2:255 God, there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Standing. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. Who will intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows what is before them and what is behind them, and they encompass nothing of His knowledge save as He wills. His Footstool embraces the heavens and the earth, and He is the High, the Tremendous.
God is He who has divinity and lordhood, God is He who has unity and self-sufficiency. His fixity is unitary, His being self-sufficient, His subsistence beginningless, and His brilliance eternal.
God is the name of a lord whose essence is everlasting and whose attributes are eternal. His subsistence is beginningless and His splendor endless. His beauty is self-standing and His majesty constant. He is magnanimous and renowned, great in measure and deed, great in name and word, beyond intelligence and before when, and greater than any measure.
O majestic God who is the Enactor and the good Beloved, the creator of the world and the guardian of the creatures, keeper of enemies and companion of friends, the hard cash of hopes and enough for assurances, the receiver of every plaintiff and the forgiver of every offense, the kiblah of the desirer and the remembrance of the recognizer's heart!
In remembrance of You I pass my days without You,
in my eyes a picture of Your form.
God is the remembrance of the hearts of the friends, God is the witness of the heart of the recognizers, God is the joy of the secret core of the distracted, God is the healing of the hearts of the ill, God is the lamp of the breast of the tawḥīd-voicers, God is the light of the heart of the familiars and the balm of the pain of the burnt.
Passion for You in my heart is like the light of certainty,
Your name upon my eyes like the seal on a ring.
In my nature and aspiration until the day of resurrection
love for You will be like the spirit and loyalty to You like religion.
The Pir of the Tariqah Junayd said, "If someone says God with his tongue when other than God is in his heart, God will be his adversary in the two abodes." If someone remembers God with his tongue and delights in His name and then busies his heart with love for another, then-by the majesty and exaltedness of the Lord God-tomorrow the whip of rebuke will reach him in the station of harshness, and his adversary will be God".
On the night of the miʿrāj He said to the master, "'O Muḥammad! I wonder how anyone with faith in Me can depend on other than Me. O Muḥammad! Were they to gaze on the subtleties of My kindness and the wonders of My artisanry, they would not worship other than Me': What a wonder is someone who finds Me and then seeks for someone else! How can He who recognizes Me busy himself with other than Me?"
When an eye sees You, it is relieved of pain.
When a spirit finds You, it is exempt from death.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, "O God, O worthy of generosity and caresser of the world! There is no sorrow along with Your union and no grief along with Your remembrance. You are the plaintiff and the interceder, the witness and the judge. As long as I breathe along with Your love, I will be free of the bonds of existence and nonexistence, released from the bother of Tablet and Pen-cups of happiness placed in hand again and again in the session of intimacy!"
There is no god but He, a God other than whom there is no worthy object of worship. In the two worlds who else is worthy of Lordhood? There is none to take the hand of the wounded other than the proclamation of His beauty and gentleness. There is no caresser of the orphans other than the edict of His generosity. He is the Lord God to whose loyalty are bound the hearts of the friends, for whose encounter are wishing the spirits of the yearners, and from the cups of whose trial the spirits of the passionate are drunk in love. The ease of the wounded comes from His name and mark, the joy of the recognizers from His remembrance and message. How beautifully spoke that distracted one of the times:
"When will my luck smile at me from Your playing field?
When will separation from You strike its tent from my spirit's desert?
My ease is Your message, my foot in Your snare,
Your prison my spirit's garden because of Your name."
The Living, the Self-Standing: a Lord who is alive, lasting, holding, caressing, bestowing, concealing. He knows all that is and all that will be. He reaches everything with His ability and grasp. He is the Lord of everyone and takes forward everything that comes to be. He links His familiars with love through the light of His name and the light of His message. He is the repose and ease of hearts and the relaxation of the secret cores. Applause for those chevaliers who have caught a whiff of this talk and come to the table of gentleness! Just as others live through food and drink, they live through the name and mark of the Friend and are at ease in His remembrance.
They said to Shiblī, "Where do food and drink come from?"
