On the Muhammadan Form (al-Ṣūra al-Muḥammadiyya)

And that it is the Light from which God created the Garden and the Hellfire, and the origin from which torment and bliss came to be.

Lights of beauty appeared in the heart, gleaming -- / hidden, yet they are like a rising sun;

the Real has, in them, an appearing for the one who knows Him -- / so the self-disclosures are not hidden, [but] radiant.

And in the heart is a faculty called the form-giving, / yet it has gathered the secrets, all-comprehending;

it became a [perfect] copy of the gardens of eternity, and so it came / to raise up the palace in the field of imagining.

It draws forth the sweet fruit and its sour, / from a garden ripening above the bough.

None has known what it contains of its Maker's making / save a sage, to whom the creatures came obedient.

Created, yet it is a mirror for its Creator -- / near, [though] it has become, in [its] ruling, far-flung.

Lowly, [yet] its elevation is mighty with God -- / a secret, [though] it has become, among the people, widespread.

But its incapacity is from its being created: / dead in the soul, submissive in captivity;

it gains the person nothing but a [fleeting] joy, while he has, / in the outward of [his] sobriety, sorrows in succession.

Let no possessor of intellect be deluded by its adornment, / nor let any passion enamor him of it.

Had it been created living, you would see it / both joining and, among the people, severing.

And this discourse is [but] a husk over our subtle point; / so cast off the husks, for they will not profit you.

And the kernel is in the soul like the pearl in the shell, / like enchantment from which the very springs of enchantment well up.

So look upon [the] wisdoms that have come in "Alif Lām Mīm," / in a concealed garb, [yet] gleaming like the sun.

Know -- may God grant you success in knowing Him and make you of the people of His nearness -- that God created the Muhammadan Form from the light of His Name, the Originator (al-Badīʿ), the Powerful (al-Qādir);

and He looked upon it by His Name, the Bestower (al-Mannān), the Subduer (al-Qāhir); then He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name, the Subtle (al-Laṭīf), the Forgiving (al-Ghāfir).

Thereupon it cleft, at this self-disclosure, into two clefts, becoming as though it were divided into two halves.

So God created the Garden from its half facing the right, and made it the abode of felicity for the favored ones; then He created the Fire from its half facing the left, and made it the abode of the wretched, the people of misguidance.

And the portion from which the gardens were created was the one looked upon by His Name the Bestower; so it is, by the secret of the disclosure of the Subtle, the locus of everyone noble and honored with God. And the portion from which God created the Fire was the one looked upon by His Name the Subduer; and it is, by the secret of the disclosure of the Forgiving, a pointing to the acceptance of its people toward the good in the end.

as the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) gave tidings concerning the Fire: "The Compeller (al-Jabbār) sets His foot in it, and it says, 'Enough! Enough!' -- and the watercress (al-jirjīr) sprouts in it."

And the secret of this hadith is that, whenever God creates a torment for the people of the Fire, He creates for them a power to bear that torment; otherwise they would perish, be annihilated, and find rest from the torment. So He must create for them a power to bear what He sends down upon them of torment, that they may taste His punishment.

And that is His saying (exalted is He):

"Whenever their skins are roasted through, We exchange them for other skins, that they may taste the torment" (4:56, al-Nisāʾ).

So by the exchanging of the skins, powers are renewed for them that they did not [previously] have; and they say within themselves: "Perhaps He will torment us with such-and-such,"

because of their foreseeing what He has placed in the receptivity of that power, of bearing torment; so God brings it about with them, and thereby they are afflicted and tormented by it.

So their [intuitive] unveiling, which occurred within them, is like a herald to them of the torment, that it may be humiliation upon humiliation --

just as the people of the Garden, too, are given glad tidings of their bliss before they fall into it. Then, when the people of the Fire have a torment removed from them and another renewed for them, the first powers are not removed from them, because they are a gift by the hand of bounty, and the Real does not take back what He has gifted.

But the torment descends upon them by the hand of subjugation, so it is His to lift it and set another in its place. Then they continue to increase, power upon power, with every torment, until they come to the point where the trace of those powers appears in them as a divine power.

And when that divine power appears in them, it compels them, until the Compeller (al-Jabbār) sets His foot in the Fire -- because the Attributes of the Real do not appear in anyone such that he is wretched thereafter.

