3:6 He it is who forms you in the wombs as He wills.

Talk of this has two sides: the affirmation of the form of the Creator, and the explication of His power over creatures and favor toward them through predetermination and form-giving.

As for affirming the form of the Creator, in a sound report Muṣṭafā said, “God created Adam in His form, and his height was sixty cubits.” It has also been narrated as, “in the form of His face.”

The folk of interpretation—the foundation of whose religion is adulteration, interpretation, and negation—have turned the referent of the pronoun away from the Real and rejected the outwardness. The folk of the Sunnah—the foundation of whose religion is hearing, accepting, and surrendering—have left aside interpretation and gone by the outwardness. They say that in this report the pronoun refers to God, that investigation, reflection, and interpretation are not allowed, and that fancying similarity is an error, for the Real is without peer in all attributes.

Concerning vision there are many reports that the Real has a shining face and form. Ibn ʿAbbās narrates that Muṣṭafā said, “I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form.” In the narrative of Abū Umāma Bāhilī, Muṣṭafā said, “My Lord was shown to me in the most beautiful form. He said, ‘O Muḥammad!’ I said, ‘Here I am, obeying Thee.’ About what are the Higher Plenum disputing?” This report is a long one and will be discussed in its place, God willing.

The narrative of Jābir ibn Samura is this: “Surely God disclosed Himself to me in the most beautiful form.”

The narrative of Anas is this: “My Lord came to me in the most beautiful form.” Anas also said, “Among the favors God will bestow on Adam on the Day of Resurrection is that He will say, ‘Did I not bestow upon you My form?”

Ibn ʿAbbās said, “Moses was angry with the Children of Israel, so when he came down with interdiction, he said to them, ‘Drink this, you donkeys!’ God said to him, ‘Do you liken creatures whom I created in My form to donkeys?’”

It is well known that in the reports of the resurrection Muṣṭafā said, “God will come to them in other than the form in which they recognize Him. He will say, ‘I am your Lord,’ and they will say, ‘Our Lord,’ and follow Him.”

ʿIkrima narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, “The form is the head, so when you cut it off, there is no form.”

For the lords of the heart these reports are a clear explication and truthful proof that the Creator has a form. Their circumspect and followed expression is to say, “He has a form,” or to say, “He is the possessor of a form.” We do not say that He is “formed,” for the imams of the past never said that, nor did they approve of it. Rather, they say that He has a form and a face, but that the exaltedness of His majesty keeps the knowledge of this to Him, so creatures are incapable of perceiving its “how” and its core. Just as He Himself does not resemble creatures, so also His form does not resemble the form and face of the creatures. The creatures’ form falls apart, comes to nothing, and is annihilated, but the Lord’s form has majesty and generous giving, the glories of light, and shining flashes of lightning. If the veil were to be lifted away from it, heaven and earth would burn and fall apart because of the glories, the brightness, and the shining. This is in the report: “Were [the veils] to be removed, the glories of His face would burn away everything perceived by eyesight.”

Were You to glance once as You are,

no idol would remain, no idol-worshiper, no sprite.

As for talk in terms of form-giving, it is that the Lord of the Worlds laid a favor on the Adamites with the perfect form and beautiful face that He gave them. He says, “And He formed you, so He made your forms beautiful” [40:64]. In another place He says, “We created man in the most beautiful stature” [95:4]. This is a favor specific to the Adamites among all the animals. He did not give this rank to anyone else, nor did He convey any others to this situation, not even the proximate angels.

In the traditions it has come, “How wonderful! He created an angel by the name of Gabriel and gave him six hundred peacock wings studded with jewels and bells of gold stuffed with fragrant musk. When He flaps his wings, each bell gives forth a sweet sound, a tune that resembles no other. Every time another angel, Seraphiel—whose shoulders are the base for one pillar of the Throne—begins glorification, all the angels of heaven fall silent. Even beyond this is the Tremendous Throne, upon whom is sitting the God of the universe. It has battlements that do not enter into Adamic imagination, their measure known to one. Next to the light of the Throne the light of the sun disappears and is nothing. He created all these creature with these attributes, but He said nothing about giving them beautiful forms or creating them beautifully except in the case of the Adamites, whom He pulled up from dark dust and conveyed to such a rank that He sometimes praises Himself for their creation and sometimes them. Concerning Himself He says, ‘So blessed is God, the most beautiful of creators!’ [23:14]. Concerning them He says, ‘Those—they are the rightly guided’ [49:7]; ‘Those are the best of the creatures’ [98:7]. Glory be to Him! Glory be to Him! It is this that is the great bounty [35:32] and the great triumph [85:11]. God says, ‘As a bounty from God and a blessing, and God is knowing, wise’ [49:8].”

3:7 He it is who has sent down upon thee the Book, wherein are firm verses, which are the mother of the Book, and others ambiguous.

He is neither a name nor an attribute. Rather, it is an allusion to being. It means that our Lord is, He is fitting to be, and He has been—beyond location and transcendent in attributes. Shurayḥ ʿĀbid said, “I saw a dervish in the mosque of the Sanctuary calling upon God by saying, ‘O He who is He! O He other than whom there is no he! Forgive me.’ A voice came from the Unseen: ‘O dervish, you received so much reward for saying that the first time that the angels will be writing it out until the resurrection.’”

Huwa is two letters, h and w. The place of articulation of h is the last part of the throat, and the place of articulation of the w is the first part of the throat. This alludes to the fact that the letters begin from Him at first and return to Him at last. From Him they begin and to Him they return. It has also been said it alludes to the created things and engendered beings: all things come in the beginning from His power and return in the end by His decree.

A dervish in the state of rapture was asked, “What is your name?” He answered, “He.” They said, “Where have you come from?” He said, “He.” They said, “What do you want?” He said, “He.” They said, “Perhaps you mean ‘God’.” When the dervish heard the name God, he gave his spirit to the name and left this world.

The painters depict Your name in a hundred meanings;

remembering You and Your name they give up their spirits.

They scatter their lives for the scent of union with You

with nothing in hand of Your description but incapacity.

Wherein are firm verses, which are the mother of the Book, and others ambiguous. These are the two great divisions of the Qur’an, one apparent and clear, the other abstruse and difficult. The apparent belongs to the majesty of the Shariah, and the difficult belongs to the beauty of the Haqiqah. The apparent is so the common people may reach joy and blessings by perceiving it and putting it into practice. The difficult is so the elect may reach the mystery of the Beneficent by surrendering and attesting to it.

From the place of blessings and joy to the place of intimacy and mystery are numerous ups and downs. Given the exaltedness of this state and the eminence of this work, He did not lift up the curtain of abstruseness and ambiguity, lest any of the non-privy walk into this street, for not everyone is worthy to know the secrets of kings.

Go, don’t wander round the pavilion of secrets!

Why try? You’re no man for this battle.

It needs a man cut off from both worlds

to drink down the dregs of the friends’ draft.

3:8 Our Lord, let not our hearts stray after Thou hast guided us, and give us mercy from Thee.

When they were truthful in the beauty of asking for help, He assisted them with the lights of sufficiency.^{1LI 1:233.}

When the heart is limpid, the present moment empty, and the tongue flowing with the Real’s remembrance, the arrow of supplication inevitably reaches the target of response. But the work is in this: When will this limpidness, loyalty, and supplication come together and how will they join with each other?

The meaning of this supplication is this: “O God, keep our hearts far from confusion and straying and make us firm on the carpet of service with the stipulation of the Sunnah.”

And give us mercy from Thee: And give what you give, O Lord, as Your bounty and mercy, not as the recompense for our works or the compensation for our acts of obedience! Our acts of obedience are not worthy for the Presence of Your Majesty, so the only thing to do is to efface them and ignore them.

One of the pirs of the Tariqah said, “The gall-bladders of the travelers and the obedient servants burst in fear at the verse: ‘We shall advance upon what deeds they have done and make them scattered dust’ [25:23]. But, of all the Qur’an’s verses, I find this the sweetest.”

He was asked, “What does it mean?”

He said, “We will finally be released from these displeasing deeds and unworthy acts of obedience and attach our hearts totally to His bounty and mercy.”

3:10 As for the unbelievers, their possessions will not take away their need for God, neither their children, and it is they who will be fuel for the Fire.

What a majestic God, generous, lovingly kind, who promises the faithful in the midst of warning the unbelievers and who caresses these while blaming those! He is saying, “Tomorrow at the resurrection possessions and children will be useless to the unbelievers and will not profit them.” In other words, they will be useful to the faithful whenever they have carried out what is rightfully due to them, making them the snare of their own religion and seeking through them their endless felicity.

Muṣṭafā said, “How excellent are wholesome possessions for the wholesome man! What excellent assistance are possessions for being wary of God!” This is just what the Lord of the Worlds says: “And, with what God has given thee, follow after the Last Abode” [28:77]. He is saying, “In that of this world which He has given you, bring the next world to hand! Seek the felicity of the next world!” The felicity of the next world lies in recognition of God. Recognition comes from the light of the heart. The light of the heart comes from the lamp of tawḥīd, and the root of this lamp is the divine bestowal. As for its material, that comes from the deeds and obedient acts of the body. Obedient acts come from the strength of the soul, and the soul’s strength comes from food, drink, and clothing. Food, drink, and clothing are nothing but possessions. Hence possessions, by this series of steps, are the cause of endless felicity. But, one must not pass beyond the measure of sufficiency, for then these will become the cause of rebellion, just as He says: “No indeed; surely man is rebellious because he sees himself without needs” [96:6-7]. This is why God’s Messenger supplicated, “Lord God, make the food of Muhammad’s family in the measure of sufficiency!” When the measure of sufficiency is for the leisure to worship, then it itself is nothing but worship, for it is the supplies for the road, and the road supplies are also part of the road.

Shaykh Abu’l-Qāsim Kurragānī had a lawful landed estate from which he received his sufficiency. One day they brought him the grain from the estate. He took a handful and said, “I would not exchange this for the trust of all those who trust in God.” No one will know the secret of this except him who is occupied with watchfulness over the heart and knows to what extent the leisure of sufficiency helps in going forth on the road.

As for the unbelievers, their possessions will not take away their need for God. If the unbelievers had all the storehouses of the earth and all its buried wealth and if they sacrificed all of it for their own bodies to buy themselves back and be released from God’s chastisement, that would not be accepted from them; their expenditure of possessions would have no profit for them and would be useless—whether it was for giving comfort to the poor or for the welfare of all the people. This is because worship by possessions stands in the third rank among the levels of obedience. First is limpid belief, then bodily worship, then worship by possessions. But the unbelievers have neither belief nor bodily worship, so worship by possessions will be useless and without profit for them.

Again, the faithful servant has a believing heart, a tongue voicing tawhīd, and worshipful limbs. So, if on top of belief in the heart, remembrance on the tongue, and worship of the limbs he should give charity, or he should do good deeds in some respect, then, even if there is some doubt in these, there is hope that, since the escort of belief is along with them, they will not be rejected.

What is more marvelous is that even if the limpidness of belief in the rulings of the roots of the Sunnah is not present in his deeds and nothing enters into his register, there is still hope of salvation, for Muṣṭafā reported that God says, “The prophets, the angels, and the faithful will have interceded [on the Day of Resurrection], and there will remain the Most Merciful of the Merciful.” Then he said, “So He will take a handful or two from the Fire and bring out many people who never did any good.”

3:14 Adorned for people is love of appetites, like women, children, heaped-up heaps of gold and silver, horses of mark, cattle, and tillage. That is the enjoyment of the life of this world.

The paragon of the world and master of the children of Adam, Muṣṭafā, reported that when the Eternal Enactor created paradise, He said to Gabriel, “‘O Gabriel! Go look at it.’ Go gaze on this paradise and see once what I have made and created for My servants and friends.” Gabriel went and saw those adorned paradises with their infinite joy and bliss, that place of revelry made and prepared in the neighborhood of God’s Presence for the exalted ones of the road and God’s friends.

