Yunus: (57-58) O people...

Issue 1: Establishing Prophethood

There are two paths to proving the prophethood of the Prophets (peace be upon them):

The First Path: This involves asserting that a person has claimed prophethood, and a miracle has appeared through him. Whoever fits this description is truly and verifiably a Messenger from God. God established this path excellently in this very Sura (Yunus: 37-38):

"And this Qur'an is not such as could ever be produced by other than Allah, but it is a confirmation of that which preceded it and a detailed explanation of the Book, whereof there is no doubt, from the Lord of the worlds. Or do they say, 'He has forged it'? Say, 'Then bring forth a Sura like it and call upon whomever you can besides Allah, if you are truthful.'" We have already discussed in the exegesis of these verses what strengthens faith, brings certainty, removes doubts and misconceptions, and invalidates ignorance and misguidance.

The Second Path: This path relies on our intellect to determine what constitutes true belief (al-i'tiqād al-ḥaqq) and righteous action (al-'amal al-ṣāliḥ). Whoever comes inviting people to these, and possesses a powerful ability to move people from disbelief to faith, from false belief to true belief, and from actions leading to the world to actions leading to the Hereafter, is the true and truthful Prophet.

Elaboration on the Second Path: The souls of people are dominated by various forms of deficiency, ignorance, and love of the world. We know by our intellects that human happiness is only achieved through true belief and righteous action. This ultimately boils down to one principle: whatever strengthens your aversion to the world and your desire for the Hereafter is righteous action, and whatever opposes that is false action and sin.

Given this, people require a perfect human being—one strong in soul, radiant in spirit, and of a lofty nature—who has the power to move these deficient individuals from the state of deficiency to the state of perfection. This person is the Prophet.

Thus, people are divided into three categories:

1. The Deficient: The common people.
2. The Perfect who cannot perfect the deficient: The Saints (al-awliyā').
3. The Perfect who can perfect the deficient: The Prophets.

Since the ability to move the deficient from deficiency to perfection has varying degrees and levels, the degrees of prophethood itself must also vary in strength. This is why the Prophet (PBUH) said: "The scholars of my Ummah are like the Prophets of the Children of Israel."

Connecting the Paths: Having established this premise, we say: God, having proven the truthfulness of Muhammad's prophethood (PBUH) through the path of miracles (the first path), now demonstrates the truth of his prophethood through the second path in this verse. This second path reveals the reality and essence of prophethood. The inference by miracle is what logicians call Burhān al-Inn (Proof of the Consequence), whereas this second path is Burhān al-Lam (Proof of the Cause), which is nobler, higher, more complete, and superior.

Issue 2: The Four Attributes of the Qur'an

God described the Qur'an in this verse with four attributes:

1. Being an admonition (maw'iẓah) from God.
2. Being a healing (shifā') for what is in the breasts.
3. Being guidance (hudā).
4. Being a mercy (raḥmah) for the believers.

Each attribute must have a specific benefit.

The Analogy of the Soul and Body: When the soul becomes attached to the body, this attachment is due to a natural love that the soul owes the body. The essence of the soul then tastes the desires and pleasures of this physical world through the five senses, becoming accustomed to this way of life. It is known that the light of intellect is only achieved at the final stage, after sensory attachments and bodily events have strengthened. This immersion causes false beliefs and blameworthy morals to settle in the essence of the soul. These conditions act like severe illnesses for the soul's essence, requiring a skilled physician. If someone falls gravely ill and does not find a skilled physician to treat them with sound remedies, they will surely die. If they do find such a physician, and the body is receptive to the remedies, health may be restored and sickness removed.

The Prophet as Physician and the Qur'an as Medicine: If you understand this, then Muhammad (PBUH) was like the skilled physician, and the Qur'an is the collection of his medicines used to treat sick hearts. The physician interacts with the patient through four stages:

Stage 1: Admonition (Maw'iẓah) The physician first forbids the patient from consuming what is harmful and commands them to abstain from the things that caused the illness. This is the admonition (maw'iẓah), which means nothing less than restraining from everything that distances one from God's pleasure and preventing everything that distracts the heart from God.

