10:25 And God invites to the Abode of Peace, and He guides whomsoever He will to a straight path.
Invitations are four: First is the invitation to tawḥīd and bearing witness. That is His words, “He invites you so that He may forgive you some of your sins” [14:10]. The second is the invitation to praise and respond. That is His words, “He will invite you, and you will respond to Him” [17:52]. The third is the invitation to following and leadership. That is His words, “We shall invite all the people by their leader” [17:71]. Fourth is the invitation to generosity and hospitality. That is His words, “And God invites to the Abode of Peace.”
When someone wants to invite someone and to make his friends and dear ones his guests, the condition of the entertainment is that first he sends one of those close to him, one of his own special friends, to inform them and give them the good news. Then, when they come, he sends his dear ones to welcome them. He does not invite any of them alone, but rather he invites their friends and relatives as well. He sends steeds and torches in the road, and when they come their place is made up and ready. When they sit, he first gives them rosewater, then the fruit is brought. The prepared food is placed, and the serving boys and servants stand by. When that is finished, they listen to a symphony. It is also a condition that the host does not hold himself back from being seen by the guests, and finally that he send them back with respect and honor.
The Lord of the Worlds has made all of this ready and set it up for the entertainment of paradise, and He reports of it and explains it in the Qur’an. The first to call them and give them the good news is Muṣṭafā, who is, the Real says, “inviting to God by His leave” [33:46]. Then the angels and Riḍwān will come to welcome them: and the angels will receive them [21:103]. He will send them mounts: We shall muster the Godwary to the All-Merciful in droves [19:85], which is to say that they will be mounted on noble steeds of light. He will send lamps of light for their road: their light running before them, and on their right hands [57:12]. He will not call them alone, but He will also call their relatives and near ones: and those who are wholesome among their fathers, spouses, and offspring [40:8]. Then He will make their place be paradise and gardens of bliss [5:65]—a garden whose breadth is the heavens and the earth, made ready for the Godwary [3:133]. Their beverage will be they are poured sealed, fine wine, whose seal is musk [83:25-26]. Their fruit will be much fruit, neither cut off nor withheld [56:32-33]. Their food will be the flesh of birds as much as they have an appetite [56:21]. Their slave-boys and servants will be with them: going around them are youths for them as if they were hidden pearls [52:24]. Their listening: they will be made happy in a garden [30:15]. More exalted than all this is that He will turn them toward the vision of Himself so that they may see Him and be delighted, as He says: “Faces that day will be radiant, gazing upon their Lord” [75:22-23]. Their fresh and delighted faces will gaze on the majesty and beauty of the Real, and their faces will be brighter than the sun at daytime, having won the self-disclosure of the Possessor of Majesty.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “The vision of the Friend is the portion of the yearners, the brightness of eyes, the good fortune of the spirit, and the adornment of the world. It is the comfort of the spirit, the delight of the spirit, and the pain of the spirit.”Both my heart’s pain and my spirit’s comfort are You.
O chevalier, wait until you see happiness and you sit securely once and for all on the carpet of union with the Friend. From the Friend, you will see “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.”