Then know that the Compeller appears upon them only by way of that divine power which He unveiled to them, on account of the correspondence (munāsaba) that is the cause of conjunction in everything.

So He sets the foot of compelling upon the Fire, and it becomes lowly and submits to His power (glory be to Him, exalted is He).

And it says thereupon: "Enough! Enough!" -- and this is the speech of the state of lowliness beneath the river of might, expressed by this word; and then it passes away.

Know that, since the Fire is not original in existence, it passes away in the end.

And the secret of this is that the attribute from which it was created is preceded, and the preceded is a branch of the preceding.

And that is His saying: "My mercy has outstripped My wrath."

So the preceding is the root, and the preceded is a branch from it. Do you not see how, since mercy is the root, its ruling extends from the first of existence to its last,

while wrath does not extend from the first of existence to its last?

Because His bringing the creature into being from non-existence is a mercy toward it, not a wrath upon it -- for it has not committed a sin such that it should merit wrath thereby. Do you not see that He said (glory be to Him):

"And My mercy encompasses all things" (7:156, al-Aʿrāf) -- and He did not say: "and My wrath encompasses all things," because He brought the things into being as a mercy from Him; so, for this subtle reason, wrath, too, does not extend to the end of existence. And the secret in this is that mercy is an essential attribute of His (glory be to Him), while wrath is an attribute that is not essential. Do you not see that He is named the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful (al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm), and is not named the Wrathful (al-Ghaḍbān) nor the Much-Wrathful (al-Ghaḍūb)? That is because wrath is an attribute necessitated by justice, and justice is only for a ruling between two matters; so His Name 'the Just' (al-ʿĀdil) is the name of an attribute, while His Name 'the All-Merciful' is the name of the Essence. Do you not see how, in 'the Forgiver' (al-Ghaffār) -- the first of the loci of manifestation of the favor necessitated by mercy -- three forms have come: al-Ghāfir, al-Ghaffār, and al-Ghafūr; whereas His Name 'the Subduer' (al-Qāhir) -- the first of the loci of manifestation of the vengeance necessitated by justice -- admits only two forms, so it is said al-Qāhir and al-Qahhār, but al-Qahūr has not come? And all of this is the secret of mercy's outstripping of wrath.

Then know that, since the affair of the Fire is accidental in existence, its passing-away is admissible -- otherwise it would be impossible; and its passing-away is nothing but the removal of the burning from it.

And by the going of the burning from it, its angels go; and by the going of its angels, the angels of bliss come [in their place].

So, by the coming of the angels of bliss in its place, the watercress (al-jirjīr) sprouts -- and it is greenery; and the most beautiful color in the Garden is the color of greenery.

So what was a Hellfire was reversed, until it became a bliss.

as in the story of Abraham the Friend [of God] (upon him be peace), when the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) said to his fire: "Be coolness and peace upon Abraham" (21:69, al-Anbiyāʾ). So it became sweet-herbs and gardens, while its place remained as it was -- but the fire went away.

And if you wish, you may say: the fire did not go away, but rather the pain of the torment was transformed into ease -- and likewise the Hellfire on the Day of Resurrection. And if you wish, you may say: it passes away absolutely, after the Compeller sets His foot in it; so it is passing-away.

And if you wish, you may say: it remains in its [own] state, but the affair of the torment of its people was transformed into ease -- and so it is.

And corresponding to it, in this world, is the egotistical nature (al-ṭabīʿa al-nafsāniyya) of one who has been purified, in his being drawn to the Real, by [spiritual] struggles and disciplines. So if you say: the egotistical nature has been lost absolutely, you have spoken truly;

and if you say: it is veiled beneath the lights of the divine purification, you are truthful in that.

Then the relation of the struggles and disciplines, and the hardship the People of God (exalted is He) endure therein, is like the torment of the people of the Fire and its terrors on the Day of Resurrection;

and the relation of the diversity of its torment, and its increase and decrease, is the relation of the strength of the entrenchment of the struggles, disciplines, and oppositions [to the ego] in one in whom the egotistical nature is entrenched -- such that it is removed only after much toil -- as opposed to one in whom the natures are not entrenched in their fullness, who is like one tormented with the least torment and then brought forth from the Fire into the Garden. And the Spirit who informed me of these sciences gave tidings that those matters which pass away by perseverance in struggles, disciplines, and oppositions are the share of the People of God in His saying (exalted is He): "And there is none of you but shall come to it; that is, for your Lord, a decreed certainty" (19:71, Maryam).

So after it they do not pass over the fire of Hell -- as a kindness from God toward them and a solicitude -- lest He torment His servant with two torments, or terrify him with two terrors.

He has set up for him these hardships that befall him in this world as a substitute for the torment of another in the Hereafter.

And what we have said is indicated by the hadith related from the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace): "The fever is every believer's share of the Fire." So if the fever stands in the place of the Fire, then what of you [and] the struggles, disciplines, and oppositions, which are more severe than anything, until the soul is purified?

And for that reason the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) named it "the greater struggle" (al-jihād al-akbar), and named smiting with the sword "a lesser struggle." And it is no secret that the fever is easier than meeting the enemy, the smiting, the thrusting, and the war; and all of that is a lesser struggle beside the struggles and oppositions that the People of God endure.

And know that, when God (exalted is He) created the Fire from His Name the All-Subduer (al-Qahhār), He made it the locus of manifestation of Majesty (al-jalāl); so He disclosed Himself upon it in seven self-disclosures, and those self-disclosures became gates having [their own] meanings.

The first self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Avenger (al-Muntaqim), and there opened up in it a valley having three hundred and sixty thousand levels (darak), one beneath another, called Laẓā.

God created the gate of this valley from the darkness of disobedience and sin -- which is crime (al-jurm); so it is the locus of the people of disobedience,

and [of] the sin in which no creature has a [violated] right -- it being a matter between God and His servant,

such as lying, ostentation, sodomy, the drinking of wine, the abandonment of the obligatory commands, and the making-light of the sanctities of God (exalted is He). These are the criminals (al-mujrimūn).

God (exalted is He) said: "The criminal would wish to ransom himself from the torment of that Day by his sons, his consort, his brother, his kin who sheltered him, and all who are on the earth -- then [that] it might save him. By no means! It is Laẓā, tearing away the scalp, calling whoever turned his back and turned away,"

meaning, turned his back on the obedience of God and turned away from His remembrance -- "and amassed and hoarded" (70:18, al-Maʿārij).

meaning, of disobedience and sin, [which] is the torment of the people of this layer; and it, despite its severity, is the lightest of the torment of all the people of the layers.

The second self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Just (al-ʿĀdil), and there opened up in it a valley called Jaḥīm, having seven hundred and twenty thousand levels, one beneath another. God created the gate of this valley from depravity (al-fujūr),

which is oppression, fanaticism, the seeking of falsehood, and tyranny.

So it is the dwelling of those who tyrannized in the earth without right over the servants of God (exalted is He),

taking their wealth, shedding their blood, and devouring people's honor by reviling, backbiting, and the like. And this valley is beneath the level of the first valley, and its layers are double its layers.

God (exalted is He) said: "And truly the depraved are in a Hellfire" (82:14, al-Infiṭār).

And the depraved are the liars in their faith, the wrongdoers, the tyrants, the transgressors against people.

So the Jaḥīm is the dwelling of the wrongdoers who wrong people without right; it is the locus of [violations of] the rights [of others], and the torment of the people of this layer is more severe than the first.

The third self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Severe (al-Shadīd), and there opened up in it a valley called al-ʿUsrā, having one million four hundred thousand and forty levels, one beneath another.

God created the gate of this valley from miserliness, the seeking of increase of wealth, rancor, envy, lust, the love of this world, and the like.

So it is the dwelling of whoever had in him a trait of these traits. And this valley is beneath the first, and its torment is more severe than it by manifold multiples.

The fourth self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by the attribute of Wrath (al-ghaḍab), and there opened up in it a valley called al-Hāwiya -- and it is the lowest of the levels of the Fire -- having one million eight hundred and eighty thousand levels, one beneath another.

The man falls in it, between every two levels, for ages (aḥqāb) numbering the hours of this world; and they elapse, and he has not [yet] reached the second level.

God created the gate of this valley from hypocrisy, ostentation, false claims, and the like.

So everyone who had in him a trait of these traits abides in it. God (exalted is He) said: "Truly the hypocrites are in the lowest level of the Fire" (4:145, al-Nisāʾ).

And for this reason it was named al-Hāwiya (the Abyss).

And this layer is more severe in torment than the layer before it by many multiples.

