Surah 27: al-Naml
27:15 And We gave David and Solomon knowledge.
In this verse the Lord of the Worlds lays a favor on David and Solomon, for He taught them the knowledge of the religion. Religion is a comprehensive word that comprises submission, faith, the Sunnah, the community, performing obedient acts and worship, and avoiding unbelief and disobedience. This is the religion of the angels by which they worship and obey God, and it is the religion of the prophets and messengers from Adam to Muḥammad. The prophets and messengers invited their communities to it, as the Lord of the Worlds says: “He has set down for you as the religion that with which He counseled Noah, and what We have revealed to thee, and that with which We charged Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Uphold the religion, and scatter not regarding it” [42:13].
This religion is extremely obvious and unveiled to the folk of felicity, but extremely hidden from the folk of wretchedness. The Real gives religion-recognizing eyesight only to the folk of felicity. Only the folk of this eyesight recognize the religion, as the Prophet said: “How is it that you are with your religion like the moon when it is full, but only the seeing see it?”
It has also been narrated that he said, “I have brought you a white, immaculate splendor whose night is like its day. For those of you who live, a great diversity will be seen among you after me concerning my Sunnah and that of the rightly guided vicegerents, so hold fast to it.”
The religion in its totality is built on two things: listening and following. Listening is that you accept with spirit and heart the revelation sent down on Muṣ?afā. Then you go straight by following him. That is His words, “Whatever the Messenger gives you, take” [59:7].
And We gave David and Solomon knowledge. In the tongue of the folk of recognition and the tasting of the lords of finding, this is the knowledge of understanding. The knowledge of understanding is the knowledge of the Haqiqah.
Junayd was asked, “What is the knowledge of the Haqiqah?”
He said, “The God-given, lordly knowledge-the attributes gone, the Haqiqah staying.”
The state of the recognizer is exactly this: the attributes gone, the Haqiqah staying. The common people are in a station in which the attributes are apparent and the Haqiqah concealed. As for the folk of election, the attributes have ceased to be and the Haqiqah stays. That chevalier has said this beautifully in the line,
Endless passion has nothing to do with a heart
that stays firm in its own attributes. [DS 209]
First there is the knowledge of the Haqiqah, above this the eye of the Haqiqah, and beyond that the truth of the Haqiqah. The knowledge of the Haqiqah is recognition, the eye of the Haqiqah is finding, and the truth of the Haqiqah is annihilation.
The knowledge of the Haqiqah is what you have of the Real. The eye of the Haqiqah is the Real through which you are. The truth of the Haqiqah is your dissolution in the Real.
Recognition means shinākht [in Persian], and finding [wujūd] means yāft. Between recognition and finding are more than a thousand valleys. Junayd said, “This group did not come down from the Patron for the sake of recognition-they seek so as to find.” Poor man, how will you find Him when you are incapable of recognition?
It is also Junayd who was asked, “How is it that one finds Him?” He did not answer, but stood up from his place. In other words, this answer is given by the heart, not the tongue. He who has it knows.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “The light of faith comes from finding God. It is not that finding God comes from the light of faith.”
Ḥallāj said, “When someone seeks God with the light of faith, that is like seeking the sun with a star's light. He, however, stands in His measure and abides in His exaltedness. He is far in His exaltedness and near in His gentleness.”