Insight Editions · No. 176
The Unveiling of the Mysteries
A Sufi Commentary on the Qur'an
Rashid al-Din Maybudi · Translated by William C. Chittick
Maybudi’s Persian Qur’an commentary combines verse translation, conventional exegesis, and mystical allusions attributed to the recognizers, tracing spiritual meanings across the surahs.
A study guide to The Unveiling of the Mysteries by Rashid al-Din Maybudi, translated by William C. Chittick. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
Overview
Kashf al-Asrar (Kashf al-asrar wa 'uddat al-abrar, The Unveiling of the Mysteries and the Provision of the Pious) is the longest Sunni Qur'an commentary in Persian. Rashid al-Din Maybudi began it in 520/1126. William C. Chittick translates selections from its third and most mystical layer, the "allusions" of the recognizers, surah by surah from al-Fatiha to al-Nas.
This volume: slightly over half of the third turn, with full translation only for the Fatiha and Surahs 60, 76, 84, 95, 103, and 113 [3].
Voices: Maybudi as compiler; Khwaja 'Abdallah Ansari, the "Pir of the Tariqah"; Sam'ani's Rawh al-arwah; Sana'i, "that chevalier."
Tone: preaching prose, Persian verse, and whispered prayers, built to stir love rather than to settle law.
Edition: Great Commentaries on the Holy Qur'an, abridged; introduction dated 2014.
What the book is
Diagrams mark mechanisms already in the chapters.
Chapter Map
Follow the part order. Jump by theme only after one full pass.
The Book in Brief
- Love begins on His side. Every surah reads the Qur'an as a love letter whose author chose the reader first.
- Three levels of one road. Shariah, Tariqah, and Haqiqah are not rivals but floors of one house: body, heart, spirit.
- Bounty outranks deed. Felicity and wretchedness are settled "in the Beginningless"; acts reveal the decree rather than buy it.
- The heart is the prize. Clay is the shell; the heart, the secret core, and the gaze on the Real are pearls inside pearls.
- Seek Him, not His gifts. Paradise, wages, and states are veils if wanted for themselves; the recognizers want "Him Himself."
- Trial is the robe of friendship. The friends are tried most; slips that end in shame can carry more love than proud obedience.
Argument map. The commentary moves from love that precedes creation, through the covenant and Adam's clay, into the trials of the road, and ends in vision and return to the starting point.
Chapter Map
| Part | Surahs | Core move |
|---|---|---|
| I. The Opening | 1 | The Name, the three Names, praise as gift, the road |
| II to IV. The Cow | 2 | Letters of love, Adam and Iblis, the two Kaabahs, the poor |
| V. The Family of Imran | 3 | Love and following, dispersion and togetherness |
| VI to VII. Women, The Table | 4 and 5 | Rulings read inward; "He loves them, and they love Him" |
| VIII to IX. Cattle to Jonah | 6 to 10 | Say "God," then leave them; the Mount; the sale |
| X. Hud to Abraham | 11 to 14 | The bottomless road; Joseph as mirror |
| XI. Storehouses to Mercy | 15 to 21 | Hearts as storehouses; the Night Journey; the Cave |
| XII to XIII. Quaking to Garden | 22 to 36 | Need, the Light Verse, servants not wage-earners, the Trust |
| XIV. Dust, Fire, Unneedy | 37 to 47 | Sacrifice, Adam's dust against Iblis's fire, the Ha Mims |
| XV. Opening to the Two Oceans | 48 to 114 | Who may say "We"; the ascents; the moment; the dot and the One |
Fifteen parts, fifty-seven chapters. Page numbers in square brackets refer to the printed pages of the translation.
Introduction: The Book and Its Voices
Chittick's introduction (pp. 1 to 13) explains who Maybudi was, how the commentary is built, where its Sufi material comes from, and how to read a translation that keeps the Persian imagery intact.
The Author We Barely Know
Maybudi is known almost only through this book. He came from Maybud near Yazd, was probably a Shafi'ite in law, and shows signs of Ash'ari and Hanbali theology. He began writing in 520/1126 [1 to 2]. He presents himself as a compiler, not an original thinker, and the translator takes him at his word [3].
He lists ten fields a commentator must master. The tenth is not learned at all: it is a bestowal (mawhiba), the understanding God gives directly. The third turn of each session belongs to that tenth field.
Three Turns per Session
| Turn | Content | Share of the work | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Persian translation of the verses | About 15% | All readers |
| II | Standard commentary: reports, law, grammar, occasions | About 60% | Scholars |
| III | Allusions of the recognizers | About 25% | Seekers |
Table. The structure of each session (majlis). This volume translates slightly over half of Turn III [3].
Turn III is a "reminder" (tadhkir): not argument but address, meant to wake the heart. About four fifths of it is in Persian [3], which explains the poetry, the sermons that turn into prayers, and the sudden shifts into God's own voice.
Sufism as an Approach
Chittick places Sufism beside jurisprudence, theology, and philosophy as one of the classic ways of reading revelation. Its key word is ma'rifa, translated "recognition," and its practitioner is the 'arif, the "recognizer" [4]. The governing saying is from 'Ali: "He who recognizes himself (or "his soul") recognizes his Lord" [4]. Other names for the same people are the "realizers" and the "chevaliers."
The framework recurs on almost every page:
- Submission. Islam is rendered "submission," a state before it is a label.
- Three floors. Shariah, Tariqah, Haqiqah: law, path, reality.
- The self as cosmos. Spirit, soul, and body; and inwardly heart, spirit, and secret core [5 to 6].
- The ascent. The Prophet's mi'raj is the archetype of every traveler's road.
The Sources
| Source | Role |
|---|---|
| Khwaja 'Abdallah Ansari (d. 481/1088) | The "Pir of the Tariqah"; prayers and sayings; less than a tenth of Turn III [7] |
| Ahmad Sam'ani (d. 534/1140), Rawh al-arwah | The most important single source from 16:66 onward [8 to 9] |
| Qushayri, Lata'if al-isharat | Arabic Sufi commentary drawn on throughout |
| Sana'i (d. 525/1131) | "That chevalier"; verses cited from his Divan (DS) |
Table. Maybudi's main sources as identified by the translator. Claims of a large debt to Ahmad Ghazali find little evidence [8].
Reading the Translation
Chittick keeps terms consistent so that patterns show: husn is "beauty" (and "beautiful doing"), salihat are "wholesome" deeds, ikhlas is "self-purification" [11 to 12]. Capitalization is minimal. The selection is personal, favoring love and passages of special interest [10], and it keeps 25 explanations of the basmala [13]. He recommends reading cover to cover, since images introduced early (the falcon, the oyster, the dust mote, the cup) gather meaning as they return.
Part I. The Opening (Surah 1)
Al-Fatiha is one of the few surahs translated in full [3]. In twelve pages Maybudi sets out most of his themes: love that begins with God, the three great Names, praise as a gift, looking from God to oneself, and the road as showing, traveling and being pulled.
Chapter 1. The Name and the Three Names (1:1)
Letters as lights. The b of bism alludes to the "splendor" of Unity, the s to the "brilliance" of the Self-Sufficient, the m to the "kingship" of the Divinity; or to His kindness, His secret and His favor [15]. Love starts on His side: "How could water and clay have the gall to love You had You not chosen them with Your beginningless gentleness?" [15]
The brand. "Name" (ism) is said to derive from "brand" (sima): who says "In the name of God" is stamped as His. 'Ali al-Rida: "I have branded myself with the brand of my Lord" [16].
| Name | Meanings gathered | Audience at the Prophet's time | Stage of the servant |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Majesty and awe | Idol-worshipers (31:25) | Creation, through power |
| All-Merciful | Blessing and nurture | Jews (17:110) | Nurture, through blessings |
| Ever-Merciful | Mercy and forgiveness | Christians | Forgiveness, through mercy |
Three names were chosen so that the servants' work would be easy and their reward undiminished [17].
Chapter 2. Praise, Lordship and Mercy (1:2 to 1:4)
Praise is His. Seeing their incapacity (6:91), God "made them His deputies in laudation of Him"; otherwise "who would dream of saying 'Praise belongs to God'?" [18]. Praise is of two sorts: at seeing blessings, which earns paradise, and at seeing the Beneficent, the way of the chevalier who "heard one, saw one, reached one" [18 to 19]. The Pir: "Now I cannot say that it is I, nor can I say that it is He" [19].
Two nurtures. The Lord nurtures bodies with blessings and hearts with the Patron of Blessings [19]. "Your son wants dates, but dates desire me"; "the Garden is yearning for Salman"; so "come outside of yourself like a snake from its skin" [20 to 21].
| All-Merciful | Ever-Merciful |
|---|---|
| Vivifies, through kindness | Displays, through lights |
| Eases the wage-earner's road | Lights the friends' candle |
| Desirer reaches contemplation | Desired reaches face-to-face vision [21] |
Owner of the Day. His kingship alone is permanent, so "where is the servant's choice?" (28:68). Judgment without exposure is generosity: "Whenever he strikes a blow of severity, He places on it the balm of generosity" [22].
Chapter 3. Worship, Help and the Path (1:5 to 1:7)
Adornment and purification. "Thee alone we worship" adorns the soul with worship; "from Thee alone we ask for help" purifies it of associating others and of trust in one's own strength [22 to 23]. Three recognitions, of His being, His knowledge and His beautiful doing, found submission, faith and self-purification [23].
Figure 13. The three roots asked for in "Guide us on the straight path" (40:13, 84:19, 19:52) [24].
Not everyone who sees the road travels it, and not everyone who travels arrives: "Many a prayerful shaykh has fallen from his steed!" [24].
Those blessed. The faithful ask, like the Companions of the Cave, "complete our work without us" [24 to 25]. The Pir: "where will we find again that day when You belonged to us and we were not?" [25]. Submission must be joined to the Sunnah, as in Shafi'i's dream [25].
Part II. The Cow, I: Lovers' Letters, Adam and the Covenant (2:1 to 2:57)
Al-Baqara is the longest surah and the longest block in the book, about 140 pages [27 to 168]. Maybudi uses its opening section to stage his whole drama: a secret passed between lovers, a Lord whose bounty outruns His justice, an Adam raised from dust over the protests of angels, an Iblis who argues his case, and a covenant in which every step the servant takes is matched by a larger step from God.
Chapter 4. The Secret in the Letters (2:1 to 2:5)
Letters as love talk. Maybudi opens with a claim that sets the tone for all of Stage III: "Addressing one another with individual letters is one of the customs of lovers in their love" [27]. Alif lam mim is a whisper meant to pass unnoticed by those watching. Moses heard "a thousand words in a thousand languages," but the veil stayed in place; Muhammad heard the mystery "while gazing on the Keeper of the Mystery" [27 to 28].
| Moses | Muhammad | |
|---|---|---|
| Mode | Hearing and remembering | Face-to-face vision |
| What came | Many words, veil in place | One mystery: "Alif" |
| Delight | In the seeking | In the Friend |
| Result | "He spoke so much to him" | "Remembrance became lost in the Remembered" [28] |
The Sanai line that sums up the contrast is blunt: "For him who must have face-to-face vision, reports are the bane" [28]. Other readings follow. The three letters are commands to the Prophet, "Isolate [afrid] your secret core for Me, loosen [layyin] your limbs in My service, and stand [aqim] with Me" [28]; or they spell "I," "My" and "from Me," a lesson that the servant should "dismiss your own intellect and knowledge so that you may reap the fruit" [28 to 29].
Two writings. "This is the writing" alludes to what God wrote against Himself, "My mercy takes precedence over My wrath," and to faith written on hearts (58:22) [29 to 30]. The divine voice draws a sharp line: "I wrote in the Tablet, but I wrote only your description. I wrote in your hearts, but I wrote only My description" [30]. The Tablet records loyalty and disloyalty; the heart carries laudation and recognition, and "what I wrote about Myself" cannot change. A stone that took the Torah turned to emerald; the recognizer's heart, "made of harsh stone," became "a notebook of exaltedness" [30].
The lineage of godwariness. At the resurrection every lineage breaks except godwariness (49:13); God says, "Today I will take away My lineage and put in place your lineages" [30 to 31]. Ka'b's definition for 'Umar is practical: cross a field of thorns briskly, clothes held close. A poet adds, "Do not look down on the small—a mountain is made of pebbles" [31].
Giving, two ways. Asked how much alms is due on two hundred dirhams, Shibli asks, "Are you asking about yours or mine?" For the questioner, five; for Shibli, "the whole two hundred, with five more as a token of gratitude" [32]. The common ask God whether He approves of their gift; of the elect God asks whether they approve of Him. Abu Bakr, his cloak fastened with a date-palm pin after giving everything, answers: "I approve of my Lord" [32].
Perspicacity and the rusted mirror. Those "upon a guidance" see as present what others hear as report [34]. Junayd, ordered by the Prophet in a dream to preach, reads the secret of a disguised Christian youth: "Submit, for the time of your submission has arrived" [35]. The human substance "is like a rusted mirror"; polish it and forms appear. Unveiling belongs to the heart, face-to-face vision to the spirit [35].
Figure 15. Ansari's dialogue of heart and spirit "on the first day of the beginningless covenant" [35 to 36].
The dialogue gives some of the book's tightest definitions: "Loyalty is to bind the belt of love, annihilation is to be freed from selfhood, subsistence is to reach the reality of the Real"; "love is fire mixed with blood" [35 to 36]. It ends with the Real speaking and heart and spirit listening, "Nonbeing is lost in being, and reports in face-to-face vision" [36].
Chapter 5. Bounty, Justice and the Mask (2:6 to 2:29)
Bounty over justice. With 2:6 the surah turns from friends to strangers. God has both bounty and justice, but they are not symmetrical: "everything suitable for bounty is fitting for justice," not the reverse, and "bounty rules over justice, and justice is caught in bounty's hand" [36 to 37]. The Pir asks, "What gain to the thorn that the rose's fragrance is next to it?" [37]. Iblis, caught by 'Umar, recalls seven hundred thousand years of worship: "the higher I went, the worse and the harder I would fall" [37].
Two seals. One heart is sealed with estrangement and stays in unbelief; another with perplexity and stays "stuck in the road, kept back from the Friend by other than the Friend" [37]. Hence the Sanai couplet Maybudi returns to again and again: "Any picture that holds you back from the Friend—let it be ugly or beautiful" [38]. Escape from unbelief brings familiarity; only escape from self brings friendship, and "a thousand way stations stand between" them [38].
Fools and friends. When hypocrites call the believers fools, God answers on their behalf. To the Prophet, called possessed: "The friend must be approved of by a friend, not by the city" [39].
Signs in day and night. Two doves, one black and one white, fly inside "the blue dome": night and day, each born of the other [40]. They map the heart's states: contraction is night, with awe and weeping; expansion is day, with mercy and intimacy. The Pir: "O God, if I weep for You, weeping is sweet, and if I delight in You, delight is sweet" [40]. The lords of realities read 2:22 as an allegory: earth is the body, heaven the intellect, rain the knowledge gained by intellect, and fruit the beautiful deeds [40 to 41].
Fear, then hope. God's custom is to follow a verse of fear with a verse of hope [41 to 42]. Paradise of approval is "the furthest limit of the pleasure of the worshipful servants"; "repose and ease" (56:89) is "the kiblah of the spirits of the lovers." "Everyone who watches over his actions will reach the paradise of approval; everyone who watches over his breaths will reach repose and ease" [42]. The route there is a weather system: wind of bounty, clouds of kindness, rain of gentleness, flood of love, a flood that "leaves no mark of water, no news of dust" [42].
| Death | Belongs to | Life | Appears in | Verse given |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| By the curse | Disbelievers | Of fear | Kindness | "Fear not and grieve not!" (41:30) |
| By regret | Disobedient | Of hope | Service | "Rejoice in the Garden" (41:30) |
| By generous gift | Godwary | Of love | Remembrance | "Return to thy Lord" (89:28) |
Table. Three deaths and three lives in 2:28 [43].
The verse also carries a reproach that reads like a call to arms: "The physician is present, where are the ill? The beauty is unveiled, where are the passionate?" [43].
Chapter 6. Adam, the Angels and Iblis (2:30 to 2:37)
A world at ease, then a declaration. Before Adam "no heart burned with passion" [45]. The Throne, the Footstool and the eight paradises each hoped the vicegerency was for them; "None wanted anything to do with dust." Then: "I am setting in the earth a vicegerent." It was not consultation but "laying the foundation of Adam's exaltation" [45].
The angels protest; a fire from the Unseen burns a tribe of them; the answer is "Surely I know what you do not know" [46]. Then come orders to each rank of angels: prostrate, ask forgiveness for sins "not-yet-committed," weep for the heedless, carry water to the thirsty at the resurrection [47]. To the angels' request for the high world the reply is: "I will not make the wholesome progeny of him whom I created with My own two hands like those to whom I said, 'Be!'" [47].
The throne and the conceit. Adam is carried on a throne of seven hundred legs around the heavens, and the angels "all became drunk with his beauty" [48]. In Wahb's report God tells the strutting Adam: "Be conceited, Adam, for the likes of you are conceited"; the same trait becomes "arrogance in the ignorant, pridefulness in kings, and ecstasy in the friends" [48 to 49].
Iblis speaks for himself. Maybudi gives Iblis a run of interviews, and they are among the most quoted pages of the book.
| Witness | Iblis says | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Adam | Black almonds strewn on caskets, white ones at weddings: "the gardener is one, and we have drunk water from the same stream" | 49 |
| Dhu'l-Nun | "Though I have been dismissed from servanthood, He has not been dismissed from lordhood" | 49 |
| Sahl Tustari | "If you are seeking refuge in God from me, I am seeking refuge in God from God"; at Adam's grave: "Don't take the trouble. We don't want you"; "Though I erred, destiny did not" | 50 |
| Abu Yazid | "That was a command of trial, not of a command of desire"; "My mercy embraces everything... and I am a thing" | 50 |
The fall as promotion. The Pir: "All of Your rebukes and war are aimed at Your friends" [51]. Adam was "more complete in this world," because there he suspected himself "because of passion" [51]. He left paradise not from lowliness but "the grandeur of his aspiration": he saw a beauty beside which the eight paradises were nothing, and was told, "What do the passionate have to do with the safety of the Abode of Peace?" [51]. "Adam himself did not go—he was taken" [52].
The veiled virgin. "The veiled virgin of recognition" needed a mate; none was found in the eighteen thousand worlds, so "We in Our bountifulness will lift up the thrown-down dust and make it her fiancé" [52], like a king who raises a slave so that he may marry his daughter. Adam asks for supplies for the road and is told: "your supplies in the land of exile will be My remembrance... I promise you will see Me" [52 to 53]. The "words" Adam received (2:37) were spoken "with the lid on," lest love's story leak [53].
