On the Soul (al-Nafs), and that it is the origin of Iblīs and those of the devils who follow him among the people of deception

The soul is the secret of the Lord, and it is the Essence; / so it has, by Him, within its own essence, pleasures.

Created from the light of an attribute of lordship; / so it has, for that very reason, lordly traits.

It appeared with every grandeur and haughtiness, / since these are character-traits and attributes belonging to it.

It was not content with confinement at the times of its station / from above it, while it has there a fixity.

And all the lights that descended forgot what / they had been in, and the descents altered them.

So they came to reason -- except the soul: it did not reason, nor / did it forget its sovereignty; and this is an affirmation.

Know -- may God reinforce you with a spirit from Him and not leave you, at any moment, apart from Him -- that God (exalted is He), when He created Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) from His perfection, and made him a locus of manifestation for His beauty and His majesty, created every reality in Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) from a reality of the realities of His Names and Attributes.

Then He created the soul of Muhammad from His [own] Self -- and the soul is nothing but the essence of the thing.

And we have already explained the creation of some of the Muhammadan realities (may God bless him and grant him peace) from His realities (exalted is He), as has preceded concerning the intellect, the estimation, and their like.

And the exposition of what remains will come. Then, [after] God created the soul of Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) [as] we have described, He created the soul of Adam (upon him be peace) as a copy of the soul of Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace).

So, by this subtlety, the soul -- when it was forbidden from eating the grain in the Garden -- ate it, because it is created from the essence of lordship, and it is not in the nature of lordship to remain under interdiction.

Then this ruling extended over it in this world and in the other; so it is forbidden from nothing without its seeking to do it -- by this subtlety,

whether what it was forbidden from is a cause of its felicity or a cause of its wretchedness.

Because it does not do the thing seeking felicity or wretchedness; rather, it does it merely for what its own essence is upon, of the original lordship.

Do you not see the grain that it ate in the Garden -- how heedlessness carried it until it ended in eating it, [while] knowing that it would make it wretched, on account of the divine informing,

where He said: "And do not approach this tree, lest you be of the wrongdoers" (2:35, al-Baqara).

And the grain is nothing but the natural darkness.

So the grain, created from the tree, was a similitude that the Real (exalted is He) set up for it [the soul], [standing] for the natural darkness.

So He forbade it from eating it, because of His knowledge that, if it disobeyed, it would merit the descent to the abode of the darkness of the natures, and so be wretched.

Because it is "the accursed tree in the Qurʾān"; so whoever comes to it is cursed -- that is, driven away.

So when it came to it, it was driven away from the divine, spiritual nearness to the bodily distance; and the descent [from the Garden] is nothing but this --

the turning of its face from the higher world -- which is transcendent above restriction and confinement -- to the lower, natural world, which is under captivity.

Section: the soul, and the confounding of the matter for it between what it knows of itself, of the felicity of lordship, and the divine informing. Know that the soul -- when it was forbidden from eating this grain, while it was in its nature [to refuse] confinement -- the matter became confounded for it, between what it knew of itself, of the felicity of lordship, and the divine informing that eating the grain would make it wretched; so it relied upon its knowledge from itself and did not halt at the divine informing, on account of its love of eating.

And this is the locus of confounding (iltibās) for all the worlds; so everyone who is wretched is wretched only by this confounding, by which the soul became wretched at the first instant.

So the nations would rely upon the knowledge attained by them by way of intellect or the report of the like, and abandon the explicit, clear divine informings -- [even] with the decisive proofs of the truthfulness of the messengers [who came] to them with them; so all perished. And the secret of this is that the soul perished by it the first time, and it is the root, because they are all created from it,

for His saying (exalted is He): "He created you from a single soul" (4:1, al-Nisāʾ).

So the branch followed it, and all perished except single ones. And this is the secret of His saying: "We have indeed created the human in the fairest stature * then We returned him to the lowest of the low * save those who believed and did righteous deeds" (95:4-6, al-Tīn).

meaning, they believed in the divine informings, so they abandoned what they [otherwise] do and did the righteous deeds -- which are what they were commanded with, of abandoning disobediences and doing acts of obedience. And the disobediences are nothing but the requisites of the natural darkness, and the acts of obedience are nothing but the requisites of the spiritual lights.

And know that the soul did not fall into the confounding except by the insinuation of [false] hope (al-amal).

Otherwise, in reality, the giving-precedence of the person's own knowledge over the knowledge of the informer is admissible [only] when one of the two contradicts the other.

And what the Real (exalted is He) informed [it] of was not contradictory to its knowledge, because the soul knows, by [its] original receptivity, the secret of what the natural darkness -- for which the grain was struck as a similitude -- requires.

And it knows that the coming of the natures is a darkening of the ground of the spirit, [and] a cause of wretchedness for it.

And it knows that it is not in the nature of lordship to do the things that cause wretchedness -- on account of the essential sanctity and the divine transcendence.

And what the Real (exalted is He) informed it of is nothing but the very thing it already knew of itself.

But the insinuation of eating -- which the decreed command and the foreordained measure set up -- confounded the matter for it,

until it saw that the forbidding of that grain was a forfeiting of the lordship that it is upon.

And it is the one to whom Iblīs -- created within it from the reality of deception -- said: "Your Lord forbade you from this tree only lest you become two angels" (7:20, al-Aʿrāf),

because the angel has no interdiction upon it -- [as if to say:] if you two abstain, you enter under interdiction; "or [lest] you become of the immortals" -- because, if you do not accept the interdiction in eating, you will not be expelled from the Garden by the expulsion of one of you, since you will have done what lordship requires. "And he swore to them: truly I am, to you both, a sincere counselor" (7:21, al-Aʿrāf).

And the swearing (muqāsama) is nothing but the clarifying of what he claims by the decisive argument and the radiant proofs, as he did.

Then the past nations, too, and all who perished -- they perished only by an egotistical insinuation.

Because the messengers came to the creation only with the rational matters, of clarifying the unknown matters -- such as establishing the Maker by the proof of the made,

establishing [His] power by the proof of the craft[smanship],

and establishing the Resurrection by the proof of the first giving-of-life,

where He said: "Say: He will give them life who originated them the first time" (36:79, Yā Sīn). And the like of that is much.

Then they manifested the decisive miracles and brought the subduing signs, and they left no kind of the breaching of customs -- which no creature is ever able to do except by a divine power -- such as the reviving of the dead, the healing of the blind-born and the leper, the splitting of the sea, and the like.

So what prevented the one who refused submission to the messengers, except the insinuations? Among them is one who said: "I fear that the Arabs will reproach me for my submitting to one younger than me";

and among them one who said: "Burn him and aid your gods" (21:68, al-Anbiyāʾ);

and among them one who said: "Do you want us to abandon what our fathers used to worship?" -- in agreement with what is with them [their own conviction]. So there is none of them but one whom an egotistical insinuation prevented; otherwise the divine informings were in agreement with what is with them, as He (exalted is He) said: "For they do not [really] disbelieve you, but the wrongdoers reject the signs of God" (6:33, al-Anʿām).

And all of this is the secret of the confounding of the matter for the soul by the insinuation of eating -- nay, the secret of what the divine command and the essential disposition required.

Section: the creation of the Muhammadan soul from His Essence -- and the Essence of the Real is the gatherer of the two opposites. Know that God (exalted is He), when He created the Muhammadan soul from His Essence -- and the Essence of the Real is the gatherer of the two opposites -- created the High angels, by way of the attributes of beauty, light, and guidance, from the soul of Muhammad (upon him be peace), as has preceded;

and He created Iblīs and his followers, by way of the attributes of majesty, darkness, and misguidance, from the soul of Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace).

And his name was ʿAzāzīl; he had worshipped God (exalted is He), before He created the creation, for such-and-such thousand years.

And the Real had said to him: "O ʿAzāzīl, worship none but Me." So when God created Adam (upon him be peace) and commanded the angels to prostrate to him,

the matter became confounded for Iblīs; so he supposed that, if he prostrated to Adam, he would be a worshipper of other than God, and he did not know that whoever prostrates by a command has [thereby] prostrated to God. And for this reason he refused.

And he was named Iblīs only for the subtle point of this deception (talbīs) into which he fell. So understand.

Otherwise, his name before that was ʿAzāzīl, and his agnomen Abū Murra.

So when the Real (exalted is He) said to him: "What prevented you from prostrating to what I created with My two hands? Did you wax proud, or are you among the High Ones?" (38:75, Ṣād),

and the High Ones are the angels created from the divine light, like the angel named the Nūn and its like; and the rest of the angels are created from the elements, and they are the ones commanded to prostrate to Adam.

So he said: "I am better than he; You created me from fire and created him from clay" (38:76, Ṣād).

And this answer indicates that Iblīs is among the most knowing of creatures in the courtesies of the [divine] Presence, and the most aware of them of the question and what it requires by way of answer.

