17:7 If you do the beautiful, you will have done the beautiful for your own souls, and if you do the ugly, it will be against them.
If you do the beautiful, you will earn your reward, and if you do the ugly, you will attract your punishment. The Real is more exalted than that ornament or stain should go back to Him from the acts of the servant.
The exalted majesty of the Unity and the perfection of the Self-Sufficiency is more exalted and purer than that it should be adorned by the obedience of the obedient or stained by the disobedience of the disobedient. If you come as a good man, you yourself will profit, and if you come as a bad man, you will bring harm upon yourself. He is saying, “For the majesty of Our Unity, the beauty of Our Self-Sufficiency is enough.”
Her own face had itself as a moon,
her own eye had itself as collyrium.
If you do the beautiful, you will have done the beautiful for your own souls. This is the degree of the generality of the faithful in their deeds. As for the degree of the elect in their deeds and states, it is as was said by Abū Yazīd concerning the allusion of this verse: “He who acts for his own soul has not acted for God, and he who acts for God has not acted for his own soul, nor has he seen it.”
Abū Sulaymān Dārānī said, “In this world the doers act in various ways, each of them seeking his own share in his deeds. Thus an ignorant person acts in heedlessness, a doer acts out of habit, a fearful man acts in fear, a trusting person acts while detached, a renunciant acts in seclusion, and a sincerely truthful man acts with love. Those who act in God are fewer than the few.”