7. Al-A'raaf

We created you, then We formed you, then We said to the angels, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam.” The wise Lord, the renowned and tremendous all-compeller, the enactor, the knowing keeper of ser- vants, is reminding the children of Adam of His favors. He is teaching them about His good Godhood and His holding to the Covenant. He is saying, “I created you, and I sculpted your beautiful faces. I drew your tall statures and gave you two seeing eyes, two listening ears, and a speaking tongue. I am the Lord who makes being from nonbeing, who brings forth what is from what was not, and who makes things newly from the outset. The painter of faces is I, the adorner of beauties is I, the one who pairs everything with its companion is I, the maker of every being in a fitting way is I. I created heaven, earth, and the inanimate things to manifest power. I created the angels, satans, and jinn to manifest awe. I created Adam and the Adamites to manifest forgiveness and mercy. “For 700,000 years Gabriel, Michael, Seraphiel, the Cherubim, the Circlers, and the Row-keep- ers circumambulated the Kaabah of All-Compellingness saying 'The Glorified! The Holy!' They never gained access to or recognized My names of love, loving kindness, and friendship. They never had the gall to claim friendship with Me, but I claimed friendship with the dust-dwellers: We are your friends [41:31]. He loves them [5:54]. I derived several of My names from My friendship and loving kindness toward them: the Forgiving, the Loving, the Clement, the Ever-Merciful. To the angels I showed only severity and all-compellingness. I kept them behind the veils of awe. To the dust-dwellers I showed only clemency and mercy. I kept them on the carpet of expansiveness.” Among the angels, Gabriel was honored and foremost, and he was singled out for the special favors of proximity. His name was Servitor of the All-Merciful. He was standing constantly on the carpet of justice with the attribute of awe. He had never seen the carpet of bounty and expansive- ness. Before Adam the Chosen came, there was no separation or union, no rejection or acceptance. There was no talk of heart, sweetheart, and friendship. These wonders and storehouses all pertain to the register of passion.

[He [Iblīs] said, 'I am better than him.] You created me from fire, while him You created from clay': You created the estimative faculty from the subtlest parts of the animal spirit that comes into being in the heart as a result of the vaporousness and delicateness of the mixtures and rises to the brain. That spirit is the hottest element in the body, which is why he referred to as 'fire'. Heat necessitates ascent and rising. We have already mentioned how every spiritual faculty (quwwa malakūtiyya) is aware of the specific qualities of the one below it but not of the one above it and [is aware] of the perfections of the body and their specific qualities as well as the perfections of the animal spirit and their specific qualities: this [faculty's] veiledness from the spiritual human perfections and those [perfections] of the heart represents the image (ṣūra) of its denial and the causative factor in its recalcitrance, its haughtiness and its transgressing [the bounds] of its stage in judging intelligible meanings and disengaged realities. The refusal to accept the judgement of the intellect is [represented by] the image (ṣūra) of its refusal to prostrate.

[Said He, 'Then go down from it] - it is not for you to be haughty here, since to act with haughtiness, which is to feign a quality that one does not have, is of the attributes of the soul. Thus it is not befitting of the spiritual presence which you claim to belong to [by right] by your acting superior to the intellect: begone [from here]. You are not from among its [rightful] inhabitants, those who are the glorious ones, [rather] you are surely among the abased!', from among the egocentric faculties that adhere to the lower aspect, which shall be forever ignominious by virtue of its adherence to [physical] bodies,

until the day when they are resurrected', from the tombs of [their] bodies and the burial places of the attributes of the soul following voluntary death at the middle resurrection through the life of the heart and the deliverance of primordial nature from the veils of configuration. Or [it means] [until] they are resurrected after annihilation in the unity at the major resurrection through the existence that is bestowed by the Truth and [through] real life. The former [type of] resurrected individual is the one who is mukliṣ, while the latter is mukhlaṣ. Iblis has no means of leading either of these two astray.

