Deuteronomy 2:30 · World English Bible
But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today.
Tawḥīd al-afʿāl: God as the one actor behind every event al-Ghazali kept saying that nothing moves except by God's doing. Facing an obstacle that ends up serving you, the mind hunts for causes: their pride, bad advice, luck.
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SUFISM
Tawḥīd al-afʿāl: God as the one actor behind every event al-Ghazali kept saying that nothing moves except by God's doing. Facing an obstacle that ends up serving you, the mind hunts for causes: their pride, bad advice, luck. Looking past that chain to the one holding it changes the picture. A closed heart ahead of you belongs to an arrangement you did not make.
Al-aʿyān al-thābita: The fixed pattern of what each thing already is Ibn Arabi taught that God's giving arrives in each person according to what they already are. Junayd said it plainly: water takes the color of its cup. A hardness sent down builds no new person, it brings forward what was standing there. Hearing that a heart was closed from above does not mean someone was replaced.
Rayn: Rust that settles on the heart from what a person keeps doing The Quran describes a film that builds on the heart, earned by what someone keeps choosing. Each refusal costs little at the time and leaves a mark, until the person cannot see what is plainly in front of them. Sealing lands last, on a surface they coated themselves.
Istidrāj: Being drawn on by degrees toward ruin The Quran speaks of people led along from where they never suspect it. Everything goes their way, nothing pushes back, and they read the smooth road as proof they are right. A person can feel sure the whole time and still be walking toward their own end.
Al-Qahhār: The Subduer, the overpowering side of God The Quran names God the Subduer: the same strength that shelters one person breaks another, both from one hand. When something set against you gives way, the pull is to call it your own doing. This name puts the outcome back where it came from, leaving you with a gift rather than a win.
O Turner of hearts, keep my heart firm: no one owns their own heart The Prophet asked this over and over, and watching hardness settle over someone else raises the same question about yourself. Nothing in a person is promised to stay open, and softness taken for granted is the piece left unguarded. The prayer moves attention off another's blindness and onto one's own heart.
Sufism lens
Where did my last piece of good luck actually come from?
The hard and rigid breaks, the soft and yielding survives. A stiffness that will not bend is already set on the path of its own undoing, and nothing outside it has to push.
Krishna tells Arjuna that the outcome of the battle is already arranged, and that his part is only to act without claiming the result as his own making.
What happens is not ours to choose, only how we meet it. A road that opens in front of you says nothing about your skill, and treating it as proof of your own strength is the first mistake.
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