The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam — Page 120
114 and the elect had to lay down their lives because the world did not recognize them. They were accounted selfish and deceitful as the world could not see their bright countenances, as is said: 159 يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَيْكَ وَهُمْ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ That is, those who deny you do look at you, yet they do not see you. In short, from the day when that light is generated in a person, he ceases to be earthly and becomes heavenly. He Who is the Master of all beings speaks inside him and manifests the light of His Godhead and makes his heart, which is saturated with His love, His throne. As soon as such a one becomes a new person through His bright transformation, God becomes a new God for him and manifests new ways for him. It is not that God becomes another God, or that those ways are different from His ways, and yet they are distinct from His normal ways, of which worldly philosophy is not aware. He becomes one of those who are referred to in the verse: وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَنْ يَشْرِى نَفْسَهُ ابْتِغَاءَ مَرْضَاتِ اللهِ وَاللَّهُ رَءُوفٌ بِالْعِبَادِ 60 159. Looking towards you, but they see not. (The Holy Quran, al-Aʻrāf 7:199)