6. Al-An'aam

Say: 'Come, I will recite that which your Lord has made a sacred duty for you: having proven that in terms of what they deem licit and make illicit idolaters are [merely] following their caprices, since idolatry in itself is simply the worship of caprice and Satan - and so when they became veiled in the attributes of the soul from the attributes of the Truth and made caprice master over them, worshipping it and obeying its commands and its prohibitions in terms of what it [caprice] deems licit or illicit - He makes it clear that the act of deeming things licit or illicit that is pursued regarding these has been commanded by God, exalted be He; and given that the discourse is directed at them with regard to their prohibiting what are goodly things, He enumerates the things that are forbidden in order that the permitted things be inferred therefrom. By forbidding genera of vices, He has encompassed all the types of excellent things. He begins by forbidding the vice of the speech faculty, which is the noblest of them [the faculties] - for the vice thereof is the worst of grave sins, entailing as it does all [other] vices, in contrast to the vices of its two sister-faculties, the bestial and the predatory - and says: that you associate nothing with Him, since idolatrous association is the result of its mistaken consideration and its shortcoming in employing the intellect and perceiving the proof. He then follows it with [the mention of] being dutiful to parents. For knowledge of the rights due to them comes after the knowledge of God in terms of existentiation and lordship, as they [the parents] are two causes that are close in terms of existence and nurture and two means which God, exalted be He, has made loci for the manifestation of His two attributes of existentiation and lordship. That is why he [the Prophetḍ] said, 'Whoever is obedient to his parents is indeed obedient to God and His Messenger'. Disobedience to them comes after idolatry, since ignorance of what is due to them can only be out of the ignorance of what is due to God and of the knowledge of His attributes. Then [He mentions] the prohibition against the slaying of one's children for fear of poverty.

And that you do not approach the property of the orphan, in any way whatsoever, save with that which is fairer, except through that trait which is more virtuous, in the way of preserving that [property] or making it multiply, until he is of age, and profits from it, as opposed to [approaching it] by consuming it and spending it for your use or wasting it, since that is most vile. Then after He has illustrated the illicitness of the four genera of vice in their entirety in detail, He enjoins the obligation of the four virtues in a generalised form, because the detailing of the vices avails of the need to detail their counterparts [from among the virtues] since they are included all of them in [the virtue of] justice and so He has enjoined it in all of its aspects, whether in acts or speech, saying: And give full measure and full weight in justice, that is, observe justice between you and [other] creatures in an absolute way. And if you speak, then be just, in other words, say only what is the truth, even if he, the one concerning whom it is spoken, should be a kinsman: so do not be biased in speaking for him or against him by adding or withholding [facts]. And fulfil God's covenant, that is, the affirmation of Oneness and obedience and all that is between you and God in terms of what the former covenant entails for the subsequent one. And since the wayfaring upon the path of virtue, that is the path of the unity and the orienting of oneself towards the Truth, is difficult - being, as they say, 'finer than a hair and sharper than [the edge of] a sword' - especially [difficult] in terms of acts, since to be mindful of moderation regarding them without inclining in some way to the side of excess or immoderation is extremely difficult, He, after saying And give full measure and full weight in justice, says, We do not charge any soul beyond its capacity, illustrating that in this instance [of the QurÌān] He has combined the prohibition against all vices and the enjoining of all virtues in their entirety in such a way that no particulars of the subdivisions of these [two categories of vice and virtue] have been omitted, which is why Ibn ʿAbbās, may God be satisfied with him, said: 'Verily these are clear verses of which nothing has been abrogated by anything in any of the scriptures'.

And that this, the path of virtues, since the source of virtue is the unity. Do you not see how these [virtues] are middle ways and forms of moderateness between the two aspects of immoderation and excess which can only be in reality pursued in terms of designation (taʿyīn) by the one who is upright following the religion of God and whom God reinforces by facilitating [for him] the wayfaring along the path of the Truth until he arrives at [the stage of] being annihilated from his attributes, then from his essence, then in the state of subsistence after the annihilation he acquires the attributes of God, exalted be He, such that he subsists through God and becomes upright for Him and by Him. Thereupon his path becomes the path of the Truth and his journeying the journey to God, My path, it is a straight one, that is, My path can only be wayfared upon by the one who subsists in Me upright, inclining not to the right or to the left for some purpose; so follow it and do not follow other ways, such as [those of] schismatic creeds and differing religions, as these are coventions invented by those who are veiled in habits and caprices, that is to say, a convention for them lest they increase in darkness, insolence and bewilderment. Ibn Masʿūd related from the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, that he [the Messenger] drew a line [in the sand] and said, 'This is the path of right guidance', then drew lines to the right and to the left of it and said, 'These are [other] paths, upon each of them is a devil summoning [man] to that [path]'; he then recited this verse: lest it separate you away from His way, that is, from wayfaring along the path of unity and virtue. [This is what] He has ordained for you, that perhaps you will be wary', of the divided paths, by avoiding what is entailed in caprices and the exigencies of the souls and by making God your shield for adhering to virtues and avoiding vices.

Then We gave Moses the Scripture: that is to say, after He charged you with wayfaring along the path of virtue in ancient times, We gave Moses the scripture, complete for him who does good, that is, to consummate the nobleness of sanctity and the grace of prophethood over and above the virtuousness of Moses in his wayfaring along the path of perfection and the station he attained of communion [with God] and proximity [to Him] by means of the existence divinely-endowed after the annihilation in the unity, as God says and when he recovered his senses he said, 'Glory be to You! I repent to You and I am the first of those who believe' [Q. 7:143], in perfection and in [the necessity of] calling creatures to the Truth, and a detailing of all things, which creatures will need for the final return, and as a guidance, for them to their Lord in wayfaring along His path, and a mercy, to them, in effusing unto them His perfections by means of Moses and the scripture given to him, that perhaps they might believe in the encounter with their Lord, with either cognitive faith or that [faith] of presential vision.

