An intimation on man and prophecy

nor composition — and this is what they call prime matter (al-hayūlā). Then, by means of this motion that follows of necessity in due order, there came to be in that simple thing an ebb and a flow, a rending after a closure; whence the subtle and the dense, and what varies between the two degrees; and each sphere came to rest wherever the motion carried it, however it was. This world has never ceased to be moved by this motion; but we apprehend only the motion of the particulars present before our hands, since we are not the whole world, that we might apprehend its universal motion. The motion is one, and we see it as many by the manyness of the parts of that which moves. Hence you find nothing but what is in motion, and nothing that comes to be save from motion — and that because the overflow does not halt for a single instant of the instants, the [divine] liberality being universal. And the world has been in ascent in proportion to its antiquity in existence, and this is among the requirements of due order. You have learned what the world requires of the universal souls for its general order; as for the particular order of each atom — that is, the proximate principle of this — it is by the particular souls issuing from the universal souls. So the universal never ceases to nurture the whole, and the particular to order the part, until God decrees a matter that was to be done.

Perhaps, in view of what you have verified of the necessity of due order in the world of composition, you will say that the first thing to appear on this globe was the plants, in their several degrees, from the most deficient in constitution, then perfecting themselves little by little until they reached their term; then the animals likewise; then the fruit of them all and the utmost end of the course is man; then his degrees in existence likewise vary, from the extreme of savagery to what is less than it, and then, and then — and so it goes on. Our Book has spoken of this and alluded to it in His words, “And God made you grow out of the earth as plants grow.” This is a little that spares you much, and a summary that spares you the confusion of the details.

An Influx (wāridah)

It has become clear that the Real (al-Ḥaqq) is an absolute outpourer, setting each thing down in the station it must occupy in itself. And when He brought this human species into existence, He placed in it perceptions and traits of character in accordance with the concomitants within it, and instruments that require this by way of the species. Then the particular instruments require difference in their requirement according to their difference among individuals, through the accidents that supervene upon the realities and arise from the particular causes in this world. So what necessarily followed, given the diversity of characters and the divergence of opinions according to what those individual degrees require, was that each should take a side other than the one another takes, and “each works according to his own manner.” And among the consequences of this mutual repulsion is that contention follows upon it, since some contend with others over their aim and drive them off from what they are about; whence it follows of necessity that some prevail over others and subdue them. This is the source of corruption and sedition, for enmity arises among them thereby, and out of it arise the wars and battles from which arises the ruin of this species. Then absorption in the world of sense, which is what the rank of this world requires, entails heedlessness of what one’s affair will come to after departing this world; so he ends up burdened with the darkness of ignorance, the narrowness and murk of character, and the vices of deeds — all of this according to what the degrees of existence in this natural world require.

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And when the Real had furnished them with what sets their bodies right, out of all the necessities of their livelihoods, and with what preserves this species against domination, it was necessary that He should prepare for them, out of His liberality and His overflow, that which would be a cause for the cultivation of their intellects and the purifying of their souls, and a physician for their inward maladies: namely, that He should send among them, from among themselves, one possessed of a sanctified soul purified of every taint of heedlessness, to whom the secrets and the realities are unveiled in conformity with wisdom by the root of his innate disposition (fiṭrah), who has no need of thought and reflection in what he aims at, whose revelation is from his own soul; pure in character, lofty in resolve, in whom has been implanted an innate longing and a native light toward the nurture of those to whom he is sent, who ransoms his very spirit for that and thinks nothing, for the guidance of a single person, of plunging into perils; who has taken his seat upon the dais of eloquence, so that he makes his delivery sure by clear exposition, so that his character becomes a scale for their characters and his deeds a scale for their deeds. And this comes about only in proportion to the species’ need of it, to the measure of its readiness (istiʻdād) and of the entrenchment of the materials of corruption. This person, qualified by these attributes, is the prophet.

And when the world had reached a degree (1) in the acquisition of knowledge and the modes of objection, and men had ranged freely in the ordering of ideas and stood ready for awakening and insight, He sent among them a perfect prophet, universal in thought, truthful in utterance, in the highest ranks of perfection; and with him He sealed the matter and brought it to completion, since they had no need of another — for the further the ages advance, the stronger grow the motives of gnosis. And there became clear (2) to them a summary that announces their details, one who had encompassed all their weighty concerns amid the diversity of their conditions in their several ages — God bless him and grant him peace, and his family and his companions.

It will not escape the intelligent man that such a perfect man is indispensable in the world of existence for this nurture, in accordance with what the world requires and its being ordered upon causes and degrees.

Among the choice anecdotes is what befell the excellent Master (3) in Istanbul with a company of naturalists who used to mock the prophets. He said to them: belief in prophecy is incumbent upon one who denies divinity, let alone upon one who affirms it. For nature has required for the individual a liver, a heart and a spirit for the persistence of his existence; and it has required such things as the hollow of the palm and the arching of the eyebrow for his perfection in his existence; and it has required for the species an instrument that should be a cause of its survival — and the causes are many. So if this perfect man is not to this world what the spirit is to the individual, might he not at least be like the hollow of the palm, the arching of the eyebrow, the fringe of the eyelashes and the like! At this they fell silent and accepted it.

This is the language of the philosopher in this chapter. In another language we say: when there came to Being, in the degrees of its self-disclosures, a distance from its own self in the degrees of its abstraction, it disclosed itself from itself

— Notes —

[18] (1) Perhaps the original reads “a certain degree,” or “the degree of maturity.”

[18] (2) Perhaps it is bayyana, “he made clear.”

[18] (3) He means al-Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn.