22:1 O people, be wary of your Lord—surely the quaking of the Hour is a tremendous thing.

O people is a vocative, and O you have faith is a call of generosity. The vocative is for the common people, and the call of generosity is for the elect. The vocative is for striking fear and warning, and the call of generosity is for bestowing eminence and giving good news.

Be wary of your Lord is two words, one severity, the other gentleness. Be wary is severity, which He drives home with His justice. Your Lord is gentleness, which He shows through His bounty. He keeps the servant between severity and gentleness so that he will live in fear and hope. When he is in fear, he looks at his own activity and weeps. When he is in hope, he looks at God’s gentleness and is delighted.

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 the servant looks at his own activity, he says with the tongue of contempt and in beatenness and brokenness,

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

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

When he looks at the divine gentleness and the lordly bounty, he says with the tongue of happiness and the blessing of gratitude,

“What does the Throne do that it does not carry my saddlecloth?

In my heart I carry the saddlecloth of Your ruling and decree.

The scent of the spirit comes to my lips when I speak of You,

the branch of exaltedness grows from my heart when I suffer Your trial.”

Surely the quaking of the Hour is a tremendous thing. The quaking of the resurrection and the harshness of the resurrection—how can this be explained and what mark can be given of it? For the Exalted Lord says it is “a tremendous thing.” It is a day, and what a day! It is a work, and what a work! It is a day of the bazaar, and what a day of the bazaar! The pavilion of exaltedness will be raised in the desert of power, the carpet of tremendousness spread, the balance of justice hung, the path of straightness drawn out. All the eloquent tongues will be silent and dumb, all excuses will be nullified, for this is a day in which they do not speak, nor will they be given permission to offer excuses [77:35-36]. How many curtains will be torn on that day! How many lineages will be broken on that day! How many with white-faces will become black-faced on that day! How many of the pious will be disgraced! How many hats of good fortune will be thrown in the dust of abasement! How many edicts of sultans will be stamped with the signet of dismissal! For the command that day will belong to God [82:19]. How many fathers will be lamenting in the depths of hell, their children strolling in the meadows of paradise! No father will suffice for his child, nor will any child suffice in anything for his father [31:33].

At the harshness of that day Adam will come forward: “Lord God, let Adam go, and do as You know with his children.” Noah will lament, “Lord God, have mercy on my weakness and helplessness!” Abraham the bosom friend, Moses the speaking companion, and Jesus the spirit of God—each will be helpless in himself and be saying with the tongue of poverty in the state of brokenness, “Myself, myself!”

Then the master of the first and the last, the lamp of heaven and earth, the chosen and approved of the Lord of the Worlds, Muḥammad, will come forth in that desert of the resurrection like a full moon and the whole world will be brightened and the spheres a rose garden. When the master shows his beauty and perfection and the glitter of the light of his face reaches the world of the resurrection, felicity and security will appear for the folk of faith. Just as the moon passes by the stars in the spheres, on that day the paragon of the world will pass by the faithful and keep on gazing on their faces, and he will intercede for the folk of faith. Thy Lord shall bestow upon thee so that thou shalt approve [93:5].

22:5 O people, if you are in doubt about the Uprising, surely We created you of dust, then of a sperm drop, then of a blood clot, then of a lump of flesh, fully created and not fully created, that We might make clear to you.

The composition of the Adamic body in the first creation is a clear argument against the deniers of the Uprising. He is saying, “I am the Lord who created a body and figure with such comeliness, a stature and form with such beauty, from that feeble sperm drop in that firm settledness. He says, “Did We not create you of feeble water, then put it in a firm settledness?” [77:20-21].

If you ponder this body, you will find an exemplar of all the created and newly arrived things in the celestial and terrestrial worlds. Just as He arranged the seven spheres in heaven, so also He composed seven parts in this body—water and dust, and then flesh, skin, veins, sinews, and bones. Just as He divided the spheres into twelve constellations, so also He made twelve holes in this structure in the likeness of the twelve constellations: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two breasts, the two well-known roads, the mouth, and the navel. Just as the angels travel in the layers of the heavens, so also the faculties of the soul travel in this Adamic composition. Just as some of the constellations in heaven are southern and some northern, some of these holes in the body are toward the right and some toward the left. Just as there are seven stars in the spheres of heaven called planets and, in the view of some, misfortune and felicity are tied to their forelocks, so also in your body there are seven faculties to which the wholesomeness of the body is tied: the faculty of eyesight, the faculty of hearing, and the faculties of taste, smell, touch, speech, and intellect. The root of these branches is in the heart, and to this the Prophet alluded with his words, “Surely in the body of Adam’s child there is a lump of flesh. When it is wholesome, the rest of the body is also wholesome, and surely it is the heart.” This then is taking into account the celestial world.

As for how the body takes into account the terrestrial world, it is that the body is just like the earth, the bones are like the mountains, marrow is like the minerals, the belly like the ocean, the viscera and veins are like rivers, flesh is like the dust, hair is like plants, the front is like the inhabited parts, the back like the uninhabited parts, before the front is like the east, behind the back is like the west, the right is like the south, the left is like the north, breath is like wind, speech like thunder, sounds like thunderbolts, laughter like light, sorrow and grief like darkness, weeping like rain, the days of childhood like the days of spring, the days of youth like the days of summer, the days of maturity like the days of autumn, and the days of old age like the days of winter.

In sum, you should know that there is no animal or plant, nothing silent or speaking, whose characteristic you will not find in this dust-dwelling speck. This is why the great ones of the religion have said that you will find everything in the Adamite, but you will not find the Adamite in anything.

This body whose attributes you have heard is like a throne upon which is sitting a king who is called the “heart.” He has no kinship with this dense dust and is like a prisoner who has no rest and settledness in the dreadfulness of the prison. Night and day he is thinking about when he will be delivered from the prison and return to the world of the gentleness of Return to thy Lord! [89:27]. He is like a bird in a cage, always looking up from the doorway of the soul:^{1Except for the first paragraph, this is all drawn from RA 177-79.}

When will I be released from this cage

to make a nest in the divine garden? [DS 371]

22:23 They will be adorned therein with bracelets of gold and pearls, and their clothes therein will be silk.

Just as today the folk of recognition are disparate in recognition and the faithful have more or less faith, tomorrow in the house of subsistence everyone will see caresses and generosity in keeping with his own state and in the measure of his own recognition. The worshipers will wear clothing of silk along with bracelets of gold and pearls and be with houris and palaces; the recognizers will have clothing of solitariness in the ocean of face-to-face vision, drowned in light. One group will be adorned with the ornaments of paradise, and another group will adorn paradise with the light of their beauty.

Though pearls increase the beauty of faces,

the beauty of your face adorns the pearl.

22:24 And they will be guided unto the goodly in speech.

It has been said that this is to acknowledge one’s sins and attest to His words, “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves” [7:23].^{1LI 4:209.}

True speech and pure words are free of making claims, far from pride, and near to need. They are to attest to one’s own incapacity, to acknowledge one’s own sins, and to emulate Adam with burning and need in saying “We have wronged ourselves.”

Sahl Tustarī said, “I looked at this affair and saw no path closer to God than need, and no veil thicker than making claims.”

Look closely at the road of Iblis and you will only see making claims. Look closely at the road of Adam and you will see only need. O Iblis, what do you say? “I am better” [38:76]. O Adam, what do you say? “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.”

All the existent things were brought out from the concealment of nonexistence into the open space of the decree, but the plant of need grew from Adam’s dust. He was made the object to whom the angels prostrated themselves. He was sat down on the throne of kingship and vicegerency, and the proximate angels were made to stand before his throne, but he did not lose one iota of his need: “O Lord, this is all Your bounty. What is rightfully ours is this: Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves. The seat of vicegerency is Your bestowal, but the gift of our makeup is Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.”

A great man said, “One day I sinned. I repented 300,000 times but I still see myself walking in danger from that sin.”

You poor wretch! The men of this road waged a war against their own souls. This war will never have a way to peace, for they found that their own souls are the enemy of the religion. How can a man of the religion make peace with the religion’s opposite?

O soul mean in aspiration and deranged,

whatever touchstone I use, you come up false.^{2Most of the commentary here including this verse is derived from RA 90 and 88-89.}

22:26 When We built for Abraham the place of the House: “Associate nothing with Me, and make My house pure for those who circumambulate, stand, and bow in prostration.”