Because the Real did not ask him about the cause of the prevention; had it been so, the wording would have been: "Why did you abstain from prostrating to what I created with My two hands?"

But He asked him about the quiddity of the preventer; so he spoke upon the secret of the matter and said: "Because I am better than he" -- meaning that the fiery reality, which is the natural darkness from which You created me, is better than the clay reality from which You created him.

So for this reason the matter required that I not prostrate, because fire requires, by its reality, nothing but elevation, and clay requires, by its reality, nothing but lowness.

Do you not see that, when you take a candle and turn its head downward, the flame returns only upward -- unlike clay, for if you took a handful of dust and threw it upward, it would return falling faster than its rising, by what the realities require?

So for that reason Iblīs said: "I am better than he; You created me from fire and created him from clay," and he added nothing to that -- because of his knowledge that God is aware of his secret, and his knowledge that the station was a station of contraction (qabḍ), not a station of expansion (basṭ).

For had it been a station of expansion, he would have said thereafter: "And I relied upon what You commanded me, that I worship none but You"; but when he saw the situation to be a situation of rebuke, he observed courtesy, and knew from that rebuke that the matter had been confounded for him at the root.

Because the Real called him "Iblīs" -- which is derived from confounding (iltibās) -- and he was not called by this name before that; so he realized that the matter was [already] settled and done with.

And he did not panic, did not regret, did not repent, and did not seek forgiveness -- because of his knowledge that God does only what He wills, and that what God (exalted is He) wills is what the realities require, so there is no way to alter them nor to exchange them.

So the Real drove him away, from the Presence of nearness to the lowliness of natural distance,

and said: "Depart from it, for you are accursed [/stoned]" (38:77, Ṣād) -- that is, from the lofty Presence to the lower centers,

since "stoning" (al-rajm) is the casting of a thing from the height to the depth. "And upon you is My curse until the Day of Judgment" (38:78). The curse (al-laʿna) is the putting-in-dread and the driving-away.

The poet said: "I startled the sand-grouse with it, and drove from it / the station of the wolf, like the cursed [scarecrow-]man" --

meaning, the dread-inspiring man -- and it is an effigy they set up in the crop, resembling a man, so that the wild beasts are made to dread it and the birds shy from it, and are thereby driven off, and the crop and fruit are kept safe.

And His saying (exalted is He) to Iblīs, "And upon you is My curse until the Day of Judgment" -- that is, not upon another than you, because the prepositional and accusative particles, when fronted, convey restriction -- as in their saying "upon Zayd is the dirham," that is, not upon another than him; and as in His saying (exalted is He): "You [alone] we worship, and You [alone] we ask for help" (1:5, al-Fātiḥa),

that is, none but You do we worship, nor [of any other] do we ask help. So the Real did not curse anyone except Iblīs; and what has come of the curse upon the wrongdoers, the transgressors, and others -- all of that is by way of [their] following him.

So the curse is, by way of originality, upon Iblīs, and by way of derivation, upon others.

And His saying "until the Day of Judgment" is a restriction [/limit]; so when the Day of Judgment has elapsed, there is no curse upon him -- because of the lifting of the ruling of the natural darkness on the Day of Judgment.

And the interpretation of "the Day of Judgment" has already passed in the fortieth chapter of the book.

So Iblīs is not cursed -- that is, [God] does not drive him away from the Presence -- except before the Day of Judgment, on account of what his root requires, which are the natural impediments that prevent the spirit from realization in the divine realities.

But after that, the natures become, for it [the soul], among the perfections; so there is no curse, but pure nearness. Then Iblīs returns to what he was upon, with God, of divine nearness -- and that is after the passing-away of Jahannam.

Because everything God created must return to what it was upon -- this is a principle decisively held. So understand.

It is said that Iblīs, when he was cursed, was stirred and roamed in intensity of joy, until he filled the world with himself.

So it was said to him: "Do you do thus, when you have been driven from the Presence?" He said: "It is a robe of honor with which the Beloved singled me out -- no brought-near angel and no sent prophet wears it."

Then he called upon the Real, as He (glory be to Him, exalted is He) gave tidings concerning him; he said: "My Lord, then grant me respite until the Day they are raised" (15:36, al-Ḥijr),

because of his knowledge that that is possible -- for the natural darkness, which is his origin, remains in existence until God (exalted is He) raises its people, and they are delivered from the natural darkness to the lights of lordship.

So the Real answered him and emphasized with "inna," and said to him: "Then you are of those granted respite * until the Day of the appointed time" (15:37-38, al-Ḥijr). And that is the return of the affair of existence to the Presence of the Worshipped Sovereign.

And he said: "By Your might, I shall surely lead them all astray" (38:82, Ṣād),

because he knows that all are under the ruling of nature, and that the dark requisites prevent the ascent to the luminous Presences: "except Your servants among them, the sincere/purified ones" (38:83) -- meaning, those who were purified from the darkness of the natures [by] the establishing of the divine law in the Adamic existence.

So if "al-mukhlaṣ" is in the passive form [the purified], then the matter is in relation to the divine reality -- meaning, God purified them by drawing them to Himself;

and if it is in the active form [the sincere], then it is in relation to the servant reality -- meaning, they made themselves sincere by the pure deeds, such as struggles, disciplines, oppositions, and the like. So when he spoke this speech, the Real answered him and said: "So the Truth -- and the Truth I speak: I shall surely fill Hell with you and with those of them who follow you, all together" (38:84-85, Ṣād).

So when Iblīs (upon him be the curse) spoke by way of what the realities require, the Real (exalted is He) answered him by way of what Iblīs spoke -- a divine wisdom; and that is because the natural darkness, by which Iblīs gained mastery over them and by which he swore that he would lead them astray, is their very self that leads them to the Fire -- nay, it is the very Fire.

because the dark nature is the Fire that God (exalted is He) sets in mastery over the hearts of the corrupters.

So none follows Iblīs except one who has entered it [the dark nature], and whoever has entered it has [thereby] entered the Fire.

So look at this divine wisdom -- how God (exalted is He) brought it forth with a subtle allusion and a fine expression, that the one who "listens to the word and follows the best of it" may understand it. So understand, if you are of those who understand. May I be a ransom for whoever comprehends what I have intimated, and a ransom for whoever knows.

Section: the Iblīsian reality -- its loci of manifestation, its varieties, and its instruments by which it seeks aid against the creatures. And, having begun the discourse upon the Iblīsian reality, we must speak of its loci of manifestation, its varieties, and its instruments by which it seeks aid against the creatures, and the elucidation of its devils and its helpers and what is its cavalry and its infantry -- whom God (exalted is He) mentioned in His Mighty Book, where He said: "And rally against them your cavalry and your infantry, and share with them in wealth and children, and promise them -- and Satan promises them nothing but delusion" (17:64, al-Isrāʾ).

And know that Iblīs has, in existence, ninety-nine loci of manifestation, according to the number of the Beautiful Names of God (exalted is He).

And it has varieties within those loci of manifestation whose number cannot be counted, and the full exposition of all its loci would be long for us; so let us be content, of them, with seven loci, which are the mothers of all those loci --

just as the seven 'psychic' [Names] of the Names of God (exalted is He) are the mothers of all His Beautiful Names. And this is a wondrous matter; and that is the subtle point of the secret of his being brought into being from the soul [which is] brought into being from the Essence of God (exalted is He). So understand this allusion, and be not heedless of this expression.

And know that its loci of manifestation are mentioned [as] in these seven:

The first locus: it is the world and what grows upon it -- such as the planets, the elemental-roots (al-isṭiqsāt), the elements, and other than that.

Then know that Iblīs's locus of manifestation is not particular to one [class] rather than another; but mostly it appears to each group by what we shall point to. Then, when it appears upon a group in one locus, it does not confine itself to it; rather, it continues to vary [its forms] for that group in all the loci, until it bars the doors against them,

and leaves them no way to return. But we mention, of its loci of manifestation in each group, only what predominates over them, and we leave the rest,

because it does with them what it does with others in the remaining loci. So its manifestation upon the people of associationism, in the world and what it is built upon -- such as the elements, the spheres, the elemental-roots, and the climes -- [is] by these loci, for the unbelievers and the associators: it first leads them astray by the adornment of the world and its embellishments, until it takes away their intellects and blinds their hearts;

then it guides them to the secrets of the planets, the roots of the elements, and the like,

and says to them: "These are the doers in existence," so they worship the spheres because of what they see of the soundness of the rulings [astrology] of the planets,

and because of what they witness of the sun's nurturing, by its heat, of the bodies of existence, and what they observe of the falling of rain according to the reckoning of the risings and settings [of stars]; so no [doubting] thought stirs in them concerning the lordship of the planets.

So when it has firmly established these principles in them, it leaves them like beasts, striving for nothing but food and drink, believing neither in a resurrection nor in anything else;

so they kill one another and plunder one another, having drowned in the seas of the darkness of the natures, with no deliverance for them from it, ever, ever.

