He said “He says she shall be a cow not broken to plow the earth or to water the tillage with no blemish on her.” They said “Now you have brought the truth”; and so they sacrificed her even though they very nearly did not. Just as this cow was not to have been broken in for work nor worn out for the purposes of profits there was to be no color in her inconsistent with the overall grandeur of her color. The allusion in this is to the people of divine friendship walāya who do not exert themselves with anyone or anything other [than God] which is to say that they do not seek to obtain anything through secondary causes and who do not rely in their hearts on external appearances and simulacra. They do not trust in their own choices and contrivance. They are not prey to the claims of desire nor game in the claws of the present world. Carnal desires do not rule them and no human authority controls them. They do not strive at all to obtain what they desire and are not concerned with attaining what they wish for. There is no mark of others upon them nor any sign of [their seeking anything through] secondary causes for they are supported by God annihilated from all else nay effaced as God turns them this way and that. God has conquered their hearts. Just as their object of worship maʿbūd is God so their only aim maqṣūd is God. Just as their aim maqṣūd is God so what they bear witness to mashhūd is God and what they have found mawjūd is God. Nay they are effaced in God and [only] God remains after them. The one who spoke for them recited: If you want me to be pleased and you to be pleased and to take the reins of our life together then look at the world through my eyes and listen with my ears and speak with my tongue. They said “Now you have brought the truth”; and so they sacrificed her even though they very nearly did not. They sought a stratagem for themselves but when their stratagems failed they submitted to the decree and were rid of the difficulties of the demands. If they had done what they were commanded to do [straight away] their misery would not have been doubled.
