3. Aal-i-Imraan

God surely helped you at Badr while you were abased. He wrote this inscription of abasement for them in respect of number and the view of the common people. But, in respect of the view of the elect and the reality of the work, how can it be said that someone is lowly and abased when God is his helper? The Pir of the Tariqah said in his whispered prayers, “O Lord, in recognizing You we are alive, with Your help we are happy, with Your generosity we are joyful, through Your exalting we are exalted. O Lord, in You we are alive, so how can we ever die? In You we are happy, so how can we ever be sorrowful? In You we are joyful, so how can we live without You? In You we are exalted, so how can we ever be abased?” A man entered in on Hārūn al-Rashīd and commanded him to do the honorable. Hārūn be- came angry and put him inside a room with a lion, with the door firmly shut. The lion entered in upon the man with humility and did not harm him. After that, they saw him in the midst of the gar- den, happily gazing at it, and the door to the room was firmly locked as it had been. They reported his state to Hārūn, and he summoned him. He said, “Who let you out of the room?” He answered, “The one who brought me into the garden.” He said, “Who brought you into the garden?” He said, “The one who brought me out of the room.” Hārūn commanded that they should put him on a seat with exaltation and honor and carry him around the city, with a caller going before him saying, “Behold, Hārūn al-Rashīd wanted to abase a servant exalted by God, and he was unable to do so.”

Yea, if you are patient and fear, and they come against you � to the end of the verse: to endure with patience the hardship of struggle and to expend the soul in obedience of God and to bear discomfort in pursuit of God's satisfaction can only take place when there is God-consciousness with the support of the Truth and illumination by the light of certainty and its sureness, and by the sending down of the divine peace and reassurance upon that person. But to be conscious of God while contravening the command of the Truth and inclining to profit and gain, fearing the ruination of the soul can only come about when the soul is broken by the subjugating authority of the heart and the spirit. For constancy and dignity are the attributes of the spirit, while inconstancy and restlessness are the attributes of the soul. Once the authority of the spirit has acquired mastery over the heart and takes its seat [there], it protects that [heart] from falling under the mastery of the attributes of the soul and the [soul's] hosts, such that the heart becomes enamoured of it [the spirit] and feels at peace with it because of its luminosity the pleasures of which are beloved. It is able to fortify itself with it [the spirit] against the soul and its faculties, defeating it, breaking it, thwarting its [potential] overpowering and [repelling] its darkness from itself, rendering it instead meek, obedient and reassured so that it is no longer agitated and it [the soul] becomes illumined by its [the heart's] light. Thereupon mercy comes down and the heart corresponds to the heavenly spiritual realm with respect to its [the soul's] luminosity, its capacity to vanquish what is below it and its love and yearning for what is above it. Thus by that correspondence it [the heart] becomes joined to it [the illumined soul] and is able to draw on its [this soul's] faculties and [draw] its attributes into its [the heart's] acts especially when it [the heart] is stirred and spurns the lower aspect and severs itself in exclusive devotion to the higher aspect by the power of certainty and the trust. It is then able to draw upon the faculties of its [the illumined soul's] capacity to vanquish against the one with whom it [the heart] is angry: this is [the moment of] the coming down of the angels. But when it [the heart] is anxious and alarmed, changes and becomes fearful or inclines to this world, it is overpowered by the soul and subjugated by it and ac quires mastery over it, veiling it by the darkness of its attributes from the light, such that that correspondence is no longer there, the reinforcement [from the spiritual realm] is severed and the angels do not come down.

What God ordained was only as a good tiding to you, that is, He made that reinforcement [to you] with angels only so that you might rejoice at this good news and the strength of your hearts, your valour, your succour, your vitality might be enhanced in your orientation towards the Truth and disengagement [in preparation] for the wayfaring, and so that your hearts might be at peace, and so that the effusion is realised thereby in accordance with the purification [effected] and the successorship [of the earth is granted] in accordance with the relinquishing [of the worldly]. Victory comes only from God, not from angels or from any others. So do not be veiled by multiplicity from unity, nor by creatures from the Truth, for these are [merely] loci of manifestation without reality or effect; the Mighty, the strong who is victorious by His vanquishing, the Wise, who veils His vanquishing power and His assistance in the form of angels out of His wisdom.

And that He might cut off a party of the disbelievers, that He might have some of them slain in order to strengthen the believers, or suppress them, degrade them and humiliate them with defeat to make the believers glorious.

Whether He relents to them, through their submission, to bolster the numbers of the believers, or chastises them, because of their wrongdoing and their persistence in disbelief in order to bring joy to the believers. His words it is no concern at all of yours have fallen between both parts of the coordinated sentence within the narrative as a parenthetical lest the Messenger of God lapse and suppose that he is able to have any effect in these matters, and [lest he] become veiled from the affirmation of the Oneness and remains so, and his witnessings in all oaths are changed. In other words, their affair is not your concern, whatever the situation. You are but a mortal commanded to warn. Your duty is to deliver [the message to them] and their affair is with God.

O you who believe, do not exact usury, in other words, put your trust in God when seeking provision and do not try to acquire it through usury. That is a duty [enjoined] upon you just as it is your duty to trust in Him when seeking victory and [pursuing] the struggle against the enemy, lest you be cowardly despite the protection and the preservation of God [over you]. Know that the recompense of the usurer is the [same as] the recompense of the disbeliever. So beware of [being] such [a person] as he is veiled from His acts, exalted be He, in the same way that the disbeliever is veiled from His attributes and His essence. And the one who is veiled in unable to receive mercy despite its all-encompassing nature. Therefore, remove the veil through acts of obedience and refraining from contravening [God and the Messenger] so that God's mercy might reach you.