3. Aal-i-Imraan

They will not harm you, except with a little hurt, because they are severed from the basis of strength and power; in affairs they follow their soul, which is the locus of enfeeblement and evil, while you are protected by God, drawing your strength from Him, in affairs following the truth, which is the source of vanquishing. Thus their power does not exceed the level of slander by the tongue, wickedness and causing hurt, which is the utmost limit of the soul's capacity. Your power surpasses every [other] power by its ability to vanquish and utterly destroy by virtue of your assumption of the attributes of God, exalted be He. No doubt they retreat before you in battle and are not aided [to victory].

Abasement shall be cast upon them, because might belongs, altogether, to God [Q. 4:139] and none can have a share in it except the one who assumes those character traits [derived] from His attributes by effacing the attributes of mortals, as is the case with the Messenger and the believers, who constitute loci for the manifestation of His might, as He, exalted be He, says: Yet the [real] might belongs to God and to His Messenger, and to the believers [Q. 63:8]. Thus the one who opposes them stands in contrareity to the attribute of might, at variance with the mighty ones, such that abasement necessarily attaches itself to him and subsumes him in whatever state he might be, except for a connection that ties him to the people of might, as where God says save by a rope of God, and a rope of the people, that is, [except for] some protection-guarantee or covenant; but that tends to me a transient affair without [solid] foundation, dependent on a contrived connection. Their essential attribute is not accepted, that [attribute] which adheres to them that is the abasement originating from the origins of their soulsl. They have merited severe wrath from God by their distance and their turning away from the truth. Poverty attaches itself to them because of their severance from God in favour of their souls and so He leaves them to the devices of their own souls.

Yet they are not all alike; some of the People of the Scripture are a community upright, that is, [upright] upon [the path of] God. He then describes them with [reference to] the states of those of uprightness. In other words, there are among them affirmers of Oneness and people of uprightness.

And whatever good you do, you shall not be denied it: in other words, everything that issues from you that brings you nearness to God is joined to its reward from Him. You shall not be denied anything of that [reward]. God, exalted be He, said: 'Whoever draws near to Me by an inch, I shall draw near to him by an arm's length. And whoever draws near to Me by an arm's length, I shall draw near to him by a fathom. And whoever comes to Me walking, I shall come to him hurrying'. He has also said, 'I am in the company of the one who remembers Me, the intimate of the one who gives thanks to Me, and the obeyer of the one who obeys Me'. In other words, just as you obey Him by purifying your preparedness and orienting yourselves towards Him, He indulges you by effusing [upon you] the effusion in kind and [by] turning to you; and God knows, those who guard against that which veils them from Him and so He discloses Himself to them in the measure that the veil recedes.

The likeness of what they expend in the life of this world, [the life] that is evanescent and its shortlived pleasures, lusting after passions or for show or for a reputation out of vanity, seeking people's praise without seeking God's face thereby, and [seeking] what destroys and totally annihilates of the wind generated by the desires of the soul, [a wind] that carries the cold of your corrupt intentions and false goals, such as the making of a show [infront of others] and the like, is as the likeness of a wind wherein is a blast that smote the tillage of a people who have wronged themselves, through associating [others with God] and through disbelief, such that it destroyed it, as a retribution from God for their wrongdoing. God did not wrong them, by destroying their tillage, but they, were wronging themselves, because that [destruction] was caused by their wrongdoing, as they say: be careful, for your hands seal your mouth while you blow.

[O you who believe] do not take as intimates anyone apart from yourselves: a person's intimate is his closest and most faithful friend, the one who keeps him hidden and is privy to his secrets. Such a friend cannot exist unless the two are united in their purpose, are in accord on religion and in attribute, loving one another for God's sake and not for some [other] purpose, as is said of friends [that they are] one soul in separate bodies. And if he happens not to be a believer, then it is far more likely that he will be secretly an enemy. He then makes clear his hypocrisy and secret enmity with His words: such men spare nothing to ruin you � to the end [of the verse]. For true and pure love can only be between believers in [God's] Oneness, since it is the shadow of [the very] Oneness: it cannot be between those who are veiled as they inhabit the world of contrareity and darkness. Where in this world of theirs is there purity and harmonyḍ Nay, it may be that the all-inclusive human genus brings them close together, sharing as they do in that species, and [in] benefits and delights, and in their need for cooperation therein. But once what they have sought of benefits and delights is not actualised, they quarrel and fall into mutual hatred. And that [initial] closeness between them dissipates, since it had been the result of something that undergoes change, because the soul is the origination point of change. This-worldly benefits do not remain in the same state, while egocentric pleasures are fleeting; therefore love based upon it does not endure, unlike the former [type of] love, since this [latter] is based on something that by its essence never changes. That [kind of enmity] ensues when it is a matter between them: how [much worse] would it be when the matter is between them and those who oppose them in principle and in attribute. How can light and darkness be of the same nature and how can the sublime and the low be compatibleḍ Thus between those [aforementioned] men there exists real enmity and essential disagreement, the effects of which cannot be hidden, as God makes clear in His words: Hatred is [even] revealed by their mouths, because the description of [a person's] essence cannot be concealed. The Prophet said: 'Never does a person hide something except that God makes it manifest in slips of the tongue and the expressions of the face; and what their breasts conceal is yet greater, because it is a fire and this is the spark: that is the source and this is its offshoot. Now We have made clear to you the signs, the proofs of love and enmity and its causes, if you understand, the import of these words.

Ha! There you are: You love them, but they do not love you. The faithful had limpid hearts and generous natures, and they did not keep tenderness and mercy back from the estranged. They wanted good for them and attached their hearts to their submission. They wanted their salvation and did not hold back God's mercy from them-whether they were acquaintances or strangers. This kept on crossing their minds: Bring the sweetmeat, for it is the heart's beloved, suited for both the elect and the common. This is the same tenderness that MuḤammad showed to the estranged. He said, “O God, guide my people, for they do not know.” As for the unbelievers, those who had no limpidness in their hearts or loyalty in their natures, they never wanted good for the people of faith, nor did they love them. They grieved at the good that reached them and became happy at the bad. God says, “If something beautiful touches you, it vexes them, and if something ugly strikes you, they rejoice at it” [3:120]. Indeed, everyone does what is fitting for him, for “The pot pours what is inside it.” The person of faith is generous and lovingly kind, for what is fitting for faith is generosity and chivalry. The unbeliever is base and bad-wanting, for what is fitting for unbelief is baseness and unseemliness. The person of faith calls God's creatures to salvation and deliverance. The unbeliever calls them to the Fire and captivity. To this He alludes with His words, “O my people! What is it with me that I invite you to salvation and you invite me to the Fire?” [40:41].

Yet if you endure, with patience what God tests you with in the way of hardships, trials and calamities, and remain firm as required by belief in Oneness and obedience [to God], and guard against, seeking their assistance in your affairs and resorting to friendship with them, their guile will not hurt you at all, because the one who trusts in God, who endures His test and seeks His assistance and not that of another, shall succeed in securing what he demands, vanquish his opponent, receiving his share of his Lord's good protection. The one who seeks the assistance of another shall be forsaken, left to the devices of his own soul, deprived of the aid of his Lord, as the poet says: 'he who seeks the help of any other than God in what he wants, shall surely have [nothing but] failure and forsakenness for his assistants. Of what they do, in the way of schemes, God is indeed encompassing, invalidating them and destroying them. They say that if you want to curb [the evil of] the one who envies you, then grow in virtue in yourself, for patience and God-consciousness are among the most beautiful virtues. If you adhere to them, you shall be victorious over your enemies.