It is not piety that you turn your faces to the east, of the world of the spirits, and to the west, of the world of [physical] bodies, for that is delimitation and veiling. True piety is [that of the one who believes in God and the Last Day and the angels], the piety of the affirmers of the Oneness who believed in God and the final return at the station of the union - for the affirmation of the Oneness at the station of the union requires sempiternal subsistence, which is the real final return - and who witnessed the union at the [level of the] differentiation of multiplicity and did not veil themselves with the union from the differentiation, that is the inner aspect of the world of the angels and the outer aspect of the world of the prophets, and the Book [and the prophets], [the Book] that combines the outer aspect, by means of rulings, with gnosis and teaches the knowledge of uprightness, [those who believe in that Book] and [who] then become upright after completing the affirmation of Oneness, both at the [level of] union and [that of] differentiation by means of the works mentioned. For uprightness is essentially when all the faculties [of an individual] remain within their [respective] limits by the divine command, because of their illumination by the light of the spirit upon that individual's verification of God at the station of subsistence following annihilation, that being the station of justice, so that these [faculties] end up residing in the shadow of the Truth, devoted in its totality to the path of Oneness; [and who gives of his substance,] however cherished, in other words, when he [himself] is in need of it and guards it avariciously, as [ʿAbd Allāh] Ibn Masʿūd said: 'That you should give of it when you are sound [in health] and protective of it, hoping to live [long] and fearful of being poor; do not wait until [death] reaches the throat and [only] then offer, “this is for him and that is for the other”'. God, exalted be He, said: But prefer others [to themselves] though they be in desperate poverty [Q. 59:9]. Or [the phrase ʿalā ḥubbihi may be understood] out of love for God, lest his heart be occupied by anything other than Him, and because God, exalted be He, is satisfied with its being given; or [it means] out of the love of giving, that is, out of the goodness of [one's] soul, for the munificent person is the one who gives happily and out of the goodness of his soul.