The fifth self-disclosure:

He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Abaser (al-Mudhill), and there opened up in it a valley called Saqar, having -- as the witness gives it -- five thousand, seven hundred thousand, and sixty thousand levels, one beneath another.

God created the gate of this valley from arrogance. In it are abased the Pharaohs and the tyrants who seek exaltation without right -- because the Real (exalted is He) is jealous; so whoever claims an attribute of His attributes or a name of His names without right, He reverses it upon him and torments him by its opposite on the Day of Resurrection.

And these, since they were arrogant in the earth and donned the description of the Real without right, He torments by His Name the Abaser. God (exalted is He) said: "Then he turned his back" (79:22) -- that is, upon the worship of God and humility beneath His authority; "and waxed proud" -- he sought arrogance and desired not to worship God, and said: "This is nothing but the speech of a mortal" (74:25), so that belief in it would not be binding upon him: "I shall roast him in Saqar" (74:26).

And the sixth self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Possessor of Violent Might (Dhū l-Baṭsh), and there opened up in it a valley called al-Saʿīr, having eleven million five hundred and twenty thousand levels.

Between every level and level are ages (aḥqāb) numbering the breaths of the people of this world.

God created the gate of this layer from devilry (al-shayṭana),

which is a fire that rages from the smoke of the ego with the sparks of [base] nature; from it arise sedition, wrath, lust, cunning, godlessness, and the like.

Whoever had in him a trait of these traits dwells in this layer, and the devils dwell with him in it.

God (exalted is He) said: "And We made them missiles against the devils" (67:5, al-Mulk),

that is, the stars -- "and We have prepared for them the torment of the Blaze (al-Saʿīr)" (67:5).

The seventh self-disclosure: He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Possessor of Painful Punishment (Dhū ʿiqāb alīm), and there opened up in it a valley called Jahannam, whose levels are twenty-three million and forty thousand levels.

Between every level and level are ages that scarcely come to an end except within [the domain of] Power; but according to the ordering of Wisdom, [they do] not.

And that is because Power may bring forth the infinite as finite, and may make appear and bring forth the small, finite thing without end.

And all the states of the Resurrection, or most of them, are by way of Power, because this world is the abode of Wisdom and the Hereafter is the abode of Power.

such that a single state of the states of the people of the Fire and the states of the people of the Garden, its possessor finds it extending from beginningless eternity to endless eternity, finding for it neither end nor beginning.

So he is in it, for example, for the measure of what is between beginningless and endless eternity -- while it is a single instant and a single moment, not multiple; then he moves from it to another, as God (exalted is He) wills.

And this is a wondrous secret that the intellect can scarcely accept -- nay, cannot bear -- because the intellect is bound to Wisdom and unveiling is bound to Power. So none knows it except a man of unveiling (kashf).

Then the Real created the gate of this layer from unbelief (kufr) and associationism (shirk).

God (exalted is He) said: "Truly those who disbelieve, of the People of the Book and the associators, are in the fire of Hell, abiding therein; those are the worst of creatures" (98:6, al-Bayyina).

So their torment is the worst of torment, because the affair of the torment of Jahannam does not come to an end.

And this is the meaning of His saying: "On the Day We say to Hell: 'Are you filled?' and it says: 'Is there any more?'" (50:30, Qāf) -- on account of [its] not coming to an end.

And know that the people of each layer do not come out of it until they have plunged through all the levels of that layer, all of them.

Among them is one for whom God eases the plunging through it, and among them one for whom He makes it hard. So when the man has traversed all the levels, then the Compeller sets His foot in the Fire, and there occurs what has already been explained in the hadith. And here is a subtle secret that requires the Compeller's setting His foot [anew] with respect to each instance, then in each layer -- given that all those multiplicities are a single duration and a single day; but Power made manifest this multiplicity and this differentiation within the single time of the people of the Fire. And this is a matter in which the intellect is bewildered, and which none grasps except by divine unveiling.

Then God (exalted is He) made Mālik, the keeper of these gates, the locus of manifestation of severity, because his origin is a Name of severe powers.

And look at all that God disclosed Himself by upon Jahannam: you will find in it the meaning of severity. And for this reason Mālik has the dominion in all the layers of Jahannam,

and was the keeper of them all; and the angels of torment are subtle-threads from the reality of severity.

