The Seal of the Wisdom of the Spirit (Rûh) in the Word of Ya'qub (Jacob)
The deen1 is two deens: the deen with Allah and with the one whom the Real knows, and who has recognition of the fact that the Real knows him; and the deen with creation; and Allah takes account of it since its goal is conformity with what Allah has willed of the Shari'a set down with Him. Allah said, "Ibrahim directed his sons to this, as did also Ya'qub, 'My sons! Allah has chosen this deen for you, so do not die except as Muslims'" (2:132) that is obeying Him. The deen brought the alif and the lam 2 of definition and acquaintance. It is the recognised deen. It is His words, "The deen with Allah is Islam," (3:19) and it is submission. So the deen is an expression of your obedience. That which is from Allah is the road which leads you to Him. Deen is submission and the law (namus) is the road which Allah has set down.
Anyone who is described by submission to what Allah has prescribed for him is the one who has based himself on the deen, and it raises him up and establishes him as does the prayer. The slave is the product of the deen. Allah sets down judgements, and thus submission is the source of your action, and so deen is from your action. You will only achieve happiness by what comes from you. As happiness is established for you by your actions, so the Divine Names are only established by His actions, which are you and which are in-time. As He is called god by His effects, so you are called happy by your effects.
Allah bestowed His rank upon you since you established the deen and obeyed what He prescribed for you. I will enlarge on that, if Allah wills, in a useful manner, after we have clarified the deen which creation has which Allah takes account of when He says, "The deen is Allah's alone," (8:39) and all of it is from you, and not from Him except in respect to origin. Allah says, "They invented monasticism," (57:27) and monasticism consists of arbitrary esoteric rules (an-nawâmis al-hikmiya) which the known Messenger did not bring to the people from Allah by the traditional Prophetic method. When wisdom and clear benefit corresponded to these rules regarding the divine decision about the goal of the Shari'a of Allah,3 Allah took it into account according to what He Himself prescribed. Allah did not prescribe it for them. Then Allah opened between Himself and their hearts the door of divine concern and mercy while they were not aware of it, and in their hearts He made them esteem their rules by which they seek "the pleasure of Allah" beyond the Prophetic method known by Divine definition. Allah says, "They did not observe it" – those people who devised these rules and what was prescribed for them – "as it should have been observed" - "unless it was purely out of the desire to gain the good pleasure of Allah." That was what they believed about it.
"To those of them who believed We gave their reward, but many of them are deviators." (57:27) "Many of them," i.e. those who have this worship prescribed for them, "are deviators," that is, do not submit to it and observe it properly. Allah does not accord to the one who does not obey it, a law which pleases Him, but the command requires submission. Its proof is that the one who is obligated either obeys with agreement or opposes it. The one who agrees and is obedient has no need of any discourse on it to prove it. The one who opposes it is seeking one of two matters from Allah to be judged regarding him: either overlooking of wrong actions and forgiveness, or being taken to task for that. One of the two is necessary because the command is true in itself. In any state, it is true that Allah guides His slave by his actions whatever state he is in, and so the state is the influencing factor.
Thus the deen is a reward, that is, the exchange for what is easy and for what for is not easy. "Allah is pleased with them, and they are pleased with Him" (97:8, 58:22) is the easy reward, and "As for any one of you who has done wrong, We will make him suffer great punishment" (25:19) is the reward of what is not easy. He passes over their wrong actions and this is their reward. It is proven that the deen is the reward. As the deen is Islam, and Islam is the same as being led, it leads to what is easy (the reward) and what is not easy (the punishment), and so it is the repayment. This is the language of the people of outwardness.
As for its secret and inwardness, it manifests itself in the mirror of the existence of Allah, so it does not refer to possibilities from Allah other than what their essences in their states accord. They have a form in every state, and their forms differ according to the difference of their states. The tajalli differs according to the difference of the state. The effect occurs in the slave according to what he is. None gives him good except himself, and none gives him the opposite of good except himself. Thus he gives bliss to his essence, and he also punishes it. He only blames himself and only praises himself. "Allah's is the conclusive argument" (6:149) in His knowledge of them since knowledge depends on the known.
