Al-Usayfir

Then he said: {Nor is the Creator other than it}¹.

Because it is the Form of Existence connected to the Worshipped (Al-Ma'bud). And the Form of Existence is the Indicating Gate (Al-Bab al-Dall), the Ultimate Goal of Hopes, the Locus of Parables, the Path of Inference, the Site of the Attribute, the Abode of Gnosis, and the Repository of the Call of Allah’s Dye (Sibghat Allah)².

And it is His Description, His Speech, His Word, His House, His Self, His Veil, His Proof, His Light, His Guidance, His Path set towards His Paradise, and His Secret manifest to His creation³.

And [it is] the Governor of what is in His Kingdom, and the Spreader of the spirits of His creation. To this, the indication is made by His saying:

"I did not make them witness the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor the creation of themselves⁴."

Footnotes

¹"Nor is the Creator other than it": Because its existence is inseparable from His Existence in terms of Himself (min haythu huwa). For He (Exalted is He) does not manifest through other than His Essence.It (The Form) is Him: Because it is characterized by all His spiritual attributes; from it appeared Knowledge, Miracles, and Power.He is not It: Because He (Mighty and Majestic) is not characterized in reality by any of its sensory attributes.The Almighty said: "So I swear by what you see and what you do not see." (They are in reality One). And The Almighty said: "Light upon Light." (They are in reality One).Therefore, the Unitarian Believer (Al-Mu'min al-Muwahhid) must know that the segmentation applies to the expressions, not to the Essence. He must know that we see the Total Goal (Al-Ghaya al-Kulliyya), but we do not see the Totality of the Goal (Kulliyyat al-Ghaya).How excellent is the saying of Al-Makzun (Sanctified be his secret):"I singled Him out [in Oneness] without separation, And I did not say, with connection, That the Light is other than the Illuminator."

²It is stated in Tuhfat al-Akhyar: "The Sibgha (Dye) is the Attribute unique to Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and it is the very Reality of the Essence witnessed by vision..." up to his saying: "...and it has no [physical] form or body; it is the Nature (Fitrah) upon which people were created. Are the Power and the Sibgha not one in Reality and Substance?" (O You who are Manifest by His Power).

³"His Secret manifest to His creation": Meaning that the "Form of Existence" is, in Reality, the Hidden Unseen (Al-Ghayb al-Maknun) which eyes do not perceive in terms of itself (min haythu huwa).

⁴Surah Al-Kahf, Verse 51.

مكتبة كتيبة محمّد بن نصير Muhammad bin Nusayr's Library Bibliothèque de Muhammad bin Nusayr کتابخانه کتیبه محمد بن نصیر

Al-Usayfir - Muhammad ibn Shu‘ba al-Harrani

Footnotes