Al-Mawsūma bi-Kashf al-Ḥaqāʾiq
الموسومة بكشف الحقائق
I put my trust in our Lord, the All-Knowing Creator, who does not enter thoughts or imaginings, whom months and years cannot encompass, who is exalted above the Speaker, Foundation, and Imam, a Judge whose description surpasses all judges.
Praise belongs to the Meaning of meanings, the Lord of the named and of the name; thanks belong to the Most High, Creator of spirit and body, Originator of single and paired beings in antiquity, Sender of sustenance and Revealer of the apportioned share, Lord of the two easts and two wests, God of the two origins and two branches, the One toward whom prayer was directed at the two qiblas, for whom the Call was undertaken throughout the worlds, to whom the ranks of the Callers pointed, and whom all Unitarians worshipped in both conditions. Glorified and exalted is He above likeness to creatures and servants.
Know, community of Unitarians—may the Mighty, Compelling Creator have mercy on you—that all the believers and the earlier teachers were perplexed about the Preceder and his Opponent, the Follower and his Opponent.
Some said that the Preceder is the final goal and ultimate end, and that he alone is worshipped in every age. This is unbelief itself.
Others said that the Preceder is the light of the Creator, a light that thoughts and imaginings cannot perceive. This is associationism itself: they make both the Creator and His servant imperceptible, leaving no distinction between Worshipped One and servant. Such a thing is impossible and constitutes associationism and error.
Others said that the Word is above the Preceder but that the Word and Preceder are identical, with no difference between them. Reason cannot accept that male and female are the same, or that a prince is a chamberlain and a chamberlain a prince, or that sun is moon and moon is sun, night day and day night, heaven earth and earth heaven. Such claims are impossible.
They all agree that the Preceder is the source of stillness and coldness and the Follower the source of heat and movement. Thus they have made the Preceder the world of non-being, which cannot be seen, and the Follower the world of existence. In doing so they diminish the Preceder. How could this be admissible when they also call the Follower the greater world? Their argument would make the Follower superior to the Preceder, for heat and movement are the nature of life and existence, while stillness and coldness are the nature of death and non-being, and life and existence are better than death and non-being.
Reason cannot accept that the one who comes later is superior to the one who precedes him, the one provided for to the provider, or the subordinate to the superior. Glorified is our Lord, the Most High, above their descriptions. Yet these people spoke according to their capacities and the reach of their age, and attached themselves to the limits of their time and place.
Now the cycles have turned, what was hidden of the doctrine of the righteous has appeared, and what lay concealed beneath the wall has been explained to the world. The circle has returned to its central point. Through the support of our Lord the Creator, al-Ḥākim the Overpowering, the Most High and Compelling—exalted above the sayings of unbelievers—I have composed this book and named it The Unveiling of Realities. I shall mention in it whatever the Creator—glorified is He—grants me of His support, according to what the age requires, not according to any merit or prior claim of yours. It is His generosity and mercy toward you and the fulfillment of what He promised through the ranks of His Call and the servants of His dominion of unity. Praise and thanks belong to Him alone.
I say, through the will and support of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—that the Creator—glorified is He—manifested from His radiant light a complete, pure form: this is Will, through which all things were constituted. As He said, “When He wills a thing, His command is only to say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” That form was called Intellect. The Intellect was complete in light and power, perfect in action and form. The five natures were gathered in it, and it contained knowledge of everything that will exist without end.
He appointed it Imam of the community, present in every age and time, and it is the true Preceder. It was named Preceder because its creation and form preceded all the ranks in the tawḥīd of the Creator—glorified is He. It can be perceived by the senses, eats and drinks, contrary to those who say that it cannot be perceived through thought or imagination. It was the first being originated by the Most High, possessed of stillness yet capable of motion, the original central point and matter of the five natures, subtle and transparent, governing all the worlds and those above them.
He made it the glory and honor of all worlds in religion and worldly life. Their stations depend on how much they draw from its light and drink from its sweet, pure sea. Our Lord the Most High—glorified is He—said to the Cause of origination, the Universal Intellect, “Approach,” meaning, “Approach My servants and My tawḥīd.” It approached in hearing and obedience. He said, “Turn away,” meaning, “Turn away from all who associate another with Me and worship someone besides Me.” It turned away from them. Our Lord the Most High said, “By My might, My majesty, and My exaltation above all heights, no one shall enter My Garden”—meaning My reward—“except through you and love of you; and no one shall burn in My Fire”—meaning the outward forms of the law-bound religions, which are hot and dry—“except by abandoning you—
“—and acting hypocritically toward you. Whoever obeys you obeys Me, and whoever disobeys you disobeys Me. Through you the highest stations are reached. I have made you the means to My mercy for all My servants who obey Me.”
