4. An-Nisaa

Those are the disbelievers, the ons who are veiled, truly, by their essences and attributes, for their knowledge [of God] is illusory and erroneous, their affirmation of Oneness a clandestine unbelief. They are following neither religion nor truth; [and We have prepared for the disbelievers a chastisement] that is humiliating, humiliating them by the existence of the veil and the ignominy of the soul and its attributes.

[The People of the Scripture will ask of you to cause] a Book from the heaven, a certain knowledge, [to be revealed to them], by means of an unveiling from the heaven of the spirit. [They asked Moses for] something greater than that, since witnessing is greater and more exalted than unveiling, [for they said, 'Show us God openly' so the thunderbolt seized them] for their evildoing, for demanding the witnessing while their essences subsisted, because the existence of remnants at the moment of witnessing is to have something in a place where it does not belong. To demand a witnessing while there are remnants is a tyranny of the soul that arises from its contemplation of the perfections of the attributes for itself, and that is an injustice; [and We bestowed upon Moses clear] authority, the capacity to have mastery over them through a proof against them after his return to consciousness.

[From where He says] Nay, God raised him [Jesus] up to Him, to where He says, but will assuredly believe in him: the raising of Jesus, peace be upon him, is the conjunction of his spirit to the upper world upon separation from the lower world; his being in the fourth heaven is an allusion to the fact that the source of the effusion of his spirit is the spirituality of the solar sphere which is the equivalent of the heart of this world and to which was his [Jesus'] return. This spirituality is a light that puts the said sphere into motion by virtue of its being the lover and the irradiation of its rays on his soul, which carries out the moving of that [sphere]. Since his return was to his original resting place and he did not arrive at true perfection, it is necessary that he will come back down at the end of time by attaching himself to another body. Thereupon everyone will know him and the People of the Scripture will believe in him, that is, the folk of knowledge, the knowers of the origins and the final return every single one of them before Jesus [finally] dies by being annihilated in God. When they believe in him that will be the Day of Resurrection, that is, the day in which they will emerge from their corporeal veils and their rise from their state of forgetfulness and the life of ease in which they are now.

[he will be] a witness, witnessing them, the Truth disclosing Himself to them in his form, as has been alluded to.

And for the wrongdoing of those who are Jews, We forbade them certain good things. Embarking on prohibited things necessitates the forbidding of licit things. If you see gentleness and generosity reaching a servant, it is because he has preserved the outward of the Shariah and has wanted to show reverence to it in spirit and heart. Inevitably, he has reached the repose of whispered prayers and the gentle favors of union's gifts. In contrast, if you see harshness and severity, it is because he has looked with denial on the sanctuary of the Shariah and has put to work the religion's prohibited things in following the commanding soul. Yes, that is the way it is: When someone holds back from the outward of the Shariah, the beauty of the Haq- iqah veils its face from him. If someone disdains commands and prohibitions, what wonder if faith and recognition take their bags away from his heart? If not for the Shariah, the turning wheel would stop; if not for the religion, the Twins would quit the sky. [DS 56]