This process is structurally identical to a mirror directly facing the objects of vision: for the human soul is the mirror, its knowledge and spiritual polish are like the burnishing [siqalah] of that mirror, and the archetypal forms of realities exist within the Active Intellect both in potentiality and actuality, with the soul drawing continuous influx [mustamiddah] from it.

Thus, when the soul directly faces it [the Active Intellect] during its spiritual sunrise [ishraq], it perceives all knowable realities in the briefest span of time and with the utmost ease. In this manner, the soul achieves cognitive acquisition from it in the most perfect and complete way imaginable.

For this reason, he established that the comprehension and acquisition of cosmic matters are achieved from the side of the soul by means of intellective knowledge [al-'ilm] and gnosis [al-ma'rifah]. Gnosis precedes intellective knowledge, because every gnostic ['arif] is inherently a scholar ['alim], but not every scholar is a gnostic... up to his saying:

[167] Master Muhammad—His glory is mighty—said: 'The one who most recognizes you by your own soul, is the one who most recognizes you by your Lord.'