Chapter 7. Covenant, Fear and the Killing of the Soul (2:40 to 2:57)
Blessings or Me. To the Children of Israel: "Remember My blessings." To this community: "Remember Me!" (2:152). "He gave them blessings and He gave this community companionship" [53 to 54]. The Pir: "He who has not found weeps at not having found—why then does he who finds also weep?" [54].
Open a door. The covenant verse becomes a ladder of reciprocal doors [54]:
| Servant opens | God opens | Verse |
|---|---|---|
| Turning back | Good news | 39:17 |
| Expending | Replacement | 34:39 |
| Struggle | Guidance | 29:69 |
| Asking forgiveness | Forgiveness | 4:110 |
| Gratitude | Increase | 14:7 |
| Saying "My Lord!" | Saying "My servant!" | [55] |
Six degrees of fear. "Of Me have dread" yields a graded psychology of fear [55 to 56].
Figure 18. The ladder of fear in 2:40. Each step is "greater" than the one below; only the top rung comes from vision rather than report [55 to 56].
Fear is "the fortress of faith"; dread "cuts him off from people"; trembling "places no veil before supplication"; awe is lightning in the heart, as when "Moses fell down thunderstruck" (7:143). Never say this awe comes from threats, "it comes from being aware of the Compeller" [56]. The trembling lover's line: "How You kill me! And how I love You!" [56].
Patience and the cup. "You have not the legs of men—don't put on men's clothing!" [57]. All the venom of grief was poured into one cup for the Prophet with the instruction, "Drink all this venom while contemplating My beauty!" (52:48) [57]. Humility in prayer is outward (eyes on the place of prostration) and inward. 'Ali had an arrowhead cut from his bone during prayer and noticed nothing; Zulaykha's guests cut their hands looking at Joseph, and "the contemplation of God's majesty" by 'Ali's heart was greater still [58 to 59].
Kill your souls. The calf harmed only the worshipers. Sahl tells how Moses, proud that his mountain had turned to carnelian, was shown "a thousand mountains of carnelian," each with a Moses on it speaking to God [60]. A poor man prays: "approve of me as Your dog" [60]. For the chevaliers, "kill your own souls" means the sword of struggle, and theirs is harder than Israel's single killing: "these chevaliers have a killing at every hour and every moment" [60 to 61].
Manna and the faulty. The blessings of the desert (shade, birds, manna, clothes that grew with the child) end in a direct appeal: "others will buy only the faultless, but I buy the faulty. Others call out for the loyal, but I call out for the disloyal" [62].
Part III. The Cow, II: Abraham, the Kiblah and Remembrance (2:67 to 2:186)
The middle of al-Baqara turns legal and narrative material into a map of the traveler. The cow of Israel becomes the seeker's own traits; Abraham becomes the model of the desirer, set against Muhammad the desired; the change of kiblah becomes a lesson in courtesy; fasting, remembrance and trial become stations of love.
Chapter 8. The Cow, Hard Hearts and the Eyes (2:67 to 2:82)
Read the cow as yourself. "You should read everything that the Exalted Lord said about the cow of the Children of Israel as an allusion to your own attributes" [62]. Three traits mark the chevalier [62 to 63]:
| Trait of the cow | Allusion | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| "Neither old nor virgin" (2:68) | Past the intoxication of youth, before the weakness of age | Revelation came when the Prophet was neither a youth nor old; "Your Lord marvels at a young man who has no youthful fervor" |
| "Golden, bright her color" (2:69) | The color of love, "and the color of love is colorlessness" | Sufyan Thawri's Christian physician sees his liver bleeding from fear of God and converts |
| "Not abased to plow the earth" (2:71) | Unbranded by secondary causes, free of the soul's sultan | "Sanai's prayer-niche is Your street" [DS 1004] |
Hardening as strength. For the ignorant, a hard heart is cruelty. For recognizers it is stability. Abu Bakr, seeing others weep at the Qur'an, said, "I was like that until the hearts became hardened" [64]. Beginners wail; when passion takes full control, the noise stops: "When fire takes over, there's little smoke" [64].
The weeping stone. A prophet finds a small stone pouring water. It weeps for fear of the Fire (66:6); he prays and it is given security. Returning, he finds it still weeping: "My first weeping was from remorse and sorrow, but this weeping is from happiness and gratitude" [64 to 65]. The Pir: "Weeping from remorse is the portion of an orphan, weeping from joy the portion of a candle" [65].
Treachery of the eyes. 2:77 commands watchfulness inside and truthfulness outside [65]. Then three treacheries, graded by traveler [65 to 67]:
| Traveler | Treachery of the eyes | Witness |
|---|---|---|
| Worshipers | Sleeping in the night of whispered prayer | To David: he who claims to love Me "is a liar if night comes, and he goes to sleep on Me" |
| Recognizers | Not weeping blood at separation | A lover shut his dry eye for eighty-four years |
| Sincerely truthful | Finding anything else beautiful | "Your love for a thing makes you blind and deaf" |
Same name, different meaning. "Unlettered" blames the estranged (2:78) but praises the Prophet (7:157). Maybudi uses this to state the Sunni rule on divine attributes: "the agreement of one name with another does not bring about the agreement of meanings" [67]. God and Joseph are both "exalted," God and creatures both "alive," each in a way worthy of it; "safety in the religion lies in accepting the message... and putting aside seeking" [67].
The tree of faith. Faith is the planted tree, wholesome deeds its branches, the Garden its fruit (14:24 to 25). But this tree fruits "every hour, or rather every moment," each fruit with another color and taste [68].
Chapter 9. Revelation, Abrogation and Self-Purification (2:97 to 2:121)
Two forms of Gabriel. When Gabriel brought rulings he came in human form, "and there was no talk of the heart"; when he brought love and friendship he came as an angel, "spiritual and subtle," straight to the heart [68]. The elect receive revelation heart first, then understanding, then hearing; wayfarers receive it in the reverse order [68 to 69].
Abrogation as ascent. "Whatever verse We abrogate" means the servant is never moved from a state without being given a higher one [69]. Stations the Prophet passed beyond count as faults "as long as you remain within them," which explains his asking forgiveness seventy times a day. Of his rank: "What others have as crowns, you have as sandals" [69]. The movement ends in attraction, "equivalent to all the deeds of jinn and men" [70], and in "the strangers among the tribes": Bilal, Suhayb, Salman and Uways [70]. Hatim and Shaqiq traveled with a dissolute minstrel and never rebuked him; at parting he learned their names and repented. Shaqiq: "I saw with the patience of Men and I hunted with the hunting of Men" [70].
Junayd calls self-purification "a secret between God and the servant" unknown to angel, satan or caprice; Dhu'l-Nun's mark is that praise and blame weigh the same [71]. The Prophet, praised by the angels as "best of those in heaven and earth," waits to hear Abu Jahl call him "sorcerer, liar," to test both against the same touchstone [71 to 72]. Sanai sharpens it: you are "still in love with yourself, if you find the pulpit's exaltation sweeter than the gallows' abasement" [72].
Three homelands. "Who does greater wrong than he who bars God's places of prostration?" is read as three ruined homes [73 to 75]:
Figure 21. The three homelands of 2:114 [73 to 75].
Malik Dinar went forty years in Basra without tasting its dates: "The possessor of appetite is veiled from his Lord." Ibrahim Adham, sent pawning money for bread, received a forty-thousand-dinar inheritance, freed the slave who brought it, gave it all to him, and vowed never again to ask [73]. Abu Yazid was questioned, "Whose is the kingdom?... Whose is the free choice?" and heard, "Now that you have come to have nothing, you have everything" [74].
One in love. Against "God has taken a son," Maybudi praises a Lord "one in forbearance, one in loyalty, one in love": if the servant breaks the covenant, "He does not break it, because He is one in love" [75]. Only perishing things need seeds and successors; sun and moon have none [77]. The Pir on recitation: tongue reaches heart, heart spirit, spirit secret core, secret core Light; each says "Silence!" to the one below, and God says, "Now I will speak, you listen" [77].
Chapter 10. The Bosom Friend and the Beloved (2:124 to 2:138)
Drunk at dawn. The outward reading of Abraham's "This is my Lord" (6:76) is a tested man refusing what sets. The inward reading: he opened his eyes "from the giddiness of the wine of bosom friendship" and saw the Beloved everywhere: "Your image has so taken my eyes that wherever I look I fancy it's you" [78].
Two friends will not fit. Abraham's glance at Ishmael's beauty brought the command to sacrifice: "The stamp of bosom friendship with Me and glancing at others cannot be combined" [79]. "With two kiblahs you can't walk straight on the road of tawhid" [DS 488]. Inwardly the sword is truthfulness: "Truthfulness is God's sword in His earth. He does not place it on anything without cutting it" [79].
| Bosom Friend (Abraham) | Beloved (Muhammad) |
|---|---|
| Desirer, wanter, traveler | Desired, wanted, snatched away |
| Road "not empty of deception" (star, moon, sun) | "The eyesight did not swerve" (53:17) |
| Standing among the servitors | Sitting "in the row of the near" |
| "Who I hope will forgive me" (26:82) | "So that God may forgive thee" (48:2) |
| "Disgrace me not" (26:87) | "God will not disgrace the Prophet" (66:8) |
| "God suffices me" (39:38) | "God suffices thee" (8:64) |
| "I am going to my Lord" (37:99) | "Who took His servant by night" (17:1) |
| Acts so that God approves | "Thy Lord shall bestow... so that thou shalt approve" (93:5) |
Table. "As much difference... as there is between the traveler and the snatched away" [80 to 81].
Submit: three tests. "The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed" [81]. Abraham claims total submission and is tested by others, by part of himself and by his whole self [82 to 84]:
By part of himself: the son [83].
By his whole self: Nimrod's fire. He weeps "for the loss of the gentle subtleties of the Real's call," which went to the fire and not to him; to Gabriel's offer: "Of you, no"; and "Is He asleep such that I should wake Him up?" His sweetest day was in the fire: "My present moment was empty and my heart limpid" [83 to 84].
God's color. "God's color" (2:138) is colorlessness. Like an elixir that turns copper to gold, it makes the estranged familiar [84 to 85]. Ibrahim Khawwas, traveling with a Christian monk, prays not to be shamed and gets a tray of food; the monk then produces two trays, explains that he has become a Muslim, and dies a year later in Mecca [85].
Chapter 11. Kiblahs, Remembrance and Trial (2:143 to 2:166)
Chosen by bounty. The midmost community sits at the end of a chain of choosing: things, animals, Adamites, the faithful, prophets, Muhammad [85]. Maybudi ranks the four caliphs, then reminds the reader that God's gifts come "by His own bounty," not by prior service [86 to 88]. Ayyub Sakhtiyani refused to pray over a sinful neighbor, who later appeared in a dream, forgiven: "If you owned the storehouses of my Lord's mercies, you would hold them back in fear of spending them" [88]. A handful of dust once thrown into a believer's grave tips another man's scales [88].
Courtesy wins the kiblah. The Prophet wanted a new kiblah but only looked at the sky. God answered: "All are searching for Me, but I am calling for you"; "consider the Kaabah as the kiblah of your soul and Me as the kiblah of your spirit" [89]. His prayer was answered at four levels: explicit request (8:9), allusion (2:144), mere thought (2:286), and finally without even a thought (33:53) [89 to 90].
| Kiblah | Material | Kiblah of |
|---|---|---|
| Throne | Light | Angels who carry it |
| Footstool | Gold | Cherubim |
| Inhabited House | Carnelian | Spirituals |
| Holy House (Jerusalem) | Marble | Prophets |
| Kaabah | Stone | The faithful |
Table. The five kiblahs of 2:148. Facing the stone five times a day earns the reward of all [90]. Shibli adds a sequence of three: the Kaabah for the common, the Throne for the elect, "the heart of the desirers and the spirit of the recognizers" for the elect of the elect [89].
Everyone has a direction. God tests all claimants by throwing something into each to serve as a kiblah: wealth, position, a spouse, a lovely face, knowledge, renunciation, even worship [91]. Abu Yazid: "I passed by His gate, but I did not see any crowding there"; only the great Sufis were unveiled, and they were "bewildered and intoxicated" [91]. The Pir: "Have you ever seen someone thirsty in a lake? That's what I am" [92].
Remember Me. Remembrance is a game of polo: remembrance the ball, familiarity the bat, yearning the steed, love the field [92]. Abu Yazid questioned spoken remembrance: "What would a stranger be doing in the midst?" [92]. Maybudi turns on the reader, "O poor man, you are remembering yourself" [93], then gives God's side: "You will remember Me when you have tried out the others"; "Did I not love you before you loved Me?" [93]; and the hadith of span and cubit, walking and running [94].
Alive through Him. The martyrs are alive: "Alive is the one who lives through Him, not through the spirit" [94]. The Pir: "When someone lives through You, how could he ever die?" [94 to 95].
Inward sorrow. After every harsh verse God sends good news (2:155) [95]. Outward trial comes and goes; "the complete trial is inward sorrow, which does not leave its place for a moment," and the closer one is, the more of it one carries [95]. The moth "in separation it burns and in union it burns" [95]. Asiya asks for a house near God; it is priced in spirit and heart, and she laughs as she is crucified: "one thorn is better than a thousand dates" [96]. Bishr meets a man who took a thousand lashes in silence because his beloved was watching; asked about gazing on the Greatest Beloved, the man "cried out once, then he died" [96].
Your God. In 2:163 the wonder is not that God calls the servants His, "the wonder is that He ascribed Himself to the servants... saying, 'Your God'" [97]. "we are not suited for Him—He is suited for us" [97]. On the mi'raj: "Belong to Me as you always were, and I will belong to you as I have always been" [97 to 98]. Ansari: "Do not bring to fruit what we ourselves have planted! Keep blights away from what You planted for us!" [98].
Three gazes, and the intellect. Ibn 'Ata': God is recognized by creation for the common, by attributes for the elect, by Essence for the prophets [98]. "Dost thou not see thy Lord, how He stretched out the shadow?" (25:45): look from Him to the shadow [99]. Intellect ('aql) is the heart's fetter ('iqal), "a light and its place is the heart, not the brain" [99]. Made and praised, it admired itself, then looked behind and saw a lovelier form: "I am that without which you are useless. I am success-giving" [100].
More intense in love. Idol-worshipers trade wooden gods for silver ones; the faithful never turn away (2:165) [100 to 101]. A woman recognizer tests a suitor by mentioning a lovelier sister: "Go, idler! Passion is not your work" [101]. Shibli "learned Sufism from a dog" that kept returning to a door: "Where should I go? He is my owner" [101]. Because the believers' love is "the fruit of the Real's friendship" (5:54), no trial lessens it: "Away with a passion that decreases with a hundred cruelties!" [101].
Chapter 12. Piety, Fasting and Nearness (2:177 to 2:186)
Shariah and Haqiqah. "The Haqiqah is to the Shariah as the spirit is to the body" [102]. The Pir: "the share of the wage-earner is everlasting paradise, and the hope of the recognizer is one glance" [103]. The dying Rudbari, shown the adorned Gardens: "If You give me one breath, from that breath I will build a paradise!" [103]. The verse's list of recipients is ordered by need: kin, orphans, the poor, wayfarers, beggars, slaves [103 to 104]. Suwayd's delegation recites fifteen traits; the Prophet adds five, including "do not build that in which you do not reside" [104 to 105].
Retaliation in the shariah of friendship. In the world, the killer owes retaliation or blood-money. "In the shariah of friendship, both retaliation and wergild are mandatory for the person killed" [105]. The Pir: "no one burned has regrets, no one killed turns away" [105].
Deathbeds. Wills of the rich give a third of their wealth; dervishes bequeath "limpidness of states" [106]. Fear comes from reports, awe from vision [106]. Maybudi lines up deathbeds of awe and of intimacy:
| Shaykh | Last words | State |
|---|---|---|
| Abu Sa'id Abi'l-Khayr | "My two eyes full of water, my liver full of fire, my hands full of wind, my head full of dust!" | Awe |
| Bishr Hafi | "Stepping forth to God is hard" | Awe |
| 'Abd Allah Munazil | Told he had a year left: "Oh! I have to wait another year!" | Yearning |
| Makhul Shami | Laughing: "the day I've been waiting for has arrived" | Intimacy |
Table. Two ways of dying [106 to 107].
Fasting as conformity. God wants hungry guests at His banquet [108]. "Fasting belongs to Me" means: self-sufficiency is Mine, and "the first station in friendship is conformity" [108]. It also means the fast is kept back from plaintiffs at the reckoning: "I ascribed it to Myself so that I could keep it for you" [108]. The heart's fast, from all created things, lasts a lifetime; Shibli: "make your whole lifetime one day" [109].
Ramadan burns and washes. From ramda', hot stone, it burns; from ramadi, rain, it washes [109 to 110]. For recognizers, God "washes other than Himself from the hearts... then He burns them in His love" [110]. The Pir defines togetherness: "someone falls into the grasp of the Real... he is incinerated there, but the Real is behind him" [111].
I am near. God is near "Not by the worthiness of the servant—I am near by My own description" [111]. Moses at the watercourse asks, "Where should I seek You?" and hears: "I am nearer to you than the spirit in your body, your life-vein to you, your speaking to your mouth" [111 to 112]. And: "I am the resurrection without Trumpet for the recognizers" [112]. The ladder of doors from 2:40 returns, with supplication and trust added, and closes on a reversal: "I did not create the creatures to profit from them. I created them only so that they would profit from Me" [112].
Part IV. The Cow, III: Two Kaabahs, Separation and the Poor (2:189 to 2:286)
The last third of al-Baqara is mostly law: pilgrimage, marriage, divorce, nursing, loans, charity. Maybudi treats each ruling as a doorway. The hajj opens onto an inner Kaabah, divorce onto the pain of separation, the loan onto God's courtesy toward the poor, and the surah's closing prayer onto a dialogue on the night of the ascent.
Chapter 13. States, the Slain and the Beautiful (2:189 to 2:195)
The moon's phases. Waxing and waning point to the heart's states, arranged by rank [113]:
Figure 25. The new moons of 2:189 as three pairs of states. "The furthest limit of all is the intimacy of the lovers" [113].
In intimacy a man may enter fire and not notice. Abu Hafs Haddad, a blacksmith, heard a verse recited, pulled the red-hot iron from the furnace with his hand, and left his trade: "This time, the profession left me" [113].
Slain by the Real. "Those killed by the Real are one thing, those killed by the throat something else" [113]. Shibli finds forty men dying in the desert with bricks for pillows and asks God what He wants of them. The answer: "When someone is killed by the sword of My majesty, his wergild is the vision of My beauty" [114].
Three spendings. "The rich remove money from their wallets, the poor remove the rich from their hearts, and the tawhid-voicers remove all creatures from their secret cores" (6:91) [114]. Maybudi then unpacks the hadith of beautiful doing, "worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, surely He sees you," into a short catechism [114]:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What was accepted on the First Day? | "Am I not your Lord?" and "Yes indeed" (7:172) |
| What is loyalty to it? | Serving the Protector |
| How does one curtail wishes? | In "As if you see Him" |
| Where is self-purification in deeds? | In "He sees you" |
Chapter 14. The Two Kaabahs (2:196 to 2:203)
God to Adam on the House. In Wahb's report God foretells pilgrims arriving "their hair disheveled and their faces covered with dust," and says: "I am concealed from their eyes, but I am face-to-face with their spirits" [115].
