18 - Kashf Tafseer of Sura Al Kahf.

Kashf Tafseer of Sura Al Kahf. Praise belongs to God, who sent down the book to His servant and placed no crookedness therein. Praise belongs to God. He praised Himself by Himself since He knew the incapacity of creatures to reach His praise. The majestic Lord, the perfectly powerful, the fount of bounteous bestowal, the one worthy of His own laudation, the one who gives thanks for His own giving—He Himself praises Himself and He Himself lauds Himself, for He Himself recognizes His exaltedness and He Himself knows His tremendousness and all-compellingness. He is exalted through His own majesty, holy through His own perfection, and magnificent through His own magnificence. How will water and dust ever reach His description? How can that which was not, then came to be, know His measure? How can the attributes of newly arrived things match His attributes? That which was not then came to be is not. How can the recognition of that which is come from that which is not? The Exalted Lord brought the creatures into existence with His bounty and generosity. He clothed them in the garment of creation, nurtured them and preserved them from trials, accepted their obedience with all its shortcoming, and concealed their iniquity and disloyalty in the curtain of bounty. He gave them the success of obedience and adorned their hearts with faith and recognition. Since He knew that the servants were incapable of discharging gratitude for these blessings, He uncovered His bounty and generosity, made the tongue of gentleness a deputy for the indigent and incapable, and praised Himself. He said, “Praise belongs to God.” On the road of love, it is a stipulation of friendship to act as a deputy for friends. He said, “All those blessings that I gave, I gave without you, and I apportioned without you. Just as I apportioned without you, so also I praised without you. By virtue of friendship, I acted as your deputy so as to complete my beautiful doing and beneficence toward you.” Who sent down the book to His servant? Who is an allusion? Sent down the book to His servant is an expression. Allusions are the portion of the spirits, and expressions are the portion of the bodily semblances. The spirits, on hearing who, were elated and came into revelry. The semblances, on hearing He sent down the book to His servant, began to struggle and took to the road of seeking. This verse is both a singling out of MuṣṬafā, the Seal of the Prophets, and a declaration of the greatness of the Qur'an, the speech of the All-Merciful. As for MuṣṬafā, he is the security of the earth and the adornment of heaven; as for the Qur'an, it is a reminder for the hearts of the faithful and an intimacy for the spirits of the recognizers. MuṣṬafā is the guard of the Shariah's road and the title page of the Haqiqah. The Qur'an is provision for the hearts and clarification for the spirits. MuṣṬafā is the whole of perfection and the totality of beauty. The Qur'an is a book from the Majestic Presence to the servants, a book in which there is both good news and warning. It gives this good news to the friends. Ayat 7. Surely we have made all that is on earth an adornment for it. The folk who recognize God, love Him, and yearn for Him are the adornment of the earth: its stars, moons, and suns. When the lights of tawḤīd shine in the secret cores of the tawḤīd-voicers, all of the horizons become radiant with their brightness. The adornment of the earth is the friends of God. The cosmos is decorated with them, and the world is painted with them. Their hearts are lit by the light of recognition, their secret cores are given access to the presence of proximity by the mediation of wisdom, their faces are turned toward the presence of proximity by the well-trodden path of rectitude, and the avenue of the Tariqah and the Sunnah has been placed before them. They are the signposts of the religion and the pegs of the earth, the lamps of the world, and the keys to the gardens. They lay down the foundations of friendship and prop up the portico of truthfulness. God's gentleness toward the creatures comes through them, and the goal in the creation of the realm of being is they. In name and mark they are the poor, and in reality they are the kings of the earth—kings in tatters. Anyone who wants to know their conduct and adornment should recite the story of the Companions of the Cave, for God displays them in the Qur'an. 10. When the chevaliers took refuge in the cave and said, “Our Lord, give us mercy from Thee and furnish us with right conduct in our affair.” It was said to them, “Go into this cave and sleep sweetly. Put down your heads on the pillow of security, for We will take sleep from you in place of the worship of the world's folk.”Listen to a beautiful, subtle point: The Exalted Lord made