The wage-earner says, “My prayer, my fasting, my alms-giving, my patience in trials, my loyalty to covenants!” The recognizer says in the tongue of abasement,

“Who am I to wear the cloak of loyalty to You,

to have my eyes carry the burden of Your disloyalty,

To have the spirit’s scent come from my lips and speak of You,

to grow an exalted branch in my heart and suffer Your trial?” [DS 933]

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “How should I have known that the share of the wage-earner is everlasting paradise, and the hope of the recognizer is one glance? How should I have known that the wage-earner is wishing for houris and palaces, and the recognizer is inundated by light in the sea of face-to-face vision?”

When he was dying, Abū ʿAlī Rūdbārī said to his sister, “O Fāṭima, look, the doors of heaven have opened, the Gardens have been adorned! The maid-servants have gathered at the battlements and they are saying, ‘Enjoy yourself, O Abū ʿAlī! All this was built for you!’”

The tongue of Abū ʿAlī’s state was answering, “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!”

Your rightful due is that I look on no one else

with the eye of love until I see You.

*

I will close my eyes and not open them

until the day of visiting You, O exalted Friend!

Piety is not that you turn your faces. Piety, in brief, is of two sorts: belief and deeds. Belief is to realize the roots, and deeds are to obtain the branches. Inescapably anyone who truly consolidates the roots and performs the stipulated branches is one of the pious. The station of the pious is the Abode of Settledness. That is in His words, “Surely the pious are in bliss” [82:13].

What the Lord of the Worlds clarifies in the course of this verse is exactly that belief and those deeds. He says, “he who has faith in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets.” Up to this point He clarifies belief and lays down the foundations of the roots, and from here on He begins the mention of the deeds. These He set down in two sorts:

One sort is taking care of people: keeping company with them, caressing the far and the near, and giving comfort to them. Thus He says, “who gives wealth despite loving it to kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, travelers, beggars, and slaves.” He begins first with relatives, for their rightful due takes precedence over the rightful due of others. This is why the Prophet said, “Charity will not be accepted if a womb relative is in need.” Then come orphans, who are the most helpless of people and have no kin. Then the poor, who have no possessions, neither present nor absent. Then the wayfarers, who have nothing in hand, though they may have wealth elsewhere. Then the beggars, who are the poor, both those who speak truthfully and those who lie. Then slaves, who have masters to take care of them and attend to them. The Lord of the Worlds preserved the order of their need and worthiness. Whenever someone is more helpless, more needy, and more fitting for charity, He mentions him earlier, for his rightful due is greater. What a generous Lord, who keeps everyone in his own place and conveys to everyone what is fitting as needed! He says, “I govern My servants through My knowledge; surely of My servants I am aware, seeing [35:31].”

The other sort of deeds is specific to the worshipful servant and does not go beyond him to anyone else, like performing the prayers, having truthfulness and self-purification in the deeds, coming back to loyalty in covenants, and having patience in trials. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “who performs the prayer” to His words “and moments of peril.” Then He says, “It is they who have been truthful, and it is they who are the godwary.” They are the ones who, in the half of piety that is belief, are truthful, and, in the half that is deeds, put godwariness into action. Truthfulness and godwariness are the perfection of faith. They are the ones concerning whom God says, “They are the faithful in truth” [8:4].

The most complete report from Muṣṭafā that is appropriate to this verse and brings together the varieties of piety—the part that is faith, the part that is deeds, and the part that is noble character traits—comes by way of Suwayd Ḥārith. He said,

“I was sent as the seventh of seven from my tribe to God’s Messenger. When we entered in upon him and spoke to him, he admired what he saw of our appearance and dress. He said, ‘What are you?’

“We said, ‘We are faithful.’

“God’s Messenger smiled and said, ‘Every word has a reality. What is the reality of your words and your faith.’

“I said, ‘Fifteen traits. We were commanded by your messengers to have faith in five of them. We were commanded by your messengers to put five of them into practice. We were characterized by five of them in the time of ignorance. We will keep to these, unless you dislike any of them.’

“God’s Messenger said, ‘What are the five traits in which my messengers commanded you to have faith?’

“We said, ‘Your messengers commanded us to have faith in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the uprising after death.’

“He said, ‘And what are the five that they commanded you to put into practice?’

“We said, ‘Your messengers commanded us to say together “There is no God but God and Muḥammad is God’s messenger,” to perform the prayer, to give the alms tax, to make a pilgrimage to the House if one has the way to do so, and to fast during the month of Ramadan. We are doing that.’

“He said, ‘And what are the five traits by which you have become characterized?’

“We said, ‘Gratitude in ease, patience in trial, truthfulness in encounters, approval with the decree where it falls, and fighting against enemies.’

“God’s Messenger smiled and said, ‘Courteous, understanding, intelligent, and wise! With your understanding you are almost prophets. Oh, what traits! How eminent and embellished they are!’ Then God’s Messenger said, ‘I will counsel you to five traits so that you will have twenty traits in total.’

“We said, ‘Counsel us, O Messenger of God!’

“He said, ‘If you are as you say, then do not gather what you do not eat, do not build that in which you do not reside, do not be rivals in anything that will pass away, be eager in that in which you are setting off and in which you will be forever, and be wary of God, to whom you will be returned and to whom you will be shown.’”

2:178 O you who have faith! Written for you is retaliation in the case of the slain.

He is addressing the body, heart, and spirit and saying, “O totality of the servant! If you want to step into the street of friendship, first detach your heart from life and toss away everything you know about states and deeds, for in the shariah of friendship your life will be taken as retaliation, and everything you know will be the wergild, though more is needed. Such is the shariah of friendship. If you are the man for the work, enter! Otherwise, nothing will get done with self-love and defilement.”

In the tracks of manliness plane trees live long,

in the tracks of defilement jasmine goes fast.

Throw away your life, travel the road, live upright, and be a man!

Then you will subsist—when you empty your skirt of these ruins.

Yes, it’s a marvelous work, the work of friendship! It’s a wonderful shariah, the shariah of friendship! Whenever someone is killed in the world, retaliation or wergild is mandatory against the killer. In the shariah of friendship, both retaliation and wergild are mandatory for the person killed.

The Pir of the Tariqah, “How should I have known that there is retaliation for those killed by friendship? But, when I looked, that was Your transaction with the elect. How should I have known that friendship is sheer resurrection and that those killed by friendship should ask for wergild? Glory be to God! What work is this, what work!? He burns some people, He kills some people, and no one burned has regrets, no one killed turns away.”

How You kill us and how we love You!

O marvel! How we love the killer!

*

May my eyes’ light be the dust beneath Your feet!

May my heart’s rest be Your curly locks!

In passion for You, may my justice be Your cruelty!

May my life be sacrificed in grief for You!

One person is burnt and left unsettled, another slain and perplexed in the field of solitariness. One is hanging on reports, another mixed with face-to-face vision. Who planted these seeds? Who stirred up this tumult? One is in a whirlpool, another wishing for water, but the drowned is not sated, the thirsty has no sleep.

2:180 It is written for you, when death is present for one of you and he is leaving behind some good, to make a will for parents and kinsfolk honorably, as something rightfully due from the godwary.

The testament of the lords of wealth is one thing, and the testament of the lords of states is something else. The testament of the lords of wealth goes out from the wealth, and the testament of the poor men from the states. At the end of their lives, the rich give out one-third of their wealth,^{1In Stage Two Maybudī explains that this verse was revealed before the verses that designate the specific portions of a person’s wealth that should be given to various relatives. Given the existence of those verses, most commentators agree that it is not necessary to make a will. But, if a person does so, he should not set aside more than one-third of his wealth; that he can do “honorably.”} and the poor give out limpidness of states and truthfulness of deeds.

As much as the disobedient person is afraid for himself because of his bad deeds, the recognizer is afraid for himself ten times more because of the truthfulness of his deeds and the limpidness of his states. But there is a difference between the two: The disobedient person is afraid of the outcome and in dread of punishment, and the recognizer is afraid of the Real’s majesty and awareness.

When the recognizers are afraid, this is called “awe,” and when the disobedient are afraid, it is called “fear.” Fear occurs because of reports, and awe occurs because of face-to-face vision. Awe is a fear that puts no veil before supplication, no blindfold over perspicacity, and no wall before hope. It is a fear that melts and kills. As long as he does not hear the call, “Fear not and grieve not!” [29:33], he will not reach ease. The owner of this fear is shown generosity, but he burns in dread of losing it. His light is increased, and the terror of alteration is thrown into him.

Abu Saʿīd Abi’l-Khayr had this state at the time of death. When he put his head on the pillow of death, they said to him, “O Shaykh, you were the kiblah of those burned, emulated by the yearners, the sun of the world. Now that you have turned your face to the Exalted Presence, give some advice to these burnt ones, say some words that will be their reminder.” The Shaykh said,

“My two eyes full of water, my liver full of fire,

my hands full of wind, my head full of dust!”

Bishr Ḥāfī had the same state at the time of going. He began to weep and wail. They said, “O Abū Naṣr, is it that you love life and dislike death?”

He said, “No, but stepping forth to God is hard.”

This is the state of a group who are overpowered by awe and confoundedness at the time of going because of the disclosure of God’s majesty and exaltedness. Until they hear the call “Fear not,” they do not reach ease.

There is another group who come forward to the disclosure of God’s beauty and gentleness at the time of going. The lightning of intimacy flashes and the fire of yearning flares up. Thus someone came before the shaykh of the Folk of Blame, ʿAbdallāh Munāzil, and said to him, “O Shaykh, I saw in a dream that you have a year of life left.”

He struck himself in the head and said, “Oh! I have to wait another year!” Then he stood up and started moving around in his ecstasy and finding. He was agitated and passed away from himself. He said, “Oh! When will the sun of felicity rise and the moon-faced beauty of good fortune arrive?!

“When will I throw off this cage

and build a nest in the divine garden?!”

Makḥūl-i Shāmī was a manly man, unique in his era, and overcome by the pain and grief of this talk. He never laughed. During his dying illness a group came to see him and he was laughing. They said, “O Shaykh! You were always full of grief. Right now grief is even more fitting for you. Why are you laughing?”

He said, “Why shouldn’t I laugh? The sun of separation has reached the top of the wall and the day I’ve been waiting for has arrived. Right now the doors of heaven are open and the angels are clearing the way: ‘Makḥūl is coming to the Presence!’

“Union has come—I’m freed of the fear of separation.

I’m sitting with my beloved, my heart’s desire fulfilled!’”

2:183 O you who have faith! Written for you is fasting.

In the tongue of allusion and the clarification of wisdom, He is saying, “O you who have faith, fasting has been written for you. It has been written because you will be the guests of the Real, and tomorrow in paradise He wants to take hungry guests to a banquet. When the generous take someone to a banquet, they like the guests to be hungry so that the feast will be sweeter in their hearts. The Lord of the Worlds created paradise and everything within it for the faithful. None of it is of any use to Him, nor does He have any need for it.”

A pir of the Sufis sent out an invitation, but no one came. The pir lifted up his hands and said, “Lord God, if you send your servants into the fire tomorrow, paradise and perfect bliss will be like my table!”

The value of a table is for people to sit there and eat. Indeed, the Lord of the Worlds created all the treasuries of blessing for the faithful and the eaters, but He Himself does not eat. This is why He says, “Fasting belongs to Me, and with it I recompense.” One of them said, “In other words, ‘Self-sufficiency belongs to Me. I do not eat or drink. I reward those who fast without reckoning, for they sought conformity with Me by not eating. They sought friendship with Me, for the first station in friendship is conformity.’”

Know then that when you gain conformity with the angels by saying “Amen” at the end of the Surah of Praise, your past and future sins are forgiven—as has come in the report. Hence by means of your conformity with God in not eating—even though your not eating is by self-exertion and temporary, and God’s not eating is a beginningless attribute—you should know what eminence and nobility accrue to your heart and religion!

It has been said that by saying “Fasting is Mine,” He ascribed fasting to Himself so that the hands of the plaintiffs would fall short of that. Tomorrow at the resurrection, when those plaintiffs gather around you and take away your acts of worship by calling you to account for your acts of wrongdoing, the Lord of the Worlds will keep your fasting in the treasury of His bounty and say to the plaintiffs, “This belongs to Me—you have no hand in this.” Then, in the end, He will give it back to you. He will say, “I ascribed it to Myself so that I could keep it for you.”

Another wisdom has also been spoken of in the case of the fasting person. It is that the lords of blessings should know the state of the poor and hungry and should give comfort to them. This is why He made Muṣṭafā an orphan from the first—so that he would act beautifully toward orphans. Then He made him a stranger so that he would remember his being a stranger and have mercy on strangers. He did not let him have any wealth so that he would not forget the poor.

The generosity We showed to you in your poverty and orphanhood—

you show the same, O generous in character, to Our creatures!

Be a mother to orphans, nurture them with gentleness,

be noble to askers, fulfill their requests. [DS 36]

You have heard about the fasting of the common faithful in the tongue of the Shariah. Now hear about the fasting of the chevaliers of the Tariqah in the tongue of the folk of the Haqiqah and know its fruit and final end: Just as you make your body fast and hold it back from food and drink, so also they make their heart fast, holding it back from all created things. You fast from morning until night, and they fast from the beginning of their lifetimes to the end. The playing field of your fasting is one day, and the playing field of their fasting is one lifetime. Someone came before Shiblī, and Shiblī said, “Do you consider it beautiful to fast forever?”

He said, “How would that be?”

Shiblī said, “You make your whole lifetime one day and you fast. Then you will open up to the vision of God.”

[Concerning the hadith] “Fast upon seeing [the moon] and break the fast on seeing it,” the lords of finding and the chevaliers of the Tariqah have said that in terms of allusion, this points to the Real.

There are great differences among those who fast. Tomorrow, someone who fasted in his soul will see the wine of Salsabīl and ginger from the hands of the angels and serving boys, as He said: “Therein they are given to drink of a cup mixed with ginger, therein a spring named Salsabīl” [76:17-18]. Someone who fasted in his heart will receive a pure wine in the cup of love on the carpet of proximity from the hand of the attributes, as He said: “And their Lord will pour for them a pure wine” [76:21]. A wine, and what a wine! The spirit of anyone who drinks a draft of this wine will fly in the air of solitariness. From that wine comes the scent of the Beloved. If you busied two hundred spirits with it, that would be appropriate—the wine upon which the Beloved’s love has put His seal. You would give all loves to that one love, all desires to that one desire; hoping for it you would gamble away the two worlds along with heart and spirit.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, my need at this Threshold is a day when You pour a drop of that wine on my heart! How long will You keep me mixed with water and fire? O my good fortune, you are a resurrection from the Friend.”

2:185 The month of Ramadan is that wherein the Qur’an was sent down as guidance.

In other words, the month of Ramadan has come to you. He is saying, “Now the month of Ramadan has turned to the friends. It is a month that both washes and burns. It washes the hearts of the sinners with the water of repentance and burns the bodies of the servants with the fire of hunger.”

The word Ramaḍān is derived either from ramḍāʾ or ramaḍī. If it is from ramḍāʾ, it means hot stone, which burns whatever is placed upon it. If it is from ramaḍī, it means rain, which washes whatever it meets. Muṣṭafā was asked, “What is Ramadan?” He replied, “In it God burns the sins of the faithful and forgives them for them.”

Anas Mālik said that he heard God’s Messenger say, “Ramadan has come. In it the gates of the Garden are opened, the gates of the Fire are shut, and the satans are fettered. If someone reaches Ramadan and is not forgiven, then when?”

He also said, “Were God to give the heavens and earth permission to speak, they would give those who fast during Ramadan the good news of the Garden.”

Poor man, you do not know the worth of this blessing. You are caressed everywhere in the world, and eminence has been put down next to you, but you are unaware. The submission, which is higher and better than all the creeds, is your religion. The Qur’an, which is more exalted than all the books, is your book. Muṣṭafā, who is the master of Adam’s children, the eyes and lamp of the empire, the leader of the world’s folk at the resurrection, is your messenger. The Kaabah, which is the most eminent of spots, is your kiblah. The month of Ramadan, which is more excellent and eminent than all other months, is your month and the season of your practice. It is a month in which all acts of disobedience are forgiven, the satans subjugated, paradise embellished and its doors open, and the doors of hell shut. In it the bazaar of the workers of corruption is broken, the deeds of the obedient are joined with self-purification, and past sins and recorded defilements are burned.

The Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī said, “Had God wanted to chastise Muḥammad’s community, He would not have given them the month of Ramadan, nor the surah, ‘Say: He is God, One’ [112].”

Here the lords of recognition see another intimation. They say that it is called “Ramadan” because in this month the Exalted Lord washes other than Himself from the hearts of the recognizers, then He burns them in His love. Sometimes He keeps them in fire, sometimes in water, sometimes thirsty, sometimes drowning. The drowning are not quenched, the thirsty have no sleep. The tongue of their state is saying,

“If He burns you, say ‘Burn!’, if He caresses, say ‘Caress!’

The man of passion had best be in the midst of water and fire,

first to be burned by the one, then to be drowned by the other.

Once selfless of self, his Beloved will be in his arms.”

This is why the Pir of the Tariqah, having been asked about togetherness, said, “It is that someone falls into the grasp of the Real. When someone falls into the grasp of the Real, he is incinerated there, but the Real is behind him.”

In passion for You I’m headless and perplexed,

the thread has slipped from the hand of my hope,

Like a candle in the early morning—

melted, burned, and killed.

2:186 And when My servants ask thee about Me, surely I am near. I respond to the supplication of the supplicator when he supplicates Me. So let them respond to Me and have faith in Me. Perhaps they will be led aright.

He is saying, “When My servants ask you about Me, those are the servants who hang on to the ring of veneration for Me. They have fled to My street, put aside everything less than Me, undertaken to serve Me, believed in Me, and cut themselves off from secondary causes. They have wrapped the turban of trial around their heads and bought Our love with spirit and heart. They came into existence with passion, and they are leaving with passion.”

With passion my steed set out from nonexistence,

my night always bright with union’s wine.

Of that wine not forbidden by my religion

my lips will not stay dry till I’m back in nonexistence.

“When servants like this and friends like this ask you about Me and seek My mark from you, know that I am near to them. Uncalled and unsought, I am near. Unhoped for and unperceived, I am near. With My firstness, with My attributes, I am self-standing and near. Not by the worthiness of the servant—I am near by My own description.”

This is the same that He said to His speaking companion Moses, on that pitch black night on the edge of the Mount when he was called from the right bank of the watercourse [28:30]. Moses was called from the right bank of the blessed watercourse: “O great Moses!,” for after Adam, no one heard the speech of the Real with the ears of his head except Moses. He was called, “O Moses!” Moses became unsettled, he could not bear it, and his patience fled. How can patience overcome love? Love will always snatch away the hand of patience. In his burning, distraction, and inability to bear, he said to the caller, “You have made me hear You. Where should I seek You?” The call came, “O Moses, seek as you like, for I am with you. I am nearer to you than the spirit is to your body, your life-vein is to you, your speaking is to your mouth. The speech is My speech, the light is My light, and I am the Lord of the Worlds.”

In terms of allusion, it is as if the Exalted Lord said, “O Moses, I am near to you through knowledge, but far from your imagination. O Moses, I am the share of My lovers, and I bestow the shares of the wage-earners. Remembering Me is delight, loving Me celebration, recognizing Me the kingdom, finding Me joy, companionship with Me the spirit’s repose, and nearness to Me light. I take the place of the spirit for the friends, I am the resurrection without Trumpet for the recognizers.”

I said, “Lovely idol! Are You then my beloved?

Now that I look closely, You are my spirit.

I will have no spirit if You turn away from me.

O Spirit of the world, You are my unbelief and faith.”

Surely I am near—I respond to the supplication of the supplicator. He is saying, “I am near to My servants, and I love the near ones. I answer those who call Me, I give access to those who seek Me, I am pleased with those who reach proximity to Me. My servant! Come near to Me so that I may come near to you. ‘When someone comes near to Me by a span, I come near to him by a cubit.’ My servant, if you call Me, I will respond to you. I also call you—to the assistance given by My religion and to the acceptance of the message of My messenger. So respond to Me! My servant, open a door so that I may open a door. Open the door of supplication, so that I may open the door of response: Supplicate Me; I will respond to you [40:60]. Open the door of turning back so that I may open the door of good news: They turned back to God, and for them is good news [39:17]. Open the door of expending so that I may open the door of replacement: Whatever you expend, He will replace it [34:39]. Open the door of struggle so that I may open the door of guidance: Those who struggle in Us, We will guide them on Our paths [29:69]. Open the door of trust so that I may open the door of sufficiency: Whosoever trusts in God, He will be enough for him [65:3]. Open the door of asking forgiveness so that I may open the door of forgiveness: And then asks forgiveness of God, he will find God forgiving, ever-merciful [4:110].”

Then He said, “Perhaps they will be led aright: I have placed this burden of the decree upon you for your own best interest and to take care of your work—so that you may stay on the straight road and reach everlasting bliss. Take profit from Me, for I did not create the creatures to take profit from them, rather so that they would take profit from Me. ‘I did not create the creatures to profit from them. I created them only so that they would profit from Me.’”

2:189 They ask thee about the new moons.

The waxing and waning of the moon and its increase and decrease are allusions to the contraction and expansion of the recognizers and the awe and intimacy of the lovers. The contraction and expansion of the elect are like the fear and hope of the common people. Contraction and expansion are higher than fear and hope, and so also awe and intimacy are higher than contraction and expansion. Fear and hope belong to the common people, contraction and expansion to the elect, and awe and intimacy to the elect of the elect.

First is the station of the wrongdoers, next the station of the moderate, and third the station of the preceders.^{1On these three basic sorts of Muslims, to whom Maybudī often refers, see especially the commentaries on 9:100-6 and 35:32.} The furthest limit of all is the intimacy of the lovers. In the state of intimacy, a man reaches a point where, if he enters fire, he is unaware of it and its heat leaves no trace in the repose of his intimacy. Thus Abū Ḥafṣ Ḥaddād was a blacksmith. He had lit up an exceedingly hot fire and placed iron within it, as is the custom of blacksmiths. Someone was passing by and reciting a verse of the Qur’an. The shaykh became happy at that verse and the state of intimacy overcame him. He put his hand into the furnace and pulled out the hot iron. He held it until his apprentice looked at him and said, “O Shaykh! How is that you are holding the hot iron in your hand?!” The shaykh put it aside, and then he left his profession. He said, “I have left this profession many times and then come back to it. This time, the profession left me.”

2:190 And fight in the path of God those who fight against you, but do not transgress. God loves not the transgressors.

In the language of the recognizers and the path of the chevaliers, this killing and fighting is another way station of the travelers and another state of the lovers. However, as long as you have not been killed by the sword of struggle in the path of the Shariah and you have not been burned by the fire of love, you will not be allowed to enter by this gate.

Take care not to believe that fire is simply the lamp that you know and nothing more; or that killing is simply the state that you know. Those killed by the Real are one thing, those killed by the throat something else. Being burned by the fire of punishment is one thing, being burned by the fire of love something else.

Thus that great pir said, “How should I have known that this is the smoke of the burning brand’s fire? I fancied that wherever there is fire there is a lamp. How should I have known that in friendship the sin belongs to the killed and the judge gives refuge to the adversary!? How should I have known that the bewilderment of union with You is the path, and he who is drowned in You seeks You all the more?”

One day Shiblī went into the desert. He saw forty men, distracted, impassioned, and overcome by this talk. Each of them had gone into the desert, a brick under his head, his life having reached the gullet. The tenderness of affinity appeared in Shiblī’s breast and he said, “O God, what do You want from them? You have placed the burden of pain on their hearts, You have struck fire in their haystacks. Will You now kill them all with the sword of jealousy?”

His secret core was addressed with the words, “I will kill them. Once I kill them, I will pay them the wergild.”

Shiblī said, “What is the wergild?”

The address came, “When someone is killed by the sword of My majesty, his wergild is the vision of My beauty.”

I will fight against Your passion’s army

and be killed—someone killed has value.

The wergild of the one killed by hand is dinars,

the wergild of the one killed by passion is seeing.

2:195 Expend in the path of God.... And do what is beautiful. Surely God loves the beautiful-doers.

The rich remove money from their wallets, the poor remove the rich from their hearts, and the tawḥīd-voicers remove all creatures from their secret cores—to this He alludes with His words, “Say ‘God,’ then leave them” [6:91]. The rich let wealth go from their wallets for the sake of the reward of that world, the poor let the rich go from their hearts for the sake of the Lord’s religion, and the recognizers let the creatures go for the sake of seeing the Glorified. The rich spend their possessions in alms tax and charity in order to escape from hell, the worshipers spend their souls in the duties of worship to reach paradise, and the recognizers spend their spirits and hearts in the realities of witnessing to reach union with the Real.

And do what is beautiful. Surely God loves the beautiful-doers. Muṣṭafā said, “Beautiful doing is that you worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, surely He sees you.” Doing the beautiful is that you worship God in wakefulness and awareness as if you are gazing upon Him, and you serve Him as if you are seeing Him.

This hadith alludes to the heart’s encounter with the Real, the secret core’s convergence with the Unseen, and the spirit’s contemplation of the Patron. It is an incitement to self-purification in deeds, curtailment of wishes, and loyalty to what was accepted on the First Day.

What was accepted on the First Day? Hearing Am I not your Lord and saying Yes indeed [7:172]. What is loyalty to what was accepted? Serving the Protector. How does one curtail wishes? In “As if you see Him.” Where is self-purification in deeds? In “He sees you.”

When an eye has seen Him, how can it busy itself with glancing at others? When a spirit has found companionship with Him, how will it make do with water and dust? The word “Return!” [89:28] is addressed to the pure spirit. How will it make its home in the frame of water and dust? When someone has become accustomed to that Presence, how long will he put up with the abasement of the veil? How will the ruler of his own city spend his life in exile?

The attribute of the spirit is subsistence. Water and dust undergo annihilation. He who lives in the Real is not like him who lives in this world. The realizer is aware of the secret of the Real: the Real is seeable. “As if you see Him” in the report bears witness to this.

2:196 And complete the hajj and the umrah for God.

It is narrated from Wahab ibn Munabbih that God sent a revelation to Adam: “O Adam, I am the Lord of the world and the world’s folk, the creator of all, the king doing what I desire. I am the Lord of Bakka, and those who dwell there are My neighbors. Those who visit are My delegates, My guests, and under My protection. I will populate this spot with the folk of heaven and earth. They will come in droves from every direction and every region, their hair disheveled and their faces covered with dust from the suffering of the road, saying ‘God is greater’ and reciting ‘Here I am,’ their faces turned toward the blessed desert, the earth colored with the blood of sacrifice.

“O Adam! When someone visits this house and is self-purifying in that, he is My guest and one of Mine, one of those near to Me. It is worthy of My majesty to honor him and to bring him to forgiveness through the gift of mercy and bestowal. O Adam! Among your children is a prophet by the name of Abraham, My bosom friend, chosen by Me. With his hand I will establish it, and I will command him to build it. I will make its eminence appear, bring to light its watering place, mark its sanctuary, and teach him how to worship Me there. After him I will have the world’s folk keep it inhabited and place respect and reverence for it in their hearts. Then will come the turn of Muḥammad the Arab, the Seal of the Prophets, the lamp of heaven and earth. I will make it his birth place and origin, the place where revelation falls upon him, and the domicile of his honor. I will put its watering place, deputyship, and rulership in his hand. Then I will put love for it in the hearts of the faithful from the corners of the earth. They will come, bareheaded and barefoot, their goods and means put aside, their lives placed in their hands, their hair disheveled, their faces covered with dust. They will all go and circumambulate that house, asking Me for forgiveness. O Adam! If someone asks you what I will do with them, say that I am with them in knowledge, I am found by their souls and present in their hearts, and I am the cure of their pain. I am concealed from their eyes, but I am face-to-face with their spirits.”

So apparent are You to my heart,

so hidden are You from my eyes!

And complete the hajj and the umrah for God. The hajj of the common people is one thing, the hajj of the elect something else. The hajj of the common people sets out for the street of the Friend, the hajj of the elect sets out for the face of the Friend. That is going to the Friend’s house, this is going to the Friend.

I was in pain—not for the Kaabah but for Your face.

I was drunk—not from wine but from Your fragrance.

The common people went with their souls and saw doors and walls. The elect went with their spirits and found conversation and vision. The elect travel this path just as that chevalier said:

“The blood of the sincerely truthful was purified and made into a road—

unless the spirit takes a step in this road, you will have no access.”^{1The style is pure Sanāʾī, but the line is not found in his printed Divan.}

He who goes with the soul finds suffering and carries burdens in order to circle the Kaabah. He who goes with the spirit finds rest and ease, and the Kaabah itself circles around his house. In this meaning there is the story of Ibrāhīm Khawāṣṣ. He said that once in his deprivation he found himself wandering in Byzantium, just as the Men fall anywhere, bewildered and perplexed, helpless and having lost the thread.

Perplexed in You the Men of the world

have not been able to find the end of Your thread.

The news in Byzantium was that the king’s daughter had become mad, and her father had bound her with the bonds of madmen. The physicians were all helpless to cure her. From time to time she would breathe a cold breath and rain down hot tears, sometimes weeping, sometimes laughing. It occurred to him that something could be done. He went to the door of the king’s house and said, “I have come to cure the sick person.”

When the king’s eyes fell on him, he said, “It seems you have come to cure my daughter. I suppose you are a physician.”

He said, “Yes, I have a Lord who is a physician. I have come to cure your daughter.”

He said, “Look at the battlements of the castle. What do you see?”

Ibrāhīm looked and saw severed heads placed on those battlements.

The king said, “If someone does not cure her, what you see is his recompense.”

He said, “I have nothing to fear.”

They tell me, “You’ll destroy yourself.”

How can a lover fear his own destruction?

When the king saw that he had seen those heads on the battlement and thought nothing of it, he pointed him to the room of his daughter. He went forth and had not yet stepped foot into the room when he heard this call, “Say to the faithful that they cast down their eyes” [24:30]. He stayed right there, distracted by her situation and bewildered by her state. Again he heard a call: “O Son of Khawāṣṣ! A drink that increases nothing but thirst! A food that increases nothing but consternation!” From behind the curtain he said, “O servant girl of God! What is this state and what is this ecstasy?”

She said, “O shaykh! Once I was sitting amidst joy and blessings with my slave girls and special friends. Suddenly a pain fell into my heart and a sorrow reached my spirit. I was annihilated from myself and became enraptured. I had not yet come back to my room before that pain became consolidated and the work was completed.”

O You the guide on whose road is pain!

You are solitary and Your familiar solitary!

One grain from Your trap, and an epoch,

one drop from Your cup, and a Man!

She said, “When I gained some ease from that ecstasy and distraction, I found myself in bonds and chains. I approved of His judgment and was satisfied with His decree. I knew that He does not want bad for His friends, so let us see what this work reaches in the end.”

Ibrāhīm said, “What do you say that we contrive a stratagem in order to go to the Abode of Submission and cultivate the submission. It would be a shame if I were to leave a dear one like you in the Abode of Unbelief.”

She said, “O Son of Khawāṣṣ! What kind of manliness is it to nurture the submission in the Abode of Submission? The man is he who takes up Islam in the Abode of Unbelief and nurtures it in spirit and heart. What is there in the Abode of Submission that is not here?”

He said, “The eminent, magnificent, noble Kaabah, which is the goal of pilgrims and the witnessing place of the yearners!”

She said, “Have you visited the Kaabah?”

He said, “I have visited it 70 times.”

She said, “Look up!”

He looked up and saw the Kaabah standing on top of her house. Then she said, “O Son of Khawāṣṣ! Whoever goes by foot visits the Kaabah, but when someone goes by heart, the Kaabah visits him.”

He said, “By that God who has exalted you with the exaltedness of the submission! Tell me the secret of this. How did you reach this station?”

She said, “Nothing I did was worthy of that Presence, but I approved of His judgment and was satisfied with His decree.”

He said, “How will I now contrive to leave this place?”

She said, “Standing as you are now, just turn your face to the road and go until you reach your goal.”

With her charisma a road appeared that had no veil or hindrance, and no one was aware of him. He left her house and the Abode of Unbelief and returned to the Abode of Submission.

2:201 Among them is he who says, “Our Lord, give us in this world something beautiful, and in the next world something beautiful.”

