In the tasting of the recognizers and the allusion of the realizers, the meaning is “Leave me not empty of Your protection from sin or turning away from Your remembrance or occupying myself with anything but You.”
21:89 And Zachariah, when he supplicated his Lord, “My Lord, leave me not solitary.”
God has no use for treasuries and no need for anything. Whatever He has, He has it for the servants. Tomorrow He will give the treasury of mercy to the disobedient and the treasury of bounty to the helpless so that they may discharge what is rightfully due to Him from His treasuries, for the servants cannot discharge His rightful due with what they have of their own. When a sultan gives his daughter to a beggar, the beggar does not have a dower worthy of the sultan’s daughter. From his own treasury, the sultan sends the dower to the beggar so that the beggar may give the dower to the princess from his treasury.”
When the servant obeys Him, he does so with His success-giving and protection from sin. He discharges what is rightfully due to Him with His confirmation and bestowal of strength. Then through His bounty, He praises the servant for the excellence of his obedience and through His generosity, He approves of him. What He shows to the world’s folk is this:
21:90 They were vying in good works and they were supplicating Us in eagerness and dread, and they were reverent toward Us.
“My servants are striving to obey Me and they call upon Me with eagerness and dread. They know only Me and they circle only around My door. They are the burned ones of My Presence, the ones lifted up by My gentleness.”
“He guided them so that they would recognize them, He gave them success so that they would worship Him, He instructed them so that they would ask of Him, He illuminated their hearts so that they would love Him. He loves without bribery, He bestows without obligation, and He honors without a means of approach.” He scatters a hundred blessings on your head and counts it as a dust mote. He considers a straw of yours to be a mountain. Do you not see that He will give you a paradise with all that tremendousness and vastness, but He calls it an “upper chamber”? “It is they who will be recompensed with the upper chamber” [25:75]. Abraham the Bosom Friend placed a calf before his guests. The Exalted Lord approved of him, honored him, and displayed him to the world’s folk: “He brought a roasted calf” [11:69].
He is a Lord who makes wealthy anyone who presents a need to Him, who exalts anyone who delights in Him. Supposing that the servant disobeys for a hundred years and then says, “I repent,” He will say, “I accept.” He it is Who accepts repentance from His servants [42:25].
A bedouin was supplicating, and it was a marvelous supplication. He said, “O God, you will find someone other than me to chastise, but I will find no one other than You to have mercy on me.”
21:101 As for those to whom the most beautiful has preceded from Us.
To them, solicitude preceded at the beginning, so friendship became manifest at the end. One must have solicitude at the beginning for there to be friendship at the end. One iota of the beginningless solicitude is better than the bliss of the two worlds. He who is caressed was caressed in the Beginningless, and he who is called was called in the Beginningless. In the Beginningless His friends drank the cup of gentleness and put on the clothing of bounty. He did the work in the Beginningless, but He made it appear to be done today. He spoke the words in the Beginningless, but He makes what was spoken heard today. He sewed and made ready the robes of honor for the friends in the Beginningless, but today He hands them over. Each day He is upon some task [55:29]. He drives the predetermined things to their appointed times. For some time the mysteries have been spoken to you, but you hear them now. The majesty of His Exaltedness is eternal, but you know today. In the Beginningless the beginningless knowledge was your deputy in knowing the beginningless attributes. In the Beginningless the eternal hearing was your deputy in listening to the beginningless speech. When a guardian has a child’s property in hand, he has it as his deputy. When the child reaches maturity, he gives it back to him.
In terms of allusion, He is saying that you were the infants of nonexistence when the eternal gentleness took care of your work and acted as your deputy. What bounty and generosity is left that He did not do for you? With the eternal gentleness, He conveyed the prescription of the Law to your hearing, He sent the decree to your heart, He spoke of mysteries to your spirit, and He inscribed obedience on your limbs. He made you anticipate arrivals from the Unseen: “O you who anticipate the arrival of Our gentleness! O you who look for the marks bearing witness to Our Unseen! Nothing drives friendship into your heart other than the ruling power of Our curtaining. No one strikes the knocker on the door of your heart other than the messenger of Our kindness.”
This is the reality of the beginningless beauty, which preceded to the friends and with which the Exalted Lord favored them: those to whom the most beautiful has preceded from Us. The fruit of the most beautiful is endless, for the Exalted Lord has promised, saying, “Those who do the beautiful shall have the most beautiful and an increase” [10:26]. Then He explained the outcome and final end of the folk of felicity and He joined the beginningless precedent with the endless subsequent:
21:103 The greatest terror shall not make them sorrow, and the angels will receive them: “This is the day that you were promised.”
On the Day of Resurrection in the greatest gathering place and most tremendous courtyard, they will not hear from the angels the call “no good news” [25:22], nor the address, “Stand apart today, O offenders!” [36:59], nor the harsh call, “Slink into it, and do not talk to Me!” [23:108]. They will not hear the call of separation’s pain, nor will they despair of mercy. Rather the angels will keep on coming, company after company, and they will give the good news: “This is the day that you were promised,” that is, “This is the day in which you have the promised reward.” Among them are those who will be received by the angels, and among them are those who will be addressed and made known by the King.19 God will say, “My servants, have you been yearning for Me?”
He will say “Peace” to a group by the intermediary of the angels, saying, “Peace be upon you! Enter the Garden for what you were doing” [16:32]. He will make another group hear without the intermediary and spokesmanship of the angels: Their greeting on the day they encounter Him will be “Peace” [33:44].
He will say, “‘My servants, have you been yearning for Me?’ My servants, have you been wishing for Me?” This is generosity and caress that will reach the faithful servants tomorrow at the resurrection. As for today, their hearts are as that exalted man of the road said: “The hearts of the yearners are illuminated by God’s light. When their yearning moves, the light brightens everything between heaven and earth. God presents them to the angels and says, ‘These are those who yearn for Me. I bear witness to you that I yearn even more for them.’” He is saying, “The hearts of the yearners are illuminated by the divine light. When the fire of their yearning brightens heaven and earth and the Throne and Footstool, the Real will declare, ‘O proximate ones of the Presence! These are the yearners for My beauty and majesty. I testify to you that My yearning for them is more than their yearning for Me.’”