a cave appear to them in that mountain, and when the faithful servants leave this world, He makes the four walls of the grave their cave. Just as He gave them security from enemies in that cave, so also He will give the faithful servants security from Satan in the grave, saying, “Fear not and grieve not." [41:30]. In that cave He showed mercy to them: Your Lord will unfold for you His mercy [18:16]. In the same way, He will show mercy to the faithful in this cave of the grave: repose and ease and a garden of bliss [56:89]. Just as He made that cave vast for them, for He says, “while they were in a broad space in it” [18:17], so also He will make this grave vast for the faithful servant with wholesome deeds. He says, “Whoever does wholesome deeds—for their own souls they are making provision” [30:44]. And a sound report has come: “His grave will be made spacious for him.” Just as He opened up the top of the cave for them so that fresh air and the breeze of the morning wind would not be cut off from them, so also He will open up a door from paradise to the faithful servants' garden plots so that a sweet-smelling breeze will pass over them from the direction of the Gardens of Eden and keep their beds sweet. Ayat 13. We recount to you their story in truth. Surely they were chevaliers who had faith in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance.Here we have great eminence, complete honor, and infinite caresses placed on these Companions of the Cave by the Lord of the Worlds, for He called them “chevaliers.” He said, “Surely they were chevaliers.” He bestowed on them the same honor that He gave to His bosom friend Abraham, whom He called a chevalier: “They said, 'We heard a chevalier mention them; he is called Abraham'” [21:60]. And concerning Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn, He said, “When Moses said to his chevalier." [18:60]. About Joseph, the sincerely truthful He said, “The governor's wife has been trying to seduce her chevalier." [12:30]. The conduct and Tariqah of the chevaliers is what MuṣṬafā said to ʿAlī: “O ʿAlī, the chevalier is straight-speaking, loyal, discharger of trusts, ever-merciful in the heart, protector of the poor, full of bestowal, caresser of guests, beautiful-doer, and possessor of shame.” It has been said that the chief of all the chevaliers was Joseph the sincerely truthful, who saw from his brothers the various trials that he saw, but, when he had them in his own hand, he said to them, “No reproof is upon you today." [12:92]. It has been reported that the Messenger was seated when someone got up and asked for help. The Messenger turned toward his companions and said, “Be a chevalier toward him.” Alī got up and went. When he returned, he had one dinar, five dirhams, and a loaf of bread. The Messenger said, “O Alī, what is this state?” He said, “O Messenger of God! When the questioner asked, it occurred to my heart to give him a loaf. Then it came into my heart that I should give him five dirhams. Then it passed through my mind that I should give him one dinar. Now I do not consider it permissible not to do what has come into my mind and passed into my heart.”The Messenger said, “There is no chevalier but Alī!" And we increased them in guidance. When there is a robe of honor built on the perfect good fortune of love, within which is the explication of beginningless solicitude, it should not be less than what was said about those chevaliers: “And we increased them in guidance.” Ayat 14. And We placed a tie on their hearts when they stood up and said, “Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth.”“ We bound them with the tie of sinlessness, kept them on the carpet of recognition, and firmed them up with the cord of love. We lit the candle of kind favor for them in the streambed of solicitude. We taught them the courtesy of companionship in the grammar school of the Beginningless, and they set forth in holiness itself, busying themselves in the cave with the mystery of the Haqiqah.” Whenever something has an exaltedness, it is masked by the veils of exaltedness so that not just any non-privy may gaze upon it and not just any drudge may reach it. Those chevaliers were precious in the threshold of unity, for they were lit up by the light of faith and the limpidness of tawḤīd, but the eyes of the folk of those days were tainted with the ooze of unbelief and associationism. The jealousy of the religion took them into the veil of the cave so that those eyes tainted by ooze would not see them. The command came from the side of all-compellingness, Ayat 16. Take refuge in the cave. Your Lord will unfold for you His mercy and furnish you with kindliness in your affair. “Go into this cave of jealousy in the shade of solicitude, the embrace of friendship, and the world of protection. Your Lord will unfold for you His mercy and keep you in the curtain of sinlessness, clothing you in the garment of mercy, giving you a place in the embrace of exaltedness.” What a lovely day when someone is walking on a road and all at once the one entrusted with this talk comes down and throws the lasso of seeking around his neck and pulls! He fastened to them the word of godwariness [48:26]. “You are mine, and I am yours. 