Street and face. "The hajj of the common people sets out for the street of the Friend, and the hajj of the elect sets out for the face of the Friend" [116]. The common go with souls and see doors and walls; the elect go with spirits "and found conversation and vision" [116].
Beautiful in both worlds. "Something beautiful" in this world is knowledge, worship, the Sunnah, the sweetness of obedience; in the next, vision, union, contemplation [118]. "For this world's, there must be deeds with obedience, and for that world's there must be pain with recognition. It is a long road from deeds to pain" [118]. One group asks for neither: "When My remembrance busies someone from asking from Me, I bestow upon him the most excellent of what I bestow on the askers" [119].
Three remembrances. Habit "has no worth"; calculation "has no adornment"; companionship "is a deposit, for the tongue of him who remembers is a loan in the midst" [119].
| Outward Kaabah | Inward Kaabah | |
|---|---|---|
| Sanctuary | Surrounds the Kaabah | Surrounds the heart |
| Is | Goal of the pilgrims, kiblah of practice | Target of the All-Merciful's gaze, kiblah of contemplation |
| Kept free of | Evil-doers and unbelievers | Seeing and thinking of others |
| A lost article found there | Left for its owner | Not to be sought: it is "God's secret" |
| Desert before it | A "man-eating desert" | "The desert of grief and sorrow" |
| Garments | Loin-cloth and mantle | Loin-cloth of solitariness, mantle of disengagement |
| Consecration | "Here I am!" on the tongue | Disowning the two worlds |
| Recompense | Houris, palaces, paradise | The dome of jealousy, "His Essence witnessed" |
Table. The two sanctuaries [119 to 121].
Chapter 15. Musk, Sharks and Emigration (2:213 to 2:219)
One community in the dark. All creatures were first one group "in the curtain of obscurity." Then light was cast: "Whomsoever the light struck was guided, and whomsoever it missed went astray"; and the two groups were assigned: "These belong to the Garden, and I do not care" [121]. "I receive no profit from loyalty, nor do lose anything from disloyalty" [121 to 122].
Pearls behind sharks. "The Garden is surrounded by disliked things" [123]. Two men go to the ocean for pearls. One sees the sharks and turns back: "The religion is not reached with wishfulness and self-adornment." The other, absorbed in the pearl's beauty, dives. He may win it, or "the sharks will take his life as booty" [123]. "Each month two thousand of the passionate like me are killed, and not one lets out a sigh" [123].
What to spend. The Shariah answers "From 200 dirhams, 5 dirhams"; the Haqiqah answers with the spirit itself [124]. Moses, called by name on the night of the Mount, asked who was speaking though he knew, hoping to hear more: "I am waiting for the caller to say, 'Surely I am God, Lord of the worlds'" [124].
Figure 28. Inward emigration in 2:218: each organ is a way station [126].
Two emigrations. Outward emigration is leaving home to seek knowledge; inward emigration runs from soul to Real (Figure 6) [125 to 126]. The seeker of knowledge travels by himself and gets tired, as Moses did looking for Khidr (18:62); the seeker of the Known is pulled, as Moses waited thirty days for God's speech without hunger [125]. Daqqaq: if angels lower their wings for seekers of knowledge, "how can anyone imagine what the seekers of the Known will be mounted on?" [125]. Ansari: "No one has voiced the unity of the One, for everyone who voices it denies it" [126].
Three wines. The wine verse (2:219) becomes a discussion of God's wines. A man with one dirham asks a wine seller who has run out for "a drop so I may smell it" [127]. God gives one person the wine of bewilderment from the cup of awe, another the wine of recognition from the storeroom of hope, a third the wine of union from the cup of love, and a fourth "was so busy seeing the Cupbearer that he paid no attention to the wine": "So I'm drunk from You, not the cup" [127 to 128]. Jacob, forbidden to say Joseph's name, asked every stranger his name, hoping one would be Joseph [128]. The Pir: "There are many at His door who want from Him, but those who want Him are few" [129].
Chapter 16. Purity, Curtaining and Separation (2:223 to 2:237)
Two kinds of impurity. The soul belongs to the low world and may take its share in marriage; the heart belongs to the high world and "it is forbidden to incline toward any others" [129]. Impurity is of entity or of attribute [129 to 130]:
| Impurity | Image | In religion | Purified by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Of entity | A corpse, never clean in the ocean | Associationism (4:48, 9:28) | Nothing; hell forever |
| Of attribute, light | Cleaned with one water | Small sins | Repentance, or one pass through hell (19:71) |
| Of attribute, heavy | Needs water and dust | Great sins | Repentance, or a longer stay, never forever |
God tells David to make a pure house for Him: "Strike it with the fire of passion... Then sweep it with the broom of remorse" [130].
Rights and wives. If God guards people's rights so strictly, His own deserve more care [130 to 131]. One cheated half-penny can keep a man with "the reward of seventy prophets" out of paradise [131]. "The best of you is the best of you to his wife" [131]. Darani: "A worthy spouse is not of this world, but of the next" [131].
Separation. Divorce is "the most hateful of permitted things," because separation cuts familiarity [133]. Angels made of snow and fire pray: "Glory be to Him who makes fire familiar with snow!" [133]. The stories pile up: Hasan's divorced wife weeping over her dower, "Paltry goods from a departed lover!"; 'Ali at Fatima's grave answered by an unseen voice; Malik Dinar weeping at his brother's grave because, as he says, "who will have the regret of not seeing the Creator?" [133 to 135]. At the edge of hell a man tears out his eyes: "Eyes are useful to me for seeing the Friend — what will I do with eyes without seeing the Friend?" [135]. A pir: "The heart went, the Friend went"; the call came, "Go after the Friend!", for "If king and queen are gone, what good is a bishop?" [136].
Kinder than a mother. A woman baking bread asks the Prophet whether God is kinder than a mother: "A mother would never toss her child into this oven." He wept [136 to 137]. Of a dead man with no known good: "a sinful servant and a forgiving Lord!" [137].
Godwariness, start and finish. It starts in pardon: you know what your brother owes you and let it go. It ends in preference: you know what you owe him and apologize to him for his own offenses. "When you sin, we come to you and apologize" [138].
Chapter 17. The Prayer and the Loan (2:238 to 2:248)
Prayer over paradise. Shibli would not choose paradise over the prayer: "That is roasted fowl in the garden of approval, and this is repose and ease in the garden of the Beloved" [139]. An imam saying "Straighten!" to the rows fainted and heard: "Have you ever once been straight for Me?" [139 to 140].
| Prayer | First performed by | Cycles and meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Dawn | Adam, after his first night on earth | 2: the night of separation passed; the dawn of union came |
| Midday | Abraham, after the sacrifice | 4: success-giving, confirming the truth, the call, the sacrifice |
| Afternoon | Jonah, freed from the fish | 4: darknesses of slipping, night, water, fish; for the believer, of disobedience, tomb, resurrection, hell |
| Evening | Jesus, when called "third of three" | 3: no lordhood for himself, no divinity for his mother, oneness for God |
| Night | Moses, on the stormy road from Midian | 4: griefs of wife, child, brother, enemies |
Table. Origins of the five prayers [140 to 143].
Adam is "the origin of all strangers... the first of all the weepers," who "set down the custom of night vigils" [141]. "The grave is one of the plots of the Garden," as the fish's belly was Jonah's mirror [142].
Lend to God. "Who is it that will lend to God a beautiful loan?" Loans are asked of friends, so God honors the rich by asking; Yahya Mu'adh: "I wonder at anyone who still has wealth, when the Lord of the Throne wants to borrow it" [144]. 'Ali sold his cloak to feed his weeping children, bought a camel on credit for sixty dirhams and sold it at once for 120; the Prophet told him the seller was Gabriel and the buyer Michael [144 to 145]. But the loan is asked for the poor, and "the person for whom you ask the loan... is nothing but a friend," so the poor receive the larger caress [145].
Tranquility: ark or heart. Israel's tranquility was in an ark carried here and there; this community's is in hearts "between two fingers of the All-Merciful" (48:4, 8:24) [146 to 147]. Shibli, in a vision, gives his limbs to the dragon of hell, then hears: "leave the heart alone, for the heart is not yours... at least let it burn in the fire of passion" [147].
Chapter 18. The Throne Verse and the Friends (2:255 to 2:260)
God as remembrance. The Throne Verse becomes a litany: God is "the remembrance of the hearts of the friends... the balm of the pain of the burnt" [148]. Junayd: "If someone says God with his tongue when other than God is in his heart, God will be his adversary in the two abodes" [148]. On the mi'raj: "What a wonder is someone who finds Me and then seeks for someone else!" [149]. Shibli: "My soul has been sacrificed to my heart, my heart to my spirit, and my spirit to my Lord" [150].
No sleep. Sleep is change, fault, heedlessness and a likeness of death, and God is free of all four [150]. "In the ocean of Your perfection, the perfect are defective, in the eye of Your acceptance, the defective become perfect" [150]. The Pir: "Make me arrive, for none has arrived by himself" [151]. Maybudi takes the Footstool as "the place of the feet," the Sunni position "without interpretation" [151].
Friends of God. Wali, mawla, wali and mutawalli "are alike in meaning" [152]. Destroying the Kaabah is a lesser sin than denigrating a friend of God [152]. "We are your friends" (41:31) speaks from togetherness; Joseph's "Thou art my friend" (12:101) from dispersion. The weak get more caresses: "I am with those whose hearts are broken for Me" [152].
Abraham's four birds. Abraham's request to see the dead revived was really a wish to hear God speak, like the lover who broke a jewel so that his silent beloved would say, "What are you doing?" [154]. The four birds are four traits to kill [155]:
| Bird | Kill | Instruction |
|---|---|---|
| Peacock | Finery | "Take no ease in the blessings of this world" |
| Crow | Avarice | Not for "that which does not remain" |
| Rooster | Appetite | "Let no appetite enter your heart" |
| Vulture | Wishes | "Do not stretch out wishes"; then the goodly life (16:97) |
Abraham asked for vision by allusion and was answered by allusion, "God is exalted"; Moses asked outright and heard outright, "Thou shalt not see Me" (7:143) [156]. A demand came back: "show Me how you bring the living Ishmael to death" [156]. Certainty has three grades: knowledge, eye and truth of certainty [156].
Chapter 19. Charity, Wisdom and the Poor (2:264 to 2:286)
Counting favors. "In the path of chivalry, seeing one's own obedience is idol-worship" [157]. The poor are "kings in tatters," and "charity falls into the hand of God before it falls into the hand of the asker" [157 to 158]. Satan "promises poverty, for that is what he has"; "the pot pours what it has inside" [158].
| Ansari's three wealths | Each has three parts |
|---|---|
| Property | Lawful is a tribulation, unlawful a curse, excessive a punishment |
| Disposition | Contentment, satisfaction, chivalry |
| Heart | An aspiration greater than this world, a desire better than the next, yearning for the vision of the Patron |
Table. 2:268 [158].
Wisdom. Its reality is "putting a thing in its own place"; its fruit is balance: with people, between tenderness and cajolery; with oneself, between fear and hope; with the Real, between awe and intimacy [158 to 159].
The constrained poor. The poor of 2:273 do not ask, from creatures (trust) or from God (approval) [160]. 'Abdallah Mubarak wept for having asked forgiveness: "What is this meddling of mine?!" Junayd, having said "give me drink," heard: "Are you intruding between Me and yourself, O Junayd?" [160 to 161]. For those not yet at that station, Maybudi adds, asking is permitted and supplication is worship [161]. A dervish in a patched shirt: "I bought it for the whole world" [161]. Ansari: "In the Sufi what is apparent is apparent—its mark cannot be given with the tongue" [161].
Repaid, or known. 2:272 ends "shall be repaid to you in full"; 2:273 ends "God knows it." The first is for the one who spends for his own reward, the second for the recognizer who spends for the poor man's sake, to whom God promises "what no eye has seen" [162].
The beggar beyond the Lote Tree. Gabriel, "with six hundred peacock wings," stopped at the Lote Tree, "but this poor man with begging hands does not let go of the paragon's skirt until he places his foot along with his on the Majestic Throne" [163]. Their boldness dates from the beginningless draft of "He loves them, and they love Him" (5:54) [163].
Wages, feasts, mysteries. "The wage-earners have wages, the guests have feasts, and the near ones have mysteries" [165]. Shibli wishes all the world's sins on his neck, so that at the reckoning "my talk with You would be drawn out" [165]. A nomad hears that God Himself will do the accounts: "When a generous man decides, he forgives" [165].
Closing: faith without the servant. "The Messenger has faith" is third person, the way kings are addressed [166]. After listing the surah's rulings, God Himself witnesses to the faith of Prophet and believers, "a witnessing that faith comes by bestowal" [167]. The Pir: "it is You who made an oath of allegiance between Yourself and the servant without the servant" [167]. The believers' faith is "by way of inference," the Prophet's "by way of union" [167]. The Fatiha and these last verses are "among the treasuries of the All-Merciful's Throne" [168].
Part V. The Family of Imran (Surah 3)
Surah 3 runs to 47 pages [169 to 215]. Maybudi uses it to settle three questions: how to speak of God's form without likening Him, how the servant's love relates to God's love, and what it means to live, die and be patient "with" God. The tone is more doctrinal than in al-Baqara, and sharper against the theologians.
Chapter 20. Form, He and the Two Kinds of Verse (3:6 to 3:19)
The form of the Creator. "God created Adam in His form" [169]. The folk of interpretation turn the pronoun away from God; the folk of the Sunnah, whose religion is "hearing, accepting, and surrendering," take it at face value and forbid likening [169]. The careful formula is: "He has a form," or... "He is the possessor of a form." We do not say that He is "formed" [170]. His form has "the glories of light"; were the veil lifted, heaven and earth would burn [170]. Moses once called the Israelites donkeys and was rebuked: "Do you liken creatures whom I created in My form to donkeys?" [169].
Beauty only for Adam. Gabriel has six hundred jeweled wings and the Throne outshines the sun, yet God speaks of making forms beautiful only for the Adamites (40:64, 95:4), "whom He pulled up from dark dust" [170].
He. Huwa, "He," is "neither a name nor an attribute. Rather, it is an allusion to being" [171]. Its h is spoken at the back of the throat and its w at the front: "the letters begin from Him at first and return to Him at last" [171]. A dervish answered "He" to every question; when they said, "Perhaps you mean 'God'," he "gave his spirit to the name and left this world" [171].
| Firm verses | Ambiguous verses | |
|---|---|---|
| Nature | Apparent and clear | Abstruse and difficult |
| Belong to | The majesty of the Shariah | The beauty of the Haqiqah |
| Serve | The common, who reach "joy and blessings" by practice | The elect, who reach "the mystery of the Beneficent" by surrender |
Table. 3:7. The curtain stays down "lest any of the non-privy walk into this street, for not everyone is worthy to know the secrets of kings" [171].
Give by bounty. "Give what you give, O Lord, as Your bounty and mercy, not as the recompense for our works" [172]. A pir found sweetest the verse that frightens the obedient, "We shall... make them scattered dust" (25:23), because then "We will finally be released from these displeasing deeds" [172].
Possessions as road supplies. Maybudi builds a chain: felicity from recognition, recognition from the heart's light, that light from tawhid, its fuel from deeds, deeds from strength, strength from food, food from possessions [173]. Within "the measure of sufficiency," possessions are "the supplies for the road, and the road supplies are also part of the road" [173]. Kurragani, holding grain from his lawful estate: "I would not exchange this for the trust of all those who trust in God" [173].
Degrees of paradise. Each level of godwariness earns a garden: flee the unlawful for the Garden of the Refuge, the doubtful for the Abode of Everlastingness, the lawful for Firdaws [176]. Beyond them is a group with no desires who turn from the houris: "If we must give our heart to someone, well, let us give it to someone who will enslave it" [176]. Above Eden is the Greatest Approval (9:72), given on Friday, "the Day of Increase," when God says, "I have approved of you" [177].
Five qualities of 3:17. The patient (heart), the truthful (spirit), the devoted (soul), the expenders (wealth), and those who ask forgiveness "at dawn," meaning the dawn of the heart [177 to 178]. When attraction comes they ask forgiveness even for their virtues: "Take your ease in the Recognized, not in the recognition!" [178]. Ansari: "When the flood reaches the ocean, what then is known of the flood?... You appeared, I became eye, and no eye remained" [178].
Chapter 21. Love, Dispersion and Togetherness (3:28 to 3:73)
Friend of His friend. "The reality of friendship is conformity, that is, being a friend of His friend and an enemy of His enemy" [181]. Have you ever loved My friends?" [181]. Those who love one another in God sit secure on seats around the Throne; when friends smile at each other "their sins fall away like leaves from a tree" [Mujahid, 181]. "God warns you of Himself" addresses the elect directly, without an intermediary; the generality hear "Be wary of the Fire" [181 to 182].
Follow me. Intellect "is a watchman, not a leader to whom the reins should be given" [182]. Maybudi is blunt about Kalam: if all its substances and accidents vanished, "not an iota of deficiency would reach the threshold of the religion's exaltedness"; "The path of Kalam is the path of shadows, and the worst shadows are the shadows of Kalam" [182 to 183]. Before the world God took the prophets' pledge to follow Muhammad (3:81), then let them pass one by one: "O Muhammad! Now the playing field is empty, and the moment is yours" [183].
Figure 34. 3:31 read as dispersion and togetherness [184]. At 3:159 Maybudi adds the rule that binds them: "Togetherness without dispersion is disbelief, and dispersion without togetherness is associationism" [207].
Abraham said "Whoso follows me belongs to me" (14:36); Muhammad, "Follow me; God will love you." "Love and bosom friendship are as far apart as these two sayings" [184].
| Friendship's way station | Attribute of | Passion's sorts | Belongs to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caprice | Body (soul) | Truthfulness | Recognizers |
| Love | Heart | Drunkenness | The enraptured |
| Passion | Spirit | Nonbeing | The selfless |
Table. 3:31 continued [185]. Drunkenness has its own scale (soul by wine, heart by familiarity, spirit by unveiling), and "when the Cupbearer Himself is disclosed, being begins and drunkenness turns into sobriety" [185].
Nonbeing is to be lost in friendship: "Now I cannot say that I am, nor can I say that He is" [185]. The Pir: "I did it myself, I bought it myself" [186].
Zachariah's silence. The sign of the promised son was three days without speech, "so that all your secret whispering will be with Me" [186]. Remembrance has three degrees: with the tongue, concealed in the heart, and true remembrance, "witnessing God's remembrance of you" (18:24), in which one forgets self, then remembrance, then everything but His remembrance [187]. The Pir seeks refuge from "familiarity through marks, and friendship by mail!" [187].
