20:115 And We made covenant with Adam before, but he forgot, and We found in him no resoluteness.
Until the end of this section is the story of Adam and the compact of his vicegerency. First, he was addressed by awesomeness. He saw the whip of rebuke, and he stepped into the street of fear and wept. Then he was sat down on gentleness. The beginningless solicitude arrived, he saw the crown of chosenness, and he was happy on the carpet of hope. Yes, it was work already done, a decree made ready in the Beginningless. Adam had not yet slipped when the tailor of gentleness sewed the waistcoat of his repentance, and Iblis had not yet stepped into disobedience when the druggist of severity mixed the draft of the poison of his curse.
The beginning of the traces of the beginningless solicitude for Adam was that the exalted majesty of the Unity Itself in Its perfect self-sufficiency took a handful of dust from the earth: “Surely God created Adam from a handful taken from the entire surface of the earth.” Then He placed it in the mold of the stature, as He said: “Surely We created man in the most beautiful stature” [95:4]. Then He brought him into the ferment of bringing to be: “He fermented the clay of Adam in His hand for forty days.” Then He sat the spirit-king on the royal seat of his makeup: “I have blown into him of My spirit” [15:29]. Then He read out the edict of his vicegerency and sultanate in the kingdom of the beginningless: “Surely I am setting in the earth a vicegerent” [2:30]. He recorded the names of all existent things with the pen of the gentleness of Eternity on the tablet of his heart: “And He taught Adam the names, all of them” [2:31]. He commanded the glorifiers and hallowers of the Holy Palisades and the Gardens of closeness to prostrate themselves before the throne of his good fortune: “And when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves before Adam’” [2:34].
Know that this level, distinction, and the rank was not for the clay. Rather, it belonged to the sultan of the heart. In the core of Adam’s heart, He deposited one of the divine subtleties, royal secrets, and unseen meanings, a secret concealed by the curtain of Say: “The spirit is of the command of my Lord” [17:85]. God gave back a mark of this hidden secret on Muṣṭafā’s tongue made pure: “He created Adam in His form.” When the Higher Plenum saw his greatness and elevation, they threw their spirits on the holy doorstep of dust.
Adam was dust. He had not yet seen the mold of Power and had not come out from behind the curtain of subtle artisanry. The light of the secret of Knowledge had not yet shone on him and the secret of union and the reality of the with-ness of love had not yet shown their faces. Once these meanings became manifest and these pearls of the realities were placed in the drawer of his heart, do not call him “dust” [khāk], call him “pure” [pāk]. Do not call him “fetid mud” [15:26], call him “hidden pearl” [52:24]. If the alchemy that is made by creatures is worthy of turning copper into gold, why should the love that is the attribute of the Real not be worthy of purifying dust of its opacity and making it the crown on the head of the spheres? If a rose comes from the clay that you mold, what wonder if a heart comes from the clay that He molds?
