28:1 Ṭāʾ Sīn Mīm

Ṭāʾ alludes to the recognizer’s heart, its purity [ṭahāra] of everything other than He. Sīn alludes to His secret [sirr] with His friends in their contemplation of His majesty and beauty. Mīm alludes to His favors [minna] toward the faithful in His blessings and bounties.

Wherever talk of Him goes, the session becomes fragrant. Wherever there is listening to His name and mark, the spirits become luminous. In the 18,000 worlds, no one can step on the carpet of His success-giving without His help and gentleness. In the two realms of being and the two worlds, life is not given over to anyone unless by His protection and kind favor.

The great ones of the religion have said that the chevaliers and the friends of the Real have three sorts of life: life through remembrance, life through recognition, and life through finding. The fruit of the life of remembrance is intimacy, the fruit of the life of recognition is stillness, and the fruit of the life of finding is annihilation. In reality, this annihilation is subsistence. Until you have been annihilated from yourself you will not subsist through Him.

Abū Saʿīd Kharrāz said, “I was at Arafat on the Day of Arafa and I saw that the hajjis were making supplications and weeping beautifully: on every tongue a remembrance, in every heart a fervor, in every soul a passion, in every corner a burning and a need, with everyone a pain and a melting. The wish arose in me that I also should make a supplication and ask for something. I asked myself what supplication I should make and what I should ask, since everything needed is given unasked for; it is made ready and taken care of without being spoken. In the end I made the intention to open up the road of the Haqiqah to Him and to supplicate. He inspired in my secret core, ‘You want something from Me after finding Me?’”

In wonder the violet keeps on saying, “Strange—

if someone has the Friend’s tresses, why would he pick me?”

Abū Saʿīd stepped back from that and kept on reciting this verse:

“Your loyalty clings inside my heart,

Your love is my goal, yearning my supplies.”

28:22 When he turned his face toward Midian, he said, “Perhaps my Lord will guide me on the even way.”

In what preceded all precedents, the scented garden of recognition was adorned with the trees of love. The playing field of bewilderment and love was placed in front of it and made its access-way. “The Garden is surrounded by disliked things.” Whenever they wanted to bring someone into the garden of recognition, they first brought him into the playing field of bewilderment, and they made his head the polo-ball of tribulation. Thus he would taste the flavor of bewilderment and tribulation, and then he would reach the fragrance of love. This was the state of Moses, God’s speaking companion.

When they wanted to garb him in the clothing of prophethood and take him to the presence of messengerhood and conversation, first they put him in the bend of trial’s polo stick until he was cooked in those trials and troubles. Thus the Exalted Lord says, “We tried thee with trials” [20:40]. In other words: “We cooked you well with trial until you became limpid and immaculate.”^{1This last sentence is from LI 4:129.}

He came out of Egypt fearful and trembling. In terror of his enemy he was looking right and left, just as a fearful person does. That is His words, “So he left there, fearful and vigilant” [28:21]. In the end he wept to God and complained of his burning liver. He said, “My Lord, deliver me from the wrongdoing people” [28:21]. The Lord of the Worlds answered his supplication and kept him safe from the enemy. Tranquility came down into his heart and took up residence. It was said to his secret core, “Have no fear and no sorrow. The Lord who kept you under His protection and guarding and did not give you over to the enemy when you were an infant in Pharaoh’s chamber and you were slapping his face will today also keep you in His protection and not give you over to the enemy.”

Then he set off in the desert all at once, not aiming for Midian. The Exalted Lord threw him to Midian for the sake of a secret that He had prepared there. Shuʿayb was God’s prophet and dwelled in Midian. He was a worshipful man, overcome by fear. In the moments of his seclusion he wept so much that he lost his eyesight from weeping, but the Exalted Lord gave him back his eyesight through a miracle. He still kept on weeping until he became blind again and the Exalted Lord again gave him eyesight. For the second time, for the third time, he kept on weeping until he lost his eyesight. Revelation came to him, “Why are you weeping so much, O Shuʿayb? If you fear hell, I have made you secure from hell, and if you hope for paradise, I have permitted that to you.”

Shuʿayb said, “No, O Lord, but in yearning for You. I am not weeping in fear of hell or in hope of paradise, but I am burning in my wish for the Possessor of Majesty.”

God revealed to him, “Because of this, I will put My prophet and speaking companion in your service for ten years.”

When he turned his face toward Midian. In his person Moses went to Midian and fell into the service of Shuʿayb. In his heart he went toward the Real and fell into prophethood and messengerhood. He said, “Perhaps my Lord will guide me on the even way.” In terms of allusion in the tongue of unveiling, the even way is the perseverance of the soul in service and the resting of the soul in straightness. Until the man traveling the road traverses the road’s way stations, he will not reach the top of tawḥīd’s street.

