He replied: "Truly, the Meaning is ancient, never-ceasing; and the Name is ancient to you. He is ancient from an Ancient, pre-eternal from a Pre-eternal. the Ancient produced him from the light of His Essence, and the light of His Essence is never-ceasing. Thus, he is ancient by the Light, yet originated by the Manifestation."

In the same sense is what was related by Abu Sa’id Maymun ibn al-Qasim al-Tabarani—may God be pleased with him—in his answer to a question regarding this: "According to us, and based on the view of our sheikh the Lord Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn al-Khasibi—may God illuminate his person—the soul of the Gate was created from the body of the Veil in which he appeared within humanity. It is as if when the Veil manifested through the Gate, the body of the Mim and the soul of the Sin (which was created from the body of the Mim) mingled within the Gate. These two lights intermixed within him, yet they are a single thing in root and branch. From the body of the Sin comes the soul of the Greatest Orphan. I do not say that the body of the Mim is mortal; rather, it is a transparent substance created from the light of God. The People of Purity see him according to the measure of their rank and the loftiness of their station, while the People of Turbidity see him as a body among bodies and a frame among frames."

That serves as a proof against them and an increase in their turbidity. The soul of the Mim—which inhabits this luminous body whose very beginning is from the light of the light of God—began from the light of the Essence and to it shall return. It was separated from the light of the Essence for the stillness of movements; it is neither created nor a creator. It is ancient to us, yet originated before the light of its Creator, as my statement previously mentioned in the epistle The Splitting and the Massing: "The Name is ancient by the Light, yet originated by the Manifestation."

(303) It has been related from Isaiah—exalted be his glory—that he said in the first scroll of the Torah: "Truly, the Lord of lords among us is the God of gods, the Creator of every creator. He is not among those to whom the following apply: what, in, before, after, at, to, from, quantity, or concerning. Rather, He is the Meaning of Meanings, the Ultimate Goal, and the Whole of all Wholes."