Bounties of the Gracious God — Page 6
6 is nothing in itself; rather grace descends only from heaven, as my Lord told me through His revelation, ُ َ اإْلْإ ِکْرَام ُ لَھَلَك َ الْمُقَام إْل ْ لَو [Were it not for favouring and honouring you, this town would have been destroyed. ] Surely, in this is a warning for everyone who fears the Almighty. Then there is an eternal practice of Allah, that some people are tried through the words of His friends, as they do not ponder and do not understand. Through them Allah declares many to have gone astray and many to have been guided, and that is how He has decreed things to be. And only those go astray who have arrogance in their hearts which causes them to become mis- guided. They do not fear the Day of Reckoning and insist upon their own words, while they neither have knowledge of this Day, nor are they righteous. Out of ignorance, they hurl abuse at the Messengers of their Lord and raise objections against such state- ments of the Prophets whose [reality] is not known to them. And they are not guided towards the light [of the Messengers and the Auliy a ’ull a h ] due to their past misfortune, the excess of their sins, and their disobedience that exceeds all limits. Hence they see not but only faults in the ( Auliy a ’ull a h ) and they are not guided to the right path. Allah puts a veil on their eyes so that they are unable to see, deafens their ears so that they cannot hear, and sets a seal upon their hearts so that they cannot understand. Thus, they see the Auliy a ’ull a h but do not recognise them. This is due to their past deeds and because they have inclined towards the world and utterly disregarded the abode of the hereafter.