M6:2314 — با کفش نامستحق و مستحق / معتقان رحمت‌اند از بند رق

Translation: With His hand of grace, for the undeserving and the deserving alike, They are the emancipated of mercy from the bond of servitude. Meaning: This couplet asserts that God's boundless grace liberates all — whether they are deserving or not — from the shackles of attachment to causes and self-servitude, bringing them under the canopy of His mercy.

Mowlana, in this couplet and the preceding ones, offers a decisive critique of a purely causal and means-centric view of the universe. He unequivocally states, "The blindfold of creation is nothing but causes / Whoever trembles before a cause is not among the companions (of truth)." This implies that what obstructs people's vision of reality is their confinement to apparent causes and effects. One who is fixated on causes, seeing them as the sole agents and limiting God's power within them, is, in Mowlana's view, not a true seeker of truth.

It is within this philosophical discourse that Mowlana presents the beyt: "With His hand of grace, for the undeserving and the deserving alike, / They are the emancipated of mercy from the bond of servitude." Here, "kaff-ash" (His hand of grace) metaphorically refers to the generous and forgiving hand of God. Mowlana asserts that God, with His benevolent hand, bestows His favor upon all, both those whom we deem worthy and those we do not. The crucial point, however, is the emphasis on the "nām-mostaḥeq" (the undeserving); this bounty is not based on divine justice (ʿadl), but on divine generosity (jūd). This absolute generosity transcends any notion of desert, for as Mowlana himself states elsewhere: "When we were naught, how could we be deserving / That we were bestowed with this soul and this knowledge?" Prior to our existence, we had no merit to receive life and knowledge. Thus, all existence and its blessings, including the very capacity for merit, are unconditioned gifts, pure grace.

"Moʿteqān-e raḥmat" signifies those emancipated by mercy. "Raq" denotes bondage or servitude. Mowlana thus claims that this direct and universal divine bestowal liberates humans from the bond of raq. This servitude is not merely to other humans, but to causes (asbāb), to the ego (nafs), and to the limitations of this world. God, with His hand of grace, severs the bond of cause-worship, granting a liberation that is of absolute mercy. This freedom is made possible not by the continuous striving of the servant, but by the all-encompassing generosity of God.

In my estimation, this statement by Mowlana serves as a powerful rebuttal to philosophers and theologians who insist on chaining God's hand in the world, seeking to explain every phenomenon solely through material and natural causes. Mowlana believes that the divine hand of disposition is perpetually open and can act beyond or even disrupt the causal order without violating it. This divine disposition is akin to the soul's disposition within the body, which, without contravening physiological laws, animates and impels it to action. Therefore, the "moʿteqān-e raḥmat" are those whose souls are liberated from the servitude to causes, their inner vision fixed upon the open hand of divine generosity.

Key takeaways

• Divine generosity and grace transcend human merit and desert.
• True freedom from attachment to worldly causes stems from God's boundless mercy.
• Restricting God's power to material causes is a form of spiritual blindness.
• Our very existence and capacities are unmerited gifts, granted without prior desert.
• Rumi challenges a purely causal worldview, emphasizing God's continuous and unrestricted disposition in the cosmos.