Alif lām rāʾ. Those are the verses of the Book that makes plain: [the interpretation of] this has already been mentioned.

the best of narratives: by virtue of its lexical expressions and structural composition being inimitable, its manifest meaning (ẓāhir) corresponding to reality and its nonmanifest sense (bāṭin) an indicator of the form of wayfaring and an illustration of the state of the wayfarer, as in the case of the [other] narratives put together for that [purpose] but [with this] being more corresponding and more concordant than [any of] them.

‘O my father I saw eleven planets, to the end of this [verse]: this is one of those dreams which as we mentioned in sūrat Hūd is in need of interpretation (taʿbīr) because the imaginal [faculty] is transferred from the noble souls — whose prostration to him [Joseph] was revealed to the soul from the Unseen — to the planets, the sun and the moon, which at the same time were [in fact] nothing other than his parents and his brothers.

[‘O my son] do not relate your vision to your brothers, lest they plot against you some plot: this is one of those undifferentiated inspirations (ilhāmāt), for an Unseen form of the disengaged spiritual realities may appear, in a universal way that transcends time, to the spirit and the vestige of it then arrives in the heart and it does not become individuated in the soul by differentiation until knowledge of it, as it is, comes about, whereupon there follows fear and caution from it in the soul if it should be something unpleasant or rejoicing and gladness if it should be desirable. This kind of inspiration is called ‘warning’ or ‘good tiding’. He [Jacob], peace be upon him, therefore feared what would happen before it happened and so forbade him [Joseph] from informing them of his vision as a precaution. But his cautiousness may also be due to the vision being proof of his [Joseph’s] exalted and honoured status and his greater capacity over his brothers. He [Jacob] thus feared that they would be envious of him once they sensed that [privileged status].

Thus, will your Lord prefer you: that is, just like that election, by granting [Joseph] that tremendous vision, so He elects you [O Muḥammad] for prophethood, for truthful visions, especially the like of these, are the prelude to prophethood, and so he came to understand from his vision that he is one of the beloved [of God] for whom unveilings precede their wayfaring; and perfect His grace upon you, of prophethood and kingship.

Verily in Joseph and his brethren are signs for those who inquire, that is, glorious signs for those who inquire about their story and come to know it, [signs] which will prove to them, first, that pure [divine] election is a matter exclusive to God’s wish, exalted be He, and is not connected to the effort made by a striving person or the will of a seeker, so that they might come to know the levels of pre-eternal preparedness; and, second, that the one for whom God wills good none can avert [that good] and the one whom He protects none can cause him misfortune or seek [to inflict on] him evil, so that their certainty and their trust might be strengthened and that they might witness the self-disclosures of His acts and His attributes; and, third, that Satan’s plotting and his misguidance are something from which no one, not even prophets, are safe, so that they might be on their guard from him. But much more than all that is that these [signs] will apprise them by way of understanding — which is the transferral to the mental — of their states at the beginning, at the end and in-between the two and of the modality of their wayfaring to God in order to incite their yearning and their will, to sharpen their insight and to strengthen their resolve. That is because the similitude of Joseph is that of the heart which is prepared, of extreme beauty, dearly beloved to his father, Jacob the intellect, envied by his brothers from another mother (ʿallāt), namely, the five external senses and the five internal ones as well as [that of] anger (ghaḍab) and lust (shahwa),^{1Kāshānī means to list eleven but seems to list twelve, which is why the translation has modified the Arabic to understand anger and lust as subsumed under the one sense or faculty.} [all being] the children of the soul, except for the memory, which is not envious of him and does not seek to harm him, leaving eleven [in total], matching their number. As for their envy of him and their seeking to harm him, this is [to be understood as being] through that these [senses] are by their nature drawn to their pleasures and appetites, and impede the use of the intellect, the reflective faculty, for the actualisation of the perfections of the heart such as forms of knowledge and [noble] character traits, and are averse to that. They only want it [the intellect] to use them to actualise corporeal pleasures and the appetites of those animal faculties. But there is no doubt that reflection (fikr) looks more to the heart [than to the senses] and it is more intensely and more abundantly inclined to the actualisation of felicities of the heart such as forms of knowledge and virtues [than to those of the senses]. That is the significance of their saying:

‘Surely Joseph and his brother are dearer to our father than we are: his brother [Benjamin] is the practical rational faculty from Joseph’s mother the heart, Rachel the self-reproaching soul whom Jacob the heart married after the death of Leah the commanding soul. They said ‘surely Joseph and his brother […]’, because just as the intellect entails perfecting of the heart with forms of knowledge and gnoses, it also entails perfecting this faculty by inferring all manner of virtues such as beautiful character traits and noble deeds. Their description of him [Jacob] as being in misguidance, which is to be remote from what is correct, by saying: Lo! our father is in plain misguidance, is a deficiency of rational consideration on their part and [an indication of] the remoteness of his way of actualising corporeal pleasures from theirs. Their casting of him [Joseph] into the bottom of a well is their [the senses’] mastery over the heart and their drawing of it towards the lower aspect by the occurrence [in the heart] of love for the body and correspondences with it until it was [finally] cast into the bottom of the well of corporeal nature. Except that he [Joseph] had been dressed in a shirt from Paradise which Gabriel, peace be upon him, had brought to Abraham on that day when he was denuded and cast into the fire and had dressed him in. Isaac had inherited it [from Abraham] and from him Jacob inherited it and attached it to an amulet around his [Joseph’s] neck. So Gabriel came to him in the well, took it out and dressed him in it, for otherwise the water would have drowned him and his private parts would have been exposed, as has been related. It [the shirt] is an allusion to the attribute of original preparedness and the light of primordial nature, which is what preserved Abraham from the fire and shielded him by the will of God such that it was coolness and safety for him. As for their [the senses’] drawing of the intellect down so that it considers what pertains to livelihood and the actualisation of the means for that and that it orients itself towards that [pursuit], that is the significance of their words:

so that your father might be solely concerned with you, and that thereafter you might be a righteous folk’, that is, in terms of organising livelihood and the preparing of the means thereto according to what is desired. As for their tempting of the intellect away from the heart by means of beguiling satanic insinuations and ego-centric censures, despite the intellect’s aversion thereto, that is the significance of what they say when they are tempting Jacob away from him [with the statement]:

Send him forth with us tomorrow to frolic and play.

As for their lie with regard to the wolf [devouring their brother] that is because the irascible faculty, once it manifests and flares up, veils the heart totally from the acts that are specific to him. Apparently it seems to be more powerful in its damaging of him, its incapacitating of his acts and its veiling of him, [all of] which constitutes the meaning of ‘the [act of] devouring’, despite the fact that the concupiscent faculty, the senses and the remaining faculties are more harmful to the heart and are more damaging to him in the same regard and are more able to draw him down to the lower aspect, being more recalcitrant and more severe in its refusal to receive rational directions and to obey commands and divine prohibitions. The compliance of the heart in consenting to seek spiritual perfections from it and the manifestation of that vestige from the irascible faculty, despite this being the opposite in reality, is the ‘false blood on his shirt’. The turning of Jacob’s eyes white [with grief] at being separated [from his son] represents the wearying of [his] insight and the loss of the light of intellect when Joseph the heart came to be at the bottom of the well of nature. The one of the caravan who brought him out of the well is the reflective faculty.

