Kashf Al-Asrar Tafsir — Al-Mu'minun 23:17 – Al-Mujadilah 58:12

We indeed created above you seven paths and We were not heedless of creation.In the allusion of the lords of recognitions and the deduction of the folk of understanding, the seven paths allude to the seven veils that the Exalted Lord created in the Adamic makeup. With them He keeps him veiled from seeing the subtleties and finding the realities. First is the veil of intel- lect, second the veil of knowledge, third the veil of the heart, fourth the veil of the soul, fifth sense perception, sixth desire, and seventh will.Intellect keeps the Adamite occupied with this world and with governing his livelihood so that he will be held back from the Real. Knowledge pulls him into the playing field of bragging with his peers so that he will stay in the valley of boasting and vying for increase. The heart puts him into the station of courage and stout-heartedness so that he will fall into temptation in the arenas of champi- ons by craving for fame in this world, so much so that he will have no concern for his religion or its victory. The soul is itself the greatest veil and the enemy of the religion. �Your worst enemy is the soul that is between your two sides.� If you gain the upper hand over it, you will win, but otherwise, you will fall such that you will never rise again. Here �sense perception� is appetite, �desire� is dis- obedience, and �will� is lassitude. Appetite and disobedience are the veil of the common people, and lassitude is the veil that keeps the elect of the Presence from the road of the Reality.Any talk that keeps you back from the road-let it be unbelief or faith.Any picture that holds you back from the Friend-let it be ugly or beautiful. [DS 51]He mentioned these seven veils. Then, after that, He said, �And We were not heedless of creation. Despite all these veils before the servant, We do not put him aside, nor are We heedless of him.� With the first part of the verse He threatens the servant with His severity and justice, and at the end He makes him hope for His bounty and generosity. The traveling of the wayfarers is built on this rule: first fear, then hope.

And We sent down from heaven water in a measure and settled it in the earth, and surely We are powerful over taking it away.He places a favor on the servants: �With perfect power We sent down from heaven the rain of mercy at the time of spring and the pollination of trees so that the dead earth will thereby come to life.� He gave forth hundreds of thousands of wonders and deposits that were made ready therein, namely the various sorts of plants, fruits, and herbs, as He says:

And therewith We made grow up for you gardens of palms and grape vines.The deducers of the Tariqah and the wayfarers of the road of the Haqiqah have said that the out- wardness of this verse alludes to the springtime of the common people, and the inwardness alludes to the springtime of the elect. �Every verse has an outwardness and an inwardness.� The spring- time of the common people is the signs of the horizons, and the springtime of the elect is the signs of the souls. God says, �We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in their souls� [41:53]. If the springtime of the common people has raining clouds, the springtime of the elect has weeping eyes. If the springtime of the common people has violent thunder, the springtime of the elect has wailing and remorse. If the springtime of the common people has fiery lightning, the springtime of the elect has the light of perspicacity. In the springtime of the common people, you should open the eyes of taking heed so that you may see the roses. In the springtime of the elect, you should assign the eyes of reflection to seeing the heart.Someone saw a dervish at springtime, his head hung down, and said, �O dervish, lift up your head to see the roses!�He said, �O chevalier, hang down your head to see the heart.�

Surely this community of yours is one community, and I am your Lord, so be wary of Me.By way of allusion he is saying, �The religion of the submission is the unique religion, you are My unique community, and I who am your Lord am the unique Lord. Beware of My anger if you choose another religion and take another god. This submission has the attribute of the All- Compeller. There should be someone with an all-compelling aspiration so that the beauty of the submission will welcome him. The one with an all-compelling aspiration is he who does not bow his head before this world or the afterworld.�It was said to Abraham, �O Abraham, submit! [2:131]. Belong to the submission and make do with the submission!�He said, �The submission has the attribute of all-compellingness and will not give me access to my attachments. Let me come out of the bonds of attachment.� He gave his property to visitors, his son to sacrifice, and his own soul to the burning fire. Then he said, �I submit to the Lord of the worlds [2:131]. Now that I have turned back from all, I have turned to You; having held back from all, I remain for You.�

Do they think that We aid them with possessions and children only that We may hurry good things to them?Why do the chieftains who possess this world, nurture the soul, and worship creation, having placed the mantle of pride on their shoulders and become drunk with appetite, fancy that this world is a generous gift for them, or that possessions and children are a felicity for them. No, of course not! They are not aware that when the vanguard of the army of blessings arrives, it always seeks the threshold of the estranged. It brings along the banner of wretchedness and puts down the brand of estrangement. Again, when the vanguard of the army of tribulation arrives, it always seeks the corner of the dear ones and wanders around the house of the friends. For in shape tribulation [����] and love [����] are companions and equals, like each other and differentiated only by the dot above and below. Otherwise, they are not separate in shape and form.God gave the miserable Pharaoh four hundred years of the well-being and blessings of this world and did not constrict him in anything. But, if for one hour he had wanted the pain and burning of Moses, He would not have given it to him, for he was not worthy of that pain's beauty. And if we suppose that someone had asked Zachariah what he wanted when the saw was placed on the crown of his head, the cries of passion would have come forth from his parts and motes saying, �I want them to saw me forever!�A report says, �When someone loves Us, let him put on an armor for trial, for trial comes faster to Our lovers than a flood to its resting place.�As long as I live, I will bind my servanthood to Your cloak and put all my safety into the work of Your trials.

Do they think that We aid them with possessions and children only that We may hurry good things to them?Why do the chieftains who possess this world, nurture the soul, and worship creation, having placed the mantle of pride on their shoulders and become drunk with appetite, fancy that this world is a generous gift for them, or that possessions and children are a felicity for them. No, of course not! They are not aware that when the vanguard of the army of blessings arrives, it always seeks the threshold of the estranged. It brings along the banner of wretchedness and puts down the brand of estrangement. Again, when the vanguard of the army of tribulation arrives, it always seeks the corner of the dear ones and wanders around the house of the friends. For in shape tribulation [����] and love [����] are companions and equals, like each other and differentiated only by the dot above and below. Otherwise, they are not separate in shape and form.God gave the miserable Pharaoh four hundred years of the well-being and blessings of this world and did not constrict him in anything. But, if for one hour he had wanted the pain and burning of Moses, He would not have given it to him, for he was not worthy of that pain's beauty. And if we suppose that someone had asked Zachariah what he wanted when the saw was placed on the crown of his head, the cries of passion would have come forth from his parts and motes saying, �I want them to saw me forever!�A report says, �When someone loves Us, let him put on an armor for trial, for trial comes faster to Our lovers than a flood to its resting place.�As long as I live, I will bind my servanthood to Your cloak and put all my safety into the work of Your trials.

Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord� it is they who hurry to good deeds.When an intelligent man ponders the meaning of these verses, he will come to know that the obedi- ent are more fearful in their obedience than the disobedient are fearful in their disobedience. Just as the disobedient need His curtaining, so also the obedient need His curtaining. The Real says, �And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! [24:31]. O faithful, you who are obedient and you who are disobedient! All of you return to Our threshold with the attribute of pleading! In the state of poverty and brokenness ask for Our forgiveness, so that We may cover you with the curtain of Our mercy.�I wonder at the empty-headed Qur'an-reciter who makes two cycles of prayer at night and the next day knits the knot of self-seeing on his brow and places the favor of his own being on heaven and earth. All the motes of existence say to him, �What a simpleton you are! It is here that they make a Kaabah into an idol-temple, turn a seven hundred thousand-year worshiper into the forever accursed Satan, and bind Balaam son of Beor-who had God's greatest name in his breast and whose every prayer was answered-in a kennel for dogs. But you make two cycles of prayer one night and the next day you want the whole world to be full of talk of your prayer!�You poor wretch! The realizer fills the east and the west with prostrations of self-purification. Then he dips everything into the water of unneediness and returns with two empty hands to the end of the street of Muhammad MuṣṬafā's intercession and says, �O exalted man, harm has touched us and our folk, and we come with scant goods� [12:88].The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I have come with two empty hands. I have burned in the hope of better days. What harm if You place a balm on this wounded heart of mine?�

Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord� it is they who hurry to good deeds.When an intelligent man ponders the meaning of these verses, he will come to know that the obedi- ent are more fearful in their obedience than the disobedient are fearful in their disobedience. Just as the disobedient need His curtaining, so also the obedient need His curtaining. The Real says, �And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! [24:31]. O faithful, you who are obedient and you who are disobedient! All of you return to Our threshold with the attribute of pleading! In the state of poverty and brokenness ask for Our forgiveness, so that We may cover you with the curtain of Our mercy.�I wonder at the empty-headed Qur'an-reciter who makes two cycles of prayer at night and the next day knits the knot of self-seeing on his brow and places the favor of his own being on heaven and earth. All the motes of existence say to him, �What a simpleton you are! It is here that they make a Kaabah into an idol-temple, turn a seven hundred thousand-year worshiper into the forever accursed Satan, and bind Balaam son of Beor-who had God's greatest name in his breast and whose every prayer was answered-in a kennel for dogs. But you make two cycles of prayer one night and the next day you want the whole world to be full of talk of your prayer!�You poor wretch! The realizer fills the east and the west with prostrations of self-purification. Then he dips everything into the water of unneediness and returns with two empty hands to the end of the street of Muhammad MuṣṬafā's intercession and says, �O exalted man, harm has touched us and our folk, and we come with scant goods� [12:88].The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I have come with two empty hands. I have burned in the hope of better days. What harm if You place a balm on this wounded heart of mine?�

Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord� it is they who hurry to good deeds.When an intelligent man ponders the meaning of these verses, he will come to know that the obedi- ent are more fearful in their obedience than the disobedient are fearful in their disobedience. Just as the disobedient need His curtaining, so also the obedient need His curtaining. The Real says, �And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! [24:31]. O faithful, you who are obedient and you who are disobedient! All of you return to Our threshold with the attribute of pleading! In the state of poverty and brokenness ask for Our forgiveness, so that We may cover you with the curtain of Our mercy.�I wonder at the empty-headed Qur'an-reciter who makes two cycles of prayer at night and the next day knits the knot of self-seeing on his brow and places the favor of his own being on heaven and earth. All the motes of existence say to him, �What a simpleton you are! It is here that they make a Kaabah into an idol-temple, turn a seven hundred thousand-year worshiper into the forever accursed Satan, and bind Balaam son of Beor-who had God's greatest name in his breast and whose every prayer was answered-in a kennel for dogs. But you make two cycles of prayer one night and the next day you want the whole world to be full of talk of your prayer!�You poor wretch! The realizer fills the east and the west with prostrations of self-purification. Then he dips everything into the water of unneediness and returns with two empty hands to the end of the street of Muhammad MuṣṬafā's intercession and says, �O exalted man, harm has touched us and our folk, and we come with scant goods� [12:88].The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I have come with two empty hands. I have burned in the hope of better days. What harm if You place a balm on this wounded heart of mine?�

Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord� it is they who hurry to good deeds.When an intelligent man ponders the meaning of these verses, he will come to know that the obedi- ent are more fearful in their obedience than the disobedient are fearful in their disobedience. Just as the disobedient need His curtaining, so also the obedient need His curtaining. The Real says, �And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! [24:31]. O faithful, you who are obedient and you who are disobedient! All of you return to Our threshold with the attribute of pleading! In the state of poverty and brokenness ask for Our forgiveness, so that We may cover you with the curtain of Our mercy.�I wonder at the empty-headed Qur'an-reciter who makes two cycles of prayer at night and the next day knits the knot of self-seeing on his brow and places the favor of his own being on heaven and earth. All the motes of existence say to him, �What a simpleton you are! It is here that they make a Kaabah into an idol-temple, turn a seven hundred thousand-year worshiper into the forever accursed Satan, and bind Balaam son of Beor-who had God's greatest name in his breast and whose every prayer was answered-in a kennel for dogs. But you make two cycles of prayer one night and the next day you want the whole world to be full of talk of your prayer!�You poor wretch! The realizer fills the east and the west with prostrations of self-purification. Then he dips everything into the water of unneediness and returns with two empty hands to the end of the street of Muhammad MuṣṬafā's intercession and says, �O exalted man, harm has touched us and our folk, and we come with scant goods� [12:88].The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I have come with two empty hands. I have burned in the hope of better days. What harm if You place a balm on this wounded heart of mine?�

Surely those who tremble in fear of their Lord� it is they who hurry to good deeds.When an intelligent man ponders the meaning of these verses, he will come to know that the obedi- ent are more fearful in their obedience than the disobedient are fearful in their disobedience. Just as the disobedient need His curtaining, so also the obedient need His curtaining. The Real says, �And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! [24:31]. O faithful, you who are obedient and you who are disobedient! All of you return to Our threshold with the attribute of pleading! In the state of poverty and brokenness ask for Our forgiveness, so that We may cover you with the curtain of Our mercy.�I wonder at the empty-headed Qur'an-reciter who makes two cycles of prayer at night and the next day knits the knot of self-seeing on his brow and places the favor of his own being on heaven and earth. All the motes of existence say to him, �What a simpleton you are! It is here that they make a Kaabah into an idol-temple, turn a seven hundred thousand-year worshiper into the forever accursed Satan, and bind Balaam son of Beor-who had God's greatest name in his breast and whose every prayer was answered-in a kennel for dogs. But you make two cycles of prayer one night and the next day you want the whole world to be full of talk of your prayer!�You poor wretch! The realizer fills the east and the west with prostrations of self-purification. Then he dips everything into the water of unneediness and returns with two empty hands to the end of the street of Muhammad MuṣṬafā's intercession and says, �O exalted man, harm has touched us and our folk, and we come with scant goods� [12:88].The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, I have come with two empty hands. I have burned in the hope of better days. What harm if You place a balm on this wounded heart of mine?�

We burden no soul save to its capacity.The highway of the religion has a beginning and an end. The beginning belongs to the folk of the Shariah and the end to the lords of the Haqiqah. The practice of the folk of the Shariah is service according to the Shariah, and the attribute of the lords of the Haqiqah is exile in contemplation.The foundation of the folk of the Shariah was built with easiness. MuṣṬafā said, �I was sent out with easy and indulgent unswervingness.� The weak and the folk of concessions do not have the capacity for heavy burdens. The Exalted Lord put concessions into the Shariah for their sake and set aside heavy burdens: We burden no soul save to its capacity. This is the same as saying, �He placed no hardship upon you in the religion [22:78]. God desires for you ease and does not desire for you hardship [2:185].�As for the traveling of the lords of the Haqiqah, God founded that on discipline and difficulty. They are addressed by the words, �Struggle in God as is the rightful due of His struggle [22:78]. Be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness [3:102]. Whether you show what is within your souls or you hide it, God will bring you to account for it [2:284].�The Pir of the Tariqah was asked about Sufism. He said, �It is nothing but throwing away the spirit; otherwise, do not busy yourself with the nonsense of the claimants.�Al-Jurayrī said, �God does not burden the servants with recognizing Him in His measure; He only burdens them in their measure, for He says, 'We burden no soul save to its capacity.' Were He to burden them in His measure, they would be ignorant of Him and would not recognize Him, for no one but He recognizes His measure and no one other than He recognizes Him in reality.� God burdened the servants with recognizing Him in the measure of their obedience and the extent of their ability, not in the measure of His majesty and exaltedness. Everyone can know Him in his own measure, but only He knows and recognizes how He is in Himself. God says, �They encom- pass Him not in knowledge [20:110]. The All-Merciful.

Repel the ugly with what is more beautiful.In this verse the generous Lord, the wise and renowned Enactor, commands MuṣṬafā to noble char- acter traits and beautiful habits-a bright face, mild words, a soft heart, and a pleasant character; pardoning the bad-doers, hiding the defects of the defective, and doing good in place of bad.In the tongue of the Tariqah, the more beautiful is for the heart to give fatwas by the Real's dicta- tion. The ugly is for the soul to issue commands by its own caprice. He is saying, �O Master, repel what the soul commands by means of what the Real shows: Repel the ugly with what is more beautiful.�The Prophet always used to say, �'Our Lord, do not entrust us to our souls for the blink of an eye, or less than that.' O God, lift up this curtain of self from before our heart so that the bird of the heart may be completely delivered from the cage of the soul and fly in the air of the Patron's approval! O God, this burden of soul is the burden of selfhood. Lift this burden of selfhood away from us so we may be released from self and turn to You!�O chevalier, take care not to say that his blessed soul was like the souls of others, for if a speck of his soul's shining were to shine forth on the spirits and hearts of the world's sincerely truthful, all of them would go forth to the world of holiness and the gardens of intimacy and settle down in the seat of truthfulness [54:55]. Despite all this, he says, �O Lord, this is our veil on the road of the Haqiqah-lift it up from our road!�The command came, �O MuḤammad, unasked We put Ourself beside you: Did We not expand for thee thy breast and lift from thee thy burden? [94:1-2]. O MuḤammad, We put aside that bur- den of you-ness from you. Our desire took care of your work, Our solicitude lit up your lamp. You did not come by yourself, nor did you come for yourself. You did not come by yourself because We brought you: Who took His servant by night [17:1]. You did not come for yourself because you came as a mercy for the world's folk: We sent thee only as a mercy to the worlds� [21:107].

What, did you reckon that We created you aimlessly and that you would not be returned to Us?Abū Bakr WāsiṬī recited this verse and said, �He made manifest the colors and created the creatures to make manifest His existence, for had He not created, it would not be recognized that He exists; and to make manifest the perfection of His knowledge and power through the manifestation of His acts soundly arranged by wisdom; and to make manifest the signs of friendship on the friends and the signs of wretchedness on the wretched.�He is saying, �The majestic and perfectly powerful Lord, in His majesty and exaltedness and His perfect power, brought the engendered beings and newly arrived things into existence. Thereby they would know His Being, recognize His lordhood, and find evidence of His perfect knowledge and power from His artisanry. In keeping with His knowledge of them, He made ap- parent the mark of friendship on the friends and inscribed enmity on the enemies. He brought them from the concealment of nonexistence into existence in keeping with the knowledge, known in the Beginningless, that He would create creation. He wanted to make His creation come to be in exact correspondence with His knowledge.�David the prophet said in his whispered prayer, �O God, O endless Majesty described by the attribute of perfection and qualified by the description of unneediness! You have no need for anything and You subsist in Your own description. You require nobody and You take help and aid from no one. Why did You create these creatures? What wisdom is there in their existence?� The answer came, �'I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be recognized.' I was a concealed treasure and no one knew or recognized Me. I wanted to be known and I loved to be recognized.� �I loved to be recognized� is an allusion to the fact that recognition is built on love. Wherever there is love, there is recognition, and wherever there is no love, there is no recognition.The great ones of the religion and the Tariqah have said, �No one recognizes Him save those to whom He has made Himself recognized, no one voices His tawḤīd save those to whom He has shown His tawḤīd, and no one describes Him save those to whose secret cores He has disclosed Himself.

A surah that We have sent down and made obligatory; and We sent down in it clear signs that perhaps you will remember.A dervish was asked, �What is the evidence for God's being?�He replied, �Morning takes away the need for a lamp.� When the sun rises, a lamp is not re- quired. The whole cosmos is the evidence, it needs someone to look. The whole cosmos is fragrant herbs, it needs someone to smell. The whole cosmos is the antidote, it needs someone bitten by a snake. The whole cosmos is the signs and banners of His power, the marks and denotations of His wisdom, the proof of His unity and solitariness.O chevalier! If one day you see the sun of recognition shining from the sphere of magnifi- cence, and if the eyes of your aspiration see the signs and banners of the exalted majesticness, then this world, which had taken you as its prey, will be made into a shoe and nailed to the hoof of your aspiration's steed. The afterworld, which had been your shackle, will be made into a ring for the ears of your presence's servants. Then you will be brought, like a king, into the special court of majesty, in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].

The fornicatress and the fornicator-flog each of them a hundred lashes, and let no clem- ency toward them seize you in God's religion, if you have faith in God and the Last Day. And let a group of the faithful witness their chastisement.The world's folk are three groups: the common people, the elect of the Presence, and the elect of the elect. If the common people fornicate, their penalty, in the tongue of the Shariah, is whipping or stoning. MuṣṬafā said, �Take this from me! Take this from me! God has appointed for them a path: for virgins, one hundred stripes and banishment; for those formerly married, one hundred stripes and stoning.� He also said, �Receive kindly the stumbles of those with positions except in the case of penalties.�The fornication of the elect is the gazing of the eyes. MuṣṬafā said, �The fornication of the eyes is the gaze.� Their penalty is to cast down the eyesight and to turn the eyes away from the soul's pleasures and appetites, even if they are licit. The Prophet said, �Cast down your eyes, guard your private parts, and hold back your hands.�The fornication of the elect of the elect is the heart's thoughts about anything less than the Real. If they give something else access to their secret core, this is counted in the Tariqah as forni- cation. Their penalty is disentanglement from attachments and withdrawal from people. God says, �Say 'God,' then leave them� [6:91].Let no clemency toward them seize you in God's religion, if you have faith in God. One of them said this means, �If you are among the folk of affection and love for Me, oppose those who oppose My command and do what I have prohibited. No one is a lover who has patience with op- position to his beloved.�Junayd said, �Tenderness toward those in opposition is like turning away from those who conform.� In other words, �Being tender to those who oppose at the moment of opposition is just like turning away from those who conform at the moment of their conformity.�Having mercy in accordance with the Shariah is beautiful and praiseworthy. �The All-Merci- ful has mercy on those who are merciful.� But, it is not a stipulation to have mercy as a requisite of nature and habit at the moment of opposition, and it is not allowable to be remiss in enacting the penalties.

Those who came with the slander are a band of you. Do not reckon it evil for you; rather, it is good for you. Against every man of them shall be the sin he has earned. Whosoever of them took upon himself most of it will have a great chastisement.Know that God is jealous over the hearts of His elect servants. So when two of them take repose in each other, God brings to pass what will repel each from his companion and push him back to Himself. Thus have they sung,When my spirit clings to a beloved and attaches to him, the changing of the days steal him away from me.Know, O chevalier, that the hearts of the Real's friends are inside the curtain of jealousy-today they listen inside the curtain of jealousy, and tomorrow they will see inside the curtain of jealousy.The Real does not show your heart to anyone, for He keeps it inside the curtain of jealousy. In the grip of the attributes it sees the Real face-to-face on the carpet of joy in the presence of witness- ing and seclusion, and the Real gazes upon it. If the heart looks back at another, at once it will see the courtesy-teaching whip.Thus it happened to a great one of his time: He was exceedingly happy in a tremendous desire for God. He had complete ecstasy and his work was in total conformity with Him. Then once he heard the call of a bird, and he looked back toward the call. He went beneath the tree and was wait- ing for the bird to call again. A voice spoke to him, �You have dissolved God's bond! You have given away the key to My covenant, for you have become intimate with another!�MuḤammad ibn Ḥassān said, �Once I was wandering in the mountain of Lebanon hoping to see one of the friends of the Real, one of the great ones who take up residence there. I saw a young man come out from a corner. The hot wind of summer had blown against him, and he was burnt and bedraggled. When he saw me, he turned away and entered in among the chestnut trees to conceal himself. I followed him. I said, 'O chevalier! Give me the benefit of some words, for I came in hope of that.

The goodly women are for the goodly men, and the goodly men for the goodly women- these are innocent of what they say. They will have forgiveness and a generous provision.In the tasting of the lords of recognitions the generous provision is not the provision of the soul that is sometimes there and sometimes not. It is the provision of the spirit and the nourishment of the living self that is never cut off and always arrives continuously, neither cut off nor withheld [56:33]. What is nurtured by bread and water is one thing, what is nurtured by unmixed light is something else.When MuṣṬafā said, �I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink,� he was talking of the attributes of the spiritual, not the attributes of the bodily. Snow is not the opposite of fire as much as the spiritual is that of the bodily. Two antagonists are kept together in one house, apparently getting along with each other, but inwardly enemies.Once when his time had become short a great man was seen in revelry and delight. They asked, �What is this revelry?�He said, �What is surprising about it? Union with the Friend and separation from the enemy are near. Which day will be sweeter than the day when dawn opens up with the arrival of a drink and a blow? Which drink and which blow is that? It will put this idol-worshiper on the gallows and deliver this sultan from the dark fetters, carrying him on the Burāq of good fortune to the Pres- ence of Majesty.��The spirits of the elect are in the grasp of exaltedness: He unveils His Essence to them and bestows on them the gentle favors of His attributes.�

Say to the faithful that they cast down their eyes.That is, the eyes of the heads from forbidden things and the eyes of the hearts from everything other than Him.He commands the faithful to turn the eyes of the head away from forbidden things and the eye of the secret core from everything less than the Real. They should throw the dust of nonbeing into the eyes of their own being, and from the tablet of their existence they should read out reproach to the deceiving soul. Because of the pain of his own being, MuḤammad the Arab, the unique pearl of the oceans of messengerhood and the centerpiece of the necklace of evidence, used to lament, �Would that the Lord of MuḤammad had never created MuḤammad!� Those who were the pre- ceders, the truthful, and the wayfarers of the road never paid the slightest attention to themselves. They were not happy with their own being and did not look at themselves with the eye of approval.One day Junayd was sitting with Ruwaym when Shiblī came in, and Shiblī was exceedingly kind-hearted. When Junayd's words were finished, Ruwaym looked at Junayd and said, �He is a kind-hearted man, this Shiblī.�Junayd said, �You are talking about someone who is one of those who have been rejected by the Threshold.� When Shiblī heard this, he was broken. He got up in shame and went outside.Ruwaym, �Junayd, what were those words you said about Shiblī? You know the purity and truthfulness of his state.�Junayd, �Yes, Shiblī is one of the great ones at the Threshold. But, when you speak to Shiblī, do not speak to him from beneath the Throne, for His swords spill blood. Ruwaym, those words of yours concerning his purification were a sword aimed at his days to hamstring the steed of his practice. I made my words into a shield to repel that sword.�Say to the faithful that they cast down their eyes. One group do not look at this world, and they are the renunciants. Another group do not look at the realm of being, and they are the folk of recognition. Still another group are the companions of guarding and awe; just as they do not look at others with their hearts, so also they do not see themselves worthy of witnessing.

And say to the faithful women that they cast down their eyes, guard their private parts, and not show their adornment, save what is outward thereof.... And repent all together to God, O you who have faith!The allusion is that the servant has an adornment that it is not permissible to make manifest, just as women have private parts and that it is not permissible for them to show their adornment. In the same way, if someone makes manifest to the people the adornment of his secret core, such as the limpidness of his states and the purity of his acts, the adornment turns into a stain, unless he makes manifest something to someone that he did not do on his own or undertake. That is an exception, because he will not be taken to task for something that he did not himself determine or undertake. And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! He commands the faithful generally to repent. The repentance of the common people is from slips, the repentance of the elect from heed- lessness, and the repentance of the elect of the elect from observing the attributes of mortal nature. The repentance of the common people is to turn from disobedience to obedience. The repentance of the elect is to come from seeing obedience to seeing success-giving; instead of seeing their own obedience, they see the Real's success-giving. The repentance of the elect of the elect is to turn from the contemplation of success-giving to the contemplation of the Success-Giver.The limit of the gaze of the common people is their own acts. The field of the gaze of the elect is the attributes. The locus of the gaze of the elect of the elect is the majesty of the Essence. �I seek refuge in Thy pardon from Thy punishment� is an allusion to the gaze of the common people. �I seek refuge in Thy approval from Thy anger� is an allusion to the gaze of the elect. �I seek refuge in Thee from Thee� is an allusion to the gaze of the elect of the elect.It has also been said that He commanded all to repent so that the disobedient would not be shamed by turning back to Him alone. In the same way, at the Resurrection both the obedient and the disobedi- ent will enter the Fire, according to His words, �And none of you there is but will enter it� [19:71]. Thus He will conceal the disobedient with the obedient, and their defects will not be unveiled.

God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The likeness of His light is as a niche, in- side the niche is a lamp, the lamp inside a glass.... Light upon light. God guides to His light whomsoever He will.In reality light is that which illuminates other than itself. Whatever does not illuminate another is not called light. The sun is light, the moon is light, and the lamp is light-not in the sense that they are bright in themselves, but in the sense that they illuminate others. Mirrors, water, jewels, and the like are not called light, even if they are bright by their own essences, for they do not il- luminate others.Now that this reality is known, know that God is the light of the heavens and the earth: It is God who is the brightener of the heavens and the earths for the faithful and the friends. It is He who gives form to bodies and illuminates spirits. All lights come forth from Him and abide through Him, some outward and some inward. Concerning the outward He says, �And We ap- pointed a blazing lamp� [78:13]. Concerning the inward He says, �Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission, so he is upon a light from his Lord?� [39:22].Although the outward light is bright and beautiful, it is subordinate to and servant of the in- ward light. The outward light is the light of sun and moon; the inward light is the light of tawḤīd and recognition.The light of sun and moon is lovely and bright, but at the end of the day it will be eclipsed and occulted. Tomorrow at the resurrection it will be opaque and enwrapped, according to His words, �When the sun is enwrapped� [81:1]. As for the sun of recognition and the light of tawḤīd, these rise up from the hearts of the faithful and will never be eclipsed or occulted, nor will they be overcome and enwrapped. They are a rising without setting, an unveiling without eclipse, and a radiance from the station of yearning. A poet has said,Surely the noonday sun sets at night,but the heart's sun never disappears.Know also that the outward lights are diverse in their levels. The first is the light of submission, and along with submission the light of self-purification.

In houses that God has permitted to be raised up and in which His name is mentioned, glorifying Him therein.One view is that these are houses in which needs are raised up to God. These are mosques in which the servants supplicate Him and lift up the story of their needs to God and display their requirements.It is not beautiful for servants to debase themselves before the wishes of just anyone, for the Real Himself has assured for them what they need and what they must have. Bishr Ḥāfī said, �I saw the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī in a dream and asked him for advice. He said, 'How beautiful it is for the rich to be compassionate toward the poor in seeking God's reward! And more beautiful than that is for the poor to be haughty toward the rich by relying on God.'� How beautiful is the tenderness of the rich toward the poor hoping for reward! And more beautiful than that is the pride of the poor toward the rich by relying on the generosity of the Real.Glorifying Him therein. That is, in the mosques, for the mosques are the houses of worship, just as the hearts are the houses of desire. Through his worship the worshiper reaches God's re- ward, and through his desire the desirer reaches God.It has also been said that the hearts are the houses of recognition, the spirits the places of wit- nessing love, and the secret cores the loci of self-disclosure.

Men whom neither trade nor buying diverts from the remembrance of God.He does not say that they do not trade and they do not buy. He says, �whom neither trade nor buy- ing diverts from the remembrance of God.� If it is possible to combine the two, there is no objec- tion, but this is like something that cannot be done, except for the great ones, over whom affairs flow while they have been taken from them.This is the attribute of men whose outward occupation does not hold them back from remem- bering God. Their outwardness is with people while their inwardness is witnessing the names and attributes of the Real. They are men whose seeking is the equitable, whose remembrance is the evidence, and whose love is the path. In their eyes this world is small. They are men whose watch- word is the remembrance of God, whose blanket is God's love, whose place and settledness is the threshold of God's gentleness, whose aspirations are free from any others. They are the beauty of Firdaws, the ornament of the Abode of Settledness, begrudged by the Emigrants and envied by the Helpers, and they walk on the earth while it boasts of them.Men. These are men who have no crown or hat on their heads, and there is nothing in their hearts but God's friendship. In the street of the Friend they have no friend or companions. �When the sought is great, assistants are few.� What harm to them if in this world they are the specious coin of the bazaars? Their hearts are all hard cash. They are faulted by noblemen and rejected by neighbors, but their names are in the register of the friends. They are lifted up by gentleness, they are caressed by the All-Merciful, and their hearts are always gazing at the Real. They sit on the dust, they sleep on the earth, their hands are their pillow, the mosque is their house. What harm to them are this poverty and indigence? With one allusion of their eye, they bring rain for the world's folk; with one gaze of their heart, they rout the unbelievers; with one sorrow of their heart, they bring Gabriel into the road. And let not thine eyes turn away from them [18:28].

As for those who disbelieve, their deeds are like a mirage.... Or like darknesses in a deep sea covered with waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds. Darknesses, one on top of another. When he stretches forth his hand, he barely sees it. And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.God strikes a likeness for the person of faith and the unbeliever. He makes the belief of the person of faith light, his activity light, and his final issue at the resurrection light, as He says: �Light upon light� [24:35]. He makes the belief of the unbeliever darkness, his activity darkness, and his final issue at the resurrection darkness, as He says: �darknesses, one on top of another.� Then He says, �And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.�WāsiṬī said, �God does not bring a poor man near because of his poverty, nor does He take a rich man far because of his wealth. Accidental things have no weight with Him such that someone would arrive or be cut off because of them. Were you freely to give Him this world and the next, He would not make you arrive by that, and were you to take it all, He would not cut you off by that. Whoever comes near to Him comes near without cause, and whoever stays far from Him stays far without cause. God says, 'And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.'�

As for those who disbelieve, their deeds are like a mirage.... Or like darknesses in a deep sea covered with waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds. Darknesses, one on top of another. When he stretches forth his hand, he barely sees it. And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.God strikes a likeness for the person of faith and the unbeliever. He makes the belief of the person of faith light, his activity light, and his final issue at the resurrection light, as He says: �Light upon light� [24:35]. He makes the belief of the unbeliever darkness, his activity darkness, and his final issue at the resurrection darkness, as He says: �darknesses, one on top of another.� Then He says, �And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.�WāsiṬī said, �God does not bring a poor man near because of his poverty, nor does He take a rich man far because of his wealth. Accidental things have no weight with Him such that someone would arrive or be cut off because of them. Were you freely to give Him this world and the next, He would not make you arrive by that, and were you to take it all, He would not cut you off by that. Whoever comes near to Him comes near without cause, and whoever stays far from Him stays far without cause. God says, 'And he to whom God assigns no light has no light.'�

Dost thou not see how God drives the clouds, then combines them, then makes them a heap? Then thou seest the rain coming out from their midst.He drives the clouds of His compassion, then pours down the rain of His munificence on His friends with His gentleness. He rolls up the carpet of decorum from the courtyards of His nearness, He strikes the domes of awe with the loci of witnessing His unveiling, and He spreads over them the flowers of His intimacy. Then He discloses Himself to them in the realities of His holiness and pours for them with His own hand the wine of His love. Afterwards He effaces their descriptions from them and awakens them not to themselves but to Him.In the tasting of the chevaliers of the Tariqah the clouds are the clouds of compassion, the rain the rain of compassion that His gentleness rains down on the secret cores of His friends. From the soil of loyalty the fragrant herb of limpidness grows up. The sun of beginningless gentleness shines upon it and in the garden of holiness the rose of intimacy blooms. The wind of happiness blows from the horizon of self-disclosure, snatching the servant away from water and dust. Delay and lingering leave the feet of gentleness, and the breeze of beginninglessness blows from the side of proximity.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �It is You who shone the light of self-disclosure on the hearts of the friends, set the springs of affection flowing in their secret cores, and made those hearts Your own mirror and a locus of limpidness. You appeared therein, and with Your appearance You made the two worlds disappear. O light of the eyes of the familiar, celebration of the hearts of the friends, joy of the spirits of the near! All was You and all is You. You are not far that they should seek, nor absent that they should ask. They will not find You other than through You.��By God, if not for God, we would not have been guided.� How could a bit of water and dust have the gall to talk about eternity if not for eternal solicitude and desire?Had He not in His generosity and bounty invited this handful of dust to the threshold of eter- nity and spread the carpet of expansiveness in the house of guidance, how could this woebegone of existence and this mote of impure dust have the gall to take a step on the edge of the carpet of kings? What is suited for dust is to say with the attribute of brokenness and the tongue of incapac- ity and poverty,�We've come to shame at our own existence,we've encountered stone because of the decree.On the surface of the rug of misfortune,our black days have come in place of color.�

God turns about the night and the day. Surely in that is a lesson for the possessors of eyes.WāsiṬī said, �No one has ever opposed Him and no one has ever conformed with Him. All of them are put to use by His will and His power. How can there be conformity and opposition when He turns about the night and the day along with what is within them and He stands over the things and in the things through their subsistence and their annihilation. Finding does not become intimate with Him, nor does not finding bring about alienation.�Whatever the ulama have said is a report and whatever the shaykhs have said is a tradition.The reality of the Real is beyond reports and traditions.A field has been placed before the creatures and the call has gone out, �O folk of the world! Step into this field and walk in the veil. Know not where you go, and know not whence you are coming. Set out from the threshold of Our knowledge and settle down at the threshold of Our de- cree. Tighten the belt of serving Us and keep watch over Our will. Be ready for Our power, which comes along with Our pardon and forgiveness and Our severity and punishment. 'The power of the powerful suspends every contrivance.'�When someone's secret core is the mine of secret whispering, his heart is in the grasp of joy, his forehead has the mark of prosperity, and the eye of his certainty sees with the light of learn- ing lessons from the acts of the Majestic, then he will be aware of the secrets and intimations in these verses and understand these states, for the Exalted Lord says, �Surely in that is a lesson for the possessors of eyes.� In another place He says, �Surely in that is a reminder for him who has a heart� [50:37].