It is said that the beautiful thing of this world wanted by the faithful is knowledge and worship, and the beautiful thing of that world is paradise and vision. That of this world is witnessing the mysteries, and that of that world is seeing with the eyes. This world’s is the success of service, and that world’s the realization of union. This world’s is self-purification through obedience, and that world’s deliverance from burning and separation. This world’s is the Sunnah and the community, and that world’s the encounter and vision. This world’s is the firm fixity of faith, and that world’s the repose and ease [56:89]. This world’s is the sweetness of obedience, and that world’s the pleasure of contemplation. For this world’s, there must be deeds with obedience, and for that world’s there must be pain with recognition. It is a long road from deeds to pain, and he who does not have this eyesight has an excuse. What is obtained from these deeds is houris and palaces, but the possessor of this pain is drowned in light in the ocean of face-to-face vision.

O You the guide on whose road is pain!

You are solitary and Your familiar solitary!

Among them is he who says, “Our Lord…”. There is a subtle point in this verse. When someone wants this world, inevitably he will be held back from the reward of the afterworld, for God says, “He has no share in the next world” [2:102]. Muṣṭafā said, “When someone loves this world of his, that will harm his next world; and when someone loves his next world, that will harm this world of his. So prefer that which subsists to that which undergoes annihilation!” When someone wants both this world and the afterworld, the Exalted Lord does not hold them back from him. He gives him what he wants. The report has come, “God is ashamed when a servant lifts up his hands to Him and He disappoints him.” It is also narrated, “God is ashamed when a person with gray hair who observes propriety and clings to the Sunnah asks Him for something and He does not give it.”

There remains another group, who recognize the reality of approval and have surrendered to God’s decree and approved of His determination. They do not turn away from lauding Him in order to ask from Him. They do not seek access to this world nor do they ask for the afterworld. Concerning them the Lord of the Worlds says, “When remembering Me busies someone from asking from Me, I bestow upon him the most excellent of what I bestow on the askers.”

2:203 And remember God in certain numbered days, but if someone hastens on after two days, no sin shall be upon him.

There are three sorts of remembrance: The remembrance of habit, the remembrance of calculation, and the remembrance of companionship. The remembrance of habit has no worth, for it is the secret core’s heedlessness. The remembrance of calculation has no adornment, for its goal is seeking the wage. The remembrance of companionship is a deposit, for the tongue of him who remembers is a loan in the midst.

The remembrance of the fearful is from dread of being cut off, the remembrance of the hopeful is from wishing to find what they seek, and the remembrance of the lovers is from the tenderness of burning. The fearful heard the call of the threat with the ear of fear and clung to supplication. The hopeful heard the call of the promise with the ear of hope and clung to laudation. The lovers heard the call beforehand with the ear of love and did not mix with pretexts. The remembrance of the Beginningless reached the recognizers and they fled from effort to their lot.

And remember God in certain numbered days, but if someone hastens on after two days... . This is the attribute of the end of the ritual and the final acts of the hajj. Now let us offer comprehensive words comprising all the waymarks and rituals along with allusions and subtle points.

Know that there are two sanctuaries: the outward sanctuary and the inward sanctuary. The outward sanctuary surrounds the Kaabah, and the inward sanctuary surrounds the heart of the faithful. In the midst of the outward sanctuary is the Kaabah, the kiblah of the faithful, and in the midst of the inner sanctuary is a Kaabah that is the target of the All-Merciful’s gaze. The former is the goal of the pilgrims, and the latter the locus of lights, so he is upon a light from his Lord [39:22]. The former is free from the hands of evil-doers and unbelievers, and the latter is free from seeing and thinking about others.

If some article is found in the outward sanctuary, it is left there so that its owner may appear and find it. If some article is found in the inward sanctuary, there is no way to go after it, for it is nothing but God’s secret. God has a secret in every heart, and no one has access to that secret. He says, “I have deposited it in the heart of My servants whom I love.” Do not search for My secret! Anyone who searches for My secret throws himself into the whirlpool of trial. What business does the servant have with the secret of Lordhood? How can what was not and then came to be have access to Him who always was and always will be?

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “This knowledge is the Real’s secret, and these men are the possessors of secrets. What business has the watchman with entering the king’s court? Before that outer Kaabah is a man-eating desert, and before this inner Kaabah is the desert of grief and sorrow.”

A world is wandering in the desert of passion for You—

who will be given access to the Kaabah of Your acceptance? [DS 210]

The former Kaabah is the kiblah of practice, the latter Kaabah the kiblah of contemplation. The former yields unveiling, the latter demands face-to-face vision. The former is the threshold of exaltedness and tremendousness, the latter the gateway to gentleness and joyful expansiveness.

So what if I don’t have the world’s kiblah,

my kiblah is the Beloved’s street, just that.

In visiting the former Kaabah one has the loin-cloth and mantle that are well-known. In visiting the latter Kaabah, one has the loin-cloth of solitariness and the mantle of disengagement. The ritual consecration of the former is “Here I am!” on the tongue. The ritual consecration of the latter is disowning the two worlds.

The “Here I am” of the passionate is better than the consecration of the hajjis—

the one is for the Kaabah, the other for the Friend.

How will I go to the Kaabah by taking the desert road?

The Kaabah is the street of the Heart-stealer, the kiblah His face.

The recompense for that hajj is houris, palaces, and the bliss and ease of paradise, and the recompense for this hajj is being put under the dome of jealousy on the carpet of exaltedness, the throne of proximity, and the cushion of intimacy—His attributes unveiled and His Essence witnessed, sometimes in the majesty of unveiling and sometimes in the gentleness of contemplation, in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].

2:213 The people were one community. Then God sent the prophets as bringers of good news and warning.

In terms of allusion and according to the tasting of the chevaliers of the Tariqah, this verse has another intimation and another meaning. The king of the universe, the keeper of the world, the knower of the hidden, is saying that when He first created creatures, He created them in the curtaining wrap of createdness. When He made them with such a makeup at the beginning, the darknesses of the attributes of createdness surrounded this created nature. They were all one group in the curtain of obscurity. All were gathered in the darkness of absence, all remained in the captivity of their own makeup. It was just like that chevalier said:

“The creatures are at ease in the ruins of their own makeup—

wink just once to throw the creatures into turmoil!” [DS 696]

Then a courier came from the infinite world to their tininess. Muṣṭafā gave this report about that courier: “God created the creatures in darkness. Then He cast upon them something of His light. Whomsoever the light struck was guided, and whomsoever it missed went astray.”

When this messenger turned its face from that infinity to their tininess, they all became aware, captive to desire, subjugated by will, wounded by wisdom, their ears fixed on their own fortune and lot: “What is coming to us? What will be decreed for us?”

Then the hand of predetermination divided them into two groups: the lucky and the unlucky. He said about the lucky, “These belong to the Garden, and I do not care.” He said about the unlucky, “These belong to the Fire, and I do not care.” In other words, “I have no fear of being blamed. I will do whatever occurs to Me and have no regrets. Some are the folk of felicity without any conformity with Me, and some are the folk of wretchedness without any opposition to Me. ‘These belong to the Garden, and I do not care’ about their disloyalty, and ‘These belong to the Fire, and I do not care’ about their loyalty. I receive no profit from loyalty, nor do I lose anything from disloyalty. When someone gains faith, he is the one who profits; I stay exactly as I was, without equal or need. When someone becomes an unbeliever, he is the one who loses; I stay exactly as I was, without associate or partner.

“O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most godwary man among you, that would add nothing to My kingdom. O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most depraved man among you, that would diminish nothing from My kingdom.”

One of the subtle points attached to this verse is that the world’s creatures gathered within Adam’s makeup—the unbeliever and the faithful, the sincerely truthful and the heretic—have the likeness of a merchant carrying musk. Since he goes in dread of highwaymen, he places the musk in the midst of asafetida. The musk pulls the smell of asafetida to itself, and sharp-scented asafetida pulls the musk to itself. When the merchant reaches his destination and he feels secure, he spreads a cloth, puts the musk and the asafetida there, lets the wind blow against them, and each returns to its original scent and lets go of the borrowed. So also, the fragrance of the faithful in Adam’s makeup reached the unbelievers, and the fragrance of the unbelievers reached the faithful. The beautiful deeds that come into existence from the unbelievers in this world all come from the fragrance of the faithful that has reached them, and the ugly deeds and disobedient acts that come from the faithful in this world all come from the scent of the unbelievers’ unbelief. Tomorrow at the resurrection the cloth of justice will be spread and the wind of solicitude will blow. The beautiful deeds of the unbelievers will go to the faithful and the ugly deeds of the faithful will go to the unbelievers. The first judgment and beginningless decree will arrive. It will take away the borrowed, and give the original back to the original. The pure will go with the pure, and the vile with the vile, so that God may distinguish the vile from the goodly [8:37].

2:214 Or do you reckon that you will enter the Garden?

This is as they say:

You can’t speak the words of the good so easily—

it is not so easy, easy, to speak their words.

“When someone is too timid to engage with fearful things, he will not reach his hopes.” Are you not aware that joining is found in breaking off, life in death, and desires in not reaching your desires? The moth reaches union with the candle when it burns, and the candle finds life when it loses its head.

Religion’s pain is indeed marvelous, for when you suffer it,

you will be like a candle—better once your head’s cut off. [DS 485]

The high Firdaws is a sweet garden and meadow, but the road there is difficult, a rosebed full of thorns. Muṣṭafā said, “The Garden is surrounded by disliked things,” lest the nobodies and the unqualified claim familiarity. Are they equal, those who know and those who know not? [39:9].

A simile for this rule is the ocean: It was made the resting place for precious pearls and night-brightening gems, and then sharks and huge fish were made the veil of those pearls and gems. Two men set out, pulled into the field of seeking by love for gems. They go to the ocean’s shore and see its difficulties, and dread appears in them because of the danger of those sharks. Of the two men who see the terrors and difficult states, one is afraid and he steps back from seeking and declares himself quit of his own words. He had a wish, but his attribute of manliness was not complete. He fancied that this work could be finished merely by wishing and that he could reach the treasure without suffering. The exalted Shariah gives the answer: “The religion is not reached with wishfulness and self-adornment.”

With Me you must have a hidden mystery,

with Me you must always have need.

In truth, black crow, you’re a fine bird!

You want to mate with a white falcon.

The other man is the possessor of desire. Passion for the beauty of that night-brightening pearl cleanses his intellect of the ocean’s terrors, so he does not give those meanings access to himself. Hour by hour and moment by moment that beauty discloses itself to him, so he becomes more entranced and more passionate. He goes head first into the ocean. If felicity assists him and success-giving becomes his friend, that night-brightening pearl will fall into the grasp of his seeking. If the opposite happens, the sharks will take his life as booty and his name will be written in the register of “I don’t care.” The tongue of his state will say,

“Each month two thousand of the passionate like me

are killed, and not one lets out a sigh.”

2:215 They ask thee what they should expend. Say: “Whatever good you expend should be for parents and kinsmen, orphans, the indigent, and the son of the road.” And whatever good you do, God knows it.

Throwing away money in the path of the Shariah is beautiful, but it is not like throwing away the spirit in the field of the Haqiqah and becoming separate from all others at the moment of contemplation.

Keeping to the stipulation of loyalty is beautiful, but not as much as becoming separate from self and stepping onto the carpet of limpidness.

Someone asks, “What should we do with our property? How should we spend it?”

The Shariah answers, “From 200 dirhams, 5 dirhams; from 20 dinars, one-half dinar.”

Someone else asks and the Haqiqah answers, “You will not be with Him along with body and spirit.”

Yes, the story of the wage-earners is one thing, the story of the recognizers something else. The wage-earner’s recognition reaches recognizing the spirit, but the recognizer’s recognition reaches throwing away the spirit.

Wealth, gold, things—gamble them away for nothing.

When the work reaches your spirit, gamble it away!

Those fortunate Companions did not ask how to spend because they had not found their way to poverty, but in hopes that this caress would reach them from the Exalted Presence: “And whatever good you do, God knows it. Whatever you have given and will give, I who am the Lord know it and am aware of it.”

This is just like Moses, when he was called during that pitch black night in the desert of the Mount: “O Moses!” In the pleasure of this address Moses was burned by the call. In his burning and yearning he said, “Who is speaking to me?” Moses knew, but he was drowned in the ocean of yearning for the vision of the Real. He was seeking someone to take his hand: “I have burned in this one call. Perhaps He will call out again, and maybe I will light up.”

The command came, “O Moses! Do you not know who is calling you?”

He said, “I know, but I am waiting for the caller to say, ‘Surely I am God, Lord of the worlds’ [28:30].”

Here I am, My servant, and you’re in My embrace,

and whatever you have said I know.

Ask of Me without shame or dread,

and fear not, for surely I am God.

Here there are two verses. The verse at the beginning of the section alludes to the worshipers’ spending their wealth in order to reach recognition. The verse at the end of the section alludes to the recognizers’ spending their own lives for the sake of struggle in order to reach the Recognized. It is His words,

2:218 Surely those who have faith, those who emigrate, and those who struggle in God’s path—it is they who hope for God’s mercy, and God is the Forgiving, the Ever-Merciful.

After faith, He spoke of emigration. Emigration is of two sorts: one outward, the other inward.

Outward emigration has two sides: One side is to emigrate from one’s home, homeland, and means and to go forth seeking knowledge. The other side is what comes to be known by seeking. Any traveling that is outside of these two has no weight or worth. The Prophet alluded to this with his words, “People are knowers or learners; the rest of the people are rabble.”

You should not say that the seeker of knowledge and the seeker of the Known have one level. The seeker of knowledge is himself traveling, and the seeker of the Known is being pulled by the Real. He who is himself traveling dwells in suffering, distress, and hunger, like Moses in the journey in which he was seeking knowledge: “Bring us our food. We have certainly met with weariness on this journey of ours” [18:62]. Another time, when he set off seeking the Known, he was confirmed to such a degree by the Real’s protection and pulling that he stayed thirty days waiting for the Real’s speech, and he was not aware of being tired or hungry.

The master Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq said, “The caressing of the seekers of knowledge reaches a place such that tomorrow, when they rise up from the dust, they will be mounted on the feathers of angels, according to the Prophets words, ‘Surely the angels will put down their wings for the seeker of knowledge, approving what he is doing.’” Then Abū ʿAlī said, “Since the seekers of knowledge will be mounted on the feathers of angels, how can anyone imagine what the seekers of the Known will be mounted on?”

Did we but know that the visit is true,

we would make our face an earth so that You might approve.

*

Beautiful idols walk on forbidden ground.

I will make my eyes the ground—come stroll on my eyes!

This then was the explanation of outward emigration. Inward emigration is that one goes from the soul to the heart, from the heart to the secret core, from the secret core to the spirit, and from the spirit to the Real. The soul is the way station of submission, the heart the way station of faith, the secret core the way station of recognition, and the spirit the way station of tawḥīd.

In the traveling of the wayfarers one must emigrate from submission to faith, from faith to recognition, and from recognition to tawḥīd. This is not the tawḥīd of the common people. On the contrary, this tawḥīd is pure of water and dust, made limpid of Adam and Eve—attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, limits come to nothing, allusions ended, expressions negated, chronicles transformed.^{1The clause is from Ṣad maydān, no. 100.}

One day the master, Imām Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq, was drowned in the ocean of love and speaking of tawḥīd. He said, “If you see one of the honored pearls placing his foot in the street of making claims and talking about tawḥīd, be careful not to be deceived. Know that tawḥīd’s meaning is pure of water and dust, for it is the beauty of Unity that went into the field of the Beginningless to gaze on the majesty of the Sanctum. It spoke mysteries to Itself in the attribute of inaccessibility.”

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī alluded to this tawḥīd and said,

No one has voiced the unity of the One,

for everyone who voices it denies it.

The tawḥīd of those who talk of its description

is a loan voided by the One.

His tawḥīd is His voicing unity—

its describer’s description deviates.^{2Anṣārī, Manāzil al-sāʾirīn 113.}

2:219 They ask thee about wine and gambling.... And they ask thee what they should expend.

God has servants on the earth who drink the wine of recognition and are drunk from the cup of love. There is no more than a whiff of this wine’s reality in this world, and nothing but a show of that drunkenness, for this world is a prison, and what can a prison put up with? Today there is no more than that. Nonetheless, wait until tomorrow, the assembly of repose and ease [56:89], the arena of union with the Beloved, when the servants will be gazing on the Real.

