On The Lord I rely, The Sovereign, Sublime above the reach [of human mind], and above nullity,

And my Gratitude is to His Servant in charge, the Aim of all the aims and the Bestower of Providence,

[The Arabic word that I have translated to “aim” is imam, commonly used to point to a person whom a group take as a guide and a team leader.]

Magnanimity and Homage, Grandeur and Glory are to The Lord The Abundant to His Family of Union of all that has been promised,

The Maker of Needlessness, by the Eternity of His Might, of all that is existent,

He Who made  the Union with Him Glorious to whomever embraced it and was content in it, and Support to whomever hinged on it and harboured it,

And Who made the dissent with His Guardian humiliation for whomever adhered to it and sought it, and an abyss for whomever preferred it and procured it;

The Demonstrator to Union with Him, in every Cycle, of a pathway,

And The Establisher, in the point of the round and the completion of the Cycles, by the one in Charge by Him, of a Proof and Evidence;

Homage, extending to the completion of The Capability and its Manifestation, entailing the continuance of Triumph and its return,

And I witness that there is no god but The Lord The Lofty, by Whom His Light and His Proof are Effulgent, and His Aim and Hegemony Dominant,

May His Peace and Generosity befall the most elevated and immaculate mind, the purest pious person,

Who demonstrated absolute Union and called to it,

He promulgated it in the world and pointed to it,

The Aim of the pure aims, and the Guardian of the Sphere after the resolution of the Cycles.

Henceforth, the duty upon the wise man, the religious the virtuous, is to be, by his discriminate mind, self-counselling,

And of what the mind has supplied him of what Philosophy elaborates not in the discipline of Union: rejecting and discharging,

For, he who has pardoned himself and followed his passion, his counsel, indeed, is administrable to no one but himself,

It is hence paramount for every one of justice and knowledge, and it is most virtuous for every one of religion and understanding, to contemplate in his mind and vision, and to supply in his announcement and secrecy what the wise men of religion have uttered, and what came in the discourses of the people of The Law of early times, by which they pointed to Union and called to it,

And what the oath of the Aim in the Penned articulated and directed,

[The word that I translated to “penned” is the Arabic word “al-masttoor” with the t being a tah not a taa2. The word was first used in the Qur’an and later in the Hikmeh, to point to the covenant of the believers being penned in their hearts from the beginning of their creation.]

And what the honourable councils clarified of the things which escaped its beneficiaries and what it brought notice to,

And what the high commandments alluded and pointed to,

So that the beacon of the Truth may become obvious to those wanting and desiring [it],

And that the believing learner may observe the truth of Union.

So I say, that the populace, while diverse in belief, and incoherent in want, are inseparable of the The Maker, even if their beliefs differ about His Adjectives, and their deeds cripple them from the Knowledge of His Identity,

That so, it is by the inadequacy of their minds, and the weakness of their vision in discriminating between the Essence which is Existent of Inevitability in His Identity, and the essence that is existent of inevitability by predicability to Him,

And these are introductions from the allusions to Union of the wise ones, and pointers to Sublimeness and Absoluteness;

And if they referred it to the guardians of the Aim, those of them who knew the Esoterikos would have acknowledge it,

And I, by the Graciousness of the Guardian of the Aim, and by the Beneficence of the Aim of Time and the Holder of this Age, show the evidence and summarise the proof, in pointing to the Essence of Him Who is in His Identity Existent of Inevitability, so that the confusion may be removed, from those who have vision, between The Definer and what is defined,

And I make the beginning of this an end to the intellectuals who pontificate, and an objection to those of the logicians who have points of view, in what they verify by their self-evident arguments, and what they envisage by essential conclusions,

All of it is nomenclature marginal to religion, and a repulser of the populace from the Union with The Lord of all creation;

So I say, that the earlier wise men, and the past generations of our elders the pure and religious ones and the majority of the distinguished people of The Call: their beliefs have coincided on that reward, which is the best giving and the most honourable, and the most noble and the most complete compensation, is in reaching Godly Knowledge, and earning the Virtue of Provability,

And this is the Ultimate Happiness, and this happiness is the goal of mankind and it is his perfection, which leaves no yearning in his self to anything else but it,

And neither is it of the things which are required for something else to be earned by it for its completion and perfection,

For, everything else is missed for the purpose of another, like affluence is missed for the purpose of pleasure and benefit for those who are beneficiaries of it;

And since this Happiness is not favoured for the purpose of something else, and it is the ultimate perfection of the self, which cannot be augmented once it has been reached,

So in the Truth, the Essence which is Existent of Inevitability in its Identity, not of anything else, is the Mind, to which the earlier wise men pointed.

