Say: “He is God, One; God, the Self-Sufficient....” “O MuḤammad! The estranged have asked you about My lineage. Say: 'God, One.'” God is one and unique, one in Essence and attributes, one in exaltedness and power, one in divinity and lord- hood, one in beginninglessness and endlessness. He is worthy of Godhood, knower of God-work, generous and lovingly kind, gentle and ever-merciful, the good God. He is the knower of secrets and whispers, the holder of the highest horizon, the creator of the Throne and the earth, near to everyone familiar, worthy of every laudation, the light of solicitude, apparent in the hearts of His friends, hidden from the eyes, manifest through artisanry. O far from the eyes, You and my heart are in one place! You are apparent to the heart but not to the eyes. God, the Self-Sufficient. It is He from whom sufficiency is sought in needs and in whom refuge is sought in turns of fortune. The Self-Sufficient is He whom the servants need and require. The hope of the disobedient and the destitute is in Him, the remedy of trials comes from His generosity, the hap- piness of the poor is in His majesty and beauty. Blessed is he whose intimate is His name, exalted is he whose portion is remembering Him, happy is the heart that is bound to Him, pure the tongue that is mentioning Him, delighting in life is he whose days pass in love and affection for Him! One person is joyful in paradise, another in the Friend. The Friend is the portion of him whose aspiration is all He. I have an eye, all of it filled with the form of the Friend. Happy am I with my eye so long as the Friend is within it. Separating the eye from the Friend is not good- either He's in place of the eye, or the eye itself is He. The Self-Sufficient is He who is hallowed beyond comprehension by the knowledge of created things, the perception of their eyes, or the view of their recognitions. The Self-Sufficient is He in whose majesty intellects are bewildered, in whose beauty intelligences are distracted, in perceiving whose secret core understandings are incapable, from whose command thoughts are turned upside down, from whose severity livers are bloodied, and from whose recognition hearts melt.