'Be for me as you always were, and I will be for you as I always have been.'” 17. Thou wouldst have seen the sun when it rose, turning aside from their cave to the right. When the lights of the beginningless secrets show their faces to someone's inwardness, how can the light of the sun of form have the gall to throw its rays upon him or exercise its ruling authority over him? The sun of form is for brightening creation, and the lights of the secret cores are for recognizing the real. The former is the light of form, and the latter is the light of the secret core. The former is the world-brightening sun and the latter the heart-brightening light. The former keeps the world bright so that the creatures may gaze upon it, and the latter keeps the hearts of the friends bright so that the Real may gaze upon them. The lights of the secret cores of those chevaliers in the cave gave out the glittering rays of the lights of the secrets, and the shining sun rolled up its skirt, for it was turning aside from their cave to the right [18:17]. When someone's breast is made the place of the lights of the unseen secrets, his attribute is what the Exalted Lord said concerning these chevaliers:18. Thou wouldst have thought them awake, but they were sleeping. And we turned them now to the right, now to the left. And their dog was stretching its paws at the doorstep. Hadst thou looked down upon them, surely you would have turned away from them fleeing, and you would have been filled with terror from them. When you look at their outwardness, you see them busy on the playing field of deeds. When you look at their secret cores, you see them detached in the garden of the gentleness of the Possessor of Majesty. Outwardly active, inwardly they gaze on the gentleness of the beginningless. With Thee alone we worship [1:5], they have bound the belt of struggle, and with And Thee alone we ask for help [1:5], they have placed the crown of contemplation on their heads. On the inside they wear the undershirt of surrender, and on the outside they have covered themselves with the caftan of deeds. Their activity conforms to the command, and their vision conforms to the decree.A pir was asked, “Faith without deeds is incomplete, but the Companions of the Cave had no deeds, for when they began to travel, they immediately slept.”The pir answered, “Which deed is greater than what the Exalted Lord said about them—when they stood up [18:14]?” In the tongue of the folk of allusion, the meaning is that they stood back from themselves. The outcome of the servants from their deeds comes down to their standing back from themselves. When they stand back from themselves, they reach the real. The intermediary disappears, and He exercises His determination over them, doing their work Himself, as He said concerning the chevaliers, “And we turned them now to the right, now to the left.” In other words, “We turned them between the states of annihilation and subsistence, unveiling and veiling, disclosure and curtaining.” The Pir of the Tariqah spoke a few words alluding to the levels of these states and the indications of these realities: “O God, how much will You be hidden, how much apparent? For my heart is bewildered, the spirit distracted. How long this curtaining and self-disclosing? When at last will there be the everlasting self-disclosure? O God, how long will You call and drive away? I have melted in wanting the day in which you stay. How long will you throw down and pick up? What is this promise so drawn out and late? Glory be to God! At this threshold, I have nothing but need. What a day it will be when You pour a drop of happiness on my heart! How long will you mix water and fire in me? Oh, my good fortune from the friend is a resurrection!” And their dog was stretching its paws at the doorstep. When they set out on the road, that little dog began to follow them: “You are exalted guests, and exalted guests put up with hangers on.” The little dog lifted a few steps in conformity, and until the resurrection, the faithful will be reading its story in the Qur'an and displaying it: “And their dog was stretching its paws at the doorstep.” What then do you say about someone who spends his whole life in the company of God's friends and, in conformity with them, takes no step backwards? Do you say that at the resurrection, God will separate him from them? No, of course not! He called Balaam, who knew