God gave Moses’ folk the discernment outwardly, and He placed the discernment in the inwardness of Muḥammad’s folk in addition to their outwardness. The inner discernment is a light in the heart of the friends through which they separate truth from falsehood. It is alluded to in His words, “If you are wary of God, He will appoint for you a criterion” [8:29].
This is why Muṣṭafā said to Wābisa, “Ask for a pronouncement from your heart!” He also said, “Be wary of the perspicacity of the man of faith, for he gazes with the light of God.” When this discernment appears in someone’s inwardness, his drinking and aspiration are purified of the dust of others; the walkway of his desire is protected from the debris of customs, the carpet of his days is shaken loose of the opacities of mortal nature, and the eyes of his moment are kept away from the hand of newly arrived things.
Then, things that are reports for others are for him face-to-face vision; what had been the knowledge of certainty becomes the eye of certainty. No newly arrived thing enters existence in the empire without his heart being aware of it.
Muṣṭafā was asked if this has a mark. He said, “When light enters the heart, the breast is expanded.” Its mark is that the breast is opened up to the divine light. When the breast is opened up, the aspiration becomes high, every sorrow is comforted, scatteredness turns into togetherness, the carpet of subsistence is spread, the rug of annihilation is rolled up, the corner of heartaches is closed off, and the door to the garden of union is opened.
2:54 When Moses said to his people, “O my people, you have wronged your souls by taking up the calf, so kill your own souls! That is better for you with your Creator.”
Moses said to his people: “Take care not to suppose that your worship of the calf has harmed the majesty of the Self-Sufficient or that it is a defect for His kingship and Lordhood. Rather, the harm and bad fortune belong to you. If something bad has happened, it has happened to you by your being held back from a Lord like Him. Otherwise, He has plenty of servants like you.
Sahl ʿAbdallāh Tustarī said, “God spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, and the exaltedness of the Lord God’s speech made that mountain like carnelian. Moses’ turned his gaze to himself: ‘Who is like me? For the God of the world and the world’s folk is talking to me without an intermediary, and my standing place has turned into carnelian!’
“God did not let that pass. He said, ‘O Moses, look once right and left. What do you see?’
“Moses looked around and saw a thousand mountains of carnelian like Mount Sinai, on each mountain a man in the form of Moses, wearing a blanket like him, a hat on his head, a staff in hand, and talking to the Lord of the universe.”
Those who struggle in Us, We will guide them on Our paths [29:69].”