He said, "The remembrance of my Lord is the food of my soul, the laudation of my Lord is the clothing of my soul, and shame before my Lord is the drink of my soul. My soul has been sacrificed to my heart, my heart to my spirit, and my spirit to my Lord."
May the light of my eyes be the dust beneath Your feet!
May my spirit be sacrificed to aching for You!
Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. This is a declaration of the holiness and incomparability of the Essence, for He is free of defects and hallowed beyond blights. Sleep is a change of state, and God is pure of the changing and turning of states. He is far from decrease and increase. Sleep is a fault, and God is rid of faults. Sleep is heedlessness, and God transcends blights and heedless moments. Sleep is the changing of state, and God's state does not change or accept alteration. Sleep is similar to death, and God is the living, the lasting, the subsistent.
Powerful, Knowing, Alive, Desiring,
Hearing, Seeing, clothed in majesty,
Hallowed beyond having an equal,
transcending opinion and talk.
He is a Lord who has no associate in Essence, no similar in attributes, and no equal in measure.
Thought is bewildered in Your subtle Essence,
all things hidden apparent to Your eternal knowledge.
In the ocean of Your perfection, the perfect are defective,
in the eye of Your acceptance, the defective become perfect.
To Him belong whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth. The engendered beings and newly arrived things in the earth and the heavens are all His artisanry and His kingdom. No one quarrels with Him, no other overpowers Him. What dominates over them is His command, what influences them is His knowledge. They have ability from His assistance, they are kept by His preservation. It is narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said, "The earths are upon the Bull, the Bull is in a chain, the chain is in the ear of the Fish, and the Fish is in the hand of the All-Merciful."
Who will intercede with Him save by His leave? Who fancies that he can take care of his own business without His wanting it or can take a breath without His knowledge or can reach Him without Him? His opinion is wrong and his effort misguided.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, "O God, when the approved sought You by You they reached You. When the unapproved sought You by themselves they broke off. Those who reached did not arrive because of gratitude, nor did those who broke off arrive with excuses. O You who Yourself make arrive and who make arrive at Yourself! Make me arrive, for no one has arrived by himself."
O You the guide on whose road is pain!
You are solitary and Your familiar solitary.
He knows what is before them and what is behind them. All that is someone or something in heaven and earth, the Creator knows its movement and rest, its thoughts and ideas. He sees its going and moving and He reaches its reality, for everything comes forth from His power and changes by His decree. He knows it, for He makes it happen. He sees it, for He does it. He binds it, for He loosens it. He is worthy of Godhood, for He is not held back, never at a loss, and does not fall short. He knows the hidden things, and the work does not distract Him. He attends to everything and takes care of all work. But when He throws something to the Adamites, they put their intelligence into His work, they bind their imaginations to Him, but their knowledge and intellect are lost in His measure. They encompass nothing of His knowledge save as He wills.
His Footstool embraces the heavens and the earth. This is the text of the Qur'an, alluding to direction and location. The Footstool is not "knowledge," for that is the road of the roadless and the interpretation of the ignorant. We know the Footstool as the place of the feet, and this is the position of the Sunnis, who take it to heart and accept it without interpretation and self-determination.
Then He seals the verse by mentioning His majesty, greatness, tremendousness, and aboveness. He says, "And He is the High, the Tremendous." Concerning the glorification of the angels, this is narrated from the Prophet: "The high heavens glorify Him who possesses awesomeness and highness: 'Glory be to the High, the Highest! Glory be to Him, and high exalted is He!'"
God's highness and aboveness are of two sorts: one is the highness and aboveness of attributes, the other the highness and aboveness of acts. That pertaining to attributes is beginningless: He has never ceased being naked and high and He has always been and always will be. He is beyond all things through His own magnificence, above all marks through His own measure, above all measures through His exaltedness.
That pertaining to acts is the aboveness of the Essence and the highness of location. He Himself acts and gives marks of Himself after the creation of heaven and earth and by His own desire and not out of need, for the work that God does is by want, not need, since He has no requirement or need for anyone or anything, and He has no associate or partner. O Lord, protect our hearts from innovation and misguidance and release them from confusion and bewilderment, by Thy favor and bounty!