On the Guarded Tablet (al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ)

A soul that comprehended, by the Essence, the knowledge of a world / she is our Guarded Tablet, O son of the Adamite.

The forms of all existence are inscribed / in her receptivity, without any concealment.

So when she is purified by her God and qualified by Him / [freed] from the darknesses of the cloud, the murky overcast.

Things appear to her, within her, with her / and the hidden things of the world are disclosed to her.

Know -- may God guide you -- that the Guarded Tablet is an expression for a divine, Real light, disclosed in a created witnessing-place, upon which the existents are imprinted with an original imprinting; so it is the mother of prime-matter (umm al-hayūlā), because prime-matter requires no form except that it is [already] imprinted in the Guarded Tablet.

So when prime-matter requires some form, the world comes to be according to what the prime-matter required of [either] immediacy or delay.

Because the Supreme Pen has run in the Guarded Tablet with its bringing-into-being, and the prime-matter has required it, its bringing-into-being is inevitable according to the requisite.

And for this the divine sages said: when prime-matter requires a form, it is incumbent (ḥaqq) upon the Giver of forms to bring that form forth into the world. And their saying "incumbent upon the Giver of forms" is of the order of latitude [of expression],

running in the manner of his saying (peace be upon him): "It is incumbent upon God that He raise nothing of the world except that He lowers it";

not that anything is obligatory upon Him -- exalted is God far above that with a great exaltation.

And the exposition of prime-matter will come in its [own] place.

Then know that the divine light upon which the existents are imprinted is what is expressed as the Universal Soul (al-nafs al-kullī).

Then the apprehension of what the Supreme Pen wrote in that light -- expressed as the Guarded Tablet -- is only by an aspect of the aspects of that light.

And that aspect is what is expressed, with us, as the Universal Intellect (al-ʿaql al-kullī).

Just as the imprinting in the light is what is expressed as the [decree of] settling (al-qaḍāʾ), and it is the original detailing that the divine description requires.

And we have expressed its locus of disclosure as the Footstool. Then the determining (al-taqdīr) in the Tablet is the ruling for the bringing-forth of the creation in the specified form, in the particular state, at the appointed time.

And this is that whose locus of disclosure is expressed as the Supreme Pen, which, in our technical usage, is the First Intellect.

And mention of it will come in its place. Its example:

The Real (exalted is He) decreed the bringing-into-being of Zayd in such-and-such a form at such-and-such a time.

So the command that required this determining in the Tablet is the Supreme Pen, which is named the First Intellect.

And the locus in which the declaration of this requisite came to be is the Guarded Tablet, which is expressed as the Universal Soul.

Then the command that required the bringing-into-being of this ruling into existence is the requisite of the divine Attributes, which is expressed as the settling (al-qaḍāʾ), and its locus of disclosure is the Footstool.

So know what is intended by the Pen, what is intended by the Tablet, what is intended by the settling (qaḍāʾ), and what is intended by the measuring-out (qadar).

Then know that the knowledge of the Guarded Tablet is a portion of the knowledge of God (exalted is He).

God set it running upon the canon of the divine wisdom, according to what the realities of the created existents required.

And God has a knowledge beyond that, which is according to what the True realities require -- it comes forth in the mode of the origination of [His] Power in existence; it is not fixed in the Guarded Tablet, but may appear in it upon its appearing in the entified world, and may also not appear in it even after its appearing.

And all that is in the Guarded Tablet is the knowledge of [everything] from the beginning of sensory existence to the Day of Resurrection; and what is in it of the knowledge of the people of the Garden and the Fire is a thing as to detail.

Because that is from the origination of Power, and the matter of Power is undetermined (mubham), not specified.

Yes -- its knowledge is found in it in summary, absolutely: like the knowledge of bliss, absolutely, for whom the Pen has run with eternal felicity.

Then, were that bliss detailed, it would be the detailing of that genus -- and that too is [still] a summary, as you say that he is of the people of the Garden of the Abode, or of the Garden of Eternity, or the Garden of Bliss, or the Garden of Paradise -- in summary, there being no way to other than that; and likewise the state of the people of the Fire.

Then know that the [thing] required, [thus] determined in the Tablet, is of two kinds:

A determined [thing] in which no changing nor alteration is possible,

and a determined [thing] in which changing and alteration are possible.

As for that in which changing and alteration are not possible:

they are the matters that the divine Attributes required in the world, so there is no way to their non-existence. And as for the matters in which changing is possible:

they are the things that the receptivities of the world required upon the canon of the customary wisdom; the Real (glory be His and exalted) may set them running upon that order,

so the required [thing] falls in the Guarded Tablet; and He may set them running upon the ruling of divine origination, so the decreed [thing] does not fall. And there is no doubt that what the receptivities of the world required is the very requisite of the divine Attributes.

But between the two there is a difference -- I mean between what the receptivities of the world required and what the Attributes required absolutely -- and that is because the receptivities of the world, even if they require a thing, it is of their ruling [to have] incapacity, by reason of their matter's dependence upon other than themselves.

And for this it may fall and may not fall -- unlike the matters that the divine Attributes required, for those fall by the necessity of the divine requiring.

And there is a second aspect:

it is that the receptivities of the world are possible (mumkin), and the possible accepts the thing and its opposite.

So when the receptivity requires a thing, and the measuring-out (qadar) runs only with the falling of its contrary, that contrary too is from the requisite of the receptivity that is in the possible.

So we say [there is a] falling of what the receptivities of the world required upon the canon of wisdom; and this is a tasting-matter (dhawqī) that the intellect does not apprehend by way of its discursive consideration, but it is a divine unveiling that God grants to whom He wills of His servants.

So the firmly-fixed settling (al-qaḍāʾ al-muḥkam) is that in which there is no changing nor alteration, and the concluded settling (al-qaḍāʾ al-mubram) is that in which changing is possible; and for this the Prophet sought refuge in God only from the concluded settling, because he knew that changing and alteration could occur in it.

God (exalted is He) said: "God effaces what He wills and establishes, and with Him is the Mother of the Book" (13:39) -- unlike the firmly-fixed settling, which is what is pointed to in His saying: "And the command of God is a measured-out measuring" (33:38). And the hardest thing for the unveiler with this knowledge is to know the concluded settling from the firmly-fixed settling.

So he comports himself [with courtesy] in what he knows to be firmly-fixed, and he intercedes in what he knows to be concluded.

And the Real's informing him of the concluded settling is the permission for intercession. God (exalted is He) said: "Who is there that intercedes with Him except by His permission?" (2:255).

Then know that the divine light expressed as the Guarded Tablet:

is the light of the Essence of God (exalted is He); and the light of His Essence is the very same as His Essence, by reason of the impossibility of partition and division upon Him.

So it is an absolute Real, and it is expressed as the Universal Soul, so it is an absolute creation. And to this is the pointing in His saying: "Nay, it is a Glorious Qurʾān, in a Guarded Tablet" (85:21-22).

Meaning: by the Qurʾān, the very Essence of the lofty Glory and the towering Might, in a Guarded Tablet, in the Universal Soul.

I mean: the soul of the Perfect Human -- without indwelling; exalted is He above indwelling and union. And God says the truth, and He guides to the way of right direction.