An intimation on the nature of perception, and another on the will

of all things: “not the weight of a mote escapes Him.” So look closely, and beware lest multiplicity veil you from the essence of unity; for if the sea knew its own essence it would not need another knowledge by which to know its waves. And this may agree, in one respect, with the statement of him who said that the knowledge is eternal and its relation originated — though he strayed from the level path and fell into a wilderness of falsehoods. It also comes near what is said, that things have a cognitive existence and a witnessed existence, and what is said, that a thing has an existence in respect of its own essence and an existence in the essence of the cause. So take note, and apply it, if you are one of the people of reflection.

An Influx (wāridah)

I can almost see you, when you turn to your own soul (nafs), having found that your knowledge of your soul is your soul itself — and this is not hard. Then, looking closely, you know that you apprehend nothing other than your own soul. For apprehension (idrāk), if it is the mere impression of forms, has been shown more than once not to be sound as that which necessitates knowledge; and if it is being acted upon by those forms, then that is the same thing, or close to it, and the same judgement applies to it. So apprehension is nothing but the self-disclosure (tajallī) of your soul through the forms, according to its preparedness (istiʻdād); and your apprehension of your soul in that state is the very apprehension of those forms. Thus you apprehended your soul by your soul, and you apprehended nothing outside yourself — though by a figure of speech you say, “I apprehended the external Zayd.” Rather, you manifested yourself in what corresponds to him, and so you said, “I manifested myself through him.” This is subtle; understand it.

An Influx

It is as though, in what has been cast to you, you had apprehended that the Real (al-Ḥaqq) is its willer in thou willest by it, (1) yet He does not yearn and deliberate and then bring into existence according to what His thought leads Him to; rather His will is identical with His act — that is, nothing intervenes between the will and the act. (1) “Our command to a thing, when We will it, is only that We say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” — “His command, when He wills a thing, is only that He say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” Consider, then, how the whole matter is confined to the act as the response to the will — that is, we have no mode among the modes attaching to that thing, when We will it, save our saying to it, “Be.” And that is as when you conceive the Zayd whom you know from

— Notes —

[12] (1) Thus in the original; there is probably corruption and omission in the wording.