The purchasing of him^{1The masculine pronoun (he/him/his) will be retained in this passage to refer to the heart/Joseph in order to clarify the referents of the pronouns in the English. In the same vein, in some of the passages that follow, use will be made of the masculine and the feminine to refer to the heart/Joseph and to the soul/Zulaykhā respectively.} by the ʿAzīz of Egypt, in exchange for a very low price, a handful of dirhams, is their surrendering of him [the heart] over to the ʿAzīz of the spirit, the one from Egypt, the city of the Holy, in exchange for the meanings and gnoses actualised for the reflective faculty that are effused on it from the spirit upon its illumination by his light and its proximity to him. For the reflective faculty, since it is a corporeal faculty while the heart is not corporeal, does not arrive at his [the heart’s] station except when he is covered in the layerings of the soul in the station of the breast, that is, in that aspect which, from where he, is lies adjacent to the soul. But if he [the heart] disengages at the station of the inner heart or arrives at the station of the spirit, which they call the mystery, then that [faculty] leaves him with the ʿAzīz of the spirit and surrenders him to the latter and separates from him in exchange for a paltry dirhams actualised for it because of his proximity to the aforementioned meanings.

And the ʿAzīz’s wife, the one called Zulaykhā, to whom he entrusted his [the heart’s] welfare with his statement, ‘Give him an honourable place. Maybe he will be useful to us, or we may adopt him as a son’, is the very self-reproaching soul which sought illumination by the light of the spirit, the vestige of which reached it, but which failed to attain fixity (tamkīn) therewith and did not attain the degree of the reassured soul. God’s establishing of him [Joseph] in the land constitutes His empowering of him, after the cleansing and being illuminated by the light of the spirit, to [be able to] resist the soul and the faculties, and His granting of him mastery over the land of the body by the use of his instruments in the actualisation of perfections and in the governance of it by means of acts of [spiritual] discipline until such time as that [potential] perfection which resides in his preparedness emerges into actuality, as He says, that We might teach him the interpretation of events, in other words, that We might teach him about Our act, what We did with him in the way of delivering [him] and empowering [him] with fixity. And God’s way [always] prevails, through His reinforcement, His facilitating of success and assistance until such time as he reaches the full extent of the perfection of his prime at the station which his preparedness entails so that He might then endow him with knowledge and wisdom, as He says:

And when he reached his prime We gave him [power of] judgement and knowledge: [one’s] ‘prime’ is the end-stage of the arrival at the original primordial nature by means of disengaging from the coverings of created nature, that which we [Sufis] call the station of chivalry (futuwwa).^{1Cf. Chittick 1989: 65,373. There is no divine attribute of chivalry but the meaning approximates to God’s charity, His creation of creatures in order to endow them with existence and to allow them assume divine character traits by attain such stations, themselves reflections of divine attributes. The Sufis are thus known as the people of good character (khuluq) and chivalry (futuwwa).} However, most people are not aware that such matters are [completely] in the hands of God and so they press on to [spiritual] striving, struggling and training unaware that the striving, the struggling, the training and the spiritual discipline are also [all] from God. God has made these causes and means for what He has predetermined and that is why He has not separated them by saying, after stating We gave him [power of] judgement and knowledge: Thus, We reward those who are virtuous, in [their] pursuit, will, struggle and spiritual discipline.

Zulaykhā’s tempting him away from his soul and her closing of the doors to him is an allusion to the manifestation of the self-reproaching soul in her — for variegation at the station of the heart takes place as a result of the manifestation of the soul, while variegation at the station of the spirit takes place as a result of the presence of the heart [there] — and [an allusion] to her attracting of the heart [Joseph] to her soul by seducing it and gaining mastery over it and adorning its attributes and its pleasures for it, and her closing of its [the heart’s] exit to the spirit by blocking the thoroughfares of reflection and the outlets of light with her [the soul’s] veiling attribute.

His desiring of her is the inclining of the heart to her [the soul] because of the lack of fixity and uprightness. His seeing of the proof of his Lord is [his] perception of that variegation by the light of insight and the consideration of the intellect, as is related in the story to the effect that his father appeared to him and forbade him, or raised his voice at him — it is also said that he struck the back of his neck with the palm of his hand such that his lust was expelled through his fingernails until it dissipated. All of that is an allusion to the intellect’s forbidding him [Joseph the heart] from mixing with the soul by [seeing] the proof [of his Lord] and [perceiving with] the light of insight and guidance, and [an indication of] its effect on him through luminous power and support that necessarily brings about the dissipation of her [the soul’s] lust and darkness, permeating her to her extremeties and removing from her the dark configuration by means of a luminous configuration. The tearing of his shirt from behind is an allusion to her piercing of the garment of the luminous attribute, which he possessed as a result of [his] virtuous character traits and righteous deeds, by exercising an effect on the heart by means of its attribute, for this is an attribute which the heart acquires from the aspect that lies adjacent to the soul, the one called the breast, which is without question the rear [aspect].

As for His words, whereupon they encountered her master at the door, this is an allusion to the emergence of the light of the spirit upon the heart’s turning to it by means of remembering the rational proof and the coming upon it [the heart] of the holy inrush, its attempt to make the soul subordinate to itself while it struggled to draw it down to its [lower] aspect and the mastery acquired [by the light] over the heart then over the soul by means of this [holy inrush]. As for her statement, ‘What is to be the requital of him who desires evil against your folk: this is an intimation that the soul insinuates its individual desires in the form of its rational best interests and adorns them such that its corruption is confounded with its rational best interests which [interests] the intellect is obliged to be mindful of, to uphold and to meet [the soul] with. Its [the intellect’s] contravention of it [the soul] with regard to these [desires] is the desiring of evil against her [the soul] and [the desiring] of repulsive qualities by virtuous ones, which pertain to matters of everyday life, such as the conniving of women against men and the inclining of the heart to the upper aspect through its [the soul’s] false words and claims.

As regards the witness from her own folk, it is said that he was a paternal cousin of hers, that is to say, reflection (fikr) which knows that the corruption that afflicts character traits and deeds only comes about because of the soul and its mastery. For, were it to come from the direction of the heart and from the latter’s inclination to the soul, then that [corruption] would afflict belief and resolve, and not simply deeds. It is also said that he was a maternal cousin of hers, that is to say, corporeal nature which acts as an indicator of the lower inclination in the soul, that [inclination] which attracts the heart from the direction of the breast and which pursues activities in the earth of the body. His consenting [with Joseph] and his apprising of the spirit by the light of guidance of the fact that the defect lay in the deed and not in the belief or resolve [of Joseph], which [defect] can only arise from the ego-centric provocation of the soul, is the significance of His words:

So when he saw that his shirt was torn from behind, he said: ‘Indeed this is of the guile of you women. Verily your guile is great.

