Alif Lām Mīm Ṣād.

A Book that is revealed to you, to where He says as a reminder for those who believe: Alif is an allusion to the Essence of the [exclusive] unity (aḥadiyya); lām [is an allusion] to the Essence combined with the attribute of knowledge, as has already been mentioned; mīm [is an allusion] to the all-comprehensive talisman (tamīma)^{1The word tamīma signfies an ‘amulet’, known from pre-Islamic times, which would be placed around the necks of children to protect them from the evil eye, sickness and so on. However, I have chosen to render it as talisman (ṭilsim) in deference to Ibn ʿArabī’s discussion of ‘the waystation of three talismanic mysteries, which are formed and governed by the Muhammadan presence’, the three talismans being reflection, imagination and habit each of which rule over a particular aspect (the rational faculties, meanings and the rational soul, respectively): see Chittick 1989: 184-5; on tamīma see Toufic Fahd, ‘tamīma’, EI2, X, 177.} which is the meaning of Muḥammad, that is, his soul and his reality; and ṣād [is an allusion] to the Muḥammadan form which is his body and his external aspect. It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said, ‘Ṣād is a mountain outside Mecca atop of which was the Throne of the Compassionate (ʿarsh al-Raḥmān) before there was either night or day’. By the mountain he was alluding to Muḥammad and by the Throne of the Compassionate to his heart, as stated by the ḥadīth [to the effect that]: ‘The heart of the believer is the Throne of God’. It has also been related that: ‘Neithe My earth nor My heaven can embrace Me, but the heart of My believing servant embraces Me’. As for his words, ‘before there was either night or day’, these are an allusion to the unity, since when the heart falls under the shadow of the earth of the soul and is veiled by the attributes of this [soul] it is night for it; but when there rises over it the light of the sun of the spirit and it finds light by the light of this [spirit] then it is day. When it [the heart] arrives at the true unity through gnosis and presential vision of the essence and both light and darkness become equal for it, then for it that moment will be neither day nor night and the Compassionate’s Throne will only be at that moment. Thus the meaning of the verse is that the existence of the All from beginning to end is a Book that has been revealed to you, that is to say, a Book the knowledge of which has been revealed to you. So let there be no inhibition in your breast because of It, that is, [let there not be] any constraint [in your breast] to bear it, lest it not be able to embrace it by virtue of its tremendousness such that it then dissipates in the annihilation in the unity and the absorption in the source of the union and the distraction from the differentiation, since he [Muḥammad], peace be upon him, was at the station of annihilation veiled by the Truth from creatures: each time that existence was restored to him and he was veiled from the presential vision of [his] essence and [that existence] manifested itself upon him at [the level of] differentiation, his vessel (wiʿāʾ) narrowed and he became laden with a burden and a weight. That is why he was addressed with His words: did We not expand your breast for you and relieve you of your burden [Q. 94:1-2] by means of existence endowed by the Truth and uprightness in subsistence following annihilation through fixity (tamkīn), so that your breast might embrace union and differentiation, the Truth and creatures, and there would no longer remain any burden upon you at the source of the union nor any veiling by one from the othe; that you may warn thereby, and remind with a true reminder, those who believe, with a faith based on the unseen. In other words, let not your breast be constrained by this [Book] so that you might be able to warn and to remind. For if it were to become constrained, he would have remained in the state of annihilation, unable to see [anything] in existence but the Truth, looking upon the Truth through the lens of pure non-existence: how then would he [be able to] warn and remind or command and forbid. If it is taken to be an oath, then the significance would be [those who believe] in the All, from beginning to end, or [those who believe] in the God’s Greatest Name, for ṣād is the bearer of the Throne, and the Throne embraces the Essence and the attributes, the sum total being the Greatest Name: that verily it is a Book the knowledge of which has been revealed to you. Or, [it means] verily this Qurʾān is a Book that has been revealed to you.

The weighing on that day, is the true [weighing]: the weighing is the [conceptual] consideration, that is, the [basis for the] consideration of deeds when the minor resurrection has taken place shall be the truth, that is, justice or what is fixed or the just weighing on that day. As for those whose scales are heavy, that is, those whose weighed things preponderate, being the enduring righteous deeds, they are the successful, who prevail with the attributes of primordial nature and the bliss of the Garden of the attributes at the station of the heart.

And as for those whose scales are light, whose weighed things [are light], being those perishing sensory things, those are the ones who have lost their souls, by having sold them in exchange for hasty pleasures that are quick to disappear and by annihilating them in the abode of annihilation despite their [the souls’] being the commodity [to be exchanged] for subsistence. Know that the tongue of the scale of Truth is the attribute of justice. One of His two palms is the world of the senses, while the other palm is the world of the intellect. Thus the one earnings were the enduring intelligibles, virtuous character traits, and the good deeds that are joined to sincere intentions, then these [acquisitions] will have weight, that is to say, they will be have value and weight, since there is no weightier value than everlasting subsistence. As for the one whose acquisitions were the ephemeral sensory things, transient pleasures, corrupt passionate desires, despicable character traits and ruinous evils, these [acquisitions] will weigh in lightly, that is to say, they shall have no value and are useless, there being no lightness lighter than what has perished. Their loss then resides in their having forfeited their original preparedness when they sought the ephemera of this world and the actualisation of egoistic goals by virtue of their having manifested themselves through the attributes of their souls and of their not having done justice to the attributes of God, exalted be He, by denying them, that is, by concealing them with the attributes of their souls.

[He [Iblīs] said, ‘I am better than him.] You created me from fire, while him You created from clay’: You created the estimative faculty from the subtlest parts of the animal spirit that comes into being in the heart as a result of the vaporousness and delicateness of the mixtures and rises to the brain. That spirit is the hottest element in the body, which is why he referred to as ‘fire’. Heat necessitates ascent and rising. We have already mentioned how every spiritual faculty (quwwa malakūtiyya) is aware of the specific qualities of the one below it but not of the one above it and [is aware] of the perfections of the body and their specific qualities as well as the perfections of the animal spirit and their specific qualities: this [faculty’s] veiledness from the spiritual human perfections and those [perfections] of the heart represents the image (ṣūra) of its denial and the causative factor in its recalcitrance, its haughtiness and its transgressing [the bounds] of its stage in judging intelligible meanings and disengaged realities. The refusal to accept the judgement of the intellect is [represented by] the image (ṣūra) of its refusal to prostrate.

[Said He, ‘Then go down from it] — it is not for you to be haughty here, since to act with haughtiness, which is to feign a quality that one does not have, is of the attributes of the soul. Thus it is not befitting of the spiritual presence which you claim to belong to [by right] by your acting superior to the intellect: begone [from here]. You are not from among its [rightful] inhabitants, those who are the glorious ones, [rather] you are surely among the abased!’, from among the egocentric faculties that adhere to the lower aspect, which shall be forever ignominious by virtue of its adherence to [physical] bodies,

until the day when they are resurrected’, from the tombs of [their] bodies and the burial places of the attributes of the soul following voluntary death at the middle resurrection through the life of the heart and the deliverance of primordial nature from the veils of configuration. Or [it means] [until] they are resurrected after annihilation in the unity at the major resurrection through the existence that is bestowed by the Truth and [through] real life. The former [type of] resurrected individual is the one who is mukliṣ, while the latter is mukhlaṣ. Iblis has no means of leading either of these two astray.

[Said he,] ‘Now, by that You have sent me astray: this is an avowal. Iblis is veiled from the Essence of the unity but not from the attributes and the acts. Thus his presential vision of the acts and his revering of them constitutes a pledge by them, as he vows by His might where God says [that Satan says] Now, by Your might, I shall surely pervert them all [Q. 38:82]; verily I shall sit in ambush for them on Your [straight] path, that is, verily I shall get in their way on the path of affirming the unity of the Essence and shall verily impede them from wayfaring along it by distracting them with what is other than You and I shall verily come upon them from all four directions, those from which the enemy comes at the [moment of] witnessing. For his coming [upon them] from below, that is, from the direction of judgements based on the senses and measures (tadābīr) based on particulars on the basis of what is in the best interest in terms of this world does not necessarily result in being led astray. Nay, it could be profitable in terms of the natural and physical sciences and the intellect could be assisted by [this coming of him] in these [sciences], as has already been mentioned in the interpretation of His words they would surely have received nourishment from above them and from beneath their feet [Q. 5:66]. As for his coming [upon them] from above, this is not possible for him since the higher aspect is the one that is adjacent to the spirit and [the one] from which issue veracious inspirations and angelic castings^{1The ‘castings’ are the knowledge of the unseen realities which angels (‘casters’) cast into the heart: see Chittick 1989: 260ff.} and [from which] are effused gnoses and spiritual realities; which leaves the four directions, the places from which issue his evil whisperings. As for ‘from before him’, [he comes upon him thus] by making him feel secure from God’s plotting and tempting him with [the concept of] God being Forgiving and Merciful such that he does not come to fear [Him] and so [Iblis] slows him down from [the performance of] acts of obedience. As for ‘from behind him’, [he comes upon him thus] by making him fearful of impoverishment and [his] offspring being ruined after him and so he [Iblis] incites him to gather and store up for them and for himself in the future having entertained the hope of a long life. As for [Iblis’ coming upon him] from the right side, [he does so] by adorning for him qualities of excellence in him and making him proud of his merit, his knowledge and his [acts of] obedience, veiling him thereby from God by making him see the causes of his excellence. As for [Iblis’ coming] from the left side, [he does this] by driving him to acts of disobedience and vileness and summoning him to passionate desires and pleasures.

And You will not find most of them thankful’, employing their faculties and limbs and what God has graced them with in the path of obedience and seeking proximity to God.

As for those of them, who follow you I shall assuredly fill Hell, [physical] nature, which is the lowest of the levels of existence, with all of you’, veiled from the pleasure of eternal bliss and the tasting of timeless subsistence, [and from] spiritual perfections and the perfections that come from the Truth, chastised by the fires of privation from what is desired, in the fluctuations (inqilāb) of the world of contrareity and the turbulences (taqallubāt) of engendered being and corruption.

[Then Satan whispered to them] that he might manifest to them that which was hidden to them of their shameful parts, in other words, that he might make manifest upon them, by making them incline to [physical] nature, what had been veiled from them upon their disengagement from physical affairs, corporeal pleasures, despicable traits of character, animal acts and predatorial and bestial acts which man is ashamed to manifest and is averse to revealing, and which manliness impels him to conceal, since these constitutes shameful parts from the point of view of the intellect which disdains them and deems them vile. And he said, ‘Your Lord prohibited you from this tree only, lest you become angels, in other words, he gave them the illusion that in connecting with the physical nature of bodies and primordial substrata there can be [found] angelic pleasures, as well as perceptions, acts and immortality therein; or [that there is therein] a kingdom and dominion over the faculties and all animal beings forever without end — if one is to read malikīn [instead of malakayn], as where he [Iblis] says [to Adam] shall I guide you to the Tree of Immortality and a kingdom that does not waste away? [Q. 20:120]. Thus, in the guise of trustworthy counselor, he adorned for them aspects of welfare that are partial and [various] sensory ornaments, neither of which can be attained except through the instruments of the body.

