The gloss on the exordium of al-Zawrāʼ

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Thy help, O Generous One! One of my companions wrote me a letter in which he complained of the denial that had arisen among people against the wording of al-Zawrāʼ in its exordium, where it is said: 'and blessing upon the rank that comprehends all His attributes.' So I said in reply to him: You have asked — may God strengthen you with a spirit from Him and with fair success, and raise you from the lowland of mere conformity (taqlīd) to the high grounds of verification (taḥqīq) — about what occurs in the exordium of al-Zawrāʼ, namely his words, 'and blessing from Him upon the rank that comprehends all His attributes'; and you mentioned that in some copies it occurs as 'upon His rank that comprehends'; and that you were angered by the objection that certain men of mere fancy have voiced in this matter and by the way they have expressed themselves against him; and you requested that I set out for you what repels what they have advanced of it. I have undertaken to grant your request after prefacing a preliminary, namely, that this manner of discourse transcends the apprehensions of the faculty of fancy — indeed the ascending ranges of most intellects and understandings — let alone the minds of any Tom, Dick or Harry among the common folk. One ought not, then, to care whether such people accept or deny, nor is it seemly to be troubled by their persistence in rejection and their obstinacy; rather the right course is that no heed be paid them, whether they dissent or agree, and that one not stand in awe of them even if they are in might and schism. And in the admonition with which the epistle was sealed there is sufficiency in this regard, where it was said: 'and let not your breast be straitened by one who denies your worth; and be as Aflāṭūn said: let another's ignorance of you do no harm to your knowledge of yourself.' And one of my friends spoke truly when he reproached me: 'You have enjoined what you have not yourself acted upon, for you were emphatic in commanding that it be guarded from those unfit for it, and then you did not keep this injunction yourself but let it fall into the place of negligence and shortfall, until it came into the hands of a band who have no share of it but denial.' But my excuse in this is that access to the secrets of hearts is granted to none but the Knower of all hidden things; and enough for you in this is what the divine revelation declared concerning the states of the hypocrites, who concealed their affair from the lord of those sustained by holy souls — upon him the most excellent blessing and the most perfect salutation — until God, exalted be He, unveiled to His Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, their defect, and made known to him what would remove their obduracy from him and from his companions. Then I return to what was intended and say: it is among the evident matters that every existent among the contingents indicates the existence of its Maker by a rational and decisive indication, and so, in this respect, it is a locus of manifestation (maẓhar) for Him. That indication has been expressed in the glorious Qurʼān as glorification (tasbīḥ) and praise (ḥamd), where He, mighty and exalted, said: 'and there is no thing but glorifies Him with praise, yet you do not understand their glorification.' And since the spirit of speech, the very thing intended by it, is the giving of information, He, glorified and exalted, expressed this indication as speech in His words, exalted be He: 'God, who gave speech to every thing, has given us speech,' and the rest of the verse. And it may befall illumined souls that this indication be represented to them in outward speech, so that they hear it face to face, as has come down in the ḥadīth concerning the Prophet's companions — God bless him and grant him peace — hearing the glorification of the pebbles in his holy palm, by reason of the niche (mishkāh) of their perceptions being lit by the lights of his companionship, God bless him and grant him peace. And one of the imāms of unveiling (kashf) and verification went to the utmost when he said: the breach of the customary order lies only in the hearing of that glorification, not in the glorification itself, for that occurs perpetually. And whoever has mastered the principle alluded to in that epistle, concerning the relation of forms to meanings, needs no further establishing of this point. Then, among the verifiers there is he who holds that every mote of the motes of existence is a locus of manifestation for some of the divine attributes of perfection — namely, that attribute whose determinations (aḥkām) predominate over it — even though they all share in being loci of manifestation for those attributes upon which the bringing-into-existence depends, and in indicating them, such as knowledge, power and will; but what predominates in each configuration (nashʼah) of the configurations is the determination of one particular attribute: thus the immaterial beings are loci of manifestation for the attributes of transcendence (tanzīh), and bodies are loci of manifestation for the attributes opposed to these. Indeed, every single individual among the existents falls under the nurture of a particular one of the names of God, exalted be He, which is its own and in which no other existent shares with it. Then the human configuration is the locus of manifestation of all the names and attributes, since there is gathered in it every one of the realities — the immaterial and the material, the subtle and the dense, and the rest of the particulars treated by those who trace out the signs of the horizons and of the souls. So he is a model of all the worlds, and for this reason he has been called the small world (al-ʻālam al-ṣaghīr). To this meaning alluded the one who said (verse):

In seeking the cup of Jam I traversed the world — not a day did I sit down, not a night did I sleep. When from the master I heard the description of the cup of Jam — I myself was Jam's world-displaying cup.

