The Seal of the Wisdom of Intimacy in the Word of Ilyas (Elijah)
Ilyas is Idris, peace be upon him. He was a Prophet before Nuh, and Allah raised him to a high place.1 He dwells in the heart of the spheres, the sphere of the sun. Then he was sent to the town of Baalbek (Ba'labakk). Baal is the name of an idol and "bekk" is the power of the village. The idol was called Baal and was singled out with domination. It was Ilyas who was Idris, who was given the example of the splitting of the mountain called "Lubnan (Lebanon)" which comes from lubana (desire, goal). What he needed was a horse of fire with all its trappings of fire. When he saw it, he rode it and appetite fell from him, and so there was intellect without appetite. There remained for him no connection with that which is connected to the desire of the self. For him, Allah was pure without connection. He had only half of gnosis of Allah. When the intellect is free of the self in respect to gathering knowledges by its discernment, its gnosis of Allah is based on disconnection (tanzih) not connection (tashbih). When Allah gives gnosis by tajalli, then gnosis of Allah is perfected. Disconnection is used in one place and connection in another place.
The gnostic sees the diffusion of Allah by existence in natural and elemental forms. There is no form but that he sees the source of Allah in its source. This is the complete perfect gnosis which is brought the roads (shara'i) revealed from Allah. By this recognition, all illusions (awham) have authority. For this reason, illusion has a stronger power in this human organism than the intellect, because the man of intellect – even if his intellect reaches maturity – is not free of the power which illusion has over him and over the formation of what he reasons. Illusion is the greatest power in this perfect human organism. The revealed roads brought it, and so you use both connection and disconnection. You use connection in disconnection by illusion, and disconnection in connection by the intellect. So the whole is connected to the whole. It is not possible that disconnection be free of connection nor connection from disconnection. Allah said, "Nothing is like Him," so He used connection and disconnection. "He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing,"2 and He used connection, and yet it is the greatest of ayats revealed on disconnection. Even so, it is not free of connection because of the kaf (like).
So He has the most knowledge of Himself of those who know. He only designated Himself by what we mentioned. Then He said, "Glory be to your Lord, the Lord of Might, beyond anything they describe," (37:180) and they only describe according to what these realities accord them. He exalted Himself above their disconnection since they limit Him by that disconnection. That is due to the inability of the intellect to perceive the like of this.
Then all the roads (Shara'i) brought what the illusions dominate. They do not free Allah of an attribute in which He is manifest as they said. They brought that, and so communities acted on it. Allah granted them the tajalli. The heirs followed the Messengers closely, and said what the Messengers of Allah said. Allah knows best where He puts His message, and so Allah knows best who turns his face to Him in a particular aspect by transmission to the Messenger of Allah. One aspect of His begins with "He knows best where to place His message." (6:124) There is a reality in each of the two aspects – for that reason, we speak of connection and disconnection, and disconnection and connection.
After this 3 is established, we will lower the screens and drop the veils on the eye of the critic 4 and the one who simply follows a creed. Both of them are among the forms in which Allah gives tajalli, but He has commanded the veil for us in order that different levels of excellence of the predisposition of forms might appear. One is given a tajalli in a form according to the predisposition of that form. What its reality and exigencies accord him is ascribed to him. That must be. The example of the one who sees Allah when he is asleep and does not deny it is this. Without a doubt, it is Allah Himself. He attaches to it the exigencies of that form and its realities in which He gives the tajalli in sleep. Then after that, he interprets, i.e. he transfers it to another matter which disconnection logically demands. If the one who interprets it has unveiling and belief (iman), then he does not transfer it to disconnection at all. Rather, he gives it the disconnection that is due it and what is due to that which is manifest in it, i.e. its connection/resemblance. Properly speaking, "Allah" is an expression for the one who understands the indication (ishara).5
The spirit of this wisdom and its seal is that the command is divided into the effector and the one effected. These are two expressions. The effector in every aspect and in every state and in every presence is Allah. The effected by every aspect and in every state and in every presence is the universe, even if it is Allah who comes.6 Allah is everything at its foundation which corresponds. That which appears is forever and ever a branch from the root; divine love is a branch from the superogatory acts of the slave. So this is an effect between the effector and the effected. Allah is the hearing of the slave and his sight and faculties from this love.7 This is an established effect which, if you believe, you cannot deny because it is confirmed by the Shari'a.
As for the person of sound intellect, he is either in possession of a divine tajalli in a natural locus of tajalli,8 so he recognises what we have said, or else he is a believing Muslim who believes in what was reported in sound tradition. The power of illusion must govern the man of intellect investigating what has been brought to him in this form because he believes in that form. As for the one who is not a believer, he judges illusion by illusion; and so he imagines by his logical discernment that he assigns to Allah what the tajalli gives him in dream. Illusion in that does not depart from him inasmuch as he is not aware because of his disregard for himself. From that is what Allah says, "Call on Me and I will answer You." (40:60) Allah also says, "If My slaves ask you concerning Me, I am near. I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me," (2:186) since He only answers when there is someone who calls to Him. The source of the caller is the source of the answerer, but there is no disagreement about the difference of forms. They are two forms without a doubt.
All these forms are like Zayd's limbs. It is known that Zayd is one reality in personality, yet his hand is not the form of his foot nor his head nor his eye nor his eyebrow. He is one multiple - multiple by forms, one by source. That is like man who is one by source without a doubt. There is no doubt that 'Umar is not Zayd nor Khalid nor Ja'far, and that the individual persons of this one source are endless in existence. Even if man is one by source, he is many by forms and persons. If you are a believer, you know absolutely that Allah Himself will appear in a tajalli in a form on the Day of Rising. He will be recognised and then He will change form and be denied.9 Then He will change from it again into another form and will not be recognised. He is the One giving tajalli and it is not other than Him in each form, even though it is known that this form is not that other form.
It is one source which has the same function as the mirror. When the viewer looks in it at the form of his belief in Allah, he recognises Him, and so draws near Him. When it happens that he sees in it the belief of someone else, he denies Him since he sees his form and the form of someone else in the mirror. The mirror is but a single source while the forms are many in the eye of the viewer. There is no form in the mirror which comprises them all at once.
Although the phenomenal being of the mirror has an effect on the forms from one aspect, it does not have an effect on the forms from another aspect. The effect which it has makes the form change shape in smallness, largeness, length, and width, so it has an effect in quantities. This is attributable to it, but this changing of it is by the difference of the size of the mirrors. In the example, look at one of these mirrors, and do not look at all of them. It is your perception in respect to His being essence, and so He is independent of the universe, and in respect to the divine names. In that moment He is like the mirrors. Whatever Divine Name in which you look at yourself or simply look at. He manifests the reality of that Name in whoever looks. The matter is thus. If you understand, do not be anxious, and do not fear. Allah loves bravery, even to the extent of killing a snake. The snake is not other than your self, and the snake is alive through its self in form and reality. The thing is not killed by itself, even if the form is destroyed in the senses, The definition determines it, and imagination does not make it depart.
Since the matter is based on this, this is the safeguard of the essences and might and invincibility. You cannot destroy the definition. What might is greater than this might? You imagine by illusion that you have killed. By intellect and illusion, the form does not vanish from existence in the definition. The proof of that is, "You did not throw when you threw, but Allah threw." (8:17) The eye only perceived the form of Muhammad which had the throwing confirmed to it in the senses. It is what Allah denied the throwing to at first, and then confirmed in the middle, only to return to the perception that Allah was the One who threw in the form of Muhammad. One must believe this. So look at this effector when Allah descended into a Muhammadan form. Allah Himself informs His slaves of that, and none of us said that of Him, rather He said it of Himself. His report is true, and it is obligatory to believe it whether or not you perceive the knowledge of what He said, being a knower or believing Muslim.