And likewise it does with the people of the elements, saying to them: "Do you not see that the body is composed of substance, and substance is composed of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness?

These, then, are the gods upon whom existence is ordered, and they are the doers in the world." Then it does with them what it did with the first.

And likewise the fire-worshippers, for it says to them: "Do you not see that existence is divided between darkness and light? Darkness is a god called Ahriman, and light is a god called Yazdān, and fire is the root of light" -- so they worship it. Then it does with them what it did with the first; and thus is its doing with all the associators.

The second locus: it is [base] nature, the appetites, and the pleasures; so it manifests in it to the common Muslims, leading them astray first by the love of the appetitive matters,

and the desire for the animal pleasures, of what the dark nature requires, until it blinds them.

Thereupon it manifests to them in [the form of] the world, and informs them that these sought-after matters are obtained for them only by the world; so they immerse themselves in love of it and persist in seeking it.

So when it has done this with them, it leaves them, for it needs no [further] treatment with them after this.

For when they have become its followers, they do not disobey it in anything it commands them, on account of the conjunction of ignorance with the love of the world.

So [even] if it commanded them with unbelief, they would disbelieve; then it enters upon them with doubt and whispering concerning the unseen matters of which God has informed, and casts them into godlessness -- and the affair is complete.

The third locus: it manifests in [good] deeds, to the righteous; so it adorns for them what they do, in order to enter upon them with self-admiration (al-ʿujb).

So when it has entered upon them with admiration of their selves and their deeds, it deludes them with what they are upon, so that they accept counsel from no scholar.

So when they have come, with it, to this state, it says to them: "It is enough; were another than you to do a tenth of a tenth of what you do, he would be saved."

So they did less in deeds, took to [self-]indulgences, magnified themselves, and made light of [other] people.

Then, when it has earned them these things -- together with the wretchedness of what they were upon, of bad character and ill opinion of others -- they pass over to backbiting, and perhaps it enters upon them the disobediences, one after another. And it says to them: "Do what you wish, for God is Forgiving, Merciful; by God, He torments no one; God is ashamed [to punish] a grey-haired one; God is Generous -- far be it from the Generous to demand His right" -- and the like of that,

until it transfers them from the righteousness they were upon to dissoluteness; and thereupon the affliction descends upon them -- and refuge is sought in God from it.

The fourth locus: the intentions and the excelling by deeds; it manifests in them upon the witnesses [/martyrs], and corrupts their intentions so that their deeds may be corrupted. So while the doer among them is acting for God (exalted is He), it insinuates a devil into his thought,

saying to him: "Do your deeds well, for people see you -- perhaps they will follow your example" -- this when it cannot make it [outright] ostentation and reputation-seeking, so that it be said: "So-and-so is such-and-such."

For it enters upon him by way of the good; then it comes to him while he is in a [good] act -- for example, the recitation of the Qurʾān -- saying to him: "Why not make the pilgrimage to the Sacred House of God and recite on your way what you wish, that you may combine the two rewards of the Pilgrimage and the recitation?" -- until it brings him out onto the road.

Then it says to him: "Be like [other] people; you are now a traveler, there is no [duty of] recitation upon you," so he abandons the recitation -- and by that ill-omen of his, it has made him miss the prescribed, written obligations, and perhaps he does not [even] reach the Pilgrimage.

And it may occupy him, away from all his rites, with the seeking of sustenance,

and may bequeath to him, by that, miserliness, bad character, and constriction of breast,

and the like of that is much. For whoever's deed it cannot corrupt, it enters upon him [the suggestion of] a deed more excellent than what he is upon, until it brings him out of the first deed and [yet] does not leave him in the second.

The fifth locus: knowledge; it manifests in it to the scholars -- and the easiest thing for Iblīs is to lead them astray by knowledge.

It is said that he says: "By God, a thousand scholars are easier for me than an unlettered man of strong faith -- for I am bewildered in [trying to] lead him astray,"

unlike the scholar, for he [Iblīs] speaks to him and adduces against him, by what the scholar knows to be true, so that he follows it and is thereby led astray.

For example, it comes to him with [a point of] knowledge in the locus of his appetite, and says to him: "Contract [marriage] with this woman according to the school of [the Ẓāhirī] Dāwūd" -- while he is a Ḥanafī; "or according to the school of Abū Ḥanīfa, without a guardian" -- while he is a Shāfiʿī;

until, when he has done that and the wife demands of him the dower, the maintenance, and the clothing, [it says:] "It is permissible for a man to swear to his wife until he satisfies her, even by a lie";

so when the period has lengthened and she has brought him before the judge, it says to him: "Deny that she is your wife, for this contract is invalid, not permissible in your school, so she is no wife to you; thus you have no need of maintenance nor of anything else," so he swears and goes off. And the kinds of that are exceedingly many, uncountable, having no limit; rather, none is saved from it but single, isolated men.

