3:169 Count not those who were killed in God’s path as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.
The livings are three: one lives through the spirit, one lives through knowledge, and one lives through the Real. He who lives through the spirit lives on food and wind. He who lives through knowledge lives on love and remembrance. He who lives through the Real is happy indeed with Him. “O God, if the body’s spirit is deprived of You, it will be a captive corpse, but if someone is killed in Your path hoping for union with You, he will live forever.” Indeed, when friends are wounded in the Friend’s street, that is a good omen, for it is their habit. Beware, beware! Take care not worry that your spirit will perish in the Friend’s path. When the spirit perishes in loyalty to the Friend, that is true eminence. The precondition for your spirit’s undertaking friendship’s rightful due is its destruction.
That tumultuous one of the time, Shiblī, said, “When someone is destroyed in God, God takes his place.” When you are loyal in friendship and gamble away your spirit, you will receive good fortune for free, for you will have the Friend in place of the spirit. If you had a hundred thousand spirits, you should sacrifice them to this union, for in truth that would still be something for nothing.
In this road, truly passionate like Ḥusayn Manṣūr Ḥallāj rose up. He saw union with the Friend flying like a falcon in the air of solitariness. He tried to hunt it, but his hand could not reach it. It was said in his secret core, “Ḥusayn! If you want your hand to reach it, put your head beneath your feet.” Ḥusayn put his head beneath his feet and rose up to the seventh heaven.
Take care never to call the spirit-gambling chevaliers who emigrate from this house “dead,” for the quarry of life’s jewels is nothing but their heart. The water of life flows only from the spring of their spirit. The Lord of the Worlds says, “Rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.” Upon them is the cloak of awe in the shadows of closeness; sometimes His beauty expands over them, sometimes His majesty inundates them. Maʿrūf Karkhī was washing someone’s corpse and the man laughed. Maʿrūf said, “Oh! Life after death?”
He replied, “His friends do not die, rather they are transferred from abode to abode. How could they die, when the exalted Qur’an says, ‘rather, they are alive with their Lord, provided for.’” They are happy and delighted, at ease from sorrow and suffering, present with bounty and blessings, in the garden of closeness on the carpet of generosity, cups of happiness placed in hand again and again.
