al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 54 -- The Illusion-faculty (al-Wahm)
full parallel manuscript · complete bitext
الإنسان الكامل · في الوهم
The complete chapter on the Illusion-faculty (al-Wahm), rendered as a full parallel manuscript: every segment, aligned line by line, opening with seven of al-Jīlī’s own verses. al-Wahm — the estimative or illusion-faculty — is, for al-Jīlī, “the strongest [thing] subdued by its illusion,” which “overturns the intellect, the thought, and the imagination,” and the wellspring of ʿAzrāʾīl, the angel of death (the only angel who could take the handful of earth from which Adam was made). The chapter is at once a treatise on death and the soul’s separation, a remarkable account of how ʿAzrāʾīl appears to each dying creature in a fitting form, and — in its climactic doctrine — a meditation on the illusion-faculty as “the mirror of God,” the swiftest and most dominating of the human powers, by which alone God discloses Himself to “the people of imitation.”
How to read this. Use the view switcher: Split shows Arabic and English side by side; English and Original give each alone; Annotated attaches the inline Targum data — glossary terms and the verified Qurʾān loci — to each segment. Digital-draft edition: two-witness collated, glossary-locked, Qurʾān-verified, labeled AI-assisted with editor review pending.
الباب الرابع والخمسون في الوهم وأنه محتد عزرائيل عليه السلام من محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم
Chapter Fifty-Four: On the Illusion-faculty (al-Wahm), and that it is the wellspring of ʿAzrāʾīl (peace be upon him) from Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace)
وفيه قال رحمه الله: نور على الملكوت فوق الأطلس ..... بالوهم عبر عنه بين الأنفس
Concerning it he (may God have mercy on him) said: A light upon the Dominion (al-malakūt), above the Starless Sphere (al-Aṭlas) / by Illusion (al-wahm) it is expressed among the selves.
glossary: wahm, mulk-malakut-jabarut al-Jīlī's opening verse (1 of 7); 'he, may God have mercy on him' is the digital matn's editorial framing of the deceased author.
هو آية الرحمن أعني صورة ..... فيها تجلّى بالجمال الكيس
It is the sign (āya) of the All-Merciful -- I mean a form / in which He disclosed Himself by the clever Beauty.
glossary: tajalli Opening verse 2 of 7.
هو قهره هو علمه هو حكمه ..... هو ذاته هو كل شيء أرأس
It is His subduing, it is His knowledge, it is His ruling / it is His Essence, it is everything, most-heading [supreme].
glossary: dhat, qudra Opening verse 3 of 7.
هو فعله هو وصفه هو اسمه ..... هو منه مجلى كل حسن أنفس
It is His act, it is His description, it is His Name / it is, from Him, the disclosure-place of every most-precious beauty.
glossary: sifat, asma Opening verse 4 of 7.
هو نقطة الخال الذي قد عبروا ..... بيمينه عنه لمن لم يخنس
It is the point of the beauty-spot (al-khāl) which they expressed / by "its right [side]" -- of it, to whoever does not shrink back.
Opening verse 5 of 7 (the 'beauty-spot' is a Sufi symbol for the point of absolute unity).
ويمينها القسم الذي هو قشره ..... ستر على الحوراء مثل السندس
And its right is the portion (al-qasam) which is its husk / a veil upon the houri, like sundus-silk.
Opening verse 6 of 7.
فاختر ولا تحتر فما هي دهشة ..... لكنها مثل الظلام الحندس
So choose, and do not be bewildered, for it is no [mere] dazzlement / but it is like the pitch-dark gloom.
Opening verse 7 of 7.
خلق الله وهم محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم من نور اسمه الكامل، وخلق الله عزرائيل من نور
God created the Illusion of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) from the light of His Name the Perfect (al-Kāmil), and God created ʿAzrāʾīl from the light of
glossary: wahm, haqiqa-muhammadiyya, asma
وهم محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم، فلما خلق الله وهم محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم من نوره الكامل أظهره بالوجود بلباس القهر.
the Illusion of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace). So when God created the Illusion of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) from His Perfect light, He brought it forth into existence in the garb of subduing (al-qahr).
glossary: wahm, haqiqa-muhammadiyya, qudra
فأقوى مقهور بوهمه شيء يوجد في الإنسان القوة الوهمية فإنها تقلب العقل والفكر، والمصورة والمدركة وكل قوى فيه فإنه مقهور بوهمه.