As for His words: O Joseph, ignore this; and you [O woman], ask forgiveness for your sin, this is an allusion to the rising of the light of the spirit upon the heart and his [the heart’s] attraction to its [that light’s] side because of the luminous descending inrush (nāzil) and the spiritual incoming thought (khāṭir) which turns him [the heart] away from the direction of the soul and commands him to reject her [the soul’s] deeds, reminding him lest that inclination occur again. The effect of that inrush and that incoming thought upon the soul takes place as a result of illumination and purification; her illumination by the light of the spirit, which is reflected onto her from the heart, is her asking forgiveness for the dark configuration with which she had overwhelmed the heart. When the heart attains this status of conjunction with the spirit and irradiation by its light and the spirit has been illuminated by the rays of the light of the heart and purified of its impurities, she [the soul] comes to love him fervently, since she is now being illumined by his light and shaped by his configuration. [Her] drawing close to him and [her] desire to arrive at his station is not in order to attract him to his soul or to fulfil her need from him by using him to actualise natural pleasures or by dragging him down from his station and level to her level and where he is then shaped by her configuration and participates in her acts and pleasures as was the case when she was the [evil-] commanding [soul] such that her faculties, even the natural faculties, are affected by what affects her: that is the significance of the statement of the women in the city:

‘The ʿAzīz’s wife has been seducing her boy. Indeed he has smitten her heart with love. The more that the heart acquires mastery over her with his luminous configuration and the sensorium of his essence the primordial and the one earned through his gradual elevation to the vicinity of the spirit and his attainment the waystation (manzil) of the mystery, the more that the corporeal faculties are illumined by his light because of his subordination of the soul and her subordination to him such that their attention is diverted from their acts and they are bewildered, desisting from their conduct with regard to [securing their] nourishment, distracted from the knives of their instruments by which they used to regulate the task of seeking pleasure, nourishment and enjoyment, injuring that power of theirs by which they employ their instruments in their [various] disposals, and remaining dumbfounded in their repasts which constitute [their] acts of slyness in the organs of the body which the soul has prepared for them during her hospitality to them. That is the significance of His words:

And when they saw him, they were in awe of him and cut their hands, and they exclaimed: ‘God preserve us! This is no human being: this is but a noble angel!’

As for her saying [to Joseph], ‘Come out before them’, this is her seeking of the self-disclosure of his light out of her volition and her requirement that this [light] come out on her upon the actualisation for her of the preparedness for illumination. When the soul has devoted itself to the path of desiring the heart and her contending with him over the resolve for the wayfaring has diminished and she has been trained to be obedient to him, it becomes time for spiritual discipline in the way of entering into spiritual retreat (khalwa) because then the heart will have disengaged from his attachments and impediments and will have disengaged his resolve by the absence of hesitation, since with hesitation of resolve — due to his [the heart’s] attraction now to the direction of the soul, now to the direction of the spirit —there can be neither spiritual discipline nor wayfaring and spiritual retreat becomes invalid due to the fact there is no concentration, which is one of its prerequisites. This [kind of] spiritual discipline is not the disciplining of the soul by making it obedient — for this [kind] does not require spiritual retreat, but [requires] avoiding the commission of contraventions and pursuing the breaking of it and the subjugating of it by resisting [it] through all kinds of acts of renunciation and worship — rather, it is the disciplining of the heart by rising above its [the hearts] attributes, its forms of knowledge, perfections and unveilings in the wayfaring along the path of annihilation and the seeking of presential vision and the encounter, which takes place after [the presence of] immunity against the mastery of the soul, as she [Zulaykhā] says:

Indeed I did attempt to seduce him, but he was immune. He sought protection from his soul and demanded more [thereof]. Yet if he does not do what I bid him, of paying [me] my share, he shall verily be prevented from corporeal pleasures, the spirit of vain desire and objects of sensory perception by being isolated and cut off from these; and verily shall he be of those brought low’, by the loss of his dignity and status with us, our forsaking of him and his separation from headship of the assistants and servants in the body. But because isolation was beloved to him as it was to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, when he used to seek solitary retreat in [the cave of] Ḥirāʾ,

he said, ‘My Lord, prison is dearer to me than that to which they are urging me. He said ‘than that to which they are urging me’, and supplicated to God to fend off their wiles from him with his words and if You do not fend off their wiles from me, then I shall tend towards them and become of the ignorant, because it is in her [the soul’s] nature to incline to the lower aspect and to attract the heart to herself. The occasion for drawing him [the heart] down to her [the soul] so that he never disappears and her illumination by his light and her obedience to him is an accidental matter, one that does not last, while the heart always reinforces her in her deeds since he possesses two natures and two faces. With one of them he tends towards the spirit and with the other he tends towards the soul, and he turns with one face to that one and with the other face to this one. Thus there is nothing closer to his nature than this ‘tending’ to her [the soul] out of his ignorance, were it not for God’s protection of him by causing the upper aspect to prevail [over the lower one] and reinforcing him with the lights of the higher [angelic] council, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, once said, ‘O God, make my heart stand firm upon Your religion’, whereupon it was said to him, ‘You say that even though you are a prophet who receives revelations?’ He said, ‘And what security is there for me against the fact that the heart is like a feather strewn in an open expanse, the winds blowing it around in every which way!’ This supplication epitomises the heart’s need [for God], which [state] is ever-obligatory for it.

So his Lord answered him, and He fended off their wiles from him, that is, He reinforced him with holy support and fortified him with castings from the august glories, turning his face away from the side of abomination to the side of the Holy, fending off thereby their machinations. Truly He is the Hearer, of the heart’s communion at the station of mystery, the Knower, of what ought to be done with it when it is in need of Him.

Then it seemed [good] to them, after they had seen the signs that they should imprison him for a while: in other words, there appeared to the ʿAzīz of the spirit, the women of the soul, the faculties and the spirit assistants, such as the intellect and reflection and others, a certain opinion on which they were all agreed and that was that they should imprison him, namely, that they should leave him in the isolation which was dearer to him. As for the spirit, this was because of its subduing of him by the light of presential vision and preventing him from acts of free disposal and from his attributes. As for the soul and all of the faculties, it was because of their inability to attract him after they saw the signs of [divine] immunity, sincerity of resolve and his refusal to incline to them as well as his dazzling of them with his light and his faithfulness in being needy of God, for otherwise they would never have left him alone in his solitariness. As for estimation, it was because of its retreat from his light and flight from his shadow when he stood firm in his religion and sought refuge in the Truth. As for the intellect, it was because of its illumination by the light of the guidance; while for reflection, it was because its authority is actualised during solitariness.

As regards the two youths who entered the prison with him, one of them was the faculty of spiritual love that adheres to him; this one was the King’s cupbearer, the one who gives him the wine of divine love to drink, as is related in the story in which he is [described as being] the cupbearer. The other [youth] was the vain desire of the soul which also does not part with him in any state. For vain desire is the life of the soul which it receives as an effusion from the former because of its [the soul’s] vying. This [second youth] was the King’s baker who managed the food stores of the city, as is related. Only these two remained by him during the [period of] solitariness and no one else. As for the cupbearer’s dream, where he says, ‘I dreamed that I was pressing wine’, is the faculty of love being guided to the pressing of the wine of divine love from the grapes of the gnosis of the heart during the sleep of obliviousness to the real presential vision. As for the dream of the baker, where he says, ‘I dreamed that I was carrying on my head bread whereof the birds were eating, this represents the orientation of vain desire in its totality to the actualisation of the pleasures of the birds of ego-centric faculties, their shares and their lusts which were likened to birds, in terms of the way in which it attracts their shares, because of the speed of their movements towards these [shares].