The sixth locus: it manifests in habits and the seeking of comforts, upon the sincere aspirants (al-murīdīn); so it draws them toward the darkness of [base] nature by way of habit and the seeking of comfort, until it strips from them the strength of resolves in seeking and the intensity of desire in worship.

So when they have lost that, they return to their [own] selves, and it does with them what it does with others who have no [spiritual] will; so nothing is feared for the aspirants greater than what is feared for them, of the seeking of comforts and the reclining upon habits.

The seventh locus: the divine gnoses; it manifests in them upon the truthful ones, the friends [of God], and the gnostics -- except one whom God (exalted is He) preserves.

But as for the brought-near ones, it has no way over them.

So the first thing it manifests upon them by is in the divine reality; it says to them: "Is it not that God is the reality of all existence, and you are part of existence, and the Real is your reality?" They say: "Yes." It says: "Why do you weary your selves with these deeds that these imitators do?" -- so they abandon the righteous deeds.

So when they have abandoned the deeds, it says to them: "Do what you wish, because God (exalted is He) is your reality, so you are He, and He is not questioned about what He does."

So they fornicate, steal, and drink wine, until that leads them to cast off the yoke of Islam and faith from their necks, by heresy (zandaqa) and godlessness.

So among them is one who professes [substantial] union (ittiḥād), and among them one who claims, in that, [absolute] singularity; then, when they are claimed against for retaliation and asked about the abominations they did, it says to them: "Deny, and do not give power over yourselves -- for you did nothing, and the doer was none but God, and you are He, [though] upon the belief of the [common] people; and the oath is upon the intention of the one administering it" -- so they swear that they did nothing.

And it may confide to them in the garb of the Real, saying to one of them: "I, [I] am God, and I have made the forbidden things lawful for you, so do what you wish" -- or "do such-and-such of the forbidden things, for there is no sin upon you."

And all of this is an error only when it is Iblīs that is manifesting upon them; otherwise, between the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) and His servants are particularities and secrets greater than that.

And the [authentic] ecstatic findings of the Real have signs, with their people, that are not to be denied.

Things become confounded only for one who has no knowledge of them, together with the absence of [experiential] knowledge of arrival.

Otherwise, the like of these things is scarcely hidden from one who has knowledge of the principles.

Do you not see the story of my master, the Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir [al-Jīlānī], when it was said to him -- while he was in the wilderness: "O ʿAbd al-Qādir, I, [I] am God, and I have made the forbidden things lawful for you, so do what you wish"?

He said to it: "You have lied; you are a devil."

So when he was asked about that and it was said to him: "How did you know that it was a devil?" -- he said: "By the saying of God (exalted is He): 'Truly God does not command indecency' (7:28, al-Aʿrāf);"

so when this accursed one commanded me with that, I knew that it was a devil seeking to lead me astray."

Granted that the very like of this may occur for the servants of God with the Real, as occurred for the people of [the battle of] Badr and others.

And this is a station I do not deny; the [spiritual] moment took, from my beginning, a portion of it -- and I was in the right.

So the Real transferred me from it, by the blessing of my master and my shaykh -- the teacher of the world, Sharaf al-Dīn, the chief of the verifying friends [of God], Abū l-Maʿrūf, the Shaykh Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Jabartī. And he took care of me, while I was in that state, with a lordly care, supported by All-Merciful breezes, until the Real looked, with His eye, upon His servant,

and made me of those who are with Him. So how excellent the eminent master, and how excellent the perfect shaykh! And concerning him I said this qaṣīda, among numerous qaṣīdas:

The lover arrived, and his beloved visited him; / glad tidings for him, O his glad tidings -- here is his sought-one!

The beloved came after estrangement -- O what / a joy! -- the physician healed the sick one.

O his lance-like stature -- is this the spear / that sways? Or, O [his] hip, are you its sand-dune?

And by his musky mole I strayed from piety -- / yet its fragrance guided me to the [wine of the] vintage.

Is it the coolness of [his] mouth, this chamomile, and pearls / strung upon coral, whose grains are within it?

O the hair of your night -- does its companion give light? / O the cheek of your day -- does its setting [ever] come?

