32:1-2 Alif Lām Mīm. The sending down of the Book, wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds.
It has been said that when the Exalted Lord created the light of Muḥammad’s innate disposition, He kept it in the Presence of His exaltedness as long as He wanted. It remained before God one hundred thousand years. It has also been said that for two thousand years He was gazing on it 70,000 times a day, and with each gaze, He would drape it with a new light and a new generosity. He kept the light of this disposition in His Presence for thousands of years, and each day He would look upon it with the attribute of favor. With each gaze, it would gain another secret and mystery, another caress and gentleness, another knowledge and understanding.
In those gazes, the secret core of his disposition was told that the level of the Qur’an’s exaltedness would preserve the level of his sinlessness, and this awareness became firmly rooted in his disposition. When his very clay along with the secret core of his disposition was brought into this world, the revelation sent down from the Exalted Threshold turned toward him. He was saying, “I hope that this is the realization of the promise given to me at that time.”
He is saying, “By My divinity, Gabriel’s holiness, and your splendor, O Muḥammad, this revelation is the Qur’an that We promised would be the keeper of your prophecy’s level and the miracle of your good fortune. “Wherein is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds. There is no doubt that it is Our missive to Our servants, Our address to Our friends. In every corner We have someone burning in hope of seeing Us, in every nook, someone distracted, his heart tied to Our love and his tongue busy with Our mention and remembrance. The poor are needy for Our threshold, the yearners anxious for Our vision.”
32:7 Who made beautiful everything that He created and who began the creation of man from clay.
There was a pir among the great ones of the Tariqah who recited this verse and then was saying, “He created man from clay, but He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. He created man from clay, but God approves of them, and they approve of Him [9:100]. He created man from clay, but remember Me; I will remember you [2:152].”
What harm was done to this pearl of honor that his makeup is of clay? For his perfection is placed in the heart. His worth is because of nurture, not dust. His eminence is from the gentleness of the divine eternity, not walking on the feet of servanthood. The Real created the whole cosmos—spheres and angels, Throne, Tablet and Pen, paradise and hell, heaven and earth—and He did not look at any of these created things with the gaze of affection and love.
He sent them no messengers and gave them no messages. When the turn of the dust-dwellers arrived—those lifted up by gentleness and caressed by bounty, those who are the quarries of the lights of the secrets—He made the angels their watchers, He placed burning and affection in their breasts, He threw the fire of passion into their hearts, and He wrote the inscription of faith on the pages of their hearts: He wrote faith in their hearts [58:22].
He inscribed love in their minds: He loves them, and they love Him [5:54]. The secret He has with the Adamites He does not have with the Throne or the Footstool, nor with the heavens or the angels, for all of them are servants, and the Adamites are both servants and friends: We are your friends in this world’s life and in the next world [41:31].
32:11 Say: “The angel of death, who has been entrusted with you, will make you die.”
Were it not for the hearts’ heedlessness, the taking of their spirits would not have been turned over to the angel of death. Since they were heedless of witnessing the realities, He addressed them in the measure of their understandings and attached their hearts to others. He addresses each of them in the measure of what their strength and weakness can carry. This address is in the measure of the understanding of the lords of customs and habits, who in their heedlessness do not find the road to the Real’s realities and do not perceive the subtle secrets of the Beginningless, so they are given to drink in the measure of their capacities. Otherwise, in respect of the Haqiqah and what is addressed to the chevaliers of the Tariqah, the angel of death sifts the dust of the empire, seeking mines in the dust, and gems in the mines. “People are mines, like mines of gold and silver.” He is sifting the dust to see what you have nurtured within it—a carnelian, a ruby, a turquoise. Or no—you are bitumen, or tar, or pebbles. Are you a vile word[14:26] or a goodly word [14:24]? He sifts the dust, he twists the veins, he breaks the bones. How can his hands touch the pure deposit? What does he have to do with that? For he did not put it there that he should take it back. God takes the souls at the time of their death [39:42].
Khayr Nassāj was ill. The angel of death wanted to take his spirit. At the time of prayer, the muezzin said, “God is greater, God is greater.” Khayr said, “O Angel of Death! Wait until I perform the obligatory night prayer. Otherwise, I will miss out on this command, but I will not miss out on your command.” When he performed the prayer, he put down his head in prostration and said, “O God, on the day when You placed this deposit, the angel of death was not there to intrude. What harm if today You take me without his intrusion?”
O Lord, if You annihilate me with the sword of friendship,
the angel of death will have nothing to do with me.
It is a sound report that on the day of the compact at the covenant of Yes indeed [7:172], when the specks of the prophets were pulled out from Adam’s loins and presented to his overarching vision, he saw that David’s lifespan was short. He said, “Lord God, let me give forty years of my lifespan to him,” and the Exalted Lord accepted that. Then, at the end of Adam’s life, when the angel of death came and told him to surrender his spirit, he said, “My lifespan is my traveling on the road. If I surrender my spirit, what will happen with the road not traveled?”
The angel of death said, “You gave away the lifespan, so the road will remain not completely traveled.”
Adam said, “Let me take it back, for I am the father, and I have need of the lifespan, for I cannot go on the road without it.”
The report has come, “Adam refused, so his offspring refuse.”
When the period passed, the angel of death said, “Adam, surrender your spirit.”
Adam said, “I will not surrender it to you, for you did not put it there that you should take it away. On the day that the exalted majesty of I have blown into him of My spirit [15:29] came into my frame, where were you? Today if it is wanted back, what are you doing in the midst?”
The Lord of the Worlds commanded, “O Adam, stop arguing! O Azrael, you go away and take away your intrusion! O pure spirit at ease with My gentleness and at rest in My love! O serene soul, return to thy Lord, approving, approved!” [89:27-28].
