The Fourth Juzʾ of the Commentary on Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn
[The fourth part from the Commentary on the Book of the Removal of the Two Sandals and the Acquisition of Light from the Place of the Two Feet] The Celestial Realm (al-malakūtiyyāt): And these are the first of the four pages.
In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
5 There is no god but God, a preparation for the encounter with God.
Know that the first translation in which he deposited the celestial realm is the paths of open passages, and their meaning is the ways. The noble one says: The way, when you arrive at its end, you look upon what is sought. So the open passages contain within them the station of faces from the evidence, and the paths are like the evidence.
10 And know—may God grant you understanding—I have come as a commentator upon his words so that their meaning may be known, and the seeker may stand upon his intent. And he may have his speech in these matters in agreement with what it is as the matter stands with him concerning himself, and he may not be so, and it is not incumbent upon the commentator, when he has made clear through his commentary what he has made clear—that it be something he holds as a creed regarding what its author said. It is not from the Book, nor is it a confirmation for him in that, nor does it indicate his happiness for him regarding the correctness of the matter in himself. And there is no corruption in it; rather the commentator is a translator from the intended meaning of the speaker, whether it was truth or falsehood or disbelief or faith.
15 Nothing is attributed to the commentator of anything from that except in what he has made correct from that and verified it. So at that point it is attributed to him the statement regarding it. And there is nothing except a correctness, or an error, or knowledge, or disbelief, or faith, or falsehood—[a] kind, and there is no speech of a speaker from these categories, and from every speech that is taken and transmitted, except from the speech of God and His Messenger, [33:4].
[The Paths of Dawn] The Shaykh, the Imām, said after his statement in the translation, "The paths of dawn": "Know that the encompassings of the primacies and the specifications of the volitional acts are veils of incomparabilities from the light of the blazing sublimities and the secret of the names of the engendered beings," he means [by] "the encompassings, the primacies" every attribute of God, exalted is He, that is encompassing, such as knowledge (ʿilm), and it is the greatest of them in encompassing, for it encompasses by its soul and by its condition [101a] and by its locus and by what stands by its locus and by what is in relation to its locus or to the standing by its locus, and by negation and affirmation, and by non-existence and existence, and by what is not by an existent thing and not a non-existent thing, and it is the first encompassing in relation, and if it were conditioned by another matter, then the matter that is conditioned by it is a relation that is not encompassing, and it is the first of relation of description for every encompassing relation and other than an encompassing one.
And his statement: "and the specifications of the volitional acts" means what its specification distinguishes by the ruling of what knowledge distinguishes, and if there was for knowledge specification, then it is nothing but the distinction by limitation and reality until there is no confusion upon the knower about a matter, nor is there hidden from him a secret, nor especially for the resemblance of the existential in things from most of the directions, and the specification of the volitional is a specification that is particular, for the attachment of volition is only to the non-existent in the state of attachment, not to the existent, and it is equal whether the sought by the trace is the non-existent, the intended existentially, or non-existence, and rather the multiplici[ties of] the encompassings and the volitional acts from the aspect that their attachments are subordinate to their attachments do not pertain from the aspect of their souls but rather in reality the same as the distinguisher is the same as the encompassing from the aspect of the essence, and the same does not pertain from the aspect of relation and trace.
And his statement: "veils of incomparabilities from the light of the blazing sublimities" he says: These encompassings, the primacies and the specifications of the volitional acts that are the attributes of the Most High, veils, meaning: hidden from the essence that is expressed about it by the light of the blazing sublimities, for the blazing sublimities are the lights, ·108 It is as though he spoke of the light of lights, for the Lawgiver says: [referring to the ḥadīth], that is: the lights of His face. There is no doubt that the face of everything is its essence and its self. It is said: I came [101b] by the command upon His face, that is: I came by it upon what He is upon in Himself, and He is the light—glory be to Him—the absolute, which is not subject to modality, and the lights of His face conceal the onlookers from arrival to Him, so they are veils.
The import of his words is that these attributes are veils from the essence.
Text Then he said: He says: And they are also veils from the secret of the names, the hidden ones, meaning the essence also from the aspect of what they are as named things, just as he also intended them from the aspect of what they are as lights; for the secret of the name is what the name indicates, and it is the named thing. So if it is only its named thing, we say about it that he means by the secret the essence, and that these names are the names of the essences, and they are the names that have no trace in engendered being; for if they had a trace in any engendered being from among engendered beings—whether celestially, as witness, as dominion, or as sovereignty—then one would know from the aspect of its trace, and it would not be hidden. And it has already been said that they are names of hidden things, which indicates that it is not the case that they have a trace at all in any engendered being. And this is His saying—upon him be peace—: "Have you been enriched by it in your knowledge of the unseen?" meaning: what I did not teach anyone from among My creation, or: "Have you taken by it to yourself in the knowledge of the unseen?" And it is every name that is hidden from what is other than God the Exalted.
And his saying: — he means that they are distinguished from the essence, for the limit of the attribute is not the limit of the one who possesses it, so he does not intend the merit of separation, and he built upon that in what follows, and he made them a veil, that is: the utmost goal of the scholars of God is arrival to them, and they are the nearest veil, for the essence, even if it is known from the standpoint of the attainment of the possible to it from its engendered being (kawn), is established as probable for the possible through existence, yet it is not necessary from the standpoint of the attainment of the possible to it from its engendered being, established as probable for the possible through existence, yet it is not necessary from that knowledge (ʿilm) in reality of the one who ascends to it, based on what [1102] he is upon in himself, except through the paths — not through established proofs (ithbāt). For if it were known from its engendered being as an essence, it would absolutely have been apprehended, but it is not apprehended from it except what restricts it. The possible in it from its traces in it — and it is a tremendous question that this commentary does not bear — and concerning it there is much disagreement between the people of knowledge (ʿilm), both speculative and precise, and the evidence of the Law concerning it is contradictory. And we have clarified the intention of the author of the book through what his speech contains — may God be pleased with him.
Then he said: — he means the first veil from among the veils of the detached attributes.
The aforementioned celestial sphere of life — he made it like an encompassment by what revolves upon it, a circle of its line, for it is every attribute that has an attachment, and every name that has a designation, and every relation that has a engendered being (kawn), and even if it has no conditioned trace, its existence and its intelligibility are through the existence of this celestial sphere, for it is as though it is under its circumference. And even if it goes beyond the detailed specification, and other than that is among what is attributed to other than it from the celestial spheres of attributes and names and causation.
Then he said, reporting about the celestial sphere of life: — that is: the one who is above it, based on what is beneath it, for it veils him from arrival to what is above it, and he is saying after this that it is among the veils of the essence, for that which is above it in the rank is the Essence.
Then he said therein that , he is saying: and when you attribute it to the one above it, it was at the level of the carpet for him; because when you spread out the expression for the listener who is learning about a matter, you conveyed it to knowledge of that matter, and there is no doubt that the meaning is above the expression of it in the chapter of that which pertains to knowledge of the divine. It is not in the self of some meanings, for some of the meanings that are the signified referents of the expressions have 5 become debased, like the saying of the Most High: [10:79]. So the speech [~102] is for God Most High in every aspect, and the meaning that it indicates—upon it this speech is a person who is cast out from the mercy of God, and he is Pharaoh and sorcery. And for this reason we exercise caution, for expressions may be equal in honor to the meaning that is their signified referent, and they may be above it and below it. And when the essence is the most noble in rank among the attribute or the name or the relation, He made it above this celestial sphere, 10 and He made it a carpet for it, and it encompassed by the attribute and the name and the relation all the schools of thought.
Then he said:
a light of a veil», he intends by his saying meaning: in His saying that it is a veil of radiances, and it is only an intelligible distinction, that is: that it is not a manifest distinction of the separation of bodies and masses, and rather it is an intelligible distinction, that is: by what it is distinguished through from among the meanings from what is other than it, and it is not like this distinction from 15 the things perceived by concrete entities, and it will be explained—that is: what comes from it of spirit and light—in what follows, if God wills, so we leave the speech upon it to its place.
Then he said: "since He" means: this is the celestial sphere, "the station of the veil of the essence of the most exalted," exalted be His majesty," he says: He is the veil of veils, that is: their highest, that is: He is the nearest of veils to the essence.