the greatest name and saw from the throne to the bottom of the earth, a "dog,” and drove him from His threshold. And He showed the same generosity to the dog of the Companions of the Cave that He showed to His friends, keeping it in His road. Thus He shows the world's folk that proximity is because of His caressing, not because of service. Distance is because of His degrading, not because of disobedience.Hadst thou looked down upon them, surely thou wouldst have turned away from them fleeing. “Looking down” is said for someone who looks from above and has a higher station. He is saying, “O Muhammad, if you had looked at them, you would have fled from them, and your heart would have been upset.” Here there is room for obscurity. What do you say? Was the state of the Companions of the Cave such that the Seal of the Prophets, the title page of whose glory and majesty was “I was aided by their terror,” should fear them? No, never. These words are addressed to MuṣṬafā, but others are meant. There are many similar instances, such as, “O Prophet, be wary of God!” [33:1], “If thou associatest [others with God], thy deeds shall surely fail” [39:65], and so on.You can also say that what is desired by these words is not instilling fear into MuṣṬafā but declaring the greatness of their state. It is common usage to say, “So-and-so underwent such a trial that, had you seen it, you would have fainted.” By saying this, one wants to declare the greatness of that work, not the verification of the words. An example of this is that MuṣṬafā said: “Do not consider me more excellent than my brother Jonah.” He also said, “Anyone who says that I am better than he has uttered a lie.” But there is no disagreement in the community that MuṣṬafā was more excellent than Jonah. Nonetheless, the prophetic wisdom in these words is that the Real mentioned certain things in the story of Jonah in the Glorious Scripture such that there is fear that the servants would have a bad opinion of him. For example, He says, “And Dhu'l-Nūn, when he went forth wrathful” [21:87]. The Messenger said, “When my community hears this verse, they must not have a bad opinion of him and look upon him with the eyes of contempt.” That bad opinion would harm their religion. Even though MuṣṬafā was more excellent than he and all the prophets, he said, “Do not consider me more excellent.” His desire was not to declare a truth but rather to declare the greatness of Jonah, so that everyone would look upon him with the eyes of reverence and not the eyes of contempt. In the same way, when the Real wanted to declare His friends great so that people would look upon them with the eyes of reverence, He addressed His prophet with the words, “Hadst thou looked down upon them, surely thou wouldst have turned away from them fleeing.” Thus the people will look upon them with the eyes of reverence and not harm their own religion.The ulama of the Tariqah and the lords of recognition have said that the work of Sufism is founded on the traveling and conduct of the Companions of the Cave and that the acts of courtesy and the ornament of the Tariqah are very similar to their states and conduct. These include realization of intention, disengagement of desire, aspiration, retirement from people, dropping attachments, self-purification in the invitation, penitence, disowning self, freedom from the world, happiness with the real, release from taking control of oneself and approving of oneself, lifting the hands of need to God's kindness, at times burning and melting from the onslaught of awe, and at times happy and joyful in the breeze of intimacy. It has also been said the Lord of the Worlds did with the Companions of the Cave what a lovingly kind mother does with her child: first she makes him a cradle, then she puts him to sleep, then she rocks him, then she chases away flies, then she gives him milk so that he will be at ease. God did the same for them. First He took care of their work and made the cave like a cradle for them: He will furnish you with kindliness in your affair [18:16]. Then He put them to sleep; He sealed their ears in the cave [18:11]. Then He rocked them: And we turned them now to the right, now to the left [18:18]. Then He kept the torment of the sun away from them: Thou wouldst have seen the sun when it rose, turning aside from their cave to the right [18:17]. Then He sent them the drink of mercy so that they would be at ease: Your Lord will unfold for you His mercy [18:16]. Ayat 19. Now send one of you forth with this silver of yours to the city, and let him see which of them has the purest food. Here there are two allusions: One is that every faithful servant, though he may have reached the furthest limit in the Haqiqah, will be held to guarding the rulings of the Shariah, for any reality in which the outward