To Him is the return of all of you, in the return to the source of non-delimited union at the minor resurrection, as is the case now, or to the source of the Essential union through annihilation in Him at the major resurrection: God's promise, in truth. Truly He originates creation, at the first creation (nashÌa), then recreates it, at the second creation, that He may requite, the believer and the disbeliever according to their faith and their righteous deeds or [according to] their disbelief and corrupt deeds [respectively]: this is [the reading] according to the first interpretation. According to the second [possible interpretation]: He originates creation by hiding Himself and manifesting them, then recreates them by annihilating them and manifesting Himself, so that He might requite those who believe in Him and perform righteous deeds in the way that rectifies them for the encounter with Him in terms of deeds that remove their veils and draw them closer [to Him], with justice, in accordance with the stations which they have attained through their deeds by means of His bestowals of states and tastings, [bestowals] which are entailed by their station and their yearning. Or [it means] that He might requite those who believe with real faith and performed through God deeds which make servants righteous, that is to say, [so that He might requite them] with a requital of perfecting [them] for their justness, that is, because of their equitableness during the time of uprightness, or a requital commensurate with their level and station in terms of uprightness. And those who, are veiled in any given station, for them will be a draught of boiling water, for their ignorance of what is above that [station] and [for] their doubt and anxiety, since if they had arrived at certainty they would have tasted its coolness, and a painful chastisement, by way of privation and abandonment and the loss of the spirit of ecstatic consciousness because of their being veiled.