Are those [eyes'] glances spear-points or arrows, / striking my heart? Nay, may its lot be your ransom!

How harsh his eyebrow! Until when [this] harshness? / Grant that I am a target -- will you not [then] strike it?

O you slanderers -- may the slander never be! / O you watchers -- how [I wish] dead its watcher!

By God, [I curse] the loss of you two -- may I be deprived of meeting you! -- / for, were it not for you two, the beloved would embrace his beloved.

Do you two not see him send forth his fragrance / at dawn, so that its breath revives the love-distraught one?

I am one who embraces his beloved at the meeting, / [yet] for fear of the watcher, his watcher does not appear.

I have not forgotten a morning I made glad with bliss, / until its mount dared to plunge through the darkness.

He mounted [amid] the spear-points and the levelled lances; / his [grave] affairs did not turn him back from the quarter of Mayy.

The noble mounts of his resolve nearly stumbled with her, / so its [own] noble steed pulled hard by the rein.

And I came by night to Suʿdā, while the arrows were as though / a true [spring of] Nīsān, its rain-pool poured out.

until I made my mount kneel at a dwelling / that left its stranger to call out only by [the names of] dear ones.

An abode wherein is, for Suʿād, a far-off dwelling / whose ʿAnqāʾ [phoenix] is above [the star] al-Simāk -- its very dust.

An abode wherein the noble virtues and loftiness alighted; / so [all] munificence is the munificence of its courtyard and its fertile [ground].

An abode wherein is Ismāʿīl -- loftier than [all] who rose; / the names of the most exalted are his comfort and his kin.

The sovereign of the attributes, and the perfection of the essence, by whose / perfume the north[-wind] was made fragrant, and its south.

A king [among] the kings of God; beneath his banner / is what lies between his gifted-one and his despoiled-one.

A lion -- the blood of lions is the sheath of his sword; / an eagle, and in the marrow of eagles is its prey.

A sea -- the pearls of the crown are from its waves, / above the heads, upon the kings, [is] its awe.

The Pole of the [divine] Reality, the axis of the sacred Law, the radiance; / the sphere of [saintly] allegiance -- its circumference and its wonder.

And the master of firm-establishment in attributes, for which, long has / its watcher cut the necks [that stood] just below them.

By God, how excellent you are -- a sovereign who plunders, / nay, a giver -- though its wolf [feed] upon my blood and my flesh!

He honors, with the barren [absolute] kingship, whomever he seeks, / and abases whomever he wills -- so he is its reckoner.

O son of Ibrāhīm, O sea of bounty, / O you of Jabart -- the all-mending one is its physician.

Is there for your servant al-Jīlī, from you, a care / that dyes [him] with the dyeing of the lover [by] his beloved?

You are the Generous (al-Karīm), without doubt, and here is / [your] servant-of-the-Generous (ʿAbd al-Karīm), and from you his sweetness is hoped.

And the listeners, and all who recite it, / are the guests of your munificence, when its pouring becomes universal.

You are not, O bough of the sand-hill at the bend, / [anything] but the lavender that spreads its fragrance.

[I swear] an oath by Mecca and the [sacred] rites, and by Him / for whose sake the sorrowful one forsook sleep:

my heart has never loved anything other than you [all]; / no indeed -- and its sought-one is none but you.

And this measure suffices, of the exposition of the affair of Iblīs and its variation in its loci of manifestation.

Otherwise, were we to undertake the exposition of its variation in [even] a single locus of these seven in full, we would fill many volumes, for example.

Just as it does not [merely] manifest to the highest of the ranks -- which are the ranks of the gnostics -- let alone the lower.

For it is able to manifest upon the lower by all that it manifests by upon the higher, and the reverse.

So it comes to some of the gnostics and manifests upon them, at times by way of the divine Name,

at times by way of the attribute, and at times by way of the Essence,

at times by way of the Throne, at times by way of the Footstool, at times by way of the Tablet,

at times by way of the Pen, at times by way of the Cloud (al-ʿamāʾ), and at times by way of divinity.

And it manifests upon them in every divine locus and lofty attribute, so that none recognizes it except single [individuals] of the friends [of God].

So when the friend [of God] recognizes it, what it intended to lead him astray by becomes guidance for the gnostic, and he draws near by it to the divine Presence.

Thus it continues to do with the friend [of God] until the foreordained term and the decreed command come to pass.

