The Meccan Revelations

Manuscript volume 32 · Page 25

Konya manuscript

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Arabic

حضرة الملك والملكوت ولم يعرف العالَم ولا ما هو، ولا عرف نسبته من الحق ولا نسبة الحق منه، فما حضر في هذه الحضرة بوجه من الوجوه، ولا كان له حظ في الاسم الملك.

حضرة التقديس وهو الاسم القدوس

من طهر النفس التي لا تنجلي

أعلامها فينا يكن قدوسا

و يرد ملكا طاهرا ذا عفة

من كان في تصريفه إبليسا

إلى القدوس أعملت المطايا

لأَحْظَى بالزكاة وبالطهور

و بالعرش المحيط وساكنيه

و بالأمر العليّ من الأمور

فإن القدس ليس له نظير

به أَحْيا له وبه نشوري

و إن الحق ليس به خفاء

و صدر الحق منا في الصدور

(الأسماء النواقص وحجاب الأسباب)

سبوح قدوس، مطهر من الأسماء النواقص. والأسماء النواقص هي التي لا تتم إلا بصلة وعائد، فإن من أسمائه سبحانه «الذي» و«ما»، في قوله: ﴿الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّماواتِ والْأَرْضَ﴾ [الأنعام: ١]، وفي قوله: ﴿الَّذِي خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ والْحَياةَ﴾ [الملك: ٢].

وأما «ما» في قوله تعالى: ﴿والسَّماءِ وما بَناها﴾ [الشمس: ٥]، في بعض وجوه «ما» في هٰذا الموضع. فإن «ما» قد تكون هنا مصدرية، وقد تكون بمعنى الذي فتكون ناقصة، فتكون هنا اسما لله عز وجل.

فاعلم إن الله لما خلق الأسباب وجعلها الظاهرة لعباده، وفعل المسببات عندها، وتخيل الناظرون أنها ما خلقت إلا بها، وهٰذا هو الذي أضل الخلق عن طريق الهدى والعلم وحجبهم عن الوجه الخاص الذي لله في كل كائن، فاعلم إن ذٰلك اللفظ المسمى اسما ناقصا، وهو «ما» و«من» و«الذي»

English

the Presence of kingship and dominion without knowing the world or what it is, or its relation to the Real and the Real’s relation to it, has not been present in this Presence in any respect and has no share in the Name the King.

The Presence of Sanctification: the Name the All-Holy

Whoever purifies the soul—never manifest

Are its markers within us—becomes all-holy.

As a pure and chaste angel returns

One who was Iblis in his conduct.

Toward the All-Holy I set the mounts to work

To obtain purity and purification,

The encompassing Throne and its inhabitants,

And the sublime affair among affairs.

For holiness has no peer;

Through it I live for Him, and through it is my resurrection.

The Real has no hiddenness,

And the Real’s forefront within us lies in the breasts.

(Defective Names and the Veil of Causes)

All-Glorified, All-Holy, purified of defective Names. Defective Names are those completed only through a relative clause and a resumptive pronoun. Among His Names, glorified is He, are alladhi, ‘who,’ and ma, ‘what’: in His saying, ‘Who created the heavens and the earth’ [al-An‘am 6:1], and ‘Who created death and life’ [al-Mulk 67:2].

As for ma, in His saying, exalted is He, ‘By heaven and what built it’ [al-Shams 91:5], this is according to some readings of ma here. Ma may here be a nominalizer, or mean ‘who’ and thus be defective, in which case it is a Name of God, mighty and majestic is He.

Know that when God created causes, made them manifest to His servants, and produced effects at their occurrence, observers imagined that these were created only through them. This led creation astray from the path of guidance and knowledge, veiling them from God’s particular Face in every being. Know, then, that the expression called a defective Name—ma, ‘what,’ man, ‘who,’ alladhi, ‘who,’

Notes

Translator’s note: The final poetic «صدر الحق» is rendered nominally as the Real’s forefront or breast, preserving the wordplay with ‘breasts.’ It may also be read verbally, ‘the Real issued from us within the breasts.’ The earlier return as an angel likewise has a compressed, unvocalized verbal form.

Manuscript imageManuscript volume 32 · Page 25

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Cairo source reference

Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 32 · Page 25 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=9349&text=both