What he heard from him there was that the Commander of the Faithful, majestic is his glory, is the Eternal, the Pre-Existent, the Anza' al-Batin, the Meaning of Meanings (Ma'na al-Ma'ani), the Lord of the Seven Oft-Repeated Verses (Rabb al-Mathani), the Ultimate Goal of Goals, the Final Limit of Limits, and the God of gods—a self-subsisting Essence that is neither divided nor fragmented, nor duplicated in number. There is no goal above Him and no limit beyond Him. He created the universe and then manifested through a Name and an Attribute, and He made His Name manifest through a Name and an Attribute, calling both worlds—the celestial and the terrestrial—together to affirm the visible form. Thereupon, the believers responded, while the deniers rejected it. This, indeed, is the absolute, certain Truth."
As for his lineage, he said: "My hearing is from my master Abu al-Fath, [from al-Muqri, known as al-Fahhas] 1 , from Ibrahim al-Rifa'i, from the Khasibian Shu'aybian spiritual parentage (al-ubuwwah al-khasibiyyah al-shu'aybiyyah) branching from the light of the exalted, sublime House and the source of the lofty origin and honor."