And this is a Book which We have revealed, blessed, by the addition of guidance to the simple affirmation of Oneness and the direction to the even way, guiding by the shortest of paths to the most exalted degrees of perfection; so follow it, and be wary, of all that is besides God, even your own essences and attributes, that perhaps you might be shown mercy, the mercy of being upright through God and in God by means of the endowed existence.

Are they waiting for nothing less than that the angels should come to them, to receive their spirits in death, or that your Lord should come, by His self-disclosure in all of the attributes, as has already been alluded to in terms of the transmutation of form at the Resurrection such that none but the perfected affirmers of Oneness know Him, whereas the people of the creeds and [other] differing religions only know Him in the form of their belief [regarding Him]; or that one of your Lord's signs should comeḍ, His self-disclosure in an attribute which they never knew of Him. On the day that one of your Lord's signs comes, a self-disclosure of His with which they were never intimate, or which they never knew, it shall not benefit a soul to believe if it had not believed theretofore, for people are either veiled absolutely or otherwise, and they are either believers by their knowledge of some attributes or all of them. Those who believe in Him and know Him in all of these [attributes] are either lovers of the Essence or lovers of [His] attributes. So when the Truth discloses Himself in one of the attributes, the faith of those who are veiled absolutely is of no avail, nor the faith of those believers who did not know Him in that attribute prior to that self-disclosure, since faith is only beneficial when it has become a fixed and firmly rooted conviction embodied in the heart and one by which the soul is illumined and by which the spirit witnesses, and not that [faith] which comes about suddenly out of some urgent necessity; or earned in its faith some good, such as the faith of the knowers and lovers of the attributes, for these, even if they should believe in Him and have come to know of His self-disclosures in all of the attributes, because they have not acquired the Essential love and the absolute perfection and have loved Him through one of the attributes, such as the Gracious, for example, or the Gentle or the Merciful, when He discloses Himself in the attribute of the Vengeful or the Vanquisher or the Tester, their faith in Him shall not benefit them then, since they will not have been obedient to Him before that description and will not have been disciplined by that self-disclosure of His and loved the Essence to experience the pleasure of witnessing Him in whatever attribute it may be.

Those who have divided their religion, that is, who have made their religion a collection of divided caprices, such as those overcome by the attributes of the soul some of which draw them to this, while others draw them to that, such that there issue in them varying caprices and they thus remain bewildered without direction or goal, and have become parties, groups differing depending on which of the caprices has overcome [them], with some overcome by wrath, others by lust. And if they were to have a religion, they make their religion, depending on the caprice that has overcome them, the very substratum of their partisanship and the reinforcement for the sway of that faculty that has overcome the heart. Their acts of worship are but habits and innovations, obeying as they do only caprices and deceptions, each of them worshipping a deity conjured by his illusion and conceived in his imagination and making that [deity] a cause for his arrogance towards, and division from, the other, as we witness in the case the adherents of the exoteric schools; you have no concern with them at all, that is to say, it is not your concern to guide them or to call them to the affirmation of Oneness in any way, since they are the folk of schism and of being veiled by multiplicity, their goal never being one. Their case will go to God, in terms of the recompense for their division, and not to you. Then He will inform them, upon the manifestation on them of the configurations of their differing souls and divided caprices at the separation of bodies, of what they used to do, of evil deeds.

Whoso brings a beautiful deed shall have ten the like of it, and whoso brings an ugly deed shall be recompensed only with its like. The former will be bounty and the latter justice. O Lord, if You show bounty, Your bounty has no limit, and if You show justice, Your justice cannot be rejected. If You show bounty, let others be just or unjust! If You show justice, others' bounty is like the wind. If You show bounty, bounty is appropriate for You. If You show justice, not increasing is appropriate for You. Part of His bounty is that one beautiful deed of the servant becomes ten, and by His bounty, ugly deeds change into beautiful deeds. God says, “Those-God shall change their ugly deeds into beautiful deeds” [25:70]. Abū Dharr narrates: “I said, 'O Messenger of God, teach me a deed that will bring me near to the Garden and keep me far from the Fire.' “He said, 'When you do an ugly deed, follow it with a beautiful deed.'” “I said, 'Is “There is no god but God” one of the beautiful deeds?' “He said, 'It is the most beautiful of the beautiful deeds.'' The beautiful deeds of the worshipers are one thing, the beautiful deeds of the recognizers something else. The worshipers are in the station of service, but the recognizers are on the carpet of witnessing in the station of nearness and the intimacy of contemplation. Each one's beautiful deeds are in the measure of his traveling. The beautiful deeds of the re- nunciants are an aspiration greater than this world, the beautiful deeds of the desirers are an object of desire greater than the afterworld, the beautiful deeds of the sincerely truthful are a yearning to see the Patron. The renunciants have service according to the Sunnah, the desirers have recogni- tion in contemplation, the sincerely truthful have laudation in the Reality. This is the end of the traveling of the wayfarers, the final goal of the levels of the sincerely truthful, and the beginning of the Real's attraction. MuṣṬafā was in this station when he opened the tongue of laudation and said in the attribute of confoundedness, “I do not number Thy laudations-Thou art as Thou hast lauded Thyself.”