God promises those of you who have faith and do wholesome deeds that He will surely make you vicegerents in the earth.The verse makes an allusion to leaders, those who are the pillars of the creed, the props of the sub- mission, and the counselors of God's religion. They are three sorts: One sort are the ulama and the jurists, those to whom reference is made in the sciences of the Shariah, such as acts of worship, transactions, and so on. They stand with the Real in their tawḤīd through the marks giving witness to their souls and their shares. They intervene in the secondary causes through the Real, but their souls, their shares, and their love for this world veil them from the realities of tawḤīd.The second sort are the folk of recognition and the companions of the realities. In the religion they are like the elect of a king. They are described by purity of desire, beauty of aim, and truthful- ness in intention. They stand with the Real along with what gives witness to their states and their desire. They act freely in all the secondary causes through the Real, but they are veiled from the disengagement of tawḤīd by seeing their own states and desires and the marks giving witness to their aims.The third sort are the elect of the elect because of their recognition. They stand with the Real contemplating the Real in the manner of the disengagement of tawḤīd and the realization of soli- tariness.Thus the religion is kept flourishing with these sorts, despite all their disagreement, until the Day of Resurrection.Know that the vicegerents in the earth to whom the Exalted Lord alludes in this verse are three groups. Each group has a known station in tawḤīd and a defined limit in making servanthood manifest.The first are the ulama of the religion of submission and the jurists of the Shariah, the guard- ians of the creed and the counselors of the community. Their limit in making servanthood manifest goes no further than hoping to recognize the Real and fearing punishment. The fruit of their tawḤīd is confined to safety in this world and well-being in that world. Their submission and faith are the Real's gentle favors and succor, but these are mixed with the contaminants of personal motives and the marks bearing witness to the soul's own shares.

We shall advance on what deeds they have done and make them scattered dust.One of the pirs of the Tariqah recited this verse and said, �Of all the Qur'an's verses, this is the sweetest. When He throws these tainted deeds of ours to the wind of unneediness, He will act to- ward us with bounty alone. What He does with His bounty will be fitting for His generosity. What is fitting for His generosity is better than what is fitting for our deeds.�Then he said, �He has things rightfully due against us, like obedience and worship, but we in our makeup are destitute, and He has decreed our destitution. When the decreer decrees that someone be destitute, the plaintiff can have nothing against him. 'If he has suffered hardship, that has comfort in view.'�Whenever someone is destitute, it is incumbent to give him respite so that he may acquire some capital. But, we will never acquire capital until that world, when He will pour down the treasure of His bounty on our heads. We are not wealthy through our own being-we are wealthy through His attributes. Nothing comes from us or our deeds. When an affair is opened up for us, it opens up from His bounty.�When He accepts us, He does not accept us because of the form of our practice. He accepts us because of the readiness that He gazed upon in His beginningless knowledge. Whatever there may be in the world follows upon that readiness. Wait until tomorrow when He makes that readiness apparent and opens the doors of the treasuries. He will give the treasury of mercy to the disobedi- ent and the treasury of bounty to the destitute so that they may discharge what is rightfully due to Him from His treasury, for the servants cannot discharge His rightful due from what belongs to them.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, whatever I counted as a mark curtained me and whatever I considered a basis was foolish. O God, lift up this curtain from me totally, remove from me the defect of my being, and do not leave me in the hand of striving! O God, let none of our deeds circle around us! Lift us up from our loss! O Beautiful-Doer, straighten out what You made without us! Entrust us not to what You can put up with!�

Dost thou not see thy Lord, how He stretched out the shadow? Had He willed, He would have made it still. Then We made the sun an indicator of it.In terms of outwardness, this verse explains a miracle of MuṣṬafā, but in the meaning understood by the folk of the realities, it alludes to the special favors and redoublings of generosity he received. The explanation of the miracle is that during one of his journeys, God's Messenger dismounted under a tree at the time of the afternoon nap. All the companions were with him, but the tree's shadow was small. To make manifest a miracle for MuḤammad, the Exalted Lord pulled out that shadow by His power such that the whole army of Islam had a place in the tree's shadow. In that state the Exalted Lord sent down this verse, and this miracle became manifest.As for the explanation of his being singled out for proximity and nearness, it is that Dost thou not see thy Lord is addressed to those who have presence and declares the eminence of the proxi- mate. In the station of whispered prayer Moses wanted to see the Real: �Show me, that I may gaze upon Thee!�[7:143]. The exalted majesty of the Unity pulled the bodkin of severity across the eyes of his holiness: �Thou shalt not see Me� [7:143]. To MuṣṬafā He said, �Dost thou not see thy Lord?�: �Do you not see Me and gaze upon Me? What do you want with another?�O chevalier! Do not suppose that when someone reaches the contemplation of the exaltedness of the Possessor of Majesty, his passion and yearning will become less by one iota. In the liver of a fish there is a heat that will not settle down by one iota even if you gather together all the oceans of the world. A heart that is a heart is at work today and it will also be at work tomorrow. Today it is in yearning itself and tomorrow it will be in tasting itself.One of the secrets of Dost thou not see thy Lord? is that mortal man, though he is singled out for the special favors of proximity, would never reach the point where he requests the vision of the exaltedness of the Possessor of Majesty if mutual seeing had not come at the request of Beauty.

Then We contracted it to Us with an easy contracting.This is addressed to those from whom He made the traces and intermediaries fall away.

And He it is who has sent the winds, bearing good news before His mercy. And We sent down from heaven pure water.This is an allusion to the wind of kind favor from the direction of solicitude, which blows over the hearts of the faithful to sweep away completely the rubbish of opposition and the varieties of opacity. Then the hearts will be worthy of receiving the generous arrivals from the Real. When the scent of the repose of those winds reaches the breast of the servants, they seek for increase in those influxes and search out the fragrance of those arrivals and that solicitude. In loving kindness and gentleness, the Exalted Lord opens four doors for them: The door of beautiful doing, the door of blessings, the door of obedience, and the door of love.By virtue of mortal nature the servant enters the road of his own ingratitude, for Surely man is ungrateful to his Lord [100:6], so he closes the door of beautiful doing to himself. The Real sends the messenger of generosity with the key of disregard and pardon: �I will curtain your ugly-doing with My mercy, for I am the kind Master and you are the weak servant.� That is His words, �He it is who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons the ugly deeds� [42:25].In the same way, the Exalted Lord opens the door of blessings for the servant. The servant comes forward with ingratitude, for Surely man is a clear ingrate [43:15], so he closes that door to himself with shortcoming in giving thanks. The Real sends the messenger of bounty with the key of favor and says, �Though you have fallen short in giving thanks, I do not fall short in My kind-ness.� That is His words, �In the bounty of God, and His mercy [in that let them rejoice]� [10:58]. The third door that God opens for the servant is the door of obedience. The servant closes that door to himself with disobedience. The Real sends the messenger of forgiveness with the key of repentance: �When you commit a sin, I will forgive you, and I do not care.� That is His words,�Surely God forgives the sins altogether� [39:53].The fourth is the door of love, which God opens for the servant with His own bounty.

And He it is who has sent the winds, bearing good news before His mercy. And We sent down from heaven pure water.This is an allusion to the wind of kind favor from the direction of solicitude, which blows over the hearts of the faithful to sweep away completely the rubbish of opposition and the varieties of opacity. Then the hearts will be worthy of receiving the generous arrivals from the Real. When the scent of the repose of those winds reaches the breast of the servants, they seek for increase in those influxes and search out the fragrance of those arrivals and that solicitude. In loving kindness and gentleness, the Exalted Lord opens four doors for them: The door of beautiful doing, the door of blessings, the door of obedience, and the door of love.By virtue of mortal nature the servant enters the road of his own ingratitude, for Surely man is ungrateful to his Lord [100:6], so he closes the door of beautiful doing to himself. The Real sends the messenger of generosity with the key of disregard and pardon: �I will curtain your ugly-doing with My mercy, for I am the kind Master and you are the weak servant.� That is His words, �He it is who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons the ugly deeds� [42:25].In the same way, the Exalted Lord opens the door of blessings for the servant. The servant comes forward with ingratitude, for Surely man is a clear ingrate [43:15], so he closes that door to himself with shortcoming in giving thanks. The Real sends the messenger of bounty with the key of favor and says, �Though you have fallen short in giving thanks, I do not fall short in My kind-ness.� That is His words, �In the bounty of God, and His mercy [in that let them rejoice]� [10:58]. The third door that God opens for the servant is the door of obedience. The servant closes that door to himself with disobedience. The Real sends the messenger of forgiveness with the key of repentance: �When you commit a sin, I will forgive you, and I do not care.� That is His words,�Surely God forgives the sins altogether� [39:53].The fourth is the door of love, which God opens for the servant with His own bounty.

He it is who mixed the two oceans, this one sweet, delicious; that one salty, bitter.Hū [He] is one solitary letter that alludes to the solitary Lord. It is neither a name nor an attribute, but an allusion to a Lord who has no name and no attribute. The one letter is the h. The ū is the resting place of the breath. Do you not see that when you make its dual, you say humā, not hūmā? This is so that you will know that it is indeed one letter pointing to the One Lord.Whenever you say any of the names and attributes, you say them from the tip of the tongue, in contrast to hū, which comes forth from the midst of the spirit and goes by way of the core of the breast and the depth of the heart. The tongue and lips have nothing to do with it.When this word comes from the depths of the breasts of the men of the religion's road and the lords of the eye of certainty-those who have limpid hearts, high aspirations, and empty breasts- what they mean and understand is nothing but the Real. Unless someone becomes a chevalier of this sort, the reality of the He-ness will not be unveiled to him.A great man was walking on a road, and a dervish was coming toward him. He said, �Where are you coming from?�He said, �He.�He said, �Where are you going?� He said, �He.�He said, �What is your goal?� He said, �He.�No matter what he asked, he replied �He.� This is like what someone said:�So much is your image in my eyesthat whatever I see I fancy is you.�And He it is who mixed the two oceans, this one sweet, delicious; that one salty, bitter. The salty ocean has no sweetness, and the sweet no saltiness. The two are one in substantiality, but God in His power made them differ in attribute. In the same way He created hearts, some of which are quarries of certainty and recognition and others of which are loci of doubt and ingratitude.Sweet, delicious is an allusion to the hearts of the friends, which are bright with the light of guidance and adorned with the ornament of faith and within which is shining the radiance of tawḤīd's sun.

The servants of the All-Merciful are those who walk in the earth in lowliness.It has been narrated from Abū Baraza al-Aslamī that God's Messenger said, �I saw a people from my community, not yet created, who will come into being after this day and whom I love and who love me. They counsel each other, act with kindness to each other, and walk gently among the people with the light of God, in hiddenness and godwariness. They are secure from the people, and the people are secure from them because of their patience and forbearance. Their hearts are serene in the remembrance of God, their mosques flourishing with their prayers. They have mercy on their young and revere their old. They share what they own among themselves; their rich visit their poor and their strong visit their weak. They visit their ill, and they follow in funeral processions.�One of the group said, �They are being benevolent to their close friends.�God's Messenger turned to him and said, �Not at all. They have no close friends. They are serving their own souls. That is nobler with God than those who are openhanded to people, because of the lowliness of this world in the Lord's view.� Then God's Messenger recited, �The servants of the All-Merciful are those who walk in the earth in lowliness.�The Persian of this report is this: MuṣṬafā said, �I saw,� that is, in his unveilings and visionary encounters, or in a dream, �a people of my own community whose persons and semblances had not yet entered into the bonds of created nature. The compass of power had not yet turned on the circle of their existence, for today is not the time of their manifestation. That will come in other days and another time, when the desire moves and the apportionings join with their designated times. This is a people whom I love and who love me. Each of them would love to see me along with his family and possessions. They are chevaliers who always want good for each other. Whatever they have, whether possessions or position, they do not hold back from one another. They put aside their own rightful dues and shares and put forward the rightful dues of their brothers. They are leaders to the Real who travel with the light of God.

ṬāÌ Sīn MīmṬāÌ is an allusion to the purity [Ṭahāra] of His exaltedness, sīn an allusion to the brilliance [sināÌ] of His all-compellingness, and mīm an allusion to the splendor [majd] of His majesty. He is the Lord whose love is the repose of hearts, whose remembrance is the adornment of the eras, whose words are the banquet of the ears, whose seeing is the celebration of the eyes, whose assurance is the promise of caresses, whose face-to-face vision is the ease of the spirits, whose street is the home of the chevaliers, whose conversation is the goal of the recognizers, and from whose direc- tion blows the breeze of union. All is from Him, all is in Him and indeed, all is He. Say �God,� then leave them [6:91].

Perhaps thou tormentest thyself because they are not of the faithful.He is saying, �O master, they are a handful of the estranged, the objects of My harsh and forceful severity. Why do you occupy your heart with them? Why do you make yourself suffer because they will not believe? Turn them over to My decree and busy your heart with My love and com- panionship. Whenever a heart takes its ease in My love and companionship, it has no room for any other.�Sahl ʿAlī Marwazī was asked, �What is the greatest of God's generous gifts to the servant?� He said, �That He empty his heart of everyone but Him.�Junayd was asked, �When is the heart happy?� He said, �When He is inside the heart.�Shaykh al-Islām said, �He is not in the heart by His Essence. Rather the remembrance of Him is in the heart, love for Him in the secret core, and gazing upon Him in the spirit. In contemplation there is first the heart's vision, then the heart's proximity, then the heart's finding, then the heart's seeing face-to-face, then proximity's mastery over the heart, then the heart's dissolution in face-to- face vision. Beyond that, nothing can be expressed.�I set off on the oceans of love not knowing their measure- oceans that do not quench the fire of those who drown.

And the blessing that you have laid on me as a favor is that you have enslaved the Chil- dren of Israel.When Moses came to Pharaoh, inviting him to tawḤīd and making manifest a few signs and mira- cles for him, Pharaoh refused to accept tawḤīd, and then he laid gratitude and obligation on Moses: �Was it not I who brought you up from childhood and conveyed you to adulthood?�In denial Moses answered, �Why are laying gratitude on me for the fact that you took the Children of Israel into servanthood? Indeed, who can take servants and act as a lord other than the God of the world's folk, the Enactor of the universe and its folk?�

Pharaoh said, �And what is the Lord of the worlds?��What and who is this 'Lord of the worlds'?� Pharaoh asked this question in a discourteous man- ner, but Moses showed reverence and said,

�The Lord of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever is between the two.��Pharaoh, even if you do not know and do not have access to His tawḤīd, nonetheless the seven heavens, the seven earths, and everything in between are the mark and testimony of the Lord and His oneness. The engendered and newly arrived things are all the signs and banners of His power.�In each thing He has a sign showing that He is one.The chronicle of the Beginningless and the Endless is one instant at the beginning of His welcome, the blessings of both houses are a dust mote in the ray of the sun of His bounteousness, those pre- pared for service are the ones burned by His love, and those wounded by tribulation are the ones exalted by His presence. He is the Lord who is worthy of all laudations, with no equal in Essence and no companion in attributes. He does what He wants according to His choice, takes care of things without testing, forgives the disobedient, does the beautiful toward the destitute, brings forth the darknesses, brings out the lights, sees the states, and knows the secrets.Next to the color of your face, tulips are worthless;next to the scent of your tresses' tips, perfume is trifling.Know that in these verses, the Real ascribes creation to Himself in four places. He says, �the Lord of the worlds� [26:23], �the Lord of the heavens, the earth, and whatsoever is between the two� [26:24], �The Lord of you and your fathers, the first ones� [26:26], and �the Lord of the east, the west, and what is between the two� [26:28]. This sort of ascription-that is, of God's Essence to His creation-comes in the Qur'an in two respects: one is partial ascription, and the other univer- sal ascription.Thus He says to MuṣṬafā, �Remember thy Lord [7:205], And worship thy Lord [15:99], And when thy Lord said [2:30], And for thy Lord be patient [74:7], And thy Lord magnify [74:3], And thy Lord creates [28:68].� In the Qur'an there are many examples of this, and all of them bestow eminence and honor on MuṣṬafā. The Real is the Lord of all created and newly arrived things, but He singled out MuṣṬafā by mentioning him in order to make him great in the hearts of the servants.

�No indeed, surely with me is my Lord; He will guide me.�Do not despair, for the hidden gentleness is our guide and the concealed artisanry is lying in wait for Pharaoh.Surely with me is my Lord. In this statement Moses made himself solitary. He did not say �with us is our Lord,� because the decree had already gone forth that after the destruction of Pha- raoh and the Egyptians, a group of the Children of Israel would become calf-worshipers. This is why he made himself solitary. Again, when MuṣṬafā was in the cave with Abū Bakr, the greatest of the sincerely truthful, he had recognized the realities and meanings of the states of that sincerely truthful man, so he joined him with himself in declaring with-ness. He said, �Surely God is with us� [9:40].A subtle point: Moses brought forth with me because he was looking from himself to the Real. But MuṣṬafā said, �Surely God is with us� because he was looking from the Real to himself. This is like His words, �Dost thou not see thy Lord, how He stretched out the shadow?� [25:45]. He did not say, �the shadow, how thy Lord stretched it out.� Moses had the state of the desirers, but MuṣṬafā had the state of the desired. The former is the road of the travelers, the latter the attribute of those snatched away.It has been said that when Pharaoh reached the shore and saw the sea split open and the roads apparent, he said to his people, �This sea has split in fear of me, and I am your Lord the most high [79:24].� When he said that, Gabriel wanted to chastise him, so he spread his wings to knock him to the ground. The command came from the Compeller of the World, �No, Gabriel. Only those who fear death should be hurried to punishment.�It has also been said that Moses said about himself, �Surely with me is my Lord,� and the Exalted Lord said about the community of AḤmad, �Surely God is with those who are godwary� [16:128]. God did not reject what Moses said about himself, for He showed him the road of de- liverance and lifted the deceit of the enemy away from him. What then do you say about what the Real Himself said concerning the community of AḤmad? It is even more appropriate that He fulfill the promise He gave, deliver them from the sorrow of sins, and convey them to His mercy and forgiveness.

Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds, who created me, so He is guiding me.The mark of love is that, when the lover comes to the description of the Beloved, he turns his heart away from others. He remembers only the Beloved and speaks only in laudation of the Beloved. He does not become sated by remembering Him, lauding Him, and thanking Him, nor can he re- main silent. This was the case when Abraham began to remember and praise God. Look how he clung to plentiful remembrance and laudation and much supplication and pleading!What a difference between these two groups-the owners of requests and the companions of the realities! The owners of requests strive, bring forth obedience, and count out litanies, and then, after that, they present their requests. Their hearts are attached to the reward, and they implore by supplicating and requesting what they want. A report has come: �Surely God loves those who implore in their supplications.� This is the station of the lords of the Shariah. Moses was in this station when he said, �My Lord, open my breast and ease my task!� [20:26] and so on.Above this is the station of the companions of the realities. In remembering and lauding the Beloved they never turn to requesting what they want. Sometimes their tongues cling to lauda- tion and sometimes their hearts are mixed with contemplation, their secret cores having reached union. Annihilated from themselves, they subsist through the Real. This was the state of Abraham when he said, �who created me, so He is guiding me.� In other words: �He is guiding me from me to Him, for my existence has been effaced, and none but the Object of my worship guides me in myself.�This is why the Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, show me the road to Yourself and release me from the bonds of myself. O He who makes arrive, make me arrive at Yourself, for no one arrives by himself!�O God, remembering You is delight, loving You celebration, recognizing You the kingdom, finding You joy, companionship with You the spirit's repose, proximity to You light. Your seeker is slain though alive, and finding You is the resurrection without Trumpet.�

Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds, who created me, so He is guiding me.The mark of love is that, when the lover comes to the description of the Beloved, he turns his heart away from others. He remembers only the Beloved and speaks only in laudation of the Beloved. He does not become sated by remembering Him, lauding Him, and thanking Him, nor can he re- main silent. This was the case when Abraham began to remember and praise God. Look how he clung to plentiful remembrance and laudation and much supplication and pleading!What a difference between these two groups-the owners of requests and the companions of the realities! The owners of requests strive, bring forth obedience, and count out litanies, and then, after that, they present their requests. Their hearts are attached to the reward, and they implore by supplicating and requesting what they want. A report has come: �Surely God loves those who implore in their supplications.� This is the station of the lords of the Shariah. Moses was in this station when he said, �My Lord, open my breast and ease my task!� [20:26] and so on.Above this is the station of the companions of the realities. In remembering and lauding the Beloved they never turn to requesting what they want. Sometimes their tongues cling to lauda- tion and sometimes their hearts are mixed with contemplation, their secret cores having reached union. Annihilated from themselves, they subsist through the Real. This was the state of Abraham when he said, �who created me, so He is guiding me.� In other words: �He is guiding me from me to Him, for my existence has been effaced, and none but the Object of my worship guides me in myself.�This is why the Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, show me the road to Yourself and release me from the bonds of myself. O He who makes arrive, make me arrive at Yourself, for no one arrives by himself!�O God, remembering You is delight, loving You celebration, recognizing You the kingdom, finding You joy, companionship with You the spirit's repose, proximity to You light. Your seeker is slain though alive, and finding You is the resurrection without Trumpet.�

Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds, who created me, so He is guiding me.The mark of love is that, when the lover comes to the description of the Beloved, he turns his heart away from others. He remembers only the Beloved and speaks only in laudation of the Beloved. He does not become sated by remembering Him, lauding Him, and thanking Him, nor can he re- main silent. This was the case when Abraham began to remember and praise God. Look how he clung to plentiful remembrance and laudation and much supplication and pleading!What a difference between these two groups-the owners of requests and the companions of the realities! The owners of requests strive, bring forth obedience, and count out litanies, and then, after that, they present their requests. Their hearts are attached to the reward, and they implore by supplicating and requesting what they want. A report has come: �Surely God loves those who implore in their supplications.� This is the station of the lords of the Shariah. Moses was in this station when he said, �My Lord, open my breast and ease my task!� [20:26] and so on.Above this is the station of the companions of the realities. In remembering and lauding the Beloved they never turn to requesting what they want. Sometimes their tongues cling to lauda- tion and sometimes their hearts are mixed with contemplation, their secret cores having reached union. Annihilated from themselves, they subsist through the Real. This was the state of Abraham when he said, �who created me, so He is guiding me.� In other words: �He is guiding me from me to Him, for my existence has been effaced, and none but the Object of my worship guides me in myself.�This is why the Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, show me the road to Yourself and release me from the bonds of myself. O He who makes arrive, make me arrive at Yourself, for no one arrives by himself!�O God, remembering You is delight, loving You celebration, recognizing You the kingdom, finding You joy, companionship with You the spirit's repose, proximity to You light. Your seeker is slain though alive, and finding You is the resurrection without Trumpet.�

And who gives me to eat and gives me drink.Abraham was shunning delicious and refreshing foods and clear and refined drinks. They said to him, �Why do you not want this and why do you not eat?�He answered, �Surely His are the creation and the command [7:54]. This form of ours is commanded by His creation, and this soul of ours is commanded by His command. We have tied ourselves to His desire and pulled ourselves into the stable of His graciousness so that He will not leave us without nourishment.�The compass of Power had not yet turned around the circle of existence when He gave every- one what was suited for him and was done with him. �God is finished with creation, character, moment of death, and provision.�One person is in bondage to the nourishment of the soul, another hopes for the nourishment of the heart. The nourishment of the soul is food and drink, and the nourishment of the heart is recognition and love. One person lives through the soul-he lives by food and air. Another lives through the Real-he lives by love and remembrance.Whenever this verse was recited Dhu'l-Nūn Miṣrī would say, �Who gives me to eat of the food of recognition, and gives me to drink of the wine of love.� Then he would sing,�The wine of love is the best wine- every other wine is a mirage.�Abū Bakr al-Warrāq said, �Who gives me to eat without food and gives me to drink without drink. Metaphorically, 'He satiates me and quenches me without attachment.' There is evidence for this in the account of the cup-bearer during the era of God's Messenger. For three days the Prophet was heard reciting 'There is no creature crawling on the earth but that its provision rests on God' [11:6]. He had doubts about his proximity. Then someone came to him in a dream with a cup of the wine of the Garden and gave him to drink of it. Anas said, 'After that he lived twenty-some years never eating or drinking because of appetite.'�

The people of Noah cried lies to the messengers when their brother Noah said to them, �Will you not be godwary?�The purport of this verse is to explain how to invite and to explain the attribute of the inviter. Whenever someone invites and calls another to God, his road is first to command godwariness, just as God recounts from the prophets that they said, �Will you not be godwary?� Then, when they speak to them, they should speak with the utmost gentleness so that the words will get to them and be easier for them to accept. Do you not see that the Exalted Lord sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh and commanded them to speak gently? He said, �Speak to him with soft words. Perhaps he will remember or fear� [20:44]. He commanded MuṣṬafā in the same way: �Say: 'I admonish you in but one thing, that you stand up for God'� [34:46].In these accounts, when the prophets spoke to their communities with gentleness saying, �Will you not be godwary?,� they did not say, �Be wary of God,� or �Be wary of His punishment,� for in that there would have been a kind of harshness, and the hearts of the people would have found it repellent. This is like when someone says to someone else, �Do such and such!� This is a peremp- tory command, empty of benevolence and gentleness. If he were to say, �Will you not do such and such?,� this is the same command, but mixed with a gentleness and benevolence that will cling to the listener's heart.Will you not be godwary? is a command to godwariness, and godwariness is the root of all excellent qualities and the basis of all obedient acts. For the lords of certainty, there are no supplies for the promised return other than godwariness: And take along supplies, but the best of supplies is godwariness [2:197].There are all sorts of clothing. The clothing that you yourself can put on and take off is trifling. What does the work is the clothing of godwariness that the Real puts on someone. One person is draped in the clothing of submission, and he then sometimes falls and sometimes rises; finally, at the end, he is saved. Another is given the clothing of faith.

The people of Noah cried lies to the messengers when their brother Noah said to them, �Will you not be godwary?�The purport of this verse is to explain how to invite and to explain the attribute of the inviter. Whenever someone invites and calls another to God, his road is first to command godwariness, just as God recounts from the prophets that they said, �Will you not be godwary?� Then, when they speak to them, they should speak with the utmost gentleness so that the words will get to them and be easier for them to accept. Do you not see that the Exalted Lord sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh and commanded them to speak gently? He said, �Speak to him with soft words. Perhaps he will remember or fear� [20:44]. He commanded MuṣṬafā in the same way: �Say: 'I admonish you in but one thing, that you stand up for God'� [34:46].In these accounts, when the prophets spoke to their communities with gentleness saying, �Will you not be godwary?,� they did not say, �Be wary of God,� or �Be wary of His punishment,� for in that there would have been a kind of harshness, and the hearts of the people would have found it repellent. This is like when someone says to someone else, �Do such and such!� This is a peremp- tory command, empty of benevolence and gentleness. If he were to say, �Will you not do such and such?,� this is the same command, but mixed with a gentleness and benevolence that will cling to the listener's heart.Will you not be godwary? is a command to godwariness, and godwariness is the root of all excellent qualities and the basis of all obedient acts. For the lords of certainty, there are no supplies for the promised return other than godwariness: And take along supplies, but the best of supplies is godwariness [2:197].There are all sorts of clothing. The clothing that you yourself can put on and take off is trifling. What does the work is the clothing of godwariness that the Real puts on someone. One person is draped in the clothing of submission, and he then sometimes falls and sometimes rises; finally, at the end, he is saved. Another is given the clothing of faith.

I ask from you no wage for this; surely my wage falls on God, the Lord of the Worlds.This is a report about each of the prophets. Each of them said, �I ask from you no wage for this.� Thus everyone who acts for God's sake will know that it is not appropriate to seek wages from other than God.If one day someone takes a step in God's road and desires a reward or lifts up a request, let him never desire it from other than Him! To Moses it was revealed, �Lift up your request to Me! Whatever you ask for, ask from Me, even the salt for your dough or the straw for your sheep.�This indeed is the degree of the wage-earners, for they act with an ear to the reward. The rec- ognizers have another state and another work. When they act, they do not do so for the sake of the reward. They consider reward a freckle on the face of the deed.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �In any case, calling to account will be for the wage-earners. What calling to account could there be for the recognizers? The recognizer is indeed a guest. The wage of the wage-earner befits the wage-earner, and the feast of the guest befits the host. The resource of the wage-earner is bewilderment, and the resource of the recognizer is face-to-face vision.�The recognizer's spirit is radiant with His love; his spirit is all eye, his secret core all tongue.His eye and tongue are helpless in the light of face-to-face vision.�The wage-earner's heart has the shining light of hope, but the recognizer's spirit has face-to- face vision. The wage-earner wanders in the midst of blessings, but the recognizer cannot fit into expression.�The worth of the recognizer's spirit is not apparent. Do you know why? Because his spirit is not separate from the Presence. His bodily frame is like a shell, and his soul is like a pearl that originated from the Presence and returned to the Presence. If the soul had come from here, it would be soulish, and if it were soulish, the veil of dispersion would not have been incinerated. The fire of hell does not burn like the fire that burns in the recognizer's soul, for his fire is lit by friendship.

And trust in the Exalted, the Ever-Merciful!�Sever yourself from all but Us! Seek protection with Us! Take Us as the means of approach to Us!��O MuḤammad, O unique pearl! I brought you out from the depths of the ocean of power and displayed you to the world's folk so that the whole world would take on the color of your being's beauty. I created all for your sake, and I created you for My sake. Support yourself with Me and entrust yourself totally to Me. O MuḤammad, Adam was still between caresses and harshness when I inscribed gentleness in your heart and, with the hand of generosity, poured the wine of ap- proval for you to taste. I lifted up the curtain between Myself and you, and I showed Myself to your spirit.�

Who sees thee when thou standest and when thou movest about among those who prostrate themselves.�I see My friends constantly, and nothing of them is veiled from Me. Were something to be veiled, they would not stay alive.�O chevaliers! Know that the body lives by serving Him, the heart lives by gazing on Him, and the spirit lives by loving Him. The body that does not live by serving Him is idle, the heart that does not live by gazing on Him is carrion, the spirit that does not live by loving Him is captive to death.My joy from time is encountering You, my abode of peace is Your house.You are the object of my hope as long as I live; my life would not be happy without You.*Who is the heart that it should scatter pearls without You?What is the body that it should run a kingdom without You?By God, intelligence does not know the way without You, the spirit has not the gall to stay without YouWho sees thee when thou standest and when thou movest about among those who prostrate them- selves. With this verse, He severed him from the witnessing of creation, for when someone knows that he is witnessed by the Real, he looks to the details of his own states and his hidden affairs with the Real. The toil of the compact of the acts of worship becomes easy for him because He has re- ported that He sees him. There is no hardship for him who knows he is seen by his Patron. In the report has come, �Worship God as if you see Him, for even if you do not see Him, He sees you.�

Who sees thee when thou standest and when thou movest about among those who prostrate themselves.�I see My friends constantly, and nothing of them is veiled from Me. Were something to be veiled, they would not stay alive.�O chevaliers! Know that the body lives by serving Him, the heart lives by gazing on Him, and the spirit lives by loving Him. The body that does not live by serving Him is idle, the heart that does not live by gazing on Him is carrion, the spirit that does not live by loving Him is captive to death.My joy from time is encountering You, my abode of peace is Your house.You are the object of my hope as long as I live; my life would not be happy without You.*Who is the heart that it should scatter pearls without You?What is the body that it should run a kingdom without You?By God, intelligence does not know the way without You, the spirit has not the gall to stay without YouWho sees thee when thou standest and when thou movest about among those who prostrate them- selves. With this verse, He severed him from the witnessing of creation, for when someone knows that he is witnessed by the Real, he looks to the details of his own states and his hidden affairs with the Real. The toil of the compact of the acts of worship becomes easy for him because He has re- ported that He sees him. There is no hardship for him who knows he is seen by his Patron. In the report has come, �Worship God as if you see Him, for even if you do not see Him, He sees you.�

And We gave David and Solomon knowledge.In this verse the Lord of the Worlds lays a favor on David and Solomon, for He taught them the knowledge of the religion. Religion is a comprehensive name that comprises submission, faith, the Sunnah and the congregation, performing obedient acts and worship, and avoiding unbelief and disobedience. This is the religion of the angels by which they worship and obey God, and it is the religion of the prophets and messengers from Adam to MuḤammad. The prophets and messengers invited their communities to it, as the Lord of the Worlds says: �He has set down for you as the religion that with which He counseled Noah, and what We have revealed to thee, and that with which We charged Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Uphold the religion, and scatter not regarding it� [42:13].This religion is extremely obvious and unveiled to the folk of felicity, but extremely hidden from the folk of wretchedness. The Real gives religion-recognizing eyesight only to the folk of felicity. Only the folk of this eyesight recognize the religion, as the Prophet said: �How is it that you are with your religion like the moon when it is full, but only the seeing see it?�It has also been narrated that he said, �I have brought you a white, immaculate splendor whose night is like its day. For those of you who live, a great diversity will be seen among you after me concerning my Sunnah and that of the rightly guided vicegerents, so hold fast to it.�The religion in its totality is built on two things: listening and following. Listening is that you accept with spirit and heart the revelation sent down on MuṣṬafā. Then you go straight by follow- ing him. That is His words, �Whatever the Messenger gives you, take� [59:7].And We gave David and Solomon knowledge. In the tongue of the folk of recognition and the tasting of the lords of finding, this is the knowledge of understanding. The knowledge of under- standing is the knowledge of the Haqiqah.Junayd was asked, �What is the knowledge of the Haqiqah?�He said, �The God-given, lordly knowledge-the attributes gone, the Haqiqah staying.�The state of the recognizer is exactly this: the attributes gone, the Haqiqah staying. The com- mon people are in a station in which the attributes are apparent and the Haqiqah concealed.

Say: " The praise belongs to God, and peace be upon His servants whom He has chosen. "Know that the stations of the religion's road are of two sorts: One sort are called the preliminar- ies, for they are not the goal in themselves. These are like repentance, patience, fear, renuncia- tion, poverty, and self-accounting, all of which are the means of approach to something beyond themselves.The second sort are called the destinations or the ends, for they are the goal in themselves. These are like love, yearning, approval, tawḤīd, and trust, all of which are goals in themselves. They are not needed as the means of approach to something else. Praise of God and thanking and lauding Him are of this sort, for they are goals in themselves. Anything that is a goal in itself will remain at the resurrection and will never be cut off in paradise.Praise pertains to this category because the Exalted Lord says about the attribute of the par- adise-dwellers, " And the last of their supplication will be 'Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds' " [10:10]; " Praise belongs to God, who has put away sorrow from us " [35:34]; " Praise belongs to God, who was truthful in His promise to us " [39:74].In the Splendorous Qur'an He linked gratitude and praise with remembrance when He says, " So remember Me; I will remember you. And be grateful for Me and not ungrateful toward Me " [2:152]. Tomorrow, at the most tremendous courtyard and greatest gathering place, when the portico of magnificence is raised and the carpet of tremendousness spread, a caller will call out, " Let the praisers stand up! " At this time no one will stand up except those who in all states and times were constantly praising and thanking God and showing the rightful due of gratitude for His blessings.The servant will not become sound in the station of gratitude and praise unless three things exist in him: first knowledge, second state, and third deed. First is knowledge; from knowledge the state is born, and from state the deed rises up. Knowledge is recognizing the blessings from the Lord. State is the heart's happiness with those blessings. He alludes to this with His words, " In that let them rejoice " [10:58].

Who is it that made the earth a settledness, made rivers in its midst, made for it firm mountains, and made a barrier between the two oceans? Is there a god along with God? No, but most of them know not.The souls of the worshipers are where their obedience settles, the hearts of the recognizers are where their recognition settles, the spirits of the finders are where their love settles, and the secret cores of the tawḤīd-voicers are where their contemplation settles. In their spirits are the rivers of union and the springs of proximity. Thereby the thirst of their yearning and the agitation of their burning are quenched. Made for it firm mountains, namely the Substitutes, the friends, and the Pegs. Through them He continually holds fast to the earth and through their blessings trials are repelled from the creatures. It has also been said that the firm mountains are the ones who guide those who ask for directions to the Lord of the Worlds.Who is it that made the earth a settledness: Who is it that brought the earth of the submission under the feet of the tawḤīd of the tawḤīd-voicers? Made rivers in its midst: Who is it that made the springs of wisdom appear in the hearts of the recognizers? Made for it firm mountains: Who is it that built the fortresses of recognition in the secret cores of the friends? Made a barrier between the two oceans: Who is it that set up the clouds of going straight between the oceans of fear and hope? Is there a god along with God? Do you know of another god who did this? Do you know of another object of worship who made all this?It has also been said that made a barrier between the two oceans means between the heart and the soul, so that neither will overpower its companion. In the human makeup, there are both the Kaabah of the heart and the tavern of the soul, two opposite substances joined in creation and separate in path, each open toward the other, but between the two God's power has placed a barrier. Whenever the commanding soul raids the heart's pavilion, the afflicted heart goes to the Exalted Threshold to complain, and from the gardens of Eternity the robe of the gaze reaches it.