When Gabriel came back he said, “Lord God, ‘By Thy exaltedness, no one will hear of it and not enter into it!’ By the exaltedness of Your Lordhood, no one will hear the attributes of this paradise without aiming for it and becoming obedient so that he may enter it.”

Then the Lord of the Worlds surrounded paradise with all the hardship and suffering of unworthy things and unreached desires, and He made its road a bridge of trial so that everyone who aims for the Patron must first pass over that bridge of trial.

Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “How should I have known that suffering is the mother of happiness and that beneath one disappointment lie a thousand treasures? How should I have known which gate this is or what is the answer to the story of friendship? How should I have known that companionship with You is the greatest Resurrection and that the exaltation of union with You lies in the abasement of bewilderment?”

O spirit of the world! The Kaabah is a sweet place, the nest of God’s friends and the lodging place of the sincerely truthful, but there is a man-eating desert before it, mile after mile and way station after way station. Who in the end will have the seeking to pass over all those miles and way stations until he reaches the magnificent Kaabah?

A world is wandering in the desert of Your love—

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

After He made the road of paradise that of unreached desires and disappointment, the command came, “O Gabriel: Look again. What do you see?” Gabriel saw that road full of danger, those mileposts of struggle, those way stations of discipline that He placed before the travelers to paradise. The Exalted Qur’an reports that if you do not pass by those mileposts of struggle, you will not gain access to His Presence: “Those who struggle in Us, We will guide them on Our paths” [29:69]. When Gabriel saw that, he said, “Lord God! I do not fancy that any one of them will enter paradise.”

Muṣṭafā said that the Lord of the Worlds then created hell with the fetters and chains, the tree of Zaqqūm, and the boiling water. He commanded Gabriel, “O Gabriel, go once into this prison to see the effect of My wrath and to know the attribute of My punishment.”

He said, “Lord God, ‘By Thy exaltedness, no one will hear of it and then enter into it!’ By Your exaltedness, O Lord, no one will hear the attributes of this hell and then do deeds through which he would enter hell.” Then the Lord of the Worlds surrounded hell with all the appetites of this world that are enumerated in this verse: women, children, heaped-up heaps of gold and silver, horses of mark, cattle, and tillage. He set up its road as the desires and caprice of the soul. Thus everyone who follows in the tracks of his own soul’s desire and caprice will in the end head for hell. When Gabriel saw that he said, “Lord God, I fear that none of them will remain without entering hell.”

Then Muṣṭafā reported about the road to both houses. He said, “The Garden is surrounded by disliked things and the Fire is surrounded by appetites.” Those who walk in the unwanted will step into paradise, and few they will be! Those who walk in appetite will step into hell, and how many they will be! The road of paradise has trials and ups and downs, and the road of hell is easy and does not weigh on souls. “Surely the deeds of the Garden are rough ground on a hill, and surely the deeds of the Fire are soft ground in a valley.”

3:15 Shall I tell you of something better than that? For those who are godwary there shall be with their Lord gardens beneath which rivers flow, therein dwelling forever, and spouses made pure, and approval from God.

After talking about the enemies, describing their life, and explaining their furthest goal, God in this verse comes back to the story of the friends. Tomorrow, the final outcome of those whose watchword today is godwariness will be paradise and approval. He says, “For those who are godwary there shall be with their Lord gardens.”

Just as godwariness has levels, so also paradise has degrees. The first degree is the Garden of the Shelter, and the first level of godwariness is to avoid the forbidden and the soul’s caprice. The Splendorous Qur’an ties the two together in its words, “As for him who fears the standing place before his Lord and prohibits the soul its caprice, surely the Garden shall be the shelter” [79:40-41].

The highest degree is the Garden of Eden, and better than the Garden of Eden is the Greatest Approval. So, the furthest goal of the paradise-dwellers is the Greatest Approval, just as the Lord of the Worlds says: “And goodly dwellings in the gardens of Eden; and approval from God is greatest” [9:72]

The Greatest Approval belongs to those who reach the utmost godwariness. The utmost godwariness is that someone takes whatever has the scar of new arrival and the mark of creation as his own enemy, as Abraham said: “Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds” [26:77]. You must turn away from all things and, with detached heart, busy yourself with the suffering of passion for the Haqiqah. You must know for certain that the intrusion of others finds no room in passion’s suffering. You must cut off your heart and spirit from everything.

The heart is Your garden—take it all, for this heart

has room either for my intrusion or Your image.

In gratitude I will also send my spirit to You—

a whiff of union with You does what a hundred spirits cannot.

Tomorrow, all will be taken to the furthest limit of their goals and aspirations. Here someone hopes for the Garden of the Refuge and is told, “Flee from the unlawful and be just, and that will not be held back from you.” Someone hopes for the Abode of Everlastingness and is told, “Avoid the doubtful and be a renunciant, and that will not be held back from you.” Someone else desires Firdaws and is told, “Keep back from the lawful and be a recognizer, and that will not be held back from you.”

A group remain who have no hopes and no desires. They desire what the Beloved desires and choose what the Beloved chooses. The paradises are presented to them, and the maidens and serving boys are made to sit on the turrets scattering precious gifts for them, but they are detached from it all and turn their faces away. They say, “If we must give our heart to someone, well, let us give it to someone who will enslave it.”

Suddenly I gave my heart to the one with the tulip face.

She was worthy of my heart—that’s why I gave it.

Let me now speak of the Greatest Approval and finish with that. It is narrated from Anas ibn Mālik that he said one day God’s Messenger kept them waiting. When he came out, they asked him what had held him back. He said, “That was because Gabriel came to me holding in his hand something like a mirror with a black spot. He said, ‘This is Friday, within which there is an hour of good for you and your community. The Jews and the Christians desired it, but they missed its mark.’

“I said, ‘O Gabriel! What is this black spot?’

“He said, ‘It is an hour of Friday with which no Muslim will keep company asking for good from God without God’s giving it to him, or storing away the like of it for him for the Day of Resurrection, or averting from him its like in ugliness. It is the best of days with God, and the folk of the Garden call it “the Day of Increase.”’

“I said, ‘O Gabriel, and what is this Day of Increase?’

“He said, ‘Surely there is in the Garden a valley in which flows white musk. Every Friday God descends into it and sets up His Footstool. Then pulpits of light are brought and placed behind it and surrounded by the angels. Then footstools of gold are brought and put there. Then the prophets, the sincerely truthful, the witnesses, and the faithful, who are the folk of the chambers, are brought and they sit. Then God smiles and says, “O My servants, ask of Me!” They will say, “We ask You for Your approval. He will say, “I have approved of you.”’”

3:17 The patient, the truthful, the devoted, the expenders, those who ask forgiveness at dawn.

The patient, that is, with their hearts, the truthful with their spirits, the devoted with their souls, the expenders of what they are able, those who ask forgiveness with their tongues.^{1This sentence is derived from LI 1:236-37, as is the first sentence explaining each attribute individually in what follows.} The chevaliers are those whose speaking is this and whose doing is this. In the heart they are patient with the Real’s command, in the spirit they walk straight in the Real’s covenant, in the body they observe the rightful due of the Real’s command, with wealth they spend in the Real’s road, with tongue they ask forgiveness and seek from the Real’s generosity.

The patient: That is, they are patient in trial and they reject complaint until they reach the Patron, nothing of this world or the afterworld holding them back. They are patient in every trial and put aside complaint. They turn their faces away from both this world and the afterworld until they reach the Patron.

The truthful: That is, they speak the truth in seeking, so they aim straight, then they speak the truth until they witness. They speak truthfully and begin traveling. They travel truthfully to reach the domicile. They think truthfully to reach the destination. Then they put aside the marks bearing witness to truthfulness and throw themselves into the ocean to reach the shore of security and the seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].

The devoted: That is, in clinging to the door, drinking down sorrow, leaving aside loved ones, and rejecting companions until they realize proximity. They put on the clothing of poverty and hold up the hands of need at the door of the house of generosity: “Until You open, we will not leave, and until You caress, we will not go away.” Sometimes they are in prostration, sometimes standing, sometimes in fear, sometimes in hope. From the Exalted Presence comes this caress: “The field of friendship’s road is solitariness, and the drinker of its wine is promised vision. Whoever is truthful will one day reach his desire.”

Some day good fortune will enter my door,

some day the sun of elation will rise,

Some day You will cast a glance at me,

some day this sorrow of mine will end.

The expenders: That is, they are munificent with their property to the extent they are able, then with their souls in respect of deeds, then with their hearts through truthfulness of states. Sometimes they expend possessions, sometimes states, sometimes the body, sometimes the spirit: possessions in the path of the Friend, states in the work of the Friend, the body in search of the Friend, the spirit in seeing the Friend.

Whatever we have, we spend it for You.

Our ears are for listening to Your words,

Our eyes for gazing on Your great beauty,

our spirit, heart, and religion for seeing You.

Those who ask forgiveness at dawn. That is, they ask forgiveness for all of that when they reach sobriety at the manifestation of the glow from the heart’s dawn, not from the dawn that appears in the regions. As long as they are traveling, this is their quality and attribute, their description and conduct. Then when attraction arrives and the morning of oneness dawns from the horizon of Self-disclosure, they ask forgiveness for the marks bearing witness to their fear and hope, their truthfulness and patience. This is why Muṣṭafā said, “My heart becomes clouded and I ask forgiveness from God seventy times a day.” He passes beyond recognition and reaches the Recognized, he goes beyond friendship and sees the Friend. The way station of the friends is friendship, and the Friend is their homeland. Take your ease in the Recognized, not in the recognition! This is why the Exalted Lord said, “Surely the final end is unto thy Lord” [53:42].

Alluding to all of these meanings Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, “Where do I find a sign of new arrival in Your beginningless eternity? When the flood reaches the ocean, what then is known of the flood? All beings are nonbeing in the Self-Standing First.

“O resurrection of the marks bearing witness and destruction of the traces! The recognizer is alive through his own nonbeing. O Splendorous and Self-Standing, the world is full of day, and the blind man is deprived. You became manifest, I became talk, and no talk remained. You appeared, I became eye, and no eye remained.”

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.

3:18 God bears witness that there is no god but He—and the angels, and the possessors of knowledge—upholding justice; there is no god but He, the Exalted, the Wise.

The Real bears witness to the Real that He is the Real. He Himself praised Himself and He Himself gave witness to Himself concerning His attributes as is worthy of Himself. In His speech He reported of His existence, His self-sufficiency, His self-standingness, and His self-lastingness. He bore witness to the majesty of His measure and the perfection of His exaltedness while there was no refusal, no ignorance, no recognition by any created thing, no intellect, no conformity, no hypocrisy, no new arrival, no heaven, no space, no shadows, no brightness.^{1This sentence and some of what came before are derived from LI 1:238.}

There was no universe and no Adam, no air and no space, no land and no sea, no light and no darkness, no understanding and no virtue, no conformity and no hypocrisy when the Lord of the Worlds spoke in the majesty of His measure and the perfection of His exaltedness, giving witness to His oneness and peerlessness and reporting of His attributes and Essence. Today He is exactly what He was and will be forever. It has never been that He was not, and it will never be that He will not be. He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. He is the First who always is and who knows the beings and nonbeings. He is the Last who always will be, and He will know what He knew. He is the Outward through His enactorship, dominating over everyone through His all-compellingness and above everything through His greatness. He is too inward for the perception of how, outside the reasoning of imaginations, and pure of supposition, fancy, and being thus.

In Your subtle Essence thoughts are bewildered,

in Your eternal knowledge hidden things appear.

