الباب الموفي عشرين في الكلام
Chapter Twenty: On Speech
§1 وفيه قال رحمه الله:
And in it he said, God have mercy on him:
§2 إنَّ الكلامَ هو الوجودُ البارزُ ... فيه جرى حكمُ الوجودِ الجائزِ
Speech is the existence brought-forth: in it ran the rule of contingent being.
§3 كُلًّا وهي في العلمِ كانت أحرفاً ... لا تُقرَأُ إذ ليس ثَمَّ مائزُ
All of them, while in knowledge they were letters, unread, since there was no distinguisher there.
Witness 'lā tunqarī'; restored toward 'lā tuqraʾ' (unread), the sense the closing distich confirms.
§4 فتميَّزت عند الظهورِ فعبَّروا ... عنها بلفظةِ كُنْ ليُدرى الفائزُ
Then they were distinguished at manifestation, so they expressed them by the word 'Be,' that the winner might come to know.
§5 واعلم بأن اللَّهَ حقاً إن يَقُلْ ... للشيءِ كُنْ فيكونُ ما هو عاجزُ
And know that God, truly, if He says to a thing 'Be,' then it is: He is not incapable.
§6 فله الكلامُ حقيقةً وله مجازاً ... كلُّ ذلك كان وهو الجائزُ
His is Speech in reality and His in metaphor; all of that came to be, and it is the contingent.
§7 اعلم أن كلام الله تعالى من حيث الجملة هو تجلِّي علمه باعتبار إظهاره إياه، سواء كانت كلماته نفس الأعيان الموجودة، أو كانت المعاني التي بفهمها العبد إما بطريق الوحي أو المكالمة أو أمثال ذلك، لأن كلام الله تعالى في الجملة صفة واحدة نفسية، ولكن لها جهتان:
Know that the Speech of God Most High, taken as a whole, is the self-disclosure (tajallī) of His knowledge in respect of His making it manifest, whether His words be the very entities that exist, or the meanings the servant understands, whether by way of revelation (waḥy) or direct address (mukālama) or the like; for the Speech of God Most High, in sum, is a single attribute of the Self (ṣifa nafsiyya), yet it has two facets (jihatān):
glossary: tajalli, ilm
§8 الجهة الأولى على نوعين:
The first facet is of two kinds:
§9 النوع الأول: أن يكون الكلام صادراً عن مقام العزّة بأمر الألوهية فوق عرش الربوبية، وذلك أمره العالي الذي لا سبيل لمخالفته، لكن طاعة الكون له من حيث يجهله ولا يدريه، وإنما الحق سبحانه وتعالى يسمع كلامه في ذلك المجلى عن الكون الذي يريد تقدير وجوده.
The first kind: that the speech issues from the Station of Might (maqām al-ʿizza) by the command of Divinity above the Throne of Lordship; and that is His exalted command, which there is no way to oppose. Yet the obedience of the cosmos to it is from where it neither knows nor is aware; rather the Real, glory be to Him and Most High, hears His own speech in that disclosure-site (majlā), from the existent whose existence He wills to ordain.
glossary: al-amr, rububiyya
§10 ثم يجري ذلك الكون على ما أمره به عنايةً منه ورحمةً سابقةً ليصحَّ للوجود بذلك اسم الطاعة فيكون سعيداً، وإلى هذا أشار بقوله تعالى في مخاطبته للسماء والأرض: {ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَا أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ}.
Then that existent proceeds according to what He commanded it, by a solicitude from Him and a mercy that goes before, so that the name 'obedience' may rightly belong to existence thereby, and it become felicitous. To this He pointed in His address to the heaven and the earth: 'Come, willingly or unwillingly. They said: We come willingly.'
Qurʾān 41:11: Fuṣṣilat 41:11, the latter clause; al-Jīlī quotes only this portion of the verse. Verified verbatim, tag correct.
§11 فحكم للأكوان بطاعته، فإنها أتت غير مكرهة تفضلاً منه وعنايةً.
So He decreed obedience for the existents, for they came not coerced, as a grace from Him and a solicitude.
§12 ولذلك سبقت رحمته غضبه، لأنه قد حكم لها بالطاعة، والمطيع مرحوم، فلو حكم عليها بأنها أتت مكرهةً لكان ذلك الحكم عدلاً.