Surely thou wilt not make the dead to hear.In reality, life is three things, and any heart that is empty of these three things is in fact carrion and counted as dead: the life of fear along with knowledge, the life of hope along with knowledge, and the life of friendship along with knowledge.The life of fear keeps a man's skirt pure of defilement, his eyes awake, and his road straight. The life of hope keeps a man's steed quick, his traveling supplies complete, and the road near. The life of friendship makes a man's measure great, his secret core free, and his heart happy.Fear without knowledge is the fear of the Khawarij, hope without knowledge is the hope of the Murji'ah, and friendship without knowledge is the friendship of the libertines.Anyone who combines these three traits with knowledge will reach a pure life and be released from death. The Lord of the Worlds says, �We shall surely give him to live a goodly life [16:97]. I will make them live a pure life, disowned of self and free of the whole world.�Disown everything in the realm of being-be that Heart-taker's �companion of the cave.�The chevaliers are those to whom He gave access to face-to-face vision, and they made do with that. When the veil was lifted, they turned away from all creation. They took back the skirt of at- tachments from the hands of the creatures.Her love came to me before I knew love-it came across an empty heart and took possession.

Say: �Praise belongs to God. He will show you His signs, and you will recognize them.�This road can be traversed with three way stations: first showing, then traveling, then being pulled. Showing is this: �He will show you His signs, and you will recognize them.� Traveling is what He said: �And He created you in stages� [71:14]; �You shall surely ride stage after stage� [84:19]. Being pulled is what He said: �Then He drew close, so He came down� [53:8].About showing He said in the case of Abraham, �We were showing Abraham the dominion of the heavens and the earth� [6:75]. Again, He spoke of traveling on the part of Moses: �Surely with me is my Lord; He will guide me� [26:62]. He spoke of being pulled in the case of MuṣṬafā the Arab: �Who took His servant by night� [17:1].You poor wretch! You have lost the road, you have remained in yourself, you have not taken the road to the road. You have traveled lifetimes in yourself and not reached anywhere. Your traveling is like that great pir said: I was young when He said, �May your nights be sweet!�I became old in passion but my night did not become day.O chevalier! Take a step outside of yourself so that the road may become clear and your Compan- ion may appear to you.Have you not heard the words spoken by the Pir of the Tariqah: �O gone out of yourself with- out reaching the Friend! Do not let your heart be tight, for in each breath your companion is He. Exalted is he who is scarred by Him! On His road is he who has His lamp! This is why the Lord of the Worlds said, 'So he is upon a light from his Lord' [39:22].�

ṬāÌ Sīn MīmṬāÌ alludes to the recognizer's heart, its purity [Ṭahāra] of everything other than He. Sīn alludes to His secret [sirr] with His friends in their contemplation of His majesty and beauty. Mīm alludes to His favors [minna] toward the faithful in His blessings and bounties.Wherever talk of Him goes, the session becomes fragrant. Wherever there is listening to His name and mark, the spirits become luminous. In the 18,000 worlds, no one can step on the carpet of His success-giving without His help and gentleness. In the two realms of being and the two worlds, life is not given over to anyone unless by His protection and kind favor.The great ones of the religion have said that the chevaliers and the friends of the Real have three sorts of life: life through remembrance, life through recognition, and life through finding. The fruit of the life of remembrance is intimacy, the fruit of the life of recognition is stillness, and the fruit of the life of finding is annihilation. In reality, this annihilation is subsistence. Until you have been annihilated from yourself you will not subsist through Him. Abū Saʿīd Kharrāz said, �I was at Arafat on the Day of Arafa and I saw that the hajjis were making supplications and weeping beautifully: on every tongue a remembrance, in every heart a fervor, in every soul a passion, in every corner a burning and a need, with everyone a pain and a melting. The wish arose in me that I also should make a supplication and ask for something. I asked myself what supplication I should make and what I should ask, since everything needed is given unasked for; it is made ready and taken care of without being spoken. In the end I made the intention to open up the road of the Haqiqah to Him and to supplicate. He inspired in my secret core, 'You want something from Me after finding Me?'�In wonder the violet keeps on saying, �Strange-if someone has the Friend's tresses, why would he pick me?� Abū Saʿīd stepped back from that and kept on reciting this verse:�Your loyalty clings inside my heart,Your love is my goal, yearning my supplies.�

When he turned his face toward Midian, he said, �Perhaps my Lord will guide me on the even way.�In what preceded all precedents, the scented garden of recognition was adorned with the trees of love. The playing field of bewilderment and love was placed in front of it and made its access-way. �The Garden is surrounded by disliked things.� Whenever they wanted to bring someone into the garden of recognition, they first brought him into the playing field of bewilderment, and they made his head the polo-ball of tribulation. Thus he would taste the flavor of bewilderment and tribulation, and then he would reach the fragrance of love. This was the state of Moses, God's speaking companion.When they wanted to garb him in the clothing of prophethood and take him to the presence of messengerhood and conversation, first they put him in the bend of trial's polo stick until he was cooked in those trials and troubles. Thus the Exalted Lord says, �We tried thee with trials� [20:40].In other words: �We cooked you well with trial until you became limpid and immaculate.�He came out of Egypt fearful and trembling. In terror of his enemy he was looking right and left, just as a fearful person does. That is His words, �So he left there, fearful and vigilant� [28:21]. In the end he wept to God and complained of his burning liver. He said, �My Lord, deliver me from the wrongdoing people� [28:21]. The Lord of the Worlds answered his supplication and kept him safe from the enemy. Tranquility came down into his heart and took up residence. It was said to his secret core, �Have no fear and no sorrow. The Lord who kept you under His protection and guarding and did not give you over to the enemy when you were an infant in Pharaoh's chamber and you were slapping his face will today also keep you in His protection and not give you over to the enemy.�Then he set off in the desert all at once, not aiming for Midian. The Exalted Lord threw him to Midian for the sake of a secret that He had prepared there. Shuʿayb was God's prophet and dwelled in Midian. He was a worshipful man, overcome by fear. In the moments of his seclusion he wept so much that he lost his eyesight from weeping, but the Exalted Lord gave him back his eyesight through a miracle.

When he entered upon the water of Midian.He entered the water of Midian with his outwardness, and he entered the influxes of intimacy with his heart. The influxes of intimacy are the courtyards of tawḤīd. When the servant enters the court- yards of tawḤīd, the lights of contemplation are unveiled for him and he becomes absent from his senses in his soul. Rulership then belongs to God alone, for there is no soul, no sense perception, no heart, no intimacy. This is dissolution in the self-sufficiency and total annihilation.When the servant reaches the courtyards of tawḤīd, he is drowned in the light of contemplation, absent from himself, and present with the Real. Seeking ceases to be in the Found, recognition ceases to be in the Recognized, and seeing ceases to be in the Seen-attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, limits come to nothing, allusions and expressions negated. When rain arrives at the ocean, it arrives. Stars disappear in daytime. He who arrives at the Patron arrives at himself.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O Found and Findable! What mark is given of a drunkard but selflessness? Everyone's tribulation is because of distance, but this poor wretch's because of near- ness. Everyone is thirsty from not finding water, but I from being quenched.�O God, all friendship is between two, with no room for a third. In this friendship, all is You, with no room for me. If this work is from my side, I have nothing to do with it. If it is from Your side, all is You. What business have I to meddle and make claims?�

Surely thou dost not guide whom thou lovest, but God guides whomsoever He will.�O MuḤammad, guidance is one of the characteristics of lordhood, so it is not proper for anyone described by mortal nature.�Giving the success of felicity and the realization of guidance is a characteristic of lordhood. Human nature has no access to it, and no one is suited for this attribute other than the majestic Unity. �O MuḤammad, you have the eminence of prophethood, the rank of messengerhood, the beauty of mediation, the praiseworthy station [17:79], and the Visited Pool. You are the Seal of the Prophets, the master of the messengers, the interceder for the sinners, and the candle of earth and heaven. The reins of your steed have passed beyond the heavens, and the courtyard of the Splendorous Throne was made the place for the soles of your feet. But guiding the servants and showing them the road to faith is not your work, nor is it in your hands. Surely thou dost not guide whom thou lovest. We drive those We want into the desert of bewilderment and We drag those We want by the chain of severity. In the beginninglessness beginning and in what preceded all prec- edents, We placed the crown of felicity on the heads of the folk of good fortune, and We beat this drum: 'These are in the Garden, and I don't care.' We wrote the inscription of wretchedness on the foreheads of another group, and We struck this knocker: 'These are in the Fire, and I don't care.'�O chevalier, no attribute of God inflicts more pain than the attribute of �I don't care.� When the Prophet said, �Would that MuḤammad's Lord had not created MuḤammad,� he was wailing in fear of these words. What was said by Abū Bakr-�Would that I were a tree to be lopped�-is the pain of this talk.Beautiful words were spoken by the Pir of the Tariqah: �What does the work is not that some- one has indolence and someone else has deeds. What does the work is that someone is unworthy in the Beginningless. The greatest of the abandoned ones, called Iblis, was busy in the workshop of deeds for many years. The folk of the Dominion were all beating the drum of his good fortune. They did not know that a garment of a different color had been woven for him in the workshop of the Beginningless. In the workshop of his deeds they saw scissors and silk, but from the workshop of the Beginningless appeared a black kilim: 'And he was one of the unbelievers' [2:34].�

That is the abode of the next world-We appoint it for those who do not desire elevation in the earth, nor corruption.Tomorrow in the house of the afterworld, those residing in the seat of truthfulness [54:55] and those in proximity with the All-Compelling Presence will be a group who in this world did not seek to be higher and greater than others. Here they considered themselves lesser and smaller than oth- ers and never looked upon themselves with the eye of approval. Thus that chevalier of the Tariqah was returning from the halting place of Arafat. It was said to him, �How did you see the folk of the standing place?�He replied, �I saw a people whom I would have hoped, had it not been for the fact that I was among them, God would forgive.�O chevalier! Do not look at yourself with the eye of approval! Do not go into the road of �I,� for no one has ever seen any benefit from I-ness. What happened to Iblis happened because of I- ness, for he said, �I am better� [38:76].One of the great ones of the religion saw Iblis. He said, �Give me some advice.� He said, �Do not say I, lest you become like me.�This indeed is the road of the wayfarers on the Tariqah and the chevaliers of the Haqiqah. Nonetheless, it is not permissible to throw away I-ness in the road of the Shariah, because things in the Shariah have been turned over to you, and that continues.Shaykh Abū ʿAbdallāh Khafīf said, �Throwing away I-ness in the Shariah is heresy, and af- firming I-ness in the Haqiqah is associationism. When you are in the station of the Shariah, say I. When you are on the road of the Haqiqah, say He. Indeed, all is He. The Shariah is the acts, the Haqiqah the states. The acts abide through you, the states are arranged by Him.�

He who made the Qur'an obligatory upon thee shall restore thee to a place of return.Outwardly, the place of return is Mecca. The Prophet often used to say, �The homeland! The homeland!� and God made his request into reality. In secret and allusion, however, the meaning is this: �He appointed for you the attributes of dispersion so that you may convey the message and spread the Shariah. He will restore you to togetherness through your realization of annihilation from creation.�As long as MuṣṬafā was busy conveying the message, spreading the Shariah, and laying down the foundations of the religion, he was in the station of dispersion for the sake of the people's salvation. With this verse, he was taken from the narrow pass of dispersion to the vast plain of togetherness, the drinking place of His elect. Thus he said, �No one embraces me in my present moment save my Lord.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �When someone's togetherness is sound, dispersion will not harm him. When someone's lineage is sound, recalcitrance will not cut it off. Speaking of togetherness is not the work of the tongue, and expressing its reality is calumny. How can the one destroyed by the ocean of trial explain? What mark has he who has drowned in annihilation itself? This is the talk of the heart's resurrection and the spirit's plundering. With the onslaught of union, what can be done by heart and eyes? When someone is bewildered in the breeze of his own union, his spirit has long been in hock to beginningless love. May he be lost-hearted, for he is wailing in the tracks of the heart! May he be lost-spirited, for he regrets traveling to the Friend!�

Everything is perishing but His face; to Him belongs the decree, and to Him you will be returned.Whatever was not, then came to be, is under the sway of disappearance and the blow of annihila- tion. Yesterday it was not and tomorrow it will not be. But in the Essence and attributes of self- sufficiency the Unity's majesty subsists and lasts. He is alive before all the living, the Lord of life and the living, inheritor of the world and the world's folk, subsistent after the world's folk and the world-the return of everything and all creatures is to Him everlastingly.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, O knower of everything, maker of every work, and keeper of all, no one is Your partner and none are without need for You. You throw down the work with wisdom, you act with gentleness. There is neither injustice nor games. O God, the servant knows nothing of the whyness of Your work, and no one rules over You. You have made the suitable things and have wanted the riches. Not from anyone to You, not from You to anyone-all is from You in You, all is You, and that's it.��Is not everything but God unreal?� God, and that's it-attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified, creatures negated, and the one Real subsisting in His rightful due.

Do the people reckon they will be left to say, �We have faith,� and not be tried?Do the people reckon they will be left simply to claim to have faith without trial being demanded from them? That will never happen, for the worth of every man lies in his trial. So when the mea- sure of someone's meaning is more, the measure of his trial will be more.The Prophet said, �Surely the people most severely tried are the prophets, then the next best, then the next best.� He also said, �When God desires good for a people, He tries them.�The lordly likeness from the Presence of Lordhood is this: Trial from Our threshold is a robe of honor for the friends. Whoever seeks a level above others in the station of friendship will smell more of the rose of tribulation in the pleasure-garden of the friends.If you want to know this, then look at the state of that master of Adam's children, the one emulated by the folk of the Shariah, and the foremost and chieftain of the folk of the Haqiqah. When that paragon walked into this street, he was not left without heartache and grief for an hour. If he sat for a while cross-legged, the address would come, �Sit like a servant!� If once he put a ring on his finger, the whip of rebuke would come down: �What, did you reckon that We created you aimlessly?� [23:115]. If once he placed his foot on the ground boldly, the command would come, �Walk not in the earth exultantly� [17:37]. If one day he said, �I love ʿāÌisha,� he would see what he saw.When his trial reached the extreme from the words of the hypocrites, he complained inwardly to God. He was addressed: �O paragon, when someone's heart and spirit witness Me, does he complain of trial?� All the venom in the treasuries of the Unseen was poured into one cup and put in his hand, and then a curtain was lifted from his secret core. It was said, �O MuḤammad, drink this venom while contemplating My beauty! And be patient with thy Lord's decree, for surely thou art in Our eyes� [52:48].Were the Beloved's hand to pour poison for me, poison from His hand would be sweet.*Your curse, O Friend, is my praise and laudation, Your iniquity my justice, Your cruelty loyalty.

Whoso hopes to encounter God, God's term is coming, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing.When someone passes his life hoping for Our encounter, We will permit him to gaze upon Us and he will be delivered from absence and separation. And He is the Hearing of the moans of the yearners, the Knowing of the longing of the enraptured lovers.The price of seeing the Friend is the spirit. If you find that for one hundred thousand spirits, that is cheap. Who is more victorious than the servant who sees the Friend face-to-face? Hoping to see the Friend is the attribute of the Men.Great is the aspiration of the eye that wants to see You-is it not enough for an eye that You see him who sees You?Wait until tomorrow, when the servant will sit at the table of everlastingness, drinking the wine of union. He will see blessedness, nearness, and the most beautiful and will arrive at hearing, drink- ing, and seeing. This is just what the Exalted Lord says: �Faces that day will be radiant, gazing upon their Lord� [75:22-23]. The faces of the faithful and the self-purifiers, the faces of the sin- cerely truthful and the witnesses, will be like glowing moons, shining suns, garden violets, fragrant jasmine, red anemones, flashing lightning, rising suns, the vast paradise. On whom will these faces be gazing? They will be gazing upon their Lord, upon their creator, upon their nurturer. What is the attribute of that day? The day of proximity and union, the day of kindness and bounteousness, the day of giving and bestowal, the day of gazing on the Possessor of Majesty. In hoping for this station the yearners dedicated their bodies, and for the sake of this way station the passionate put rings in their ears.The recognizers will have three eyes in vision: The eye of the head will see, and that is for pleasure. The eye of the heart will see, and that is for recognition. The eye of the spirit will see, and that is for contemplation. He will fill the eye of the head with the light of bounty, the eye of the heart with the light of proximity, and the eye of the spirit with the light of finding.

Have they not seen how God originates creation, then makes it return?In terms of the outwardness, originating creation and making it return are this world and the next world. In terms of the inwardness, these allude to the changing of the moments and the recurrence of states for the possessors of hearts. Sometimes they are in contraction, sometimes expansion, sometimes awe, sometimes intimacy. For a time absence dominates over them, for a time pres- ence; for a time intoxication, for a time sobriety; for a time subsistence, for a time annihilation.When the servant is in contraction and awe, he manifests servanthood by craving forgiveness and fearing punishment, just as the Exalted Lord said: �They were supplicating Us in eagerness and dread� [21:90]. Then, when he steps into the world of expansion, he sees the marks bearing witness to intimacy. He is freed from his own power and strength and disengaged from his own desires and aims. He lives in the opening of disengagement and his aspiration's goal and kiblah becomes desiring His face [6:52]. In this state his soul will be like what Shiblī said because of drunkenness and selflessness: �At the resurrection, everyone will have an antagonist, and I will be Adam's. Why did he make my road steep so that I was held back by the mud?�When he was in expansion he spoke like that, and when he was in contraction he used to say, �My abasement suspends the abasement of the Jews.� Once again he would be given over to expansion and intimacy such that he said, �Where are the heavens and the earths that I may carry them on one of my eyelashes?�This then is the meaning of the recurrence of the states alluded to by originating and making return. The proof text of this in the exalted Qur'an is His words, �You shall surely ride stage after stage� [84:19], that is, state after state.Part of the conduct and traveling of MuṣṬafā was that one day he would say, �I am the master of Adam's children.� Then in the state of contraction he would say, �I do not know what He will do with me or with you. Would that MuḤammad's Lord had not created MuḤammad!� Again, in the state of intimacy, he would say, �I am not like any of you-I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink.

He chastises whom He will and has mercy on whom He will.When He wants He acts with justice toward someone and drives him away from His kindness, and when He wants He acts with bounty toward him and calls him to His gentleness. All is tied to His beginningless will, and He issues the decree without any cause. It is not that He shows bounty toward someone because of his obedience, nor that He acts with justice toward someone because of his disobedience. That is a work that was taken care of in the Beginningless, a decree that went out as God wanted.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Alas for the apportioning that has gone before me! Alack for the words spoken by the Self-Seer! What profit if I live happily or distraught? I fear what the Power- ful said in the Beginningless.�He chastises whom He will through abandonment and He has mercy upon whom He will through giving the success of beautiful doing. He chastises whom He will through ingratitude and He has mercy upon whom He will through faith. He chastises whom He will through dispersion of the heart and He has mercy upon whom He will through the togetherness of aspiration. He chas- tises whom He will by casting him into the darkness of self-governance and He has mercy upon whom He will by giving him to witness the flow of predetermination. He chastises whom He will by his love for this world and being held back from it and He has mercy upon whom He will by his renunciation of it and its expansion for him. He chastises whom He will by His turning away from him and He has mercy upon whom He will by His turning toward him.

You will not be disablers in earth or in heaven, and you have no friend or helper apart from God.You will not be disablers in earth or in heaven. On the contrary, everything turns around in His grasp, and He brings to pass for them the decrees of His predetermination-whether they deny or voice His tawḤīd, whether they turn toward Him or away from Him.

And those who disbelieve in the signs of God and the encounter with Him-they have lost hope in My mercy.In this world the punishment of the unbelievers is completed when they lose hope in God's mercy. To the faithful He says, �No matter how many foolish things you have done and how much you have sinned, despair not of God's mercy [39:53].�Know that the influence of God's mercy for the servants is greater than the influence of His wrath. In the Qur'an, there are more mentions of the attributes of mercy than the attributes of wrath. In the report has come, �My mercy takes precedence over My wrath.�Mercy and wrath are both attributes of the Real, and it is not permissible for you to say that one is before and the other after, or that one is more and the other less. If you say that one is more, then the other must be decreased; if you say one is before, than the other must be newly arrived. Hence, what is meant by this is mercy's influence. In other words: �The influence of My mercy overtakes the influence of My wrath.� It is because of the influence of His wrath that the unbelievers have despaired of His mercy, such that He says, �they have lost hope in My mercy.� It is because of the influence of His mercy that the faithful hope for His forgiveness and place their hearts on His mercy, such that He says, �They hope for God's mercy� [2:218].The unbeliever who has despaired of God's mercy with his idol before him is like a spider who builds a house, frail and without outcome. It has no foundation to keep it in place, walls for refuge, or roof to cover it. It is of no use in cold or in heat. It is so frail and weak that with the slightest wind it moves up and down and is ruined. This is the likeness of the idol-worshipper. He fancies that he is doing something or that he has a refuge: They were reckoning that they were doing beau- tiful artisanry [18:104]. They reckon that they are on to something [58:18]. �He who hopes that the mirage is water will only remain long enough to know that it was an imagining.�

To God belongs the command, before and after. And on that day the faithful will rejoice in God's help.Here before is the Beginningless, and after is the Endless. The meaning is that the beginningless command belongs to God and the endless command belongs to God, because the beginningless Lord and the endless Master is God.In the Beginningless and the Endless it is God who is one and unique. In the command He is without end, in knowledge He is without limit, and in decree He is without why. He is before when and in place before place. Before us He was there for Us in the Beginningless, and without us He will be our portion in the Endless. This is the intimation that He voiced to the paragon of the world on the night of the miʿrāj: �O MuḤammad, be for Me as if you were not, and I will be for you as I have always been.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Look at proximity so that intimacy may be born, look at tremen- dousness so that veneration may increase. Wait and see between this and that what indeed will be displayed by the precedent solicitude. To God belongs the command, before and after.�In another place He says, �Surely His are the creation and the command� [7:54]. The world of the creation comes to an end, but the world of the command has no end. It is permissible for the world of the creation to disappear, but the world of the command is necessarily permanent. As long as a man does not pass beyond the world of the creation, he is not allowed to enter the world of the command. He must become naked of his own makeup and cut off the relation of createdness from the innate disposition of recognition.If you want to pass into the world of the command, to rise up from your ungrateful makeup, and to cut away your ascription to great wrongdoing and deep ignorance, you can only do so by lingering and passing time. Just as you must linger in coming, so also you must linger in leav- ing. Just as the sperm-drop is held back for a while before it becomes a clot-and so on with the clot until it becomes bones, the bones until it becomes flesh, which is then kept for a time until it comes into movement-so also in the measure that a man comes up from under his own hand he becomes familiar with the command of the Real.

To God belongs the command, before and after. And on that day the faithful will rejoice in God's help.Here before is the Beginningless, and after is the Endless. The meaning is that the beginningless command belongs to God and the endless command belongs to God, because the beginningless Lord and the endless Master is God.In the Beginningless and the Endless it is God who is one and unique. In the command He is without end, in knowledge He is without limit, and in decree He is without why. He is before when and in place before place. Before us He was there for Us in the Beginningless, and without us He will be our portion in the Endless. This is the intimation that He voiced to the paragon of the world on the night of the miʿrāj: �O MuḤammad, be for Me as if you were not, and I will be for you as I have always been.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Look at proximity so that intimacy may be born, look at tremen- dousness so that veneration may increase. Wait and see between this and that what indeed will be displayed by the precedent solicitude. To God belongs the command, before and after.�In another place He says, �Surely His are the creation and the command� [7:54]. The world of the creation comes to an end, but the world of the command has no end. It is permissible for the world of the creation to disappear, but the world of the command is necessarily permanent. As long as a man does not pass beyond the world of the creation, he is not allowed to enter the world of the command. He must become naked of his own makeup and cut off the relation of createdness from the innate disposition of recognition.If you want to pass into the world of the command, to rise up from your ungrateful makeup, and to cut away your ascription to great wrongdoing and deep ignorance, you can only do so by lingering and passing time. Just as you must linger in coming, so also you must linger in leav- ing. Just as the sperm-drop is held back for a while before it becomes a clot-and so on with the clot until it becomes bones, the bones until it becomes flesh, which is then kept for a time until it comes into movement-so also in the measure that a man comes up from under his own hand he becomes familiar with the command of the Real.

And of His signs is that He created you of dust, and then you were mortal man, spreading about.O child of Adam! If you want to know the signs and banners of God's Unity and recognize the marks of His Solitariness, open the eye of heedfulness, open up the insight of intellect, roam the world of your own soul, and gaze on the root of your own creation. You were a handful of dust, a dark makeup stuck in the darkness of your own unknowing, bewildered by the darkness of attri- butes. Then the rain of lights began to fall from the heaven of mysteries: �Then He sprinkled them with some of His light.� The dust turned into jasmine and the stone became pearls. The dense makeup became exalted by this subtle link. The dust became pure, the darkness became light.�Yes, it is We who adorn and paint. We adorn whom We will with Our light. We adorn the Garden with Our friends, We adorn Our friends with the heart, and We adorn the heart with Our light. We do this so that if they do not reach the pavilions of Our exaltedness through the carcass of their misery, they will reach Us through the ray of the prosperity of Our majesty's light.�A pir was asked, �What is the mark of that light?�He replied, �Its mark is that with that light the servant recognizes God without finding Him, loves Him without seeing Him, and turns away from his own work and the remembrance of himself toward His work and remembering Him. His ease and settledness are in His street, his secrets and joy with His friends. By day he is in the religion's work, by night in the drunkenness of certainty's tidings. By day he is with the people in good character and by night with the Real in the footing of truthfulness [10:2].�

So set thy face to the religion, unswerving.Purify your intention for God, guard your covenant with God, act solely for God in your stillnesses and movements and in all your self-determining. Unswerving: going straight in His religion, in- clining toward Him, and turning away from other than Him.��O paragon of the world! O master of Adam's children! Entrust yourself entirely to Me! Keep your intention and aspiration on Me! Turn your heart away from the creatures toward Me! Cease your requesting and forget about the two worlds as is worthy of Me!�By virtue of this exalted declaration to that paragon of the world, he stepped forth on the night of the miʿrāj from the Lote Tree of the Final End into the desert of all-compellingness and turned his face toward his own specific kaabah, wearing as his beautiful cloak all the capital goods of the first and the last folk and putting them into His road. He passed on and showed no favor to any- thing. Finally, from the side of all-compellingness came the call, �His eyesight did not swerve� [53:17]. He kept his eyes in courtesy and did not gaze upon anything other than the Real. Nor did it trespass [53:17]. He did not covet anything beyond that limit.Moses stepped on the mountain and went several paces beyond the limit of the Children of Israel. His mind was boiling in the hope of show me, that I may gaze upon Thee! [7:143], so he had to be taught courtesy with the whip of thou shalt not see Me! The paragon of the world, however, was taken to a station where the dust under his feet became the ointment for Gabriel's eyes. His at- tribute was this: his eyesight did not swerve. This is because Moses was traveling, but the paragon of the world was snatched away: who took His servant by night [17:1]. The one who comes can never be like the one who is brought.Blessed is he who travels as the Real's companion, for in one breath he covers a thousand- year journey! �On the night when We take you, you will go farther than you could in a thousand months of going by yourself.� To this He alludes with His words, �The night of power is better than a thousand months� [97:3].�When you go by yourself, you will fall farther behind with every step you take. When you go with Us, your every step will make you more passionate. When you go by yourself, the highway- men will ambush you on the road. When We take you, the bandits will carry your banner.�What does the Throne do that it does not carry my saddlecloth?In my heart I carry the saddlecloth of Your decree and approval. [DS 933]

So gaze on the traces of God's mercy, how He brings the earth to life after its death.The Real is saying, �My servant, at the time of spring open up the insight of intellect, open the eye of heedfulness, and gaze upon My artisanry. Look at the quivering of the earth and the weeping of heaven, the rising of the trees, the murmuring of the water, the yearning of the passionate, the birds like preachers, the gazelles like perfume-dealers, the nightingales like drunkards in a garden.�Reflect on the plants of the earth and gazeon the traces of what the King has wrought.Eyes of languid silver,their pupils cast of gold,On stalks of emerald, bearing witness, that God has no associate.So gaze. Look at the earth that has put on a robe. The trees are selling perfume, the nightingales shouting on the trees, every bird seeking a companion. The Lord who works such artisanry is worthy of hearing the supplications of the servants and concealing the offenses of the disobedient. So gaze on the traces of God's mercy. Look at the traces of His mercy, the marks of His artisanry, the evidence of His unity. That Lord who fills the trees with fruit in springtime, puts water into streams, makes the ocean rain pearls, brings forth perfume from the earth-that Lord who shows this artisanry is worthy for the servants to make obedience to Him their blanket and watchword.So gaze on the traces of God's mercy. It has been said that springtime is three: First is the springtime of this world, which is the time of finding happiness and youth. Second is the spring- time of that world, which is the subsistent bliss and everlasting kingdom. Third is a hidden spring- time which, if you have it, you yourself know. If you do not have it and you fancy that you have it, you will long be in remorse.From year to year the springtime of the earth is one month. It is the cause of the heaven's rain and the north wind. It is quick in separation and slow to bring about union, so it would be absurd to attach the heart to it. Springtime comes once a year. Roses grow from dust, water flows from stone, the spirits of the tested find ease in springtime's scent, and everyone who has lost his heart finds again the heart that has fled.

And We gave Luqmān wisdom.Know that wisdom is correct activity or correct speech. Correct activity is to preserve the balance of interaction with self between fear and hope, with the people between tenderness and cajolery, and with the Real between awe and intimacy. Correct speech is that you do not mix levity with the mention of the Real, you preserve reverence, and you connect the end of every talk with its begin- ning. The wise man is he who puts everything in its own place, does each work as is worthy of that work, and ties each thing to its equal.This wisdom comes forth from someone who renounces this world and perseveres in worship. MuṣṬafā said, �When someone is a renunciant in this world, God will give wisdom a home in his heart and bring his tongue to speech with it.�ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said, �Vivify the hearts and seek for them the fine qualities of wisdom, for they become weary just as bodies become weary.�Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr said, �Wisdom is an arrow, and the hearts of the faithful are its targets.The shooter is God, so error is made nonexistent.�It has been said, �Wisdom is God-given knowledge.�It has also been said, �It is the light that distinguishes between inspiration and Satanic dis- quiet.�It was said to one of them, �Whence is born this light in the heart?�He said, �From reflective thought and heedfulness, and these are bequeathed by sorrow and hunger.�

Surely God-He has knowledge of the Hour.It is a sound report that a nomad came before MuṣṬafā and said, �O Messenger of God, when is the Hour?� At that moment the nomad was burning in love for the Real and the ocean of passion was boiling in his inwardness. He knew that knowledge of the time of the resurrection was not with MuṣṬafā, for this verse had come-�Surely God-He has knowledge of the Hour.� But in wishing to see the Real he wanted to talk, because of his passion's pain and burning. He said, �O Messen- ger of God. There is a drink that I placed in the hand of my need several years ago, and the promise has been given that it will be drunk at the resurrection. When will the time come when I will drink it down and take my ease in contemplating the perfect beauty without end and beginning?�MuṣṬafā knew where his pain was coming from and what its remedy would be. He said, �What have you done that you ask about that way station? How is it that you hope for it?�The nomad said, �I have not done much prayer and fasting, but I love God and the Messenger.�MuṣṬafā said, �A man will be with the one he loves.� Tomorrow, everyone will be with the one he loves today.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �The evidence of having found friendship is throwing the two worlds into the ocean. The mark of realizing friendship is turning away from other than the Real. The beginning of friendship is a wound, and its end a lamp. The beginning of friendship is distress, its middle waiting, and its end vision.�What harm if you suffer for a hundred yearsso long as you see the Friend in vision some day?A poet said,Perhaps the distress with which I awoke will be followed by quick relief.*I said to my heart, �Give it no thoughtfor our work will be opened by the Opener of work.�

Alif Lām Mīm. The sending down of the Book, wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds.It has been said that when the Exalted Lord created the light of MuḤammad's innate disposition, He kept it in the Presence of His exaltedness as long as He wanted. It remained before God one hundred thousand years. It has also been said that for two thousand years He was gazing on it 70,000 times a day, and with each gaze He would drape it with a new light and a new generosity.He kept the light of this disposition in His Presence for thousands of years, and each day He would look upon it with the attribute of favor. With each gaze it would gain another secret and mystery, another caress and gentleness, another knowledge and understanding.In those gazes, the secret core of his disposition was told that the level of the Qur'an's exalted- ness would preserve the level of his sinlessness, and this awareness became firmly rooted in his disposition. When his very clay along with the secret core of his disposition was brought into this world, the revelation sent down from the Exalted Threshold turned toward him. He was saying, �I hope that this is the realization of the promise given to me at that time.�In order to soothe his heart and confirm this thought, the Lord of the Worlds sent down this verse: �Alif Lām Mīm.� Alif alludes to God, Lām alludes to Gabriel, and Mīm alludes to MuḤammad. He is saying, �By My divinity, Gabriel's holiness, and your splendor, O MuḤammad, this revelation is the Qur'an that We promised would be the keeper of your prophecy's level and the miracle of your good fortune.�Wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds. There is no doubt that it is Our missive to Our servants, Our address to Our friends. In every corner We have someone burning in hope of seeing Us, in every nook someone distracted, his heart tied to Our love and his tongue busy with Our mention and remembrance. The poor are needy for Our threshold, the yearners anxious for Our vision.�In every city You have bondsmen and servants, the whole world is full of Your familiars.Who indeed am I, what service can I render? You have plenty of the burnt in the world.

Alif Lām Mīm. The sending down of the Book, wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds.It has been said that when the Exalted Lord created the light of MuḤammad's innate disposition, He kept it in the Presence of His exaltedness as long as He wanted. It remained before God one hundred thousand years. It has also been said that for two thousand years He was gazing on it 70,000 times a day, and with each gaze He would drape it with a new light and a new generosity.He kept the light of this disposition in His Presence for thousands of years, and each day He would look upon it with the attribute of favor. With each gaze it would gain another secret and mystery, another caress and gentleness, another knowledge and understanding.In those gazes, the secret core of his disposition was told that the level of the Qur'an's exalted- ness would preserve the level of his sinlessness, and this awareness became firmly rooted in his disposition. When his very clay along with the secret core of his disposition was brought into this world, the revelation sent down from the Exalted Threshold turned toward him. He was saying, �I hope that this is the realization of the promise given to me at that time.�In order to soothe his heart and confirm this thought, the Lord of the Worlds sent down this verse: �Alif Lām Mīm.� Alif alludes to God, Lām alludes to Gabriel, and Mīm alludes to MuḤammad. He is saying, �By My divinity, Gabriel's holiness, and your splendor, O MuḤammad, this revelation is the Qur'an that We promised would be the keeper of your prophecy's level and the miracle of your good fortune.�Wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds. There is no doubt that it is Our missive to Our servants, Our address to Our friends. In every corner We have someone burning in hope of seeing Us, in every nook someone distracted, his heart tied to Our love and his tongue busy with Our mention and remembrance. The poor are needy for Our threshold, the yearners anxious for Our vision.�In every city You have bondsmen and servants, the whole world is full of Your familiars.Who indeed am I, what service can I render? You have plenty of the burnt in the world.

Who made beautiful everything that He created and who began the creation of man from clay.There was a pir among the great ones of the Tariqah who recited this verse and then was saying, �He created man from clay, but He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. He created man from clay, but God approves of them, and they approve of Him [9:100]. He created man from clay, but remember Me; I will remember you [2:152].�What harm was done to this pearl of honor that his makeup is of clay? For his perfection is placed in the heart. His worth is because of nurture, not dust. His eminence is from the gentleness of the divine eternity, not walking on the feet of servanthood.The Real created the whole cosmos-spheres and angels, Throne and Footstool, Tablet and Pen, paradise and hell, heaven and earth-and He did not look at any of these created things with the gaze of affection and love. He sent them no messengers and gave them no messages. When the turn of the dust-dwellers arrived-those lifted up by gentleness and caressed by bounty, those who are the quarries of the lights of the secrets-He made the angels their watchers, He placed burning and affection in their breasts, He threw the fire of passion into their hearts, and He wrote the inscription of faith on the pages of their hearts: He wrote faith in their hearts [58:22]. He in- scribed love in their minds: He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. The secret He has with the Adamites He does not have with the Throne or the Footstool, nor with the heavens or the angels, for all of them are servants, and the Adamites are both servants and friends: We are your friends in this world's life and in the next world [41:31].

