Chapter Twenty-Six: On Unveilings and Revelations

The Twenty-Sixth Chapter

On the demonstration of unveilings and revelations

We say: among them are the false, and their causes are the four that were mentioned in the case of false dreams. The first: when a man applies himself much to foods and drinks and garments and things smelled and the many objects of sense through the outward senses, he becomes enamoured of them; and when the sensibles pass away, their forms remain in the imagination [65], gleaming in the common sense, so that we see them manifest as though they existed in act. And this condition has befallen those who gaze long and intently (1) at the moon, so that they behold many moons; and likewise those given (2) to addiction to amusements and enrapturing melodies may hear delicious voices. The second cause: this has befallen those dwelling in rough and desolate (3) places, so that their thoughts come to be embodied in the common sense. The third cause: those with the illnesses known as melancholia (mālīkhūliyā), sirsām and birsām, for they behold forms that have no existence at all. The fourth cause: the occurrence (4) of these matters here mentioned may be abundant (5) among the masters of solitude and seclusion, especially owing to weakness of temperament.

As for true unveiling and its like, we say: when the rational soul is such that the matters of the world cannot bar it from the contemplation of spiritual matters, it becomes easy for it to turn away (1) from the sensibles and to go out of the world [66] with its body as well. So it comes about here, in waking, that possessors of strong souls attain knowledge of the unseen from the overflowing of the separate intellects, as we mentioned just now (2). And when these meanings are traced upon the tablet of the common sense, they are apprehended as embodied. And when the matter corresponding between the forms and the meanings is complete, it has no need at all of interpretation — as happened with Mūsá, in the correspondence between the meanings and the names, when it was said to him: « Go to Firʻawn » (3). This was said to him by the correspondence of the letter to the meaning: go and say such-and-such; and there was in it no imagining and no similitudes. And as it has come down that it was said to Fīlibbus: « Arise, go to the south along such-and-such a road » (4), and many things like this. But if that is not complete, it stands necessarily in need of interpretation, like what Ḥizqiyāl and Dāniyāl and others beheld.

As for unveiling in the perfect souls, such as the prophets and the apostles and the divinely supported saints, it falls under three aims. The first aim concerns the manner of people's need for those here mentioned. We say: man's perfection is that (5) he know the truth because it is truth (6) [67] in its own essence, and that he know the good for the sake of acting by it. And the first kind is perfected by the theoretical faculty — I mean that he is able to receive the forms of existence in their entirety, or rather the existent (1) in the aspect in which it is, neither more (2) nor less, rendering the existent existent and the non-existent non-existent. As for the second kind — I mean the practical faculty — it lays upon man the charge of withdrawing from this world and its passing, perishing appetites, and of living a spiritual life so far as he has strength for it, and of turning his resolve toward the intellectual pleasures that are fixed and everlasting, which neither shift nor pass away. And since man is powerless to set up (3) these matters here mentioned by his own essence, he is brought to a guide who guides him. And this one mentioned must be a man like him, of his own kind, so that he may be able to receive his commands and his sayings; so he must be either a prophet, or an apostle, or a knower, or a skilled teacher, holy and fatherly. The second aim: among people there is the one deficient in the theoretical and the practical faculty, and among them the one perfect in both faculties, and among them the intermediate (4). The deficient and the intermediate stand in need of the guides here mentioned, and the world cannot be devoid of [68] one of these; for we see the world swimming in a sea of disagreement and change in its knowledge and its action, so that some of them meet with a limit that makes them of a kind with the beasts in the dominance of appetite, the paucity of knowledge and the absence of cognition, so that such a one is by name a man and by mark a satan; and others are intermediate, and others virtuous, and others preponderant. And the matter must end at a divinely supported person, virtuous in knowledge and in action, preserved from error and lapse, who is one of those mentioned as appointed to guidance; by the ray of his light mankind is illumined, and by his presence among them their kinds of knowledge and their works are perfected. The third aim: we know that body is a genus with three species under it — animal, plant and mineral; and we know that the most excellent of these three is the animal, and more excellent than the animal (1) is the species man. And likewise under the species man there are classes and colours, such as the Zanjī, the Hindī, the Rūmī and others; and the people of the fourth clime are stronger in excellence than the rest of the climes; and the people of this clime must be distinguished from one another in the virtues. And among those who are of this character there must [69] be found a person greater in virtue than all of them, and by his mediation they are perfected; and he is the true guide, and to him is the reference in discipline, and through him the shrewd man attains what he seeks.

If it be said: by what do the benefits accrue from these leaders here mentioned? We say: it comes about by two things (2), for the transgression of human souls is of two sorts: one of them is distance from God, exalted be He, and from the divine virtues; and the second matter is inclination toward the natural bodily promptings. And those mentioned above are in the position of skilled physicians for the souls of the transgressors, and this matter is possible in the case of those mentioned — I mean that they have power (3) to turn the souls of mankind from the sea of bewilderment and transgression to the shore of guidance and faith, and that by the powers of their holy souls and by the repetition of the divine admonitions. And since this matter is in them and is their wont, they have no need of the knowledge of the mathematical, natural, medical and philosophical sciences; for their manifest miracle has made them independent of all besides them, save their Master. As for the properties of these holy souls, they are four (1): the first, [70] that when they are illumined by the divine flashes and the heavenly lights (2), they grow strong and are enabled for what they choose to do in the world of generation and corruption, of prodigies and dazzling things (3), and the birds and the beasts of prey and the natures obey them; and those miracles are given as a bestowal from God, exalted be He. The second property: that these souls are distinguished from the rest of souls by the theoretical and the practical faculty — as to the first, by the greatness of their apprehension of divine matters, which passes beyond the limit of others; and as to the second, by the truth of what they utter of things known, the like of which others are powerless to produce. The third property: the lights shining upon the souls of these people can be reflected from their souls to the souls of those who obey them and who profit from their teachings; for just as (4) the sun, when it shines upon a polished body such as a burnished and brightened mirror or transparent crystal, that [71] ray shines by reflection from it upon a body facing that first body — so too the Creator, exalted be He, or an angel of the separate intellects, when He shines with His lights upon the souls of His holy ones, they are illumined and give light. The fourth property: that the rank which (5) can accrue to those here mentioned from the Creator, exalted be He, can accrue by their mediation to whoever follows their way and enters under their protection.

— Notes —

[54] 1) In the original: yumʻinūn.

[54] 2) In the original: ūlī.

[54] 3) Sic.

[54] 4) In the original: ʻurūḍ.

[54] 5) In the original: tatawaffaru.

[55] 1) He means « al-iʻrāḍ ».

[55] 2) In the twenty-fifth chapter.

[55] 3) The Book of Exodus 3:10.

[55] 4) The Acts of the Apostles 8:26.

[55] 5) Fallen out in the original: an.

[55] 6) In the original: ḥaqqan.

[56] 1) In the original: mawjūd.

[56] 2) In the original: azwad.

[56] 3) In the original: tamām.

[56] 4) In the original: mutawassiṭīn.

[57] 1) Fallen out in the original: wa-afḍal min al-ḥayawān.

[57] 2) Fallen out in the original: bi-amrayn.

[57] 3) In the original: qādirīn.

[58] 1) In the original: fa-arbaʻah.

[58] 2) In the original: al-samāʼīyah.

[58] 3) In the original: wa-al-mubhirāt.

[58] 4) In the original: fa-inna.

[58] 5) Fallen out in the original: allatī.