Kitāb fīhi Ḥaqāʾiq mā Yaẓhar Quddām Mawlānā Jalla Dhikruhu min al-Hazl
This is through the support granted to the Qāʾim of the Age, who manifests the Word and its explanation—peace be upon his remembrance. Praise belongs to our Lord alone and to the strength of His authority.
I put my trust in our Lord, the Most High, the Supreme, the Judge of judges, who does not enter thoughts or imaginings. Exalted is His remembrance above the descriptions of those who describe and the comprehension of creatures.
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. The attributes of His servant, the Imam.
Praise and thanks belong to our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. I seek His help in religion and worldly life, and to Him is the return: He who gives life and causes death, the Living who never dies, exalted in heaven and exalted upon earth, governing it. In Him I trust and seek aid; to Him is the final return, and He is the Helper.
May the blessings and peace of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—be upon the one He chose from His creation, selected from His servants, and made inheritors of their enemies' dwelling through His power and authority. He is the Judge, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Overpowering, and He has power over all things.
Now then, community of Unitarian brethren—may our Lord help you to obey Him—a note has reached me from certain Unitarian brethren, whose numbers may our Lord increase, whose deeds may He purify, and whose intentions may He improve. In it they report what is being said by those who have departed from religion—those who deny the realities of transcendence and interpret customary practices in ways resembling their corrupt deeds and the inclinations of their base religions. They speak about the actions of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and what takes place before Him, although these actions contain wisdom directed toward various ends. They cannot distinguish the ignorant world from the wise, and they count certain deeds as jesting.
They do not know that all the actions of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—are profound wisdom, whether serious or playful, and that He brings their wisdom forth and makes it manifest after a time.
Had they reflected upon the reports transmitted from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, they would have understood the warning: Beware of associating others with God and denying Him by allowing doubts about His actions, whatever they may be, to arise in your hearts.
Do not criticize the Imam for an action of his, even if you saw him riding a reed, his garment tucked up behind him, playing knucklebones with children. Beneath that is profound wisdom for the world and a distinction between the wronged and the wrongdoer.
If such a statement applies to Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad and his descendants and ancestors, all of whom are servants of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—how much more does it apply to the actions of the One whom imaginings and thoughts cannot comprehend at all, and to His divine wisdom, whose symbols and signs point to the invalidation of religious ordinances, the destruction of buffaloes (al-jawāmīs), and the distinguishing of peacocks (al-ṭawāwīs)?
Praise belongs to our Lord for the grace He bestowed upon us without our deserving it. We ask His pardon and forgiveness for the ugly deeds and evil words that come from us. We seek refuge in Him from associationism and error. He is the Guardian of that and has power over it, the High, the Exalted.
If they looked at the actions of our Lord—exalted is His power—with the eyes of Truth and reflected upon His signs by radiant light, His divinity, eternal power and everlasting sovereignty would become apparent to them. They would escape the net of Iblīs and his erring troops. They would perceive the wisdom of our Lord's riding and actions, recognize the pure reality in His seriousness and jesting, and know the ranks of His spiritual hierarchy and what the outward appearances of His affairs indicate. Exalted is His remembrance and His name, and none besides Him is worshipped.
I shall explain what He has manifested of His wisdom, unlike anything known of Him in every age and time. The common people speak of the actions of kings: growing the hair, wearing wool, and riding a donkey with a saddle decorated neither with gold nor silver.
These three practices have a single meaning in reality. Hair signifies the outward aspects of Revelation; wool signifies the outward aspects of Interpretation; donkeys signify the Speakers.
As He said to Muḥammad: “My son, establish prayer and give alms; command what is right and forbid what is wrong. That is among the matters requiring resolve. Do not turn your cheek away from people, and do not walk arrogantly on the earth. You will not pierce the earth or reach the mountains in height. All of that is something your Lord has warned against. Be moderate in your walking, and lower your voice, for the most repugnant of voices is the voice of donkeys.”
The common people believe this verse recounts the words of the wise Luqmān to his son. They lie and distort the statement. Rather, it is the speech of the Preceder, who is Salmān. The Speaker was called his son because of the rank of instruction and the transmission of spiritual substance. All the chiefs and Legatees are children of the Preceder, the first originated being, Salmān.
He said to Muḥammad, “Establish prayer,” pointing to the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and His ranks and Callers. “Command what is right” means His tawḥīd. “Forbid what is wrong” means the Speaker's religious law and its ordinances and obligations. “That is among the matters requiring resolve” means the realities and the salvation of souls from the speech of the Speaker.
“Do not turn your cheek away from people”: the cheek is the face of the Preceder, and turning it aside means diminishing his excellence. “Do not walk exultantly on the earth”: exultation means negligence and playing with religion; here the earth is the right wing, the Caller to pure tawḥīd. “You will never pierce the earth” means you cannot invalidate the Call of tawḥīd. “Nor reach the mountains in height”: the mountains are the three sacred Proofs, and the fourth is the Preceder, whom the world worships apart from those three. Above them is the greatest Proof, whose true name is Dhū Maʿa, because his heart received tawḥīd and power from our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—without a human intermediary.
“Moderate your walking”: diminish and conceal your Call in the outward world, where it moves like a black ant upon black cloth on a dark night. This is associationism itself, like fire falling into dry tinder: its light is not perceived until destruction has occurred.
Likewise, love of religious law, listening to its ornaments, and attachment to its ordinances work through the limbs and flow through the veins. As the Speaker said with his tongue, through the power of Iblīs and his authority, its subtlety courses through the veins like blood until it takes hold of the heart and leads all the worlds astray.
The Speaker said, “My love has mingled with the blood and flesh of my community, so they prefer me to their fathers and mothers.” We have seen that the two reports have one meaning. In the Qurʾān He said, “Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind.” Here the Lord of mankind is the Follower, who in Muḥammad's age was al-Miqdād. “The King of mankind, the God of mankind, from the evil of the retreating whisperer”: the ornament of the Speaker, who whispers into the breasts of people—that is, Callers, Authorized Instructors, and Mukāsirs—so as to turn them away from the tawḥīd of our Lord al-Ḥākim, who rules by His own essence and is distinct from His originated beings. His essence is His true divinity, which cannot be perceived or sensed. Glorified and exalted is He.
“Lower your voice”: reduce and conceal your proclamation of religious law.
“The most repugnant of voices” means the Call of outward religion. “Is the voice of donkeys” means the worst, ugliest, and most detestable speech: the proclamation of the blameworthy religious laws in every age and time. From them arise resemblance, opposition, and the claim of shared kind.
The outward appearance of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—in wearing wool and growing His hair indicates the outward ordinances that have been practiced and the attachment of the people of Interpretation to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and their worship of him. Riding a donkey signifies the manifestation of Truth over the laws of the Speakers. Saddles without gold or silver indicate the invalidation of the two laws of the Speaker and the Foundation. Iron decorations on the saddles signify the manifestation of the sword over all followers of religious laws and their invalidation.
There is also His outward use of the desert and His departure on that day from the underground passage to the garden, and from the garden into the world, without passing through the other gates.
No one has access to or knowledge of the underground passage and garden from which our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—emerges, except those who serve them or are among their intimates. This signifies the beginning of our Lord's manifestation in unity and His direct exercise of self-sufficiency through the two ranks that had been hidden from the world, except those who knew them through symbols and signs: Will and Volition.
As He said: “When He wills a thing, His command is only to say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. Glorified is He in whose hand is the dominion of all things, and to Him you return.” Will is Dhū Maʿa, and Volition is the rank that follows him. He also said: “You do not will unless God wills.” Only the Unitarians of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—know these two.
From the underground passage He emerges into the garden. Likewise knowledge proceeds from Dhū Maʿa to Dhū Maṣṣa, who is like a garden possessing trees and rivers.
Then He proceeds from both to al-Maqs. The first garden He encounters is that of Barjawān, called al-Ḥijāzī, but He does not enter it or circle it as He passes. This signifies the Eternal Word.
He then proceeds to the garden known as al-Dakka. It signifies the Preceder, who is the platform of the world and the source of their knowledge, since they know nothing above him. This garden lies beside the sea, and knowledge of Interpretation is likewise like a sea.
When the Responder to the covenant attains knowledge and recognition of the Preceder, he imagines he has reached the ultimate end and goal of worship. Yet the garden of al-Dakka, despite its splendor, adjoins a place of indecency and wrongdoing unlike the other gardens. This signifies that the knowledge of the Preceder is connected with the Speakers, who are sources of the perishing, literalist ordinances and base, obscene deeds.
Al-Maqs signifies the Speaker. The indecency and wrongdoing there signify his religious law. The corrupt women there signify the Callers to the outward forms of his law and the animal appetites practiced in obedience to him.
Then He—upon us be His peace and mercy—proceeds to al-Ṣināʿa, entering by one gate and leaving by another. Al-Ṣināʿa signifies the possessor of the religious law. The public is forbidden to enter and leave it because of its connection to the law. Our Lord's entry by one gate and departure by another signify the prohibition and suspension of that law.
Then He—upon us be His peace and mercy—circles the garden called al-Ḥijāzī. It signifies the Eternal Word, and circling it signifies reaching the Unveiling without a veil enclosing religion.
Then He—exalted is His authority—reaches the palaces: two great ruined palaces, signifying the invalidation and ruin of the two religious laws.
He—upon us be His peace and mercy—enters through the gate of the garden called al-Mukhtaṣṣ. It signifies the Follower, for the Follower possesses the knowledge of the Foundation and Interpretation. Much of the world inclines toward him. He is the prime matter (hayūlā) of the material world. Some of the Shīʿa believe in and worship the Follower; others say the Follower is our Lord. This is unbelief and associationism.
The Follower is the one whose reality people have failed to know. The garden called al-Mukhtaṣṣ adjoins the garden called al-ʿAṣṣār. The latter signifies the Speaker, who presses the knowledge of the Follower, bringing out from it Truth and tawḥīd, but conceals it from the ignorant world and shows them the dregs, oil-cake suitable only for beasts.
The garden called al-ʿAṣṣār is ruined, lacking fruit, trees, fragrant herbs, and produce. The garden of al-Mukhtaṣṣ, by contrast, is flourishing with fruit, flowers, fragrant herbs, and trees. Water flows from it into a basin where beasts drink. The water is knowledge, the basin is the spiritual substance flowing from the Follower, and the beasts are the Speakers and Foundations. Likewise knowledge proceeds from the Follower to the Foundation in every age and time. The Preceder supplies the Speakers, from the Cleaver to the Joiner, and from the witnessing Preceder to the seeking visitor.
These two gardens stand between the mosques known as Masjid Tibr and Masjid Raydān. Masjid Raydān faces the garden of al-ʿAṣṣār; Masjid Tibr faces al-Mukhtaṣṣ. Masjid Tibr signifies the Speaker. Tibr means gold, and gold signifies the removal of his religious law. No congregational prayer has ever been performed in this mosque, indicating that neither the Speaker nor his followers are connected to tawḥīd.
Masjid Raydān signifies the Proof of the Unveiling, who rises with sword and force, calling to the tawḥīd that all the worlds deny.
As the servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—spoke in the Qurʾān through the tongue of the sixth Speaker: “On the day when the Caller summons to something terrible and unfamiliar.” This signifies the worship and tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—which all Speakers, Foundations, and Imams of unbelief denied.
The servant of our Lord also said in his Book: “Fight the leaders of unbelief, for they have no faith, that they may desist.” That is, they have no faith consisting in knowledge of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. Faith is assent, and the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is difficult: no sent prophet, perfected Legatee, just Imam, or angel brought near can bear it, but only a pure, discerning heart or a willing, responding Unitarian who worships none besides our Lord—exalted be His remembrance in the true reality of realities, abandoning the religions and paths he formerly followed and worshipping the Lord of the Foundation and Speaker, the Originator of the Follower and Preceder, the One who judges over all Speakers and religious laws, distinct from all created and originated beings. Every thing has an opposite before Him.
Opposite the falsehood represented by the garden of al-ʿAṣṣār, which signifies the Speaker, stands a truth that rises above it: Masjid Raydān, which signifies Dhū Maʿa. Opposite the truth represented by the garden of al-Mukhtaṣṣ, which signifies the Follower, stands the one who seeks to corrupt it: Masjid Tibr, the Speaker. Our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—will aid His friends and destroy His enemies and perfect His light, though the polytheists attached to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and the unbelievers attached to the Speaker and his non-being dislike it.
Raydān consists of five letters, indicating five ranks: psychic, luminous, spiritual, material, and corporeal. Dhū Maʿa is the Universal Psychic Intellect; Dhū Maṣṣa is the Spiritual Soul; the Right Divine Wing, the greatest Gate, is the Preceder; and the Follower is the mine of sciences, the mine of knowledge and its beginning.
Raydān may also be divided into two words, ray and dān. Ray signifies the things: the Proofs, Callers, Authorized Instructors, and Mukāsirs. As the servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—said: “We have enumerated everything in a clear Imam.” The real things, the eternal religion, and everlasting tawḥīd are in the hands of Raydān on the Day of Religion, and he is the servant of our Lord and of all creation—exalted is His remembrance and name; none besides Him is worshipped.
Glorified and exalted is He above being a Judge of Religion, a Sultan, a Proof, Allāh, or al-Raḥmān in the sense applied to His servants, since all of them are His servants throughout the cycles, asking His forgiveness at night and before dawn, and worshipping Him willingly and unwillingly in public. Glorified is He above the comprehension of imaginings and thoughts, above being known by outward proclamation or hidden secrets, above inward or outward manifestation in the ways creatures imagine, for even part of His humanity cannot be comprehended, nor the power of His majestic Station or the grandeur of His divinity.
No mosque among the mosques had its dome fall and its entire structure collapse except Masjid Raydān. Our Lord—glorified and exalted is He—commanded that its dome be rebuilt and increased its length, breadth, and height. This signifies the demolition of outward religious law by the hand of His servant who dwells there, and the establishment by our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—of the Truth in open, unveiled form, and the beginning of the spiritual law in a simple, spiritual, Unitarian, divine world governed by Him. None besides Him alone is worshipped; none is associated with Him secretly or openly. Glorified and exalted is He far above what the polytheists say.
Then our Lord—upon us be His peace and mercy—appeared to us in human manifestation. His dismounting from the donkey and mounting another near the mosque gate signifies the change of religious law, the establishment of tawḥīd, and the manifestation of the spiritual law by the hand of His servant and possession, Ḥamza ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Guide of the Responders, who takes vengeance upon the polytheists by the sword of our Lord and the strength of His authority alone, without partner.
His standing still is only an outward appearance. Far be He above standing, walking, sitting, sleeping, or waking. “Neither slumber nor sleep overtakes Him. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and earth”: that is, the Speakers and Foundations. “Who can intercede with Him except by His permission?” That is, who can authorize a Caller or an Authorized Instructor except by His will? “He knows what is before them and what is behind them”: from Adam to Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. “They encompass nothing of His knowledge”: that is, His Proof, “except what He wills”: Volition, the greatest of the ranks.
“His Throne extends over the heavens and earth”: the Throne is the divine support reaching the higher ranks. “Their preservation does not weary Him”: the right wing and left wing. “He is the High, the Magnificent”: higher than all who were mentioned before and after, whom the polytheistic Shīʿa behold.
He stopped beside the milestone. The milestone signifies divine support, since milestones are used to find one's way along the road. Likewise support passes from the Worshipped One to the servant and returns to existence. His dismounting beside the mosque gate points to His servant, the Gate, who is a veil before His creation and calls them to Him through His support and command. Support is the exalted command that operates without human intermediary.
The gate signifies the Proof. His dismounting from one donkey and mounting another occurred at the time of the midday call to prayer; the midday prayer signifies the removal of outward religious law.
Your point of reliance should be the place where He changed mounts. It is called the Praiseworthy Station, the Existent Shrine, and the sweet spring from which people drink. It leads to the palace of our Lord al-Ḥākim in His own essence, the Praiseworthy Station facing the gate of a spiritual law and wise sciences. I shall explain these in another book, if our Lord grants success in all affairs. There is no power or strength except through Him; He suffices me and is the best Helper and Supporter.
Then our Lord—upon us be His peace and mercy—must, on each ride, return to the gardens known as al-Maqs. This signifies the manifestation of the third formation, emerging from the unbelief and associationism of the outward and inward paths: the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance.
His entering the palace by the very gate and underground passage from which He departed signifies the establishment of the command, the unveiling of the paths through written covenants, and the return of the affair to its origin: a spiritual reality without obligatory ordinances, satanic religious laws, or the ornaments of Hāmān. May our Lord protect us and you from doubting Him or associating others with Him, through His grace and favor. He is the Guardian of that and has power over it.
As for His outward descent into Egypt and what we witnessed, the erring Satan—may our Lord curse him—took hold of the hearts of the literalist common people and their foolish, law-bound minds through the talk of the mounted attendants (al-rukkābiyya) in the presence of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. Their foolish minds retained only the joking and playful words, not knowing that profound wisdom lay within them, though warnings avail them nothing.
His journey began at the three shrines. In them there is neither call to prayer, nor commencement, nor congregational prayer, except in the middle one, which is the straightest method and safest path. Whoever follows it is saved; whoever remains behind perishes and goes astray.
Then He—upon us be His peace and mercy—proceeds to Rāshida, where there are likewise three buildings of differing construction. The best, most knowledgeable, and most excellent is the middle mosque, where the preacher performs the Friday prayer and five prayers are offered according to the pillars of the days. It signifies the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and the establishment of five higher ranks; it is the sign of the Proof of the Unveiling.
The two mosques beside it differ in construction and signify the Speaker and Foundation. In the ordering of the ranks, the Speaker is superior to the Foundation; but in the ordering of the inward teaching and its symbols, the Foundation is greater in importance for reasoning and explanation. When tawḥīd appeared, the power of both was removed.
The place is named Rāshida, “the Guided,” because through knowledge of the Proof, his guidance, and learning from him, the Responders are rightly guided and reach the ultimate goal of the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance.
Then He—upon us be His peace and mercy—circles this middle mosque in outward appearance, signifying support for His servant. In front of the mosque is a steep ascent, difficult for those who climb it. There is no road to al-Qarāfa except over this ascent. It signifies repudiation of the Iblises, possessors of the ornaments and ordinances of religious law. There is no salvation for the world except by repudiating them. The road up this ascent is extremely difficult, yet through it the slave is freed: that is, one is delivered from the two laws, outward and inward.
What they see of His stopping among the Sufis, listening to their songs, and watching their dancing signifies the religious law that has been practiced, which is ornament, diversion, and play. Its destruction has drawn near.
As for the well of al-Zaybaq (Mercury), it signifies the Speaker. At its top it is broad, but at its bottom it is narrow. Likewise entry into religious law is easy and broad, while escape from it is difficult and narrow. Yet whoever reflects upon this well, knows its secret, and grasps its meaning, and whose salvation our Lord wills, may emerge through its opening, which signifies the Foundation.
