10:2 Give good news to those with faith that they have a footing of truthfulness with their Lord.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī said, “The footing of truthfulness is the leader of the wholesome and the sincerely truthful, the obeyed interceder, the asker who receives a response, Muḥammad.”
It has been said that the footing of truthfulness is the precedence of solicitude and the bounty of guidance. On the first day during the First Compact, He gave the drink of affection to the spirits of the faithful during the session of closeness from the bowl of love in the cup of kindness. That warmth made them drunk and dizzy. He promised them a straight and truthful promise: “We shall bring you back to this domicile of generosity and We shall caress you again with an increase over this excellence: He will increase them from His bounty [4:173].” This is why He says,
10:4 To Him is your place of return, all together—God’s promise in truth.
To return is to go back, and going back must have a beginning. To God belongs the command, before and after [30:4]. Concerning the closeness of the verse, “To Him is your place of return, all together,”
Junayd said, “From Him is the beginning and to Him the end. What is between these are the pastures of His bounty and the uninterruptedness of His blessings. For those to whom felicity preceded at the beginning, this will be displayed in His pastures and in moving about in His blessings by their making manifest the tongue of gratitude, the state of approval, and the contemplation of the Patron of Blessings. As for those who were not permitted the felicity of the beginning, they will nullify the days of training their souls and collect ephemeral chaff so as to be pushed back to the wretchedness that preceded at the beginning.”
Junayd is saying that all things begin with God and all return to God. In other words, everything is brought forth by His power and returned to His decree. He is the First and the Last. The beginningless is His predetermination, the Endless His decision. Everything arrives newly through His gentleness, and all the newly arrived things are annihilated by His severity. Between this and that are the pastures of His bounty and the marks giving witness to His blessings. All those whom the beginningless command brought into being inscribed with felicity came forth in the pastures of bounty giving gratitude for blessings and approving of the apportionment, their tongues in remembrance, their hearts grateful, and their spirits limpid and believing. All those who received the beginningless decree of wretchedness had ruined lives, indigent days, and bad outcomes. They were tainted by this world, captivated by the forbidden, and attached to diversions and games. He wanted this for them in the end in order to take them back to the beginningless decree and the First Day. This is what the Lord of the Worlds is saying: “To Him is your place of return, all together—God’s promise in truth.”
It has been said, “Promised to the obedient are the highest paradises, and promised to the disobedient are mercy and approval. The Garden is the Real’s gentleness, and mercy is the Real’s description. A gentleness is an act that was not, then came to be, but the description is an attribute that always was.”
Abū Bakr al-Wāsiṭī said, “The obedient are porters, and porters have nothing but burdens, and this is the threshold of Him who has no needs. The disobedient are destitute, and the destitute have nothing but destitution, and this is the carpet of the destitute.
“O owners of obedience, I do not say, ‘Do not obey!’, lest you suppose wrongly about the Qur’an. As much as you can and as much as you have the capacity, bring forth acts of obedience! Then, let them go, for they are nonbeing. The obedient person and the obedient act are two, but this is the carpet of oneness.
“O owners of slips! Do not constrict your hearts, for this burden of disobedience is also His burden, just as obedience is His burden. But, obedience is something that is put in place, and disobedience is something that is lifted away. Putting in place is your act, and lifting away is His act.”