When the Intellect heard this from the Most High Creator—glorified is He—it looked at itself and saw no likeness, no opponent capable of resisting it, and no equal able to rival it. It admired itself and imagined it would never need anyone, that no adversary could rise against it, and that it could stand alone throughout all the cycles. Then, through the decree of our Lord the Most High—glorified is He—disobedience arose from its obedience, darkness from its light, arrogance from its humility, and ignorance from its forbearance. These became four blameworthy natures opposed to the four praiseworthy natures of the Intellect: the heat of reason, the strength of light, the stillness of humility, and the coolness of forbearance, together with the pliant matter that enters the natures yet remains distinct from them.
Opposite each of these faculties there arose an opposing religious force, hostile to the Intellect and disobedient to its command and prohibition. It considered itself the Intellect's likeness and equal, though it had been originated from it without an intermediary.
The Intellect understood that this was a trial imposed by its Originator, the Most High, because it had viewed itself as perfect and powerful. It then acknowledged its weakness and incapacity, sought forgiveness for its sin, and implored our Lord the Most High for help against the Opponent. It said, “There is no god but our Lord,” meaning that none is complete in power and sovereignty except the Most High, the God of gods, who has no adversary, equal, or likeness.
It asked Him to appoint a helper against the opposing adversary and a deputy to stand in its place among those in agreement, so that it need not address the Opponent or be troubled by a rival. From that longing and supplication, the Most High originated the Soul of the ranks, named it Dhū Maṣṣa, and made it a Follower in the Intellect's service, listening and obeying its command. He gave it half the movement and action. Thus the Soul was in the position of a female, the Intellect in that of a male. For this reason the male was assigned the portion of two females. All the ranks are their children. The Intellect alone was made male and the Soul female. The Word is above the one whom the earlier teachers called Preceder; the Soul is above the Word; the Intellect is above all, and is truly their spirit. It is the Preceder in antiquity and light in darkness.
The earlier teachers called the fourth of the ranks “Preceder” because he preceded others in the spiritual laws and manifested them. Thus they said that each Speaker has a law and stands in the place of the Preceder, meaning that the outward law stands in place of the spiritual law of the Preceder of the lower ranks. But the true Preceder is the Intellect, which precedes all spiritual and corporeal predecessors: its creation and light preceded everything.
In another book we shall set out the names our Lord—glorified is He—gave His human manifestation, by which He appeared to the world from the time He entrusted the Universal Intellect with its office until the manifestation of Adam of Purity and the angels' appearance to him. This comprises seventy cycles, between each cycle and the next seventy weeks, between each week and the next seventy years, each year being a thousand years by your reckoning.
We shall also give the name of the Intellect and of the Opponent in every cycle and the names by which the people of each cycle were known, as the people of our present cycle are called human beings [al-ins]. We shall explain what you need, if our Lord wills; through Him comes success in all affairs.
In this book, however, we shall discuss the first cycle, the manifestation of the Intellect, so that you may know its reality, embrace pure tawḥīd, and understand that our Lord—glorified is He—never withdraws His light and veil from the world, and that all the ranks of His religion are present in every age, time, epoch, and season for anyone seeking the salvation of his spirit, who does not worship absent non-being or prostrate before idols.
Let us return to the spiritual Opponent and his emergence from the light of the Universal Intellect, and to the Soul's emergence between the light of the Intellect and the darkness of the Opponent. To the extent that the Soul possesses the Intellect's light, it understands the Intellect's words and benefits from its order. To the extent that it possesses the Opponent's darkness, it can dispute with his soldiers and followers, recognize his cunning and subtle tricks, and see through his flattery.
The Opponent, who is Ḥārith, is subtle and transparent, his power coursing like blood, because his origin was in the Intellect's light. Yet he is darkness beside the Intellect's light, though light beside other beings; corporeal beside the Intellect's spirituality, though spiritual beside other beings; dense beside the Intellect's subtlety, though subtle and transparent beside the density of the worlds.
The Intellect may be compared to a subtle flame cast into wood. It burns the wood, then the flame returns to its element while the wood becomes charcoal. Charcoal is dense compared with the subtle flame, but subtle compared with the wood. If you leave charcoal for a while, its body darkens and its color fades; when you put wood on it, it ignites again and returns to its former appearance. Only when it goes out by itself or is extinguished with abundant water does the fire cease.
Likewise, the spiritual Opponent is subtle and transparent because he originated from the Intellect, yet dense because he disobeyed its command. When he gains control of believers' hearts, he corrupts them through the power he originally derived from the Intellect, just as fire remains hidden in charcoal. If a Responder is weak and lacks the strength of knowledge, the Opponent corrupts him as embers consume wood until both become useless ash. If the Responder has firm certainty and a strong proof in religion, he extinguishes the Opponent's fire with the water of realities, and the Opponent has no power over him.
The Intellect stood behind the Opponent and the Soul before him. The Opponent evaded them to right and left, so the Intellect needed a helper at its right and the Soul a helper at its left, to enclose the Opponent between them. From the Intellect came the Word, and from the Soul came the Preceder. The Word stood on the right and the Preceder on the left. The Opponent became bewildered among Intellect, Soul, Word, and Preceder and tried to escape beneath them. He was named Ḥārith because he was bewildered (ḥāra) within himself. He was subsequently named Iblīs because he originated from the Intellect against its will, emerging from it unwillingly. Thus he was said to have no father: a son does not pass from a man's loins to a woman's womb without the man's will and movement.
A child in religion likewise cannot arise without a Caller's initiative. Since the Intellect had neither religious will nor natural desire in the Opponent's formation, the Opponent was called fatherless and a child of opposition. An illegitimate child is the adversary of legitimate children. Likewise the children of illicit union are enemies of the Unitarians, the children of the Intellect and Soul. Jaʿfar son of Muḥammad testified of them: “The believer is the brother of the believer through his mother and father”; their father is light, meaning the Intellect, and their mother mercy, meaning the Soul.
We explained in The Straight Conduct that Adam of Purity was the Intellect, named Shaṭnīl, and Iblīs was named Ḥārith. We referred to them at the time of their human manifestation, after seventy complete cycles. We also said that Ḥārith is written with four letters, and we calculated its letters: ḥāʾ is eight, alif one, and the remaining letters six, leaving nine. The word “nine,” when written in Arabic, consists of four letters: tāʾ, sīn, ʿayn, tāʾ marbūṭa. When the names Ḥārith and Iblīs are calculated, four letters remain, for the remainder of Ḥārith is nine and that of Iblīs seven; after subtracting ten, four letters remain alike.
We calculated the name lengthwise, crosswise, combined, and separately, and found four letters. The final letter of Ḥārith was identified with the first letter of “nine,” indicating the law of the Speaker and its ornamentation in every age. The first of the Speakers is their last, appearing in cycles through repetition, just as the Guardian stands in every age. That is why the adherents of the religious laws love all their enemies yet do not love a single Unitarian. There is no proof clearer than this.
Returning to the Intellect, we find that the Arabic words for Intellect (ʿaql) and Soul (nafs) each have three letters, though they differ in the greater numerical reckoning. Ignorant Shīʿīs look upon Intellect and Soul merely as ranks of the Call and suppose them equal in station. Yet the Intellect is male and the Soul is in the position of female; the male bestows knowledge and the female receives it. When we calculate the name of the Intellect by the greater abjad reckoning, we find two hundred, and the Soul one hundred and thirty. The Intellect thus exceeds the Soul by seventy degrees: the ranks of Imamate and tawḥīd.
I shall count them for you through the will of our Lord—glorified is He—so that you do not associate any creature with Him. First is the Soul and the spreading of its Proofs through the islands, with seven Callers for the seven regions; this is what was meant by “over it are nineteen.” Next comes the Word and its twelve Proofs and seven Callers for the seven regions, for the Word has a counterpart in the Soul. Then come the Preceder and his twelve Proofs, and the Follower and his twelve Proofs, the latter possessing what the Preceder possesses. Then comes the unrestricted Caller, with his Authorized Instructors and Mukāsirs. Together they make seventy ranks. From them branch all higher and lower ranks. All derive from the Intellect, the Imam supported by our Lord—glorified and exalted is He.
He removes from them whom He wills and raises in rank whom He wills, through the support and will of our Lord the Most High. As the Qurʾān says: “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.”
These seventy ranks are the links of the chain of which the Qurʾān says: “Seize him and bind him”: this means the Opponent of the Imam when he reaches his limit and completes his respite; seize him with rational proofs and bind him with the covenant. This is the slaughter concerning which it is said that the Qāʾim will slaughter Iblīs. “Then expose him to the Fire”: that is, the profound sciences of the Qāʾim of the Age, before which scholars and men of understanding gather, fall silent, and become bewildered. “Then insert him into a chain seventy cubits long”: this means the covenant of the Qāʾim of the Age, a chain linked together, consisting of seventy men in the Call of tawḥīd.
“For he did not believe in God the Mighty”: this means the spiritual Opponent, who refused to acknowledge the Imamate and excellence of Shaṭnīl.
The ranks of the Qāʾim of the Age are compared to a chain because the Call is ordered, link joined to link. If a person moves the chain at its beginning, its middle and end move; if he moves it at its end, its middle and beginning move; and if he moves it in the middle, both ends move. Likewise a Responder who enters tawḥīd through an Authorized Instructor is in the position of one who enters through a Caller; and one who responds through a Caller is in the position of one who responds through a Proof. All call to one thing: the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord the Most High, who is exalted above their descriptions.
The outward adherents of religious laws tell a story that a chain hung from heaven to the mosque of Jerusalem. When two adversaries had a dispute, they approached the chain and the truthful party attempted to grasp it. If he was truthful, the chain came near; if he lied, it moved away. It remained so until one man deceived another and took hold of it, whereupon the chain rose into heaven and was never seen again. They know its outward appearance but not its meaning. They did not ask the masters of realities, so they lost their way, their insight became blind to true light, and they lived though spiritually dead, gathered though scattered. They lost outward and inward knowledge and did not reach the Originator of secrets. That is the manifest loss. So much for their account.
Know—may our Lord guide you to Him—that the true heaven is the Intellect, the earth is the Soul, and the chain is the knowledge of the Intellect, continually and openly bestowed upon the Soul. The hand here is the Caller, and the two litigants are the Responder and his Opponent. The Unitarians are distinguished from the polytheists by the Imam's knowledge, indications, and signs. If someone claims to be a Responder, they ask him to identify the ranks and their sciences. If his Caller testifies that he possesses knowledge, they protect him and admit him to the deepest sciences.
Matters remained so until a hypocrite used deceit to join through a Caller and learned all the ranks and their sciences. He then returned to hypocrisy and unbelief, and the Responders discovered his fraud and cunning. The Intellect withdrew its knowledge from him and concealed it from all who acted hypocritically toward it.
This is the true chain and its meaning, not the story of the ignorant literalists. If their outward account were correct, what wisdom would there be in chaining someone who is already in Hell, surrounded by its guardians, unable to leave the Fire even without bonds? If they say that God intended to threaten the people of Hell and magnify their punishment, their argument fails because the chain is said to be seventy cubits long. For sheer exaggeration it should have been a thousand cubits. The precise number seventy shows that the intended meaning is seventy persons possessing religious knowledge of tawḥīd. No one may overstep their ranks, add to them, or subtract from them; they are exactly seventy.
Let us return to the Intellect and its beginning. The Most High Creator—glorified is He—originated the Intellect, which is the Imam.
There was then neither heaven of the Speakers nor heaven of the elements;
neither psychic earth nor natural earth;
neither luminous Throne nor corporeal throne;
neither seat of tawḥīd nor outspread royal seat;
neither higher sovereignty in the Call nor imagined descriptive sovereignty;
neither universal Tablet of Preservation nor any fashioned tablet;
neither Pen moving by the Compeller's power nor pen sharpened in created hands;
neither religious sun of the spheres nor cosmic sun of the natures;
neither moon shining with reality nor moon rising as a crescent;
neither stars guiding the worlds nor fiery stars in the sky;
neither cloud-borne moving mountains nor solid earthly mountains;
neither seas filled with knowledge nor overflowing natural seas;
neither Garden pleasing through covenants nor garden visible to spectators;
neither fire whose light in hearts is intellective nor eternal primordial fire of spirits.
At its manifestation there were no days or people, months or years, deficiency or completion, senses or imaginings, time or place, epoch or season, night or day, cultivated land or wilderness, seas or deserts, or revolving sphere. There was none besides our Lord, the Creator, the Most High, the Compeller—glorified and exalted above their descriptions.
