34:10 We gave David bounty from Us.
In the reports about David, it has come that he used to read the Psalms, and the name of sinners came up a great deal. Because of jealousy and solidity in the religion, he said, “O God, do not forgive those who misstep!” Lord God, do not forgive the sinners!
It was said to him, “O David, such lack of tenderness toward the sinners! Wait, until Muḥammad the Arab sets foot into the circle of existence and asks forgiveness for the only one of his community not to sin: ‘Forgive me for what I did before and what I will do after!’”
Then the tongue of destiny said to David, “O David, you have remained in the bonds of your own purity. Wait until you are met by the hand of the decree and destiny. Then you will know what you said and where you stood.”
Gabriel came to the road and said, “O David, the arrow of the decree has been loosed from the bow of destiny. Be careful, watch out for yourself if you can!”
David sat in the prayer-niche in bewilderment and regret, his eyes fixed on the Psalms, busy with remembrance and worship until the episode happened with the bird and his eyes fell on the wife of Uriah. This story will be given in detail in the Surah of Sād [38], God willing. In the end, David was saying, “O God, forgive the sinners—perhaps You will forgive David along with them.”
34:12 And the wind was Solomon’s, its morning course a month and its evening course a month.
Solomon had beautiful, faultless horses, like birds without wings. When the tale of missing the prayer took place, he drew his sword and cut their necks. It was said to him, “Now that you have done away with them, We will make the wind your mount.”
“When someone belongs to God, God belongs to him.” Whenever someone abandons his own gaze, it is replaced by God’s gaze. No one has ever abandoned something for God without being given something better in return. Muṣṭafā sent Jaʿfar to battle and made him the head of the army, so the banner of Islam was in his hand. The unbelievers attacked and cut off his hand, so he took up the banner with the other hand. They struck him again and cut off his other hand, and after that, he received seventy-some wounds. He left this world as a martyr. He was seen in a dream and asked, “What did God do with you?” He said, “God gave me two wings in place of the hands and with them, I fly in the Garden wherever I want with Gabriel and Michael.”
Asmāʾ bint ʿAmīs said. God’s Messenger was standing and suddenly said, “And upon you be peace.”
I said, “To whom were you returning the greeting, O Messenger of God, for I do not see anyone with you.”
He said, “That was Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. He just passed by with Gabriel and Michael.”
“O Jaʿfar, you gave your hands. Here are wings. O Solomon, you gave your horses. Here is the wind, your porter on land and sea.”
“O truthful lover, if by virtue of your discipline you sacrifice your eyes and throw away your body, then here: Our gentleness is your eyes, Our bounty is your ears, Our generosity your lamp and candle. ‘When I love him, I am his hearing and he hears through Me, his eyesight and he sees through Me, his hand and he grasps through Me.’ First, a man becomes a speaker, then a knower, then a traveler, then a flier.
O man, have you never wished that one day the bird of your heart would be delivered from the cage of your misfortune and fly in the air of the Real’s approval? By the majesty of the Lord God! Nothing will welcome you but the caress of “I come near to him by a cubit.”
Why do you stay in this low place like crows looking for carrion?
Break the cage and fly at once like peacocks to the heights. [DS 52]
The cage is the bodily frame, and the divine Trust is like the bird’s spirit. It is a bird whose wings are passion, whose flying is desire, whose horizon is the Unseen, and whose domicile is pain. Whenever the bird of the Trust flies from this cage of mortal nature to the horizon of the Unseen, the cherubim of the world of holiness put their hands over their eyes. Otherwise, the lightning of its beauty would burn their eyes.
34:14 When We decreed death for him…
Death is of two sorts: outward death and inward death. Outward death is obvious to everyone. Friend and enemy follow the road that leads to it, the common people and the elect are the same in it. Every soul shall taste death [3:185].
Inward death is that a man dies in himself from himself without himself and comes to life from the Real in the Real with the Real. It is the same as that chevalier said: “Die, O friend, before your death, if you want to live— long ago, by such a death, Idris went up to paradise.” [DS 52]
True life is that given by the opening of faith, not what is put in place by the animal spirit. Abu’l- Ḥasan Kharaqānī said, “It is twenty years since they brought my shroud from heaven. What is strange is that He keeps me with the people in the form of the living, but He has wrapped me in a shroud in His own Presence.”
Say, “Either You or me in the city”—
A realm with two heads is in turmoil.
Quit being the companion of self-nurturing habit-worshipers!
Kiss the dust beneath the feet of those who have disowned self! [DS 972]
At this threshold, self-seeing has no reason, self-painting no worth. There is no reason whatsoever to take anything other than incapacity, need, poverty, and want. The sons of Jacob went to Joseph and took poverty and want, saying, “We came with scant goods” [12:88]. Hence Joseph lifted the mask from beauty and came forward with the tongue of generosity: “No reproof is upon you today” [12:92]. You do the same thing, O man with a ruined life, indigent of the times! At the moment of dawn, when He lets down the carpet of descent and opens up the arms of generosity, go again to His doors like the indigent and the incapable. With a heart full of pain, a spirit full of regret, eyes full of water, and a liver full of fire, say, The Pir of the Tariqah said, “I know not Your measure and am incapable of what is worthy of You. I wander in my misery, day by day in a loss. How then is someone like me?! But such am I. I lament at gazing into the darkness—will anything remain of me? I do not know. My eyes look to a day when You remain and I am not. Who will be like me if I see that day? And if I see it, I will sacrifice my spirit to it.”
Joseph had such generosity that when his brothers came back to him in incapacity and poverty, he said to them, “No reproof is upon you today.” Hence the Most Generous of the Generous and Most Merciful of the Merciful is more worthy of saying to the servants when they weep to Him with incapacity and need, “No fear is upon you today, neither will you sorrow” [43:68].
