The heart raises no head after its prostration,
While the face rises, and the expression gives instruction.
For He is not witnessed in its direction of prayer,
While the heart’s direction is Names and signs.
The perpetuation of its prostration reveals its reality,
And it has no foothold in the sciences of creation.
(The Abode of Firm Establishment and Protection from Error)
This Abode is called the Abode of Firm Establishment, and that to which the affair of everything other than God returns. It is also called the Abode of Protection from Error. Know that when God, exalted is He, created the world, He made for it an outward and an inward side, and made of it unseen and witnessed in relation to the world itself. Whatever of the world is hidden from the world is the unseen; whatever the world witnesses of the world is witnessed. All of it is witnessed and manifest to God.
(The Prostration of the Heart and the Face)
He placed the heart within the world of the unseen and the face within the world of witnessing. For the face He specified a direction before which it prostrates, calling it His House and His direction of prayer: one faces it with one’s face when praying. He made facing it worship, prostration the best act of prayer, and remembering God through the Qurʾan its best utterance. For the heart He specified Himself, glorified is He, so that it intends no other, and commanded it to prostrate before Him.
If it prostrates through unveiling, it never raises its head from its prostration, in this world
