44:0 In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.

In the name of Him whose mention is the adornment of our tongues and whose love is the nourishment of our hearts. In the name of Him whose gaze is the witness of our living selves and whose remembrance is the repose of our spirits. Blessed the one whose intimate is His name and exalted the one whose traveling companion is His remembrance! Happy is the heart in which is His love, flourishing the tongue on which is His mention! Free is he whose existence is in His bonds, great the soul that hopes to see Him!

O God, how can I remember You, for I myself am all remembrance? I have given the harvest of my marks to the wind. O God, You are the remembrance, You the reminder, You the aid in finding You. You are the meaning of the call of the truthful, You light up the souls of the friends, You are the repose of the hearts of the exiles! You are present in the heart, so it is with my heart lost that I say, “Where are You?” The spirit must have life—You are that. You Yourself are the spokesman for Yourself. By Your rightful due against Yourself, do not seat us in the shadow of delusion! Convey us to union with You!

When You are the soul’s food, then You leave it,

the soul whose food You are does not linger.

*

You are my spirit and world. If I see You not,

may all my spirit and world be ill fortune!

44:32 We chose them, with a knowledge, above the worlds.

We chose them, with a knowledge of their hearts’ love for Us despite the multiplicity of their sins against Us. And We chose them, with a knowledge of Our secrets that We deposited within them and of the realities of Our rightful due that We unveiled to them.^{1LI 5:384.}

Although this verse descended specifically concerning the faithful among the Children of Israel, in terms of understanding by way of allusion it is a general declaration of the eminence of the children of Adam and their superiority over all creatures. In the same way, He says in another place, “We indeed honored the children of Adam” [17:70]. He is saying, “We chose them, and We were not wrong in choosing them, for We chose them with pure knowledge. We knew, with complete knowledge, that of all the created things, they were worthy of being chosen. Hence We chose them. Our choosing them was through Our knowledge and desire, without cause. Our caressing them was through Our bounty and generosity, without inducement. We choose and caress whomever We want, and no one can ask how or why about Our activity. We drive away and burn whomever We want, and no one can protest against Our decree.”

On the day He drew the circle of engendering over this individual of clay, He announced, “I am creating an individual the like of whom I have never created. Not that it is impossible for My power, but My jealousy holds back the reins of power.” This He expressed like this: “He fastened to them the word of godwariness, to which they have more right and of which they are worthy” [48:26].

O chevalier! His power allows Him to create a hundred thousand like us in an instant, but His love and jealousy do not allow this. This is because the secret of love has no howness, especially in respect to us: He loves them, and they love Him [5:54].

The proximate angels of the Exalted Threshold and the residents of the all-compelling Presence put the finger of bewilderment in the mouth of wonder: “This is a great work and a strange state that has appeared for the dust-dwellers. They are those caressed by His gentleness and pulled up by His compassion. They recognize through His giving recognition, they are eminent by His bestowal of eminence, they arrive by His making them arrive, and they are joyful in arrival at Him. They are the narcissus of the meadow of munificence, the cypress of the garden of existence, the jewel-box of the pearls of wisdom, the light of the eye of the world of power. The peerless Creator is one, and they are the peerless creature. The Most Beautiful of Creators is one, and they are the most beautiful of creations. We created man in the most beautiful stature [95:4].”

There was no world and no Adam, no Throne, Tablet, or Pen, no paradise or hell, but there was talk of love for them without them, for He loves them, and they love Him.

How blessed was the time of Your covenant, without which

my heart would have no place for ardor!

O chevalier, gaining access to Him takes place only through His eternal beautiful doing.

Ḥasan ibn Sahl was the vizier of Maʾmūn. One day someone came to him whom Ḥasan did not recognize. He said, “Who are you?”

He said, “I am the one toward whom you acted beautifully in such and such a year.”

Ḥasan said, “Welcome to the one who gained access to me through my acting beautifully!” Then he commanded that the man be presented with gifts and honored.

Surely the beginning of kindness is a precedent splendor,

and the most splendorous splendor is its completion.

The crescent moon delights the eyes

with beauty, but not like its beauty when full.

O God, Your beginningless solicitude planted the seed of guidance, You watered it with the messages of the prophets, You made it grow with help and success-giving, You brought it to fruit with Your own gaze and beautiful doing. I ask Your gentleness to keep the poisons of severity away from it, not to blow the wind of justice against it, and to help with endless kind favor what You planted with beginningless solicitude!^{2Beginning with, “On the day He drew the circle of engendering,” these paragraphs are a rewriting of RA 82-84. As already noted under verse 19:1, Maybudī attributes an almost identical prayer to the Pir of the Tariqah.}