This is the story of the hypocrites. The secret of the hypocrites’ hypocrisy goes back to the eminence of Muṣṭafā in two respects, one in respect of jealousy and the other in respect of mercy. Muṣṭafā is the Real’s beloved. His beauty and perfection passed beyond the limits of understanding and imagination, so by a wise virtue, God kept him behind the curtain of His protection and made the hypocrites’ hypocrisy the mask of his beauty. He was veiled from the world’s folk so that no one recognized him in reality, and He did not show him to anyone as he was. Thou seest them looking at thee, but they do not see [7:198].
With such a sun, such a light, and such brilliance, hypocrisy was needed. Otherwise, the radiance of that beauty would have done more to the Adamites than the beauty of Jesus did to his people such that they said, “The Messiah is the son of God” [9:30].
This can be said with a smile: The sun’s disk, whose rays shine forth from the fourth heaven, has turned its face toward the fifth heaven. God created angels and entrusted that disk to them, and He created deserts full of snow in front of those angels. They lift mountain after mountain of snow from those deserts and dash them against the sun’s disk so that its heat will be broken. Otherwise, the world would burn because of its shine and heat. In the same way, the hypocrisy of the hypocrites was thrown against the presence of that sun of good fortune. Otherwise, the creatures would all have bound the belt of associationism. But, that paragon of the world is all gentleness and mercy, as he said: “I am a guided mercy.” God says, “We sent thee only as a mercy to the worlds” [21:107].
O Generous Lord, O Renowned, Wise Enactor! O You who are true in promise, pure injustice, complete in bounty, and eternal in love! Whatever You want You show, and as You want, You adorn. Each has a name, and in the heart of each is Your mark. The stamp of worthiness is upon some people and the brand of unworthiness on others. The worthy are brought by the road of bounty on the steed of approval with the escort of gentleness in the time of generous bestowal at the turn of proximity. The unworthy are driven into the street of justice on the steed of wrath with the escort of abandonment at the turn of deprivation. This deprivation and that proximity did not come from water or dust, for on the day when the two were written out, there was neither water nor dust. There was beginningless bounty and gentleness and everlasting severity and justice. That was the portion of the self-purifiers and this was the portion of the hypocrites.
