Al-Zawrāʼ, with the glosses upon it, on ascertaining the Origin and the Return

Praise (al-ḥamd) belongs, in respect of its own essence, to Him who is its patron by His own essence; and blessing from Him upon the rank that gathers all His attributes.

…in which they used to blow from the gate of the city of knowledge, and from the ark of bounty that came to rest upon the Jūdī of judgement and forbearance — upon the Prophet, and upon him be blessing and peace, greeting and honour. I have named it al-Zawrāʼ, which is a name of the Tigris (al-Dijlah), and the aptness is plain, together with the hint it carries that this effusion (fayḍ) comes of visiting the holy shrines and the companionable stations. And God, exalted be He, is the bestower of the things unseen, the opener of hearts.

(His words, ‘Praise belongs, in respect of its own essence, to Him who is its patron by His own essence’): the first pronoun refers back to praise, and so does the second, while the pronoun in ‘by His own essence’ refers to the patron. That is: praise belongs, in respect of its own essence, to Him who is its patron by His own essence, namely God, exalted be He. He means that praise does not require, for its reverting to Him, that any praiser direct it to Him; for the reality of praise is the manifesting of the attributes of perfection, and every perfection belongs to Him, so every praise belongs to Him, whether it be directed to Him or to another. Indeed, He is the praiser and the praised, for it is He who manifests the perfections of His own self, even if He manifests them upon the tongue of another, or in that other’s acts, or in its states.

(His words, ‘and blessing from Him upon the rank that gathers all His attributes’): blessing from God, exalted be He, is mercy, and mercy is the bestowal of good and of perfection; and existence (wujūd) is the wellspring of every good and perfection, while the remaining perfections are branches upon it. The utmost of perfection is self-disclosure (tajallī) through all the attributes and names of God, exalted be He. And that which receives the existential effusion, and the perfections that branch upon it — first in respect of its luminous reality, and last in respect of its formal, manifest genesis — is the Muḥammadan Reality (al-ḥaqīqah al-Muḥammadīyah), which gathers all the divine attributes. So every mercy belongs to it essentially, and to what is other than it by way of dependence and accident. Blessing from God, exalted be He, therefore belongs to it by His own essence, whether anyone has called it down for him or has not — and so the correspondence is evident.

To proceed: this is a morsel of the realities (ḥaqāʼiq), rather the cream of the subtleties (daqāʼiq), reporting likenesses built upon admonitions that rouse those asleep upon the bedding of heedlessness in the darkness of the night of veils and ignorances. For the morning has broken and the herald of the Real has called, ‘Come to salvation!’ — nay, the sun of Reality is on the point of rising from its place of setting.

between the two paired clauses

(His words, ‘this is a morsel of the realities, rather the cream of the subtleties’): one says, ‘a morsel of rain fell upon the land,’ that is, a slight amount of it. A reality is the thing firmly established and rooted in existence, and in technical usage it is restricted to the inmost essence of a thing verified. A subtlety is the fine secret upon which not everyone lights. So the rank of the subtleties is more exalted and higher than the rank of the realities, and for that reason he turned away from the one with the word ‘rather’ (bal), which conveys ascent.

(His words, ‘the bedding’): awṭiʼah is the plural of waṭāʼ, which is what one sleeps upon — a quilt and the like.

(His words, ‘in the darkness of the night of veils and ignorances’): the use of the singular for ‘darkness’ and ‘night’ alongside the plural for ‘veils’ and ‘ignorances’ is an allusion to his saying, upon him be peace, «Unbelief, all of it, is a single creed», pointing to the equality of their footing in failing to reach the goal.

(His words, ‘for the morning has broken’): that is, the Real has become manifest.

(His words, ‘nay, it is on the point’, etc.): for Reality is concealed from the gaze of the veiled only by the formal customs; and at the end of time the preparednesses (istiʻdādāt) rise so far that those very forms become the means for the disclosure of the realities. This, together with the fact that the lights of the realities were spread abroad upon the horizons of the souls of those made ready from the black land of the West (al-Maghrib), and especially from the presence of the verifying shaykh, the unique one, the exacting imām, the divinely aided, the very eye of the notables among the witnesses, the man who is the pupil of the eye of existence, Muḥyī al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Andalusī al-Ṭāʼī, may God be pleased with him and give him His good pleasure. This being so: do not suppose that we reject the outward sense — while the parables that come upon the tongues of the prophecies fall out in their proper application, and they are upon a new pattern and a sound fashion, with reflection upon them bearing witness to that. Eternal Mercy has brought them forth in answer to a supplication issuing from the tongue of a preparedness. And God is the guide to the path of rectitude; truly your Lord is ever on the watch.

Groundwork

The cause of a thing, in reality, is what is the ground of that thing’s very self; for what is a cause of its manifestation, say, is not in reality a cause of it, but of one of its descriptions — and this is plain.

…nor that we confine the intent of the indications of the Book and the Sunnah to allegorical interpretation (taʼwīl). Rather, we affirm the outward sense according to what God, exalted be He, and His Messenger intended, and we elicit from it, by way of symbol, other realities that are inward.

(His words, ‘and the parables that come upon the tongues of the prophecies fall out’): the prophets, all of them — and especially our master the Seal, upon him and upon them be blessing and peace — pointed to the peculiarities of the end of time and its marvels. The Hour has drawn near with its wonders, and we have witnessed some of the wonders promised in this age of ours; and among those wonders are the realities set forth in this treatise, and their subtleties.

(His words, ‘in answer to a supplication’, etc.): the Real, glorified and exalted, does not withhold the effusion from His servant who is receptive; so a supplication issuing from the tongue of preparedness is assuredly answered. The indefiniteness of ‘a preparedness’ is either for magnification — a hint that the preparedness which called them forth is a mighty preparedness — or for indeterminacy, since it may be that what sought them was a hidden preparedness, other than what appears in its possessor among those who outwardly seek and request them.

(His words, ‘and God is the guide’): the fittingness of the closing to the openings is plain, for their being brought forth is only for the sake of guidance.

(His words, ‘ever on the watch’): that is, standing upon the straight path, so as to guide to them.

(His words, ‘Groundwork’): this serves as an introduction to the discussions. And that the quiddities (māhiyyāt) are not made — in the sense that a human being’s being a human being, for instance, stands in no need of an agent — does not conflict with what we have said; for by it we mean that they are, in their very selves, the effect of the agent, and that thereafter they stand in no need of any further act of influence for their being what they are. And the denial of a subsequent need does not conflict with a prior need, so ponder this well.

