and the Sunna are those through which God relieves the one to whom the oath is given of the constriction and distress occasioned among existent things by His saying, “Doing whatever He wills” [Hud 11:107]. His will’s attachment is unknown: what it intends is known only through divine informing. When He confirms it through swearing an oath upon it, this more fully removes constriction from the self of the one to whom the oath is given.
Thus God relieved believers who lacked certainty through His oath concerning provision and the good He promised, both unrestricted and restricted by conditions for those who fulfill and possess them: “It is true, just as you speak” [al-Dhariyat 51:23]. Through this God relieved them and certainty came to them. Thereafter only natural agitation remained. A human being cannot remove natural, sensible pains when they occur, unlike pains of the self, which he can remove.
Relief thus occurred through the oath that provision from God is indispensable. Some possessing certainty of this retained constriction within their hearts concerning the precise time it would arrive, which had not been made known. Even if it had been, natural agitation would not be removed. When the Real knew that at certain times it would bring no relief, He did not make those times known. Nature has greater mastery, and sense is stronger in tasting than the self.
This is because the sensible remains upon one form that does not change, whereas the self admits transformation in forms. Hence there is no removal of
