They were vying in good works and they were supplicating Us in eagerness and dread, and they were reverent toward Us. “My servants are striving to obey Me and they call upon Me with eagerness and dread. They know only Me and they circle only around My door. They are the burned ones of My Presence, the ones lifted up by My gentleness.” “He guided them so that they would recognize them, He gave them success so that they would worship Him, He instructed them so that they would ask of Him, He illuminated their hearts so that they would love Him. He loves without bribery, He bestows without obligation, and He honors without a means of approach.” He scatters a hundred blessings on your head and counts it as a dust mote. He considers a straw of yours to be a mountain. Do you not see that He will give you a paradise with all that tremendousness and vastness, but He calls it an “upper chamber”? “It is they who will be recompensed with the upper chamber” [25:75]. Abraham the Bosom Friend placed a calf before his guests. The Exalted Lord approved of him, honored him, and displayed him to the world's folk: “He brought a roasted calf” [11:69]. He is a Lord who makes wealthy anyone who presents a need to Him, who exalts anyone who delights in Him. Supposing that the servant disobeys for a hundred years and then says, “I repent,” He will say, “I accept.” He it is who accepts repentance from His servants [42:25]. A bedouin was supplicating, and it was a marvelous supplication. He said, “O God, you will find someone other than me to chastise, but I will find no one other than You to have mercy on me.”
