while each has understanding.
Had He found with the hearer something more obscure than the gnat, He would have brought it, just as He brought it generally in saying, “whatever is beyond it.”
In this verse He commands and teaches you, in your conviction, to leave nothing without relating it to God. Neither the thing’s contemptibility nor the blame attached to it conventionally and by revealed law should prevent you.
(The Difference between Conviction and Uttering Expressions)
Then stop at utterance. Do not utter what is held in conviction concerning just any thing, or in just any state. Stop where the Lawgiver tells you to stop, for that is the divine courtesy brought by revealed law, and courtesy gathers all good.
In presenting words, modesty is employed,[47] for you leave some aside as commanded. In conviction, leave nothing unrelated to God. This is the station of leaving modesty. Deal with God the Exalted according to the occasions, as He prescribed for you, and do not contend. “Say: My Lord, increase me in knowledge” [Ta Ha 20:114]. When you say this, you remain in increase, gathering the fruit of obligation.
Chapter One Hundred and Forty: On Knowing the Station of Freedom and Its Secrets—A Perilous Chapter
The slave of caprice flees his Master’s possession,
yet never leaves it: he is wandering.
Notes
[47]
(The author concludes by distinguishing relating existent things to God in conviction from courtesy in uttering expressions. For him the two stations are not equivalent.)