Thus did he lead them, that is, thus he brought them down to attachment to these [aforementioned things] and to feeling reassured with them by virtue of the way in which he deluded them in donning the garb of a counselor and giving them to believe mistakenly that corporeal pleasures and human dominion are everlasting. He also enticed them with corporeal benefits and passionate desires of the soul; and they set about piecing together onto themselves some of the leaves of the Garden, that is, [they set about] concealing the coverings of physical nature with virtuous dispositions and beautiful habits, which are of the corollaries of rational opinions and the inferences of the practical rational faculty, and hiding them by means of cognitive devices. And their Lord called them: ‘Did I not prohibit you: the form of the prohibtion is that which has become fixed in intellects in the way of inclination to disengagement and the perception of intelligibles and the staying away from substrata and sensory objects. And His statement to them, “Verily Satan is a manifest enemy to you”?’, is what He has inspired in the intellect in terms of negating the judgements of estimation and opposing its perceptions and being aware of its contraventions and haughtiness towards it [the intellect]: His call to them in these [words] is to point out this signification by means of the mind and to remind [them] of it after [their] attachment and immersion in physical pleasures upon [attaining] maturity and the manifestation upon them of the lights of the intellect and understanding. As for their saying:

They said, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged our souls: this is the realisation of the rational-speech soul of its deficiency with regard to physical nature and the extinguishing of its light, the breaking of its potency and the actualisation of motivation in it to seek perfection through disengagement; and if You do not forgive us, by dressing us with spiritual lights and effusing them so that they radiate upon us, and have mercy on us, by effusing [upon us] gnoses of realities, we shall surely be among, those who have destroyed [their] original preparedness, which is the substratum of felicity and subsistence, by expending it in the abode of annihilation, and [we shall be among] those who have been deprived of perfection through disengagement by [our] adherence to the deficiency of physical nature.

[O Children of Adam! We have sent down on you] a garment to conceal your shameful parts, that is to say, a divine law that covers up the vile aspects of your descriptions and the lewdness of your acts, and feathers, that is, beauty that will distance you from any likeness to neglected cattle and that will adorn you with virtuous character traits and beautiful acts, and the garment of God-fearing, that is, the attribute of abstinence and caution against the atttibute of the soul, that is better, than the sum total of the pillars of the law, since it is the fundament and the basis of religion, much like [the role of] a restrictive diet in treatment [of maladies]; that is one of God’s signs, that is, one of the lights of His attributes, since avoidance of the attributes of the soul is not actualised and is not facilitated except by the manifestation of the self-disclosures of the attributes of the Truth. This is what they [in the community] refer to when they say: ‘God does not dispose of something that belongs to a servant except that He compensates him with something better of the same type’; perhaps they will remember, at the manifestation of the self-disclosures of your original spiritual garment, or the vicinity of the Truth which you used to inhabit by the guidance of the lights of the attributes.

[O Children of Adam!] Let not Satan seduce you, away from entering the Garden and remaining adhered to it by stripping you of the garment of the divine law and feigning strength [over you], as he caused your parents to go forth, from it, by stripping [them] of the luminous garment of primordial nature.

Say: ‘My Lord enjoins justice, that is, equity and uprightness. And set upright your countenances, your existing essences, by preventing them from inclination and deviation towards the two sides of immoderation and excess in justice and from [any] variegations in uprightness, in every place of worship, that is, every station of prostration or moment of prostration. Prostration can be divided into four divisions: 1) the prostration of compliance, obedience and establishing the countenance there through sincere devotion (ikhlāṣ) and the avoidance of show and hypocrisy with regard to deeds performed for God and [the avoidance of] turning one’s attention to other [than God] in those [deeds], as well as being mindful that the affair and the sincerity of the intention are in harmony, and avoiding contravention [of God] in all affairs, that which is justice; 2) the prostration of annihilation in the acts and the establishing of the countenance there by fulfilling what is due to that such that the person sees no effective agent other than God and sees no effect [as being] from himself or from any other; 3) the prostration of annihilation in the attributes and the establishing of the countenance there by observing its requirements in such a way that he does not see the adornments of his essence therein nor desire or loathe anything, [but] without inclining towards immoderation by abandoning the enjoining of decency and the forbidding of indecency, nor towards excessive wrath against the one in contravention; 3) and the prostration of annihilation in the Essence and establishing the countenance there by being absent from remnants and by being obliterated totally and by refraining from affirming ego and duality so that he does not become insolent by means of the veil of egoism nor engage in heresy by disregarding the law and abandoning obedience; and call upon Him, devoting your religion to Him, at the first station by singling it out for performing deeds for God [alone], and at the second and third [stations] by seeing religion and obedience as being from God, and at the fourth [station] by seeing these through God, such that God becomes the object of his religion and none other than Him having any share thereof. As He brought you into being, by manifesting you and hiding Himself, so you will return, by your annihilation in Him and your becoming hidden so that He might become manifest.

A party, He has guided, them to this path, while another party have deserved, the word of, misguidance, due to the fact that they have taken the devils of the ego-centric faculties, both the estimative and the imaginative, as patrons instead of God, because of the correspondence of their essences in terms of their darkness, sulliedness and remoteness from the core essence of light to these [patrons] and [because of] the genus correspondence that exists between them in terms of dependence on the lower aspect and inclination towards the ornaments of physical nature; and they suppose that they are guided’, since the authority that estimation exercises is over supposition.

