If you could see when they are made to stand before their Lord, at the major resurrection, and this [that follows] is an imagined representation of their state in terms of their veiledness and distance, for otherwise there would be no words and no response at that [moment] because of their being deprived from the presence and the witnessing, even though they might be at the source of nondelimited union. Know that 'to stand before' (waqafa ʿalā) something is different from 'to stand with' (waqafa maʿa) it, for to stand with something is voluntary and willingly done, whereas to stand before something can only be by coercion or out of aversion. Thus the one who stands with God in [his] affirmation of Oneness - like the one who said, 'Desire stands whence you [stand] and I can neither walk behind it nor ahead [of it]' - will not be made to stand for the reckoning. Rather he will be among those of the greatest prize of whom He says: and restrain yourself along with those who call upon their Lord at morning and evening, desiring His countenance [Q. 18:28]; you are not accountable for them in anything [Q. 6:52]; and he will be rewarded by all kinds of bliss in all of the gardens. As for the one who stands with the other through idolatrous association, he will stand before the Lord and will be chastised with all manner of chastisement in the [various] levels of all the fires, because of his veil being denser and his unbelief greater. As for the one who stands with the human realm (nāsūt) by his love of pleasures and desires and lingers in the veil of the vestiges [thereof], he will stand before the spiritual realm (malakūt) and chastised with the fires of privation from what is desired and unleashed on him shall be the Zabāniya angels [cf. Q. 96:18] of [his] dark configurations and he will be bounded together with the devils of [his] ruinous caprices. As for the one who stands with the acts, having emerged from the veil of the vestiges, he will stand before the realm of divine power (jabarūt) and will be chastised with the fire of ambition and hope and is returned to the station of the spiritual realm (malakūt). As for the one who stands with the attributes, having emerged from the veil of the acts, he will stand before the Essence and is chastised with the fire of yearning in abandonment, even if he should be of the folk of [divine] satisfaction; but this standing is not the standing before the Lord, for the one who is made to stand before the Essence knows his Lord as qualified by the attributes of graciousness, such as the Merciful, the Tender, and the Generous, unlike the one who is made to stand before the Lord; and this is thus the veil of the ego, just as the one who stands with the acts is in the veil of His descriptions, and the one who stands with the human realm is in the veil of His acts which belong to the totality of vestiges. The idolater is made to stand therefore before all four standings: firstly, before the Lord where he is veiled through distance and banishment, as He says Begone in it despicably and do not speak to Me [Q. 23:108] and [where] He says Then taste the chastisement for that you disbelieved [Q. 6:30]; then [secondly], before the realm of divine power (jabarūt) where he is banished with wrath and vanquishing, as He says and God shall not speak to them on the Day of Resurrection nor look upon them [Q. 3:77]; then [thirdly], before the spiritual realm where he is rebuked with anger and being cursed as is said [by God] Enter the gates of Hell [Q. 40:76]; then [fourthly], before the Fire where he is chastised with all kinds of fires forever, as He says by the tongue of [the Hell-keeper angel] Mālik [Nay] you will surely remain [Q. 43:77]. Thus his standing before the Fire comes after his standing before the Lord, receiving its justification from it, as He says then to Us is their return; then We shall make them taste terrible chastisement for what they used to disbelieve in [Q. 10:70]. As for the one who stands with the human realm, he will stand for the reckoning before the spiritual realm then before the Fire but may be turned away [from it] if [divine] wrath is non-existent, or may not be turned away if it is existent. As for the one who stands with the acts, he is not made to stand before the Fire in the first place, rather he is reckoned with [promptly] and is admitted into the Garden. As for the one who stands with the attributes, he will be among those with whom God is satisfied and who are satisfied with Him. But God knows best the realities of matters.