"O Mary." "If a thousand times you call on Him saying, 'My Lord, my Lord,' that is not like His calling on you once, 'My servant, My servant'" [188]. Abu Yazid, offered the empire in a thousand standing places: "I desire not to desire"; "You are My servant in truth" [188]. A slave on sale: "First buy me so that I may belong to you. Then call me by whatever name you want" [188]. Mary's honors are listed, and Jesus' four names: Messiah, Jesus, Word and Spirit [189]. Mary bore birth pangs because her son would be her joy; Muhammad's mother felt none, because she would have no share in him [189 to 190]. Angels were spared trial, and also spared paradise: "Where there is a treasure, the road passes through suffering" [190].
God's deception. God deceives by increasing blessings until the sinner is reckless [190]. Abu Darda answered a tormentor by praying that he be given health, long life and wealth, "the worst of supplications" [190 to 191].
Secrets kept. 3:73 is read twice: for common believers, no religion, book, prophet, month or day equals theirs; for recognizers, "Do not divulge the Real's secrets to other than its folk" [192]. Shibli asked why Hallaj was taken and heard: "I gave him a mystery and showed him a secret. He gave it out to the unworthy" [193].
Chapter 22. Lordly Ones, Trust and the Living Dead (3:74 to 3:200)
Mercy left vague. God "brought them together obscurely and did not specify anyone so that the hopeful would increase in their hope and the fearful would not remain in their fear" [193]. "Not even I, unless God envelops me with His mercy" [193].
Submission and surrender. The submission is a tree, the Sunnah its spring, faith its fruit [197]. Shafi'i asked in a dream to die in the submission and was told, "Say, 'And in the Sunnah'" [197]. Submission is "the rightfully due," surrender (istislam) "the reality"; one is the body, the other the spirit [198].
| Godwariness | Verse | Basis | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Of punishment | "Be wary of the Fire" (3:131) | Patience against disobedience | Wrongdoers |
| Of gratitude | "Be wary of your Lord" (4:1) | Seeing blessings | Moderate |
| At the vision of Unity | "As is the rightful due of His wariness" (3:102) | Watching the Beneficent | Preceders |
Table. 3:102 [198 to 199]. In a dream God tells Ahmad ibn Khadruya: "Everyone is seeking something from Me, except Abu Yazid. He is seeking Me" [198].
Inviting to the good. These summoners "look from the Artisan to the artisanry"; Shibli: "When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place" [199]. Dispersion is the Tariqah's fault (the servant wants one thing and God another); disagreement is the Shariah's. Disagreement over principles is fatal, like heading east for a western goal; over branches it is "a mercy" [200].
Exalted by God. Harun al-Rashid locked a preacher in with a lion; he was found in the garden, the door still locked. "Who let you out of the room?" "The one who brought me into the garden" [201]. Harun had him paraded with honor: Harun "wanted to abase a servant exalted by God, and he was unable to do so" [201].
Three spenders. Some never give; some give only in plenty; some give in plenty and hardship, either as squanderers or as men confident that "provision seeks out a man just as his moment of death seeks him out" [202]. Pardon means both effacing a wrong and giving from one's bounty [203].
Muhammad is mortal. At the Prophet's death 'Umar drew his sword; Abu Bakr, standing "in the circle of togetherness," said: "If anyone was worshiping Muhammad, surely Muhammad is dead. If anyone was worshiping God, surely God is the Living who does not die" [204].
Soft and hard. The Beloved was told to be harder with unbelievers; Moses was told to "speak to him with soft words" (20:44), each corrected against his own temperament [206]. Had the Prophet poured his companions "the unmixed wine of tawhid," they would have fled; so "Speak to the people in the measure of their intellects" [206 to 207].
Figure 36. Daqqaq's three levels of trust at 3:159: trust seeks bestowal, surrender waits for encounter, delegation rests in approval [207 to 208].
Alive with their Lord. The Pir: "The living are three: one lives through the spirit, one lives through knowledge, and one lives through the Real" [208]. A lover's plea: "Killed in your street is better than far from your face" [208]. Hallaj saw union flying like a falcon and heard, "If you want your hand to reach it, put your head beneath your feet" [209]. A corpse laughed while Ma'ruf Karkhi washed it: "His friends do not die, rather they are transferred from abode to abode" [210]. Sari Saqati, threatened in a dream with the whip of trial, replied, "Are You not the one who sends trials?" [210].
Niggardliness redefined. In the Shariah it is withholding the obligatory; on the Tariqah it is "leaving a little for oneself, a tiny amount of property, or a moment of the state" [211]. Wealth and states are a dog at the door, and "no angel enters the house within which there is a dog" [211].
Remembrance and reflection. Three rememberers: tongue without heart (wrongdoer), tongue with heart (wage-earner), heart alone, "his tongue is silent" (preceder) [211]. "Remembrance set a trap whose bait was jealousy. The wage-earner saw the trap and fled, the recognizer saw the bait and clung to the trap" [211]. Sulami ranks remembrance above reflection, since remembrance is an attribute of God [212]. Reflection on one's own deeds is mandatory, on God's handiwork recommended, on His Essence forbidden: the bat cannot face the sun, but anyone can look at its rays on the ground [212].
Pain as capital. "If I wipe clean all the sins of the creatures, what will be lost from My kingdom? A handful of clay" [213]. The lovers "are happy with their pain and lament at the lack of pain": "I won't give up this pain for a hundred thousand remedies" [214]. The surah's last state is reversal: "You were my wound, You became my balm!" [214].
| 3:200 | Addressed to | Patience | Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be patient | Soul | In obedience and service; "in God" | Worshipers, hoping for reward |
| Vie in patience | Heart | In trial; "through God" | Recognizers, hoping for union |
| Be steadfast | Spirit | With yearning and love; "with God" | Lovers, in contemplation |
Table. The surah's closing verse [214 to 215]. The Pir: "everyone is burning in separation, but the lover in vision" [215].
Part VI. Women (Surah 4)
Surah 4 fills 42 pages [216 to 257]. Its verses are legal: orphans, inheritance, marriage, ablution, trusts. Maybudi reads each ruling twice, once "in the tongue of learning" and once "in the tongue of practice" [221], so that the law of the household becomes a map of the inner house. The centerpiece is his longest statement in the volume on the two kinds of tawhid.
Chapter 23. Rulings Read Inward (4:1 to 4:34)
Godwariness as a shield. Godwariness is "for the servant to make the commands of the Shariah into his shield so that the arrows of prohibition may not reach him," on three levels: refuge in tawhid, in obedience, in caution [216]. The model is the sister of Bishr Hafi, who asked Ahmad ibn Hanbal whether she might spin thread by the passing torch of the Tahirids. He wept: "Godwariness like this is permissible only in the household of Bishr Hafi!" Bishr's hand would not obey him when he reached for doubtful food [216].
The Watcher. A shepherd boy refused to sell his master's sheep to Ibn 'Umar and pretend a wolf ate one: "So where is God?" Ibn 'Umar bought and freed him, and repeated the phrase "for a long time" [218].
Orphans and the long account. Jesus raised a man from a graveyard who had died "2,700 years ago" and was "still being called to account for half a piece of silver that I owed to an orphan" [219]. Before that story Maybudi sets a lesson in balance: a man recited God's decree, and a voice answered, "That is tawhid. Where is servanthood?" [219].
Pain, then balm. Inheritance is the balm laid on the wound of a death: "just as pain came from his passing, so also balm comes from his wealth" [220]. Ansari's refrain follows: "How should I have known that suffering is the mother of happiness and that beneath one disappointment lie a thousand treasures?" [220].
| Verse | Tongue of learning | Tongue of practice |
|---|---|---|
| 4:17 to 4:18 Repentance | Repent before death, "even if it be one moment" | Repent "before the soul has the habit of seeing itself and worshiping itself" [221] |
| 4:19 Wives | Women are "imprisoned beneath your severity"; consort honorably | "By way of allusion He is talking generally about all Muslims": claim no excellence over anyone [222] |
| 4:20 Divorce | Do not take back the dower | "If you take back what you gave, you will place a scar on her scar" [224] |
| 4:23, 4:43 Forbidden degrees, ablution | Rules as given | "The religion is founded on the transmitted, not on the rationally derived" [233] |
Table. Two readings of Surah 4's law. The ablution proof: urine is impure but needs the lesser washing, semen is pure but needs the greater, so reason cannot be the rule [232].
Repentance as a recall. Repentance is "a message sent to you from the Presence": "O falcon taken to the sky, come back, don't go! My fingers hold the end of your thread!" [221]. Forgiveness does not restore everything. David, forgiven, asked for "those sweet moments I had in Your companionship" and was told: "David, take heed! That is a love that has passed" [221].
Sit with the broken. God tells David that "the heart of that pain-stricken poor man is the rising place of My light's sun" [223]. The Pir: "If you cannot seek proximity to Him, at least seek proximity to the hearts of His friends, for He gazes down on their hearts" [223]. Hasan ibn 'Ali's divorced wife threw down his 40,000 dirhams: "Paltry goods from a departed lover!" [224].
Man, created weak (4:28). Every Qur'anic "man" carries a fault, because man is dust, "the root of opacity" [224]. The hope is that God "saw the faults, and then He bought along with the faults" [224].
Wisher and drudge (4:32). Kattani: whoever thinks he will arrive without effort is "a wisher," whoever thinks he will arrive by effort is "a drudge" [226]. Ansari resolves the knot: "The recognizer finds seeking from finding, not finding from seeking" [226]. Those who envy the friends see "the great good fortune of the friends, but you have not seen their tribulation" [227]; and "everyone's burden is in the measure of his strength," which is how Maybudi reads 4:34 [227].
Chapter 24. Two Tawhids, Four Neighbors, Four Trusts (4:36 to 4:175)
Figure 39. 4:36. "Tawhid is that you say that God is one and that you be one for Him" [228]. Ansari states the first in "three words": affirmation of attributes without excess, negation of similarity without ineffectuality, the outward sense without mixing [228].
Finding comes unasked. The second tawhid "is found in the midst of heedlessness, it comes without asking" [230]. Moses went for fire and heard "I chose thee for Myself"; Muhammad "was asleep when the good news came." Hence: "Finding comes in heedlessness. Do not fancy anything but this" [230]. The Pir's summary: "Yours kept on increasing and mine decreasing until at last there remained only what there was at first" [230].
Secondary causes. Associationism in the Shariah is another object of worship; in the Tariqah it is to see an existent other than God and stay with causes. Ansari: "Not seeing the secondary cause is ignorance, but remaining with the secondary cause is associationism" [231].
| Neighbor | Who | Verse | What is due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Of the house | The Adamite | 4:36 | Care that keeps them thankful |
| Of the soul | The angel | 82:10 | Obedience, so they leave satisfied |
| Of the heart | Tranquility of recognition | 48:4 | Recognition kept pure of innovation |
| Of the spirit | The Real | 57:4 | Escape from yourself and "become one for the Real" |
Table. The four neighbors [231]. "If you are with yourself, how can you sit with Me?" [231].
Drunkenness and the hidden associate. Of four intoxicants (grape, heedlessness, the world, self-love) the last is hardest: "If you are martyred a hundred times a day in the path of God you will still be an idol-worshiper if you see yourself in the midst" [232]. The lesser associationism of the faithful is eye-service; that of recognizers is "paying regard to deeds and seeking deliverance thereby" [234]. 'Ali to a man with lowered head: "Bring this crick in your neck into your heart" [234]. Sufyan Thawri refused a lawful inheritance from a friend's son because the friendship was "for the sake of God" [235].
The tremendous kingdom (4:54) is mastery of one's own soul, or insight into the empire: Ibn al-Barqi in Egypt refused medicine until news came, thirteen days later, of the Qarmatian attack on the Sanctuary [236]. Ansari limits it: "Servanthood cannot bear more than knowing some and not knowing some" [236].
| Trust (4:58) | Placed in | Betrayed from | Guarded by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Submission | Breast | The devil | Remembrance (7:201) |
| Faith | Mindful heart | The soul | Struggle (29:69) |
| Recognition | Heart | Caprice | Surrender (3:7) |
| Love | Secret core | Even the angels | Jealousy |
Table. The inner trusts [238]. Outwardly the trusts are religion, wives and deposits; ears were made open but "eyes and tongue, He created both with bonds," so "Sitting together is a trust" [237].
Obeying the Messenger (4:64 to 4:69). God "has lifted up the intermediary and made his decree equal to His own decree" [238]. Thawban, wasted and yellow with love, feared he would not see the Prophet in the next world; 4:69 came down as "a balm on his woundedness" [239 to 240]. "Pain for Ishmael calls for the burn of Abraham" [240].
Courtesy (4:86). Companionship has three courtesies: conformity with the Real, sincerity with people, opposition to the soul [241]. Abu Yazid glorified God by pointing at himself: "You are the miserable man of the time" [241]. Dhu'l-Nun's ideal companion is one who "does not change when you change" [242], which Maybudi finally reads as the Real Himself.
The prayer (4:103) is named 102 times with thirteen names and is "the mi'raj of the person of faith" [244]. Its four postures gather the four shapes of creatures (trees stand, beasts bow, crawlers prostrate, plants sit) [245]; its cycles of two, three and four thank spirit and body; heart, intellect and faith; and the four natures [245]. It also holds jihad, alms and hajj: the imam is the champion before the ranks [246].
Self-purification (4:125). It does for deeds "the work of color in jewels" [248]. Iblis was beaten twice by a worshiper going to cut down a sacred tree, then bribed him with two dinars a night; when the dinars stopped and he went in anger, Iblis won, "When someone does something for God with self-purification, my hand will not reach him" [248 to 249]. Abraham gave away three hundred herds of sheep, one for each hearing of "O Holy One!", then offered his spirit; Gabriel conceded, "You have passion to perfection" [250].
Three admonitions. 4:126, 4:131 and 4:132 each say "To God belongs everything in the heavens and the earth," addressed in turn to common Muslims, to worshipers, and to the sincerely truthful [250 to 251]. To the last: "O this world! Serve those who serve Me, and trouble those who serve you!" [251].
| The Shariah | The Haqiqah |
|---|---|
| A lamp | A burn |
| Need | Joy |
| Not having evil | Not having self |
| By intermediaries | By unveiling |
| Hope for subsistent bliss | "Boldy busy themselves with the Cupbearer" |
Table. 4:136, faith by proof and faith by face-to-face vision [252 to 253]. "When a mother bites her child, she does so because of love" [253]. The spelling "boldy" is as printed.
Three knowledges (4:162). Shariah knowledge is learned from a teacher, Tariqah knowledge practiced under a pir, Haqiqah knowledge "turned over to Himself" [254]. To deny the teacher is heresy, the pir temptation, and any teacher of the Haqiqah but the Real delusion [254].
Two lamps (4:174). "One in the heart, the other in front of you": the Sunnah before, faith within. "Happy is the servant who walks between these two lamps!" [256 to 257].
Part VII. The Table (Surah 5)
Surah 5 takes 22 pages [258 to 279]. Like Surah 4 it is a legal surah: food laws, ablution, oaths, wine, the pilgrim's ban on hunting. Maybudi again reads each rule as a rule for the soul, and he places at its center the verse he treats as the charter of love: "a people whom He loves, and who love Him" (5:54).
Chapter 25. Soap in Hand (5:1 to 5:35)
Called before He made them. Ja'far ibn Muhammad finds four honors in "O you who have faith": a call, an intimation, an allusion, a bearing witness [259]. "He called them before He made them appear, and He named them before He saw them" [259]. "The sinner's sobs are more beloved to Me than the glorifier's murmur" [259].
Carrion of the Tariqah (5:3). Backbiting is the carrion with "never a concession in any state" [260]. A soul killed "by the sword of struggle" according to the Shariah is pure; one that dies in its own heedlessness is carrion [260]. Each forbidden animal names a type of person to avoid:
| Forbidden (5:3) | Allusion |
|---|---|
| The strangled | Throws "the rope of wanting around his neck" and dies of avarice |
| The beaten down | Prisoner of caprice, beaten by the soul's fancies and Satan's whispers |
| The fallen | Fallen "into the valley of dispersion" |
| The gored | Fights his likes for the world and loses, "carrion under the blows of a carrion-eater" |
| Eaten by predators | The world itself: "Only dogs eat carrion" |
| Stone altars, divining arrows | Worship of caprice; dealings outside the Shariah, "nothing but gambling" |
Table. The food laws as a guide to companionship [260 to 261].
The approved submission is a house reached through four gates (obligations, avoiding the forbidden, confidence in God's assurance, patience) and four bridges (approval, trust, gratitude, self-purification), and only then the degrees [263].
Ablution (5:6). Inward purity has three duties: the limbs from disobedience (the pious), the heart from blameworthy traits (the godwary), the secret core from all but the Real, "Say 'God,' then leave them" [264 to 265]. Each washing has its inner match: the face, keep your honor; the hands, "wash one's hands of the creatures"; the head, bow it to no "piece of straw"; the feet, walk in obedience [265].
The slave market. At the resurrection "Mustafa will be the slave-trader of the resurrection and the Real will be the customer," and the buyer looks at face, hands, head and feet, the parts the ablution washes [266]. 'Ali reports that the angels, after protesting at Adam, were sent to wash in "the Ocean of Life" under the Throne, and the gift was extended to Adam's children [267].
Means of approach (5:35). "O you who are worshipers, seek nearness to God with the virtues; O you who are knowers, with proofs; and O you who are recognizers, by abandoning means!" [269]. The Pir: "O God, the means of approach to You is You. First were You, last are You. All is You, and that's it. The rest is folly" [269]. Warriors struggle with the sword and gaze on the Endless; recognizers struggle with their souls and gaze on the Beginningless [269 to 270].
Chapter 26. The People He Loves (5:48 to 5:105)
Avenue and method (5:48). "The avenue is the Shariah, and the method is the Haqiqah"; the method is "a lamp that the Real holds next to the heart." "The Shariah belongs to everyone, and the Haqiqah belongs to some rather than others" [270].
The enemy within (5:51). The soul is harder than Satan: Satan wants the believer's disobedience, the soul his unbelief; Satan flees "There is no power and no strength but in God," but "the soul does not flee" [270 to 271]. Joseph lamented nothing, not the well nor prison, as he lamented the commanding soul [271].
His love first (5:54). "First He affirms His love, then the servants' love. Thus you know that so long as God does not love the servant, the servant will not love" [271]. Wasiti: "Gehenna was nullified when He mentioned His love for them" [271]. To David: "Surely the yearning of the pious to encounter Me has become protracted, but My yearning to encounter them is more intense" [273].
Figure 42. How God takes a friend. When the servant's eyesight falls on majesty "he remains without himself... so he falls under His protection and is rid of the claims of his soul" [273].