Ibn ʿAṭāʾ said, “We gave him the success to build the House, We gave him the ability to do so, We helped him with it, and We said to him, ‘Associate nothing with Me,’ that is, ‘Do not have any regard for the House and do not look at the fact that you built it.’”^{1Sulamī (Ḥaqāʾiq) gives what may be the source of this version of this saying.}

He is saying, “We gave Abraham ability and We gave him means, tools, strength, skill, power, and help so that he could build the house of the Kaabah as We wanted and commanded. Then We said to him, ‘Do not look at what you have done and what you have made. Look at Our success-giving and Our help. Do not look at your striving but see Our desire and solicitude.”

O chevalier! The servant was given two eyes so that with one eye he would see the attributes of his own soul’s blights and with the other eye the gentle attributes of the Real’s generosity. With one eye he sees His bounty, with the other eye his own acts. When he sees His bounty, he boasts of it, and when he sees his own acts he shows poverty. When he sees the generosity of the Beginningless, he becomes joyful, and when he sees the footsteps of dust’s nonexistence, he becomes needful.

That distracted man of ʿIrāq [Shiblī], burnt by the fire of separation, used to say, “Would that I were fuel for the furnace and had not heard this tale!”

Sometimes he would say, “Where are the proximate angels and residents of the Holy Palisades?! Let them spread their carpets before the throne of my good fortune and the chair of my exaltedness!”

Sometimes my hands are full of silver, sometimes I’m poor.

Sometimes my heart’s elated, sometimes wounded.

Sometimes I’m behind the people, sometimes ahead—

I indeed am the chameleon of the days.^{2These three paragraphs and the poem are derived from RA 130.}

And make My house pure. In the tongue of learning, this is the Kaabah, but according to the explanation by allusion, the meaning is, “Empty your heart of all things save the remembrance of God.” He is saying, “Occupy your heart totally with My remembrance and do not give any stranger or other access to it, for the heart is the container of the wine of My affection and love.”

“The hearts are God’s containers in the earth. The most beloved of the containers to God is the most limpid, the most tender, and the most solid.” Any heart that is more limpid in relation to engendered beings and more merciful toward the faithful is more exalted and beloved to the Exalted Presence. The heart is the sultan of your makeup. Be careful to consider it exalted and preserve it from the opacity of caprice and appetite. Do not pollute it with the darkness and appetite of this world.

Revelation came to David: “‘O David, make for Me a pure house in which I may reside!’ O David, make the house pure so that the Lord of the house may settle down in the house.”

He said, “‘Lord God, which house can embrace You?’ Which house is suited for Your tremendousness and majesty?”

He said, “That is the heart of the faithful servant.”

David said, “Lord God, how can I make it pure?”

He said, “Strike the fire of love to it so that everything that does not have My lineage may burn away. Then sweep it with the broom of remorse so that if anything is left it may be swept pure. O David, after that if you see anyone perplexed in the road of seeking Me, take that as the mark, for the pavilion of My holiness is there. ‘I am with fevered hearts.’”

22:61 That is because God makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night, and God is hearing, seeing.

This is an explication of power and its attribute of exaltedness in the creation of day and night, light and darkness.

22:62 That is because God is the Real and what they supplicate other than Him is the unreal, and because God is the high, the great.

This is the affirmation of unity in the divine attributes and the nullification of associates and associationism.

22:63 Hast thou not seen that God sends down water from heaven, and then the earth becomes green?

The purport of this verse and the verses that follow is to remind of the blessings and to manifest the wisdom of creating benefits for creation. Whatever He created, He created as is worthy of Himself and as it should be created. Whatever He put, He put in its own place. Whatever He gave, He gave to its own folk. He is the powerful who does whatever He wants. And He is the wise who does not do whatever He can. In this world, He created even the foot of an ant and the wing of a gnat in keeping with the requirement of power, the requisite of wisdom, and according to His will. He gave wisdom and power each other’s hands so that the work of the Divinity would go forth well-ordered. If wisdom had not been with power, the universe would have been disrupted.

