For him are attendants, reinforcements that follow one another from the angelic realm and arrive to him by the command of God, guarding him, from the snatches of the jinn [cf. Q. 37:10] of the imaginal and estimative faculties and the overcomings of the bestial and the predatorial ones and their destruction of him. Indeed God does not alter the state of a people, in terms of an outward or inward grace or perfection, unless they have altered the state of their souls, in terms of their preparedness and the faculty for reception, as the divine effusion is all-inclusive and contiguous, like flowing water. Have you not considered His statement watered by the same [source of] water. And We make some of them to excel others in flavour [Q. 13:4]ḍ Thus that person is coloured by the nature of his preparedness: the one whose preparedness is pure, his effusion will likewise be pure and so his goodness will increase. Similar is the case with outward graces, which inevitably change into scourges merited by some manifest or hidden cause. That is why the verifiers said that the supplication whose response is forthcoming, as alluded to in His words, Call on Me and I will respond to you [Q. 40:60], is the one that issues forth by the tongue of preparedness. Moreover, according to one of the pious predecessors (salaf), 'That mouse has eaten into my slippers, and I know that it is only because of some sin I have committed; for otherwise, God would not have sent it against me', citing the example of the poet's words: 'Were I from the [tribe of the great] Māzin, you would not have [dared] deem my camels yours for the slaughtering!'
