when the spirit appeared to her as a well-formed human being [Maryam 19:17]? He made him an intermediary between Himself, exalted is He, and Mary in bringing Jesus into existence, drawing attention to direct contact through His saying, “A well-formed human being.” He, exalted is He, said, “Do not have intimate contact with them while you are in retreat in the mosques” [al-Baqarah 2:187].
(The Human Being, Direct Contact, and the Significance of the Two Letters)
A thing’s skin, basharah, is its outward surface. Glad tidings, bushrā, are the manifestation upon the skin of a sign of their attainment. His saying to a thing, “Be” [al-Nahl 16:40], through the two letters kāf and nūn, (is) thus like the two hands in Adam’s creation. He put the saying to the thing in the place of direct contact, kāf and nūn in the place of the two hands, and the wāw omitted because two unvowelled consonants meet in the place of what joins the two hands in Adam’s creation.
He concealed its mention just as the wāw in kun, “Be,” is concealed. Yet its concealment in kun is due to an incidental matter, while the concealment of what joins the two hands is demanded by the reality of action. This is His saying, “I did not make them witness the creation of the heavens and the earth” [al-Kahf 18:51], which is the state of the act. Nothing in the realities of anything other than God gives that witnessing. None therefore acts but God, and no act proceeding from choice occurs in existence. The choices known in the world come from compulsion itself: they are compelled in their choosing. True action contains neither compulsion nor choice, because the Essence demands it. Realize this.
Because unrestricted existence directly contacts the immutable entities for the manifestation of restricted existence, restricted existence is called bashar. The human being was singled out for this, since he is the most complete of existents in constitution, and no other kind of existent possesses that perfection in existence. The human being is the fullest locus of manifestation and therefore deserves the name bashar rather than
Notes
Translator’s note TN3571-1: The wordplay joins bashar, human being, basharah, skin or outward surface, bushrā, glad tidings, and mubāsharah, direct contact, including sexual contact in the quoted prohibition. Kun is the imperative from the root k-w-n; the author interprets its two visible letters and omitted wāw through the two hands and their unifying relation. His distinction between compelled human choosing and true action is retained as his argument.
