First Station
This consists of five signs
First Sign
As is described at the end of the Twenty‑Sixth Word, when making a precious garment, ornamented with jewels and embroidery, a skilful craftsman employs a poor man in return for a commensurate wage. In order to display his skill and art, he dresses the man in the garment, then measures and cuts it, and lengthens and shortens it; making the man sit down and stand up, he gives it various forms. Does the wretched man have the right to say to the craftsman: “Why are you meddling with this garment which makes me beautiful, altering and changing it? Why are you making me stand up and sit down, disturbing me and causing me trouble?”
In exactly the same way, in order to display the perfections of His art through the embroideries of His names, the All‑Glorious Maker takes the essential nature of beings as a model, then He clothes them all and especially living creatures in the garment of a body bejewelled with senses, and inscribes it with the pen of divine decree and determining, thus displaying the manifestation of His names. In addition, He gives to each one of them a perfection, a pleasure, an effulgence, in a way suitable to it and as a wage. Does anything have the right, then, to say to the All-Glorious Maker, who exemplifies the meaning of, the Lord of All Dominion has free disposal over His realms as He wishes: “You are giving me trouble and disturbing me.”? Allah forbid!
Beings have no rights before the Necessarily Existent One, nor can they claim them. What falls to them is, by offering thanks and praise, to carry out what is required by the degree of existence He has given them. For the degrees of existence that are given are occurrences, and each requires a cause. Degrees that are not given are possibilities, and possibilities are non‑existent as well as being infinite. As for instances of non-existence, they do not require a cause.
For example, minerals cannot say: “Why weren’t we plants?”; they cannot complain. What falls to them is to offer thanks to their Creator for having been given mineral existence. And plants may not complain asking why they were not animals; what is due to them is to offer thanks, for they have received life as well as existence. As for animals, they cannot complain that they are not humans; what is incumbent on them, since they have been given the precious substance of spirit in addition to life and existence, is to offer thanks. And so on.
O querulous man! You did not remain non‑existent; you were clothed in the bounty of existence. You tasted life; you neither remained inanimate, nor were made an animal. You received the bounty of Islam; you did not remain in misguidance. You have experienced the bounties of good health and well-being!
O ungrateful one! Where did you win the right not to offer thanks in return for the degrees of existence Allah the Most High has given you as a pure bounty? How is it that because exalted bounties that are contingencies and non‑existent and that you do not deserve have not been given you, you complain about Allah the Most High with meaningless greed, and are ungrateful for the bounties you have received? If a man rises to an elevated position, such as climbing to the top of a minaret, and finds a high station, and on every step receives a large bounty, then does not thank the one who gave him the bounties and complainingly asks why he did not rise even higher, how wrong he would be! What an ungrateful denial of the bounties, what a great foolishness it would be, as even a lunatic would understand!
O discontented greedy, thriftless wasteful, unjustly complaining, heedless man! Know certainly that contentment is profitable thanks, greed is loss‑causing ingratitude, and frugality, fine and beneficial respect for bounties. As for wastefulness, it is ugly and harmful contempt for bounties. If you have any intelligence, accustom yourself to being content and try to be satisfied with little! If you cannot endure it, say: “O Most Patient One!” and request patience. Be satisfied with your lot and do not complain! Understand who is complaining about whom, and be silent. If you have to complain, then complain about your soul to Allah the Most High, for that’s where the fault lies.
Second Sign
As is stated at the end of the last matter of the Eighteenth Letter, one instance of wisdom in the All‑Glorious Creator’s constantly changing and renewing beings in an astonishing and awesome way through the activity of His dominicality is as follows:
Activity and motion in creatures arise from an appetite, a desire, a pleasure, a love. It may be said that there is a sort of pleasure in all activity; or that activity is a sort of pleasure, even. Pleasure too is turned towards a perfection; indeed, it is a sort of perfection.
Since activity indicates perfection, pleasure, beauty; and since the Necessarily Existent One, who is absolute perfection and the Perfect One of Glory, unites in His essence, attributes, and names every sort of perfection; for sure, in a manner fitting for the necessary existence and holiness of the Necessarily Existent Essence, in a form suitable to His absolute riches and essential self‑sufficiency, in a way appropriate to His absolute perfection and freedom from defect, He has a boundless sacred compassion and infinite pure love. Of a certainty, there is an infinite holy eagerness arising from that sacred compassion and pure love; and from that holy eagerness arises an infinite sacred joy. And arising from that sacred joy, is, if the term is permissible, an infinite holy pleasure.
