⦗Al-Baqarah 216⦘.
• O Adam, I did not convey your allotted estate to another; I merely set you aside from it so I might perfect its construction for you, and so that the laborers could remit to Me the expense of “their sides forsake their beds” ⦗Al-Sajdah 16⦘.
• By Allah, when he disobeyed, neither the majesty of “Prostrate yourselves” ⦗Al-Baqarah 34⦘ helped him, nor the honor of “And He taught Adam” ⦗Al-Baqarah 31⦘, nor the distinction of “that which I created with My own Hands” ⦗Ṣād 75⦘, nor the glory of “and I breathed into him of My Spirit” ⦗Al-Ḥijr 29⦘. What availed him was the humility of “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves” ⦗Al-Aʿrāf 23⦘.
• When he clad the body of gratitude in the breast-plate of monotheism, the enemy’s arrow struck him in a spot that was not fatal; it wounded him, so he bandaged it with the splint of contrition, the injury healed, and the wounded man rose as though he had never been struck (1).

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The choice steeds of salvation are saddled for the one whom He wills, while the feet of the banished are fastened in fetters.
The storms of decree swept across the wilderness of existence; reality was upended and good appeared. When the winds calmed, Abu Talib was drowning in the depths of perdition, while Salman stood upon the shore of safety; al-Walid ibn al-Mughira was leading his people into the wasteland, Suhayb had arrived with the caravan of Rome, the Negus in Abyssinia was proclaiming, “Labbayk, O Allah, labbayk,” Bilal was calling, “Prayer is better than sleep,” and Abu Jahl lay fast asleep in the stupor of defiance.
When Salman's precedence had been decreed in pre-eternity (2), the guide of divine success turned him away from