Reminder and discernment

…that are to come; and for this reason he headed it ‘Groundwork’.

(His words, ‘and that the quiddities are not made’): it has become widely held among the schools that the quiddities are not made, so he anticipated the objection that what he has said runs counter to what is established among the philosophers, nay among rational men altogether. He answered it by saying that the non-madeness of quiddity, in the sense that it is not in its very self the effect of the agent, is to be refused — and how not, when whatever is supposed to be the effect of an agent is necessarily one quiddity among the quiddities, so that the matter must terminate in that in which the act of influence falls upon the essence itself? But in the sense that a human being’s being a human being, for instance, needs no maker, it is plain and self-evident, and does not conflict with what we have said; for what was stated just above is that the quiddities are, in their very selves, the effect of the agent — that is, the agent draws in its wake the essence of the effect, and thereafter the intellect abstracts existence from the effect and describes it thereby, as is the view of the Illuminationists (al-ishrāqīyūn), and not that the agent makes it qualified by a meaning that is existence, as is the doctrine of the Peripatetics (al-mashshāʼīyūn). So when the essence of the effect has issued from the cause, it needs no maker to make that essence be itself; hence, after its issuing from the cause, it has no need of a maker to make it be it. And that does not entail the absence of need in its own essence for the maker in the sense we have verified — rather, it establishes that need. This is a summary statement, and its detail is to be sought in our glosses upon the philosophical books.

(His words, ‘Reminder and discernment’): he marked this discussion as a ‘reminder’ because it is already settled in the conventional philosophy (al-ḥikmah al-rasmīyah). Has it not become clear, from what has struck your ear in the conventional philosophy — that the coming-to-be of a thing out of nothing is impossible — that the case in essential coming-to-be is likewise? How easy it is to intuit that! Accordingly the effect is not distinct from the essence of the cause, nor is it for its own sake; rather it is, in its very self, for the essence of the cause: a mode among its modes, a face among its faces, an aspect among its aspects, and whatever other fitting considerations there may be.

Instruction

The effect, then, is nothing but purely conceptual: if it is considered in respect of its relation to the cause, and in the manner in which it is related to it, it has a realization; but if it is considered as an independent essence, it is nonexistent — nay, impossible.

A likeness

Blackness, if it is considered in the manner in which it is in the body — I mean, as a configuration belonging to the body — is existent; and if it is considered as an independent essence, it is nonexistent. The garment, if it is considered as a form in the cotton, is existent; and if it is considered as distinct from the cotton, an essence in its own right, it is impossible from that standpoint. Take this, then, as a measure for all the realities, and you will know the meaning of the saying of him who said that the fixed entities (al-aʻyān al-thābitah) have never caught the scent of existence, and that they have not become manifest and never will — only their outline becomes manifest.

is recalled here so that it may be of help in the discussions ordered upon it.

(His words, ‘Instruction’, etc.): since it contains the imparting of what has not been made clear in the sciences in circulation, he marked it ‘Instruction’.

(His words, ‘you will know the meaning of the saying of him who said’, etc.): he means that the realities, all of them, when they are considered as independent essences distinct from the essence of the cause — as they are in the apprehensions of the veiled — are impossible, whether in existence or in manifestation. As for the first, it is because what is other than the Real, the Necessary through His own essence, cannot

Admonition

Since the terminus of the chain of causality is one, and all is its effect, whether at the outset or by mediation, it is the real essence, and all are its modes, its aspects and its faces, and whatever other fitting expressions there may be. So there are not in existence multiple essences, but a single essence possessing multiple attributes, as God, exalted be He, has said: «He is God, than whom there is no god but He, the King, the All-Holy, the Peace, the Faithful, the Guardian, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Magnificent».

be existent. As for the second, it is because manifestation arises only from their linkage with the Real Existence, whereas under this consideration they were taken as other than It in essence, so their linkage with It cannot be conceived. But when they are taken in respect of their being dependent upon It and subsisting through It, then they are existent in the sense of their linkage with existence — that is, manifest. So the fixed entities, by which I mean those realities in their own selves which the estimative faculty posits, are not existent at all. For example, the human being: his fixed entity is the quiddity that is other than the Real and qualified by the specific attributes, and it is not existent at all — not in reality, since that is impossible, nor in the sense of its linkage with existence, since from that standpoint it has no linkage whatever with the Real Existence. Rather, it is the Real that takes on its tincture, in the sense that its outline appears in Him, so that the description stripped of essence becomes existent in the sense that it is attached to existence. For the existent, in the view of the verifiers, is that whose reality is existence, and what is other than it does not become existent by way of being so qualified, since existence is not a description subsisting in another but a real essence. Yes: what is other than it does become existent in the sense of its attachment to existence and its manifestation through it. So understand this in summary, and it will guide you to the detail; and He verifies the truth and guides upon the way.

(His words, ‘Admonition’): the ground of the heading is plain, for

Another reminder

It is as though you have already perceived, in what I called attention to in the theoretical discussions — that the utter annihilation of a thing is impossible — that every contingent, since nonexistence is permissible for it in its own right, cannot have that which is in truth the essence within it be annulled; for everything for which passing away is permissible must have a stock of essence that abides, and this terminates in that to which the permissibility of nonexistence has no access at all, else it too would have another stock, and there would be an infinite regress. Therefore «everything is perishing save His face», and the Necessary is one; so all the contingents are unified in that abiding stock: «all that is upon it passes away, and there abides the face of your Lord, the Possessor of majesty and honour».

Admonition

So the passing away of the effect is, in reality, the manifestation of the cause in another mode, and its self-disclosure under a relational aspect.

what is mentioned in it is known, from what has gone before, with a potency close to actuality.

(His words, ‘Another reminder’): the ground of the heading is plain, in view of the fact that the root of this discussion — I mean the impossibility of a thing’s being utterly annihilated — is among the discussions set down in the philosophical books. So what would have been expected, on the pattern of the preceding discussion, was that this root be laid down in this text as a ‘reminder’, and then be followed by the impossibility of the annihilation of the contingents entire, whether material or immaterial, in view of what is in truth their essence, headed as an ‘instruction’. But since it lay near at hand as to its source — for the preceding discussion prepares it and brings it near, readying it fully and making it wholly proximate — he paid no heed to that, and made them a single discussion, heading it ‘reminder’ by way of predominance, as an indication of its utmost nearness to the understandings, such that it is on a par with a thing stored away and forgotten, which needs only to be recalled.

