[a servant] upright, that is, He made him upright as he was commanded in His words: so remain upright as you have been commanded [Q. 11:112]. The meaning [of this] is that He made him an affirmer of the Oneness, annihilated in Him, not veiled in his presential vision by the other, nor by his own soul - since this too constitutes a contingent other, but upright in the state of subsistence, as He has said: Truly those who say, 'Our Lord is God!' and then remain upright [Q. 41:30]. Or [it means] that He has made him the sustainer (qayyim) of the affairs of [His] servants and of their guidance, since perfection is contingent upon perfectedness, for he [the Prophet], blessings and peace be upon him, having finished making his soul upright (taqwīm) and cleansing it, the souls of his community were assigned the station (maqām) of his soul and so he was commanded to make these upright and to cleanse them. It is for the same signification that Abraham, may God's blessings be upon him, was called 'a community [unto himself]' [cf. Q. 16:120]. This capacity to make [others] upright, that is, to sustain the guidance of people is subsumed by the very uprightness to which he has been commanded in reality, to warn: this [verb] is connected to the [grammatical] operator (ʿāmil) of qayyiman ('upright'): in other words, He has charged him with the [making upright of the] affairs of servants in order that he should warn, of severe distress: the omission of the first direct object is intended to express generality because no one, neither believer nor unbeliever, is exempt from distress, as God, exalted be He, has said: 'Warn the sincere righteous that I am a jealous One and give good tidings to sinners that I am Forgiving'. For distress represents His vanquishing, which is why He has aggrandised it by the use of the indefinite [form] - in other words, [warn them of] a distress that befits His tremendousness and His might - [and why] He has qualified this [distress] with [the term] 'severe' and specified it by saying that it is: from Him. Vanquishing is of two kinds. One kind is pure vanquishing, outer and inner vanquishing, such as the one that specifically afflicts those who are veiled by idolatrous association.
