« The First Dictum »

Know, O righteous and merciful brother—may God make you among those in whom His gnosis is firmly established and for whom His blessing is perfected in the Supreme Kingdom (al-Malakūt al-A‘lā)—that when God the Exalted made the seeking of knowledge obligatory upon every practitioner, that obligation necessitated the duty of every scholar to bestow it upon those worthy of it.

This is because it is impossible to fulfill that which is divinely commissioned without knowledge. This applies across the varying ranks of true sciences and their metaphors, especially within the Hidden Sciences (al-‘Ulūm al-Khafiyya). Indeed, these sciences are far beyond the reach of imagination, obscure to the spontaneity of thought, and veiled from the perception of illusion (al-wahm). They cannot be known except through their principles, and their secrets are not found with any but their rightful folk.

How can their jewels be acquired through the transient accidents [of matter], or the rays of their suns be perceived by diseased eyes? They only manifest through evidence,