And from this holy pleasure and from the gratitude and perfections of creatures which result from the emergence and unfolding of their potentialities within the activity of His power, arise, if one may say so, an infinite sacred gratification and holy pride pertaining to that Most Merciful and Compassionate Essence. It is these that necessitate a boundless activity. And that boundless activity in turn necessitates boundless change and transformation, alteration and destruction. And the boundless change and transformation necessitate death and extinction, decline and separation.
At one time, the benefits shown by human science and philosophy concerning the aims of beings appeared to me to be extremely insignificant. I understood from this that such philosophy leads only to futility. Consequently, leading philosophers either fall into the swamp of nature, or they become Sophists, or they deny divine knowledge and choice, or they call the Creator “self‑necessitating.”
At that point, divine mercy sent the name All‑Wise to my aid, and it showed me the great aims of creatures. That is to say, every creature, every artefact, is a dominical missive for conscious beings to study. This aim satisfied me for a year.
Then the wonders in the art of beings were unfolded to me, and the former aim began to seem deficient. Another, much greater aim became apparent, which was that the main aims of creatures look to their Maker. I understood that it consists of creatures’ presenting to His gaze the perfections of His art, the embroideries of His names, the embellishments of His wisdom, and the gifts of His mercy; it is their being mirrors to His beauty and perfections. This aim satisfied me for a long time,
then the miracles of divine power and attributes of dominicality (şuûnât‑ı rubûbiyet) in the extremely swift changes and transformations within the astonishing activity in the art and creation of things became apparent. The former aim too began to appear insufficient. I understood that a necessitating cause, a motive, was necessary as great as that latter aim.
It was then that the causes in this second Sign and the aims in the Indications to follow became apparent. It was made known to me with complete certainty that the activity of divine power in the universe and the constant flood of beings are so meaningful that through them the All‑Wise Maker causes all the realms of beings in the universe to speak. It is as if the beings of the earth and the skies and their motion and actions are the words of their speech; their motion is their speech.
That is, the motion and decline arising from activity is speech glorifying Allah. The activity in the universe is the universe’s silent speech and that of the varieties of its beings; their being made to speak.
Third Sign
Things do not go to non‑existence, they rather pass from the realm of power to the realm of knowledge; they go from the Manifest World to the World of the Unseen; they turn from the world of change and transience to the worlds of light and eternity. In reality, the beauty and perfection in things pertain to the divine names and are their impresses and manifestations. Since the names are eternal and their manifestations, perpetual, certainly their impresses will be renewed, refreshed, and made beautiful. Things do not vanish into non-existence; their relative determinations change; their realities, essences, and identities, from which spring their beauty and loveliness, effulgence and perfection, are enduring.
The beauty of beings with no spirits pertain directly to the divine names; the honour is theirs; praise is due to them; the beauty is theirs; love goes to them; they suffer no harm on those mirrors changing.
For beings with spirits but no intellect, death is not a departure for extinction, a vanishing into non‑existence; it is to be saved from physical existence and the turbulent duties of life. The beings make over the fruits of the duties they have performed to their spirits. Relying on a divine name, their immortal spirits persist; indeed, they attain a happiness worthy of them.
For beings that possess both spirit and intellect, death is anyway a journeying to everlasting happiness, to the eternal realm, which is a spring of perfections, material and non‑material, and to such other dwelling-places of the All-Wise Maker as the Intermediate Realm, the World of Similitudes, and the Spirit World, which all surpass this world in beauty and luminosity. Their passing does not lead to their death and extinction, separation and non-existence, but to their attaining perfection.
In Short: Since the All‑Glorious Maker exists and He is Eternal, and since His attributes and names are perpetual and everlasting; certainly His names’ manifestations and impresses are renewed, affording them a sort of perpetualness; they are not destroyed and do not just disappear; they are not ephemeral and despatched to non-being. It is clear that by reason of his humanity, man is connected with most other beings; he receives pleasure at their happiness and is grieved at their destruction. He feels more grief at the suffering of living creatures, of humankind in particular, and particularly the people of perfection he loves and admires; and his happiness is greater at their happiness. Like a fond mother, he even sacrifices his own happiness and comfort for theirs.
Thus, through the light of the Qur’an and mystery of belief, all believers – in accordance with their degree – may be happy at the happiness of other beings, and at their continued existence and being saved from nothingness and their being valuable dominical missives; they may gain a light as extensive as the world. Everyone may profit from this light according to his degree. As for the people of misguidance, in addition to their own pains they are grieved at the destruction of beings, at their transience and apparently being despatched to non‑existence – and if they have spirits, at their suffering. That is to say, their unbelief fills their world with non-existence; it empties it over their heads, causing them hell before they go there.