(His words, ‘Admonition’): the ground of the heading is that it is among what is known from the foregoing with a proximate potency.

(His words, ‘the manifestation of the cause in another mode’): the predicating of manifestation upon passing away, in view of the plain mutual entailment between the two, is other than the first aspect. It is, then, the cause’s parting from its own considerations and its passage through the modes of its essence.

Removal of a delusion, illumination of an understanding

The relation of the First to the seconds is the mother of all relations: nothing among the relations resembles it as resemblance deserves, and nothing among them is wholly distinct from it. So everything that has been said, or that will be said, in bringing that relation near to the understandings is a putting-far in one respect and a bringing-near in another — I mean that if it is taken as conforming to the reality of the matter it is a putting-far, and if it is regarded in the respect in which it is apt, it is a bringing-near. So do not suppose that He, exalted be He, is the matter of the contingents, or their substrate, or any of the other considerations that the expressions insinuate.

— So not all that the eyes of the gazelles have hoped for is slaked — (verse)

And though a shirt be stitched from the weave of nine — and twenty letters, it falls short of his meanings

Spreading a bedding

by way of hyperbole in that mutual entailment, as when it is said that the nonexistence of nonexistence is existence, and that the passing away of the corrupted form is the obtaining of the form that comes to be, and other such parallels. (His words, ‘the cause’s parting from its own considerations’): that is, the passing away of the effect refers in reality to the cause’s parting from its considerations and to its passage through the modes of its essence; and the plural of ‘considerations’ and ‘modes’ alongside the singular of ‘the passing away of the effect’ is in view of the singularity of the effect’s passing away — so understand. (His words, ‘Removal of a delusion’): from what has gone before. (His words, ‘illumination of an understanding’): in what follows; his words ‘so everything that has been said, or that will be said’ are an indication of that. This flash is exceedingly useful for understanding those lofty matters rightly, so commit it to memory and hold fast to it. (His words, ‘Spreading a bedding’): if you consider the temporal extension — which is the forge of change and alteration and the throne of the cosmic events — together with the events that accompany it, all as a single whole, you will find it a mode among the modes of the First Cause, encompassing all the successive modes. Then, if you look closely, you will find that succession holds in view of the presence and the absence of the limits of that extension relative to the temporal things falling within its compass; whereas as for the ranks above it, there is no succession relative to them, but all are equal relative to them, aligned in

like a groundwork, an introduction to what follows upon it.

(His words, ‘you will find it a mode’, etc.): an indication that the events, one and all, are a single mode. For the sempiternal extension that is expressed as ‘time’, together with what is mapped upon it of the events, is on a par with a single continuous line in which there is no part in actuality; and the relation to it of the renewed times and the successive events is the relation to the line of the parts posited in it. The verification of this is that the celestial bodies have a single motion in individual number, namely the being-mean between the posited positions, from which there is traced in the imagination the sempiternal extension that is expressed, in the usage of the people of theory, as motion in the sense of traversal; and time is the measure of that imagined extension. And just as there is no part in time in actuality, so likewise there is no part in that extension in actuality either. Then this motion draws in its wake the motion of the elemental matters in their sensible and dispositional qualities, a single motion continuous on the pattern of the unity and continuity of the former; and just as there is no part in it in actuality, so likewise there is no part in this motion in actuality either. So the relation of the successive forms to the motion of those matters is the relation to it of the parts posited in the motions of the spheres and in time — nay, its relation is the relation to it of the successive colours and the successive quantities in qualitative and quantitative motion. So just as presence to it is, then I suppose you at the highest of the lofty peaks: with your Lord there is neither morning nor evening.

A likeness

If you take an extension whose parts differ in colour — a rod, say, or a thread whose colour differs across its parts — and then pass it in front of a mote, or something else whose pupil is too narrow to encompass that whole extension: are not those differing colours successive in their presence to it, because of the narrowness of its pupil, while they are equal in their presence to you, because of the strength of your encompassing? «So take heed, O you who have eyes!»

Lifting a cover

Perhaps, within the folds of this bedding, the cover has been lifted for you, and you have come upon precious secrets from over the beauty of whose realities the veil of summary statement has not until now been drawn back, and you have looked out upon the risings of lights that have not before this risen from their easts. Among them is the manner of the encompassing, by the knowledge of the First, exalted be He, of the past and the future and the present, in a manner that transcends and is hallowed

there is no actual existence for those colours and magnitudes in qualitative and quantitative motion, so likewise there is no actual existence for those forms either. And what appears at first glance as the continuance of some forms and their abiding for a time is on a par with what appears as the continuance of quality and quantity in the two motions mentioned; for neither of them continues or abides for a time, though the difference may not appear to sense because it is slight, so that it is imagined to be a single thing continuing for a time. So understand that, for it is more profitable than the pieces of a staff.

(His words, ‘at the highest of the lofty peaks’): and that is the Real, exalted be He.

(His words, ‘Lifting a cover’): the ground of the heading has no need of explaining.

(His words, ‘among them is the manner of the encompassing by the knowledge of the First’, etc.): …above alteration and transition; for it is among what has remained hidden from many of the people of disputation, so that they went astray in the wilderness of error and widened the circle of talk and prattle. And among them is the manner of the coming-to-be of the events and of their passing away.

Since it has become clear that the events have no succession relative to God, exalted be He, all the events are present to Him, exalted be He, without order or succession, without past or future. So He, exalted be He, knows each one of them at its own time, without any alteration whatever in that encompassing knowledge; and He knows their pastness, their futurity and their presentness relative to us as well, without their being qualified, relative to Him, exalted be He, by anything of pastness or futurity. And the foregoing likeness is the nearest representation for bringing this near to the understandings.

(His words, ‘for it is among what has remained hidden from many’, etc.): so much so that the theologians (al-mutakallimūn) said that the knowledge is eternal and the relation originated. It is not hidden that this issues in the denial of His knowledge, exalted be He, of the events in pre-eternity; for so long as knowledge is not related to a thing, its possessor is not qualified as knowing that thing save potentially — just as, when sight is not related to any of the visible things, its possessor is not qualified as actually seeing it, but only potentially. In sum: the disclosure of a determinate thing requires that knowledge be related to it, and the mere obtaining of the attribute of knowledge which they affirm, without any relation to it, does not suffice; otherwise one of us, in his state of obliviousness to things, would be knowing them — which is false. And it is for this reason that the philosophers denied His knowledge, exalted be He, of particulars in their particularity. All of this is because they did not light upon the plain truth of the matter.