The marks of recognition are weeping, supplication and approval [274]. "When someone speaks of the Shariah and turns his back in any respect, he becomes a heretic. When someone speaks of the Haqiqah and looks at himself in any respect, he becomes an associater" [274].
Oaths in ecstasy (5:89). Lovers' vows, "By your rightful due, I will not gaze at other than You," are idle talk "by virtue of tawhid," since the servant has no standing to swear to Him [275]. The inner expiation is to spend the spirit in ecstasy, the heart in sound intention, the soul in constant effort [275].
| Verse | Shariah | Allusion |
|---|---|---|
| 5:90 Wine | "The mother of loathsome things" | The heart drunk on heedlessness, "held back from secret whispering" [275] |
| 5:90 Gambling | Forbidden | The chevaliers stake everything on predetermination, "counting themselves as nothing" [276] |
| 5:95 Pilgrim's game | No hunting when consecrated | The heart's consecration forbids "seeking, wanting, and free choice" [276] |
| 5:100 Vile and goodly | Forbidden and permitted | Any work empty of His remembrance is vile; 'A'isha had a heedlessly sewn shirt unpicked [277] |
Table. Rulings and allusions in the later verses of Surah 5.
The balance of faith (5:98). "True faith is like a balance: One pan is fear, the other pan hope, and the beam is love," hung from knowledge [277]. Without knowledge, fear is the Khawarij's, hope the Murji'ah's, and love that of libertines [277].
Dogs and herdsmen (5:101). To a merchant who despaired at the Sufis' stations, Junayd said: "The army of the commander is not all special friends and boon companions. There are also dog-keepers and herdsmen" [278]. A dervish prayed to be approved as lover, else servant, else "approve of me as a dog!" [278].
Your own souls (5:105). Hallaj: "Against you is your own soul" [279], and if you do not keep it busy it will keep you busy. Kindness to an enemy brings his thanks at the resurrection; with the soul it is the reverse [279]. The heart is the Kaaba, the soul the stone bench facing it, and "in every day and night God has 360 gazes at the hearts of the servants" [279].
Part VIII. Cattle and Ramparts (Surahs 6 and 7)
Surahs 6 and 7 run 72 pages [280 to 351]. Surah 6 is built around one phrase that Maybudi keeps returning to: "Say 'God,' then leave them" (6:91). Surah 7 retells the story of Adam, then gives the fullest account in the book of Moses asking to see God, and closes with the Day of the Compact, "Am I not your Lord?" (7:172).
Chapter 27. Say "God," Then Leave Them (Surah 6)
Two tongues (6:0). The basmala of Surah 6 states the Sunni rule: "our religion is complete when we assent to the outward meaning, accept what has been transmitted, and give up on the meanings" [280]. That is the tongue of learning, "the resource of the wage-earners." The recognizers have another: "the tongue of learning comes from narration and the tongue of unveiling from solicitude" [280].
| Saying | Belongs to | What he sees |
|---|---|---|
| In the name of God | Creatures in general | His own act, the secondary cause, and the Causer |
| "In God" | The elect of the Threshold | The cause and the Causer, not his own act |
| "God" | The sincerely truthful | "He sees all as the Causer" |
Table. Three ways of naming God and three fields of vision [281].
Heaven of recognition (6:1). The visible heaven has sun, moon, and stars; the heaven of recognition has "the sun of knowledge, the moon of tawhid, and the stars of thoughts" [282]. Abu Talib Makki lists seven seas the wayfarer must cross, from "the intoxication of ecstasy" to "the reality of solitariness" [282]. On governance: "As long as the servant governs over his own work, he is in the darkness of ignorance... As long as he delegates it, he is in the brightness of recognition" [283].
Rose and thorn (6:2). Adam held both rose garden and clay, "Every rose, however, has a thorn": Abraham and Nimrod, Moses and Pharaoh, Muhammad and Abu Jahl [283]. Adam is told to "Pull your hands back from the neck of Eve, for you must use your hands for the neck of passion's crocodile" [284].
Mercy written first (6:12). "Before He began to create the newly arrived things... He struck the coin of mercy in the mint of the Unseen" [285]. At the resurrection the community falls into three, and each gets its wish: paradise for the faithful, forgiveness for the disobedient, "If they are the recognizers hoping for vision, then here is My vision" [285]. The angel holds night and day in his fists, "but I did not give the hearts of My friends to anyone" [286].
One wellspring (6:17). "Know that the wellspring of pain and remedy is one!" [287]. In togetherness these "have one color, and in the way stations of dispersion they are multicolored" [287].
Seeking from finding (6:41). Jurayri: the recognizers return to Him first, the common people "after despair of the creatures" [291]. Because the pronoun for the Real comes first, "the servant reaches supplication by means of the response of the Real" [291]. Majnun, sent away to cool off, came back on the third day: "Passion for Layla has closed all the roads to me" [291].
Three desires. Desire for this world is marked by turning away from the poor; desire for the next world by "bosom friendship with the poor"; desire for the Real by "stepping beyond the two worlds, becoming free of the creatures, and escaping oneself" [293]. The Pir: "Everyone is thirsty from not finding water, but the desirer is thirsty from being quenched" [293].
Abraham's stars (6:75-79). Abraham read star, moon, and sun as evidence, and then "By means of inference and proofs he went back to witnessing and face-to-face vision" [295]. Wasiti: "If someone says, 'I recognized God through the evidence,' ask him how he recognized the evidence" [295]. A chevalier reads it as a fault: Abraham "looked back and saw plunder," where Muhammad kept to "The eyesight did not swerve" (53:17) [296]. "When a serpent bites a man's liver, they give him the antidote, not candy" [296].
Figure 44. Abraham's road. "First he was like a knower, then he became like a recognizer" [295]; at the end, "there is no evidence for Him save Himself" [295].
Measure and forgery (6:91, 6:93). "He is known, but encompassing Him in knowledge is absurd" [297]. Anyone who claims recognition is in a sense a forger; Junayd: "My greatest sin is my recognition of Him" [298]. Shibli to a companion: "Stick to God, leave everything else, and be with Him" [297].
Recognition needs familiarity (6:111). "Claiming familiarity without recognition is rejecting the truth... Claiming recognition without familiarity is nothing but deception," which is Iblis [301]. Rank and trial rise together: "Without the venom of trial, the honey of friendship cannot be found" [301].
Life, light, and the straight path (6:122 to 6:162). Junayd's dead disciple gripped his finger; Junayd: "you must let go of my finger so that I can wash you and carry out the custom of the Shariah" [304]. At 6:125 three lights enter the heart: intellect, learning, recognition, freeing a person from associationism, from opposition, and finally "from himself" [305]. The straight path is "undertaking servanthood while realizing lordhood"; dispersion alone is the Mu'tazilite error, togetherness alone the libertines' [306]. "This world is like a mad man's laughter and a drunkard's weeping" [306].
Chapter 28. The Touchstone and the Mountain (Surah 7)
Three scales (7:8).
| Scale of | Measure | Two pans |
|---|---|---|
| Soul and spirit | Commands and prohibitions | The Book and the Sunnah |
| Heart and intellect | Reward | Threats and promises |
| Recognition and secret core | Approval | Fleeing and seeking |
Table. The scales of the Pirs [310]. "Nothing will be found without seeking, but until you find the Real, you will not seek" [310].
Adam the touchstone (7:11). Angels circled the Throne for 700,000 years and never learned the names of love; "Other than Adam's heart, there was no oyster shell for the pearl of love" [311]. Everyone struck his coin on Adam; "And Adam disobeyed [20:121] was the blackness of the touchstone" [313]. Iblis's coin came out counterfeit.
| Iblis | Adam |
|---|---|
| Did not acknowledge his sin | Acknowledged it in incapacity |
| Did not regret or apologize | Regretted, apologized, pleaded |
| Did not blame himself | Blamed himself |
| Saw no need to repent | Knew repentance "the key to felicity" |
| Despaired of mercy | Bound his heart to mercy |
Table. Five differences between the two who disobeyed [313 to 314].
Soil and nurture (7:19). Adam was shown his clay "so that, if he should see generosity, he would not see it from himself. He would know that eminence lies in nurture [tarbiya], not in soil [turba]" [314]. Ayaz kept his old patched cloak on a nail: "When I look at this, I see my own incapacity and know my own worth" [315]. Adam slipped through appetite, Iblis through pride, and "When a sin arises from appetite, there is room for pardon" [317].
Justice and beautiful doing (7:29). "Justice is that you do to others what they did to you. Beautiful doing is that you do better than what they did to you" [319]. Junayd on the return: "The end of every work is the return to its beginning"; "The road to the Real is a circle" [320].
Ramparts and vision (7:46, 7:54). The men of the Ramparts "will know everyone, but no one will know them... their mark is their marklessness" [323]. The Pir stages a debate between love and vision: vision "like light," love "like fire," vision pulls suffering from the heart, love plunders it [324]. Supplication needs lawful food, a present heart, and fear and hope; God decreed Adam's slip because "I love that the servant should lament and weep for Me" [325].
After the mountain (7:145 to 7:160). The tablets told Moses to "act beautifully toward orphans and do not abase the poor" [335]; vision is withheld from all until Muhammad and his community see [335]. Sahl: "Whatever in this world turns the servant away from the Real... is his calf" [337]. "Not everyone who sees the road travels the road" [337]. Moses chose seventy and the earthquake took them; the community of Muhammad God chose Himself [338]. A worshiper's paradise companion did only the obligatory acts but said, "I do not add my want to God's want" [340]. Twelve springs become twelve rivers of recognition, from familiarity to friendship [342].
Am I not your Lord? (7:172). He asked "Am I not your Lord?" and not "Are you not My servants?" because the tie rests on His Godhood, which "is forever perfect," so "the servant's joining with Him is never broken" [345]. He "asked while instructing in the answer" [345]. Ansari: "Generosity said, 'Am I not your Lord?' Kindness said, 'Yes indeed'" [345].
Names, listening, remembrance (7:180 to 7:206). Deviation in the names either adds (likeness) or subtracts (ineffectuality); "You should speak of being, but you should not speak of howness" [347]. When He sculpted the body He praised Himself; when He sculpted the heart He praised you, "so you would know that He will never efface the sculpture of the heart" [349]. The reality of listening is "remembering the eternal call" of the Compact [350]. The surah ends on balance: "Togetherness shows the Haqiqah, and dispersion explicates the Shariah" [351].
Part IX. Spoils, Repentance, Jonah (Surahs 8 to 10)
Surahs 8 to 10 take 43 pages [352 to 394]. The themes are war and its spoils, self-admiration, the sale of souls to God, and His friends, "no fear shall be upon them" (10:62).
Chapter 29. Fear, the Throw, and the Heart (Surah 8)
Quaking, then serenity (8:2). Hearts that "quake" at God's remembrance and hearts "serene in the remembrance of God" (13:28) are not in conflict: "The former is the mark of the beginners, and the latter is the description of the advanced" [352]. Outward deeds join inward ones in 8:3-4: "Without the Shariah the Haqiqah is of no use, and without the Haqiqah the Shariah is not correct" [352].
Three complaints (8:9). "Someone who complains of the Real to the people increases in pain. Someone who complains of the creatures to the Real finds the remedy. Someone who complains of the Real to the Real sees the Real" [354]. Shibli: "There is no rest with You, and no escape from You. I seek aid in You from You!" [354].
| Reading of 8:17 | Position | Verdict [354] |
|---|---|---|
| Dispersion only ("when thou threwest") | Free-willers | Rejected |
| Togetherness only ("but God threw") | Predestinarians | Rejected |
| Dispersion along with togetherness | Sunnis | "correct" |
Table. Agency and the throw at Badr. The Pir adds: "The self-purifier sees all from Him, the recognizer sees all in Him, the tawhid-voicer sees all as He" [355].
Two responses (8:24). Verified at pp.355 to 357: "Respond to God in your secret core and His Messenger through your outwardness... The life of the souls is through following the Messenger, and the life of the hearts is through contemplating the unseen things" [356]. Then "God comes between a man and his heart": the knowers find their hearts, the recognizers lose them. "The heart is the road, and the Friend is the homeland" [357]. God looks at hearts, not forms: "The only thing of any use is a heart full of pain" [358].
The soul that wanted martyrdom (8:41). Ahmad ibn Khadruya's soul begged to go to battle. He tested it with fasting, night prayer, and solitude, and it accepted all. At last it confessed: "Every day you strike me with the sword of struggle and you kill me a thousand times, but the people don't know anything about it" [360]. The ambush was eyeservice.
Four deaths (8:50). Curse for unbelievers, remorse for the disobedient, "the death of the gift and generosity" for the faithful, and contemplation for the prophets [361 to 363], for "what veils the person of faith from the Real is his soul, and death is the lifting of the veil" [362].
Chapter 30. Admiration and the Sale (Surahs 9 and 10)
The ghoul of the road (9:25). At Hunain they admired their numbers. "Self-admiration is the ghoul of the road" [365]. The Pir asks help against two claims: "fancying that I have something of my own, and fancying that I have a rightful due against You" [365]. A poor Companion refused half of 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf's wealth: "The pearl of poverty is too exalted to be sold even for the whole of this world" [366].
Bounty over justice (9:106). "Not everything that is permissible for justice is fitting for bounty, but everything fitting for bounty is permissible for justice" [370].
The sale (9:111). Verified at pp.370 to 373. He is "the seller and the buyer" [370], and "He bought the soul, not the heart," because the heart is an endowment and cannot be delivered, like "Birds in the sky and fish in the sea" [371]. "On the day of buying, He saw the faults and He said that it was permitted" [372]. At the Scales He renames the sinners "the repenters, the worshipers, the praisers" [374].
| Name heard (10:0) | Part addressed | Effect [378] |
|---|---|---|
| God | Body, "the locus of the Trust" | Unsettled |
| All-Merciful | Heart, "the court of love" | Seeking and revelry |
| Ever-Merciful | Spirit, "the center point of passion" | Revelry on the carpet of hope |
Table. The basmala of Surah 10 read on body, heart, and spirit.
Land and sea (10:22). Verified at pp.383 to 384. Land is the road of the Shariah; sea is the Real's pull "without intermediaries": "One attraction of the Real is equivalent to all the deeds of jinn and men" [383]. Land and sea are also contraction and expansion. In expansion Shibli said, "Where are the heavens and the earth that I may carry them on a hair of my eyelid!"; in awe the same people pray, "take my hand, O guide of those bewildered in Thee!" [384].
Companions and lords of companionship (10:26). "The most beautiful, blessedness, and nearness belong to the folk of the Garden. Increase, proximity, and companionship belong to the folk of recognition" [386]. Gazing climbs from artisanry to attributes to Essence: "I seek refuge in Thee from Thee" [387]. Listening has three grades: nature, state, and the Real [388].
The toothache (10:58). A renunciant of seventy years traded his worship for healing now; God said, "All of your worship fell before that one toothache. What remains now but My bounty and mercy?" [390]. Shibli, made ill, was cured when the Christian physician cut off his sash; the caliph said, "I did not know I was sending someone ill to a physician" [390].
Part X. Hud, Joseph, Thunder, Abraham (Surahs 11 to 14)
Surahs 11 to 14 run 35 pages [395 to 429]. At the center is Joseph, "the tale of the passionate and the object of passion, the talk of separation and union" [402], framed by Noah's ship, the scum on the flood, and Abraham's prayer against idols.
Chapter 31. The Bottomless Road (Surah 11)
Three letters (11:1). Alif makes the creatures "familiar" with blessings, Lam "blames" them for their failings, Ra is "kind" to them [395]. The road has no floor: the travelers are like someone in "a bottomless well. The more he goes down in the well, the more it becomes bottomless" [395].
Pure and impure (11:12). Belonging, not substance, decides purity: "When someone is not Mine, even if he is purity itself, consider him defiled... When someone is Mine, even if he is impurity itself, count him as pure, whether he be a man or a dog" [396]. The dog of the Cave "will be with them in paradise" [396].
Two loaves (11:15). Dhu'l-Qarnayn demanded a queen's kingdom. She served him gold and pearls, and when he asked for food she said, "your portion is no more than two loafs of bread. Everything else is bane and torment" [397].
Servanthood in two traits (11:23). "The reality of servanthood is two traits: you do what He approves and you approve of what He does" [399]. Nimrod fired one arrow of denial; "You, while being a Muslim, fire several arrows of denial and protest at the face of the decrees of predetermination every day" [399].
| Grade (11:24) | Basis | Belongs to [399] |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge of certainty | Demonstration | The faithful |
| Eye of certainty | Clarity | The prophets |
| Truth of certainty | Face-to-face vision | Mustafa |
Table. Three certainties, matched to signs in the horizons, the Qur'an, and the Lord Himself.
The inner ship (11:37). Noah built of teak; the secret core was told to cross "the ocean of the soul" in "a ship of self-purification in three levels: one fear, the second hope, and the third approval" [400]. The Pir: "it was not that we had worth, and then You chose us, nor that we were worthless and then You chose wrongly. Rather, You gave us worth from Yourself when You chose us" [400].
Chapter 32. Joseph and the Mirror (Surah 12)
Showing, not seeing (12:20). The brothers saw only outward beauty and sold him for twenty dirhams; the governor was shown a trace of the inward and said, "Give him generous lodging." So "it is showing that does the job, not seeing" [404]. Joseph once admired himself in a mirror and asked his price; "his price was twenty dirhams" [404]. The Pir: "Do not look at yourself, for self-seeing has no worth!" [404].
Causes (12:43). A dream began his trial and a dream ended it. "Not seeing the cause is ignorance, but staying with the cause is associationism. Pass beyond the cause and reach the Causer" [405].
Gratitude and apology (12:53). "Whenever he looks at the Real, he should see blessings... Whenever he looks at himself, he should see sin" [406]. The Pir: "when I look at myself, I ask who is more miserable than I. When I look at You, I ask who is greater than I" [406].
| Soul (12:53) | How it works | Remedy or sign [407 to 409] |
|---|---|---|
| Commanding | Open appetite; "the attributes of a predator" | The greater struggle |
| Deceiving | Offers a better act (hajj, war) to scatter togetherness | A pir who knows the ambushes |
| Sorcerous | Urges a concession, then pride: "you are better than the wine-drinking, ungodly man" | Abu Bakr: "Dismiss me, for I am not the best of you" |
| Serene | The soul of prophets and friends | Held only by protection and kind favor |
Table. Four levels of the soul. Khawass fought his soul forty years over bread and yoghurt [408].
Three stages (12:76). "The Shariah is servanthood, the Tariqah is selflessness, and the Haqiqah is freedom in the midst of both" [410]. Joseph was made a slave, a prisoner, and an exile so that as king he would know each of them [409].
