Surah 89: al-Fajr
89:3 By the even and the odd!
By all the creatures of the cosmos! For He created them all in pairs, two by two, whether linked to each other or opposed to each other, like male and female, day and night, light and darkness, heaven and earth, ocean and land, sun and moon, jinn and mankind, obedience and disobedience, felicity and wretchedness, exaltation and abasement, power and incapacity, strength and weakness, knowledge and ignorance, life and death.
He created the attributes of creatures like this-opposed to each other or paired with each other-so that they would not resemble the attributes of the Creator, for His exaltation has no abasement, His power no incapacity, His strength no weakness, His knowledge no ignorance, His life no death, and His subsistence no annihilation. Hence, He is the odd: alone and unique. The rest are all the even: paired with each other.
Some of the scholars have said that the even are Mount Safa and Mount Marwa, and the odd is the Kaabah. The even are Holy Mosque and the mosque of Medina, and the odd is the Aqsa Mosque. The even are day and night, paired with each other, and the odd is the Day of Resurrection, which has no day and night. The even are the soul and spirit, which are linked today, and the odd is the spirit tomorrow when it is separate from the frame. The even are desire and intention, and the odd is aspiration, a stranger without anyone. The even are the renouncer and the worshiper, each other's comrades, and the odd is the desirer, who travels alone, without comrade and companion.
Isolated from friends in every land-
the greater the sought, the fewer the helpers.
Abraham claimed to be a desirer and said, “And I will withdraw from you and what you call upon apart from God [19:48]. Surely they are an enemy to me, save the Lord of the Worlds [26:77]. Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth, unswerving [6:79].” Wherever in the world there was a link or a joining, he disowned it. He raised up his voice: “Surely I am going to my Lord; He will guide me” [37:99]. A little something remained with him, but he did not know it. “The ransomed slave stays a slave so long as a dirham is owed.” The corner of his heart was preoccupied with his child. The command came, “Make him a sacrifice for Me! O Abraham, if you claim to be a desirer, a desirer must be odd, without any links; he must be alone and travel alone. This child is your link. Remove him from your heart! Make him a sacrifice so that you will be a truthful desirer.”
It has been said that the sign of truthfulness in desire is that one rises up from himself and considers his own being as nonbeing, as the Pir of the Tariqah said: “O God, my being is my loss-shine Your being on me once! O God, my disobedience is heavy on me-rain down the river of Your munificence on me! O God, my sins are concealed beneath Your clemency-spread the curtain of Your pardon over me!”
It has also been said that the desirer's desire is his wanting in taking up the road. A man's desire arises from his rising up, and his rising up arises from his recognition. As long as he does not recognize he does not rise up, as long as he does not rise up he does not want, and as long as he does not want he does not seek. All of these are way stations of servanthood and stages of worship. When the desirer traverses these way stations, the object he seeks turns into his seeker. From the Unseen this call reaches his spirit: