Number 4

I cannot grasp what love this is, that every speck of the world is born of it; I cannot grasp what face this is, of which Adam is the mirror. Sometimes He erases me completely, sometimes He affirms me; and I am left bewildered, lost between His denial and His confirmation. If He is the candle, I circle Him like a moth; if He becomes the lamp, then I am, of necessity, its niche. Since I am lost, dissolved in His essence, how could I know His attributes? Only one not yet dissolved in His essence can know them. On this road there came both the Christian and the fire-worshipper, believer and unbeliever, for one saw that guiding spirit in Jesus, the other in idols like al-Uzza and al-Lat. If you cannot see His essence and attributes plainly, then read them all as signs in the great book of the horizons and of your own soul. Come, my dear, to the Sinai of the heart, so that from there you may learn the story of Moses, son of Amram, and Mount Sinai, and his appointed meeting with God. How could you ever know the joy of seeing Him, when your whole desire is for the heavenly maidens and the pleasures of paradise? O Maghrebi, in this way you see nothing but a body, made of earth and water, of wind and fire.