Through the support of our Lord—glorified is He—I say that He is not subject to names, attributes, or languages. I do not say that He is ancient or eternal, for antiquity and eternity are themselves created, and our Lord the Most High is their Creator and Originator, a divine reality not perceived by imagination or the senses, nor known by opinion or analogy. He has no known place that would confine Him while other places were empty of Him; nor does He occupy every place in the manner of one lacking freedom of action. He is not “first,” which would require a last, nor “last,” which would require a first; not “outward,” which would require an inward, nor “inward,” which would necessarily be hidden by an outward aspect. Every such designation requires its opposite.
Nor do I say that He has a soul or spirit, for that would liken Him to creatures and subject Him to increase and decrease. I do not call Him a person, body, shape, image, substance, or accident, because each of these designations necessarily entails the six directions: above, below, right, left, behind, and before. Anything described by likeness needs another likeness, and each set of six would need another six, continuing without numerical end. Our Lord the Most High is exalted above numbers, pairs, and single things. I do not call Him a thing, lest He become subject to destruction; nor “not a thing,” lest He become a missing non-being. He is not “upon everything,” which would make Him supported by it.
He is not “within something,” which would make it encompass Him; nor attached to something, which would make Him dependent upon it. He does not stand, sit, sleep, or keep vigil. He has no likeness; He does not depart, arrive, or pass by. He is neither subtle nor dense, strong nor weak. Our Lord—glorified is He—is exalted above all names, attributes, kinds, languages, and things.
Only by necessity of speech, not as a statement of His reality, do I call Him the Creator and Originator of all things, who formed them from the light from which He originated universal and particular things, and to whose majesty and sovereignty everything returns. His divine reality is not perceived except through an imagined form, not through a visible reality.
Yet He has shown us the veil within which He is veiled and the station from which He speaks, making it present and visible so that He may be worshipped, out of mercy and compassion for His creatures. In every age worship is directed toward that station which we see and behold, whose words we hear and with which we converse.
If someone asks, “How can we hear the Creator speak through a human being, or see His reality in a form?” we reply through our Lord's support: you Muslims, Jews, and Christians all believe that God spoke to Moses son of ʿImrān through a dry tree and addressed him from an unhearing mountain. You call Moses the one who conversed with God because he heard the voice from the tree and mountain, and you do not reject one another's belief.
You say that our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is a king among the kings of the earth, a man endowed with intellect. Our Lord has innumerable excellences, and no tree or stone can be compared with Him. It is therefore far more fitting that the Creator should speak through His tongue, manifest His power to the worlds through Him, and be veiled from them within Him. When we hear the speech of our Lord, we say, “The Creator said such and such,” just as Moses, hearing the tree, said, “God said such and such to me.” This is a rational proof none of you can deny.
The community agrees that our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—has intellect, while a tree and stone have neither understanding nor the power to reason about God. One who understands and reasons is more fitting to convey God's speech and action than one who understands nothing. If a tree can be His veil, a reasoning being is more fitting to be His veil than an unreasoning one. How could the Creator be veiled in a tree and speak from it to Moses, only for the tree to burn and His veil to disappear? Glorified is the Worshipped God above the descriptions of the polytheists. Our Lord al-Ḥākim—exalted be His remembrance—cannot be comprehended or described, and His veil appears in every age under differing forms and names. As the Qurʾān says, “Each day He is engaged in an affair,” and one affair does not distract Him from another.
He is the Powerful, the Overpowering, the Most High, the Magnificent.
Through the support of our Lord—glorified is He—I say that the word Allāh, when represented by a scribe's pen on a tablet, is created and not the Creator. The name cannot be represented in writing without four instruments: inkpot, ink, pen, and paper, with the writer as a fifth. The written word Allāh has four letters; when their letter-names are spelled out, there are eleven letters: alif three, two lāms six, and hāʾ two. The writer completes the twelve letters.
The writer cannot write Allāh until he possesses mature intellect, discernment, senses, and five fingers with which to write, along with inkpot, ink, pen, paper, the four elemental natures from which things are composed, and the matter of the natures that is within them yet distinct from them without embodiment.
These make twenty-nine before the name Allāh is represented on the tablet. The alif within the name is hidden within it, while twenty-eight letters are manifest: the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Thus there are twenty-eight visible instruments apart from the Intellect, which is exalted above the worlds.
The letters alif, bāʾ, tāʾ, and thāʾ resemble one another in some respects, except that alif is written vertically while bāʾ, tāʾ, and thāʾ are written horizontally. Alif signifies the Intellect, the Imam: it stands upright without a dot above or mark below. Bāʾ signifies the Soul, the Proof, with one dot beneath it because between Soul and Intellect stands one rank, the spiritual Opponent. Its dot is placed below because the Opponent disobeyed the command of his Creator. Had he been obedient, the dot would have been above.