God (exalted is He) said: "over which are angels, harsh [and] severe" (66:6, al-Taḥrīm).

And the very name "Mālik" is derived from al-mulk [/al-malk], which is severity.

Then know that the people of the Fire may move from one layer to another; so the higher one moves to the lower layer, as a lightening for him,

and the lower may move to the higher, as an intensifying of his torment.

All of that is according to what God (exalted is He) wills of torment, of increase and decrease.

And [know] that in the Fire are uncountable wonders.

For if we were to undertake the mention of the people of the layers and their varieties in each level, or to describe the angels charged with them and their kinds, or to begin the exposition of one who was a believer yet fell among them without a manifest crime --

and that is the secret of His saying (exalted is He): "And beware of a trial that will not strike only those of you who have done wrong" (8:25, al-Anfāl) --

or were we to speak of the folk after them, of the people of these layers, [and] how Power transferred them to what the believers do not attain in their [earthly] lives, of realization in the divine realities. And I did indeed meet with Plato (Aflāṭūn) -- whom the people of the outward count an unbeliever -- and I saw him, and he had filled the unseen world with light and splendor;

and I saw him to have a rank I have seen [granted] only to single ones of the friends [of God]. So I said to him: "Who are you?" He said: "the Pole of the Age and the Unique One of the Time." And how many wonders and marvels like this have we seen, whose condition it is not [meant] to be divulged!

And we have intimated to you, in this chapter, secrets that we could not have spoken of in other than this tongue. So cast off the husk from the discourse and take the kernel, if you are among the possessors of kernels [the discerning]; for these pages have gathered sciences that, once understood, need no other for the knowledge of the people of the Fire.

So we have no need to mention the kinds of torment and the description of the terrors of its angels, for the books are laden with that; so let us be content [and refrain] from further expansion.

Then know that the people of the Fire have a pleasure in it resembling the pleasure of combat and fighting, in one created for that.

For we have seen many people who take pleasure in combat and fighting, while they know that they are pained by it;

but the latent lordship that is in the ego carries them to plunge into that.

Then they have another pleasure resembling the pleasure of one who has the itch and scratches it:

for though he cuts into the skin of his own [body], he takes pleasure in that scratching.

So he is between torment and another pleasure resembling the pleasure of the ignorant man who is self-satisfied with his [own] opinion even if he errs -- its example being in what we have witnessed. That is, I saw a man in India, in a town called Kūshī, in the year seven hundred and ninety, who had set upon three men of the great ones of the people and killed them separately.

And whenever he killed one, he fled to the next and killed him, until he had finished off the three persons. So when he was seized and brought to have his neck struck, I came forward to him and said: "What have you done?" He said: "Be silent, So-and-so -- by God, I have indeed done something!" -- magnifying his own affair; and I found him in a pleasure that, by my life, I do not think he had ever before taken pleasure in its like.

Even though he was in a state of what had been done to him of beating and captivity, and what awaited him of being killed and crucified, he was, within himself, taking pleasure in this immense pleasure.

And they -- that is, the people of the Fire -- have another pleasure resembling the pleasure of the intelligent man in his intellect when he faults the ignorant man whom the [favorable] decrees have suited and whom the turning of night and day has aided:

for though he deems good the things that the ignorant man obtained, he is not content with his state, nor does he do as the ignorant man did, of what that [worldly] felicity is obtained by;

rather, he remains plunging in the seas of his wretchedness, clinging to the leadership of his ego, abiding by what his intellect and his cogitation require, taking pleasure in the state of his [own] self, recoiling from the state of ignorance.

Then they have a [further] differing pleasure -- such that I met with a company who are in the most severe torment of the Fire, and I saw them in that state while the Garden was being offered to them, and they were averse to it. This is the condition of one group. And I saw a group, the opposite of these, longing for a single breath of the breaths of the Garden, or a draught of its water, and the decree did not concur with them in that.

And they are those of whom God said that they say to the people of the Garden: "Pour upon us some water, or some of what God has provided you" -- meaning, food -- "They say: God has forbidden them both to the unbelievers" (7:50, al-Aʿrāf).

Then know that all that we have mentioned does not extend over all the people of the Fire;

rather, they are kinds and classes: among them is the one who takes pleasure in his torment, and among them one whose torment is pure, with no pleasure in it at all -- nay, the most severe recoiling within themselves.