(His words, ‘and among them is the manner of the coming-to-be of the events and of their passing away’): for their existence is their presence to us, and their passing away is their absence relative to us. And the manner of their presence and their absence relative to us is that what is pointed to by our saying ‘I’ is a determinate, imagined thing falling between the two extremes — and the escape from the difficulties that follow upon verifying the cause of their two states after the fashion of the people of theory, and from the burdensome contrivances they take upon themselves in that, in the manner that suits their temperaments and agrees with the echo of the words of their departed leaders that has struck their ears, whose grossness is not hidden from one whose palate has been cleansed of the bitterness of wrangling and whose insight has been kept safe from the film of contentiousness.

the extension elapsed and the extension to come, like the posited instant in time and the posited present motion in extensional motion. So I-ness too is among the events; and everything among its posited limits that coincides with a posited limit of our I-ness, which apprehends us, is present to us; and whatever is otherwise: if it was qualified before that by coincidence with another posited limit of I-ness, it is past; and if it is not yet so qualified but will be, it is future.

(His words, ‘and the escape from the difficulties’, etc.): he means that verifying the cause of the existence of the events is a vexed topic in the conventional philosophy. That is because the cause of their existence, if it be eternal, entails the eternity of the events, and if it be originated, entails circularity or an infinite regress. So they answered this by tracing the events back to causes that prepare them, infinite in number and impossible of assembly — namely the celestial positions realized by the sempiternal motion of the spheres, each of those positions being preceded by another without end. And they supposed that a regress in things that are not assembled together is admissible, since their units are not assembled, so that the intellect cannot carry out the correspondence between them which is the pivot of the demonstration that proves, in their view, the impossibility of a regress. But you are well aware of what is wrong in this, for their not being assembled in external reality does not prove the impossibility of an intellectual correspondence, which comes down to positing a match between them. Again, since the first of the things that issue from the Necessary, exalted be He, are the immaterial intellects, and these are eternal, how is the issuing of events from them to be conceived — or from the Necessary, exalted be He, by the mediation of those eternal things — and the linkage of those events with those eternal things in the chain of causality? So they tried to extricate themselves from this by saying that celestial positional motion has two sides. One of them is the respect of its own essence, namely the body’s being in a state such that it is correct to posit for it at every instant one of the positions other than the one posited at the preceding and the following instant; and this meaning is expressed as ‘the being-mean between the positions’, and under this consideration it is eternal, continuous from pre-eternity to post-eternity. The second is the respect of the relations that attach to it, and under this consideration it is originated, since necessarily the relation posited for it in respect of nearness to and distance from the posited terminus at each instant is other than the one posited for it at another instant. So motion is eternal in respect of essence and originated in respect of the accidents that attach to it; thus in respect of essence it is traced to the eternal, and in respect of the accidents the events are traced to it. It is not hidden that this statement yields nothing, for those accidents are either traced to the essence — and it was posited as eternal — or to their principles, and these too are eternal, or to something other than both, and that is ruled out. All this concerns the cause of the existence of the events. As for the cause of their passing away, there is a difficulty in it as well. For the chain of successive events that terminates in that particular event is the last part of the complete cause of the existence of that event, in their view, in the sense that all those events have a bearing upon the existence of that event, in view of their prior existence and their supervening nonexistence. So once that event exists, its passing away is not possible save by the passing away of its complete cause; and its complete cause is composed of the eternal principles and of those successive events in respect of their having been existent and then having become nonexistent. Now the passing away of the eternal principles is impossible, and likewise the passing away of those events under this respect is impossible, since they are qualified for ever by having become nonexistent after having been existent, and under this consideration they were what completed the complete cause; so their passing away under this consideration is impossible. Otherwise the passing away of the effect would follow while its complete cause remained as it was — and that is impossible. So they sought an escape from this by saying that that chain is a cause of the existence of the event on condition of the absence of a determinate event which is the preventer of the existence of that event. So when that preventing event exists, the complete cause passes away by the passing away of one of its parts — I mean the absence of the preventer, which is reckoned within it — for the existence of the preventer entails the passing away of its absence. And if it be objected against this that it would follow that that event returns at the passing away of that preventing event, on the supposition that the latter admits of passing away, since the complete cause with all its parts would then be realized — they have it open to them to repel that by saying that it is the nonexistence of the preventer prior to its existence that is a part of the cause of the originated thing, and not its nonexistence preceded by its existence; so its passing away after its existence does not come to complete the complete cause. Or they may say that the event’s being qualified by nonexistence after having been qualified by existence entails the impossibility of its being qualified by existence a second time, on the basis of the impossibility of restoring what has been annihilated; and that the things mentioned are a complete cause of its existence on condition of the absence of its being qualified by nonexistence after existence — so that absence is the last part of the complete cause, and it is lacking at that point. Then there remains the fact that that preventing event requires, for its own passing away, another preventing event, and so on. So either that preventer endures, in which case there follows, at the passing away of every event, the coming-to-be of a perpetual event, which is not entailed in their view; or it passes away, in which case there is another event preventing it, and so on, so that it follows that there are chains of events without end, each unit of one of which is traced, in its passing away, to a unit of another chain — and that is ruled out. The way out of it is to say that the preventing event is itself one of the units of the chain of successive events, and not outside it. So when the chain of the celestial positions issues in a determinate event, such as the existence of a determinate form, those positions are the cause of the existence of that determinate form on condition of the non-existence of the position that requires the annulment of that form; then that very positional chain leads on to the existence of that position which prevents the existence of that form, so that that form is annulled at the existence of that position, and another form comes to be which that position requires. Then there remains upon this the case if the discussion be carried over to the passing away of that position: for if its passing away be on account of the coming-to-be of the following position — and it has been settled among them that the preceding position, by its existence and its passing away, is the cause of the coming-to-be of the following position — circularity follows. And if its passing away be on account of the passing away of the position preceding it, while the passing away of that one was the last part of the cause of its coming-to-be and concomitant with it, then it follows that the cause of the coming-to-be and the cause of the passing away are one and the same thing, since necessarily the whole of what was posited as the cause of the passing away — of the eternal principles and the successive positions and the passing away of the position preceding this position which was posited as the preventer — is itself the very cause of the coming-to-be. And if the passing away of that position be on account of the passing away of some other thing outside the chain of positions, or on account of the coming-to-be of some other such thing, it follows that there are chains of events without end, the units of each of which are traced, in their passing away, to the units of another in their existence or their passing away; and events without end are not ordered save by motions without end, so it follows that there are in existence bodies without end in motion — and that is false. From this there is no extricating oneself in any way free of awkwardness, for the utmost that can be said is that these positions are not existent in external reality but are posited, like the instants posited in time and the limits — and among them is the secret of abrogation (naskh).

