5. Al-Maaida

And obey God, by being annihilated in Him so that you become compliant in what He uses you for, as [compliant as] one who is dead; and obey the Messenger, by subsisting after the annihilation so that you become upright therein, mindful of the differentiations, alive through his life; and beware, of the manifestation of [your untransformed] remnants at the point of uprightness; but if you turn away, then know, that the shortcoming is yours and the Messenger's duty is only to proclaim openly [the message] and not to commit [you to it].

There shall be, upon those who believe, with faith based on the unseen by the affirmation of the unity of the acts, and who perform, in accordance with what their faith entails, deeds that bring them out of the veils of the acts and set them right for the vision of the acts of the Truth, no fault or constraint in what they enjoy of different types of shares, so long as they avoid the remnants of their acts and take God as their shield against acts issuing from themselves, and believe, in the unity of the attributes, and perform deeds, that bring them out of the veils of the attributes and set them right for the witnessing of the divine self-disclosures by their effacement therein, and then guard themselves, against the remnants of their attributes and take God as their shield upon the issuing of His attributes upon them, and believe, in the unity of the essence, then guard themselves, the remnants of their essences and take God as their shield upon their existence through the pure annihilation and [their] consumption in the source of the essence and who are virtuous by witnessing the differentiations at the source of the union and by their uprightness at the subsistence after the annihilation; for God loves the virtuous, those who witness the unity at the source of multiplicity, who are mindful of the dues of the differentiations at the source of the union by means of the Truth-given existence.

O you who believe, in the unseen, God will surely try you, at the point of your wayfaring and your entry into pilgrim sanctity for the visiting of the Kaʿba of arrival, with something, of the shares that come your way and by which you are given to consider that these are a means to arriving at this [Kaʿba of arrival], so that God may know, at the level of differentiated knowledge that is consequent to the event from which recompense ensues; who fears Him, in the state of absence, since fear (khawf) only applies in the case of those who believe in the unseen, as it is connected in the narrative that is addressing acts. As for the state of presence, then [what applies is] either reverential trepidation (khashya), in which case, by the self-disclosure of Lordship and Exaltedness, or awe (hayba), in which case, by the self-disclosure of the Essence. Thus fear is an attribute of the soul, reverential trepidation is an attribute of the heart, while awe is an attribute of the spirit. Whoever transgresses thereafter, by committing acts [entailing the enjoyment] of shares after the [divine] trying, his shall be a chastisement, that is painful for his veiling himself from [divine] love by his act.

O you who have faith, do not slay game when you are ritually consecrated. He forbade hunting to the ritually consecrated because such a person has the intention of visiting the Kaabah. In terms of allusion, He is saying, “When someone aims for My house and turns his face to the eminent, holy Kaabah, hoping to be in My neighborhood, at least desert game should be protected and secure from him, for in his undertaken goal he has brought himself into the crowd of the pious and the good, and the attribute of the pious is this: 'They do not harm an ant, nor do they have hidden thoughts of evil.'” It has been said that ritual consecration is of two sorts: the hajji's consecration in the body, and the recognizer's consecration in the heart. As long as the hajji is consecrated in the body, game is forbidden to him. As long as the recognizer is consecrated in the heart, seeking, wanting, and free choice are forbidden to him. The mark of the heart's consecration is three things: to be on loan to the creatures, to be a stranger to oneself, and to be at ease from attachment. The fruit of the heart's consecration is three things today and three things tomorrow. Today it is the sweetness of whispered prayer, the birth of wisdom, and the soundness of perspicacity; tomorrow it will be the light of contemplation, the call of gentleness, and the cup of wine.

Permitted to you is the hunting of the game, of the sea of the spiritual world in the way of gnoses, intelligibles and cognitive shares amidst the celestial bodies of the divine presence, and food from it, in the way of profitable knowledge, the learning of which, for the purposes of transactions and for [the refinement of] character traits, is an obligatory duty, a means of enjoyment, for you, O wayfarers along the path of truth, and for the travellers, those journeying to the Hereafter, seeking to obtain the gains of the everlasting bliss; but forbidden to you is the hunting of the game, on the land of the corporeal world in the way of sensory objects and ego-centric shares. Take God as your shield in your journeying so that you might journey with Him. And make your souls God's shield [for you] against the issuing from them of preventive evils, and be certain that, to Him you shall be gathered, at the annihilation in the Essence, so expend effort in wayfaring and do not stop because of the impediments behind the veil.

Know that God is intense in punishment and that God is forgiving, ever-merciful. He is intense in punishment toward the enemies and forgiving, ever-merciful toward the friends.5 The intense in punishment is severity and harshness toward the enemies. The forgiving, ever- merciful is caresses and generosity for the friends. He combined severity and gentleness in one verse so that the servant would live in fear and hope between severity and gentleness. When he looks at severity, he fears, and when he sees gentleness, he hopes. Fear is the fortress of faith, the antidote to caprice, and the weapon of the faithful. Hope is the steed of service, the supplies for striving, and the provision of worship. It has also been said that the servant's faith and certainty have two wings: fear and hope. How can a bird fly with one wing? In the same way, the faithful cannot travel the road of the religion in fear without hope or in hope without fear. True faith is like a balance: One pan is fear, the other pan hope, and the beam is love. The pans are hung from knowledge. Just as a balance must have pans, so hope and fear must have knowledge, which is why He put Know that at the beginning of the verse. Fear without knowledge is the fear of the Khawarij, hope without knowledge is the hope of the Murji'ah, and love without knowledge is the love of libertines.

The duty of the Messenger is only, to convey [the Message], not to effect conjunction, and God knows, your secrets and your outward acts, what you reveal, of deeds and character traits, and what you hide, of intentions, knowledge, and states, and whether these are good for you to seek nearness to Him therewith, and whether you are preparing therewith for the encounter with Him or not.

Say: “The vile and the goodly are not equal, even if the manyness of the vile stirs you to admiration.” In the tongue of the Shariah, the vile is the forbidden, and the goodly is the permitted. In the tongue of the Haqiqah, every occupation that is empty of the mention and remembrance of the Real is vile; and every occupation at the beginning of which comes the Real's name, in the middle of which is the witnessing of the Real, and at the end of which is praise and gratitude is goodly. ʿāÌisha the sincerely truthful commanded that a shirt be sewn. The person who was sew- ing seems to have been heedless of remembering the Real. His heedlessness became known to ʿāÌisha. She commanded him to undo the sewing. She said, “This is vile, and the vile is not ap- propriate for me.” It has been said that every wealth from which God's rightful due is taken and the alms tax given is goodly, and everything from which it is not taken is vile and on the edge of destruction. MuṣṬafā said, “No property is wasted in the land and the sea except by holding back its alms tax.” It has also been said that the vile is what you accumulate and store up in this world, holding it back from the hand of expenditure and good. The goodly is what you send forth for yourselves, spend in the good, and store up for the next world. This is the meaning of “What we sent forward was our gain, and what we left behind was our loss,” which was already mentioned.