So the strongest [thing] subdued by its illusion -- a thing found in the human -- is the illusory faculty (al-quwwa al-wahmiyya), for it overturns the intellect, the thought, the imaging[-faculty], and the apprehending[-faculty]; and every faculty in him is subdued by its illusion.
glossary: wahm, aql-awwal, fikr
وأقوى الملائكة عزرائيل لأنه خلق منه.
And the strongest of the angels is ʿAzrāʾīl, because he was created from it.
ولهذا حين أمر الله تعالى الملائكة أن تقبض من الأرض قبضة ليخلق منها آدم عليه السلام لم يقدر أحد أن يقبض منها إلا عزرائيل.
And for this, when God (exalted is He) commanded the angels to take a handful from the earth, that He might create from it Adam (peace be upon him), no one was able to take from it except ʿAzrāʾīl.
لأنه لما نزل لها جبريل أقسمت عليه بالله أن يتركها فتركها ومضى، ثم میکائیل، ثم إسرافيل وجميع الملائكة المقربين.
Because when Jibrīl descended to it, it adjured him by God to leave it, so he left it and went on; then Mīkāʾīl, then Isrāfīl, and all the brought-near angels.
فلم يقدر أحد أن يتهجم على قسمها فيقبض منها ما أمره الله تعالى أن يقبض.
So no one was able to assail its oath and take from it what God (exalted is He) commanded him to take.
فلما نزل إليها عزرائيل أقسمت عليه فاستدرجها في قسمها وقبض منها ما أمره الله تعالى أن يقبض، وتلك القبضة هي روح الأرض.
So when ʿAzrāʾīl descended to it, it adjured him; so he lured it on in its oath and took from it what God (exalted is He) commanded him to take; and that handful is the spirit of the earth.
فخلق الله من روحها جسد آدم.
So God created from its spirit the body of Adam.
فلهذا تولى عزرائيل قبض الأرواح لما أودع الله تعالى فيه من القوى الكمالية المتجلية في مجلى القهر والغلبة، ولأنه القابض الأول.
And for this ʿAzrāʾīl took charge of the seizing of the spirits, for what God (exalted is He) deposited in him of the perfecting faculties disclosed in the disclosure-place of subduing and overcoming, and because he is the First Seizer.
glossary: tajalli, qudra
ثم إن هذا الملك عنده من المعرفة بأحوال جميع من يقبض روحه ما لا يمكن شرحه.
Then this angel has, of knowledge of the states of all whose spirit he seizes, what cannot be expounded.
فيتخلق لكل جنس بصورة، وقد يأتي إلى بعض الأشخاص في غير صورة بل بسيطة، فينقش مقابلته للروح فتتعشق به فتخرج الروح من الجسد وقد مسكها الجسد وتعلقت به للعشق الأول الذي بين الروح والجسد.
So he takes form, for each kind, by a [fitting] form; and he may come to some persons in no [composite] form, but [in something] simple, so he imprints his facing-of-the-spirit, so it falls in love with him, and the spirit comes out of the body though the body had held it and it had attached to it by the first love that is between the spirit and the body.
فيحصل النزاع بين الجاذبة العزرائيلية وبين الجسد إلى أن يغلب عليها الجذب العزرائيلي فتخرج، وهذا الخروج أمر عجيب.
So the contention occurs between the ʿAzrāʾīlian attracting-power and the body, until the ʿAzrāʾīlian attraction overcomes it, so it comes out; and this coming-out is a wondrous matter.
واعلم أن الروح في الأصل بدخولها في الجسد وحلولها فيه لا تفارق مكانها ومحلها.
And know that the spirit, in the root, by its entering into the body and its indwelling in it, does not part from its [own] place and its locus.
ولكن تكون في محلها وهي ناظرة إلى الجسد، وعادة الأرواح أنها تحل موضع نظرها، فأي محل وقع فيه نظرها تحله من غير مفارقة لمركزها الأصلي.
But it is in its locus while gazing at the body; and the habit of the spirits is that they indwell the place of their gaze -- so whatever place its gaze falls upon, it indwells it, without parting from its original center.
وهذا أمر مستحيل العقل ولا يعرف إلا بالكشف.
And this is a matter the intellect deems impossible, and it is known only by unveiling (kashf).
glossary: kashf
ثم إنه لما نظرت إلى الجسم نظر الاتحاد وحلت فيه حلول الشيء في هويته، اكتسبت التصوير الجسماني بهذا الحلول في أول وهلة.
Then, since it gazed at the body with the gaze of union and indwelt it [as] the indwelling of the thing in its [own] ipseity, it acquired the corporeal imaging by this indwelling, at the first instant.
ثم لا تزال تكتسب منه إما الأخلاق المرضية الإلهية فتصعد وتسمو به في عليين.
Then it ceaselessly acquires from it either the pleasing, divine character-traits -- so it ascends and rises by it to the highest [of the high] (ʿilliyyīn);
وأما الأخلاق البهيمية الحيوانية الأرضية فتهبط بتلك الأخلاق إلى سجين وصعودها هو تمكنها من العالم الملكوتي. حال تصويرها بهذه الصورة الإنسانية، لأن هذه الصورة تكسب الأرواح ثقلها وحكمها.
or [it acquires] the bestial, animal, earthly character-traits -- so it descends by those traits to [the lowest] (sijjīn). And its ascent is its being-empowered over the Dominion-world, in the state of its being-imaged by this human form, because this form gains for the spirits their heaviness and their ruling.
glossary: mulk-malakut-jabarut
فإذا تصور الروح بصورة جسده اكتسب حكمه من الثقل والحصر والعجز وأمثال ذلك.
So when the spirit is imaged by the form of its body, it acquires its ruling -- of heaviness, confinement, incapacity, and the like of that.
فيفارق الروح ما كان له من الخفة والسريان لا مفارقة انفصال ولكن مفارقة اتصال.
So the spirit parts from what it had of lightness and pervading -- not the parting of separation, but the parting of connection.
لأنها تكون متصفة بجميع صفاتها الأصلية ولكنها غير متمكنة من إتيان الأمور الفعلية فتكون أوصافها فيها بالقوة لا بالفعل، فلهذا قلنا إنها مفارقة اتصال لا مفارقة انفصال.
Because it is qualified by all its original attributes, but it is not empowered to bring forth the act-matters, so its attributes in it are by potency, not by act; and for this we said it is a parting of connection, not a parting of separation.
فإذا كان صاحب الجسم يستعمل الأخلاق الملكية فإن روحه تتقوى وترفع حكم الثقل عن نفسها، ولا يزال كذلك إلى أن يصير الجسد في نفسه كالروح، فيمشي على الماء ويطير في الهواء. وقد مضى ذكر هذا فيما تقدم من الكتاب.
So if the possessor of the body uses the angelic character-traits, then his spirit grows strong and raises the ruling of heaviness from itself, and it ceaselessly [does] so until the body itself becomes like the spirit, so he walks upon the water and flies in the air. And the mention of this has [already] passed in what preceded of the book.
وإن كان صاحب الجسم يستعمل الأخلاق البشرية والمقتضيات الأرضية فإنه يتقوى على الروح حكم الرسوب والثقل الأرضي، فينحصر في سجنه فيحشر غدا في سجين. ثم إنها لما تعشقت بالجسم وتعشق بها الجسم كانت ناظرة إليه ما دام معتدلا في صحة فإذا سقم وحصل فيها الألم بسببه أخذت في رفع نظرها عنه إلى عالمها الروحي. فإن تفريحها هو في ذلك العالم. ولو كانت تكره مفارقة الجسد، فإنها تأخذ نظرها فترفعه من العالم الجسدي رفعة ما إلى العالم الروحي، كمن يهرب من ضيق إلى سعة.
And if the possessor of the body uses the human character-traits and the earthly requisites, then the ruling of sediment and earthly heaviness grows strong over the spirit, so it is confined in its prison, and is gathered tomorrow in sijjīn. Then, since it fell in love with the body and the body fell in love with it, it was gazing at it as long as it was balanced in health; so when it sickened and pain occurred in it by reason of it, it took to raising its gaze from it to its spiritual world. For its gladdening is in that world. And even though it dislikes parting from the body, it takes its gaze and raises it from the bodily world, some raising, to the spiritual world -- like one fleeing from straitness to spaciousness.
ولو كان له في المحل الذي يضيق فيه من سجنه سعة فلا يجد بدأ من الفرار، ثم لا يزال الروح كذلك إلى أن يصل الأجل المحتوم وتفرغ مدة العمر المعلوم.
And were there for it, in the place in which it is straitened of its prison, spaciousness, it would not find [reason] to flee. Then the spirit ceaselessly [remains] so until the decreed term arrives and the period of the known lifespan is emptied.
فيأتيها هذا الملك المسمی بعزرائيل على صورة مناسبة لحالها عند الله.
So this angel named ʿAzrāʾīl comes to it upon a form suiting its state with God.
فحسن حالها عند الله على قدر حسن تصرفها مدة الحياة في الاعتقادات والأعمال والأخلاق وغيرها.
And the goodness of its state with God is according to the goodness of its disposing, during the period of life, in beliefs, deeds, character-traits, and other than that.
وعلى قدر قبح ذلك يكون قبح حالها عند الله، فيأتيها الملك مناسبة لحالها، فيأتي مثلا إلى الظالم من عمال الديوان على صفة من ينتقم منه أو على صفة رسل الملك لكن في هيئة بشعة مستنكرة.
And according to the ugliness of that is the ugliness of its state with God; so the angel comes to it suiting its state. So he comes, for example, to the wrongdoer of the agents of the dīwān [administration], in the description of one who takes vengeance on him, or in the description of the messengers of the king but in a hideous, abhorrent form.
كما أنه يأتي إلى أهل الصلاح والتقوى في هيئة أحب الناس إليه وأشهاهم له حتى يتصور لهم بصورة النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم.
Just as he comes to the people of righteousness and godfearing in the form of the most beloved of people to him and the most desired of them by him -- until he takes form for them in the form of the Prophet (God bless him and grant him peace).
glossary: mushahada
فإذا شهدوا تلك الصورة خرجت أرواحهم، وتصوره بصورة النبي مباح له ولأمثاله من الملائكة المقربين لأنهم مخلوقون من قوی روحانية كمن خلق من قلبه.
So when they witness that form, their spirits come out; and his taking-form in the form of the Prophet is permitted to him and to the likes of him of the brought-near angels, because they are created from spiritual faculties, like one created from his heart,
glossary: qalb
ومن خلق من عقله، ومن خلق من خياله وغير ذلك فافهم.
and one created from his intellect, and one created from his imagination, and other than that. So understand.
glossary: aql-awwal, khayal
فإنه ممكن لهم لأنهم مخلوقون منه، فيتصورون بصورته للمناسبة.
For it is possible for them, because they are created from him, so they take form in his form, for the [fitting] suitability.
وتصورهم بصورته هو من باب تصور روح الشخص بجسده.
And their taking-form in his form is of the order of the taking-form of the spirit of the person by his body.
فلما تصور بصورة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم إلا روحه.
So when [ʿAzrāʾīl] takes form in the form of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) -- [it is] only his spirit.
بخلاف إبليس عليه اللعنة وأتباعه المخلوقين من بشريته، فإنه صلى الله عليه وسلم ما تنبأ إلا وما فيه شيء من البشرية للحديث: «إن الملك أتاه وشق قلبه فأخرج منه دمة فطهر قلبه» فالدم هو النفس البشرية وهي محل الشيطان. فانقطعت نسبة الشيطان منه. فلذلك لا يقدر أحد منهم أن يتمثل بصورته لعدم المناسبة.
Unlike Iblīs (the curse be upon him) and his followers created from his [Muhammad's] humanness; for he (God bless him and grant him peace) prophesied only when there was no longer in him anything of [base] humanness, [by] the hadith: "The angel came to him and split his heart and brought forth from it a clot, so he purified his heart." For the blood is the human soul, and it is the place of Satan; so the relation of Satan was cut off from him. And for that, no one of them is able to take the likeness of his form, for the absence of suitability.
glossary: iblis, nafs, qalb The heart-splitting hadith (shaqq al-ṣadr), sound (Muslim, Kitāb al-Īmān; Musnad Aḥmad); al-Jīlī cites it for the doctrine that the Prophet was purified of the 'satanic' lower self. Flagged for grading.
ثم إن الملك عزرائيل لا يختص بصورة لأهل طاعة ولا لأهل ظلمة ومعصية بنوع، بل يتنوع لكل على حسب حاله ومقامه وما تقتضيه طبيعة كل ذلك على حسب ما يجده مسطرة في الكتاب.
Then the angel ʿAzrāʾīl is not particular to [one] form for the people of obedience, nor for the people of wrongdoing and disobedience, by a kind; rather he varies for each according to his state and his station and what the nature of all that requires, according to what he finds written in the Book.
glossary: maqam
فقد يأتي إلى الوحوش الفرائس منه على هيئة الأسد والنمر أو الذئب وغير ذلك مما تعتاد الفرائس أن يهلكن منه.
So he may come to the beasts of prey in the form of the lion, the leopard, the wolf, and other than that of what the prey are accustomed to perish by.
وكذلك الطيور فقد يأتيها على صورة الصياد والذابح أو على صورة البازي والصقر.
And likewise the birds; he may come to them in the form of the hunter and the slaughterer, or in the form of the hawk and the falcon.
وكل شيء يأتي إليه فإنه لا بد له من مناسبة إلا من يأتيه على غير صورة مركبة، بل في بسيطة غير مرئية يهلك الشخص من رائحة سمها.
And everything he comes to -- there must be, for it, a suitability -- except one to whom he comes in no composite form, but in [something] simple, unseen: the person perishes from the scent of his poison.
فقد تكون رائحة طيبة وقد تكون كريهة على قدر ما يجده محتومة عليه.
And it may be a pleasant scent, and it may be a foul one, according to what he finds decreed upon him.
وقد لا يدرك رائحة بل يمر عليه ما لا يدركه ذلك لدهشة حال الميت، فإذا نظره تعشق به فانجذب نظره من جسده بالكلية فانقطع وقيل خرجت روحه.
And he may apprehend no scent, but there passes upon him what he does not apprehend [as] that, by reason of the dazzlement of the state of the dying one; so when he gazes at him, he falls in love with him, so his gaze is drawn from his body entirely, so it is cut off, and it is said: his spirit came out.
ولا خروج ولا دخول اللهم إلا إن يعد نظره الذي يحل به دخولا إذ لا يصح الحلول إلا بالدخول.
And there is no coming-out nor entering -- unless his gaze by which he indwells be counted an entering, since the indwelling is not valid except by entering.
فكذلك يعد ارتفاع النظر خروجها، ثم إن الروح بعد خروجها من الجسد لا يفارق الصورة الجسدية أبدا.
So likewise the lifting of the gaze is counted its coming-out. Then the spirit, after its coming-out from the body, never parts from the bodily form.
لكن يكون لها زمان تكون فيه ساكنة مثل النائم الذي ينام ولا يرى في نومه شيئا، ولا يقتدي بمن يقول إن كل نائم لا بد له أن يرى شيئا.
But there is for it a time in which it is still, like the sleeper who sleeps and sees nothing in his sleep; and do not follow whoever says that every sleeper must see something.
فمن الناس من يحفظه ومن الناس من ينساه.
So of the people [there is] one who preserves it [the dream], and of the people one who forgets it.
وفي هذا القول نظر لأنا قد أدركنا بالكشف الإلهي أن النائم قد ينام اليوم يومين وأكثر، ولا يرى في منامه شيئا فهو في ذلك النوم كمن يطوي له الحق مدة من الزمان في طرفة عين فيكون كمن غمض عينيه ثم فتحها.
And in this saying there is [room for] reconsideration, because we have apprehended by the divine unveiling that the sleeper may sleep a day, two days, and more, and see nothing in his sleep -- so he is, in that sleep, like one for whom the Real folds up a period of time in the blink of an eye, so he is like one who shut his eyes then opened them.
glossary: kashf
وطوى له الحق في تلك المدة اليسيرة أيام كثيرة عاش فيها غيره.
And the Real folded up for him, in that little period, many days that another lived in.
كما أن الحق قد يبسط الآن الواحد للشخص حتى يكون له فيه أعمال كثيرة وأعمار يتزوج ويولد له، ولم يكن ذلك عند غيره.
Just as the Real may [now] stretch the single instant for the person, until there are for him in it many deeds and lifespans -- he marries and is born to -- and that was not [so] with another.
بل عند جميع أهل الدنيا إلا في أقل من ساعة من نهار، هذا أمر وقعنا فيه وأدركناه ولا يؤمن به إلا من له نصيب منا.
Rather, with all the people of the world [it was] only in less than an hour of a day. This is a matter we fell into and apprehended, and none believes it but one who has a share of [what we have].
A first-person mystical-experience claim (the folding/stretching of time); recorded in al-Jīlī's voice.
وهذا السكون الأول هو موت الأرواح.
And this first stillness is the death of the spirits.
ألا ترى إلى الملائكة كيف عبر صلى الله عليه وسلم عن موتهم بانقطاع الذكر.
Do you not see the angels, how he (God bless him and grant him peace) expressed their death by the cessation of remembrance (dhikr)?
glossary: dhikr Alludes to a tradition on the 'death' of the angels as the cessation of their glorification; flagged.
فمن كشف له عن ذلك عرف ما أشار إليه النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم.
So whoever is unveiled to [understand] that knows what the Prophet (God bless him and grant him peace) pointed to.
glossary: kashf
ثم إذا فرغت مدة هذا السكون الذي يسمى موت الأرواح تصير الروح في البرزخ، وسيأتي بيان البرزخ في محله إن شاء الله تعالى.
Then, when the period of this stillness -- which is named the death of the spirits -- is emptied, the spirit comes to be in the Barzakh; and the exposition of the Barzakh will come in its place, God (exalted is He) willing.
glossary: barzakh The forward reference lands in Bāb 61 (the eschatology).
سار بنا جواد القلم في بيان العلم حتى جاوز العلم، ولنرجع إلى ما كنا بسبيله من شرح حال النور الوهمي الذي خلقه الله من شمس الكمال، وألبسه في الوجود شعاع الجلال.
The steed of the Pen bore us, in the exposition of knowledge, until it passed beyond [the] knowledge; so let us return to what we were upon, of the explanation of the state of the illusory light (al-nūr al-wahmī) which God created from the Sun of Perfection, and clothed, in existence, [in] the ray of Majesty.
glossary: wahm
اعلم أن الله تعالى جعله مرآة لنفسه ومجلى قدسه، ليس في العالم شيء أسرع إدراكا منه ولا أقوى هيمنة، له التشرف في جميع الموجودات.
Know that God (exalted is He) made it a mirror for Himself and a disclosure-place of His holiness; there is not, in the world, a thing swifter in apprehending than it, nor stronger in domination; it has the eminence in all the existents.
glossary: wahm, tajalli The chapter's key doctrine: the illusion-faculty as 'the mirror of God,' the swiftest and most dominating of faculties; contested-Akbarian, recorded and framed.
به تعبد الله العالم، وبنوره نظر الله إلى آدم، به مشی من مشى على الماء، وبه طار من طار في الهواء هو نور اليقين وأصل الاستيلاء والتمكين.
By it God was worshipped [by] the world, and by its light God gazed at Adam; by it walked whoever walked upon the water, and by it flew whoever flew in the air; it is the light of certainty and the root of mastery and empowerment.
من سخر له هذا النور وحكم عليه تصرف به في الوجود العلوي والسفلي، ومن حكم عليه سلطان الوهم لعب به في أموره، فتاه في ظلام الحيرة بنوره.
Whoever subjugated this light to himself and ruled over it disposed by it in the high and low existence; and whoever the sultan of Illusion ruled over -- it played with him in his affairs, so he wandered in the darkness of bewilderment by its light.
glossary: wahm
واعلم حفظ الله عليك الإيمان وجعلك من أهل اليقين والإحسان أن الله لما خلق الوهم قال له: أقسمت أن لا أتجلى لأهل التقليد إلا فيك ولا أظهر للعالم إلا في مخافيك.
And know -- may God preserve for you the faith and make you of the people of certainty and excellence -- that God, when He created the Illusion, said to it: I have sworn that I shall not disclose Myself to the people of [conformist] imitation (ahl al-taqlīd) except in you, and shall not appear to the world except in your hidden [recesses].
glossary: wahm, tajalli
فعلى قدر ما تصعد بهم إلي تدلهم علي.
So according to what you ascend with them to Me, you point them to Me.
وعلى قدر ما تنكس عني بأنوارهم تهلكهم في بوارهم.
And according to what you turn down [away] from Me by their lights, you destroy them in their ruin.
فقال له الوهم: أي رب أقم المرقاة بالأسماء والصفات لتكون سلمة إلى منصة الذات، فأقام الله فيه الأنموذج المنير، فانتقش في جداره بالهيبة والتقدير.
So the Illusion said to Him: O Lord, set up the ladder by the Names and Attributes, that it may be a stairway to the dais of the Essence. So God set up in it the luminous model, so it was engraved in its wall by awe and determination.
glossary: asma, sifat, dhat, hayba
وتحكم فيه عبودية الحق تعالى فأقسم على نفسه باسم ربه.
And the servitude of the Real (exalted is He) ruled in it, so it swore upon itself by the Name of its Lord.
وإلى أن لا يزال يفتح هذه الأقفال بتلك المفاتيح الثقال إلى أن يلج جمله في سم خياط الجمال إلى فضاء صحراء الكمال.
And [it swore] that it would ceaselessly unlock these locks by those heavy keys, until its camel passed through the needle's eye of Beauty to the open space of the desert of Perfection.
An echo of the Qurʾānic image of the camel and the needle's eye (al-Aʿrāf 7:40), turned to a mystical figure of the impossible passage to Perfection.
فيعبد فيه الحق المتعال، فحينئذ ألبسه الله حلل التقريب وقال له: أحسنت أيها الملك الأديب، ثم كساه الله تعالى حلتين: الحلة الأولى من النور الأخضر مكتوب على طرازها بالكبريت الأحمر الرحمن. علم القرآن. خلق الإنسان. علمه البيان وأما الحلة الثانية فهي القاصية الدانية، قد نسجت من سواد الطغيان مكتوب على طرازها بقلم الخذلان إن الإنسان لفي خسر.
So that the Most Exalted Real be worshipped in it. So then God clothed it [in] the robes of bringing-near, and said to it: You have done well, O cultured angel. Then God (exalted is He) clad it [in] two robes: the first robe of green light, written upon its border in red brimstone: "The All-Merciful. He taught the Qurʾān. He created the human. He taught him the clear speech" (al-Raḥmān 55:1-4). And as for the second robe, it is the far[-and]-near; it was woven of the blackness of transgression, written upon its border by the pen of abandonment: "Truly the human is in loss" (al-ʿAṣr 103:2).
Qurʾān 55:1: al-Raḥmān 55:1-4, verbatimQurʾān 103:2: al-ʿAṣr 103:2, verbatim glossary: quran-ontological
فلما نزل هذا النور وأخذ بين العالم في الظهور خلق الله من ظهوره الحنطة.
So when this light descended and took to appearing among the world, God created from its appearing the wheat.
فأكلها آدم فخرج بها من الجنة.
So Adam ate it, so he went out by it from the Garden.
al-Jīlī identifies the forbidden 'tree'/grain with the wheat born of the illusion-faculty's appearing -- linking the Fall to al-wahm.
فتأمل هذه الأوصاف والإشارات، وما أودع الله لك في هذه العبارات، وأخرج عن صدق ظاهر الألفاظ تحظ بالدر الفضفاض.
So ponder these descriptions and the allusions, and what God deposited for you in these expressions, and come out from the truth of the outward of the wordings, [that] you may win the abundant pearl.
والله يقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل.
And God says the truth, and He guides to the way (33:4).
Qurʾān 33:4: al-Aḥzāb 33:4: al-Jīlī's recurring closing formula is the verbatim end of this verse -- here the witness confirms it by tagging 'Sūrat al-Aḥzāb.'
Collation. Two-witness collated as part of the four archangel-faculties cluster (Bāb 52-55), staged 2026-06-02. No lossy drop. The witness-2 file for this chapter was clean (no navigation chrome). Opens with seven of al-Jīlī's own verses (§2-§8).
Qurʾān. Verses verified verbatim, all witness tags correct: al-Raḥmān 55:1-4 and al-ʿAṣr 103:2 (the two 'robes' of §72), and -- confirmed here by the witness's own 'Sūrat al-Aḥzāb' tag -- the recurring closing formula 'wa-Allāhu yaqūlu l-ḥaqqa wa-huwa yahdī l-sabīl' is the end of al-Aḥzāb 33:4.