because God is characterized by gratitude and asks for an increase in that for which He thanked us. Escaping this is difficult.
(The Thanker and the One Thanked in Witnessing the Act)
If, however, what is self-disclosed to him in his moment is that the Real is the thanker and the one thanked, and acts are stripped from creatures, he has left gratitude while being thankful. He sees either the Real thanking without restriction, with the servant having no gratitude at all, or the Real, exalted is He, thanking through him—that is, through His servant—by the gratitude the servant possesses.
He thus leaves gratitude in one respect and is described by gratitude in another. This flows through all the acts proceeding from the servant: a rare witnessing from sheer gracious favor.
(Unveiling the Attribution of Acts and the Station of Courtesy)
This question was among the most difficult questions for me.[19] No opening concerning how the matter truly stands came to me with the decisive certainty of knowledge admitting no doubt until the very night I recorded this chapter in this volume: the night of Saturday, the sixth of Rajab al-Fard, in the year six hundred and thirty-three. Attributing the creation of acts to either side had not become clear to me, and I found it difficult to distinguish the acquisition affirmed by some from the creation affirmed by others.
Through an unveiling of sight, the Real made me behold His creating the first creature, which no creature preceded, since there was none but God.
He said to me, “Is there here
Notes
[19]
(The text turns here to the account of a dated personal unveiling. The dialogue continues afterward with “He said to me” and “I said”; its paragraphs have been separated to show the speakers.)
Translator’s note TN4128-1: Rajab al-Fard retains the month’s epithet, literally ‘Rajab the Solitary.’ The date and weekday are reproduced as the author gives them, without conversion to another calendar.
