Ascertaining the realities of things and the subtleties of the sciences and opinions

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

Praise be to God, who knew in pre-eternity (al-azal), by the very knowledge by which He knows His own essence, all of the things He holds hidden that have appeared and that will appear unto post-eternity (al-abad), just as they are in their attributes — a knowing that is universal as to their universals and particular as to their particulars. And how should it not be so, when He is present with all, since He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden; and the whole of it — nothing is hidden from Him of what lies in men's inmost thoughts. Further, His knowledge is not restricted by time or place, that any veil should veil it or any screen screen it: His knowledge of what lies in the past and in what is to come is like His present, instantaneous knowledge, decisive without wavering, one in its essence without multiplicity; neither the age nor the passing of ages alters it. And blessing upon the complete copy (al-nuskhah al-kāmilah) that stands surety for all the loci of manifestation, our master Muḥammad, the stored treasure of the ancients and the glory of the latter-day, God bless him and his family, the inheritors of his state and of his glorious station. Now then: know, O you who crane to gaze upon the reality of the profession of God's oneness (tawḥīd) — that which the plain text of the glorious Book conforms to and which the sound report accords with in a profitable answer, as God, exalted be He, said: (and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein) — that its verification in the way of confirmation is preceded by premises that may be called the preliminaries that pave the way. (The first) that the reality of every thing is the modality of its determination (kayfīyat taʻayyunihi) in the knowledge of the Real (al-Ḥaqq), glorified and exalted be He; and that the existence of every thing is the determination of the Real Existence in respect of the reality of that thing, which was one of His aspects (shaʼn). Thus the realities are the intellections of the things, as though the things were the determinations of those realities, or the determination of the Real in respect of those realities. (The second) that a thing's determination is its attribute; and so, since the existence of every thing was the determination of Existence, it was Its attribute. Thus the things, inasmuch as they are the determinations of the realities that are the Real's aspects, are the attributes of those realities; and inasmuch as they are the determination of the Real in respect of those realities, they are His attributes. So whether the things are the determinations of His aspects or the determinations of His existence, they are His names that indicate Him, and His attributes. And each of name and attribute is, on the plane of verification, identical with the named and the described in respect of existence and of witnessing, and other than them in respect of concept, of what is intelligible, and of the definitions.

(The third) that the unity of existence and of identity (huwīyah) together with difference of concept and of quiddity is that upon which the soundness of the matter turns — namely, that 'it is it' by extramental correspondence; and this is something upon which the people of reason and of transmitted tradition are agreed in their entirety.

(The fourth) that, since the Real Existence is one in identity, as we have said, while the existents differ, it is known that the multiplicities are only according to the determinations, which are His attribute and His name. Thus the forms, inasmuch as they are multiple and disparate, are the forms of the names and the relations that are expressed as the notional determinations (al-taʻayyunāt al-iʻtibārīyah) — not the forms of the Named, except in the respect that in existence the names are identical with the Named. So the multiple things, in respect of the relations, are the concepts, while the forms of those relations are one in respect of essence and reality. This is the real unity that holds for every quiddity in relation to its individuals, whether the one with a numerical unity or the many. For the relation of real unity to numerical unity and to its multiplicity is the same, inasmuch as each of the two is among its attributes and its accidents that attach to it according to its unitary relation to the multiple receptacles corresponding to it — as with a single seeing that bears upon ten visible objects.

(The fifth) Just as the individuals of every quiddity are the forms of its relations to its receptacles, while it is itself in all of them, so likewise are the forms of the determinations called existents in relation to the absolute quiddity that occupies them, called the Real Existence. So every existent is, in reality, Existence — the form of Its attribute, I mean of Its determination attaching to it according to its degree among the loci of manifestation.

