The manifestation of the Messiah from her through birth was to show that he has an Originator who produced him, and that there is one above him who possesses him, manifests him, and conceals him. That is the word of the Mighty and Sublime recounting the disciples: {And [remember] when the disciples said, "O Jesus, son of Mary, can your Lord send down to us a table [spread with food] from the heaven?" [Jesus] said, "Fear God, if you should be believers."}1
It is related of the disciples that they were fullers2; when they saw him, they believed in him. He named them the Disciples (al-Hawariyyin) because they were the Elite; their number was twelve. In the view of the People of Reality, they are the twelve Nakibs in every Cycle, neither increasing nor decreasing. They are those who were sincere to him and answered him outwardly when he said: {But when Jesus felt disbelief from them, he said, "Who are my supporters for [the cause of] God?" The disciples said, "We are supporters of God. We have believed in God and testify that we are Muslims [submitting to Him]. Our Lord, we have believed in what You revealed and have followed the messenger, so write us down among the witnesses."}3
When Lord Messiah manifested and his matter reached the sages—that a prophet had appeared in the Holy Land who heals the blind and the leper—they said: "As for the blind and the leper, we [also] heal them." But when it was said that he gives life to the dead by the permission of the Universal Cause, Sophista said: "We have no need to give life to the dead; rather, let him ask the Universal Cause to keep alive these persons whom we have found intimacy with and who found intimacy with us." Galen said to him: "O my brother Galen, rather let him ask the Universal Cause to withhold death from us for a single day."