and they become praiseworthy.
Through him God completed noble character, so he has no opposite, just as the Real has no opposite. Everything in creation is His character, all noble, though not known as such. God commands avoiding those traits avoided only because people believe them base. He revealed to His Prophet that he explain their outlets, so they might take heed. Some of us know and others do not. This is the meaning of his being sent to complete noble character; through it he was the Seal.
Chapter One Hundred and Eighty: Knowing the Station of Longing and Yearning, Descriptions of Ardent Lovers
Longing disappears when union is attained;
yearning exists with union.
Imagining separation perpetuates it
at meeting, and its possessor is deprived.
Whoever says, “Make its difficulty easy,” we tell him,
“Not every difficulty in existence grows easy.”
It belongs to ardent love, not another;
ardent love is an illness buried in hearts.
Notes
Translator’s note TN4787-1: The pronoun in “he has no opposite” is retained with the Prophet as its likely antecedent; the preceding completion of noble character is also part of the context. The stated outlets remain essential to the reclassification of traits. Shawq is longing, distinguished from ishtiyāq, yearning.