At the beginning of the work when Abraham was brought to the threshold, he was sent to the street of the star until he said, “This is my Lord” [6:76]. Then he left the street of the star and entered the street of the moon. He left the street of the moon and entered the street of the sun. He saw that every street had a defect. In the street of the star he saw the blight of change. In the street of the moon he saw the fault of transition. In the street of the sun he saw the defect of disappearance. He came to know that this is not the highway of straightness nor the top of tawḥīd’s street. All the roads were blocked for him. He stood with the feet of reflection at the top of bewilderment’s street, bewildered, languishing, seeking the Friend. Anyone who saw him would have said that he was captive to the dust at the top of friendship’s street.

The dust at the top of the Friend’s street has become jasmine—

everyone who passes by that dust becomes like me.

When Abraham saw that all the roads were blocked, he knew that the Presence is one. He cried out, “Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth” [6:79]. The manly man is not he who rides on the highway when the road is open. The man is he who goes in the darkness of night on a narrow road without a guide to the top of the Friend’s street.

28:23 When he entered upon the water of Midian.

He entered the water of Midian with his outwardness, and he entered the influxes of intimacy with his heart. The influxes of intimacy are the courtyards of tawḥīd. When the servant enters the courtyards of tawḥīd, the lights of contemplation are unveiled for him and he becomes absent from his senses in his soul. Rulership then belongs to God alone, for there is no soul, no sense perception, no heart, no intimacy. This is dissolution in the self-sufficiency and total annihilation.^{1Derived from LI 5:62.}

When the servant reaches the courtyards of tawḥīd, he is drowned in the light of contemplation, absent from himself, and present with the Real. Seeking ceases to be in the Found, recognition ceases to be in the Recognized, and seeing ceases to be in the Seen—attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, limits come to nothing, allusions and expressions negated. When rain arrives at the ocean, it arrives. Stars disappear in daytime. He who arrives at the Patron arrives at himself.^{2This paragraph is derived largely from Anṣārī’s discussion of annihilation and subsistence in Ṣad maydān, nos. 99-100 (332-33).}

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O Found and Findable! What mark is given of a drunkard but selflessness? Everyone’s tribulation is because of distance, but this poor wretch’s because of nearness. Everyone is thirsty from not finding water, but I from being quenched.

“O God, all friendship is between two, with no room for a third. In this friendship, all is You, with no room for me. If this work is from my side, I have nothing to do with it. If it is from Your side, all is You. What business have I to meddle and make claims?”

28:56 Surely thou dost not guide whom thou lovest, but God guides whomsoever He will.

“O Muḥammad, guidance is one of the characteristics of lordhood, so it is not proper for anyone described by mortal nature.”^{1LI 5:73, with much of the rest of this paragraph being a translation of Qushayrī’s comments.}

Giving the success of felicity and the realization of guidance is a characteristic of lordhood. Human nature has no access to it, and no one is suited for this attribute other than the majestic Unity. “O Muḥammad, you have the eminence of prophethood, the rank of messengerhood, the beauty of mediation, the praiseworthy station [17:79], and the Visited Pool.^{2The Visited Pool (al-ḥawḍ al-mawrūd) is the pool of the Prophet in the next world, to which he refers in the following hadith, which Maybudī cites under 42:1 (KA 9:15): “My pool extends from Adan to Amman. Its wine is more intensely white than milk and sweeter than honey. Anyone who takes one drink of it will never thirst again. The first to enter it will be the destitute among the Emigrants.”} You are the Seal of the Prophets, the master of the messengers, the interceder for the sinners, and the candle of earth and heaven. The reins of your steed have passed beyond the heavens, and the courtyard of the Splendorous Throne was made the place for the soles of your feet. But guiding the servants and showing them the road to faith is not your work, nor is it in your hands. Surely thou dost not guide whom thou lovest. We drive those We want into the desert of bewilderment and We drag those We want by the chain of severity. In the beginninglessness beginning and in what preceded all precedents, We placed the crown of felicity on the heads of the folk of good fortune, and We beat this drum: ‘These are in the Garden, and I don’t care.’ We wrote the inscription of wretchedness on the foreheads of another group, and We struck this knocker: ‘These are in the Fire, and I don’t care.’”

O chevalier, no attribute of God inflicts more pain than the attribute of “I don’t care.” When the Prophet said, “Would that Muḥammad’s Lord had not created Muḥammad,” he was wailing in fear of these words. What was said by Abū Bakr—“Would that I were a tree to be lopped”—is the pain of this talk.

