3. Aal-i-Imraan

And when God took the compact of the prophets, �I have given you of the Book and wis- dom. Then a messenger will come to you confirming what is with you. You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.�In the whole Qur'an, there is no verse more complete in explaining the excellence of MuṣṬafā, to whom this verse is devoted without the association of anyone else. The Lord of the Worlds made two covenants with His creatures and took two compacts from them. One was the compact He took from the creatures concerning His Godhood and Enactorship, as He said: �When your Lord took from the children of Adam, from their loins, their offspring and made them bear witness concern- ing themselves. 'Am I not your Lord?' They said, 'Yes indeed'� [7:172]. The other is the compact He took with the angels and the prophets concerning MuḤammad's prophethood and helping him, as He says, �And when God took the compact of the prophets.� This is an utmost bestowal of eminence and a perfect acknowledgment of excellence, for He made his name great with His own name and lifted up his measure with His measure.Several thousand years before the existence of MuḤammad, a command came, �O Gabriel! I will have a friend whose name is MuḤammad. He will be praised and caressed by Me, his name will be placed next to My name, his measure will be lifted up by My bounty, his being obeyed will be obedience to Me, his words will be My revelation, and following him will be friendship with Me. O Gabriel! You make a covenant with Me to have faith in him and help him.� This was when He said, �You shall surely have faith in him and you shall surely help him.�Gabriel said, �O Lord, I make a covenant that my hand will be one with his hand, I will help, and I will have faith in him.�God said, �O Gabriel! Keep to this covenant and do not oppose it.� He said, �O Lord, who would have the gall to oppose You?!�Then He said, �O Michael! You be a witness to Gabriel's covenant.� Then in the same way He made a covenant with Michael, and He told Gabriel to be witness to Michael's covenant.

Whosoever wants a religion other than the submission, it will not be accepted from him.Any religion that is not the submission is false. Any deed that is not following the Sunnah is the seed of remorse. The submission is the tree, the Sunnah is its water source, faith its fruit, and the Real the one who planted and nurtured it. When the wellspring of the Sunnah takes replenishment, it takes it from divine solicitude. If-refuge in God!-He should take back the solicitude, the wellspring would go dry. The tree would become ineffectual and barren, it would not give the fruit of faith, and it would be on the verge of disappearance and destruction. This is like the group who became apostates and turned away from the submission.Again, if the lordly solicitude should go forth and replenish the wellspring of the Sunnah, then the branches of the tree will be made from the goodly word [14:24] and its fruit from pure belief. The heaven of guidance will make the branch into a ladder, and in the state of life and death its fruit will become constant and never be cut off. This is why the Lord of the Worlds says by way of similitude, �God has struck a similitude: A goodly word is like a goodly tree, its roots fixed, and its branches in heaven. It gives its fruit every season by the leave of its Lord� [14:24-25].It has also been said that if a similitude is struck for the submission, it is a lamp that has been lit by the Most Tremendous Light, its material and nurture made to appear from the light of the Sunnah. To this is the allusion in His words, �Is he whose breast God has expanded for the sub- mission, so he is upon a light from his Lord [...]?� [39:22]. He is saying, �Whenever the Exalted Lord lights the lamp of the submission in a breast, assistance from the light of the Sunnah makes it appear so that the breast may always be adorned and lit. Hence, whenever someone does not have a whiff of the Sunnah, he will have no portion of the submission.It is narrated from Shāfiʿī that he said, �I saw God in a dream and He said to me, 'Ask a wish from Me.