Shariah is not witnessed is the deception and delusion of Satan. The root in this is that the chevaliers sent one of themselves to buy some food for them, and they commanded him to investigate and scrutinize its situation so that heedlessness would not make him fall into something forbidden.The second is what was said by Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥusayn to one of his companions when he took something to the poor or to the folk of recognition, or when he bought food for them: “Let it be the most goodly and the most subtle of things, for when someone reaches recognition, only subtle things conform with him and only delicate things become his intimate. The root here is His words, 'And let him see which of them has the purest food.'” Then he said, “When you buy for the renunciants and the worshipers, buy whatever you find, for they are still busy basing their own souls and holding them back from appetites.” 23 to 24. Say not of anything, “I will do it tomorrow,” but only, “If God wills.” And remember thy Lord when you forget. When someone recognizes God, his free choice drops away before His will, and his decrees are enveloped by the witnessing of his Lord's decree.When someone sets foot in the street of recognizing God and comes to know that the creatures are all captive to His power in the prison of the will on the passageway of the decree and the measuring out, he will no longer choose and will not prepare his own work, nor will he make his own rulings. He will throw his own work entirely over to God's will and not mix his own self-exertion with what God has taken care of. With the tongue of the state, he will say, “O God, O He who was, is, and will be! I know not Your measure and am incapable of what is worthy of You. I wander in my misery, day by day in loss. How then is someone like me?! But such am I. I lament at gazing into the darkness—will anything remain of me? I do not know. My eyes look to a day when You remain and I am not. Who will be like me if I see that day? And if I see it, I will sacrifice my spirit to it.” And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest. It has been said, “When you forget yourself, remember your Lord, and when you forget the creatures, remember the Creator.”He is saying, “Once you have brought your soul's caprice underfoot and removed your status with people from your heart, remember Me and make your spirit happy with this pure remembrance.” The caprice of the soul is an idol, and status with people is a sash of unbelief. As long as you have not disowned the idol, you will not become a tawḤīd-voicer, and as long as you have not undone the sash, you will not be a Muslim.There was a worshiper by the name of Abū Bakr Ishtanjī who had a great status. He feared that he would destroy the status. He got up and set off on a journey during the month of Ramadan and broke the fast in keeping with the ruling of the Shariah.Then he returned from the journey not fasting, and the people were unaware of his excuse. He kept on eating food in the middle of the city until the people gathered around him and began slapping him, saying, “He has no religion!” One of the drivers of the road said, “At the time when they were slapping him, I went near to see what he would say. To himself he kept on saying, 'O soul, you are not a people-worshiper, and you must not be deluded by status with the people! Look how I have brought you back to worshiping God, not the people!'” And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest. Junayd said, “The reality of remembrance is to be annihilated from remembrance in the remembered." That is why God says, 'And remember thy Lord when thou forgettest.' In other words, when you forget the memory, the remembered will be your attribute.” Remembrance is not only that you take it upon yourself to move your lips by your own volition. That in fact is recollection, and recollection is an affectation. True remembrance is that the tongue becomes all heart, the heart becomes all secret core, and the secret core becomes nothing but contemplation. Then the roots of dispersion are cut off. It is from this station that the perfection of togetherness appears in the World of With-ness. “When self-disclosure is sound, the tongue, the heart, and the secret core are one.” The remembrance is lost in the remembered, and the spirit is lost in the light. Reports become face-to-face vision, and face-to-face vision is far from explication.O You whose remembrance is the argument and whose intimacy is the reminder! You are present—of what use to me is this remembrance? O Gentle One! Give permission that I come out of Your memory for a moment! Those who call you friends are a crowd, but the most ancient is to be preferred. O You who bring pure milk out from the midst of feces and blood [16:66], by