3. Aal-i-Imraan

And vie with one another hastening to, conceal your acts, which veil you from the witnessing of the acts of the truth through His acts. For you are deprived from trusting [in God] and from the garden of the world of the kingdom, which is the self-disclosure of [His] acts, by your inspection of your acts. That is [vie in hastening] to what necessitates the concealment of your acts by His acts and then [to] the garden of the acts by means of acts of obedience, as mentioned [in the ḥadīth]: 'I seek refuge in Your pardon from Your retribution'. Since what is meant by the garden here is the garden of the [divine] acts, the width of which has been described as equal to the width of the heavens and the earth, because the unity of the acts is the unity of the world of the kingdom. As for its length, it has been [left to be] reckoned because acts are considered in relation to a widening chain in which every act depends on another act confined to the world of the kingdom [the extent of which] people attempt to reckon. But in terms of length, these [acts] cannot be confined therein or reckoned, because the act is the locus of manifestation for a description and the description is a locus of manifestation for the essence and as such is infinite and limitless. Thus the ones who are veiled from the essence and the attributes can only see the width of this garden, whereas for those who are apparent before God, the One, the Vanquisher, the width of their garden is its very length and since its length is without limit, neither its length or its width can be reckoned; prepared for those who are wary, those who guard against the veils of their acts and the idolatry of ascribing acts to other than the Truth.

Those who spend in prosperity and adversity, those who curb rage, and those who pardon people-and God loves the beautiful-doers. Those who spend in prosperity and adversity. It has been said that in this station people are three groups: First are those who spend nothing, whether in prosperity or adversity, whether in the vast- ness of blessings or in the days of famine and hardship. They are called “base” in an unqualified sense. They have seized the branch of niggardliness, which is a tree whose roots are in hell and whose branches are in this world. This is according to what Anas ibn Mālik reported from God's Messenger: “Openhandedness is a tree in the Garden whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Garden. And niggardliness is a tree in the Fire whose branches are in this world; when someone latches on to one of its branches, it will lead him to the Fire.” Second are those who spend in vastness of blessings but not in narrowness and hardship. Most of God's creatures among the world's folk and those who take care of this world are in this station. In the work of this world they do not have the confidence for open-handedness and they are always in fear of poverty. To them alludes His words, “If He asks you for them, then presses you, you are niggardly, and He brings out your rancor” [47:37]. Third are those who spend in both of these states, both in ease and difficulty. Such a person has one of two states: Either he is an impudent and impure man who does not know whence he takes and where he gives and does not think about the outcome. He is numbered among the broth- ers of Satan. That is in His words, “Surely the squanderers are the brothers of Satan” [17:27]. Or he is a man who is confident in the sufficiency of God and His assignment of daily provision. He has recognized the secret of this report from MuṣṬafā: “Surely the holy spirit breathed into my mind that no one will die until his provision is complete. So be wary of God, and go lightly in your seeking. Never let the tardiness of provision make you seek something of God's bounty through disobedience, for what is with God will only be reached by obeying Him.

And who when they commit an indecency, a grave sin by considering their acts as issuing from power within them, or wrong their souls, [those who] stint what is due to these by committing minor sins and the manifestation of their souls in these, remember God, upon the issuing forth of their acts by seeing them as having occurred as a result of God's power and [who] absolve themselves of these [acts] before Him, seeing that these are a trial for them from Him, and pray forgiveness, asking for their acts to be concealed, [acts] which constitute their sins, by His acts, absolving themselves thereof by affirming that might and power are His alone; and who shall forgive sins, that is, the existences of acts, but Godḍ In other words, they have realised that there is none to forgive [them] except Him - and who do not persist in what they did, when they were unaware and when their souls were manifest, but who repent and returned to Him in terms of their acts, knowing, that only God acts.

There have passed away before you [many] ways of life, smites and calamities from among the things that God has established in His acts as ways of dealing with those who deny the prophets when these affirm the unity of [God's] acts; so travel in the land and behold, the vestiges [of those ways] therein so that you might know how was their end came about.

This, that has been mentioned, is an exposition for mankind, of the knowledge concerning the affirmation of the unity of [God's] acts and a differentiating of the God-fearing who are the people fixed (tamkīn) in that [knowledge], [from] the repentant who are the people of variegation (talwīn), and the persistent [in sin] who are veiled from that [knowledge], being deniers of it. This [exposition] is in addition a guidance, an unveiling for eyewitnessing, an ascertainment and an admonition for those who guard against seeing their acts; or it is guidance for them to the affirmation of the unity of the [divine] attributes and the essence.

Faint not, in the struggle when the disbelievers have mastery, neither grieve, for what has eluded you of victory and [for] those brethren of yours who are injured or who have been martyred, for you are the uppermost, in [terms of] level because of your nearness to God and your more exalted degree as the people of God, if you are, affirmers of the Oneness; because the affirmer of Oneness considers that what befalls him of trials is from God and so the least of his degrees, if it is not satisfaction [with that predicament], is patient endurance from which he draws strength in such a way that he does not grieve or faint.

[Such] days: [such] events. Any tremendous affair that occurs is called 'a day' or 'days', as [in the expression] where God says And remind them of the Days of God [Q. 14:5]. The explanation of 'that God may know' has already been given to mean the manifestation of knowledge at the level of differentiation that is subsequent to the eventuality of known things; and that He may take witnesses from among you, those who bear witness to the Truth such that they are distracted from their souls. In other words, We deal out [such] events among mankind for various purposes and [on the basis of] many wisdoms which are not mentioned, from [allowing for] the actualisation of what [potential] is [contained] in their preparedness, to action in the way of patience, endurance, the strength of certainty and little concern for the soul, its being mastered and suppressed by the heart and so on; and also for the two reasons mentioned [in the verse] and to deliver the believers from sins and coverings that distance them from God through punishment and trial, when these [days] are against them; and to obliterate the disbelievers, to vanquish them and destroy them when these [days] are in their favour. Between the reasons given [by God] comes a parenthetical: and God loves not the evildoers, in order that it be known that the one who lacks the attribute of faith and witnessing, as well as [the capacity] to examine [his] sins and [lacks] the strength of steadfastness to perfect [his] certainty, but is present at the battle in pursuit of spoils or for some other purpose, such a person is an evildoer and that God does not love him.