On the Imagination (al-Khayāl), and that it is the prime-matter (hayūlā) of all the worlds

Truly the imagination is the life of the spirit of the world / it is the root of that, and its root is the son of Adam.

Existence is naught but imagination, in the view of one who / knows the imagination, by the power of the Most-Magnified.

For sense, before its appearing, is imagined / for you -- and it is [such] that it passes like the dream of the sleeper.

So then the state of its appearing in our sense / abides upon a root it has, by mutual entailment.

Do not be deceived by sense, for it is imagined / and likewise the meaning, and the whole world.

And likewise the Dominion (malakūt) and the Omnipotence (jabarūt) / and the Lāhūt and the Nāsūt, in the view of the knower.

Do not belittle the worth of the imagination, for it / is the very reality of the ruling existence.

But the root of the imagination, all of it / is two divisions -- this [is] at the unveiling of the sharp [discerner].

A division imaged for abiding, and another / imaged for perishing, not lasting.

So understand our allusion and unlock its symbols / but upon the root of the standing Book.

And beware of an understanding that inclines from the guidance / [away] from what the Hāshimī Prophet brought you.

That is not my aim; my aim is only what / the Messenger brought, without concealment.

I built the foundation of my message only upon / [the fact] that I be, for his religion, like a servant.

So if there appears to you what is hard to understand / or you understand from it the saying of the obtuse,

leave it and take refuge in the God, and stand upon / a way the hadith of al-Qāsim [the Prophet] brought you.

God's blessing be upon him as long as the fire of certainty / [blazes] by his name in a dark night of doubt.

Know -- may God grant you success -- that the imagination is the root of existence, and the Essence in which is the perfection of the appearing of the Worshipped.

Do you not see your belief (iʿtiqād) concerning the Real, and that He has the attributes and the names which are His -- where is the locus of this belief in which God (glory be His and exalted) appeared to you? It is only the imagination.

And for this we said that it is the Essence in which is the perfection of His appearing (glory be His and exalted).

So when you have known this, it appears to you that the imagination is the root of the whole world, because the Real is the root of all things.

And the most perfect of His appearing is only in a locus that is the root, and that locus is the imagination; so it is established that the imagination is the root of all the worlds in their entirety. Do you not see the Prophet (God bless him and grant him peace), how he made this sensory [world] a sleep and the sleep an imagination? -- so he said: "People are asleep; so when they die, they awake."

Meaning: the realities that they were upon in the abode of this world appear to them, so they know that they were asleep -- not that death produces the total awakening.

For heedlessness of God is drawn over the people of the Barzakh, the people of the Gathering, the people of the Fire, and the people of the Garden -- until the Real discloses Himself to them at the Dune (al-Kathīb) to which the people of the Garden go out, so they witness God (exalted is He).

And this heedlessness is the sleep; so all the worlds, their root is imagination.

And for this the imagination confines whoever is in them of the persons.

So every community of the communities is confined by the imagination, in whatever world it be of the worlds.

So the people of this world, for example, are confined by the imagination of their livelihood or their return [Hereafter]; and both matters are heedlessness of presence with God, for they are asleep.

And the one present with God (exalted is He) is awake; and according to the measure of his presence with God is his awakening from sleep.

Then the people of the Barzakh are asleep, but lighter than the sleep of some of the people of this world.

For they are occupied with what was [done] by them and what they are in of torment or bliss; and this is sleep, because they are 'heedless' -- that is, oblivious of God.

And likewise the people of the Resurrection; for they, even though they stood before God (exalted is He) for the reckoning, [yet] they are with the reckoning, not with God; and this is sleep, because it is heedlessness of presence.

But they are lighter of sleep than the people of the Barzakh.

And likewise the people of the Garden and the Fire; for these [are] with what they are blissed by, and these with what they are tormented by; and this is heedlessness of God and sleep, not awakening.

But they are lighter of sleep than the people of the Gathering; so their sleep is at the rank of a doze (sina).

Granting that each of the people of these worlds, even if they be, in [one] regard, with the Real from the standpoint of the Real -- because He is with all of existence, and He is the one who says: "He is with you wherever you are" (57:4) -- yet they are with Him by sleep, not by wakefulness; so there is no awakening except for the people of the Heights (al-Aʿrāf) and those in the Dune only, for they are with God.

And according to the measure of the Real's self-disclosure to them is the awakening.

And whoever attains, of God, in the abode of this world, by the ruling of [the divine] determining, what was deferred for the people of the Garden in the Dune -- so the Real (exalted is He) discloses Himself to him and he knows Him -- he is awake.

And for this the master of the people of this station [the Prophet] informed that 'people are asleep,' because he was awake and knew.

So when you have known that the people of every world are ruled [to be] asleep, rule upon all those worlds that they are imagination, because sleep is the world of imagination.

Truly existence, without impossibility / is imagination within imagination within imagination.

And none is awake except the people of the Real / with the All-Merciful; they are [so] in every state.

And they are disparate, without dispute / so their wakefulness is according to the measure of perfection.