[O Children of Adam!] Don your adornment at every place of worship, that is, adhere to [donning] it and commit to it. The adornment of the first station of prostration is to be sincere in devoting deeds to God; the adornment of the second station is trust and being mindful of its requirements; the adornment of the third station is to fulfil what is due with regard to satisfaction; the adornment of the fourth station is fixity in verifying by means of the reality that comes from the Truth and being mindful of the dues of uprightness and its requirements; and eat and drink, but do not be excessive, by observing the rule of justice regarding it.

Say, ‘Who has forbidden the adornment of God which He has brought forth for His servants, that is to say, who has forbidden them from the genus of the aforementioned absolute adornment and said that they cannot adorn themselves therewith and has considered that impossible on their part insisting that God is the one forbidding them, and the good things, in the way of the sustenance consisting of the knowledge of sincere devotion and the knowledge of the station of trust, satisfaction and fixity? [Say: ‘These, on the Day of Resurrection, shall be purified, from the blemish of variegations and the manifestation of any remnant of acts, attributes or essence.

Say: ‘My Lord forbids only indecencies, that is to say, the vices of the bestial faculty, and sin, and wrongful insolence, namely, the vices of the predatorial faculty, and that you associate, to the end [of the verse]: that is to say, the vices of the angelic rational-speech faculty, since these are ego-centric attributes that bar from the aforementioned adornments that are the human perfections that stand in contrareity to them.

Then whoever is wary and makes amends, that is, [whoever] is wary of any remnants at the annihilation and makes amends by being upright at the annihilation, no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve, since they will be at the station of sanctity.

And those who deny Our signs, that is, [those] who have obscured Our attributes by the attributes of their souls, and scorn them, by engaging in devilry, those shall be the inhabitants, of the fires of privation.

And between them is a veil, that is, among the people of the Garden and among the people of the Fire there is a veil by which each one of them is veiled from the next person. What is meant by the people of the Garden here is the people who receive the reward for deeds in the way of the pious ones, the ascetics and the devout whose Garden shall be the garden of souls, otherwise they are the people of the garden of hearts and spirits who are not veiled from the people of the Fire. And on the Heights, that is, at the topmost part of that veil, which is the veil of the heart that separates the two parties, one to the right and another to its left, there are men, the knowers, the folk of God and His elect, who know each, one of the two parties, by their mark: they greet the inhabitants of the Garden by extending [to them] the causes of purification, adornment and the lights of the heart and [by] effusing good things and blessings upon them. They have not yet entered the Garden because of their being disengaged from the garments of the attributes of souls and their goodly things and [because of] their rising above their stage such that no bliss can distract them from the presential vision of the Essence and the contemplation of the self-disclosures of the attributes; although they aspire, that these enter [it] so that they might acquire something of their light and be illumined by the rays issuing from the countenances of these and find intimacy in their presence.

And when their eyes are turned towards the inhabitants of the Fire: in other words, they do not look at them willingly or out of any compassion, mercy or satisfaction rather out of loathing and in passing, as though something had made their eyes turn to [look at] them; ‘Our Lord, do not assign us with the evildoing folk’, that is, do not cause our hearts to deviate after You have guided us [Q. 3:8], just as the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī, peace be upon him, said, ‘I seek refuge with God from misguidance after guidance’. The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, ‘Lord God, establish my heart firmly upon Your religion’, whereupon it was said to him, ‘But has not God forgiven you your past sins and those that will be?’, to which he replied, ‘And what would assure me that the likeness of the heart is not as the likeness of a feather in an open expanse the winds turning it over as they wish?’.

And indeed We have brought them a Book, which We have detailed with knowledge, that is, [We have given them] the human body, which is differentiated into limbs, extremities, organs and senses which can be used to attain perfection in accordance with what is decreed by Divine knowledge. The interpretation of this [verse] is [that it is a reference to] what is fulfilled by His command in the final sequel such as the transformation [of this body] into what cannot be used for that [perfection] at the Gathering in terms of configurations, forms and figures that correspond to their attributes and beliefs commensurate with His statement He will assuredly requite them for their descriptions [Q. 6:139] and where He says And We shall assemble them on the Day of Resurrection on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf [Q. 17:97].

Surely your Lord is God, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, that is to say, He became hidden in the forms of the heaven of the spirits and the earth of bodies in six thousand years, because of His statement, exalted be He, that And truly a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of your counting [Q. 22:47], in other words, from the time of the creation of Adam to the time of Muḥammad, blessings and peace be upon them both — for creation is the concealment of the Truth in the manifestation loci of creatures. This duration, from the incipience of the cycle of concealment to the incipience of manifestation, which is the time of the sealing of prophethood and the manifestation of sainthood, as he [the Prophet] said, ‘Indeed time has come full circle to how it was configured on the day in which God created the heavens and the earth’. For the incipience of concealment in creation is the end of manifestation and so when concealment turns into manifestation, one has then returned to the beginning of creation, as has already been mentioned. Manifestation will be complete with the emergence of the Messiah (mahdī), peace be upon him, completing the seven days, which is why they say that the duration of this world is seven thousand years; then He presided upon the Throne, that is, the throne of the Muḥammadan heart by means of complete self-disclosure therein in all of His attributes, as has been mentioned with regard to the meaning of ṣād. He cloaks, the night of the body and the darkness of physical nature with the day of the light of the spirit each following the other, by configuring itself and preparing to receive it, its constitution in equilibrium, swiftly, while the sun of the spirit, the moon of the heart and the stars of the senses, have been made subservient by His command, which is the affair mentioned where He says every day He is upon some affair [Q. 55:29]. Verily, to Him belongs, the power of existentiation and disposal with wisdom; or [it means] verily to Him belongs engenderment and creation from nothing. If one is to understand the [reference to the] heavens and the earth according to the literal meaning then the six days are the six aspects, since the events are referred to by the [word] ‘days’, as in where He says and remind them of the Days of God [Q. 14:5], that is to say, [of] the creation of the world of bodies in all six aspects, whereupon He rose to mastery over the Throne by exercising [His] effect through It by fixing the forms of engendered things in It. There is an exoteric and an esoteric aspect to the Throne. The exoteric one is the ninth heaven in which are etched the forms of engendered things in their entirety and whose existence and non-existence pertains to the effacing and the fixing therein, as will be mentioned, God willing, in the interpretation of His words God effaces what He will and fixes [cf. Q. 13:39]. The esoteric aspect [of the Throne] is the First Intellect on which are engraved the forms of things in a universal way, the one referred to as the ‘innermost interior of the Throne’ (buṭnān al-ʿarsh), as has been related — ‘A crier calls out from the innermost interior of the Throne’— being the locus of the Preceding Decree (al-qaḍāʾ al-sābiq). The presiding over It [the Throne] then means [His] proceeding to take mastery over It throught the exercising of effect in bringing thing into existence by fixing their forms upon It, a proceeding that is firm without turning to anything else creation and the command. Blessed be God, the Lord of the Worlds!