Thy bounty, take my hand! Leave me not with the mark of Eve and Adam!60.. When Moses said to his chevalier, “I will continue on until I reach the meeting place of the two seas.”Moses had four journeys: one was the journey of flight, as God says recounting from Moses, “So I fled from you when I was afraid of you” [26:21]. The second was the journey of seeking on the night of the fire. That is His words: “He was called from the right bank of the watercourse” [28:30]. Third was the journey of revelry: “When Moses came to Our appointed time” [7:143]. Fourth was the journey of toil: “We have certainly met with weariness on this journey of ours." [18:62]. His journey of flight was at the beginning of the work. He fled from the enemy and turned his face toward Midian, having killed the Egyptian man, as the Exalted Lord says: “So Moses struck him and gave him the decree." [28:15]. When there is solicitude, how can prosperity and victory be ended? Since God had solicituded toward Moses' work, He excused him for that killing. He said, “Moses struck him, and My decree reached him.” Then He said, “Moses had no sin in that. The sin belonged to the devil, and the act was from the devil: He said, 'This is the work of Satan' [28:15].” In the same way, He will excuse the faithful servant with His bounty and convey His pardon to him. He says, “Satan made them slip for something they had earned, but God has surely pardoned them." [3:155]. God overlooked their sin. It was Satanic disquiet and the devil's work.The second was the journey of seeking on the night of the fire. Moses set out seeking fire. What sort of fire was it, for it placed the whole world on fire! Wherever talk of Moses' fire goes, the whole world takes on the scent of passion because of its turmoil. Moses set off in search of fire and found light. These chevaliers set off in search of light and found fire. If the sweetness of listening to the Real's speech without intermediary reached Moses, what wonder is it that His friends catch a scent of that? If the fire of Moses was apparent, the fire of these chevaliers is hidden. If the fire of Moses was in a tree, the fire of these chevaliers is in the spirit.He who has it knows that this is so: All fires burn the body, but the fire of friendship burns the spirit. There is no patience with the spirit-burning fire. The journey of revelry was mentioned [in the commentary] under His words, “When Moses came to Our appointed time” [7:143].The fourth journey of Moses was the journey of toil. This is an allusion to the journey of the desirers at the beginning of desire, the journey of discipline and of tolerating the hardship of the rectification of three things: the soul, the disposition, and the heart.The rectification of the soul is three things: bringing it from complaint to gratitude, from heedlessness to wakefulness, and from foolishness to awareness. The rectification of the disposition is three things: You come forth from annoyance to patience, from niggardliness to free giving, and from retribution to pardon. The rectification of the heart is three things: you come forth from the ruins of feeling secure to fear, from the calamity of despair to the blessing of hope, and from the tribulation of the heart's scatteredness to the heart's freedom. The material of this rectification is three things: following knowledge, permitted food, and constant devotions. Its fruit is three things: a secret core adorned with awareness of the patron, a spirit lit up with the love of eternity, and knowledge from God found without intermediary. This is why the Lord of the Worlds honors Khiẓr and says about him, Ayat 65. And we taught him knowledge from us. “When someone is able to sacrifice his attributes to the holy Shariah, We will engrave the secrets of the knowledges of the Haqiqah on his heart, and We taught him knowledge from Us.” The one who speaks of this knowledge is the realizer, who speaks from finding. Light is apparent from his words, familiarity on his face, and servanthood in his conduct. A lightning flash of the Greatest Light has shone in his heart, the lamp of his recognition has been lit, and the unseen secrets have been unveiled to him. Such was Khiẓr in the work of the ship, the boy, and the wall.Take care not to have the opinion that Khiẓr was greater than Moses the Speaking Companion, even if Moses was sent to Khiẓr's grammar school. No, of course not, for in the Court of Inaccessibility, after MuṣṬafā, no prophet has the same joyful expansiveness and proximity as Moses. Nonetheless, He made Khiẓr the furnace of Moses' discipline. Thus, when someone wants to take silver to pureness, he puts it in a fiery furnace. This is because of the superiority of silver over the fiery furnace, not because of the superiority of fire and furnace over silver.Then there are