As for the words, ‘The food, with which you are provided, shall not come to you, to the end of this [verse]: an allusion to the his [Joseph’s] prohibiting the two from their shares until he had made clear to them what the outcome of their affair will be concerning the tasks which they have to fulfil through judicious guidance, right direction, rectification and setting [things] right.^{1The reader is reminded that the two youths are Joseph’s faculty of spiritual love and his soul’s vain desire, and so in a sense the tasks here fall upon Joseph himself.} His manifesting to them of [his] affirmation of Oneness with his words, Lo! I have forsaken, to the end of this [verse], constitutes his urging them to fulfill the incontrovertible divine command, to refrain from inquisitiveness and not to allow the disuniting of [their] orientation or the dissipation of [their] aspirations. For, the specific quality of vain desire is disunity, division and devotion to the various lusts of the contending faculties. The specific quality of [spiritual] love at the beginning, and before reaching the end, is attachment to virtuous attributes and devotion to these regardless of the beauty of the essence. So he called them both to the affirmation of Oneness with his words, Lo! I have forsaken the creed of a folk who do not believe in God, in other words, those idolaters who worship the graven images of the soul’s attributes, nay [who worship] the presence of the heart and its attributes, and who in the Hereafter, that is, and who are veiled from subsistence in the spiritual world, [and he called them also] with his words,

It never was for us to associate anything with God, and [also] with his words:

Are several lords better, or God, the One, the Almighty? in other words, [what is meants is] if for each of you had several lords, similar to where God says shared by several [masters], quarrelling [Q. 39:29],^{1The full verse is: God strikes a similitude: a man shared by several [masters], quarrelling and a man belonging exclusively to one man. Are the two equal in comparison? Praise be to God! Nay, but most of them do not know.} this one commanding him to one thing, that one commanding him to another thing, mutually exclusive in that respect and incapacitated, where in the case of [the faculty of] love, then [lords] such as the attributes and the names, and in the case of vain desire, then [lords] such as the ego-centric faculties, would that be better for him, or a single lord commanding him to one thing, as He has said And Our command is but a single word [Q. 54:50], a powerful vanquisher who subdues all and whose command no one impedes and for whom nothing is impossible?

And he [Joseph] compelled them by means of judicious guidance (siyāsa) to be united in orientation. For, when the heart is overcome by the [inclusive] unity, its love is fortified against love of the attributes and is turned towards the essence. And if it is trained in the affirmation of Oneness, its vain desire is curbed against devotion to shares and lusts and against separation in the actualisation of pleasures and is content to restrict itself to [the fulfilling of] dues and urgent needs as per the command of the Truth, and not in obedience to Satan.

As for his statement, As for one of you, he shall serve his lord wine to drink, this is a designation of the task of the first [youth], after being judiciously guided to avoid idolatrous association, [the designation] being the granting the love of pleasures mastery over the spirit; and as for the other, he will be crucified so that the birds will eat from his head, an illustration of what the outcome of the affair of the second one will be: his crucifixion represents the preventing of him from the acts of his own soul, the curbing of him from his own exigencies, making him firm and establishing him in the stem of the vegetative natural faculty such that the imaginal faculty has no power of disposal on him nor he on it or on any of the other animal faculties. That is the mortification of vain desire, so that after this mortification and crucifixion the birds of the faculties of the soul eat from his head by the command of the Truth, this being the halting with the dues; decided is the matter regarding which you sought opinion’, in other words, your matter stands firm and established in this way [shown]. That is the moment of his arrival and his [attainment of] propinquity to God and the time when the station of sanctity (walāya) through annihilation in God becomes manifest. If the two faculties are empowered with regard to the matter he has designated for each of them, followed by His command for the arrival at the station of the presential vision of the Essence and his solitariness comes to an end, then the length of the period of imprisonment will constitute the duration of his wayfaring to God. Once he is able to complete the annihilation, the status of the two faculties would then be proper, since they would then be [functioning] through God and not through themselves, whereupon the period of solitariness would end with the incipience of the period of subsistence through the existence bestowed from the Truth; but this had not yet been completed because of the existence of a remnant, the one alluded to in his words:

‘Mention me to your lord’, in other words, seek existence at the station of the spirit through love and settlement therein, for when love intoxicates the spirit with the wine of divine love, the spirit rises to the station of [inclusive] unity and the heart to the station of the spirit: at that station the spirit is referred to as being ‘hidden’ (khafiyy) and the heart as being a ‘mystery’ (sirr), but none of that is annihilation because both of them would in that instance be in existence and engulfed by the light of the Truth. Such a halting at this station gives rise to insolence and I-ness, which is why He says: But Satan caused him to forget to remember his Lord, in other words, the Satan of estimation causes Joseph the heart to forget to remember God, exalted be He, by being annihilated in Him, [and this was] because of that lingering presence of the remnant and the seeking of the station of the spirit — for otherwise, he would have been distracted from remembering [both] his soul and his existence. It was because of his being veiled at this station and because of this remnant that he tarried, in prison for some years. To this the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, alluded when he said, ‘May God have mercy upon my brother Joseph. Had he not said, “mention me to your lord”, he would not have stayed in prison for some years’.

Or [it could also be interpreted as] that the vanquished Satan of estimation, forbidden and veiled from the Side of the Truth caused the Messenger of love brought near after the raising of his degree, his mastery and the prevailing of his authority as well as his bewilderment in the divine beauty and the overwhelming intoxication, to forget to mention Joseph the heart in the presence of presential vision, because the lover who witnesses the [divine] beauty is bewildered and oblivious to all creatures, including the differentiations of his existence, nay, his very soul, immersed as he would be in the source of the union until his annihilation is complete and his intoxication comes to an end, whereafter he returns to wakeful consciousness (ṣaḥw) and remembers the differentiation. Moreover, when his annihilation comes to an end at his immersion in the sea of Ipseity and obliteration in the Essence of [exclusive] Unity and the period of imprisonment is concluded, God, exalted be He, will give him life through His life and will endow him with an existence from His Essence and His attributes. He will thereby make him see the form of change in the attributes of the soul for the duration of his separation therefrom by means of solitariness and wayfaring to God in the form of the devouring of the fat kine by the lean kine; and [He will make him see the form of change] in the attributes of the body’s nature in the form of the mastery of the dry ears of corn over the green ones.

As for the King who says, ‘I saw in [a dream]: this is said to have been [one] Rayyān ibn al-Walīd gave dominion and governance of Egypt to Potiphar (Qiṭfīr) and not the ʿAzīz himself who is called Potiphar. If [the term] al-ʿAzīz means ‘King’ according to the tongue of the Arabs, then ‘the King’ [mentioned in the verse] would be an allusion to the Active Intellect (ʿaql faʿʿāl), the King of the kings of spirits, called the Holy Spirit (rūḥ al-qudus). For God, exalted be He, does not give life to the folk of sanctity upon complete annihilation, that which is the beginning of prophethood, except by means of His breath (nafkh) and His inspiration (waḥy), and it is by conjunction therewith that the differentiations become manifest at the source of the union. That is why they say that when he entered into his [the King’s] presence he spoke to him in Hebrew to which the other responded in kind, since he had knowledge of seventy tongues, all of which he spoke in when he was spoken to in them.

As for the courtiers who said, ‘A jumble of dreams!, those were the noble faculties, such as the intellect, the reflection that is veiled by estimation, and estimation itself that is veiled from the mystery of spiritual discipline and from [that of] change, as in the case of those who are veiled by these [faculties] and who have halted with them, whom you find reckoning the states of folk who practice spiritual discipline to be [mere] fairytales. As for the messenger of love who ‘remembered after a time’, he only remembered by means of the manifestation of the angel of the Holy Spirit and the latter’s inspiration to him and causing him to see the differentiations of his existence by returning to the multiplicity after the unity — otherwise he would be in the state of annihilation, consumed by the source of the union, seeing therein neither the existence of the heart nor anything else: how then would he be able to remember? He would only remember as a result of his becoming manifested by the light of the Truth after his non-existence.