[And to Thamūd their brother Ṣāliḥ. He said] … this is the she-camel of God, a sign for you: the she-camel to Ṣāliḥ, peace be upon him, is like the staff to Moses, peace be upon him, and the ass to Jesus, peace be upon him, and the winged steed (burāq) to Muḥammad, peace be upon them. For each prophet and others there is a mount which is that person’s very animal soul and which carries his reality which is the human soul and its predominant attribute is the attribute that qualifies that particular animal and thus its [the animal’s name] is applied to that individual’s [soul]. Thus the one whose soul tends to obedience and compliance out of sheer tractability, able to bear, strong and submissive, then his mount will be a she-camel. Its [the she-camel’s] attribution to God [in ‘the she-camel of God’] is because it is commanded by Him, specifically His in terms of its obedience to Him and nearness. As regards what is said [in Q. 54:28] to the effect that the water was to be divided between her and them, one day she would drink, and on the other they would drink, this is an allusion to the fact that the source from which they drank was the practical rational faculty, while hers was the considerative rational one. And as regards what has been related that on her drinking day, she would become heavy with milk, so much so that when she was milked they could fill all their trays, this is an allusion to the fact that this person’s soul would extract from his primordial universal knowledge, by means of consideration, knowledge that profits those who are deficient in terms of their knowledge of character traits, divine laws and refined manners. Her [the she-camel’s] emergence from the rocks represents its manifestation from the body of Ṣāliḥ, peace be upon him. That is the [allegorical] intepretation [of the verse], though it is obligatory to affirm the exoteric meaning. For the manifestation of miracles and the breaking of the habits [of physical nature] is a truth, of which we can deny no aspect. What supports the [allegorical] interpretation is the Prophet’s comparison of the one who hamstrung her with the one who slew ʿAlī, peace be upon him, when he said, ‘O ʿAlī: do you know who the most wretched of the former generations is?’. He [ʿAlī] said, ‘God and His Messenger know best’. He [the Prophet] said, ‘The one who hamstrung the she-camel of Ṣāliḥ’. He then said, ‘Do you know who the most wretched of the later generations is?’, to which ʿAlī replied, ‘God and His Messenger know best’. He [the Prophet] said, ‘The one who will slay you’. It is also reported that he [the Prophet] said [to ʿAlī], ‘The one who will stain this with the blood of this’, pointing with his hand to [ʿAlī’s] beard and head.

Then he [Moses] cast down his staff: the apparent meaning of this is Moses’s miracle [to them], as is related. The allegorical interpretation is that the staff is an allusion to his soul, on which he supports himself, that is, on which he depends for animal motions and acts and with which he shakes down for the sheep of the sound bestial faculty the leaves of beautiful manners, excellent traits and praiseworthy habits from the tree of consideration [cf. Q. 20:18]. Because of his virtuous governance and disciplining of it, his soul complied with his actions, obedient to his commands, restrained from its animal acts, except with his permission, just like the staff. When he cast it down during the showdown with [his] disputants, it [the staff] became like a serpent swallowing the false lies they were inventing and fabricating in the way of the ropes of their doubts [cf. Q. 26:44-45], [doubts] which governed their motivations, and the staffs of their errors and fanciful adornments which they held onto during the contest to establish their goals, thus overwhelming them and vanquishing them.

And he drew forth his hand, that is, he manifested his dazzling power which spellbound them and manifested the light of the truth of his summoning. It seems that the prevailing [art] in his time was sorcery, which is why he came out with the divine magic, while the prevailing [art] in the time of Muḥammad, blessings and peace be upon him, was rhetorical eloquence, which is why his miracle was the Qurʾān. In the time of Jesus, peace be upon him, it was medicine, and so he brought them the divine medicine, as has been related, since each prophet’s miracle must necessarily be of the genus of what is the prevalent aspect of his time, so that he might be more successful in having his call responded to.