(The sixth) that, of the aforementioned determinations of existence, if they are in a degree in which the attribution of existence to them yields nothing — in that it yields no existential multiplicity but only intellectual multiplicity — then that determination is sometimes called the thingness of fixity (shayʼīyat al-thubūt), and that degree is the presence (ḥaḍrah) of the meanings, the names and the realities, and is what the Imām al-Ghazzālī, God have mercy on him, called the world of omnipotence (ʻālam al-jabarūt). And if they are in a degree that yields the relative existential multiplicity called the thingness of existence (shayʼīyat al-wujūd), then: if they do not reach a limit at which a bodily faculty, of imagination or of sense, apprehends them, but rather only the intellect apprehends them through their traces — as with the seven bodily faculties deposited in the body — that degree is called the presence of the luminous and angelic spirits, of intellects and souls, and it is the presence of the higher and the lower dominion (malakūt), while with the Great Shaykh the world of omnipotence is the world of souls. Otherwise: if they reach a limit at which absolute imagination apprehends them, then it is the presence of the absolute imaginal (al-mithāl al-muṭlaq), the isthmus (barzakh) that joins the two extremes; and if they reach a limit at which the imagination restricted to the animal apprehends them, then it is the presence of the restricted imaginal; and if they reach a limit whose nature it is that sense should apprehend them, then it is the presence of sense, of witnessing, and of the visible kingdom (mulk). These, then, are the five universal degrees within the five presences; and inasmuch as it is the degree of the universal determinations above which there is no determination, they are called the essential names and the first keys (al-mafātīḥ al-uwal), as the Shaykh, may God be pleased with him, mentioned in his commentary on the ḥadīth.

(The seventh) that the presence of the meanings and the names is the one in which the Real's being the Origin (mabdaʼīyah) and His outpouring appear; for what lies before it is the presence of the Essence, in which the determinations are consumed — the degree of independence of the two worlds, the degree of 'God was, and nothing was with Him,' and the degree of 'I was a hidden treasure' — thus it is in al-Nuṣūṣ and al-Fukūk. In that presence, which is the presence of the meanings and the names, the Breath of the All-Merciful (al-nafas al-raḥmānī) turns toward the realities, bestowing existence upon them according to the receptivity of each of them: known first, then willed in accordance with the knowledge, then brought under power in accordance with the determination of the will. So the turning that comes about between the will — which follows upon knowledge, which follows upon life — and power, and from the striking of the two together, is the divine Word (al-qawl al-ilāhī) called creation and engendering. And that is nothing other than the gathering called the first marriage (al-nikāḥ al-awwal) among those realities which knowledge determined and the will distinguished and power then brought forth — all of this upon their asking for existence with the tongue of predisposition (istiʻdād). As for the order of their manifestations, it is according to the order in which their predisposition is completed; and as for their determination, it is according to the priority of the request for manifestation, from whichever of those realities it came.

(The eighth) that the cognitive realities, if they are considered apart from their states, are called unseen letters, and with their states, unseen words; while the existential ones, apart from their states, are existential letters, and with them, existential words. Then that among them which indicates a complete sentence is a verse (āyah), and the portion that gathers those sentences is a sūrah; and the totality of the intelligibles and the existents, considered in respect of detail, is a furqān (discrimination), and considered in respect of gathering, a qurʼān (collection). And since all of them are in the perfect man, he himself is also called a qurʼān, and likewise the expression of them that comes upon them from the Real is also called a qurʼān. Let this be understood.

(The ninth) that the presence of the names is the highest of the presences and the most ancient of them; and the highest part of this presence is the mothers of the divine names, which are life, knowledge, will, power, speech, munificence and equity (al-iqsāṭ) — for what is beneath them is as attendants (sadanah) to these seven, and these in turn are as shadows and attendants to the essential names, which are the first keys. And these are the universal realities above which there is nothing but the absolute Reality and the supreme Identity, which is the oneness of the gathering of those realities. So just as what is beneath them is consumed in the oneness of their absoluteness, so are they themselves consumed in the oneness of the gathering of the supreme Reality.

