2. Al-Baqara

When it is said to them �Do not [foment] corruption in the land� they say �We are only putting things right.� Truly they are the agents of corruption but they perceive not. This alludes to the fact that when thoughts of warning came secretly to their hearts calling them to right conduct they followed self-indulgent interpretations rukhaṣ al-taÌwīl and deceived themselves about that which bore witness to the hardness of their hearts. When they denied the proof of the Real in the thoughts that came to their hearts God took the bless- ing away from their states and in its place gave them a deaf ear to the Real. Their affliction is in their resistance to the path Ṭarīqa and their loss of belief in it. Just as an apostate is a more intense enemy to Muslims so the one who returns from spiritual desire irāda to the world and ordinary customs is the worst of people in rejecting this path and the most distant from its followers. As the proverb goes �Anyone who loses their stored grain to fire wishes the same for others.� According to the sincere among those [on the path] the help of those who have deserted the way of spiritual desire should not be accepted just as the Messenger ﷺ did not accept the almsgiving zakāt of Thaʿlaba. It is said that it is sufficient to expose those who lie by saying to such a person's face �You have lied.� When they said �We are only putting things right� the Real ������ showed them to be liars and He said �Truly they are the agents of corruption but they perceive not� meaning �We are aware of them and have exposed them.�

When it is said to them �Do not [foment] corruption in the land� they say �We are only putting things right.� Truly they are the agents of corruption but they perceive not. This alludes to the fact that when thoughts of warning came secretly to their hearts calling them to right conduct they followed self-indulgent interpretations rukhaṣ al-taÌwīl and deceived themselves about that which bore witness to the hardness of their hearts. When they denied the proof of the Real in the thoughts that came to their hearts God took the bless- ing away from their states and in its place gave them a deaf ear to the Real. Their affliction is in their resistance to the path Ṭarīqa and their loss of belief in it. Just as an apostate is a more intense enemy to Muslims so the one who returns from spiritual desire irāda to the world and ordinary customs is the worst of people in rejecting this path and the most distant from its followers. As the proverb goes �Anyone who loses their stored grain to fire wishes the same for others.� According to the sincere among those [on the path] the help of those who have deserted the way of spiritual desire should not be accepted just as the Messenger ﷺ did not accept the almsgiving zakāt of Thaʿlaba. It is said that it is sufficient to expose those who lie by saying to such a person's face �You have lied.� When they said �We are only putting things right� the Real ������ showed them to be liars and He said �Truly they are the agents of corruption but they perceive not� meaning �We are aware of them and have exposed them.�

And when it is said to them, “Have faith as the people have faith,” they say, “Shall we have faith as fools have faith?” Surely it is they who are the fools, but they do not know. O generous Lord, O renowned, wise Enactor! O You who are true in promise, pure in justice, com- plete in bounty, and eternal in love! Whatever You want You show, and as You want, You adorn. Each has a name, and in the heart of each is Your mark. The stamp of worthiness is upon some people, and the brand of unworthiness on others. The worthy are brought by the road of bounty on the steed of approval with the escort of gentleness in the time of generous bestowal at the turn of proximity. The unworthy are driven into the street of justice on the steed of wrath with the escort of abandonment at the turn of deprivation. This deprivation and that proximity did not come from water or dust, for on the day when the two were written out, there was neither water nor dust. There was beginningless bounty and gentleness and everlasting severity and justice. That was the portion of the self-purifiers and this the portion of the hypocrites. The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Alas for the apportioning that has gone before me! Alack for the words spoken by the Self-Seer! What profit if I am happy or distraught? I fear what the Powerful said in the Beginningless.” The hypocrites, who had fallen under the garment of justice, approved of themselves and deemed themselves to have a good name. The purifiers, the truthful, and the Messenger's Com- panions they called “fools.” The Lord of the Worlds in His generosity acted as their deputy in this and answered them: “Those are not the fools, the fools are those who call them fools.” Indeed, when someone does not belong to himself, God belongs to him. When someone tightens his belt in obeying God's commands, God joins with him. “When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.” The unbelievers said to MuṣṬafā, “You are possessed: O thou unto whom the Remembrance has been sent down, surely thou art possessed [15:6].” God said to MuḤammad, “They call you mad, but you are not mad: Thou art not, by the blessing of thy Lord, possessed [68:2]. You are My friend, approved of by Me. What harm will come to you if they do not approve of you? What you must have is that I approve of you. The friend must be approved of by a friend, not by the city.”