Then he said, reporting about the essence, he said: "From it the glory manifests through the light of its holiness; the bliss of the vision is perceived." He says: for the vision there is bliss that is perceived; that is the bliss through the light of the holiness of this essence, and the glory prevents from its perception, and this is speech at the utmost degree of precision, upon it a mark of great grandeur, and it is not possible for me to elaborate upon the explanation of these two sentences more than this, for then there are proofs that counter what he gives it of clarification of what he intended. The discourse would become lengthy with its mention and its elaboration, and upon it there are objections [103a] that are verbal and resembling theoretical ones that are difficult to separate from it except through extensive elaboration, and perhaps there falls into the weak souls from that something, and this is the decree, sufficient in the indication, [33:4].
Then he returned – may God be pleased with him – to the clarification of his saying: "veils that are disconnected" regarding the merit of that, he said: "It is only a division of a willing act for the self-subsisting life that no life of a living being resembles, nor does anything resemble it." He added the will to life; because from his doctrine regarding what he mentioned in the interior of the book, that every name designated by all the names, the Living is the Knowing, the Willing, the Powerful, the Hearing, the Seeing, the Bestower, the Gracious... to the rest of the names, and the name the Knowing is the Living, the Willing, the Powerful... to the rest of the names, and the Willing is the Living, the Self-Subsisting, the Knowing, the Generous, the Equitable... to the rest of the names, and since from his doctrine this was so, he added the will here to life, and made the Living a willer, and that is according to some doctrines that every name, its referent is the essence and what it is given in reality from negation or affirmation. From the standpoint that the referent of the names, all of them, is the essence, it is permissible that every name from the names be described by all the names, ·112 And the predominant view according to me is that this is his school, and there is another aspect, and it is the school of another group from the people of realities—that all the Names are attributed to the Essence without there being any entified entities. So upon this, His life is His Essence, His knowledge and His power and His will, and likewise, so He added the will to the Essence, and just as His Essence does not resemble the essences of things and there is nothing like it—likewise His attributes do not resemble the attributes, and there is nothing like them—and this is verified in the other school: [42:11], a description [103b] that is negative, [42:11], a description that is affirmative for a meaning that is intelligible, not a specific entified entity for Him according to a people, and for Him a specific entified entity according others.
Then he took to clarifying what he intended by the volitional section, and he said—may God be pleased with him—: "The volitional section is the sending forth of life" from the sending forth of God the prophets. He said: "and the treasury of words" He intends the like of His saying, exalted is He: [4:171], and his saying: "the immutable entities" means: that which had been completed in itself and was sound for emergence and manifestation to the states of the immutable entities, which had effused from its light a light upon the essences of the immutable entities, firmly established in the essential nature, and it was treasured by this overflowing, and it became separated from the state of fixity to the state of existence—the separation of manifestation, like the manifestation of light in illumination—and life sought the existent things through the stages of the will in life, and for this the existent things mentioned in these words are in the mode of the will in life.
For all of them are truly real, and for this the report is in his saying: "I was his hearing and his sight," and he reported in the past tense, meaning: it appeared to me that I was in it with this quality in the state of my being veiled from it, from ·113 If you look at the existent things from the standpoint of their entities, they were a multiplicity of engendered beings, and if you look at them with what is inward in them, they were one in reality. This is the explanation of the meaning of what He gave him in his wording, and if it was other than what is intended by him from what I know of his school. And this is the meaning of his wording in his statement: "and this is the life, connected inwardly to the interior of volition, and the word is disconnected, manifest as the appearance of light in illumination," he is saying: the appearance of light in illumination, not in its essence, as though he is saying: disconnected, manifest in its incomparability, not in its essence.
Then he said: "Know that the word is a light that subsists through that life, and a spirit whose origin is that command, and it is the appearance of the spirit [104] as a volume, and the standing of the light as a body. So when He willed the command, exalted is His majesty, [2:117]," this has passed as an explanation of this, and his statement: "the spirit appeared as a volume, and the light stood as a body" — he did not intend the measure, for it is simple, without composition, and rather he intends the distinction of things, some of them from some, in the state of their fixity before their being an existence, until when He willed something from them upon alteration, [16:40]. That is the commanded thing whose existence is upon the form of its fixity in the state of its non-existence from itself.
Then he said: "Through the life of volition the command appeared as a light, permanent, and as an existence, manifest, and the ruling of the wisdom was
that which its origin was and the secret that He found it, and the truth that He established it and manifested it" — it was that He made, firstly, in the chapter of volitive radiation, that volition is for life, and that the living one is the one who wills as we have built it, ·114 And here he made life (al-ḥayāt) for the will (al-irāda), and that the one who wills is the Living (al-Ḥayy), and this is what we mentioned from his doctrine that every name that is designated by all the names, as will come in the book, and it is as though he looks at the state of the one who is the authority (al-ḥukm) in that state among the names, and he makes it an imām, and he names it with the names that seek from it that command in its state. And this is the meaning that all the verifiers among us and from other than 5 disagreement say. He said: "And by the life of the will there appeared a light standing" from His saying, exalted is He: [16:40], and he made the authority for the will, and it is the name of the one who wills, and he affirmed life, for what he mentioned it; since the one who wills must necessarily be living, just as life came about and the inanimate appeared, and the will manifested. He said, exalted is He: [18:77].
And his saying: [104v] "And the authority that which he distinguished" that is: the surplus of the will was 10 from the authority of life, so speech was connected, its beginning with its end, and he made it for the command of bringing-into-being (al-takwīn), as an authority from the aspect of its contingencies, and secretly from the aspect of its sustaining and its sheltering in its bringing-into-existence, and truly in its establishing, for he said, exalted is He: [15:85].
Then he returned to the command of bringing-into-being (al-takwīn), clarifying it, and said: "And this is the command that appeared; it is the word 15 the truth (al-ḥaqq) that stood as a light corporeally," he means what preceded, its mention in his saying: "And know that the word" to its end, then he said in it also: "and existentially, essentially" meaning: the manifestation of His essence to His essence.
Then he said: "and the word of the True One (al-Ḥaqq), exalted be His majesty" — he means bringing-into-being , for the rank of speech is beneath the rank of volition, so the life of the word of bringing-into-being is from the life of volition [13:33], he says also: "through the divine life" — every living thing is alive, so it is the life of every living thing, and for this he said: "and it is the watcher
over [50:16] — he means preservation, — meaning: this life descends upon the life of every living thing. He said: "upon the veils of the soul (nafs)" — meaning: upon its purity it has not been affected by its descent into the life of living things. And his saying: "from the outermost orbit" — he means the first orbit which is that of the celestial sphere (dhakara), he means from the rank that it merits for its essence.
Then he said: it descends from that orbit — he says: to the locus in which the members are, he means the rank of the preparation of engendered being.
Then he said: "I do not enumerate what cannot be enumerated" — he says: because that which is enumerated — insofar as what cannot be enumerated — [105a] would be a denial, and this is the saying of the scholars regarding the knowledge of God — that it is connected to what is not commensurate with narrowness, so He encompasses it with His reality over what He is upon, and this is the finest expression about this matter, for in this many feet of great people have slipped out of ignorance.
And as disbelief, the ignorant one said regarding His saying: [4:126] — he intended existent things, ·116 And everything that enters into existence is of His likeness, and the name of resemblance (tashbīh) is not properly applied to it except upon it with lengthy discourse.
As for our saying: disbelief (kufr), then some of the people of investigation—and we have seen them and heard this from them—say: Since God's knowledge of things is by way of encompassing what is other than Him, there is no escape from the manifestation of the world and the annihilation of what is other than Him, and the Real remains alone, and there is no existence of anything after that state, ever.
Text Then he said—may God be pleased with him—: "That is the celestial orbit of encompassing; it is the one that encompasses your celestial orbit of mercy, which [7:156]." Know that this is an encompassing of meaning, and he borrowed for it celestial orbits as likenesses for the attribute of encompassment that is in the circle. And indeed He made it with this arrangement because He, glorified be He, were it not for what He found of mercy for it, then His mercy encompassed every thing, and there is nothing except that in it is mercy, and this is the absolute mercy, and within it degrees are graded, or from it branches the restricted mercy.
