On the Psalms (al-Zabūr)

The Zabūr is a Syriac word, [and] it has the meaning of "the book" (al-kitāb); and the Arabs used it, until God (mighty and majestic) sent down: "And everything they did is in the scriptures (al-zubur)" (54:52).

That is: in the books. And He sent down the Zabūr upon David [as] detailed verses.

But he did not bring it forth to his people except [all] at once, after God (exalted is He) had completed its descent upon him.

And David (peace be upon him) was the most refined of people in discourse and the finest of them in traits.

And when he recited the Zabūr, the animals stood around him -- of the wild beasts and the birds; and he was slender of body, short of stature, of intense strength, much-acquainted with the sciences in use in his time.

And know that every book sent down upon a prophet -- there was not placed in it of the sciences except the limit of what that prophet knew, [by] a divine wisdom, lest the prophet be ignorant of what he brought.

So the books are distinguished, some over others, in excellence, by the measure of the distinction of the one sent with it over another, with God (exalted is He).

And for this the Qurʾān was the most excellent of the books of God (exalted is He) sent down upon His prophets, because Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) was the most excellent of the messengers.

So if you say: the speech of God has no excelling of some of it over some,

we say: it has come in the hadith from the Prophet -- that he said: "The Sūra of the Opening (al-Fātiḥa) is the most excellent of the verses of the Qurʾān"; so if the excelling of some of the Qurʾān over some is sound, then there is no barring [it] in the rest of the books, in sum.

And know that the Zabūr -- most of it is admonitions, and the rest of it praise of God by what is His [due] in it.

And what is in it of the [legal] laws is only particular verses.

But those admonitions and that praise contain abundant divine, real sciences: the sciences of absolute existence, the science of the self-disclosure of the Real (exalted is He) in the creation, the science of subjugation and governance, the science of the requisites of the realities of the existents, the science of the receptivities and the preparednesses,

the science of natural things, the science of mathematics, the science of logic, the science of vicegerency (khilāfa), the science of wisdom, the science of physiognomy, and other than that of the sciences.

All of that by way of implication; and of it [is] a thing by way of declaration, of what its disclosure does not harm, and does not lead to the unveiling of a secret of the secrets of God (exalted is He).

And David (peace be upon him) was much in worship, and he knew the speech of the birds by divine unveiling (al-kashf al-ilāhī), and addressed them by the divine power, conveying to them, in their ears, what he wished of meanings,

by whatever wording he wished -- not as one supposes who has no knowledge of his state, [who] supposes that he used to speak by the very language of the birds, supposing that it is upon a wording agreed-upon.

Rather, he used to understand the speeches of the birds upon the difference of their sounds, and to know the meanings that those sounds indicated, by way of the divine unveiling.

And that is the saying of his son Solomon: "We have been taught the speech of the birds" (27:16).

And that state continued with him, until one who supposed [it] supposed that the birds have a posited language by which some of them speak with some.

And that David's understanding of it was from the standpoint of his knowledge of that positing -- but rather, they only have sounds they bring forth without a positing known to them.

But when a state befalls them, a sound is brought forth from them which another of the birds understands, [by] a divine inspiration, for what is in them of spiritual subtlety.

And when another state befalls it, the like of that very sound -- or another -- is brought forth from it, which whoever understands it of the birds or others understands, [by] a divine inspiration.

So the rest of the animals -- when a sound was brought forth from them, David knew of it what the sound contained, [by] a divine, unveiling knowledge.

And when David wished to address one of them, he addressed it, if he wished, in the Syriac language, and if he wished, in other than it of the sounds of the animals.

So that animal understood him, by the divine power that God (exalted is He) placed for David in his speech.

And this matter that God placed for David and Solomon (peace be upon them) is not confined to the two of them nor restricted to them.

Rather it is a general matter in all the vicegerents -- I mean the Greater Vicegerency (al-khilāfa al-kubrā).

And David and Solomon were singled out only by the appearing of that and the challenging [the world] with it.

Otherwise, every one of the Singular Ones (al-afrād) and the Poles (al-aqṭāb) has the disposal in all the existential kingdom, and each one of them knows what stirred in the night and the day, let alone the languages of the birds.

And al-Shiblī (may God have mercy on him) said:

"Were a black ant to crawl upon a smooth rock on a dark night, and I did not hear it, I would say: I am deceived, or [a trick is] played upon me."

And another said: "I do not say 'and I did not perceive it,' because it is not possible for it to crawl except by my power, and I am the one moving it; so how should I say 'I do not perceive it' when I am the one moving it?"

And it has come from the Prophet (God bless him and grant him peace) that he seized the jinnī and wished to tie him to the pillar of the mosque, then he remembered the prayer of Solomon, so he let him go. So it is known from that that Solomon's saying: "My Lord, grant me a kingdom that shall not befit anyone after me" (38:35)

was only intended [as] the challenging and the appearing by this vicegerency -- and it is that which shall not befit anyone after Solomon in [its] perfection.

And as for in some things rather than [all], the prophets appeared by it, and the saints followed them in it (may God's good-pleasure be upon them).