Stage 2: Healing (Shifā') This is when the physician administers medicines that remove the corrupt humors causing the illness from the patient's interior. Similarly, when Prophets forbid people from prohibitions, their outward actions are purified from what is improper. Then, they command the purification of the inner self by striving to remove blameworthy morals and acquire praiseworthy ones. The beginning of this is what God mentioned: "Indeed, Allah commands justice, good conduct, and giving to relatives and forbids immorality, bad conduct, and oppression" (An-Nahl: 90). Since false beliefs and blameworthy morals are like diseases, once they are removed, the heart is healed, and the essence of the soul is purified from all inscriptions that prevent contemplation of the realm of majesty (malakūt).

Stage 3: Guidance (Hudā) This stage can only be achieved after the second stage. The rational soul is capable of receiving sacred revelations and divine lights, and the flow of mercy is general and unending, as the Prophet (PBUH) said: "Indeed, your Lord has breaths of favor during the days of your lifetime; so expose yourselves to them." Furthermore, prevention occurs only due to inability, ignorance, or stinginess—all of which are impossible for God. Therefore, the absence of these spiritual lights is only because false beliefs and blameworthy morals possess the nature of darkness; when darkness prevails, the light cannot appear. Once these states are removed, the obstacle is gone, and the light of the sacred realm must fall upon the pure soul. The meaning of this light is nothing other than guidance (hudā). At this state, the soul becomes imprinted with the inscription of the realm of majesty (malakūt), and the sanctity of divinity (lāhūt) is revealed to it. The beginning of this stage is found in: "O tranquil soul, return to your Lord" (Al-Fajr: 27); the middle is: "So flee to Allah" (Adh-Dhariyat: 50); and the end is: "Say, 'Allah,' then leave them in their plunging, playing" (Al-An'am: 91). The totality is: "And to Allah belongs the unseen [knowledge] of the heavens and the earth, and to Him is returned all matter; so worship Him and rely upon Him. And your Lord is not unaware of what you do" (Hud: 123). We will explain these verses in their proper places, God willing. This stage is what is meant by His saying, "and guidance."

Stage 4: Mercy (Raḥmah) This is when the soul, having reached these spiritual degrees and divine ascensions, radiates its lights upon the souls of the deficient, just as light radiates from the essence of the sun onto the bodies of this world. This is what is meant by "and a mercy for the believers."

This mercy is specified for believers because the souls of the obstinate do not become illuminated by the lights of the purified Prophets. This is because the body receptive to light from the solar disk is the one whose face is opposite the sun; if this opposition does not occur, the sunlight does not fall upon it. Similarly, any soul that does not turn toward serving the purified Prophets will not benefit from their lights, nor will the effects of those purified, holy souls reach it.

Just as bodies that are not opposite the sun vary in their degrees of distance from this opposition—and this distance continues to increase until the body reaches the utmost distance from the sun's face, resulting in pure darkness—so too do the degrees of souls vary in accepting these lights from the Prophets' souls. This variation continues until it reaches the soul whose darkness is complete, whose wretchedness is great, and whose false beliefs and blameworthy morals have reached the furthest limits.

Summary of the Four Stages:

• Admonition (Maw'iẓah): Refers to purifying the outward actions of people from what is improper—this is the Sharia.
• Healing (Shifā'): Refers to purifying the souls from false beliefs and blameworthy morals—this is the Tariqa (Spiritual Path).
• Guidance (Hudā): Refers to the manifestation of the Light of Truth in the hearts of the truthful—this is the Haqiqa (Reality).
• Mercy (Raḥmah): Refers to reaching such a degree of perfection and radiance that the soul becomes a means of perfecting the deficient—this is Prophethood.

These are intellectual degrees and evidential stages indicated by these Qur'anic terms. What precedes cannot be delayed, and what follows cannot be brought forward. When God alluded to these high, divine secrets in this verse, He said: "Say, 'In the bounty of Allah and in His mercy—in that let them rejoice'; it is better than whatever they accumulate." This points to what the Islamic sages established: spiritual happiness is superior to bodily happiness, a point we have emphasized extensively elsewhere in this book.

Issue 3: The Command to Rejoice

The verse states: "Say, 'In the bounty of Allah and in His mercy—in that let them rejoice.'" The structure implies: "In the bounty of Allah and in His mercy, let them rejoice." The repetition ("in that let them rejoice") is for emphasis. Furthermore, the phrase "in that let them rejoice" implies exclusivity (ḥaṣr), meaning a person should rejoice in nothing else.

This statement indicates two things:

1. One should not rejoice in any bodily states. This is supported by several arguments:

• Argument 1: Many verifiers state that bodily pleasures are merely the removal of pain; a negative state (absence of pain) does not deserve rejoicing.
• Argument 2: Even if these pleasures were positive attributes, they are inferior in several ways:
  • The harm from their pains is stronger than the benefit from their pleasures. (E.g., the pleasure of sexual intercourse is less significant than the pain of colic or other severe ailments.)
  • The avenues for bodily pleasures are few (stomach and private parts). Pains, however, can affect every part of the body, each with its unique type of suffering.
  • Bodily pleasures are never pure; they are always mixed with forms of hardship, even if only in the effort required to attain them or the consequences that follow.
  • Bodily pleasures are not permanent. The greater the enjoyment, the greater and more intense the sorrow from fearing their loss. (As Al-Ma'arri said: "If sorrow in the hour of death outweighs joy in the hour of birth, then...") It is known that the joy at a child's birth does not equal the grief at their death.
  • Bodily pleasures are inherently transient. The pleasure of eating, for instance, does not remain; once the hunger pain is gone, the pleasure of eating ceases, and that pleasure cannot be retained.
  • Bodily pleasures relate to base things—qualities arising in soft, rapidly decaying, and mutable bodies. Spiritual pleasures, conversely, are the opposite in all these respects.
  • Therefore, rejoicing in bodily pleasures is false rejoicing. True, complete rejoicing is in spiritualities, holy essences, the realm of majesty, and the light of grandeur.

2. If spiritual pleasures are attained, a wise person must not rejoice in them merely as they are, but must rejoice in them because they are from God, by the bounty of God, and by the mercy of God. This is why the truthful ones said: Whoever rejoices in a blessing of God as that blessing is considered a form of polytheism (shirk). But whoever rejoices in the blessing of God as being from God, their rejoicing is in God, which is the ultimate perfection and the height of happiness. Thus, His saying, "In the bounty of Allah and in His mercy—in that let them rejoice," means: rejoice in those blessings not as they are in themselves, but as they are the bounty and mercy of Allah.

These are high secrets contained within these words that emerged from the world of revelation and descent. This is what we have summarized in this section.

The Commentators' View: The exegetes said: The bounty of Allah is Islam, and His mercy is the Qur'an. Abu Sa'id al-Khudri said: The bounty of Allah is the Qur'an, and His mercy is that He made you among its people.

Issue 4: Grammatical Readings and Deeper Meanings

The reading of the verse was recited as: fali-tafraḥū (with a tā'), which Faraa mentioned was narrated from Zayd ibn Thabit. He interpreted it as: "So let you [O companions of Muhammad] rejoice in that; it is better than what the disbelievers accumulate."

The original command form uses the lām for the addressee and the absent (e.g., li-taqum O Zayd, and li-yaqum Zayd). The Arabs dropped the lām and the tā' for the addressed person in the imperative form (e.g., iḍrib - strike) because of frequent use, adding the alif al-waṣl to begin the word. Al-Kisā'ī criticized the usage fali-yafraḥū (let them rejoice) because he found it rare, but this is the original form. It is narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said in one engagement: "Let you take your ranks" (li-ta'khudhū), meaning: Take them (ukhudhū). This is Faraa's discussion.

The word tujmi'ūn (you accumulate) was also read with a tā' (second person plural). The justification is that God addresses both the addressees and the absent, but the addressee often prevails over the absent, just as the masculine often prevails over the feminine. Thus, it means the believers.

A Subtle Intellectual Point: A human being possesses a faculty that calls him toward serving God and connecting with the unseen realm and spiritual ascensions, and another faculty that calls him toward the sensory world, the body, and bodily pleasures. As long as the spirit is attached to the body, it cannot be separated from loving the body and seeking bodily pleasures.

It is as if God addresses the truthful, knowing ones, saying: Conflict has arisen between the divine intellectual events and the sensual, bodily inclinations of the soul. The scale should tip toward the intellect because it calls toward the bounty and mercy of God, while the soul calls toward accumulating the world and its desires. The bounty and mercy of God are better for you than what you accumulate of the world, because the Hereafter is better and more enduring. That which is so is more worthy of pursuit and attainment.

Yunus: (57-58)