BB00174: Tafsir-i-Almavadda fi’l-Qurba

Answer to the Petition of Mulla Ahmad ʿAbdal from Mah-Ku

In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Praise be to God, Who hath freed me to behold the raimented Splendour of the Presence of His Most Pure Self amid the mountains, and hath inspired me with the tokens of His oneness within the wide immensity of the billows of majesty, that thereby I might enter the carpet of His grandeur with praise on the Day of Return. Praise be to God—a praise that towereth above every praise, resembleth no other praise, is matched by no praise, nor compared therewith; a praise that filleth the Book with light, the heaven with bounty, Paradise with favour, Hell with justice, and the earth with equity; a praise whose true due none knoweth save God and for which, in His knowledge, there can be no equivalent recompense; a praise He loveth and accepteth and maketh a gate leading forth unto the station of His glory and His laud. Verily, He is the Most Exalted, the Most High.

Send down, O my God, Thy blessings upon Muhammad, Thy chosen Servant, whom Thou didst fashion for Thyself and prefer above all the denizens of creation, making Him the seat of Thy sovereignty in the realms of sight and space, that He might manifest the exaltation of Thy Self above origination and the splendour of Thy devising—since Thou art not conjoined with the bringing-forth of beings, nor described by the appearances of the people of splendour. Verily, Thou art God, the Great, the Most Sublime.

And send, O my God, Thy peace upon the receptacles of His knowledge and the vessels of His wisdom, the pillars of His Prophethood and the dwellings of His blessing—Thy servants whom Thou didst choose for Thy religion, accept for Thy secret, and elect for Thy knowledge—whom Thou hast portrayed in Thy Book, saying (and Thy word is the truth):

“Honoured servants are they; they outstrip Him not in speech, and by His command they act.”

And send Thy blessings upon those who followed them in the manifestations of the essences of abstraction, the conditions of the effulgences of unicity, the stations of the verses of praise, and the tokens indicating glorification—servants who with their whole beings turned toward Thee and witnessed Thy appearance in all things, so that they beheld no light save Thy light, and discerned no decree save Thy bounty and Thy justice—Thy trusted ones whom Thou hast described in the conclusive verse that compriseth all the letters of being, at the end of Surih al-Fath.

And now: Know thou that this noble verse possesseth subtle meanings which none can bear save We and Our Shi’ah. It is of those sayings of which it is declared:

“Hard, most hard; noble—its remembrance rugged, its height fair …”

—which none beareth save whom God willeth. Verily, He is powerful over all things. Yet, since thou knowest the refinement of speech within Our allusions, I will indicate some of its meanings, that thou mayest attain honour in reply, glory in address, and a treasure for the Day of Return. I seek aid from God in the manifestation of exposition; verily He is the Protector in the beginning and the return.

Know thou that God is the Absolute Self-Sufficient One, Who in no affair hath need of aught. He hath created His chosen ones upon the plane of His power and His care. He hath appointed for the Prophet no wage in the Prophet but the acceptance of the decree of Prophethood; and this runneth, by that Gate—God willing—until thou findest, through the bounties of the Bayan and the fruits of Paradise, what hath never before occurred to any heart. This is God’s grace: He bestoweth it upon whomsoever He willeth; and God is the Lord of mighty bounty.

Then know that God intended in this verse naught but His word on the Night of the Mi’raj unto His Beloved—exalted be His remembrance—when He said: “Thou art the Beloved, and Thou art the One beloved.” For the love of the near of kin (al-qurba) is the Most Great Sign, through which God manifested Himself unto every soul that thereby it might know its Lord and confess its Fashioner. Into the identity of that Sign God cast the similitude of His power, that through it His acts might be made manifest.

Gaze, then, with keen sight into the place of that dark well—of Gehenna—and into the tumultuous, mighty, shoreless sea; then distil the sum of the matter within thine own soul, that thou mayest behold the outpouring of thy Lord in thy response in every world, each according to its reckoning, and its rank in the station of exposition, that thou mayest perceive, by the secret of vision, and in the station of meanings and reigning realities, what thou canst establish with praiseworthy proofs from the Book and the Sunnah and from the reason irradiated by the dawn of pre-eternity, as well as from the signs springing from the manifestations of souls and the evidences read in the horizons. If, in its degree, thou findest no proof for what We have cast unto thee—proof beyond that of the greater part of the people of the Bayan—then be silent; for silence is better for Us and more profitable for thee than whatsoever the sun hath shone upon. Verily, we are God’s and unto Him shall we return.

Then be certain that the love of the near of kin is born from the observation of the servant’s nearness to his Lord; and the near is nearer, and through that door are opened a thousand thousand doors—nay, as many as God willeth, without exhaustion or end. This is a decree sealed from the presence of the Almighty, the All-Wise.

