that is His justice. He has not acted within another’s property so that injustice or oppression might be attributed to Him; nor is He subject to another’s judgement so that He might be described as anxious or fearful on that account. Everything other than He is under the dominion of His subjugating power and acts according to His will and command. He inspires the souls of those charged with obligation with mindfulness and wickedness.[152] He overlooks the misdeeds of whom He wills and holds whom He wills to account for them, here and on the Day of Rising. His justice does not govern His bounty, nor His bounty His justice.
He brought forth the cosmos in two handfuls and established two dwellings for them, saying: “These are for the Garden, and I do not mind; these are for the Fire, and I do not mind.”[153] No objector objected to Him there, for then none existed but He. All are under the disposal of His Names: one handful under the Names of His trials, the other under the Names of His blessings.
Had He willed the whole cosmos to be felicitous, it would have been; or wretched, that would have posed Him no difficulty. But He did not will that, and it was as He willed: among them are the wretched and the felicitous,[154] here and on the Day of Return. There is no way to alter what the Beginningless has decreed. Concerning prayer, He said: “They are five, and they are fifty.”[155] “The word is not changed with Me, and I am not unjust to the servants” [Qur’an 50:29], for I act within My property and carry out My will within My kingdom.
This is because of a reality to which eyes and inner sights are blind, and which thoughts and inward minds have not discovered, except through a divine gift and an All-Merciful generosity—
Notes
[152]
He alludes here to God’s saying: “By a soul and the One who fashioned it [7], and inspired it with its wickedness and its mindfulness [8]” [Qur’an 91:7–8].
[153]
This well-known report, the “hadith of the two handfuls,” is cited by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Jafar al-Kattani in Nazm al-Mutanathir min al-Hadith al-Mutawatir, Book of Conduct and Heart-Softening Reports, no. 222. He says: Ibn Mardawayh transmitted it from Anas and from Abu Said al-Khudri; al-Bazzar and al-Tabarani from Ibn Umar; Ahmad from a Companion called Abu Abd Allah; al-Tabarani in al-Kabir from Abu Musa al-Ashari, and also in al-Kabir from Abu al-Darda; Ahmad through a chain whose transmitters are trustworthy, and Ibn Asakir in his History, also from him; Malik in al-Muwatta, Ahmad, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi—who judged it fair—al-Nasai, and others from Umar; and al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi in Nawadir al-Usul from Abu Hurayrah. These are related in similar wordings conveying the same meaning.
[154]
He alludes here to God’s saying: “On the day it comes, no soul shall speak except by His permission; among them are the wretched and the felicitous” [Qur’an 11:105].
[155]
This occurs in the authentic report cited by al-Bukhari in his Sahih (vol. 1, no. 342), Muslim in his Sahih (vol. 1, no. 263 [163]), and others. When God’s Messenger—may God bless him and grant him peace—was taken on the Night Journey and God prescribed prayer for him, he said, within a long report: “… God, mighty and majestic, prescribed fifty prayers for my community. I returned with this until I passed Moses, who asked: ‘What has God prescribed for your community?’ I said: ‘He has prescribed fifty prayers.’ He said: ‘Return to your Lord, for your community cannot bear that.’ I returned, and He reduced them by half. I returned to Moses and said: ‘He has reduced them by half.’ He said: ‘Return to your Lord, for your community cannot bear it.’ I returned, and He reduced them by half. I went back to him, and he said: ‘Return to your Lord, for your community cannot bear that.’ I returned to Him, and He said: ‘They are five, and they are fifty; the word is not changed with Me.’ I went back to Moses, who said: ‘Return to your Lord.’ I replied: ‘I am ashamed before my Lord.’ Then Gabriel took me onward until he brought me to the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary …”
