Representation Is of Various Sorts
The image in a mirror may be of four sorts: either the identity alone; or the identity together with its particularities; or both the identity and the rays of the thing’s nature; or both its true nature and its identity.
If you want an example, take both man and the sun, the angels and a word; the images of dense beings in a mirror are dead.
The images in the mirrors of luminous spirits are living and connected; expansive lights which even if not the same as the spirits, are not other than them.
If the sun had been living and its heat had been life and light consciousness, its image in the mirror would have possessed these qualities.
The key to this mystery is this: Gabriel is both at “the Lote tree,” and in the form of Dihya, and in the Prophet’s company, and who knows in how many other places!
While Allah the Most High knows how many places Azra’il is present simultaneously, seizing the spirits of the dying.
At the same time the Prophet appears to his community both in the visions of the saints, and in true dreams, and at the resurrection of the dead he will meet with all through his intercession.
The substitutes (abdāl) of saints appear and are seen in numerous places at the same time.