Then among them is one whom the abundance of his intellect, which he had in this world, led to the torment;

and among them one whom the abundance of his ignorance in it led to the torment;

and among them one whom his beliefs led to the torment;

and among them one whom his deeds led to the torment;

and among them one whom people's talk about him led to it, [built] upon what was not [actually] in him;

and among them one whom their talk led to it -- [whether] by what is in him of ugly traits, or of good traits, or by what is not in him of faults. And the affair of the people of the Fire is exceedingly strange; they are the secret of His saying: "These to the Fire, and I do not care; and these to the Garden, and I do not care."

Then know that among the people of the Fire are persons, with God, more excellent than many of the people of the Garden, whom He admitted into the abode of wretchedness in order to disclose Himself to them therein -- so that [each] would be the locus of His regard among the wretched.

And this is a strange secret and a wondrous matter: He does what He wills and decrees what He desires.

Section: the Muhammadan Form and God's looking upon it by His Name the Bestower, whereupon God created from it the kinds of gardens. In it is mentioned the second portion of the Muhammadan Form -- the portion that God looked upon by His Name the Bestower (al-Mannān), whereupon God created from it the kinds of gardens; then He disclosed Himself in them by His Name the Subtle (al-Laṭīf), and made them a locus for everyone noble and honored with Him.

Know that the gardens are upon eight layers.

Each layer has in it many gardens; in each garden are degrees uncountable and unbounded.

The first layer: it is called the Garden of Peace (Jannat al-Salām), and it is [also] called the Garden of Requital (Jannat al-Mujāzāt).

God created the gate of this garden from righteous deeds; God disclosed Himself in it upon its people by His Name the Reckoner (al-Ḥasīb), so it became pure recompense.

And his saying (upon him be blessing and peace), "None shall enter the Garden by his deed" -- by it he intended only the Garden of Gifts; as for the Garden of Requital, it is by righteous deeds.

God (exalted is He) said, concerning the people of the Garden: "And that the human has nothing but what he strove for, and that his striving shall be seen; then he shall be requited for it with the fullest requital" (53:39-41, al-Najm).

And none enters this garden except by righteous deeds; so whoever has no deed has no entry into it. And this garden is called al-Yusrā (the Easy).

God (exalted is He) said: "As for him who gives and is mindful, and affirms the best [reward], We shall ease him toward the Easy" (92:5-7, al-Layl). And the cause of entering it is by a little of the accepted deeds; so it is made easy for whomever God (exalted is He) eases it.

The second layer: it is above the first layer and higher than it; it is called the Garden of Eternity (Jannat al-Khuld) and the Garden of Gains (Jannat al-Makāsib). And the difference between the Garden of Gains and the Garden of Requital is that the Garden of Requital is according to the measure of deeds, so it has a counterpart [exchange]; while the Garden of Gains is pure profit, because it is the fruits of [right] beliefs and good opinions of God (exalted is He).

There is nothing in it by way of requital for bodily deeds.

God disclosed Himself upon the people of this garden by His Name the Originator (al-Badīʿ), so there appeared to the people of good beliefs what they had not hoped for -- a divine origination.

So the gate of this garden is created from [right] beliefs, [good] opinions of God, and hope.

And none enters this garden except one in whom are these mentioned traits; and whoever has nothing of these does not enter it.

And this garden was named the Garden of Gains because its opposite -- which is loss -- is, too, the fruit of evil opinions of God (exalted is He).

He (glory be to Him, exalted is He) said: "And that opinion of yours which you held about your Lord -- it has ruined you, and you have become of the losers" (41:23, Fuṣṣilat).

So the people of evil opinions are in the fire of loss, and the people of good opinions of God (exalted is He) are in the Garden of Gains.

The third layer: it is called the Garden of Gifts (Jannat al-Mawāhib), and this layer is higher than the two before it -- because the gifts of the Real (exalted is He) do not come to an end; so He gives to one who has no deed and no [particular] belief more than to one who has many deeds and beliefs and other than that.

I saw in this garden folk from every religious community, and a group from every class of the classes of the descendants of Adam --

such that the people of [particular] beliefs and the people of deeds, when God gives them by way of gift and they enter this garden -- God discloses Himself upon its people by His Name the Bestower-of-Gifts (al-Wahhāb).

So none enters it except by the gift of God (exalted is He).