And the angels, and the possessors of knowledge. Great is the eminence of the angels, the prophets, and the knowers, and magnificent the result of their work, that God should join their bearing witness to His bearing witness! This is not because His bearing witness to His unity needs to be joined with bearing witness by created things. No, no, for it is His exaltedness that recognizes Him and His exaltedness that knows His unity. There cannot be joining from something that was not, then came to be. There is no tawḥīd-voicer that perceives His unity, nor any attester that perceives His being. Heaven and the heaven-dwellers, earth and the earth-dwellers, do not perceive the permanence of His kingdom. This world and the next, paradise and hell, do not perceive the perfection of His divinity. It is His exaltedness that perceives His magnificence and His exaltedness that knows His unity.

Her own face has itself as a moon,

her own eye has itself as collyrium.

*

Who knows You? It is You who know You, You.

No one knows You—You alone know You.

Yes, it was He who wanted and brought about the felicity of the angels, the prophets, and the knowers, bestowing eminence and honor on them, and singling them out from the creatures, caressing them and giving them access to recognizing Him. And God singles out for His mercy whomsoever He will [2:105].

3:19 Surely the religion with God is the submission.

The approved religion—by which people look up to God in servanthood, worship Him according to His decree, seek for His approval, and go back to Him—is the religion of the submission. The submission has three way stations.

The first way station is the acknowledgment that spares blood and wealth: the person’s neck is safe from the sword and his wealth is left with him, whether he is a conformer or a hypocrite, a follower or an innovator.

The next way station is the acknowledgment that is right belief, following the Sunnah, and the loyalty of deeds.

The third way station of submission is surrender, which is the utmost end of the work. It is pleasing to God and is the refuge of recognition. It is to throw oneself on the Real’s exalted threshold and follow Him, approving of His decree, not protesting against it or turning away from it, and having reverence and respect for it. What Abraham asked for himself and Ishmael in his supplication—that they be submitters—is the utmost end of this third way station: “Our Lord, make us submitters to Thee!” [2:128]. This is the same as when it was said to him, “Submit!,” he said, “I submit to the Lord of the worlds” [2:131]. It is also alluded to in His words telling about Joseph: “Receive me as a submitter and join me with the wholesome” [12:101].

3:28 Let not the faithful take the disbelievers as friends instead of the faithful…. And God warns you of Himself, and God is clement to the servants.

The reality of the servant’s faith and the final goal of his traveling on the path of tawḥīd takes him back to God’s friendship. The reality of friendship is conformity, that is, being a friend of His friend and an enemy of His enemy. The master of the Shariah alluded to this with his words, “The most reliable handhold of faith is love in God and hate in God.”

The traditions say that the Lord of the Worlds sent a revelation to one of the former prophets: “Say to the servants, ‘In this world you have taken up renunciation in order to hurry to your own comfort and be relieved of this world’s suffering. With your obedience and worship you have sought your own exaltation and your own good name. Now look: What have you done for Me? Have you ever loved My friends? Have you ever taken My enemies as your enemies?”

This is exactly what He said to Jesus: “O Jesus, if the worship of all the inhabitants of heaven and earth accompanies you in the path of the religion, but you have no love for My friends and no enmity for My enemies, then your worship has been useless and without profit.”

It is reported that Abū Idrīs Khawlānī said to Muʿādh, “I love you in the path of God.”

Muʿādh said, “Let it be good news! I heard God’s Messenger say that on the Day of Resurrection, God will place seats around the Splendorous Throne for a group whose faces will be like the full moon. Everyone will be fearful because of the awe of the resurrection, but they will be secure. Everyone will be in dread, but they will be still. It was said, ‘O Messenger of God! Which group is this?’

“He said, ‘Those who love each other in God.’”

It has also been related that God says, “I have obligated My love on those who love each other in Me, sit with each other in Me, visit each other in Me, and spend freely on each other in Me.”

Mujāhid said, “When God’s friends smile in each other’s faces, their sins fall away like leaves from a tree. They will reach God pure, and He will take them into His shelter and security at the resurrection.”

The great ones of the religion have said that if someone is not on guard today, tomorrow he will not reach this security. For, inevitably, security comes after being on guard. The servant’s being on guard is the fruit of the Real’s warning, of which He spoke in two places: “God warns you of Himself” [3:28, 3:30]. This is not addressed at the generality of the faithful, but rather at the elect among the folk of recognition. He makes them fear Him Himself, without bringing an intermediary into the midst. Elsewhere when He addresses the generality of the faithful He says, “Be wary of the Fire” [3:131] and “Be wary of a day when you will be returned to God” [2:281]. Anyone who possesses insight knows what a difference there is between these two modes of address.

3:30 On the day when every soul shall find the good it has done made present, and the ugly it has done. It will wish that there were a far interval between itself and that. God warns you of Himself, and God is clement to the servants.

He said this here so that the servant would fall into changing states—sometimes fear, sometimes hope; sometimes contraction, sometimes expansion; sometimes harshness, sometimes generosity. The severity and harshness of God warns you about Himself throws the servant into confoundedness and bewilderment and he becomes selfless of self. Then He caresses: “And God is clement to the servants.” He sits him on the ship of gentleness and takes him from the whirlpool of confoundedness to the shore of intimacy. One of the pirs among the great ones of the religion said, “I wonder if I will ever escape the whirlpool of self in the ship of deliverance. Will the hand of compassion ever take my hand among the waves of wishes? Will the proof of unity ever lift the veil of dispersion from before my eyes? Will this heart ever come to rest in this body?”

In the road of avarice the purses of a hundred thousand merchants

have been emptied of pure gold in search of this alchemy. [DS 210]

3:31 Say: If you love God, follow me; God will love you and forgive you your sins.

In terms of the Haqiqah this verse has another intimation and another taste. He is saying: “Whoever has fervor in his breast because of these words, say to him: ‘Come out in my tracks, for all the work has been made ready in my footsteps. Do not bind your heart to intellect, for intellect is a watchman, not a leader to whom the reins should be given. It is not a road that you should set out in. Do not seek what you are seeking from intellect, seek it from prophethood. Intellect carries the saddle-cloth of the religion’s ruling. The exalted magnificence of the religion does not fit into the scales of intellect, nor does it come under the confines of substance and accident.’”

Our religion is the same as the religion of the 124,000 prophets and messengers. The testimony of the Qur’an contains these words, for He says, “He has set down for you as the religion that with which He counseled Noah” and so on [42:13].

That which holds up the level of our religion is two things: “God said” and “God’s Messenger said.” If everything that is the basis of the religion of the innovators—the substances, accidents, and specific differences of the Kalam experts and the determinations of their intellects—suddenly ceased to be in creation, came to nothing, and entered into the concealment of nonexistence, not an iota of deficiency would reach the threshold of the religion’s exaltedness or the gate of the Sunnah’s tremendousness. By the decree of good fortune this address has come from the Exalted Lord to the folk of the Sunnah: “Today I have perfected your religion for you and I have completed My blessings upon you” [5:3]. Here there is no room for the Kalam of the theologians and the meddling of the philosophizers, nor for their explanations of substance and accident.

The path of Kalam is the path of shadows,

and the worst shadows are the shadows of Kalam.

You should take the road of the folk of Hadith—

it is enough to have Muṣṭafā as imam.

Put away confusion, for this is “the religion of old women.”

You should have that, and the religion of servants.

Say: If you love God, follow me. “Many thousands of years before the existence of the world and of Adam’s dust, We gathered together the spirits of the creatures and made a covenant with the spirits of the prophets and messengers: ‘Say: If you love God, follow me.’ Whoever wants to serve the threshold of that chieftain of the empire and that center point of good fortune, from now on let him tighten his belt in serving him and assent to be his helper. This is why the Lord of the worlds recounted from them, ‘They said, “We assent.” He said, “So bear witness”’ [3:81]. Then We took them all at once to the concealment of nonexistence. We took a few breaths in the playing field of power and decree, and one by one We gave them entrance into this world. Adam came and went, Abraham came and went, Moses came and went, Jesus came and went. In the same way, many thousands of prophets entered the dust. Then We called out, ‘O Muḥammad! Now the playing field is empty, and the moment is yours.’”

That master took a step into the empire, and fourteen battlements fell from the castle of Caesar. In the Kaabah there were 360 idols and all of them fell on their faces. From the four corners of the world the call arose, “The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished away” [17:81]. The pearl of prophethood settled down on the carpet of exaltedness and the pavilion of messengerhood was pitched on the face of the earth, its ropes reaching from the east to the west of the world. The mask was lifted from the face of beauty, and because of the scattering of sweet words the world was filled with pearls and gems and adorned and trimmed with the noble character traits of the noble. Thus he said, “I was sent out with the all-comprehensive words to complete the noble character traits.”

As soon as he lifted the mask from the face of his sanctified spirit,

every possessor of eyes detached spirit from heart.

In the whole ocean of love he saw no one’s mark—

he opened one shell, and the ocean was filled with pearls.

Say: If you love God. The beginning of this verse goes back to what the Folk of the Tariqah call togetherness and dispersion. You love God is dispersion, and God will love you is togetherness. You love God is to serve the Shariah, and God will love you is the generosity of the Haqiqah.

Service on the part of the servant rises up to God. To this alludes the verse, “To Him ascend the goodly words” [35:10]. Generosity on the part of God comes down to the servant. To this alludes the verse, “We placed a tie on their hearts” [18:14].

Whatever comes from the servant is dispersion—defective in motive and joined with scatteredness. Whatever comes from God is togetherness—pure of motive and free of every fault.

In the meaning of togetherness and dispersion, this verse is like the verse in which the Lord of the Worlds says, “When Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him” [7:143]. Moses came is the same as dispersion, and His Lord spoke to him is the same as togetherness.

Dispersion is the attribute of the folk of variegation, and togetherness is the attribute of the folk of stability.

Moses was in the station of variegation. Do you not see that when God spoke to him, he went from state to state, changed, and was variegated? For no one could gaze on His face.

Muṣṭafā was one of the folk of stability and stood in togetherness itself. At the time of vision and conversation, he remained in the state of resoluteness and stability, not one hair of his body changing. The fruit of Moses’ path in dispersion was this: “And We brought him near as a confidant” [19:52]. The fruit of Muṣṭafā’s attraction in togetherness itself was this: “Then He drew close, so He came down” [53:8]. In other words, “The Compeller, the Exalted Lord, drew close, so He came down.” In such a way did the Messenger interpret it.

His words, “Follow me; God will love you”: What a great difference between these words of the Beloved [Muḥammad], and those of the Bosom Friend [Abraham]: “Whoso follows me belongs to me” [14:36]. Love and bosom friendship are as far apart as these two sayings. The Bosom Friend said, “Whoever follows in my tracks belongs to me.” The Beloved said, “Whoever follows in my tracks is God’s beloved.” There is no state higher than friendship, there are no days sweeter than the days of friendship.

Friendship has three way stations: caprice is the attribute of the body, love the attribute of the heart, and passion the attribute of the spirit. Caprice abides through the soul, love abides through the heart, and passion abides through the spirit. The soul is not empty of caprice, the heart not empty of love, and the spirit not empty of passion.

Passion is the home of the passionate, and the passionate the home of trial. Passion is the chastisement of the passionate, and the passionate the chastisement of trial.

In passion for You I will be a pure fire-worshiper—

I will be burnt in heart, roasted in spirit!

I will dwell in hot fire and water,

night and day I will be chastised!

The passion that is the spirit’s attribute has three sorts: First is truthfulness, second drunkenness, third nonbeing. Truthfulness belongs to the recognizers, drunkenness to the enraptured, nonbeing to the selfless.

Truthfulness is that you do what you say, you have what you show, and you are whence you call out.^{1Ṣad maydān, no. 65 (305).}

Drunkenness is unsettledness and rapture. When the gaze of the Protector becomes constant, the heart is enraptured. When the bestowal becomes great, it passes the capacity of finding.

Drunkenness belongs to the soul, the heart, and the spirit. When the wine forces itself on the intellect, the soul becomes drunk. When familiarity forces itself on awareness, the heart becomes drunk. When unveiling gains force over intimacy, the spirit becomes drunk. When the Cupbearer Himself is disclosed, being begins and drunkenness turns into sobriety.

