In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.
Chapter 65: On Knowing the Garden, Its Dwellings and Degrees, and What Pertains to This Chapter
The degrees of the sensible Garden are divided
into dwellings, and deeds seek them.
For every doer, his mounts carry him
to them, and God's messengers veil them.
The Garden of Special Favor, which opened wide
for those honored, is followed by the Gardens of Inheritance.
Once we took light from the radiance of the stars.
Today our light in Eden sets its stars aglow.
Had our mount been a path other than that of revealed Law,
that mount would have vanished with the coming of revealed Law.
A righteous deed prescribed by the Law brings it forth as light,
and from its own substance clothes it in majesty.
(The Sensible Garden and the Intelligible Garden)
Know, may God strengthen us and you, that the Garden is of two kinds, a sensible Garden
Notes
Translator’s note TN1279-1: “Sensible” and “intelligible” render the distinction between what is experienced through the senses and what is experienced through knowledge and meanings. In the compressed verse about mounts and veiling, the pronouns referring to the Garden’s dwellings and to the mount have been kept where the Arabic allows more than one attachment. The local Maymaniya parallel, page 317, reads “path of the Throne” in place of “path of revealed Law.”