As for the year, in which the people will be granted relief, and in which they will press [fruit], that is the moment of his giving of enjoyment to his soul during complete reassurance and universal security.

As for the statement of the women of the faculties: ‘God preserve us! We know of no evil in him’, and the statement of the ʿAzīz’s wife: ‘Now the truth is out, [these constitute] an allusion to the illumination of the soul and of the faculties by the light of the Truth, their assumption of the attribute of justful speech and truthfulness, the actualisation of the trait of justice by means of the light of [inclusive] unity, the manifestation of love immediately upon separation after union, and [to] the perfection of the soul’s reassuredness because of its affirmation of the heart’s merit and sincereness, and [of] its guilt and his [the heart’s] innocence. For part of the [process of the] perfection of the soul’s reassuredness is its admission of guilt and its seeking of forgiveness for the excesses it has committed when it was a commanding [soul] and its holding on to divine mercy and lordly protection [from sin].

As for the King’s wish to use him for himself, that represents his making the heart as the viceregent (khilāfa) over the kingdom after complete perfection, as is related in the story [to the effect] that he [the King] made him sit on his throne, placed his own crown on his head, gave him his ring to wear and girded him with his sword as well as removed Potiphar from office. After Potiphar died, the King gave him his wife, Zulaykhā, in marriage and then himself abdicated the throne in favour of him and devoted himself to worship of his Lord. All of that is an allusion to the station of viceregency (khalīfa) of the Truth, similar to where He said to David, We have indeed made you a viceregent on the earth [Q. 38:26]. The death of al-ʿAzīz is an allusion to the arrival of the heart at his station and the departure of the spirit to his presential vision of the unity. As for his [Joseph’s] marriage to al-ʿAzīz’s wife, that is an allusion to the heart’s giving the soul enjoyment of shares after reassurance, for the noble illumined soul, through [its enjoyment of] shares, becomes stronger in observing the preconditions for uprightness, enforcing the laws of justice, inferring the principles of knowledge and deed, which were the two children whom, according to the story, she bore him, Ephraim and Misha. It is related that when he entered upon her he said to her, ‘Is this not better than what you once sought?’, and found her a virgin, which is an allusion to the virtuousness of her state of reassurance during enjoyment while being mindful of justice. As for her virginity, this is an allusion to the fact that the spirit does not mix with the soul on account of his abiding sanctity and the impossibility of his engaging her, for his demands are universal and cannot comprehend her particulars, unlike the heart.

She was his wife because of his possessing mastery over her and because the effect of his command and authority had reached her by means of the heart and by virtue of her being subject to his governance in reality. His request to be placed in charge of the storehouses of the land and his description of himself as being a worthy custodian and skilled [for the task] is because the heart perceives material particulars and is able to preserve them, unlike the spirit, and so by its preparedness it entails the reception of that meaning from the bestower who is the angel of the Holy Spirit. The establishing of him in the land that he may settle in it wherever he wished constitutes the granting to him of succession (khilāfa) by means of subsistence after annihilation upon arriving at the station of fixity (tamkīn), which itself is ‘the wage of virtuous’, that is, the one who worships his Lord at the station of presential vision by virtue of his return from the source of union to [the mode of] differentiation.

Yet the wage of the Hereafter, that is, the spiritual share in the way of the pleasure of the presential vision of the Beauty and the inspection of the lights of the august glories of the Enduring Face, is better for those who believe, with entific faith, and guard against, the remnants of I-ness.

When he returned to the station of differentiation and sat on the throne of kingship for his viceregency, his brothers came to him, the animal faculties, after he had been separated from them for a long time in the prison of spiritual discipline and spiritual retreat (khalwa) in Egypt of the Holy Presence and [after his] immersion in the source of union.

And they entered to him, seeking proximity to him by means of having been edified with the refined manners (ādāb) of spiritual individuals, because of the reassuredness of the soul and its illumination and the illumination by it of those [animal] faculties, and their having been trained by the configurations of virtues and [noble] character traits, seeking provision from the nourishing beneficial forms of knowledge in the way of character traits and the divine precepts; and he recognised them, together with the virtuousness of their state and their goodliness, by means of [his] astuteness and purity, and their impoverished need of the meanings they were seeking from him, but they did not recognise him, because of the superiority of his level over theirs, as a result of [his] disengagement, and his possession of qualities which they were unable to comprehend, and that is why he sought the presence of the practical rational faculty with his statement:

‘Bring me a brother of yours from your father, since universal meanings that are attached to deeds can only be comprehended by that [rational] faculty. Know also that for those beloved [of God] their unveilings precede their [spiritual] efforts. Thus they teach their faculties the divine precepts and rulings and direct them after the arrival, even if their souls should be reassured before that [arrival]. As for the provision with which he equipped them is a small measure of particulars which they are able to comprehend and work with.

He says, But if you do not bring him to me, there will be no measure for you, of universal meanings actualised, with me; and do not come near [me]’, since your level is remote from mine, unless by means of him [Benjamin]. But since the practical rational faculty, because it has not departed from the station of pure intellect to the station of the breast, is not able to accompany the sensory faculties and cast [upon them] the particular meanings that cause them to function or to bring about the movement of the yearning longing faculty towards rational best interests:

They said, ‘We will try to tempt his father away from him, that is, by purifying preparedness for the reception of his [Jacob’s] effusion.

As for his statement, to his young men: ‘Place their merchandise in their saddlebags, this is an allusion to the heart commanding its young men, the vegetative faculties, at the giving of enjoyment to the soul during [its] reassuredness, to supply the substrata for their faculties by which they are nourished and by which they are empowered to earn their perfections, since these are that merchandise of theirs from which they can seek provision. Their saddlebags represent the instruments of their perceptions and earnings; so that they may, recognise their faculties and their capacities to earn, when they return to their folk, from among all of the animal faculties, such as the irascible, the concupiscent and their like, and so they might come back’, to the station of profit-making and seeking provision from the nourishment of meanings and forms of beneficial knowledge from that merchandise.

So when they went back to their father, having purified their preparedness and been trained by the configurations of virtues they required of him that he send forth with them the practical rational faculty to supply them permanently with virtuous character traits by means of meanings. In other words, they sought to be supplied from his effusion; that we may obtain the measure, that we may profit from him. For surely we shall not use him to actualise our goals and bring about his perdition, as we did, during the time of ignorance, with his brother [Joseph]. Rather, we will guard him well by obligating ourselves to him and being mindful of him on the path to perfection.

The taking from them of a covenant and a pledge in sending him forth with them expresses the precedence given to the sound conviction of faith over deeds and obligating them to that covenant first. Otherwise their state as they embarked on the task would not have been proper and would not have had a wholesome effect.

[‘O my sons] do not enter by one gate, that is, do not wayfare along the path of a single virtue, such as munificence for example but not bravery; or do not conduct yourselves according to one of God’s descriptions only, exalted be He, for the presence of the [inclusive] unity is the source of all virtues and the essence of the [exclusive] unity is the principle of all the attributes. Thus wayfare along the path of all of the separate virtues until you have acquired the attribute of justice whereafter you can turn to the presence of the [inclusive] unity, and onduct yourselves according to all of the attributes until the essence is unveiled to you. It is related in a ḥadīth that on the Day of Resurrection, God, exalted be He, discloses Himself to the various religious groups according to the belief of each [one of them] and so they recognise Him. But He then undergoes a transmutation into another form and they deny Him. Yet I cannot avail you against God anything, in other words, I cannot ward off anything from you should He withhold from you the granting of success or veil you with certain veils from your perfections, for the intellect can only effuse knowledge, not bring a preparedness into existence or remove a veil.