God has attributes that are the antagonists of the existence and acts of the creatures. These are the attributes of exaltedness, tremendousness, compulsion, magnificence, and endless unneediness. He also has attributes that are the interceders for the existence and acts of the creatures, like wisdom, mercy, gentleness, clemency, munificence, and generosity. The attributes of mercy and wisdom hold back the reins of the attributes of exaltedness and unneediness so that this handful of hapless creatures may live out their lives in the shadow of gentleness and mercy in accordance with wisdom. Were it not for these interceders, everything—from the Throne and the Footstool down to the ant’s foot and the gnat’s wing—would become nothing and nonexistent.^{1These two paragraphs are derived from RA 398.}

One word of the beginningless unneediness and independence showed itself to this world, and the day of deprivation came forth for the unbelievers and the estranged. Like strangers, they set their heads to their own thoughts and did not recognize God’s measure or gain access to what is worthy of Him. They set up a helpless, inanimate idol without attributes as His partner, worshiping it and taking it as a friend, such that the Exalted Lord said of them,

22:73 Feeble are the seeker and the sought!

Weak and helpless are both the worshiper and the worshiped.

22:74 They measured not God with the rightful due of His measure. Surely God is strong, exalted.

Wāsiṭī said, “Creatures do not recognize the rightful due of His measure—only the Real.” No one knows His measure save He. No one can recognize Him as is worthy of Him save He. Intellects are confounded and understandings bewildered at the beginnings of the shining of His majesty. Prophets and messengers came back on the feet of incapacity from the threshold of the reality of recognizing Him.

O chevalier, tomorrow when the servants reach the exaltedness of union with Him and see the marks bearing witness to proximity, He will bestow the vision of Himself in the measure of your capacity, not in the measure of His tremendousness and majesty. This is why it has been said, “He spoke to Moses in respect of Moses. Had He spoken to Moses in respect of His tremendousness, Moses would have melted.”^{1This paragraph is derived from RA 26-27.}

22:77 O you who have faith, bow and prostrate and worship your Lord!

In respect of understanding, the Pir of the Tariqah said in the tongue of allusion, “He commanded the faithful to bowing and prostrating. In saying ‘and worship your Lord,’ He means ‘Put up with trials in the religion and this world since God has placed you among the folk of service and provided you with the sweetness of the taste of being chosen by Him.’” He is saying, “If the trials of the passing days and the tribulation of this world are made into a draft and placed in the hand of your incapacity, do not make a sour face. Carry the load of tribulation with spirit and heart. Drink the draft in gratitude for the fact that He has commanded you to His service and kept you in the presence of prayer and the station of secret whispering.”

Take care not to lay favors on Him with your obedience and worship. Know that in reality, all the acts of obedience and worship, the good deeds and words, of Adam’s children from the beginning of existence to the end of the era, placed next to the divine perfection and beauty, are nothing but the noise of an old woman’s spindle. Had He in His generosity and bounty not invited this handful of dust to the threshold of His eternity and, with His gentleness, spread out the carpet of bold expansiveness in the house of guidance, how could this woebegone of existence, this speck of impure dust, have the gall to take a step on the edge of the carpet of kings? What is suited for dust is to say with the attribute of brokenness and the tongue of incapacity and poverty,

“We have come to shame at our own existence,

we’ve encountered stone because of the decree.

On the surface of the rug of misfortune,

our black days have come in place of color.”^{1The paragraph and poetry are from RA 17.}

22:78 And struggle in God as is the rightful due of His struggle. He chose you, and He placed no hardship upon you in the religion—the creed of your father Abraham. He named you submitters from before.... He is your Patron, so what an excellent Patron and what an excellent Helper!

Struggle is of three sorts: One with the soul, one with the heart, and one with possessions. Struggle with the soul is that you not rest from service and discipline, you do not look for concessions and interpretations, and you go forward in the commands and prohibitions with reverence. Struggle with the heart is that you do not give odious thoughts access to your self, you do not have determined resoluteness in opposition, and you do not rest from meditation on blessings and bounties.^{1This is a Persian translation of LI 4:236.}

Struggle with possessions is by giving away, generosity, munificence, and largesse. Generosity is that you give away some and you keep some for yourself. Munificence is that you give away most and keep a little for yourself. Largesse is that you give away all and live in poverty and want. This was the state of Abū Bakr, the greatest of the sincerely truthful, to whom Muṣṭafā said, “What remains for your family?” He said, “God and His Messenger.”

