Manuscript volume 5 · Page 32

ولا نارا ولا شيئا من أسباب الآخرة. ولا علموا أن ثم آخرة وبعثا محسوسا بعد الموت في أجسام طبيعية، ودارا فيها أكل وشرب ولباس ونكاح وفرح، ودارا فيها عذاب وآلام.

فإن وجود ذٰلك ممكن وعدمه ممكن، ولا دليل لهم في ترجيح أحد الممكنين، بل ﴿رَهْبانِيَّةً ابْتَدَعُوها﴾. فلهٰذا كان مبني نواميسهم ومصالحهم على إبقاء الصلاح في هذه الدار.

(بحث العقلاء عن المبدأ الأول)

ثم انفردوا في نفوسهم بالعلوم الإلهية من توحيد الله وما ينبغي لجلاله من التعظيم والتقديس وصفات التنزيه وعدم المثل والشبيه. ونبه من يدري ومن علم ذٰلك من لا يدري، وحرضوا الناس على النظر الصحيح، وأعلموهم أن للعقول من حيث أفكارها حدا تقف عنده لا تتجاوزه، وأن لله على قلوب بعض عباده فيضا إلهيا يعلمهم فيه من لدنه علما، ولم يبعد ذٰلك عندهم. وإن الله قد أودع في العالَم العلوي أمورا استدلوا عليها بوجود آثارها في العالَم العنصري، وهو قوله تعالى: ﴿وأَوْحى في كُلِّ سَماءٍ أَمْرَها﴾ [فصلت: ١٢].

فبحثوا عن حقائق نفوسهم لما رأوا أن الصورة الجسدية إذا ماتت ما نقص من أعضائها شيء، فعلموا أن المدرك والمحرك لهٰذا الجسد إنما هو أمر آخر زائد عليه. فبحثوا عن ذٰلك الأمر الزائد فعرفوا نفوسهم، ثم رأوا أنه يعلم بعد ما كان يجهل،

or Fire or anything pertaining to the means of the Hereafter. Nor did they know that there is a Hereafter and a sensible resurrection after death in natural bodies, with an abode of eating, drinking, clothing, marriage, and joy, and an abode of punishment and pains.

The existence of this is possible and its nonexistence is possible, and they have no proof that gives preponderance to one of the two possibilities. Rather, there is “a monasticism they invented.” The basis of their ordinances and provisions for the common good was therefore the preservation of good order in this abode.

(The Inquiry of People of Sound Reason into the First Principle)

Then they devoted themselves privately to divine sciences: the oneness of God, the exaltation and sanctification befitting His majesty, the attributes of incomparability, and His being without equal or likeness. Those who knew or had learned this drew the attention of those who did not know to it. They urged people toward sound inquiry and taught them that intellects in their thinking have a limit at which they stop and which they do not pass, and that God sheds a divine effusion upon the hearts of some of His servants, teaching them in it knowledge from His own presence. They did not deem this improbable. God has deposited things in the higher world whose existence they inferred from the presence of their effects in the elemental world. This is His saying, exalted is He, “He revealed to each heaven its command” [Fussilat 41:12].

They investigated the realities of their own souls when they saw that, when the bodily form dies, it loses none of its members. They knew that what perceives and moves this body is something else in addition to it. They investigated that additional thing and came to know their souls. Then they saw that it comes to know after having been ignorant,