An intimation on the existence of the Real, containing a discussion of wisdom and purpose

before: your conceiving of him is one of your acts, and it is agreeable to you and willed; yet your will did not attach to conceiving him and only then did you perform that conceiving — rather, that act of yours is the self-disclosure (tajallī) of your will. So the meaning of His being willing (murīd) is that there is nothing that compels Him; rather His self-disclosure out of His knowledge is agreeable to His own essence, and nothing occurs in His dominion but what He wills. Reflect upon this: what they understand by will is not fitting in the presence of divinity.

An Influx (wāridah)

The Real (al-Ḥaqq) is munificent (jawād) — that is, He gives each thing what is fitting for it inasmuch as it is fitting; that is, He sets the ranks in their proper places: “He gave each thing its creation.” So He does not pour out upon one rank what another deserves, nor withhold from a rank what belongs to it in its own essence; and that is according to what the ranks of self-disclosure require in the world of descents (tanazzulāt). And this is not hidden from you, from the preceding discussions. Now among the community dispute has arisen as to whether His acts are explained by purposes (aghrāḍ) or not. Each of the two parties has supported what it claims, but the majority hold that they are not so explained; otherwise it would follow that the Creator has a purpose that is not accomplished save through another, so that He needs another to accomplish His purpose. Rather, He acts without purpose. And when it was objected against them that it follows that He is acting frivolously (ʻābith), they answered this by saying that although He does not regard any purpose and has no motive impelling Him to the act, nevertheless none of His acts is devoid of wise purposes (ḥikam) and benefits (maṣāliḥ). And how astonishing of them, that they should repel frivolity with this, when we know that a man who idly plays with his foot without intending anything, and the death of a serpent, say, results from it, is a frivolous man: it is not said to him, “You did well and acted rightly.” And among the strangest of coincidences is what occurred in one of the northern countries: five thieves gathered at a place to rob it, and they heard the voice of a small child inside a room in that dwelling, so they carried him out for fear that his crying would wake his household, and they set him down in the courtyard of the dwelling — and he cried out. His mother awoke and woke his father, and the two came out for the child's sake. The thieves then entered the room and carried the goods out into the courtyard as well, so as to take them; and when they went in to take what remained of the goods, the room collapsed upon them, and they all perished, while the people of the house were saved along with most of their belongings. Is it then said of these thieves that they are wise and beneficent men, and that this act was one of their fine traits of character, since they rescued these people from destruction by collapse, and this great benefit resulted from their act? Not at all; no one would say it.