38:35 He said, "My Lord, forgive me and give me a kingdom such as no one after me will have."
Solomon did not seek the outward kingdom. Rather, he desired only to be king over his own soul, for the king in truth is he who is king over his own soul. Whoever is king over his own soul will not follow his caprice.
Solomon said, "Lord God, just as You put the world's creatures under my hand, so also put this soul under my hand so that I will not be obedient to it and will not go after its caprice. Obeying the soul and obeying the Real are opposites, and opposites do not come together." That chevalier said it beautifully:
"With two kiblahs you can't walk straight on the road of tawḥīd-
either the Friend's approval, or your own caprice." [DS 488]
Muṣ?afā always used to say, "O God, do not entrust us to our souls for the blink of an eye, or less than that." All sorts of trial reached Joseph the Truthful from the well, the prison, and so on, but he never began to lament as he did from the commanding soul, when it was said, "Surely the soul commands to ugliness, except as my Lord has mercy" [12:53]. When Joseph said, "Receive me as a submitter" [12:101], he said so in fear of the commanding soul, not in fear of Satan. For, although Satan is the adversary, he wants disobedience from the person of faith, not unbelief. It is the soul that wants unbelief, so it strives for it and calls him to all sorts of caprice and innovation, trying to pull him into unbelief.
In the Qur'an, the Lord of the Worlds mentions two things without saying what they are. He mentions the soul, but He does not say what it is. He mentions this world, but He does not say what it is. The ulama of the religion explain this world with these words: "What blocks you from your Patron-that is your 'this world.'" Whatever holds you back from God is this world. If you do not have tonight's bread but you admire yourself, your self-admiration is this world. If you possess the kingdom of the East and the West and are occupied with God, that is not this world, but rather the afterworld.
As for the soul, it is what Muṣ?afā said: "Your worst enemy is your soul between your two sides." The soul wants caprice, and the heart wants trial. The soul is Satan's gazing place, the heart the All-Merciful's gazing place. The soul is the devil's bench, the heart the storehouse of recognition. He placed the storehouse of recognition next to the enemy, but He kept it under His own guard and preserved it from the enemy.
He brought forth Moses and the Children of Israel and preserved them such that no one's skirt became wet. He put Abraham into the fire but it did not burn one thread of his robe. In the same way, He placed the heart, which is the storehouse of recognition, next to the soul. Then He guarded and favored it so that the enemy could not touch it.
It has been narrated that ʿĀmir ibn ʿAbd Qays was one of the most excellent of worshipers. He made obligatory upon himself one thousand cycles of prayer every day. He would stand in prayer at the rising of the sun and keep on standing until late afternoon. Then he would turn away, his legs and feet swollen. He would say, "O soul, you were created either to worship or to command to ugliness. By God, I will not do any deed with you in which a bed has a portion of you."
In his words, "such as no one after me may have," he did not begrudge it to the prophets but to no one among the kings after me. He asked for a kingdom in order to rule over the people and make them be equitable one to another in order to put into effect the rightful due of God. He did not ask for it because of inclining toward this world. This is like the words of Joseph: "Set me over the storehouses of the earth" [12:55].