Part of what shows you the weakness of the intellect's discernment in respect to its thought, since the intellect passes judgement on cause ('illa), is that cause is not an effect of the one who is the cause. This is the judgement of the intellect which is evident. There is only this in the knowledge of tajalli, and it is that the cause is an effect to whoever is the cause. That which the intellect governs is sound when discernment is clarified. Its goal in that is that, when it sees the matter differently than what logical proof would accord it, it says that the source – after it is confirmed that it is one in this multiple, and inasmuch as it is cause in one of these forms belonging to any effect – is not an effect of its effect, so that its effect would become a cause to it. This is his goal when he sees the matter for what it was, although he does not continue in his logical discernment.
Since the command in causality is of this sort, your opinion by the scope of logical discernment is not in other than this narrow limit. None are more reasonable than the Messengers, may the blessings of Allah be upon them, and they brought what they brought in transmission from the Divine Presence. They confirmed what the intellect confirmed. Then they gave more in what the intellect alone does not possess by its perception and what the intellect does not imagine directly, but one draws near to it in the divine tajalli. When he is alone with himself after the tajalli, he is confused about what he saw. If he is the slave of a Lord, his intellect returns to him, and if he is the slave of reasoning, Allah gives him back judgement. This is only as long as he is veiled in the dimension of this world from his dimension in the Next World.
The gnostics appear here as if they possessed the form of this world by virtue of the fact that its principles operate on them. However, Allah has transformed them inwardly to the dimension of the Next World. That must be the case. They are unknown by form except to whomever has had his inner eye unveiled by Allah so that he perceives.10 There is no gnostic of Allah in respect of divine tajalli who is not based on the dimension of the Next World. He has been gathered in this lower world of his and has been called from his grave. He sees what they do not see, and he witnesses what they do not witness - as a mark of concern from Allah to some of His slaves in that respect.
Whoever wishes to find this wisdom of Ilyas-Idris to whom Allah gave two formations, so that he was a Prophet before Nuh, and then he raised him up and brought him down after that as a Messenger and so Allah joined for him the two degrees, let him descend from the authority of his intellect to his appetite and be an absolute animal so that he will be shown what every creature that crawls is shown except for the jinn and men. Then he will know that he has realised his animality, and it has two tokens. One is this unveiling – so he sees who is punished in his grave and who has bliss. He sees the dead alive and the silent speaking and the sitting walking. The second token is muteness since, had he wanted to utter what he had seen, he would be unable to do so. Thus he has realised his animality. We had a pupil who acquired this unveiling although dumbness did not take hold of him, and so he did not fully realise his animality. When Allah established me in this station, I realised my animality with a complete realisation. So I was seeing and wishing to utter what I was witnessing but I could not. So there was no difference between me and the mute who cannot speak.
When he realises what we have mentioned, he will move to being pure intellect in natural matter. He will witness matters which are the roots of what is manifested in natural forms. He will know from where this principle is manifest in the natural form with the knowledge of tasting. Had it been unveiled that nature is the source of the breath of the All-Merciful, he would have been given much good. If he is restricted in what we have mentioned, this power from the gnosis which governs his intellect will be enough for him. He keeps company with gnostics, and by that he knows tasting. "You did not kill them, it was Allah who killed them," (8:17) yet only iron, the blow and that which is behind this form killed them. In the whole, killing and throwing took place. So he witnesses matters by their roots and by their forms, and he is complete. When he witnesses the breath, he is completely perfect. The breath of the All-Merciful is the source of the overflowing of existence and life on all, rather the source of Allah's descent to all forms.
1. See Qur'an 19:57, "Mention Idris in the Book. He was a true man and a Prophet. We raised him up to a high place."
2. Qur'an 42:11.
3. The rule of joining tanzih and tashbih.
4. The one who uses logical proof.
5. i.e. what he recognises from the word "Allah" extends only so far as his predisposition and understanding.
6. In the wârid.
7. "When I love him, I am his hearing with he hears, his sight by which he sees, his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks".
8. i.e. the human form.
9. Hadith in Muslim: 1: 299, 302.
10. See Qur'an 50:22, "We have stripped you of your covering and today your sight is sharp."