64:16 So be wary of God as much as you are able.
In another place, He says, "Be wary of God as is the rightful due of His
wariness" [3:102]. One of these verses is the abrogater, the other the abrogated. One alludes to what is necessary by the command, the other alludes to what is necessary by rightful due. What is necessary by the command came and abrogated what is necessary by rightful due. This is because when the Real calls the servants to account, He does so by what the command makes necessary so that He may then pardon their acts. If He were to take them to task for what is necessary by rightful due, then a thousand years of obedience would have the same color as a thousand years of disobedience. If all the prophets, the friends, and the limpid, and all the recognizers and lovers, came together, which of them would have the capacity to undertake His rightful due or to answer to His rightful due?
His command is finite, but His rightful due is infinite. This is because the command subsists as long as prescription of the Law subsists, but the prescription of the Law pertains to this world, which is the abode of prescription. The rightful due subsists through the subsistence of the Essence, and the Essence is infinite. Hence the subsistence of the rightful due is infinite. What is necessary by the command will disappear, but what is necessary by rightful due will never disappear. This world will pass away, and the turn of the command will pass away along with it. But the turn of the rightful due will never pass away.
Today everyone has a mad fervor in his head because he is looking at the command. The prophets and messengers look at their own prophethood and messengerhood, and the angels look at their own obedience and worship. The tawḥīd-voicers, the strugglers, the faithful, and the purifiers look at their own tawḥīd, faith, and self-purification.
Tomorrow, when the pavilions of the lordly rightful due are thrown open, the prophets, despite the perfection of their state, will speak of their own knowledge of the Subsistent: "We have no knowledge" [5:109]. The angels of the Dominion will strike fire to the monasteries of their obedience, saying, "We have not worshiped You with the rightful due of Your worship." The recognizers and tawḥīd-voicers will say, "We have not recognized You with the rightful due of Your recognition." And God knows best what is correct.