of Your good.”
If he did this as the outward state indicates, it is what we intend. If he did it so that he might be followed in this, he did only what brings greater nearness to God than leaving it. He is among “those God guided,” and God commanded His Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, to follow their guidance. He said to us, “You have in the Messenger of God a good example” [al-Ahzab 33:21].
(Contentment and Restricting Asking to God)
For us, contentment follows its linguistic sense: asking. The contented one is the asker, and the asking is directed to God rather than another. One says qanaʿa, yaqnaʿu, qunūʿan when one asks. He is the one who raises his request to God, as in His saying concerning the wrongdoers on the Day of Resurrection, “With their heads raised” [Ibrahim 14:43], meaning raised toward God, asking Him to forgive their crimes.
The two definitions meet in one matter:[14] those asking God are content with Him in their asking and resorting to Him, so they ask none other than Him, exalted is He. This is the meaning of the great ones’ saying, “Being satisfied with what exists”: God is sufficient in asking, rather than seeking more by extending one’s asking to another.
Creation are God’s dependents, meaning those in need of God. Whoever asks other than God is not contented and is feared for as to deprivation and loss. The asker is described by leaning upon the one he asks, while God says, “Do not lean upon those who do wrong, lest the Fire touch you. You have no protecting friends apart from God; then you will not be helped” [Hud 11:113]. Whoever leans upon his own kind has leaned upon a wrongdoer, for God says of the human being, “He was unjust” [al-Ahzab 33:72], because he bore the trust. No one among people
Notes
[14]
(The author combines the definition of contentment as sufficiency with its definition as asking: being satisfied with God as the one asked, while seeking increase from His bounty.)
Translator’s note TN4104-1: The root q-n-ʿ encompasses asking and contentment; the author joins asking God alone with sufficiency in God. The two definitions therefore do not prohibit asking for further divine bounty, as the source editorial note specifies.