Fourth Sign
As we have said in many places, a monarch has various offices and departments proceeding from such titles of his as Sultan, Khalifa, Judge, and Commander‑in-Chief. In the same way, Allah the Most High’s Most Beautiful Names have innumerable different sorts of manifestations. All the different sorts of creatures arise from the varieties of manifestations.
Thus, by virtue of the fact that every possessor of beauty and perfection has an innate desire to see and display his beauty and perfection, the names – since they are constant and eternal – want to be displayed in permanent fashion on account of the Most Pure and Holy Essence. That is to say, they want to see their impresses; that is, to see in the mirrors of their embroideries the manifestation of their beauty and reflection of their perfection; that is, to renew every instant the mighty book of the universe and the multifarious missives of beings; that is, to constantly write them anew; that is, to write thousands of different missives on a single page and to display each missive to the witnessing gaze of the Sacred Essence, the Most Pure and Holy One, who is signified; and in addition, to exhibit them to the meditative gazes of sentient beings, and to cause them to read them. Consider the following poem, which alludes to this truth:
The leaves of the book of the world are of varieties incalculable,
Its letters and words, too, are of number infinite;
Inscribed on the workbench of the Preserved Tablet of reality,
An embodied meaningful word, is each being in the world.
Study the lines of the universe; for they are missives to you from the Sublime Assembly.
Fifth Sign
Consists of two points.
First Point
Since Allah the Most High exists, everything exists. Since they have a relation with Allah the Most High, all things exist for everything. For through the mystery of unity, through their relation with the Necessarily Existent One, all beings become connected with all other beings. This means that through the mystery of unity, every being that knows its relation with the Necessarily Existent One, or whose relation is known, becomes connected to all beings since they are connected to Him. This means that by virtue of that relation, all beings may manifest endless lights of existence. In that respect, for them there is no separation or death. To live for a single passing second yields innumerable lights of existence.
Whereas if there is no such relation or it is not known, the being or person manifests infinite separations and deaths. For in the face of every being with which he could have been connected, he is exposed to a separation, a parting, a death. That is, he burdens his personal existence with endless instances of non‑existence and separation. If he were to remain in existence for a million years even (without connection), it would not be equal to living for an instant with the relation mentioned above. The people of reality (ehl‑i hakikat) have said therefore: “Illumined existence for a passing instant is preferable to a million years of profitless existence.” It is also because of this that verifiers of the realities (ehl‑i tahkik) have said: “The lights of existence become apparent through recognizing the Necessarily Existent One.” That is to say: the universe is seen to be full of angels, spirit beings, and intelligent beings, bathed in lights of existence. Whereas without them, the darkness of non‑existence and pains of death and separation encompass all beings. In such a view, the world appears to be an empty, desolate wasteland.
Indeed, all the fruits of a tree have a relation with all the other fruits, and since through the relation they are all friends and brothers, each possesses accidental existences to their number. But if one of the fruits is plucked from the tree, it suffers a separation and death in the face of all the other fruits; they all become as though non‑existent for it; it remains in the resulting darkness of external non-existence.
In exactly the same way, in so far as they are connected to the power of the Single Eternally Besoughted One, all things exist for everything. The absence of such a relation results for all things in external non‑existences to the number of things.
So see from this Sign the vastness of the lights of belief and the terrifying darkness of misguidance. That is, belief is the mark of the elevated truth described in this Sign; and it may be benefited from through belief. In the absence of belief, just as for someone who is blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid everything is non‑existent, so is everything non-existent and dark for one without belief.
Second Point
The world and all things have three faces:
The First Face looks to the divine names and is their mirror. Death, separation, and non‑existence cannot intrude on this face; it rather manifests renewal and remaking afresh.
The Second Face looks to the hereafter and gazes upon the World of Eternity; it is its arable field. Here, enduring fruits and produce are raised. It serves eternity and makes ephemeral things as though eternal. On this face too there is no death and decline, but the manifestations of life and eternity.
The Third Face looks to transient beings, that is, to us. It is the beloved of ephemeral beings and those who follow the caprices of their souls; the place of trade for the conscious; the arena of trial and examination for those charged with duties. Thus, the salve and cure for the pains and wounds of the transience and decline, the death and extinction, on this third face, are the manifestations of life and eternity in its inner face.
In Short: This flood of beings, these travelling creatures, are roving mirrors and ever‑changing places of manifestation for the renewal of the Necessarily Existent One’s lights of creation and existence.