Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

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.” AsmāÌ 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 any- one 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 poor 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.

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

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.” Don't think of that talk, put on the shroud, then clap your hands like a man. Say, “Either You or me in the city”- A realm with two heads is in turmoil. O chevalier! One drop of sperm that comes out from inside a man establishes his pollution, but this outward pollution is made pure with water. What is difficult is that if one iota of the sperm of self-seing takes up residence inside you, a pollutedness will come that cannot be eliminated with all the world's oceans. 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 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 door like the indigent and the incapable.