Say: �The angel of death, who has been entrusted with you, will make you die.�Were it not for the hearts' heedlessness, the taking of their spirits would not have been turned over to the angel of death. Since they were heedless of witnessing the realities, He addressed them in the measure of their understandings and attached their hearts to others. He addresses each of them in the measure of what their strength and weakness can carry.This address is in the measure of the understanding of the lords of customs and habits, who in their heedlessness do not find the road to the Real's realities and do not perceive the subtle secrets of the Beginningless, so they are given to drink in the measure of their capacities. Otherwise, in respect of the Haqiqah and what is addressed to the chevaliers of the Tariqah, the angel of death sifts the dust of the empire, seeking mines in the dust, and gems in the mines. �People are mines, like mines of gold and silver.� He is sifting the dust to see what you have nurtured within it-a carnelian, a ruby, a turquoise. Or no-you are bitumen, or tar, or pebbles. Are you a vile word [14:26] or a goodly word [14:24]? He sifts the dust, he twists the veins, he breaks the bones. How can his hands touch the pure deposit? What does he have to do with that? For he did not put it there that he should take it back. God takes the souls at the time of their death [39:42].Khayr Nassāj was ill. The angel of death wanted to take his spirit. At the time of prayer, the muezzin said, �God is greater, God is greater.� Khayr said, �O Angel of Death! Wait until I per- form the obligatory night prayer. Otherwise, I will miss out on this command, but I will not miss out on your command.� When he performed the prayer, he put down his head in prostration and said, �O God, on the day when You placed this deposit, the angel of death was not there to intrude. What harm if today You take me without his intrusion?�O Lord, if You annihilate me with the sword of friendship, the angel of death will have nothing to do with me.

There it was that the faithful were tried and shaken with an intense shaking.MuṣṬafā reported that the Real undertakes to try His friends, just as you undertake to give food and drink to the ill. He said that in the highest paradises there are many degrees and domiciles that the servants can never reach by their own effort. The trials that the Exalted Lord assigns to them in this world convey them there.A report has come that one day God's Messenger was gazing at the sky and laughing. He said that he was marveling at the lordly ruling and the divine decree concerning the faithful servants: If He commands blessings for them, they approve, and their good lies in that. If He commands trial, they approve, and their goods lies in that. In other words, they are patient in trial, they show gratitude for blessings, and in both they find the good.It has been said that the Real divided Adam's progeny into one thousand kinds and let them look at the carpet of love. The desire for love rose up in all of them. Then He adorned this world and displayed it to them. When they saw its embellishments and splendors, they became drunk and entranced and remained with this world, except for one group, who stayed on love's carpet and stuck up their heads in their claim.Then He divided this group into one thousand kinds and displayed the afterworld to them. When they saw the everlasting joy and bliss, the spreading shade and pouring water [56:30-31], the houris and the castles, they were entranced by it and stayed with it, except for one group who stayed on the carpet and sought the treasuries of recognizing Him.The address came from the side of all-compellingness, the Exalted Threshold, �What are you seeking and why are you staying?�They said, �Surely Thou knowest what we desire [11:79]. O Lord! You are the tongue of the tongueless, You are the knower of the secrets and the hidden. You Yourself know what we want.�We have a reckoning other than that of the world's folk, we have an intoxicant other than wine.The Exalted Lord took them to the top of the street of trial and showed them its deserts and perils.

God desires only to put away from you filth, O Folk of the House, and to make you com- pletely pure.The Lord of the Worlds is laying a favor on MuṣṬafā the Arab: �Our wish and Our decree is for the folk of your house to be pure of all the defilements of createdness and the stains of mortal nature so that everything in the house will be like the lord of the house: The goodly women are for the goodly men, and the goodly men for the goodly women [24:26].�It has been said that here filth is vile acts and base character traits. Vile acts are indecencies, both the outward and the inward [6:151], and base character traits are caprice, innovation, nig- gardliness, avarice, severing blood relations, and the like. In their case the Lord of the Worlds replaced innovation with the Sunnah, niggardliness with munificence, avarice with contentment, and severance from relatives with joining and tenderness. Then He says, �And to make you completely pure:� And to keep you pure from admiring yourselves, or considering yourselves pointers to God's door, or gazing upon your own obedience and deeds.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �The gaze is two, the human gaze and the All-Merciful gaze. The human gaze is that you look at yourself. The All-Merciful gaze is that the Real looks at you. As long as the human gaze does not pack its bags from your makeup, the All-Merciful gaze will not descend into your heart.�Poor wretch, why do you look at your own tainted obedience? How can you measure that against the threshold of His utter lack of needs? Are you unaware that if you gather the deeds of all the sincerely truthful in the earth and the obedient acts of all the holy ones in heaven, these will not have the weight of a gnat's wing in the scales of the majesty of the Majestic? But He, in His unneediness, approves servanthood in the servants and shows them the road. God is gentle to His servants [42:19]. He says, �Look at My gentleness, consider mercy as coming from Me, and ask for blessings from Me. But ask God of His bounty [4:32].�

Surely submitted men and submitted women, faithful men and faithful women, devout men and devout women, truthful men and truthful women, patient men and patient women, humble men and humble women, charitable men and charitable women, fasting men and fasting women, men who guard their private parts and women who guard, men who remember God much and women who remember-God has prepared for them forgiveness and a tremendous wage.In this verse, the Lord of the Worlds makes clear for His servants the way stations of traveling on the road of the religion. Then in His gentleness He praises them for their traveling and with His mercy He gives them a tremendous wage and a generous reward. He Himself shows the road, He keeps them traveling, and then He praises the servants for that. Here you have generosity and gentleness! Here you have mercy and clemency!Submitted men and submitted women. They are Muslims, having placed the rulings of the Shariah on their necks and having thrown themselves into the road of the Haqiqah. Faithful men and faithful women. They are the faithful through attesting with the tongue, assenting to the truth from the depth of the spirit, and acting with the limbs. Devout men and devout women. They are those who act with obedience and observe the commands, who by day are in the work of the religion and by night drunk with the wine of certainty. Truthful men and truthful women. They are truthful in both speaking and acting, in both compact and covenant. Patient men and patient women. They are patient at the descent of trials and unexpected decrees. Humble men and humble women. They are the broken and the lowly, approving of the decree and standing on the feet of incapacity before the ruling power of the Haqiqah. Charitable men and charitable women. They are the bestowers of their possessions and themselves; they do not put aside anyone's rightful due against them and have left the road of antagonism toward people. Fasting men and fasting women. They hold themselves back from the unworthy, they are silent toward what is displeasing by the decree of the Tariqah, and they keep the fast according to the Shariah. Men who guard their private parts and women who guard. They watch over their outwardness so that they do not fall into the forbidden, and they guard over their inwardness so that they do not see the creatures.

MuḤammad is not the father of any of your men, but rather the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets.This is a reminder bestowing the recognition, and an explanation declaring the eminence, of the paragon of the world and master of the children of Adam, the pearl of felicity and the foundation of mastery, the kiblah of prosperity and the kaabah of hopes, MuḤammad MuṣṬafā, the eminence of whose messengerhood is bound to the Beginningless and the exaltation of whose good fortune is joined with the Endless. The pulpit and mihrab are adorned with his name. The pillars of the religion and the foundations of belief were laid down by his explanation and clarification. That paragon was outwardly all ease and inwardly all comeliness. His expressions were eloquence, his secret core love. His spirit was from the light of exaltedness, his curtain the divine jealousy. His customs were the Shariah, his robe of honor intercession. Although God stripped the name of fatherhood from him, he was more tender and more lovingly kind than any father. He said, �For you I am like a father toward his children.�It has been said that his tenderness toward his community is greater than that of fathers, but God did not call him the father of the community because of what preceded in the beginningless decree, the lordly judgment, and the divine predetermination. This is the fact that on the Day of Resurrection-in that greatest gathering place and most tremendous exposure, when the pavilion of all-subjugatingness is pitched, the carpet of tremendousness spread, the scales of justice hung, the prison of chastisement brought out from the veil, spirits come to the throat, eloquent tongues become dumb, all excuses nullified, and all relationships cut-it is then that all fathers will flee from their children, as the Exalted Lord said: �On the day a man will flee from his brother, his mother, his father� [80:34]. Adam, who is the father of all, will come forth and say, �Lord God, let Adam go, and as for his children, You know what You will do.� Noah will say the same, Abraham the same; Moses, Jesus, and the other prophets the same. All will tremble from the harshness of the rising and the terror of the resurrection. They will be helpless for themselves and will not attend to their children.

O you who have faith, remember God with much remembrance!In terms of allusion what is understood from this verse is calling people to love the Real, for MuṣṬafā said, �When someone loves something, he remembers it much.� The mark of friendship is plentiful remembrance. Friendship does not let the tongue be at ease from remembrance or the heart be empty of remembrance.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �The remembrance of the Friend is the portion of the yearners. It is the brightness of the eyes, the good fortune of the spirit, and the adornment of the world. An iota's increase in friendship is better than the two worlds. One breath in companionship with the Friend is the everlasting kingdom-exalted is the servant who is worthy of that! What is this work? For it has no name and no mark. It is the servant's occupation, but hidden from the servant. The servant is unable to bear it but stretches out to reach it. By God, he who seeks it is joyful in the midst of fire.�Though Your hand be fire, it is my bed of roses.All that comes from You is sweet, whether healing or pain.

Their greeting on the day they encounter Him will be �Peace.�Wait until this poor man reaches the house of good fortune in the Endless. Delay and lingering will let loose the foot of compassion. The clouds of gentleness will rain down generosity, the sun of union will shine from the rising place of finding, and the eyes, heart, and spirit, all three, will gaze upon the Friend.In the report has come, �The eyes will be filled with gazing on His face and He will speak to them as a man speaks to his sitting companion.� When an eye has seen Him, how will it busy itself with glancing at others? When a spirit has found companionship with Him, how will it make do with water and dust? When someone has become accustomed to the Exalted Presence, how will he put up with the abasement of the veil? How will the ruler of his own city spend his life in exile?In this world of exile, you become weary becauseyou must say, �Give us ease, O Bilāl,� for the crowd. [DS 34]Their greeting on the day they encounter Him will be �Peace.� Tomorrow this caress and rank, this endless good fortune, will be suited for someone who today is separate from the attributes of his own being. All attributes of selfhood are bonds, every bond is a color, and the chevaliers disdain every color.He who painted a thousand worlds with color-why would He buy my color or yours, O bankrupt man!Why do you paint yourself, poor wretch! Self-painting has no worth. Why do you adorn yourself? Self-adornment has no value. Let it go, so that He adorned it in your hearts [49:7] may adorn you without you. Let it go, and then He loves them, and they love Him [5:54] will approve of you without you.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Look from Him to Him, not from self to Him, for the eyes belong to what they saw at first and the heart to the first Friend. Everyone with a chamber in this street knows that this is so. Seeing the Friend is the spirit's law and throwing away life in the Shariah of Friendship is its religion.�

O Prophet! Surely We sent thee as a witness, a good-news bringer, and a warner, inviting to God by His leave, and a light-giving lamp.�O paragon of the world! O master of the children of Adam! O pride of the Arabs and the Per-sians! O caressed by the gentleness of eternity! O foremost in earth and honored in heaven! You are a paragon whose explications are the arrangement of the necklace of salvation, whose proofs are the untying of the knots of difficulties, whose sayings are the edict of felicities, whose doings are the guidebook of generous acts, whose utterances are the capital of noble qualities, whose glances are the adornment of beautiful deeds�-upon him be the most excellent of prayers and the most ample of felicitations!Surely We sent thee with the truth [2:119]. �We, who are unique in divinity and peerless in unity, separate from creation in Essence and attributes, qualified by magnificence, creator of earth and heaven, shelter of every beggar and comfort of everyone familiar, knower of the secrets of cre- ation and witness of the deeds of all, We sent thee as a witness, a good-news bringer, and a warner. We sent you to the creatures to give news of Our gentleness to the familiar, for they are worthy of caresses, and to warn the strangers, for they are worthy of being melted. Give good news to the friends that the house of felicity has been decorated for them and warn the enemies that the prison of hell has been heated up for them.�And a light-giving lamp. �O paragon! The sun is the lamp of heaven, and you are the lamp of earth. The sun is the lamp of this world, and you are the lamp of the religion. The sun is the lamp of the spheres, and you are the lamp of the kingdom. The sun is the lamp of water and clay, and you are the lamp of spirit and heart. The sun is the lamp of this world, and you are the lamp of both this world and that world.�O Adam, though you are the chieftain in the register of the chosen and the title-page of the book of the prophets, how can you be on the same road with MuḤammad? For you were struck by the pain of the address of Fall down from it, all together [2:38], and he is celebrating the joy of who took His servant by night [17:1].

O Prophet! Surely We sent thee as a witness, a good-news bringer, and a warner, inviting to God by His leave, and a light-giving lamp.�O paragon of the world! O master of the children of Adam! O pride of the Arabs and the Per-sians! O caressed by the gentleness of eternity! O foremost in earth and honored in heaven! You are a paragon whose explications are the arrangement of the necklace of salvation, whose proofs are the untying of the knots of difficulties, whose sayings are the edict of felicities, whose doings are the guidebook of generous acts, whose utterances are the capital of noble qualities, whose glances are the adornment of beautiful deeds�-upon him be the most excellent of prayers and the most ample of felicitations!Surely We sent thee with the truth [2:119]. �We, who are unique in divinity and peerless in unity, separate from creation in Essence and attributes, qualified by magnificence, creator of earth and heaven, shelter of every beggar and comfort of everyone familiar, knower of the secrets of cre- ation and witness of the deeds of all, We sent thee as a witness, a good-news bringer, and a warner. We sent you to the creatures to give news of Our gentleness to the familiar, for they are worthy of caresses, and to warn the strangers, for they are worthy of being melted. Give good news to the friends that the house of felicity has been decorated for them and warn the enemies that the prison of hell has been heated up for them.�And a light-giving lamp. �O paragon! The sun is the lamp of heaven, and you are the lamp of earth. The sun is the lamp of this world, and you are the lamp of the religion. The sun is the lamp of the spheres, and you are the lamp of the kingdom. The sun is the lamp of water and clay, and you are the lamp of spirit and heart. The sun is the lamp of this world, and you are the lamp of both this world and that world.�O Adam, though you are the chieftain in the register of the chosen and the title-page of the book of the prophets, how can you be on the same road with MuḤammad? For you were struck by the pain of the address of Fall down from it, all together [2:38], and he is celebrating the joy of who took His servant by night [17:1].

And give good news to the faithful that they will have a great bounty from God.�O MuḤammad! Give good news to the faithful that they will have a beautiful caress from Me, an endless generosity, a complete bounty-response for the supplicator, bestowal for the asker, help for the striver, increase for the grateful, reward for the obedient. Give them the good news that when I chose them, I saw the faults. I did not approve before I had examined the hidden things. With My own unneediness I chose the servants as they are. Give them the good news that what was there at first is today the same-a cloud raining down everlasting kindness for the faithful, bounty without end, favor without bounds. Give them the good news that even if a servant has many offenses, the bounty of the Patron is more than that, for every deed of a doer in every state is worthy of himself.�All this that you have heard comes from the great bounty, but it is not the great bounty itself, for the great bounty is indeed another state and another caress-a spiritual life of delight with a hundred thousand hidden drums, an everlasting resurrection. The soul is mixed with companion- ship, the spirit clinging to its desire, the heart drowned in the light of finding. Because of the drowning, the servant does not discern the seeking from the finding. Because of the radiance of finding, it cannot be expressed. He burns in the fire of love and does not turn back from joy. With the tongue of his state he keeps on saying,�I keep on throwing the spirit-incense on the fire of passion. The spirit is Your servant-it is not that I am generous.When passion for You has burned away my spirit, I will contrive to find a hundred spirits more.�

If you show something or hide it, surely God is knower of everything.Since you know that the Real is aware of your deeds and states, that He knows and sees both what you hide and what you show, well then, always be at His threshold. Keep your activity rectified by following knowledge, eating permitted food, and constant devotions. Discipline your words by recitation of the Qur'an, constant apology, and giving good advice. Keep your character traits pure from everything that is dust on the religion's road and blockage of the well-trodden path of the Tariqah, such as niggardliness, eye-service, rancor, avarice, and covetousness.A great man was asked, �What is the precondition of servanthood?�He said, �Purity and truthfulness. Purity from every defilement, and truthfulness in every adornment.�The defilements are niggardliness, eye-service, and craving. The adornments are generosity, trust, and contentment. The sentence, �No god but God,� includes both statements. No god is the negation of defilement, but God is the affirmation of adornment. When the servant says �No god,� he uproots every defilement and every veil of the road. Then the beauty of the words �but God� shows its face and adorns the servant with the attributes of adornment. Then he is taken, adorned and trimmed, before MuṣṬafā so that he may receive him with �My community!�If the influence of No god does not appear to MuṣṬafā and if he does not see the beauty of the robe of but God, he will not receive him with �My community!� Rather, he will say, �Away with you, away!�

O you who have faith, be wary of God and speak proper words.Proper words are the words of tawḤīd. TawḤīd is the basis of the religion and the greatest pillar of the submission. The beginning of all the sciences is tawḤīd, the basis of all the recognitions is tawḤīd. The partition between enemy and friend is tawḤīd, the fixity of the seven heavens and the seven earths is through tawḤīd. The light of the two realms of being and the two worlds comes from the light of tawḤīd. The first pearl from the oyster shell of recognition is tawḤīd, the first mark of finding the Haqiqah tawḤīd.When you put tawḤīd in place, your gaze takes on the form of heedfulness, your tongue be- comes the treasury of wisdom, your hearing the oyster shell of the pearl of the Trust, your heart the center point of contemplation, your secret core the place where passion puts down its saddlebags.MuṣṬafā said, �TawḤīd is the fee to the Garden, and tawḤīd is sufficient as worship�: TawḤīdis the price of the Garden and tawḤīd suffices for all acts of worship.TawḤīd is not that you say that He is one. True tawḤīd is that you be one for Him. He-ma- jestic is His majesty-is solitary and unique. He wants the servant solitary and unique.The unique man has no use for middling passion; middling passion is not fit for the unique man.Either passion, or blame, or the road of safety-the arrow of trial has no target but man's spirit.If you are passionate, toss your shield into the ocean- otherwise, stick to the shore, or your grief will have no end.

Surely We offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it and feared it, and man carried it. Surely he was a great wrongdoer, deeply ignorant.For a time Adam the Chosen-that first wayfarer, that wellspring of beginningless gentleness, that coffer of the wonders of omnipotence, that jewel-box of the gentleness of the Haqiqah, that shoot in the garden of generosity-was kept between Mecca and Taif in the cradle of the covenant of recognitions. The ill-fortuned, ill-eyed Iblis passed by. With the hand of envy he shook Adam's makeup and found it empty. He said, �This creature will not be self-possessed. He is empty, and nothing comes forth from something empty.�Beginningless good fortune replied on behalf of Adam: �Wait a few days until the falcon of his mystery takes flight! The first prey it hunts will be you.�The abandoned and accursed Iblis saw Adam's clay, but he did not see his heart. He saw the form, but he did not see the attribute. He saw his outwardness but did not see his inwardness.No one can put a seal on fire. You can put a seal on dust, because dust is receptive to seals. �When We brought Adam into existence from dust and clay, the wisdom was to place the seal of the Trust on the clay of his heart, for We offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth.�He brought a handful of dust into existence and burned it with the fire of love. He gave it a place on the carpet of expansiveness. Then He offered the Trust to the world of form. The heav- ens, the earths, and the mountains refused. Adam came forth like a man and put out his hand. It was said, �O Adam, it is not being offered to you. Why do you want to receive it?�He said, �Because I am burnt, and someone burnt can only receive.�On the day when fire was deposited in stone, the stone was made to promise not to submit its head until it saw someone burnt. Do you fancy that this fire is going to come out into the open with the strength of your forearm? No, no, don't suppose that. It will only come out with the interces- sion of someone burnt.

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. In the end, David was saying, �O God, forgive the sinners-perhaps You will forgive David along with them.�

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.�AsmāÌ 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 any- one 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.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.

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.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.

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.

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 say-ing, �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 won- der is that ʿUmar said, �O unhearing, unspeaking idols, if MuḤammad's religion is the truth, pros- trate yourselves,� and at once all of them prostrated themselves.O pure Lord! Two improper, ugly things were placed before ʿUmar: enmity toward the Mes- senger 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.

Praise belongs to God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who appointed the angels as messengers having wings, two, three, and four. He adds to creation as He wills.�The praise belongs to God; that which belongs to Me is the praise by which I praise Myself, not your praise. The praise that is worthy of Me is the praise that comes from Me, not that which comes from you. What would come from water and dust worthy of My exalted majesty and ever- lasting beauty? How can the description of newly arrived things find access to the Eternal? How can that which undergoes annihilation reach the subsistent Real? How can that which was not, then came to be, praise Him who always was and always will be? O Adamite, your praise is defective because of your request for pardon and forgiveness. How can the defective be suited for the Pres- ence of Exalted Majesty? A majesty that is incomparable with defect and hallowed beyond infir- mity must have the praise of the Haqiqah, and that is nothing other than praise by Me, who am the Lord. For I am the Real, and My attributes are the Haqiqah. My servant, now I bring forth praise that is worthy of Myself. You also, bring forth praise of Me worthy of yourself, in the measure of your possibility. Then I will take your metaphor and through My generosity make it accord with the Haqiqah. I will make its ruling property the ruling property of the Haqiqah. If you say 'Amen' and your words conform with My saying 'Amen,' I will forgive you your sins. So when you praise Me and your praise of Me conforms with My praise of Me, how can any imagination carry and how can any mind contain the caress and robe of honor that I will bestow upon you?�Listen while I confirm these words with their like: The Exalted Lord says, �God bears wit- ness that there is no god but He� [3:18]. Before you bore witness, He Himself bore witness, for your bearing witness is defective because of the request to attain the promise of paradise and to safeguard against the threat of hell. Moreover, your bearing witness is temporal, but His attributes are beginningless and everlasting.

Whatever mercy God opens up to the people, none shall hold it back.In terms of understanding in the tongue of the Tariqah, this verse alludes to the opening of the folk of faith and recognition. Opening is a name for what comes from the Unseen unsought and unasked for. It is of two sorts: One is the influxes of provision and delightful life, unsought and unearned. The other is God-given knowledge, unlearned, conforming to the Shariah, never before heard, but familiar to the heart.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Alas for this unlearnt knowledge! Sometimes I'm drowned in it, sometimes burnt by it.�In respect of this knowledge the speaker is the ocean, sometimes in flow, sometimes in ebb. When he stands in the station of expansiveness, he fills the world with limpidness. When he stands in the station of awe, he fills the world with human nature.Among the sorts of opening are beautiful dreams, the supplications of good people, and the acceptance of hearts. According to a report, �When God loves a servant, the folk of the heavens and the earth love him, and acceptance is placed for him in the earth.�

Not equal are the two oceans, this one sweet, satisfying, delicious to drink, that one salty, bitter.This verse alludes to two states: turning toward God and turning away from God. Those who turn toward God are occupied with obeying Him and recognizing Him. Those who turn away from Him are shut off from worshiping Him and protest against His apportioning and decree. The former is the cause of union, and the latter the cause of deprivation and separation.These are two different oceans, one delicious and the other bitter, standing between the servant and God. One is the ocean of destruction, the other the ocean of salvation. This is their likeness: Five ships are traveling in the ocean of destruction: avarice, eye-service, persistence in acts of disobedience, heedlessness, and despair. Whoever sits in the ship of avarice will reach the shore of love for this world. Whoever sits in the ship of eye-service will reach the shore of hypocrisy. Whoever sits in the ship of persistence in acts of disobedience will reach the shore of wretchedness.Whoever sits in the ship of heedlessness will reach the shore of remorse. Whoever sits in the ship of despair will reach the shore of unbelief.As for the ocean of salvation, five ships are traveling on it: fear, hope, renunciation, recogni- tion, and tawḤīd. Whoever sits in the ship of fear will reach the shore of security. Whoever sits in the ship of hope will reach the shore of bestowal. Whoever sits in the ship of renunciation will reach the shore of proximity. Whoever sits in the ship of recognition will reach the shore of inti- macy. Whoever sits in the ship of tawḤīd will reach the shore of contemplation.The Pir of the Tariqah gave an eloquent admonition to his companions and friends. He said, �Dear friends, it is time to seek salvation from this ocean of destruction and rise up from this pit of lassitude. Do not sell subsistent bliss for this evanescent house!�A soul without service is estranged. Do not nurture the estranged! A heart without wakeful- ness is a ghoul. Do not be the companion of a ghoul! A soul without awareness is wind. Do not live in the wind! Do not be satisfied with name and description in place of meaning and reality! Do not feel secure from hidden deception! Always be careful about the outcome of the work at the last breath!�That poet spoke sweet words in fine verses:O heart, if you want the afterworld, keep your claws back from this world!Trade in gambling away life and choosing religion's road!Put your foot on this world and sew up the eye of name and reputation,seize hold of the afterworld and close down the road of pride and honor.

O people, you are the poor toward God, and God is the Unneedy, the Praiseworthy.Know that poverty is of two sorts: the poverty of created nature and the poverty of attributes. The poverty of created nature is general, belonging to every newly arrived thing that has come into existence from nonexistence. The meaning of poverty is need. Every created thing needs the Creator-first for creation and second for nurture. Thus you know that God has no needs or requirements, and everything else has needs and requirements. This is why the Exalted Lord says, �God is the Unneedy, and you are the poor� [47:38].As for the poverty of attributes, that is what the Lord of the Worlds said: �the poor emigrants� [59:8]. He specified the Messenger's Companions for this poverty and praised them for it, as He said: �For the poor, who are constrained in the path of God� [2:273]. He named them poor to disguise the wealth of their state and so that no one would know of their wealth. This is as they say: �Call me Arsalan so that no one will know who I am.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Friendship is built on disguise. The name 'king' for Solomon is the disguise of poverty. 'Disobedience' for Adam is the disguise of being chosen. The blessings that clothed Abraham disguised bosom friendship. This is because the stipulation of love is jeal-ousy. Friends do not show their state to just anyone.�Someone without an iota of being, who never gazes on the two worlds and who always keeps God's gaze before his eyes is called poor, for he lacks everything and is wealthy through the Real. One must have wealth in the breast, not in the storehouse. The poor man is he who sees no hand- hold in the two worlds other than the Real and does not gaze upon himself. He has recited the prayer of the dead over his own essence and attributes-as that chevalier said:�Endless passion has nothing to do with a heart that stays firm in its 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 209-10]

Then We gave the inheritance of the Book to the ones We chose from among Our ser- vants. Among them are wrongdoers to themselves, among them are moderate, and among them are preceders in good deeds by God's leave. That is the great bounty.In this verse the Lord of the world, the lovingly kind enactor, the caresser of the servants, gives eminence to the community of AḤmad with seven generosities-a complete eminence, a great honor, and an infinite caress. None of the children of Adam received these seven generosities to- gether except this community. Three of the seven are at the beginning of the verse: First We gave the inheritance, second, We chose, and third Our servants.We gave the inheritance: He called them inheritors. We chose: He called them the chosen. Our servants: He called them servants. �They are My inheritors, My chosen, and My accepted servants.�Since He called them inheritors, in reality He will not take back the inheritance. Since He called them chosen and His knowledge makes no mistakes, He will not reject them. Since He called them accepted, He will not put them together with faults.�We gave the inheritance: The light of guidance, the good fortune of the religion, the exalted- ness of knowledge, the adornment of recognition, the splendor of faith, the blessing of the Sunnah, the fruit of wisdom-to whom did We give all these? To the ones We chose: We gave these to those whom We chose. Since We chose them, We saw the faults. In Our unneediness We chose the servants as they are.�O MuḤammad! On the day We chose your community, We saw those long-lived angels with all that obedience. On the day We placed honey in that frail bee, We saw those mighty falcons. On the day We gave silk to that frail little worm, We saw those awesome serpents. On the day We gave musk to the musk-deer, We saw those mighty lions. On the day We gave ambergris to the whale, We saw those tremendous elephants. On the day We placed pearls in the oyster, We saw those fierce crocodiles. On the day We gave sweet songs to the nightingale, We saw those decorated peacocks. On the day We praised and lauded MuḤammad's community and wrote out the inscription of chosenness, We saw those long-lived angels and obedient proximate ones at the threshold of service.

Gardens of Eden that they will enter.When He mentioned their sorts, He arranged them in levels. Now that He mentions the Garden, He mentions them together. He says, �Gardens of Eden that they will enter,� pointing out that their entrance into the Garden is not because of worthiness, but because of bounty, and in bounty there is no differentiation.

And they shall say, �Praise belongs to God, who has put away sorrow from us.�O chevalier! The worth of the antidote is known by the snake-bitten, the worth of burning fire is known by the moth, the worth of Joseph's shirt is known by grieving Jacob. When someone is de- luded by his own safety and is given the antidote, how will he know its worth? If you want some- one to know the worth and gravity of the antidote, you need him whose spirit has reached his lips. A poor man is needed, broken-hearted, suffering pain, and burdened with grief to know the worth of this caress and the exaltedness of this address: �Praise belongs to God, who has put away sorrow from us.� Wait until tomorrow when that wounded-hearted poor man is placed on the throne of joy in the palisade of holiness while the serving boys and servants act like his slaves to spread the carpet before the seat of his good fortune. The night of tribulation will have come to an end, the sun of felicity will have risen from the horizon of generous giving, and the Exalted Pres- ence will set forth for him the gentle favors of generosity. With the tongue of joy and coquetry he will say, �Praise belongs to God, who has put away sorrow from us.�O indigent man! This world is the world of metaphor. It is clear what realities can be unveiled in the world of metaphor. It is obvious what can be painted on a gnat's wing. This world is a pris- on. What marks of prisoners can be given but sorrow, grief, and longing? For these grief-stricken ones the day of the bazaar and the time of access will be tomorrow, when the concealed gentle- nesses and treasuries stored in the Unseen will come out from the covering of jealousy unscathed by hands and untouched by minds. A vast capacity will be given to the poor ones so that they may drink the wine of vision cup by cup, or rather, ocean by ocean. They will be shouting out, �Is there any more?� [50:30]. And praise belongs to God alone.

YāÌ Sīn. By the Wise Qur'an, surely thou art one of the envoys, upon a straight path.It has been said that the name of the surah is Yāsīn because of the report in which MuṣṬafā said, �God recited Ṭāhā and Yāsīn two thousand years before He created Adam. When the angels of the Domin- ion heard it, they said, 'Happy is the community upon which this pure speech descends! Happy are the tongues that recite it! Happy are the breasts that are the oyster for this hidden pearl!'�It is reported that when the friends and the faithful go into that scented garden of felicity and arrive at the joy and bliss of paradise, a call will come from the Compeller: �You have heard much from oth- ers. Now is the time to hear from Me.� Then He will make them hear the surahs al-FātiḤa, Ṭāhā, and Yāsīn. MuṣṬafā said, �When the people listen to the Qur'an recited by the All-Merciful, it will be as if they had never heard it before.� You must take the rose from its own bush to catch its scent correctly.Hear it from Him who spoke it and increase therebyin burning love, for the sweetness of the rose is in its branches.It has also been said that it means �O man [yā insān]!� and is addressed to MuṣṬafā's form and mortal nature, just as He said elsewhere: �Say: 'I am but a mortal like you'� [18:110], for his hu- man nature and genus are similar to that of the people. This address, �O man!,� accords with that. But, in respect of the eminence of prophethood and the specification for messengerhood, he is ad- dressed, �O Prophet!� and �O Messenger!� He is addressed in terms of form and mortal nature as jealousy's mask, so that not just anyone will be privy to and be aware of his beauty and perfection. This is as they say, �Call me Arsalan so that no one will know who I am.� It would be a shame for such beauty and perfection to be touched by the eyes of Abū Jahl, ʿAtaba, and Shayba. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. The eyes of Abū Jahl, which were dazzled by denial, saw only his human and mortal nature.

YāÌ Sīn. By the Wise Qur'an, surely thou art one of the envoys, upon a straight path.It has been said that the name of the surah is Yāsīn because of the report in which MuṣṬafā said, �God recited Ṭāhā and Yāsīn two thousand years before He created Adam. When the angels of the Domin- ion heard it, they said, 'Happy is the community upon which this pure speech descends! Happy are the tongues that recite it! Happy are the breasts that are the oyster for this hidden pearl!'�It is reported that when the friends and the faithful go into that scented garden of felicity and arrive at the joy and bliss of paradise, a call will come from the Compeller: �You have heard much from oth- ers. Now is the time to hear from Me.� Then He will make them hear the surahs al-FātiḤa, Ṭāhā, and Yāsīn. MuṣṬafā said, �When the people listen to the Qur'an recited by the All-Merciful, it will be as if they had never heard it before.� You must take the rose from its own bush to catch its scent correctly.Hear it from Him who spoke it and increase therebyin burning love, for the sweetness of the rose is in its branches.It has also been said that it means �O man [yā insān]!� and is addressed to MuṣṬafā's form and mortal nature, just as He said elsewhere: �Say: 'I am but a mortal like you'� [18:110], for his hu- man nature and genus are similar to that of the people. This address, �O man!,� accords with that. But, in respect of the eminence of prophethood and the specification for messengerhood, he is ad- dressed, �O Prophet!� and �O Messenger!� He is addressed in terms of form and mortal nature as jealousy's mask, so that not just anyone will be privy to and be aware of his beauty and perfection. This is as they say, �Call me Arsalan so that no one will know who I am.� It would be a shame for such beauty and perfection to be touched by the eyes of Abū Jahl, ʿAtaba, and Shayba. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. The eyes of Abū Jahl, which were dazzled by denial, saw only his human and mortal nature.

YāÌ Sīn. By the Wise Qur'an, surely thou art one of the envoys, upon a straight path.It has been said that the name of the surah is Yāsīn because of the report in which MuṣṬafā said, �God recited Ṭāhā and Yāsīn two thousand years before He created Adam. When the angels of the Domin- ion heard it, they said, 'Happy is the community upon which this pure speech descends! Happy are the tongues that recite it! Happy are the breasts that are the oyster for this hidden pearl!'�It is reported that when the friends and the faithful go into that scented garden of felicity and arrive at the joy and bliss of paradise, a call will come from the Compeller: �You have heard much from oth- ers. Now is the time to hear from Me.� Then He will make them hear the surahs al-FātiḤa, Ṭāhā, and Yāsīn. MuṣṬafā said, �When the people listen to the Qur'an recited by the All-Merciful, it will be as if they had never heard it before.� You must take the rose from its own bush to catch its scent correctly.Hear it from Him who spoke it and increase therebyin burning love, for the sweetness of the rose is in its branches.It has also been said that it means �O man [yā insān]!� and is addressed to MuṣṬafā's form and mortal nature, just as He said elsewhere: �Say: 'I am but a mortal like you'� [18:110], for his hu- man nature and genus are similar to that of the people. This address, �O man!,� accords with that. But, in respect of the eminence of prophethood and the specification for messengerhood, he is ad- dressed, �O Prophet!� and �O Messenger!� He is addressed in terms of form and mortal nature as jealousy's mask, so that not just anyone will be privy to and be aware of his beauty and perfection. This is as they say, �Call me Arsalan so that no one will know who I am.� It would be a shame for such beauty and perfection to be touched by the eyes of Abū Jahl, ʿAtaba, and Shayba. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. The eyes of Abū Jahl, which were dazzled by denial, saw only his human and mortal nature.

YāÌ Sīn. By the Wise Qur'an, surely thou art one of the envoys, upon a straight path.It has been said that the name of the surah is Yāsīn because of the report in which MuṣṬafā said, �God recited Ṭāhā and Yāsīn two thousand years before He created Adam. When the angels of the Domin- ion heard it, they said, 'Happy is the community upon which this pure speech descends! Happy are the tongues that recite it! Happy are the breasts that are the oyster for this hidden pearl!'�It is reported that when the friends and the faithful go into that scented garden of felicity and arrive at the joy and bliss of paradise, a call will come from the Compeller: �You have heard much from oth- ers. Now is the time to hear from Me.� Then He will make them hear the surahs al-FātiḤa, Ṭāhā, and Yāsīn. MuṣṬafā said, �When the people listen to the Qur'an recited by the All-Merciful, it will be as if they had never heard it before.� You must take the rose from its own bush to catch its scent correctly.Hear it from Him who spoke it and increase therebyin burning love, for the sweetness of the rose is in its branches.It has also been said that it means �O man [yā insān]!� and is addressed to MuṣṬafā's form and mortal nature, just as He said elsewhere: �Say: 'I am but a mortal like you'� [18:110], for his hu- man nature and genus are similar to that of the people. This address, �O man!,� accords with that. But, in respect of the eminence of prophethood and the specification for messengerhood, he is ad- dressed, �O Prophet!� and �O Messenger!� He is addressed in terms of form and mortal nature as jealousy's mask, so that not just anyone will be privy to and be aware of his beauty and perfection. This is as they say, �Call me Arsalan so that no one will know who I am.� It would be a shame for such beauty and perfection to be touched by the eyes of Abū Jahl, ʿAtaba, and Shayba. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198]. The eyes of Abū Jahl, which were dazzled by denial, saw only his human and mortal nature.