O Sweetheart, I am not—make me be!

Pour me a draft of union’s wine!

Sit with me alone and make me drunk!

When You’re tired of me, flatten me with a fine point.

Nonbeing is that you become lost in friendship—you appear neither in this world, nor in that world. The two worlds become lost in friendship, and friendship becomes lost in the Friend. Now I cannot say that I am, nor can I say that He is.

Separating the eye from the Friend is not good—

either He’s in the place of the eye, or the eye itself is He.

The Pir of the Tariqah said: “O Lord! I seek the Found, I say to the Seen, ‘What do I have, what should I seek, when will I see, what should I say?’ I am entranced by this seeking, I am seized by this speaking.

“O Lord! I did it myself, I bought it myself—I lit myself on fire. I called out from friendship, I gave my heart and spirit to joy.

“O Kind One! Now that I’m in the whirlpool, take my hand, for I’ve fallen hard.”

From now on, Sanāʾī, don’t speak of passion’s pain—

many like you are lost in passion’s world.

Take some advice: Don’t try so hard for passion,

for passion’s pain stirs up dust from running water. [DS 1150]

Indeed, the yearner is killed by friendship, even if his head is on a pillow. Even finer is that someone killed by friendship is better than someone killed by the sword: Blood does not come from the one killed by friendship, nor smoke from the one burnt by it. The killed is content with the killing, and the burnt happy with the burning!^{2This paragraph is derived partly from Anṣārī, Chihil u daw 246.}

How You kill us and how we love You!

O marvel! How we love the killer!

*

Though Your ache has put me in the fire,

how I will ache if Your ache ever leaves me!^{3Part of a quatrain quoted in full under 7:172.}

3:41 He said, “My Lord, appoint for me a sign.” He said, “Your sign is that you shall not speak to the people for three days, except by intimation. And remember thy Lord often and glorify Him at evening and dawn.”

Zachariah asked for a mark of his child’s existence. It was said to him, “The mark is that I will stop your tongue from talking to the people for three days so that all your secret whispering will be with Me, and all on your tongue will be talk of Me.”

By way of allusion He is saying, “I will give you a child whom I will cut off from this world and the creatures and the face of whose heart I will turn toward Me. Then he will know that his kiblah is nothing but My Presence and he will be at ease only in talking with Me.”

Only Your name, image, and passion, O Spirit of the world,

appear to me in speech, heart, and eyes.

This is why He commanded Zachariah, “And remember thy Lord often and glorify Him at evening and dawn.” He commanded the faithful in general to the same thing: “And remember your Lord often” [8:45]. He is saying, “Remember God, and carry out your days in obedience and service to Him. Belong totally to Him, calling upon Him and knowing Him in every state and every work! If you are at ease, be at ease with His remembrance and message, and if you are joyful, be joyful in His name and mark.

Once in a while knock on the door of My house—

it is not right to pass by like a stranger.

And if you talk, talk only of Me,

and if you drink, drink only in remembrance of Me.

And remember thy Lord often. It is said that remembrance of God has three degrees: The first is outward remembrance with the tongue of laudation and supplication. God says, “And remember thy Lord often.”

Second is concealed remembrance in the heart. Thus God says, “Or with more intense remembrance” [2:200]. The Prophet said, “The best remembrance is the concealed and the best provision the sufficient.”

Third is true remembrance, which is witnessing God’s remembrance of you. That is His words, “And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest” [18:24]. In other words, you should forget your own soul in your remembrance, then forget your remembrance in your remembrance, and then forget every remembrance in the Real’s remembrance of you.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, why should I remember when all I am is remembrance? I have given the haystack of my marks to the wind. Remembering is acquiring, and not forgetting is life. Life is beyond the two worlds, but acquisition is as You know.

“O God, for a while I performed Your remembrance through acquisition, then for a while I delighted in my own remembrance of You. My eyes fell upon You and I became busy with gazing. Now that I have recognized remembrance, I choose silence, for who am I to be worthy of this rank? I seek refuge from measured remembrance, temporal vision, familiarity through marks, and friendship by mail!”

3:45 When the angels said, “O Mary, surely God gives thee the good news of a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, celebrated in this world and the next, and one of those given proximity.”

In this verse the God of the universe, the enactor of the world’s folk, the assigner of daily provisions to the servants, the bestower of bounty and the lovingly kind, the caresser of the friends, caresses Mary and honors her. With this honoring He gives her excellence over the women of the world and separates her from all of them.

First, He calls her with the vocative of honor, saying “O Mary.” Exalted is this address! Exalted is this call! Thousands of thousands of prophets and friends went, either in the repose of having found it, or in remorse and hope for it. O spirit of the world! If a thousand times you call on Him saying, “My Lord, my Lord,” that is not like His calling on you once, “My servant, My servant.” Even if you accept Him in lordhood, that gains you nothing, for in any case His lordhood is inseparable from you. What does the work is that once He should accept you for servanthood.

Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī said, “God stood me before Him in a thousand standing places, presenting the empire to me, but I was saying, ‘I do not desire it.’ In the last standing place He said to me, ‘O Abū Yazīd, what do you desire?’ I said, ‘I desire not to desire,’” that is, I desire what You desire. “Then He said, ‘You are My servant in truth.’”

Even if you do not have the gall to speak with God like Abū Yazīd, you are not too small to present your need to Him, to show Him your burning and hope, and to say, “O Lord, a name and mark is enough for me! You have come from Your threshold to place a name on me. Whatever name You want, let it be.”

A man went to the bazaar to buy a slave. They presented the slaves to him and he chose one to buy. He said, “O slave, what’s your name?” He said, “First buy me so that I may belong to you. Then call me by whatever name you want.”

When you are His servant, He will call you by whatever name He wants and keep you in whatever attribute He wants.

Master Abū ʿAlī said, “I saw an old man who was rushing from this wall to that wall, having become helpless and distracted. Because of my youth I asked him, ‘O shaykh! What have you been drinking?’

“He said, ‘Is it not enough that the Lord God of the world has let me know that He created me and that He is my Lord. Is something else needed?’”

Of passion for You is it not enough to have

a heart adorned by union with You?

Another caress of Mary was that the Lord of the Worlds wrote out the inscription of chosenness for her in two places, at the beginning and the end of a single verse. He said, “He has chosen thee and made thee pure, and He has chosen thee above the women of the worlds” [3:42]. Who among the women of the world has the honor that she has? She was free of this world and the world’s folk, as He says: “[I dedicate to Thee] what is in my belly as someone free” [3:35]. The one who accepted and approved of her in that freedom was God: “So her Lord accepted her with a beautiful acceptance” [3:37]. Her place and seat were the mosque and the prayer-niche, and in that place her daily provision was coming to her from God’s threshold: “[Zachariah] found provision with her” [3:37]. Then also she was pious and obedient to God’s command: “And she was one of the devout” [66:12]. In her greatness and truthfulness she had God as her witness: “And his mother was a sincerely truthful woman” [5:75]. Even more wonderful than this was her child, who came without father and was God’s spirit. That is in His words, “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was but God’s messenger, and His word that He cast to Mary, and a spirit from Him” [4:171]. In this verse, the Lord of the Worlds gave Jesus four names: Messiah, Jesus, Word, and Spirit. In other words, Jesus was God’s messenger brought into existence by His speech, which He threw to Mary, and a spirit given by His bestowal.

In this verse He says, “a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, celebrated in this world and the next.” His face is recognized and his name good in this world and the next, and he is honored by God. He has various charismatic gifts and miracles, one of which is that he came from his mother without a father. Another is that he is the result of the inblowing of Gabriel. Third is that he appeared from an uncreated word. Fourth is that He gave him wisdom and knowledge in infancy. That is in His words,

3:48 And He will teach him the Book, the wisdom, the Torah, and the Gospel.

Until the end of these verses are all his miracles. Because it was in God’s knowledge that the Christians would exaggerate concerning him, the Lord of the Worlds gave him speech in the cradle in the state of infancy to reject those Christians, so he said, “Surely I am the servant of God” [19:30]. In other words, it is not as the Christians say. Rather, “I am the servant of God, created by Him, and He is my Lord.” It is also a rejection of those who criticized his mother: “O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a man of ugliness” [19:28]. The Lord of the Worlds declared her innocence and, to brighten her eyes, He made those words come to his tongue in the state of infancy.

Here there is an exalted point: Since it was in God’s knowledge that Jesus would be the brightness of Mary’s eyes and the joy of her heart in this world and the afterworld, the Lord of the Worlds placed the burden and pain of Jesus on her at the time of birth. That is in His words, “And the birth pangs took her to the trunk of a date palm” [19:23]. Thus what was rightfully due became incumbent for her. As the counterpart of that suffering and hardship, blessings and ease reached her. Muṣṭafā’s state with his mother was the opposite of this. Since it was in God’s knowledge that his mother would have no portion of him, whether in this world or in the next, He did not place the burden of Muṣṭafā upon her, and at the time of birth no suffering reached her, so that no rightful due would become incumbent for her.

Similar to this is the story of Noah and his community and that of Muṣṭafā and his community. It was said to Noah, “Do not let yourself suffer for the community and do not carry the load of their trial, for they will never give you brightness of the eyes and joy of the heart: None of your community will have faith except those who already have faith” [11:36]. It was in keeping with this address that he supplicated, “My Lord, leave no disbeliever dwelling on the earth” [71:26], and God did that. To Muṣṭafā it was said, “O Master! Carry the burden of suffering for your community and be patient with them: So be patient, as the messengers possessed of resoluteness were patient [46:35]. If you see ugliness from them, pass it by and pardon them: Take to pardoning and command the honorable [7:199], for you will have brightness of the eyes and joy of the heart from their faith.”

Here a subtle point has been made: It as if the Lord of the Worlds is saying, “My servant, I lifted up every trial, tribulation, and hardship—illness, hunger, and thirst, the grief of daily provision, the dread of outcome—from the angels. I placed on them the fact that for them I did not make subsistent bliss, everlasting paradise, the promise of vision, and the approval of the Possessor of Majesty, nor did I promise it to them. My servant, I gave you all this trial and I poured on you all this tribulation and affliction because I made everlasting bliss and the subsistent paradise for you and I have given it to you. Such is My apportioning. Where there is a treasure, the road passes through suffering, and where there is trial, its fruit is healing and bestowal.”

3:54 And they deceived, and God deceived, and God is the best of deceivers.

Ibn ʿAbbās said, “The deception of God is that when they increased in unbelief and sin, He increased their blessings until He pulled them into total recklessness. They brought immense unbelief and applied their heads to rebellion and misguidance. Then He took them little by little from whence they did not know.”

It has come in the traditions that someone tormented Abū Dardā. Abū Dardā said, “Lord God, bestow upon him a healthy body, long life, and great wealth!” An intelligent man who ponders these words will know that this is the worst of supplications. When anyone is given this, recklessness and heedlessness will make him heedless of the next world so that he will be destroyed.

3:60 The truth is from thy Lord, so be not among the doubters.

“O Muḥammad, take care not to suppose that I have associates and partners in the power of existence-giving. I do not need or require anyone in that. No one besides Me has the power of existence-giving and devising.”

One of the pirs of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayer, “O Lord, the one who does the work is the one who can, and the one who bestows is the one who has. What do I have and what can I do? Who has ability like Your ability? In praising You who has a tongue? Without Your love, who has the joy of spirit?”

Without the breeze of the heart-taker’s love, the garden has no ease,

without the radiance of that rose-colored face, there’s no light or fire.

3:64 Say: “O Folk of the Book! Come to a word common between us and you: that we worship none but God, that we associate nothing with Him, and that some of us not take others of us as lords apart from God.”