I say this in Sublimeness of The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, of those two essences:

I mean also what is below happiness, which is the Mind,

It is reaching the Divine Knowledge, for it is the existence of inevitability by predicability to the Mind.

So if a sayer says: if you make The Mind unfavourable for another purpose than itself, how can the Union with The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, be established or reached?

One says to him: the essence of this is that The Mind is not favourable for the purpose of a mediator other than him, between him and the Causer of the Cause which is the Mind, and it is the Cause of all caused things,

Because the Union with The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, is Sublimeness above all reachable and discernable things, Aloof above predicability;

Indeed, the truth of this knowledge is to deliver one to the admittance to inability to reach Him and His Complete Horizon, and the inadequacy to describe Him or predicate Him,

And this is the truth of Union, after knowing The Proof pointing to the Verity of Existence,

For, if this knowledge is a predicate to Him, Glorious is His Giving, then the condition of a predicate would attach to Him,

For, predicates can be affirmed only by the affirmation of another thing, like a child is predicated to a father, and a father to a child, the worker to the landlord, and the landlord to his worker,

This leads to the belief that The Creator, transcends He that, is affirmed by the affirmation of information, and what I mentioned of predicability attaches to Him,

Nay, He, Glorious is His Giving, is Aloof above predicability and definition, Sublime above similarity and oppositeness;

And it has been affirmed by innateness of people’s minds, and it has been agreed in all the people’s beliefs of religion, that Divine Knowledge can only be found to become known by the Mind, and it is a predicate to It, and from Its Direction it manifests and exists in every age and time.

And He, by reference to the Truth, is a Servant belonging [to His Lord], acknowledging His incapability of obedience of our Lord The Sovereign along the ages and times,   

And He manifests Him [the mind, for which, depending on the context, I sometimes use the pronoun “It” and sometimes “He”], Existent to the onlookers, and predicates Him by the Knowledge of religion,

And all that those denominations attribute to nullity and paint over it, and all they organise of lies and decorate, it is time for its abolishment and disintegration, and the time for tearing up the networks of the damned Iblis and the ruin of his callers has come near;

For, it has become established and clear, that The Essence which is in Its Identity of Existence of Inevitability is Exclusive to The Aim The Ubiquitous The Guide of His Servants The Dimensions (Hudood),

And they are predicated to Him to point to The Truth of The Abode,

And our Lord, Glorious is His Giving, is Sublime above such attributes, Sanctified from adjectives and predicates,

Nay, He is Constant in The Glory of Lordship and The Hegemony of Unity, and The Capability of Oneness,

And I also say that the masses of the nations have acceded that Union cannot be established except by negating adjectives, definitions and attributes,

So I say, that such arguments can correctly be negated about Affirmed Existence,

For, negating adjectives and definitions and attributes about nullity is the truth of non-existence;

Thus it is established that, Glorified is His Giving, is Constant Existence,

And no one can attain the Knowledge of His Union except those who negate about Him the adjectives and the definitions,

Pointing to Him is sufficient, and the entire of the Calls are to Him.

Thus I have made the Essence of Union Substantial, and pointed to it, and I have considered The Lord in Union, Glorious is His Giving, and I have considered Him Sublime, and I have called to Him,

And also do I say, that The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, if He were inexistent, then all the parties would be equal in sublimeness and absoluteness,

And the imparity and the superlativeness leading to reward and punishment in the Truth of Union would be lifted,

And also do I say, that if The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, were to exist in an image dissimilar to His Creation, or if He were to manifest to them in an essence suiting the Grandeur of Divinity, no one of the creation would doubt it, and the imparity and superlativeness would be lifted, and reward and punishment dropped, as mentioned above about them, by wholeness.

Nay, He is Existent to His Guardians, the Knowers, inexistent to their opposites, the dormant dissenters,

That so, the onlooker looks the image of his self, if he suspected that he is looking what has been pointed to,

Like the looker onto the lustre of the steel of a mirror, every time he looks back he finds none but his own image, and his vision returns to him in lament and frustration.

And it has been mentioned in the oath of the Aim in the Penned [covenant]: the vision reaches Him not, and He does reach vision,

And if He were/were not Existent and the vision could not reach Him, it would not have been an impossibility.

But such a say is of stupidity and inadequacy,

For, the one of us would contemn saying to one’s friend: you cannot reach by your vision what does not exist,

For, it is a say foreign to the order of the mind [which] entertains Verity and Justice,

For, it has been established, that He, Glorious is His Giving, is Existent, and the vision does not reach Him,

Furthermore, I say that the innateness of the people’s minds are excluded from reaching their Creator,

And they stop and rebound from recognising and visioning Him Who began them,

And upon this the masses who halved themselves coincide,

For, it is inadmissible that His created and begun things tarnish him, and they are eclipsed, not suiting His Glory and Might,

[The word that I translated to “eclipsed” is in the typed text: mukaashifah, which in my reckoning should be mukaasifah, for the argument to make sense]

And how? And they are accidental objects of the Essences, inadequate for His Sanctity and Royalty,

Nay, Lofty is He above them, in the Highest of Loftiness.

And I also say, that all things clear and spiritual which are begun, and the creatures, celestial and bodily, which are dense, none of them has the capability to begin or create [an image] like his/its image to appear in it,

So, neither is the Whole Mind capable of beginning another mind like him completely, and nor is any of the celestial administrators capable of creating another celestial equal to it,

And the innateness of minds testifies that this is inability in all of them; their capability falls short of it;

Thus, it is possible that the Existence of The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, be in the likeness of what He contrived and created, for, in no deficiency is He deficient,

And Union is pointer to Him, and Sublimeness of Him above the inadequacy of the things contrived and begun, to which [the inadequacy] we pointed, and Justice in His Creation for upholding the reason against them, and Kindness to them, in bringing Providence to them.

So, in what I have forwarded in those logical arguments, and decisive mental evidence, what has overwhelmed the logicians who have quit religions, and [what has] shredded their furnishings, and weakened the intrigue of the failing ones, and severed their reasoning;

As for those who believed the Aimhood of the Creator, they proclaimed [the truth of It], also those who are verifiers of it by the acknowledgers of the truth of the meetings and the Trustees [prophets, which are represented in the Hikmeh as the letters of the word sadaqa: to be trusted],

For, in it was the silencer of their tongues, and it severed their backup,

By the say of our Master the Upholder of God’s Religion, God’s Peace be upon his mention: the persons of your speakers have gone, and the Persons of Those Who sent them have manifested,

He said also: we have hidden ourselves from the vision-impaired ones by our persons, and we have appeared to them by our Calls and sincerity; and we have dressed in the attires of those Guardians and we have assumed the names of our Callers,

He said also: O people of faith, the persons of the sent ones and the Essences of the Sending Ones have manifested to you.

As for what The Lord, Glorious is His Will, manifested; it was a hint to this time, and an evidence of the dented Union in the present,

Towards the end of the year four-hundred and four [of the Arabic Calender], it is that: O abiders in God, covertness [literally: fasting, which linguistically means abstention from speech] has been shattered and has gone,

And that the breakup [of the fast] has been uncovered and has come near,

For, how many an insisting one on disobedience have not repented,

And [how many] a dweller on sinfulness has not quit.

As for what has transpired from the council of the two-hundred and forty, of what Malik son of Sa’eed read:

It is that: be not dismayed by the orphans [believers born to non-believers] joining the forgetful ones [believers born to believers but distracted by the world],

Who [the forgetful ones] forbade what was written for them in the Qur’an, like the evidence of the covert Aims [the good prophets], the ones of the intervals waiting to lift the Protection [al-taqyyah], [in preparation] for the promise of The Lord of the two worlds.

And of what is written for them in the Philosophy [Hikmeh]: “covertness is in the period of the interval and the Protection, and the announcement of triumph is in the time of Manifestation and Glory”,

With a great desire of benefit from their Hikmeh, by whomever transcribes it by their permission,

For, the group who have lost their way and failed, allege dimming the Light of The Creator by constructs [of their actions], and it is God Who scatters it.

And I have witnessed a debate between some disguisers who took their religion from a caller claiming philosophy, demented,

Or an elder overcoming him, obsessed and meagre,

That he quoted the mention of the Return,

He expressed that the self unites with its knowledge upon returning to solitariness,

And the most important [part] of what he used as evidence, was what he took from his caller, the disguiser the tamperer [with the words], or his elder, the demented decorator:

That the self is isolated [from everything] in her actions in dreams, and that this is his evidence of her needlessness of reunion upon her return with the bodies,

So, some young men of Union answered him: “may God guard you, you are ignorant of the correct points; do you not know that whoever is dispossessed of eyesight at birth is dispossessed of all vision of all visible things in his wakefulness and in his dreams in his decline in senility?

“Thus, it is established that the self in her dreams recounts the images of tangibility, because she is not isolated in an action except in what she recounts of imagery of familiar things, and by a similar image of what is in the body with which she is united that she has eyed it”,

[I have checked some of what born blind people have posted or what was posted on their behalf on the Net; it is known that they do have dreams, in which they do perceive objects of senses, but not in the way they are seen by seeing people, thus the logical evidence is substantiated.]

