2:229 Divorce is twice, then retention with honor or setting free with beautiful-doing.
This is a recommendation to separate by divorce so that they will not hurry to complete separation. Separation by divorce is recommended because the reality of separation is reprehensible. Although divorce is permitted in the Shariah, God hates it, for it is the cause of separating and of cutting the ties of familiarity and union. God's Messenger said, "The most hateful of permitted things to me is divorce." The exalted Qur'an praises people who do not cut bonds and do not seek for separation. It says, "Those who join what God has commanded to be joined and fear their Lord" [13:21].
In the Highest Dominion, He created angels who are half snow and half fire. Through His own power He brought these two opposites together and kept them that way. Their glorification is this: "Glory be to Him who makes fire familiar with snow! O Lord, make the hearts of your believing servants familiar with each other!"
A pir of the Sufis said, "I was walking in the desert. I saw a person I did not recognize, water standing before him, and plants growing from the water. I asked him who he was and he said that he was Abū Murra [the Father of Bitterness]. I asked him what the water was. He said, 'It is my tears, and these green things and plants are growing up from my tears.' I asked him why he was weeping. He said, 'I weep in the days of separation for the days of union. In the days of separation the murmur of union is the ease of the hearts of the deprived. Leave me to weep for myself, for there is no one in the world more miserable than I.'"
I said, "My heart wants to be Your comrade,
so I will be worthy of thanks and applause."
By God, I did not think, O Spirit of the world,
that all my hopes would come to this.
Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī had a wife whom he divorced. Her dower was 40,000 dirhams, so he sent it to her so that her heart would be happy. She put that wealth in front her and began to weep: "'Paltry goods from a departed lover!' What use to me are the goods of the world when my companion is not at my side and my friend is tired of me!"
When a viper strikes someone's liver
they give him the antidote, not candy.
They say that when Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī heard about this, he was touched and asked her to return.
It has come in the traditions that the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī went to visit Fā?ima's grave. He was weeping and saying,
"What is wrong with me? I stand among the graves greeting
the grave of my beloved, but she does not respond."
Then an unseen voice said,
"The beloved says, 'And how should I respond to you
when I am pawn to stones and dust?
The dust has eaten my beauty and I have forgotten you.
I am veiled from my family and companions.
Greetings to you from me, but the union of loved ones
has been cut off from me and you."
In other words, he said, "What has happened? What has happened to my loved one? I greet her and ask about her but she does not respond." An unseen voice called out, "Your loved one says: 'How can I answer when the seal of death has been placed in my mouth and I am alone in the midst of stones and dust and held back from relatives and near ones? Accept my greetings. Today that arrangement of friendship and joining between us has fallen apart, and its collar has been broken."
ʿAlī stood up in pain and recited these verses as he went away:
"Every coming together of friends has separation,
and everything other than separation is small.
My losses one after another
are proof that no bosom friend ever remains."
*
Tell me what in this world is like the pain of separation?
Tell me who has never been made helpless by separation?
They say to me, "Weep not in separation from her."
Tell me who has never wept at separation?
Mālik Dīnār had a brother by the name of Malkān, who left this world. Mālik sat at his grave and was saying, "O Malkān, my eyes will not have solace until I know what has happened to you, and I will not know as long as I remain alive." Then he wept a great deal.
They said to him, "O Mālik, why are you weeping so much at his death?"
He said, "I am not weeping because he left this world or because I am held back from him today. I am weeping because, if I am held back from him tomorrow at the resurrection and do not see him, that will be regret at not seeing a created thing. But who will have the regret of not seeing the Creator? And how will that be? It is said that the greatest terror [21:103] at the resurrection is the wound of separation's remorse placed on the spirit of some at the crossroads, holding them back from their friends and brothers. But that will be easy and its pain little. What will be much more difficult is the wound of separation from God placed on our spirits, turning us away from the road of felicity."
All that is easy and lowly-alas if He should say, "Go,
for I disown you and your burden of disobedience."
It is said that tomorrow at the gathering place of the resurrection a man will be brought who had been distracted in his days and disloyal to the covenant. The command will come, "Take him to hell, for he has the wound of deprivation." When he reaches the edge of hell, he will lift up his hands and pull out his eyes and throw them away. They will say, "What have you done?" He will say,
"Eyes are useful to me for seeing the Friend -
what will I do with eyes without seeing the Friend?"
*
Once I became certain I would not be seeing you,
I shut my eyes and gazed on no one.
*
Night and day, early and late, that moon of heaven
was not separate from my embrace for a moment.
On purpose someone asked about me from her.
She said, "Who's he? What could he have to do with me?"
A great pir often used to say, "The heart went, the Friend went. I don't know if I should go after the Friend or after the heart."
The tatters of my soul were left behind on the day they left-
I did not know to which of the departing I should bid farewell.
*
Tomorrow these two dear ones will depart for sure-
I don't know to which I should first bid farewell."
He said, "A call came to my secret core, 'Go after the Friend! The lover wants a heart to find union with the Friend. Without the Friend, what good is a heart?"
If there's no union with the Friend, what use are heart and spirit?
If king and queen are gone, what good is a bishop?