Purity. It is intrinsic or incidental. Intrinsic purity is like the sanctity of the divine Presence given by the name the Holy. It is, in itself, holiness beyond being affected, for receiving an effect is a change in the recipient. Even though change means the displacement of one entity by another, either in a substrate or in a place, the substrate or place is described as changing. This means, for example, that this substrate was yellow and became green, or was still and became moving. The substrate changed: that is, it received the other. Holiness and the Holy do not admit change at all.
Incidental holiness, however, admits the other, which is its opposite. People differ only in incidental holiness. Among this is the sanctification of souls through disciplines, namely the refinement of character; the sanctification of the temperament through spiritual struggles; the sanctification of intellects through unveilings and contemplative viewings; and the sanctification of the limbs through keeping to the prescribed commands and prohibitions. The opposite of this holiness is what opposes it and cannot coexist with it in a single substrate at a single time. This is the holiness whose dominion is what we mentioned.
Incidental holiness occurs only in composites. When a composite is characterized by holiness, that is called the Enclosure of Holiness: that which prevents the reception of what contradicts its being holy. Whenever it does not prevent this, it is not an Enclosure of Holiness,
Notes
Translator’s note TN3737-1: The explanation links taghayyur, ‘change,’ to receiving al-ghayr, ‘the other.’ ‘Contemplative viewings’ renders muṭālaʿāt alongside unveilings; the source does not specify a particular procedure here.
