known that prayer helps the servant, He would never have commanded it. He placed it in His own position. God told the servant to say, “You alone we ask for help,” meaning in worshipping You. He thus allowed the servant to seek help from his Lord and commanded him to seek help through prayer in remembering and thanking Him. He put prayer in His own position in helping the servant remember and thank Him.
Consider, friend of God, a state, a quality, movements, and an act that the Real has placed in His own position in the greatest of matters, the remembrance of God. It is as though whoever enters prayer becomes clothed in the Real. The Real is light, which is why he said, “Prayer is light.” He put it in His own position.
He, may God bless him and grant him peace, said, “The delight of my eye has been placed in prayer.” The delight of my eye is what gladdens it in seeing and witnessing. In his prayer the worshipper is clothed in the Real, witnesses Him, and converses intimately with Him. Prayer combines these three states.
(Thanking God and Giving Thanks for His Sake)
Likewise, consider His words in this verse, “Give thanks to Me” [al-Baqarah 2:152]. One says shakartuhu, “I thanked him,” and shakartu lahu, “I gave thanks to or for him.” The first wording states explicitly that he himself is the one thanked. The second admits two senses. It can mean the same as “I thanked him,” or the thanks can be for his sake.
When the thanks is for His sake, He, glory be to Him, tells the servant, “Thank the servant of Mine who has bestowed a blessing upon you, for My sake.” Thanking the cause then becomes the very act of thanking God, for he thanks it at
Notes
Translator’s note TN2292-1: The wordplay concerns the direct object in shakartuhu and the preposition li in shakartu lahu. The author reads the latter both as thanks directed to God and as thanks to another for God’s sake.