The secret which is above this in this sort of question is that possibilities are based on their origin from non-existence. Tthe existence of the created reality is only by the forms of the states on which the possibilities are based in themselves and their sources. Thus you know who has pleasure and who has pain, and from each of these states you know what follows ('aqaba); and since it follows, you derive punishment ('uquba) and penalty ('iqab) from it. It permits good and evil as two opposites which custom calls the good reward, and the evil punishment.
For this reason, He designates and elucidates the deen by custom because He relates to it what is necessary and what his state demands. Deen is custom or habit, and the poet said, "Like your habit (deen) with the mother of little Harith...," that is, like your custom. What is understood by custom or habit is that the matter itself recurs. This is not the case in deen. Custom is repetition, but custom is only one intelligible thing while resemblance in forms exists. We know that Zayd is the same as 'Amr in respect to humanness, but humanness does not recur since, had it done so, it would have multiplied. It is but one reality, and the one does not multiply itself. We know that Zayd is not the same as 'Amr in respect to personality. The person of Zayd is not the person of 'Amr in spite of the realisation that personality is common to both. In the sensory, we say that humanness recurs because of this resemblance, and we say in sound judgement that it does not. From one aspect, there is no habit in reward, and from another aspect, there is habit even as there is reward by one aspect and no reward by another aspect. Thus reward is also a state in the possible.
This is a question about which those who know this matter are unaware, and it is part of the secret of the Decree which governs creatures. Know that it is as if it were said of the doctor that he is the servant of nature - in the same way, it is said of the Messengers and heirs 4 that they are the servants of the Divine Command among people. In the heart of the matter, they serve the states of possible things, and their service derives from the sum of their own states on which they are based in the state of the immutability of their sources. See how wondrous this is!
Is not the the desired servant here the one who performs what is commanded by the one who is served, either by state or by word? So it is valid that the doctor be called the servant of nature if he acts according to the principle of assisting it. Nature produces in the body of the one who is ill a special state of being by which he is called "ill". If the doctor were to assist nature by service, he would also increase the magnitude of the illness by it when he wants to repel the illness, seeking health. Health is also a part of nature by the growth of another state of being which differs from this state of being. Then the doctor is not the servant of nature, and yet he serves it inasmuch as he only heals the body of the one who is ill and changes that aspect, not the general one, for generalities are not valid in this sort of question. Thus the doctor is both a servant and is not a servant of nature.
In the same way, the Messengers and their heirs are in the service of the Real, and the Real has two aspects of judgement in respect to the states of the obligated. The matter proceeds from the slave according to what the will of Allah demands of it, and the will of Allah is attached to it according to what the knowledge of Allah demands of it. The knowledge of Allah is attached to it according to what the known accords it of its essence. The known only appears in its form. The Messenger and the heir serve the divine command by will, and yet they do not serve the will. The Messenger answered it seeking the happiness of the one who is under obligation. Had he served the Divine Will, he would not have given counsel, and yet he only gave counsel by it, i.e. the will. The Messenger and the heir are the doctors of the selves for Next life, obedient to the command of Allah when He commands them. So he looks at Allah's command, and sees that He has commanded him to do that which opposes His will. The command is only what He wills, and for this reason, it is the command.
He wills the command and it occurs, and He did not will the occurrence of what He commanded the commanded one to do, and so it did not occur from the commanded one – therefore it is called opposition and rebellion. The Messenger conveys the news, and this is why he said, "The Sura of Hud (and its like) made me white-haired," when they came to him from His words, "Go straight as you have been commanded." (11:112) He did not know whether he was commanded to what complies with the will, so that it occurs, or to what does not comply with the will, so that it does not occur.
No one recognises the judgement of the will except after what is willed takes place, unless he is one whose inner eye has been unveiled by Allah. If he is, he will perceive the source-forms of the possibilities in their fixed state for what they really are. Then he judges according to what he sees. This belongs to certain people at certain moments, but they do not have it all the time. The Messenger said, "I do not know what He will do with me or with you." 5 So he made the veil clear, and he only meant that it emerges in a particular command, and no more.
1. Deen: The life transaction, literally the debt or exchange situation between two parties, in this usage the Creator and the created, or as some say between the conditioned and the unconditioned, the limited and the limitless, or the many and the One.
2. The definite article.
3. Which is the achievement of human perfection through knowledge and actions.
4. Hadith, "The people of knowledge are the heirs of the Prophets."
5. Hadith in al-Bukhari.