Two kiblahs (12:84). God rebuked Jacob: "You grieve so much for him, but you do not grieve for what you are missing of Me" [411]. When he fell silent, Gabriel was sent to remind him: "were he dead, I would resurrect him because of the beauty of your loyalty" [411]. The deeper reading: Jacob saw the Real in Joseph, so "he had lost his mirror. He did not weep for the mirror itself, but for his heart's intimate" [413].
Chapter 33. Scum and Effacement (Surahs 13 and 14)
Willing prostration (13:15). Abu Yazid heard in a dream: "Our storehouses are full of worship. Approach Us with brokenness and abasement" [418]. The Pir: "The tawhid of the hearts of the faithful is in the measure of the heart's pain" [418].
The scum on the flood (13:17). Revelation falls on hearts "in their measure." Reflection that seeks more than inspiration throws up scum "like the error being cast by Satan," and remembrance clears it [419]. Lights rise in order, certainty, knowledge, recognition, contemplation, togetherness, and "beyond all of these, stands the light of tawhid" [420].
Too narrow to fly (13:28). In a session of listening Bu'l-Fadl Sarakhsi climbed a wall and invited Luqman to fly. Luqman: "Do not be unmanly! Creation is a narrow playing field. It is not fitting for us to fly" [421].
Effacing and affirming (13:39). The highway has three things: "In submission be fearful, in the Sunnah be hopeful, and in self-purification be a lover" [421]. God erases eye-service and writes certainty, erases avarice and writes contentment [422]. The Pir: "Yours kept on increasing and mine decreasing until at last there remained only what there was at first" [422].
Solomon's mantle (14:2). On his throne Solomon thought no one surpassed him; the wind took his mantle. "Return to your heart!" it said [424].
The recognizer is always looking toward the Beginningless" [426]. Abu Yazid: "I am a captive of face-to-face vision, how can I be content with reports?!" [426].
Idols (14:35). "Whenever something holds you back from the Real, that is your idol" [428], including worship itself. When Abraham said of the Kaabah "accept it from us," he was rebuked for laying a favor on God [429].
Part XI. From the Storehouses to the Mercy (Surahs 15 to 21)
Surahs 15 to 21 run about 90 pages [430 to 519]. The thread is finding: the night journey, the Cave, Moses and Khidr, the burning bush, Adam's fall reread as cooking, and Jonah in the dark. "For a long time I was seeking Him and finding myself. Now I seek myself and find Him" [479].
Chapter 34. Storehouses and Oceans (Surahs 15 and 16)
The storehouses (15:21). The treasuries God names are "the hearts of the recognizers" [430 to 431]. Hearts live by contemplation and souls die by struggle, for "The soul is the veil of the heart" [432].
Learned, practiced, found (16:43). "The Shariah is to be learned, the Tariqah is to be practiced, and the Haqiqah is to be found" [438]: the first from a teacher, the second from a pir, the third from Himself. The same order governs tawhid: "In all things expression is easy but finding is difficult. In tawhid finding is easy but expression is difficult" [439].
| Ocean (16:14) | Ship [437] |
|---|---|
| Trust | Detachment |
| Approval | Security |
| Contentment | Renunciation |
| Remembrance | Wakefulness |
| Tawhid | Togetherness |
Table. Five oceans, each crossed in its own ship.
Distance inside nearness (16:41). Ayaz is told there are "four thousand way stations between obeying the sultan's command and seclusion with him" [437 to 438]. Milk comes clean from between feces and blood (16:66), and the Pir, finding grace he never asked for, says: "You wanted—it was not I who wanted" [440].
Self-admiration (16:83). Better to sleep all night and wake broken than to pray all night and wake pleased: "If I sleep all night and in the morning feel broken and fearful..." [441].
Chapter 35. The Night and the Book (Surah 17)
Snatched and traveler (17:1). Moses came as a traveler; Muhammad was snatched away. Moses asked to see; to Muhammad God descended, and "the meaning of love is nothing other than conformity" [449 to 450]. Only "the utmost gentleness" lets anyone endure "utmost awe" [451].
The two books (17:13). Each soul writes its own book, the tongue its pen and the limbs its paper, and God writes a second book of mercy whose first line is the basmala [454 to 455]. 'Umar: "Take an accounting of yourselves before you are brought to account" [455].
Three servanthoods (17:23). Seeing favor (Abraham), striving in service (Muhammad), fear of the end (Joseph) [456]. Abu Bakr: there is no path to Him "save the incapacity to recognize Him" [458].
Rivulet and ocean (17:70). Adam is honored to be told, "confide your secrets in Me" [460]. The rivulet of Remember Me runs into the ocean of I will remember you, until "he finds seeking from finding" [461]. And at the heart of it: "You keep on returning to sins, and I keep on returning to forgiveness" [462].
Chapter 36. The Cave and the Furnace (Surah 18)
Kings in tatters (18:7). The friends are the earth's adornment, "kings in tatters", and the cave is the grave made spacious [467 to 468].
The dog at the door (18:18). A dog that took a few steps behind the sleepers is read in the Qur'an until the end of time, while Balaam, who knew the greatest name, was called a dog and driven off. So "proximity is because of His caressing, not because of service. Distance is because of His degrading, not because of disobedience" [471].
Remembrance past remembering (18:24). Junayd: true remembrance is when "the tongue becomes all heart, the heart becomes all secret core" [474]. The Shariah is not dropped at the summit: the sleepers sent out for the purest food [472].
| Khidr's act (18:71 to 82) | Reading [476 to 477] |
|---|---|
| Breaking the ship | Human nature spoiled outwardly so the king, Satan, will not seize it |
| Killing the boy | Fancies cut down before they ripen into disbelief |
| Repairing the wall | The serene soul kept standing, for treasure lies beneath it |
Table. Khidr was the furnace and Moses the silver: the furnace serves the metal, not the reverse [476].
Whose desire (18:79 to 82). Khidr says "I desired," then "We desired," then "thy Lord desired." Ibn 'Ata hears the inner rebuke: "Who are you that you should have desire?" [477].
Chapter 37. Fire, Throne, and Trial (Surahs 19 to 21)
The arrow (19:39). Man is a frail arrow in the bow of knowledge: "If it goes straight, the laudation and bravo belong to the shooter; if it goes crooked, the criticism and curse belong to the arrow" [483]. And: "Everything can be avoided, but there is no avoiding Me" [483].
Love not caused by dust (19:96). The Pir: "If the cause of love were dust, there is plenty of dust in the world" [485]. Abu Yazid to Darani: "When the wind of solicitude blows, he will reach the way station without trouble" [485]. Kharaqani: "He clings to you—you do not cling to Him" [480].
Throne and with-ness (20:5). Ansari: "My faith comes by hearing, my Shariah comes by reports, my recognition comes by finding" [487]. The Throne is for God-seekers; "And He is with you" is for God-recognizers. "You cannot say that you cannot find, for the Shariah disputes that. Nor can you say that you can find, for the Exaltedness does not approve" [487].
My staff (20:17). When Moses said "my staff," the claim came back at him as a snake: "The men of the road make no claims and ascribe nothing to themselves" [489].
Inside the curtain (20:41). Moses pulled his brother's head and threw down the tablets, and was not rebuked: "When the beloved comes with one sin, his beautiful traits come with a thousand interceders" [492].
Knowledge, command, decree (20:84). "Knowledge is all limpidness, the command is all trial, the decree is all subsistence" [497]. Moses hurried ahead of his people and was told: "when you seek Me, seek Me in their hearts" [496].
Go-betweens (20:105). "Go-betweens are useful as long as the friend has not reached the friend" [498]. At the Lote Tree Gabriel stopped: "Now I have become a veil" [498].
Adam cooked (20:121). The seed of love was sown in Adam, nurtured by forgetting, cut by choosing, and cooked "in the oven" of "And Adam disobeyed" [499]. Exile prepares return, as Mecca's exile prepared the Conquest [500]. Once love is placed in him he is no longer khāk, dust, but pāk, pure [499].
Rebuke and apology (20:131). Ibn 'Ata preferred the rich man's rebuke at the reckoning, since it is still talk with the Friend; Junayd replied that God apologizes to the poor, and "both friend and enemy are rebuked, but apology is only for friends" [503].
| Sign (21:33) | Type | Gaze [509] |
|---|---|---|
| Sun, neither waxes nor wanes | Possessor of tawhid, "lord of pain" | The Causer |
| Moon, waxes and wanes | Possessor of knowledge, "lord of deeds" | Secondary causes |
Haste and hurry (21:37). "Haste is to go forth to a work before its moment, and hurry is to rush to a work that is commanded at the beginning of its moment" [510].
Understanding (21:79). "Commentary without a master is useless, interpretation without exertion is incorrect, and the possessor of understanding has no teacher other than the Real" [512].
Jonah's formula (21:87). A prayer that joins tawhid, incomparability, and admitting one's sin is answered [514]. A bedouin: "you will find someone other than me to chastise, but I will find no one other than You to have mercy on me" [516]. God's last word to the yearners: "My yearning for them is more than their yearning for Me" [517].
Part XII. From the Quaking to the Face (Surahs 22 to 28)
Surahs 22 to 28 run about 67 pages [520 to 586]. The thread is light and claim: Abraham's House emptied of its builder, the slander against 'A'isha read as jealousy, the Light Verse, the servants of the All-Merciful, and Moses at the well of Midian. "Everyone is thirsty from not finding water, but I from being quenched" [584].
Chapter 38. Need and the Pure House (Surahs 22 and 23)
Between severity and gentleness (22:1). "Be wary" is severity, "your Lord" is gentleness, and the servant is kept between them to live in fear and hope. The Pir: "O God, when I look at myself, I ask who is more miserable than I. When I look at You, I ask who is greater than I" [520].
The body as cosmos (22:5). Seven parts like seven spheres, twelve openings like twelve constellations, bones like mountains, weeping like rain, old age like winter [521 to 522]. Hence "you will find everything in the Adamite, but you will not find the Adamite in anything" [522].
Need against claim (22:24). Sahl Tustari: "I looked at this affair and saw no path closer to God than need, and no veil thicker than making claims" [523]. Iblis said "I am better"; Adam said "we have wronged ourselves."
Do not look at what you built (22:26). Ibn 'Ata reads "Associate nothing with Me" as "Do not have any regard for the House and do not look at the fact that you built it" [524]. The servant has two eyes: one for his own blights, one for God's generosity. David asks how to purify the house of the heart: "Strike the fire of love in it so that everything that does not have My lineage may burn away" [525].
Power held by wisdom (22:63 to 74). "He is the powerful who does whatever He wants. And He is the wise who does not do whatever He can" [525]. Mercy and wisdom hold back the reins of exaltedness; without these interceders everything would become nothing [526].
| Struggle (22:78) | Form [527 to 528] |
|---|---|
| Soul | No rest from service, no hunting for concessions |
| Heart | No access for odious thoughts |
| Possessions | Generosity (some), munificence (most), largesse (all) |
Table. Three struggles; Abu Bakr's largesse left "God and His Messenger."
Seven veils (23:17). Intellect, knowledge, heart, soul, sense perception, desire, will. "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" [530]. Sahl: "Fear is masculine, hope is feminine, and from the two are born the realities of faith" [530].
Two springs (23:19). "If the springtime of the common people has raining clouds, the springtime of the elect has weeping eyes" [531]. A dervish, told to lift his head and see the roses: "O chevalier, hang down your head to see the heart" [531].
Trial seeks the friends (23:55). Pharaoh got four hundred years of ease and could not have bought one hour of Moses' pain [532]. The two-rak'a reciter who wants the world to talk of his prayer is reminded of Balaam [533]. Recognition is "built on love": "Wherever there is love, there is recognition" [536]. Shibli's dream after Hallaj's death: "It is fine for a green-grocer to call out about his vegetables, but absurd for a jeweler to call out about a night-brightening pearl" [537].
Chapter 39. Light upon Light (Surah 24)
Morning needs no lamp (24:1). Asked for proof of God, a dervish said, "Morning takes away the need for a lamp" [538]. "The whole cosmos is fragrant herbs, it needs someone to smell" [538].
Jealousy (24:11). God is jealous over hearts: when two elect hearts rest in each other, He pulls each back to Himself [540]. Adam turned to paradise, Abraham to Ishmael, Muhammad to 'A'isha, and "Two friendships cannot fit into one heart" [541]. Even the Prophet's perspicacity was shut until the trial ran out. Exonerated, 'A'isha said: "I will praise God, who revealed my innocence" [542].
| Group | "Fornication" [538 to 539] | Repentance [545] |
|---|---|---|
| Common | The act | From disobedience to obedience |
| Elect | The gaze | From seeing obedience to seeing success-giving |
| Elect of elect | Thoughts of anything less than the Real | From success-giving to the Success-Giver |
Table. One command, three depths.
What light is (24:35). "In reality light is that which illuminates other than itself" [546]. Mirrors and jewels are bright but not light. Sun and moon will be rolled up; "the heart's sun never disappears" [547]. Past the stations, "the divine attraction joins with him and the lights take each others' hands" until servanthood disappears in lordhood [547]. A captive Muslim is recognized by a bishop "by the light of your faith and your tawhid" [549].
Not trade but diversion (24:37). The verse does not forbid commerce: "He does not say that they do not trade and they do not buy" [551]. Bishr's dream of 'Ali: the rich kind to the poor is beautiful, the poor proud toward the rich by trust is more beautiful [551].
Three vicegerents (24:55). Jurists see all is from Him, recognizers see all is in Him, tawhid-voicers see all is He [556]. "One breath as His companion is better than a thousand years of living in service" [556]. Junayd to Shibli, reciting Qur'an: "Don't you know that wherever God is, no one can speak?" [556].
Chapter 40. Servants, Not Wage-Earners (Surahs 25 to 27)
Scattered dust (25:23). A pir called this the sweetest verse: when God scatters our tainted deeds, "He will act toward us with bounty alone" [558]. The shadow (25:45). Moses asked to see; Muhammad was asked "Dost thou not see thy Lord?" [559]. Four doors (beautiful doing, blessings, obedience, love) closed by the servant are reopened with four keys [560 to 561]. Hu. The letter h with breath at rest, a name from "the midst of the spirit," not the lips [561].
Servants of the All-Merciful (25:63). "You see a hundred thousand 'Abd al-Rahmans... but you do not see one 'Abdallah" [563]. Bu 'Ali Siyah: choose two cycles of prayer over paradise, "for paradise is your portion, but the prayer is service to Him" [564]. Khidr parted from Moses when wages came up: "wages are not a condition of companionship" [564].
Gentle invitation (26:106). The prophets said "Will you not be godwary?" not "Be wary," for the question carries "a gentleness and benevolence that will cling to the listener's heart" [571]. Clothing: submission falls and rises, faith seldom falls, godwariness "lives happy, dies happy, and rises up happy," love "lives unsettled, dies yearning, and rises up drunk" [571].
With me, with us (26:62). Moses said "with me is my Lord," looking from himself to the Real; Muhammad said "God is with us," looking from the Real to himself [568 to 569]. The wage-earner is paid; "The recognizer is indeed a guest" [573].
Knowledge, eye, truth (27:15). "The knowledge of the Haqiqah is recognition, the eye of the Haqiqah is finding, and the truth of the Haqiqah is annihilation" [576]. Between recognizing and finding "are more than a thousand valleys" [576]. Means (repentance, patience, renunciation) end; goals (love, approval, praise) last into paradise [576].
Barriers inside (27:61). Between fear and hope God sets "the barrier of a beautiful opinion," between doubt and certainty recognition, between avarice and contentment godwariness [579]. Fear without knowledge is the Kharijites', hope without knowledge the Murji'a's [579]. The road: showing, traveling, being pulled [580].
Chapter 41. Midian and the Face (Surah 28)
Cooked by trial (28:22). Before the robe of prophethood Moses is put "in the bend of trial's polo stick" [582]. Shu'ayb wept blind three times, "not weeping in fear of hell or in hope of paradise" but in yearning, and was given Moses as servant for ten years [582]. Kharraz at Arafat, about to ask: "You want something from Me after finding Me?" [581].
Part XIII. From the Spider to the Garden's Occupation (Surahs 29 to 36)
Surahs 29 to 36 run about 50 pages [587 to 637]. The thread is trial and the Trust: faith that must be tested, states that turn like seasons, Adam taking up what heaven refused, and three ranks of a chosen community. "The burden of the Trust of the Generous is carried by aspiration, not strength" [612].
Chapter 42. Trial and Turning States (Surahs 29 and 30)
No faith without trial (29:2). "The worth of every man lies in his trial" [587]. Even the Prophet's smallest ease drew rebuke: cross-legged, "Sit like a servant!" [587]. The cup of venom is handed over with a curtain lifted: "drink this venom while contemplating My beauty!" [587].
Three eyes (29:5). "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" [588]. "Everyone will see Him in the measure of his own recognition" [588].
Originating and returning (29:19). Inwardly the verse is "the changing of the moments and the recurrence of states": contraction and expansion, awe and intimacy, intoxication and sobriety [589]. Shibli in expansion would carry the heavens on an eyelash; in contraction, "My abasement suspends the abasement of the Jews" [589]. The Pir: "Wash me of me so that I may disappear from myself and You remain" [590].
Mercy's influence (29:23). Mercy and wrath are both eternal attributes, so neither can be "more" or "before"; the hadith means "The influence of My mercy overtakes the influence of My wrath" [591]. The despairing idolater is the spider: no foundation, walls, or roof [591].
Creation and command (30:4). "The world of the creation comes to an end, but the world of the command has no end" [592]. Passage takes time, like the embryo's stages: "Just as you must linger in coming, so also you must linger in leaving" [592]. David after his slip: "what a sweet pain this is!" [593].
Three springs (30:50). The world's spring, the next world's spring, and "a hidden springtime which, if you have it, you yourself know" [596]. The rose falls and the nightingale mourns, but "The heart of the faithful servant will never die" [596].
Chapter 43. Wisdom, Clay, and the Trust (Surahs 31 to 33)
Wisdom (31:12). "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" [597]. Hallaj: "Wisdom is an arrow, and the hearts of the faithful are its targets" [597]. The nomad with little prayer but love is told, "A man will be with the one he loves" [598].
Made of clay (32:7). "His worth is because of nurture, not dust" [600]. Angels are servants only; "the Adamites are both servants and friends" [600]. Adam refuses the angel of death: "you did not put it there that you should take it away" [601].
The thousand kinds (33:11). Shown this world, most stay with it; of the rest, most stay with paradise; of the rest, most turn back at the street of trial. The last group: "It is enough good fortune for us that we carry grief for You" [603]. The Pir: "The human gaze is that you look at yourself. The All-Merciful gaze is that the Real looks at you" [603 to 604].
| Phrase | Defilement negated / adornment affirmed [610] |
|---|---|
| No god | Niggardliness, eye-service, craving |
| but God | Generosity, trust, contentment |
Table. The testimony as a two-step purge.
Not a father (33:40). On the Day all fathers flee their children; the Prophet was not called father "lest on that day he flee from them and not intercede for them," and because a father's testimony against his son is not accepted [606]. Proper words (33:70). "Tawhid is not that you say that He is one. True tawhid is that you be one for Him" [610].