The Opponent arose first, and his party became more numerous than that of the Soul. Tāʾ signifies the Word, with two dots above it indicating the two ranks higher than it. Thāʾ signifies the right wing, the Preceder, the fourth rank; its three dots signify the three ranks above it. These letters are written horizontally, indicating their obedience and receptivity toward the Imam, the Intellect.
The three ranks above the Preceder have many names spoken by the common people without understanding their meanings: Destiny, the Powerful, Power, Will, Volition, the Word, Might, Sovereignty, and Greatness. Earlier teachers knew nothing above the Preceder except the Word, and they said that the Word was identical with him, as we explained at the beginning of this book. I ask our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—not to punish them for falling short of explaining the realities, and I ask Him to bring their understanding to completion through His grace and mercy.
Let us return to the letters and their meanings in order. Jīm (ج), ḥāʾ (ح), and khāʾ (خ) have the same basic written form but differ greatly in reality. Jīm signifies the outward religious law of the Speaker. The dot beneath it signifies the Foundation's law, hidden beneath the outward law. Khāʾ signifies the Foundation's law, which is Interpretation; its dot above signifies the Speaker's law, which stands higher than the Foundation's law. Jīm and khāʾ are the right and left sides: as it was said in the eighth gathering, right and left are two paths of misguidance, and salvation lies in the middle road. Ḥāʾ signifies the law of the Qāʾim of the Age, a spiritual law without obligatory rites.
The Proof of the Qāʾim of the Age speaks and establishes the spiritual law before the Qāʾim appears. At his appearance, the Proof's name has three letters and the name Qāʾim of the Age has four. The two names begin with jīm and ḥāʾ. Iblīs was called Ḥārith because he became bewildered between the two ḥāʾs, the letters of the Qāʾim and his Proof. He was also named Ḥārith because he imitated them and claimed their stations. Jīm is named so because it gathers (jamaʿa) the laws and ornaments of all Speakers. Khāʾ is so named because it is the Speaker's deputy (khalīfa) and ally. Ḥāʾ is so named because it encompasses (iḥtawā) the knowledge of jīm and khāʾ, the Speaker and Foundation. In abjad reckoning, ḥāʾ is eight.
Likewise the Qāʾim of the Age encompasses the knowledge of the eight bearers of the Throne, as the Qurʾān says: “Eight will bear the Throne of your Lord on that day.” This means the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord the Most High.
The letters mīm, wāw, rāʾ, zāy, and nūn likewise share related written forms. Mīm is rounded at the back, wāw at the front, while nūn keeps its form but has a dot above it.
Mīm signifies Muḥammad, wāw his Legatee, and their written shapes indicate their religious laws. Mīm's curve is at the back, just as the Speaker's law is outward; wāw's curve is at the front, just as the Foundation's law is inward. Were it not for the two forms of mīm and wāw, they could not be distinguished; likewise, without the outward law and inward Interpretation, Muḥammad and ʿAlī would not have been designated Speaker and Foundation.
Nūn signifies the law of the Qāʾim of the Age, which has neither outward nor inward form. Its dot above signifies the Qāʾim's manifestation through force and the sword. Mīm also signifies the name of the Guide. The Guide appears at the end of the letters of the name Allāh, just as the Guide appeared at the end and completion of the cycles. Alif signifies his appearance through support and the sword, because alif signifies the Intellect, lām the Soul, and bāʾ the world's response to the Call. The Guide's name signifies the Guide; they worship our Lord al-Ḥākim—glorified is He—and call upon Him, “O God of the first and the last!”
Then the world becomes simple and spiritual, and the doctrine divine and radiant. All whom I have mentioned are servants of our Lord al-Ḥākim—exalted be His remembrance. He is the Existent Worshipped One, whom tongues cannot describe or hearts comprehend, the One unlike single things, the Unique unlike individual beings, the Self-Sufficient, Originator and Restorer of everything. Glorified and exalted is He above their descriptions.
Praise belongs to our Lord alone. He suffices us and is the best Helper and Supporter.
Written in Ramadan, the second year of the Guide of the Responders, who takes vengeance upon the polytheists by the sword of our Lord alone and the strength of His authority.
The epistle is complete, through the praise and favor of our Lord.