The sending down of the Exalted, the Ever-Merciful.This Qur'an has been sent down by a Lord whose name is the Exalted and the Ever-Merciful. The Exalted is He whom it is difficult to perceive. God is exalted in the sense that there is no perceiving Him; understandings and imaginations do not reach the core of His majesty.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O found without being perceived and O face-to-face without be- ing seen! O apparent in hiddenness and hidden in apparentness! Finding You is a day that comes forth suddenly by itself. He who finds You busies himself with neither happiness nor grief. Com- plete for us the work that cannot be expressed!�The sending down of the Exalted, the Ever-Merciful. He is both exalted and ever-merciful- exalted for the estranged and ever-merciful toward the faithful. Were He exalted and not ever- merciful, no one would ever find Him, and were He ever-merciful and not exalted, everyone would find Him. He is the exalted so that the unbelievers will not know Him in this world and the ever- merciful so that the faithful will see Him in the afterworld.

That thou mayest warn a people whose fathers were not warned, so they are heedless.The heedless are two. First are those who are heedless of the work of the religion and unaware of seeking for their own wholesomeness. They have applied their heads to this world and become drunk with appetite. They have shut the eyes of reflective thought and heedfulness. The result for them is as the Exalted Lord says: �Those who are heedless of Our signs, it is they whose refuge will be the Fire for what they were earning� [10:7-8]. A report has come: �I wonder at him who is heedless though he is not unheeded.�Second are the admirable heedless. They are heedless of this world's work and of arranging their livelihood. The ruling power of the Haqiqah has gained mastery over their inwardness. They are so consumed by the unveiling of the majesty of Unity that they are absent from themselves. They have no news of this world, nor of the afterworld. With the tongue of their state they say,This world is in the hand of intellect, that world in the hand of the spirit- put the foot of your aspiration on the neck of both headmen. [DS 719]

Have they not seen how many generations We destroyed before them?Do they not look with the eyes of the head to see the wonders of the artifacts? Do they not look with the eyes of the secret core to see the subtleties of the duties?Do they not look with the eyes of the head to see the signs of the horizons? Do they not look with the eyes of the secret core to see the signs of the souls?Do they not look with the eyes of the heart to see the lights of guidance? Do they not look with the eyes of the spirit to see the secrets of solicitude? Do they not look with the eyes of witnessing to see the Presence of the Witnessed? Do they not look with the eyes of ecstasy to see the banner of finding? Do they not look with the eyes of selflessness to see the Friend face-to-face? Do they not look with the eyes of annihilation to see a world without shore?How long will you let this prison deceive you with this and that? It's time to come out of this dark well and see the world-A world in which every heart you find is king,a world in which every spirit you see is joyous! [DS 704-5]O indigent man! How long will you look at the artifacts? Look once at the Artisan! How long will you be distracted by wonders? Look once at the Wonder-Worker! How long will you be a man of every door? A man of every door will never see wholesomeness and deliverance: �Be not a weathercock, lest you perish.� Tearing up a thousand bronze fortresses from the ground is easier than bringing a man of every door back to one door.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī was asked about the heart. He said, �The heart is that which does not contain the measure of one speck of desire for the creatures.�Have they not seen how many generations We destroyed before them? Whenever Salmān Fārsī passed by a ruins he would stop and weep miserably. He would remember those who left that domicile and say, �Where are they, those who set down these foundations and built these houses? They gave their hearts and they tossed away their wealth and lives to adorn these rooms. Once they attached their hearts to them and blossomed like roses on a wall, they fell from the wall and slept in the clay.�Ask the lofty palace about its inhabitantwhom it saved from the hard and soft of life.He established his kingdom and enslaved the people, then death's messenger threw him on his face.

Glory be to Him who created the pairs, all of them, from what the earth grows and from themselves and from what they do not know!Purity and faultlessness belong to the God who shows all these wonders of artisanry in the earth, from one water, one dust, and one air, and who makes the banners of power appear in order to make the servants see! He displays the marks so that those who have not seen may see, and those who have not perceived may perceive, that all of this is the deed of an Enactor and the making of a Maker. These adornments have an Adorner and these growing things have a Grower. All testify to the being of God and mark His oneness, even though the testifiers have no intelligence and the markers have no tongue.And in each thing He has a sign showing that He is one.

A sign for them is the night; We strip from it the day.A great man was asked, �Is night more excellent, or day?�He answered, �Night is more excellent, because at night all is ease and comfort, and comfort belongs to paradise. In day all is trouble and difficulty in the seeking of livelihood, and suffering and difficulty belong to hell.� He also said, �Night is the portion of the self-purifiers, who worship with self-purification and without eye-service. Day is the portion of the duplicitous, who worship with eye-service and without self-purification. Night is the time of seclusion for friends, the time of meeting for seek- ers of peace, the solace of the yearners, the moment for the mystery of lovers.� Revelation came to one of the prophets, �He who claims to love Me is a liar if night comes, and he goes to sleep onMe. Does not every lover love to be secluded with his beloved? Here I am, aware of you, I hear and I see [20:46].�It has also been said that night and day are the mark of the contraction and expansion of the recognizers. The time of night is contraction for them and the time of day expansion. In the night of contraction, they see everything in lassitude and awe. In the day or expansion, they find all as gentleness and mercy. In the night of contraction the cold wind of severity comes, the marks bearing witness to majesty appear, and the servant weeps and enters into pleading. In the day of expansion the breeze of gentleness blows and brings the scent of union, the marks bearing witness to beauty appear, and the servant delights and enters into ease.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Sometimes I say that I am in constant contraction-there is so much covering! Sometimes a light shines, next to which mortal nature disappears. A light, and what a light! It is the mark of beginningless love, the title-page of the scroll of life. It is the ease of the spirit, the delight of the spirit, and the pain of the spirit.�You are the pain in my heart and the ease of my spirit.You stir up tumult and You make it still.

And the moon, We have determined way stations for it, till it returns like the old palm branch.It has been said that the wisdom in the waxing and waning of the moon is that at the beginning of creation, the moon's light was in perfection. It gazed upon itself and self-admiration appeared in it. The Exalted Lord commanded Gabriel to strike the moon's face with his wing, and that took away the light. Ibn ʿAbbās said, �The lines you see on the face of the moon are the mark of Gabriel's wing.�He took away the light, but the imprint stayed in place. It is the imprint of the words of tawḤīd written on the moon's forehead: �There is no god but God; MuḤammad is God's messenger.�When the light was taken from the moon, it was prevented from serving at the Threshold. The moon asked for help from the angels so that they would intercede for it. They said, �Lord God, the moon has become accustomed to serving at the Exalted Threshold. Is there no way for You not to deprive it totally?�The Exalted Lord accepted their intercession and commanded it to prostrate itself once a month on the fourteenth night. Now every night when it comes up and the time of service comes closer, its light increases, until the fourteenth night, the time of prostration, and its light reaches perfection. Then when the fourteenth passes, every night its light diminishes because it is becom- ing farther from the carpet of service.It has also been said, �What is similar to the sun is a servant who is forever in the radiance of recognition. He is the possessor of stability, not undergoing variegation. The sun of his recogni- tion constantly shines from the mansions of his felicity. It is not taken by eclipse, nor curtained by clouds.�What is similar to the moon is a servant whose states are constantly undergoing transition. He is the possessor of variegation. He has an expansion that lifts him up to the boundary of union, and then he is pushed back into lassitude and falls into contraction in the limpidness of his state. Thus he diminishes and returns to deficiency in his affair, until his heart is lifted up from his pres- ent moment. Then the Real is munificent toward him and gives him the success to return from his lassitude, bringing him back from his intoxicatedness. His state continues becoming more limpid until he is near to union and he climbs up to the peak of perfection.� At that point he says with the tongue of his state,�In Your love I descended to a stationwhose descendedness bewilders the mind.�

Surely the companions of the Garden today are in an occupation, rejoicing.Wakīʿ ibn al-JarrāḤ said, �Their occupation in paradise is listening.� This is exactly what He says elsewhere: �They will be made happy in a garden� [30:15]. �You and your spouses, made happy� [43:70]. These are reports about listening in the Garden.In paradise, the faithful servant will delight in listening. The Exalted Lord will send Seraphiel, who will stand on his right hand and recite the Qur'an, and David, who will stand on his left hand and recite the Psalms. The servant will keep on listening until he becomes happy. His spirit will come to the listening, his heart to elation, and his secret core to the work. Of the body the tongue will remain, and that's it. Of the heart the mark will remain, and that's it. Of the spirit face-to-face vision will remain, and that's it. The body will be distracted by ecstasy, the heart consumed by witnessing, the spirit drowned in finding. The eyes will hope to see the Possessor of Majesty, the heart will hope for a pure wine [76:21], the spirit will hope for listening to the Real. The Exalted Lord will lift up the curtain of majesty and show the vision. He will caress the servant with cups of wine and begin to recite Ṭāhā and Yāsīn, and then the servant's spirit will begin to listen in reality. O chevalier! The body is not able to listen because it is attached to having the upper hand. The heart is not able to listen because it is a passer-by. �Listening� is the listening of the spirit, for it does not belong here. The body does not listen because it suffers pain from itself. The heart does not listen because it is passing the days. The spirit listens because it is solitary for the Solitary.Your seeker must be solitary like You-he must be free of every defect and pain.It has also been said that the occupation of the paradise-dwellers is ten things: a kingdom without dismissal, youth without old age, constant health without sickness, continued exaltation without abasement, ease without hardship, blessing without tribulation, subsistence without annihilation, life without death, approval without anger, and intimacy without estrangement.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �This is the occupation of the generality of the faithful, concern- ing whom MuṣṬafā said, 'Most of the folk of the Garden are simpletons.

By the row-keepers in rows!The lords of realization have said various things about which rows of angels these are. One group has said that what is meant is all the rows of the angels adorning the celestial world, through which the seven heavens have become luminous. In each heaven there is one sort and in each class one description. Some are in the station of service with the watchword of veneration, some in the sta- tion of awe with the blanket of watchfulness, some in the state of striving while sniffing the scents of contemplation, some in delight at being attracted by passion for the Friend, some in the market of yearning while whispering secretly with the Friend, some in the dice of love while melting in separation. The chanting of their glorification has deafened the ears of the spheres, their glorify- ing and hallowing have perfumed the world of holiness, and their flashing words have illumined the courtyard of the Throne. All are sitting in the celestial sky in the gardens of approval, all have bound their belts for the Exalted Threshold within the veils of awe. There is no shortcoming in their worship, no fatigue in their obedience, no slackening in their service. They do not disobey God in what He commands them and they do as they are commanded [66:6].Another group has said that what is meant by these rows is the angels of the Inhabited House specifically, who are in the fourth heaven. They are like the Adamites in this dusty center, who visit the house of the Kaabah every year for one day. The master of the empire, the lord of the Shariah, the foremost of the prophets, said, �On the night of proximity and honor, the night of nearness and familiarity, the night of the miʿrāj, when we were strolling in that towering garden, we reached the fourth heaven and we went to visit the Inhabited House. We saw several thousand of those given proximity next to the Inhabited House. They were all drunk and intoxicated from the wine of union. They were coming from the right and passing to the left, circumambulating and saying 'Here I am,' constantly passing to the left. You would say that their number was more than the stars and greater than the number of leaves on the trees.

The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between the two, and the Lord of the easts.It is God who is the creator and keeper of the seven heavens and the seven earths. He is the form- giver to every form and the embellisher of every picture. He is without associate, without likeness, without equal, and without helper. He is loyal to the friends and lover of the faithful: God is the friend of those who have faith [2:257]. He is generous to the recognizers and gentle and beautiful doing toward the servants: God is gentle to His servants [42:19].In terms of allusion He is saying, �The creator without cause am I, the enactor without tool am I, the all-subjugating without artifice am I, the all-forgiving without delay am I, the all-curtaining of every slip am I. I created so that you would see power, I show you hell so that you will see punishment, I keep you on the path so that you will see solicitude, I forgive your sins so that you will see bounty and mercy, I convey you to the Garden so that you will see generosity, I place you on the throne so that you will see exaltedness, I give you wine so that you will see pleasure, I greet you with 'Peace' so that you will see felicitations, I lift up the veil of majesty so that you will see encounter and vision.�

And halt them. Surely they will be questioned.One group will be questioned by way of rebuke, and another group will be questioned because of chastisement. Those who are the folk of chastisement will be kept on the bridge of the Narrow Path and will be questioned before witnesses, while God is angry toward them. It will be said to them, �Today I have thrown your judgment back to you: Thy soul suffices thee today as a reckoner against thee [17:14].� Their black register and bad deeds will be held before their faces. It will be said, �When these are someone's works, what is his recompense?� Unwillingly they will say, �His recompense is the Fire.� Then the call will come, �Enter it by your own judgment!�It has been reported that when Pharaoh claimed Godhood and said, �I am your Lord the most high� [79:24], Gabriel came into his road in the form of a mortal man and asked him, �What do you say about a chieftain who pulls up his slave, gives him possessions, position, and blessings, and then makes him the headman and paragon for others, but the slave wants to be the paragon over his own chieftain. What is his recompense?�Pharaoh said, �His recompense is that he be drowned in water so that others may take heed of him.�From the Exalted Presence the command came, �O Gabriel, remember this fatwa on the day when I pull him into the sea and drown him by his own fatwa.�As for the group who are questioned by way of rebuke and not because of chastisement, they are those who are faithful in belief, tawḤīd-voicers through the affection in their hearts and the truthfulness of their love, but they are sinners and have fallen short in their deeds. The Real will question them, but He will conceal their defects from the people. He will remind them of their sins, but He will not hold back His pardon and forgiveness from them, and He will question them in seclusion. A sound report says, �God will bring the person of faith close, then place His wing over him and curtain him. He will say, 'Do you recognize this sin? Do you recognize that sin?'�He will say, 'Yes, my Lord,' until he confirms his sins and sees in himself that he will perish.

They will have a known provision; fruits-and they will be honored.In the Garden they will have a known provision for their outer skins at designated moments, morn- ing and evening, and they will have a known provision for their secret cores at every moment.YaḤyā Muʿādh was asked, �Does the Beloved ever turn His face toward the lover?� He said, �When does the Beloved ever turn His face away from the lover?�May a thousand spirits be sacrificed to the chevalier who knows the intimations of passion!God nurtures those who have the collar of love around their necks in the lap of bounty, the cradle of the Covenant, and the dome of proximity. He unveils to them His Essence and addresses them through His attributes. The Throne has the attribute of elevation, and elevation is enough for it. The Footstool has the attribute of tremendousness, and tremendousness is enough for it. Heaven has adornment and ornamentation, and adornment and ornamentation are enough for it. The soul has the claim to egoism, and the claim to egoism is enough for it. As for the heart, it does not have the elevation of the Throne, nor does it have the tremendousness of the Footstool, nor does it have the ornamentation of the heaven, nor does it have the expanse of the earth, nor does it have the claim to being and egoism-all it has is brokenness and poverty. �My bounty and mercy are enough for it. Say: 'In the bounty of God and His mercy-in that let them rejoice' [10:58].�

They will have a known provision; fruits-and they will be honored.In the Garden they will have a known provision for their outer skins at designated moments, morn- ing and evening, and they will have a known provision for their secret cores at every moment.YaḤyā Muʿādh was asked, �Does the Beloved ever turn His face toward the lover?� He said, �When does the Beloved ever turn His face away from the lover?�May a thousand spirits be sacrificed to the chevalier who knows the intimations of passion!God nurtures those who have the collar of love around their necks in the lap of bounty, the cradle of the Covenant, and the dome of proximity. He unveils to them His Essence and addresses them through His attributes. The Throne has the attribute of elevation, and elevation is enough for it. The Footstool has the attribute of tremendousness, and tremendousness is enough for it. Heaven has adornment and ornamentation, and adornment and ornamentation are enough for it. The soul has the claim to egoism, and the claim to egoism is enough for it. As for the heart, it does not have the elevation of the Throne, nor does it have the tremendousness of the Footstool, nor does it have the ornamentation of the heaven, nor does it have the expanse of the earth, nor does it have the claim to being and egoism-all it has is brokenness and poverty. �My bounty and mercy are enough for it. Say: 'In the bounty of God and His mercy-in that let them rejoice' [10:58].�

For the like of this, then, let the doers do.If it is suitable to say to the faithful about the hope for joy, the bliss of paradise, and the vision of the serving-boys and youths, �For the like of this, then, let the doers do,� then it is more suitable that the recognizers have hope for seeing the majesty of the Unity and finding the realities of prox- imity and the good news of union, and that they sacrifice their eyes and heart and expend their lives and spirits for the sake of this good news.For the likes of Salmā a man would kill himself,and fixed in despair for Salmā, he would starve.

And surely among his party was Abraham.Abraham was of the party of Noah in the principles of tawḤīd, even if they disagreed in the branch- es of the religion and the shari'ite details. In the shariahs, all the prophets are the same in tawḤīd and the principles of the religion, and there is no disagreement in that. This is exactly what He says: �He has set down for you as the religion that with which He counseled Noah� and so on [42:13]. The disagreement is in the Shariahs and the rulings. This disagreement is a mercy from the Lord so that the work of the religion will not become tight for the people. God desires for you ease and does not desire for you hardship [2:185]. They are like a group who are heading toward a way station, and each of them takes a different road, though the last way station is the same. Some roads are nearer, some farther.No road is nearer to the felicity of the afterlife than the road of MuṣṬafā and his Shariah. This is why his Shariah abrogated the shariahs and his pact abolished the pacts-a revealed shariah, not newly arrived; a firm pact, not faulty; a holy shariah, not foolish; a confirmed pact, not temporary; a known shariah, not ignored; an expanded pact, not curtailed; a shariah that is as bright as the daytime sun and lights up the hearts of the friends. MuṣṬafā said, �How is it that you are with your religion like the moon when it is full, but only the seeing see it?�

When he came to his Lord with a sound heart.Abraham turned his face toward the threshold of the Exalted Lord with a sound heart, without any blight or any discord, released from attachments and having turned away from the share of his soul. This is just what He says:

He said, �Surely I am going to my Lord; He will guide me.�That fact that he was going in God necessitated his going to God. He went forth well in God's work so he went straight in God's road.About Abraham the Real says, �Surely I am going to my Lord,� reporting his words. Con- cerning Moses He says, �Moses came to Our appointed time� [7:143], reporting his attribute. About MuṣṬafā He says, �Who took His servant by night� [17:1], reporting His attribute for his sake. Abraham was in the station of dispersion, Moses in togetherness itself, and MuṣṬafā in the togetherness of togetherness. The mark of Abraham's dispersion is Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth [6:79]. The mark of Moses' togetherness is We brought him near as a confidant [19:52]. The mark of MuṣṬafā's togetherness of togetherness is Then He drew close, and He came down [53:8].In the tasting of the folk of recognition, Surely I am going to my Lord alludes to the disen- tanglement of the servant. The meaning of disentanglement is to be cut off from all along with the Real, in the beginning through effort and in the end totally. In the beginning, the body is striving, the tongue is in remembrance, and one's lifespan is in effort. At the end, one is on loan to the people, estranged from oneself, and at ease from attachment. For one hundred years the sun will rise in the east and set in the west before a disentangled man is given the eyes to discern the station of creation from the station of the Real and know the difference between the beginning and the end. WāsiṬī said, �Abraham was going from creation to the Real, and MuḤammad was coming from theReal to creation. Someone who goes from creation to the Real recognizes the Real through evidence, and someone who goes from the Real to creation recognizes the evidence through the Real. Do you not see that Abraham came by way of the evidence? When he arrived at a bit of evidence, he would say, 'This is my Lord' [6:76]. This was the beginning of his state. When he reached the end, he saw the beauty of tawḤīd with the eyes of face-to-face vision and said, 'I am going to my Lord; He will guide me.

And when he reached the age of striving with him, he said �O my son! I see in a dream that I will sacrifice thee. Look, what dost thou see?� He said, �O my father! Do as thou art commanded. Thou shalt find me, God willing, one of the patient.�Ishmael was a child increasing day by day. He grew up noble and stood up exalted. He was the ex- tract of bosom friendship and the oyster shell for the pearl of MuḤammad the emissary. The corner of Abraham's heart became attached to him and looked upon him while deeming him beautiful. A rebuke came from the threshold of Exaltedness: �O Bosom Friend, I did not preserve you from Azar's idols so that you could attach your heart to passion for Ishmael. Whatever veils the road of bosom friendship-whether Azarite idol or passion for Ishmael!�Any talk that keeps you back from the road-let it be unbelief or faith.Any picture that holds you back from the Friend-let it be ugly or beautiful. [DS 51]�O Bosom Friend, you claimed friendship with Me and like a desirer you came into the road of desire: 'Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth' [6:79]. You disowned creatures and attachments: Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds [26:77]. Now you have come with a heart that is dedicated to love for My majesty and beauty and you have turned it toward him, placing love's seal on him. Make a sacrifice of him for Me, and sever yourself completely for Me! If you want Me, apply the remedy to your pain.�As long as your heart has not done away with attachments, not one of your arrows will reach its mark.As long as you have not removed both worlds from the midst, the ship will not reach the shore of safety.At the beginning of desire, the pirs of the Tariqah have the desirers keep their eyes down so that they will not look at anything, for whenever they look at something, that thing will become their bond and the basis of tribulation. One day Jacob gazed at Joseph's beauty with an eye that deemed him beautiful-look at the tribulation he suffered and how he was afflicted by separation from Joseph! One day MuṣṬafā said, �I love ʿāÌisha� He suffered what he suffered and saw what he saw because of the words and calumny of the hypocrites! The same state occurred for Abraham.

Jonah too was one of the envoys.When the generous, lovingly kind Lord, gentle and merciful to the servants, imprisoned Jonah in the belly of the fish, He made His remembrance and name his intimate, so he kept on saying, �There is no god but Thou! Glory be to Thee!� [21:87]. God's remembrance was his intimate in his trouble and God's love was the cause of his comfort. Whenever someone's heart is inscribed with God's love,Though he be in water or fire,his life will be sweet with God's love.Your name became the lamp of Jonah's darkness, the adornment of every session in the world.Although outwardly the fish's belly was Jonah's trial, in terms of inwardness, it was his place of seclusion. He wanted to talk secretly with the Friend without the intrusion of others. Just as the fish's belly was made into Jonah's place of retreat, so also the middle of Nimrod's fire was made into Abraham's retreat, and the corner of that cave was made into Abū Bakr's place of retreat with the paragon of the world. In the same way, wherever there is a person of faith, a tawḤīd-voicer, he has a place of retreat in his own exalted breast. The cave of his secret core is the descending place of the divine gentleness and the site of the lordly gaze.O tawḤīd-voicing man of faith, if you are delighted, that is fitting, and if you revel, that is fit- ting, for He Himself says, �The cave of the faithful man's heart is the place made ready for Our divine secrets. On the tree of the faithful man's faith is the nest of the bird of Our good fortune. In the meadow of the faithful man's heart is the wellspring of the effusion of Our majesty's gaze. Here is your blessed place of retreat! Here is your garden of pleasure! Here is your springhead of pure water without blight! When We make a cave in your breast, that is not the devil's place of refuge. When We plant a tree in your inwardness, the bird of Satanic disquiet will not take it as a nesting place. When We make a wellspring from the courtyard of your breast, nothing will gush forth but the water of bounteousness.

None of us there is but has a known station.In the tongue of the Tariqah this verse alludes to the states of encounter and the unveilings of the masters of the Haqiqah. One is gratitude for ecstasies, another the lightning of unveiling, another the bewilderment of witnessing, another the light of proximity, another the friendship of finding, another the splendor of togetherness, and another the reality of solitariness.These are seven oceans placed at the top of tawḤīd's street. As long as the traveler in the road does not pass over these seven oceans, he will not be allowed to reach the end of the street. He must seek water from these oceans through the seven thresholds of the Qur'an, about which MuṣṬafā reported: �The Qur'an was sent down according to seven letters, each of which is a suf- ficiency and a healing. Every verse has an outwardness and an inwardness, and each letter has a limit and an overview.�The sincerely truthful and the wayfarers on the road have said that you must pass over these oceans to reach tawḤīd. Concerning these seven oceans, the command has come: �Pass through the gate of the message brought by that paragon of the world. From every wave, take a signet from his Shariah, and from every drop, seek the help of his covenant. Then you will be worthy for the way stations of Our friends.�This is what the Pir of the Tariqah intimated with his words, �When any reality sticks up its head from the recognizer's breast, it is not acceptable to the Real until two witnesses from the Shariah bear witness to its correctness.�

Already Our word has preceded to the envoys.Word here comprises three roots: knowledge, desire, and wisdom. First is the precedence of knowledge: Before the doing, He knew what He must do. Second is the precedence of desire: What He knew He must do, He wanted to do. Third is the precedence of wisdom: What He did He did rightly and properly.Know also that God has no need of duration, for duration is a cause, and His doing has no cause. For Him the not-yet-come is hard cash and the past is retained. It is you who must think about the not-yet-come, you who must remember what is past, and you who must preserve what is present.He has no need to remember the past, for it is in His knowledge. He has no need to think about the not-yet-come, for it is in His decree. He has no need to preserve what it is present, for it is in His kingdom. For Him, from the Beginningless to the Endless is less than one breath, and one hundred years is less than one instant. With Him there is neither yesterday nor tomorrow. He is constant in exaltedness and abides in His measure. This is the secret of the words of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd, �With your Lord is neither day nor night.�For the equivalent of this verse, recite �those to whom the most beautiful has preceded from Us� [21:101]: �My servant, before you said that you are My servant, I said that I am your Lord: Your god is only God, other than whom there is no god [20:98]. Before you said that you are My friend, I said that I am your friend: He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. My servant, you were not, but I was there for you. I was there for Myself in exaltedness, and I was there for you in mercy. 'Belong to Me as you always were, and I will belong to you as I have always been.'�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Where will I find again the day when You belonged to me and I was not? Until I reach that day again, I will be in the midst of fire and smoke. If I find that day again in the two worlds, I will profit. If I find Your Being, I will be pleased with my own nonbeing.�

ṣādThe word ṣād is the key to His name Self-Sufficient [ṣamad]. The Self-Sufficient is He who is hallowed beyond encompassment by the knowledge of the created thing and incomparable with comprehension by the recognitions.He is saying, �I am the Self-Sufficient and have no need for anyone. I am the One and have no associate. I am the Compeller, and no one has the color of union with Me. I am the Owner of the kingdom, and no matter what I do, no one has the gall to protest or a way to fight.�Abu'l-Ḥasan Kharaqānī said, �He cut up the hearts of the sincerely truthful and turned their livers to water through waiting, but He gave Himself to no one.�Whence do water and dust become privy to talk of union with that which has no beginning and no end? What access do the attributes of the newly arrived things have to eternity? How can that which was not, then was, then was not, perceive the majestic presence of the Possessor of Majesty? That chevalier said it beautifully:�They opened a door to the garden of union with You so that people would fall into coveting You.They plundered so many of the spirits of the great ones, but not one put his foot at the top of Your street.�It has been said that the Real is the Self-Sufficient, and the meaning of the name is that the servants should lift up their needs to Him, consign their occupations to Him, and entrust themselves to Him; and He, in His unneediness, will look upon the needs of everyone and be sufficient for their every occupation.When the tawḤīd-voicing, faithful servant has this belief, He will take as his shelter nothing but His threshold and will not disgrace himself at the door of any poor and paltry thing. �A created thing seeking aid from a created thing is like a prisoner seeking aid from a prisoner.�It has come in the traditions that tomorrow a man of this community will be brought forward, and many sashes of unbelief will be removed from his waist-I mean sashes of the heart, not outward sashes, for anyone who attaches his heart to a creature has bound a sash around his heart. O chevalier! There is no mount quicker than the mount of MuḤammad the Arab, and no playing field vaster than his playing field.

He said, �My Lord, forgive me and give me a kingdom such as no one after me will have.�Solomon did not seek the outward kingdom. Rather, he desired only to be king over his own soul, for the king in truth is he who is king over his own soul. Whoever is king over his own soul will not follow his caprice.Solomon said, �Lord God, just as You put the world's creatures under my hand, so also put this soul under my hand so that I will not be obedient to it and will not go after its caprice. Obeying the soul and obeying the Real are opposites, and opposites do not come together.� That chevalier said it beautifully:�With two kiblahs you can't walk straight on the road of tawḤīd- either the Friend's approval, or your own caprice.� [DS 488]MuṣṬafā always used to say, �O God, do not entrust us to our souls for the blink of an eye, or less than that.� All sorts of trial reached Joseph the Truthful from the well, the prison, and so on, but he never began to lament as he did from the commanding soul, when it was said, �Surely the soul commands to ugliness, except as my Lord has mercy� [12:53]. When Joseph said, �Receive me as a submitter� [12:101], he said so in fear of the commanding soul, not in fear of Satan. For, although Satan is the adversary, he wants disobedience from the person of faith, not unbelief. It is the soul that wants unbelief, so it strives for it and calls him to all sorts of caprice and innovation, trying to pull him into unbelief.In the Qur'an, the Lord of the Worlds mentions two things without saying what they are. He mentions the soul, but He does not say what it is. He mentions this world, but He does not say what it is. The ulama of the religion explain this world with these words: �What blocks you from your Patron-that is your 'this world.'� Whatever holds you back from God is this world. If you do not have tonight's bread but you admire yourself, your self-admiration is this world. If you possess the kingdom of the East and the West and are occupied with God, that is not this world, but rather the afterworld.

When thy Lord said to the angels, �I am creating a mortal of clay.�From here to this surah's end is the story of Adam and Iblis. A great deal has been said about the two, which I summarize here:In terms of outwardness, a slip appeared from Adam and an act of disobedience from Iblis. It was said to Adam, �Do not eat the wheat,� and he ate it. It was said to Iblis, �Prostrate yourself,� and he did not do so. The capital of rejection and of acceptance, however, did not arise from their acts. It arose from the flow of the Pen and the decrees of Eternity. The Pen wrote felicity for Adam as a consequence of the eternal will. A support was found for that in his makeup, and his sin was consigned to that by way of excuse: He forgot, and We found in him no resoluteness [20:115].In the case of Iblis, the Pen had written rejection and expulsion by the decree of the eternal will, so an ambuscade was made from his own makeup and his sin was consigned to himself: He refused and claimed to be great; he was one of the unbelievers [2:34]. A collar was made for the sake of cursing and, by the decree of beginningless rejection, it was fastened to the neck of his days. Thus, whenever a gem appeared from the crucible of his deeds, it turned out to be a discard from the hand of the assayer of knowledge. His deeds were discards and his worship became the cause of the curse. His obedience became the motivation for being driven out, and concerning the reality of his work, this expression was given: �No one stands up to the decree and no one contends with the Beginningless.�Which lover of Yours do I not copyand which night for You do I not weep? Though the Adamite does not please You,he has given You permission to shed his blood.In the world of acceptance Adam was like Iblis in the world of rejection. Wherever there are greetings and felicitations, they are turned toward Adam, and wherever there are cursing and ex- pulsion, they are turned toward Iblis. The forelock of that cursed one is fastened to the hem of the resurrection not because of any bestowal of eminence.

I am better than he: Thou hast created me of fire and Thou hast created him of clay.Iblis came forth with chieftainship and said that he was better than he. He reasoned but he went by the road of error in his reasoning. O accursed one! How do you say that fire is better than dust? Do you not know that fire is the cause of separation and dust the cause of union? Fire is the means of cutting off and dust the means of joining. Adam was of dust, so he joined, such that it was said about him, �Then his Lord chose him� [20:122]. Iblis was of fire, so he cut off, such that it was said to him, �Upon thee shall be My curse until the Day of Doom� [38:78].When dust becomes wet, it accepts imprints. When fire shoots up, it burns all the imprints. Thus the imprint of Iblis's recognition was burnt away, and the imprint of recognition flamed up in the heart of Adam and the Adamites. Those-He wrote faith in their hearts [58:22].A dervish, who was pain-stricken, disorderly, and having lost his head and feet, went to see Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī. He came like a traveler, and because of his ecstasy said, �O Bāyazīd, what would it matter if there was none of this impudent dust?�Abū Yazīd let go of himself and shouted at the dervish: �Were there no dust, the breast would have no burning! Were there no dust, the religion would have no sorrow and joy! Were there no dust, the fire of passion would not flame up! Were there no dust, who would smell the scent of beginningless love? Were there no dust, who would be the familiar of the Endless?�O dervish, Iblis's curse is a trace of the perfection of the majesty of dust. Seraphiel's trumpet was prepared for the sake of the yearning of dust. The questioning by Nakīr and Munkar is pas- sion's deputy in the breast of dust. Riẓwān with all the serving boys and servants is but dust under the feet of dust. Beginningless welcome is a gift and robe for dust. The request from the Unseen was prepared in the name of dust. The lordly attributes are the hairdresser of the beauty of dust. The divine love is the food of the secret cores of dust. The attributes of Eternity are the supplies and provisions for the road of dust. The pure, incomparable Essence is witnessed by the hearts of dust.�Before you asked I asked for you, all the world I adorned for you.Thousands in the city are in love with Me- live in joy, I rose up for you.

Surely We have sent the Book down to thee with the truth, so worship God, purifying the religion for Him.�O MuḤammad, We sent this Qur'an down to you so that you may call the lost to the road of salva- tion, bring the deprived from the intrusion of deprivation to the comfort of union, bring the suffer- ing from the darkness of misfortune to the courtyard of prosperity, complete the noble character traits with this Qur'an, and arrange the Shariah in accordance with it. O MuḤammad, when a place does not have the light of your creed, all will be the darkness of associationism. When a place does not have the intimacy of your Shariah, all will be the intrusion of doubt. O MuḤammad, We have joined your exalted good fortune and your eminent messengerhood to the Endless.�So worship God, purifying the religion for Him. Now belong fully to Me, turning your secret core toward Me, your heart lifted up from all others, released from the bonds of yourself and your own controlling power.�With this command, the Messenger became so courteous that Gabriel came and said, �O MuḤammad! Have you chosen to be a prophet king, or a prophet servant?�He said, �O Lord, I want servanthood. I do not want kingship, for kingship is entirely turned over to You, and servanthood is entirely turned over to me. I have no refuge but Your gentleness and no shelter but Your exalted presence. If I were to choose kingship, I would stay with the king- ship and boast of my kingship. Rather, I choose servanthood so that I may be under Your kingship and boast of Your kingship.�This is why he said, �'I am the master of Adam's children without boasting': The boasting that I have is of the Friend, not of other than Him. When someone boasts, he boasts of something that is above him, not below him. In the two worlds, no one is above me except Him. If I were to boast of other than Him, I would have looked at other than Him and left aside the command, 'So worship God, purifying!' But there is no command to leave it aside, and no stipulation to look at other than Him. Hence there is no boasting in other than Him.�You name me �master,� but my master is the one You know.If You examine my heart, You will see Your remembrance in my breast.

Does not the pure religion belong to God?What is worthy of God is pure worship without hypocrisy and obedience along with self-purifica- tion and without eye-service. When the pearl of self-purification is found, it is found in the oyster shell of the heart and the ocean of the breast. This is why Ḥudhayfa said, �I asked that paragon of the engendered beings what self-purification is. He said that he asked Gabriel what self-purifica- tion is. Gabriel said that he asked the Exalted Lord what self-purification is. He replied, 'One of My secrets that I deposit in the hearts of those whom I love among My servants.'� He said, �It is a pearl that I have brought out from the treasury of My secrets and deposited in the core of the hearts of My friends.� This self-purification is the result of friendship and the trace of servanthood. When someone puts on the garment of love and takes off the robe of servanthood, he does whatever he does from the midst of the heart. Friendship for the Real does not come together with scattered desires in one heart. The obliga- tory acts of the body are prayer and fasting, and the obligatory act of the heart is friendship for the Real. The mark of friendship is that when something comes from the Friend that is disliked by your nature and makeup, you place it upon your very eyes.Were the Beloved's hand to pour poison for me, poison from His hand would be sweet.*The heart that You burn thanks You, the blood that You shed boasts.*The blood that You spill thanks You,the heart that You scare praises You.*The poison I drink in remembrance of You is sweet, the mad man who sees You comes to his senses.

