86 How numerous those who expend all their wealth in the path of God, and whom We find, at the hour of His Revelation, to be of the rebellious and the froward!  How many those who keep the fast in the daytime, only to protest against the One by Whose very command the ordinance of the fast was first established!  Such men are, in truth, of the ignorant.  And how many those who subsist on the coarsest bread, who take for their only seat the grass of the field, and who undergo every manner of hardship, merely to maintain their superiority in the eyes of men!  Thus do We expose their deeds, that this may serve as a warning unto others.  These are the ones who subject themselves to all manner of austerities before the gaze of others in the hope of perpetuating their names, whilst in reality no mention shall remain of them save in the curses and imprecations of the dwellers of earth and heaven.

87 Say:  Would it profit you in the least if, as ye fondly imagine, your names were to endure?  Nay, by the Lord of all worlds!  Was the idol ’Uzza(10) made any greater by this, that its name lived on amidst the worshippers of names?  Nay, by Him Who is the Self of God, the All-Glorious, the All-Compelling!  Should your names fade from every mortal mind, and yet God be well pleased with you, ye will indeed be numbered among the treasures of His name, the Most Hidden.  Thus have We sent down Our verses that they may attract you unto the Source of all Lights, and acquaint you with the purpose of your Lord, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.  Abstain, then, from all that hath been forbidden unto you in the Book, and eat of the lawful things which God hath provided for your sustenance.  Deprive not yourselves of His goodly bestowals, for He, verily, is the Most Generous, the Lord of grace abounding.  Subject not yourselves to excessive hardships, but follow the way We have made plain unto you through Our luminous verses and perspicuous proofs, and be not of the negligent.

88 O concourse of divines!  It is not yours to boast if ye abstain from drinking wine and from similar transgressions which have been forbidden you in the Book, for should ye commit such deeds, the dignity of your station would then be tainted in the eyes of the people, your affairs would be disrupted, and your name disgraced and dishonoured.  Nay, your true and abiding glory resideth in submission to the Word of Him Who is the Eternal Truth, and in your inward and outward detachment from aught else besides God, the All-Compelling, the Almighty.  Great is the blessedness of that divine that hath not allowed knowledge to become a veil between him and the One Who is the Object of all knowledge, and who, when the Self-Subsisting appeared, hath turned with a beaming face towards Him.  He, in truth, is numbered with the learned.  The inmates of Paradise seek the blessing of his breath, and his lamp sheddeth its radiance over all who are in heaven and on earth.  He, verily, is numbered with the inheritors of the Prophets.  He that beholdeth him hath, verily, beheld the True One, and he that turneth towards him hath, verily, turned towards God, the Almighty, the All-Wise.