Hearing is the noblest thing a gnostic realizes
through attachment, realization, and assuming character.
He, exalted is He, said, “Hearing, All-Knowing” [al-Baqarah 2:181], and, “Hearing, Seeing” [al-Hajj 22:61], placing it before knowledge and sight. The first thing we know from the Real and with which we have a relation is speech from Him and listening from us. Existence arises from it. Likewise we say in this way: every listening that does not give rise to ecstasy, and from that ecstasy existence, is not listening. This is listening’s rank, to which God’s people return and listen.
His saying to a thing before its coming to be, “Be,” is what the people of listening see in the speaker’s saying. The readiness to come to be of the listener addressed with “Be” is like ecstasy in listening. Then its concrete existence through His “Be,” as He said, “Be, and it is,” is like the existence the people of listening find within their hearts, from the knowledge of God listening gives them in ecstasy. Whoever has not listened with a listening of existence has not listened. This is why the Folk place existence after ecstasy.
Since existence, meaning the world’s existence, occurs only through speech from God and listening from the world, the existence of the ways of felicity and knowledge distinguishing them from ways of wretchedness likewise appear only through divine speech and creaturely listening. All messengers came with speech: Qur’an, Torah, Gospel, Psalms, and scriptures. There was only speech and listening; apart from these two, nothing was.
Without speech the purpose of the one willing, what he wants from us, would not be known; and without hearing we would not
Notes
Translator’s note TN4798-1: The argument joins wajd, ecstasy, with wujūd, existence and finding. It compares a thing’s readiness before “Be” and its ensuing existence with ecstasy and knowledge found in the listener’s heart. Taʿalluq, taḥaqquq, and takhalluq in the opening verse are attachment, realization, and assuming character.