He created you from one soul and then made from it its mate.He created heaven and earth and day and night to show the creatures the attribute of His power. They come to know that He is perfectly powerful, an artisan without contrivance, and they take His artisanry as evidence of His unity. He created Adam and the Adamites to make them the treasury of the secrets of Eternity and the target of the gentle favors of generosity. �I was a hidden treasure, so I loved to be recognized.��I had an incomparable Essence and attributes, so there had to be recognizer. I had infinite majesty and beauty, so there had to be a lover. I was an ocean of mercy and forgiveness beating its waves, so there had to be an object of mercy.�The other created things had nothing to do with love, for they never saw in themselves a high aspiration. The one with high aspiration is you. The angels have straight and orderly work because there was no talk of love with them. The treasures and intimations put into the Adamic makeup were not placed in them. The ups and downs of the Adamites, their bewilderment and confounded- ness, contraction and expansion, sorrow and joy, absence and presence, togetherness and disper- sion; the drafts mixed with poison in their hands, the swords hanging over their necks-they have all these because a whiff of love's rose reached their nostrils.Passion for You turned me into a tavern-goer like this- otherwise I was safe and orderly.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, �Once I was craving the wine of passion in the seclusion of 'I am the sitting companion of those who remember Me.' I was bold, and I carried a heavy load of trials for my boldness. I had tasted many drops of tribulation. I said, 'O God, Your stream is flowing-how long will I be thirsty? What sort of thirst is this that I see one cup after another?�Who has ever had a state rarer than this?I'm thirsty and clear water is flowing before me.�'Exalted of the two worlds! How often will you become hidden, how often apparent? The heart is bewildered, the spirit distracted. How long this curtaining and self-disclosing? When at last will there be the everlasting self-disclosure? O God, how long will You call and drive away? I have melted in wanting the day in which You stay.

Is one who does devotions throughout the night, prostrating himself and standing, cau- tious about the next world and hoping for the mercy of his Lord? Say: �Are they equal, those who know and those who know not?��Devotion� is undertaking the courteous acts of service outwardly and inwardly without slacken- ing or shortcoming, being cautious because of the threatened chastisement and hoping for the promised reward.This is the attribute of a group who are constantly at God's threshold in the station of ser- vice. Their makeup at the time of prayer becomes entirely reverence itself, and they are always burning in remorse because of shame for sin. One of the great ones of the religion said, �You must show reverence for God's commands, for it is not apparent which command brings proxim- ity to God. You must avoid all prohibited things, for it is not apparent which prohibition brings distance from God.�It has been said that putting God's commands into practice is of two sorts, one according to the property of servanthood, the other according to the property of love. The property of love is higher than the property of servanthood, because the lover's constant wish is for the Friend to command a service. Hence his service is all voluntary and nothing of it is coerced. He acknowledges the favors done to him, and he never lays favors on God, nor does he look for recompense.In contrast, a service that is done because of servanthood has both free choice and coercion.The person is seeking a reward and expecting recompense.The latter is the station of the worshipers and the common faithful, and the former is the at- tribute of the recognizers and the sincerely truthful. The two groups can never be equal. The worshipers are satisfied with the blessings and held back from the Beneficent, but the recognizers have reached the Presence and take ease in contemplating the Friend.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �How should I have known that reward is a freckle on the face of friendship? I always fancied that the greatest robe of honor was the reward. Now I have found out that in finding friendship all found things are nothing.�Say: �Are they equal, those who know and those who know not?� Knowledge is three: report- ed knowledge, inspired knowledge, and knowledge of the Unseen.

Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission, so he is upon a light from his Lord? Woe to those whose hearts are hardened against the remembrance of God.Know that the Adamite's heart has four curtains: The first curtain is the breast, the lodging place of the submission's covenant, in accordance with His words, �Is he whose breast God has expanded for the submission?� The second curtain is the heart, which is the locus of the light of faith, in ac- cordance with His words, �He wrote faith in their hearts� [58:22]. The third curtain is the mindful heart, the pavilion of contemplating the Real, in accordance with His words, �His mindful heart did not lie about what he saw� [53:11]. The fourth curtain is the smitten heart, the place of put- ting down the saddle-bags of love, in accordance with His words, �He smote her heart with love� [12:30].Each of these four curtains has a characteristic, and the Real gazes upon each. When the Lord of the Worlds desires to pull one who has fled from Him with the lasso of gentleness into the road of His religion, He first gazes upon his breast, so that it may become pure of caprice and innovation and so that his feet may go straight on the avenue of the Sunnah.Then He turns His gaze to his heart so that it may become pure of this world's defilements and of blameworthy character traits, such as self-admiration, envy, pride, eye-service, greed, enmity, and frivolity. Then he may go forth on the road of scrupulosity.Then He gazes on his mindful heart and keeps him back from attachments and created things. He opens the fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom in his heart. He bestows the light of guid- ance on his heart's center point, as He said, �so he is upon a light from his Lord.�Then He gazes on his smitten heart-a gaze, and what a gaze! A gaze that embellishes the spirit, brings the tree of joy to fruit, and awakens the eye of revelry; a gaze that is a tree whose shadow is companionship with the Friend, a gaze that is a wine whose cup is the recognizer's heart.When this gaze reaches the smitten heart, it lifts it up from water and clay, and the lover steps into the street of annihilation.

And he who brought truthfulness and he who assented to it, those are the godwary.Know that truthfulness [ṣidq] means truthfulness [rāstī]. There is truthfulness in four things: words, promises, resoluteness, and deeds. Truthfulness in words is what the Real says about MuṣṬafā: �And he who brought truthfulness.� Truthfulness in promises is what He says about Ishmael the prophet: �Surely he was truthful in the promise� [19:54]. Truthfulness in resoluteness is what He says about the Messenger's companions: �Men truthful in the covenant they made with God� [33:23]. Truthfulness in deeds is what He says about the faithful: �It is they who have been truthful� [2:177].When these traits are brought together in someone, he is called �sincerely truthful.� Abraham was in this station, for the Exalted Lord said concerning him, �Surely he was sincerely truthful, a prophet� [19:41].MuṣṬafā was asked, �What is the perfection of the religion?� He said, �Speaking with truth and acting with truthfulness.� A pir was asked, �What is truthfulness?�He said, �You do what you say, you have what you show, and you are whence you call out.� Truthfulness in words is that the servant in whispered prayer with the Real seeks truthfulness from himself. If his face is turned toward this world in the state when he says, �Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth� [6:79], then that is a lie. When he says, �Thee alone we worship� [1:5], if he is in bondage to this world and to appetite, then he has spoken a lie, for a man is the servant of that to which he is in bondage. This is why MuṣṬafā said, �Miserable is the servant of dirhams, miserable the servant of dinars!� He called him the servant of gold and silver because he is in bondage to gold and silver. The servant must be free of this world and appetites as well as himself if servanthood to the Real is to be set right for him.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, �The Real made me stand before Him in one thousand standing places. In each standing place He offered me the empire. I said, 'I do not desire it.'�He said to me in the last standing place, 'O Abū Yazīd, what do you desire?' �I said, 'I desire not to desire.

Say: �O My servants who have been immoderate against yourselves, despair not of God's mercy. Surely God forgives the sins altogether.�Know that among God's creatures, perfect honor belongs to two groups: angels and Adamites. This is why He appointed prophets and messengers from among these two groups rather than any others. Their utmost eminence lies in two things: servanthood and love. Sheer servanthood is the attribute of the angels, and servanthood and love are both attributes of the Adamites.He gave the angels sheer servanthood, which is the attribute of creation. Along with servant- hood He gave the Adamites the robe of love, which is the attribute of the Real. Thus He says con- cerning this community, �He loves them, and they love Him� [5:54]. He also gave the Adamites superiority over the angels in servanthood, for He said that servanthood is the angels' attribute, but without ascription to Himself: �Nay, but they are honored servants� [21:26]. He ascribed the Adamites' servanthood to Himself: �O My servants!�Then, according to the requirement of love, He completed His bounty on them. He concealed their defects and disobedient acts with the lights of love and did not tear away their curtain. Do you not see that He decreed slips for them, yet, despite all those slips, He did not remove the name servant from them? Despite mentioning the slips and disobedience, He did not take away the eminence of ascription? He said, �O My servants who have been immoderate against yourselves, despair not of God's mercy.�Then He kept the curtain over them and did not make the sins manifest, instead mentioning them in sum, with the lid on. He concealed them and said, �who have been immoderate.� They were immoder- ate, they were extravagant. But He desired to forgive them, so He did not tear away the curtain, nor did He throw away the name servant. Glory be to Him-how clement He is to His servants!It has been related that Moses said, �'O God, You desire disobedience from the servants, but You hate it.' The servants disobey because of Your desire, but then You hate it and You make the servant Your enemy because of the disobedience.�The Real said, �'O Moses, that is the foundation of My pardon.' That is to lay the foundation of My pardon and generosity.

Be penitent toward your Lord and submit to Him before the chastisement comes to you- then you will not be helped.Penitence is of three sorts: one is the penitence of the prophets. He says about Abraham, �Surely Abraham was clement, a sigher, penitent� [11:75]. He says about David, �He sank down, bowing, and was penitent� [38:24]. He says quoting Shuʿayb, �In Him I trust and toward Him I am peni- tent� [11:88]. The mark of the penitence of the prophets is three things: having fear along with the good news of freedom, serving along with the eminence of prophethood, and bearing burdens in the heart along with happiness. Other than the prophets, no one has the capacity for this penitence. Another is the penitence of the recognizers. It is to turn toward God in every state with the whole heart. God says, �None will remember but those who are penitent� [40:13]. The mark of the penitence of the recognizers is three things: being in pain from disobedience, being ashamed of obedience, and being intimate with the Real in seclusion. Rābiʿa ʿAdawiyya reached the point in the state of intimacy where she said, �'Enough for me in this world is remembering You and in the next world seeing You.' O Lord, in this world Your remembrance is enough for me, and in theafterworld Your vision is enough for me.�O chevalier, when someone is intimate with the mystery of the Patron of Blessings, how could he be quenched by seeing the blessings and bliss of paradise?The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, how could I be joyful with paradise and houris? If You give me one breath, from that breath I will build a paradise!�By God, the sun has never risen or setunless Your remembrance was linked to my breaths.I never sat with people talking to themunless You were my talk with my companions.O Majestic One! When someone turns his face to Your Presence, all the motes of the world make the dust under his feet the collyrium of their eyes. Whenever someone seeks shelter in the thresh-old of Your exaltedness, all creatures attach themselves to the saddle-straps of his good fortune. From his own state of intimacy a dear one advises,�If you are given access one day to the palace of the yearning,what will you have to do with the grief of passion for this sorcery?If you see one hue from the rose-garden of His talk,all the roses of the garden will be thorns in your eyes.

ḤāÌ MīmḤāÌ is an allusion to love [maḤabba] and Mīm is an allusion to favor [minna]. He is saying, �O you who have become a friend through the ḤāÌ of My love, not through your own excellence! O you have found Me through the Mīm of My favor, not through your obedience! O you whom I took as My friend when you did not recognize Me! O you whom I wanted when you did not know Me! O you to whom I belonged when you did not belong to Me! A hundred thousand were stand- ing at My threshold wanting Me and making their supplications. I paid no attention to them and I said to you without your asking, 'O community of AḤmad, I bestowed upon you before you asked from Me, I responded to you before you called upon Me, and I forgave you before you asked Me to forgive you.'�The previous prophets were eager and yearning for you. Abraham said, 'Make for me a tongue of truthfulness among the later folk' [26:84], and Moses said, 'Make me one of the commu- nity of AḤmad.' This was not because We explained your acts to them, for if We had talked about your acts to them, all would have pulled back from you. It was because I explained My bounteous- ness and beneficence toward you. Before you, I chose everyone I chose one by one. Thus, 'Surely God chose Adam and Noah and the House of Abraham and the House of Imran' [3:33]. When your turn came, I spoke generally and inclusively: 'You are the best community' [3:110]. All of you are My chosen ones.� In another place He says, �The ones We chose from among Our servants� [35:32]. Included in this address are worshippers, wrongdoers, and disobedient.

Forgiver of sins and Accepter of repentance, Intense in punishment, Possessor of boons.Bounty and generosity demanded that repentance be posterior and forgiveness prior: �If I had said that I accept repentance, then I forgive sins, people would fancy that God would not forgive until the servant repented. But first I forgive, then I accept repentance, so that the world's folk will know that just as I forgive through repentance, so also I forgive without repentance. If repentance were prior, forgiveness would be posterior and repentance would be the cause of forgiveness. But Our forgiveness has no cause and Our act has no contrivance. First I forgive and make the servant pure with the clear water of bounteousness so that, when he steps onto My carpet, he will step with purity. When he comes to Us, he comes with the attribute of purity.� This is just what He says in another place: �Then He turned toward them so that they would repent� [9:118].�I am Forgiver of those disobedient acts of which he did not repent, and I am Accepter of him who repents.� What is meant by forgiveness of sins here is the forgiveness of the sins of those who have not repented, because He brought the conjunction �and� in the middle. The first phrase is one thing, and the phrase added to it is something else, though they have the same ruling property. Thus you say, �Zayd and ʿAmr came to me.� Zayd is one person, and ʿAmr is someone else, but the two have the same ruling property in their coming. If the ruling property were different, that conjunction would be a mistake, and if the two were identical, mentioning both would be a mistake.Listen to a beautiful subtlety concerning the forgiveness of sins and the acceptance of repen- tance: First He mentioned His own attributes and said, �Forgiver of sins and Accepter of repen- tance.� His attributes are not the locus of intervention, nor do they accept change and alteration. Then, when He spoke of punishment, He said �Intense in punishment.� He made intense the attri- bute of punishment, and punishment is a locus of modification, so it accepts change and alteration. He is saying: �I am hard in punishment, but if I want to be, I am soft and I change it, for it has room for modification and it accepts change and alteration.

Uplifter of degrees is He, Possessor of the Throne.He uplifts the degrees of the disobedient to salvation, of the obedient to rewards, of the possessors of needs to sufficiency, of the friends to charismatic gifts, and of the recognizers to states of watch- fulness and encounter. He lifts up the degrees of the servants. He keeps each in a station and gives to each of them what is suitable for him. To the disobedient He gives salvation, to the obedient rewards, to the requesters sufficiencies, to the friends charismatic gifts, to the recognizers states of watchfulness and encounter.The degrees of the faithful and the friends are first today and then tomorrow. Today they are in knowledge and faith, as He says, �He will lift up in degrees those among you who have faith and those who have been given knowledge� [58:11]. Tomorrow they will be in the garden of ap- proval with repose and ease [56:89] in the neighborhood of the All-Merciful, as He says: �They are degrees with God� [3:163].As for the degrees of the folk of form tomorrow in paradise, they are one thing, and the degrees of the folk of attributes are another thing, for the folk of form are one thing and the folk of attributes are another. The folk of form are in the valley of dispersion, the folk of attributes in the center point of togetherness. �The faithful indeed are siblings� [49:10]; this is in the world of form. As for what MuṣṬafā said, �The faithful are like one soul,� that is in the world of attributes.One of the nomad leaders came before MuṣṬafā and asked, �What has been put away for us in paradise, and how high will be our degrees?� This man was one of the folk of form.God's Messenger replied, �'Therein are rivers of water unstaling' [47:15], and therein are such and such and so on.� He counted out the flowing water, the roasted fowl, the various sorts of fruit, just as the Qur'an speaks of them.Someone else, one of the folk of attributes, asked him about this meaning. God's Messenger knew he was a man of attributes, not a man of form, so he said, �Within it are what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.

God is He who made the earth for you a settledness and the heaven a building. And He formed you, so He made your forms beautiful, and He provided you with the goodly things.This is another blessing and gentleness of which He reminds the servants, thus making the road of servanthood clear for them, showing them the traces of generosity and the indications of power, and placing a favor upon them. He is saying: �When I created heaven and earth, I created them for your sake. I made the earth your settledness, I built the heaven as your gazing place.�If from time to time there were no gazing on heaven, how would heaven have received this bestowal of eminence? We adorned the lowest heaven with lamps [41:12]. If earth were not the encampment of your majestic ruling authority, how would it have seen this caress? And earth, We laid it out-what excellent spreaders! [51:48]. The light of the moon, the brightness of the sun, the adornment of the stars-all is for you. The sun is your cook, the moon is your candle, the stars are your guideposts, heaven your roof, earth your carpet. Tomorrow when you are not there, the roof will be taken down, the carpet rolled up, and the stars will fall. When a carpet is spread for a friend and then the friend goes, the carpet will surely be taken away. �My servant, I created heaven to be your cupbearer: And We sent down from heaven pure water [25:48]. For today is the day of the veil, and there is no escape from the intermediary. But tomorrow will be the day of contemplation, and the intermediary will be of no use. The cupbearer will be My gentleness: And their Lord will pour for them a pure wine [76:21]. I built the earth as an intermediary to give you food: And therein We made grains grow, and vines and herbs, and olives and date-palms [80:27- 29]. Tomorrow will be the day of contemplation, and the intermediary will be of no use. I Myself will say, 'Eat and drink pleasantly' [69:24]. I created the sun to give you light, for today in the world of form the light of recognition is hidden within the curtains of the secret cores of the lovers' hearts.

He is the Living, there is no god but He.Who is the painter of the forms of the Adamites, the shower of powers in earth and heaven, the con- veyer of daily provisions to the servants? He is the Living: That living, lasting one who has always been, is, and will be. His being has no first, His existence no last, He subsists after the world and the world's folk. The creatures' work goes back to Him forever.

ḤāÌ MīmIn other words, all that will come to be has been decreed [Ḥumm]. God is saying: �Whatever is be-able has come to be, whatever is doable I have done, whatever is runable I have run, whatever is choosable I have chosen, whatever is acceptable I have accepted, whatever is liftable I have lifted, whatever is throwable I have thrown. Whatever I wanted, I did; whatever I want, I do. When I have accepted someone, I do not look at the disloyalty I see from him. Rather, I pardon and pass over. I do not turn away from what I have said. With Me the word does not change [50:29].�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, the whole world wants You. What does the work is what You want. Happy is the one You want, for even if he turns back from You, You will be waiting in his road.�O chevalier! Whomever He wanted He wanted in the Beginningless, and whomever He ca- ressed, He caressed in the Beginningless. He did the work in the Beginningless, and today He shows what He did. He spoke the words in the Beginningless, and today He lets you hear the spo- ken words. He sewed the robes of honor in the Beginningless, and today He conveys them: Each day He is upon some task [55:29].�My servant, you know Me today, but I am not of today. Your knowledge is today; but I am eternal. For some time I have been speaking to you of the mysteries, but you hear now. In the Beginningless I made the eternal hearing your deputy in listening to the beginningless word. In the Beginningless I made the eternal knowledge your deputy in knowing the beginningless attributes. When a guardian has an infant's property, he has it as the infant's deputy. When the infant reaches adulthood, he gives the property back to him. You were the infants of nonexistence. The eternal gentleness took care of your work and acted as your deputy. O you who await the arrival of Our gentleness! O you who look for the marks bearing witness to Our Unseen! Nothing drives friend- ship into your heart other than the ruling power of Our secret. No one strikes the knocker on the door of your heart other than the messenger of Our kindness.�

A sending down from the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.This Qur'an was sent down by the Lord whose name is the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. He is the All-Merciful through kindly acts, the Ever-Merciful through lights; the All-Merciful through blessings, the Ever-Merciful through protection from sin; the All-Merciful through self-disclosure, the Ever-Merciful through befriending; the All-Merciful through alleviating acts of worship, the Ever-Merciful through verifying the most beautiful and an increase [10:26].When the ocean of mercy sends up the waves of generosity and forgiveness, all slips and acts of disobedience cease to exist and come to nothing, for the slip is the attribute of what was not and then came to be, and the mercy is the attribute of what always was and always will be. How can what was not, then came to be, stand up to what always was and always will be?

He set in it unshakables from above it and He blessed it.In form the unshakable mountains are the pegs of the earth, but in reality the friends are the pegs of the earth. It is through their blessing that rain comes from heaven and plants from the earth, and through their supplicating God trial is repelled from the people.The mountains are the pegs of the earth in terms of form, but God's friends are the pegs of the earth in terms of reality. The arrangement of the work of the world is tied to the towering mountains, but the straightness of the states and means of people in terms of meaning is tied to the blessedness and supplication of the friends. In body they are present with the people, but in heart they are absent from the people and present with the Real.Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, �It is forty years that I have not spoken to anyone. Whatever I have said, I have said to the Real, and whatever I have heard, I have heard from the Real.�It is from here that MuṣṬafā said, �I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink.� He was present with the people in his person for the sake of discharging the Shariah and expanding the creed, but in his secret core he was with the Real because of the overpowering force of love and the continuity of contemplation. When love overpowers, the lover does not become separate from the beloved.Master Abu ʿAlī Daqqāq said, �Paradise has no business with me, and hell has nothing to do with me, for there is nothing in my heart but joy in the Real's subsistence.�Whatever is other than the Friend, break its snare!Whatever is other than passion, name it �sorrow�!*In my love for Buthayna I desired that we two be alone on a raft in the ocean.

Those who have said, �Our Lord is God,� then gone straight-the angels will descend upon them saying, �Fear not and grieve not, and rejoice in the Garden that you were promised.�Those who have said, �Our Lord is God,� is an allusion to the tawḤīd of attestation; then gone straight is an allusion to the tawḤīd of recognition. The tawḤīd of attestation belongs to the gen- erality of the faithful, and the tawḤīd of recognition belongs to the recognizers and the sincerely truthful. The tawḤīd of attestation is that you say that God is one. The tawḤīd of recognition is that you be one for God.Once Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī was standing in the station of knowledge and giving forth marks of the tawḤīd of attestation. A disciple said, �O shaykh! Do you recognize God?�He replied, �In the whole world is there anyone at all who does not recognize or know God?�At another time he was drowned in the ocean of the tawḤīd of recognition, incinerated by the fire of love. He was asked, �Do you recognize God?�He replied, �Who am I to recognize Him. In the whole world, is there anyone who recog- nizes Him?�Who am I in my passion for You that a rose should bloom in the clay of my house from joining with Your face?The tawḤīd of recognition, which was expressed here as going straight, is that you reach the utmost limit of realization in assenting, you stroll into the gardens of the realities on the footing of truthful- ness [10:2] and certainty, and you have a firmly fixed footing on the avenue of the Straight Path. You bind the collar of disengagement to the neck of solitariness, drink down the wine of love from the hand of the cupbearer of truthfulness, smell the rose of the recognitions from the garden of the subtleties, topple the celestial and terrestrial worlds, and say with the tongue of selflessness,�Adam set up the banner of passion in the world and toppled a hundred worlds of knowers.Having breathed for a time in his own soulhe gambled away paradise and lost both worlds.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Companionship with the Real is two words: response and going straight-response to the Covenant, and going straight in loyalty.

We are your friends in this world's life and in the next world.In this world's life through faith and in the next world through forgiveness, in this world's life through the realization of recognition and in the next world by gaining forgiveness, in this world's life through approval of the decree and in the next world through encounter in the abode of sub- sistence, in this world through love and in the next world through proximity, in this world through contemplation and in the next world through face-to-face vision.If the Adamite were given the life of Noah and he were to spend all his days showing gratitude for the blessing and generosity in this saying of the Exalted Lord- �We are your friends in this world's life and in the next world�-his life would come to an end and he would never be grateful enough for the blessings, or recognize the generosity, in God's words: �We are your friend, your lovingly kind companion, and your helper in this world and the afterworld.�In this world, think how the Real answered the angels for your sake when they said, �What, wilt Thou set therein one who will work corruption there?� [2:30]. God did not say that they would not work corruption. He said, �Surely I know what you do not know [2:30]. You have no aware- ness of the secrets of My Divinity and no cognizance of the gentle favors of My Lordhood toward the Adamites.�The slanderers do not diminish your level with Me, nor do the backbiters harm you.It is as if they praise you unknowinglyin My sight with the faults they find.�If they are unworthy, I will make them worthy. If they are far, I will bring them near. If they are abased, I will make them exalted. Though you see their outward disloyalty, I see their inward loy- alty. Though you gaze on the opposition of their limbs and bodily parts, I gaze on the conformity of their hearts and secret cores. Though you wear the waistcoat of obedience, they wear the shirt of union. Though you have the robe of worship, they have the hat of forgiveness. Though you have clung to your own sinlessness, they have clung to My mercy. What would it matter if I did not accept your sinlessness? What harm is there in their disobedience when there is My pardon and forgiveness? They are lifted up by the beginningless gentleness and caressed by the endless bounty.

And of His signs are the night and the day, the sun and the moon. Do not prostrate your- selves to the sun and the moon, but prostrate yourselves to God, who created them.This is the speech of the Lord whose kingship has no removal, whose seriousness has no levity, whose exaltedness has no abasement, and whose decree has no rejection. He has no peer, and from Him there is no escape. He is a God other than whom there is no king, and His kingship is not through army and retinue. His exaltedness is not with drums and flags, horse and servants.He is a king, the portico of whose threshold is the seven lofty heavens, and the resting place of whose elect is the seven inaccessible carpets. The world-adorning sun is like a quicksilver goblet through His wisdom. The moon's figure is sometimes like a gold horseshoe and sometimes like a silver shield through His power. The celestial world and the terrestrial world are both marks of His unity and solitariness.There are countless proofs of God's artisanry,a thousand colors concealed in the petal of a rose.Though the day is white, bright, and brilliant,day and night are the same for those without eyes.If someone wants to know and recognize a king as is fitting, first he should look at his realm, then he should look at his army, then he should look at his artisanry and acts. After that, he should look at him himself so as to know him as is fitting. It is as if the Exalted Lord is saying, �My servant, if you want to look at My realm, to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth [5:120]. If you want to look at My acts, gaze on the traces of God's mercy, how He brings the earth to life after its death [30:50]. If you want to look at My artisanry, of His signs are the night and the day, the sun and the moon. If you want to look at Me tomorrow, look today from My artisanry to Me with the eye of the heart: Dost thou not see thy Lord, how He stretched out the shadow [25:45]? Then tomorrow look at My bounty with the eye of the secret core: Faces that day will be radiant, gazing upon their Lord [75:22-23].

We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in their souls until it is clear to them that He is the Real.It is said that the Lord's religion, which is the cause of the deliverance of the servants and the foundation of their familiarity with Him, is built on two things: One is showing on the part of the Real, and the other traveling on the part of the servant. Showing is what He says: �We shall show them Our signs on the horizons.� Traveling is what He says: �Whoso does a wholesome deed, it is for himself� [41:46]. As long as there is no showing on the Real's part, there will be no traveling on the servant's part.Showing takes place in both the signs of the horizons and the signs of the souls. In the signs of the horizons, it is what He says: �Have they not gazed upon the dominion of the heavens and the earth?� [7:185]. In the signs of the souls, it is what He says: �And in your souls; what, do you not see?� [51:21]. He is saying, �Do you not look at yourself and do you not think about your own makeup?�This is because the Lord of the Worlds has written out many fine points of wisdom and many realities of artisanry with the pen of eternal gentleness on the tablet of this makeup. He has in- scribed on it the lights of fabrication and the traces of honoring. He made the round head-the pavilion of intellect and the gathering place of knowledge-a monastery for the senses. Whatever worth has been acquired by this hollow makeup and composite person has been acquired from intellect and knowledge. The worth of the Adamite lies in intellect and his respectability in knowl- edge, his perfection in intellect and his beauty in knowledge.God created his forehead like a bar of silver. He strung the two bows of his eyebrows with pure musk. He deposited the two dots of his eyes' light into two figures of darkness. He made a hundred thousand red roses grow up in the garden of his two cheeks. He concealed thirty-two teeth like pearls in the oyster shell of his mouth. He sealed his mouth with glistening agate. From the beginning of his lips to the end of his throat He created twenty-nine way stations, making them the places of articulation for the twenty-nine letters.

The Creator of the heavens and the earth, He made for you from yourselves pairs and from your cattle pairs, thereby multiplying you. Nothing is as His likeness, and He is the Hear- ing, the Seeing.The Creator of the seven heavens and the seven earths is God, and in creation He is one and unique. He gives being to nonbeings, from what was not He brings forth what is, and He is not similar to any being. His power has no slackening, His strength no shortcoming, and His measure is far from perception. His act has no instrument, His artisanry no cause, His doing no contrivance. He cre- ated the tremendous Throne and made it the crown on the head of being's realm. He created the tiny dust mote and concealed it from the eyes. In terms of power, the Throne is like a dust mote, and in terms of wisdom, the dust mote like a Throne. If you look at the world of power, the Throne will appear to you as a dust mote, and if you look at the world of wisdom, the dust mote will come to you as a Throne.Judging on the basis of the world of unneediness and the exalted divine majesty, in reality there is no need for the existence of creatures, so their realm of being appears to be an intrusion. Nonetheless, He Himself says, �'We created you so you would profit from Us, not so that We would profit from you.' When I created you, I did not create you to seek profit from you or to join My exalted majesticness with your existence.�Her own face had itself as a moon,her own eye had itself as collyrium.�Rather, I created you so that you would seek profit from Me and you would take your own share from My bounty.�The attribute of bounty stood up seeking the obedient, the attribute of severity stood up seek- ing the disobedient, and the attribute of majesty and beauty stood up seeking the passionate. He had a severity and a gentleness to perfection, a never-ending majesty and beauty. He wanted to scatter these treasures. He placed the throne of gentleness on the head of one person in the garden of bounty, He put the burning brand of severity on another's liver in the prison of justice, He melted one in the fire of majesty, and He caressed another in the light of beauty.

God is gentle to His servants.God is gentle to His servants, He is benevolent and lovingly kind toward them. It was His gentle- ness that gave you the success to worship Him and the success to ask from Him. He made your heart the quarry of light so that you love without seeing and you recognize without perceiving. It is His gentleness that asks temporary acts of obedience from you and gives everlasting rewards as a gift unbroken [11:108]. It is His gentleness that gives blessings in His measure and asks for gratitude from the servants in their measure: Be wary of God as far as you are able [64:16]. It is His gentleness that gives the servants the success to serve and then puts laudation and praise on top of that: The repenters, the worshipers, and so on [9:112]. It is His gentleness that calls you ignorant at the time of sin so as to pardon you: Whosoever of you does an ugly deed in ignorance [6:54]. At the time of bearing witness He calls you knowing so that He may accept your testimony: except those who have borne witness to the truth while they are knowing [43:86]. At the time of shortcoming He calls you weak to efface your shortcoming: Man was created weak [4:28].In burning and need that dervish said in the seclusion of secret whispering, �O God, You called me weak. What comes from the weak other than error? You called me ignorant. What comes from the ignorant other than disloyalty? You are a generous and gentle Lord. What is fit- ting for someone generous and gentle other than generosity, loyalty, and bestowing gifts?�What is fitting for the servants once they recognize His gentleness and benevolence toward them is to pull back their skirts from the two worlds, roll up the carpet of folly, bind the belt of servanthood around their waists, cling to the threshold of service and veneration, sew up their eyes from gazing at others, burn the haystack of wanting from people, and, with a heart free of dust and a breast free of burdens, sit waiting for the gentle favors and kindly acts of God, until the Real takes care of their business with His own gentleness and caresses their hearts in the cradle of the Covenant.

And He responds to those who have faith and do wholesome deeds, and He increases them in His bounty.This �increase,� according to the commentators among the Folk of the Sunnah, is the vision of the Lord. In the same way, He says in another place, �Those who do what is beautiful shall have the most beautiful and an increase� [10:26]. When the servant reaches the vision of God, he reaches it through God's bounty, not his own obedience, as He says: �and He increases them in His bounty.� Tomorrow, when He bestows His vision on His friends, He will do so by the request of His own beauty, not the request of mortal man. How could an insignificant mortal have the gall to make the request himself? What a marvelous business! Before the vision of others the exaltedness of jealousy requires mask upon mask, but the perfection of beauty requires self-disclosure upon self- disclosure!Though He's always hidden behind the curtainthe light of His face is apparent on every horizon.Once when he was overpowered by ecstasy, Abū Bakr Shiblī said, �O God, tomorrow raise up everyone blind so that only Shiblī may see You!�Another time he said, �O God, raise up Shiblī blind, for it would be a shame for someone like me to see You!�The first words were jealousy for beauty against the eyes of others, and the second time was jealousy for that beauty against his own eyes. In the road of the chevaliers, the second step is more complete and more exalted than the first.Jealous for You, I'll pull out my heart and eyesso my eyes will not see You and my heart will know nothing more of You.Evidence that tomorrow's vision of the Lord will be at the request of beauty is in the sound report, �When the folk of the Garden enter the Garden, a call will come to them, 'O folk of the Garden, you have an appointment with God that He desires to fulfill.'� When the folk of paradise come into paradise and they take up residence in their own goodly dwellings, a call will come, �O friends of the Real! You have a promise with the Real. Come and be present, for the Real will realize that promise through His bounty.