Beautiful words were spoken by the Pir of the Tariqah: “What does the work is not that someone has indolence and someone else has deeds. What does the work is that someone is unworthy in the Beginningless. The greatest of the abandoned ones, called Iblis, was busy in the workshop of deeds for many years. The folk of the Dominion were all beating the drum of his good fortune. They did not know that a garment of a different color had been woven for him in the workshop of the Beginningless. In the workshop of his deeds they saw scissors and silk, but from the workshop of the Beginningless appeared a black kilim: ‘And he was one of the unbelievers’ [2:34].”

28:83 That is the abode of the next world—We appoint it for those who do not desire elevation in the earth, nor corruption.

Tomorrow in the house of the afterworld, those residing in the seat of truthfulness [54:55] and those in proximity with the All-Compelling Presence will be a group who in this world did not seek to be higher and greater than others. Here they considered themselves lesser and smaller than others and never looked upon themselves with the eye of approval. Thus that chevalier of the Tariqah was returning from the halting place of Arafat. It was said to him, “How did you see the folk of the standing place?”

He replied, “I saw a people whom I would have hoped, had it not been for the fact that I was among them, God would forgive.”

O chevalier! Do not look at yourself with the eye of approval! Do not go into the road of “I,” for no one has ever seen any benefit from I-ness. What happened to Iblis happened because of I-ness, for he said, “I am better” [38:76].

One of the great ones of the religion saw Iblis. He said, “Give me some advice.”

He said, “Do not say I, lest you become like me.”

This indeed is the road of the wayfarers on the Tariqah and the chevaliers of the Haqiqah. Nonetheless, it is not permissible to throw away I-ness in the road of the Shariah, because things in the Shariah have been turned over to you, and that continues.

Shaykh Abū ʿAbdallāh Khafīf said, “Throwing away I-ness in the Shariah is heresy, and affirming I-ness in the Haqiqah is associationism. When you are in the station of the Shariah, say I. When you are on the road of the Haqiqah, say He. Indeed, all is He. The Shariah is the acts, the Haqiqah the states. The acts abide through you, the states are arranged by Him.”

28:85 He who made the Qur’an obligatory upon thee shall restore thee to a place of return.

Outwardly, the place of return is Mecca. The Prophet often used to say, “The homeland! The homeland!” and God made his request into reality. In secret and allusion, however, the meaning is this: “He appointed for you the attributes of dispersion so that you may convey the message and spread the Shariah. He will restore you to togetherness through your realization of annihilation from creation.”^{1This paragraph is from LI 5:83-84.}

As long as Muṣṭafā was busy conveying the message, spreading the Shariah, and laying down the foundations of the religion, he was in the station of dispersion for the sake of the people’s salvation. With this verse, he was taken from the narrow pass of dispersion to the vast plain of togetherness, the drinking place of His elect. Thus he said, “No one embraces me in my present moment save my Lord.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “When someone’s togetherness is sound, dispersion will not harm him. When someone’s lineage is sound, recalcitrance will not cut it off. Speaking of togetherness is not the work of the tongue, and expressing its reality is calumny. How can the one destroyed by the ocean of trial explain? What mark has he who has drowned in annihilation itself? This is the talk of the heart’s resurrection and the spirit’s plundering. With the onslaught of union, what can be done by heart and eyes? When someone is bewildered in the breeze of his own union, his spirit has long been in hock to beginningless love. May he be lost-hearted, for he is wailing in the tracks of the heart! May he be lost-spirited, for he regrets traveling to the Friend!”

28:88 Everything is perishing but His face; to Him belongs the decree, and to Him you will be returned.

Whatever was not, then came to be, is under the sway of disappearance and the blow of annihilation. Yesterday it was not and tomorrow it will not be. But in the Essence and attributes of self-sufficiency the Unity’s majesty subsists and lasts. He is alive before all the living, the Lord of life and the living, inheritor of the world and the world’s folk, subsistent after the world’s folk and the world—the return of everything and all creatures is to Him everlastingly.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, O knower of everything, maker of every work, and keeper of all, no one is Your partner and none are without need for You. You throw down the work with wisdom, you act with gentleness. There is neither injustice nor games. O God, the servant knows nothing of the whyness of Your work, and no one rules over You. You have made the suitable things and have wanted the riches. Not from anyone to You, not from You to anyone—all is from You in You, all is You, and that’s it.”

“Is not everything but God unreal?” God, and that’s it—attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, creatures negated, and the one Real subsisting in His rightful due.^{1This last sentence is derived from Ṣad maydān, no. 100 (333).}