al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 56 -- Thought (al-Fikr)
full parallel manuscript · complete bitext
الإنسان الكامل · في الفكر
The complete chapter on Thought (al-Fikr), rendered as a full parallel manuscript: every segment, aligned line by line, opening with ten of al-Jīlī’s own verses. He reads Thought as “a key of the keys of the Unseen” but a perilous one, with two roots (intellect and transmission/faith) and two ascents — one upon “the path of the All-Merciful” to the guarded self-disclosure, one the “red magic” that is “the ascent of loss and the path of Satan.” The chapter contains the earliest datable notice in the corpus: al-Jīlī’s near-destruction at a samāʿ in Zabīd in 779 AH, and his rescue through the watchful care of his master al-Jabartī.
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الباب السادس والخمسون في الفكر وأنه محتد باقي الملائكة من محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم
Chapter Fifty-Six: On Thought (al-Fikr), and that it is the wellspring of the rest of the angels from Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace)
الفكر نور في ظلام الأنفس ..... يهدي الصواب به فؤاد الكيّس
Thought is a light in the darkness of the souls / by it the heart of the clever one is guided to what is right.
glossary: fikr al-Jīlī's opening verse (1 of 10).
لكنما زلقاته تنمو على ..... قطر السحاب وعد رمل البسبس
But its slips grow to [exceed] / the drops of the clouds and the count of the desert's sand.
Opening verse 2 of 10.
وله أصول إن يراعيها الفتى ..... تحفظه من فرع الخطا في المقبس
And it has roots which, if the youth observes them / preserve him from the branch of error in the firebrand.
Opening verse 3 of 10.
تلك الأصول على تنوّع جنسها ..... قسمان يحفظهن من لم يخنس
Those roots, upon the variety of their kind / are two divisions, kept by him who does not shrink back.
Opening verse 4 of 10.
عقل وقسم العقل مضطرّ ومك ..... تسب بحسن تجارب في الأنفس
Intellect -- and the division of intellect is [either] necessary or ac- / quired by good experiences in the souls.
glossary: aql-awwal Opening verse 5 of 10 (the rhyme splits 'muktasab' across the hemistich).
والنقل قسم وهو إيمان الفتى ..... بمغيب نيرانه لم تقبس
And transmission is a division -- it is the youth's faith / in an unseen whose fires have not been kindled [for sight].
Opening verse 6 of 10.
هذان أصل الفكر من أهل النهى ..... من لم يقس بهما يقم في الحندس
These two are the root of thought, for the people of discernment / whoever does not measure by them stays in pitch-darkness.
glossary: fikr Opening verse 7 of 10.
لكن أرباب العقول فأصلهم ..... نظر يصحّ بحكم عقل أرأس
But the masters of [mere] intellects -- their root is / a consideration validated by the ruling of a most-heading intellect.
Opening verse 8 of 10.
لا يأخذون بأصل إيمان ولا ..... هو عندهم بضياء ضبح مشمس
They do not take by a root of faith, nor / is it, with them, of the radiance of a sun-lit brightness.
Opening verse 9 of 10.
فلأجل ذا غلطوا وفات عليهم ..... عين الصواب وكل أمر أنفس
And for this they erred, and there escaped them / the very [truth] of what is right, and every most-precious matter.
Opening verse 10 of 10.
اعلم وفقك الله للصواب وعلمك من الحكمة وفصل الخطاب، أن الرقيقة الفكرية أحد مفاتيح الغيب الذي لا يعلم حقيقتها إلا الله.
Know -- may God grant you success in what is right and teach you of wisdom and the decisive word -- that the subtle faculty of Thought (al-raqīqa al-fikriyya) is one of the keys of the Unseen, whose reality none knows but God.
glossary: fikr
فإن مفاتيح الغيوب نوع حقي، ونوع خلقي. النوع الحقي: هو حقيقة الأسماء والصفات. النوع الخلقي: هو معرفة تركيب الجوهر الفرد من الذات، أعني ذات الإنسان المقابل بوجوهه وجوه الرحمن.
For the keys of the unseen [realms] are [of] a True kind and a created kind. The True kind: it is the reality of the Names and Attributes. The created kind: it is the knowledge of the composition of the indivisible substance (al-jawhar al-fard) from the Essence -- I mean the essence of the human, who faces, by his aspects, the aspects of the All-Merciful.
glossary: asma, sifat, jawhar-fard, dhat
والفكر أحد تلك الوجوه بلا ريب، فهو مفتاح من مفاتيح الغيب، لكنه نور.
And Thought is one of those aspects, without doubt; so it is a key of the keys of the Unseen -- but it is a light.
glossary: fikr
وأين ذلك النور الوضاح الذي يستدل به على أخذ هذا المفتاح.
And where is that gleaming light by which one is guided to the seizing of this key?
فتفكر في خلق السموات والأرض لا فيهما وهذه إشارات لطفت معانيها فغابت في مخافيها.
So "reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth" -- not upon [the two of] them [in themselves]; and these are pointings whose meanings are subtle, so they vanish into their hiding-places.
Alludes to Āl ʿImrān 3:191 ('and they reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth'), not a tagged citation.
فإذا أخذ الإنسان في الترقي إلى صور الفكر وبلغ حد سماء هذا الأمر أنزل الصور الروحانية إلى عالم الإحساس.
So when the human takes to ascending to the forms of Thought, and reaches the limit of the heaven of this matter, he brings down the spiritual forms to the world of sensation,
glossary: fikr
واستخرج الأمور الكتمانية على غير قياس، وعرج إلى السماوات وخاطب أملاكها على اختلاف اللغات.
and draws forth the concealed matters without [discursive] analogy, and ascends to the heavens and addresses their angels upon the difference of [their] languages.
وهذا العروج نوعان:
And this ascent is two kinds:
فنوع على صراط الرحمن من عرج على هذا الصراط المستقيم إلى أن يبلغ من الفكر نقطة مركزه العظيم وجال في سطح خطه القويم، ظفر بالتجلي المصون الملقب بالدر المكنون، في الكتاب المكنون، الذي لا يمسه إلا المطهرون.
A kind upon the path of the All-Merciful (ṣirāṭ al-Raḥmān): whoever ascends upon this straight path until he reaches, of Thought, the point of its mighty center, and ranges over the surface of its straight line, attains the guarded self-disclosure, surnamed the Hidden Pearl, in the Hidden Book "which none touches but the purified" (56:79).
Qurʾān 56:79: al-Wāqiʿa 56:79, verbatim (the 'Hidden Book' alludes to 56:78) glossary: fikr, tajalli, sirat
وذلك اسم أدغم بين الكاف والنون، ومسماه إنما أمره إذا أراد شيئا أن يقول له كن فيكون.
And that is a name elided between the kāf and the nūn, and its named [object] is only [this]: "His command, when He wills a thing, is to say to it: Be! and it is" (36:82).
Qurʾān 36:82: Yā Sīn 36:82, verbatim. The witness mis-tags this as 36:83 (which is the following verse, 'fa-subḥāna lladhī bi-yadihi malakūtu kulli shayʾ'); corrected to 36:82. glossary: al-amr
وسلم المعراج إلى هذه الرقيقة هو سر الشريعة والحقيقة.
And the ladder of ascent to this subtle faculty is the secret of the Law (sharīʿa) and the Reality (ḥaqīqa).
glossary: haqiqa
وأما النوع الآخر فهو السحر الأحمر: المودع في الخيال والتصوير والمستور في الحق يحجب الباطل والتزوير.
And as for the other kind, it is the red magic (al-siḥr al-aḥmar): deposited in the imagination and the imaging, and hidden in the Real [while] it veils the false and the counterfeit.
glossary: khayal
هو معراج الخسران وصراط الشيطان إلى مستوى الخذلان كسراب بقيعة يحسبه الظمآن ماء، حتى إذا جاءه لم يجده شيئا.
It is the ascent of loss and the path of Satan to the level of abandonment, "like a mirage in a desert plain, which the thirsty one supposes to be water, until, when he comes to it, he finds it to be nothing" (24:39).
Qurʾān 24:39: al-Nūr 24:39, verbatim (al-Jīlī weaves the verse's continuation, 'and finds God with him... so He pays him his reckoning in full,' into §25-§27)
فينقلب النور نارا والقرار بوارا، فإن أخذ الله بيده وأخرجه بلطيفة ما أيده جاز منه إلى المعراج الثاني، فوجد الله عنده.
So the light turns to fire and the abode to ruin; but if God takes him by the hand and brings him forth by a subtlety with which He aids him, he crosses from it to the second ascent, and "finds God with him" (cf. 24:39).
فعلم حينئذ مأوى الحق وما به تميز في مقعد الصدق عن طريق الباطل.
So he knows then the abode of the Real and that by which it is distinguished, in the seat of truth, from the path of the false.
ومن يذهب ذهابه وأحكم الأمر الإلهي فوفاه حسابه، وإن أهمل في تلك الدار وترك على ذلك القرار نفخ ناره على ثياب طبائعه فأهلكها.
And whoever goes its going -- and [God] makes firm the divine matter, so He "pays him his reckoning in full"; but if [the wayfarer] is neglected in that abode and left upon that resting-place, [the false ascent] blows its fire upon the garments of his nature and destroys them.
ثم طلع دخانه إلى مشام روحه الأعلى فقتلها، فلا يهتدي بعدها إلى الصواب ولا يفهم معنى أم الكتاب.
Then its smoke rises to the nostrils of his highest spirit and slays it, so that he is no longer guided to what is right after it, nor understands the meaning of the Mother of the Book.
glossary: umm-al-kitab
بل كل ما تلقيه إليه من معاني الجمال أو من تنوعات الكمال يذهب به إلى ضيع الضلال.
Rather, everything you cast to him of the meanings of beauty or of the varieties of perfection, he takes off with it to the wastes of misguidance.
فيخرج به على صورة ما عنده من المحال، فلا يمكن أن يرجع إلى الحق رجعة. أولئك الذين ضل سعيهم في الحياة الدنيا وهم يحسبون أنهم يحسنون صنعا. ولقد كنت غرقت في هذا البحر الغزير، وكاد يهلكني موج قعره الخطير، وأنا يومئذ في سماع بمدينة زبيد عام تسع وسبعين وسبعمائة.
So he comes out with it upon the form of what he has of the impossible, so that he cannot return to the Real [with any] return: "those whose striving went astray in the life of this world, while they reckon that they are doing well in deed" (18:104). And indeed I had drowned in this abundant sea, and the wave of its perilous depth nearly destroyed me, and I, on that day, was at a samāʿ [spiritual audition] in the city of Zabīd, in the year seven hundred and seventy-nine [AH].
Qurʾān 18:104: al-Kahf 18:104, verbatim First of the datable autobiographical notices in the corpus: Zabīd, 779 AH (1377-78 CE).
وكان هذا السماع في بيت أخينا الشيخ العارف شهاب الدين أحمد الرداد، وكان شيخنا أستاذ الدنيا القطب الكامل والمحقق الفاضل: أبو المعروف شرف الدين إسمعيل بن إبراهيم الجبرتي حاضرا يومئذ في السماع.
And this samāʿ was in the house of our brother, the knowing shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Raddād; and our shaykh, the teacher of the world, the Perfect Pole and the excellent verifier Abū al-Maʿrūf Sharaf al-Dīn Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm al-Jabartī, was present that day at the samāʿ.
al-Jīlī names his master al-Jabartī (d. 806/1403) and his associate Aḥmad al-Raddād; key prosopographical data for the author's biography.
فناديت بأعلى صوتي: اللهم إني أعوذ بك من العلم المهلك، أدركني يا سيدي أدرك، فكان يراعيني الشيخ في نفس السماع مراعاة من له على الأمر اطلاع، فنقلني الله ببركته إلى المعراج القويم الذي هو على الصراط المستقيم صراط الله الذي له ما في السموات وما في الأرض ألا إلى الله تصير الأمور. إلا أن بين المعراجين لطيفة لكنها في لطفها عظيمة شريفة، فلو أخذنا في بيانها أو بيان من رجع لعدم عرفانها.
So I called out at the top of my voice: "O God, I take refuge in You from the destroying knowledge! Reach me, O my master, reach [me]!" And the shaykh was watching over me in the very [midst of the] samāʿ, the watching of one who has, over the matter, an [intimate] awareness; so God, by his blessing, transferred me to the upright ascent which is upon the straight path -- "the path of God, to whom belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth; surely to God do [all] matters return" (42:53). Except that between the two ascents is a subtlety, but it is, in its subtlety, mighty and noble; for were we to take to expounding it, or expounding [the state of] one who returned through the absence of knowing it,
Qurʾān 42:53: al-Shūrā 42:53, verbatim glossary: sirat
أو شرحنا حال من هلك من الأولياء في بحارها فانطبع نوره بنارها، لاحتجنا في ذلك إلى بسط يكثر عدده ويطول مدده، وقصدنا الاختصار، لا التطويل والإكثار، فلنرجع إلى ما كنا بسبيله من الكلام في الفكر.
or were we to explain the state of one who perished, of the saints, in its seas, so that his light was imprinted by its fire -- we would need, in that, an expansion whose number is many and whose duration is long; and our aim is brevity, not lengthening and increase. So let us return to what we were upon, of the discourse on Thought.
glossary: fikr
اعلم أن الله خلق الفكر المحمدي من نور اسمه الهادي الرشيد.
Know that God created the Muhammadan Thought (al-fikr al-muḥammadī) from the light of His Name the Guide, the Right-Directing (al-Hādī al-Rashīd).
glossary: fikr, haqiqa-muhammadiyya, asma
وتجلى عليه باسمه المبدىء المعيد، ثم نظر إليه بعين الباعث الشهيد.
And He disclosed Himself upon it by His Name the Originator, the Restorer (al-Mubdiʾ al-Muʿīd); then He gazed upon it by the eye of the Raiser, the Witness (al-Bāʿith al-Shahīd).
glossary: tajalli, asma
فلما حوى الفكر أسرار هذه الأسماء الحسنى، وظهر بين العالم بلباس هذه الصفات العليا.
So when Thought contained the secrets of these Beautiful Names, and appeared among the world in the garb of these lofty Attributes,
glossary: fikr, asma, sifat
خلق الله من فكر محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم أرواح ملائكة السماوات والأرض، ووكلهم بحفظ الأسافل والأعالي.
God created, from the thought of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace), the spirits of the angels of the heavens and the earth, and entrusted them with the keeping of the lowest and the highest.
glossary: haqiqa-muhammadiyya
فلا تزال العوالم محفوظة ما دامت بهذه الملائكة ملحوظة، فإذا وصل الأجل المعلوم وآن أوان الأمر المحتوم، قبض الله أرواح هذه الملائكة ونقلهم إلى عالم الغيب بذلك القبض.
So the worlds remain kept as long as they are watched over by these angels; so when the known term arrives and the time of the decreed matter comes, God seizes the spirits of these angels and transfers them to the world of the unseen by that seizing.
فالتحق الأمر بعضه ببعض وسقطت السموات بما فيها على الأرض، وانتقل الأمر إلى الآخرة كما ينتقل إلى المعاني أمر الألفاظ الظاهرة.
So the matter joins, some of it to some, and the heavens with what is in them fall upon the earth, and the matter is transferred to the Hereafter, as the matter of the outward words is transferred to the meanings.
فافهم هذه الاشارات وفك لغز هذه العبارات، تحظى بالأسرار المكتومة، وترفع حجب الأستار الموهومة.
So understand these pointings, and unlock the riddle of these expressions, [that] you may win the concealed secrets, and lift the veils of the imagined coverings.
فإذا اطلعت على هذه الأسرار، وسرت في ضياء هذه الأنوار، صنها تحت كتم العبارات، واحفظها تحت ختم الإشارات ولا تفشها، فالإفشاء خيانة.
So when you have come upon these secrets, and journeyed in the radiance of these lights, guard them under the concealment of expressions, and keep them under the seal of allusions, and do not divulge them, for divulging is treachery.
ومن فعل ذلك فقد حرم ثواب استلزام الأمانة، ورجع إلى مرتبة العوالم بعد أن كاد يبلغ الملائكة الكرام. هذا على أن إفشاءه لا يزيد السامع إلا ضلالا، ولا يفيد المخاطب إلا تقييدا واعتلالا والله يقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل.
And whoever does that has forbidden himself the reward of the keeping of the trust, and has returned to the rank of the worlds after he had nearly reached the noble angels. This [is so], granting that his divulging only increases the hearer in misguidance, and only profits the one addressed [with] restriction and infirmity. And God says the truth, and He guides to the way.
Collation. Two-witness collated as part of the cognitive-faculties cluster (Bāb 56-57), staged 2026-06-02. No lossy drop. The witness-2 file for this chapter was clean (no navigation chrome). Opens with ten of al-Jīlī's own verses (§2-§11). Contains the dated autobiographical passage (Zabīd, 779 AH; the samāʿ at Shihāb al-Dīn al-Raddād's house, with the author's master al-Jabartī present).
Qurʾān. Loci verified verbatim: al-Wāqiʿa 56:79 (none touches it but the purified), Yā Sīn 36:82 (His command... Be! and it is), al-Nūr 24:39 (the mirage), al-Kahf 18:104 (those whose striving went astray), al-Shūrā 42:53 (the path of God). NOTE: the witness mis-tags the kun-fa-yakūn verse (§21) as 'Yā Sīn 36:83'; it is 36:82 (36:83 is the following verse). Corrected.