This is one of the secrets of love, one of the treasures of recognition. In the midst of their spirits, the friends have a deposit, but they do not know what they have. The wonder is that they keep on seeing an ocean and they weep in hope for a drop. This is like the Pir of the Tariqah said: “O God, Your stream is flowing—how long will I be thirsty? What sort of thirst is this that I see one cup after another? “Exalted of the two worlds! How much will You be hidden, how much apparent? My heart is bewildered, the spirit distracted. How long is this curtaining and self-disclosing? When at last will there be the everlasting self-disclosure?” The allusion is that today the friends have nothing more than the scent of the lights of those secrets and the whiffs of those traces, and that, other than Muḥammad the Arab, no one is worthy of that face-to-face vision. First He alludes to the road of recognition for the elect, since their gaze is on the Essence and the attributes, which are called “the World of the Command.” Then He uncovers the road of recognizing Himself for the common people. He knows that their gaze does not pass beyond the newly arrived things, the engendered beings, and the World of Creation. He says,
13:2 God is He who lifted up the heavens without pillars that you see.
Heaven and earth, land and sea, air and space, are the World of Creation, the playing field of the gaze of the creatures, whose end is apparent and which can disappear. But the World of the Command can never have an end, for it is necessarily continuous. As long as a man does not pass beyond the World of Creation, he will not be given access to the World of the Command. The chevaliers whose gaze travels in the World of the Command are the Pegs of the earth. Just as in respect of form the world’s mountains keep the earth in place, so also in respect of meaning the chevaliers keep the world standing. “Through the rain falls and through them, provision is given.” This is why the Lord of the Worlds says,
13:3 And He it is Who spread out the earth and placed within it unshaking mountains.
In terms of the allusion and closeness of the Folk of the Haqiqah, He is saying, “It is He who spread out the earth and placed within it the Pegs, namely the friends and masters among His servants, to whom recourse is had and from whom assistance comes.” The sun rises in the east and sets in the west for a hundred years before someone’s eyes are daubed with the collyrium of the Haqiqah by the pencil of solicitude. Perhaps we will be allowed to see those chevaliers and reach endless felicity with one look at them. For thousands of years the moon-faced beauties of Firdaws and the houris of paradise have been standing in wait: When will the fortunate procession of those chevaliers be conveyed to the highest of the High Chambers so that they, as hangers-on, may step into the pageant of good fortune at an Omnipotent King [54:55].
On the day Junayd’s bier was carried, a bird came and sat on the edge of his coffin. People were waving their hands at it but it would not leave. Ruwaym said, “In generosity, the bird is telling us with the tongue of its state, ‘Leave me alone, for my claws have been fixed to the edge of his coffin with the nails of passion. Today this frame of Junayd is the portion of the cherubim. If not for the intrusion of your tumult, you would fly with me like falcons in this air.’” When they buried him, one of the poor stood above him and recited these verses:
