Their report of him is that he used to say: "Are You near so I may commune with You, or far so I may call to You?" To us, this is all the speech of the Informed One, teaching us that the Meaning is near, not far, according to His word: {And when My servants ask you concerning Me, indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the caller when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me and believe in Me that they may be guided}1.
And His word—the Almighty: {Have you not seen that God knows what is in the heavens and what is on the earth? There is no private conversation of three except that He is the fourth of them, nor of five except that He is the sixth of them—and no less than that and no more except that He is with them wherever they are. Then He will inform them of what they did on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed, God is All-Knowing of all things}2—wherever they are, without cessation or transition.
And His word—the Almighty: {And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein}3.
(365) The saying of our Master—exalted be his glory—upon the pulpit of His majesty in Kufa: "I am closer to the believer and the disbeliever than the jugular vein. I look upon him and hear his speech. I am the Creator, I am the Provider, I am the Splitter and the Masser, and I am the Giver of Life and the Destroyer."