Surah 30: al-Rūm
30:4-5 To God belongs the command, before and after. And on that day the faithful will rejoice in God's help.
Here before is the Beginningless, and after is the Endless. The meaning is that the beginningless command belongs to God and the endless command belongs to God, because the beginningless Lord and the endless Master is God.
In the Beginningless and the Endless it is God who is one and unique. In the command He is without end, in knowledge He is without limit, and in decree He is without why. He is before when and in place before place. Before us He was there for Us in the Beginningless, and without us He will be our portion in the Endless. This is the intimation that He voiced to the paragon of the world on the night of the miʿrāj: “O Muḥammad, be for Me as if you were not, and I will be for you as I have always been.”
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Look at proximity so that intimacy may be born, look at tremendousness so that veneration may increase. Wait and see between this and that what indeed will be displayed by the precedent solicitude. To God belongs the command, before and after.”
In another place He said, “Surely His are the creation and the command” [7:54]. The world of the creation comes to an end, but the world of the command has no end. It is permissible for the world of the creation to disappear, but the world of the command is necessarily permanent. As long as a man does not pass beyond the world of the creation, he is not allowed to enter the world of the command. He must become naked of his own makeup and cut off the relation of createdness from the innate disposition of recognition.
If you want to pass into the world of the command, to rise up from your ungrateful makeup, and to cut away your ascription to great wrongdoing and deep ignorance, you can only do so by lingering and passing time. Just as you must linger in coming, so also you must linger in leaving. Just as the sperm-drop is held back for a while before it becomes a clot-and so on with the clot until it becomes bones, the bones until it becomes flesh, which is then kept for a time until it comes into movement-so also in the measure that a man comes up from under his own hand he becomes familiar with the command of the Real. When he passes beyond all of his own attributes, he becomes worthy of the command and reaches the maturity that is manliness. At that point this inscription will be written for him: “Among the faithful are men” [33:23].
And on that day the faithful will rejoice in God's help. Today is distress, tomorrow rejoicing; today is heedfulness, tomorrow bewilderment; today is regret, tomorrow gentleness; today is weeping, tomorrow encounter.
Today in this house of trial and trouble, all that the friends have is pain and grief, remorse and burning, but they buy this grief and burning with spirit and heart and they sacrifice all that they know to this pain, just as that chevalier said:
“Now at least I have the hard cash of pain-
I won't give up this pain for a hundred thousand remedies.”
When that minor slip went forth from David the prophet and he was rebuked by the Real, he never lifted his head to heaven as long as he was alive, nor did he stop pleading for one hour. With all this, he was saying happily, “O God, what a sweet confection this is, what a sweet pain this is! O God place a seed from this weeping and grief in my breast so that I may never be empty of this pain.”
Poor wretch, you have always been without pain. You know nothing of the burning of those stricken by pain, you've seen no mark of their weeping in happiness and their laughter in grief!
I keep on joining my tears with laughter,
silently I weep, openly I laugh.
O friend, don't think I'm content,
you're not aware how needy I am.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, this poor wretch's portion of this work is all pain. May it be blessed, for this pain is terribly fitting for me. The poor wretch is he who has none of this pain. In truth, anyone who does not find joy in this pain is no chevalier.”