He it is who sends down the rain after they have despaired and spreads out His mercy.This verse alludes to the servant when the branches of his present moment have wilted, the limpid- ness of his love has turned opaque, the sun of his intimacy has been eclipsed, and the freshness of his covenant has become distant from the courtyards of proximity. At that point it may happen that the Real will gaze upon him with the gaze of mercy and send mercy's rain to his secret core. Then the fresh twigs will return and flowering roses will grow up in the places of witnessing intimacy.If Your forsaking me takes my hand, perhaps my days will return.Your covenant may curve backto life, for covenants may come again to life.Leaves sometimes go dry,then you see them green and moving.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Since the last of this work is so similar to the first of this work, the road to the Friend is a circle. It comes from Him and goes back to Him. The first of this work is like springtime and blossoms. A man is happy, fresh, and comfortable. Then he sees the downs and ups. Disappointments and dispersions come forth, for in worship there are both togetherness and dispersion, and in the stations there are light and darkness. In the darkness of dispersion the servant sees so much concealment that he says, 'Oh, I tremble because I am worthless. What can I do other than burn until I rise up from this fallenness. What will happen then?'�Who sends down the rain after they have despaired. The clouds of munificence pour down the rain of finding, the billows of bounteousness scatter the pearls of welcome, the rose of union blos- soms in the garden of bestowal, and the last of the work goes back to the first. In joy and coquetry the servant says, �With reports I went forth seeking certainty, fear my resource, hope my compan- ion. The goal was hidden from me and I was striving in the religion. All at once the lightning of self-disclosure flashed from ambush. With thought they see like that, with the Friend like this.�

Shall We turn the remembrance away from you because you are an immoderate people?When today He does not cut off His words addressed to those who persist in disobeying Him and who are immoderate in most of what they do, then tomorrow how would He hold back His forgive- ness and the subtle favors of His beautiful doing from those who have not curtailed their faith in Him nor been defective in their recognition of Him, even if they are stained by disobedience?The Pir of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayer, �It is You who see unworthiness from the servant and do not hurry to punish. You hear unbelief from the servant and do not hold back blessings. You offer him repentance and pardon, and You call him back with Your message and address. If he does come back, You promise him forgiveness. 'If they desist, He will forgive them what is past' [8:38]. Since You are like this with the bad-doing enemy, what will You be like with the beautiful-doing friend?�

How many a prophet We sent among the ancients, but a prophet never came to them except that they mocked him.This is a marvelous business. Whenever there is talk of friends, He joins it to the story of the estranged. Whenever He shows gentleness and generosity, He puts it next to severity and harsh- ness. Wherever there is a reality, He creates a metaphor to scatter dust on the reality. Wherever there is an argument, He mixes it with ambiguity to scratch the face of the argument. Wherever there is knowledge, He brings forth ignorance to struggle with the ruling power of the knowledge. Wherever there is tawḤīd, He brings forth associationism to travel the path of quarreling with tawḤīd. For every friend, He creates a thousand enemies. For everyone sincerely truthful, He brings a hundred thousand heretics. Wherever there is a mosque, He builds a church in front of it. Wherever there is a monastery, there is a tavern; wherever a turban, a sash of unbelief; wherever an attestation, a disavowal; wherever a worshiper, someone ignorant; wherever a friend, an enemy; wherever someone truthful, someone ungodly. He has filled from east to west with adornment and blessings, and in every blessing He has prepared a tribulation and trial. �Among the hardships of this world is the harm of almond candy and the benefit of myrobalan.� The poor, incapable Ad- amite! He stays bewildered in the midst of this work and does not have the gall to say a word.He suffers iniquity from those moon-like faces and does not have the gall to sigh,His face is like a mirrorand a sigh would ruin it.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �The Adamite has three states with which he is busy: obedience, by which he profits; disobedience, which he regrets; and heedlessness, by which he loses. What counsel is more beautiful than the Qur'an? Who is more lovingly kind as a counselor than the Patron? What capital is vaster than faith? What is more profitable than commerce with God? Is it that the Adamite is content to be in loss and approves of severance? Has when whatever is to arrive for him arrives.� This is the attribute of that people concerning whom the Exalted Lord says,

How many a prophet We sent among the ancients, but a prophet never came to them except that they mocked him.This is a marvelous business. Whenever there is talk of friends, He joins it to the story of the estranged. Whenever He shows gentleness and generosity, He puts it next to severity and harsh- ness. Wherever there is a reality, He creates a metaphor to scatter dust on the reality. Wherever there is an argument, He mixes it with ambiguity to scratch the face of the argument. Wherever there is knowledge, He brings forth ignorance to struggle with the ruling power of the knowledge. Wherever there is tawḤīd, He brings forth associationism to travel the path of quarreling with tawḤīd. For every friend, He creates a thousand enemies. For everyone sincerely truthful, He brings a hundred thousand heretics. Wherever there is a mosque, He builds a church in front of it. Wherever there is a monastery, there is a tavern; wherever a turban, a sash of unbelief; wherever an attestation, a disavowal; wherever a worshiper, someone ignorant; wherever a friend, an enemy; wherever someone truthful, someone ungodly. He has filled from east to west with adornment and blessings, and in every blessing He has prepared a tribulation and trial. �Among the hardships of this world is the harm of almond candy and the benefit of myrobalan.� The poor, incapable Ad- amite! He stays bewildered in the midst of this work and does not have the gall to say a word.He suffers iniquity from those moon-like faces and does not have the gall to sigh,His face is like a mirrorand a sigh would ruin it.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �The Adamite has three states with which he is busy: obedience, by which he profits; disobedience, which he regrets; and heedlessness, by which he loses. What counsel is more beautiful than the Qur'an? Who is more lovingly kind as a counselor than the Patron? What capital is vaster than faith? What is more profitable than commerce with God? Is it that the Adamite is content to be in loss and approves of severance? Has when whatever is to arrive for him arrives.� This is the attribute of that people concerning whom the Exalted Lord says,

So We destroyed those stronger than they in seizing, and the example of the first ones passed away.�They have taken Our prophets as liars, ridiculed them, and did not accept their advice. Hence We showed them Our harshness and severity. We overthrew them and pulled them up by the roots. If anyone contends with Us, Our severity will overcome him. We exact justice from the arrogant, We take vengeance on the apostates, and We show the answer to the enemies.�

Bosom friends on that day will be enemies of one another, except for the godwary.Know that in reality God alone deserves friendship, no one else. This is because perfect beauty and never-ending majesty belong to Him, the beginningless Essence and everlasting attributes belong to Him, limitless existence and infinite munificence belong to Him, and non-instrumental knowl- edge and uncontrived power belong to Him.Abū Bakr ṣiddīq said, �When someone tastes of unmixed love for God, that prevents him from seeking this world and alienates him from all mankind.� Whenever the limpidness of the Real's love settles down in someone's heart, the opacity of seeking this world and people's acceptance packs its bags from his heart. If he then loves anyone among the people, it is because that person has an attachment to the Real or an affinity with the Real through His friendship. Whenever any- one has a friend, in reality he also loves his abode, street, and neighborhood. The poet says,My covenant is not because of love for earthly dust, but for that in which the Beloved dwells.*What I want from Your street is Your face.Friendship for the godwary and the pious is what He says: �His friends are only the godwary� [8:34]. Love for God's Messenger is what he himself says: �Love me because of God's love!�So, the final end of all loves is the perfection of the beauty of the Divine Presence. To this He alludes with His words, �Surely the final end is unto thy Lord� [53:42].The mark of love is that whenever something reaches you that is disliked by your nature and makeup, you accept it gladly. MuṣṬafā said, �The foul odor of the fasting person's mouth is more fragrant with God than the aroma of musk.� The altered smell from the mouth of the fasting per- son comes from the aroma of the pavilion of holiness. Consider it prior to all the perfumes of the world, for the Friend approves of it. Poets have said,Were the Beloved's hand to pour poison for me, poison from His hand would be sweet.*The heart that You burn thanks You, the blood that You shed boasts.*The blood that You spill thanks You,the heart that You scare praises You.*The poison I drink in remembrance of You is sweet, the mad man who sees You comes to his senses.It has also been said, �Whoever sees You recognizes, whoever recognizes clings, and whoever clings burns. The burnt one will not be burned again.� Rather, he will be caressed with this call:

O My servants, no fear is upon you today, neither will you sorrow.Just as He said in the Beginningless, �My servants,� so He Himself will say in the Endless, �My servants.� In the Beginningless He said, �O My servants, you are My creation and I am your Lord, so present your needs to Me.� In the Endless He will say, �My servants, no fear is upon you today, neither will you sorrow.� This indeed will be addressed to the generality of the faithful. As for the sincerely truthful and the near ones, He will address them with this: �My servants, did you yearn for Me? Did you love to encounter Me?� This will be an exalted state and a great rank: the intender will have reached the Intended, the seeker the Sought, the lover the Beloved. The tree of union will bear fruit, the messenger of the Sought will come forth, and the Companion will come out with the stipulation of passion.At last the Friend will come out with the stipulation of passion- the suffering of my passion for Him will come to an end.

For them will be brought around platters and cups of gold. Therein will be whatever the souls hunger for and gives pleasure to the eyes.For them will be brought around platters and cups of gold. This is the portion of the renunciants and worshipers, who kept themselves totally in obedience and worship. They passed their days in hunger and thirst by the decree of discipline and struggle according to the Shariah. They did not take advantage of the tasty foods and drinks of this world, so tomorrow in paradise the serving boys and servants will pass around golden cups and say to them, �Eat and drink pleasantly for what you left behind in bygone days� [69:24].Therein shall be whatever the souls hunger for and gives pleasure to the eyes. This is the portion of the recognizers and the yearners, who were always wishing for the vision of the Real's majesty and beauty with thirsty hearts, burning breaths, and spirits lit up by passion. A whiff of the world of friendship had reached them, and that whiff distracted and bewildered them. This was a bewilderment within the curtain, not outside the curtain. The bewilderment that takes you outside makes you lose the road, but the bewilderment inside the curtain is one of the traces of the perfect divine majesty. Whoever cannot go from creation to the Real is bewildered by losing the road. Whoever cannot come from the Real to creation is bewildered by the Presence of the Threshold. Wherever he goes, he returns only to Him.From here the Pir of the Tariqah said, �For a long time I was seeking Him and finding myself.Now I seek myself and find Him.�This is the same bewilderment requested by the chevaliers of the Tariqah: �O Guide of the bewildered, increase me in bewilderment!� They sang,�I am bewildered in Thee, take my hand,O guide of those bewildered in Thee!�A group worshiped God with fear and hope and their eyes fell on this: For them will be brought around platters and cups of gold. They are the wage-earners who have stayed attached to the reward and tied their hearts to aching for everlastingness. A group worshiped Him with affection and love, and they are the recognizers. They gave their hearts to His love and burned in wishing to see Him.

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.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 ca- ressing 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 Pres- ence 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.

Surely in the heavens and the earth are signs for the faithful.In this verse He shows to the creatures the perfection of His power in creating heaven and earth.

And in your creation and the beasts He has scattered are signs for a people who have certainty.He is making manifest His gentleness toward all animals and especially the Adamites.

And the difference of night and day, and the provision that God sends down from heaven whereby He brings the earth to life after its death, and the turning about of the winds, are signs for a people who use intelligence.He reminds the creatures of His blessings in creating water, wind, and rain and thereby making ready their daily provision. Then He says, �are signs for a people who use intelligence.� An in- telligent person is someone who ponders and reflects upon the signs. From the first sign [45:3], he will understand His power, and the requisite of power is fear, so he will fear His harshness and forcefulness. From the second sign [45:4], he will understand His gentleness, and the requisite of gentleness is hope, so his heart will attach itself to His generosity. From the third sign he will recognize His blessings, so he will undertake to give gratitude for them. First is the station of the fearful, second the station of the hopeful, and third the station of the grateful.In the station of gratitude, much unveiling and veiling occurs. When the Exalted Lord says, �the difference of night and day,� He is alluding to unveiling and veiling. Bright day is the likeness of unveiling, and dark night is the mark of the veil. The servant passes back and forth between these two states. In the state of unveiling he sees only the Beneficent. He does not become happy in blessings, nor does he become sorrowful in tribulation. He is so busy contemplating the Be- neficent that he does not attend to the blessings nor to the grief and tribulation. In this meaning they have sung,�If I distinguish between Your doing good or bad, I will be busy with the distinction, not You.�In the time of the veil, the contemplation of the Beneficent conceals itself from him. He turns all of his attention to blessings and tribulation. Hence in blessings he beats the drum of happiness, and in tribulation he carries the burden of grief.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Pain and remedy, grief and happiness, poverty and wealth-these are all attributes of the wayfarers in the way stations of the road. When a man reaches the goal, he has no station or way station, no moment or state, no spirit or heart.�Make not your home in body or spirit, for that is low and this is high. Take a step outside of both-be not here and be not there. [DS 51]O God, sometimes I take joy in pain and make do with its increase, hoping that when I melt in this pain, I will overthrow both pain and comfort.

Then We set thee on a wide road of the command, so follow it, and do not follow the ca- prices of those who know not.In other words, �We singled you out for gentle favors, so recognize them. We set down paths for you, so follow them. We affirmed realities for you, so do not go outside of them and do not incline to follow others.�

Surely they will not make thee unneedy of God in anything.�If God desires a blessing for you, no one will prevent it, and if He desires a trial for you, no one will turn it away. So do not attach your reflection to any created thing and do not turn the attentive- ness of your mind to anything. Depend on your Lord and trust in Him.��O paragon of the world, O master of Adam's children, O sun of felicity's sphere, O moon of mastery's heaven, O lodging of the world of knowledge, O pearl of the oyster of eminence, O embroidery on the garment of existence! We separated you out from the world's folk, we orphaned you from father and mother, and We brought out your family and relatives against you so that your heart would be free of all and be totally detached for obeying and serving Me. From the wide roads We made for you the road of the religion, and you call the world's folk to that road: Say: 'This is my path; I invite to God' [12:108].�O paragon! On the night of the miʿrāj, We sat you down in the dome of proximity and scattered a hundred thousand gentle gifts on the head of your good fortune. We made the two worlds the dust beneath your feet and brought the celestial figures and the terrestrial center under the banner of your rulership. What We intended was to give you expansiveness on the carpet of intercession. As long as there is the story of the pain of the disobedient, you should lift it up to Us and apologize for it on their behalf: Take us not to task if we forget or make mistakes [2:286]. O MuḤammad! If tomorrow you ask Us for the two worlds and the world's folk, you will have asked only for the dust beneath your feet. And if We, through eternal gentleness, use the dust of those feet in the work of one of your servants, that is not far-fetched for Our perfection.�The collyrium of insight had been daubed on the eyes of the prophethood of that greatest of the prophets. He knew that dust should be a carrier of burdens, not headstrong, because dust is for carrying burdens, not for being headstrong. Do you not see how the Exalted Lord threatens and warns those who were headstrong and refractory:

Or do those who commit ugly deeds reckon that We will make them like those who have faith and do wholesome deeds, that their living and their dying will be equal? Ugly is what they reckon!About them He also says that they have gone into roadlessness, become headstrong in the tracks of their own caprice, and ridiculed the prophets and those who call to the road of the Real:

Who then will guide them after God?Once God has made them roadless, who in the entire world will bring them back to the road? From whom will they gain the means of approach when the road to the means of approach has been blocked to them? Today the tree of despair has grown old for them, instances of abandonment have come forth, and the destructiveness of justice has brought forth the dust of wealth. Tomorrow the caller of justice will begin the shout of abandonment:

Today We forget you just as you forgot the encounter of this day of yours; your refuge is the Fire.Yes, I said that dust must carry burdens, not be headstrong. If a sultan should pick up a poor beggar from the middle of the road, take him before the throne of his good fortune, and dress him in a robe of elevation, the stipulation for the beggar is that he not forget himself and that he know his own worth. He must always keep that poverty and lack of honor before his eyes.It reached the ears of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz that his son had a ring made, and then bought a stone worth one thousand dirhams and placed it in the ring. He wrote a letter to him: �My son, I hear that you have had a ring made, bought a stone worth one thousand dirhams, and placed it on the ring. If you want to please me, sell the stone, feed a thousand hungry people, and make a ring for yourself from a piece of silver. On it, engrave the words, 'May God have mercy on the man who knows his own worth!'�O chevalier! No garment fits the stature of earth better and more beautifully than the gar- ment of humility: �Anyone who has twice traveled the urinary canal should not be proud.� Greatness, magnificence, exaltedness, height, tremendousness, and splendor are the attributes of the Majestic Lord.

The sending down of the book is from God, the Exalted, the Wise.These words are sent down by the Lord. They are His book and message, His sweet talk and blessed speaking. They are from a Lord whose name is Exalted, which means �exalter.� The name means that He exalted the faithful by making them the object of His address and worthy of His book and message. He made their hearts the quarries of the lights of His secrets.For seven hundred thousand years the pure ones of the Empire and the proximate ones of the Exalted Threshold had put down the prayer carpets of obedient acts in the station of generous gifts. In the khanaqah of sinlessness they leaned in service on the prayer grounds of reverence: We are those in rows, We are the glorifiers [37:165-66]. At the Exalted Threshold they never found the proximity that these dust-dwellers saw, for they were mere servants, but the latter were both ser- vants and friends: He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. We are your friends [41:31].Those angels were flying birds, standing, devoted, and prostrating. Their subtle makeups were adorned with sinlessness and trimmed of slips. But the nests of birds are one thing, and the oyster shell of the night-brightening pearl is something else. The Adamite's makeup is the shell for the pearl of the heart, the heart is the shell for the pearl of the secret core, and the secret core is the shell for the pearl of gazing on the Real.You say, �Dust is the cause of ruin.�I say, �Their saying is 'Ruins are the homeland of the Real.'� You say, �That homeland is unknown.�I say, �The unknown homeland is the place of the sultan's treasure.� That exalted man said,�Seek the religion from the poor, for reigning kingshave the custom of keeping treasures in ruined places.� [DS 466]

We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between the two except with the rightful due.This means except for the sake of the rightful due and establishing the rightful due.�When I created the seven heavens and the seven earths, I brought the engendered beings and newly arrived things from nonexistence to existence. I created them so that you would recognize the rightful due of My lordhood and enactorship against yourself and you would acquiesce to My command and bow your head.�O chevalier! Doing servanthood is easy work, but being a servant is a tremendous work and a great trait. For seventy thousand years Iblis the abandoned was doing servanthood, but he was not able to be a servant for one breath. �Servanthood is to abandon free choice in all apportionments that appear.� �Servanthood is to abandon self-governance and to witness predetermination.�In the flow of apportionments you must pull out the thorn of free-choice from the foot of your own work. You must wash your hands of mortal governance in the alterations of the Lordly pre- determination. You must be a praiser beneath the burden of the decree and put a stop to gratifying the soul that seeks its own share. Only then will you reach the station of servanthood. He who worships Him for his own share is the servant of the share, not of Him.Pir Bū ʿAlī Siyāh said, �If you are asked, 'Do you want paradise, or two cycles of the prayer?,' take care not to choose paradise. Choose the two cycles of the prayer, for paradise is your portion, but the prayer is His rightful due. Whenever your portion is in the midst, even if it is a generous gift, it is permissible for it to be the ambush of deception. But performing His rightful due has no mischief or deception.�When Moses came to Khiẓr, he protested to him twice: once because of the rightful due of the boy, and the second time because of breaking the boat. Since his portion was not in the midst, Khiẓr was patient. But, in the third state, when his own portion appeared, he said, �If you wanted, you could have taken a wage for it� [18:77].Khiẓr said, �There is no way for me to be your companion: This is separation between me and you [18:78].�

So be patient, as the messengers possessed of resoluteness were patient. And seek not to hurry it for them. On the day they see what they were promised, it will be as if they had not delayed for an hour of daytime.God's Messenger heard so many insults and ill words from the unbelievers and underwent so much suffering from them that he became anguished. Because of that anguish he wished in his heart that a punishment would reach them and they would taste chastisement. The Lord of the Worlds sent this verse: �So be patient... and seek not to hurry it. O MuḤammad, be patient with the torment and insults of the associaters and do not hasten to chastise and punish them. Emulate your brothers the prophets. They were patient with the sufferings and repellant things from their people. They knew that all of it was Our decree, so they did not complain or become anguished. You do the same that they did. O MuḤammad, so emulate their guidance [6:90]. Do you not know that one of My names is the Patient? The patient is he who does not hurry to punish: 'He gives respite but does not disregard.'�When the faithful servant believes that the Real is the Patient, he must make patience his own holdfast and support in order to increase in faith. MuṣṬafā said, �Patience is half of faith, and certainty is all of faith.� The station of patience is the station of the worshipers, and the station of certainty is the station of the recognizers.MuṣṬafā said to Ibn ʿAbbās, �If you can act for God with approval and certainty, do so. Other- wise, there is great good in patience with what you dislike.� First he called him to certainty, which is the great station and all of faith. Then he said, �If you do not have the capacity and do not reach this station, keep your feet fixed in the station of the patient, for in patience there is good aplenty. Surely the patient shall be paid their wage in full, without reckoning [39:10].�A great man was asked about the meaning of patience. He said, �Swallowing down trial with- out making claims.� It is to taste the poison of trial and then not to voice any claim.

And God is the Unneedy, and you are the poor.God has no need for your obedience, and you are the poor toward His mercy.God is the Unneedy and has no need for anyone. He is One and has no associate or partner. He is the Compeller, and no one has the color of union with Him. He is the Owner of the Kingdom, and no matter what He does, no one has the gall to protest or a way to fight.If you were to gather all the deeds of the sincerely truthful among the folk of the earth and all the obedient acts of the holy ones of heaven, they would not have the weight of a gnat's wing in the scales of the majesty of the Possessor of Majesty. Beware! Never look at your own distracted deeds or your own tiny intellect with the eye of self-admiration. When you seek Him, seek Him through His bounty, not your intellect and knowledge. Were it not for God's bounty toward you, and His mercy, none of you would ever have become pure [24:21].O chevalier! Exaltedness is His attribute and unneediness His description. How can knowl- edge, understanding, and intellect have the gall to open up before His exaltedness? Bounty is His attribute and exaltedness His attribute. Who opens up before His attributes? It is His attributes themselves that open up. When someone seeks refuge in intellect, the attribute of exaltedness comes forth and sends him back in despair. When someone seeks refuge in bounty, it escorts him to the highest of the High Chambers.When someone leans on his own deeds, he will be left to himself. When someone clings to His bounty and mercy, he will be taken beyond the Gardens of Bliss to the seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55].The Prophet said, �There is none of you who will be saved by his deeds.� They said, �Not even you, O Messenger of God?�He said, �Not even I, unless God envelops me with His mercy.�

Surely We opened up for thee a clear opening.There are several surahs in the Qur'an that begin with surely We [innā]: Surely We sent it down[97:1], Surely We sent [71:1], Surely We gave thee [108:1], Surely We opened up for thee.�The one abandoned by the Threshold, ʿAzāzīl, said, 'I am better' [38:76], and We wreaked havoc on him. We gave his 70,000 years of obedience and service to the wind of unneediness and placed the brand of abandonment and deprivation on his liver. The unaided Pharaoh said, 'Does not the kingdom of Egypt belong to me?' [43:51], and We isolated him from blessing, kingship, and pomp and We killed him with water. Korah said, 'because of a knowledge that I have' [28:78], and We cut off his head with the sword of severity and took him upside-down into the earth. The angels said, 'And We glorify' [2:30]. We burned thousands of them in the fire of majesty so that the world's folk would know that other than We, no one can say 'I' or 'We,' for We are the Lord. It is We who are worthy of Lordhood and We who know God-work. We are one in Essence, peerless in attributes, possessor of exaltedness and magnificence, tremendousness and splendor. 'Magnificence is My cloak and tremendousness My shawl; if anyone contends with Me in either, I will put him in the Fire.'�

The faithful indeed are siblings.O You who make every existent thing appear! O You who accept every burning sigh! O You whose generosity assures the daily provision of the servants! O You whose kingship is secure from annihilation and disappearance! No one debases the one You have exalted. No one throws down the one You have pulled up. No one can covet the one with Your brand. The faithful have all been branded by You. They have been pulled up by Your compassion and caressed by Your gentleness. In the alternations of created nature and the states of mortal nature, they keep their feet within the circle of duty on the center point of approval. Sometimes like a cypress they are in the station of seclusion in the meadow, sometimes like a polo mallet they are in the station of service.It is they who were caressed by the Lord of the Worlds in the Beginningless, when brother- hood was established among them, for the faithful indeed are siblings. This is a brotherhood that will never be cut off, a kinship that will never be broken, a lineage that will be joined with the End- less. It is to this that the report refers, �Every tie and lineage will be cut on the Day of Resurrection, save my tie and my lineage.� What is meant by this is the lineage of the religion and godwariness, not the lineage of water and clay. If it were the lineage of water and clay, Abū Lahab and Abū Jahl would have a portion of it. It is this to which He alludes with the words, �Surely the noblest of you with God is the most godwary� [49:13].O chevalier! You know that all the faithful are your brothers and kinsmen in the lineage of faith and godwariness. Attend to the rightful due of brotherhood and the stipulations of kinship. Live in agreeableness with them, choose the road of preferring others and chivalry, and serve them without recompense. If they sin, excuse them. If they are ill, visit them. Put your own portion totally off to the side and increase their portion. This is the rightful due of brotherhood. If you have the head for it, then enter. Otherwise, emigrate.Dhu'l-Nūn was asked, �With whom should we be companions and with whom should we come and go?�He said, �With him who does not own, who does not censure any state of yours, and who does not change when you change.

Qāf! By the splendorous Qur'an!Ibn ʿAṬāÌ said, �God swears an oath by the strength [quwwa] of the heart of His beloved, MuḤammad, inasmuch as he carried the discourse that left no trace in him, because of the elevation of his state.�When someone has a dear friend, in every state he seeks his approval. He always looks at him, he whispers his secrets to him, and he swears his oaths by his spirit and secret core. He speaks of him much, and he watches out for him at home and while traveling, in sleep and in wakefulness. He considers whatever he does beautiful, and he never holds back talk and �Peace!� from him. The generous Lord, the ever-merciful king, showered the realities of these meanings on His beloved, the Seal of the Prophets, so that the world's folk would know that in the Exalted Threshold, no one has the rank, level, and distinction held by that paragon. The engendered beings and existent things are all for his sake, and His love for all is love for him.Your creation and your upraising are as but one soul [31:28]. It has been said that this means, �for one soul,� and what is meant by this soul is MuṣṬafā's essence. In all states, He sought his approval, as He says, �And in the hours of the night glorify, and at the ends of the day, that perhaps thou mayest approve� [20:130]. He sought his approval in the kiblah: �Now We shall turn thee to- ward a kiblah that thou shalt approve� [2:144]. He sought his approval in intercession for the com- munity: �Thy Lord shall bestow upon thee so that thou shalt approve� [93:5]. He swore by his life: 'By thy life' [15:72]. He swore by the strength of his heart: �Qāf! By the splendorous Qur'an!� He swore by the limpidness of his love: �Sād! By the Qur'an possessing the remembrance!� [38:1]. He swore by the place of his feet: �Nay, I swear by this land!� [90:1]. He swore by his face and hair: �By the bright morning! And by the night when still!� [93:1-2].He never veiled him from His gaze: Surely thou art in Our eyes [52:48]. Who sees thee when thou standest [26:218]. In sleep and wakefulness He kept him protected: And God will protect thee from the people [5:67].

When the two receivers receive, sitting on the right and on the left.It is reported that the two angels entrusted with the servant sit like the servant. The one on the right writes his beautiful deeds, and the one on the left writes his ugly deeds. When the servant sleeps, one stands above his pillow, while the other watches over him from his feet. When the servant walks, one goes before him and ones goes behind, both of them protecting him from blights.It has also been said that the angel of beautiful deeds is changed every day and night, another angel being sent. The wisdom in this is that tomorrow he will have many witnesses for his acts of obedience and beautiful deeds. But the angel of ugly deeds is not changed, so only that angel will know his defects.The equivalent of this in the Qur'an is found in the verse, �O My servants who have been immoderate against yourselves� [39:53]. In saying �who have been immoderate� God sums ev- erything up, keeping the lid on and without going into detail. He says: O Gabriel, you deliver the revelation, for they have been immoderate, but know not in detail what they have done. O MuḤammad, you recite the revelation, for they have been immoderate, but know not what they have done. Generous Lord, merciful King! He did not want Gabriel to know the sins of the ser-vants and the Messenger to recite their acts of disobedience. How could He then allow Satan to drive the servant away from His threshold?

Not a word he utters, but by him is an observer ready.The angel on the right is the angel of bounty, the angel on the left the angel of justice. Just as bounty rules over justice, so also the right-hand angel rules over the left-hand angel. O angel on the right! You be the commander. Write down ten beautiful deeds for every beautiful deed he performs. O angel on the left! You be the follower. Write down nothing except what the angel on the right tells you to write. When the servant commits an act of disobedience, the angel on the right says, �Wait seven days before you write it down. Perhaps he will offer an excuse and repent.�What is all this? It is the result of one decree that God issued in the Beginningless: �My mercy precedes My wrath.�Listen to something even more wonderful: When the servant is disobedient, the command comes, �Pull down the curtain of his faith so that his faith may conceal and overpower his offense and sin.�So many offenses and acts of disobedience come together that they say, �O God, there is much offense, and the curtain of faith does not conceal it.�He says, �If the curtain of his faith does not conceal it, then pull down the curtain of My gen- erosity so that it will be concealed.�

And the agony of death comes with the rightful due.Know, O chevalier, that from the era of Adam until the annihilation of the world, no one is released from death. You also will not escape. �Death is a cup, and everyone will drink it.�How will the passing days that were not loyal to Adam be loyal to you? How will the lifespan that ended for Noah keep you in subsistence? How will the moment of death that attacked Abra- ham let you get away? How will the death that ambushed Solomon be lenient toward you? How will the entrusted angel who demanded MuḤammad's spirit treat you kindly? If you bring to hand the lifespan of Noah, the wealth of Korah, the kingdom of Solomon, and the wisdom of Luqmān, they will be useless at the door of death and will show you no favor. A little less than 7000 years have passed since the Adamites began this journey. They come from the loins to the wombs, and they go from the wombs to the face of the earth, and from the face of the earth to its stomach. The whole world is a graveyard. Beneath it is all remorse, above it all remorse. Lift up your head and ask heaven: �How many dear ones do you have in your stomach?�Ask the lofty palace about its inhabitantwhom it saved from the hard and soft of life.He established his kingdom and enslaved the people, then death's messenger threw him on his face.O fooled by wishes! O heedless of the moment of death! O prisoner of greed! O servant of need! How long will you grieve for summer in winter and grieve for winter in summer? You do not think about the work that will come about inescapably and you do not gather the supplies for the road that in verified truth will be walked. You arrange the work of this world and do not provide for death.You poor wretch, your death is right behind you. Remember it! Your home is the grave. Make it flourish! Today you are asleep-wait till you wake up. Today you are drunk-wait till you are sober. You gather the chaff of this world and keep back from what deserves to be done.

Surely in that is a reminder for him who has a heart.If you rub your face in the dust a hundred times and traverse the world on your forehead, so long as your obedience is not the bosom friend of the true center point called the �heart,� all will be inscribed with nothingness. A report has come, �The meditation of an hour is better than the wor- ship of jinn and men.�When the servant comes to the Threshold and begins secret whispering while the heart is still captive to this world's preoccupations, abandonment will be inscribed on that obedience and it will be thrown back in his face. It has been said, �When someone's heart is not present in his prayer, his prayer is not accepted.� When a heart is delivered from the shackles of servanthood to others, that heart is one for the Real. It does not have the color of eye-service toward the people, nor the dust of seeking reputation. Nonetheless, it is in the ship of peril, for the Master of the Shariah has made this allusion: �The sincerely truthful are in great peril.�The purer someone becomes, the closer he is to the Real. The closer he is to the Real, the more he trembles. The proximate angels of the Presence, the attendants of the Threshold of the Self-Sufficient, and the pure ones of the Empire are always in fear, for He says, �And they are ap- prehensive in fear of Him [21:28]. The only ones of His servants who are frightened of God are the knowers [35:28].� MuṣṬafā said, �I hope that the most truthful of you toward God's prophet will be the most fearful of you toward God.�The near ones are bewilderedfor they know the Sultan's harshness.The vizier is always quivering in his watchfulness toward the sultan, but the stableman has no fear, for the vizier's breast is the storehouse of the sultan's secrets, and breaking the seal of the storehouse is full of peril. Ḥudhayfa Yamān was the possessor of the Messenger's secret. He said, �One day I saw Satan weeping. I said, 'O accursed one! What is this wailing and weeping of yours?'�He said, 'It is because of two things. One is that the Threshold has opened me up to cursing, and the other is that He has shut me off from the hearts of the faithful.

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 breezewhen their blowing comes from your direction.I will ask them to carry my greetings to you. If they arrive one day, respond to me!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?� 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].

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 incompa- rable 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 associa- tion or partnership. Thus the servants, no matter what their states-whether wounded by the ar- row 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].

And an inscribed book.In the tongue of allusion and according to the tasting of the Folk of the Haqiqah, the inscribed book is what He wrote against Himself in the Beginningless Covenant: �My mercy takes precedence over My wrath.�May a thousand dear spirits be sacrificed to that heart-caressing moment when He gave us a place of seclusion without us and opened for us the door of His infinite acts of gentleness! With beginningless solicitude and precedent, endless gentleness He was saying to us, �My mercy takes precedence over My wrath.�O chevalier! Give thanks to the God who, before you asked, gave you something that you would not have reached even if He had left you with yourself and you had thought for a thousand thousand years under your own control. He called you when you were heedless, He taught you when you were ignorant, He created you when you were not a thing remembered [76:1], and He will pour for you from the cup of His kindness in the sitting place of His secret a pure wine [76:21]. All of these are the traces of the precedence of mercy of which He spoke: �My mercy takes precedence over My wrath.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, You planted the seed of guidance with beginningless solicitude, You watered it with the messages of the prophets, You made it grow with help and success-giving, and You nurtured it with Your own gaze. Now it will be fitting if You do not let the wind of justice blow, if You do not stir up the poisons of severity, and if You help with endless kind favor what You planted with beginningless solicitude.�

By the Inhabited House.The Inhabited House is an allusion to the hearts of the recognizers, inhabited with recognition and love.This is an allusion to the hearts of recognizers that are inhabited with recognition and love of God, hearts that live through His gaze and are happy with His gentleness.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �There are three things within which lie the servant's felicity and through which servanthood's face is bright: the tongue's occupation with remembering the Real, the heart's immersion in loving the Real, and the secret core's filling with the gaze of the Real. First comes the gaze from the Real, thus adorning the heart with love and keeping the tongue in remembrance.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, Your remembrance is my religion, Your love is my way, and Your gaze is the eye of certainty. This is my last word. O Gentle One, You know that this is so.� A great man said, �A tongue that is busy with His remembrance, a heart that is inhabited byHis love, a spirit that is joyful with His gaze-in reality, this is the Inhabited House.�This state has three marks in which is the perfection of servanthood: plentiful deeds, being concealed from the people, and a heart always hurrying to the time of devotion.

The day they are driven with a driving to the fire of hell.This verse demands fear.

Surely the godwary will be in gardens and bliss, rejoicing in what their Lord has given them.These verses demand hope.The Lord of the worlds has them follow one after another so that the servant will constantly travel between hope and fear. Hope and fear are each other's mates. When they come together, the beauty of faith's realities shows its face. Any traveling that is empty of these two meanings will result either in security or in despair, and these two are attributes of the unbelievers. This is because one feels secure from the incapable, and to believe that God is incapable is unbelief. One despairs of the base, and to believe that there is baseness in God is associationism.Also, one must not simply fear punishment, nor must one simply hope and wait for mercy. This will become clear to you with an example: When a lamp has no oil, it gives no light. When it has oil but no fire, it gives no illumination. When there are oil and fire but no wick to sacrifice its being, it is not complete. Thus fear is like fire, hope like oil, faith like a wick, and the heart like a lamp-holder. If there is only fear, this is like a lamp that has no oil. If there is only hope, this is like a lamp that has oil but no fire. When fear and hope come together, the result is a lamp that has both the oil to aid subsistence and the fire to give the material of illumination. Thus faith takes help from both, one for subsistence and one for illumination. The person of faith travels on the road with the escort of illumination and walks with the escort of subsistence.

Surely the godwary will be in gardens and bliss, rejoicing in what their Lord has given them.These verses demand hope.The Lord of the worlds has them follow one after another so that the servant will constantly travel between hope and fear. Hope and fear are each other's mates. When they come together, the beauty of faith's realities shows its face. Any traveling that is empty of these two meanings will result either in security or in despair, and these two are attributes of the unbelievers. This is because one feels secure from the incapable, and to believe that God is incapable is unbelief. One despairs of the base, and to believe that there is baseness in God is associationism.Also, one must not simply fear punishment, nor must one simply hope and wait for mercy. This will become clear to you with an example: When a lamp has no oil, it gives no light. When it has oil but no fire, it gives no illumination. When there are oil and fire but no wick to sacrifice its being, it is not complete. Thus fear is like fire, hope like oil, faith like a wick, and the heart like a lamp-holder. If there is only fear, this is like a lamp that has no oil. If there is only hope, this is like a lamp that has oil but no fire. When fear and hope come together, the result is a lamp that has both the oil to aid subsistence and the fire to give the material of illumination. Thus faith takes help from both, one for subsistence and one for illumination. The person of faith travels on the road with the escort of illumination and walks with the escort of subsistence.

By the star when it fell.Know that in this surah the Real reported about the miʿrāj of that paragon of the world and master of the children of Adam, his journey to heaven, and his return from contemplation and face-to-face vision. Thus by knowing this story his community may give repose to their spirits and increase the light and joy of their hearts. At the beginning of the Surah of Banī IsrāÌīl He mentions the story of his going and, to show its greatness, put His own incomparability before it: �Glory to be Him who took His servant by night� [17:1]. In this surah He explains his return from the Presence and, to declare its eminence, swears by his person: �By the star when it fell! By that bright star, by that full moon, by that lit lamp, when he returned from the presence of face-to-face vision!� His person saw the station of proximity, his heart found the repose of contemplation, his secret core reached the good fortune of union, and he listened to the secrets in the secluded cell of Or closer [53:9] on the carpet of expansiveness.Know that the Master's going to that way station is not strange, but his resting in this way station is wondrous, for the people of the world are in the darkness of distance, but he was in the light of nearness and proximity. When that paragon left Gabriel in his known station [37:164] and passed on, he entrusted the luminous secrets of his outwardness and inwardness to the attraction of the Presence. He dove into the sea of light and the ocean of tremendousness and he traversed the canopy of eminence with the feet of aspiration. Just as a magnet attracts iron to itself, so the spires of the Splendorous Throne attracted that paragon to itself. From the Splendorous Throne he aimed for the presence of two-bows' length [53:9], and in the station of two-bows' length he made himself a resting place on the seat of beauty in the description of perfection while contemplating majesty. The exalted revelation explains these intimations in these words:

Then He drew close, so He came down until he was two-bows' length away, or closer.Among all the creatures in the World of the Realities, none was greater than MuḤammad MuṣṬafā. The root desire of the divine decree in accordance with the beginningless knowledge was to bring about the state of that paragon and make manifest his majesty.The first substance that received a robe from the command Be! and upon which shone the sun of the Real's gentleness was his pure spirit. There was still no Throne or Carpet, no nighttime intrusion or daytime mercy, when God's artisanry brought his spirit from the repository of begin- ningless knowledge to the lodging place of endless splendor. He put it on display in the meadow of approval and the station of contemplation. Whatever came into existence afterwards rode on the coattails of his spirit's existence. Whatever people imagine of familiarity, nearness, clemency, mercy, leadership, and felicity, He sprinkled over his spirit's essence and attributes. Then He placed it inside the frame of Adam the Chosen and made it pass over the degrees of variegation and the trails of stability. Then He sat it down in the seat of messengerhood, commanding it to call the people to the presence of the religion, to bring the lost back to the road, and to invite the travelers to the Threshold.You might say that this paragon was a falcon trained on the hand of bounty, nurtured on the carpet of proximity and nearness, and brought forth from the togetherness of contemplation to the dispersion of invitation so that he could hunt a world and place everyone before the gentleness and severity of the Real. Today he makes everyone his prey with the Shariah, and tomorrow, in the station of intercession, he will entrust them all to the Real.When that paragon stepped into the playing field of invitation and when the exalted ones of the Presence responded, the vanguard of trial showed its face from every corner. From the heaven of creativity the rain of tribulation began to fall. The Eternal Qur'an reports the story of their grief as follows: �We will indeed try you with something of fear and hunger� [2:155]. �You will surely be tried in your possessions and your selves and you will hear much hurt from those who were given the Book before you and from the associaters� [3:186].