Hope for union with you has added to my life.

What can union itself be, when hope does that!?

A man in turmoil entered the shop of a wine merchant with one dirham. He said, “Give me wine for this dirham.”

The merchant replied, “There’s no wine left.”

The man said, “I’m already in turmoil. I can’t tolerate wine’s reality. Show me a drop so I may smell it—you’ll see how drunk I become and what turmoil I’ll stir up.”

Glory be to God! What is this lightning that has shone from the Beginningless! It has burnt up the two worlds and nothing remains.

To someone He gave the wine of bewilderment from the cup of awe, and he became drunk with bewilderment. He said,

“I am bewildered in Thee, take my hand,

O guide of those bewildered in Thee!”

*

The work is difficult—how can I make it easy?

The pain has no cure—how can I find a remedy?

I’ve become secure from the headache of empty words—

what can I do with the stories of the drunkards?

To someone else He gave the wine of recognition from the storeroom of hope. At the top of the street of yearning he kept on saying in hope of union,

“One day luck will enter the door of my house,

one day the sun of elation will rise over me.

One day You will glance in my direction,

one day this grief of mine will come to an end!”

To someone else He gave the wine of union from the cup of love. He showed him the way to the carpet of bold expansiveness and gave him a spot on the leaning place of intimacy. With joyful disdain and coquetry he said,

“On the branch of revelry, we’re Your nightingales.

Our hearts are devoted to singing about You.

Don’t let us go, for we’re Your helpers!

Pass over our sins, for we’re drunk with You.”

Still another was so busy seeing the Cupbearer that he paid no attention to the wine!

You poured me a cup and made me drunk!

So I’m drunk from You, not the cup.

The women of Egypt blamed Zulaykhā for her passion toward Joseph, but when they reached the contemplation of Joseph, they became so selfless that they cut their hands and tore their clothing. The drunkenness of contemplating Joseph so overcame them that they were not aware of cutting their hands or tearing their clothes. Jacob had the same state. The overpowering force of his yearning to see Joseph was such that wherever he looked, he saw Joseph, and whenever he talked, he spoke of Joseph.

With whomever I speak, whether I want it or not,

your name comes to my mouth from the first.

One day Gabriel came and said, “No longer bring Joseph’s name to your tongue, for that is the command.” Then whenever Jacob met anyone, he would say, “What is your name?” Perhaps there would appear in the midst someone named Joseph, and he would find consolation in that.

I want a heart for choosing only You,

a spirit for breathing the pain of Your passion,

A body for desiring only Your love,

an eye for seeing You and only You.

And they ask thee what they should expend. The lords of the meanings have said that there are three sorts of asking: One is the asking of assertion and making known. Thus the Exalted Lord says, “So, by thy Lord, We shall surely ask all of them about what they were doing” [15:92-93]. The Prophet alluded to this when he said, “On the day of resurrection the servant will stay on his feet until he is asked about four things: about his youth and how he wasted it, about his lifespan and how he ruined it, about his wealth and whence he gathered it and where he spent it, and about how he put into practice what he knew.”

The second asking is that of harassment. Thus the estranged asked Muṣṭafā when the resurrection would be, but they themselves had no faith in the resurrection. They asked in order to harass him. Thus He says, “They ask thee about the Hour, when it will come” [7:187]. So also are His words, “They ask thee about the mountains” [20:105].

The third is seeking for understanding and searching for right guidance, as He says in this verse: “They ask thee about wine and gambling, … and they ask thee what they should expend.” They ask thee about the orphans [2:220]. They ask thee about menstruation [2:222]. All of these are asking in order to seek right guidance, and in this sort of asking people are diverse. One asks about states, and he hears the answer from the tongue of an intermediary. But he who asks about Him who transforms the states hears the answer without intermediary from the Exalted Presence with the attribute of generosity, for surely I am near [2:186].

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “There are many at His door who want from Him, but those who want Him are few. There are many who talk of pain without His pain, but those who have the pain are few. In commentary it has come that the Lord of the Worlds said, ‘Some of you desire this world, and some of you desire the next world—where is someone who desires Me?’”

2:223 Your women are your tillage, so come to your tillage as you like.

The servant has a soul and a heart. The soul is from the low world, and its root is water and dust. The heart is from the high world, that is, the lordly subtlety, and its foundation is pure light. The soul’s station is absence, and the heart’s station is witnessing. Muṣṭafā alluded to this with his words, “There is no heart that is not between two fingers of God.”

God gave the soul, which stays absent, the same living quarters as its similars, and He made this a favor. He said, “Your women are your tillage, so come to your tillage as you like.” In another place He said, “Marry the women who seem goodly to you” [4:3]. In another place He said, “That you may rest in them, and He placed between you love and mercy” [30:21].

Finding one’s own shares and inclining toward similars in this manner is the portion of the soul, which remains in the lowland of jealousy. As for the heart, it has the station of contemplation, so it is forbidden to incline toward any others or to come down to any creature. Until it cuts itself off from creation and makes its own secret core pure of other than the Real, it will not come under these words: “He loves those who make themselves pure” [2:222]. The Lord of the Worlds loves those who are pure in this manner. He calls them men when He says, “In it are men who love to make themselves pure, and God loves those who make themselves pure” [9:108].

Know also that in this house of the decree, vile things are of two sorts. One is vileness of entity, which can never become pure by washing. If you put a corpse into the ocean a thousand times, it will never become pure, for the impurity belongs to its own entity.

The other is vileness of attribute. At root something is pure, but an impurity has reached it. If you wash it, it becomes pure. This impurity, however, is of two sorts. One is flimsy, so it becomes pure with a single water. The other is heavy, so it must be washed with water and dust to become pure.

At root vile things in the religion have the same divisions. One is vileness of the entity, which will never disappear. This is the vileness of the associationism that He does not forgive: Surely God does not forgive that anything be associated with Him [4:48]. The associaters are impure [9:28]. These remain in hell everlastingly, for their impurity is the impurity of the entity and it cannot receive purity, and paradise is the place of the pure.

The other vileness in the religion is vileness of attribute, which is disobedience, and it can receive purity. This also is of two sorts: some sins are small and others are great. The small sins are flimsy and become pure with one pass through hell: And none of you there is but will enter it [19:71]. The great sins are thick and do not become pure with one pass. They remain longer, but they do not remain everlastingly, for the entity is not impure, and the impurity can be made pure. If someone is washed in this abode with the water of repentance and remorse, he becomes pure. If he does not become pure in this abode, then in the house of retribution nothing but fire will make him pure. Unless the impurity is burnt away, he will not be pure, and unless he is pure, he will not reach the pure Lord. “Surely God is goodly and accepts only the goodly.”

Revelation came to David: “‘Make for Me a pure house in which I may reside!’ Make My house pure so that the Lord of the House may settle down in it.’”

He said, “O Lord, how shall I make it pure?”

He said, “Strike it with the fire of passion so that everything that does not have My lineage will be burnt. Then sweep it with the broom of remorse so that if any caprice of the soul remains not burnt by the fire of passion, the broom of remorse will sweep it away, for the bride of union with Me does not get along with the soul’s caprice.”

The bride of religion will not show her face to you, brother,

till your soul’s caprice has settled down in the religion’s road.

How long will you sit like women in hope of color and scent?

Fix your aspiration on the road and set out like a man! [DS 205]

2:226 For those who forswear their women, a wait of four months. But if they revert, God is forgiving, ever-merciful.

In terms of allusion, these verses contain an eloquent admonition and complete advice concerning the observation of the rightful dues of the Real: God gives so much weight and gravity to the rightful due of the people that He sends a decisive command concerning it and instills dread into those who put it aside. Hence it is even more appropriate to preserve the rightful due of God and to dread putting it aside.

In one of the reports it is mentioned that tomorrow at the resurrection a youth will be brought who had neglected the rightful dues of God. In the attribute of awe and exaltedness the Exalted Lord will address him: “Had you no shame? Had you no fear of My anger and harshness such that you neglected My rightful due and you paid it no reverence and respect? Take him to hell, for he is worthy of fire, and fire is worthy of him.”

Ibn ʿAbbās narrated that the Prophet said, “God says, ‘I will not look after the rightful due of My servant until the servant looks after My rightful due.’”

In the scriptures has come, “I honor those who honor Me and I scorn those who scorn My command.”

Look at the vengeance He takes from the servant because of His rightful due, even though His rightful due is built on leniency, and He passes over most of it. As for the rightful dues of created things, in these no leniency is shown, so God’s vengeance in them is more. So much is this so that it is said that if someone has the reward of seventy prophets but has one plaintiff whom he has cheated of half a penny, he will not enter paradise until that plaintiff is satisfied with him. So, the rightful dues of the creatures must be preserved, and one must strive mightily to observe them, especially the rightful dues of women and spouses, on whose behalf the Lord of the Worlds acts as deputy in this verse, requesting their husbands to take care of them.

Muṣṭafā said, “The best of you is the best of you to his wife, and I am the best of you to my wife.” He also said, “I counsel you to be good to your wives, for they are your helpers living with you and they possess nothing of their own. You have taken them as a trust from God, and you have made their private parts lawful to you by His word.” He is saying that these women are your underlings and they are God’s trust with you. Act beautifully toward them and desire the best for them, especially when they are pious and worthy, for a pious and worthy woman is the cause of a man’s ease and his helper in the religion.

One day ʿUmar Khaṭṭāb said, “O Messenger of God! What should I receive and choose from this world?”

The Messenger answered, “Each of you should take a remembering tongue, a grateful heart, and a wife with faith,” a pious and worthy woman. Look at what rank he gave to a worthy woman by placing her next to remembrance and gratitude! And we know that remembrance of the tongue and gratitude of the heart are not of this world. Rather, they are the reality of the religion. The pious wife whom he made their comrade is the same.

This is why Abū Sulaymān Dārānī said, “A worthy spouse is not of this world, but of the next.” In other words, she will keep you carefree so that you may busy yourself with the work of the next world. If weariness comes to you in assiduous worship, such that your heart is beaten down by it and you are held back from worship, then seeing and contemplating her brings intimacy and ease into the heart. Strength will return, and your eagerness for obedience will be renewed. This is why the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī said, “Do not remove rest and ease completely from the heart, lest it becomes blind.”

It sometimes happened that such a tremendous work entered in upon the Prophet in his unveilings that his bodily frame was not able to bear it. He would say to ʿĀʾisha, “Talk with me, O ʿĀʾisha.” With these words he wanted to gain strength so that he would be able to bear the burden of revelation. Once he was given back to this world and he regained full strength, the thirst for that work would overpower him, and he would say, “Give us ease, Bilāl!”^{1These two paragraphs are derived from Ghazālī’s Persian work, Kīmiyā-yi saʿādat 241-42.}

You become weary in this world of exile because

you must say, “Give us ease, O Bilāl,” for the crowd. [DS 34]

Then he would turn to the ritual prayer and would find the delight of his eyes in the prayer, as has come in the report: “The delight of my eyes was placed in the prayer.”

ʿĀʾisha said, “After he turned to the prayer, it was as if he had never recognized me, nor did we recognize him.” Sometimes he was so drowned in the self-disclosure of majesty that he would say, “I have a moment with God embraced by no proximate angel, nor any sent prophet.”

In the world of realization, this change of state is called “curtaining and self-disclosure.” Were it not for the Real’s curtaining, when confronted with the majesty of self-disclosure the servant would burn away and not be able to stand before the assaults of the ruling power of the realities. To this he alluded with his words, “[God has seventy veils of light and darkness;] were they to be removed, the glories of His Face would burn away everything perceived by the eyes.” When that paragon of the world and master of the empire of Adam’s children sometimes asked forgiveness [istighfār], he was seeking to be curtained, for ghafr means curtaining, and istighfār means to ask to be curtained. His curtaining was to busy himself with ʿĀʾisha for a while and to be delighted with her. This is why it has been said in describing the friends, “When He discloses Himself to them, they lose their wits, and when He is curtained from them, they are given back to their share and they enjoy themselves.”

It was said to Abū ʿAbdallāh Khafīf, “Why does ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Istakhrī accompany the dog-keepers into the plain wearing a coat?” He said, “He wants to disburden himself because of the weight of what is upon him.” Near to this are the words of the poet,

I desire to forget her remembrance, for it is as if

the image of Laylā appears to me everywhere.

He is saying: “I am looking for a pretext to forget You. I remember You, the pretext flees, and I become dazzled.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, when there is talk of finding You, I flee from my knowledge and lose my nerve. I cling to heedlessness, I keep on clinging to the curtain of the Unseen against the ruling power of face-to-face vision. Are You not my desire? But I throw myself into error to breathe for a moment.”

2:229 Divorce is twice, then retention with honor or setting free with beautiful doing.

This is a recommendation to spread out the divorce so that they will not hurry to complete separation.^{1LI 1:193.} Spreading out the divorce is recommended because the reality of separation is reprehensible. Although divorce is permitted in the Shariah, God hates it, for it is the cause of separating and of cutting the ties of familiarity and union. God’s Messenger said, “The most hateful of permitted things to me is divorce.” The exalted Qur’an praises people who do not cut bonds and do not seek for separation. It says, “Those who join what God has commanded to be joined and fear their Lord” [13:21].

In the Highest Dominion, He created angels who are half snow and half fire. Through His own power He brought these two opposites together and kept them that way. Their glorification is this: “Glory be to Him who makes fire familiar with snow! O Lord, make the hearts of your faithful servants familiar with each other!”

A pir of the Sufis said, “I was walking in the desert. I saw a person I did not recognize, water standing before him, and plants growing from the water. I asked him who he was and he said that he was Abū Murra [the Father of Bitterness].^{2A title of Satan. For another version of the story, attributed to Ibrāhīm Khawāṣṣ, see under 64:2.} I asked him what the water was. He said, ‘It is my tears, and these green things and plants are growing up from my tears.’ I asked him why he was weeping. He said, ‘I weep in the days of separation for the days of union. In the days of separation the murmur of union is the ease of the hearts of the deprived. Leave me to weep for myself, for there is no one in the world more miserable than I.’”

I said, “My heart wants to be Your comrade,

so I will be worthy of thanks and applause.”

By God, I did not think, O Spirit of the world,

that all my hopes would come to this.

Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī had a wife whom he divorced. Her dower was 40,000 dirhams, so he sent it to her so that her heart would be happy. She put that wealth in front her and began to weep: “‘Paltry goods from a departed lover!’ What use to me are the goods of the world when my companion is not at my side and my friend is tired of me!”

When a viper strikes someone’s liver

they give him the antidote, not candy.

They say that when Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī heard about this, he was touched and asked her to return.

It has come in the traditions that the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī went to visit Fāṭima’s grave. He was weeping and saying,

“What is wrong with me? I stand among the graves greeting

the grave of my beloved, but she does not respond.”

Then an unseen voice said,

“The beloved says, ‘And how should I respond to you

when I am pawn to stones and dust?

The dust has eaten my beauty and I have forgotten you.

I am veiled from my family and companions.

Greetings to you from me, but the union of loved ones

has been cut off from me and you.”

In other words, he said, “What has happened? What has happened to my loved one? I greet her and ask about her but she does not respond.” An unseen voice called out, “Your loved one says: ‘How can I answer when the seal of death has been placed in my mouth and I am alone in the midst of stones and dust and held back from relatives and near ones? Accept my greetings. Today that arrangement of friendship and joining between us has fallen apart, and its collar has been broken.” ʿAlī stood up in pain and recited these verses as he went away:

“Every coming together of friends has separation,

and everything other than separation is small.

My losses one after another

are proof that no bosom friend ever remains.”

*

Tell me what in this world is like the pain of separation?

Tell me who has never been made helpless by separation?

They say to me, “Weep not in separation from her.”

Tell me who has never wept at separation?

Mālik Dīnār had a brother by the name of Malkān, who left this world. Mālik sat at his grave and was saying, “O Malkān, my eyes will not have delight until I know what has happened to you, and I will not know as long as I remain alive.” Then he wept a great deal.

They said to him, “O Mālik, why are you weeping so much at his death?”

