ranks. ﴿Your Lord is Preserver over everything﴾ [Sabaʾ 34:21]. God ﴿speaks the truth, and He guides the way﴾ [al-Aḥzāb 33:4].
The Presence of the Sustainer, al-Muqīt
The One who determined all sustenance
Is the Sustainer who prescribed it for His servant.
He is the One who determined all times,
As provision, creation, and a thing wrought as He wrought it.
(Sustenance, Its Times, and Its Measures)
The Servant of the Sustainer, ʿAbd al-Muqīt, is a full brother of the Servant of the Ever-Providing, ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Provision is the sustenance of the one provided for, according to a particular measure that neither increases nor decreases for each desire within the Gardens, and for each removal of pain and desire within this world, for it is an abode of mixture and a constitution of mingled elements.
From this Presence comes sustenance for everyone whose form cannot remain within existence without it. From it comes the determination of the times of sustenance and their measures, as He, exalted is He, said concerning earth's creation, ﴿He determined its sustenance within it﴾ [Fuṣṣilat 41:10]: He gave the measures of the times of sustenance and their scales.
These provisions are the very revelation within heaven. Sustenance within earth is like command within heaven, and determining sustenance within earth is like revelation within heaven. It is that very thing, none other. He revealed within heaven its command, which is the determination of its sustenance, and determined within earth its sustenance.