In terms of realization, this is addressed to the folk of tawḥīd and the desirers on the road of the Haqiqah. He is saying, “If you who are traveling on the path of truthfulness today want to be dwellers in the seat of truthfulness [54:55] tomorrow, be careful to protect your walkway from the debris of customs, to sweep away the opacities of mortal nature from the carpet of your present moment, and to make the drinking place of your aspiration pure of the dust of others. Be one in heart, one in desire, and one in aspiration. ‘When someone comes to have one concern, God will suffice him against the concerns of this world and the next.’” This is why He says, “and that some of us do not take others of us as lords apart from God”: Do not settle down in every street with each scatteredness of the heart. Do not obey the commanding soul, do not worship blameworthy caprice, and take not two gods; surely He is but One God [16:51].

As long as the talk of some defiled fellow grabs you,

you’re the servant of your own fancy, not a servant of God.

3:73 Do not have faith in any but those who follow your religion. Say: “Surely the guidance is God’s guidance,” lest anyone should be given the like of what you have been given, or dispute with you before your Lord. Say: “Surely the bounty is in God’s hand. He gives it to whomsoever He wills.” And God is all-embracing, knowing.

Some of the commentators have said that here God is addressing the Muslims and caressing the folk of recognition and faith. He is reminding them of His favor toward them with the religion of the submission. The address then has two paths. In one respect it is addressed to the common faithful of this community, and in the other respect it is addressed to the recognizers and the elect among the folk of the Tariqah.

The first respect is this: “O assembly of submitters! Do not suppose or hold firm that anyone has been given what has been given to you. There is no religion like the religion of the submission, and it was given to you. There is no book like the Qur’an, and it was given to you. There is no prophet like Muḥammad, and he was given to you. There is no month like Ramadan, and it belongs to you. There is no day like Friday, and it belongs to you. All the shariahs have been abrogated by your shariah, and all the compacts have been abrogated by your compact. The perfection of the religion and the Shariah and the beauty of the Tariqah and the Haqiqah are all in your covenant.” This is in His words, “Today I have perfected your religion for you and I have completed My blessings upon you and I have approved the submission for you as a religion” [5:3].

“Now give gratitude for this blessing, give thanks to your Object of worship, and obey the command. The command is this: ‘Do not have faith in any but those who follow your religion.’ Do not exercise friendship with any but those who share your religion, and do not show brotherhood to any but the faithful. Keep away from the irreligious and the estranged.” This is just what He says in this verse: “Do not lean upon those who do wrong, lest the Fire touch you” [11:113]. He also says, “Thou wilt not find a people having faith in God and the Last Day loving those who oppose God and His Messenger” [58:22].

“Then see all this blessing and generosity from the Object of your worship and remember His favor. Do not place any cause in the midst along with Him and do not associate any others, for guidance and going astray, higherness and lowerness, are all from His bounty and justice, all by His desire and decree. Say: “Surely the guidance is God’s guidance.” Say: “Surely the bounty is in God’s hand.”

The other respect is that this is addressed to the recognizers and it caresses the lovers. He is saying, “Do not divulge the Real’s secrets to other than its folk.” Do not tell the mystery of love to anyone and do not make manifest the secret of poverty to the unworthy. Conceal the face of the Haqiqah’s beauty with the mask of inaccessibility, so that the eyes of the non-privy may not gaze at it.

When you drink wine, drink it with a privy, pain-filled companion.

When you lose it all, lose with a clever, wise companion. [DS 972]

Shiblī had secret whispering with the Real. He said, “Lord God, why did You take Ḥusayn Manṣūr [Ḥallāj] away from us?”

He said, “I gave him a mystery and showed him a secret. He gave it out to the unworthy. I brought on him what you saw.”

The command came, “O Muḥammad, thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. Do you fancy that ʿAtaba, Shayba, Walīd Mughayra, and Abū Jahl see you? No, of course not! They have the eyes of the non-privy. They are not worthy of witnessing your beauty. Let them go. Do not occupy a corner of your heart with them. For a while attend to Bilāl, Salmān, and Ṣuhayb, for they are accepted by the witnesses to the empire and lifted up by the Threshold of Unity. O Muḥammad, put aside self-determination, accept My decree, and be grateful for My blessings. Singling out for guidance and bestowing recognition is the work of My Divinity.” This is why the Lord of the Worlds says,

3:74 He singles out for His mercy whomsoever He will.

That is, He singles out for His blessings whomsoever He will. He singles out a group for provisions, He singles out a group for the blessing of character traits, He singles out a group for the blessing of worship, others for the blessing of desire, others for the success of outwardness, others for the realization of the secret cores, others for the gift of outer skins, others for the encounter with the secrets. God says, and His words are truth: “If you count God’s blessings, you will not enumerate them” [14:34].^{1LI 1:175.}

He singles out for His mercy whomsoever He will. He brought them together obscurely and did not specify anyone so that the hopeful would increase in their hope and the fearful would not remain in their fear. In the station of worship and obedience the servants will not find any states better than hope and fear, for the Lord of the Worlds praises the servants in these two states and says, “They hope for His mercy and fear His chastisement” [17:57].

He is also calling attention to the fact that even if the servants strive to the utmost in obedience and perform all the conditions of servanthood, in the end it is God’s mercy that will deliver them. Concerning this the following has been narrated from the Prophet: “No one will enter the Garden by his deeds.”

It was said to him, “Not even you, O Messenger of God!”

He said, “Not even I, unless God envelops me with His mercy.”

3:79 It belongs to no mortal man that God should give him the Book, the judgment, and prophethood, and then he should say to the people, “Be servants of me instead of God!” But, “Be you lordly ones from having taught the Book and from having studied!”

Before giving existence to the universe and creating Adam, the majestic compeller, the great God, the renowned enactor, knew in His eternal knowledge who among the children of Adam would be worthy of prophethood and friendship and who would be qualified for love and suited for messengerhood. God knows better where to place His message [6:124]. How can he upon whom He has placed the brand of deprivation and the inscription of unawareness be sinless and truthful on the road today? And how can he to whom He has given good fortune gratis and whom He has placed on the road of truthfulness and sinlessness be roadless and bad in state today? So, what will take form and how can it enter into imagination? It could never happen that the chosen Muṣṭafā and the caressed Jesus, after the honor of prophethood, the confirmation of sinlessness, and the strength of messengerhood, take a step out of line and say to the people, “Be servants of me instead of God!”

By virtue of the beginningless choice and eternal solicitude, the Lord of the Worlds answered on their behalf as their deputy: “They do not say this. Rather they say, ‘Be you lordly ones!’” In other words: Be among those singled out for God, those who are described by His words, “When I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears and his eyesight with which he sees.”

In keeping with the tasting of the folk of recognition, the lordly ones are those who become one for God with disengaged intention, sound trust, and intimacy’s breeze. They step beyond the two worlds and seize hold of the gentleness of the Patron’s love. They say the prayer of the dead for their own attributes.

When someone steps into the field of passion for the beautiful,

night and day will recite for him the prayer of the dead. [DS 210]

They have souls undergoing annihilation and hearts full of thirst. They have burnt souls, secret cores lit by passion, and spirits hanging in hope.

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.

Their aspiration goes beyond this world, their desire beyond paradise, their repose beyond heaven and earth. They are waiting: When will the sun of love rise, when will the moon of good fortune come forth, when will the breeze of felicity blow, when will the beginningless remembrance bear fruit?

When will I throw off this cage

and build a nest in the divine garden!?

It is also said that the lordly ones are those singled out for God. Through this they are ascribed to Him, described by His attributes, and come forth with His character traits as long as their servanthood lasts and their makeup stays in place. This view is taken from the saying of Muṣṭafā, “Become characterized by the character traits of God!” He also said, “God has a number of character traits. Whoever becomes characterized by one of them will enter the Garden.”

The folk of knowledge have said that the commentary on these character traits is the meaning of the ninety-nine names of God. In his traveling, the servant must pass by way of these meanings to reach union with God.

The Pir of Khurasan, Abu’l-Qāsim Kurragānī, said, “As long as the servant is acquiring these meanings and bringing together these descriptions, he is still in the path and has not yet reached the goal. He is traveling on his own and has not yet received God’s attraction. As long as he stays in recognition, he is held back from the Recognized. As long as he is seeking love, he is unaware of the Beloved.”

Hurry to passion and don’t sit in attachment,

take a few steps beyond passion and being passionate!

A great man was asked, “When does the servant reach the Patron?”

He said, “When he reaches himself.”

They asked, “How does he reach himself?”

He said, “Seeking becomes lost in the Sought and recognition in the Recognized.”

They said, “Explain more.”

He said, “Of the body the tongue remains, and that’s it. Of the heart the mark remains, and that’s it. Of the spirit face-to-face vision remains, and that’s it. Hearing goes, the Heard remains, and that’s it. The heart goes, the Shown remains, and that’s it. The spirit goes, what was remains, and that’s it.”^{1The “great man” is Anṣārī. See under 8:41.}

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

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

It has also been said that the meaning of “Be you lordly ones!” is that you be singled out for God without looking at the intermediaries, like Abū Bakr at the time of the Prophet’s death when the secret cores of the common people were disturbed. He said, “If anyone was worshiping Muḥammad, surely Muḥammad is dead. If anyone was worshiping God, surely God is the Living who does not die.”

3:81 And when God took the compact of the prophets, “I have given you of the Book and wisdom. Then a messenger will come to you confirming what is with you. You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.”

In the whole Qur’an, there is no verse more complete in explaining the excellence of Muṣṭafā, to whom this verse is devoted without the association of anyone else. The Lord of the Worlds made two covenants with His creatures and took two compacts from them. One was the compact He took from the creatures concerning His Godhood and Enactorship, as He said: “When your Lord took from the children of Adam, from their loins, their offspring and made them bear witness concerning themselves. ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes indeed’” [7:172]. The other is the compact He took with the angels and the prophets concerning Muḥammad’s prophethood and helping him, as He says, “And when God took the compact of the prophets.” This is an utmost bestowal of eminence and a perfect acknowledgment of excellence, for He made his name great with His own name and lifted up his measure with His measure.

Several thousand years before the existence of Muḥammad, a command came, “O Gabriel! I will have a friend whose name is Muḥammad. He will be praised and caressed by Me, his name will be placed next to My name, his measure will be lifted up by My bounty, his being obeyed will be obedience to Me, his words will be My revelation, and following him will be friendship with Me. O Gabriel! You make a covenant with Me to have faith in him and help him.” This was when He said, “You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.”

Gabriel said, “O Lord, I make a covenant that my hand will be one with his hand, I will help, and I will have faith in him.”

God said, “O Gabriel! Keep to this covenant and do not oppose it.”

He said, “O Lord, who would have the gall to oppose You?!”

Then He said, “O Michael! You be a witness to Gabriel’s covenant.” Then in the same way He made a covenant with Michael, and He told Gabriel to be witness to Michael’s covenant. He made the same covenant with Seraphiel and Azrael. After He created Adam, He made the same covenant with Adam, and Adam accepted it. After Adam, He spoke to Seth, and Seth accepted—and so on and so forth, generation after generation. Here you have nobility and excellence! Here you have level and rank! Who else has bounty so complete? Who else has his work so well arranged? This is heavenly exaltedness and divine lustrousness!

In both darkness and limpidness unbelief and faith have

no capital city save the face and tresses of Muṣṭafā! [DS 34]

3:85 Whosoever wants a religion other than the submission, it will not be accepted from him.

Any religion that is not the submission is false. Any deed that is not following the Sunnah is the seed of remorse. The submission is the tree, the Sunnah is its water source, faith its fruit, and the Real the one who planted and nurtured it. When the wellspring of the Sunnah takes replenishment, it takes it from divine solicitude. If—refuge in God!—He should take back the solicitude, the wellspring would go dry. The tree would become ineffectual and barren, it would not give the fruit of faith, and it would be on the verge of disappearance and destruction. This is like the group who became apostates and turned away from the submission.