He said Sahl: "When I beheld Iblīs I said to him: In what do you covet when God has written you as wretched? He said: in His mercy which [7:156]. Sahl said: So he addressed me with His saying, and I was compelled." Then I looked at the verse and found that He, glorified be He, had restricted it, and He said, exalted be He: [7:156]. So I said to him: O accursed one! Indeed God has restricted it. He said: He laughed and said [→105] to me: O Sahl, do not do! The restriction is your attribute, not His attribute. Sahl said: He overcame me. And truly the Real has spoken, and I was amazed at Sahl's facility in verifying it and the immensity of his knowledge of how was hidden from him this measure, and it is an outward matter in recitation, for the God-fearing takes it and obtains it as recompense as an obligation by the saying: [7:156], meaning: whoever does its obligations and its obligatory duties, from His saying: [6:54], meaning that whoever does ·117 He obligated upon himself mercy, and Iblīs covets therein from the source of grace and the presence of generosity of the Absolute, and that is what the Real fenced off, and it is not valid in the self of the matter to fence it off, so it was from ease of heedlessness from the place of the proof and the locus of the ruling in its totality, for it is a human being who forgets and is heedless.
The Shaykh said: Text , that is: existence was by it.
Commentary Then he said: He says: , intending thereby a specific thing. , intending a ruling and a knowledge. The Most High said: [19:67]. He intends by this that he be with the Real in dealing in a state of thingness of his existence as he was with Him before the thingness of his existence.
Then the Shaykh said:
Text the living things flowed, the pens of the extensions flowed», he says by what was in the content of the orbit of life. The highest of the sciences in which the pens of the extensions flowed, that is: those in which there is extension, and it detailed what was contained collectively in the extension that the pen carries in the tablet of recording and writing, of the encompassing knowledge of God in His creation until the establishment of the Hour especially, for it is [106a] among the impossible that existence be encompassed by what is in the knowledge of God. Rather, its writing is with the detailing after writing it perpetually, always, from without end and cessations at a limit. So the pens wrote what is from the entities, and from attached to those entities.
The Shaykh said in his explanation of that: the manifestation of the wisdom of detailing, and the establishment of the form of depiction and formation.
It means: in what occurs from the pen at the time of writing on the tablet, from the depiction of letters and their formation, so that there is a sunna in the bringing-about of the world of depiction, and as an example for what occurs in the world of bodies from formation.
Then he said: "Upon the determinations of the portioned ones and the subjects of the things-sought-after, words
Text that are permanent and sunan that are established, having no variation, no alteration, no transfer, and no transformation," he says: upon what is granted by the wisdom of placing things in their places which their reality requires, from other than deficiency, [35:43].
The Shaykh said: "And know that upon a sunna are these two celestial spheres," he means: the celestial sphere of life and of mercy.
He said: "The existence separates," he says: it becomes a form of existence in its entirety, then he paid attention and said: "And indeed
upon the form of the parent the form is," this is in the predominant case, for the offspring is from the scorpion and the fox, and it is not upon the form of one of the two.
The Shaykh said: "And these two celestial spheres are veils, the highest, upon, upon, the celestial sphere of the lowest," he says: Indeed the celestial sphere of life is in every level from the levels of existence above the celestial sphere of mercy, and indeed the celestial sphere of mercy is that which divides in every level into two celestial spheres: the celestial sphere of life, and it is the highest, and He named it the Throne, and there shall come the explanation of this detail from it in what follows. [106b] ·119 He said — may God be pleased with him — regarding this: "Then the celestial sphere of mercy separates, which is the nearest, by addition to the highest, to two celestial spheres, lofty ones. They are: the Pedestal, the Mighty, which is the celestial sphere of life for that which is beneath it, and the Throne, the Glorious, which is the celestial sphere of mercy for what is beyond it. The highest of them has veils upon the lowest, and the lowest is a celestial sphere to the highest. They are an earth and a heaven, and a surface and a structure." He says: "The earth is the surface for the lowest, and the heaven and the structure are for the highest." Except that he placed the Throne upon ranks in accordance with its mention in the Qurʾān: a Throne all-encompassing, a Throne glorious, a Throne mighty, a Throne noble, upon the ordering: the first is a Throne all-encompassing, then glorious, then mighty, then noble — thus he was given its unveiling, or he transmitted it on authority from God. The discourse will come and the commentary upon all of that.
The Shaykh said: "Then the celestial sphere of the Glorious Throne separates, which is the nearest by addition to the highest, to two celestial spheres, lofty ones. They are: the heavens, the uppermost, which is the celestial sphere of life for that which is beyond it, and the earths, the lowest, which is the celestial sphere of mercy for what is beyond it. Then the earths separate, and the heavens, in themselves, upon the pattern of this division and the ruling of this apportioning and differentiation. So every earth, in itself, along with the earth that follows it — veils, a higher upon a lower celestial sphere. And every heaven, in its essence, along with the heaven that follows it — veils, a higher upon a lower celestial sphere.
Likewise, the celestial spheres between every earth and earth, and heaven and heaven, and between these earths and the heaven of the lower world — this division separates, and this arrangement descends."
There appears in this discourse a contradiction to what he established [107a] in the beginning of the book regarding the division of the celestial sphere into seven, like the division of the heaven and the earth. For this heaven would not be a celestial sphere for this earth in which we are, given what is between them of the seven celestial spheres that He apportioned the atmosphere to them. For had he said: with the addition of "mā" it would not contradict, for if the author left it as it is it would not contradict, and the observer may be perplexed regarding what he also established in this detailed account of his division of the Throne, the Glorious, into two parts: the heaven and the earth.
And he said at the end of the section: "Between the Throne, the Glorious, and the heavens on high are veils, and celestial spheres among which is a heaven of the Garden of Refuge, up to what is above that, from the highest of the high, and the most exalted of the exalted," and he did not come with an ordering that established the universe according to what it is upon—not according to us, nor according to the sages, nor as the laws expressed from it. For if he intends its meanings, then it was befitting for him that he arrange its meanings according to the ordering of the universe in its placement, for every thing in the universe comprises its meaning. So its arrangement follows the ordering of the meanings according to the ordering of the receptacles deposited in them, expressions that were or other than that, so that understanding occurs with the one addressed regarding what the matter is upon, and we have mentioned the ordering of the universe and its measure and he summarized it in the book Ghufla al-Mustawfiz and we included it as a poem at the beginning of that book as an intention, and we explained it also in its entirety of meanings and instruments in the sermon for us in the measure of the universe at length, but we included the sermon on the ordering of the universe according to the opinion of some of the scholars among the sages, and we explained it according to what the universe is upon in the foundation of its existence in the poem mentioned in the book mentioned, and the law testifies for us to the correctness of that ordering, so let him look there, whoever wishes to excel by it.
The Shaykh said:
He is speaking about the magnification of the Names. They were for a wisdom, and the matter in that is great. It is not with a great matter, for the generality recognizes the ruling of the Names. Had they been a ruling upon it that none would perceive except the scholars, then know that the Names were only placed as the pronoun of the absent upon their designations so that the designated things would be known through them when they are absent and the report falls about them by a command. It is said: Zayd said such, and Zayd did such, and one knows the agent and the speaker—who he is while he is absent. Likewise when a mention precedes him, it is said: he did such, and he said such. The pronoun of the absent indicates the noun, and the noun indicates the named, and between the pronoun of the absent and the noun is a degree, and all of them are names. And that is because the pronoun of the absent is only upon the verification of the names of indication for the one present, for it is pointed to by it toward the noun mentioned in the utterance. Then the pronoun returns upon it, for it is present in the self of the one addressed, absent from the expression.
For this reason we said concerning it that it is the pronoun of the absent, and its existence may precede the mention, but it must necessarily be accompanied by the mention after it, otherwise it is neither known nor indicated. The poet said: His Lord rewarded ʿAdī — ʿAdī ibn Ḥātim So he came with the pronoun before its mention.