And when they entered, that is, [when] they obeyed the command of the intellect to wayfare along the path of all of the virtues, it did not avail them from the direction of God, anything, in other words, their being veiled by the veil of Majesty and privation from the pleasure of arrival did not avert anything from them, because the intellect is only guided to primordial nature and only itself guides to gnosis. As regards being illumined by the light of the Beauty and delighting in the pleasure of yearning by seeking contact, and tasting of fervent love from the perfection of the Majesty and the Beauty, nay, the Majesty of the Beauty and the Beauty of the Majesty, that is something that can only be facilitated by the light of guidance that comes from the Truth [Himself]; it was but a need in Jacob’s soul, to make them perfect by means of virtues. And verily he was possessed of knowledge, because God had taught him, not because he enjoyed eyewitness or presential vision; but most of mankind do not know, that, and so they suppose that perfection is how much knowledge the intellect possesses; or [it could be understood as] mankind of the senses who do not know the knowledge of the universal intellect;

he [Joseph] took his brother into his arms, by virtue of the correspondence between them in terms of disengagement;

he put the drinking-cup into the saddlebag of his brother, the drinking-cup with which he distributes the measure to people, in other words, his faculty for comprehending forms of knowledge from which he can then derive the knowledge of divine precepts and infer the canons of justice. For the practical rational faculty becomes more able to comprehend rational concepts after disengaging from the garments of estimation and imagination, as does the considerative one, which is the faculty that manages the affair of livelihood, and the one tarnished with illusion in its initial state.

The attribution of theft to him is because of his habituation, in the locus of estimation, to comprehending [only] the particulars of those meanings attached to substrata, and [because of] his remoteness from comprehending universals. So when he became better enabled to [comprehend] them after being taken into his brother’s arms and drawing from him that faculty by means of disengagement, it was as though he had stolen [something] whereas he had not stolen. As for the crier who accused them of theft, he is illusion and because of the presence of something illusory [?] the state of all changed from what it had been; their [the cameleers] non-compliance with him and his supposing that to be the case was a deficiency on their part [?].

The load [of one camel] promised for whoever brings [back] the goblet represents the obligations of the divine law (taklīf) which come about by means of the practical intellect when it draws that knowledge from the heart. The goblet is the faculty of preparedness by which his knowledge is actualised. The one missing it who searches their saddlebags and the one who pulls it out of his [Joseph’s] brother’s saddlebag is reflection, whom the heart had sent for that task.

And since the religion of the Holy Spirit is the verification of gnoses and considerative realities, which has nothing to do with action, he could not have taken his brother, by urging him to practical things or using him for the [pursuit of] virtues, according to the king’s law, since his religion is knowledge and his knowledge is rational comprehension, unless God willed, that is, at the moment of the illumination of the soul by the light of the heart that is derived from Him and of the expanding of the breast that is receptive of practical things, which is the raising of degrees [referred to], since the soul at that instance rises to the degree of the heart and the heart to the degree of the spirit at the station of presential vision; and above every possessor of knowledge, such as the faculties, is one who knows better, such as the practical intellect, above whom is the heart, above whom is the considerative intellect, above whom is the spirit, above whom is the Holy Spirit, and God, exalted be He, is above all, Knower of all Unseens.

As for the significance of: They said, ‘If he is stealing, a brother of his stole before’, it is that the heart, alone from among all of the faculties, had been prepared for this meaning beforehand, and so they continued not to recognise the two [Joseph and his brother], accusing the two before their father in order to actualise what they sought and to seek a pleasure beyond the one they sought [?]. It is said that Abraham, God’s blessings and peace be upon him, used to own a belt which the eldest of his children would inherit. So after Isaac, Joseph’s paternal aunt inherited it since she was the eldest of the children, and she had also raised Joseph after the death of his mother Rachel. But when he came of age, Jacob wanted to take [possession of] it [the belt] from her, but she would not renounce [possession of] it. So she tied the belt underneath his clothes, peace be upon him, and then said that she had lost the belt. When it was found upon him [Jacob], it was handed over to her and Jacob left it with her until she died. This [belt] is an allusion to the station of chivalry which he [Jacob] inherited from Abraham the spirit before the station of sanctity, during the time of his youth. It was the reassured soul that had tied it^{1This ‘it’ refers to the belt, the station of chivalry.} around him, the one that had embraced it at the time of the death of Rachel the self-reproaching [soul]. Jacob’s desire to strip her of this [belt] is an allusion to the fact that the intellect desires to be elevated to the [station of the] earning of gnoses and realities; and when he finds it [the intellect] described with qualities of excellence at the station of chivarly, he is satisfied with it and leaves him with the reassured soul wayfaring along the path of virtues until she [the reassured soul] passes away through annihilation in God at the station of sanctity. But God knows best. As for Joseph’s keeping his words secret in his soul, that is his awareness of their inability to perceive his station and their falling short of his perfection, and these [words] were: you are a worse case.

The one who requested to be taken by Joseph the heart in place of his brother the practical intellect was [the faculty of] estimation since it tends to interfere with rational concepts and yearns to be elevated to the horizons of the intellect; his [estimation’s] judgement concerning these [concepts] in an improper way and their [the brothers’] inclination to his leadership of them, excluding the practical intellect, is on account of the correspondence between them in terms of their attachment to substrata and his [estimation’s] wish to actualise for them their goals in the way of corporeal pleasures.

But when the heart found that his property, being the comprehension of rational meanings, with the practical intellect and not [with the faculty of] estimation: He said, ‘God forbid that we should take anyone save him with whom we found our property; for then truly, if we were to take estimation in his place, and take him into our arms and cast on him what we cast to our brother [Benjamin], we would be committing a terrible injustice since we would be assigning something a place to which it does not belong.

Their despairing of him is their sensing that estimation would not be placed in charge of them and they would not be permitted to enjoy his exigencies or judgement. The most senior of them who reminded them of the pledge they had given to their father, [the pledge] being the conviction of faith, and [who reminded them] of their failure regarding Joseph when estimation had ruled, was reflection (fikr); that is why the exegetes he was the one who made the fairest decision regarding Joseph and prevented them from killing him. As for his words, So I will never leave this land until my father permits me, this means I shall not make any move without the judgement of the intellect, as opposed to estimation, until I die.

His command to them to go back to their father constitutes his judicious guiding of them to obey rational commands; and we testified only regarding what we knew, in other words, all we know is that that property being in the possession of the practical intellect can only be a deficiency and a theft, since we have no awareness of it nor of the fact that it is [actually] a perfection; we were not, guardians of the rational entific meaning [of that property], since we are only able to perceive that which is in the visible world [and not the Unseen], which is the case with the folk of our town, the city of the body from among the vegetative faculties.

and the caravan with which we approached, from among the animal faculties. So ask them that they might inform you of your son’s thievery.

