And even so We have tried, that is, with the like of such tremendous trial and affliction, We have tried, some of them, who are the veiled, by others, for those who are veiled, seeing from those [others] nothing but their form and their evil state outwardly as well as their poverty and need and not seeing their worth and their [spiritual] level and their goodly state inwardly, despise them and their eyes scorn them with regard to what they enjoy of wealth, repute, comfort and an easy life, and so they say [the following] about them: 'Are these the ones whom God has favoured from among usḍ', with guidance, sarcastically, when by God these they are the ones whose living is the most wholesome, their state and their waystation the most exalted and their measure and level the most magnificent before God and before those who know them, as Noah, peace be upon him, said Nor do I say to those whom your eyes scorn that God will not give them any good [Q. 11:31]: nay indeed, good and nothing but good is what God has given them. Is God not best aware of those who are thankfulḍ, who are thankful to Him in reality by employing the grace of their existence, their attributes and their limbs and what He sustains them with in the way of provisions and sources of livelihood in acts of obedience to God. Thus they give thanks to Him in return for the outward grace by worshipping [Him] and conceptualising this [grace] as issuing from the Gracious One and expending it in acts that are pleasing to God; and in return for the grace of [having] limbs [they give thanks to Him] by using these [limbs] to worship Him and to wayfare upon His path, to actualise knowledge of Him and to know His attributes; and in return for the grace of attributes [they thank Him] by effacing them in God and by admitting their inability to [truly] know Him, thank Him and worship Him; and in return for the grace of existence [they thank Him] by means of annihilation in the source of presential vision such that God shows His appreciation of their effort by means of [granting them] existence bestowed from [His Name] the Truth and teaches them that He is the Appreciative One who is thanked for Himself by means of Himself, and that none except Him is able to [truly] thank Him. Hence they say, 'Glory be to You: we have not come to know You in the way You truly deserve. Glory be to You: we have not worshipped You as You truly deserve to be worshipped'. That is His knowledge of their gratitude and His recompense [of it] from Him.