[Said he,] 'Now, by that You have sent me astray: this is an avowal. Iblis is veiled from the Essence of the unity but not from the attributes and the acts. Thus his presential vision of the acts and his revering of them constitutes a pledge by them, as he vows by His might where God says [that Satan says] Now, by Your might, I shall surely pervert them all [Q. 38:82]; verily I shall sit in ambush for them on Your [straight] path, that is, verily I shall get in their way on the path of affirming the unity of the Essence and shall verily impede them from wayfaring along it by distracting them with what is other than You and I shall verily come upon them from all four directions, those from which the enemy comes at the [moment of] witnessing. For his coming [upon them] from below, that is, from the direction of judgements based on the senses and measures (tadābīr) based on particulars on the basis of what is in the best interest in terms of this world does not necessarily result in being led astray. Nay, it could be profitable in terms of the natural and physical sciences and the intellect could be assisted by [this coming of him] in these [sciences], as has already been mentioned in the interpretation of His words they would surely have received nourishment from above them and from beneath their feet [Q. 5:66]. As for his coming [upon them] from above, this is not possible for him since the higher aspect is the one that is adjacent to the spirit and [the one] from which issue veracious inspirations and angelic castings and [from which] are effused gnoses and spiritual realities; which leaves the four directions, the places from which issue his evil whisperings. As for 'from before him', [he comes upon him thus] by making him feel secure from God's plotting and tempting him with [the concept of] God being Forgiving and Merciful such that he does not come to fear [Him] and so [Iblis] slows him down from [the performance of] acts of obedience. As for 'from behind him', [he comes upon him thus] by making him fearful of impoverishment and [his] offspring being ruined after him and so he [Iblis] incites him to gather and store up for them and for himself in the future having entertained the hope of a long life.

And You will not find most of them thankful', employing their faculties and limbs and what God has graced them with in the path of obedience and seeking proximity to God.

As for those of them, who follow you I shall assuredly fill Hell, [physical] nature, which is the lowest of the levels of existence, with all of you', veiled from the pleasure of eternal bliss and the tasting of timeless subsistence, [and from] spiritual perfections and the perfections that come from the Truth, chastised by the fires of privation from what is desired, in the fluctuations (inqilāb) of the world of contrareity and the turbulences (taqallubāt) of engendered being and corruption.

O Adam, dwell thou and thy spouse in the Garden, and eat from wheresoever you will, but come not near this tree. Adam has four names: Adam, vicegerent, mortal, and man. He was called Adam because he was created from the surface [adīm] of the earth, drawn from every region. Thus He said, “[We created man] from an extraction of clay” [23:12]. In other words, he was extracted from every region- sweet and briny, soft and hard. In Adam's clay were salty and sweet, coarse and soft, so the natures of his children became diverse. Among them are both sweet-tempered and bad-tempered, open and closed, generous and stingy, easy-going and difficult, black and white. Elsewhere He said, “He created man from dried clay, like pottery” [55:14]. Pottery is dried clay that gives off sound and is full of noise. In other words, the Adamite is noisy, his head full of tumult and turmoil, attached to talking. Elsewhere He said, “from clinging clay” [37:11], from a clay that is sticky, clings to every- thing, and mixes with everyone. Elsewhere He said, “from fetid mud” [15:26], a clay that is dark and black. Thus He taught him his measure so that he would not transgress his stage. He was shown his own root so that, if he should see generosity, he would not see it from himself. He would know that eminence lies in nurture [tarbiya], not in soil [turba]. What arises from soil? Wrongdoing, ignorance, and harshness. Adam disobeyed his Lord [20:121]. What arises from nurture? The generosity of guidance, the acceptance of repentance, and caresses. Surely God chose Adam [3:33]. The fruit of nurture is what He says: “He loves them, and they love Him” [5:54]. MaḤmūd went to the house of Ayāz. He saw all the property, blessings, gold, silver, jewels, multicolored silks, and robes of honor that MaḤmūd had given to him and bestowed upon him. In a corner he saw an old cloak made of patches of cloth hanging from a nail. He said, “So, what is this?” Ayāz answered, “This one is me in all my helplessness and abasement. All that beauty, adorn- ment, and all that exaltedness and delight are you. When I look at this, I see my own incapacity and know my own worth. When I look at that, I see you and know that it belongs to you, so I am delighted and lift my head.