[And Moses chose of his people] seventy men, from among their most honourable [men] and those of noble descent, the folk of preparedness, purity of soul and volition, as well as [the spiritual] pursuit and wayfaring, being those who succumbed to the thunderbolt where He says So the thunderbolt seized them [Q. 4:153]; but when the Trembling seized them, that is, the trembling of the mountain of the body, which [trembling] constitutes the incipience of the thunderbolt of annihilation when the flashes of the [divine] lights are hurled into flight and the risings of the self-disclosures of the attributes are manifested in the way of the shuddering of the body, and its being affected and made to tremble by these. That is why Moses at that instance said, 'My Lord, had You willed You would have destroyed them long before, and me [with them], since Moses would not be able to say anything at the moment of the thunderbolt, nor would they, because they will have been annihilated. As for his words, 'My Lord, had You willed', these are words of exasperation and loss of patience arising from the overwhelming feeling of yearning during the pain of separation [from God], as Muḥammad, peace be upon him, said [when he was] in a similar situation, 'Would that my mother had never borne me', and likewise, 'Would that the Lord of Muḥammad had never created Muḥammad', giving serious thought [as he did] to throwing himself off [the side of] the mountain. The [particle] law here is optative. Will You destroy us, by prolonging [our] veiledness, and by means of the chastisement of privation and the pain of separation, for what the foolish ones among us have doneḍ, in the way of worshipping the calf of the vain desire of the soul and being veiled by its attributes, or by what has issued from us while we were fools, prior to our coming to our senses, perceiving and desiring to wayfare and [before] the manifestation of the light of insight and [our] taking heed, in the way of stopping with the soul and [undertake] to purify it. It is but Your trial, in other words, this testing [of us] with the attributes of the soul and the worship of vain desire is nothing but Your test, no one other than You having any part therein, [a trial], whereby You send astray whom You will, from among the folk of veils, wretchedness, ignorance and blindness, and guide whom You will, from among the folk of felicity, solicitude, knowledge and guidance - he [Moses] said this at the station of the self-disclosure of the acts - You, are the One who takes charge of our affairs, the One who manages them, so forgive us, the sins of our attributes and essences, just as You have forgiven us the sins of our acts, and have mercy on us, by effusing the lights of the vision of You and lifting the veil of whereness (ayniyya) with Your existence, for You are the Best of all who show forgiveness, since Your forgiveness is complete,
