51:0 In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.

In the name of God reports of the exaltedness and power of the Possessor of Majesty. The All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful alludes to the attribute of the clemency and gentleness of perfect beauty. The majesty of the divinity burned away a hundred thousand spirits of the seekers. The beauty of the self-sufficiency lit up a hundred thousand spirits of the lovers. One group burns in the severity of majesty in dread of severance, another group lights up in the gentleness of beauty in hope of union.

Night and day under the influence of these two attributes, the hearts of the servants are sometimes in fear and sometimes in hope, and by the requisite of these two roots, sometimes in contraction and sometimes in expansion. At the time of contraction, they see everything in lassitude and awe; at the time of expansion they see all in gentleness and mercy. At the time of contraction the cold wind of severity comes, the marks giving witness to majesty appear, and the servant burns, weeps, and enters into pleading. At the time of expansion the breeze of gentleness brings the scent of union, the marks giving witness to beauty appear, and the servant delights and enters into ease. At the time of contraction, he gazes on tremendousness and sees all as pain and melting. At the time of expansion he gazes on proximity and sees all as intimacy and joy.

This is why the Pir of the Tariqah said, “Gaze on proximity so that intimacy may be born! Gaze on tremendousness so that reverence may increase! Wait between this and that to see what indeed will be shown by the precedence of the Beginningless.”

51:1 By the scatterers scattering.

This is an allusion to the dawn winds that carry the moaning of the yearners to the courtyards of exaltedness, then bring the breeze of proximity to the nostrils of the secret cores of the folk of love, letting them find ease from the overpowering force of rapture.

I will let the winds guide me to your breeze

when their blowing comes from your direction.

I will ask them to carry my greetings to you.

If they arrive one day, respond to me!^{1The previous paragraph and the poetry are from LI 6:27.}

When the announcers of the good news of dawn appear, the army of brightness breaks out of its ambush, and the east wind begins to blow love into the world’s air, then a dawn wind is sent into the road like a messenger from the Gardens of Eden in order to convey the divine inbreathings to the nostrils of the secret cores of the friends. Exalted is the hour and great the moment when, on the carpet of We are nearer [50:16] in the seclusion of He is with you [57:4], He conveys the wine of “I am the sitting companion of him who remembers Me” to His friends, secret to secret, without the intrusion of others! In the attribute of clemency the caller of exaltedness calls out in the world of being so as to caress the poor: “Who will lend to one who is neither lacking nor wrongdoing?”^{2For a more complete version of this ḥadīth qudsī, see under 2:245.} What wonder if at that moment He says in the heart of the servant, “My servant, fear not, thou art among the secure” [28:31].

51:49 Of everything We created a pair.

In this verse there is an affirmation of the Lord’s solitariness and unity. When God creates newly arrived things and engendered beings, He creates them as pairs, whether linked to each other or opposed to each other. For example: male and female, day and night, light and darkness, heaven and earth, land and sea, sun and moon, jinn and mankind, obedience and disobedience, felicity and wretchedness, guidance and misguidance, exaltation and abasement, power and incapacity, strength and weakness, knowledge and ignorance, life and death.

He created the attributes of the creatures in this manner—paired with each other or opposed to each other—so that they would not resemble the attributes of the Creator. Thus His unity and solitariness would become manifest to them, for His exaltation has no abasement, His power no incapacity, His strength no weakness, His knowledge no ignorance, His life no death, His joy no sorrow, His subsistence no annihilation.

The uniquely one God is one in Essence and attributes, unique in worthiness. He is incomparable with everyone and separate from everything. Nothing is as His likeness [42:11]. No one is like Him and nothing is similar to or resembles Him. Resemblance derives from partnership, and God has no associate or partner. He is without equal and without need.

The door of His withholding is shut and the door of His munificence open. He forgives sins and caresses the faulty. He makes His love apparent by caressing servants. He loves His servants, though He has no needs. He brings about love between Himself and the servants without association or partnership. Thus the servants, no matter what their states—whether wounded by the arrow of trial or drowned in gentleness and bestowal—should seize hold of His generosity and seek shelter in Him, fleeing to Him from the creatures. This is why He issues the command, “So flee to God!” [51:50].