Chapter 44. Wings for Hands (Surahs 34 and 35)
What is given up returns (34:12). Solomon cut down his horses and got the wind; Ja'far lost both hands and got two wings [613 to 614]. "No one has ever abandoned something for God without being given something better in return" [613]. Kharaqani: "It is twenty years since they brought my shroud from heaven" [615].
Two out of two (34:49). From enmity and greed came 'Umar's submission; from two impurities, milk; from disobedience and shortfall, forgiveness [617 to 618]. Asked who kept him in the mosque, a serving boy said, "The same one who won't let you come in" [617].
Praise worthy of Him (35:1). God praised Himself first, since human praise is mixed with requests; "Then I will take your metaphor and through My generosity make it accord with the Haqiqah" [619].
| Ocean of destruction [622] | Shore | Ocean of salvation [622 to 623] | Shore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avarice | Love of this world | Fear | Security |
| Eye-service | Hypocrisy | Hope | Bestowal |
| Persistence in sin | Wretchedness | Renunciation | Proximity |
| Heedlessness | Remorse | Recognition | Intimacy |
| Despair | Unbelief | Tawhid | Contemplation |
Table. Ten ships (35:12).
Three inheritors (35:32). Wrongdoer, moderate, preceder, all chosen, the wrongdoer named first "so that the wrongdoers would not be ashamed" [626]. "If you are a wrongdoer, apologizing is enough. If you are moderate, trying is enough. If you are a preceder, aiming is enough" [627]. All enter Eden together, "not because of worthiness, but because of bounty" [628].
Chapter 45. Yasin (Surah 36)
Exalted and merciful (36:5). "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" [632]. Two heedless (36:6). The heedless of religion, and the admirable heedless, absent from livelihood in the unveiling of Unity [632]. "Tearing up a thousand bronze fortresses from the ground is easier than bringing a man of every door back to one door" [633].
Sun and moon (36:39). The moon lost its light to self-admiration and regains it each month as it nears its prostration [635]. The sun is the servant of stability; the moon the servant of variegation [635]. Listening (36:55). The spirit listens "because it is solitary for the Solitary" [636]; the elect, sent to paradise, answer: "What we want is right here now" [637].
Part XIV. Dust, Fire, and the Unneedy (Surahs 37 to 47)
Surahs 37 to 47 run about 70 pages [638 to 706]. They return again and again to one comparison: angels have service, and Adam's children have service plus love. Abraham's sacrifice, Iblis's argument from fire, the call "O My servants," and the long Ha Mim sequence all turn on the claim that the human worth is given, not earned. "When He gives, He gives because of His own generosity, not because of your worthiness" [684].
Chapter 46. Rows of Angels and the Sacrifice (Surah 37)
Two qiblas of stone (37:1). The angels circle the Inhabited House, and Gabriel has watched them for "fifty thousand years" without seeing the same one twice [638]. Maybudi's lover finds the parallel almost comic: heaven and earth both face a stone. "O He whose face is my hajj and my umrah, the people make their hajj to dust and stones" [639].
Questioned by rebuke (37:24). Some are questioned for punishment, some only in reproach. Pharaoh condemns himself: asked about a slave who rises against his master, he rules that the slave "be drowned in water so that others may take heed of him," and God tells Gabriel to "remember this fatwa" [640]. The sinner who loves is questioned in private, under a wing. Abu 'Uthman Hiri sums up the youth who cannot give up his faults: "Truthful in love for Him, falling short in His rightfully due!" [640]. The rule that follows is one of the book's plainest: "truthfulness in love makes up for shortcoming in deeds, but full exertion in deeds does not make up for shortcoming in love" [640].
Why slips are allowed. The slip produces poverty and obedience produces boasting, so the servant "must always be traveling between poverty and boasting" [641]. The heart has neither the Throne's height nor the sky's ornament; "all it has is brokenness and poverty" [642].
| Prophet | Verse form [643] | Station |
|---|---|---|
| Abraham | "Surely I am going to my Lord" (his words) | Dispersion |
| Moses | "Moses came to Our appointed time" (his attribute) | Togetherness |
| Muhammad | "Who took His servant by night" (God's attribute) | Togetherness of togetherness |
Table. Three journeys (37:99). Wasiti adds that Abraham went from creation to the Real by evidence, Muhammad came from the Real to creation [643].
The sacrifice (37:102). Abraham's heart leaned toward Ishmael, and the rebuke came that he had not been saved from Azar's idols in order to make a new one. "Any picture that holds you back from the Friend—let it be ugly or beautiful" [644]. Father and son argue over who is more generous; God closes the contest: "I will take the unslain as slain, and I will send a sacrifice unasked for" [645].
Jonah and the potter (37:139). The fish's belly was Jonah's trial outwardly and his "place of seclusion" inwardly, as the fire was Abraham's and the cave Abu Bakr's [645 to 646]. When Jonah pities a potter ordered to smash a year's work, God answers: "Had you created them, you would have had mercy on them" [646]. The mercy is stated as a three-part contract: "My servant, if you obey, acceptance is on Me. If you ask, bestowal is on Me. If you sin, pardon is on Me" [647].
Chapter 47. Sad: Soul, Pen, and Dust (Surah 38)
Self-Sufficient (38:1). Sad opens the name samad. Kharaqani: "He cut up the hearts of the sincerely truthful and turned their livers to water through waiting, but He gave Himself to no one" [649]. Hence the practical rule: "A created thing seeking aid from a created thing is like a prisoner seeking aid from a prisoner" [650].
The donkey mill. 'Abdallah Busti, on foot to Mecca, craved fish in Kufa. He hired himself out for a day in place of the mill donkey, bought the fish with the dirham, and told his soul, "For every wish you have, you must work one day in a donkey mill" [651]. The lesson is not starvation but the exposure of incapacity: "The incapacity to perceive is perception" [651].
Solomon's kingdom (38:35). He asked to be king over his own soul [651]. Maybudi defines "this world" functionally: whatever holds you back from God. Self-admiration with no bread for tonight is "this world"; ruling East and West while occupied with God is not [652]. "The soul is Satan's gazing place, the heart the All-Merciful's gazing place" [652].
Adam and Iblis (38:71 to 76). Outwardly one slipped and one refused, but "The capital of rejection and of acceptance, however, did not arise from their acts. It arose from the flow of the Pen" [653]. Iblis's syllogism fails on its own terms: "fire is the cause of separation and dust the cause of union" [654], and "When dust becomes wet, it accepts imprints. When fire shoots up, it burns all the imprints" [654]. A dervish asks what it would matter if there were no dust; Abu Yazid shouts, "Were there no dust, the breast would have no burning!" [654].
Chapter 48. The Crowds (Surah 39)
Servant, not king (39:2). Offered prophet-king or prophet-servant, Muhammad chose servanthood so as to "boast of Your kingship" rather than his own [656]. Self-purification is "One of My secrets that I deposit in the hearts of those whom I love among My servants" [657]. "Friendship for the Real and scattered desires do not come together in one heart" [657].
Why humans (39:6). Angels have "straight and orderly work because there was no talk of love with them" [657 to 658]. The disorder of human life, contraction and expansion, sorrow and joy, comes "because a whiff of love's rose reached their nostrils" [658]. To Abu Yazid's complaint of endless thirst the answer is blunt: "they don't sell meat without liver to this group" [658].
| Curtain of the heart (39:22) [660 to 661] | Lodges | God's gaze makes it pure of |
|---|---|---|
| Breast | Covenant of submission | Caprice and innovation |
| Heart | Light of faith | Self-admiration, envy, pride, greed |
| Mindful heart | Contemplation | Attachments and created things |
| Smitten heart | Saddle-bags of love | Water and clay: "the lover steps into the street of annihilation" |
Table. Four curtains. At the end, "Seeking ceases to be in the Found, recognition ceases to be in the Recognized, and friendship ceases to be in the Friend" [661].
Three knowledges (39:9). "Reported knowledge is heard by ears, inspired knowledge is heard by hearts, and knowledge of the Unseen is heard by spirits" [660]. Asked where his knowledge came from, Junayd answered, "If it were 'from where,' would you have asked?" [660]. The Pir: "How should I have known that reward is a freckle on the face of friendship?" [660].
Hardness of heart. It rises from disobedience, which rises from appetite, which rises from a full stomach [662]. Darani lists six results of eating one's fill, ending with the man who, while others head to the mosque, "will be looking for the privy" [662].
Truthfulness (39:33). A pir's definition: "You do what you say, you have what you show, and you are whence you call out" [663]. Abu Yazid, offered the empire in a thousand standing places: "I desire not to desire." "You are My servant in truth" [663].
Do not despair (39:53). God calls the immoderate "My servants," keeping the name and the curtain both [665 to 666]. To Moses' objection that God wills disobedience yet hates it: "that is the foundation of My pardon... If no one is disobedient, it will go to waste" [666]. The Persian emperor who saw a chamberlain pocket a gold goblet and said nothing later asked of his fine clothes, "Is this from that?" "This and a hundred times more are from that" [666].
Chapter 49. The Ha Mim Surahs (Surahs 40 to 46)
Forgiveness before repentance (40:3). "Forgiver of sins" precedes "Accepter of repentance" so that people will know "just as I forgive through repentance, so also I forgive without repentance"; "Our forgiveness has no cause" [670]. "Intense in punishment" is changeable; the attributes of forgiveness are not [670]. Shibli, boasting one day and broken the next, explained: "when an owl has never seen a peacock, it brags about beauty. But an owl is an owl, and a peacock a peacock" [671].
Form and attributes (40:15). The nomad who asks about paradise hears of rivers and fowl; the man of attributes hears of "what no eye has seen" [672]. Vision itself will be "a bestowal, not as is worthy" [673]. The cosmos is household staff: "The sun is your cook, the moon is your candle, the stars are your guideposts, heaven your roof, earth your carpet" [674]. When the guest leaves, the carpet is rolled up. Daqqaq: "your daily provision has no escape from you" [675].
Two words (41:30). The Pir: "Companionship with the Real is two words: response and going straight." Response is Shariah, going straight Haqiqah, and "One can grasp a thousand years of the Shariah in an hour, but one cannot grasp an hour of the Haqiqah in a thousand years" [679]. Rites will be abrogated in paradise, but never "the pact of love and the covenant of recognition" [679].
The child in the mud (41:31). Abu Yazid watched a mother throw herself into black mud to lift her child: "Tenderness came and took away the defilement. Love came and took away the disobedience. Solicitude came and took away the sin" [681]. God says of humans to the angels: "Though you see their outward disloyalty, I see their inward loyalty" [680].
Day and night (41:37). "By day they should gaze upon the artifacts, by night contemplate the beauty of the Artisan" [682]. The clouded moon teaches that "sometimes disobedience conceals recognition, but it never nullifies it" [682]. The two prostrations of prayer are apology and gratitude, or the Covenant and the vision [682 to 683]. Religion rests on "showing on the part of the Real" and "traveling on the part of the servant" [683].
Throne and mote (42:11). "In terms of power, the Throne is like a dust mote, and in terms of wisdom, the dust mote like a Throne" [685]. "Nothing is as His likeness" corrects two errors at once, those who deny attributes and those who liken them: "He does not say, 'Nothing is there,' for attributes are there" [686].
Gentleness and severity (42:19). God calls the servant ignorant when he sins so as to pardon him, knowing when he testifies so as to accept him, weak when he falls short [687]. "His gentleness built the Kaabah and mosques, His severity built churches and idol-temples" [687]. The muezzin of many years who followed a Christian woman and fell from her roof is the warning that the end is unknown [688].
Jealousy and beauty (42:26). "Before the vision of others the exaltedness of jealousy requires mask upon mask, but the perfection of beauty requires selfdisclosure upon self-disclosure!" [688]. Shibli first prayed that all be raised blind so only he would see, then that he himself be raised blind; "the second step is more complete" [689]. Rain after despair (42:28). "The road to the Friend is a circle. It comes from Him and goes back to Him" [690].
Every mosque has its church (43:6). "Wherever there is a mosque, He builds a church in front of it" [691]. If God keeps speaking to the immoderate, the Pir asks, "what will You be like with the beautiful doing friend?" [691].
| Group | Worship from | Portion (43:71) [694 to 695] |
|---|---|---|
| Renunciants, worshipers, wage-earners | Fear and hope | Platters and cups of gold |
| Recognizers, yearners | Affection and love | "Whatever the souls hunger for," the vision |
Table. Two paradises. Jesus to the fearful: "You fear a created thing, and you hope for a created thing!" [695].
Signs and states (45:3 to 5). Power yields fear, gentleness hope, blessings gratitude [699]. In unveiling, the servant sees only the Beneficent: "If I distinguish between Your doing good or bad, I will be busy with the distinction, not You" [699]. 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz told his son to sell a costly ring-stone, feed a thousand, and engrave silver with "May God have mercy on the man who knows his own worth!" [701].
Shells within shells (46:2). Angels are birds with nests; humans are oysters. "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" [703]. Being a servant (46:3). "Doing servanthood is easy work, but being a servant is a tremendous work"; Iblis did the first for seventy thousand years [704]. Bu 'Ali Siyah: choose two cycles of prayer over paradise, "for paradise is your portion, but the prayer is His rightful due" [704]. Patience is "Swallowing down trial without making claims" [705].
Part XV. Opening, Nearness, and the Two Oceans (Surahs 48 to 114)
The last stretch of the commentary covers 67 surahs in about 130 pages [707 to 838]. The entries get shorter, but the themes tighten. God alone may say "We," the human being carries two oceans inside a body of clay, and Muhammad's ascent is the model of nearness for everyone else. "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" [734].
Chapter 50. Who May Say "We" (Surahs 48 to 50)
The royal "We" (48:1). Surah 48 opens with "Surely We," and Maybudi turns the grammar into a warning. Iblis said "I am better," Pharaoh claimed Egypt, Korah claimed his knowledge, and even the angels said "We glorify." Each was humbled "so that the world's folk would know that other than We, no one can say 'I' or 'We,' for We are the Lord" [707].
Brotherhood (49:10). The faithful are siblings by "the lineage of the religion and godwariness, not the lineage of water and clay" [708]. If blood counted, Abu Lahab and Abu Jahl would share in it. Dhu'l-Nun gives three marks of a companion: one "who does not own, who does not censure any state of yours, and who does not change when you change" [708]. The diagnosis behind the first mark is short and social: "Wherever there is antagonism in the world, it rises up from your-ness and my-ness" [708]. The third mark points past people altogether, since only the Real never changes [709].
The white spot. A husband in love never saw a white spot in his wife's eye. When his passion cooled he asked when it had appeared. "The moment your perfect passion diminished" [709]. The Prophet's saying supplies the rule: "Love for a thing makes you blind and deaf" [709]. Love, Maybudi adds, has its own law: "In the outward Shariah, all is gentleness, benevolence, blessing, and caressing. In the Shariah of love, all is severity, harshness, killing, and spilling blood" [710].
Four elements, four words (50:0). Wind, fire, water, and dust each had a destructive era: Noah's flood, Hud's wind, Korah swallowed by earth, Jonah's fire. The basmala tamed them, one word per element, "because the era of justice had passed and the era of bounty had arrived" [712 to 713]. Hence this community's privilege: "All the Shariahs have abrogation, but your Shariah has no abrogation" [713].
| Word of the basmala [712] | Element | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Wind | A tie placed on it; it put aside malice |
| God | Fire | A brand on its tongue; it calmed its sparks |
| All-Merciful | Water | A trace of mercy; it repented of rebellion |
| Ever-Merciful | Dust | A breeze of clemency; it stopped quaking |
Table. The basmala and the elements (50:0). The cosmology serves a historical claim: the age of punishment gave way to the age of mercy [713].
Mount Qaf (50:1). The mountain that rings the world is read as the limit around the heart. Whoever tries to step beyond the heart is stopped: "Where are you going? I am right here with you. 'I am with those whose hearts are broken for Me'" [714]. The Pir's response shows the strain of the position: "O God, if I have, why don't I catch a scent? And if I don't, to whom shall I voice this longing?" [714].
Two nearnesses (50:16). God is near all things "through knowledge and power," and near the elect "through the characteristics of kindness" [715]. The servant's nearness starts with faith and ends with beautiful doing: "Beautiful doing is that you worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you" [715]. The last stage strips everything away: "attachments cut, causes dissolved, traces nullified" [715].
The two recording angels (50:17 to 18). The angel of good deeds is replaced daily so there will be many witnesses; the angel of bad deeds stays the same so only one will know [716]. The right-hand angel commands, the left follows, and tells it to "Wait seven days before you write it down" [716]. When sins outgrow the curtain of faith, God orders, "then pull down the curtain of My generosity so that it will be concealed" [716].
The heart (50:37). Without the heart, even a hundred prostrations "will be inscribed with nothingness" [720]. Purity brings fear, not ease: the vizier trembles before the sultan while "the stableman has no fear" [720]. Satan himself, Hudhayfa reports, weeps that whenever he approaches a believer's heart, "I am burned by the fire of awesomeness" [720].
Chapter 51. Pairs, Fear, and Hope (Surahs 51 and 52)
Contraction and expansion (51:0). Majesty burns and beauty lights up, so the heart swings between fear and hope [722]. The Pir's instruction: "Gaze on proximity so that intimacy may be born! Gaze on tremendousness so that reverence may increase!" [722].
Everything in pairs (51:49). Created things come in pairs, male and female, power and incapacity, life and death, "so that they would not resemble the attributes of the Creator" [723]. God alone has power without its opposite. The practical conclusion is the verse that follows: "So flee to God!" [723].
The inscribed book and the Inhabited House (52:2, 52:4). The inscribed book is the covenant "My mercy takes precedence over My wrath" [724]. The Inhabited House is the recognizer's heart. Its three marks are "plentiful deeds, being concealed from the people, and a heart always hurrying to the time of devotion" [725].
| Lamp part [725] | Stands for | If missing |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | Fear | Oil without fire gives no illumination |
| Oil | Hope | Fire without oil gives no light |
| Wick | Faith | The lamp is not complete |
| Lamp-holder | Heart | Holds the whole |
Table. The lamp of faith (52:13 to 18). Fear alone or hope alone leads to despair or false security, and "these two are attributes of the unbelievers" [725].
Chapter 52. The Night Journey Returned (Surahs 53 and 54)
The falling star (53:1). Surah 17 told of the ascent; Surah 53 tells of the return. "The Master's going to that way station is not strange, but his resting in this way station is wondrous" [727]. Muhammad's spirit was the first thing to receive "a robe from the command Be!" and everything after "rode on the coattails of his spirit's existence" [727]. He is "a falcon trained on the hand of bounty," sent from togetherness down to the dispersion of preaching [728].
