الرسالة الموسومة ببدء الخلق
In the name of the God of Truth and the Originator of the cause of creation.
It is best that I begin by praising the Creator, exalted above beginning and primordiality. In His supreme wisdom He has veiled Himself from His creatures by means of what He created; He is the One who knows the cause of causes on high, who turns the ages and governs the cycles, who originates the mover of perpetual motion, and brings into being the knowing souls that endure. He is One, not as one of a number; abiding, without any allotted term. I bear witness to Him as His angels and those possessed of knowledge bear witness sincerely: He is the God of gods and the Originator of the Imam of the knowing, guiding Imams.
You, dear and truly faithful brother, asked me to set out for you at the outset an adequate explanation to which you might return and upon which you might rely in your general beliefs. I have answered you because I know the sincerity of your intention and the goodness of your inward disposition. I have therefore placed the unity of the Creator before myself and sought the assistance of His Guardian, the Qāʾim, throughout this discourse.
You have asked about the creation of the soul, the nobility of its element, and the different movements that occur through it despite the different bodies it inhabits: how its creation and formation began, and how these diverse movements arise.
I shall mention what permits the explanation of its creation: the existence of the soul since its origination, the bringing forth of Intellect, the soul’s relation to Intellect and its cleaving to it, and the descent of its nature to the various stations. I shall discuss its essence, the manner in which it enters the world, the variety of forms and the unity of the soul, the agreement of bodies and the diversity of movements, insofar as the ability of a weak servant permits.
Know—may our Lord guide you to every noble quality and every object of knowledge, grant you the path of right guidance, and protect you from error and passion—that the Creator, exalted is He, is the supreme God. Everything that exists as an effect derives from His Cause; and that Cause is the true Originator and the truthful Intellect. The supreme One is He whose divinity the intellects have been unable to comprehend. What He originated is the mighty substance, primordial in its own order, the mover of movement, itself moved by no other mover. Motion has never been without it, just as it has never been without motion. This is what is called the World of Intellect, prior to every action and everything acted upon.
Thereafter an action was brought into effect, producing something below Intellect. That action was the noble World of Soul, set in motion by the mover that subsists in movement and remains established through the Greatness.
By 'the Greatness' I mean the World of Intellect, the simplest and most subtle of lights; the World of Soul is below it. In this respect the two are different; by their common kind they mingle. The two worlds have always been intermingled, and the two primordial elements have always been in motion, the one revolving around the other. They are mover and moved through the divinity of the One who knows all effects.
Those two primordial principles possess the simple Word, the simple Light, and subtle Wisdom; thus there came to be four sides and a point at their center. These are, in brief, the principles of the spiritual world, expressed through words that point to subtle meanings.
As for the bodily world, its beginning is Nature, the source of motion and rest. Nature moves by virtue of its own being, yet its being is related to the World of Soul, which contains and rules over it. Nature is subject to that world. It begins movement in things that have no movement of their own, bringing each such thing from potentiality into actuality. Whatever exists merely in potency emerges into action through movement.
When Nature has finished its action upon a particular thing, its activity in that thing comes to rest. This shows that Nature is the source both of movement and of rest. Heat comes from movement and cold from rest; between them arise moisture and dryness, and each intermediate quality takes its position between its two extremes. From their conjunction the elements come into being: fire from heat and dryness; earth from cold and dryness; water from moisture and cold; and air from heat and moisture.
When the higher principles, namely Intellect and Soul, acted upon one another, the effect of each passed into the other. Their activity entered bodily things through the subtlety and mutual affinity of those principles and through their relation to body. The bodies then acted in likeness to the earlier subtle spiritual origins.
Through the power of psychic movement and the natural lights, the bodily elements rose in every direction; there came into being lofty spheres with exalted constellations. Luminous governors, moving in a circular course, took their places within them, for the completion of wisdom and the ordering and bringing forth of things by governance. The spheres revolved, their governors ordered things, the elemental 'mothers' performed their work, and the elements appeared. What was subtle mixed with what was dense, and what was dense with what was subtle. Thus were formed solid bodies, plants, animals, and finally the excellent rational human being.
A rational soul and a bodily form were constituted. An excellent rational soul was joined with a body made by craftsmanship; its formation had reached such perfection that it could not be in any better or more excellent condition. It was compounded of a subtle spiritual element and a dense corporeal one.
Whatever grows subtle rises toward the World of Intellect; whatever remains dense stays in the World of Nature. That which perishes and passes away is bound to that which neither perishes nor passes away, since the subtle has a beginning but no end, and the dense too has a beginning but no end.†1 It is the last effect of Nature: the bringing forth through movement of what had existed in potentiality into actuality.
I have reached the purpose for which I set out. Let us close this book by praising the Giver who bestows blessings, and by thanking the guiding guardian, who leads to worship of the Originator, the One who has veiled Himself from His creatures by what He created. He is sufficient for us, and in every matter we seek His aid; excellent indeed is the Helper and Supporter.
Thus ends the epistle called The Beginning of Creation, through the support of the Guardian of Truth, spoken by the tongue of his servant Bahāʾ al-Dīn and by the tongue of the believers, the adviser to all creation, the Left Wing and the fourth, lesser spiritual rank. Peace.
TEXTUAL ENDNOTES — EPISTLE 86
†1. The printed p. 727 assigns both the subtle and the dense a beginning but no end, despite the preceding contrast with what perishes. The wording is translated as printed. The philosophical and manuscript question remains open.