He said, “I am not weeping because he left this world or because I am held back from him today. I am weeping because, if I am held back from him tomorrow at the resurrection and do not see him, that will be regret at not seeing a created thing. But who will have the regret of not seeing the Creator? And how will that be? It is said that the greatest terror [21:103] at the resurrection is the wound of separation’s remorse placed on the spirit of some at the crossroads, holding them back from their friends and brothers. But that will be easy and its pain little. What will be much more difficult is the wound of separation from God placed on our spirits, turning us away from the road of felicity.”

All that is easy and lowly—alas if He should say, “Go,

for I disown you and your burden of disobedience.”

It is said that tomorrow at the gathering place of the resurrection a man will be brought who had been distracted in his days and disloyal to the covenant. The command will come, “Take him to hell, for he has the wound of deprivation.” When he reaches the edge of hell, he will lift up his hands and pull out his eyes and throw them away. They will say, “What have you done?” He will say,

“Eyes are useful to me for seeing the Friend —

what will I do with eyes without seeing the Friend?”

*

Once I became certain I would not be seeing you,

I shut my eyes and gazed on no one.

*

Night and day, early and late, that moon of heaven

was not separate from my embrace for a moment.

On purpose someone asked about me from her.

She said, “Who’s he? What could he have to do with me?”

A great pir often used to say, “The heart went, the Friend went. I don’t know if I should go after the Friend or after the heart.”

The tatters of my soul were left behind on the day they left—

I did not know to which of the departing I should bid farewell.

*

Tomorrow these two dear ones will depart for sure—

I don’t know to which I should bid farewell first.”

He said, “A call came to my secret core, ‘Go after the Friend! The lover wants a heart to find union with the Friend. Without the Friend, what good is a heart?”

If there’s no union with the Friend, what use are heart and spirit?

If king and queen are gone, what good is a bishop?

2:233 Mothers shall suckle their children two whole years—for those who desire to complete the suckling.

Great is that Lord who is unique in loving kindness and without peer in caressing servants. He bestows in testing, He is loyal to assurances. If we call Him, He hears, and if we do not, He knows. He is generous, loving, love-showing, and love-increasing; gentle, defect-hiding, excuse-hearing, a good God. His bounty is beyond all bounty, His generosity beyond all generosity, His mercy greater than all mercies, His love not like other loves.

The example given of utmost mercy is the mercy of mothers, but God’s mercy toward His servants is more than that, and His love is not like their love. Do you not see that He commands mothers to give milk to their children for two complete years, He urges them to nurture them, and He counsels them to take care of them? He does not confine Himself to the love of mothers and leave it at that. This is so that you will know that God is more lovingly kind to the servant than a mother is to her child.

Once Muṣṭafā was passing by when a woman with a child in her arms was baking bread. They had told her that God’s Messenger would be passing. She came forward and said, “O Messenger of God! We have heard you say that the God of the world’s inhabitants is more lovingly kind to His servants than a mother to her child.”

The Messenger said, “Yes, that is so.”

That woman became happy and said, “O Messenger of God! A mother would never toss her child into this oven.”

Muṣṭafā wept. Then he said, “God chastises in the Fire only those who refuse to say, ‘There is no god but God.’”

Kaʿb ʿUjra said that one day God’s Messenger said to his companions, “What do you say about a man slain in God’s path?”

They said, “God and His Messenger know best.”

He said, “He is in the Garden.” Then he said, “What do you say about a man concerning whom two just men have said that they knew nothing of him but good?”

They said, “God and His Messenger know best.”

He said, “He is in the Garden.” Then he said, “What do you say about a dead man concerning whom two just witnesses say that they never saw any good from him?”

The Companions said, “He is in the Fire.”

The Messenger said, “How badly you have spoken—a sinful servant and a forgiving Lord! Say: ‘Each acts according to his own manner’ [17:84].”

Part of His complete mercy and generosity to His servants is that tomorrow at the resurrection, a group will be taken and made to pass easily by the Scales, the Narrow Path, and the bridge over hell. They will arrive at the door of paradise and be told to halt. Then a letter will arrive from the Exalted Presence, a letter whose title is “The Eternal Love.” From beginning to end it will be rebuke and war with the friends. He will rebuke the servants as is appropriate to their state.

The letter will say, “My servants! Did I not create you gratis and sculpt you in a beautiful form? Did I not stretch out your stature? You were infants and did not know the road to your mother’s breast. I showed you. I brought forth pure milk as your food from the midst of blood. I made your mother and father kind to you and had them nurture you. I preserved you from water, wind, and fire. I conveyed you from infancy to youth, and from youth to old age. I adorned you with understanding and excellence, I decorated you with knowledge and recognition. I sculpted you with hearing and eyesight. I had you obey and serve Me. At the door of death, I kept My name on your tongue and My recognition in your spirit. Then I put you on the pillow of safety. I who am Beginningless and Endless—I did all these beautiful things for you. What did you do for Me? Did you ever give a dirham to a beggar for My sake? Did you ever give water to a thirsty dog for Me? Did you ever move an ant from the path out of mercy?

“My servant! You did what you did, but I am ashamed to chastise you as is worthy for you. Instead I will do what is worthy for Me. Go, for I have forgiven you, so that you will know that I am I and you are you.”

Indeed, if a beggar goes before a king, they do not ask him what he has brought. They ask him what he wants.

O God, what could come from a beggar that would be worthy of You if it were not that You are worthy of what comes from a beggar?

One of the pirs of the Tariqah said, “How can He not caress, when He is the most generous of the generous? How can He not forgive, when He is the most merciful of the merciful? How can He not pardon, when several times in the Qur’an He commands people to pardon? So pardon them [3:159], Let them pardon and forbear [24:22], Take to pardoning [7:199].”

On the same topic is what He brings at the end:

2:237 And that you pardon is nearer to godwariness. And forget not bounty among yourselves. Surely God sees what you do.

Godwariness lies in pardon, and paradise lies in godwariness, just as He says: “The next world with thy Lord belongs to the godwary” [43:35]. The folk of realization have said that godwariness has a beginning and an end. The beginning is what He says: “And that you pardon is nearer to godwariness,” and the end is what He says: “And forget not bounty among yourselves.” Its beginning is that you recognize what is rightfully due to you from your brother, but then you pardon it and let it go. This is the way station of submission and the conduct of the worshipers. Its end is that you recognize what is rightfully due to him from you and you prefer him over yourself. As much as you see disloyalty and offense from him, you offer him your apology. This is the station of tawḥīd and the description of the state of the sincerely truthful. In its meaning they have sung,

“When we are ill, we come to you and tend to you.

When you sin, we come to you and apologize.”

To this the Prophet alluded when he said, “Shall I point you to the best character trait of the folk of this world and the next? You join with him who cuts you off, pardon him who does you wrong, and bestow on him who deprives you.”

2:238 Guard over the prayers, and the middle prayer, and stand before God devoutly.

In the tongue of allusion to guard over the prayer is that, when the servant comes into the presence of the prayer, he comes with awe, and when he leaves, he leaves with reverence. As long as he is in the prayer, he is described by courtesy. He keeps his body in the outward service, his heart in the realities of union, and his secret core along with his spirit in the ease of whispered prayer. “The praying person is whispering with his Lord.”

Abū Bakr Shiblī said, “If I were given the choice to enter the prayer or to go into paradise, I would not chose that high paradise over the prayer. Even if paradise is joy and blessings, the prayer is secret whispering with the Patron of Blessings. That is the place of pleasure for water and clay, and this is the place of gazing for spirit and heart. That is roasted fowl in the garden of approval, and this is repose and ease [56:89] in the garden of the Beloved.”

For the sake of gazing stroll once into the Beloved’s garden,

see the Beloved scattering spirit beneath your feet.

Muṣṭafā gave no station the mark he gave to the prayer when he said, “‘The delight of my eyes was placed in the prayer.’ Amongst the caresses and beauties, the brightness of my eyes lies in being occupied with Him and whispering secretly with Him.”

Here is my heart—look into it and see:

is there any goal other than You?

There was a man called Abū ʿAlī Siyāh, who was unique in his era. Whenever anyone went to see him, he would say, “I’m a carefree man. I have no occupation. The brightness of my eyes lies in seeing a man of His road or talking about Him with someone.”

Every night I talk to my heart about You.

I seek Your scent from the dawn breeze.

The knower of the Tariqah, ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī, said, “O God, O lovingly kind, O helper! Exalted is he who has one breath with You! May I have a breath in which no one mixes, a breath that afterwards has no veil. For me that one breath is enough in the two worlds. O You who are before each day and separate from everyone! In this celebration a thousand minstrels are not enough for me.”

Guard over the prayers. Guarding is what keeps someone in the station of service and his heart in the station of veneration. Then the form of outwardness will be complete and the attribute of inwardness will be in place.

A man was the imam in the prayer. He wanted to straighten the rows and said, “Straighten!” He had not yet finished this word when he fell down unconscious. Afterwards they asked him what he had received in that state. He said, “A call came to Me in my secret core: ‘Have you ever once been straight for Me?’”

The first pillar of the prayer is intention, and the meaning of intention is the aim of the heart. When someone enters the prayer, there must be three things in three places in order for him to begin the prayer with a worthy attribute: allusion with the hands, expression with the tongue, and intention in the heart.

In the state of the intention it is as if the servant is saying, “I am aiming for the threshold of the Patron and I have put this world behind.” Then if he does not put aside thoughts of this world and he fails to occupy his heart with the prayer, he will have been a liar in the first pillar. When Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī reached the door of a mosque he would say, “O God, Your guest is at Your door, the asker from You is at Your door. O Beautiful-doer, the ugly-doer has come to You, and You have commanded the beautiful-doers among us to overlook the ugly-doer. So overlook my repulsiveness with Your beauty, O Generous One!”

Lifting up the hands in the prayer at the time of saying “God is greater” alludes to the servant’s constraint and poverty and his brokenness before the Presence of the Patron. It is as if he is saying, “I am drowning in the ocean of disobedient acts, so take my hand!” Lord God, I am a stranger in the land, I have fallen into the well of disobedience, I am drowning in the sea of tribulation. I have pain, but I do not know the remedy, or I know it, but I cannot drink it. There is no way to despair, but I do not have the gall to come forward.

I am bewildered in Thee, take my hand,

O guide of those bewildered in Thee!

*

If I’m an unbeliever, O Friend, make me a Muslim

I’m deprived of You, call me and cure me!

Although I’m not worthy to see Your face,

at least sacrifice me at the top of Your street.

It has been said that the first person to make the dawn prayer was Adam. When that dust-dwelling chief, that unprecedented marvel of power, that artifact of creativity, that unique fabric of the desire, came down from heaven to earth, it was the end of the day. As long as he saw the brightness of the day, he had a bit of ease, but when the sun was hidden, Adam’s heart became a quarry of sorrows.

Night came like me, in mourning and grief,

its clothing black, its face downcast.

Adam had never seen night and had not suffered darkness and sorrow. All of a sudden he saw the darkness that reaches the whole world, while he was a stranger, ill, and separate from his spouse. In that darkness sometimes he sighed, sometimes he looked at the moon, sometimes he whispered in prayer at the Threshold.

At night your remembrance is my intimate,

my lips never resting from your remembrance.

The origin of all strangers was Adam, the forerunner of all the grieving was Adam, the first of all the weepers was Adam. It was Adam who laid the foundation of friendship in the world and Adam who set down the custom of night vigils. Moaning from the pain of separation and weeping in the middle of the night was a tradition set down by Adam. In that night when he moaned and wept, sometimes he complained of lowliness, sometimes he shouted out, sometimes he remembered the Friend while weeping.

Every night people sleep—how come I’m awake?

They’re all asleep with companions—how come I’m alone? [DS 932]

At last when the breeze of dawn began to breathe like a lover and the army of morning burst from its ambush and shouted against the darkness of night, Gabriel came with the good news: “O Adam! Morning has come, peace has come! Light has come, joy has come! Brightness has come, familiarity has come! Arise, O Adam, and recite two cycles of prayer in this state—one in gratitude for the passing of the night of deprivation and separation, one in gratitude for the breaking of the dawn of good fortune and union.” The tongue of the state was saying,

“Union has come—I’ve been released from the dread of separation.

I’ve sat down with my beloved, my heart’s desire fulfilled!”

The first person to make the midday prayer was Abraham the Bosom Friend, at the time when he had been commanded to sacrifice his child. In the dream he had been shown that he had obeyed the command and thrown away the life of his dear child by its decree; in His bounty the King of the Throne had called him, and he had sacrificed Ishmael. At the hour when the sun begins to wane, the Bosom Friend’s desire was realized and he confirmed the truth of the dream. He looked carefully and saw four states, in each of which he found elevation and a robe of honor. He bound his waist with gratitude and set out to serve the Presence. He performed four cycles of prayer in gratitude for the four robes of honor: one was gratitude for success-giving, the second gratitude for confirming the truth, the third gratitude for the call, and the fourth gratitude for the sacrifice.

The first person to perform the four-cycle afternoon prayer was Jonah. That well-pleasing servant was in the stomach of the fish, and that fish was in the stomach of another fish. From the bottom of the deep sea came the cry, “There is no god but Thou, glory be to Thee! Surely I am one of the wrongdoers” [21:87].

Listen here to a subtle point: Jonah was imprisoned in the stomach of the whale, and the person of faith will be imprisoned in a tomb in the stomach of the earth. May the bed be blessed, may the couch be happy! Muṣṭafā said, “The grave is one of the plots of the Garden.” Though it is a prison, for the person of faith it is like a scented garden with much repose and ease [56:89]. Jonah in the stomach of the fish, in that darkness and blackness, is the person of faith in the stomach of the earth, with intimacy and divine light. The fish’s liver became Jonah’s mirror. In its limpidness he saw the animals of the sea and their wondrous forms. For the person of faith a door of the tomb is opened to paradise, so along with the divine light are houris, wide-eyed maidens, blessedness, and nearness. Relief came to Jonah, and assistance came to him from the divine bounty, so he came out from that prison to the desert of the world. That time was the moment for the afternoon prayer. Jonah saw that he had been released from four darknesses: the darkness of slipping, the darkness of night, the darkness of water, and the darkness of the fish’s stomach. In gratitude for having put aside these four darknesses he made four cycles of prayer. This is an allusion to the faithful servant, before whom are four darknesses: the darkness of disobedience, the darkness of the tomb, the darkness of the resurrection, and the darkness of hell. When he performs these four cycles of prayer, he is released from one darkness with each cycle.

The first person to make the evening prayer was Jesus, the one made pure—a person of pure constitution, pure clay, and pure creation who came into the world without a father. In the stomach of his mother he had read the Torah and the Gospel, and in the cradle he spoke. A people from among the folk of misguidance marveled at this. They said that a child without a father is inconceivable. The arrival of a child and the existence of a lineage is not permissible without two different waters. They said what they said, and they walked on the road of misguidance as they did.

Then they wrote out the inscription of [God is] the third of three [5:73]. Gabriel came: “O Jesus, your people said such a thing, and the earth quakes at their saying it. The Creator of earth and heaven is pure of their words.” That was the hour of the prayer of evening. Jesus stood up and hurried to service, asking God for pardon and mercy. He made three cycles of prayer. With one cycle, he repelled the claim of lordhood from himself: “You are the great Lord, I am the servant with many offenses.” With the next cycle, he negated divinity from his mother: “You are the all-compelling God, and my mother is Your maid.” The third cycle was attestation to the oneness of the Enactor, the renowned Uniquely One.

The first person to make the four-cycle prayer of sleep was Moses the Speaking Companion, the caressed of the faultless Creator, the one singled out for the gift of the Unseen, he who earned his wage from Shuʿayb. When his term with Shuʿayb came to an end and he left Midian, he set out for his domicile and thought of his homeland. After he had gone several way stations and the night arrived—a night that pulled the skirt of darkness over the horizons—a fierce wind arose, and rain, thunder, and lightning arrived. Wolves fell upon his flock, and the pain of childbirth came to his wife. The whole world came into tumult for his sake, and the ocean was boiling. On that night, all fire remained inside the stones and not one lamp was lit in the whole world. Moses was helpless in that state. Sometimes he stood, sometimes he sat, sometimes he rolled, sometimes he rested, sometimes he fled, sometimes contracted, sometimes expanded, sometimes his head on his knees, sometimes his face on the ground weeping. He kept on saying,

“How long will You drive me to every street?

How long will You make me taste every poison?”

