In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.
Chapter 54: On Knowing Allusions
Knowledge of allusion brings near and sets far away.
Its journey through you goes by day and by night.
Examine it, for God has made it
for one in whom falsehood and deviation arise
an admonition that protects him to whom God said,
“Be,” and he stood forth in being, while the people were made to witness.
(The Meaning of Allusion, Distance, and the Presence of Another)
Know, may God strengthen us and you with a spirit from Him, that allusion for the people of God’s path signals distance or the presence of another. One of the shaykhs said in The Beauties of the Gatherings, “Allusion is a call from the farthest point of distance and an open declaration of the very ailment.” He means that it openly declares the presence of illness, for the word ʿillah means an ailment. This is what we mean by “or the presence of another.” By ʿillah he does not mean a ground or a cause in the technical usage of rational thinkers.
The ailment takes this form. The person making the allusion has lost sight of the face of the Real in that other. When someone loses sight of the face of the Real in things, pretension takes hold of him, and pretension is the very ailment.
Notes
Translator’s note TN1123-1: Ishārah can be an allusion in words or a gesture of pointing. The latter sense matters in the example of Mary on the next page. The opening verse is compressed. This rendering takes “an admonition” as what God made allusion to be and “falsehood and deviation” as arising in the one to whom it is directed. The final expression leaves open exactly how the people witness.
