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1
837-861

  • When He pleases, pain itself becomes joy; bondage itself becomes freedom.
  • Air and earth and water and fire are (His) slaves: with you and me they are dead, but with God they are alive.
  • Before God, fire is always standing (ready to do His behest), writhing continually day and night, like a lover.
  • If you strike stone on iron, it (the fire) leaps out: ’tis by God's command that it puts forth its foot. 840
  • Do not strike together the iron and stone of injustice, for these two generate like man and woman.
  • The stone and the iron are indeed causes, but look higher, O good man!
  • For this (external) cause was produced by that (spiritual) cause: when did a cause ever proceed from itself without a cause?
  • And those causes which guide the prophets on their way are higher than these (external) causes.
  • That (spiritual) cause makes this (external) cause operative; sometimes, again, it makes it fruitless and ineffectual. 845
  • (Ordinary) minds are familiar with this (external) cause, but the prophets are familiar with those (spiritual) causes.
  • What is (the meaning of) this (word) “cause” (sabab) in Arabic? Say: “cord” (rasan). This cord came into this well (the world) by (Divine) artifice.
  • The revolution of the water-wheel causes the cord (to move), (but) not to see the mover of the water-wheel is an error.
  • Beware, beware! Do not regard these cords of causation in the world as (deriving their movement) from the giddy wheel (of heaven),
  • Lest you remain empty and giddy like the (celestial) wheel, lest through brainlessness you burn like markh wood. 850
  • By the command of God the wind devours (extinguishes) fire: both are drunken with the wine of God.
  • O son, when you open your eyes you will see that from God too are the water of clemency and the fire of anger.
  • Had not the soul of the wind been informed by God, how would it have distinguished (the believers and unbelievers) amongst the people of ‘Ád?
  • The story of the wind which destroyed the people of ‘Ád in the time of (the prophet) Húd, on whom be peace.
  • Húd drew a line round the believers: the wind would become soft (subside) when it reached that place,
  • (Although) it was dashing to pieces in the air all who were outside of the line. 855
  • Likewise Shaybán the shepherd used to draw a visible line round his flock
  • Whenever he went to the Friday service at prayer-time, in order that the wolf might not raid and ravage there:
  • No wolf would go into that (circle), nor would any sheep stray beyond that mark;
  • The wind of the wolf's and sheeps' concupiscence was barred because of (by) the circle of the man of God.
  • Even so, to those who know God (‘árifán) the wind of Death is soft and pleasant as the breeze (that wafts the scent) of (loved) ones like Joseph. 860
  • The fire did not set its teeth in Abraham: how should it bite him, since he is the chosen of God?