posited in distance, as al-Fārābī expressly stated. And if those positions are not existent in external reality, they do not require a cause existent in external reality. It is not hidden what is wrong in this: for those positions, even if it be granted that they are not existent, are not purely posited, since necessarily the position concomitant with the present instant today is other than the position concomitant with the like of this instant yesterday. For the intellect points to this position and judges of it that it is concomitant with this instant and that it is not concomitant with that instant, a true judgement corresponding to the fact; and were it to judge the contrary of this, it would not correspond to the fact. Were they purely posited, neither of the two judgements would be worthier of being believed than the other. So grant that that thing is not existent in external reality: still, it has a kind of existence, if only by a potency so near that it did not belong to it at the preceding instant — so it must have a cause. Then, when this kind of existence passes away from it, it must have a cause as well; for a description that did not belong to a thing and was then established for it must have a cause, and then, when that description passes away from that thing, it too must necessarily have a cause — whether that description be existent in actuality or in potency or otherwise, in whatever sense it may be taken. And there is no escape from those difficulties and doubts save by what we have verified concerning the state of the cosmic events: that they revert to one continuous thing in which there is no alteration, but in which many things are posited that are variable according to the positing and mutable according to the relations obtaining between them, variable according to them in respect of coincidence and its absence; and those relations obtaining between them are the effect of that unitary thing all at once, as the discussion of it has been set out in detail in the text.

(His words, ‘and among them is the secret of abrogation’): that is, the wisdom and the end sought in it, namely the regard for the interests which — …and its reality, and that there is in it nothing that gives the illusion of a nullification or a defect.

are what the peculiarities of the times require, together with the preparednesses that accompany them.

(His words, ‘and its reality’): namely, the coincidence of certain of the limits posited in the continuous legislative determination with the limits posited in the continuous existentiating determination.

(His words, ‘and that there is in it nothing that gives the illusion of a nullification’, etc.): that is, a nullification within the divine determinations, such as flits through common imaginations — that the ruling of a thing’s prohibition contradicts the ruling of its permissibility, just as the ruling of its existence contradicts the ruling of its nonexistence.

(His words, ‘or a defect’): as some of the deluded have imagined, holding that the ruling of a thing’s permissibility and the ruling of its prohibition are mutually contradictory, so that ignorance would be entailed upon the ruler, first or last, since necessarily one of the two rulings is false. Close to this is what has been transmitted from one of the Successors (al-tābiʻūn), in his pursuing the path of verification, that he found a difficulty in the jurists’ ruling that wine is impure with an essential impurity, given that it was permitted in the earlier religions. That is a delusion far beneath such men as he; for the sense of essential impurity in the usage of the jurists, in the case of wine for example, does not conflict with its being restricted to a determinate time, since its sense is not that it is required by the essence of wine — how could it be, when the rulings of the Law are, all of them, posited? Rather its sense is that it is impure so long as its wine-reality abides, in the religion of our Prophet Muḥammad, upon whom be blessing and peace, and that the ruling of impurity does not part from it until it turns into vinegar, whereupon the wine-reality is annulled by the passing away of its specific form and the coming-to-be of the specific form of vinegar. So much for this; and more astonishing still is what some who came after him took upon themselves in order to get clear of this delusion, which they imagined to be a mighty difficulty, deserving that one roll up one’s sleeves in earnest and strive to repel it. He said that the Seal, upon whom be blessing and peace, was the one who stood upon the realities of things, and he it was whose prayer was answered when he said «O God, show us things as they are» — for the codificatory determination is aligned with the existentiating determination, and just as the succession there is only in the view of those imprisoned in the dungeon of time, who look out from the narrow slit of the present, so likewise is the case here: there is no change and no transition save in the view of one upon whom the past and the present and the future change.

Reminder

Is it not the case that the single reality appears to sight in the determinate form encompassed by material accidents, on condition of the presence of matter and the concomitance of a determinate position among

and for that reason there appeared to him what had remained hidden from the prophets before him, upon them be peace, namely its essential impurity. And this excuse is worse than the offence. You, by what we have laid out for you in detail, stand upon the plain truth of the matter, by the enabling of God, exalted be He; and He is the enabler of every good and perfection.

(His words, ‘for the codificatory determination’): that is, the legislative; he called it so because it is codified, men being charged with recording it.

(His words, ‘is aligned with the existentiating determination’): that is, it is aligned with the determination that brings into being. The first determination, in the view of the verifiers, arises from Speech, which is a real attribute arising from the unseen collision that takes place between Knowledge and Will; and the second arises from the utterance expressed as ‘Be’, as God, exalted be He, has said: «His command, when He wills a thing, is only to say to it ‘Be’, and it is». And the existentiating, utterative determination must be obeyed with an essential necessity, such that departing from it is impossible in the judgement of the intellect; while the codificatory determination of Speech must be obeyed with a posited, legal necessity, departure from it being impossible in law — in the sense that the Law forbids departure from it and rules that it is obligatory, just as the intellect forbids departure from the first and rules that it is impossible. So understand.

(His words, ‘Reminder’): the ground of its heading is plain. And from here he has begun to indicate the verification of the Return (al-maʻād), and the detail of alignment and nearness and the absence of a veil, and so forth — …and that same reality appears in the common sense (al-ḥiss al-mushtarak) in a form resembling it, without those conditions; and in both states it admits of multiplicity according to individuals, as with the form of Zayd and of ʻAmr and of Bakr. Then that reality appears in the intellect in such a way that it does not admit of multiplicity, and the individuals that are multiple in the seen and the imagined form become unified in the intelligible form. Then the intelligible forms differ in their admitting of multiplicity, for the forms of species, in respect of the specificity of their species-nature, are multiple, while in respect of the form of their genus they are one; and so on up to the genus of genera, in whose form all its species are unified, though it is distinguished from another genus opposed to it. And if you consider, among the concepts, one that comprehends all the realities and considerations, all are unified in its form — such as ‘thing’ and ‘the general contingent’.