It has been said that the rightful due of His struggle is that you do not slacken from struggle against the soul for a moment. Their speaker said,

O Lord, my struggle is never over,

so Your earth is all my front line and fortress.^{2The paragraph and poem are taken from ibid.}

He chose you... He named you... He is your Patron.

He chose you. When He chose you, He saw the faults, and He was pleased despite the faults.

He named you. There was no heaven and no earth, no Throne and no Footstool, no Adam and no Eve, and you were Muslim in His knowledge. He placed the name of Muslim upon you and wrote for you the inscription of election: those to whom the most beautiful has preceded from Us [21:101].

He chose you through guidance, He named you with the name of friendship, and He is your Patron by manifesting solicitude. He chose you, not because of the excellence of your deeds, He named you with the name of the Substitutes, and He is your Patron in all states. He chose you, so who will misguide you? He named you, so who will change you? He is your Patron, so who will abandon you?

He chose you through guidance. He gave you the name of being a Muslim through solicitude. He did this because He is your Patron in reality, your heart-opener through mercy, and your secret core-adorner through love.

So what an excellent Patron! He curtains faults, He removes distress, He forgives sins. At the time of sin He calls you ignorant—They do the ugly in ignorance [4:17]—so that He may accept your apology. At the time of bearing witness, He calls you a knower—except those who have borne witness to the truth while they are knowing [43:86]—so that He may accept your testimony. At the time of shortcoming He calls you weak—Man was created weak [4:28]—so that He may efface your shortcoming.^{3The paragraph is inspired by RA 539.}

So what an excellent Patron! He is your Patron. If you call upon Him, He says “Here I am,” and if you turn away from Him, He calls out to you. So what an excellent Patron! He made you appear through love before you loved Him and He desired you before you desired Him.

What a fine Lord, joined with love, pleased with the faulty, passing over, pardoning! He passes over so as to put aside, or He sets aside so as to overlook. If He puts aside, He is without need, and if He overlooks, He is the servant-caresser. He is tremendous in favor, eternal in beautiful doing, and He gives turns to the world’s folk.

Part of his good Lordhood is that He does not take back His gifts at the servant’s missteps, nor does He cut off blessings at his disloyalty.

Dhu’l-Nūn Miṣrī said, “Once I was at the Nile river, washing clothes. Suddenly I saw a tremendous scorpion coming. I sought refuge in God from its evil, and God spared me its evil. I followed it until it reached the edge of the water. A frog came out of the water and held up its back so that the scorpion could sit on its back, and it crossed the Nile. In wonder I said, ‘Surely this is significant.’”

Dhu’l-Nūn bound up his loin-cloth and went over to the other side. He saw that the frog had put down the scorpion and returned to its own place. The scorpion went on until it reached a tremendous tree. Dhu’l-Nūn said, “I looked and saw a boy, a young man, fallen drunk, ruined, and asleep. I said to myself, ‘Surely we belong to God!’ [2:156]. Right now the scorpion is going to destroy that young man.’ While I was in these thoughts, a tremendous serpent appeared from a corner aiming to destroy that young man. I saw the scorpion jump on the serpent’s back and sting its brain, killing it. From there it went to the edge of the water, the frog returned, and it crossed on its back. I came back from there and the young man was still in the sleep of heedlessness. I began to sing, saying,

“O sleeper, the Majestic protects you

from everything crawling in the darkness!

How do your eyes sleep when you have a King

from whom come the benefits of blessings?

“The young man awoke and saw the state. I said to him, ‘Look at what God has turned away from you and how He has turned it away from you!’ Then I told him the story. When he heard those words, a pain and grief arose from inside his heart, and he lamented a great deal. He turned his face to heaven and wept to God saying, ‘O my Master and Patron! This is Your act toward him who disobeyed you last night! By Your exaltedness, I will not disobey You again until I meet You! He took off the garment of foolishness and put on the garment of good and rectitude.”^{4The story of Dhu’l-Nūn and the previous paragraph are taken from RA 389-90.}