[He said, 'He says she shall be a cow] not broken, made submissive and pliant to the command of the Law, to plough the earth, the earth of preparedness with righteous deeds and acts of worship, or to water the tillage, the tillage of gnoses and wisdoms that reside therein potentially by exhausting the waters of acquired sciences and piercing reflections, since a cow of this kind does not need to be sacrificed; one handed over, its owners had left it to graze without being shepherded by exotericisms (rusūm), habits, laws and manners; with no blemish on her', that is, it does not have any convictions or dogma engrained in it for not being suitable for sacrifice. [They said, 'Now] you have brought the truth', firm [truth] illustrating the prepared one who yearns and seeks perfection] and so they sacrificed her, even though they very nearly did not, because of their many questions, exaggerations and probing in the search and scrutiny of her state, and [because of] their superfluous talk in the attempt to seek clarification regarding her, all of which proves how the soul refuses to submit quickly and refrain from spiritual discipline and the prevalence upon it of curiosity: their difficulty in [finding] what they sought and their procrastination regarding it is because of that. That is why the Messenger of God said: 'Had they seized the nearest cow and sacrificed them it would have sufficed them, but they made it more difficult and so God made it more difficult for them. In other words, had they not been so obstrusive in seeking her out and asking [about her] what they sought would not have been so difficult for them on account of the strength of their acceptance and their will: the one who is compliant is easy to lead. The Prophet forbade excessive questioning, saying 'Verily too much questioning destroyed those before you'. God, exalted be He, says: do not ask about things, which if disclosed to you, would trouble you [Q. 5:101]. The story of this is that a calf with that description was born to an old man from among the Children of Israel who had an infant son. He brought it to his old wife and told her that it would be this infant's and that she should let it graze freely until he comes of age, that perhaps it might be of benefit to him.