So the friend [of God] is realized in the divine realities, and turns about in them by [the rule of] firm-establishment; and then the rule of Iblīs is cut off -- and that, for him, is "until the Day of Judgment."

since "the Day of Judgment" is nothing but the Day of Resurrection; and the gnostic, when he is annihilated in God [with] the third annihilation, and is effaced and crushed, his lesser resurrection has [thereby] arisen in him.

So that is his outcome [at] "the Day of Judgment." So let us be content in the clarifying of this matter, since there is no way to divulge this secret.

Then know that the devils are the children of Iblīs (upon him be the curse).

And that is because, when he gained mastery over the natural soul, he wedded the appetitive fire from the heart in the animal habits;

so the devils were born of that, as sparks are born of fire and plants of the earth. So they are his progeny and his followers; they pass into the heart like the egotistical thoughts -- by them he leads people astray, and they are "the slinking whisperer" [al-waswās al-khannās].

And this is his sharing with the children of Adam, where He said: "and share with them in wealth and children" (17:64) -- this is his sharing. So among these is one over whom the fiery nature predominates, so that he is joined to the elemental spirits; and among them one over whom the vegetal-animal nature predominates, so that he comes forth in the form of the children of Adam while he is a pure devil.

And that is His saying (exalted is He): "the devils of mankind and the jinn" (6:112, al-Anʿām).

And these who come forth in the form of the children of Adam are his cavalry, because they are stronger than the devils joined to the spirits; so these are the roots of seditions in the world, and those [others] are his branches, and they are his infantry.

He (exalted is He) said: "And rally against them your cavalry and your infantry" (17:64).

Then know that, of his instruments, the strongest is heedlessness (al-ghafla); it is, for him, like the sword, by which he cuts.

Then appetite, which is like the arrow, by which he strikes the fatal spot.

Then leadership [/love of rank], which is like the fortresses and citadels, by which he holds out against being removed.

Then ignorance, which is like the mount [/rider], so he travels by ignorance to wherever he wishes.

Then poems, proverbs, wines, and amusements, and the like -- as the rest of the instruments of war. As for women, they are his deputies and his snares; by them he does as he wishes, for there is nothing in his equipment stronger in effect than women.

So these are his instruments by which he fights; and he has many instruments and seasons. Among his seasons are the night, the places of suspicion, the moment of [the soul's] wrenching-out [at death], and the like. And this measure is sound for one who "has a heart, or gives ear while he is a witness" [Q 50:37].

Section: the names of the human souls. Then know that the soul is named, in the terminology, by five kinds:

an animal soul (nafs ḥayawāniyya),

a commanding soul (nafs ammāra),

an inspired soul (nafs mulhima),

a reproaching soul (nafs lawwāma),

and a tranquil soul (nafs muṭmaʾinna).

And all of them are names of the spirit, since the reality of the soul is nothing but the spirit, and the reality of the spirit is nothing but the Real. So understand.

So the animal soul:

it is applied to the spirit in respect of its governance of the body only. As for the philosophers, the animal soul, with them, is the blood running in the veins -- and this is not our doctrine. Then the commanding soul (al-ammāra): it is so named in respect of what comes to it of the natural, appetitive requisites, by immersion in the animal pleasures and heedlessness of the commands and prohibitions.

Then the inspired soul (al-mulhima): it is so named in respect of what God (exalted is He) inspires it with, of good; for everything the soul does of good is by the divine inspiration,

and everything it does of evil is by the natural requisite; and that requisite, from it, is like a command to it to [do] the act.

So it is as though it is the commander of itself to the doing of those requisites; and for this it was named "commanding." And for the divine inspiration it was named "inspired." Then the reproaching soul (al-lawwāma): it was so named in respect of its taking to returning and desisting [from sin];

for it is as though it reproaches itself for plunging into those destructions; and for this it was named "reproaching."

Then the tranquil soul (al-muṭmaʾinna): it was so named in respect of its stillness toward the Real and its tranquillity by Him.

And that is when it has cut off the blameworthy acts entirely and the blameworthy thoughts absolutely.

For whenever the blameworthy thoughts are not cut off from it, it is not named "tranquil," but is rather "reproaching."

Then, when the blameworthy thoughts are cut off absolutely, it is named "tranquil."

Then, when there appear upon its body the spiritual effects -- of the folding-up of the earth [traversing distance], the knowledge of the unseen, and the like -- it has no name but "the spirit."

Then, when the praiseworthy thoughts are cut off as the blameworthy were cut off, and it is qualified by the divine qualities, and realized in the essential realities -- then the name of the gnostic is the name of his Known, and his attributes are His attributes, and his essence is His essence.

And God speaks the truth, and He guides to the way.