There is No Good That is Lacking

[Chained_Water]

A Parable:
There is No Good That is Lacking


God treats humankind like a master treats servants. While servants toil in one place, the master builds for them a large home in a distant place, furnishing it well and decorating it in grand style. That home contains gardens well tended and provides within its walls all manner of good and wholesome things, everything that could be desired. The master does all this in the hopes that the distant servants will move in and enjoy its comfort. Imagine that this is the ultimate intent of the master for each servant: keeping riches in store for them in a new place for them to enjoy after a long journey. Would such a master refuse the servants adequate gifts and provisions along the way, after having prepared for them at their destination such an astounding endowment of treasures? Hardly!

So it is between God and humanity. God has placed us in this world of scarcity, having prepared for us the destination of paradise in the next world. God refuses to give without restraint in this world only so that we prepare our existence in the next world. For this reason God says in revelation,

Eat and drink from the provision of God, and, Eat from the provision of your Lord and give thanks.

For this reason alone God says, O you prophets, eat of wholesome things and perform good works, and O you who believe, eat of the wholesome things that We have provided for you.

If God has given some things to you and held the rest in reserve for you, why do you count it as a loss? Why do you think about things that are absent as if they were lacking? If God withholds goods from you, what is withheld has not been measured out for you in the first place. What has not been measured out for you is not yours to have or to miss in not having. That act of withholding is actually an act of giving! Consider it closely and you will know that the withholding is for your own good, to keep your affairs in order. A gardener tending an orchard stops the flow of water to his trees when they have had just enough. The trees would be ruined with continual watering!

-The Book of Illumination [Kitab al-Tanwir fi Isqat al-Tadbir]
-Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari [rh]

[Chained_Water]

A Parable:
Parent and Child


God is to humanity as the father is to his child. With the father nearby, the child does not worry a bit about provision and fears no want. The child knows that the father is undertaking to meet all his basic needs. The child lives well when completely trusting the father, but suffers anxiety and grief when that reliance is withdrawn. Likewise, believing people who trust God are not distressed by anxieties. No grief overcomes the open expanse of their hearts due to worry about material sustenance. Such believers know that they are never neglected by the true One, whose bounty has no end and who never cuts people off from generosity and goodwill.
Now let's turn to another moment of Divine Speech that explains the issue of provision. God it is who created you all, then provided for you all, then makes you all to die, and then brings you all back to life. There are two important points to note here. The first is that creation is integrally connected to provision. Observe how easily you submit to the fact that God is the One who creates, without claiming any pretension that you possess ability to create yourself in cooperation or competition with God. Just as easily, you should admit that God is the One who provides, without claiming for yourself any such power. You could express with in a pithy aphorism: just as you admit that God is unique in creating and bringing into existence God is also unique in providing and extending subsistence.

To convey this insight, Divine Speech integrally connects these two things, creation and provision. This obliges us and prepares us to bear the evident paradox that God’s provision seems to come from what is other than God. Indeed, God’s goodness appears to us to come through God’s created beings. However, the reality is this: just as God created without mediation and without means, so God provides without making provision conditional on any mediation (wāsita) or dependant on the existence of any intermediate means (sahib).

The second point is that, by saying, God it is who created you all, then provided for you all, Divine Speech reveals that the giving of provision is a matter already decided. It is something decided before time, beyond any change or appeal. In destined decrees, there are no topics to be newly decided in coming moments and no subjects to be postponed for a later time. Destined matters manifest at a particular time, but the existence of the decree was established before time. Provision can be thought of in two ways. There is provision that has been destined before time in pre-eternity (al-azal), and there is the provision that begins to appear manifest after a person comes into this world. This moment of Divine Speech could be addressing provision in both senses. If the intention is to address provision destined before time, then the discourse aims to inform us of this unseen reality. If it intends to address as it appears for us within time as experienced by us, then the discourse aims to caution us to evaluate provision properly.

The secret in this moment of Divine Speech, the whole point of it being pronounced, is to establish the singular divinity of God (ithbāt al-ilāhīya li’llah). It is as if it were saying, “You who worship anything other than God! It is God who created you, then gave you provision, then causes you to die, then brings you back to life. Do you find these qualities in any one else? Can they inhere in any created being? So acknowledge the divinity of the One who is unique in possessing these qualities, and declare that being’s lordship to be absolutely singular!” For this reason Divine Speech immediately follows this address by saying, Are there any from those whom you claim as associates in divinity who do for you anything similar to these acts? Glory be to the transcendent One, beyond anything they ascribe as partners.

-The Book of Illumination [Kitab al-Tanwir fi Isqat al-Tadbir]
-Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari [rh]

[Chained_Water]

You have lightened what burdens I toil to bear,
For you're the one who tries me and knows if I'm able,
There is no one to alter God's decision,
Of improving God's provision no one is capable.

-The Book of Illumination [Kitab al-Tanwir fi Isqat al-Tadbir]
-Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari [rh]

[Chained_Water]

What relieves for you the pain of bearing afflictions is that you know God is the one who afflicts you.
For the one who sets divine decrees heading your way is the one who makes the best choices for your well-being.

-The Book of Wisdom [Kitab al-Hikam]
-Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari [rh]

[Chained_Water]

Is it fitting for me, a guest in Your house,
To place my hope in Your servants?

Rather, it is to You that I turn,
Leaving all else behind.

-Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari [rh]