M6:2693 — می‌نجوید لطف عام تو سند / آفتابی بر حدثها می‌زند

Translation: Your universal grace seeks no warrant; Like the sun, it shines upon all impurities. Meaning: Mowlana asserts that God's all-encompassing grace is unconditional; it doesn't demand proof of worthiness. It extends to everyone and everything, just as the sun shines indiscriminately upon all things, pure or impure.

This couplet is one of those verses that most beautifully reveals Mowlana's practical and divine wisdom. As you know, Mowlana here does not speak of that philosophical 'unity' that reason grasps or that fits into Kant's categories of understanding. He speaks from beyond the mind and its concepts. He speaks of qahr-i nafs, which for me has always meant silencing the engine of the mind and transcending the conceptualization apparatus; an existential and unmediated encounter with realities, when thought recedes and silence reigns in the soul. It is in this state that love, this 'cure for all ailments,' reveals itself and bestows upon man a lucid, trans-conceptual existence.

Now, let us return to the verse: "Your universal grace seeks no warrant; / Like the sun, it shines upon all impurities." Observe this carefully. Mowlana states that God's universal grace seeks no justification, no excuse, no reason. It does not say, 'I will give to this one and not to that one, because this one is worthy and that one is not.' This is precisely what he says elsewhere in the Masnavi: "God's giving requires no qualification." Whatever God bestows is not based on the recipient's merit or eligibility. This grace is so boundless that it reaches everyone.

This universal grace is exactly like the sun: "Like the sun, it shines upon all impurities." Hadath (حدث) means impurity, waste, defilement. Does the sun, when it shines, distinguish between pure and impure? Does it shine on the noble and not on the base? Never. Its light is spread over everything. It shines even on 'ruins,' as Mowlana himself says: "Like the sun, I visit ruins."

And it is here that the divine miracle and the alchemy of the cosmos are revealed. Mowlana describes a process of transformation: Firstly, the sun shines upon this hadath and dries it. Note that the hadath itself causes no harm to the sun from this shining: "Its light suffers no harm from it, / Nor does that impurity reach the mouth of dryness." This boundless grace remains pristine and undefiled. Secondly, that dried hadath turns into firewood. Indeed, in ancient times, dried animal dung was a type of fuel. Thirdly, this hadath-firewood is burned in a gul-khan (گلخن), the furnace of a bathhouse. And what happens? It becomes luminous and heat-generating. Mowlana says: "When impurity became fuel in the furnace, it found light / And shone upon the walls and doors of the bathhouse." See! That which was pure 'defilement' (آلایش), and from which everyone fled, has now transformed into 'adornment' (آرایش) and a source of warmth and light: "It was defilement, now it is adornment, / As the sun whispered its spell upon it." The sun whispered a 'spell' into its ear and transformed its very essence.

But the sun's work does not end there. "The sun also warmed the earth's stomach, / So that the earth might consume the remaining impurities." The sun warms the 'stomach of the earth' (معده زمین) so that the earth can absorb and decompose the remaining impurities. This refers to biological cycles, such as the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Waste products ultimately return to the soil, decompose, and transform into forms that can nourish plants, becoming fertilizer from which vegetation grows. The fruit of this vegetation then becomes the sustenance of the pure, and this cycle continues.

And it is here that Mowlana's central point reaches its climax: "Thus does God erase evil deeds." God erases sayyi'āt (sins, evil deeds). Sayyi'āt (badness, impurity) are transformed into hasanāt (goodness, purity). This is a divine 'factory' in this world that turns poison into nectar, and impurity into purity. Even the malice perpetuated by the 'corrupt' (khabīthān), though it pains us and we have a duty to stand against it, will ultimately emerge from a place of good. This profound thought of Mowlana is comforting and inspiring.

Finally, Mowlana concludes with a wondrous analogy: "With impurity, which is the worst, He does this, / Turning it into vegetation, narcissus, and jasmine." If God does such things with the worst and most repulsive things, causing narcissus and jasmine to grow from them, then: "If the corrupt receive such robes of honour, / What will He bestow upon the pure, and what will reach them?" What blessings will the pure and righteous receive? Something that "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has conceived" (la ʿayna raʾat wa lā udhnun samiʿat wa lā khaṭara ʿalā qalbi bashar). This is the divine promise for those who surrendered themselves to love and purity.

Key takeaways

• God's universal grace is unconditional; it reaches everything and everyone without discrimination.
• Divine mercy, like the sun, shines equally upon the pure and the impure, and this shining does not diminish the essence of mercy itself.
• Mowlana explains the process of spiritual alchemy through the example of impurity transforming into light, heat, and eventually into vegetation.
• The fundamental principle, "Thus does God erase evil deeds," teaches that God transforms evil into good and impurity into purity.
• The world is a divine factory that converts poison into nectar and flaws into virtues.
• If the impure experience such grace in their transformation, the reward for the pure is beyond imagination and description—something no eye has seen and no heart has conceived.