Then He drew close, so He came down until he was two-bows' length away, or closer.Among all the creatures in the World of the Realities, none was greater than MuḤammad MuṣṬafā. The root desire of the divine decree in accordance with the beginningless knowledge was to bring about the state of that paragon and make manifest his majesty.The first substance that received a robe from the command Be! and upon which shone the sun of the Real's gentleness was his pure spirit. There was still no Throne or Carpet, no nighttime intrusion or daytime mercy, when God's artisanry brought his spirit from the repository of begin- ningless knowledge to the lodging place of endless splendor. He put it on display in the meadow of approval and the station of contemplation. Whatever came into existence afterwards rode on the coattails of his spirit's existence. Whatever people imagine of familiarity, nearness, clemency, mercy, leadership, and felicity, He sprinkled over his spirit's essence and attributes. Then He placed it inside the frame of Adam the Chosen and made it pass over the degrees of variegation and the trails of stability. Then He sat it down in the seat of messengerhood, commanding it to call the people to the presence of the religion, to bring the lost back to the road, and to invite the travelers to the Threshold.You might say that this paragon was a falcon trained on the hand of bounty, nurtured on the carpet of proximity and nearness, and brought forth from the togetherness of contemplation to the dispersion of invitation so that he could hunt a world and place everyone before the gentleness and severity of the Real. Today he makes everyone his prey with the Shariah, and tomorrow, in the station of intercession, he will entrust them all to the Real.When that paragon stepped into the playing field of invitation and when the exalted ones of the Presence responded, the vanguard of trial showed its face from every corner. From the heaven of creativity the rain of tribulation began to fall. The Eternal Qur'an reports the story of their grief as follows: �We will indeed try you with something of fear and hunger� [2:155]. �You will surely be tried in your possessions and your selves and you will hear much hurt from those who were given the Book before you and from the associaters� [3:186].

He revealed to His servant what He revealed.Even though He said these words with the lid on and left them obscure so as to declare the great- ness of that state and the magnificence of MuṣṬafā's measure, it has been mentioned in some books that a group of the Companions asked MuṣṬafā what this revelation was. MuṣṬafā explained as much as their capacity was able to bear. He said that the Lord of the Worlds complained about his community, saying,�O MuḤammad, in holding to the covenant, I who am the Lord did not create any of the depths of hell for your community. But they, in breaking the covenant, are trying to throw themselves into hell. O MuḤammad, I am the Exalter and the Abaser. He is exalted whom I exalt, and He is abased whom I abase. They are seeking exaltation from elsewhere and they see abasement com- ing from elsewhere. O MuḤammad, I do not ask them today for tomorrow's deeds, but today they seek from Me tomorrow's provision. O MuḤammad, the provision that I have put in their name I will not give to another, but they give the deeds that are My rightful due and fitting for Me to others through eye-service. O MuḤammad, the blessings come from Me and they show gratitude to others. O MuḤammad, nonetheless, I am seeking for pretexts to forgive your community. O MuḤammad, were it not that I love to rebuke them and talk with them, I would not call them to account for anything. O MuḤammad, I did four things with previous communities that I will not do with your community: I took a people into the earth, I changed a people's form, I rained down stones on a people, and I destroyed a people with the flames of fire. Because of your eminence and rank, I will not do any of these with your community. O MuḤammad, I secluded you with Me to show the people who you are and to show you who I am.�When God's Messenger saw all this honoring and exalting from the Exalted Threshold, he said, �Lord God, bestow all of my community on me!�The command came, �O MuḤammad, tonight you came alone. As a favor for your coming to this feast, I bestow upon you a third of that. Tomorrow at the resurrection in the Greatest Gather- ing, I will bestow the rest on you. Then the world's folk will know your level and rank with Me.� And God is the success-giver and helper!

Surely We created everything according to a measure.�Everything that was, is, and will be is all My creation by My decree and determination, by My desire and will.� The decree has been made, the judgment issued, the work completed. It is not your desire that He puts into effect today. It is the beginningless deed that He makes apparent.For one person the inscription of bounty was written by the beginningless gentleness. He ac- cepted him before his deeds, He responded to him before his supplication, He bestowed upon him before his asking, He gave a robe of honor before his service, and He pardoned him before his sins. Another person He branded with justice on the first day at the Beginningless Covenant, and He drove him from His threshold. His chastisement was before his disobedience, and His punish- ment before his sins.O indigent man! Ask for nothing of Him but Him. Do not serve Him by making a contract. Making a contract is the creed of Iblis. Iblis said, �Now that You have rejected and cursed me and driven me from Your Presence, give me something: Grant me respite till the day they are raised up [7:14].� He gave him all of this world, but He took Himself back from him. When someone is held back from Him, even if he finds everything, he has found nothing. And when someone finds Him, even if he finds nothing, he has found everything.It is as if God said, �My servant, you were not, but I was there for you. I was there for Myself in exaltedness, I was there for the wage-earner in mercy, and I was there for the friend in compan- ionship. I saw you thrown down and I lifted you up. I saw you put aside and I accepted you. The attribute with which I lifted up is in place. Should I throw down what I lifted up? By My exalted exaltedness, I will not throw down!�

Surely the godwary will be in the midst of gardens and a river.The worth and exaltedness of that region lies not in roasted chicken, flowing rivers, and women good and beautiful [55:70]. The worth of the oyster lies not in the oyster-the oyster's worth lies in the kingly pearl within. The worth of the house of subsistence lies not in the fact it has edibles and drinkables-its worth and eminence lie in that it has the stamp of proximity to the Real and the mark of election. For it is,

In a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King.In this meaning, someone composed a poem:My covenant is not because of love for earthly dust, but for that in which the Beloved dwells.*What I want from Your street is Your face.The word at has the stamp of proximity and election: �In the abode of the decree We gave this robe of proximity, eminence, and rank to MuṣṬafā the Arab, as he said: 'I spend the night at my Lord.' Tomorrow We will place this same robe and rank next to the faithful in the measure of their travel- ing, for they will be in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King.�ṣāliḤ ibn Ḥayyān narrated from ʿAbdallāh ibn Barīda a saying concerning His words, in a seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King: �The folk of the Garden will enter in upon the Compeller twice a day and recite for Him the Qur'an. Each man among them will sit in his own sitting place, on a pulpit of pearls, rubies, emeralds, gold, and silver, in accordance with their deeds. Their eyes will never be so delighted as they are by this. They will never have heard anything more tre- mendous and more beautiful. Then they will turn back to their lodging places, blissful, their eyes delighted, until the like of it on the morrow.�

The All-Merciful-He taught the Qur'an.No one's hand will reach the knocker on the Qur'an's gate simply and easily, unless with the suc- cess-giving and facilitating of the All-Merciful. If anyone could reach this good fortune without the help of the All-Merciful, that would be MuṣṬafā, the Seal of the Prophets. But there is no one among the creatures with the majesty and rank that he had. Concerning him the Real says, �The All-Merciful-He taught the Qur'an,� that is, He taught MuḤammad the Qur'an.As much as teachers strive in teaching, masters instruct, and memorizers keep classes going, all of these are secondary causes, and the teacher in reality is God. Whenever someone comes to be taught, He is the teacher. Whenever someone lights up, He is the light-giver. Whenever someone burns, He is the burner. Whenever something is made, He is the maker.He taught Adam the knowledge of the names: And He taught Adam the names, all of them [2:31]. He taught David chain-mail making: And We taught him the artisanry of garments for you [21:80]. He taught Jesus the science of medicine: And He will teach him the book and the wisdom [3:48]. He taught Khiẓr the science of recognition: We taught him knowledge from Us [18:65]. He taught MuṣṬafā the secrets of the divinity: He taught thee what thou didst not know [4:113]. He taught the folk of the world explication:

The All-Merciful-He taught the Qur'an.No one's hand will reach the knocker on the Qur'an's gate simply and easily, unless with the suc- cess-giving and facilitating of the All-Merciful. If anyone could reach this good fortune without the help of the All-Merciful, that would be MuṣṬafā, the Seal of the Prophets. But there is no one among the creatures with the majesty and rank that he had. Concerning him the Real says, �The All-Merciful-He taught the Qur'an,� that is, He taught MuḤammad the Qur'an.As much as teachers strive in teaching, masters instruct, and memorizers keep classes going, all of these are secondary causes, and the teacher in reality is God. Whenever someone comes to be taught, He is the teacher. Whenever someone lights up, He is the light-giver. Whenever someone burns, He is the burner. Whenever something is made, He is the maker.He taught Adam the knowledge of the names: And He taught Adam the names, all of them [2:31]. He taught David chain-mail making: And We taught him the artisanry of garments for you [21:80]. He taught Jesus the science of medicine: And He will teach him the book and the wisdom [3:48]. He taught Khiẓr the science of recognition: We taught him knowledge from Us [18:65]. He taught MuṣṬafā the secrets of the divinity: He taught thee what thou didst not know [4:113]. He taught the folk of the world explication:

He created man. He taught him the explication.Some people say that He created man means all people generally-faithful and unbeliever, self- purifier and hypocrite, truthful and heretic. Whoever is human is included in this address. They say that He created everyone and taught them all explication. In other words, He gave everyone intellect, understanding, and upbringing so that they would find the road to their own best interests and discern between good and bad. He gave everyone language so that they would know each other's desires-in every region a language; or rather, in every city a language; or rather, in every neighborhood a language. He specified the human individual for this and separated him out from other animals with this specification and bestowal of eminence.It has also been said that He created man means all the faithful of MuḤammad's community. He taught him the explication means the road of the Real, the pure Shariah, the unswerving reli- gion. He taught it to them and showed its road to them: Say: �This is my path. I invite to God� [12:108]. Invite to the path of thy Lord with wisdom! [16:125].He set this road up in three stations: first, recognition of the outward Shariah; second, recognition of the inward struggle and discipline; third, talk of the heart and its Beloved and the story of the friends. Then He turned this over to three groups and taught the people on the tongues of these three groups: �Ask the ulama, mix with the possessors of wisdom, and sit with the great ones.� Learn the science of the Shariah from the ulama, the science of discipline from the possessors of wisdom, and the science of recognition from the great ones.It has also been said that man in He created man is Adam the Chosen. This is the same man about whom He says, �He created man of dried clay, like pottery� [55:14]. Although in form he is pottery and clay, in conduct he is worthy of the pavilion of proximity and union. Outwardly, he is sculpted from water and clay; inwardly he is the carrier of the ruling power of love. Outwardly he is an extraction of clay [23:12]; inwardly he is the precious stone in the seal-ring of good fortune.�What should be considered is the joining, not the root.

He created man. He taught him the explication.Some people say that He created man means all people generally-faithful and unbeliever, self- purifier and hypocrite, truthful and heretic. Whoever is human is included in this address. They say that He created everyone and taught them all explication. In other words, He gave everyone intellect, understanding, and upbringing so that they would find the road to their own best interests and discern between good and bad. He gave everyone language so that they would know each other's desires-in every region a language; or rather, in every city a language; or rather, in every neighborhood a language. He specified the human individual for this and separated him out from other animals with this specification and bestowal of eminence.It has also been said that He created man means all the faithful of MuḤammad's community. He taught him the explication means the road of the Real, the pure Shariah, the unswerving reli- gion. He taught it to them and showed its road to them: Say: �This is my path. I invite to God� [12:108]. Invite to the path of thy Lord with wisdom! [16:125].He set this road up in three stations: first, recognition of the outward Shariah; second, recognition of the inward struggle and discipline; third, talk of the heart and its Beloved and the story of the friends. Then He turned this over to three groups and taught the people on the tongues of these three groups: �Ask the ulama, mix with the possessors of wisdom, and sit with the great ones.� Learn the science of the Shariah from the ulama, the science of discipline from the possessors of wisdom, and the science of recognition from the great ones.It has also been said that man in He created man is Adam the Chosen. This is the same man about whom He says, �He created man of dried clay, like pottery� [55:14]. Although in form he is pottery and clay, in conduct he is worthy of the pavilion of proximity and union. Outwardly, he is sculpted from water and clay; inwardly he is the carrier of the ruling power of love. Outwardly he is an extraction of clay [23:12]; inwardly he is the precious stone in the seal-ring of good fortune.�What should be considered is the joining, not the root.

He mixed the two oceans that meet together.From the ocean of the secret core, the pearls of contemplation and face-to-face vision come forth, and from the ocean of the heart the coral of conformity and unveiling. That is His words, �From the two come forth pearls and coral� [55:22]. He prepared both of them in his makeup and kept the barrier of power between them: Between the two is an isthmus they do not overpass [55:20]. The one does not exert strength over the other, nor does the other make this one change.It has also been said that the two oceans here are the hope and fear of the common Muslims, the contraction and expansion of the elect among the faithful, and the awe and intimacy of the prophets and the sincerely truthful. From the ocean of fear and hope come forth the pearls of renunciation and scrupulosity, from the ocean of contraction and expansion come the pearls of poverty and ecstasy, and from the ocean of awe and intimacy the pearl of annihilation shows its face so that they may be at ease with the way stations of subsistence. This is why He says, �From the two come forth pearls and coral.�

All that is upon it undergoes annihilation, and there subsists the face of thy Lord, Pos- sessor of Majesty and Generous Giving.This is the same that He says elsewhere: �What is with you runs out, but what is with God subsists� [16:96]. MuṣṬafā said, �Prefer what subsists over what undergoes annihilation.� This world is the Abode of Delusion, the afterworld the Abode of Joy. This world is the Abode of Annihilation and the afterworld the Abode of Subsistence.The breeze of intelligence does not reach those who choose what undergoes annihilation over the subsistent, who put aside the Abode of Joy and build up the Abode of Delusion. Even if the empire of the world and the empire of Adam's children were beneath your seal ring and the keys to this world's treasures given to you, the outcome of all would be annihilation, so fixing the heart on it would be an error. Listen to these words of wisdom, testaments of the sages, and words of advice of the great:�Being satisfied with words without deeds is the work of the deluded.� �Depending on the resources of others is the vocation of the indigent.� �Delighting in borrowed clothes is the custom of the idle.��Being happy with others' robes of honor is the conduct of the unintelligent.� �Being disloyal and hoping for loyalty is the act of double-dealers.�

All that is upon it undergoes annihilation, and there subsists the face of thy Lord, Pos- sessor of Majesty and Generous Giving.This is the same that He says elsewhere: �What is with you runs out, but what is with God subsists� [16:96]. MuṣṬafā said, �Prefer what subsists over what undergoes annihilation.� This world is the Abode of Delusion, the afterworld the Abode of Joy. This world is the Abode of Annihilation and the afterworld the Abode of Subsistence.The breeze of intelligence does not reach those who choose what undergoes annihilation over the subsistent, who put aside the Abode of Joy and build up the Abode of Delusion. Even if the empire of the world and the empire of Adam's children were beneath your seal ring and the keys to this world's treasures given to you, the outcome of all would be annihilation, so fixing the heart on it would be an error. Listen to these words of wisdom, testaments of the sages, and words of advice of the great:�Being satisfied with words without deeds is the work of the deluded.� �Depending on the resources of others is the vocation of the indigent.� �Delighting in borrowed clothes is the custom of the idle.��Being happy with others' robes of honor is the conduct of the unintelligent.� �Being disloyal and hoping for loyalty is the act of double-dealers.�

Whatever is in the heavens and the earth asks of Him. Each day He is upon some task.The faithful are two groups: the worshipers and the recognizers. The asking of each group is in the measure of their aspirations, and the caressing of each is suited to their capacity. The worshipers want everything from Him, the recognizers want Him Himself.AḤmad ibn Abi'l-Ḥawārī saw the Real in a dream. He said, 'O AḤmad, all the people are seek- ing from Me, except Abū Yazīd-he is seeking Me.�I set out for You seeking the heights,and others set out for their livelihood.*Each has a prayer-niche in some direction,but SanāÌī's prayer-niche is Your street. [DS 1004]At this threshold everyone has a station and each has what is suited for him.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �O God, everyone indigent has a portion of Your munificence, everyone in pain has a physician from Your generosity, and all have a portion from the embracing- ness of Your mercy.�Each He keeps in a place and each He dyes in a color. This is why He says, �Each day He is upon some task.� He lifts up one group and puts down others. He puts one at the front of the hall of worth with the attribute of exaltedness, He keeps another at the back with the shoes, in abasement itself. He seats one on the carpet of gentleness, He puts another under the carpet of severity. He pulled Adam the dust-dweller up from the dust of abasement and placed the throne of prosperity on the head of his aspiration, without bias. He pulled down ʿAzāzīl, who was the teacher of the angels, from the celestial world and hung him at the crossroads of the causeless desire from the rack of punishment, without iniquity. To one group He says, �So rejoice!� [9:111], to another group He says, �Die in your rage!� [3:119].Moses the speaking-companion set off in search of fire. When he left he was a shepherd in a blanket, when he came back he was a prophet, God's speaking-companion. Balaam Beor, who knew the greatest name, went up a mountain as a friend by virtue of form, but came back down as a dog by virtue of attribute and meaning.

As recompense for what they were doing.This is the prize for the deeds of the faithful and the rewards for their acts of obedience and wor- ship. It is the attribute of wage-earners who do the work and want the wage. But God has friends who do not bow their heads to the paradise of His approval, nor do they hunt the maidens, castles, rivers, and trees. They are servants at the house of the Sultan of tawḤīd, the residents of the world of love, the sultans of the realm of recognition, yearning for the wine of nonbeing.The Paradise of Everlastingness presents its adornment and beauty to them, and they dis- close their certainty and recognition to it. Paradise presents its rivers of wine, milk, and honey to them, and they disclose the springs of tawḤīd and the oceans of solitariness to it. Paradise presents its trees full of fruits with their flowers and blossoms to them, and they disclose the green shoots of pain and bewilderment to it. Paradise presents to them the wide-eyed maidens, adorned and trimmed, and they disclose to it the veiled virgins of recognition and the hidden secrets of witnessing. Finally, paradise turns away from them in shame, and they pass on to the seat of truthfulness, at an Omnipotent King [54:55]. They do not open the eyes of their aspira- tion toward anyone.

Have you seen the seed that you spill? Do you create it, or are We its creators?In this noble verse of the eternal, beginningless speech, the Presence of the Real makes manifest His power of creation over the world's folk so that they will know that the artisan without cause is He, the enactor without tool is He, the all-subjugating without cause is He, the all-forgiving with- out delay is He, the all-curtaining of every slip is He.He is the Lord who created a subtle form from frail water and showed firm artisanry to a feeble sperm-drop. He set up many diverse paintings with �Be!�, so it comes to be [2:117]: mu- tually similar limbs, opposites like unto each other, every limb adorned with one sort of beauty, not more than its limit, not less than its measure. To each He gave an attribute, and in each He placed a strength: senses in the brain, splendor on the forehead, beauty in the nose, sorcery in the eye, sauciness in the lips, comeliness in the cheek, perfect loveliness in the hair, envy in the liver, rancor in the spleen, appetite in the veins, faith in the heart, love in the secret core, recognition in the spirit. It is not apparent whether the artisanries in the natures are more beautiful, or if the governance of the form-giving is sweeter. What is this sculpture doing between subtle water and gross dust?! Since the Sculptor is one, how is it that there is this lowliness in individuals? So many marvels and wonders from a drop of water! The intelligent man gazes on His artisanry, but the heedless man is asleep.O chevalier! How long will you look with the outward eye at the marks giving witness? Look once with the inner eye at the marks of the subtleties. It is as if the Exalted Lord is saying, �My servant, I adorned your face and I adorned your heart. I adorned your face for gazing on creation. I adorned your heart for gazing on Me. It is your face that the creatures see, and your heart that I see. I did not allow exacting the penalty of the Shariah from your face, which is the gazing place of the creatures. How can I allow conveying the pain of severance to your essence, which is My gazing place? I am that Lord in the attribute of whose power is both creating and making to die.�Of creation He reports, �Do you create it, or are We its creators?� Of making to die He re- ports,

Have you seen the seed that you spill? Do you create it, or are We its creators?In this noble verse of the eternal, beginningless speech, the Presence of the Real makes manifest His power of creation over the world's folk so that they will know that the artisan without cause is He, the enactor without tool is He, the all-subjugating without cause is He, the all-forgiving with- out delay is He, the all-curtaining of every slip is He.He is the Lord who created a subtle form from frail water and showed firm artisanry to a feeble sperm-drop. He set up many diverse paintings with �Be!�, so it comes to be [2:117]: mu- tually similar limbs, opposites like unto each other, every limb adorned with one sort of beauty, not more than its limit, not less than its measure. To each He gave an attribute, and in each He placed a strength: senses in the brain, splendor on the forehead, beauty in the nose, sorcery in the eye, sauciness in the lips, comeliness in the cheek, perfect loveliness in the hair, envy in the liver, rancor in the spleen, appetite in the veins, faith in the heart, love in the secret core, recognition in the spirit. It is not apparent whether the artisanries in the natures are more beautiful, or if the governance of the form-giving is sweeter. What is this sculpture doing between subtle water and gross dust?! Since the Sculptor is one, how is it that there is this lowliness in individuals? So many marvels and wonders from a drop of water! The intelligent man gazes on His artisanry, but the heedless man is asleep.O chevalier! How long will you look with the outward eye at the marks giving witness? Look once with the inner eye at the marks of the subtleties. It is as if the Exalted Lord is saying, �My servant, I adorned your face and I adorned your heart. I adorned your face for gazing on creation. I adorned your heart for gazing on Me. It is your face that the creatures see, and your heart that I see. I did not allow exacting the penalty of the Shariah from your face, which is the gazing place of the creatures. How can I allow conveying the pain of severance to your essence, which is My gazing place? I am that Lord in the attribute of whose power is both creating and making to die.�Of creation He reports, �Do you create it, or are We its creators?� Of making to die He re- ports,

Do you create it, or are We its creators?Of making to die He reports,

We have determined death among you.�In creation, I showed the attributes of gentleness, and in making to die I showed the perfection of severity. I created so that you would see power and gentleness. I make to die so that you may see harshness and severity. Again I bring to life so that you may see awesomeness and ruling authority. Since you know that I am powerful and able, wise and knowing, peerless in ability and knowledge, then you should

Glorify the name of your Lord the Tremendous!�Come, praise Me and remember My oneness and greatness, so that tomorrow I may bring you forth in the ranks of the proximate ones of repose and ease, for this is what I have decreed in the Beginningless. In My eternal speech I have said,

If he is one of those brought near, then repose and ease and a garden of bliss.One of the great ones of the religion said that repose and ease will be both in this world and in the afterworld. The repose is in this world and the ease will be in the afterworld. The repose is that He adorns the heart of the faithful servants with His gaze so that they will discern truth from falsehood. Then He makes them wide in knowledge so that they will find there the vision of His power. Then He makes them seeing so that they will have the light to see His favors. He makes them hearing so that they will listen to the beginningless advice. He makes them pure so that they will seek only His companionship. He makes them happy with the fragrance of union so that their love for the Friend will grow. He makes them bright with His light so that they will gaze from Him to Him. He scours them with the file of solicitude so that they will see Him wherever they look.When the servants go to the house of felicity with these attributes, they will see the ease of generosity. The breeze of intimacy will be blowing, the seat of approval will be set up under the tree of finding, the carpet of intimacy will be spread, the candle of compassion lit. The servants will sit like kings and the beginningless Friend will lift up the curtain, greeting their ears with �peace� and showing the vision of the Possessor of Majesty:

If he is one of those brought near, then repose and ease and a garden of bliss.One of the great ones of the religion said that repose and ease will be both in this world and in the afterworld. The repose is in this world and the ease will be in the afterworld. The repose is that He adorns the heart of the faithful servants with His gaze so that they will discern truth from falsehood. Then He makes them wide in knowledge so that they will find there the vision of His power. Then He makes them seeing so that they will have the light to see His favors. He makes them hearing so that they will listen to the beginningless advice. He makes them pure so that they will seek only His companionship. He makes them happy with the fragrance of union so that their love for the Friend will grow. He makes them bright with His light so that they will gaze from Him to Him. He scours them with the file of solicitude so that they will see Him wherever they look.When the servants go to the house of felicity with these attributes, they will see the ease of generosity. The breeze of intimacy will be blowing, the seat of approval will be set up under the tree of finding, the carpet of intimacy will be spread, the candle of compassion lit. The servants will sit like kings and the beginningless Friend will lift up the curtain, greeting their ears with �peace� and showing the vision of the Possessor of Majesty:

If he be one of the companions of the right hand, then �Peace to you from the com- panions of the right hand.�The companions of the right hand are lower in station and rank than the preceders and the proximate. They are the worshipers, those who worship in order to reach the joy and bliss of paradise. They are the doers, those who do deeds in this world to find reward in the afterworld. The Exalted Lord says, �We leave not to waste the wage of those who do beautiful deeds [18:30]. We will not leave to waste the wage of the beautiful-doers. We will not make them despair of the permanent good fortune and generous kingdom that they want. We will give them their wage completely: He will give them their wages in full [4:173]. And We will place Our bounty on top of that: He will increase them from His bounty [4:173].�They will have adorned sitting places and refined dwellings. The lights of gentle favors will be lit and varieties of incense will be burning; serving boys and servants, servitors and retinue, will be standing in wait; heart-entrancing cup-bearers will have cups of wine placed in their hands, and tumult-inducing minstrels will be playing heart-stealing tunes. Each one will be seated like a king, leaning back on an exalted throne in his own chambers, towers, gardens, and forests, a crown of rulership studded with the pearls of solicitude on his head, on the carpet of expansiveness, with jus- tice given to the contemplation of the Contemplated. The necklace of beauty will be hung around the neck of union, and his voice will be raised in praise and magnification. The Patron will lift up the curtain and �What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal� will become hard cash. By the majesty of the Lord God, no loving mother has ever caressed a weeping child more than God will caress the disobedient servant at the moment of face-to-face vision!

If he be one of the companions of the right hand, then �Peace to you from the com- panions of the right hand.�The companions of the right hand are lower in station and rank than the preceders and the proximate. They are the worshipers, those who worship in order to reach the joy and bliss of paradise. They are the doers, those who do deeds in this world to find reward in the afterworld. The Exalted Lord says, �We leave not to waste the wage of those who do beautiful deeds [18:30]. We will not leave to waste the wage of the beautiful-doers. We will not make them despair of the permanent good fortune and generous kingdom that they want. We will give them their wage completely: He will give them their wages in full [4:173]. And We will place Our bounty on top of that: He will increase them from His bounty [4:173].�They will have adorned sitting places and refined dwellings. The lights of gentle favors will be lit and varieties of incense will be burning; serving boys and servants, servitors and retinue, will be standing in wait; heart-entrancing cup-bearers will have cups of wine placed in their hands, and tumult-inducing minstrels will be playing heart-stealing tunes. Each one will be seated like a king, leaning back on an exalted throne in his own chambers, towers, gardens, and forests, a crown of rulership studded with the pearls of solicitude on his head, on the carpet of expansiveness, with jus- tice given to the contemplation of the Contemplated. The necklace of beauty will be hung around the neck of union, and his voice will be raised in praise and magnification. The Patron will lift up the curtain and �What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal� will become hard cash. By the majesty of the Lord God, no loving mother has ever caressed a weeping child more than God will caress the disobedient servant at the moment of face-to-face vision!

Whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God.The maker of the world and the world's folk, the nurturer of mankind and jinn, the creator of earth and heaven, the wonder-worker of the emplaced and place, reports that everything in heaven and earth, whether wind, fire, water, mountains, seas, sun, moon, stars, trees, and all animate and in- animate things, praise Him for purity, mention His name with honor, and testify to His oneness. This glorification and tawḤīd throw tumult into the Adamic heart and are rejected by intellect, but the religion of the submission accepts them and the Creator of the creatures testifies to their cor- rectness. Whenever success-giving is someone's companion and felicity his helper, he will accept them, unperceived, with spirit and heart and will come forth with reverence, surrender, and attesta- tion. Then tomorrow, he will find his place in the gathering place of the sincerely truthful and the assemblies of the friends on the seat of everlasting exaltedness.Beware, O chevalier! Take care not to give one iota of innovation access to your heart. When you hear something that your intellect does not perceive, suspect only your intellect. Do not take the road of interpretation, because going after interpretation is a tested poison. It is to remove a thorn from the foot with a thorn. A knowing man will not test poison, for that would be to hurry to his own destruction. He will not pull a thorn from his foot with a thorn, for he knows it would only increase the pain.That chevalier said it beautifully:�Seek not the road of tawḤīd with intellect, scratch not the spirit's eye with a thorn.By God, can anyone evertake benefit from God without God?As trainer and leader on the path of the religion- consider none better than the Qur'an and the reports.Only the hand of MuḤammad's heartcan undo the locks on the treasury of secrets.� [DS 201-2]

To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth.The seven heavens and the seven earths are His kingdom and property. They are kept by His help, penetrated by His will, and driven by His decree. All creatures are incapable, and He is powerful and potent. All are weak, and He is subjugating and strong. All are ignorant, and He is knowing and knowledgeable. The artifacts and determined things are a mark of His power, the beings and newly arrived things are the explication of His wisdom, the existents and the known things are the proof of His existence. Increase does not befall Him, nor does decrease come upon Him. He is the powerful, eternal, knowing, wise, the God of all.

He is the First, the Last, the Outward, and the Inward, and He is knower of everything.He is the First, for He knew the nonbeings, the Last for He knows what He knew, the Outward through what He made, the Inward, hidden from imaginations.He is the First: He was before every created thing, without beginning. He is the Last: He will be after everything, without end. He is the Outward: He stands over everyone, without any one to overpower or prevent. He is the Inward: He knows all hidden things, without veil.He is the First through beginninglessness, the Last through endlessness, the Outward through unity, and the Inward through eternity. He is the First through awesomeness, the Last through mercy, the Outward through proofs, the Inward through blessings. He is the First through be- stowal, the Last through recompense, the Outward through laudation, the Inward through loyalty. He is the First through guidance, the Last through sufficiency, the Outward through rulership, the Inward through kind favor. He is the First of every blessing, the Last of every tribulation, the Outward of every argument, the Inward of every wisdom.In terms of allusion He is saying, �O child of Adam, in relation to you the people of the world are four groups: A group who are useful to you at the beginning of the state and the first of life, and they are parents. A group who are useful to you at the end of life and the weakness of old age, and they are children. Third is the group of friends, brothers, and all the Muslims who are with you outwardly and show tenderness. Fourth is the group of wives and women, who are your inner, inside realm and are useful to you.�The Lord of the Worlds is saying, �Do not rely and depend on these and do not fancy that they themselves are your caretakers and caregivers, for I am the First and the Last. I am suited to be the beginning and end of your work and state. I am the Outward and the Inward. I keep you in My own keeping and I set straight your final ends. I am the First, for I tightly bound the hearts of the passionate with beginningless compacts. I am the Last, for I hunt the spirits of the truthful with My promises.

And He is with you wherever you are.�My servants! My creatures! Wherever you are, I am with you through solicitude, mercy, and kind favor. Wherever in the world there is someone poor, wounded by offenses, helpless in the hand of an adversary, I am his patron. Wherever there is someone with a ruined life, made indigent by the passing days, I am looking after him. Wherever there is someone burnt, struck by grief, I am the happiness of his spirit. Wherever there is someone weeping in shame, his head turned while not having anyone, I am his proof. I am the Lord who is far from the path of retribution. I lift up all those thrown down and fleeing, for I am clement and ever-merciful to the servants.�

Surely God is to you clement, ever-merciful.Part of His clemency and mercy was that the servant was in the concealment of nonexistence and He was taking care of his work with perfect bounty and generosity. The servant was in the conceal- ment of nonexistence and He chose him over the whole world.Part of His mercy is that He gives the servant the success to be on guard against the hidden sorts of associationism and the subtle sorts of eye-service. He said, �I am clement and ever- merciful� so that the disobedient would not despair and would have a strong hope in His bounty and generosity.YaḤyā ibn Muʿādh Rāzī said, �You were gentle to Your friends, so they recognized You.Had you been gentle to Your enemies, they would not have refused You.� You made the jasmine of Your gentleness grow in the garden of the hearts of Your friends such that, by means of Your gentleness and bounty, the Abode of Peace was their place. But,One group reached the spheres, another the pit- alas at Your threats toward a handful of dust!On the heads of one group He placed the crown of generosity:

Their light running before them, and on their right hands. On another group He placed the brand of deprivation:

And a wall will be set up between them, inside of which is mercy and outside of which is chastisement.Pharaoh's sorcerers dwelt in nothing but unbelief and sin, but it is said that sorcery has no effect unless a man is polluted. When the wind of good fortune blew from the direction of gentleness and generosity, it left neither sorcery nor any sorcerer, neither unbelief nor any unbeliever. In the morning they were busy with the sin of unbelief and denial, and in the evening they were at the side of faith and asking forgiveness.Shaykh Abū Saʿīd Abu'l-Khayr said, �Whoever picks up a burden from the garden of solici- tude will put it down in the playing field of friendship. Whoever sucks milk from the breast of kind favor will be nurtured in the embrace of protection.�[The Master Abū ʿAlī said,] �Whoever is given familiarity in the morning can hope for for- giveness in the evening.�

God has heard the words of her who disputes with thee concerning her husband and complains to God.The weaker someone is, the gentler is the Lord. The lord of lords, the master of all masters, the gentle, generous, and lovingly kind, takes care of the work of the weak in a way that leaves all the strong in wonder. A hundred thousand proximate angels, glorifying and hallowing, were diving in the oceans of bows and prostrations and raising the voices of glorification and hallowing at the Exalted Threshold, but no one talked about them. But that poor, weak woman-the disputer who wept before the Threshold in burning and bewilderment and who complained of her despair-look how the Splendorous Qur'an wrote the inscription of exaltation on the cape of her secret whis- pering: �God has heard the words of her who disputes with thee concerning her husband and complains to God. We have heard her complaint, We have listened to her lamenting and supplicat- ing, and We have made apparent the opening up of the suffering and tightness in which she has remained because of her husband's repudiation of her. We are the Lord who is the good companion of everyone helpless and without a companion, We untie the knots of everyone in bonds, We dispel the sorrows of everyone sorrowful. We hear the voice of the poor, We listen to the whispering of the miserable, We respond to the need of the helpless.�It has come in a report that one day this woman who disputed came to ʿUmar KhaṬṬāb during the days of his caliphate for a business she had with him. She spoke harshly with him. Those who were with him shouted at her, saying, �Do you not know that you must not speak harsh words to the Commander of the Faithful?�ʿUmar said to them, �Be silent! Have respect for this poor woman! She is the woman whose words the Real heard from beyond the seven levels of heaven, and upon whom He placed this caress and generosity: �God has heard the words of her who disputes with thee concerning her husband and complains to God.�O Muslims! Respect the poor and seek proximity to God by taking care of them and giving comfort to them. Although today they are helpless and poor, tomorrow they will be the kings of the Garden of Refuge and the great ones of the Highest Paradise.

O you who have faith, when you whisper with the Messenger, offer charity before you whisper.It is narrated that the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī said that when this verse came down, he gave one dinar in charity and asked ten questions from God's Messenger. He said, �'O Messenger of God! How should I supplicate God?': How should I call upon God and worship Him?�The Messenger answered, �'With truthfulness and loyalty': Be loyal to the covenant that was made with Him on the Day of Alast and be truthful in your speaking and doing. Have what you show, do what you say, and be whence you call out.� ʿAlī said, �What should I ask for from God?�He answered, �'For safety in this world and the next:' In this world and the next the safety of the heart from the blights of mortal nature and the well-being of the body in the varieties of trial.� ʿAlī said, �'What should I make ready for my salvation?': What should I do so that in the gathering place of the resurrection I may be delivered, secure from the terrors of the resurrection and arrived at the degrees of the Garden?�He answered, �'Eat the permitted and speak with truthfulness': When you eat something, eat the permitted, and when you speak, speak with truthfulness. Do not give the forbidden access to yourself, for the forbidden has a bad outcome. Avoid lying, for anyone who lies will have a bad name in the two worlds.�He said, �'What is the stratagem?': What stratagem should I use so that things will come out as I want?�He answered, �'The stratagem is to abandon stratagems': Let go of stratagems and know that everything is as God wants and that the stratagems and governance of the servant will never over- come God's predetermination.�He said, �'What must I do?': What are the rules that I must discharge?�He answered, �'The command of God and His Messenger': Everything mandatory and oblig- atory commanded by God, and everything set down as Sunnah and recommended by the Mes- senger.�He said, �'What is ease?': What is ease and comfort?�He answered, �'The Garden': Ease is that you settle down in paradise and its blessings and that you stay secure from hell and its punishment.