5 As for indications (ishārāt), signs were placed upon the one indicated toward when the one witnessed was near or far, [108a] and they are of two kinds: movements and letters. Letters are called names. Indications are not names because they are uttered with them, and movements are indications without names. If you consider the meaning of naming, there is no difference between the movement and the letter, for all are names. A human being indicates through the motion of his finger, his hand, his garment, his head, his eye, and everything in which he has firm hold — to it belongs the indication by it. As for letters, they are like tāʾ
10 in "you" (anta), "you said" (qulta), and "you did" (faʿalta), and the kāf in "to you" (laka). If the one indicated toward was two, you added mīm as an appended element, and you said: "you two" (antumā) and "to you two" (lakumā). If they were more than two, you said: "you" (antum) and "to you" (lakum). As for "this" (hādhā), if it was among the names of indication, then it is weak in signification, and likewise "these two" (hādhāni) and "these" (hāʾulāʾi).
For it needs in signification a movement from among the movements of indications, or the presence of a name. If the one expressed about is absent, then indication is made toward the name uttered with it, and the name contains what it has been named, so it is imagined.
15 That the indication contains — in the absent — the limit of what the name contains, and it is not like that. So it is said: "this is the one mentioned" (hādhā al-madhkūr), "these two are the two mentioned" (hādhāni al-madhkūrān), and "these are the ones mentioned" (hāʾulāʾi al-madhkūrūn). The mentioned one is the one uttered with, and the one uttered with it is the name which is Zayd, like the pronoun of the absent, equal in signification; ·123 because it indicates the name that was previously mentioned, and it is absent in the state of the pronoun's existence. As for the names of substitution and the conjoining of the statement, their origin was placed by the statement to remove the ambiguity, so one says in the substitution: my brother Zayd came to me—if the addressee had brothers and their names were confused upon him, for if the name of each one of them was Zayd[!] and they differed in their epithets— by conjoining the statement, you say: my brother Zayd Abū al-Ḥasan came to me, so Abū al-Ḥasan is a conjoining of a statement, [310b] and it is not a conjoining except when the more apparent and the more well-known is one of the two names, for the more well-known is the conjoining of the statement after the mention of the first and its being directed upon the hearer, and it is not to be taken from the one who said: an addition of a statement has no need of the existence of ambiguity, and likewise the names that are strengthened—there is no need of ambiguity.
And a state whose knowledge is unknown—the name that is strengthened by it is applied to it, and by it the unknown state is recognized.
And it is inevitable, and as for the names of attributes, they were placed originally for meanings by which confusion occurs at the hearer, so when you intend the raising of confusion, you named the name of attributes as a substitute, if you wished, and an attribute if you wished, and when you intend the praise or the blame, there is no substitute and no need, and in sum, the names were not placed upon their ranks except for the indication of the designated things in whatever way it may be—whether from a pronoun, or an addressee, or an indication, or a relative pronoun, or a proper noun, or common nouns, or derivatives, or borrowings, and every name in the origin of its placement has a gnosis; then it is applied upon it—the reminder, and for this the names multiplied for the single designated thing.
So among the names are shared ones like al-ʿayn, and concordant ones like al-rajul, and synonymous ones like al-asad and al-ghaḍanfar, ·124 and resemblance (mushābaha) like the sword and the cutting edge, and it was called resemblance (mushābaha) because it resembles synonymy (mutarādifa), yet it does not intend by it the speaker of that at the time of synonymy, and concordance (mutabāyina) like Zayd and ʿAmr, and maʿrifa of names is knowledge (ʿilm) independent in itself that narrows this book from bringing it in its details, and this much of indication and elaboration suffices from it in this concise work.
Text His saying: "Whatever you named earth, then name what is above it heaven," this is a placement that is linguistic, and his saying: "and what
you named a tree, then name what is above it a canopy (ʿarsh)," this is a technical term from him in reference to the saying of the Prophet — peace be upon him —: "The Throne (al-ʿarsh) is the canopy of the Garden," and likewise "what you named [109a] a heaven, then name what is above it a veil (ḥijāb)," this is a technical term from him also, and we acquainted ourselves with his technical usage so that we may know what he drives at in his book when he brings these words specifically, and for this reason we acquainted ourselves with them so as to arrive at his intended meaning in them.
Commentary And his saying: "It is met face-to-face from the Real (al-Ḥaqq) which was placed for it as the placement" — he says: Indeed the command which is the one expressed about is said in it also as earth and as a heaven, and as a canopy or a veil if it was the highest, and not through considerations of differing kinds, and aspects from the Real that are concordant (mutabāyina), for just as the expressions are concordant, likewise the considerations are concordant, and if the thing placed was one in itself, and his saying: "and the creation stood by it," then know that the creation (al-khalq) only stood by the command (al-amr) of the divine which is "Be, and it was" (kun fa-kāna), and by "Be" (kun), and by "Be" (kun) the creation stood, and for this reason he said: "It is met face-to-face from the Real which the creation stood by."
A Detailed Exposition The Shaykh said: "Know that every veil is from these veils, and every faculty is from these
celestial spheres; it is only a manifest and a hidden," meaning that it divides into a manifest and a hidden.
Commentary Then he said: "In the hidden is the life of the manifest, its sustenance, its light, and its extension," meaning that by the spirit which ٥ is its hidden, in it is the life of the manifest, that is: life belongs to it necessarily in the manifest, "and its sustenance" that is: its strength, which is that which holds it together, preserves it, and maintains its subsistence and its light. He means that by which he unveils things—this manifest from the direction of sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and there is nothing other than that from the direction of the manifest, just as he holds it also by the hidden faculties, and his saying: "and its extension" that is: that from which he derives all that he needs. He says: all of this is from [109v] the hidden.
١٠ Then he said: "The manifest is the abode of the hidden, its station, its resting place, and its place of return," he says: the station of the hidden, that is: its settling place and its station. He means the locus in which it subsists, and his saying: "its resting place"— he means its purpose, that is: to it the affair of its command returns in finding the Real—coming to it, and his saying: "its place of return" that is: when it separates from it, to it it returns. He indicates that it is connected to it in this world and the next, and the separation from it is two separations: a separation of parting—and that is by death—but not in reality; it would be from ١٥ a particular manifest, except according to one who speaks of stripping the spirits from bodies altogether as a single totality, and this is never the case. So the one who says this does not speak of restoration to it ever, and this is something he has said about restoration, so there is no escape from him intending a particular manifest, unless he adopts a third position and strips them from the body in the isthmus, then they are restored to it in the resurrection. So this too has been said about it, and God knows best.
The Shaykh said: Text , and this is an indication to the cognitive power that is that celestial sphere upon it.
Commentary Then he said:
and the human and non-human formation» He means the operative power that is upon this celestial sphere, as though he is saying by what is inward there appeared from it such-and-such, and by what is outward there appeared from it such-and-such, and he said: because the form appeared in the body, that is: what it is other than the body, and his saying: means what the human being forms and what is other than the human. He may mean by it what he intended by the first, and he may mean by it the form that [110a] the human being has upon it from what has no deliberate action for him in it, and God knows best.
Then he mentioned — may God be pleased with him — that it is not from any celestial sphere among them except that God found from the light of its outward appearance and the life of its inner dimension a creation that populates that celestial sphere and inhabits it. He worships God as befits His majesty, He bestows blessings upon him with the light of His blazing sublimities and the bliss of His presence and the holiness of His essence. The earthly realm is with the light of the earth, and likewise the celestial and the aerial — he means every world from the genus of a celestial sphere that was created from it. This is the content of his speech, but what he verified in it is that verification, and it would not have been detailed as it ought to be.
Then he said — may God be pleased with him —: Text .
--- ·127 Then he said: , this is speech all of it rhetorical—there is nothing beneath it of that which the questioner seeks, but there is no escape from explaining it. As for his saying: "If there were there
Text a manifest merit" he means: in the merit of that life from the light of the subḥāt, it would have been obligatory to cut the alif of connection in speech, and it would be said to him: and how was "what" and "where" the merit of life from the light of the subḥāt, according to the convention of the Arabs specifically in the alif of connection, and the conventional usage is something positional, and that is because the merit is something real in itself, and everything that is attributed to it is upon its reality.
