34:10 We gave David bounty from Us.

In the reports about David, it has come that he used to read the Psalms, and the name of sinners came up a great deal. Because of jealousy and solidity in the religion, he said, “O God, do not forgive those who misstep!” Lord God, do not forgive the sinners!

It was said to him, “O David, such lack of tenderness toward the sinners! Wait, until Muḥammad the Arab sets foot into the circle of existence and asks forgiveness for the only one of his community not to sin: ‘Forgive me for what I did before and what I will do after!’”

Then the tongue of destiny said to David, “O David, you have remained in the bonds of your own purity. Wait until you are slapped by the hand of the decree and destiny. Then you will know what you said and where you stood.”

Gabriel came to the road and said, “O David, the arrow of the decree has been loosed from the bow of destiny. Be careful, watch out for yourself if you can!”

David sat in the prayer-niche in bewilderment and regret, his eyes fixed on the Psalms, busy with remembrance and worship, until the episode happened with the bird and his eyes fell on the wife of Uriah. This story will be given in detail in the Surah of Sād [38], God willing.^{1Maybudī tells the story in Stages Two and Three of his commentary on 38:21 (KA 8:334-5, 341-43).} In the end, David was saying, “O God, forgive the sinners—perhaps You will forgive David along with them.”

34:12 And the wind was Solomon’s, its morning course a month and its evening course a month.

Solomon had beautiful, faultless horses, like birds without wings. When the tale of missing the prayer took place, he drew his sword and cut their necks. It was said to him, “Now that you have done away with them, We will make the wind your mount.”

“When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.” Whenever someone abandons his own gaze, it is replaced by God’s gaze. No one has ever abandoned something for God without being given something better in return. Muṣṭafā sent Jaʿfar to battle and made him the head of the army, so the banner of Islam was in his hand. The unbelievers attacked and cut off his hand, so he took up the banner with the other hand. They struck him again and cut off his other hand, and after that he received seventy-some wounds. He left this world as a martyr. He was seen in a dream and asked, “What did God do with you?”

He said, “God gave me two wings in place of the hands and with them I fly in the Garden wherever I want with Gabriel and Michael.”

Asmāʾ bint ʿAmīs said. God’s Messenger was standing and suddenly said, “And upon you be peace.”

I said, “To whom were you returning the greeting, O Messenger of God, for I do not see anyone with you.”

He said, “That was Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. He just passed by with Gabriel and Michael.”

“O Jaʿfar, you gave your hands. Here are wings. O Solomon, you gave your horses. Here is the wind, your porter on land and sea.”

“O truthful lover, if by virtue of your discipline you sacrifice your eyes and throw away your body, then here: Our gentleness is your eyes, Our bounty is your ears, Our generosity your lamp and candle. ‘When I love him, I am his hearing and he hears through Me, his eyesight and he sees through Me, his hand and he grasps through Me.’ First a man becomes a speaker, then a knower, then a traveler, then a flier.^{1Up until here, the commentary on this verse is derived from RA 498-99, with a good deal of rearrangement.}

O poor man, have you never wished that one day the bird of your heart would be delivered from the cage of your misfortune and fly in the air of the Real’s approval? By the majesty of the Lord God! Nothing will welcome you but the caress of “I come near to him by a cubit.”^{2From the hadith cited under 2:152, 2:186, and 20:82.}

Why do you stay in this low place like crows looking for carrion?

Break the cage and fly at once like peacocks to the heights. [DS 52]

The cage is the bodily frame, and the divine Trust is the bird’s spirit. It is a bird whose wings are passion, whose flying is desire, whose horizon is the Unseen, and whose domicile is pain. Whenever the bird of the Trust flies from this cage of mortal nature to the horizon of the Unseen, the cherubim of the world of holiness put their hands over their eyes. Otherwise, the lightning of its beauty would burn their eyes.

34:14 When We decreed death for him....