Khiẓr's words, 67. Surely you will not be able to bear patiently with me.” The meaning according to true understanding is this allusion: “O Moses, the secret core of your disposition has so much expansiveness from the marks giving witness to the Divinity that you say, 'Show me, that I may gaze upon Thee!' [7:143]. I, who am Khiẓr, do not have the power and strength to pass these words over my heart or to busy my thoughts with them. Your ruling authority will not be able to put up with the grief of my deprivation. Surely thou wilt not be able to bear patiently with me.” As for the breaking the ship in the sea, killing the boy, and repairing the wall, each of these, in keeping with the understanding of the Folk of Findings, alludes to a great principle. It is said that the sea is the sea of recognition. Each of the one hundred twenty-some thousand center points of sinlessness dove into that sea with his community and people in the hope that from that sea they would gather the pearls of tawḤīd in the skirt of seeking, for “He who recognizes himself has recognized his Lord.”The ship is the ship of human nature. Khiẓr wanted to ruin and break that ship with the hand of tenderness, for the owners of the ship were “indigent” [miskīn], and their attribute was “tranquility” [sakīna]. The Court of Eternity had addressed them with these words: “He it is who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the faithful” [48:4]. When MuṣṬafā saw the Real's self-disclosure of Majesty to the hearts of the indigent, he said, “O God, give me life as an indigent, give me death as an indigent, and muster me among the indigent!” When Khiẓr ruined the ship of mortal nature with the hand of tenderness, Moses saw that outwardly it was adorned and flourishing with the ornament of the Shariah and the Tariqah. He said, “Have you made a hole in it to drown its folk?” [18:71]. Khiẓr responded, “And behind them was a king [18:79]: Behind its flourishing was a king, a Satan who had prepared the ambush of severity in the neighborhood of the ship so that he might take the ship with his severity and deception and travel in it by night and day, for 'Satan runs in the children of Adam like blood.' We took away this adornment and flourished with the hand of tenderness so that, when Satan comes like a king, he will see it ruined outwardly, and he will not come near it.” As for the boy whom Khiẓr killed and Moses' disavowal of the act, this is an allusion to the wishes and fancies that stick up their heads from a man's makeup in the playing field of discipline and the crucible of struggle. He said, “I have been commanded to strike off the head of everything not related to faith with the sword of jealousy. Once fancies mature, the result is that a man becomes a disbeliever in the Tariqah. In the world, I ambush them at the beginning of the road of disbelief so that they will return to their own measure.” As for the wall that he repaired, that is an allusion to the serene soul. When he saw that it had become pure and cleansed in the crucible of struggle and was about to become nothing, he said, “O Moses, do not let it become nothing, for it is the rightful due of that threshold to receive its service. Repairing its outwardness and taking into consideration its inwardness are obligatory for everyone. 'Surely your soul has a rightful due against you.' Under it have been placed the treasuries of the secrets of eternity. If this wall of the soul is laid low, the lordly secrets will fall onto the plain, and every worthless nobody will crave to have them.”The secret in these words is that the treasure of the Haqiqah has been placed in the attributes of mortal nature, and the stages of the clay of the poor were made its curtain. This is exactly what that chevalier said:Seek the religion from the poor, for reigning kings have the custom of keeping treasures in ruined places.” [DS 466] It has also been said that when Khiẓr said about the ship, “I desired to damage it” [18:79], he was reporting that he alone desired that; he said, “I desired to damage it,” observing courtesy by ascribing to himself the desire for damage. When he reached the talk of the slain boy, he said, “We desired” [18:81], because within it was killing, and killing is something earned by the created thing, whereas creation is God's bounty.When he reached the talk of the two orphans, he said, “So thy Lord desired that they should reach their maturity” [18:82], for there was none of his own acquisition in that. Ibn AṬāÌ said, “When Khiẓr said, 'I desired,' it was revealed to him in his secret core, 'Who are you that you should have desire?' So the second time he said, 'We desired,' and it was revealed to him in his secret core, 'Who are you and Moses that you two should have desires?' So he returned and said, 'Your Lord desired.'”