And man is sometimes called the great world (al-ʻālam al-kabīr), in view of the breadth of his cognitive encompassment — so much so that Abū Yazīd, may God be pleased with him, said: 'If the Throne and all it contains, a thousand times over, were in a corner of the gnostic's heart, it would not fill it' — or however he put it. If you say: is not man a part of the world? How then can he exceed the whole? I answer: the people of this taste (dhawq) make him, in respect of external existence and of the parts and states he comprises according to that existence, a part of the world, so that the small world is the external existents and the great world is man together with all that he comprises of external and mental existents; he thus exceeds the world by the mental existents. If you say: the great world too comprises mental existents, since the intellects and the celestial souls are rational, as is well known among the philosophers — I answer: as for the intellects, they have no sensation whatsoever; and as for the celestial souls, they have no sensation through the outward senses, according to those who affirm them and their immateriality, that is, the philosophers. Moreover, the people of this taste hold that the immaterial beings know Him, exalted be He, by the attributes of transcendence only; and the celestial souls, granting them and granting their immateriality, know Him, exalted be He, only by the attributes of transcendence and by what their configuration confers of subtlety and of perpetuity in a single mode — unlike the perfect man (al-insān al-kāmil), who, inasmuch as he is the sum of the world entire, knows Him, exalted be He, by all that is conferred by all the configurations realized in him, as has been said (verse):

Neither vouchsafed to the sphere, nor attained by the angel — that which lies in the secret of the black core of the heart of the sons of Adam, and is from Him.

And among them is he who holds that every existent is a locus of manifestation for all His attributes, exalted be He, inasmuch as it indicates them — as was alluded to by that one of the verifiers who said, 'the all is in the all,' and by the one who said (verse):

In seeking the cup of Jam, out of shortness of vision — at every instant, as though it were I, you carry nothing off by way of verification. Go, come by an eye: for every straitened mote is a world-displaying cup, if you would but look within.

