14. Ibrahim

God it is Who created, the heavens of the spirits and the earth of the body, and He sends down from, the heaven of the world of the Holy the water of knowledge, and with it He brings forth, from the earth of the soul, the fruits of wisdoms and virtues, as sustenance for you, and fortification for the heart. And He has disposed for you, rivers of knowledge by means of reasoning, inference, derivation and differentiation.

And He has disposed for you, the sun of the spirit and the moon of the heart, constant, in journeying through unveilings and witnessings, and He has disposed for you, the night that is the darkness of the soul's attributes and the day that is the light of the spirit in order to seek livelihood and [means to] the final return, as well as rest and illumination.

And He gives you of all that you ask of Him, by the tongues of your preparednesses, for every thing that asks of Him perfection by the tongue of its preparedness, He effuses upon it at the request without delay or languor, as He has said, All that is in the heavens and the earth implore Him. Every day He is upon some matter [Q. 55:29]. And if you were to enumerate God's grace, of those matters that precede your existence, effused from the Divine Presence, and of those [matters] that come to you in the way of the reinforcement of [spiritual] nurturing that arrives [to you] from the Lordly Presence, you could never number it, because of its endlessness, as affirmed by [His] wisdom. Lo! man is verily a wrong-doer, by placing the light of preparedness and the substratum of subsistence in the darkness of nature and the locus of annihilation and expending that [light] therein, or by diminishing what is due to God or what is due to his own soul by annulling his preparedness, and unthankful, for those graces, which cannot be enumerated, by using them for what they should not be used, and [unthankful] by being heedless of the One bestowing these graces on him and veiling himself from Him with these [graces].

And when Abraham said, “My Lord, make this land secure, and keep me and my sons away from worshiping idols.” In this verse Abraham asked two things from the Real: First, Mecca's security from mastery by enemies, and second, the heart's security from domination by the ruling power of caprice. He said, “Lord God, make this city of Mecca into a secure sanctuary far from the hand of any tyrant and free of fear for all the people.” The Lord of the Worlds responded to his supplication and made it into a blessed sanctuary and a place of security, as He says, “[And when We made the House] a place of gathering for the people, and a sanctuary” [2:125]. Never will the hand of any tyrant reach it; whoever goes into the sanctuary-whether Adamite or non-Adamite, wild prey or bird of the air-will have no fear. He asked for the heart's security in terms of allusion with his words, “Keep me and my sons away from worshiping idols.” Whenever something holds you back from the Real, that is your idol. Whenever your heart inclines and looks to something other than the Real, that is your caprice. The Exalted Lord says, “Hast thou seen him who has taken his caprice as his god?” [25:43]. One person looks to property and trade, another to wife and children, another to position and respect. One person has remained in the bonds of venerating piety and self-restraint and has not taken a step beyond that. Another has made obedience and worship his kiblah-looking at it and leaning on it have become the veil of his road. The Lord of the Worlds says, “And repent all together to God, O you who have faith! Perhaps you will prosper [24:31]. O you who have faith, if you want Me to make your hearts the sanctuary of My gaze and to keep you secure from the veil of severance, turn your faces totally to Me and turn away from everything else!” Sometimes He calls to His road with the tongue of the artifacts to make people realize familiarity. Sometimes He calls to Himself with the tongue of unveiling to confirm friendship. He is saying: “Turn away from yourself and totally to Him so as to recognize what is right- fully due to Him.

My Lord, truly they have led astray many of mankind, by causing them to be attached to these, being attracted to them and being veiled by them from the unity. So whoever follows me, in the wayfaring along the path of the affirmation of the Oneness, verily belongs with me, and whoever disobeys me, truly You are Forgiving, concealing for him that dark configuration by Your light, Merciful, to him by effusing upon him perfection after forgiveness.

Our Lord, indeed I have made some of, the seed of my faculties, to dwell in a valley where there is no sown land, that is to say, the valley of corporeal nature that is devoid of the sown land of perception, knowledge, gnosis and virtue, by Your Sacred House, which is the heart, our Lord, that they may establish, the prayer of communion and unveiling. So make some of the hearts, of the men of the senses, yearn towards them, so that they are provisioned with all types of sensations, reinforced with the capacity to perceive particulars and take their side to avoid contravention by inclining to the lower aspect and to corporeal pleasures. And provide them, with the fruits of gnoses and realities of universals, that they might be thankful, for Your grace and thus use those perceptions to seek perfection.

Our Lord, You know what we hide, of what is in us in potential, and what we proclaim, of what we have projected into actuality of perfections. And nothing is hidden from God, in the earth of preparedness or in the heaven of the spirit.

Praise be to God Who has given me, at the advanced age of perfection, Ishmael, the considerative rational faculty, and Isaac, the cognitive one. Lo! my Lord is indeed the Hearer of supplication, that is, [He is indeed] the Hearer of the supplication of the preparedness, as one [of them] said, 'Suffice it as my supplication [of Him] that He should have knowledge of my state'.

My Lord, make me an establisher, of the prayer of presential vision, and [also] of my seed, each one of them an establisher of a prayer specific to him. Our Lord! And accept my supplication, that is, my request for complete annihilation in You.