And We appointed for Moses thirty nights: it is said that He commanded him to fast for thirty [days]. Upon completing [this] he was repelled by the aftertaste in his mouth. So he cleaned his teeth, but God reprimanded for that and commanded him to add another ten days [of fasting]. It is also said that He had commanded him to seek nearness to Him with what he will do in the thirty days [in the way of fasting] and that He then revealed the Torah to him in the last [additional] ten days, thus completing forty. The first [report] alludes to that he was rid of the veil of acts, attributes and essence during the thirty days but there remained in him a remnant whose existence he could not be rid of, and so his use of the toothbrush is an allusion to the manifestation of that remnant where he says:

‘My Lord! Show me that I may behold You!’. As for the second [report], that alludes to that he had attained the complete presential vision of the essence after the thirty days through his wayfaring to God and there did not remain in him any remnant; rather, he was annihilated totally and in the last ten days he completed his wayfaring to God until such time as he was provisioned with subsistence through God after annihilation by way of the recovery of his senses. Accordingly, his statement, ‘My Lord! Show me that I may behold You’, must have issued from him at the time of the thirty days, while the recovery of the senses was after that, during the completion of the forty. God spoke to him directly at the station of the self-disclosure of the attributes. His words, ‘My Lord! Show me that I may behold You’, arose from extreme yearning on his part for the presential vision of the essence at the station of the annihilation of the attributes together with the existence of some remnant. ‘You shall not see Me: an allusion to the impossibility of a duality and of the subsistence of the ego at the station of the witnessing, similar to the saying: ‘When I am absent, He appears; but when He appears, He makes me disappear’, and the saying, ‘I saw my Lord with the eye of my Lord’. But behold the mountain, that is, the mountain that is your existence, and if it remains [standing] in its place, then your vision of Me shall be made possible, this [statement] being conditional upon something that is [in fact] impossible. He levelled it to the ground, that is, vanishing without any existence in the first place, and Moses fell down, from the degree of existence, annihilated. And when he recovered his senses, by means of the existence that is endowed by the Truth upon subsistence after annihilation, he said, ‘Glory be to You, [above] that You should be something visible to any other than You, [or] perceptible to the eyes of temporally created beings. I repent to You, of the sin of remnant, and I am the first of the believers’, in terms of level, not in terms of time. In other words, I am in the first file of the files of the [various] levels of spirits, which is the station of the folk of [God’s] unity, being the station of pure election. As for His words,

‘I have elected you from among mankind for My messages, this is the first degree of prophetic calling (istinbāʾ) that follows sanctity (walāya). So take what I have given you, through fixity, and be of the thankful’, by being upright in fulfilling the due of servanthood, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, [once] said, ‘Should I not be a thankful servant?’

[And We inscribed for him] in the Tablets, the Tablets being the differentiations of Moses’s existence in the way of his spirit, his heart, his intellect, his consideration and his imagination. His casting them down in anger represents his being distracted from these [differentiations] and [his] neglecting of the judgements contained therein, just as one of us would judge to forbear virtuously and endure hurt then become forgetful when overcome by anger and not remember anything of his intellect in terms of his deed upon the manifestation of his soul. ‘Take it then firmly, that is, resolutely, so that you might be of the resolute [from among the messengers] [cf. Q. 46:35], and enjoin your people to adhere to the fairest [precepts] in it, that is, to [adhere to] those things [in them] that require resolve as opposed to the dispensations. I shall show you the abode of the wicked, that is, the sequel for those who do not adhere to them.

I shall turn away from My signs those who behave with superiority in the earth without right, because acting superior is of the attributes of the soul and so at the station of the soul they are veiled from the signs of the attributes which are located at the station of the heart; but [He does not mean] those who act with superiority with right, those who have acquired the attribute of superiority at the station of effacement and annihilation where God’s superiority has come to stand in place of their superiority, as Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, peace be upon him, in response to someone who had said to him: ‘You possess every excellent quality, except that you also act with superiority’, to which he [Jaʿfar] replied, ‘I am not acting as superior, but it is that the superiority of God, exalted be He, has come to stand in me in place of [my] superiority’.

Those who deny Our signs and the encounter in the Hereafter, that is, those who have concealed Our attributes with their attributes and Our acts with their acts and have stopped at the effects and become blind to the encounter of the Hereafter and to the Garden of the souls and the acts; their works have failed, for had the denial of the attributes been disengaged from the denial of the encounter in the Hereafter, their works would not have failed, even if they were to be chastised for a while with some type of punishment.

[And Moses chose of his people] seventy men, from among their most honourable [men] and those of noble descent, the folk of preparedness, purity of soul and volition, as well as [the spiritual] pursuit and wayfaring, being those who succumbed to the thunderbolt where He says So the thunderbolt seized them [Q. 4:153]; but when the Trembling seized them, that is, the trembling of the mountain of the body, which [trembling] constitutes the incipience of the thunderbolt of annihilation when the flashes of the [divine] lights are hurled into flight and the risings of the self-disclosures of the attributes are manifested in the way of the shuddering of the body, and its being affected and made to tremble by these. That is why Moses at that instance said, ‘My Lord, had You willed You would have destroyed them long before, and me [with them], since Moses would not be able to say anything at the moment of the thunderbolt, nor would they, because they will have been annihilated. As for his words, ‘My Lord, had You willed’, these are words of exasperation and loss of patience arising from the overwhelming feeling of yearning during the pain of separation [from God], as Muḥammad, peace be upon him, said [when he was] in a similar situation, ‘Would that my mother had never borne me’, and likewise, ‘Would that the Lord of Muḥammad had never created Muḥammad’, giving serious thought [as he did] to throwing himself off [the side of] the mountain. The [particle] law here is optative. Will You destroy us, by prolonging [our] veiledness, and by means of the chastisement of privation and the pain of separation, for what the foolish ones among us have done?, in the way of worshipping the calf of the vain desire of the soul and being veiled by its attributes, or by what has issued from us while we were fools, prior to our coming to our senses, perceiving and desiring to wayfare and [before] the manifestation of the light of insight and [our] taking heed, in the way of stopping with the soul and [undertake] to purify it. It is but Your trial, in other words, this testing [of us] with the attributes of the soul and the worship of vain desire is nothing but Your test, no one other than You having any part therein, [a trial], whereby You send astray whom You will, from among the folk of veils, wretchedness, ignorance and blindness, and guide whom You will, from among the folk of felicity, solicitude, knowledge and guidance — he [Moses] said this at the station of the self-disclosure of the acts — You, are the One who takes charge of our affairs, the One who manages them, so forgive us, the sins of our attributes and essences, just as You have forgiven us the sins of our acts, and have mercy on us, by effusing the lights of the vision of You and lifting the veil of whereness (ayniyya) with Your existence, for You are the Best of all who show forgiveness, since Your forgiveness is complete,

