The Meccan Revelations

Manuscript volume 14 · Page 150

Konya manuscript

Open Arabic sourceOpen English translation

Arabic

قيل فيه خير كله.

فالحياء نعت سلبي.

(الحياء ورد النعوت إلى الله)

فالعبد إذا ترك ما لله لله، وما يقول الكون إنه للعبد، من الأمور الوجودية، يتركه أيضا لله، على حقيقة ما يترك ما هو لله بالإجماع من كل نفس لله، فقد استحيا من الله حق الحياء.

ومن ترك ما لله لله خاصة، فقد استحيا من الله، ولكن لا حق الحياء.

وذٰلك أن النعوت التي نعت الحق بها نفسه، من المسمى إخبار التشبيه وآيات التشبيه، على ما يزعم علماء الرسوم، وأنه تنزل إلهي رحمة بالعباد، ولطفا إلهيا، وهو عندنا نعت حقيقي لا ينبغي إلا له تعالى، وأنه في العبد مستعار، كسائر ما يتخلق به من أسمائه، فإنه ﴿خَيْرُ الْماكِرِينَ﴾، والله يستهزئ بالمستهزئين من عباده باستهزاء ومكر هو له، من حيث لا يشعرون، وهو لا يصف نفسه بالحوادث، فدل إن هذه النعوت بحكم الأصالة لله، وما ظهرت في العبد الإلهي، إلا لكونه خلق على الصورة من جميع الوجوه.

ولما عرف العارفون هٰذا، ورأوا قوله تعالى: ﴿وإِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُ الْأَمْرُ كُلُّهُ﴾ [هود: 123]، وهذه النعوت الظاهرة في الأكوان التي يعتقد فيها علماء الرسوم أنها حق للعبد، من جملة الأمور التي ترجع إلى الله، تركوها لله، لاستحيائهم من الله حق الحياء، وهو من نعوت

English

it is called wholly good.

Modesty is a negative description.

(Modesty and Returning Descriptions to God)

When the servant leaves to God what belongs to God, and also leaves to God the existent matters created being claims belong to the servant, in the same reality through which every soul leaves to God what all agree belongs to God, he has been modest before God as is His due.

Whoever leaves to God only what belongs to God has been modest before Him, but not as is His due.

The descriptions by which the Real describes Himself in what the scholars of outward forms call reports and verses of likeness are, they claim, a divine descent in mercy and gentleness toward servants. For us, they are true descriptions befitting Him alone, exalted is He, and borrowed in the servant, like the rest of the names whose traits he assumes. He is “the best of devisers,” and God mocks His mocking servants with a mockery and devising belonging to Him, without their awareness. He does not describe Himself by originated things. This shows that these descriptions originally belong to God and appear in the divine servant only because he is created upon the Form in every respect.

When the knowers understand this and see His saying, “To Him the whole affair returns” [11:123], they leave to God these descriptions appearing in created beings, which the scholars of outward forms believe rightfully belong to the servant, since they belong among the matters returning to God. They do so out of modesty before God as is His due. This belongs among the descriptions of

Notes

Translator’s note TN4212-1: The author reverses the account that treats these revealed descriptions as originally human and only figuratively divine: he assigns them originally to God and treats their appearance in the servant as borrowed through the divine Form.

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Cairo source reference

Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 14 · Page 150 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=4212&text=both