When they meet those who believe they say �We believe�; but when they go apart to their devils they say �We are with you; we were only mocking.� God [Himself] mocks them leaving them in their insolence bewildered. The hypocrites wanted to maintain their relations with disbelievers while associating with Muslims so when they appeared before Muslims they said �We are with you� and when they were alone with those like them among the disbelievers they voiced their loyalty to them. They wanted to have relationships with both sides but they were excluded from both. God most high said �Wavering all the time-not to these neither to those� [4:143]. Similarly anyone who wants to combine the path of spiritual desire irāda with [one's habitual behavior] with ordinary people ahl al-ʿāda [should know that] this cannot be done since the two opposites cannot be combined. �The servant who has contracted with his master to be freed is still a servant until the last dirham [is paid].� When night draws nigh day slips away. Anyone who has a hodgepodge khalīṬ in every corner nāḥiyya and a heart bound rabīṬ in every nook zāwiyya is headed for disaster. First one group and then another take turns dwelling in his heart so that it is forever ruined.53 There is no pleasure for him in life nor does he truly possess any provision from his heart. The one who spoke for them said: I see you as someone left over from the people of Moses for they do not wait patiently for food. When the hypocrites said �we were only mocking� God most high said �God [Himself] mocks them� that is He requites them for their mocking. Similarly when people put the reins in the hands of carnal desires they are lured into the wadis of separation. Their feet are not firmly planted in a place so they wander in the labyrinth of absence. Just as he leaves the hypocrites in their insolence bewildered he prolongs the period [in which they dwell with] their confused hopes. So when the times of their deaths draw nigh their hopes are at their highest while their actions are at their lowest. That is the requital for what they did and the noxious result of what they produced. The beautification of their ugly acts in their eyes is the worst of their punishments and their being content with their listlessness is their greatest misfortune.

Those are they who have bought error for guidance; so their commerce has not profited them; nor are they guided. This alludes to those who have neglected what is due ḥuqūq by remain- ing in the familiar territories of worldly fortunes ḥuẓūẓ. [They] have lost their bargain so their commerce has not profited them. Those who are content with this world over the next are in manifest loss. Those who prefer this world or the next over the Real have the most intense loss. Although the one who suffers the loss of [the gardens] of bliss will come up short the one who is afflicted with distance from intimate conversation and the disengagement of his heart from his Protector the one who remains in the captivity of carnal desires with no messenger [reaching] his heart the one without attainment for his spirit without intimate conversation with Him without approach to Him without the witnessing [of Him] in his innermost self-this is the one who [truly] suffers and is afflicted. If even a moment slips away his Lord has slipped away. Moments have no substitutes or alternates. Thus someone said: You were the pupil of my eye. [The organ] by which I see wept for you. Anyone who has a will after you let him die for I used to be a guard over you.

Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindled a fire and when it illumined [the area] all about him God took away their light and left them in darkness unable to see The similitude God ������ strikes here for hypocrites is that of someone who kindles a fire in the beginning of the night then the fire is extinguished and he is left in the darkness. Similarly something of the benefits of this world appear to the hypocrites outwardly but then they are afflicted in the hereafter by the pain of the punishment. Or [it may be that] something of their affirmation iqrār flashes but then they remain in the darkness of their denial inkār. The allusion in this verse is to one who has a beautiful beginning trav- eling the path of spiritual desire Ṭarīq al-irāda. He toils for a time and endures one difficulty after another. He then returns to this world before having reached the truth and reverts to the darknesses of human nature within him. His stem sprouted but did not bear fruit. His branch blossomed but did not ripen. He hastened the eclipse of listlessness over the moons of His presence. The hand of subjugation rejected him after the tongue of kindness beckoned him. His heart moved away from closeness and his lower self became full of rancor toward the seekers. He is as it is said: When passion settled in and we said we were happy we thought we were secure from growing apart. Division sent its messengers in secret and destroyed what we had brought together in our union. The allusion in this verse also pertains to one who grasps [only] the lowest level of comprehension but makes claims far above what he [knows]. When the ongoing increase he possesses in his states is cut off he remains in the darkness of his claims. There is also [an allusion to] the one who relies on the rubble and glitter of this world. When [his] states become like a well-trodden road helped along by hope and rising expectation death appears as an ambush of the divine ruse. He leaves everything yatruk al-kull but carries the burden forth yaḥmil al-kall.

deaf dumb blind they shall not return Deaf to hearing the calls of the Real with the ears of their hearts dumb to whispered conversation with the Real with the tongue of their innermost selves blind to witnessing the flow of decreed events with the eyes of their faculties of insight. They shall not return from their persistent shamelessness nor can they be deterred from their wholehearted embrace of errors. It is said deaf to hearing through the Real dumb to speaking through the Real blind to studying creation through the Real. There was no predetermination for them to desist iqlāʿ and no allotment to help them in being deterred irtidāʿ.

Or as a cloudburst out of the heaven in which is darkness and thunder and lightning-they put their fingers in their ears against the thunderclaps cautious of death; and God encompasses the disbelievers. The meaning of His saying �Or� is that He gives either one of these two similitudes for [the hypocrites]. He compares the QurÌān to rain descend- ing from the heaven and compares the promises and threats in the QurÌān to the thunder and lightning in the rain. He compares their seeking refuge to [the ways they] flee from hearing the QurÌān distance themselves from attentiveness and neglect to try to gain insight to those who put their fingers in their ears against hearing the sounds of thunder. Similarly the allusion is to the heedless when the admonitions of those who admonish reach their ears or the lights of felicity shine on their hearts. If they would desist from their blind heedlessness they would be happy. But they keep each other distracted by false hopes and have resolved upon their corrupt path. They make weak excuses and swear by God �Had we been able we would have gone forth with you� destroying their souls [9:42] and they bring about their destruction by their own hands. Truly when the noble one gives you his love he veils the ugly and brings the beautiful to light. Similarly when the one who is tired wants to break things off he becomes weary of being together and says �That was that.�

The lightning well-nigh snatches away their sight; whensoever it gives them light they walk in it; and when the darkness is over them; they stop; had God willed He would have taken away their hearing and sight; Truly God has power over all things. Part of the similitude of the hypocrites-as also the heedless-is that when they are present at public sermons or their hearts incline to gentleness or some terror overwhelms them their states move closer to repentance and their longing to turn [to God] becomes stronger. But when they revert to their own planning and seek counsel from those close to them their fam- ily and offspring urge them to return to their world. They offer their advice frightening them with weakness and dependency so that their resolve becomes weak their spiritual desire irāda declines and they become as it is said: Whenever he repents he returns to his ignorance just as the one who is feeble suffers a relapse. He said �had God willed He would have taken away their hearing and sight� meaning the outward hearing and seeing of the hypocrites as well as their being deaf and blind inwardly. The same [is true] for the heedless and those who are content with the external aspects of Islam-God most high has the power to negate the positive outcome tawfīq of their practice of outward acts of obedience ẓāhir al-Ṭāʿāt just as He has the power to negate the realization taḥqīq of what they have discovered from the most felicitous states ṣafāÌ al-ḥālāt.