Bear thou witness moreover that God hath appointed the wage of Prophethood to be none other than Guardianship (al-wilayah). For exclusivity by the word of negation is established and decisive, and the exception is suspended upon love—upon nothing else. Hence doth the servant know that the fruit of Prophethood in all the worlds is the love of the people of Guardianship—those who, of every soul, were nearer unto the Prophet—may blessings rest upon Him. Whoso worketh not according to the ordinance of that verse is as one who hath denied the oneness of God, the Prophethood of His Prophet, and the Guardianship of His Friend. I seek refuge with God from every evil encompassed by His knowledge, and I beg of Him every good encompassed by His knowledge—that is, the servant’s attainment unto nearness—for God, exalted be His remembrance, hath in His Book made their knowledge His knowledge, their obedience His obedience, their love His love, their affection His affection, and their disobedience His disobedience.

By “kinship” is not meant mere outward propinquity; rather is intended nearness unto Him—may my spirit, and the spirits in the kingdom of Command and Creation, be a ransom for Him—in the world of infinity and detachment and beginning. In this world it is distinguished only by the conjunction of the two nearnesses: that he be a knower of their right and sprung from their love. If thus he be, then is he of the kin of the Messenger of God—peace be upon Him—in all the worlds. Otherwise, if one be of His lineage yet heedless of His right, God shall double unto him the chastisement; but if he be knowing of His right, God shall grant him a double recompense. This is of God’s grace upon that sublime lineage—grown from the divine Tree that is “neither of the East nor of the West,” etc.

Then behold the secret of reality: the One addressed by the “kasr” is He addressed by the Essence—holier than that He should be conjoined with His creation; rather did He begin speech by His command and made it a path betwixt Him and His Messengers. He who answered in the first Covenant is He addressed in the fourth; and kinship is guardianship, as God, glorified be He, indicated: “Here is the guardianship of God, the True,” etc. If thou hast grasped what thou hast grasped and attained what thou hast attained, thou hast verily won the meaning of the verse and been illumined by the light of reality; and with such as this let them who labour, labour.

Then ponder the meaning of kinship: it is the all-comprehending Word which God created for the station of His knowledge, and He set it upon four pillars such that no part precedeth another. It is the Name concerning which al-a¹¢adiq—peace be upon him—said that the Hidden Name is of the Perfect Word and the primordial kinship without which kinship is not fulfilled. And al-Kazim—peace be upon him—when asked concerning the Greatest Name, declared—may my spirit, and the spirits of them who dwell in the kingdom of names and attributes, be a ransom for him—that it consisteth of four letters. And today none acteth by God’s decree save those who regard the ordinance of kinship within the very selves of their Shi’ah foremost, and apply unto them the rulings of their guardianship; for they were, of the believers, worthier than themselves and their possessions. The Shi’ah are remembered only in their stations and beneath the shade of their sovereignty; they are the Name that abideth under their shadow and goeth not forth unto their glory. They are the pillars of the Faith and the sages of the people of certitude. But for them, kinship had not been sent down in the Qur’an, nor would the decree of exposition run within the realm of possibility.

Thus said—may my spirit, and the spirits of those within the kingdom of the Throne and the heaven, be a ransom for him—“Whoso supposeth that the Imam—peace be upon him—hath need of what is in men’s hands hath disbelieved,” after God had ordained the khums for them and revealed, respecting their due, silatuhum (“their due connection”), and “Who is he that will lend unto God a goodly loan?”—which We withheld, etc. This is of God’s grace upon the people, that they might draw nigh unto God through love for the Shi’ah of ʿAli.

And today all are tried by that for which I have evinced patience in the path of God and am well-pleased with His decree—dwelling in stillness upon the mountain—that the souls may be tested and the hearts purified by the ordinance of that noble verse: “Say: I ask of you no reward, save love for the near of kin.” Men follow the decree of kinship with the Messenger of God—this is the command of God and the wondrousness of His wisdom. “Do men imagine that they will be left alone … ?” And the Imam said for strengthening—. By my life, the Cause hath now reached all, and all are tried this very day. Whoso grieveth for my plight and can do no more than this, hath verily laid hold on the primal Handle and the greatest Cord; and whoso is content therewith, though it be by the weight of a mustard seed, hath entered the fierce, deaf, and blinding trial. In this is a decree from God.

I beseech God to deliver all into the days of His might, and to forgive the believers through His grace and His care. Verily, He is the Bestower, the All-Powerful, the All-Bountiful—august is He—Whom naught in the heavens nor in the earth can overburden. And He, indeed, is powerful over all things.