Death is of two sorts: outward death and inward death. Outward death is obvious to everyone. Friend and enemy follow the road that leads to it, the common people and the elect are the same in it. Every soul shall taste death [3:185].

Inward death is that a man dies in himself from himself without himself and comes to life from the Real in the Real with the Real. It is the same as that chevalier said:

“Die, O friend, before your death, if you want to live—

long ago, by such a death, Idris went up to paradise.” [DS 52]

True life is that given by the opening of faith, not what is put in place by the animal spirit. Abu’l-Ḥasan Kharaqānī said, “It is twenty years since they brought my shroud from heaven. What is strange is that He keeps me with the people in the form of the living, but He has wrapped me in a shroud in His own Presence.”

Don’t think of that talk, put on the shroud,

then clap your hands like a man.

Say, “Either You or me in the city”—

A realm with two heads is in turmoil.

O chevalier! One drop of sperm that comes out from inside a man establishes his pollution, but this outward pollution is made pure with water. What is difficult is that if one iota of the sperm of self-seing takes up residence inside you, a pollutedness will come that cannot be eliminated with all the world’s oceans.^{1Beginning with the saying of Kharaqānī, this passage up to this point, as well as the reference to Joseph and his brothers in the next paragraph, are derived from RA 518-19. Two of the sentences at the beginning of the passage are from RA 484.}

Quit being the companion of self-nurturing habit-worshipers!

Kiss the dust beneath the feet of those who have disowned self! [DS 972]

At this threshold, self-seeing has no reason, self-painting no worth. There is no reason whatsoever to take anything other than incapacity, need, poverty, and want. The sons of Jacob went to Joseph and took poverty and want, saying, “We came with scant goods” [12:88]. Hence Joseph lifted the mask from beauty and came forward with the tongue of generosity: “No reproof is upon you today” [12:92]. You do the same thing, O man with ruined life, indigent of the times! At the moment of dawn, when He lets down the carpet of descent and opens up the arms of generosity, go again to His door like the indigent and the incapable. With a heart full of pain, a spirit full of regret, eyes full of water, and a liver full of fire, say,

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

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

The Pir of the Tariqah said, “I know not Your measure and am incapable of what is worthy of You. I wander in my misery, day by day in loss. How then is someone like me?! But such am I. I lament at gazing into the darkness—will anything remain of me? I do not know. My eyes look to a day when You remain and I am not. Who will be like me if I see that day? And if I see it, I will sacrifice my spirit to it.”

Joseph had such generosity that when his brothers came back to him in incapacity and poverty, he said to them, “No reproof is upon you today.” Hence the Most Generous of the Generous and Most Merciful of the Merciful is more worthy of saying to the servants when they weep to Him with incapacity and need, “No fear is upon you today, neither will you sorrow” [43:68].

34:46 Say: “I admonish you in but one thing: that you stand up for God.”

It is said that standing up for God is the center point of the compass of the Tariqah and the pivot of the secrets of the Haqiqah. Whoever leaves self-governance behind and places his work with the Real will reap the fruit of the goodly life [16:97]. Do you not see that the chevaliers who were the Companions of the Cave left themselves behind, put aside self-governance, and turned their faces toward the threshold of lordhood, as the Exalted Lord says: “We placed a tie on their hearts when they stood up” [18:14]. Look how He gave them a place in the cave of jealousy with the shade of kind favor and the embrace of friendship. The sunlight of form and its shining had not the gall to circle around their cave of jealousy. The light of the sun was incapable in relation to the lights of their secret cores, for the light of the sun is for brightening creation, and the lights of their secret cores were for recognizing the Real.

Let go of the moons, dimming or brightening—

we have a full moon to which all full moons are abased.