Instruction

some of its states

(His words, ‘Instruction’): the ground of the heading is evident from what has gone before in its parallels. The upshot of this instruction is that the reality is other than all the forms in which it discloses itself upon the outward and inward senses, the bodily and the spiritual, other with an essential otherness — that is, otherness in respect of its own essence, save in respect of existence; for that reality, in its own right, is receptive of manifestation in differing forms of differing rulings, and all the forms in which it appears stand on an equal footing relative to it, none of them being worthier of it than another in its own right. Rather, it is only the rulings of the abodes and the senses that specify those very forms. So knowledge is a single reality that appears in the abode of waking in an accidental form, veiled from the outward sense, apprehended by the intellect as universal and by the estimative faculty as particular; and that same reality appears in the abode of dream-vision in a substantial form — I mean the form of milk. And it was — …so when you have recalled that, then intuit that the form, even if it be intelligible, is other than the reality; rather it is a set of garments upon it, differing with the difference of the senses and the apprehensions. Then that reality, for all its essential unity, may appear in multiple forms of differing ruling, such as the forms of individuals, and may appear in a single form, such as the intelligible form; so that two things differing in form in one abode may be unified in it in another abode, and the two forms may be exchanged in the two abodes — I mean that one of them appears in a particular form in one abode and the other in another form in that abode, and then they appear in another abode with the two forms reversed, so that this one appears in the form that belonged to the other and the other in the form that belonged to this — as with joy appearing in dream-vision in the form of weeping, and other such matters known by the practice of interpretation. So master that well, for it is a perception hard to attain.

just as what appears to the inward apprehensions in waking is the reality of knowledge, so likewise what appears to the senses in dream-vision is the reality of knowledge; save that it discloses itself in each abode in the very form that that abode has for it. Then the veiled man, immersed in the rulings of nature, who does not know the realities save by their forms because of his being habituated to the familiar natural customs, denies the reality when the form is changed, and does not recognize its turning about in its garments. But the knower, the perceptive one who has a strong soul, is not overcome by the rulings of the particularities of the abodes, nor does the ruling of one abode veil them from the rulings of the other abodes, and so he recognizes it in the rest of its garments. And since this point is subtle and runs counter to what is lodged in temperaments accustomed and engrossed in familiar customs — for all the majesty of its standing and its being a stairway to the disclosure of precious secrets — he commanded that it be mastered, and pointed to the eminence of its standing by saying

Admonition

It is as though, in what has struck your ear of these premises, you have looked out upon the reality of the mapping between the worlds — nay, upon the reality of the worlds themselves; nay, there have been disclosed to you recondite secrets in the reality of the Origin (al-mabdaʼ) and the Return; and the witnessing of the Really One within the multiplicities has been made easy for you, with no taint of admixture and no separation; and you have climbed by it to the realities of what the tongue of the prophecies has reported concerning the appearance of the character-traits and the deeds in the abodes of the Return in the forms of bodies, and the manner of the weighing of deeds, and the secret of the gathering of individuals in the forms of the character-traits that prevail over them; and you have looked out upon the secret of His saying, exalted be He: «and truly Hell encompasses

So master that well, for it is a perception hard to attain.

(His words, ‘Admonition’): he marked it so because it is known potentially from what has gone before.

(His words, ‘you have looked out upon the reality of the mapping between the worlds’): for they are, one and all, forms of a single reality, differing by reason of the divergence of the rulings of the abodes which the soul (nafs) inhabits in the stages of its ascent and the apprehensions of its descent, and of the apprehensions which those abodes require.

(His words, ‘nay, upon the reality of the worlds’): for they are forms that appear upon the soul in its abodes.

(His words, ‘nay, there have been disclosed to you recondite secrets of the reality of the Origin’): and of His manifestation, blessed and exalted, within the multiplicities; for that is realized and constituted by the soul and its ranks. And the reality of the Return consists in the appearance of the deeds and character-traits that appear in the worldly genesis under particular forms, and in the otherworldly genesis under other forms, such as the rulings of that genesis require, as has been set out in detail in the true Law.

(His words, ‘and you have looked out upon the secret of His saying’, etc.): for the verse in its outward sense indicates the encompassing of the unbelievers by Hell in the present time, and there is no need to turn it away from its outward sense, on the basis of the verification that went before; for — …«the unbelievers», and His saying, exalted be He: «truly those who devour the wealth of orphans wrongfully

the base character-traits and the false beliefs, which encompass them in this genesis, are themselves the very Hell that will appear in the promised forms upon them, as the Lawgiver warned them, upon him be blessing and peace — save that they do not recognize this, because it does not appear upon them in this genesis under those forms; and they, from the excess of their ignorance of the realities, do not know the realities save by their forms. But the soul that encompasses the realities and their turning about in the forms according to the abodes does know the truth of the matter. Indeed, that meaning may be reflected back into the mirror of its imagination, which is the niche of the lamps of the soul, so that it witnesses those very forms face to face, along with its witnessing of the sensible forms; for strong souls are not diverted by one concern from another, nor does one abode divert them from another, even if this state is not continuous for them but varies according to the peculiarities of the times and the states that follow upon them — as has come down in the ḥadīth that comprises his vision, God bless him and grant him peace, of the Garden and the Fire while he was at prayer facing the wall. And sometimes the witnessing of the forms of that abode diverts one of those who receive unveilings from the forms of this abode, the reverse of the state of the veiled — as I heard from my teacher, the learned and excellent Muḥyī al-Millah wa-al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī, may God, exalted be He, have mercy upon him, reporting from one of the trustworthy men he had met, that in one of the districts of Fārs there was a man among the friends of God, and one day a man of this world came in upon him while that friend of God was absorbed in his state; and when he looked at him he said to his servant, ‘Take this donkey out.’ For he saw nothing of him but the form of a donkey. Then, after he had come out of that state, the servant told him what had happened, and he said, ‘I said only what I saw, and I was not aware of what we are saying.’

