In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful.
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One: On the Station of Leaving Gratitude
If the state of gratitude gives increase,
and the true God is your hearing and sight,
while the Real accepts no increase, examine
my words: you will find a lesson for one who considers.
The ruling of gratitude has departed from every knower
of what I have said: leaving gratitude has itself given thanks.
Know that every work is an existent matter, and every existent matter indicates God's existence and oneness, whether that matter is blamed by custom and revealed Law or praised by custom and revealed Law. If it indicates, it is light, and light is praised through itself. Nothing is therefore subject to blame without qualification, just as no disobedience from a believer is pure and unmixed with obedience: his belief that it is disobedience. Realize this.
There is another reality: every charge of action or abstention is necessarily accompanied by priority. One says, “Leaving it has priority over doing it,” or, “Doing it has priority over leaving it,”
Notes
Translator’s note TN4125-1: The argument distinguishes an existent act's indicating God from its moral evaluation in a particular situation. It also retains the believer's acknowledgement that a disobedient act is disobedience as the obedience mixed with it.