Yes, they put the night-brightening pearl in front of the life-snatching shark, and they built a domicile for the Kaabah of union in the man-eating desert, so no one ever saw the treasure without suffering, and no one reached the day of good fortune without the grief of tribulation. At last he looked in the direction of the Mount and a ray of light appeared. He heard the call of the Forgiving God: “Surely I am God” [28:30].

Moses had four griefs: the grief of his wife, his child, his brother, and his enemies. The command came, “O Moses, do not grieve and do not sorrow, for I deliver from grief and I take away sorrows.” Moses rose up at that time and made four cycles of prayer in gratitude for those four blessings. This is an allusion that when the faithful servant performs these four cycles of prayer on condition of loyalty, truthfulness, and limpidness, He will suffice him for the business of his wife and child, He will give him victory over his enemies, and He will deliver him from grief and sorrow.

2:245 Who is it that will lend to God a beautiful loan, and He will multiply it for him many times? And God contracts and expands, and to Him you shall be returned.

In this verse the generous Lord, He of tremendous and celebrated name, the lovingly kind, the caressing, the holder—majestic is His unity and holy His sanctum—caresses His servants, both the rich and the poor.

He caresses the rich by asking loans from them, for loans are asked of friends.

Yaḥyā Muʿādh said, “I wonder at anyone who still has wealth, when the Lord of the Throne wants to borrow it.”

A sound hadith says, “God descends and says, ‘Who will supplicate Me that I may respond to him?’ Then He spreads His two hands and says, ‘Who will lend to one who is neither lacking nor wrongdoing?’”

What do you know of the generosity and largesse found in this asking for a loan? This is a largesse that you might say is a painting on the spirit. From it the tree of joy is in fruit and in it the eyes of revelry are awake. He is saying, “Who is it that will give a loan to Him who is neither a wrongdoer that he might take it away, nor a poor man not able to pay it back?” Anyone who recognizes the worth of this declaration will put forth the bounteous wealth of spirit and heart and say,

“I will exert my heart and spirit with none but You.

My heart is Your property—I will not intervene!

If with an allusion You ask for my spirit,

I will send it at once without hesitation.”

One day ʿAlī Murtaḍā went home, and Ḥasan and Ḥusayn were weeping before Fāṭima Zahrā. ʿAlī said, “O Fāṭima, what happened to the brightness of my eyes, the fruit of my heart, and the joy of my spirit that they are weeping?”

Fāṭima said, “O ʿAlī, it seems that they are hungry, for a day has passed and they have eaten nothing.”

She had placed a pot on the fire, so ʿAlī said, “What do you have in the pot?”

She said, “There is nothing in the pot except plain water. I put it on the fire to keep the children happy, for they think I am cooking something.”

ʿAlī’s heart became constricted. He had a cloak that he had put aside. He took it to the bazaar and sold it for six dirhams and bought some food. He returned and told Fāṭima. She said, “You have succeeded O Abu’l-Ḥasan! May you remain in good.”

ʿAlī went to go back to the mosque of the Messenger and saw a nomad who was selling a camel. He said, “O Abu’l-Ḥasan! I am selling this camel. Buy it!”

ʿAlī said, “I can’t. I don’t have the price.”

The nomad said, “O Abu’l-Ḥasan! I will sell it to you until the time when spoils arrive or a gift comes to you from the House of Wealth.”

ʿAlī bought the camel for sixty dirhams and set off in front of it. Another nomad came to him and said, “O ʿAlī, sell this camel to me.”

He said, “I will sell it.”

He asked, “How much?”

He answered, “For as much as you want.”

He said, “I will buy it for 120 dirhams.”

ʿAlī said, “I have sold it to you,” and took 120 dirhams from him. He went back to his house and said to Fāṭima that he would give sixty dirhams to that nomad and they would use the other sixty. He went out looking for the nomad. He saw Muṣṭafā and he said, “O ʿAlī, where are you going?” ʿAlī told him his story. God’s Messenger became happy and congratulated him. He said, “O ʿAlī, that was not a nomad. That was Gabriel who sold it, and Michael who bought it. And the camel was one of the she-camels of paradise. This is that loan you gave to God when you were kind to a poor man after God had said, ‘Who is it that will lend to God a beautiful loan?’”

As for God’s caressing the poor in this verse, it is that, when God wants a loan, He wants it for them. Unless someone is dear to you, you do not want a loan for him. His caressing of the poor is more complete and of higher rank than His caressing of the rich. This is because when you ask for a loan, although most of the time you ask from friends, it does happen in the time of constraint that you ask from someone who is not a friend. The person for whom you ask the loan, however, is nothing but a friend and dear to you. Do you not see that Muṣṭafā, at the time of constraint, asked for a loan from a Jew, leaving his coat of mail with him in pawn? He did so in order to get a morsel of food for his wife. Look at the one from whom he wanted and the one for whom he wanted. This, however, rarely happens, and mostly people ask for loans from friends and turn to their familiars.

Several times in the Qur’an the Lord of the Worlds addresses the familiars and the faithful: “Lend to God a beautiful loan.” “If you have lent to God a beautiful loan” [5:12]. “If you lend to God a beautiful loan” [64:17]. In each case He said “beautiful” so that you would know that what is given to God must be pure, lawful, and beautiful. “Surely God is goodly and accepts only the goodly.” It has also been said that a beautiful loan is that you are not waiting for the reward or seeking compensation. You do it for the sake of what is due to God’s majesty, not to receive your wage.

It is said that tomorrow at the resurrection the Exalted Lord will rebuke a servant whose scroll is full of beautiful deeds. He will say, “You acted obediently because of your eagerness for the Garden and you abandoned disobedient acts because of your fear of the Fire. Which act of obedience did you do for Me?”

The vigil of the eyes for other than Your face is wasted,

their weeping for other than not having You is void.

Some there who work for the Gardens, but I

have worked all my life out of love for union with You.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “How should I have known that reward is a freckle on the face of love? I fancied that the greatest robe of honor was the reward. How should I have known that the wage-earner is he whose share is everlasting paradise, and the recognizer is he who is wishing for one glance?”

And God contracts and expands. Contraction and expansion are in God’s hand. He does the work, and His is the decree. He ties one heart back from recognizing Him, He opens another in intimacy with Him. One person is bewildered in the straits of fear, another is happy in the field of hope. One is trembling in the severity of His contraction, another is joyful in His expansion. One looks at his own activity and remains in the prison of contraction, another looks at the Real’s bounty and relaxes on the carpet of revelry. This is the same as what the Pir of the Tariqah said: “O God, when I look at myself, I ask who is more miserable than I. When I look at You, I ask who is greater than I.”

When my gaze falls on my own clay,

I see nothing worse in the world.

When I pass beyond my attributes,

I look at myself from the Throne.

2:248 Their prophet said to them, “The sign of his kingship is that there will come to you the ark within which is tranquility from your Lord.”

Whenever someone finds a drink from the cup of recognition on the carpet of the religion’s good fortune, the cupbearer of that drink is the sultan of tranquility. The exalted lodging place of the sultan of tranquility is the capital city of the heart: He it is who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the faithful [48:4]. The subtle reality of the heart is the dwelling place of the attribute of eternity: “Surely the hearts are between two fingers of the All-Merciful.”

What a great difference there is between two groups of people! The tranquility of one group was in the ark, and the ark was under the determination of the Children of Israel, sometimes here and sometimes there, sometimes like this and sometimes like that. The tranquility of the other group is in their hearts, in the grasp of the Real’s attributes. The Adamite has no hand in it, the angel no access to it. He comes between a man and his heart [8:24].

Shiblī said, “The curtains were taken down and the veils lifted in the realities of the secret core, and many unseen things were unveiled to my secret core. I saw hell like a roaring dragon and rapacious lion. It was playing with the people and pulling them to itself with its tail. It saw me and displayed its mightiness. It wanted its share from me. I gave it all of my outward organs and parts and had no fear of their burning. I had no concern for outward burning because of my inner burning.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “All fires burn the body, but the fire of friendship burns the spirit. No one can be patient in face of that spirit-burning fire.”

If He burns you, say “Burn!”, if He caresses, say “Caress!”

It’s best for the passionate man to be put between water and fire.

Shiblī said, “When I gave my makeup and form to the fire, the turn of the heart arrived. The fire wanted my heart. I said, ‘I will toss it away without fear.’ A voice came to my secret core, ‘O Shiblī, leave the heart alone, for the heart is not yours, nor is it under your determination. The heart is in My grasp, for it is the quarry of seeing Me. The heart is in My hand, for it is the scented garden of My gaze. The heart is in my right hand, for it is the domicile of gazing on Me. O Shiblī, if you must spend your heart and it must burn, it would be a shame to burn it in the fire of form. At least let it burn in the fire of passion.’”

Roast your heart in the fire of passion,

then look from your heart to the spirit.

If the Beloved comes to you in the road,

sacrifice all at His feet.

2:255 God, there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Standing. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belong whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who will intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows what is before them and what is behind them, and they encompass nothing of His knowledge save as He wills. His Footstool embraces the heavens and the earth, and He is the High, the Tremendous.

God is He who has divinity and lordhood, God is He who has unity and self-sufficiency. His fixity is unitary, His being self-sufficient, His subsistence beginningless, and His brilliance eternal.

God is the name of a lord whose essence is everlasting and whose attributes are eternal. His subsistence is beginningless and His splendor endless. His beauty is self-standing and His majesty constant. He is magnanimous and renowned, great in measure and deed, great in name and word, beyond intelligence and before when, and greater than any measure.

O majestic God who is the Enactor and the good sweetheart, the creator of the world and the guardian of the creatures, keeper of enemies and companion of friends, the hard cash of hopes and enough for assurances, the receiver of every plaintiff and the forgiver of every offense, the kiblah of the desirer and the remembrance of the recognizer’s heart!

In remembrance of You I pass my days without You,

in my eyes a picture of Your form.

God is the remembrance of the hearts of the friends, God is the witness of the heart of the recognizers, God is the joy of the secret core of the distracted, God is the healing of the hearts of the ill, God is the lamp of the breast of the tawḥīd-voicers, God is the light of the heart of the familiars and the balm of the pain of the burnt.

Passion for You in my heart is like the light of certainty,

Your name upon my eyes like the seal on a ring.

In my nature and aspiration until the day of resurrection

love for You will be like the spirit and loyalty to You like religion.

The Pir of the Tariqah Junayd said, “If someone says God with his tongue when other than God is in his heart, God will be his adversary in the two abodes.” If someone remembers God with his tongue and delights in His name and then busies his heart with love for another, then—by the majesty and exaltedness of the Lord God—tomorrow the whip of rebuke will reach him in the station of harshness, and his adversary will be God.

On the night of the miʿrāj He said to the master, “‘O Muḥammad! I wonder how anyone with faith in Me can depend on other than Me. O Muḥammad! Were they to gaze on the subtleties of My kindness and the wonders of My artisanry, they would not worship other than Me’: What a wonder is someone who finds Me and then seeks for someone else! How can He who recognizes Me busy himself with other than Me?”

When an eye sees You, it is relieved of pain.

When a spirit finds You, it is exempt from death.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, O worthy of generosity and caresser of the world! There is no sorrow along with Your union and no grief along with Your remembrance. You are the plaintiff and the interceder, the witness and the judge. As long as I breathe along with Your love, I will be free of the bonds of existence and nonexistence, released from the bother of Tablet and Pen—cups of happiness placed in hand again and again in the session of intimacy!”

There is no god but He, a God other than whom there is no worthy object of worship. In the two worlds who else is worthy of Lordhood? There is none to take the hand of the wounded other than the signet of His beauty and gentleness. There is no caresser of the orphans other than the edict of His generosity. He is the Lord God to whose loyalty are bound the hearts of the friends, for whose encounter are wishing the spirits of the yearners, and from the cups of whose trial the spirits of the passionate are drunk in love. The ease of the wounded comes from His name and mark, the joy of the recognizers from His remembrance and message. How beautifully spoke that distracted one of the times:

“When will my luck smile at me from Your playing field?

When will separation from You strike its tent from my spirit’s desert?

My ease is Your message, my foot in Your snare,

Your prison my spirit’s garden because of Your name.”

The Living, the Self-Standing: a Lord who is alive, lasting, holding, caressing, bestowing, concealing. He knows all that is and all that will be. He reaches everything with His ability and grasp. He is the Lord of everyone and takes forward everything that comes to be. He links His familiars with love through the light of His name and the light of His message. He is the repose and ease [56:89] of hearts and the relaxation of the secret cores. Applause for those chevaliers who have caught a whiff of this talk and come to the table of gentleness! Just as others live through food and drink, they live through the name and mark of the Friend and are at ease in His remembrance.

They said to Shiblī, “Where do food and drink come from?”

He said, “The remembrance of my Lord is the food of my soul, the laudation of my Lord is the clothing of my soul, and shame before my Lord is the drink of my soul. My soul has been sacrificed to my heart, my heart to my spirit, and my spirit to my Lord.”

May the light of my eyes be the dust beneath Your feet!

May my spirit be sacrificed to aching for You!

Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. This is a declaration of the holiness and incomparability of the Essence, for He is free of defects and hallowed beyond blights. Sleep is a change of state, and God is pure of the changing and turning of states. He is far from decrease and increase. Sleep is a fault, and God is rid of faults. Sleep is heedlessness, and God transcends blights and heedless moments. Sleep is the changing of state, and God’s state does not change or accept alteration. Sleep is similar to death, and God is the living, the lasting, the subsistent.

Powerful, Knowing, Alive, Desiring,

Hearing, Seeing, clothed in majesty,

Hallowed beyond having an equal,

transcending opinion and talk.

He is a Lord who has no associate in Essence, no similar in attributes, and no equal in measure.

Thought is bewildered in Your subtle Essence,

all hidden things apparent to Your eternal knowledge.

In the ocean of Your perfection, the perfect are defective,

in the eye of Your acceptance, the defective become perfect.

To Him belong whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. The engendered beings and newly arrived things in the earth and the heavens are all His artisanry and His kingdom. No one quarrels with Him, no other overpowers Him. What dominates over them is His command, what influences them is His knowledge. They have ability from His assistance, they are kept by His preservation. It is narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said, “The earths are upon the Bull, the Bull is in a chain, the chain is in the ear of the Fish, and the Fish is in the hand of the All-Merciful.”

Who will intercede with Him save by His leave? Who fancies that he can take care of his own business without His wanting it or can take a breath without His knowledge or can reach Him without Him? His opinion is wrong and his effort misguided.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, when the approved sought You by You they reached You. When the unapproved sought You by themselves they broke off. Those who reached did not arrive because of gratitude, nor did those who broke off arrive with excuses. O You who Yourself made them arrive and who make them arrive at Yourself! Make me arrive, for none has arrived by himself.”

O You the guide on whose road is pain!

You are solitary and Your familiar solitary.

He knows what is before them and what is behind them. All that is someone or something in heaven and earth, the Creator knows its movement and rest, its thoughts and ideas. He sees its going and moving and He reaches its reality, for everything comes forth from His power and changes by His decree. He knows it, for He makes it happen. He sees it, for He does it. He binds it, for He loosens it. He is worthy of Godhood, for He is not held back, never at a loss, and does not fall short. He knows the hidden things, and the work does not distract Him. He attends to everything and takes care of all work. But when He throws something to the Adamites, they put their intelligence into His work, they bind their imaginations to Him, but their knowledge and intellect are lost in His measure. They encompass nothing of His knowledge save as He wills.

His Footstool embraces the heavens and the earth. This is the text of the Qur’an, alluding to direction and location. The Footstool is not “knowledge,” for that is the road of the roadless and the interpretation of the ignorant. We know the Footstool as the place of the feet, and this is the position of the Sunnis, who take it to heart and accept it without interpretation and self-determination.

Then He seals the verse by mentioning His majesty, greatness, tremendousness, and aboveness. He says, “And He is the High, the Tremendous.” Concerning the glorification of the angels, this is narrated from the Prophet: “The high heavens glorify Him who possesses awesomeness and highness: ‘Glory be to the High, the Highest! Glory be to Him, and high exalted is He!’”

God’s highness and aboveness are of two sorts: one is the highness and aboveness of attributes, the other the highness and aboveness of acts. That pertaining to attributes is beginningless: He has never ceased being naked and high and He has always been and always will be. He is beyond all things through His own magnificence, above all marks through His own measure, above all measures through His exaltedness.

