God charges no soul save to its capacity: He does not make it bear except what it has the capacity for and does not constrain therewith its endurance and its preparedness for [His] self-disclosures. For each person's share of the unveilings and self-disclosures is [commensurate with] what can be borne by the receptacle of his preparedness with which he has been endowed from pre-eternity [that stemmed] from the holiest effusion and will not constrain him; for it is what it is has merited, in the way of good things, knowledge, perfections and unveilings, wherever these be found, whether it be intentional on its [the soul's] part or unintentional, since these things derived from the world of light: good things are entirely essential to it [the soul] and their benefit returns to it [the soul], unlike the evil things, such as ignorance, despicable traits, acts of disobedience and deficiencies, which are dark affairs, alien to its [the soul's] substance and cannot harm it nor can their consequences befall it unless the soul is attracted to them, intentionally seeking them and actively acquiring them, which is why it is said in the ḥadīth that the guardian [angel] of the right records every good deed that issues from that person immediately, whereas the guardian of the left waits for six hours to pass before recording anything and if the person seeks forgiveness within these [six hours], repents and is remorseful, then nothing is recorded; but if that person persists, it is recorded. What is meant by the soul here [in this verse] is the essence, for otherwise the matter would be the converse. Therefore the significance [of the verse] is that He does not charge it except what it can bear and what is eased for it in the way of works regardless of the extent of the effort and the power [involved]. [The form] kasb is mentioned in the context of 'good' because it [signifies that the soul] is not concerned with it nor active in seeking it; [the form] al-iktisāb is mentioned in the context of 'evil' because it [signifies that the soul] is attracted to it and active in and intentionally seeking it, given that it is a repository of evil. Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget, Your covenant, or err, when we act other than in Your cause or that of the QurÌān in order to part with You and be veiled from You, for we are strangers, remote [from You], for a long time journeying away from You, tried through the darknesses by all sorts of afflictions and we have neither value nor measure in Your presence until You have taken us to task for our sins; our Lord, burden us not with a load, in our selves, our attributes and our actions such that You burden us and imprison us in our places, banished from You, for there is nothing more burdensome than such [a predicament]; such as You did lay upon those before us, from among those who veiled themselves with the outward aspects of acts or the inward aspects of the attributes.