That which is attributed, and it is in every reality a manifest merit in itself and manifest to the knower through it, and were it not for what appeared to the knower through it, it would not be correct that it be said concerning it "merit"; for I, if I intended to separate what does not [311a] have a purpose—the knower's purpose being to know that it is something separated, not that he separates it— the merit of meaning is through gnosis of every separated thing of meaning, its definition and its distinguishing feature. Its verification is from the separated thing, until the realities do not become confused upon the knower, nor does one grope in the dark, not in themselves, for the meanings and everything in itself are distinguished by their reality from other than them. Then the merit that is apparent according to this man is not except in corporeal things, and it is necessary in the detailed exposition of bodies—what is necessary in the meanings, other than that we say: since the bodies are possessors of quantities, they are things in proximity such that sight does not perceive their separation, so we separated them by act, and we removed their adjacency, ·128 it becomes clear to the eye that the separation which was upon it in the state of their mutual adjacency, some to others, had it not been that it was connected in reality, connected by concomitance to what we separated—then there would be no difference from this perspective between the body and the meaning in this respect, and our taking to account is upon this: the man is not in the meaning, which he intended, but in the expression concerning that meaning, with this expression
Text And the far-fetched likening (tamthīl) in which there is no proportionality between it and what is intended by it by way of one of the aspects—for he intended – may God be pleased with him – by the alif of connection (waṣl) the command (amr) by which the connection occurred between the Real and His servants, and it is that which He preserves, glory be to Him. For had that connection been severed, the command which preserves Him would have been severed, and then those familiar with Him would have no one familiar to them, and His preservation would have ceased, and the familiarity of His divinity would have been cut off from us, and the acknowledgment and the annihilation would have occurred, and nonexistence would have come about, and there would not have been anything created at all. And from where does this meaning come from the expression by which he indicated it?
And what I have objected to upon him is only his ruling upon the obligation of cutting the alif of connection in speech, had there [111a] been upon the aspect of consideration and likening as they drive it.
Here is a manifest deficiency, for had the verifiers agreed, it would have been speech that is verified, beautiful in the utmost of beauty. And his statement regarding the alif of connection: if it were cut, the three letters became a letter up to nine and twenty letters—then this number also did not receive from him any of the special properties, for the letters of the simple ones are twenty-eight and twenty-nine, and the lām of the alif is a composite.
So sometimes it is a composite of alif and lām as in the like of our saying: lā tafʿal, and sometimes it is a composite of a lām and a hamza in the like of our saying: lā-krimannaka, and the verifiers differed regarding the hamza—is it a letter or half a letter? For all of them said it is a letter, except Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, for he said: "The hamza is half, and the alif is half a letter, and the hamza and the alif together are one letter." So as for us, the hamza according to us is a letter, and according to all people except Jābir, and its form in the script is the alif, ·129 and rarely it is spelled with the wāw, the yāʾ, and the small ʿayn, but as for us, there is no image for the hamza according to us except the small ʿayn in the line — not the alif, not the yāʾ, not the wāw, and as for the alif, it is according to us from the letters of the numerical notation, not from the letters of pronunciation, for the alif is a sound without a letter in pronunciation, just as it is a letter without a sound, then it has no place for the alif of connection in pronunciation other than an existent entity originally. He says:
Text [55:78], so this alif of the numerical notation between the kāf and the sīn is not a letter with an image in pronunciation, and likewise ibn and ithnān and ayman Allāh; and the sīn was and the baʾ, and as for in the numerical notation, it is not said in the alif that it is detached or connected, for if the letters are eight and twenty letters, and one more was added, this man would have attached an alif to the connection, and it would have been according to him three letters, and by this consideration it would have reached Ḥayyān up to [111b] and twenty-seven letters, and some scholars of this matter have indeed made letters an addition upon the eight and twenty, among them the letter of the ghunna, and the letter that is between the jīm and the shīn, and between the bāʾ and the fāʾ, and between the kāf and the qāf, and as for the lām-alif, none has said of it anything in pronunciation other than this man, and it is confused upon him in that — the letters of the numerical notation in alif bāʾ tāʾ thāʾ with the letters of the Arabic pronunciation as verified, and the letters of the abjad came upon the pronunciation in the number, not in the arrangement of their positions, for the first of the letters is the hāʾ, and the last of them is the wāw, and he made the vowel marks of the letters of the abjad the image of the hamza as an alif.
Then his saying: "The thirties have returned to nine and twenty letters, and the indication falls," and all of what he mentioned is only that all of it falls if the alif of connection is specifically cut, even if all the letters and the remaining alif of connection were cut wherever the indication fell, rather it would fall with how many, and he was silent about the merit of the letters — it is not from speech by sound, then some of the tongues do not have in them a ḍād, and no letters from the letters are diminished from some of the languages along with the absorption of expressions in them, regarding meanings by expressions, so there is no benefit in his saying: "and the thirties have returned to nine and twenty," ·130 Then indeed it is also from the paucity of his gnosis of this art — I mean the knowledge of letters, which is the knowledge of the Friends of God — that the number of letters corresponds to the number of stations in the heaven, which are twenty-eight stations, for each station a letter, and that is the letter's rank, from the nature of that station, and we have explained this in our writings, rather in many of what we have written, in the Makkan Revelations (al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya), and the book of the Entry into Letters (al-Madkhal ilā al-Ḥurūf), and the book of the Chapters (al-Fuṣūl).
And the goals therein of what the letters of the alphabet contain of wonders and signs. [112a]
Text Then his saying: — and where is he from the speech of birds and insects, and the neighing of horses and other than that? And where are the thirty who are fearful of all of this, and what occurred of deafness, [27:18], the verse, and the hoopoe said: "I have come" [27:22], and speech is with recitations, and what in all of this the thirty are fearful of, and where is he
Commentary from some of the eloquent ones who compose a sermon that is complete, eloquent, with meanings that are majestic and of clear expression in the language, and in it there is a letter that is dropped and another, or poetry [or] all of it with dropped letters, and the sermon of ʿAlī — may God be pleased with him — the knower, by this matter composed a sermon in which there is no alif, and what occurred of deafness and not muteness, and even if we occupied ourselves with what is in this which he stipulated from some of the letters in their opposition, in it would be for us a large volume, so let us seize the reins and say: the intent has been made clear — may God be pleased with him — in the meaning of cutting the alif of connection with the expression that is remote from his intended meaning by which he expressed that, and by diminishment he brought about the deafness and the muteness and the blindness and the deafness, for the deafness is such that he does not hear so he understands, and by diminishment he brought about the deafness and the muteness and the blindness and the deafness so that he does not see the indication and the deafness and the muteness in the speaker, and by cutting the alif of connection perception falls away, and the delusion and the non-existence, and the cause is a single reality, and it is the cutting of the alif of connection ·131 And there remains upon him the designation of the receptive for what it is, and for obliteration what it is, and for non-existence what it is, for the preservation of the Real for things from the aspect of what it is is the preservation of a single matter, and its being a preserver had the alphabetical letter of connection been severed, the non-existence would attach to the totality, for the obliteration removes the image of the mountain from the aspect of what it is [112r] — that which is stone or dust — and there remains that stone or dust, and it is a mountain not from the aspect of what is a trace not a mountain, and this enters under the volitional category, that is: what departs from things except what he intends, for if he intended this then he claims that he speaks concerning realities, and realities do not change, and if he said: I attached the guard and its resemblance by severing the alphabetical letter of connection, and I attached the obliteration and the vanishing and the non-existence by had there been in the celestial orbit of life a manifest distinction, we would have said: indeed there has become clear to us the manifest and intelligible distinction in the first exposition of this question, for it would be incumbent upon you to say: had it been separated, the celestial orbit of life from the light of blazing sublimities
Text The separation of bodies, some of them from some, would lead to the preserver being the one who preserves existence upon the existent as a body, and when it was a body it was possessed of a quantity, and when it was possessed of a quantity it was in need of a determiner, so it would not be a god, it did not present itself to the divine, and rather our presenting ourselves — we and you — to the one who preserves existence upon the existent, and it is not necessary that it be a god; rather what is sought is a preserver who preserves it from obliteration. This is the mountain of Mūsā — peace be upon him — with the completeness of the letters, three letters upon your claim, and the alphabetical letter of connection is not severed, and there is not in the celestial orbit of life a manifest distinction, and with the existence of all of these things, the obliteration occurred in the mountain of Mūsā — peace be upon him — at the lordly theophanic self-disclosure, ·132 And the accidents of the engendered being (kawniyya) cease to exist in every time and vanish, [56:4], and the forms and configurations and shapes disappear along with the existence of the state upon perfection—would that I knew by what reality this occurred—this in the world and what then He differentiated outwardly in the celestial sphere of life from the light of blazing sublimities, and a thousand [113a] connections were found, and the three hundred letters are complete, and some people are blind, mute, deaf, and dumb, and possessing and being clothed in glory, [37:180–182], and silence is wisdom and few are its practitioners.