Thus the evidence of the elder about the isolation of the self in her actions in her dreams was falsified, and the evidence of the young men, that upon her return she cannot quit reunion with bodies, was affirmed.

And I say also, about the essence that I forwarded in that:

That many of the philosophers of our times, and the echoers of the says of the contemporary people of our time, make judgements and cut off [debate and opposition], that the celestial which is the orbits and what is in them of administration are higher than all the bodies projected [on earth],

And this is secret in their books and famous of their says;

Then after that, they admit and judge that it is [i.e. the celestial] governed, and that its motion is restricted, and that it acts in unconsciousness,

And this is true and it contradicts their first say about its highness,

And I say, that the natural body in the human image is higher than the celestials, which are governed and restricted, because the mental virtues and the divine and godly knowledge cannot manifest except in it, I mean the human body, and benefit and benefaction have no way except through it,

And there is no discrimination except by it, and the self has no image except from its perspective,

So by it she always relays the image to which, by it, she is accustomed, and represents the virtues, which, by it, she examined,

And so, it is the highest visible thing, and there is no existence for the divine matters without it.

And I have mentioned in some sections of this letter that all contrived and created things, none of them has the capability to contrive or create an image like its own, for it to manifest in it, and this is powerlessness of all of them, their capability fell short of it;

So it is possible that the Existence of The Creator, Glorious is His Giving, is in the model of what he contrived and created, for, in no deficiency is He deficient, and Union points to Him,

For, whatness and howness have not a direction to Him,

And I also say, by the benefaction of Him Who is beneficent to the abiders in Him, the Bestower on them of His Graciousness and Maintenance, that The Creator, Glorified is His Capability:

If He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it of administered [things], then He evacuated it of the newborns and mothers, no intent purpose would be complete in it, and it would be lacking order, and  of little coherence,

And if He, Glorified is His Capability, populated it with newborns and mothers, and of all that is in it now of mute animals, fruit and vegetation, then He evacuated it of the animate and speaking human, it would also be of obvious lack, and scattered order,

So when He put in it the living speaking human, he expressed the benefits of the newborns from the mothers, and he was nourished by what is in it of plants and fruit, and he utilised all that is in it of animals, and thus all that came before him of creatures, was dedicated to him as utilities,

And thus has learnt every one with sound opinion, and a wholesome kernel, that the living and speaking man is [the only thing] apt for the knowledge of Bayan (knowledge of Reality),

And what he [mankind] is for these worlds: the complementary and the supplementary, and he is the most honourable of all the creatures, and by his virtuous initiative things manifest, and by him and for him worship is carried out,

And all that I have mentioned of itemised evidence, and logical and luminous expressions, no one rejects it, except those on whose hearts a bagful of sins is attached, and from truth they are blinded, and have thus distanced themselves from the communities of the people of knowledge and religion.

And I explain the essences of what I mentioned in this article, and I say that a perfected thing is not of the kind of the maker, and that is because the maker of a thing is unlike what he makes,

To this end, some people of truth went to say about The Creator that He is unlike what He makes,

As for His Completeness, it is conceivable that it is similar to what is His Perfection, and I draw an example close to the literate and disciplined, and not difficult for the clever and the educated,

And that is, the engineer of a construction is the one with the arcade and the divisions, and the management and the direction, and the education and the correction, and everyone below him of a worker in the construction is just an employee between his hands, dedicated for him in all his actions and exclusive to him,

So I say, that the image engraved in the self of the engineer, by which the foundations and the vehicles were established, and by whose [i.e. the engineer’s] education and organisation those arcades and divisions were envisaged,

So he is the perfection and completion of what we alluded to in this information, and they [the constructions] are similar to him, if from him they accept the veritableness of impressionability,

And the maker of the construction is dissimilar to his making, because he did not make it with insight or thoughtfulness, and neither did he absorb [anything] in his action, and nor did he administer [anything], and he is but an instrument dedicated for the action, and this is the adjective of the objects which are corrupted beings, acting by the motion of the orbits which are governed and restricted,

They are the image of the perfector of contrived things which are perfect, and remaining in human image.

Thus it is clear that the perfector of something is not of the calibre of the maker of it, and that the perfector of something can be similar to what he perfected, and the maker of something cannot be similar to what he makes,

Thus spoke the Divinely Wise Platon in his book titled after his friend Timaeus, conforming to what I mentioned:

That the First Cause is not active à priori, and that the perfected thing is not of the kind of the maker of it,

That because the maker of something is not similar to his making in as far as its perfection,

And it is conceivable that it [his making] is similar to what is its Perfection.