And know that the Zabūr, in allusion, is an expression for the self-disclosures of the Acts-Attributes (ṣifāt al-afʿāl).

And the Torah (al-Tawrāt) is an expression for the self-disclosures of the totality of the Names of the Attributes only.

And the Gospel (al-Injīl) is an expression for the self-disclosures of the Names of the Essence only.

And the Furqān is an expression for the self-disclosures of the totality of the Attributes and the Names, absolute, [both] the essential and the attributive.

And the Qurʾān is an expression for the pure Essence.

And the discourse on the Qurʾān, the Furqān, and the Torah has [already] preceded.

And the Zabūr's being an expression for the self-disclosures of the Acts-Attributes -- for it is the detailing of the divine, powerful, act-ramifications.

And for this David (peace be upon him) was a vicegerent over the world, so he appeared by the rulings of what was revealed to him in the Zabūr.

So he used to move the firm mountains, soften the iron, and rule over the kinds of creatures.

Then Solomon inherited his kingdom, so Solomon was an inheritor from David, and David an inheritor from the absolute Real.

So David was more excellent, because the Real gave him the vicegerency from the beginning, and singled him out with the address in His saying (exalted is He): "O David, We have made you a vicegerent in the earth" (38:26).

And He did not make that for Solomon except after his asking, in a [particular] kind of restriction.

And David knew that it is not possible for the vicegerency to be restricted to anyone, outwardly and inwardly; so the Real gave him [it] only from the standpoint of [outward] appearing.

Do you not see His saying (exalted is He), where He reported of Solomon that he said: "My Lord, forgive me, and grant me a kingdom that shall not befit anyone after me" (38:35)?

So He said in His answer: "So We subjugated to him the wind, running by his command" (38:36).

Then He enumerated what Solomon was given of the divine powers, and did not say "so We gave him what he asked," because that -- its restriction to anyone of the creation is impossible, for it is a divine singling-out.

So whenever the Real (exalted is He) appears in a locus of manifestation by His Essence, that locus is the vicegerent of God in His earth.

And to it is the allusion in His saying (exalted is He): "And We have indeed written in the Zabūr, after the Remembrance, that the earth -- My righteous servants shall inherit it" (21:105).

That is: those fit for the divine inheritance.

And what is intended by "the earth" is these existential realities, confined between the True loci of disclosure and the created meanings.

And to it is the allusion in His saying: "Surely My earth is vast, so Me [alone] worship" (29:56).

So if you say: Solomon's supplication was answered, by the consideration that the Greater Kingdom befits no one after God -- and He is the reality of Solomon -- so the supplication was made valid for him, [then] you have spoken truly.

And if you say: Solomon's supplication was not answered, by the consideration of the non-restriction of the vicegerency to him, and that that was made valid for those after him of the Poles and the Singular Ones, [then] you have spoken truly. So consider [it] however you wish.

So when David knew the impossibility of the restriction of the vicegerency to him, he left this asking.

And Solomon asked [it as] a divine discipline [from God], wishing his being-singled-out by the divine loci of disclosure, for the being-singled-out of his [own] right by them.

And this -- even if it be impossible -- is yet permissible to ask, for the divine capacity and the existential possibility.

But no one knows whether that was made valid for him or not. And in this station the Real (exalted is He) reported of His saints, so He (exalted is He) said: "And they did not measure God [with] the true measure of Him" (6:91),

"and glory be to your Lord, the Lord of Might, above what they describe" (37:180).

So it became, from this aspect, impossible; and for this the Greatest Veracious One (al-Ṣiddīq al-Akbar [Abū Bakr]) said:

"Incapacity to attain apprehension is [itself] apprehension."

And he (peace be upon him) said: "I cannot enumerate praise of You; You are as You have praised Yourself." So he (God bless him and grant him peace) comported himself [with courtesy] in asking what cannot be attained, and acknowledged incapacity, for the perfection of his Lord.

And he (peace be upon him) was more knowing of his Lord than Solomon.

Because Solomon knew what comes to an end, so he asked for its attainment; and Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) knew what has no end, so he comported himself [away] from asking the apprehension of what is not apprehended.

I mean he comported himself, so he left the supplication for the attainment of that, for his knowledge that God (exalted is He) did not make it for anyone,

and that it is an essential particularity in Him that God (exalted is He) reserved to Himself, [away] from the rest of His creation.

So look between one whose knowing of his Lord has a limit that ends, and one for whom there is no limit to his knowing of his Lord and no end to it. And in this station the Muhammadan [ones] of the saints said what they said.

So our shaykh [related], of the Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, [that he said]:

"O company of prophets, you were given the title (al-laqab), and we were given what you were not given."

Thus the Imām Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn al-ʿArabī related it of him, in the Meccan Openings (al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya), with its chain. And the saintly shaykh Abū al-Ghayth b. Jamīl (may God be pleased with him) said:

"We plunged into a sea at whose shore the prophets halted."

And this speech, even though it has an aspect of interpretation, [yet] our school is that the absolute prophet is more excellent than the absolute saint.

And the discourse on prophethood (nubuwwa) and sainthood (walāya) will come in this book, God (exalted is He) willing.

And God guides to what is right.