So when you are finished, toil,‘[When you have completed] the prescribed prayer (ṣalāt), and you are seated, toil towards your Lord, and return to Him as you were before [the existence] of the natural self, before the appearance of the creation, alone with the One alone, a secret with a secret.’ Hence, God granted him [Muḥammad] the likeness of his primordial rank in the world, just as the Prophet said, ‘Truly, I possess a moment (waqt) with God, during which I cannot attend to other than Him.’ This is the inner meaning of the verse. Its outer meaning is what is obvious.Abū ʿAmr b. ʿAlāʾ related the [following story], saying, ‘We fled from al-Ḥajjāj to the desert, and lived there for a period of time going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. One morning I was wandering through some neighbourhoods with a distracted mind, clouded heart and feeling downcast, when suddenly I heard an Arab shaykh [who was] passing by recite the followingverses: [khafīf metre]Impose patience upon your soul and every worry will vanish. For in patience there is a device [to undo every] deceitMaybe the self detests something in which lies relief,Like the releasing of the cords binding a camel.‘The shaykh had not even completed the two couplets before I saw a knight calling out from afar, “Al-Ḥajjāj is dead!”’ He [Abū ʿAmr] continued, ‘Then I asked the shaykh about the word “relief” (farja). He replied, “Furja with a ḍamm on the letter fāʾ is an opening in a wall or in the ʿūd or something similar, whereas farja with a fatḥa on the letter fāʾ is relief after hardship and misfortunes.”’ Abū ʿAmr then said, ‘I did not know which I was happier about, the death of al-Ḥajjāj or the lesson from which I had benefitted.’His words, Exalted is He:
said, ‘Truly, I possess a moment (waqt) with God, during which I cannot attend to other than Him.’ This is the inner meaning of the verse. Its outer meaning is what is obvious.Abū ʿAmr b. ʿAlāʾ related the [following story], saying, ‘We fled from al-Ḥajjāj to the desert, and lived there for a period of time going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. One morning I was wandering through some neighbourhoods with a distracted mind, clouded heart and feeling downcast, when suddenly I heard an Arab shaykh [who was] passing by recite the followingverses: [khafīf metre]Impose patience upon your soul and every worry will vanish. For in patience there is a device [to undo every] deceitMaybe the self detests something in which lies relief,Like the releasing of the cords binding a camel.‘The shaykh had not even completed the two couplets before I saw a knight calling out from afar, “Al-Ḥajjāj is dead!”’ He [Abū ʿAmr] continued, ‘Then I asked the shaykh about the word “relief” (farja). He replied, “Furja with a ḍamm on the letter fāʾ is an opening in a wall or in the ʿūd or something similar, whereas farja with a fatḥa on the letter fāʾ is relief after hardship and misfortunes.”’ Abū ʿAmr then said, ‘I did not know which I was happier about, the death of al-Ḥajjāj or the lesson from which I had benefitted.’His words, Exalted is He: