with no way back, desire wide-awake while reason lies fast asleep. He roams on, heedless in his absorption, staggering in his stupor, swimming in the depths of his ignorance—estranged from his Lord, intimate with created beings. The talk of people is his fruit and his food, whereas the remembrance of Allah is, in his eyes, a prison and a death. From his outward form Allah receives but a meagre share, while his heart and his certitude belong elsewhere!
Perish the man in whom there remains for anyone but You the slightest residue by which the fault-finders might reach him! (1)
Section
The very first of all created things was the Pen, that it might record the decrees before they came to be (2).
Adam, on the other hand, was made the last of creatures, and in that lie several points of wisdom:
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The dwelling must be prepared before the inhabitant.
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He is the goal for whose sake everything else—the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, the land and the sea—was created.
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Just as a master craftsman begins with the foundations and preliminaries, he finishes his work with its finest and most perfect part.
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Souls are ever eager for endings and climaxes. Thus Moses said to the magicians at the very start, “Cast whatever you are going to cast” (80) [Yunus: 80]. When the people witnessed their act, they turned their gaze to what would follow.
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Allah, exalted is He, deferred the best of the scriptures, the prophets, and the communities until the last