This is a recommendation to spread out the divorce so that they will not hurry to complete separation. Spreading out the divorce is recommended because the reality of separation is reprehensible. Although divorce is permitted in the Shariah, God hates it, for it is the cause of separating and of cutting the ties of familiarity and union. God’s Messenger said, “The most hateful of permitted things to me is divorce.”
The exalted Qur’an praises people who do not cut bonds and do not seek separation. It says, “Those who join what God has commanded to be joined and fear their Lord” [13:21].
2:229 Divorce is twice, then retention with honor or setting free with beautiful doing.
In the Highest Dominion, He created angels who are half snow and half fire. Through His own power, He brought these two opposites together and kept them that way. Their glorification is this: “Glory be to Him who makes fire familiar with snow! O Lord, make the hearts of your faithful servants familiar with each other!”
A Pir of the Sufis said, “I was walking in the desert. I saw a person I did not recognize, water standing before him, and plants growing from the water. I asked him who he was and he said that he was Abū Murra [the Father of Bitterness]. I asked him what the water was. He said, ‘It is my tears, and these green things and plants are growing up from my tears.’ I asked him why he was weeping. He said, ‘I weep in the days of the separation for the days of union. In the days of separation, the murmur of union is the ease of the hearts of the deprived. Leave me to weep for myself, for there is no one in the world more miserable than I.’”
Mālik Dīnār had a brother by the name of Malkān, who left this world. Mālik sat at his grave and was saying, “O Malkān, my eyes will not have delight until I know what has happened to you, and I will not know as long as I remain alive.” Then he wept a great deal.
They said to him, “O Mālik, why are you weeping so much at his death?”
He said, “I am not weeping because he left this world or because I am held back from him today. I am weeping because, if I am held back from him tomorrow at the resurrection and do not see him, that will be regret at not seeing a created thing. But who will have the regret of not seeing the Creator? And how will that be? It is said that the greatest terror [21:103] at the resurrection is the wound of separation’s remorse placed on the spirit of some at the crossroads, holding them back from their friends and brothers. But that will be easy and it’s a pain little. What will be much more difficult is the wound of separation from God placed on our spirits, turning us away from the road of felicity.”
It is said that tomorrow at the gathering place of the resurrection a man will be brought who had been distracted in his days and disloyal to the covenant. The command will come, “Take him to hell, for he has the wound of deprivation.” When he reaches the edge of hell, he will lift up his hands and pull out his eyes and throw them away. They will say, “What have you done?”
