INTRODUCTION

In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

Praise be to Allah, the Most High, the Magnificent, the Eternal, the Ancient, the Kind, the Merciful, who brought His Essence into existence for those in His earth and His heavens, so each of them saw Him according to their merit and capacity; so Exalted is He who has never ceased from His being, even if He appeared to his sight as a High God, elevated above the attributes of His innovations, exalted above the descriptions of His creatures, transcendent above all His temporal things, and elevated above resembling His fabrications; so no eye sees Him, no intellect perceives Him, no thought reaches Him, and no imagination encompasses Him.

I praise Him according to one who knows that praise belongs to Him, and that its beginning is from Him and its return is to Him, and I entrust all my affairs to Him; the Worshipped Meaning, the One, the Existing, as the Prophets and Messengers bore witness to His eternity, and the Distinguished Angels confessed His Lordship, and to Him the Entrusted and Preserved Saints (Awliya') pointed, and the Gnostics held fast to His indication; our Lord and the Lord of our first and last forefathers, the Commander of the Faithful, the one free from polytheism (al-Anza'), the one filled with knowledge (al-Batin),the Manifest Truth, He appeared by His Essence without embodiment or limitation, a Peerless, Eternal Refuge, He did not incline in number,