That pertaining to acts is the aboveness of the Essence and the highness of location. He Himself acts and gives marks of Himself after the creation of heaven and earth and by His own desire and not out of need, for the work that God does is by want, not need, since He has no requirement or need for anyone or anything, and He has no associate or partner. O Lord, protect our hearts from innovation and misguidance and release them from confusion and bewilderment, by Thy favor and bounty!

2:257 God is the friend of those who have faith.

Their friend [walī], their patron [mawlā], their ruler [wālī], and their caretaker [mutawallī]—all are alike in meaning. He is saying, “God is the lord of the faithful, their caretaker and helper, their guide and open-hearted friend.”

In a report it has come that God’s Messenger said, “If someone were to destroy the eminent, great Kaabah, take apart its stones, and set it on fire, his disobedience would not be as much as if he were to denigrate one of God’s friends.”

A nomad was present. He said, “O Messenger of God! Who are these friends of God?”

He replied, “All of the faithful are God’s beloved friends. Have you not recited the verse, ‘God is the friend of those who have faith?’”

The equal of this verse is where He says, “That is because God is the patron of those who have faith, and the unbelievers have no patron” [47:11]. He is the friend and caretaker of the faithful, not only in this world, but also in the next, as He says: “We are your friends in this world’s life and in the next world” [41:31].

In the story of Joseph, He quotes his words, “Thou art my friend in this world and the next” [12:101]. There is a great difference between these two verses—We are your friends and Thou art my friend—though anyone who does not have the eyes to see is excused. We are your friends comes from togetherness itself, but Thou art my friend alludes to dispersion. This is not because the friend is superior to the prophet, for the end of the friend’s work is but the beginning of the prophet’s work. However, the weak are shown greater benevolence, and the incapable are given more caresses, for they are not so bold as to claim familiarity. They see themselves as tainted, so they do not have the tongue to speak. Whoever is more helpless is closer to the Friend. Whoever is more broken is more worthy of love: “I am with those whose hearts are broken for Me.”

It has been reported that on the Day of Resurrection, one of the broken and burnt will be taken to the Presence. God will say, “My servant, what do you have?”

He will say, “Two empty hands, a heart full of pain, and a spirit troubled and bewildered in the waves of grief and sorrow.”

He will say, “Go straight ahead to the house of My friends, for I love the broken and grieving. ‘The sinner’s sobs are more beloved to Me than the glorifier’s murmur.’”

I said, “What can I offer Your tresses

if You come close to Your servant?

“I’ll offer this miserable burnt liver—

burnt liver has a use for musk.”

David said, “O God, I take it that I must wash my limbs with water so that they may be pure of defilement. With what shall I wash my heart so that it may be pure of other than You?”

The command came, “O David! Wash the heart with the water of regret and grief so that you may reach the greatest purity.”

He said, “O God, where can I find this grief?”

He said, “We Ourselves will send the grief. The stipulation is that you bind yourself to the grieving and the broken.”

He said, “O God, what is their mark?”

He said, “They wait all day for the sun to go down, then they pull down the curtain of night and begin to knock at the door of the isolated cell of We are nearer [50:16]. Burning, weeping, and sighing all night long, needy and melting, their heads on the ground, they call on Us with longing voice: ‘O Lord, O Lord!’ With the tongue of their state they say,

“Let the night of separation pull the bow,

let the day shoot its arrow like Ārash.

On the night I’m happy with You, O idol,

you’d say that night has put its foot in the fire.”

From the world’s Compeller comes the call, “O Gabriel and Michael! Leave aside the murmur of glorification, for here comes the sound of someone burning. Though he has the burden of disobedience, he has the tree of faith in his heart. He was kneaded with the water and clay of love for Me.

“The proximate angels, from the day they came into existence until the Day of Resurrection, have kept their hands on the belt of serving Me. They place My command on their eyes and burn in hope for one glance. Then they put the fingers of longing in the mouth of bewilderment—‘What is this? We do the service, but the love goes there. We run and rush, but arrival and seeing are theirs!’”

The Exalted Unity answers them in the attribute of predetermination: “The work is done by burning and grief. They are the source of burning and the quarry of grief.”

Without the perfection of burning pain, don’t mention religion’s name.

Without the beauty of yearning for union, don’t lean on faith.

To the Beloved’s spirit-catching, curling tresses on the day of union

sacrifice only your wretched, bleeding heart!

2:260 When Abraham said to his Lord, “Show me how Thou givest life to the dead.” He said, “Dost thou not have faith?” He said, “Yes indeed, but that my heart may be serene.”... And know that God is exalted, wise.

In the language of unveiling and in keeping with the tasting of the lords of the realities, this verse has another intimation and explanation. They say that Abraham was yearning for the Real’s speech and burning for His address. His burning had reached the limit, the army of his patience had been put to flight, and the fire of his love was shooting up flames. He said, “O Lord, show me how you bring the dead to life.”

He said, “O Abraham, dost thou not have faith? Do you not have faith that I bring the dead to life?”

He said, “I do, but my heart has been thrown into turmoil by the wish to hear Your speech and by burning passion for Your address. I want You to talk.”

Dost thou not have faith? “The goal was exactly that You would talk and ease would enter my heart.”

My ease is Your message

and my feet are in Your snare.

The story is told that a man had fallen for a young woman and wanted to speak with her, but she would not talk and was unwilling to do so. The afflicted man became helplessly captivated by her, hoping to speak with her. He knew that she had a liking for jewels. He went and gave everything he had for one precious gem. He went and placed a stone in front of her in order to break the gem. The object of his passion did not have the capacity to put up with breaking. She said, “Poor man, what are you doing?”

He said, “I am doing it so that you will say, ‘What are you doing?’”

No rest or ease remains in my heart—

call me names if you have no message.

It has been said that with these words Abraham was asking for the life of the heart and the serenity of the secret core. He knew that as long as a heart is not alive, serenity will not come down into it, and as long as serenity has not come down into it, he would not have reached the final goal of the recognizers. The final goal of the recognizers is the repose of intimacy, the witnessing of the heart, and the constancy of love; the tongue in remembering, the heart in secret whispering, the spirit in joy; the tongue in remembrance, the heart in reflection, the spirit with love; the tongue as spokesman, the heart with explication, and the spirit in face-to-face vision. It was said, “O Abraham, life is found in death and subsistence in annihilation, so go and kill four birds outwardly as We command in order to show reverence for Our command and to make manifest your servanthood.”

Inwardly He is telling him to obey these commands: “Hang the peacock of finery on the gallows: Take no ease in the blessings of this world or the finery of this world.

“Don’t be held back by nightingale and peacock—

with this you have only calls, with that only color.

“Kill the crow of avarice: Be not avaricious for that which does not remain and quickly comes to an end.

“Why are you passionate for the companion who took Alexander’s life?

Why are you in love with the loveless by whom Darius lost his kingdom? [DS 53]

“Break the rooster of appetite: Let no appetite enter your heart lest you be held back from Me.

“If you come from the field of appetite to the portico of intellect,

you’ll see yourself like Saturn in the seventh sphere. [DS 705]

“Kill the vulture of wishes: Do not stretch out wishes and do not fix your heart on this life of play and diversion. Then you may reach the goodly life [16:97]. O Abraham, the goodly life is what you want: the heart’s life and the secret core’s serenity!”

It has been said that by asking this question, Abraham was seeking vision, just as Moses did. Abraham asked for vision by intimation, not explicitly. Hence the answer was also by intimation, that is, His words, “God is exalted: O Abraham, I heard your asking and I know what you desire, but know that in reality God is exalted. Finding Him is exalted and seeing Him is exalted.” Moses asked explicitly, not through intimation, so he heard the answer explicitly: “Thou shalt not see Me” [7:143].

It has also been said that when Abraham said, “O Lord, show me how You bring the dead to life,” a call came to his secret core: “You also, show Me how you bring the living Ishmael to death. A demand for a demand. If you are loyal, I will be loyal.” So Abraham was loyal, and God praised him in that loyalty and said, “And Abraham who was loyal” [53:37]. God was also loyal and gave him his desire.

It has also been said that in his asking Abraham wanted the furthest limit of certainty. Certainty has three levels: First is the knowledge of certainty, then the eye of certainty, then the truth of certainty. The knowledge of certainty is what reaches God’s servants from the tongue of the prophets. The eye of certainty is what reaches them from the light of guidance. The truth of certainty is what comes through both the light of guidance and the traces of revelation and the Sunnah. Abraham wanted all three levels brought together for himself so that no ambiguity would ever again come to his mind.

Then He says, “And know that God is exalted, wise.” He is the Lord of exaltedness and the owner of exaltedness, the exalted in Himself through the exaltation of His brightness and the description of His majesty, the exalter of others through His generosity and bounteousness. Know that God has exaltedness, power, majesty, and strength. He is exalted such that no one reaches His exaltation, no understanding grasps His limit, no knower knows His measure. He Himself is exalted and exalts those who have been made lowly, shows forth those who have been little, and lifts up the thrown down. His exalting of the servants is both in this world and in that world—in this world through wealth and state, and in that world through vision and union, always and forever.

2:264 O You who have faith, do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing discomfort.

Ibn ʿAbbās said, “Do not void your charity by counting it a favor toward God.” God is saying, “O you have faith, who have placed your hands in the chains of Our servanthood and have clung to the rope of Our protection! The path of servanthood is not that of gazing on yourself and counting your obedience a favor to Us, for everything you do comes from Our success-giving and Our desire. When your heart was opened up, We opened it. When you found success, We gave it. When you gave comfort to the poor, We willed that. We made all of that happen, so all should be counted as Our favor. All acting is Ours, and all attending to things is Ours.”

Barrāʾ ibn ʿĀzib said, “On the Day of the Moat I saw God’s Messenger when he was saying these words of Ibn Rawāḥa:

“O God, if not for You, we would not have been guided,

we would not have given charity, we would not have prayed.

So send down tranquility upon us,

and firm up our feet for the encounter.”

He is saying, “O God, were it not for Your solicitude, how could we have found the way to the street of tawḥīd? Were it not for Your success-giving, how could we have had the ability to do good works?” When a poor wretch counts obeying God a favor to Him, this is because he has lost the path of servanthood. He gives weight to his own obedience and sees it as large, so he does not turn the eyes of his heart and head away from it. In the path of chivalry, seeing one’s own obedience is idol-worship, and looking back at it is duality itself.

If you are martyred a hundred times a day in God’s path

you’ll still be an idol-worshiper if you see yourself in the midst. [DS 708]

It has also been said that do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing discomfort means to void your charity by laying favors on those who ask. He is saying, “Do not ruin your charity by counting it a favor to the poor. When a rich man counts it as a favor to the poor that he has given him something, it is because he does not recognize the eminence and level of the poor and does not know that today they are the kings of the world, as has come in the report, ‘Kings in tatters.’ And tomorrow, they will enter paradise five hundred years before the rich. Which eminence is greater than this? Which blessing is more complete?”

Abu’l-Dardāʾ said, “I love poverty in humility before my Lord, I love death in yearning for my Lord, I love illness as expiation for my missteps.”

It has been narrated that the Prophet said to ʿAlī, “O ʿAlī, you are a poor man of God, so do not shun the poor. Rather seek proximity to them in order to find proximity to God.”

Thus it is not appropriate for a rich man to place a favor on a poor man. Rather, he is receiving a favor from him. He should consider him God’s gift to him, for the report has come, “God’s gift to the faithful person is the asker at his gate.” And why should he count it a favor toward the poor man, for he is not giving it to the poor man, nor is the poor man taking it from him. Rather, he is giving it to God, and God is entrusting it to the poor man. This is what the Prophet said: “Surely charity falls into the hand of God before it falls into the hand of the asker.”

2:268 Satan promises you poverty and commands you to indecency, and God promises you forgiveness from Him, and bounty.

Satan promises you poverty because of his poverty, and God promises you forgiveness because of His generosity.^{1LI 1:219.}

Satan himself is poor toward the Real, so he promises poverty, for that is what he has and that is what his hands reach. His harvest was burned, so he wants the harvest of others to burn as well. The Lord of the Worlds, who is forgiving and servant-caressing, promises forgiveness and generosity. Yes, everyone does what is worthy of him, and the pot pours what it has inside. Each acts according to his own manner [17:84]. The Lord’s invitation is what He says: “He invites you so that He may forgive you some of your sins” [14:10]. Satan’s call is what He says: “He invites his party only so that they may be among the companions of the Blaze” [35:6]. Satan invites to avarice and eagerness for this world, and that in reality is poverty. God invites to contentment and seeking the afterworld, and that is nothing but wealth.

The respect due to wealth in the religion is greater, for in this world, the person is content and has no need for the creatures, whispering secretly with the Real in his heart. In the next world he will dwell in the scented garden of bounty and generosity and the ocean of face-to-face vision, drowned in the Greatest Light.

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “Wealth is three things: wealth of property, wealth of disposition, and wealth of heart.

“Wealth of property is three things: The lawful is a tribulation, the unlawful a curse, and the excessive punishment.

“Wealth of disposition is three things: contentment, satisfaction, and chivalry.

“Wealth of heart is three things: an aspiration greater than this world, an object of desire better than the next world, and a yearning for the vision of the Patron.”^{2From Ṣad maydān, no. 84 (322)}

2:269 He gives wisdom to whomsoever He wills.

It has been said that wisdom has a reality and a fruit. The reality of wisdom is recognizing an affair as suited for the affair, putting a thing in its own place, recognizing everyone in his own framework, seeing the end of every statement at its beginning, and recognizing the inwardness of any statement from its outwardness. The fruit of wisdom is balancing interaction with people between tenderness and cajolery, balancing interaction with oneself between fear and hope, and balancing interaction with the Real between awe and intimacy.

Wisdom is a light. When its ray shines upon you, it adorns the tongue with right remembrance, the heart with right thought, and the bodily members with right activity. Then when you speak, you speak with wisdom, snatching away hearts and making spirits your prey. When you reflect, you reflect with wisdom, flying like a falcon, roaming in the highest Dominion, and making a nest only in the Presence of At-ness.

May I be a ransom for the men dwelling in the Unseen,

their secret cores roaming in all that is there!

*

Give the strong wings of wisdom to the peacock of the Throne

and here in this place of the snare you’ll see its nest in joy.

If you stroll toward the Holy Presence with exaltedness,

you’ll see steeds coming forth from the city of the Lord. [DS 706]

Yes indeed. And when someone like this acts, he acts with wisdom—coming together with the palisades of the Beloved’s approval, sacrificing his desire to God’s desire, seeing his intimacy in remembering Him, keeping his gaze in accordance with His gaze, resting in his remembrance no matter what arrives; sometimes burned by passion for Him in the playing field of majesty in the station of need, sometimes at ease with His gentleness in the garden of union on the throne of joy.

At times those black locks raise the swords of severity,

at times those sweet lips light the candles of gentleness.

O You whose perfection has paid purses to the losers at dice!

O You whose beauty has sewn the wallets of the destitute!

2:273 [It is] for the poor, who are constrained in the path of God and are not able to travel in the earth. The ignorant man counts them as rich because of their self-restraint. Thou shalt recognize them by their mark—they do not ask of the people imploringly. And whatever good you expend, surely God knows it.

This is a description of the state of the poor among the Companions and a clarification of their conduct. Until the day of resurrection, this is the balm of the hearts of the burnt and broken.

Their first attribute is that they are constrained in the path of God, that is, they have halted at God’s decree. They have constrained their souls to obey Him, their hearts to recognize Him, their spirits to love Him, and their secret cores to see Him.^{1These two sentences are from LI 2:222.} They have settled down in God’s decree and approved of it, they have welcomed His command, they have kept their souls in obedience, they have occupied their hearts with recognition, their spirits have come to be at ease in love, and their secret cores have remained in anticipation of vision, for the Exalted Lord says about them, “They are unable to travel in the earth.” They are so busy with the Real that they attend neither to the creatures nor to themselves. They take no steps in seeking daily provision, nor do they put their hearts into acquisition and trade. This is exactly what He says: “whom neither trade nor buying diverts from the remembrance of God” [24:37]. They are chevaliers whose watchword is God’s remembrance and whose blanket is God’s love. They have repose and settledness at the threshold of serving Him and their aspiration is free of others. They are the beauty of paradise and the adornment of the abode of settledness [40:39]—a few of the Emigrants and a few of the Helpers.