Everyone necessarily falls into religious law; our Lord saves from it through His mercy whomever He wills. As the Speaker said in the Qurʾān: “There is none of you who will not come to it”: religious law. “It is a decree binding upon your Lord”: the Preceder. “Then We shall save those who were God-fearing”: from the Speaker. “And leave the wrongdoers”: the people of outward law, “there on their knees”: perpetually bewildered and sorrowful.
Whoever escapes safely from this well takes some of the debris for his use. Likewise, whoever has been subject to religious law and to the knowledge and symbols of Interpretation, but escapes the doubts of both and understands what they were intended to signify, reaches tawḥīd and benefits in his religion and worldly life.
Whoever leaps into the well without knowledge or strength—the Preceder and Follower—will break his legs and crush his neck. This signifies that whoever cuts himself off from the Preceder and Follower, the two praiseworthy origins, and opposes them, loses this world and the next. That is the manifest loss.
The well of al-Ḥufra signifies the Foundation. Its punishment is harsher and escape from it more exhausting than escape from the well of al-Zaybaq, because whoever accepts the outward law, then reaches the inward teaching, comes to believe there is nothing above the Foundation, that he is the final goal and object of worship in everlasting punishment. Unless our Lord wills his salvation, he needs a Caller to attend to him, break and repair his belief, and bring him out of his unbelief and associationism.
The attendants' play with sticks and clubs before our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—signifies the disputations of the people of associationism and the common folk, their confusion among the people, and their manifestation of blameworthy religions. Their boldness in speaking before His Presence exposes their falsity.
Wrestling signifies the confrontation of Callers with one another. The killing of Suwayd and al-Ḥammām offered the world a lesson for anyone willing to learn and deliverance from associationism for anyone who reflected. They were the leaders in wrestling, each with a clan protecting him and with followers. They signify the Speaker and Foundation. Their deaths signify the suspension of the two laws of Revelation and Interpretation and the humiliation of the two parties, those of unbelief and heresy.
The attendants' references to female private parts and the male urethra signify the Speaker and Foundation.
When one says, “Show me your moon,” it means, “Uncover your Foundation.” It is the place from which urine comes forth, signifying associationism.
If a man uncovers his Foundation and brings out his heart—that is, renounces the worship of his Foundation—he is saved from punishment and returns from his former belief. Whoever doubts is destroyed, just as a person who neither urinates nor relieves himself is overcome by pain and perishes.
Fire here signifies the knowledge of Truth and its eternal establishment—exalted be His remembrance. It burns away what the two laws brought, just as the attendants burn one another's private parts with fire. This signifies the burning of the two laws' dominion and the expiration of their time, and the manifestation of the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—without doubt or association, without a corporeal Speaker, a material Foundation, a spiritual Preceder, or a psychic Follower. No hypocrite will retain influence, and no polytheist will retain a state.
Those in authority will be from among you, and those who administer reckoning will be from among you. The Unitarians of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—will enjoy perpetual bliss, abundant favor, and enduring sovereignty, as the servants of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance and name, besides whom none is worshipped—said: “We shall remove whatever rancor is in their breasts”: Revelation and Interpretation. “As brothers”—in tawḥīd—“upon couches facing one another”: the true ranks of religion, the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and worship of Him alone without partner.
May our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—make us and you among those who look and see, and reflect upon and consider the actions of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. As He said: “Those who reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth”—the Speakers and Foundations—“Our Lord, You did not create this in vain; glorified are You, so protect us from the punishment of the Fire.” That is, far be it from You to leave us in the ignorance of outward law and the associationism of inward law; and protection from the Fire means deliverance from both religious laws.
Therefore, community of Unitarian brethren of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—who worship Him alone and none besides Him, protect your brethren, submit to our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and accept His decree in prosperity and adversity. Through the favor and strength of our Lord you will be saved from the punishment of religion and the misery of this world.
Praise and thanks belong to our Lord alone in prosperity and adversity. He suffices us and is the best Helper and Supporter.
The epistle is complete, with the praise of our Lord alone. It was accepted and approved.