you shall become—upon separating from this physical body—freely suspended within the loftiest atmosphere. You shall then exist as a roaming, safe, and tranquil entity, never returning [to a material form].'"

[159] And our Master Aristotle—peace be upon him—said when death approached him: 'Verily, the philosopher is rewarded for his philosophy after the soul’s separation from the body.'

[160] And he also said: 'Often I have been alone with my soul, divesting myself of my body, becoming as if I were a purely abstracted substance [jawharun mujarrad] without a physical frame. I would exist entirely within my own essence, outside of all external things; and there I would behold a portion of the loftiest, most excellent, and noble world.'

And Sheikh Ahmad Salman al-Khatib said in his affirmative discourse, quoting from the Book of Return [Kitab al-I'adah]: 'Every soul among Allah's creation, following its passage through the pristine realms "arranged in structural ranks," is presented with esoteric knowledge—which is the absolute loyalty [wilayah] to the Essence [al-'Ayn], whose remembrance is exalted—and that occurrence takes place within a single physical matrix [qalab].