Except that the degrees of manifestation differ according to the clarity of the indication or its obscurity, its summariness or its detail. And what is manifest and evident in every degree save man is only some of the names and attributes, while some of them are hidden, their determinations not appearing. They sometimes express this as latency (kumūn) and emergence (burūz), meaning by it that all the names and attributes are folded, with a kind of manifestation, into every existent, but that in it some of them are manifest as to their determinations and traces and some are hidden as to their determinations and traces, these being veiled — except the human reality, for in it all the names and attributes are manifest in their traces and determinations, with a plain manifestation than which they have no stronger manifestation in the degrees of anything else. So he is an abridged book, selected out of all the parts of the world, which leaves neither small nor great without numbering it; and his relation to all the worlds is the relation of the Qurʼān to the heavenly books, since, for all its concision, it has contained all that is in the heavenly books entire — indeed all the realities and their determinations — as He indicated, exalted be He, in His words: 'nor is there anything moist or dry but it is in a clear book,' if the clear book be taken to be the Qurʼān, as some of the exegetes have interpreted it. And these are matters established among the folk and settled with them. And since the reality of praise is the manifesting of the attributes of perfection, it has become clear that every existent stands in the place of a speech issuing from Him, exalted be He, indicating His attributes of perfection, and so is a praise of Him, exalted be He, issuing from Him. Thus the bringing of every existent into being is praise in the verbal-noun sense (al-maʻná al-maṣdarī), standing in the place of the uttering of a speech that indicates the beautiful; and the existent itself is praise in the sense of what is produced by the verbal noun (al-maʻná al-ḥāṣil bi-al-maṣdar), standing in the place of the speech that indicates it. And just as the speech itself is called praise in the sense of what is produced by the verbal noun, so too is that existent itself called praise in that sense. And since the perfect man is, in this excellence, of a higher degree than all the existents, he is a degree among the degrees of praise, manifesting His being qualified, exalted be He, by all the attributes of perfection, with a manifesting so complete that none more complete can be conceived; for by the tongue of his state, of his inward condition and of his utterance he indicates His being qualified, exalted be He, by all the attributes of perfection, and he speaks it with all those tongues. So he is the furthest of the degrees of praise by which God, exalted be He, has praised His own holy essence; and this degree is the sealing Muḥammadan degree (al-martabah al-khatmīyah al-Muḥammadīyah). For this reason he was singled out, God bless him and grant him peace, with the banner of praise, and was named al-Ḥammād and al-Aḥmad and by other derivatives of praise in the pattern of the active or the passive participle. In this there is a subtlety which the gnostic knows; and at this point the doubt of the deficient is repelled. As for the copy in which the pronoun is not present, no further establishing is needed; and as for the other copy, it is because the pronoun refers back to praise, so that the meaning is then: blessing from Him, exalted be He, upon a degree among the degrees of praise, which is the degree that comprehends all His attributes, exalted be He — that is, upon a praise which is the praising of God by all the attributes of perfection. And in it there is an intimation that the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, is the very praise that comprehends the indication of all His attributes, exalted be He, as its establishing has passed above; and there is nothing in it to say that he, God bless him and grant him peace, is qualified by all His attributes, exalted be He. And the application of praise itself to him is in the sense of what is produced by the verbal noun, as has passed, or by way of hyperbole, as in 'a man [who is] justice' — as is intimated by his being named, God bless him and grant him peace, al-Ḥammād, as was just mentioned. Its meaning has thus emerged, praise be to God, exalted be He, in a fashion that the palates of the masters of verification find sweet and that goes down easily in the throats of sucklings who have not been weaned from suckling the milk of conformity out of the successive drippings of the udders of their forebears. In this we have descended to their apprehensions, giving them a taste of the ripened fruit of the realities and conveying it into their bellies. But as for the victorious ones who have attained the ranks of true men among the people of perfection, who have been nourished on lordly provisions and spiritual foods, they have no need of this. If you say: what you have mentioned holds only for the copy in which the pronoun is found, so that it refers back to praise, and what is meant by its comprehending the attributes of perfection is that it is a praise that gathers up the describing of Him, exalted be He, by all the attributes of perfection; whereas in the copy in which the pronoun is not present this construal does not run, since there is nothing in the wording to indicate that that degree is one of the degrees of praise, such that what would be meant by its comprehending the attributes of perfection is its indicating them — I answer: it is possible to take the lām as standing in place of the genitive annexation, so that the sense of the phrase returns to the meaning detailed above; and, leaving that aside, this meaning can be intended by it, in that there be meant by it a degree among the degrees of the existents comprehending all the divine attributes in respect of indicating them. For if you say, 'this book comprehends all of Zayd's attributes,' nothing comes to mind from it but its indicating them. And even if in this instance there were no such immediately apparent sense, neither would the contrary of it come immediately to mind, so it can be borne upon some other sense without any objection or denial. So much for that. And it is among the principles established with the imāms of unveiling and verification that, just as the attributes have determinations in the essences — as with knowledge, for by it the essence becomes knowing, and power, by which it becomes powerful, and so forth — so too the essences have determinations in the attributes: for knowledge, by its being related to the eternal essence, becomes eternal and essential, and by its attribution to the temporally originated becomes originated and acquired from another. Measure absolute necessity by the same rule, for in itself it is one single meaning, which in relation to the unitary essence becomes a necessity in itself, and in relation to what is other than it becomes a necessity through another. And there is no doubt that when it is said that Zayd is qualified by ʻAmr's attributes, what is meant thereby is not his being qualified by those attributes together with the determinations which those attributes acquire from ʻAmr's essence — such as their individuation by reason of their subsisting in him, and the other determinations consequent upon that reality's subsisting in ʻAmr — but rather what is meant is his being qualified by that reality as such. And at this point another construal appears, to whoever is granted it: that his being qualified, God's blessing and peace be upon him, by all His attributes does not entail his being qualified by them together with the determinations that attach to them from their being related to His essence, exalted be He; rather the meaning understood from it, according to the verification that has passed, is his being qualified and realized by those attributes as such, leaving aside the determinations that arise from the particularity of His essence, exalted be He — on the analogy of what has passed concerning Zayd's being qualified by ʻAmr's attributes. And what has come down in the ḥadīth, his saying, God bless him and grant him peace, 'God created Adam upon His form' — where what is meant by 'form' is the form that reduces to attribute, as one says 'the form of the question is such-and-such,' according to what the Imām, the Proof of Islam (Ḥujjat al-Islām), and other eminent imāms have verified — is built solely upon what we have indicated, namely the stripping of the attributes of the particularities that arise from their being related to the holy essence, exalted be He, as is not hidden from anyone possessed of the least acuteness. And you, if you reflect, will find that when the realities of the divine attributes are stripped of the particularities that arise from their attribution to the essence — such as eternity and perfection, which arise from their being related to the holy essence, exalted be He — then it is sound to qualify the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, by them: as with knowledge when it is stripped of the essentiality, the perfection and the all-inclusiveness necessary to His essence, exalted be He, and power when it is stripped of the essentiality, the perfection and the all-inclusiveness necessary to His essence, exalted be He; and measure the rest by these two. And what cannot be predicated is the attributes in respect of the determinations consequent upon the essence. And the prohibition that has come down against applying such a term to any other than Him, exalted be He, goes back only to the wording, because it suggests the establishment of the determinations consequent upon the essence. And let this be the last of the discourse upon this aim, for the wakeful and discerning man profits by this much, while the contentious man is only increased in arrogance and obduracy by this manner of discourse, as God, exalted be He, said: 'and were they to see every sign they would not believe in it, so that when they come to you disputing with you, those who disbelieve say: this is nothing but the fables of the ancients.' And Buqrāṭ spoke truly when he said in the Aphorisms: 'the body that is not clean — the more you feed it, the more harm you do it.' And the discourse in the epistle proper is with the first party, so it would have been more fitting not to turn toward any other than them; but since granting your proposal was a debt in the religion of manliness (murūʼah) and an obligation in the law of chivalry (futūwah), I have ventured upon these words. And may God make them a mark for the profit of sincere seekers, and preserve us from the vile traits of the hypocritical rabble, and bring us and our brethren to the point where the film is lifted from the eye, where in our sight truth is not adulterated with falsehood, where the interval is raised from between, and where the 'how' and the 'where' are repelled. And blessing and peace be upon him who drew near and then drew nearer, until he passed beyond the measure of two bows' length, and upon his companions, purified of every blemish, who have won the felicity of the two configurations and the lordship of the two abodes.

Finished.