And command thy family to the prayer, and have patience therein. We ask thee for no provision. We shall provide for thee. And command thy family to the prayer, and have patience therein. He is commanding the servant to teach and telling him to manifest servanthood and constancy in obedience. So long as the ser- vant is not worthy and approved, He will not accept him in service at His threshold and will not give him access in the prayer to the presence of secret whispering. There is no good fortune beyond the fact that five times a day, by the decree of bounty, He sends the baggage-steed of the court of union at the hand of the stirrup-holder of gentleness to the hut of the servant's incapacity and records this exalted sigil on the edict of his good fortune: “I have divided the prayer between Me and My servant into two halves. When the servant says, 'Praise belongs to God,' God says, 'My servant is praising Me,'” and so on. He kept Moses the speaking companion waiting for forty days at the promise of whispered prayer. When the turn of this community arrived, He took away the tablecloth of waiting and, five times a day, again and again, He placed the goblet of whispered prayer in the hand of the cupbearer of gentleness: “Prostrate thyself and draw near” [96:19]. This is not a bestowal of eminence on the communities over the prophets, but rather, “The weaker someone is, the gentler the Lord is to him.” The Lord of the Worlds takes care of the work of the weak such that all the strong are in wonder. A hundred thousand proximate angels dove into the ocean of bowing and prostrating, and no one talks about them. But this penniless beggar wakes up from sleep and says, “Oh, it's late.” In the splendorous scripture the Lord of the Worlds wrote this inscription of exaltation on the cape of his secret whispers: “Their sides shun their couches as they supplicate their Lord in fear and want” [32:16]. We ask no provision of thee, and it is We who shall provide thee. Whenever someone believes that the provider in reality is the Lord and that all provision comes from Him and that the second- ary causes are by His predetermination, his mark is that his heart trusts totally in Him and he cuts himself off from others.
