It may be that those who come across this epistle find what we have recorded obscure and feel weariness while reading it, saying: "This is not the habit of authors in the books they compose or the epistles they compile." Thus, we recorded in this chapter what we know and have narrated from the recurring reports transmitted by the righteous pious from the Luminous Masters, and that to which the firm Quran testifies—and reason is sufficient as a proof.

Among that is what our jurist Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi, may Allah sanctify his spirit, recorded in a section of his epistle: "We have found in the world that manifested its merit and station that there was a means (sabab) through which it reached that supreme goal," in the saying of the Mighty and Majestic: {Then he followed a way (a means)} (Al-Kahf: 89).

This must be received with goodness and total submission. For the Great World and the Grand Master established that he followed a "means" (sabab), and he possessed a means that brought him to that supreme goal. Thus, he made it obligatory for the entire world to seek a means for their salvation and deliverance, through which they reach the Oneness of Allah the Exalted. Whoever does not find a means for himself remains in wandering and confusion.

Therefore, let every person seek out someone they know to be above them in knowledge and higher than them in Gnosis, and let them make that person a means to reach the knowledge of what they have realized, until that person instructs them. Once they have instructed them, they have delivered them. No one should allow pride to prevent them from seeking inward knowledge wherever it may be, for it is from the sources of Allah, Mighty and Majestic.

(59) We have narrated from him, may His might be glorified, that he said: "Take knowledge, even from the dung-heaps." And he, may His might be glorified, said: "Seek knowledge, even if it be in China."