12. Yusuf

And when they saw him, they were in awe of him and cut their hands, and they exclaimed: 'God preserve us! This is no human being: this is but a noble angel!'As for her saying [to Joseph], 'Come out before them', this is her seeking of the self-disclosure of his light out of her volition and her requirement that this [light] come out on her upon the actualisation for her of the preparedness for illumination. When the soul has devoted itself to the path of desiring the heart and her contending with him over the resolve for the wayfaring has diminished and she has been trained to be obedient to him, it becomes time for spiritual discipline in the way of entering into spiritual retreat (khalwa) because then the heart will have disengaged from his attachments and impediments and will have disengaged his resolve by the absence of hesitation, since with hesitation of resolve - due to his [the heart's] attraction now to the direction of the soul, now to the direction of the spirit -there can be neither spiritual discipline nor wayfaring and spiritual retreat becomes invalid due to the fact there is no concentration, which is one of its prerequisites. This [kind of] spiritual discipline is not the disciplining of the soul by making it obedient - for this [kind] does not require spiritual retreat, but [requires] avoiding the commission of contraventions and pursuing the breaking of it and the subjugating of it by resisting [it] through all kinds of acts of renunciation and worship - rather, it is the disciplining of the heart by rising above its [the hearts] attributes, its forms of knowledge, perfections and unveilings in the wayfaring along the path of annihilation and the seeking of presential vision and the encounter, which takes place after [the presence of] immunity against the mastery of the soul, as she [Zulaykhā] says:

Indeed I did attempt to seduce him, but he was immune. He sought protection from his soul and demanded more [thereof]. Yet if he does not do what I bid him, of paying [me] my share, he shall verily be prevented from corporeal pleasures, the spirit of vain desire and objects of sensory perception by being isolated and cut off from these; and verily shall he be of those brought low', by the loss of his dignity and status with us, our forsaking of him and his separation from headship of the assistants and servants in the body. But because isolation was beloved to him as it was to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, when he used to seek solitary retreat in [the cave of] ḤirāÌ,

So his Lord answered him, and He fended off their wiles from him, that is, He reinforced him with holy support and fortified him with castings from the august glories, turning his face away from the side of abomination to the side of the Holy, fending off thereby their machinations. Truly He is the Hearer, of the heart's communion at the station of mystery, the Knower, of what ought to be done with it when it is in need of Him.

Then it seemed [good] to them, after they had seen the signs that they should imprison him for a while: in other words, there appeared to the ʿAzīz of the spirit, the women of the soul, the faculties and the spirit assistants, such as the intellect and reflection and others, a certain opinion on which they were all agreed and that was that they should imprison him, namely, that they should leave him in the isolation which was dearer to him. As for the spirit, this was because of its subduing of him by the light of presential vision and preventing him from acts of free disposal and from his attributes. As for the soul and all of the faculties, it was because of their inability to attract him after they saw the signs of [divine] immunity, sincerity of resolve and his refusal to incline to them as well as his dazzling of them with his light and his faithfulness in being needy of God, for otherwise they would never have left him alone in his solitariness. As for estimation, it was because of its retreat from his light and flight from his shadow when he stood firm in his religion and sought refuge in the Truth. As for the intellect, it was because of its illumination by the light of the guidance; while for reflection, it was because its authority is actualised during solitariness.

As regards the two youths who entered the prison with him, one of them was the faculty of spiritual love that adheres to him; this one was the King's cupbearer, the one who gives him the wine of divine love to drink, as is related in the story in which he is [described as being] the cupbearer. The other [youth] was the vain desire of the soul which also does not part with him in any state. For vain desire is the life of the soul which it receives as an effusion from the former because of its [the soul's] vying. This [second youth] was the King's baker who managed the food stores of the city, as is related. Only these two remained by him during the [period of] solitariness and no one else. As for the cupbearer's dream, where he says, 'I dreamed that I was pressing wine', is the faculty of love being guided to the pressing of the wine of divine love from the grapes of the gnosis of the heart during the sleep of obliviousness to the real presential vision. As for the dream of the baker, where he says, 'I dreamed that I was carrying on my head bread whereof the birds were eating, this represents the orientation of vain desire in its totality to the actualisation of the pleasures of the birds of ego-centric faculties, their shares and their lusts which were likened to birds, in terms of the way in which it attracts their shares, because of the speed of their movements towards these [shares].

As for the words, 'The food, with which you are provided, shall not come to you, to the end of this [verse]: an allusion to the his [Joseph's] prohibiting the two from their shares until he had made clear to them what the outcome of their affair will be concerning the tasks which they have to fulfil through judicious guidance, right direction, rectification and setting [things] right. His manifesting to them of [his] affirmation of Oneness with his words, Lo! I have forsaken, to the end of this [verse], constitutes his urging them to fulfill the incontrovertible divine command, to refrain from inquisitiveness and not to allow the disuniting of [their] orientation or the dissipation of [their] aspirations. For, the specific quality of vain desire is disunity, division and devotion to the various lusts of the contending faculties. The specific quality of [spiritual] love at the beginning, and before reaching the end, is attachment to virtuous attributes and devotion to these regardless of the beauty of the essence. So he called them both to the affirmation of Oneness with his words, Lo! I have forsaken the creed of a folk who do not believe in God, in other words, those idolaters who worship the graven images of the soul's attributes, nay [who worship] the presence of the heart and its attributes, and who in the Hereafter, that is, and who are veiled from subsistence in the spiritual world, [and he called them also] with his words,

It never was for us to associate anything with God, and [also] with his words:

Are several lords better, or God, the One, the Almightyḍ in other words, [what is meants is] if for each of you had several lords, similar to where God says shared by several [masters], quarrelling [Q. 39:29], this one commanding him to one thing, that one commanding him to another thing, mutually exclusive in that respect and incapacitated, where in the case of [the faculty of] love, then [lords] such as the attributes and the names, and in the case of vain desire, then [lords] such as the ego-centric faculties, would that be better for him, or a single lord commanding him to one thing, as He has said And Our command is but a single word [Q. 54:50], a powerful vanquisher who subdues all and whose command no one impedes and for whom nothing is impossibleḍAnd he [Joseph] compelled them by means of judicious guidance (siyāsa) to be united in orientation. For, when the heart is overcome by the [inclusive] unity, its love is fortified against love of the attributes and is turned towards the essence. And if it is trained in the affirmation of Oneness, its vain desire is curbed against devotion to shares and lusts and against separation in the actualisation of pleasures and is content to restrict itself to [the fulfilling of] dues and urgent needs as per the command of the Truth, and not in obedience to Satan.