(The tenth) that the most ancient of these divine degrees to which it is possible to point with the intellect and whose name may be uttered is that which is called the first determination of the absolute Reality; and that is the consideration of its being 'He and He.' And it is what is called the Essence, while divinity (al-ulūhīyah) in particular is the degree of the gathering of the names, called the second determination — for it is the name of the Essence and of that degree together — as though al-Raḥmān were the name of the essence of existence, which is the general mercy. Once you have come to know these premises, his words, may God be pleased with him, become easy for you:

We were letters exalted on high, not yet uttered — suspended upon the summits of the highest peaks. I am you in Him, and we are you, and you are He — and all is in 'He'; so ask of the one who has arrived. That is to say: the upshot of the first line is an allusion to the fact that the realities called the fixed entities (al-aʻyān al-thābitah) are pre-eternal and unmade; for the realities, as has passed, are the modalities of the determination of things in the knowledge of the Real, glorified be He, and His knowledge is pre-eternal, and so likewise are its modalities — since, were they not pre-eternal, the Real would in pre-eternity have been void of the knowledges, which then came to be in Him; and God is exalted above that. Further, they are unmade and uncreated, because they are the Real's attributes and His aspects, and so are not qualified by being made, given that they are among the degrees of divinity; otherwise the essence of the Real, glorified be He, would be the locus of originated things, which is impossible. And their thingness is the thingness of fixity, whereas that which is qualified by being made is nothing but one of the degrees of engendered being, and its thingness is the thingness of existence. And the difference between the two thingnesses is that the thingness of fixity is what is mentioned in His words, exalted be He, 'our command to a thing, when We will it, is only that We say to it: Be, and it is,' and it is what is fixed in the knowledge of God, exalted be He, not what is 'fixed' according to the Muʻtazilah; while the thingness of existence is what is mentioned in His words, exalted be He, 'has there come upon man a period of time in which he was not a thing mentioned,' and it is the mentioned, the realized.

(So the rule is) that making and creating are an expression for the attribution of existence to that which is fixed, which asks for it from another and is receptive to it. Thus the quiddities, before existence is attributed to them, are fixed and unmade. And to this he alluded with his words 'we were letters,' that is, unseen realities fixed in the cognitive presence, from among the fixed entities; 'not uttered,' that is, we were not created and the existentiating Word and the divine engendering did not attach to us; 'and we were suspended,' that is, attached by our states, by our contingency, our forms and our traces — for every existent has a quiddity, a state, a degree and a determination belonging to it; and it has been established in the science of theology (ʻilm al-kalām) that the divine aspects and the lordly attributes, notwithstanding their attaching to what comes to be and is originated, are pre-eternal in all their determinate particularities. Then he said: and that was 'upon the summits of the highest peaks.' It is admissible that by 'the peaks' he intends the heavens, their highest being the Throne, and the summit of the Throne being the all-merciful quality established upon it, as the Real mentioned in His noble Book with His words, 'the All-Merciful is seated upon the Throne' — for the cognitive presence which it contains is matched by the Breath of the All-Merciful coursing through all the realities according to their receptivity. And it is admissible that by 'the peaks' he intends the bodily determinations, by 'their highest' the all-merciful determinations, and by 'the summits' of that the nominal determinations. And it is admissible that by 'the peaks' he intends the cognitive nominal determinations, by 'their highest' the seven mothers, and by 'their summits' the essential names called the first keys — for the seven mothers are the attendants of those names. And this third construal is the more fitting for the line that comes after it, which points to the real unity that is in the first determination, whose enfolded pillars are the essential names. For the rule is that no reality, as such, is any one of its individuals, or of its mutually opposed descriptions and divergent states; rather all of them have their determinations and distinctions consumed within it. Thus in the human reality — which is the modality of man's determination in the knowledge of God, exalted be He, I mean the determination that gathers the determinations of engendered being — all the individuals of man are reckoned: the speaker, the one addressed and the absent one, the singular and the plural. For if humanity as such were one of the individuals, that would be what its essence requires, and it could not then combine with any other. So in the human reality taken absolutely there hold 'I am you,' 'we are you,' 'you are He and He,' 'they are He,' 'you are I,' and other such possible multiplicities. Thus the multiplicities are the forms of the relations of that reality according to the differing receptacles; and everything that becomes multiple only through accidents is multiple in reality. So understand. This is what it was possible to set down in writing and what became clear to establish, out of the haste of the hour; for the station is a station of hinting, and so does not admit of full exhaustiveness. And praise be to God, the outpourer of the kinds of bounties, especially through the ascertaining of the realities of things and the subtleties of the sciences and the opinions, upon the tongue of those who guide to the path of deliverance from perdition; and blessing upon the best of creatures, the guide to the nearest of ways, Muḥammad, and his family and his companions all together.

Finished.