Our Master—may His Might be exalted—replied: "How can corruption affect that which transcends expression and influence, due to the permanence of its subsistence and the loftiness of its station? O Abu Hanifa, do you not know that corruption is the changing of a thing 'from what to what'—meaning from one state to another, from a virtuous state to a base state 1 ?"
Abu Hanifa asked: "Is it then in need of an increase in its nature or a completion in its instrument?"
Our Master—may His Might be exalted—replied: "You have been ignorant of it, O Abu Hanifa; you have not recognized it and have cast it behind your back, thus wandering astray from it throughout your life. It is the fullness of every numbered thing, the perfection of every limited thing, and the elucidation of every existing thing.