(His words, ‘and His saying, exalted be He, «truly those who devour the wealth of orphans wrongfully devour only fire into their bellies»’, and the saying of the Opener and the Seal, upon him and upon his household be the most excellent blessing and greeting, «those who drink from vessels of gold and silver — it is only the fire of Hell that gurgles into their bellies», and his saying, upon him be blessing and peace, «the Garden is a level plain, and its planting is: Glory be to God and praise be to Him»): and other such recondite pieces of divine wisdom and divine secrets; and you have known that all of that is according to reality, not according to metaphor and allegorical interpretation, as the view of some of those who plunge into the search for the realities by the way of bare discursive inquiry has ended in holding — for that is a plain shortcoming, as is not hidden.

A doubt and its verification

Perhaps you will say: how can the accident itself be the substance, and how can a meaning be a body, when the realities are divergent in their very selves? So we say: we have already hinted to you that

«devour only fire into their bellies»): for its outward sense indicates that this state occurs in the present, and likewise the ḥadīth indicates that the gurgling occurs in the present. And jarjarah is either in the sense of pouring, in which case it is transitive, so that the agent of his words ‘gurgles’ is the pronoun referring back to ‘those who’, and ‘the fire of Hell’ is its object; or it is in the sense of motion, in which case it is intransitive and its agent is ‘the fire of Hell’.

(His words, ‘the Garden is a level plain’, etc.): for the ḥadīth indicates that this very utterance is its planting.

(His words, ‘and other such’): among them is the reality of his saying, upon him be peace, ‘This world is the sowing-field of the next’; for it is as though the seed were the matter of what grows from it — nay, it is that which itself appears, after its unfolding, in the form of the tree and its branches and its leaves and its fruits. So likewise the deeds and the character-traits acquired in this world are the matter of the Garden and the Fire, and they themselves appear in that abode in the forms of the two, and in the forms of the pleasures and the sufferings that appear within them. Then there is no difficulty in the doubt and its verification, and we have set out in detail — …that the reality is other than the form; for it, in its own right and in the sheer plainness of its simplicity, is bare of all the forms in which it discloses itself, yet it appears in one form at one time and in another at another, and the two forms are certainly divergent, while the reality that discloses itself in the two forms according to the difference of the two abodes is one and the same thing.

A likeness

How like this is to what the people of theoretical philosophy say: that the substances, in view of their existence in the mind, are accidents subsisting in it and needing it, whereas in external reality they subsist by themselves and have no need of anything else. So when you have believed that a reality appears in one abode in an accidental, dependent form and in another in an independent form, make that a familiarizing for yourself, by which you may break the force of your temperament’s recoiling from it at the outset of reflection — until certainty comes to you, and you ascend to the clear horizon, and see with the eye of direct vision what exposition is powerless to reach, and look out upon the reality of the saying of our master the Prophet, sent to complete the edifice of the tidings and their announcing, «Sleep is the brother of death», and the saying of the keeper of his secret and the gate of the city of his knowledge, upon him and upon him be the most excellent blessing and peace, «Men are asleep, and when they die they awake».

its content in the preceding gloss.

(His words, ‘and in another in an independent form’): he did not say ‘in a substantial form’, lest it be imagined that substantiality is peculiar to external existence, for that would run counter to what the people of this art have agreed upon in their usage. For they defined substance as the contingent which, when it exists among the entities, does not need a locus to subsist in — so it holds true of it, along with its existence in the mind and its dependence upon it, that it does not need the constituting locus in external existence. And they defined accident as the contingent that subsists by another. So the substance

Further disclosure

Have you considered how the single reality appeared upon the intellective faculty in a unitary, subtle, immaterial form, and then appeared upon the senses in divergent, dense, material forms? So it is as though it descended along with the soul from the sheerness of its immateriality and its unity to density and multiplicity; so that when the soul reaches the rank of the senses, it too reaches the utmost of multiplicity and manifestness, and when the soul ascends to the rank of immateriality, it too becomes one. The realities, then, go with the soul in ascent and descent; and therefore they are existent in the soul and not outside it, and they accompany it in its differing abodes and take on, in each of its abodes, the tincture of that abode’s rulings of unity and multiplicity, subtlety and density. And hence I say: the office of knowledge is to multiply the one and to unify the many.

that exists in the mind is substance and accident together, since the sense of the definition of the two holds true of it, while what exists in external reality is substance and not accident. So the likeness lies in this, that accidentality is established for the substances in view of their existence in the mind and is absent from them in external existence. And that was not the pith of the matter; rather, the mainstay is upon what sound taste (dhawq) attains. The purpose of it was to familiarize those made ready among the practitioners of that art, so that their temperament should not recoil from it on account of its discordance with what they have grown accustomed to. He said: so make that a familiarizing

(His words, ‘Further disclosure’): he marked it so because it is a detailing of what has gone before; and what is mentioned in this section is plain, with no obscurity in it.

(His words, ‘the office of knowledge is to multiply the one’): and that is in the detailed knowledge that is joined to what lies on the lower side of the rational soul, terminating in the outward senses.

(His words, ‘and to unify the many’): and that is in the real, summary knowledge that is constituted by what lies on the higher side of the soul, its perfection being in the witnessing apprehension expressed as the light of

An enigma

So the distinguishing which is the forge of multiplicity is only by the soul and in the soul. Hence, if you close your eyes to it and to what appears upon it in the apprehensions of its descent and the stages of its ascent, you will find nothing but a single entity, plain of all distinguishing and otherness — nay, you will not find what you find, since you have found. So put out the lamp, for the morning has broken.

Admonition

So the soul, as has become evident, is the matter of all the forms and the earth of all the realities: in it their roots are set fast and in it their branches have grown. It is therefore the comprehensive Book, and the Greatest Name, and the encompassing Throne which is the seat whereon the All-Merciful is established, requiring by the existentiating mercy the manifestation of all the contingents in their particulars. And by it and in it the Breath of the All-Merciful (al-nafas al-raḥmānī), one in its own right, becomes multiple. So the reality is one so long as it remains sheer intellect; but when it moves

sainthood (al-walāyah), which is a rank among the ranks of the soul’s purity beyond which there is no more, even if it has ranks that differ among themselves. Next to it in nobility is the rank of taste (dhawq), and this may be innate and may be acquired, as in an aptitude for poetry, for melodies, for eloquence and the like — save that the innate taste which is next to the rank of sainthood is exceedingly rare in occurrence, and even if it be found it is not wholly independent of being kept up, unlike the taste for poetry and melodies and what is near to them. (His words, ‘An enigma’): the ground of the heading is plain; and since it belongs to the right of an enigma that it be between disclosure and concealment, the situation did not license treating of it with further disclosure and detail. This is the heart of this flash and its root, the remaining parts of it being on a par with its branches and offshoots; and what precedes and what follows suffice for its verification for one who has a heart or who lends an ear and is a witness. (His words, ‘Admonition’): he marked it so because it is mentioned potentially — …descending, and appears in the soul, the soul numbers it by the essential preparedness it has for receiving the rulings of the descents, so that it becomes a number. And this is the meaning of the saying of the ancient pillars among the philosophers, ‘Number is a moving intellect.’ So know it, for the matter has been disclosed to you to the measure in which its disclosure is possible.