And when his mention reached its end regarding the first existent, which is the celestial sphere of life and the Throne, the Encompassing, he said: "And the second existent is the celestial sphere of mercy, and the Noble Throne, God created it from [light]."
His outward manifestation, which is the light of the Footstool, the Mighty Spirit of Holiness, and it is the world of the spiritual station of satisfaction (riḍwānī), and the level of sovereignty (al-mustawā al-ruḥmānī), and to it ends the sensing of the human, and the perception is the primordial (al-idhāk al-tibīʿī), and his speech ended regarding the second existent.
Then we return and say: look at what he mentioned regarding the second existent—you find it corresponding to what he arranged before this. He said first: Indeed God created the celestial sphere of life and made it an encompasser of the celestial sphere of mercy, then He differentiated the celestial sphere of mercy into two levels, they are: the Footstool, the Mighty, for the one who is above it, and it by means of it is the Throne, the Glorious, for the one beneath it. From the perspective that its Footstool is it, and from the perspective that it is a Glorious Throne, it is the celestial sphere of mercy for what is beyond it, ·133 So this one has made the Throne the Majestic to be the second existent, which is after the First, and he came in this section and said: The second existent is the Throne, the Noble Throne, the Throne upon which the All-Merciful established Himself, and it is the celestial sphere of the constellations, the manifest of this Noble Throne, the Throne which is the establishment upon the Throne, and it is the world of satisfaction (al-riḍwān) which is the world of the Garden, and to it he said the Atlas ends, and the ceiling of the Garden and the world of satisfaction which is the world of the Garden, and to it he said it ends.
The sensation [113b] that is human, meaning: satisfaction, and to it also the perception that is natural ends, and this is a claim, and he is a follower, and he has perceived what is above it and what is inferior to it. So how about the Prophet? Then he said after this, in the fourth existent, after speaking about the third that it is the Throne the Majestic, and he made the third the Throne the Mighty. So look in this discourse—a researcher has looked.
Then he said:
And the fourth existent is the fourth which is the celestial sphere of the Throne the Majestic. God created from His manifest which is the Light of the heavens, Gabriel, and it is the world of the angelic and the spiritual, from it the secrets of the unseen descend to us, and it is the world of the heavens the highest and the highest assembly and the domain of proximity of the elect, and to it the unveiling of the angelic ends for the elite of those who possess certainty and the generality of the prophets.
And the fifth existent is the celestial sphere of the heavens. God created it from His manifest aspect, which is the light of the earth—Adam, upon him be peace—and it is the human world and the lordly leaven. To it prostrated the angelic, the spiritual, and the celestial, the luminous, became subservient, and the lower, the animal, became humbled, and other than the animal.
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And the sixth existent is the earth's celestial sphere. God created it from His manifest aspect, which is [114b] the light of inanimate substances, the animals, and the insects, and it is the world of subjugation and abasement, and the genus of trials and degradation, and it is at the first degrees of distinction, and at the lowest of spiritual stations of differentiation.
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And for each in the root of its creation and the nature of its constitution there is gnosis of its creator, and knowledge of what He has legislated for it. And what is employed therein: «And there is no creature on the earth, nor a bird that flies with its two wings, except that they are communities like you. We have not neglected anything in the Book; then to their Lord they shall be gathered»[6:38], and to here ended his discourse in this section.
We say in explaining what he mentioned and his elucidation that it — may God be pleased with him — placed the ranks, some of them found from some upon the arrangement, firstly and secondly until the sixth, and he mentioned that 15. the first of what is found from Him is a manifest section, but it has a manifest aspect from other than a section, and that is the manifest. He expressed concerning it with the celestial sphere of mercy and the noble Throne, and it is the second existent. Then He brought into existence from it a third existent, and it is the Footstool of the Mighty, the Glorious, and the Magnificent Throne. Then He brought into existence from it a fourth, and it is the celestial sphere of the Glorious Throne of the Majestic, ·135 Then He brought into existence from the fourth, a fifth, and it is the celestial sphere of the heaven and the angels, and He sent down Jibrīl from the angels of the fifth, a sixth—it is the celestial sphere of the earth, the station of Ādam from his sons. Then He brought into existence from the fifth, a sixth—it is from within it; and likewise every celestial sphere—everything created in it is from it. This is the purport of his speech, so let us clarify in detail what is in it of correct and corrupt indication.
5 We say: as for the first existent, he has indeed made it clear, and it is that in which he stated the question of the letters. And as for the second existent, he said: it is the celestial sphere of mercy and the noble Throne, and he indicated that it is the Throne of the One established upon it, whose name is al-Raḥmān; because it is the celestial sphere of mercy, and for this reason the celestial sphere is manifest, and it is a bodily thing. Likewise he mentioned in what we have commented upon earlier from his speech, and he named [114b] its manifest aspect the light of the Throne, and from this light the bodily Throne was created from which the spirit of holiness was brought into being
10 by al-Raḥmān, and it is the Throne—the ceiling of the Garden—and He created the Garden and its worlds. And He has indeed made it the celestial sphere of mercy, as if he said: He created from it what He willed, and this is a creation from speech and specification in the thing. And there is no doubt that God, exalted is He, has explicitly mentioned the place of the noble Throne, the glorious Throne, the mighty Throne, the Throne upon which He established, and He distinguished between the stations of the existence of these names, and upon them—even if the singularity of the eye was the same—there is in them something that accords with what this man said.
15 And his statement concerning it that to it the human sensation terminates, and there is no doubt that the terminus of human sensation is the starless celestial sphere which is the Throne according to the scholars and the sages, and it is not beyond it that the celestial sphere covers.
And his statement: "and to it the divine perception terminates," for what [he] intends by knowledge is from his engendered being
20 as a prophet, and what he said was not said by any of the verifiers. For we know definitively that the Prophet apprehends what is above that—how so, when he has apprehended the Throne, the establishment upon the Throne (istiwāʾ), and the celestial canopy before the creation of creation, ·136 This is a statement from speech, and what he intends by the culmination of prophetic perception is the corporeal ascension (miʿrāj), and this is also what no one has said, nor has any text from a book come with this, neither a sunna nor an unveiling from any verifier. The bodily ascension (miʿrāj) has no disagreement concerning it, except that it is what ascends only in degrees of bodily nature from its kind, like the bodily ascension does not ascend except in degrees of corporeal nature from its kind, like the knowledge-based ascension (miʿrāj), for it does not ascend except in degrees of things known from the standpoint of what they are as things known, not from the standpoint of [115a] them being bodies or non-bodies, and there is no location. So his statement about the culmination of prophetic perception reaching this station is speech that has no basis for him.
Then he said regarding the third existent: it is the Throne (kursī) the mighty and the magnificent great Throne (ʿarsh). Indeed its corporeality is the light of the glorious Throne, and that the Pen (qalam) and the Tablet (lawḥ) were created from this body, and what he said regarding this, and that no one other than him said this, and the people of unveiling hold a different view, and the text of the prophetic report testifies to its contrary, and that , and the report is well-known. If he intended by this Pen a pen other than the last, then this was and what was between him and what he made known about this was only what is the Pen, the highest, upon it. Then he ruled, and he made the unveiling of the prophets and the observation of the gnostics reach him, and this, all of it, is contrary to what the matter is upon him in his self before every prophet and gnostic and one to whom there is unveiling. And the Exemplar Muḥammad – upon him be peace – – is from the community, and that he observed what is above that, and this is also a ruling, for the gnostics observed what is above that and he was not reported to by prohibition or unveiling. And the Exemplar Muḥammad – upon him be peace – from the community in the culmination of their observation and their unveiling, said that he observed what is above that from the highest ones, and he witnessed the divine presence of proximity, the near one, and the place, the firm one. If he intended by that the ascension, the corporeal, then the exception is valid when the report is verified by the night journey (isrāʾ) with his body.
As for his saying: "the presence of the near proximity," if the knower who has realized intends by that an attribution of all existent things to Him—exalted be His majesty—as a single attribution, since He is exalted beyond there being between Him and [115b] the servants any attribution—and if he intended by the presence of the near proximity the presence of the first existent being, then there is no attribution by way of a cause, so it is near.
