23:62 We burden no soul save to its capacity
The highway of the religion has a beginning and an end. The beginning belongs to the folk of the Shariah and the end to the lords of the Haqiqah. The practice of the folk of the Shariah is service according to the Shariah, and the attribute of the lords of the Haqiqah is exile in contemplation.
The foundation of the folk of the Shariah was built with easiness. Muṣ?afā said, "I was sent out with easy and indulgent unswervingness." The weak and the folk of concessions do not have the capacity for heavy burdens. The Exalted Lord put concessions into the Shariah for their sake and set aside heavy burdens: We burden no soul save to its capacity. This is the same as saying, "He did not place upon you any hardship in the religion [22:78]. God desires for you ease and does not desire for you hardship [2:185]."
As for the traveling of the lords of the Haqiqah, God founded that on discipline and difficulty. They are addressed by the words, "Struggle in God as is the rightful due of His struggle [22:78]. Be wary of God as is the rightful due of His wariness [3:102]. Whether you bring what is within your souls or you conceal it, God will call you to account for it [2:284]."
The Pir of the Tariqah was asked about Sufism. He said, "It is nothing but throwing away the spirit; otherwise, do not busy yourself with the nonsense of the claimants."
Al-Jurayrī said, "God does not burden the servants with recognizing Him in His measure; He only burdens them in their measure, for He says, 'We burden no soul save to its capacity.' Were He to burden them in His measure, they would be ignorant of Him and would not recognize Him, for no one but He recognizes His measure and no one other than He recognizes Him in reality." God burdened the servants with recognizing Him in the measure of their obedience and the extent of their ability, not in the measure of His majesty and exaltedness. Everyone can know Him in his own measure, but only He knows and recognizes how He is in Himself. God says, "They encompass Him not in knowledge [20:110]. The All-Merciful. So ask about Him from someone who is aware [25:59]." ʿAlī said, "O He who none knows how He is but He!"
Were He to make an iota of the recognition of the Haqiqah that He has in Himself apparent to the creatures, all the recalcitrant people in the world and all the satans of the universe would become tawḥīd-voicers, all the sashes of unbelief would become belts of love in the religion, all the thorns of the world would become fragrant herbs, all the dust would become musk and ambergris, and all the attributes of mortal nature would become the good news of the breeze of recognition.
Were You to glance once as You are,
no idol would remain, no idol-worshiper, no sprite.
O God, describing You is not the work of the tongue. Expression of the reality of finding You is calumny. With the onslaught of the heart's union and vision, what can be done?
Your beauty is greater than my seeing,
Your mystery outside of my knowing.