‘Nay,’ he said, ‘but your souls have beguiled you into something: that is, your physical bodily natures adorned for you the delighting in corporeal pleasures and sensory passionate desires, such that you supposed these to be perfection and [supposed] the pursuit of rational concepts, adherence to divine precepts and being under the command of virtues a deficiency. Yet beautiful patience!, in other words, it is for you to be beautifully patient in always implementing the divine precepts and [conducting yourselves according to] the virtues, to halt with the judgement of the Law and [that of] the intellect; or [it means] beautiful patience in partaking of enjoyment according to the [dictates of the] Law is more comely for you than disregarding the Law and dogged pursuit of the judgements of nature; or [it means], then for me it is to be beautifully patient with regard to Joseph and his brothers continuing to seek the irradiation of the holy lights, the sending down of revealed judgements and deducing of the bases thereof, something to which I have no access. Therefore I must be separated from them until they are free to look after the best interests of both sides and to fulfil the dues of both matters, namely, those of everyday life and the final return. For just as the intellect entails the pursuit of perfection and the making good of the final return, so it entails the making good of the body and the organising of the means of livelihood, as well as the balancing of the constitution by means of nourishment and the nurturing of faculties by means of pleasures; or [it means] then it is my task to endure with beautiful patience [all of] that. It may be that God will bring them all [back] to me, from the direction of ‘the highest horizon’ [cf. Q. 53:7] and by elevation from my stage to what my consideration and vision entail in the way of being mindful of both sides and [what] my station and my level [entail] in the way of mediating between the two waystations. Indeed He is the Knower, of realities, the Wise’, in governing the worlds, and so He does not leave them to be mindful of the upper aspect but oblivious to the lower aspect so that the city of the body is then ruined and its people perish. That was before the complete protection, which we have mentioned, since this is the station of striving after the unveiling and the wayfaring along the path of uprightness after the affirmation of the Oneness.

And he turned away from them, that is, he abandoned their side and became oblivious to their state because of his affectionate yearning for Joseph the heart and his being attracted to his [Joseph’s] side. And his eyes turned white with grief, firstly, with his [Joseph’s] fall to the bottom of the well, the weakening of the faculty of his insight because of the excessive grief over the separation from him, and then because of his [Joseph’s] elevation above his [Jacob’s] stage and his [Joseph’s] annihilation in the affirmation of the Oneness, and his [Jacob’s] being left behind and his inability to comprehend him [Joseph] because of his station and his perfectedness, and therefore his vision remained dim and unable to see Joseph’s state; such that he was [filled] with suppressed agony, filled as such because of the separation from him.

As for their saying: ‘you will never cease remembering Joseph, this is an allusion to the intensity of his affectionate yearning, longing and attraction to the aspect of the heart, in that condition, to the exclusion of them, by virtue of the intimate correspondence between them in terms of disengagement and inclination to the higher world.

As for his words, and I know from God what you do not know, is an allusion to the fact that the intellect knows that the heart will soon return to the world of creatures and will halt with habit after having been to the Side of the Truth and having separated from the rule of habit, similar to the question once posed: ‘What is the end?’, to which it was said, ‘It is to return to the beginning’.

It was on the basis of that knowledge that he said, O my sons, go and enquire about Joseph and his brother, and that was at [the moment of] his being unengaged in wayfaring totally and at the arrival of the effect of that disengagement to the intellect, by virtue of its proximity to his level in terms of descent (tanazzul) and drawing down close (tadallī),^{1Ibn ʿArabī uses tadānī and tadallī, which Chittick translates as ‘drawing close’ and ‘coming down’, respectively. The context of the terms is the mutual waystation where the vision of the God, the Real, takes place, where the servant ascends and the Served One comes down (see Chittick 1989: 342). The expressions are clearly derived from Q. 53:8, the Sūrat al-Najm, where both appear, particularly elusively in terms of their referrents, in what Muslim tradition has understood to be a description of the Prophet seeing his Lord (sometimes, modified to a vision with Gabriel).} such that he commands [his children] the faculties to draw him [Joseph the heart] down to their station by seeking the shares in the form of the corporeal concentration (jamʿiyya) and [by] managing their particular livelihood and best interests. That was the spirit which forbade them from despairing of Him, since the believer finds this spirit and beatitude in the second life which will be through God and in which he will be alive through Him and will enjoy in His presence all manner of bliss and the pleasures of the Gardens of the acts, the attributes and the Essence, by means of the soul, the heart and the spirit, in contrast to the disbeliever, as He has said: Indeed none despairs of the [gracious] Spirit of God save the disbelieving folk’.

As for their statement: [‘O ʿAzīz] misfortune has befallen us and our family, this is an allusion to their difficult situation, their evil state and straitened condition as they halt with dues; and we have come with reject merchandise: an allusion to their weakness, by virtue of the paucity of the substrata of their faculties and the falling short of their nourishment to secure [for them] what they desire. And their saying, so fill up for us the measure, is an attempt to solicit his sympathy by seeking the shares.

As for his statement, ‘Do you realise what you did to Joseph and his brother […]?, this is an allusion to the descent of the heart to their station in the locus of the breast so that they might recognise him and remember their state at the beginning and what they did to him during the time of ignorance and misguidedness.

As for their saying, ‘Is it really you, Joseph?’, this is a marvelling on their part at his state in that luminous configuration and courtly splendour and the remoteness of [all of] that from his state at the very beginning. As for his words, God has truly shown favour to us, to the end of this [verse]: is an allusion to the causative factor in all of that and the cause of his perfection.

Their statement, ‘By God, truly God has preferred you over us: an allusion to the faculties, upon uprightness, being guided to his perfection and their falling short of that.

As for his words, ‘There shall be no reproach on you this day — since these [faculties] are innately disposed to the acts of [physical] nature [which they commit]. And his words, God will forgive you: an allusion to their exoneration from sin upon being illumined by the light of virtue and being subject to His command upon perfection.

The shirt represents the luminous configuration which the heart acquired as an attribute upon arriving at the [inclusive] unity at the source of union and acquiring the attributes of God, exalted be He. It is also said that this was the inherited shirt which was in his amulet when he was cast into the well, [the shirt] being an allusion to the light of original primordial nature, whereas the former is an allusion to the light of perfection that is actualised for him after the arrival: the former is more likely to open up the eye of the intellect. For with the intellect, when its insight is not coloured by the light of guidance that comes from the Truth, it becomes blind to the divine attributes; and bring me all your folk’, that is to say, come back to me every last one of you in the station of temperance and observing moderation in acts — as the heart sits in the middle between two aspects, lowness and highness — and join me and submit to my command, draw near to me and do not become remote from my station by pursuing corporeal pleasures as required by your natures.

His ‘scent’, which he [Jacob] sensed from [such] a distance, constitutes the arrival of the effect of the heart’s return to the knowledge of the intellect and of what is rational, and its turning to it from sheer affirmation of Oneness by equipping the animal faculties with the provision of shares according to the stipulations of justice, the canon of the divine law and the intellect. It is said that he equipped the cameleers with the fairest [provisions] before sending it off in the direction of [the land of] Canaan.

As for his ‘misguidance of old’, this is his fervent love for the heart from pre-eternity and his distraction from their aspect.

As for his saying, ‘Did I not say to you, “Indeed I know from God what you do not know?”, this is an allusion to his prior knowledge of the heart’s return to the station of the intellect.