Then the Wise the Gracious the Alive goes on to say, that Godliness exists in part of the parts of the world, I mean mankind, which is alive, mental and speaking, similarly to The Creator, in what he has of Elevation, Honour and Magnanimity [Celibacy],

And he [mankind] is similar to the Mind in what he has of knowledge of the unseen and reflection (thinking),

And he is similar to the Self, in what he has of life and animation,

And he is similar to the Helium in what it has of a dense body, precipitating and accepting a temporary image,

 So, once those components have been integrated in this small world, I mean the human, it becomes clear to those of wholesome kernels that The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, is Capable of manifesting in the perspective of the world [from where the world is] by The Cause The Perfector, not by the cause the maker,

And the perfector of something is capable of being similar to what he perfected, and the maker of something cannot be similar to what he makes.

And Governance does not allow more explicitness about Union with The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, than what this Godly Gracious Wise One [hinting to the Writer, The Grand Self, The Peace be Him] expressed.

Many are those who proclaim [knowledge of] philosophy have not grasped it, and neither did they refer to whom The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, commanded referring, so he may clarify to them the truth of the essences, so they may believe it?

Nay, of the Books they took their own opinion, and from the Guardian of the Truth they diverted, hence they compete on the grounds of bewilderment, and they are thrashed in the ocean of ignorance,

Like the example of the Jews of this creed, who used to charge at the people who disbelieved, and when what/who they knew came to them they disbelieved and repudiated it/him, God’s Damnation is on those who darken,

[This was an allusion to the Jewish tribes of the Arabs who were given the Qur’an “conforming to what is in their hands of the Torah and the Gospel”. So they adopted a version of Islam which suited their business and political needs. Their descendants are today’s Muslims.]

And I also say, the argument pointing to the Existence of The Creator, Glorious is His Capability, from our perspective as people, not from the point of His Divinity, Glorious and Lofty is He, can be made in four divisions:

The first of them: we either negate of Him existence, adjectives, definition and attributes, as in the case of all [religious] rhetoric,

And if this is so, then all are equal in union with Him and acknowledging His Sublimeness,

For, they have considered to be sublime what does not exist, and this is the image of null;

And if a group of them claim that they have considered Him Sublime in their minds, without the presence of a proof, this is a claim that has no verity, because everything by which they consider null to be sublime is equal to it,

And by their equality, superlativeness [between people’s understanding] is dropped, and if superlativeness is dropped reward and punishment are annulled, and if reward and punishment are annulled Philosophy (Hikmeh) is annulled, and if Philosophy is annulled everything is absurd, far this is from God;

And the second of them: that He either exists in an image unlike all His Creation, so no one doubts Him, thus the creation are equal again in union with Him, and superlativeness is annulled,

And if superlativeness is annulled reward and punishment are annulled, and if this is so, Philosophy is annulled, and the cycles are returned aimlessly, far this is from God;

And the third: is that He is annulled and the aim is aimlessness, and far this is from God, and this is untrue in the innateness of the mind,

Nay, He is Affirmed in it, and it accedes Him;

And the forth is that He exists and He is The Verity, and from the perspective of His Creation; and from within themselves: from the perspective of The Majesty of His Sovereignty, so that The Proof may be held by Justice to His Creation, and so that in Union with Him may become Union with Him, proportionally to one’s knowledge and power, and to acknowledge His Sublimeness in as much as one can seek Him, and as much as one’s motive is pure, as well as one’s vision. 

Thus superlativeness is established in the creation, and reward and punishment which have been promised to discriminate between the worlds about The Truth,

And so the pursuit of Know ledge is an obligation on every believing man and woman by this reasoning, so the stations of the people of elevation are uneven in Union, and the ideologies of the people of incompetence and ignorance consort about diversion [il7aad, which is commonly translated to atheism, but linguistically it means: diversion from the set path]

And if advice giving servant [of the Truth] has attained what the Goal aspired in him and motivated him, and has established that he has looked and assumed Truth, he must be content in what His Lord facilitated for him, and be satisfied in what He bestowed on him and awarded him,

To Him The Homage constantly, and The Glory Sovereign and Overwhelming, for the inspiration of His Union and the Sublimeness by which He blessed [His servants], and to His Guardian is the gratitude for His Substance, Aid and Approval, and His Awakening,

The letter has been concluded,

And from the Guardian of the Truth we beg forgiveness and pardon, and retirement in Him.