They are the people pointed to in their loftiness / theirs, below [all] mortals, is all exaltation.

They won the Essence and the descriptions altogether / their affair grew mighty in the Possessor of Majesty.

So once by Majesty, upon delight / and once by delighting in Beauty.

The pleasures of the description of God flowed in them / for them, in the Essence, are lofty pleasures.

Pearls and symbol in a sea of riddle: the stranger -- expressed [as] a spirit -- journeyed, until he reached the world expressed [as] Yūḥ.

So when he reached that heaven, he knocked at the gate of the sanctuary. So it was said to him: Who are you, O knocking lover? So he said: A parted lover, brought out from your lands and driven far from other-than-you.

So I was bound in the bond of thickness, depth, length, and breadth.

And imprisoned in the prison of fire, water, air, and earth.

And I have broken the bond and come seeking deliverance from the prison in which I remained.

So [come to my] aid, O poets, O noble Arabs! For there is none but you for the wronged captive. The narrator said: So there came forth to me a man upon whom old age had descended.

And he said: Know that this is the world of the Unseen; its men are abundant of number, beautiful of supply, strong of count, long of term.

It behooves the one who arrives at them and enters upon them to adorn himself with their splendid garb and to perfume himself with their fragrant scent. I said: And whence do I find those garments? Nay, and where are those perfumes sold? So he said: The garments are in the market of the abiding Sesame, and the perfumes are in the watered land of the imagination.

And if you wish to invert this expression, take the garments from the weaving of the imagination, and the perfume from the land of the Sesame.

For they are two brothers, without doubt, of this world named the world of the Unseen.

So I went first to the land of the Sesame and the mine of beauty, named, by some of its aspects, the world of the imagination.

So I made for a man there, mighty of affair, lofty of place, dear of sovereignty, named the Spirit of the Imagination (rūḥ al-khayāl), and surnamed the Spirit of the Garden(s).

So when I greeted him and presented myself before him, he answered and gave [greeting], and praised, and welcomed me and [bade me] come.

So I said to him: O my master, what is this world expressed [as] the abiding Sesame, of Adam? So he said: It is the subtlety that does not perish, ever; and the locus over which the nights and days do not pass; God created it from this clay, and cast this grain from the totality of the dough.

And He made it ruling over all, and a mother for the great and the lowly; we have rendered [an account] of it in the book and opened, concerning it, this chapter.

In it the impossible is permitted, and in it the form of the imagination is witnessed by sense.

So I said: And is there a way for me to this wondrous locus and strange world? So he said: Yes, when your illusion (wahm) is completed and perfected, so you are widened for the passage of the impossible, and empowered, by the witnessing of sense, for the meanings of the imagination.

And you know the subtle point and read the secret of the point.

Then there are woven for you, from those meanings, garments; and when you wear them, a gate to the Sesame is opened for you.

So I said to him: O my master, I am upon the stipulated matter, and I have held fast to the rope of the tied knot, and I have known, by unveiling and finding (al-kashf wa-l-wujūd), that the world of the spirits is more apparent and stronger than the world of sense, in tasting and witnessing.

So he gestured with his hand after a murmuring, and behold, I was in the land of the Sesame.

A land whose dust is of pure musk / and of jewels are its quarters and its domes; / its trees speaking [with] speech / and likewise its houses [give] bliss and reproach; / in its taste is, of everything, a pleasure / truly, and of the Water of Life is its drink; / it gained beauty, so it became witnessing a form / in it -- and how often its drink has slaked the thirsty; / it is a copy of the Garden of the Abode for whoever / wins it; in the earth, its homecoming was good; / it is a secret of the power of a Powerful [One], brought forth to whoever / knows the matters and whom its reckoning did not escape; / it is not magic -- rather it is its water / nay, its fire, its air, and its earth; / it is their root, and magic is a branch of the decree / and its address answers the caller of the magicians; / the brave man draws forth his desire / from it, so it lifts the veil for the eyes; / and the people in it are between a saved winner / who completed the alms by it, so its quorum was complete; / or a perished one who sold felicity for wretchedness / at a loss, so he buried it and increased its veil; / it is the sister of Adam -- nay, the daughter of his secret / so all his lineages are its lineages; / all perish, and that one abides upon / subtlety; and by the decreed, its riding-beast endured long; / it is a palm-tree that appeared from the fruit which / is Adam -- there is no garden for it in other than him; / so the human answers it one day if it calls / and when the human calls, its answer comes; / it is not imagination -- no, nor sense, nor / other than what I have said. Here, take its right [reckoning].

So when I entered this wondrous land and perfumed myself from its strange perfumes, and saw what is in it of the wonders, the marvels, the rarities, and the curiosities -- what does not occur to the mind, nor is seen in the sensory [world] nor in the world of the imagination --

I sought the ascent to the existent world of the Unseen; so I came to the shaykh who had been the first guide, and I found him [so] thinned by worship that he had become like the imagination, and weakened until I deemed him of the impossibles [made manifest].

But [he was] strong of heart and aspiration, intense of assault and resolve, swift of [the] knot and the rising, as though he were the full moon.