The light of the sun is the light of form, and the light of their hearts was the light of the secret core. When the radiance of the sunlight of form reached them, it pulled back its skirt from the shining radiance of their secret core’s light. The Lord of the Worlds says, “Thou wouldst have thought them awake, but they were sleeping” [18:18]. This is the attribute of the Folk of the Tariqah. When you look at their outwardness, you see them busy in the playing fields of deeds. When you look at their secret cores, you see them detached in the gardens of the gentleness of the Possessor of Majesty. Outwardly active, inwardly they gaze on the gentleness of the Beginningless. With Thee alone we worship [1:5] they have bound the belt of struggle. With and Thee alone we ask for help [1:5] they have placed the crown of contemplation on their heads. On the inside they wear the undershirt of surrender, and on the outside they have covered themselves with the caftan of deeds.

Singling out the Companions of the Cave is the clearest evidence and the most lucid path to show that chosenness has no cause and being specified is not achieved by any means. A dog that took a few steps in the tracks of the Real’s friends will be read about until the Resurrection: And their dog was stretching its paws at the doorstep [18:18]. So, when a Muslim becomes the companion of the Real’s friends for seventy years, with burning and faith, and he takes the blackness of youth to the whiteness of old age, why do you have the opinion that the Real will make him despair on the Day of Resurrection? No, never, He will not do that.^{1These three paragraphs are summarized from RA 446-48.}

34:49 Say: “The truth has come, and falsehood does not originate, nor make return.”

On the day God’s Messenger put his blessed foot inside the Kaabah—when ʿUmar Khaṭṭāb had arrived at the exaltedness of submission, and the faithful were happy at his submission, though he had placed many idols inside the Kaabah—the Messenger had a stick in his hand with which he was striking the chests of the idols, saying, “The truth has come and falsehood has vanished away [17:81], The truth has come, and falsehood does not originate, nor make return.” ʿUmar was saying, “O idols, this is Aḥmad. This is God’s messenger in truth, so bear witness. If what he says is true, then prostrate yourselves!” The idols all at once fell down in prostration.

O chevalier! Which day will it be when the messenger of realization along with the ʿUmar of assent enters the Kaabah of your breast at the instruction of success-giving? It will topple the idols of caprice and avarice, and they will call out, “The truth has come, and falsehood does not originate, nor make return.”

“So the sorcerers were cast down in prostration [7:120]. What do you say? Did they come and prostrate themselves? Or did We bring them into prostration?”

A serving boy was walking with his master. The boy went into a mosque, said his prayers, and remained for a long time in the pleasure of whispered prayer. The master said, “Come out, boy!”

He said, “He won’t let me.”

He said, “Who won’t let you come out?”

He said, “The same one who won’t let you come in.”

It is no wonder that a hearing, speaking, knowing person should prostrate himself. The wonder is that ʿUmar said, “O unhearing, unspeaking idols, if Muḥammad’s religion is the truth, prostrate yourselves,” and at once all of them prostrated themselves.

O pure Lord! Two improper, ugly things were placed before ʿUmar: enmity toward the Messenger and coveting this world. Then there appeared such a beautiful state from their midst, for ʿUmar was adorned with the ornament of submission. In the same way, two improper things were placed before Pharaoh’s sorcerers: one enmity toward Moses and the other Pharaoh’s rulership. Then from the midst an exalted secret appeared, so the sorcerers were cast down in prostration. Two arduous tribulations were placed before Joseph: one the well and the other the prison. Then from their midst Joseph’s rulership and ruling authority appeared: Thus did We establish Joseph in the earth [12:56]. Two feeble drops were brought together in the womb. Then from their midst such a lovely form appeared: And He formed you, so He made your forms beautiful [40:64]. Two impurities were brought together in the makeup of the animal, one feces and the other blood. Then from their midst pure milk appeared: between feces and blood, pure milk [16:66]. Two difficult tasks were combined for the servant: one disobedience, the other shortcoming in obedience. Then from their midst mercy and forgiveness appeared: He will make your deeds wholesome for you and forgive you your sins [33:71].^{1The commentary on this verse is drawn from RA 485-86.}