His asking of forgiveness for them is his establishing of them upon the judgement of the intellectual virtues by means of uprightness after their purification, their acquisition of intelligence and their reception of luminous configurations after shedding the dark ones. Their entry upon Joseph is their arrival at the station of the breast at the point of uprightness. Their entry into Egypt is the being of all in the presence of the divine concentration of the [inclusive] unity despite the variance in their levels of excellence at the source of the union of the unity. The raising of his parents upon the throne represents the elevation of the two levels of the intellect and the soul over the levels of the remaining faculties and the increase in their propinquity to him and the potency of their authority over these [other faculties]. Their falling down in prostration before him represents the submission of all and their obedience to him by the command of the divine [inclusive] unity without their souls’ exercising any motion, such that not a single hair or vein moves in them except by means of God.

The interpretation of his vision is the [conceptualised] form of what was established in his first preparedness in the way of [his] reception of that perfection. Indeed my Lord has made it true: He has brought it out from potentiality into actuality. And indeed He has been gracious to me, by [granting me] subsistence after annihilation, since He brought me out of, the prison of solitary retreat in which I was veiled from the presential vision of the multiplicity at the source of unity and [from] the contemplation of the Beauty in the attributes of the Majesty; and brought you from, the desert outside Egypt of the divine presence, after Satan, of illusion, had incited ill feeling between me and my brethren, in goading them to cast me into the bottom of the well of physical nature by engrossing themselves in and doggedly pursuing corporeal pleasures. Truly my Lord is Gentle, towards His beloved ones by facilitating for them perfection and regulating their affairs in accordance with His pre-eternal wish and eternal solicitude. Truly He is the Knower, of what preparednesses contain, the Wise, in ordering the causes of perfection and helping the prepared to arrive there successfully.

My Lord, indeed You have given me [something] of sovereignty, that is, of the Oneness of sovereignty which is the Oneness of the acts, and You have taught me the interpretation of events, that is, the meanings of things hidden in the Unseen and what a [given] form of the Unseen ultimately refers to, something which belongs to the affirmation of the Oneness of the attributes, Originator, of the heavens of the attributes at the station of the heart and [of] the earth of the affirmation of the Oneness of the acts at the station of the soul. You are my Protector, in the affirmation of the Oneness of the Essence in this world of the sovereignty and the Hereafter of the spiritual [angelic] realm. Receive me in death in submission [to You]: annihilate me from myself in a state of being obedient to Your command and not insolent as a result of the subsisting of [my] ego, and join me to the righteous’, who are firmly fixed at the station of uprightness after being annihilated in the affirmation of Oneness.

And most of them when they believe in God, with cognitive faith, only do so by ascribing partners [to Him], by affirming [the existence of] an existent other than Him; or [when they believe] with entific faith, then only by committing idolatry by being veiled in their I-nesses;

a pall of God’s chastisement, a veil, issuing from a deeply-rooted dark configuration, that obstructs their preparedness from receiving perfection; or the coming, of the minor resurrection, upon them suddenly, while they are unaware, of the light of unveiling and the affirmation of Oneness and so their veil is not lifted and they remain forever veiled.

Say: ‘This, way that I wayfare upon, which is the way of the affirmation of the Oneness of the Essence, is my way, specific to me, upon which is only me alone, I call to, the Essence of the [exclusive] unity that is qualified by all of the attributes at the source of the union, I and whoever follows me, along this path. And all who call to this way are followers of mine, for the prophets before me all called to the principle and to the final return and to the Essence of the [inclusive] unity that is qualified by some of the attributes, with the exception of Abraham, peace be upon him, for he was the pole (quṭb)^{1A pole is a friend of God around whom a particular reality of the universe turns. Every pole has two names, servant of Allāh and servant of another of His Names: see Chittick 1989: 371.} of affirmation of [God’s] Oneness. That is why the Prophet [Muḥammad] was a follower of him, when considering the union without differentiation, since there is none who can complete the differentiations of the attributes except him [Muḥammad], blessings and peace be upon him. Otherwise someone other than him would have been the seal of the way of the truth as he was, because no one can call except to that station of perfection which he has reached. So Glory be to God!, I [Muḥammad] declare Him to be [exalted] above that anyone other than Him should be upon His way. Nay, He is the wayfarer upon His way and the Caller to His Essence, and I am not of the idolaters’, who affirm the other at the station of the affirmation of Essential unity, those who are veiled from Him by [their] I-ness; rather I am annihilated by Him from myself, for He is the One who calls to His way.

And We did not send before you [any messengers] save men inspired by revelation, that is, individuals in whom some remnant of manliness subsisted, from among the people of the towns of the attributes and the stations, and not from Egypt of the essence, for the subsistence that is actualised for the folk of fixity can only be in the measure in which they are annihilated and have returned to creation and can only be commensurate with the ascension. Complete annihilation and perfect ascension can only be in the case of the pole who possesses the perfect preparedness, who attains every single level, and in whose case must be the complete return that subsumes all of the differentiations of the attributes upon subsistence: that person is the ‘seal’ (khātam), That is why the Prophet said: ‘It is as though the edifice of prophethood has been completed and built with only one brick remaining to be put in place: I am that [final] brick’. It is to this meaning that he alluded in his statement, ‘I was sent to complete the noble character traits (makārim al-akhlāq)’. Have they not travelled, in the land of their preparedness, and seen the nature of the, final, consequence for, the affair of, those who were before them, and the ultimate end of their perfection so that they might attain the full extent of their progress and actualise [the like of] their perfections in accordance with their [individual] preparednesses. For every person there is a specificity and his specific preparedness entails a specific felicity which will be his final sequel, and by acquiring awareness of the specificities of souls and the ultimate ends of their wayfaring there is actualised for the soul from those perfections a unifying configuration which is the perfection of the Muḥammadan community in accordance with their varying preparednesses, and this is the abode of the Hereafter, which is better for those who guard against the attributes of their souls which constitute the veils of [their] preparednesses. Will you not understand?, that this station is better than this perishing abode and its enjoyments that you pursue, for, [the Hereafter] it is indeed the [true] Life, if they only knew [Q. 29:64].

Until when the messengers despaired, that is, [until when] they have journeyed and guarded themselves and their conquest and victory over unveilings slackened by the disbelief of the faculties of the soul, until when the messengers, those who are the noble leaders of the people, despaired of attaining perfection, and thought that, their suppositions had deceived them in terms of their preparedness for perfection or their hopes, Our help came to them, in the way of reinforcement and the granting of success by the replenishing [of them] with the lights of the angelic realm and the realm of invincibility, and whomever We wished We delivered, of those messengers and their followers belonging to the folk of [God’s] solicitude. And, Our vanquishing by means of veils and chastisement, cannot be averted from the sinning folk, when We make manifest upon their hearts the attributes of their souls so that they then cause them [their hearts] to acquire wicked configurations that veil and harm [them].

Verily there is in their stories a crossing over [moral] for people of pith, that is, [a moral] by which they can cross over from the exoteric aspect of these [stories] to their esoteric one, in the way that We provided a [spiritual] crossing over in the story of Joseph for the possessors of intellects that are stripped of the skin of illusory things, unadulterated with the coverings of sensory things. It, this Qurʾān, is not a discourse that has been fabricated, by the soul, but a confirmation of what, was fixed beforehand in the Tablet, and a detailing of everything, that is undifferentiated in the world of [divine] decree and a guidance to the affirmation of Oneness, and a mercy, by means of the self-disclosures of the attributes from behind the curtains of His verses, for a folk who believe, in the Unseen by virtue of the purity of their preparedness.