And prescribe for us in this world a good thing, justness and uprightness through subsistence after annihilation, and in the Hereafter [another] good thing, [such as] witnessing and more. We have turned, returned, to You’, from the sins of our existence. He says: ‘My chastisement, that is, the chastisement of yearning that is specific to Me and that is actualised from My part, even if it should be painful, because of the severity of the pain of separation, it is a mighty and dangerous matter — I smite with it whom I will, from among My servants who are the folk singled out for My solicitude, and My mercy embraces all things, and is not singled out for any one person to the exclusion of another or any one thing to the exclusion of another. So contained in this chastisement is a mercy whose quintessence cannot be known and whose worth cannot be estimated, the mercy of the pleasure of arrival, regarding which He has said, ‘No soul knows what has been hidden for it [of reward] that delights the eye’, being also delightful in way that cannot be approximated by any other pleasure, as one of them once said:

‘Every pleasure I have attained from Him, except the pleasure of the ecstasy of my chastisement’.

By God, this chastisement is dearer than red sulphur, and as for [that] mercy it is not excluded from anyone’s share.

And so I shall prescribe it, complete and perfect, a special prescription from the Merciful, for those who guard themselves, against all veils and who bestow freely of what they have been provided of property, character traits, knowledge and states upon those who deserve them, and those who believe in Our signs, [those] who assume all of Our attributes, being,

those who follow the Messenger, the uninstructed Prophet, at the end of time, that is, the Muḥammadans who in fear of God followed his description where He says to him And you threw not when you threw but God threw [Q. 8:17], and where He says nor does he speak out of vain desire [Q. 53:3], and where He says The eye did not swerve, nor did it transgress [the bounds] [Q. 53:17], and where, regarding the payment of alms, He says and as for the beggard, do not drive [him] away, and as for your Lord’s grace, proclaim [it] [Q. 93:10-11], and where, regarding having faith in the signs, he [Muḥammad] said, ‘I have been given the sum of all [excellent] speech and have been sent to complete the noblest character traits’.

And among the people of Moses there is a community, namely, those who were the followers [of the Messenger], they are the ones who will prosper by [attaining] the complete [divine] mercy, and there is a community from among the people of Moses who are affirmers of Oneness, who guide, people, by the truth, not by their souls, and judge according to it, between people in [their] state of uprightness and fixity.

[…] how their fish would come to them on the day of their Sabbath floating at the surface; but on the day they did not observe the Sabbath, they would not come to them: this is just like the state of the people of Islam in our time in terms of the confluence of all types of ego-centric shares, in the way of foods, drinks, distractions and sexual relations that are manifest in the markets, throughout the seasons, in public thoroughfares and at festivals during the days of congregation more than any other days, all of which is nothing but a trial from God because of the moral corruption [of the times].

[…] These, they are like cattle, by [their] having lost the capacity to perceive realities and gnoses which would draw them closer to God by means of the heart, and [like cattle] by [their] failure to take heed with [their] eyes and to remember and to understand with [their] ears — nay, rather they are further astray, by virtue of the devilry existing within them, that which necessarily results in distance [from God] because of the corruption of beliefs and the proclivity to plotting.

And to God belong the Most Beautiful Names: it has already been mentioned how each Name represents the Essence combined with some attribute [of His] and [how] God governs every affair through one of His Names — so invoke Him, by that [Name] when in need of [the attribute of] that Name, either by the tongue of the state, as when an ignorant person seeking knowledge invokes Him by His Name ‘the Knower’, and the sick person seeking cure invokes Him by His Name ‘the Healer’, and the poor person seeking enrichment invokes Him by His Name ‘the Enricher’, each one of them by actualising the preparedness that is the prerequisite for the reception [of his invocation], due to the effective power which that Name has and the effect of that attribute; or [that one should invoke Him] by the tongue of the speech, as when that first person might say, ‘O Lord’, intending by that ‘O Knower’, since that Name is specific to His Lordship, or when that second person might intend by ‘O Lord’ ‘O Healer’, or when that third person might intend by ‘O Lord’ ‘O Enricher’; or [that one might invoke Him] by the tongue of the act, as when the seeking wayfarer might be invoking Him by his very acquisition of that [divine] attribute, such that if his knowledge [of Him] should be spent, he invokes Him by His Name ‘the Knower’, and if he should find the cure for his illness in Him and should he then ask Him to cure someone else by his assumption of the attribute of ‘healing’, he invokes Him by His Name ‘the Healer’, and if he should find himself of availed of his poverty through Him, he invokes Him by His Name ‘the Self-sufficient’. That is the invocation to which the affirmers of [His] Oneness from among believers have been enjoined: so let them heed this example; and leave those who blaspheme His Names, [those] who seek these attributes from other than Him and attach these [attributes] to that [other], thus committing idolatrous association with Him.