Completion

on the verification of the human breath. Then the soul, once the affair of manifestation was completed by its awareness, set up the affair of making aware by means of its airy breath, cut into the articulations of the letters. So just as the Breath of the All-Merciful appeared in it and by it in the forms of the multiple realities, its human breath too appeared through it in the forms of the various words. So it is as though they were an echo of the root of the realities, or a reflection of their forms, reflected from them by the intensity of its polish onto

(His words, ‘the soul numbers it by the preparedness it has’, etc.): an indication of what obtains between the two words ‘number’ (ʻadad) and ‘preparedness’ (istiʻdād) by way of a shared derivation, which is founded upon a sharing between their two meanings. And whoever traces the Arabic language, which gives expression to the inmost essence of the whole, finds in it subtleties that speak plainly of the roots of the realities — as one of the later men among the people of complete taste undertook to set out a portion of them in detail; may God reward him on behalf of the seekers of the Real with the reward that is His due.

(His words, ‘Completion’): on the verification of the human breath, and on the manner of the correspondence between it and the Breath of the All-Merciful. The ground of the heading is plain, for the original aim of this treatise is the verification of the Origin and the Return, and that has been attained by the foregoing sections; but the indication of some of the subtleties bearing upon speech completes this purpose, for it is the most proper of the properties of the soul, which is that to which all reverts.

(His words, ‘so it is as though they were an echo of the root of the realities’, etc.): he means that the words are as it were the echo of what corresponds to them in the air, because of the congeneity between it and the animal spirit which is its first seat. Then that echo reverts to nothing but the soul, and those reflections appear upon nothing but it. So the whole affair reverts to the soul; and when it reverts to God, the affair is complete: «behold, unto God all affairs come home».

Seal and counsel

There have been deposited in these sections roots such that, if you master them, the recondite and forbidding matters will come easy to you and the hidden realities will become clear before you. So guard them from those who are not their people, and be not niggardly with them towards those who are; for leaving off the first is error and the leading of others into error, and doing the second is wrong and a calamity. And take upon yourself to learn who is worthy by much testing, and beware of being deceived by outward traces; for this class of men is rarer than red sulphur — nay, it is scarcely to be found save among the fewest and the rarest. And know that what befalls you of deliberateness in conveying them to their people is lighter than what falls upon you in divulging them to others; for the first is a deferral and the second a forfeiture, and what is deferred may be made good, unlike what is forfeited. And you know that the age has come to be rife with

for those realities; so it is as though the realities, in view of their entitative forms, were unseen sounds and those words their echo — or as though those realities were original forms and the utterances their reflection, glinting upon the mirror of the air, by reason of the intensity of the soul’s polish, and by reason of polish calling for the appearance of what is in the polished surface, in the way of forms, upon what corresponds to it and is aligned with it. And the correspondence between the soul and the air is the congeneity of the animal spirit, which is the soul’s attachment at the outset; for the animal spirit is an airy substance, and this correspondence required the reflection of that echo onto it. And God knows best.

(His words, ‘for leaving off the first is error’): in respect of the squandering of those precious things and the setting of them before one who does not know their worth and is not able — …envy and obduracy, and ignorance and obstinacy have spread abroad in the lands. So be upon clear insight in your affair, resolute in your secret and your open conduct, and be certain that the broadcasting of the realities to those who are not their people is blameworthy in all the paths. The prophetic warnings have come one upon another to that effect, and the indications of the friends of God have reinforced one another in it. Do not let your breast be straitened by one who denies your worth; and be as Plato (Aflāṭūn) said: let another’s ignorance of you do you no harm, so long as you have knowledge of yourself. And hold yourself open to the breaths of God in the days of your time, for the moments have peculiarities that the knowers know. And when the scout of reflection has brought you to this hallowed pasture and companionable station, then say to your household among the perceiving faculties: «tarry here; truly I have perceived a fire, and perhaps I shall bring you a brand from it, or find at the fire a guidance», and «put off your two sandals; truly you are in the hallowed valley of Ṭuwā». And do not be deceived by the fantasy of the imaginings of the people of disputation, for it is a fabricated sorcery: «and cast down what is in your right hand, and it shall swallow up what they have wrought; truly what they have wrought is a sorcerer’s guile, and the sorcerer shall not prosper wherever he comes». And do not forget me in your times, and give me a share in your righteous supplications. And blessing and peace be upon the sanctified ones, and especially upon our master, the master of all in all, and upon his household and his companions altogether; and praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds.

to carry out the duty of preserving them and of acting according to what they require in state and in word and in deed. And it is the leading of others into error in respect of the fact that when the one to whom they are conveyed does not understand their realities, there is thrown into confusion for him what had been settled for him of the hidden summary truths that map onto the details which the common people are charged with, and which he had taken in sum from the sunnah of the true Law; and so he wanders bewildered in the chasms of perplexity and strays into a far error. It is for this reason that you see most of those who prate in our age about the divine sciences to have gone astray through keeping the company of their leaders and sitting in the sessions of their eminent men, as though they had gained from them nothing but foul beliefs and base character-traits and an excess of admiration for them and for the ordering of their livelihood that the turns of time have granted them. They can scarcely understand a saying and are able to do nothing. You see their most eminent, who have memorized from the books of the Sufis words of whose sources and watering-places they have no knowledge, transmitting them not as they should be but rather perverting the words from their proper places, and heaping up a heap of what they have not caught the scent of from those men’s books — and they suppose that they are doing well. Those are like cattle; nay, they are further astray. God preserve us and the rest of the Muslims from error and from stumbling, and grant us success in what concerns us of resolve and word and deed. To Him be praise, praise that keeps pace with the store of His blessings and matches the increase of His generosity; and blessing and peace be upon our master Muḥammad and his household and his companions and his followers and those who love him; and praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds.