al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 63 -- The Various Religions and Forms of Worship (the closing chapter)

ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE)

al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 63 -- The Various Religions and Forms of Worship

al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 63 (the closing chapter)

الإنسان الكامل · في سائر الأديان والعبادات

canonical early 15th c. (author d. c. 1408-1428 CE) Arabic ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE) tr. Hekhal Targum engine (claude-opus-4-8[session]); awaiting editor sign-off

The closing chapter of al-Insān al-Kāmil, and its boldest claim about religion. al-Jīlī’s thesis is that all existents are created for worship, and that everything in existence worships the one God — so that the world’s religions, however they diverge, are so many ways of worshipping the single Real, who discloses Himself in each under a different aspect. He surveys the religions in ascending order — the deniers worship God by His very Essence, the Naturalists by His four Attributes, the star-worshippers by His Names, the Dualists by His Self, the Zoroastrians by His Oneness, the Materialists by His Ipseity, the Brahmins absolutely, and the People of the Book by their prophets — down to the Muslims, who alone worship “by absoluteness,” without confining the divine to any locus. The chapter, and the book, closes on the stations of nearness and on Muhammad as the Seal: the one who had the Beginning of existence must also have its End.

Editorial note on the most interfaith-sensitive chapter of the corpus. Bāb 63 holds, at once, three things that the apparatus frames and does not endorse. (1) A profound universalism: even the idolater and the fire-worshipper “worshipped none but God,” because the Real is the reality of whatever they worship. (2) An Islam-superiority: the Muslims worship “by absoluteness” and are “called from near,” “the best community,” on “the path of God”; the Christians are the closest of the rest. (3) A supersessionist claim that, after Muhammad, those of other religions are “wretched” and “tormented in the Fire” — yet, consistent with the cessation-of-the-Fire of Bāb 58, only until “the heavens and the earth pass away,” when they too “return to the One from whom the beginning was.” Hekhal renders all three faithfully in al-Jīlī’s voice, naming them as classical-confessional and contested-Akbarian positions. al-Jīlī’s own restraint — he withholds the deepest secrets of the People of the Book’s worship “lest the ignorant be seduced from their religion” — is itself part of the picture. A second-reader framing pass is required. Genuine first-public-domain-English of the chapter that closes the book; scoping at hekhal-targum/docs/JILI-INSAN-AL-KAMIL-SCOPING.md.

All worship is worship of the One

اعلم أن اللهَ تعالى إنما خلق جميعَ الموجودات لعبادته، فهم مجبولون على ذلك مفطورون عليه من حيث الأصالة؛ فما في الوجود شيءٌ إلا وهو يعبد اللهَ تعالى بحاله ومقاله وفعاله، بل بذاته وصفاته، قال تعالى: «وما خلقتُ الجنَّ والإنسَ إلا ليعبدون»، وقال للسماوات والأرض: «ائتيا طوعًا أو كرهًا قالتا أتينا طائعين». ولكن تختلف العباداتُ لاختلاف مقتضيات الأسماء والصفات، لأن اللهَ متجلٍّ باسمه المضِلّ كما هو متجلٍّ باسمه الهادي؛ قال الله تعالى: «كان الناسُ أمةً واحدة» — يعني عبادَ الله مجبولين على طاعته من حيث الفطرة الأصلية — فبعث اللهُ النبيين مبشرين ومنذرين، ليعبده من اتبع الرسلَ من حيث اسمه الهادي، وليعبده من يخالف الرسلَ من حيث اسمه المضِلّ. فاختلف الناسُ وافترقت المللُ، وذهبت كلُّ طائفةٍ إلى ما علمته أنه صواب. فكلُّ من في الوجود عابدٌ لله، مطيعٌ لقوله: «وإن من شيءٍ إلا يسبح بحمده، ولكن لا تفقهون تسبيحهم»، لأن من تسبيحهم ما يسمى مخالفةً ومعصيةً وجحودًا.

Know that God (exalted is He) created all the existents only for His worship: they are molded upon that, fashioned upon it by their very origin; so there is nothing in existence but it worships God by its state, its speech, and its act — nay, by its essence and its attributes. God said: “I created the jinn and humankind only to worship Me” (51:56), and He said to the heavens and the earth: “Come, willingly or unwillingly!’ — they said: ‘We come willingly’” (41:11). But the worships differ, by the difference of what the Names and Attributes require — for God is disclosed by His Name “the Misleader” (al-Muḍill) as He is disclosed by His Name “the Guide” (al-Hādī). God said: “Humankind was one community” (2:213) — meaning the servants of God, molded upon obedience to Him by their original nature — then God sent the prophets, bearers of glad tidings and warners, so that those who follow the messengers might worship Him by [the trace of] His Name “the Guide,” and those who oppose the messengers might worship Him by His Name “the Misleader.” So the people differed, and the religions divided, and each group went to what it knew to be right. And so everything in existence is a worshipper of God, obedient to His saying: “There is nothing but it glorifies His praise, yet you do not understand their glorification” (17:44) — for among their glorification is what is called opposition, disobedience, and denial.

The thesis: every religion worships the one God. al-Jīlī opens the book’s final argument on its most universalist note: all existents are “created for worship” and all of them worship God, “by their state, speech, act — nay, by their essence.” The diversity of religions follows from the diversity of the divine Names: God discloses Himself as “the Guide” and as “the Misleader,” so that even “opposition, disobedience, and denial” are, on the reading of “there is nothing but it glorifies His praise” (Qurʾān 17:44), a hidden form of worship. The Qurʾānic “humankind was one community” (Qurʾān 2:213) is read as the original fiṭra of worship from which the religions diverged. This frames the whole chapter: the religions are not so many false paths but so many refracted worships of the single Real, who is the reality disclosed in each.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

ثم إن اللهَ أظهر في هذه المللِ حقائقَ أسمائه وصفاته، فتجلَّى في جميعها بذاته، فعبدته جميعُ الطوائف. فأما الكفارُ فإنهم عبدوه بالذات، لأنه لما كان الحقُّ حقيقةَ الوجود بأسره، والكفارُ من جملة الوجود، هو حقيقتهم، فكفروا أن يكون لهم ربٌّ، لأنه تعالى حقيقتهم ولا ربَّ له، بل هو الربُّ المطلق؛ فعبدوه من حيث ما تقتضيه ذواتُهم التي هو عينُها. ثم من عبد منهم الوثنَ، فلِسرِّ وجوده سبحانه بكماله بلا حلولٍ ولا مزجٍ في كل فردٍ من أفراد ذرات الوجود، فكان تعالى حقيقةَ تلك الأوثان التي يعبدونها، فما عبدوا إلا الله، ولم يفتقر ذلك إلى علمهم ولا إلى نياتهم، لأن الحقائقَ ولو طال إخفاؤها لا بد أن تظهر على ساقٍ على ما هو الأمرُ عليه. وقال تعالى: «كلُّ حزبٍ بما لديهم فرحون».

Then God made manifest, in these religions, the realities of His Names and Attributes, and disclosed Himself by His Essence in all of them, so all the groups worshipped Him. As for the deniers (al-kuffār), they worshipped Him by the Essence: for since the Real is the reality of existence in its entirety, and the deniers are part of existence, He is their reality — so they denied that they have a Lord, because He (exalted is He) is their reality and has no Lord, but is rather the Absolute Lord; so they worshipped Him in the manner their own essences require, which He is the very being of. Then whoever of them worshipped the idol [did so] by the secret of His existence (glory be His) in His completeness — without indwelling (ḥulūl) or mixing — in every single one of the atoms of existence; so He (exalted is He) was the reality of those idols they worship, and they worshipped none but God. And that did not depend on their knowledge, nor need their intentions; for the realities, however long their concealment, must at last stand forth as the matter [truly] is. And God said: “Every faction rejoices in what it has” (30:32).

The deniers and idolaters: worship by the Essence. al-Jīlī begins the survey at the bottom and makes the startling claim that even al-kuffār — the deniers — and the idolaters worship God, recorded here in his voice and squarely framed: on the waḥdat al-wujūd premise that “the Real is the reality of existence in its entirety,” the denier’s very being is God, so his “denial” of a Lord is a kind of essential worship; and the idolater, since God is present “without indwelling or mixing in every atom,” is in fact “the reality of the idols,” so “they worshipped none but God.” The claim is metaphysical, not approbative: al-Jīlī is not endorsing idolatry but reading it, through the unity of being, as an unwitting worship of the one Real — and the chapter will rank it far below the absolute worship of the Muslims. The reading is his contested Akbarian position; Hekhal records and frames it.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

وأما الطبائعيون فإنهم عبدوه من حيث صفاتُه الأربع، لأن الأوصافَ الإلهية — الحياة والعلم والقدرة والإرادة — أصلُ بناء الوجود، فالحرارةُ والبرودة والرطوبة واليبوسة مظاهرُها. وأما الفلاسفةُ فعبدوه من حيث أسماؤه، لأن النجوم مظاهرُ أسمائه: فالشمسُ مظهرُ اسمه «الله»، والقمرُ مظهرُ اسمه «الرحمن»، والمشتري مظهرُ اسمه «الرب»، وزُحَل مظهرُ «الواحدية»، والمريخُ مظهرُ «القدرة»، والزهرةُ مظهرُ «الإرادة»، وعطارد مظهرُ «العلم». وأما الثنويةُ فعبدوه من حيث نفسُه تعالى، لأنه جمع الأضدادَ بنفسه، فظهر في الأنوار من حيث الحقيقة الحقية، وفي الظلمة من حيث الحقيقة الخلقية، فعبدوا النورَ والظلمة لهذا السر الجامع للضدين، فسموا النورَ يزدان والظلمةَ أهرمن. وأما المجوسُ فعبدوه من حيث الأحدية، فكما أن الأحدية مُفنيةٌ لجميع المراتب والأسماء، كذلك النارُ مُفنيةٌ لجميع الطبائع، فعبدوا النارَ وما عبدوا إلا الواحدَ القهار. وأما الدهريةُ فعبدوه من حيث الهوية، قال عليه الصلاة والسلام: «لا تسبوا الدهرَ فإن الله هو الدهر». وأما البراهمةُ فيعبدون اللهَ مطلقًا لا من حيث نبيٍّ ولا رسول، فهم مقرّون بوحدانية الله لكنهم ينكرون الأنبياءَ مطلقًا.

As for the Naturalists, they worshipped Him by His four Attributes — for the divine Attributes (life, knowledge, power, and will) are the foundation of the building of existence, and heat, cold, moisture, and dryness are their loci of manifestation. As for the Philosophers, they worshipped Him by His Names, for the stars are the loci of His Names: the Sun is the locus of His Name “Allāh,” the Moon of “the All-Merciful,” Jupiter of “the Lord,” Saturn of “Unicity,” Mars of “Power,” Venus of “Will,” and Mercury of “Knowledge.” As for the Dualists, they worshipped Him by His very Self, for He gathers the contraries in Himself, appearing in the lights by the reckoning of the Real-reality and in the darkness by the reckoning of the created-reality; so they worshipped light and darkness, by this secret that gathers the two contraries, and named the light Yazdān and the darkness Ahriman. As for the Zoroastrians (al-Majūs), they worshipped Him by Oneness: for just as Oneness annihilates all the ranks and the Names, so fire annihilates all the natures — so they worshipped fire, and worshipped none but the One, the Subduer. As for the Materialists (al-Dahriyya), they worshipped Him by Ipseity: he (God bless him and grant him peace) said, “Do not revile Time (al-dahr), for God is Time.” As for the Brahmins, they worship God absolutely — not by way of any prophet or messenger — so they affirm the oneness of God, but they deny the prophets absolutely.

The survey: each religion worships a divine aspect. al-Jīlī’s signature move is to read each religion as the worship of the one Real under a particular divine aspect: the Naturalists worship Him through the four Attributes (mapped onto the four natures), the star-worshipping Philosophers through the Names (each planet a Name — the Sun “Allāh,” the Moon “the All-Merciful,” and so on), the Dualists through the Self that “gathers the contraries” (light and darkness, Yazdān and Ahriman), the Zoroastrians through Oneness (fire as the annihilator, like aḥadiyya), the Materialists through Ipseity (on the hadith “God is Time”), and the Brahmins absolutely but without prophets. It is a remarkable exercise in reading the history of religions as a single, refracted theology — each tradition seizing a true aspect of the one Real, none (short of the absolute worship to come) grasping Him whole. The reading is al-Jīlī’s; Hekhal records and frames it.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

فما في الوجود شيءٌ إلا وقد عُبد، وكلُّهم عبادُ الله على الحقيقة لأجل وجود الحق فيها؛ فمن عبده على الإطلاق فهو موحِّد، ومن عبده على التقييد فهو مشرك. إلا المحمديون فإنهم عبدوه من حيث الإطلاق، بغير تقييدٍ بشيءٍ من أجزاء المحدثات، فكان طريقهم صراطَ الله إلى ذاته، فلهذا فازوا بدرجة القرب من أول قدم، فهؤلاء الذين أشار إليهم الحقُّ بقوله: «أولئك ينادَون من مكانٍ قريب». بخلاف من عبده من حيث الجهة وقيَّده بمظهرٍ كالطبائع أو الكواكب أو الوثن، فإنهم المشار إليهم بقوله: «أولئك ينادَون من مكانٍ بعيد»، لأنهم لا يرجعون إليه إلا من حيث ذلك المظهر الذي عبدوه؛ وذلك عينُ البعد الذي نودوا إليه. وبعد الوصول إلى المنزل يتحد من نودي من قريبٍ ومن نودي من بعيد، فافهم.

So there is nothing in existence but it has been worshipped, and all of them are worshippers of God in truth, by reason of the existence of the Real within [what they worship]; so whoever worships Him by absoluteness is a unitarian (muwaḥḥid), and whoever worships Him by restriction is an idolater (mushrik). Except the Muhammadans, for they worshipped Him by absoluteness, without restricting Him to anything of the parts of the originated things — so their path was the path of God to His Essence, and for this they won the rank of nearness from the first step; these are the ones the Real pointed to in His saying: “Those are called from a near place.” This is unlike the one who worshipped Him by direction and confined Him to a locus — the natures, or the stars, or the idol — for they are the ones pointed to in His saying: “Those are called from a far place” (41:44), because they return to Him only by way of that locus which they worshipped; and that is the very distance to which they were called. But after the arrival at the destination, the one called from near and the one called from far become one. So understand.

The hinge of the doctrine: absolute versus restricted worship. Here al-Jīlī states the distinction that organizes the whole survey and the chapter’s range card: all worship the one Real, but the decisive difference is between worship “by absoluteness” (bi-l-iṭlāq) and worship “by restriction” (bi-l-taqyīd). The one who confines the divine to a locus — a nature, a star, an idol — is the mushrik, “called from a far place,” reaching God only through that one locus; the Muhammadan, who worships God “without restricting Him to anything,” is the muwaḥḥid, “called from near,” whose path is “the path of God to His Essence.” (The “near-calling” is al-Jīlī’s deliberate contrast-coinage, set against the verbatim “far-calling” of Qurʾān 41:44; the Qurʾānic “from a near place” is Qurʾān 50:41.) The universalism is thus held in tension with a clear hierarchy — yet even the tension resolves: “after the arrival at the destination, the one called from near and the one called from far become one.”

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

The People of the Book, the Muslims, and the close

ولو أخذنا في الكلام على أسرار تعبدات أهل الكتاب وما فيها من الأسرار الإلهية، خشينا على كثيرٍ من الجهال أن يغترّوا به فيخرجوا عن دينهم لعدم علمهم بأسراره؛ فلنمسك عن إظهار أسرار تعبداتهم. وأما النصارى فإنهم أقربُ من جميع الأمم الماضية إلى الحق تعالى، فهم دون المحمديين، وسببُه أنهم طلبوا اللهَ فعبدوه في عيسى ومريم وروح القدس، وقالوا بعدم التجزئة، وكلُّ هذا تنزيهٌ في تشبيهٍ لائقٍ بالجانب الإلهي؛ لكنهم لما حصروا ذلك في هؤلاء الثلاثة نزلوا عن درجة الموحدين، غير أنهم أقربُ من غيرهم إلى المحمديين، لأن من شهد اللهَ في الإنسان كان شهودُه أكملَ من جميع من شهد اللهَ من أنواع المخلوقات. فشهودُهم ذلك في الحقيقة العيسوية يئول بهم، إذا انكشف الأمرُ على ساقٍ، إلى أن يعلموا أن بني آدمَ كمرايا متقابلة، فيشهدون اللهَ في أنفسهم فيوحدونه على الإطلاق، فينقلبون إلى درجة الموحدين، لكن بعد جوازهم على صراط البعد، وهو التقييدُ والحصرُ المتحكِّم في عقائدهم.

And were we to enter upon the secrets of the worship-practices of the People of the Book and the divine secrets within them, we would fear, for many of the ignorant, that they be seduced by it and go out from their religion through their ignorance of its secrets; so let us refrain from disclosing the secrets of their worships. As for the Christians, they are the nearest of all the past nations to the Real (exalted is He) — they are below the Muhammadans — and the cause of it is that they sought God and worshipped Him in Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Spirit, and held [Him] to be without partition; and all of this is a transcendence-within-likening befitting the divine side. But when they confined that to these three, they descended below the rank of the unitarians; yet they are nearer than others to the Muhammadans, for whoever witnesses God in the human, his witnessing is more complete than all who witness God among the kinds of creatures. So their witnessing [Him] in the reality of Jesus will bring them, when the matter is unveiled as it [truly] is, to know that the children of Adam are facing mirrors, in each of which is what is in the other — so they will witness God in themselves and affirm His oneness absolutely, and turn to the rank of the unitarians, but after their passage over the path of distance, which is the restriction and confinement that governs their beliefs.

The Christians as “the nearest,” and al-Jīlī’s restraint. Two notable moves close the survey of the People of the Book. First, al-Jīlī’s restraint: he declines to expound the divine secrets in Jewish and Christian worship, fearing the ignorant “be seduced and go out from their religion” — a striking pastoral caution that itself frames his universalism (it is not a flattening of the religions but a careful reading he will not put in untrained hands). Second, his remarkable estimate of Christianity as “the nearest of all the past nations to the Real,” below only the Muhammadans: the Christians “sought God and worshipped Him in Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Spirit,” which al-Jīlī reads not as crude anthropomorphism but as “a transcendence-within-likening befitting the divine side”; their error was only to “confine” the divine to “these three.” Because “whoever witnesses God in the human” witnesses Him most completely, their witnessing in “the reality of Jesus” will, when unveiled, lead them to witness God in themselves and to absolute unity. This is among the most generous readings of Christianity in the classical Sufi tradition; recorded in al-Jīlī’s voice and framed.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

وأما المسلمون فإنهم كما أخبر اللهُ عنهم: «كنتم خيرَ أمةٍ أُخرجت للناس»، لأن نبيَّهم محمدًا صلى الله عليه وسلم خيرُ الأنبياء، ودينَه خيرُ الأديان، فدينُه أكملُ الأديان وأمتُه خيرُ الأمم. وكلُّ من هو بخلافهم من سائر الأمم، بعد بعثة محمدٍ صلى الله عليه وسلم بالرسالة، فإنه ضالٌّ شقيٌّ معذَّبٌ بالنار، فلا يرجعون إلى الرحمة إلا بعد أبد الآبدين، لِسبق الرحمة الغضبَ؛ قال الله تعالى: «ومن يبتغِ غير الإسلام دينًا فلن يُقبل منه وهو في الآخرة من الخاسرين». وقد أخبرك اللهُ أنهم باقون فيها ما دامت السماواتُ والأرض، فلا ينتقلون منها إلى الرحمة إلا بعد زوال السماوات والأرض، فحينئذٍ يدور بهم الدورُ ويرجعون إلى الشيء الذي كان منه البدءُ، وهو الله تعالى، فافهم. والمسلمون كلُّهم سعداءُ بمتابعة محمدٍ صلى الله عليه وسلم؛ فالمسلمون على الصراط المستقيم، وهو الطريق الموصِل إلى السعادة من غير مشقة، والموحدون منهم — أعني أهلَ حقيقة التوحيد — على صراط الله، وهذا الصراط أخصُّ وأفضل، فإنه عبارة عن تنوُّعات تجليات الحق لنفسه بنفسه.

As for the Muslims, they are as God reported of them: “You are the best community brought forth for humankind” (3:110), because their Prophet, Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace), is the best of the prophets, and his religion the best of religions; so his religion is the most complete of religions, and his community the best of communities. And everyone other than them, of the remaining nations, after the mission of Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) with the messengership, is astray, wretched, tormented in the Fire; they do not return to mercy except after the endless end of ages — by the precedence of mercy over wrath. God said: “Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion, it will not be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he is among the losers” (3:85). And God has informed you that they remain in it as long as the heavens and the earth endure — so they do not pass from it to mercy except after the passing-away of the heavens and the earth; and then the cycle turns with them, and they return to the thing from which the beginning was, which is God (exalted is He) — so understand. And the Muslims are all felicitous by following Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace); the Muslims are upon the straight path, which is the road that leads to felicity without hardship; and the unitarians among them — I mean the people of the reality of oneness — are upon the path of God, and this path is more particular and more excellent, for it is the varieties of the self-disclosures of the Real to Himself by Himself.

The Muslims, and the hard saying held in tension. Here al-Jīlī states the Islam-superiority and supersessionist side of his teaching plainly, and it must be read alongside the universalism, not instead of it. The Muslims are “the best community” (Qurʾān 3:110), worshipping by absoluteness on “the straight path”; and those who, after Muhammad, follow another religion are “astray, wretched, tormented in the Fire” (on Qurʾān 3:85). But the torment is bounded by the cessation-of-the-Fire of Bāb 58: they remain “as long as the heavens and the earth endure,” and “after the passing-away of the heavens and the earth… return to the thing from which the beginning was, which is God.” The chapter thus holds together, in al-Jīlī’s voice, a strict confessional hierarchy and a final, universal return — the wretchedness real but temporary, the mercy that “precedes wrath” having the last word. All of this is recorded and framed, not endorsed; mainstream Sunni theology affirms the superiority of Islam but rejects the temporal limit on Hell.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

ثم اعلم أن هذا القربَ هو الجوار، وأولُ حضرات هذا المقام الخُلّة، وهو أن يتخلَّل العبدُ بالحق تعالى، فتظهر في جميع أجزاء جسده آثارُ التخلُّل، بأن تنفعل الأشياءُ له بلفظة «كن»، وأن يُبرئ العللَ والأمراض، وأن يقدر على التصور بكل صورة بتمام هيكله. وهذا معنى قوله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «لا يزال عبدي يتقرب إليَّ بالنوافل حتى أحبه، فإذا أحببته كنتُ سمعَه الذي يسمع به، وبصرَه الذي يبصر به، ولسانَه الذي ينطق به، ويدَه التي يبطش بها، ورجلَه التي يمشي بها». فإذا كان الحقُّ سمعَه وبصره، كان ذلك العبدُ خليلَ الله، أي تخلَّلته أنوارُ الحق. ومن هنا تفرَّد محمدٌ صلى الله عليه وسلم بالكمال، فختم الكمالاتِ والمقاماتِ الإلهية باطنًا، وشهد له بذلك ختمُه لمقام الرسالة ظاهرًا. ومقامُ القربة هو المقامُ المحمود والوسيلة، وينبغي أن يُعتقد ذلك بمحمدٍ صلى الله عليه وسلم، وقد أشار إليه بقوله: «إن الوسيلة أعلى مكانٍ في الجنة، ولا تكون إلا لواحد، وأرجو أن أكون أنا ذلك الرجل»، لأنه كان له البدءُ في الوجود، فلا بد أن يكون له الختامُ، عليه أفضلُ الصلاة والسلام. والله يقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل. تَمَّ الكتاب.

Then know that this nearness is the neighboring [of God], and the first of the Presences of this station is intimate friendship (al-khulla), which is that the servant be interpenetrated by the Real (exalted is He), so that the traces of the interpenetration appear in all the parts of his body — such that things respond to him by the word “Be,” and he heals the sicknesses and diseases, and is able to take form in every form with the whole of his frame. And this is the meaning of his saying (God bless him and grant him peace): “My servant ceaselessly draws near to Me by the supererogatory acts until I love him; and when I love him, I am his hearing by which he hears, his sight by which he sees, his tongue by which he speaks, his hand by which he grasps, and his foot by which he walks.” So when the Real is his hearing and his sight, that servant is the intimate friend of God (khalīl Allāh) — that is, the lights of the Real have interpenetrated him. And from here Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) was singled out by completeness: he sealed the divine perfections and stations inwardly, and his sealing of the station of messengership outwardly bears witness to that. The station of nearness is the Praised Station and the Means (al-Wasīla); and it is fitting that this be held [of] Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace), for he pointed to it in his saying: “The Means is the highest place in the Garden; it is only for a single man, and I hope that I am that man” — because he had the Beginning in existence, so he must have the Seal. Upon him be the most excellent of blessings and peace. And God says the truth, and He guides to the way. The book is complete.

The close: from the religions to the Seal, and the end of the book. al-Jīlī gathers the long survey back to the center of his work. The “nearness” the absolute worshipper attains is the station of khulla (intimate friendship), in which “the Real interpenetrates” the servant — glossed once more by the ḥadīth al-nawāfil (the Real becomes the servant’s hearing, sight, hand) — the doctrine of the saint as locus that has run through the whole book (cf. Bāb 39, 50). And the summit of nearness is the Praised Station, the Wasīla, “for a single man” — Muhammad, the Perfect Human of Bāb 60, who “sealed the divine perfections inwardly” as he sealed prophethood outwardly. The book ends on the symmetry that has governed it from the start: “he had the Beginning in existence, so he must have the Seal.” With “the book is complete” (tamma al-kitāb), al-Jīlī’s al-Insān al-Kāmil closes.

AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

An orientation

Bāb 63 closes the book on its most expansive claim: that the world’s religions are so many refracted worships of the single Real, who is the reality disclosed in each. al-Jīlī surveys them as a single, ascending theology — the deniers worshipping God by His Essence, the Naturalists by His four Attributes, the star-worshippers by His Names, the Dualists by His Self, the Zoroastrians by His Oneness, the Materialists by His Ipseity, the Brahmins absolutely, the Christians (the nearest of the past nations) in the reality of Jesus, and the Muslims alone “by absoluteness,” without confining the divine to any locus. The organizing distinction is between worship “by restriction” (the idolater, “called from afar”) and worship “by absoluteness” (the unitarian, “called from near”) — a hierarchy that nonetheless resolves: “after the arrival at the destination, the one called from near and the one called from far become one.” The chapter, and the book, ends on the stations of nearness and on Muhammad as the Wasīla and the Seal: the one who had the Beginning must have the End.

This is the most interfaith-sensitive chapter of the corpus, and the most mission-relevant for Hekhal, and it is handled per Hekhal’s editorial law — combining the interfaith frame of Bāb 36-38 with the cessation-of-the-Fire frame of Bāb 58. al-Jīlī’s three positions are rendered faithfully in his voice and framed in the apparatus, not endorsed: the universalism (all worship the one God), the Islam-superiority (the Muslims worship by absoluteness, the best community), and the supersessionist hard saying (the non-Muslims after Muhammad “wretched” and “tormented” — but only until the heavens and earth pass away, when they too “return to the One from whom the beginning was”). Glossary v0.19 ratified one capstone term: ibada-mutlaqa-muqayyada (worship by absoluteness and by restriction), the key to the whole universalist reading. Comparison tab empty of a public-domain predecessor: first-PD-English of the chapter that closes the book.

Audit trail: model claude-opus-4-8[session], glossary revision akbarian-sufism-v0.19, frame zahir-batin, drafted 2026-06-02. Source fidelity HIGH on the rendered prose, two-witness collated during staging (ibnalarabi.com id=66 collated span-by-span against the archive.org OCR: 91% content-word corroborated, no lossy drops; the OCR’s “tamma al-kitāb” confirms the chapter is the book’s end). All Qurʾānic citations verified verbatim, all loci correct; one nuance noted (the “near-calling” is al-Jīlī’s analogical contrast to the verbatim “far-calling” of Qurʾān 41:44). The doctrinal spine is rendered; the detailed worship-secrets and the long stations-of-nearness exposition are compressed in the notes, transparently. The Python audit harness was not run (RAG dependency unavailable); the discipline stands on the in-session hardened protocol plus the staging-time collation and canonical verification. Status machine-assisted; not deployed; pending editor sign-off, with a required second-reader pass on the framing.

Apparatus

All worship is worship of the One

The chapter’s thesis: all existents are “created for worship,” and everything worships the one God, the diversity of religions following from the diversity of the divine Names (al-Hādī / al-Muḍill) and resting on “there is nothing but it glorifies His praise” (Qurʾān 17:44) and “humankind was one community” (Qurʾān 2:213). al-Jīlī surveys the religions as worship of the one Real under different aspects: the deniers by the Essence, the Naturalists by the four Attributes, the Philosophers by the Names (the planets), the Dualists by the Self, the Zoroastrians by Oneness, the Materialists by Ipseity, the Brahmins absolutely. Even idolatry is read, on the unity of being, as unwitting worship of the Real “present in every atom without indwelling.” Qurʾān 51:56; 41:11; 2:213; 17:44; 30:32

Absolute versus restricted worship; the Christians as the nearest

The organizing distinction: worship “by restriction” (bi-l-taqyīd, confining the divine to a locus — the idolater, “called from afar,” Qurʾān 41:44) versus worship “by absoluteness” (bi-l-iṭlāq, the Muslim unitarian, “called from near”); yet “after the arrival, the near-called and the far-called become one.” Among the People of the Book, al-Jīlī rates the Christians “the nearest of the past nations,” for “whoever witnesses God in the human witnesses Him most completely” — their worship “in the reality of Jesus” will, unveiled, lead them to witness God in themselves; their only error was to “confine” the divine to the three. He pointedly withholds the deeper secrets of Jewish and Christian worship “lest the ignorant be seduced.” Qurʾān 41:44 (the far-calling; the near-calling is al-Jīlī’s coinage, cf. 50:41)

The Muslims, the hard saying, and the close

al-Jīlī states the Islam-superiority plainly (the Muslims “the best community,” Qurʾān 3:110, on the straight path) and the supersessionist hard saying (those after Muhammad who follow another religion “wretched, tormented in the Fire,” Qurʾān 3:85) — but bounds the torment by the cessation-of-the-Fire of Bāb 58 (“they do not pass to mercy except after the passing-away of the heavens and the earth,” when they “return to the One from whom the beginning was”). The book closes on the stations of nearness (the ḥadīth al-nawāfil; the khulla of Abraham) and Muhammad as the Wasīla and Seal — “he had the Beginning in existence, so he must have the Seal” — ending with tamma al-kitāb. Qurʾān 3:110; 3:85; 3:185; the ḥadīth al-nawāfil (Bukhārī 6502)

العبادة المطلقة والمقيدة (al-ʿibāda al-muṭlaqa wa-l-muqayyada) → worship by absoluteness and worship by restriction

Active sense: worship by absoluteness / by restriction. Selected: worship by absoluteness and worship by restriction. Rationale: the key of al-Jīlī’s universalist reading — every group worships the one Real, but those who worship “by restriction” (confining the divine to a locus: a nature, a star, an idol) are “called from a far place” (Qurʾān 41:44), while those who worship “by absoluteness” (the Muslims / unitarians) are “called from near”; after arrival the two unite. The whole chapter’s hierarchy and its universalism turn on this pair. Render it consistently; do NOT flatten to “free/bound” or “unconditional/conditional.” Glossary v0.19; lexicon proposed.

الهادي / المضل (al-Hādī / al-Muḍill) → the Guide / the Misleader

Rationale (carried, not a new glossary key): al-Jīlī grounds the diversity of religions in the two divine Names — God discloses Himself as “the Guide” (those who follow the messengers) and as “the Misleader” (those who oppose them), so that even “denial” is a hidden worship. Render “the Guide / the Misleader” (the divine Names) consistently; the pair is the theological engine of the chapter’s reading of religious difference, and must not be softened (e.g. to “the one who lets stray”).

No public-domain predecessor exists

Genuine first-public-domain-English of the book’s closing chapter; the Comparison surface is empty of a predecessor. Nicholson 1921 (PD) discusses al-Jīlī’s view of the religions thematically and renders fragments, but does not give Bāb 63 as a continuous translation; Burckhardt’s Universal Man (copyrighted) covers only the opening quarter. Full landscape in hekhal-targum/docs/JILI-INSAN-AL-KAMIL-SCOPING.md.

Fidelity: HIGH on the rendered prose, two-witness collated during staging (91% content-word corroborated; all Qurʾānic loci verified, correct). Scope: the doctrinal spine of the universalist survey and the close is rendered; the detailed esoteric worship-secrets (the Sabbath, the fasts, the prayer/hajj secrets — al-Jīlī himself withholds the deepest People-of-the-Book ones) and the long stations-of-nearness exposition are compressed in the notes. The hadith are flagged for grading vs print.

The unity of the religions

al-Jīlī’s reading — that all religions, however divergent, worship the one Real under different aspects, and will at the last return to Him — is the Islamic peak of the perennialist and universalist current that recurs across traditions: the Neoplatonic “the wise alone know the truth under many names,” the late-antique and Renaissance prisca theologia and Cusa’s “one religion in the variety of rites” (De pace fidei), the Kabbalistic and Hasidic readings of the divine sparks scattered through all things, and the modern perennial philosophy that drew, in part, on al-Jīlī’s own school. The structure is shared (one Real, many refractions); the content differs, and al-Jīlī holds it in tension with a strict confessional hierarchy. Cross-tradition relation: shared-one-truth-many-rites.

The mercy that has the last word

The teaching that even the wretched of other religions are tormented only “until the heavens and the earth pass away,” then “return to the One from whom the beginning was,” is the universalist-eschatology of Bāb 58 applied to the nations — the cousin of the Christian apokatastasis (the hope that “God may be all in all”) and the rabbinic limits on Gehinnom. The chapter’s most generous note — the Christians as “the nearest” because they “witnessed God in the human” — rhymes, structurally, with the mutual recognitions that the contemplative traditions have occasionally extended to one another across confessional lines. al-Jīlī holds the hierarchy and the final reconciliation together, as he holds height and abasement together throughout the work. Cross-tradition relation: shared-final-return-of-all.

Within the al-Jīlī corpus

The chapter gathers the whole book: the worship-by-the-Names rests on the divine Names of the ontological chapters; the absolute worship of the Muslims is the tawḥīd the work expounds; the temporary torment is the cessation-of-the-Fire of Bāb 58; the stations of nearness and the ḥadīth al-nawāfil continue Bāb 50-51; and the close on Muhammad as the Wasīla and Seal returns to the Perfect Human of Bāb 60. The book ends where it centers: the one who had the Beginning has the Seal.

Model: claude-opus-4-8[session] (Path B, in-session engine). Glossary revision: akbarian-sufism-v0.19 (one capstone term ratified — ibada-mutlaqa-muqayyada; collision-checked; YAML validated, 78 entries). Frame controller: zahir-batin. Drafted at: 2026-06-02.

Source-text attestation: HIGH, two-witness collated during staging. Witness 1: archive.org OCR print edition (full-book-ocr.txt; Bāb 63 ~444916-499764, the book ends at “tamma al-kitāb”). Witness 2: ibnalarabi.com digital matn (kamil.php?id=66, Dr. M. A. Haj Yusuf). The collation ran as part of staging: 91% content-word corroborated (a 2847-content-word chapter, the longest in the book; dips are OCR variants, not absences); no lossy drop. Qurʾānic citations verified verbatim, all loci correct; one nuance: the “near-calling” (P4) is al-Jīlī’s analogical contrast-coinage to the verbatim “far-calling” of Qurʾān 41:44 (the Qurʾānic “min makānin qarīb” is Qurʾān 50:41).

Scope + citations: the doctrinal spine of the universalist survey and the close rendered; the detailed worship-secrets (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) and the long stations-of-nearness exposition compressed in the notes. Hadith flagged for grading vs print: “kullu muyassarin li-mā khuliqa lahu” (Muslim, sound); “lā tasubbū l-dahr” (Muslim, sound); “istafti qalbak” (disputed); the ḥadīth al-nawāfil (Bukhārī 6502, sound); the Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī dream-report. sunnah.com remains a JS-shell (routed to PHASE-2 [P2.2b]). In-session self-audit per the hardened protocol.

Status: machine-assisted; not deployed; pending editor sign-off. A second-reader framing pass is required — this is the most interfaith-sensitive chapter of the corpus, combining the universalism, the Islam-superiority, and the supersessionist-but-temporary-damnation, all recorded in al-Jīlī’s voice and framed against the mainstream (which affirms Islam’s superiority but rejects the temporal limit on Hell). al-Jīlī’s own restraint (withholding the People-of-the-Book secrets) is a framing datum. One glossary entry ratified at v0.19; lexicon page proposed. This chapter closes the book proper (Bāb 32-63 now complete); only the opening ontological band (Bāb 1-31) remains.