And it is the garden concerning which he (upon him be blessing and peace) said: "None enters it by his deed." They said to him: "Not even you, O Messenger of God?" He said: "Not even I, unless God envelop me in His mercy." This garden is the greatest of the gardens and the most spacious.

And it is the secret of His saying (exalted is He): "And My mercy encompasses all things" (7:156) -- such that there remains no one of the human kind for whom the realities have not deemed admissible, by way of rational-and-estimative possibility, his entering it,

if he has a portion of this garden on some day of the days of God (exalted is He). This is what the realities have deemed admissible by way of estimative possibility. As for what we have witnessed: we found in this garden, from every kind of the people of the differing religions and sects, a group -- not all of them, nor most of them,

rather, a faction from every religious community -- unlike the Garden of Requital, for it is reserved for righteous deeds; none enters it but its people. And more spacious than it is the Garden of Gains, because profit is near to recompense -- since there must be capital for the profit to accrue upon it; and the capital of the people of the Garden of Gains is those [right] beliefs and good opinions of God (exalted is He). As for this garden -- I mean the Garden of Gifts -- it is the most spacious of all the gardens, such that it is more spacious than what is above it. And this is the one named in the Qurʾān 'the Garden of Refuge' (Jannat al-Maʾwā), because mercy is the refuge of all.

God (exalted is He) said: "As for those who believed and did righteous deeds, theirs are the Gardens of Refuge, as a hospitality for what they used to do" (32:19, al-Sajda).

And He did not say "recompense," that it might be an alerting that He admits them to the Garden of Gifts, not the Garden of Requital nor the Garden of Gains; so it is a hospitality for them and an entertainment from the treasuries of the Real and [His] munificence -- and the gift is not restricted to one who did righteous deeds. So understand.

The fourth layer: it is called the Garden of Desert (Jannat al-Istiḥqāq), the Garden of Bliss (Jannat al-Naʿīm), and the Garden of Primordial-Nature (Jannat al-Fiṭra). And this layer is higher than those before it, for it is neither by requital nor by gift -- rather, it is for particular folk whose realities, upon which God created them, required that they enter this garden by way of original desert (al-istiḥqāq al-aṣlī).

And they are a group of His servants who departed from this world with their spirits remaining upon the original primordial-nature (al-fiṭra al-aṣliyya): among them is one who lived his whole life in this world upon the fiṭra,

and most of these are holy-fools (bahālīl), madmen, and children; and among them is one who was purified by righteous deeds, struggle, discipline, and good dealing with God (exalted is He), so that his spirit returned from the lowliness of humanness to the original fiṭra. So the original fiṭra is [His saying]:

His saying (exalted is He): "We have indeed created the human in the fairest stature" (95:4, al-Tīn).

And the human defilement is His saying (exalted is He): "Then We returned him to the lowest of the low" (95:5, al-Tīn).

And these who left [the lowliness] are the ones excepted by His saying (exalted is He): "Save those who believed and did righteous deeds; theirs is a reward unfailing" (95:6, al-Tīn).

meaning, they enter the garden named the Garden of Desert; so it is theirs by right, without its being a gift bestowed [as a favor], or a gain [earned] as requital by way of deeds or otherwise.

So these -- I mean, whoever was purified until he returned to the original fiṭra -- are the ones named the pious (al-abrār).

God (exalted is He) said: "Truly the pious are in bliss" (82:13, al-Infiṭār).

And the secret of this is that God (exalted is He) disclosed Himself in its people by His Name the Real (al-Ḥaqq), so that none could enter it except one who merits it by way of [original] authenticity and the fiṭra upon which God originated him. Among them is one who departed from this world to it [directly], and among them one who was tormented by the Fire until his foulnesses were negated, and so he returned to the fiṭra, then merited it, and entered it after entering the Fire.

And the roof of this garden is the Throne -- unlike the gardens previously mentioned, for the higher of them is the roof of the lower: the Garden of Peace, its roof is the Garden of Eternity; the Garden of Eternity, its roof is the Garden of Refuge; the Garden of Refuge, its roof is this garden named the Garden of Desert, the Garden of Primordial-Nature, the Garden of Bliss -- and it has no roof but the Throne.

The fifth layer: it is called al-Firdaws, and it is the Garden of Gnoses (Jannat al-Maʿārif). Its ground is wide, exceedingly wide; and the higher the human ascends in it, the narrower it becomes, such that the highest place in it is narrower than the eye of a needle.

