2:77 Do they not know that God knows what they keep secret and what they announce?
This is the speech of the Lord who is worshiped by the tawḥīd-voicers, responds to those who call, knows the state of the servants, is aware of the apparent and hidden, and calls back those who have turned away. One He calls with explicit expressions, presenting Himself as the Nurturer. He says, "Be penitent toward your Lord!" [39:54]. Another He calls with His exalted allusions and turns the face of his heart away from others to Himself. He presents His lordhood and kingship to him and says, "Do they not know that God knows what they keep secret and what they announce?" For the recognizers, this is sufficient allusion. When the Lord of the Worlds says that He knows the secret cores and is aware of the hidden things, they sweep the dust of the others from their secret cores and give scatteredness no way into their hearts. When He says that He knows the apparent, they bring truthfulness to bear in their outward interaction with God's creatures. This is why the folk of allusion have said that He knows what they keep secret is a command to watchfulness between servant and Lord, and what they announce is a command to truthfulness in interactions and settling accounts with the creatures.
In one of God's books has come, "If you do not know that I see you, that is a defect in your faith. If you do know that I see you, why do you make Me the lowliest of gazers upon you?"
Equivalent to this verse is what the Exalted Lord says: "He knows the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal" [40:19]. There are diverse treacheries in the eyes of the lookers, because the travelers are diverse.
The treachery of the eyes of the worshipers is that in the dark night, when it is time for whispering to God, they fall asleep and the intimacy of seclusion is lost to them. The prophet David received the revelation, "O David, he who claims to love Me is a liar if night comes, and he goes to sleep on Me. Does not every lover love to be secluded with his beloved?"
God praised Abraham for this attribute when He said, "When night fell over him" [6:76]. When night came over him, sleep fled from his eyes. All his vision was turned toward the traces of His handiwork, and he found solace in that. God lauded the believers and praised their arising at night with his words, "Their sides shun their couches [32:16]. They are awake, they rise up at night-all the world goes to sleep and they tell Me secrets. They talk of their grief and joy. I will give them whatever they want, and I will keep them secure from whatever they fear."
The treachery of the eyes of the recognizers is that they do not weep the bloody tears of grief when they fail to find union with the Friend. A man claimed to love a creature, and the two of them were separated. When they were turning away from each other, one eye of the lover shed tears, the other did not. He closed that eye for eighty-four years and did not open it. He said, "An eye that does not weep at separation from the friend is worthy of no punishment less than this." In this meaning they composed these poems:
My eye wept tears on the morning of separation,
but the other was stingy with weeping.
I punished the one that was stingy
by shutting it the day we met.
*
One of my eyes wept at separation from my friend
and the other became stingy and did not weep.
When the day of union arrives, I will give it its recompense-
"Well, you didn't weep, so you mustn't look."
They say that one must weep so much in separation from the Friend that you imagine that the Friend is mixed with the tears and that He will fall to your side with the teardrops.
From the time, O my Life, You took up residence in my heart,
I made my eyes rain down pearls.
Perhaps once as companion to my tears
You will come by way of my eyes to my side.
The treachery of the eyes of the sincerely truthful is that something in the universe should appear beautiful to them and they should gaze at it. When love for God is someone's reality, his eyes are sewn toward all others. This is why Muḥammad said, "Your love for a thing makes you blind and deaf."
O light of my eye, ask my eye: "Have you feasted on
a beautiful scene since I parted from you?"