And for this His mercy went before His wrath, because He decreed obedience for them, and the obedient is shown mercy; for had He decreed against them that they came coerced, that decree would have been justice;
§13 لأن القدرة تجبر الكون على الوجود، إذ لا اختيار لمخلوق، ولكان الغضب حينئذٍ أسبق إليه من الرحمة، لكن تفضل فحكم بالطاعة لأن رحمته سبقت غضبه.
for Power compels the existent into existence, since no creature has any choice; and then wrath would have been swifter to it than mercy. But He showed grace and decreed obedience, because His mercy went before His wrath.
glossary: qudra
§14 فكانت الموجودات بأثرها مطيعةً، فما ثَمَّ عاصٍ له من حيث الجملة في الحقيقة، وكل الموجودات مطيعة لله تعالى كما شهد لها في كتابه بقوله: {أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ}، وكل مطيع فما له إلاَّ الرحمة، ولهذا آل حكم النار إلى أن يضع الجبار فيها قدمه فتقول قطْ قطْ فتزول.
So the existents, by His effect, were obedient; thus there is, taken as a whole and in reality, none that disobeys Him, and all the existents are obedient to God Most High, as He testified for them in His Book by His saying: 'We come willingly.' And every obedient one has nothing but mercy; and for this the rule of the Fire comes at last to the Compeller (al-Jabbār) setting His foot in it, so that it says, 'Enough, enough,' and passes away.
Qurʾān 41:11: Fuṣṣilat 41:11, the closing clause re-cited. Tag correct. Alludes to the ḥadīth of the Fire and the Foot of the Compeller (sound, Bukhārī/Muslim).
§15 فينبت في محلها شجر الجرجير كما ورد في الخبر عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم، وسنبين ذلك في هذا الكتاب في محله إن شاء الله تعالى.
Then in its place springs up the tree of garden-cress (jarjīr), as has come in the report from the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace; and we shall make that clear in this book in its place, God Most High willing.
The garden-cress report is attributed to the Prophet but not located in the canonical collections; flagged.
§16 فهذا أحد نوعي الجهة الأولى من الكلام القديم.
This, then, is one of the two kinds of the first facet of pre-eternal Speech.
§17 وأما النوع الثاني من الجهة الأولى:
As for the second kind of the first facet:
§18 فهو الصادر عن مقام الربوبية بلغة الأنس بينه وبين خلقه، كالكتب المنزّلة على أنبيائه، والمكالمات لهم ولمن دونهم من الأولياء، ولذلك وقعت الطاعة والمعصية في الأوامر المنزّلة في الكتب من المخلوق، لأن الكلام الذي صدر بلغة الإنس فهم في الطاعة كالمجبرين.
it is that which issues from the Station of Lordship in the language of intimacy (lughat al-uns) between Him and His creation, like the Books sent down upon His prophets, and the addresses to them and to those below them among the friends (awliyāʾ). And for this reason obedience and disobedience occurred, in the commands sent down in the Books, on the part of the creature; for as to the speech that issued in the language of human-intimacy, they are, in obedience, like those compelled.
glossary: rububiyya
§19 أعني جعل نسبة اختيار الفعل إليهم ليصحَّ الجزاء في المعصية بالعذاب عدلاً، ويكون الثواب في الطاعة فضلاً، لأنه جعل نسبة الاختيار لهم بفضله، ولم يكن لهم ذلك إلاَّ بجعله لهم، وما جعل ذلك إلاَّ لكي يصحَّ الثواب، فثوابه فضل وعقابه عدل.
I mean: He set the ascription of the choice of the act to them, so that requital in disobedience by punishment might be justly valid, and reward in obedience be a grace; because He set the ascription of choice to them by His grace, and they had no such thing except by His setting it for them; and He set that only so that reward might be valid: so His reward is grace and His punishment is justice.
§20 وأما الجهة الثانية للكلام:
As for the second facet of Speech:
§21 فاعلم أن كلام الحق نفس أعيان الممكنات، وكل ممكن كلمة من كلمات الحق، ولهذا لا نفاد للممكن، قال تعالى: {قُلْ لَوْ كَانَ الْبَحْرُ مِدَادًا لِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّي لَنَفِدَ الْبَحْرُ قَبْلَ أَنْ تَنْفَدَ كَلِمَاتُ رَبِّي وَلَوْ جِئْنَا بِمِثْلِهِ مَدَدًا}.
know that the Speech of the Real is the very entities of the contingent things (aʿyān al-mumkināt), and every contingent is a word of the words of the Real; and for this the contingent has no exhaustion. He Most High said: 'Say: If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the words of my Lord were spent, though We brought the like of it for replenishment.'
Qurʾān 18:109: al-Kahf 18:109. Verified verbatim; the witness reads 'la-nafadha / tanfadha' with dhāl (a known variant), restored to the Ḥafṣ muṣḥaf 'la-nafida / tanfada' with dāl. Tag correct.
§22 فالممكنات هي كلمات الحق سبحانه وتعالى، وذلك أن الكلام من حيث الجملة صورة لمعنى في علم المتكلم، أراد المتكلم بإبراز تلك الصورة فهم السامع ذلك المعنى.
So the contingents are the words of the Real, glory be to Him and Most High; and that is because speech, taken as a whole, is a form of a meaning in the knowledge of the speaker, which the speaker intends, by bringing forth that form, that the hearer understand that meaning.
§23 فالموجودات كلام الله، وهي الصورة العينية المحسوسة والمعقولة الموجودة.
So the existents are the Speech of God, and they are the concrete, sensible and intelligible, existent form.
§24 وكل ذلك صور المعاني الموجودة في علمه، وهي الأعيان الثابتة.
And all of that are the forms of the meanings existent in His knowledge, which are the fixed entities (al-aʿyān al-thābita).
glossary: ayan-thabita
§25 فإن شئت قلت: حقائق الإنسان
If you wish, say: the realities of the Human (ḥaqāʾiq al-insān);
§26 وإن شئت قلت: ترتيب الألوهية
and if you wish, say: the ordering of Divinity (tartīb al-ulūhiyya);
§27 وإن شئت قلت: بساطة الوحدة
and if you wish, say: the simplicity of the Unity (basāṭat al-waḥda);
§28 وإن شئت قلت: تفصيل الغيب
and if you wish, say: the detailing of the Unseen (tafṣīl al-ghayb);
§29 وإن شئت قلت: صور الجمال
and if you wish, say: the forms of Beauty (ṣuwar al-jamāl);
§30 وإن شئت قلت: آثار الأسماء والصفات
and if you wish, say: the traces of the Names and Attributes (āthār al-asmāʾ wa-l-ṣifāt);
glossary: asma, sifat
§31 وإن شئت قلت: معلومات الحق
and if you wish, say: the objects-of-knowledge of the Real (maʿlūmāt al-ḥaqq);
§32 وإن شئت قلت: الحروف العاليات
and if you wish, say: the exalted Letters (al-ḥurūf al-ʿāliyāt).
§33 وإلى ذلك أشار الإمام ابن عربي في قوله: "كنا حروفاً عالياتٍ لم تُقرَأْ".
And to that the Imam Ibn ʿArabī pointed in his saying: 'We were exalted letters, not yet read.'
Here al-Jīlī cites his master in harmony, adopting the verse approvingly, unlike the corrections of Bāb 17-19.
§34 فكما أن المتكلم لا بد له في الكلام من حركة إرادية للتكلم، ونَفَسٍ خارجٍ بالحروف من الصدر الذي هو غيب إلى ظاهر الشفة،
For just as the speaker must, in speech, have a volitional movement to speak, and a breath issuing with the letters from the breast, which is unseen, to the outward of the lip,
§35 كذلك الحق سبحانه وتعالى في إبرازه لخلقه من عالم الغيب إلى عالم الشهادة يريد أولاً ثم تبرزه القدرة.
so likewise the Real, glory be to Him and Most High, in His bringing-forth of His creation from the world of the Unseen to the world of the Witnessed: He first wills, then Power brings it forth.
glossary: irada, qudra
§36 فالإرادة مقابلة للحركة الإرادية التي في نفس المتكلم، والقدرة مقابلة للنَّفَس الخارج بالحروف من الصدر إلى الشفة لإبرازها من عالم الغيب إلى عالم الشهادة.
So Will (irāda) corresponds to the volitional movement in the soul of the speaker, and Power (qudra) corresponds to the breath issuing with the letters from the breast to the lip, to bring them forth from the world of the Unseen to the world of the Witnessed.
glossary: irada, qudra
§37 وتكوين المخلوق مقابل لتركيب الكلمة على هيئة مخصوصة في نفس المتكلم، فسبحان من جعل الإنسان نسخةً له كاملةً.
And the forming (takwīn) of the creature corresponds to the composition of the word in a specific shape in the soul of the speaker. So glory be to Him who made the Human a complete copy (nuskha kāmila) of Himself.
glossary: insan-al-kamil
§38 ولو نظرت إلى نفسك ودقَّقت لوجدت لكل صفة منه نسخةً من نفسك.
And were you to look at yourself and examine closely, you would find for every attribute of His a copy within yourself.
§39 فانظر هويتك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وإنّيتك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وروحك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وعقلك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وفكرك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وخيالك نسخة أيِّ شيء، وصورتك نسخة أيِّ شيء.
So look: your ipseity (huwiyya) is a copy of what thing; your I-ness (inniyya) a copy of what thing; your spirit (rūḥ) a copy of what thing; your intellect (ʿaql) a copy of what thing; your reflection (fikr) a copy of what thing; your imagination (khayāl) a copy of what thing; your form (ṣūra) a copy of what thing.
glossary: fikr, khayal
§40 وانظر إلى وهمك العجيب نسخة أيِّ شيء، وبصرك وحافظتك وسمعك وعلمك وحياتك وقدرتك وآلامك وإرادتك وقلبك وقالبك، كل شيء منك نسخة أيِّ شيء من آماله، وصورة أيِّ حُسنٍ من جماله.
And look at your wondrous estimation (wahm): a copy of what thing; and your sight, your memory, your hearing, your knowledge, your life, your power, your pains, your will, your heart, and your mould, every thing of you a copy of what thing of His, and a form of what beauty of His loveliness.
glossary: wahm
§41 ولولا العهد المربوط والشرط المشروط لبيَّنته أوضح من هذا البيان، ولجعلته غذاءً للصاحي ونُقلاً للسكران.
Were it not for the bound covenant and the stipulated condition, I would have made it plainer than this exposition, and made it nourishment for the sober and a draught for the drunken.
§42 لكنه يكفي هذا القدر من الإشارة لمن له أدنى بصارة، وما أعلم أحداً من قبلي أُذن له أن ينبه على أسرار نبهت عليها في هذا الباب إلاَّ أنا.
But this measure of the pointing suffices for one who has the least insight. And I know none before me who was permitted to give notice of secrets I have given notice of in this chapter, except myself.
§43 فقد أُمرت بذلك، ومن هذا القبيل أكثر الكتاب، لكني جعلت قشرةً على الباب يلفظها من هو من أولي الألباب، ويقف دونها من وقف دون الحجاب.
For I was commanded to that; and of this sort is most of the book. But I set a husk upon the door, which one who is of the possessors of pith casts away, while there halts before it whoever halted short of the veil.
§44 والله يقول الحق وهو يهدي إلى الصواب.
And God speaks the truth, and He guides to the right way.
Collation. Bāb 20, al-Kalām (Speech), the fifth of the dedicated attribute-chapters. Structure: a 5-verse opening qaṣīda (existents as exalted letters, unread in knowledge until 'Be'), then the doctrine of divine Speech as one attribute of the Self with two facets (jihatān): the first facet of two kinds (the command of Might above the Throne, kun, which the cosmos obeys unknowing; and the address in the language of intimacy, the revealed Books, where obedience and disobedience accrue to the creature by the ascribed choice that makes reward grace and punishment justice); and the second facet, that the existents themselves are the words of God, the forms of the fixed entities, named eight ways (the realities of the Human, the ordering of Divinity, the simplicity of the Unity, the detailing of the Unseen, the forms of Beauty, the traces of the Names and Attributes, the objects-of-knowledge of the Real, the exalted Letters). Note: unlike Bāb 17-18-19, the Ibn al-ʿArabī citation here (§33, 'we were exalted letters, not yet read') is adopted approvingly, in HARMONY, not corrected. The chapter closes with the human-as-complete-copy (nuskha kāmila) microcosm passage (every faculty a copy of a divine attribute) and the covenant-of-restraint seal. Eschatological aside (§14-15): mercy-precedes-wrath, the Fire passing away when the Compeller sets His foot in it and garden-cress (jarjīr) springs in its place. Witness OCR: the qaṣīda 'lā tunqarī' restored toward 'lā tuqraʾ' (unread); several kāf-as-alif garbles restored.
Qurʾān. Two Qurʾān loci verified verbatim against alquran.cloud. (1) Fuṣṣilat 41:11 (§10, §14) -- al-Jīlī quotes only the latter clause 'iʾtiyā ṭawʿan aw karhan qālatā ataynā ṭāʾiʿīn'; verified as a portion of the full verse, tag correct. (2) al-Kahf 18:109 (§21) verified; the witness reads 'la-nafadha / tanfadha' with dhāl (a known variant), restored to the Ḥafṣ muṣḥaf 'la-nafida / tanfada' with dāl, tag correct. Allusions flagged: the ḥadīth of the Fire and the Foot of the Compeller (§14, 'so it says: Enough, enough', sound, Bukhārī/Muslim); the report of the garden-cress (jarjīr) springing in the Fire's place (§15, attributed to the Prophet, not located in the canonical collections, flagged).