The commentators side by side

اعلم أن فى هنا تعليلية اذ قد وردت للتعليل فى الكلام الفصيح قال صلى الله عليه وسلم ان امرأة دخلت النار ف هرة أى لاجل هرة الى آخر الحديث أى ترى الدهر عبد طائعا ولك الحكم فيه لاجل سكرة منها أى من تلك المدامة ولو كانت هاتيك السكرة واقعة فى قدر ساعة لان عمر ساعة هنا بمعنى قدر ساعة والحديث يقل ويقصر ندمانه ويروى على سكرة منها ع لى أن على هنا تعليلية أيضا قال الله تعالى ولتكبروا الله على ماهداكم أى لأجمل هدايته لكم ويجوز على رواية فى أن تكون ظرفية ويكون التعليل مفهوما من قوة الكلام كقولك ضربت العبد وقت اساءته فانه يفهم أن المرادضر بته فى وقت الاساءة لاجلها أى لكونه أساء فافهم

Know that fī here is causal, since it has occurred for causation in eloquent speech. He (God bless him and grant him peace) said: “A woman entered the Fire fī (because of) a cat”, i.e. on account of a cat — to the end of the ḥadīth. [The meaning is:] you see Time an obedient slave, and yours is the command over it, on account of an intoxication from it, i.e. from that wine, even if that intoxication lasts [only] the span of an hour; for “the lifetime of an hour” here means the span of an hour. […]. It is also transmitted “ʿalā sakratin minhā”, ʿalā here being causal as well; God exalted said: “and that you magnify God for having guided you” (Q 2:185), i.e. on account of His guiding you. On the reading fī, it may be locative, the causation being understood from the force of the speech, as when you say “I beat the slave at the time of his misdeed”: it is understood that what is meant is that I beat him at the time of the misdeed on account of it, i.e. because he did wrong. So understand.

﴿ولو عمر ساعة﴾

لوهنا وصلية والواوعاطفة على مقدر هو أولى بالحكم أى ان لم يكن عمر ساعة ولو كان عمر ساعة أو حالية أو اعتراضية على اصطلاح أهل المعانى ومثله قول النابغة وانك كالليل الذى هو مدركى • وان خلت ان المنتاى عنك واسع ولا تحتاج لوالى الجواب لما سبق من أنها للتوكيد والتشديد لا للشرط وعمر بالنصب على أنه ظرف زمان أى قدر ساعة والعامل فيه سكرة أى سكرة واقعة فى عمر ساعة ترى الدهر عد اطائما أى تعلم وتحقق ان الدهر عبد طائع لك لا جل هاتيك السكرة الواقعة فى قدر نظرة واعلم أن بعض من قلت بضاعته وغزرت جماعته لما سمع ما يروى عنه صلى الله عليه وسلم لا تسبوا الدهر فانه الله اعترض بان ذلك يرد قول الشيخ ترى الدهر عبد اطائها ولك الحكم وشرع بعد اعتقاده صحة انتقاده يجيب من مكان قريب عن اشكال صعيب وأنت على ما أنت عنى نازح • وليس الثريا للثرى بقريبة فن جملة ما به اجاب ورام به ان يفتح الباب ان ترى الدهر كلام مستقل

Here law is waṣliyya (connective), and the wāw is conjunctive, [joining it] to an implied [clause] that has the stronger claim to the ruling, i.e. “if it were not the length of an hour, and even if it were the length of an hour.” Or [the wāw] is ḥāliyya (circumstantial), or iʿtirāḍiyya (parenthetical) in the terminology of the people of maʿānī (rhetoric). Similar to it is the saying of al-Nābigha: “You are like the night that overtakes me, / even if I imagined that the distance away from you is wide.” Law does not need a jawāb (apodosis), because of what was said before: that it is for emphasis and intensification, not for condition. ʿUmr is in the accusative as an adverb of time, i.e. the measure of an hour, and what governs it is sakra, i.e. a drunkenness occurring within the length of an hour. “You see time as an obedient slave” means you know and verify that time is a slave obedient to you on account of that drunkenness, occurring within the measure of a glance. Know that a certain man whose stock [of learning] was scant and whose following was large, when he heard what is related from him (God bless him and grant him peace), “Do not revile time (al-dahr), for it is God,” objected that this refutes the Shaykh's saying “you see time as an obedient slave, and yours is the command.” Believing his criticism to be sound, he then set about answering a difficult problem from close at hand: “And you, for all that you are, are far removed from me, / and the Pleiades are not near to the earth.” Among the answers he gave, by which he sought to open the door, was that “you see time” is an independent statement

﴿منها﴾

أى من المدامة المذكورة

I.e. from the aforementioned wine.

﴿ترى﴾

خطاب للمريد ا لسالك فى طريق الله تعالى على الصدق فى أحواله

An address to the murīd (aspirant) who is sālik (traveling) on the path of God, exalted, with sincerity in his states.

﴿عبدا﴾

يكون حالا من فاعل ترى اى وفى سكرة منها ترى انت الدهر اذ تكون السكرة سببا لرؤيتك الدهر حال كونك أيها المخاطب عبد اموم صوفا بانه طائع

It is a ḥāl (circumstantial accusative) from the subject of tarā, i.e. “and in a drunkenness from it you see time,” since the drunkenness is the cause of your seeing time, while you, O addressee, are a slave described as obedient.

﴿عبدا طائعا﴾

أى خاد ما يخدمك فى كل ما تريد ولا يعصاك فى شئ بسبب فنائك عنك وخروجك عن انانيتك وشهودك ربك بربك بعد ما كنت تشهد نفسك بنفسك أو ربك بنفسك

I.e. a servant who serves you in all that you wish and does not disobey you in anything. This is because of your fanāʾ (passing away) from yourself, your going out of your anāniyya (egoity), and your shuhūd (witnessing) of your Lord by your Lord, after you used to witness yourself by yourself, or your Lord by yourself.

﴿ولك الحكم﴾

يكون قيدا لقوله ترى الدهر أى ترى الدهر وتشاهده ولك الحكم فى الكائنات عند صدور تلك المشاهدات والصواب فى الجواب ان الدهر لفظ مشترك فيطلق تارة بمعنى الله جل وعلا كما فى الحديث ويطلق تارة بمعنى الزمان ومنه قوله تعالى حكاية عن الكفار ومايهلكنا الا الدهر فلو كان ؟ «- بمعنى الزمان لماصدر الحكم على القائلين بالكفر فتأمل والمراد منه فى البيت المعنى الثانى

It is a qayd (qualification) of his saying “you see time,” i.e. you see time and witness it while the command over created beings is yours when those witnessings occur. The correct answer is that al-dahr is a lafẓ mushtarak (homonym). It is sometimes used to mean God, majestic and exalted, as in the ḥadīth, and sometimes to mean time (zamān). An instance of the latter is His saying, exalted, reporting the unbelievers: “and nothing destroys us but time” (Q 45:24). Were it […] in the sense of time, the ruling of unbelief would not have been passed on those who said it; so reflect. What is meant by it in the verse is the second meaning.

﴿ولك الحكم﴾

أى التحكم على كل شئ اه

I.e. the exercise of command over everything.