God Most High said, ‘Every party rejoices in what it possesses’ [al-Muʾminun 23:53]. What necessitates joy is relation. Since we know that the human being is the totality of what is with God, we know that nothing is with God without his having a relation to it and something corresponding to it within himself.
The knower rejects nothing within existence. He presents to each only what corresponds to it within himself. No state overcomes him; rather, he meets each state with what corresponds to it, just as God is with us wherever we are. ‘Most people do not know’ [Yusuf 12:21] this; they are ignorant of this measure and blind to it.
(Renunciation and Understanding the Sayings of the Great)
This is what led them to blame this world and what it contains, to renounce the Hereafter, both realms, and everything other than God, and to criticize those who occupied themselves with what all these names denote. What led them into this was what was related from the great concerning this kind of matter.
They understood their expressions otherwise than reality requires, and saw everything other than God as a veil from God. They wished to tear apart this veil and could do so only through renouncing it.
I shall explain this art within this chapter with a satisfying explanation; and the fact that the Real is each day engaged in the affairs of creation[49]; and the fact that the Garden—the abode of nearness and locus of vision—is the abode of appetites
Notes
[49]
(‘And the fact that the Real’ appears conjoined in this construction, followed by ‘and the fact that the Garden.’ The wording and order have been retained without adding a governing expression to regularize the phrase.)