Text And his saying: "and the place of emplacement" means the place that is established for it as a station in God's sight, and it is the Throne, the all-encompassing, and its station is from the All-Merciful: His establishment upon it, as He informed—glory be to Him—saying: [20:5], so it is the place of the establishment as befits His majesty, and it came in the verse concerning glorification, so the glorification is for God, and the station is for the Throne in God's sight.
Then the shaykh said regarding the fourth existent being, which is the celestial sphere of the Throne, the glorious: this 10 — is a deliberation concerning the naming, and what is correct in that is that God named His Throne that which He named it with from among His names, so it is the Throne, the glorious, the mighty, and the noble, and whoever wishes to know the loci of the realities of these names in relation to the Throne, let him look at the context of the verse in the Qurʾān.
At his finding it through these names, he will know for which aspect He named it the noble, and for which aspect He named it 15 the mighty, and for which aspect of reality He established Himself upon it, for they are all qualities restricted so as not to be applicable unrestrictedly except to God—exalted be He—for He is the Mighty, the Glorious, the Noble in every aspect without restriction, so the man might imagine that this fourth existent being is that which He named the True Throne, the glorious, and likewise in the case of whoever named the Throne the all-encompassing, the noble, and the mighty, ·138 and it is not so according to anyone. And if he intended by the fourth existent the fourth name, and the name the third by the third existent, and the name the second by the second existent, it would be correct from a path of far-fetchedness, but his wording does not indicate it except by a distant consideration and lack [116a] of eloquence and coherence of meanings.
Then this shaykh made the manifest of this fourth existent, which is the Throne, the glorious light of the heaven, according to what preceded of his terminology regarding the volume of the spiritual and the corporeal light. He said: He created from it Jibrīl the Trustworthy Spirit, and he did not intend by Jibrīl—peace be upon him—specifically Jibrīl alone, but rather what he intended by it was the world of the angels, and for this he said: He created from it Jibrīl, and he is the angelic world and the secret of the spiritual, and he made it for the angels at the level of Ādam for us, and this is erroneous speech from every aspect; reports contradict it.
The corrections and unveilings of the verifiers—and it is not the case that anyone agrees with him on that despite his contradicting himself in his saying, for he had mentioned before the creation of Jibrīl the worlds, all of them being spirits and angelic in the fourth and third existence, and the second and the first. And this ordering is in the world of the animals. As for the spirits that are supreme, among them there is no ordering, and they cannot be enumerated; their multitude is the beauty of His majesty—glory be to Him. So this is from the contradictoriness of his statements, and it has been reported that the report is that Mīkāʾīl was created by God—exalted is He—before Jibrīl, and that he is greater than him and more prior in existence, and likewise Isrāfīl, and many of the prophetic reports contain therein that Jibrīl says: "Ḥaddathanī Mīkāʾīl" (Mīkāʾīl narrated to me), and he says: "Ḥaddathanī Isrāfīl" (Isrāfīl narrated to me). So it is not the case that he is the angelic world, and if he intended by the angels the messengers, that is: the first of the world of the angels, meaning: the world of the message from the angels, then I said: it does not hold, because Isrāfīl and Mīkāʾīl are both more prior than Jibrīl, and they have been sent on some occasions to those whom God willed among the prophets, and what has been reported from anyone [116b] among the verifiers contradicts these reports.
Then He said: , and that is in most states, for He has a station known between the angels, and His saying: meaning: He is the one who has a station known between the angels, and it is not correct, for he narrates from other than Him what is not with Him, for He said: — so had He stopped with the heavens, the most high, and did not intend perhaps what He conveyed to him, the possibility of its being attributed to the ignorance of one who was ignorant of the station of the one from whom Jibrīl takes among the angels, for the speech of this man is unfounded, not connected, and His saying: because of what has come that the angels of the most high argue among themselves, and Jibrīl is the one decreed against among them, upon His saying.
And His saying:
the prophets», I say: I swear and I do not except, that this man does not know upon what the name of the angelic realm is applied — no, by God! — may his path be blocked, for he has gone astray in the detailed exposition of what he mentioned and the arrangement of what he established upon the two aspects: either he intended the existence of levels — and it is not like that — or the existence of entities, and it is not like that, and what is established in the prophetic reports, and the contradiction is his — what it is are rulings that are not entered by abrogation, but they may be entered by the decree of the term, if God wills, and He is what He reported about the decree of a term, then it moved on, but not from a place that was established for Him.
So he said regarding the fifth existent, which is the celestial sphere of the heaven: and it is the mass of the light of the heaven, and the light of the heaven is the exterior of the celestial sphere of the Glorious Throne, and the exterior of the heaven is the light of the earth, [117a] meaning: the body of the earth — He created from it Adam — peace be upon him —, , just as Jibrīl was the knower of the angelic and the secret, the spiritual, and there is no doubt that the lordly is nobler than the spiritual, as though He preferred the human over the angel, ·140 and it is not his school of thought, in what he mentioned in this book previously. Then he said: to Him—he means: Adam, the angel prostrates—the spiritual one; he intends His word, exalted be He: [15:30]. Then he said: and to Him also the upper luminous one is subjugated, and the lower animal one and the non-animal one descend; he intends His word, exalted be He: [45:13].
Text Then he said: "And the sixth existent, which is the celestial sphere of the earth, God created from His manifest aspect
which is the mineral, the animals, and the insects." This is speech at the utmost degree of ignorance, the speech of one who does not know from what things were created. Then he fell short in this detailed account of existential creation greatly. He did not mention them and did not turn his attention to them, and he added creations greatly for which existence is not verified and which are not established. It is as though the man only spoke and made clear concerning what God created in his imagination, not what He created in existence.
Then he said: "And for each in the foundation of his creation and the nature of his disposition is gnosis of his Creator." He intends His word—upon him be peace—from his Lord, exalted be He: > "I was a treasure not known, so I loved to be known," "and He taught with what He legislated for him"; he intends His word, exalted be He: [6:38], and He said: [35:24], and He said: [14:4], and He said: [27:16], and Sabbāḥa al-Ḥaṣā [the pebbles glorified] [3:117] in his palm—upon him be peace—, and Aḥbaba Jabal Uḥud [Mount Uḥud loved], and Yashhadu li'l-muʾadhdhin [testifies for the muezzin] the reach of his voice from wet and dry, and what transpired.
This is the course in this chapter: [33:4].
Section The Shaykh — may God have mercy on him — said: "And know that what is between these fixed celestial spheres and their heavens, which are the veils, the layers," meaning that they are tiers, just as God Most High informed. He says:
"Between them are 'ascents' (maʿārij)," meaning: degrees of elevation, "and lights (anwār)," meaning: what is unveiled by them are secrets, "and celestial spheres (aflāk) 5 — coverings (ḥijābiyyāt)," and curtains, surrounding screens that conceal what they contain of meanings. He says: And these ascents "and lights and celestial spheres are veiled" from eyesight, perceived through knowledge (ʿilm), because they are interior; and every interior is hidden (ghayb), and that is His saying, Most High: [72:26-27]. Likewise, when the man witnesses, his being is what is between these celestial spheres of the six, the ascents because they are paths of adornments. He, Most High, said: [65:12], and their being is lights, because they are paths 10 of adornments that unveil through them things, so one is guided by them, and their being is celestial spheres for their encompassing.
And he mentioned in this section that He — glory be to Him — created the creation of every celestial sphere from the light of that celestial sphere and its interior, and He had mentioned before that the light of every thing is its body, and that is its exterior, and the interior of every thing is its life, and it has been made clear that the exterior of everything higher is the interior of what is beneath it.
15 Then he mentioned discourse concerning the creation of what was created from these celestial spheres of the six that are: the celestial sphere of life, the celestial sphere of mercy, the celestial sphere of the Pedestal (kursī), the celestial sphere of the Glorious Throne, the celestial sphere of the heavens, and the celestial sphere of the earth manifestly and explained, so it is not prolonged by its mention nor by its explanation. And he divided what he mentioned of these celestial spheres of the six — every celestial sphere into seven heavens in layers and seven earths in weight — and the exterior is the aggregate of what was apportioned to it from types of six in four and ten, which is the sum of what was apportioned to it.
And he mentioned that every higher one among them is a heaven for what is beneath it, and every lower one among them is an earth for what is above it. So his saying: seven heavens and seven earths—that He made them by proportion—then it would be by way of striking six in nine, and if they were entities that are permanent, then it would be in the striking as has preceded, and God knows best what is correct. And he has made clear in this section, from what the commentary preceded for him, that the world of the heaven originated from the light of the spirit, the trustworthy, Jibrīl — upon him be peace.
[The Presentation of Bewilderment and Silence]
Commentary And when the section concluded with the mention of some of creation, and he named whoever he named among them, and was silent about whoever was silent about, he began a preamble for it as a presentation of bewilderment and silence. He says: that is, the matter which, when it is presented, bewildered the beholder and silenced the speaker. So it was befitting that this section be placed as evidence that is conclusive and an argument that is effective, such that it silences the disputant. And it was befitting that he draw attention to matters other than what is customary and transmitted from among the generality and the scholars, so that the beholder would be bewildered and what he did was nothing from all of this. Rather, he came in this section with reports, not with proofs by which the disputant is refuted, for it is upon the measure of what increases the claims—the speech increases from the adversary.
Then he mentioned the glad tidings about it, and they are the gardens, and the people have been accustomed to hearing them from the Qurʾān [3:118] and the sermons, and rather he named them with this name, and God knows best that He intends these matters which He mentioned when they appeared to the senses, at the unveiling of the covering, bewildered the beholder and silenced the disputant, ·143 And that he beholds what was being contended over in His existence, and the content of this merit in its entirety is up to His saying:
and it is a preamble for another merit that comes after it, and it is that he said: The encompassing Throne is a ceiling for a garden whose name is the Noble Throne, and He made it the dwelling-place of the spirit of the Holy, and He made it a ceiling for a garden beneath it whose name is the Mighty Throne, and He made it the dwelling-place of the Pen, and He made it a ceiling for another garden beneath it whose name is the Glorious Throne, and He made it the dwelling-place of Gabriel — peace be upon him — and He made it a ceiling for a garden whose name is the heaven, and He made it the dwelling-place of Adam — peace be upon him —, and He made the outward of every garden the inward of the other one that is beneath it, and He said in the descent: When Adam descended to the earth, which is the outward of the garden of heaven, Gabriel descended to heaven, and it was claimed that when he descended, each one of these dwellers descended to the outward of his garden; the one who descended to what is above it, to its inward, 10 — until he ascends to the descent of the All-Merciful by the establishment upon the Throne, the encompassing.
Then he said: And when the clap of the Ṣaʿq came for all, the spirit of Adam ascended to the heaven, and it is an isthmus in this state, and the spirit of Gabriel moved in the Ṣaʿq to the Throne of the Glorious, and likewise the Pen to what is above it, and the spirit of the Holy, and each dweller returned to his garden, 15 and when the resurrection was realized, their forms — and they are the corporeal luminous appearances [119a] — and other than them — by their spirits in their places to which they ascended by the Ṣaʿq, and their garden was that to which their return was, and from it they came and to it they returned, and then the content of His speech, [33:4], and I had resolved to make for it a form specifically and I saw that the expression about it is more concise and more eloquent in brevity.
Explanatory Supplement When he mentioned in this chapter some of the meanings of what he mentioned in the preceding chapter before it, he named it a supplement for what the known thing was a partner to the known thing upon it, then he mentioned after the translation the statement of the Prophet – peace be upon him –: "Verily God created the Throne in four parts," and the ḥadīth of the vision of Adam to himself, and his attribution, and the specification of Dāwūd in that vision with light upon other than him, and he mentioned words from among what befits these two reports and matters following them, most of them corrupt—nay, all of them the structure of corruption is understood. The meanings do not need to go to their explanation, nor does discourse upon them, to His statement concerning the truth of God's vision of creation as one and in number.
He said – may God be pleased with him –: , 10 for from the perspective of the seer, the existence of the kāf of the attribute is valid, and from the perspective of the seen it is not valid, for the state of number in the seen is the state of the unity of the seen, not from the perspective of the reality of unity from the unity of every individual, the explanation of that being that the unity of genus is a real and singular unity, and it contains types and individuals without end to their numbers. So when he saw [119b] the individuals and the types, he indeed saw 15 the number in the individual, and "the bāʾ" is in the sense of "in," as if he is saying: their regarding in the state of the existence of types and individuals of their souls in number as he regarded them in the state of their unity in genus, and he indeed intends by the cause, saying: and their regarding by the cause of their multiplicity as he regarded them in the unity of their individual—that is: many as he regarded them by the cause of their unity as one. This is from the perspective of the seen, not from the perspective of the vision. From the perspective of the vision, it is one in number and unity, and from the perspective of the seer, the number may occur with the efficacious names, ·145 The summary regarding this is that the vision, from the standpoint that it is one, and from the standpoint that the visionary is numerical in the oneness of the genus of the knower, is one, so this is a summary of what occurred to him by way of address due to the lack of connection of appropriateness in his speech.
Then he said after his saying: "their mutual interaction through multiplicity just as their mutual interaction through oneness, and this is from the standpoint of
the exalted attributes and the names that are designations of the most holy," meaning: his vision of things through multiplicity, because the attributes and names are multiple.
And as for his saying: "and the names that are designations of the most holy," he says: the names are designations by names, and that is the name of the name, and that is because God, exalted is He, from the standpoint that He is a speaker, named Himself with names befitting His speech, not with the known sound, nor with the known letter, but as it behooves that His speech upon Him be of sanctification and exaltation above the attributes of originated things. Then He applied to those names the theological names that are their designations, or [112a] attributes of acts that are attributed, and additions. So we said: God, the One, the Living, the Eternal, the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner, the First, the Last. These are the names that are observed through them—they are names of the names of the divine theological names. The divine theological names are designations of these names, and the designations that indicate the divine names upon them are the meanings upon their aforementioned divisions.
Then he said after this: "then he looks mightily at His power from whoever has faith in what He is—God—the One, the Withheld
Eternal, so there is no surplus and no number," he says that he looks at His oneness, as though he is an interpreter of His speech of the first, and he has entered under our divisions therein in the commentary, except that he corrupted the matter by his saying: "from
whoever has faith" nor faith for oneness, so he mixed up and blundered, then he increased in confusion the evil of manners, and said: ·146 "And let him look" (wa-yanẓur) — the Exalted mentioned it from "easier" (aysar) — and this word "easier" is not something that came with it as law (sharʿ), nor does it indicate upon it intellectually; rather it came in the law concerning it: "I drew lots between the right hand of my Lord, and both hands of my Lord are right, blessed," and likewise we name them in our books. When we crossed beyond this station (maqām), we conducted ourselves with the Real (al-Ḥaqq), and so this man came to the opposition of the one bound to ill conduct with the one spoken to, and said: "Let him look from what is easier for him" from
Text the Most Beautiful Names and the supreme attributes that cannot be counted in number, and so there arrives here neither union nor otherness in a state, nor singularity; all of that is in one state, one time, and one entity. Then he mentioned what befits this discourse from what is in its meaning of trees and fruits, the multiple in unity of the seed, and what resembles that.
Commentary As for his saying: "and so there arrives here" — know that every connected thing has a incomparability [120b], and if it did not occur, the incomparability — then the reality distinguishes it and separates it — and had he intended that the Names are attributed as being bound — and the entity is one — it would have been correct for him to say "and so there arrives here" according the elucidation of the verification. But what is this, his intention, and the evidence that it is not what he intended by that is his saying: "in one state
and one time and one entity" — and he is speaking about realities. And he has restricted the vision (ruʾya) to time in the right of the seer, and from his vision — glory be to Him — in this vision of time: either that he sees it in his soul (nafs), not in a time other than it — so let him look at everything in his soul as a vision of time, or he sees time in another time, ·147 The discourse in it is like the discourse in the first, and it chains together, leading to the impossible and the lack of attainment. Likewise his statement: "in a state and a limit," and there is no state there. For this reason I said: this is not his style, for it does not befit his discourse, and God knows best.
The fourth part has concluded, and praise belongs to God alone. He recites it in the fifth: "And know that time is carried in place."