M6:3514 — مکر حق سرچشمهٔ این مکرهاست / قلب بین اصبعین کبریاست

Translation: The Beloved's guile is the fount of all these guiles; The heart lies between the two fingers of the Most High.

Meaning: Mowlana asserts that divine stratagem and subtle design are the ultimate origin of all human guile and scheming, for the human heart and soul are entirely within the grasp of God's will and power.

As we delve into this verse, we approach one of Mowlana's most profound yet astonishing teachings; one rooted in the Quran and deeply intertwined with the Sufi tradition. I believe Mowlana here speaks candidly about the absolute power and hidden stratagems of the Divine Presence. He states: "The Beloved's guile is the fount of all these guiles." The Arabic word makr signifies a hidden plan or stratagem, whether for good or ill. However, when attributed to God, it no longer carries the connotation of blameworthy deception, but rather denotes His profound and often veiled orchestrations, the depths of which we cannot fathom. This resonates directly with the Quranic verse: "And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and God schemed. And God is the best of schemers" (Al-Imran: 54). Mowlana understands divine makr not merely as a counter-scheme against deceivers, but as the primordial source of every plan and stratagem in existence. Indeed, every human scheme ultimately traces back to a divine origin that made it possible.

The second hemistich of the verse further deepens this meaning: "The heart lies between the two fingers of the Most High." This is a direct allusion to a well-known prophetic tradition (hadith) frequently cited by Sufis: "Indeed, all the hearts of the children of Adam are between two fingers of the fingers of the Most Gracious, He turns them as He wills." These "two fingers" symbolize absolute and pervasive divine power. This should not be interpreted physically, but rather as representing qabḍ (contraction) and basṭ (expansion); God sometimes opens and expands hearts (which we perceive as joy and hope) and sometimes constricts and contracts them (which we experience as sorrow and despair).

This alternation of qabḍ and basṭ, this "turning" of hearts, while being a divine grace and favor, can also be a form of divine makr in the sense of a hidden design. God sometimes veils truths from humans, sometimes makes the crooked appear straight and the straight crooked. This is what Mowlana refers to elsewhere as divine saḥar-e ḥalāl (lawful magic). The Prophet Muhammad himself prayed, "Rabbī arinā al-ashyāʾ kamā hī," meaning, "My Lord, show us things as they truly are." This plea suggests that God's hidden nature sometimes necessitates showing us realities not as they are, but in a different guise. However, this is not out of malice or deceit; rather, it is out of wisdom and subtle design, whether for testing, inspiring, guiding, or even leading astray—all of which are ultimately by His will. It is for this reason that Mowlana elsewhere likens the heart to "a feather in a desert, prisoner to the wind," a wisp carried by the relentless gales of divine influence, turning whichever way He desires. This wind is the wind of God's absolute self-sufficiency and power, which snatches hearts, brings them to life, causes them to perish, closes and opens them. This is a world full of storms, full of the sound of doors closing and opening. In the mystic's view, God is the absolute orchestrator (sahne-gardān) of this world, and we are all in the hands of His divine planning; this is not fatalism in the conventional sense, but rather the very essence of His omnipotence and absolute sovereignty (jabbārīyat).

Key takeaways

• Divine makr, understood as God's hidden and wondrous stratagem, is the ultimate source of all planning and cunning in the world, not blameworthy deception.
• The human heart is entirely subject to God's absolute will and control; He contracts and expands it, turning it with His 'two fingers,' a symbol of His complete power.
• The phenomena of qabḍ (spiritual contraction) and basṭ (spiritual expansion) are manifestations of this divine orchestration and the turning of hearts.
• God sometimes veils truths or makes them appear distorted, which Mowlana calls divine saḥar-e ḥalāl (lawful magic), stemming from wisdom rather than deceit.
• From the mystic's perspective, God is the absolute orchestrator of the universe, and humans, like a feather in the wind of His power, realize their will within this framework.
• The Prophet's prayer, "My Lord, show us things as they truly are," highlights the reality that God can obscure truths from our perception.