Prologue

Thanks be to God, whose majesty is exalted and whose word is supreme, who by the radiance of the light of the secrets of the suns, gave existence, by the decree of eternity, to the spirits, the moons of human hearts, that is, to the wandering planets of the heavens of their souls, out of the world of nothingness; who honored the dwellers of the earth of possibility with the dignity of «Indeed, We have honored the children of Adam.» The subtle, discerning intellect, which is the minister of the sultans of human spirits and the cause of the good fortune of the coin of their being, stands bewildered at the first thresholds of His perfect beauty, before the assaults of the blows of His glorious majesty. You who are far above the reach of any keen mind that claims to grasp your path. Whoever enters the street of oneness, his whole portion is pain and bewilderment. No one has any access to you. No, no, there is no one at all except you. His infinite attributes turn their face toward His unconditioned essence, and His eternal essence looks upon His eternal attributes. He is both the knower and the known. He is both the describer and the described. His presence is manifest within the hidden depths of the world, and in His manifestation the multiplicity of created things is erased; from the visibility of things He is hidden, and from the hiddenness of things He is manifest. The sacred law lies within the mystical path, the path within the truth, and the truth of all existence is Himself, while the intellect has no path into His reality. The high-soaring falcon of love, which reigns over the birds of angelic spirits, is a slave of His threshold. «There is nothing like Him» is a verse spoken of His nature. To Him belong creation and command; blessed be God, Lord of the worlds. After praising the presence of the Necessary Being, and after countless blessings upon the pure spirits, the very centers of divine generosity, each of whom, upon the seat of prophethood and the throne of divine mission, guided many thousands lost in the desert of error to the borders of true guidance by the blessing of their leadership, may God's blessings be upon them all; and especially upon that sultan who reigns over the secret of nobility, that sun in the sky of blessedness, one line of whose imperial decrees is «We sent you only as a mercy to the worlds,» and one chapter of whose abundant perfections and nearness to God is «I was a prophet while Adam was still between water and clay,» may God's blessings be upon him and upon his pure family; and countless approval upon the sacred spirits and unstained forms of the four great companions, and upon all the noble companions, who were the managers of the Prophet's law, the keepers of the secrets of the prophetic path, the stars in the constellations of guidance, and the pearls in the casket of sainthood, may God's approval be upon them all; and upon the luminous spirits and fragrant forms of the noble Sufi masters, whose soul-bird has flown from the lowland of the created world to the summit of the world of eternity, and who, in the gardens of holiness, upon the branches of the trees of the heavenly kingdom, have become the birds of the realm of divine power, singing with the pure whistle of divine self-sufficiency the secrets of the pavilions of oneness, may God sanctify their spirits; and upon the scholars of religion, who, by the words «Only those of His servants who have knowledge truly fear God,» are singled out, marked for the gifts of mercy and the favors of forgiveness, may God's mercy be upon them all. And now: God, glorified and exalted, granted the gift of success to His servant, poor before his Lord, the humble Ali ibn Nasir ibn Harun ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Husayni al-Tabrizi, known as Qasimi, may God make his ends good; and by the decree «God does what He wills,» He turned the subject heart, which is the coin of human being, without delay or debt, toward the will to compose this book, for «the hearts of servants are between two of the fingers of the Merciful, who turns them as He wills.» Without the burden of deliberate thought, meanings came one after another; so he wrote down a few subtle points from the delicate mysteries of the human jewel. God is the one who grants success, from Him comes all success and kindness, and upon Him is reliance, by His grace and His bounty.