Why trial. Love brings tribulation by design: "Whoever strikes his tent at the top of love's street will have no escape from tasting trial" [728]. The ascent was partly a consolation for the persecuted Companions: "someone will be aware of the sweetness of union once he has tasted the bitter colocynth of separation" [729].
Abu Bakr's assent. Abu Jahl hoped the story of a one-night journey to Jerusalem would break Abu Bakr's loyalty. The answer was four words long: "If he said that, he is telling the truth" [729]. From that day his title was "the sincerely truthful" [730].
| Moses | Muhammad [731] | |
|---|---|---|
| Destination | The Mount | The Carpet of Light |
| Preparation | Forty days of fasting | Taken "still stained by sleep" |
| Request for vision | "Thou shalt not see Me" | Eyes kept from all else; "His mindful heart did not lie" |
| Light on return | Awe; onlookers blinded | Intimacy; onlookers' sight increased |
| Station | Variegation | Stability |
Table. Two ascents (53:9 to 17). Maybudi rejects as unreliable a report that Buraq shied because the Prophet's hand smelled of idols; Buraq shied from joy [730].
What was revealed (53:10). The private revelation is God's complaint about the community: "they seek from Me tomorrow's provision" though He asks no deeds of tomorrow, and "the blessings come from Me and they show gratitude to others" [732]. Still, "I am seeking for pretexts to forgive your community" [732].
Measure (54:49). "The decree has been made, the judgment issued, the work completed" [733]. Hence the advice: "Ask for nothing of Him but Him. Do not serve Him by making a contract. Making a contract is the creed of Iblis" [734]. The reward of the garden lies in the word "at" in "at an Omnipotent King": "The worth of the oyster lies not in the oyster" [734].
Chapter 53. Two Oceans in Clay (Surahs 55 to 57)
The one teacher (55:1 to 4). Teachers are secondary causes; "the teacher in reality is God" [736]. Adam learned names, David chain mail, Jesus medicine, Khidr recognition [736]. The road has three stations and three teachers: "Ask the ulama, mix with the possessors of wisdom, and sit with the great ones" [737].
Clay and heart. Adam's worth lay in the joining, not the root: "The joining is proximity, the root dust" [737]. The angels did not bow to clay but to "the sultan of the heart" [737].
Each day a task (55:29). "The worshipers want everything from Him, the recognizers want Him Himself" [738]. In a dream God told Ahmad ibn Abi'l-Hawari that everyone seeks from Him "except Abu Yazid—he is seeking Me" [738]. The surah's verdict on Adam and Iblis is about prior friendship, not record: "the slip of friends is not held accountable" while "the obedience of enemies is not taken into account" [739].
Beyond paradise (56:24). Paradise offers rivers, trees, and maidens; the friends answer with tawhid, bewilderment, and hidden secrets, until "paradise turns away from them in shame" [741]. The body itself is an argument: from a drop, "envy in the liver, rancor in the spleen... faith in the heart, love in the secret core" [741]. God adorns the face for creatures and the heart for Himself [742].
First, Last, Outward, Inward (57:3). Maybudi runs the four names through a dozen pairings, then turns them practical: parents serve your beginning, children your end, friends your outside, spouses your inside, but "I am the First and the Last" [745]. Against reinterpreting what the intellect cannot grasp: "going after interpretation is a tested poison. It is to remove a thorn from the foot with a thorn" [744].
Chapter 54. The Weak Woman and the Hidden Enemy (Surahs 58 to 66)
The one who complains (58:1). A hundred thousand angels were glorifying God, "but no one talked about them." The Qur'an instead records the complaint of a repudiated wife. The rule Maybudi draws: "The weaker someone is, the gentler is the Lord" [748]. Years later, when she spoke harshly to the caliph 'Umar, he silenced his court: this was the woman "whose words the Real heard from beyond the seven levels of heaven" [748].
Ten questions for one dinar (58:12). 'Ali paid a coin in charity and asked ten questions. The most quoted answer: "The stratagem is to abandon stratagems" [749]. Joy, the Prophet says, is "Vision," the morning of union after the night of separation [750].
| Step | Door it lights | Hospitality at arrival [752] |
|---|---|---|
| Shariah | The bodily frame | Gardens and a river |
| Tariqah | The heart | A seat of truthfulness |
| Haqiqah | The spirit | At an Omnipotent King |
Table. Three steps of godwariness (59:18). The verse repeats "be wary" twice: once for avoiding the forbidden, once for avoiding "everything other than the Real" [751].
The enemy that flatters (60:1). The worst enemy is the soul, and it fights differently from an outer foe. Byzantium's soldier attacks face to face, "But the soul does not struggle face-to-face. It shows him affection and kindness and calls him to do honorable acts" [754]. Hence "a hunter catches birds with birds" [754].
Say what you do (61:2 to 3). God told Jesus: "Counsel yourself. If you take the counsel, counsel the people. Otherwise, have shame before Me" [757]. Hallaj describes three renunciations: of this world (the soul's), of paradise (the heart's), and of oneself (the spirit's) [758].
Felicity before religion (63, 64, 111). Maybudi's most unsettling claim returns here and again at Surah 111: "Do not suppose that wretchedness lies in unbelief. On the contrary, unbelief lies in wretchedness" [760]. The dog of the Cave and the learned Balaam swap places.
Command and rightful due (64:16). "His command is finite, but His rightful due is infinite" [763]. God judges by the command so that pardon remains possible; by the rightful due no one could stand.
Separation and return (65, 66). Divorce is permitted yet hated because it is "the cause of separation," and "God loves union" [765]. Rabi'a: "Unbelief has the flavor of separation, and faith has the pleasure of union" [765]. Repentance (66:8) brings divine joy greater than a thirsty man finding water, a traveler finding his camel, a barren woman given a child [767].
Chapter 55. Kingdom, Night, and Rising (Surahs 67 to 80)
Three kingdoms (67:1). "The kingdom of human nature is one thing, the kingdom of the heart another, and the kingdom of the spirit still another" [770]. The advice is practical: "Serve the King of kings, so that the kings of this world may serve you" [770].
The fish under the earth (68:1). One reading of Nun is a fish carrying the earth. It never complained, so God swore by it and spared it the knife: "whenever someone carries a burden, his suffering will not be wasted" [773].
Beast or bird (69). Death is a resurrection already here. The Adamite is "either like a beast held in a stable, or like a bird imprisoned in a cage" [774]. The beast dreads leaving the stable; the bird waits for the cage to break.
The night (73). Night prayer is framed as a division of labor: when the Prophet wakes, some sinners are forgiven for his vigil; when he sleeps, the rest are forgiven "to realize mercy" [777]. Prayer is compared to a rosebush: Satan can tear petals from the outward prayer, "but he cannot take away recognition from the inwardness" [778]. Patience in trial is common; "The manly man is he who is patient in blessings" [779].
Two nearnesses (74). The servant's proximity is easy to describe: "service in seclusion, hidden from the people" [782]. God's proximity is not: "the breath is far from the lips, for I am nearer than that" [782].
Delay as honor (76:1). Adam's body lay forty years without spirit. God could have made him at once, but "I would rather make the greatness of My friends apparent than show My own power" [789]. Adam's love only showed after his slip, because "caressing at the time of opposition is the proof of exaltation and honor" [789]. Iblis's slip showed the reverse.
Two wines (76:21). "Whoever does not have the wine of love today will not have the pure wine tomorrow" [791]. Everyone will see God, "but each in the measure of his own recognition" [791].
Artifacts and Artisan (79). Common people reason from artifacts to the Artisan; recognizers gaze on the Artisan directly [795]. Wealth is not the problem: Korah's gold "were not reprehensible," but "The pull of his heart toward gold" was [797].
Chapter 56. The Child of the Moment (Surahs 81 to 96)
A name on a wall (81). Majnun sat seven days before Laylā's written name without eating. If a creature's name can do that, what of the Creator's? "Passion is a thing that comes, not a thing to be learned" [798].
The answer inside the question (82:6). "What has deluded thee about thy generous Lord?" The word "generous" supplies the reply. Fudayl's answer: "The curtain You let down has deluded Me" [800].
Owner of the moment (84). The Pir advised: "Take advantage of today, for this is where you are and where you can act" [804]. "The Sufi is the child of the moment" [804].
| Kind of moment [805] | Born from | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Like lightning | Thought | Washes and cleans; this world is forgotten |
| Enduring | The pleasure of remembrance | Distracts from the next world; the Real seen |
| Overpowering | Hearing and gazing | Effaces human descriptions; only the Real remains |
Table. Ansari's three present moments (84:6). Stage after stage (84:19) is read as the ascent through soul, heart, spirit, and secret core, each crying "I have no rest without" the next [806].
Watchfulness (86:4). Tawus led a temptress to a public place. When she objected that people were watching, he asked: "Does not God see us in every place?" [807]. She repented. Every other creature is fixed in one posture (snakes prostrate, cattle bow, trees stand, mountains sit); only the human chooses all four, and so earns praise [808].
Odd and even (89:3). All creatures come in pairs so they will not resemble the Creator, who is "the odd: alone and unique" [809]. The seeker must become odd too. Abraham cut every tie but one, his son, and was told: "This child is your link" [809]. When the desirer completes the way stations, "the object he seeks turns into his seeker" [810].
The small world (95:4). "Adam himself is another world" [818].
| World of the horizons | World of the soul [818] |
|---|---|
| Earth / heaven | Belief / recognition |
| Stars / moon / sun | Thoughts / reflective thought / perspicacity |
| Thunder / lightning | Fear / hope |
| King / vizier | Heart / intellect |
| Army / spies / translator | Senses / ears / tongue |
Table. Macrocosm and microcosm (95:4). The sultan over the heart's whole kingdom is "the Real" [818].
Prostration (96:19). "The farther someone is from the people, the closer he is to the Real" [820].
Chapter 57. The Dot and the One (Surahs 98 to 114)
Sincerity as color (98:5). "A jewel without color is a worthless stone. Worship without self-purification is to knock oneself out without reward" [821].
I am lowly, I am great (101). "When I remember who I am, I feel lowly, but when I recall to whom I belong, I boast" [823].
Three certainties (102). The knowledge of certainty settles in the breast, the eye of certainty in the secret core, the truth of certainty in the spirit [826].
The whole in the dot (103). All scriptures are in the Qur'an, the Qur'an in the Fatiha, the Fatiha in the basmala, the basmala in its first letter, and that letter "inside the purse of its dot" [827]. "Relative to power do not consider anything tremendous, and relative to wisdom do not call the existence of anything lowly or tiny" [827]. Time itself is loss: "Who gives you the assurance of tomorrow?" [828].
Two tawhids (109). "The tawḥīd of attestation is to say one, and the tawḥīd of recognition is know one" [831]. Asked whether he had what the old shaykhs had, Nasrabadi said: "I have the pain of not finding it" [831].
Refuge and surrender (113). The common believer seeks refuge from harm by prayer. The way of the Tariqah is surrender and approval: "Leave the governance to Him who created you and you will be at ease" [838]. The book ends where Abraham and Ishmael stood: "When the two of them submitted" [838].
Synthesis
Main Points
- Love starts with God. Water and clay could not love "had You not chosen them" [15]; every human seeking answers a prior call.
- The covenant is older than the law. The "Am I not your Lord?" of Alast is the root; shariahs are abrogated, but "the pact of love" never is [679].
- Three floors, one house. Shariah lights the body, Tariqah the heart, Haqiqah the spirit [752]; skipping a floor is not an option.
- Felicity comes before religion. "Unbelief lies in wretchedness" [760], not the reverse; deeds reveal a decree, they do not purchase it.
- Do not trust your obedience. Iblis served for ages and fell; Adam slipped and was chosen, for "the slip of friends is not held accountable" [739].
- The command is finite, the due is infinite. God judges by the command so that pardon stays possible [763].
- Seek Him, not His gifts. "Ask for nothing of Him but Him" [734]; bargaining is "the creed of Iblis."
- Worshipers want things; recognizers want Him. "The recognizers want Him Himself" [738].
- Clay is the shell, the heart the pearl. Human worth is in the heart placed inside dust [737]; angels bowed to that.
- Dust beats fire. Wet dust takes imprints; fire burns them away [654]. Humility is receptivity.
- Only God says "We." Every human "I" is borrowed [707], and quarrels begin with "your-ness and my-ness" [708].
- Fear and hope burn together. Like fire and oil in a lamp, either alone is the unbelievers' attribute [725].
- The soul's best disguise is a good deed. It "shows him affection and kindness" [754]; Ahmad Khadruya's zeal for war was vanity.
- Weakness draws mercy. "The weaker someone is, the gentler is the Lord" [748].
- Trial is the robe of friendship. Those God loves are tried most; Noah endured beatings for centuries and kept trusting.
- Honor shows in the slip. "Caressing at the time of opposition is the proof of exaltation and honor" [789].
- Bounty over self-exertion. The seventy-year renunciant traded all his worship for relief from one toothache [390].
- Repentance delights God. More than a thirsty man finding water or a barren woman given a child [767].
- Own the moment. "Take advantage of today, for this is where you are and where you can act" [804].
- Become odd. Creatures come in pairs; the seeker must cut links like Abraham until only the One remains [809].
- The human is a small cosmos. Heart as king, intellect as vizier, senses as army [818].
- The whole is in the dot. Scripture folds into the dot of the basmala [827]; nothing is tiny relative to wisdom.
- Saying One is not knowing One. Tawhid of attestation versus tawhid of recognition [831].
- Surrender ends the road. "Leave the governance to Him who created you and you will be at ease" [838].
Frameworks and mental models
| Framework | Where | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Three turns per session | Intro | Translation, commentary, allusion: read one text at three depths |
| Shariah / Tariqah / Haqiqah | Throughout; 59:18 | Body, heart, spirit; gardens, seat of truthfulness, at the King |
| Body / heart / spirit / secret core | Throughout; 84:19 | Nested organs of the self, each "shell" to the next pearl |
| Bounty and justice | Surah 2 onward | Two faces of the decree; felicity and wretchedness without cause |
| Command versus rightful due | 64:16 | Why pardon is possible: judgment by the finite measure |
| Wage-earner versus servant | Surahs 25, 43 | Paradise as capital versus "one glance of union" |
| Fear and hope | 52; throughout | Twin fuels; contraction/expansion and awe/intimacy at higher levels |
| Two ascents | 53 | Moses (preparation, awe, variegation) versus Muhammad (drawn, intimacy, stability) |
| Three present moments | 84 | Lightning, enduring, overpowering |
| Macrocosm and microcosm | 95 | Map the world of the horizons onto the world of the soul |
| Two tawhids | 4, 39, 109 | Attestation (saying) versus recognition (knowing) |
| Surrender and approval | 113 | The elect's answer to trial beyond seeking refuge |
- A selection of a selection. This volume gives about half of Turn III, which is a quarter of the whole; the legal and historical material of Turn II is absent, so Maybudi looks more purely mystical than he is.
- Compiler, not author. Much of the best material is Ansari's or Sam'ani's; attributions are often unmarked, and the translator traces only some.
- Predestination without softening. Statements that felicity precedes religion can read as fatalism. Maybudi pairs them with commands to act and with boundless hope, but he does not resolve the tension philosophically.
- Reports of uneven strength. Many hadiths and stories are given for edification; Maybudi himself rejects one Buraq report as unreliable [730], which shows he weighed sources, though not always visibly.
- Imagery of its time. Some comparisons (women, slaves, other religions) reflect twelfth-century Persia and need historical reading.
Who's Who
| Name | Role in this book |
|---|---|
| Rashid al-Din Maybudi | Compiler; began the work in 520/1126 |
| Khwaja 'Abdallah Ansari (d. 481/1088) | "Pir of the Tariqah"; whispered prayers and sayings |
| Ahmad Sam'ani (d. 534/1140) | Author of Rawh al-arwah, main source from 16:66 on |
| Sana'i (d. 525/1131) | Poet, "that chevalier"; verses marked DS |
| Qushayri | Author of Lata'if al-isharat, an Arabic Sufi commentary |
| Abu Yazid (Bastami) | Seeker of "Me," not gifts; sayings on dust and desire |
| Junayd | Beginning and return to God; "If it were from where..." |
| Shibli | Expansion and contraction; the Christian physician's sash |
| Hallaj | Three renunciations; the lit-up fire of God |
| Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman, 'Ali | The four Companions; 'Ali's ten questions (58:12) |
| Rabi'a 'Adawiyya | Unbelief as separation, faith as union |
| Abu 'Ali Siyah, Nasrabadi | Trust and "the pain of not finding it" |
| Iblis | Long obedience without solicitude; warning to Khawass |
| William C. Chittick | Translator; introduction dated 2014 |
Glossary of Key Terms
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| nawba | Turn; one of the three layers of each session |
| tadhkir | Reminder; address meant to wake the heart |
| ishara | Allusion; the recognizers' reading of a verse |
| ma'rifa / 'arif | Recognition / the recognizer |
| al-haqq | The Real; God, truth, and rightful due |
| shari'a / tariqa / haqiqa | Law / path / reality: the three floors of the road |
| islam | Submission |
| tawhid | Declaring and knowing God one; "tawhid-voicers" are its people |
| ikhlas | Self-purification, sincerity; also Surah 112 |
| husn / ihsan | Beauty / beautiful doing |
| taqwa | Godwariness |
| sidq / siddiq | Truthfulness / the sincerely truthful |
| nafs | Soul, ego; commanding, blaming, or serene |
| qalb | Heart; king of the inner world |
| sirr | Secret core; innermost organ of the gaze on the Real |
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| 'inaya | Solicitude; God's prior care that decides the outcome |
| fadl / 'adl | Bounty / justice: two faces of the decree |
| lutf / qahr | Gentleness / severity |
| qurb | Proximity; the "proximate" angels and friends |
| khawf / raja' | Fear / hope |
| qabd / bast | Contraction / expansion |
| hayba / uns | Awe / intimacy |
| fana' / baqa' | Annihilation / subsistence |
| waqt | The present moment; "the Sufi is the child of the moment" |
| taslim / rida | Surrender / approval |
| inaba / tawba | Penitence / repentance; penitence is the higher station |
| 'ishq | Passion, love's intensity |
| jawanmard | Chevalier; the generous, selfless traveler |
| Alast | The primordial covenant, "Am I not your Lord?" (7:172) |
| mi'raj | The Prophet's ascent, archetype of the road |
| Pir of the Tariqah | Khwaja 'Abdallah Ansari |
| DS | Divan of Sana'i, source of many verses |
Arabic terms are given in simple transliteration; the translation renders them consistently, so each English word marks one term.
About this book
The Unveiling of the Mysteries: A Sufi Commentary on the Qur'an by Rashid al-Din Maybudi, 2015. This is a chapter-by-chapter study of the book, with summaries, maps, tables and diagrams; short quotations keep their page references. It is shared free for personal study, is not for sale, and is not endorsed by the author or publisher. Please read and buy the original.
Insight Editions · rajeshrmahapatra.com/insight-editions