2. Al-Baqara

When his Lord said to him, “Submit,” he said, “I submit to the Lord of the Worlds.” When the Bosom Friend began to travel, the command came from the Exalted Presence, “O Abra- ham, anyone who wants Me must belong to Me totally. As long as a sliver of mortal desires and soulish resistance remains with you, you will not pass from the suffering of striving to the ease of the pull. 'The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed.'” If you want Me, you must want what I desire. You must leave aside yourself totally. The Bosom Friend said, “O Lord, Abraham no longer has any self-governance, any free choice. Now I have come on the feet of poverty, in the state of brokenness, to see what You command. I submit. I have overthrown myself and entrusted my work to You. I have come back to You entirely.” The command came, “O Abraham, that is a very great claim. Every claim must have a mean- ing, and everything rightfully due a reality. Now watch out for the testing!” He was tested by other than himself, by part of himself, and by his whole self. The test by oth- ers was that he had plentiful possessions. They say he had 70,000 sheep in seven thousand herds. Each herd had a dog with a gold collar around its neck. He was commanded to detach his heart from all of it and to toss it away in the path of God. The Bosom Friend tossed it all away and left nothing for himself. In the traditions it has come that the angels said, “Lord God, ever since this call was given out in the World of the Dominion, 'And God took Abraham as a bosom friend' [4:125], our spirits have been in a whirlpool and our gall-bladders have been melting because of this special favor. How is the Bosom Friend worthy of this generosity?” The call came, “Gabriel, open up your peacock-feathers and go from the top of the Lote Tree to the summit of that mountain and test the Bosom Friend.” With the divine determination and facilitation Gabriel came down in the form of a child of Adam. He stood beside that mountain and shouted, “O Holy One!” The Bosom Friend fainted from the pleasure of hearing that.

(Or were ye present when death came to Jacob�) [2:133]. This was revealed about the Jews when they said: �Do you not know that when Jacob was about to die he advised his sons to follow Judaism?�

(And they say: Be Jews or Christians, then ye will be rightly guided�) [2:135]. Said Ibn �Abbas: �This was revealed about the Jewish leaders of Medina: Ka�b ibn al-Ashraf, Malik ibn al-Sayf, Wahb ibn Yahudha, Yasir ibn Akhtab, and also about the Christians of Najran. This is because when they argued with the Muslims regarding religion, each one claimed to have a better right to the religion of Allah, exalted is He, than anyone else. The Jews said: �Our Prophet Moses is the best of prophets, and our Scripture is the best of Scriptures and our religion is the best of religions�. They disbelieved in Jesus, the Gospel, Muhammad and the Qur�an. The Christians on the other hand said: �Our Prophet Jesus is the best of prophets, and our Scripture, the Gospel, is the best of Scriptures and our religion is the best of religions�. They disbelieved in Muhammad and the Qur�an. Both the Jews and Christians said to the believers: �Follow our religion, for there is no other true religion except ours�. And they invited the believers to follow their religion�.

If they have faith in the like of that in which you have faith, they will have found guid- ance; but if they turn away, they will have split from you. God will suffice you against them; He is the hearing, the knowing. “O master of the east and west and messenger to men and jinn! We have placed these tasks in your tracks and commanded the world's folk to follow you. We wrote the Compact of Love for your servitors and brought them under Our gaze. We threw your opponents into the lowland of abase- ment and feebleness. Whoever opposes you is on the side of the enemies, and whoever serves you is on the side of the friends. When someone wants you, We want him and give him access to Us. When someone turns away, We burn him and throw him down. Whoso obeys the Messenger has obeyed God [4:80]. “O paragon! Do not let your heart be tight because these estranged people have turned away and spoken ill. We will suffice you against their business and We will remove their torment from you. God will suffice you against them.”

God's color-and who is more beautiful in color than God? “Then We will bring a people who have come out in the color of tawḤīd and who are adorned with the attribute of love and clothed in God's color, which is colorlessness. Whoever is pure of the color of the color-mixers is colored by God's color.” He who has painted a thousand worlds with color- why would He buy my color and yours, O bankrupt man! So, when someone reaches God's color and falls back on Him, He colors him in His own color. In the same way, the elixir makes copper and iron the same color as itself and they become precious. If the estranged fall back on Him, they become His familiars, and if the disobedient fall back, they become obedient. On this topic many stories are told about the shaykhs. One of them is narrated from Ibrāhīm Khawāṣṣ. He said, “Once I went into the desert and saw a Christian, who had his sash around his waist. He asked if he could accompany me, so we walked for seven days. He said, 'O monk of the unswerving folk! Bring forth what you have of expansiveness, for we are hungry.' “I said, 'O God, do not disgrace me before this unbeliever.' Then I saw a tray, upon which were bread, roast meat, dates, and a pitcher of water. We ate and drank, and we walked for seven days. Then I became hasty and I said, 'O monk of the Christians, bring what you have, for my turn is finished.' He leaned on his staff and supplicated, and lo there were two trays with double what there had been on my tray. “I was bewildered and upset, and I refused to eat. He insisted, but I did not respond to him. He said, 'Eat, for I have two pieces of good news to give to you. One is that I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that MuḤammad is God's messenger,' and he took off the sash. 'The other is that I say, “O God, if there is any danger here, then I will begin with this.”' So he began. “We ate and we walked, and then we made the hajj and took up residence in Mecca for a year. Then he died, and was buried in al-BaṬḤāÌ-God have mercy on him.”