The ignorant man counts them as rich because of their self-restraint. You would say that they are without need and you would number them as wealthy, for, despite the defectiveness of their state and the constraint of poverty, they never ask, whether from creatures or from the Real. Not asking from creatures is precisely trust, and trust is the level of their abode. Not asking from the Real is the reality of approval, and the field of approval is their way station. This was exactly the state of Abraham, to whom it was said that he should ask from the Real. He said, “His knowledge of my state is enough asking for me.”

ʿAbdallāh Mubārak was seen weeping. They asked, “What happened to this great man of the religion?”

He said, “Today I asked forgiveness from God. Then I thought, ‘What is this meddling of mine?!’ He is the Lord and I am the servant. He will do whatever He wants with the servant and will give him what he needs. He is not asleep that He should be awakened, nor is He heedless of the work that He should be alerted.”

Junayd said, “Once it passed my lips, ‘O God, give me drink!’ I heard a call, ‘Are you intruding between Me and yourself, O Junayd?’” This is the attribute of a group who have reached the world of realization, tasted a drink from the cup of union, and been delivered from occupation with creatures and self. As for him who does not have this state and has not reached this station, his road is to hold up his hands in supplication and ask the Real to deliver him. Asking is permitted for him, and in his case supplication is the same as worship.

Thou shalt recognize them by their mark. Not every eye will see them and not every head will recognize them. Only those will see and recognize them who have the eyesight of prophethood and the insight of the Haqiqah. The eyesight of prophethood is from the light of unity, and the insight of the Haqiqah is from the lightning of the beginningless. Murtaʿish said, “Their mark is their jealousy for their poverty and their clinging to their distress and brokenness.” In reality it is they who have recognized the pearl of poverty, come to know its secret, and taken it up with spirit and heart. They would not sell one iota of it for this world and the afterworld.

The master Abū ʿAlī saw a poor man carrying a shirt on his shoulders made of bits and pieces of cloth stuck together. By way of a pleasantry he said, “O dervish, how much did you pay for that?”

The poor man said, “I bought it for the whole world. They’re asking for one of its threads in exchange for the bliss of the afterworld, but I won’t give it.”

Yes, the brightness of the pearl of poverty can only be seen with the light of prophethood and the brightness of friendship. Muṣṭafā saw the beauty of poverty with the light of prophethood and recognized its secret. He chose poverty over this world and the afterworld. He said about this world, “My Lord offered to fill the valley of Mecca with gold for me. I said, ‘No, Lord, rather let me be satiated one day and hungry the next.’” He detached his heart from the bliss of the afterworld and did not assign his eyes to that. Then the Exalted Lord praised him for that and said, “The eyesight did not swerve, nor did it trespass” [53:17].

If the only eminence of poverty were that Muṣṭafā was commanded to be the companion of the poor when it was said to him, “And let not thine eyes turn away from them” [18:28], that itself would be complete. Here something is prepared that is called “the secret of secrets,” and only the minds of the sincerely truthful have access to it. The reality of this secret becomes known from this report: “When someone has in his heart to sit with God, he should sit with the folk of Sufism.”

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “In everyone something is apparent. In the knower, the religion is apparent. In the realizer, the Patron’s light is apparent. In the lover, the annihilation of the realm of being is apparent. In the Sufi what is apparent is apparent—its mark cannot be given with the tongue.”

We are the mansions of passion’s star,

we are the center point shaping the world’s shapes.

When they tell the tale of the passionate who’ve lost their hearts,

we will be the secret of the tale of lost-hearted passion.

And whatever good you expend, surely God knows it. Here He speaks like this, and at the end of the previous verse He says, “And whatever good you expend shall be repaid to you in full, and you shall not be wronged” [2:272]. The lords of the realities see a beautiful subtlety separating the two verses. They say that when a servant spends in the road of God, there are two reasons for his expenditure. One is that he has in view his own goal and strives to gain reward for himself, fearing hell and hoping for paradise. His expenditure and his reward are what God says: “And whatever good you expend shall be repaid to you in full, and you shall not be wronged.” The other reason for expenditure is that he has in view the poor person, seeking his ease and striving for his sake, so he does not see his own share in that. This is the state of the recognizer, who has removed the intrusion of his own reward from the expenditure. In the same way the Exalted Lord does not raise the issue of reward, but He honors him with this tremendous caress: “And whatever good you expend, surely God knows it: I who am God know what must be given to this servant and what must be done for him.” To this is the allusion in His words, “I have prepared for My wholesome servants what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.”

2:274 Those who expend their wealth night and day, secretly and openly, shall have their wage with their Lord, and no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve.

As long as they have any wealth, they do not slacken from expending it for an hour, night and day. When the wealth is exhausted, they do not slacken from witnessing Him for a moment, night and day.^{1LI 2:222.} This is as they say:

Wealth, gold, things—gamble them away for nothing.

When the work reaches your spirit, gamble it away!

Spending wealth in the road of the religion according to the Shariah is the work of the faithful, and throwing away the spirit in the contemplation of the majesty and beauty of the Patron in respect of the Haqiqah is the work of the chevaliers. This is the effort of servanthood by the servants. What then is worthy of God and the divine generosity toward the servants?!

2:277 Those who have faith and do wholesome deeds, who perform the prayer and give the alms tax, shall have their wage with their Lord, and no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve.

In other words, “Enough for those who come to be Ours will be what they find with Us, for We leave not to waste the wage of those who do beautiful deeds [18:30].”^{1LI 2:223.}

“When someone has recourse to the gate of Our generosity, We give him shelter in the shade of Our blessings. When the dust of Our path falls on someone, the darkness of separation from Us will not fall upon him. When someone takes one step toward Us, he will find a gift with Us.” In other words, “When someone joins with Us, he will escape from the night attack of severance.” Or: “When someone binds his heart to Our generosity, he will pack his bags from the room of sorrows.” Or: “When someone sees Us, his spirit will laugh. He who reaches himself will reach Us. Nothing can be said about what he who reaches himself will see and hear.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, all Your caresses are for our sake, for in each breath appears so much burning with the light of Your solicitude. Who has a patron like You? Where is a friend like You? With the attributes that You have, nothing else is fitting. All this is the mark, and the celebration is tomorrow. This indeed is the message, and the robe of honor is in place.”

The robe of honor is what He said: “shall have their wage with their Lord, and no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve.” Wait until tomorrow, when He gives out the generous wage and tremendous caress that He has with Himself, the boundless blessings and everlasting triumph, in the assembly of repose and ease [56:89] and the appointed time of union with the Beloved.

When will my luck smile at me from Your playing field?

When will separation from You strike its tent from my spirit’s desert?

What wonderful work is the work of the poor! Gabriel, with six hundred peacock wings, could not take one step beyond the Lote Tree along with that paragon of the world. But this poor man with begging hands does not let go of the paragon’s skirt until he places his foot along with his on the Majestic Throne. Know, however, that this boldness does not belong to today, for it is longtime. When the foundation of love was laid down in the beginningless covenant, the spirits of the poor drank one draft of the wine of He loves them, and they love Him [5:54] in the session of intimacy and on the carpet of expansiveness. This is why they became bold. The proximate angels of the Higher Plenum said, “Look at the high aspiration of this folk! After all, we never tasted a draft of that wine, nor even caught a whiff.” The ruckus of these beggars’ spirits fell to Capella:

First You began this talk of passion,

so take care of our work as is worthy of You.

How can we find room in the pavilion of mystery?

We have nothing in hand but bragging and the edict of need.

2:284 To God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Whether you show what is in your souls or you hide it, God will bring you to account for it.

To God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth as ownership, origination, creation, and devising. He gave them existence from nonexistence, so He owns them with the ownership of exaltedness and powerfulness, not the ownership of gaining and earning. He does in them whatsoever He wills [3:40] and He decrees whatsoever He desires [5:1].

He is saying that everything in the heavens and the earths is owned by God, an ownership of existence-giving and exaltedness, not an ownership of earning and inheritance. It is the ownership of the Adamites that is gained by the ruling property of commerce and gift, or acquisition and inheritance. Hence the ruling property that establishes ownership makes the rightful due of what is owned necessary for them. As for God’s ownership, it comes by way of bringing nonbeing into being, by creation after nonbeing, and by making new from the outset. Thus His ownership is not like anyone else’s ownership, nor does anyone have any ruling property over Him in that. What He does with what He Himself created He does by reason of His own lordhood. From Him it is justice, not injustice. Injustice is when someone does something that is not his to do. But it is God’s to do whatever He does because He is creator, enactor, and king. Majestic is His ruling power, tremendous His rank, exalted His magnificence, realized His word, and high His reality beyond the perception of intellects!

To God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. He did not say this so that you would attach your heart to it and occupy yourself with it, but so that you would attach your heart to its creator and see its artisan. This is the same as He said: “Do not prostrate yourselves to the sun and the moon, but prostrate yourselves to God, who created them” [41:37]. When He created heaven and earth, He created them as the gazing place of the common people, so that they would look at the artisanry and from it reach the Artisan. Say: “Gaze at that which is in the heavens and the earth” [10:101].

He gave the elect a higher rank. He invited them away from the gaze of taking heed to the gaze of reflective thought. He turned them away from artisanry to reflective thought. He said, “What, do they not ponder the Qur’an?” [4:82].

Then He made Muṣṭafā pass through the degree of the elect, gave him access to the reality of solitariness, and set him down in the center point of togetherness, so that his gaze would go beyond the artisanry and the attributes. He said to him, “Dost thou not see thy Lord?” [25:45].

First is the way station of the aware, second the level of the familiar, and third the degree of the friends and the near ones. When at first lightning flashed from the heaven of exaltedness, the servant came to awareness. Then a breeze blew from the garden of gentleness, and the servant found familiarity. Then he found a drink from the cup of friendship and became selfless of selfhood—everything came to be his.

Awareness is the state of the wage-earner, familiarity the attribute of the guest, and friendship the mark of the near ones. The wage-earners have wages, the guests have feasts, and the near ones have mysteries. The wage of the wage-earner befits the wage-earner, the feast of the guest befits the host, and the one who is near is drowned in face-to-face vision.

Whether you show what is in your souls or you hide it, God will bring you to account for it. Great is the work of someone who has business with Him! Majestic is the rebuke of him whose rebuker is He! One must buy reckoning with one’s spirit when the reckoner is He! The measure of this declaration was known by that chevalier of the Tariqah, Shiblī, who said, “O God, what would it matter if You placed all the sins of the world’s folk on Shiblī’s neck? Then, tomorrow in that place of seclusion, You would count out each sin for me, and my talk with You would be drawn out.”

I consider it unlawful to talk with others—

whenever I talk with You, I draw out my words.

His words “place of seclusion” alludes to the hadith of Muṣṭafā in which he said, “There is none of you to whom your Lord will not speak, without any spokesman between Him and you, nor any veil veiling Him.”

A nomad came and asked Muṣṭafā, “Who will take care of my account tomorrow?”

The Messenger said, “God will take care of the servants’ accounts.”

The nomad went back in happiness and joy and kept on saying, “So I am saved! When a generous man decides, he forgives.”

God will bring you to account for it. It has been said that this sentence is a tremendous admonishment for him who has brightness in his heart and familiarity in his secret core. Since he knows that tomorrow he will be called to account and interrogated about the why and the wherefore of his words and deeds, today he undertakes his own accounting of himself. He watches over his own movements and rests, words and deeds. This is why Muṣṭafā said, “Take an accounting of yourselves before you are brought to account, and prepare for the Greatest Exposure.”

2:285-86 The Messenger has faith in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and the faithful. Each one has faith in God, His angels, His books, and His messengers: “We make no distinction among any of His messengers.” They say, “We hear and we obey! Thy forgiveness, our Lord! And to Thee is the homecoming.” God takes no soul to task beyond its capacity. It shall have what it has earned, and against it shall be what it has acquired. “Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget or make mistakes. Our Lord, put not upon us a burden such as that Thou hast put on those before us. Our Lord, and do not burden us with what we do not have the strength to bear. And pardon us, and forgive us, and have mercy upon us. Thou art our Patron, so help us against the people of the unbelievers.”

This is a declaration of the greatness and eminence of the Messenger at the moment of contemplation. He said, “The Messenger has faith.” He did not say, “Thou hast faith.” This is how masters and kings are addressed in the manner of declaring their greatness. It is exactly like what He said about Himself at the beginning of the Surah of Opening: “Praise belongs to God.” He did not say, “Praise belongs to Me.” This was to declare His own greatness and to make manifest His exaltedness and majesty.

The Messenger has faith. Now that He has mentioned faith, the Uprising, the Garden, the Fire, the prayer, the alms tax, retaliation, fasting, hajj, struggle, marriage, divorce, menstruation, the waiting period, expenditure, foster relationship, forswearal, divorce initiated by the wife, inheritance, charity, vows, buying, selling, usury, debts, and ransom; and He has mentioned the stories of the prophets and the signs of His power, God completes the surah by mentioning that His prophet and the faithful assent to the truthfulness of all of it. Hence He says, The Messenger has faith in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and the faithful. This is praise and laudation of the Prophet, who explained these rulings and delivered the message, and of the faithful, for we have recognized, accepted, and held firm to all the rulings, boundaries, stories of the prophets, and marks of God’s power and tremendousness that were mentioned.

What is even greater and more majestic is that God Himself gives witness to Muṣṭafā and his faith, and He gives witness to the faithful and their faith. This is a witnessing by their God. It is a witnessing that faith comes by bestowal. Where are water and dust? What are the universe and Adam? In beginningless solicitude the unitary majesty gave witness to the servant’s faith and placed the crown of friendship on his head.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O Lord, it is You who made an oath of allegiance between Yourself and the servant without the servant. You gave witness to the servant’s faith without the servant. You wrote mercy for the servant against Yourself without the servant. You made a pact of friendship between Yourself and the servant without the servant. It is fitting for the faithful servant to be delighted that You have made a pact of friendship with him, for the basis of friendship’s treasure is all light, and the fruit of friendship’s tree is all joy. The field of friendship is a vast heart, and the kingdom of paradise is one branch of friendship’s tree.”

The Messenger has faith in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and the faithful. Both the Messenger and the faithful have faith, but how far apart they are! The faith of the faithful is by way of inference, and the faith of the Messenger is by way of union. Their faith is by means of proofs, and the Messenger’s faith is through contemplation and face-to-face vision. The following has been narrated from him:

“I saw my Lord with my eyes on the night of the miʿrāj. My Lord said to me, ‘O Muḥammad! The Messenger has faith in what was sent down to him from his Lord.’

“I said, ‘Yes.’

“He said, ‘Who else?’

“I said, ‘And the faithful. Each one has faith in God, His angels, His books, and His messengers; we make no distinction among any of His Messengers, unlike the Jews and the Christians.’

“He said, ‘And what do they say?’

“I said, ‘They say “We hear Your words and we obey Your command.”’

“He said, ‘You have spoken the truth. Ask, and it will be given to you.’

“I said, ‘Thy forgiveness, our Lord! And to Thee is the homecoming.’

“He said, ‘I have forgiven you and your community. Ask, and it will be given to you.’

“I said, ‘Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget or make mistakes.’

“He said, ‘I have removed mistakes and forgetfulness from you and your community. And what is it that you dislike?’

“I said, ‘Our Lord, put not upon us a burden such as that Thou hast put on those before us.’

“He said, ‘That belongs to you and your community.’

“I said, ‘Our Lord, and do not burden us with what we do not have the strength to bear.’

“He said, ‘I have done that for you and your community. Ask, and it will be given to you.’

“I said, ‘Our Lord, and pardon us against engulfing, and forgive us against casting, and have mercy upon us against deforming.^{1The references here are to the ill fates of evil-doers recounted in the Qur’an: being engulfed by the earth (28:81), having terror cast into their hearts (33:26), and being deformed (36:67).} Thou art our Patron, so help us against the people of the unbelievers.’

“He said, ‘I have done that for you and your community.’”

The Prophet was asked, “What was your recompense on the night that you were taken up?”

He said, “I was given the Opening of the Book and the concluding verses of the Surah of the Cow, and these are among the treasuries of the All-Merciful’s Throne that were given to no prophet before me.”