for enclosure means prevention. “Your Lord’s gift is not restricted” [al-Israʾ 17:20]: that is, not prevented. Holiness is a flowing divine reality pervading the sanctified. No specific, determinate color or entity is apprehended for its light. It flows through the realities of engendered being. The world of spirits separated from darkness has no effect upon it. The spirits governing elemental bodies can never enter the Enclosure of Holiness, but the complete knower witnesses them as an Enclosure of Holiness. At that point the knower says that these spirits can never enter the Enclosure of Holiness, because a thing cannot enter itself: for him they are the Enclosure of Holiness. The non-knower shares this expression with the knower, saying that they do not enter the Enclosure of Holiness—that is, that they are never characterized by holiness, since the darkness of Nature never ceases to accompany the governing spirits in this world, the isthmus, and the Hereafter. They differ in their witnessing, while each speaks truthfully and indicates a meaning. They do not converge upon one meaning. For this reason real disagreement is inconceivable on this path.
If the dominion of holiness comprises everyone characterized by intrinsic or incidental purity, and the Holy is a divine name from which purity flows through all pure things, then whoever considers all things in respect of
Notes
Translator’s note TN3738-1: Ḥaẓīra, ‘enclosure,’ is explained through ḥaẓr, ‘prevention’ or ‘restriction,’ and maḥẓūr, ‘restricted,’ in the cited verse. It is distinct from ḥaḍra, ‘presence.’ The two speakers’ identical claim about not entering the enclosure has different grounds: identity with it for the knower, continued association with natural darkness for the other.