So I said, after I had greeted and he returned the greeting: I wish to enter [to] the Men of the Unseen (rijāl al-ghayb), for I have come with the stipulations, without doubt.

So he said: This is the time of entering and the season of arrival.

Then he knocked the door-ring, so the gate opened and closed; so I entered a city wondrous of land, mighty of length and breadth; its people the most knowing of the world of God; there is not in them a man heedless.

Its earth white fine-flour, and its sky green emerald.

Its Arabs noble Arabs; there is not among them a king except al-Khiḍr (peace be upon him); so I set down my saddles by him, and knelt before him, then took to greeting him.

So he greeted me [with] the greeting of the intimate and conversed with me [as] the boon-companion converses, then he set me at ease in the station.

And he said: Bring what you have of speech.

So I said: My master, I ask you about your lofty affair and your impregnable state, in which the speech became confounded and the people became confounded.

So he said: I am the lofty Reality and the near-drawing subtlety.

I am the secret of the human of existence; I am the very Inward [that is] worshipped; I am the staircase of the realities; I am the depths of the subtleties; I am the Lāhūtī shaykh; I am the keeper of the Nāsūtī world.

I take form in every meaning and appear in every place; I take character by every form and bring forth a sign in every sūra.

And my affair is the wondrous Inward, and my state is the strange state; my dwelling is Mount Qāf and my place the Heights (al-Aʿrāf).

I am the one standing at the meeting of the two seas (majmaʿ al-baḥrayn), the drowned in the river of where-ness, the drinker from the spring of the spring.

I am the guide of the Fish in the sea of Lāhūt. I am the secret of the nourishment and the bearer for the youth [Joshua].

I am the teacher of the outward Moses. I am the point of the First and the Last.

I am the singular gathering Pole (al-quṭb al-fard al-jāmiʿ). I am the gleaming Light.

I am the shining full moon. I am the decisive Word.

I am the bewilderment of the minds. I am the goal of the seekers.

None reaches me nor enters upon me except the Perfect Human (al-insān al-kāmil) and the arriving spirit.

And as for whoever is other than him, my place-rank is above his abode.

He knows no report of me, nor sees a trace of me; rather, the belief is imaged for him in some of the forms of the servants, so it is named by my name and there is written upon its cheek my brand.

So the ignorant, deceived one looks at it, and supposes that it is the one named al-Khiḍr -- and where is he from me?

Nay, where is his cup from my wine?

Unless it be said that he is a point of my sea or an hour of my time.

Since his reality is a subtlety of my subtleties, and his method a way of my ways.

So by this consideration I am that deceiving star.

So I said to him: What is the sign of arrival at you and of the descent in your courtyards upon you? So he said: Its sign is folded away in the knowledge of the [divine] determining (ʿilm al-qadar), and its knowing is rolled up in the knowledge of verification by the realities.

Then I asked about the kinds of the Men of the Unseen (rijāl al-ghayb). So he said: Of them is [one] who is of the children of Adam, and of them is [one] who is of the spirits of the world.

And they are six divisions, differing in station. The first division: they are the most excellent class and the perfect folk; they are the Singular Ones of the saints (afrād al-awliyāʾ), the followers of the traces of the prophets; they vanished from the world of the existents in the Unseen named the Level of the All-Merciful (mustawā al-Raḥmān), so they are not known nor described; and they are Adamic [human].

The second division: they are the people of the meanings and the spirits of the vessels; the saint takes form in their forms, so the people are perfected, inwardly and outwardly, by their good.

They are spirits as though they were apparitions, by the faculty enabled of imaging in the eye.

They journeyed from the world of witnessing, so they arrived at the open space of the unseen of existence, so their unseen became existence-witnessing and their breaths worship.

And these are the Pegs of the earth (awtād al-arḍ), the ones standing for God by the sunna and the obligatory [duty]. The third division: the angels of inspiration and the prompting-impulses; they knock upon the saints and speak with the pure ones; they do not come forth to the world of sensation, nor make themselves known to the common people. The fourth division: the men of intimate-discourse in the [spiritual] sites; they go out, always, from their world, and are found only in [places] other than their landmarks; they take form for the rest of the people in the world of sensation; and the people of purity may enter to that banner, so they inform them of the unseen things and announce to them the concealed things. The fifth division: the men of al-basāʾis; they are the people of favor in the world, and they are of the kinds of the children of Adam; they appear to the people then vanish, and speak with them and they answer; the most of the dwelling of these is in the mountains, the wastes, the valleys, and the edges of the rivers -- except one of them who is empowered, for he takes a dwelling of the cities; their station is not aspired-to, nor longed-for nor relied-upon. The sixth division: they resemble the [passing] thoughts (al-khawāṭir), not the whisperings; they are the ones generated from the father of reflection (al-tafakkur) and the mother of imaging (al-taṣawwur); no heed is paid to their sayings, nor is there longing for their likes; so they are between error and rightness, and they are the people of unveiling and veil.

And God says the truth, and He guides to the way (33:4); and with Him is the Mother of the Book (13:39).