7. Al-A'raaf

Alif Lām Mīm Ṣād.

A Book that is revealed to you, to where He says as a reminder for those who believe: Alif is an allusion to the Essence of the [exclusive] unity (aḥadiyya); lām [is an allusion] to the Essence combined with the attribute of knowledge, as has already been mentioned; mīm [is an allusion] to the all-comprehensive talisman (tamīma) which is the meaning of Muḥammad, that is, his soul and his reality; and ṣād [is an allusion] to the Muḥammadan form which is his body and his external aspect. It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said, 'Ṣād is a mountain outside Mecca atop of which was the Throne of the Compassionate (ʿarsh al-Raḥmān) before there was either night or day'. By the mountain he was alluding to Muḥammad and by the Throne of the Compassionate to his heart, as stated by the ḥadīth [to the effect that]: 'The heart of the believer is the Throne of God'. It has also been related that: 'Neithe My earth nor My heaven can embrace Me, but the heart of My believing servant embraces Me'. As for his words, 'before there was either night or day', these are an allusion to the unity, since when the heart falls under the shadow of the earth of the soul and is veiled by the attributes of this [soul] it is night for it; but when there rises over it the light of the sun of the spirit and it finds light by the light of this [spirit] then it is day. When it [the heart] arrives at the true unity through gnosis and presential vision of the essence and both light and darkness become equal for it, then for it that moment will be neither day nor night and the Compassionate's Throne will only be at that moment. Thus the meaning of the verse is that the existence of the All from beginning to end is a Book that has been revealed to you, that is to say, a Book the knowledge of which has been revealed to you. So let there be no inhibition in your breast because of It, that is, [let there not be] any constraint [in your breast] to bear it, lest it not be able to embrace it by virtue of its tremendousness such that it then dissipates in the annihilation in the unity and the absorption in the source of the union and the distraction from the differentiation, since he [Muḥammad], peace be upon him, was at the station of annihilation veiled by the Truth from creatures: each time that existence was restored to him and he was veiled from the presential vision of [his] essence and [that existence] manifested itself upon him at [the level of] differentiation, his vessel (wiʿāÌ) narrowed and he became laden with a burden and a weight.

The weighing that day is true. The weighing of deeds with the scales of self-purification is true, and the weighing of states with the scales of truthfulness is just. Hapless and deprived is he whose deeds are tainted with eye- service and whose states are mixed with self-admiration, for in the station of the scales these states will have no value and those deeds will have no weight. God says, “On the Day of Resur- rection, We shall assign them no weight” [18:105]. Among the traditions of ʿUmar is this: “Take an accounting of yourselves before you are brought to account, weigh your deeds before they are weighed, and prepare for the Greatest Exposure.” He is saying, “Weigh your own deeds before they are weighed against you, take an account of yourself and gaze upon your own works: What have you made ready for the Greatest Exposure and the gathering place of the resurrection?” This is why the Lord of the Worlds said, “Let every soul consider what it has forwarded for tomorrow” [59:18]. A report has come that an intelligent man has four hours in which to seek his felicity and adorn his days: the hour in which he takes an accounting of himself and weighs his own deeds and states, the hour in which he whispers secretly with the Real and shows his need to Him, the hour in which he takes care of his own livelihood, and the hour in which he takes his ease in whispered prayer and in what he has been given of this world. The weighing that day is true. The pirs of the Tariqah and the lords of recognition say that the scales are diverse. The soul and spirit have a scale, the heart and intellect have a scale, and recogni- tion and the secret core have a scale. The scale of the soul and spirit is commands and prohibitions, and its two pans are the Book and the Sunnah. The scale of the heart and intellect is reward, and its two pans are threats and promises. The scale of recognition and the secret core is approval, and its two pans are fleeing and seeking. Fleeing is to escape from this world and to cling to the after- world. Seeking is to leave aside the afterworld and seek the Patron.

And as for those whose scales are light, whose weighed things [are light], being those perishing sensory things, those are the ones who have lost their souls, by having sold them in exchange for hasty pleasures that are quick to disappear and by annihilating them in the abode of annihilation despite their [the souls'] being the commodity [to be exchanged] for subsistence. Know that the tongue of the scale of Truth is the attribute of justice. One of His two palms is the world of the senses, while the other palm is the world of the intellect. Thus the one earnings were the enduring intelligibles, virtuous character traits, and the good deeds that are joined to sincere intentions, then these [acquisitions] will have weight, that is to say, they will be have value and weight, since there is no weightier value than everlasting subsistence. As for the one whose acquisitions were the ephemeral sensory things, transient pleasures, corrupt passionate desires, despicable character traits and ruinous evils, these [acquisitions] will weigh in lightly, that is to say, they shall have no value and are useless, there being no lightness lighter than what has perished. Their loss then resides in their having forfeited their original preparedness when they sought the ephemera of this world and the actualisation of egoistic goals by virtue of their having manifested themselves through the attributes of their souls and of their not having done justice to the attributes of God, exalted be He, by denying them, that is, by concealing them with the attributes of their souls.