Again, if the lordly solicitude should go forth and replenish the wellspring of the Sunnah, then the branches of the tree will be made from the goodly word [14:24] and its fruit from pure belief. The heaven of guidance will make the branch into a ladder, and in the state of life and death its fruit will become constant and never be cut off. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says by way of similitude, “God has struck a similitude: A goodly word is like a goodly tree, its roots fixed, and its branches in heaven. It gives its fruit every season by the leave of its Lord” [14:24-25].

It has also been said that if a similitude is struck for the submission, it is a lamp that has been lit by the Most Tremendous Light, its material and nurture made to appear from the light of the Sunnah. To this is the allusion in His words, “Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission, so he is upon a light from his Lord [...]?” [39:22]. He is saying, “Whenever the Exalted Lord lights the lamp of the submission in a breast, assistance from the light of the Sunnah makes it appear so that the breast may always be adorned and lit. Hence, whenever someone does not have a whiff of the Sunnah, he will have no portion of the submission.

It is narrated from Shāfiʿī that he said, “I saw God in a dream and He said to me, ‘Ask a wish from Me.’ I said, ‘Make me die in the submission.’ He said, ‘Say, “And in the Sunnah.”’” In other words, when you want the submission, you should want the Sunnah along with it. You should say, “Make me die in the submission and the Sunnah,” for there is no submission without the Sunnah. Any belief that is not with the Sunnah will not be accepted, and any religion whose level is not kept by the Sunnah is not the religion of the Real.

The folk of recognition see another intimation in the submission. They say that the submission is the rightfully due, and surrender [istislām] is the reality. “And everything rightfully due has a reality.” Submission is the Shariah and surrender is the Tariqah. The dwelling place of submission is the breast and the dwelling place of surrender is the heart. Submission is like the body and surrender is like the spirit. Without the spirit, the body is a corpse, and without the body, the spirit is useless. In the religion, the submission is the least degree. It is to escape from associationism and to join with faith. Surrender is the greatest degree. It is to escape from self and join with the Real. This is why God says, “Except for those who repent after that and make wholesome” [3:89]. Everyone who escapes from associationism and joins with the submission is one of the repenters. Everyone who escapes from himself and joins with the Real is one of the wholesome. It is these two toward whom God is lovingly kind and whom He forgives.

3:102 O you who have faith, be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness.

When He says, “O people,” He says, “Be wary of your Lord” along with it. When He says, “O you who have faith,” He says, “Be wary of God” along with it.

Be wary of your Lord is addressed to the common people. Their godwariness is based on seeing blessings, and their aspiration is nurturing the body to serve the Real. Be wary of God is addressed to the folk of caresses and generosity. Their godwariness is based on being watchful of the Beneficent and their aim is the repose of the spirit in witnessing the Real. What a difference between the two!

Be wary of your Lord is addressed to the wage-earners, and Be wary of God is addressed to the recognizers. The wage-earners are seeking joy and blessings, and the recognizers are seeking the mystery of the Beneficent. From God the wage-earners want other than Him, but the recognizers want God Himself.

Aḥmad ibn Khiḍrūya saw the Real in a dream. He said, “O Aḥmad! Everyone is seeking something from Me, except Abū Yazīd. He is seeking Me.”^{1Under 55:29 the saying is attributed wrongly to Aḥmad ibn Abi’l-Ḥawārī.}

People are wishing for repose and comfort,

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

*

On the day I reach union with You

I will disdain the state of the paradise-dwellers.

It has been said that godwariness is of three sorts: One is wariness of God’s punishment by having patience against acts of disobedience, as He says: “Be wary of the Fire that has been prepared for the unbelievers” [3:131]. Second is the godwariness of gratitude for blessings, as He says: “Be wary of your Lord” [4:1]. Third is godwariness at the vision of Unity, without taking into account reward or punishment, as He says: “Be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness.” The first is the godwariness of the wrongdoers, the second the godwariness of the moderate, and the third the godwariness of the preceders.

3:104 Let there be a community of you inviting to the good.

This is an allusion to peoples who stand up for God in God. They are not taken aback by the blame of any blamer nor cut off from God by relying on any causes. They have seen the shortcomings of their own souls and immersed their lives in gaining God’s approval. They act for God, give counsel for God’s religion, and call God’s creatures to God. Their trade has profited them and they do not regret their handshake.^{1LI 1:280.}

This is the description of a people who stand through the Real’s making them stand and who have been freed from their own power and strength and disengaged from their own desires and aims. They are outside the circle of deeds and states, free of the captivity of choice and self-determination. They know God, they call upon God, and they strive in God’s religion. They do not think about people or their blame. In their hearts they have friendship for the Patron and in their eyes the collyrium of Self-disclosure. They see everything just as it is. Others look from the artisanry to the Artisan, but they look from the Artisan to the artisanry. They are the elect of the Presence, branded by the Empire.

Be the elect servant of the king—with his brand

you’re safe from police by day and patrols by night.

They are the ones burnt by union and killed by love. Their blood has been spilled and their property destroyed, but their hearts are in His grasp, their spirits in His embrace. This is why they say,

You have a Heart-taker better than life.

Don’t grieve—let go of life.

“When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place.”^{2Elsewhere Maybudī ascribes this saying to Shiblī (KA 2:356).}

3:105 And do not be like those who became dispersed and disagreed.

Dispersion is one thing and disagreement something else. Dispersion is the opposite of togetherness and disagreement the opposite of agreement. Dispersion is the scatteredness of the folk of the Tariqah and disagreement the scatteredness of the folk of the Shariah.

Dispersion is that the servant desires one thing and the Real desires something else. Togetherness is that the servant’s desire and the Real’s desire are one. According to the report, “When someone makes his concerns one concern, God will spare him the concerns of this world and the next world.”

It has been said that dispersion is to gaze on the creatures and to see the secondary causes such that you are never relieved of suffering and creaturely antagonism. Togetherness is to gaze on the Real and to know that the Real is one, the work comes from one place, and the decree comes from this one door.

As for the disagreement of the lords of the Shariah, that is of two sorts: One is in the principles of the religion, the other in the branches. Disagreement in the principles is terrible and dangerous, since one must be right and the other wrong. When someone’s goal lies in the west and he takes the road east, how can he ever reach the goal? The more he goes, the more he moves away from the goal day by day, and he falls farther behind. This is alluded to in His words, “Surely this path of Mine is straight, so follow it. And do not follow the paths, lest they disperse you from His path” [6:153].

As for the disagreement of the community on the branches, it is like a group who set out for one goal by disagreeing roads, some going nearer and some farther. Although they disagree in the traveling, they arrive at one goal and come together. This disagreement is mercy itself. To it the Prophet alluded: “Disagreement in my community is a mercy.” In other words, this disagreement in branches is God’s mercy toward the creatures, so that the work of the religion would not become narrow for them and its road would not be difficult. This is in His words, “He placed no hardship upon you in the religion” [22:78]; and in God’s words, “God desires for you ease and does not desire for you hardship” [2:185].

3:119 Ha! There you are: You love them, but they do not love you.

The faithful had limpid hearts and generous natures, and they did not keep tenderness and mercy back from the estranged. They wanted good for them and attached their hearts to their submission. They wanted their salvation and did not hold back God’s mercy from them—whether they were acquaintances or strangers. This kept on crossing their minds:

Bring the sweetmeat, for it is the heart’s beloved,

suited for both the elect and the common.

This is the same tenderness that Muḥammad showed to the estranged. He said, “O God, guide my people, for they do not know.”

As for the unbelievers, those who had no limpidness in their hearts or loyalty in their natures, they never wanted good for the people of faith, nor did they love them. They grieved at the good that reached them and became happy at the bad. God says, “If something beautiful touches you, it vexes them, and if something ugly strikes you, they rejoice at it” [3:120].

Indeed, everyone does what is fitting for him, for “The pot pours what is inside it.” The person of faith is generous and lovingly kind, for what is fitting for faith is generosity and chivalry. The unbeliever is base and bad-wanting, for what is fitting for unbelief is baseness and unseemliness. The person of faith calls God’s creatures to salvation and deliverance. The unbeliever calls them to the Fire and captivity. To this He alludes with His words, “O my people! What is it with me that I invite you to salvation and you invite me to the Fire?” [40:41].

3:123 God surely helped you at Badr while you were abased.

He wrote this inscription of abasement for them in respect of number and the view of the common people. But, in respect of the view of the elect and the reality of the work, how can it be said that someone is lowly and abased when God is his helper?

The Pir of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayers, “O Lord, in recognizing You we are alive, with Your help we are happy, with Your generosity we are joyful, through Your exalting we are exalted. O Lord, in You we are alive, so how can we ever die? In You we are happy, so how can we ever be sorrowful? In You we are joyful, so how can we live without You? In You we are exalted, so how can we ever be abased?”

A man entered in on Hārūn al-Rashīd and commanded him to do the honorable. Hārūn became angry and put him inside a room with a lion, with the door firmly shut. The lion entered in upon the man with humility and did not harm him. After that, they saw him in the midst of the garden, happily gazing at it, and the door to the room was firmly locked as it had been. They reported his state to Hārūn, and he summoned him. He said, “Who let you out of the room?”

He answered, “The one who brought me into the garden.”

He said, “Who brought you into the garden?”

He said, “The one who brought me out of the room.”

Hārūn commanded that they should put him on a seat with exaltation and honor and carry him around the city, with a caller going before him saying, “Behold, Hārūn al-Rashīd wanted to abase a servant exalted by God, and he was unable to do so.”

3:134 Those who spend in prosperity and adversity, those who curb rage, and those who pardon people—and God loves the beautiful-doers.

Those who spend in prosperity and adversity. It has been said that in this station people are three groups: First are those who spend nothing, whether in prosperity or adversity, whether in the vastness of blessings or in the days of famine and hardship. They are called “base” in an unqualified sense. They have seized the branch of niggardliness, which is a tree whose roots are in hell and whose branches are in this world. This is according to what Anas ibn Mālik reported from God’s Messenger: “Openhandedness is a tree in the Garden whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Garden. And niggardliness is a tree in the Fire whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Fire.”

Second are those who spend in vastness of blessings but not in narrowness and hardship. Most of God’s creatures among the world’s folk and those who take care of this world are in this station. In the work of this world they do not have the confidence for open-handedness and they are always in fear of poverty. To them alludes His words, “If He asks you for them, then presses you, you are niggardly, and He brings out your rancor” [47:37].

Third are those who spend in both of these states, both in ease and difficulty. Such a person has one of two states: Either he is an impudent and impure man who does not know whence he takes and where he gives and does not think about the outcome. He is numbered among the brothers of Satan. That is in His words, “Surely the squanderers are the brothers of Satan” [17:27]. Or he is a man who is confident in the sufficiency of God and His assignment of daily provision. He has recognized the secret of this report from Muṣṭafā: “Surely the holy spirit breathed into my mind that no one will die until his provision is complete. So be wary of God, and go lightly in your seeking. Never let the tardiness of provision make you seek something of God’s bounty through disobedience, for what is with God will only be reached by obeying Him. Surely every man has a provision that will come to him inescapably. If someone approves of it, it will be made blessed for him and be expanded. And if someone does not approve of it, it will not be made blessed for him and it will not expand. Surely provision seeks out a man just as his moment of death seeks him out.” Such a person relies on God’s treasury and keeps his heart straight with God. He spends all that he has and holds nothing back. He brings it to hand from its place on condition of the Shariah, and he spends it in its place in conformity with the Shariah. This is why the Lord of the Worlds praises and lauds his spending and says, “Those who spend in prosperity and adversity.”

Then He says concerning their attribute, “those who curb rage.” They do not become angry at anyone, for they place all sins on themselves and consider themselves subjected and dominated over by the people. They tolerate suffering, or rather, they welcome it with patience and forbearance, for they bear witness that God knows and sees.