There is found in it no tree, no river, no palace, no houris, and no [wide-eyed] maidens -- except when its people look to what is beneath them, and gaze into one of the gardens that are below them, and see those mentioned things of houris, palaces, and youths. But in the Garden of Gnoses [itself] they find nothing of that.

And likewise what is above it. And this garden is at the gate of the Throne, and its roof is the roof of the gate; so the people of this garden are in perpetual witnessing (mushāhada) -- they are the witnesses [/martyrs] (al-shuhadāʾ),

I mean, the witnessing of the divine beauty and comeliness; they were slain in the love of God by the sword of annihilation from their [own] selves, so they witness none but their Beloved.

And this garden is the one named al-Wasīla (the Means), because the gnoses are the gnostic's means to his Known; and the people of this garden are fewer than the people of all the foregoing gardens -- and the higher the layers from this garden, the more it is so.

The sixth layer: it is called al-Faḍīla (the Excellence), and its people are the truthful ones (al-ṣiddīqūn) whom God praised [as being] "with a Sovereign Omnipotent." And this garden is the Garden of the Names (Jannat al-Asmāʾ).

And it is spread upon the degrees of the Throne, each group of the people of the layer upon a degree of the degrees of the Throne. Its people are fewer in number than the people of the Garden of Gnoses, but they are higher in rank with God (exalted is He); and these are named the people of the divine pleasure (al-ladhdha al-ilāhiyya).

The seventh layer: it is called the Lofty Degree (al-Daraja al-Rafīʿa), and it is the Garden of the Attributes (Jannat al-Ṣifāt) in respect of the name, and the Garden of the Essence (Jannat al-Dhāt) in respect of the description.

Its ground is the inward of the Throne, and its people are named the people of realization in the divine realities; they are fewer in number than the layer just mentioned. They are the brought-near ones (al-muqarrabūn), the people of the divine vicegerency.

And these are the [firmly] enabled ones and the possessors of resolve in divine realization. I saw Abraham the Friend [of God] (upon him be peace) standing at the right of this place, looking toward its center;

and I saw a group of the messengers and the friends [of God] at its left side, fixing their eyes upon the center of this place;

and I saw Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) in its center, fixing his eye upon the roof of the Throne, seeking the Praised Station (al-maqām al-maḥmūd) that God promised him. The eighth layer: it is called the Praised Station, and it is the Garden of the Essence (Jannat al-Dhāt); its ground is the roof of the Throne -- no one has a way to it.

And everyone of the people of the Garden of the Attributes seeks to reach it, claiming that it is bound to his [own] name to the exclusion of others -- and the claim of all is true.

But it is Muhammad's (may God bless him and grant him peace), for his saying: "The Praised Station is the highest place in the Garden, and it is only for a single man; and I hope to be that man."

Then he gave tidings that God (exalted is He) had promised it to him; so let us believe and affirm what he said -- for "he does not speak from caprice; it is nothing but a revelation revealed" (53:3-4, al-Najm).

Section: God (exalted is He) created the form of Adam (upon him be peace) as a copy of that Muhammadan Form. And know that the Muhammadan Form -- since God created from it the Garden and the Fire and what is in them of the bliss of the believers and the torment of the unbelievers --

God (exalted is He) created the form of Adam (upon him be peace) as a copy of that Muhammadan Form. So when Adam descended from the Garden, the life of his form went away, by his parting from the world of spirits. Do you not see Adam (upon him be peace) -- how, when he was in the Garden, he imagined nothing within himself without God's bringing it into being in his sense-perception? And for everyone who enters the Garden, that is fulfilled.

And when Adam descended to this world, that no longer remained for him, because his form-life in the Garden was by [the soul] itself, while its life in this world is by the spirit; so it is dead for the people of this world -- except one whom God (exalted is He) has given life by His everlasting life,

and looked upon him with that by which He looks upon His own Essence, and realized him by His Names and Attributes -- for such a one has, in this world, of power, what the people of the Garden shall have in the other abode.

So he imagines nothing within himself without God's (exalted is He) bringing it into being in his sense-perception. So understand what we have pointed out to you in this chapter.

For whoever knows what we have intimated in it, there appears to him what existence conceals and hides from him.

And God speaks the truth, and establishes it, and does not negate it.