7. Al-A'raaf

He threw down the Tablets.... He said, �My Lord, forgive me and my brother.�In this there is an allusion that the servant must ask forgiveness in all states and realize that it is His to chastise the innocent, for all of creation is owned by him, and the owner's determination perme- ates what He owns.The Children of Israel sinned, and Moses and his brother apologized and asked forgiveness. This is the path of the chevaliers and the road of the Sufis: They also place the sin upon themselves and apologize for sins not committed.When we are ill, we come to You, we visit you. They sin, so we come to You and apologize.

And Moses chose his people, seventy men, for Our appointed time, and when the earth- quake took them, he said � �It is naught but Thy trial. Thou misguidest thereby whomsoever Thou wilt and Thou guidest whomsoever Thou wilt. Thou art our Friend, so forgive us and have mercy upon us, and Thou art the best of forgivers!�There is a difference between the community of Moses and the community of MuḤammad. The community of Moses was chosen by Moses, for He says, �And Moses chose his people.� The community of MuḤammad was chosen by God, for He says, �We chose them, with a knowledge, above the worlds� [44:32]. Then He said about those chosen by Moses, �They said, 'Show us God openly,' and the thunderbolt took them because of their wrongdoing� [4:153]. Here He says, �The earthquake took them.� Concerning those He Himself chose He said, �Faces that day will be radi- ant, gazing upon their Lord� [75:22-23].The want is the want of the Real, the choice the choice of the Real. God says, �And thy Lord creates what He wants and chooses. They have no choice� [28:68]. Moses was bold on the carpet of proximity in the station of whispered prayer. He had the attribute of realization in the state of brokenness and poverty because of anguish and bewilderment, and he showed this remorse: �It is naught but Thy trial.� Then he perceived himself and returned to the attribute of incapacity and brokenness, entering from the door of awe and veneration. He threw the decree entirely back to the Real: �Thou misguidest whom Thou wilt, and Thou guidest whom Thou wilt.� He was not content with this, so he loosed the tongue of laudation and connected it with pleading and weeping: �Thou art our Friend, so forgive us and have mercy upon us.� He displayed his need and lowliness to Him and asked for mercy and forgiveness. He said, �So forgive us and have mercy upon us, and Thou art the best of forgivers!�It has come in the traditions that on the day of the whispered prayer, Moses reached the edge of Mount Sinai. With every step he took, he lauded God, called upon Him, and displayed a need.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �There is no rejecting the needy, there is no deception behind the door of need, and there is no means of approach to the Friend like need.

And write for us in this world the beautiful, and in the next world. We have turned to Thee.In other words, �We have turned toward Thy religion and we have come home to Thee entirely, without leaving anything for ourselves.�O Lord, we have come back to You entirely. We are quit of our own power and strength. We are content with whatever You have decreed. Do not turn us over to ourselves, and lift up our we- ness from before us. This is the same as what MuṣṬafā said: �Entrust me not to myself for the blink of an eye, or even less than that.� He also said, �Shield me as a son is shielded!�Revelation came to David: �O David, what do My friends have to do with the sorrow of this world? This world's sorrow will take the sweetness of whispered prayer from their hearts. I love My friends to be spiritual, not to grieve for anything, to detach their hearts from this world, to throw all their work and business to Me, and to approve of My decree.�God's Messenger said, �Approval of the decree is God's greatest gate.�There was a worshiper among the Children of Israel who had spent long days in worship. It was shown to him in a dream that in paradise his close friend would be so-and-so. He set off in search of that person to see what his worship was. He saw that he had neither prayer at night nor fasting by daytime, only the obligatory acts. He said, �Tell me what you do.�He replied, �I have never done much worship outside of what you have seen. But I do have one trait. When I am in trial or illness, I do not want to be well. If I am in the sun, I do not want to be in the shade. Whatever God decrees, I approve of that, and I do not add my want to God's want.�The worshiper said, �That is what has conveyed you to this way station.�

Among the people of Moses is a community that guides by the truth and does justice thereby.This is the story of the friends and the description of the state of the chevaliers and the conduct of the wayfarers. The Lord of the Worlds has shown them the road of felicity, singled them out for the special favors of proximity and nearness, and honored them with the attraction of generosity. The relation of godwariness lives through them, the trodden path of truthfulness is built on the firm fixity of their feet, and the good fortune of the religion is joined with the blessings of their breaths. God's Messenger said, �Were the light of one of them to be divided among the folk of the earth, it would embrace them.� If the light of their hearts were given an open road and the glitter of its radiance were to fall on the world and the world's folk, all recalcitrant people would become tawḤīd-voicers and replace their sashes of unbelief with belts of passion for the religion. They are rare and precious, however. He does not show them to anyone, nor does He give them over to this world or the afterworld. He keeps them like fugitives in His own protection and nurtures them withthe attribute of love under the domes of jealousy.Revelation came to Moses: �O speaking-companion of the empire! Be careful not to open up the oyster of your pain's pearl before those without eyes. Do not recite the verses of the form of passion for My majesty to the non-privy or those dismissed from the reality of hearing and listen- ing. O Moses! If you want to expose My mystery to someone, then do so to those who are the locus of the covenant of My secrets, who are busy night and day serving My threshold, the tent of their passion pitched in the contemplation of My majesty, having been branded with this mark of most-worthiness by the threshold of Lordhood: a community that guides by the truth and does justice thereby. This brand of most-worthiness is one of the divine secrets, a lordly subtlety that departed from the World of the Unseen and settled down only within the curtain of the stages of the clay of the poor. If you want to catch a whiff of it, go into the curtains of the soul until you reach the heart, then go into the curtains of the heart until you reach the spirit, then go into the curtains of the spirit until you reach union with the Beloved, for you will not see it placed anywhere save in the spirit of the friends.

And We cut them up into twelve tribes, communities.... And We revealed to Moses when his people asked him for water, " Strike the stone with thy staff, " and twelve springs gushed forth from it. All the people knew their drinking places.Concerning the realities of this verse Jaʿfar ibn MuḤammad said that He made twelve streams flow forth from the wellspring of recognition and He made each the drink of one group. He made drawing the water of religion's good fortune appear for each group in that watering place. This is the same thing He said briefly elsewhere by way of intimation and allusion: " If they go straight on the Tariqah, We will draw for them copious water " [72:16]. In other words, " We will appoint for them a constant watering. "There are twelve rivers, the first of which is familiarity and the last of which is friendship. The ten between the two are first the truthfulness of belief, second self-purification in deeds, third approval of the decree, fourth the eye of certainty, fifth the joy of ecstasy, sixth the lightning of unveiling, seventh the bewilderment of witnessing, eighth the dissolution of the marks giving wit- ness, ninth the observation of togetherness, and tenth the reality of solitariness. When the servant's spirit tastes these drinks and finds their sweetness, and when the divine attraction joins with that, he becomes the Wellspring of Life itself, and anyone who sips a drink from his hand will be prosper- ous forever.The Pir of the Tariqah said, " O God, I recognize the drinking place, but I'm not able to drink. Heart-thirsty, I weep in hope of a drop. The fountain cannot quench me-I'm seeking the ocean. I passed by a thousand springs and streams in hopes of finding the ocean. Have you ever seen someone drowning in the fire of passion? I'm like that. Have you ever seen someone thirsty in a lake? That's what I am. I'm exactly like someone lost in the desert. Help me! I'm at wit's end! I've lost my heart. "