And those who pardon people. “Pardon” has two meanings: One is to efface, as the Arabs say, “The winds pardoned the tracks.” The other is surplus, as God says, “Take to pardoning” [7:199], that is, take the surplus of their property. Here He alludes to the fact that those who pardon people are those who pass over and efface people’s sins, but they do not limit themselves to that. Rather, they caress them and bestow upon them from the surplus of what they own. This is the attribute of the beautiful-doers, and God is their Friend, for He says, “And God loves the beautiful-doers.

Beautiful doing in interacting with the Real is “to worship God as if you see Him.” In interacting with people, it is that, when someone is bad toward you, you are good toward him; and when someone does not act worthily toward you, you act worthily toward him. This is why God commanded, “Take to pardoning,” that is, take the excellent and beautiful things from among the character traits, and pardon those who wrong you, join with those who cut off from you, and act with beauty toward those who act with ugliness toward you.

3:144 Muḥammad is only a messenger. Messengers have passed away before him. What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? If anyone turns back on his heels, he will not harm God in anything, and God will recompense the grateful.

As much as Muḥammad is praised and chosen among all men and caressed by the God of the world’s folk, as much as he is the pole of the world and the lamp of heaven and earth, the chieftain and full moon of the universe, emulated by the creatures, the paragon of the engendered beings, and the Seal of the Prophets—despite all this, he is a mortal man. Death is fitting for him and annihilation applies to him. As many prophets as there have been in the world, all of them went. The Real did not disappear, nor was God harmed. The Real remained after all of them, and God is their keeper in the perfection of His exaltedness.

By way of allusion, the folk of realization are being addressed: “The perfection of Our exaltedness is free of need for that which was not, then came to be. There is no link between Our lordhood and that which was not, then came to be. Our unity does not call for an existence-giver, and Our Being does not need a strengthener. Our exaltedness recognizes Our magnificence, and Our Unity knows Our exaltedness.

Her own face had itself as a moon,

her own eye had itself as collyrium.

A sound report has come that He says, “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 take nothing away from My kingdom.”

What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? This verse provides evidence for the eminence of Abū Bakr, for when Muṣṭafā was taken away from this house of decrees and the steed of death was sent for his prophethood’s shining face, then in the attribute of exaltedness the Divine Presence snatched that shining face away from the steed of death and took him into the embrace of Unity. The folk of dispersion fell into agitation and their eyes were placed inside the veil, except for the insight of Abū Bakr, the truthfulness of whose center point of togetherness Muṣṭafā had put on record in this report: “I and my brother Abū Bakr were created from one clay, but I went before him to prophethood without harming him. Had he gone before me, that would not have harmed me.” Hence, when ʿUmar picked up a sword and said, “If anyone says that Muṣṭafā has died, I will take off his head,” Abū Bakr—the foot of whose truthfulness was firmly established in the circle of togetherness—went to the pulpit and shouted at ʿUmar and the others, “If anyone was worshiping Muḥammad, surely Muḥammad is dead. If anyone was worshiping God, surely God is the Living who does not die.”

What a tremendous God, what an all-compelling Enactor! For all is He, the existence of the creatures is by His holding, their nonbeing by His decree, the subsistence of the world’s folk by His desire, the annihilation of the Adamites by His will. He will always subsist and He will live forever. Everything is perishing but His face [28:88].

3:148 God gave them this world’s reward and the beauty of the next world’s reward, and God loves the beautiful-doers.

Concerning the reward of the next world He said “beauty,” which is to say that the reward is beautiful, but He did not say that about the reward of this world. This is because the reward of the afterworld is lasting, but the reward of this world is passing. The former comes into being constantly without blight and without trouble, but the latter is soon cut off and has blights and tribulations.

God loves the beautiful-doers. The beautiful-doers are the “grateful” who are mentioned in verse 3:144. The “recompense” to which He alludes there is the love that He explains here. Beautiful doing is what Muṣṭafā said in answering Gabriel: “It is that you worship God as if you see Him.” Beautiful doing is the attribute of the self-watchful, the state of the finders, the station of the approving, and the mark of the friends. Love for God is their watchword and remembering God their blanket. God’s love is pouring down on them, and this pouring is like a sweetheart inside their spirit. From it the tree of happiness gives fruit and the spirit has a happy springtime.

Hail, O sweet breeze of early spring!

You give off the scent of that idol’s tresses.

3:152 Among you are those who desire this world, and among you are those who desire the next world.

The worth of someone is his desire, and the want of someone is his leader. One person wants this world, another the afterworld, another the Patron. Wanting this world is all trickery and delusion, wanting the afterworld is all occupation with the work of wage-earners, and wanting the Patron is all celebration and joy. A seeker of this world is wounded by fantasy and delusion, a seeker of the afterworld is attached to palaces and houris, and a seeker of the Patron is in the ocean of Solitariness, inundated by light.

Dhu’l-Nūn the Egyptian said, “O God, if I have any share of this world, I have given it to strangers. If I have anything stored up for the afterworld, I give it to the faithful. In this world, remembering You is enough for me, and in the afterworld seeing You is enough for me.”

This world and the afterworld are two precious commodities, and vision is the hard cash that is given. The broker of this world is Iblis. He offers his wares at auction in the bazaar of abandonment and adorns them for the people. God says, reporting from him, “I shall surely adorn for them what is in the earth”[15:39]. Iblis’s buyer is the unbeliever. The price is abandoning the religion and sheer associationism. As for Muṣṭafā, he is the broker of paradise. He makes his offers at the auction of solicitude in the bazaar of the afterworld. The buyer is God and the sellers are the faithful. The price is the formula, “There is no god but God.” The Prophet said, “The price of the Garden is There is no god but God.”

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “I see a group distracted from Him by this world, a group distracted from Him by that world, and a group distracted from both worlds by Him. They are waiting to see when the breeze of felicity will blow from the side of proximity and the sun of union will shine from the mansion of solicitude. They weep with the tongue of selflessness and say in hope, ‘O generous one! How can someone who yearns for You put up with life? He who hopes for you has a breast full of blood at the hands of Your friendship!’”

Without You, O ease of my spirit, how can I live?

If You are not by my side, how can I be happy?

3:159 It was by a mercy of God that thou wert soft with them. Hadst thou been harsh and hard of heart, they would have scattered from around thee. So pardon them, ask forgiveness for them, and consult with them in the affair. And when thou art resolved, trust in God. Surely God loves those who trust.

“O master of masters! O paragon of engendered beings! You are generous and lovingly kind, gentle and ever-merciful to everyone. You drive everyone by customs that hit the mark. You call everyone to the table of exaltedness and convey to everlasting felicity. You are like a father for the orphans, a husband for the widowed. You caress the familiar and you show the road to the estranged. You are mercy itself for the world’s folk, a cause of generous giving to all the servants. O master, there is all of this, but take care not to see yourself. Do not consider these as your own acquisitions, for all of them are I. It is I who was, I who caressed, I who made, and I put you to that. I gave you a sweet disposition. O paragon, keep on being this way to the faithful and the friends—with the same loving kindness and the same sweet disposition: And lower thy wing to the faithful who follow thee [26:215]. But, with the unbelievers and hypocrites, you should be a bit harder and struggle against them: O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be hard with them [9:73].”

There is a great difference between the Beloved [Muḥammad] and the Speaking Companion [Moses]. He commanded the Beloved to be harsh with the unbelievers and he called him back from cajolery, for in his disposition all was softness and benevolence. To the Speaking Companion He said the opposite: “Speak to him with soft words” [20:44]. He commanded him to softness and benevolence, and He called him back from the sharpness and hardness that was within him.

Then He says, “Hadst thou been harsh and hard of heart, they would have scattered from around thee. O master, if you were to give the unmixed wine of tawḥīd to your companions, without the admixture of their own shares, they would flee and no longer come around you. O master, they do not have the capacity to put up with what your capacity puts up with. When someone’s night and morning are in the Presence of Unity, how can others be equal to him or have any affinity with him?”

The master himself gave this report of himself: “I am not like any of you—I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink.” At another time he said, “I have a moment with God embraced by no proximate angel, nor any sent prophet.” Muṣṭafā taught this courtesy of the religion to the creatures. He said, “‘Speak to the people in the measure of their intellects.’ Speak to everyone in the measure of his intellect and do not lay upon him what he is unable to bear.”

Give everyone a cup in the size of his spirit—

lay down sweets according to each one’s intellect.

So pardon them. “O master! Pardon their shortcomings toward your rightful due and your work, and pass over it. As for their shortcomings toward My rightful due, you be their intercessor and ask for forgiveness from Me.”

So pardon them, and ask forgiveness for them. So pardon them is an allusion to togetherness, for it is a decree. The one who decrees in reality is God, and the Messenger follows. Ask forgiveness for them is an allusion to dispersion, which is the station of abasement and servanthood. This is the custom of the Lord with the prophets and friends—sometimes He puts them in togetherness, sometimes in dispersion. Togetherness without dispersion is disbelief, and dispersion without togetherness is associationism. Togetherness is the Haqiqah itself, and dispersion is the path of servanthood. When these two traits come together in someone, he is on the road of the Sunnah and the congregation and walks straight on the Tariqah and the Shariah.

And consult with them in the affair. “O master! The states of the travelers in this road are diverse. One falls short, so ask pardon for him. One repents, so ask forgiveness for him. One is obedient, so consult with him.”

And when thou art resolved, trust in God. Surely God loves those who trust. Resoluteness has a reality, and the basis of that reality is the rightness of what is desired. The togetherness of the heart is the basis of solidity in the religion, jealousy in the affair, and straightness in the present moment.

Resoluteness is of three sorts. One sort is the resoluteness of repentance, the second the resoluteness of service, and the third the resoluteness of the Haqiqah. All three are built on trust, and trust has a root, a precondition, and a fruit. Its root is certainty. Its precondition is faith; this is alluded to in His words, “And in God put your trust, if you have faith” [5:23]. Its fruit is the Real’s love; this is in His words, “Surely God loves those who trust.”

Master Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq said, “Trust has three levels. First is trust, second is surrender, third is delegation. Trust is the beginning, surrender the middle, and delegation the end. Trust is the attribute of the common people, surrender the attribute of the elect, and delegation the attribute of the elect of the elect. Trust is the attribute of the prophets generally, surrender the attribute of Abraham specifically, and delegation the attribute of the Seal of the Prophets, Muṣṭafā, most specifically. The possessor of trust has his ear to the Real’s promise. The possessor of surrender is at ease in knowledge of the Real. The possessor of delegation approves of God’s decree. When someone has trust, he is seeking bestowal. When someone has surrender, he is waiting for encounter. When someone has delegation, he is at ease with approval in the gathering place of repose and ease [56:89]. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, ‘And approval from God is greatest—that is the tremendous triumph’” [9:72].

3:169 Count not those who were killed in God’s path as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.

O life of the spirit, what is it with me that I know nothing of my state?

The spirit from You fills me, but my heart’s blood is empty of You.

O God, our life lies in remembering You, our happiness in finding You, our spirit in recognizing You!

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “The living are three: one lives through the spirit, one lives through knowledge, and one lives through the Real. He who lives through the spirit lives on food and wind. He who lives through knowledge lives on love and remembrance. He who lives through the Real is happy indeed with Him.

“O God, if the body’s spirit is deprived of You, it will be a captive corpse, but if someone is killed in Your path hoping for union with You, he will live forever.”

You said, “Don’t pass by my street drunk

lest you be killed, for my suitor is jealous.”

Let me say a word, my dear, perhaps I’ll be excused—

“Killed in your street is better than far from your face.”

Indeed, when friends are wounded in the Friend’s street, that is a good omen, for gambling away the spirit in the gaming-house of passion is their habit and disposition.

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

When the work reaches your spirit, gamble it away!

Beware, beware! Take care not worry that your spirit will perish in the Friend’s path. When the spirit perishes in loyalty to the Friend, that is true eminence. The precondition for your spirit’s undertaking friendship’s rightful due is its destruction.

