"Does the Form Visible to the Eyes Have No Reality?"
Let us now return to what we began with first, and say: O Brother indicated by Faith, when you said "The Visible Form," did you not affirm seeing it and its falling under the sense of sight, and associate it with visible and sensible things?
Then you say after that: "It has no reality; rather, it is an illusion (Takhyil) in the eyes of the beholders."
And by your intent and choice—without knowledge or correspondence to the Meaning to which it was attributed—[you say] what, had you realized what you are saying, you would have belied yourself, and your companions would have belied you for your denial and ignorance.
How did you place under the sense of sight that which has no reality nor existence?1
And if you were demanded [to explain] what you indicate regarding the Visible Form, its true knowledge, and its attribution—and that you assigned to it tribes, a lineage, a house, and a mosque containing it,