7. Al-A'raaf

Surely your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then sat upon the Throne.Lord is the name of the Lord whose name is light and whose message is light joined with love. He is the nurturer of the world's folk, the keeper of the creatures, the requiter, the lovingly kind. He is pure and peerless, the judge of how and why, not defiled by any unworthy thing. He is appar- ent to Himself in rightness, apparent to Himself in being, apparent to the heart in friendship. He is one and enough, taking care of what everyone has, able to keep the hearts straight, the Lord of everything, the keeper of every being, the nurturer of everything apt to go higher.First He said Lord as the portion of the common people, then He said God as the portion of the recognizers and the sincerely truthful. Lord puts the hearts of good men at ease, God plunders the spirits of the recognizers. Lord bestows blessings on the askers, God throws love into the hearts of the friends. Lord pours the blessings of vision on the faithful, God lights up the lamp of love in the recognizers with vision.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Love and vision met. Love said to vision, 'You are like light, for you brighten the world.'�Vision said to love, 'You are like fire, for you burn the world.' Then vision said, 'When I disclose myself, I pull suffering from the heart.'�Love said, 'Well, when I settle down in the heart, I plunder it.' �Vision said, 'I am a gift for those who are tested.'�Love said, 'I throw tumult into the world.'�Vision is the share of those who recognize Him in the artisanries. They reach Him on the basis of the artisanries-the engendered, determined, and newly arrived things, namely the creation of the earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the subjected stars. Love is the share of those who recognize Him through Him and who come from Him to the artisanries, not from the artisanries to Him.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �Indigent is he who recognizes Him through the artisanries! Wretched is he who loves Him for the sake of blessings! Foolish is he who searches for Him with his own effort!�He who recognizes Him through the artisanries worships Him in fear and want.

Supplicate your Lord in pleading and secret.MuṣṬafā said, �Supplication is worship.� Supplication is calling or asking. If it is calling, it is the same as laudation, and if it is asking, it is fitting for the servant. Both are worship and the means to salvation. YaḤyā Muʿādh said, �Worshiping God is a storehouse, the key to the storehouse is supplication, and the teeth of the key are lawful morsels.�The precondition of supplication is pleading, weeping, and throwing oneself in lowliness on the Exalted Threshold. This is why He says, �in pleading and secret.� It has come in a report that Adam mourned and pleaded over that slip of his for one hundred years. Finally Gabriel said, �Lord God, You Yourself see Adam's pleading, You hear his weeping. Is there any way for You to ac- cept his apology and place a balm on his wound?�The command came, �O Gabriel! Leave Adam to Me, for if I had not known this pleading and weeping from him, I would not have decreed the slip for him. Indeed I decreed the slip for him because I knew that when he became helpless, he would loosen the tongue of supplication and pleading, and I love that the servant should lament and weep for Me. 'The sinner's sobs are more beloved to Me than the glorifier's murmur.'�The like of this verse is �Your Lord has said, 'Supplicate Me; I will respond to you' [40:60]. He says, �Call on Me so that I may respond to you; know Me, so that I may forgive you; ask from Me, so that I may give to you.�In another place He says, �He who responds to the distressed when he supplicates Him [27:62]. That hapless and helpless man, having lost the capacity to bear the trial-who will answer his call if not I? Who will hear his supplication if not I? Who will come to the aid of his helplessness if not I?� The distressed is someone who has no handhold and gazes on his own days given to the wind.He sees that his hands are empty of all the means of approach and acts of obedience. The supplica- tion of such a person is like an arrow that goes straight to the target.Among the preconditions for supplication, one is lawful morsels.

Surely God's mercy is near the beautiful-doers.MuṣṬafā said, �Beautiful doing is that you worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, surely He sees you.� This report alludes to the heart's encounter with the Real, the secret core's convergence with the Unseen, and the spirit's contemplation of God. The verse incites the servant to self-purification in deeds, curtailment of wishing, and loyalty to what was accepted on the day of the compact and covenant of Yes indeed [7:172]. Since you know that He sees you, keep your heart on Him and take it away from other than Him. Be a self-purifier in your deeds and truthful in your states.The Pir of the Tariqah said, �When an eye has seen Him, how will it busy itself with glancing at other than Him? When a spirit has found companionship with Him, how long will it make do with water and dust? When someone has become accustomed to the presence of contemplation, how will he put up with the abasement of the veil? How will the ruler of his own city spend his life in exile? 'As if you see Him' is an allusion that the Real is to be seen, 'for He sees you' is the seeing of the Real.�The Pir of the Tariqah said, �When the awe of seeing the Real is found, what fear will there be of the denier's blame? Strive in service worthy for the Worshiped One, not the portion of water and dust, for the awe of looking on the Real is a flood, and the approval of the creatures is debris.�

He it is who looses the winds as good news before the hands of His mercy so that, when they lift up a heavy cloud, We drive it to a dead land and thereby send down water, bringing forth thereby all the fruits.When the hearts inhale the breeze of proximity, they are enraptured in the dominion of majesty and effaced of everything delineated and customary.When the breeze of the Beginningless wafts from the side of proximity and the wind of gener- osity blows from solitariness, servanthood turns into freedom and all suffering turns into happiness. The fearful one reaches the shore of security in the ship of fear, the hopeful one reaches the shore of bestowal in the ship of want, the disobedient one reaches the shore of repentance in the ship of regret, and the tawḤīd-voicer reaches the shore of solitariness in the ship of tawḤīdWe drive it to a dead land and thereby send down water, bringing forth thereby all the fruits. From heaven the rain comes, and thereby the dead earth comes to life. Plants, flowers, and blos- soms appear. From the storehouse of power the rain of mercy comes, and thereby withered hearts come to life. In one the seed of regret was planted, the water of success was given, and he became a renunciant. In another the seed of solicitude was planted, the water of kind favor was given, and he became a repenter. In another the seed of awe was planted, the water of reverence was given,and he became a recognizer.The Pir of the Tariqah said, " O King, the water of Your solicitude reached a stone, and the stone became pregnant. Fruit grew from the stone, and the fruit gained flavor and became food. O King, Your remembrance brought the heart to life and threw down the seed of love. It made the tree of happiness grow and the tree gave the fruit of freedom. When the earth is soft, the soil sweet, and the clay receptive, the seed will grow only as a goodly tree [14:24] and will produce nothing but the jasmine of the Covenant. " This is why God says,

As for the goodly land, its plants come forth by the leave of its Lord. As for that which is vile, they come forth only scantily.One of them said, �Its goodliness is through the continuity of security, the justice of the sultan, and the obedience of the obedient.�Abū ʿUthmān said, �This is the heart of the faithful person, upon whose limbs the lights of obedient acts become manifest. 'As for that which is vile, they come forth only scantily.' This is the heart of the unbeliever, upon whose limbs only acts of opposition become manifest.