Love is intoxication, its craving destruction,

its wilting and emaciation beautiful.

He has clothed me with abasement in His love—

abasement in love for the likes of Him is eminence.

That tumultuous one of the time, Shiblī, said, “When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place.” When you are loyal in friendship and gamble away your spirit, you will receive good fortune for free, for you will have the Friend in place of the spirit. If you had a hundred thousand spirits, you should sacrifice them to this union, for in truth that would still be something for nothing.

Why should I not be happy? I paid one soul

for a union worth a thousand sweet spirits!

In this road no one truly passionate rose up like Ḥusayn Manṣūr Ḥallāj. He saw union with the Friend flying like a falcon in the air of solitariness. He tried to hunt it, but his hand could not reach it. It was said in his secret core, “Ḥusayn! If you want your hand to reach it, put your head beneath your feet.” Ḥusayn put his head beneath his feet and rose up to the seventh heaven.

If you come from the field of appetite to the portico of intellect,

you’ll see yourself like Saturn in the seventh sphere.

If today in this domicile you have a state of loss—

what fine capital and fervor you’ll see tomorrow! [DS 705-6]

Take care never to call the spirit-gambling chevaliers who emigrate from this house “dead,” for the quarry of life’s jewels is nothing but their heart. The water of life flows only from the spring of their spirit. The Lord of the Worlds says, “Rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.” Upon them is the cloak of awe in the shadows of intimacy; sometimes His beauty expands over them, sometimes His majesty inundates them.

At times tasting joy, at times hearing mysteries,

at times gazing from Your majesty on Your beauty.

Maʿrūf Karkhī was washing someone’s corpse and the man laughed. Maʿrūf said, “Oh! Life after death?”

He replied, “His friends do not die, rather they are transferred from abode to abode. How could they die, when the exalted Qur’an says, ‘rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.’” They are happy and delighted, at ease from sorrow and suffering, present with bounty and blessings, in the garden of intimacy on the carpet of generosity, cups of happiness placed in hand again and again. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says,

3:171-72 They rejoice in blessings from God and bounty, and that God does not leave to waste the wage of the faithful, those who answered God and the Messenger after the wound had befallen them.

Those who bow their heads before the command of God and the Messenger in passion for the religion made their own dear spirits the target of the enemy’s arrows. They made their spirits a gift, their bodies a path, and their hearts a sacrifice. They bought that suffering and wounding with spirit and heart.

Sarī Saqaṭī said, “God appeared to me in a dream saying, ‘O Sarī! We created the creatures. Some of them saw this world and clung to it. Some of them saw trial, and they fled to paradise and well-being. Some of them thought nothing of trial and took the tribulation into their spirits and hearts, asking for union with Us. Which one of these are you? What do you want?’”

Sarī said, “I answered, ‘You know what I desire.’”

How often will you ask, why do you make me suffer?

In truth you know my state better than I.

“He said, ‘O Sarī! By the majesty of Our measure, We will strike your head with the whip of trial, and We will make the millstone of tribulation revolve on your head.’”

Sarī said, “I replied with the light of recognition by lordly inspiration, ‘Are You not the one who sends trials?’”

The lover’s soul is patient with illness—

perhaps He who made him ill will one day make him well.

*

Since the healing, O Heart-taker, is from Your wound and pain,

make no balm for the wounded, don’t cure the pain!

3:180 Let not those who are niggardly with the bounty that God has given them reckon that it is better for them.

In the language of knowledge and according to the Shariah, “niggardliness” is withholding the incumbent. The incumbent in wealth is a little bit of a lot, so a man gives the poor a little and keeps a lot for himself.

But in the language of the Tariqah and the folk of allusion, niggardliness is leaving a little for oneself, a tiny amount of property, or a moment of the state. “The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed.” Wealth and states in the path of these chivalrous men have the form of a dog, and passion in its own world has the form of an angel. Muṣṭafā’s Shariah reports that the angel gets along badly with the dog and never descends into a house that has one. “No angel enters the house within which there is a dog or pictures.”

When will the angel come forth if you do not

take the dog from the door and the painting from the wall?

When will you arrive at Aḥmad and Abū Bakr,

with a spider spinning its web at the door of the cave?

Lift up the veil so that down may come

a litter of magnificence to the bench of the threshold. [DS 200]

3:191 Who remember God, standing and sitting and on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth.

Those who remember are three: One remembers God with the tongue and is heedless with the heart. This is the remembrance of the wrongdoer, who is aware neither of the remembrance nor of the Remembered.

Another remembers Him with the tongue and is present with the heart. This is the remembrance of the moderate and the state of the wage-earner. He is seeking reward and excused in his seeking.

The third remembers Him with the heart; the heart is filled with Him, and his tongue is silent in remembrance. “When someone recognizes God, his tongue is mute.” This is the remembrance of the preceder. His tongue is lost in the remembrance, and the remembrance is lost in the Remembered. The heart is lost in love, and love in the Light. The spirit is lost in face-to-face vision, and face-to-face vision is far from explication.

Remembrance set a trap whose bait was jealousy. The wage-earner saw the trap and fled, the recognizer saw the bait and clung to the trap.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Remembrance is not simply what you have on the tongue. True remembrance is what you have in the midst of the spirit. Tawḥīd is not simply that you know that He is one. True tawḥīd is that you be one for Him and a stranger to other than Him.”

And reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth. Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq asked Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sulamī whether remembrance was more complete or reflection. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān answered, “Remembrance is more complete than reflection because remembrance is an attribute of the Real and reflection an attribute of creation. That by which the Real is described is more complete than that which is specific to creation.”

Reflecting for the heart is like sniffing for the breath. Reflecting on one’s own deeds and words is mandatory, on the artifacts of the Artisan recommended, and on the Artisan’s Essence forbidden. In the report has come, “Do not reflect upon God, for surely you are not able to judge His measure.” He is saying: “Do not reflect on God’s Essence, for you will not reach His measure, nor will you recognize Him as is proper to Him, nor will you perceive the foundations of His majesty and tremendousness.” This is not because His majesty is hidden from the creatures. No, rather, it is extremely manifest and clear, but the insight of the Adamite is extremely weak and incapable, so he does not have the capacity to perceive it. On the contrary, he becomes confounded, bewildered, and perplexed. He is like a bat that does not come out in daytime because its eyes are weak, for it does not have the capacity for sunlight. But this indeed is the degree of the common people.

As for the great ones and the sincerely truthful, sometimes they have the strength for this gaze, but not continuously. They are like people who can take one look at the sun’s disk, but not more than one look, for if they continue to look, there is fear that they will go blind. So, if someone wants to reflect, he does so on the wonders of His artisanry, for everything in existence is one of the lights of the Real’s power and tremendousness. If someone does not have the capacity to look at the sun’s disk continuously, he does have the capacity to look at rays of light upon the earth, and from them nothing increases but brightness and knowledge.

3:194 Our Lord, and give us what Thou hast promised us through Thy messengers.

O Lord, bring to pass the promise that You Yourself made, bring to fruit the tree that You Yourself planted, brighten the lamp that You Yourself lit, and keep the blight of us away from the love that You gave by Your own bounty. O Lord, we are happy that You were and we were not. Your work caught on and ours did not. You put forth Your own worth, You sent Your own Messenger. O Lord, You lifted us up and no one said, “Lift up!” Now that You have lifted up, don’t put down! Keep us in the shadow of gentleness and entrust us to none but Your bounty!

If You water, You Yourself planted.

If You flatten the foundation, You Yourself raised it.

I the servant am just what You fancied.

Don’t throw me down—You lifted me up.

3:195 And their Lord responded to them, “I will not waste the deed of any doer among you, male or female. The one of you is as the other. And those who emigrated, were expelled from their homes, were tormented in My path, who fought and were killed, I shall surely acquit them of their ugly deeds and enter them into Gardens under which rivers flow, a reward from God.”

This is loyalty to the promise that He gave to the faithful: “Supplicate Me; I will respond to you” [40:60]. The verification of this loyalty is that He responded to the caller, He bestowed upon the asker, He assisted the striver, He gave increase to the grateful, He bestowed insight on the patient, He rewarded the obedient, He absolved the disobedient, He had mercy on the regretful, He honored the lover, He gave vision to the yearner.

The command came, “O Muḥammad! There is no reason for despair. In triumph the work of the servant is not outside of three traits: If he is obedient, then his reward is in place. If he is disobedient, then your intercession is in place. And no matter how much he is held back, My mercy toward him is in place.”

If I wipe clean all the sins of the creatures,

what will be lost from My kingdom? A handful of clay.

And those who emigrated, were expelled from their homes, were tormented in My path, who fought and were killed. This is the attribute of the friends, the custom of the yearners, the story of those who gamble away their spirits, and the final outcome of the work of the passionate: They have given away their hearts and gambled away their spirits. Wounded by the arrow of trial, their status and respect overthrown by the sword of the decree, they have been exiled from their homes and families.

Totally effaced in the ocean of thought,

of themselves they recite for all, “No home, no possessions.”

Sometimes burning and melting, sometimes weeping and wailing, they see the burn but not the burner, they see the tumult but not the tumult-inciter, they see the pain but not the remedy. What is even more wondrous is that they are happy with their pain and lament at the lack of pain.

I won’t give up the Beloved as long as I’ve not given up the spirit.

I will give up the spirit, but I won’t give up the Beloved.

Now at least I have the hard cash of pain—

I won’t give up this pain for a hundred thousand remedies.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, whoever seeks for You needs a resurrection as hard cash, or he needs his blood to be shed with the sword of disappointment. Exalted of the two worlds! When someone aims for Your threshold, his days are like this—or is it that my portion is like this?”

I will surely acquit them of their ugly deeds and enter them into Gardens under which rivers flow, a reward from God. There must be a pain of that sort if a balm of this sort is to appear—blessedness, the most beautiful, and union with the Patron in the Gardens of the Refuge! One group has the sweet drink of blessedness and the bliss of paradise, another group holds to its breast the vision and approval of the Patron! The tongue of the servant’s state says in joy and coquetry, “O God, You were my tribulation, You became my good fortune! You were my sorrow, You became my ease! You were my burning brand, You became my lamp! You were my wound, You became my balm!”

3:200 O you who have faith! Be patient, vie in patience, be steadfast, and be wary of God. Perhaps you will prosper.

This again is another balm, another caress, a call of bounteousness, an address of generosity, and it gives witness to the servant’s faith and obedience. Be patient is addressed to the soul, vie in patience to the heart, and be steadfast to the spirit. He says to the soul, “Be patient in obedience and service.” He says to the heart, “Be patient in trial and adversity. He says to the spirit, “Be patient with the burn of yearning and the pain of love.” And God it is who is patient.

If like Joseph you want to come out of this prison,

be patient like Zulaykhā in the pain of distance from Joseph.

It has also been said, “Be patient in God, vie in patience through God, and be steadfast with God.” Patience in God is the patience of the worshipers in the station of service with the hope of reward. Patience through God is the patience of the recognizers in the station of honoring with the hope of union. Patience with God is the patience of the lovers in the state of contemplation at the moment of self-disclosure, when they are looking with gazing eyes, their hearts bewildered in what is seen, their spirits lamenting at the hand of love.

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, everyone is burning in separation, but the lover in vision. Now that he has come to see the Friend, what does the lover have to do with patience and settledness?”

And be wary of God. Godwariness is a tree whose roots are in the earth of loyalty, its branches in the air of approval, its water from the wellspring of limpidness. It is not reached by the heat of regret, nor the cold of quenching, nor the wind of farness, nor the blight of scatteredness. The fruit it brings forth is the fruit of triumph, endless prosperity, everlasting worthiness, subsistent bliss, and the kingdom of forever. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says, “Perhaps you will prosper.” The Prophet said, “You should be wary of God, for this brings together every good; you should have struggle, for it is the submitter’s monasticism; and you should have the remembrance of God, for it is your light.”