[They will question you about the Hour]: what is meant by the Hour is the moment of the manifestation of the major resurrection, that is, the Essential unity, by the presence of the Messiah (Mahdī). But none except God knows that moment, as the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said regarding the time of the emergence of the Messiah, ‘Those who ascribe [to the Hour] a time are liars. By God, even when it comes it is also only God that knows it, just as [the case] is before its time comes’. It weighs heavily in the heavens and the earth, since the inhabitants of these are unable to embrace [any] knowledge of it.

Truly those on whom you call besides God, whoever they may be, be they humans or otherwise, are servants like you, in terms of [their] incapacity and lack of effective agency; call them then, for something which God has not facilitated for you, and let them answer you, and facilitate it, if you are truthful, in attributing effective agency to other [than God], as in where the Prophet said to Ibn ʿAbbās, ‘Young man: be mindful of God and He will be mindful of you. Be mindful of God and you will find Him looking towards you. If you ask [for something], ask [it] of God. If you seek assistance, seek the assistance of God and know that if the [entire] community were to agree to benefit you with something they will not benefit you except with something that God will have prescribed for you, and that if they were to agree to harm you with something, they will not harm you except with something that God will have prescribed against you [already]. The [heavenly] pens have been put aside and the scrolls [of divine decree] have [had their ink] dried’.

Have they feet wherewith they walk: an interrogative meant as a denial, in other words, do they have feet by which they do not walk, nay it is by God [that they walk or not], since it is He who makes them walk with them, as is the case with all of their other limbs. Say: ‘Call upon your associates, from among the jinn or mankind, then scheme against me, if you can, for the One who is in charge of my affair, my Preserver and the One governing me is:

God Who, instructs me by revealing [to me] the Book, and He takes charge of, every righeous one, that is, every one who subsists through Him in the state of uprightness. As has been related [in one report] by ‘righteous person’, according to the description of one of the prophets, is meant the one who subsists in the Truth through uprightness and fixity after annihilation in the source of the union, the one who upholds the amending of the species by the leave of the Truth.

And you see them staring at you, but they do not perceive, in other words, if you were to call to guidance those from among the idolaters or others upon whose hearts there is a seal, they will not listen or obey. You will see how that despite the soundness of their perception and sight, they do not perceive the Truth nor your reality, because in reality they are blind in their hearts.

Indulge [people] with forgiveness, that is, with what is painless and effortless for them and do not charge them with what is not easy for them; and enjoin kindness, that is, [enjoin] in a beautiful way, and turn away from the ignorant, without dignifying their ignorance. It is reported from Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, may God be satisfied with him: ‘God enjoined His Prophet to the noblest of character traits, and there is no verse in the Qurʾān which encompasses the noblest character traits better than this one’. He [Jaʿfar] said this because of the definitiveness of the evidence it contains for the affirmation of Oneness. For the one who witnesses the Owner of all forelocks [sc. humans] and how He disposes of His servants and that they in what they do and what they leave behind [they do so] through Him and through themselves, will not burden them or scrutinise them in the obligations with which they are charged, nor will he become wrathful in enjoining [them] to decency and forbidding indecency, nor be severe towards them, but instead will act with forbearance towards them.

And if any insinuation from Satan should provoke you, that is, [if] some goading or powerful urge should impel you to dispute with them by seeing acts as issuing from them and ascribing sins to them, seek refuge in God, by witnessing and being present before His agency, He is Hearing, able to hear the conversations of the soul and the evil whisperings of Satan in the breast, Knowing, of intentions and secrets.

Truly those who are wary, of idolatrous association, when a visitation, a call, from Satan touches them, [inciting them] to ascribe acts to other [than God], they remember, the station of the affirmation of unity and the witnessing of acts as being from God, and then see clearly, the agency of God, and so in their eyes there remains no Satan and no agent other than God.

And their brethren, the devils who are the veiled ones, they lead them further, to ascribing acts to other than Him such that they never fall short of [engaging in] obduracy, pretence and ignorance.

[they say,] ‘Why have you not chosen one?’, that is, ‘Why do you not summon it from your own self?’. Say: ‘I follow only that which is revealed to me from my Lord, in other words, I do not create anything of my own doing, but simply communicate on behalf of God and I do not say except that which is revealed to me from Him, because I subsist through Him and not through my own soul.

[And when the Qurʾān is recited] listen to it, that is, to God and do not listen except [to something] from Him, and pay heed, [turning your attention] away from the insinuations of the soul or otherwise, for the One who is speaking through it [the Qurʾān] is God, so that you might find mercy, by the mercy of the self-disclosure of the Speaker in His speech through His attributes and His acts.

And remember your Lord, [by being] present, in your soul: [this is] similar to His statement verily there is for you a good example in the Messenger of God [Q. 33:21], humbly, at the station of differentiation for the union, and fearfully, in the innermost secret of the soul, or fearfully lest the soul should have a share therein, without speaking out loud, that is, without that the humbleness and the remembrance should manifest themselves to you as being from you, but that you should be remembering of Him for Him at the morning of the manifesting of the light of the spirit, its radiance and overwhelmingness, and in the evenings of the overpowerings of the attributes and the faculties of the soul. And do not be, in any of [your] states, especially in the state of being overpowered by the soul and its attributes, among those who are heedless, of the presential vision of Essential unity.

Surely those who are with your Lord, in [their] affirmation of [His] Oneness and annihilation in Him, subsisting through Him, those of uprightness, are not too proud to worship Him, by being veiled by I-ness (anaʾiyya); rather, they witness the differentiation in the source of union and submit to Him, and they glorify Him, they exalt Him above any [idolatrous] association by denying I-ness, and to Him they prostrate, through complete annihilation and the obliteration of remnants and vestiges of egoism. And God is the Subsisting One after the annihilation of [all] creation.