French translation

'Ayn al Yaqin

Mawqif al Kibriya'
Mawqif of Glory


Al Niffari


 

He stayed me in Glory, and said to me:

1. None has possession of it save Me, and it is proper to none save Me. I am the Glorious, Whose neighbourhood is insupportable and Whose continuance is not sought I manifested the Manifest, and am more manifest than it; its nearness does not attain to Me, and its existence is not guided unto Me: and I concealed the Inwardly, and am more concealed than it; no indication of it applies to Me, and no path of it leads aright unto Me.

2. I am nearer to each thing than its gnosis of itself: but its gnosis of itself does not pass beyond itself to Me, and it does not know Me, so long as its self is the object of its gnosis.

3. But for me, the eyes would not have seen the visible things proper to them and the ears would not have heard the audible things proper to them.

4. If I had uttered the Word of Glory, it would have swept away the perceptions as if with scythes, and obliterated the gnoses like the sand, on the day when the wind sweeps over it.

5. If the Voice of Glory had spoken, the voices of eve y qualification would have been silent, and the attainments of every attribute would have returned to nothingness.

6. Where is he that makes My gnoses a means of coming to Me? If I had shown him the tongue of sovereignty, his gnosis would have been changed to agnosia, and he would have been shaken. as the heavens are shaken on the day of their shaking.

7. If I do not cause thee to witness my Glory in that which I cause thee to witness, then I have set thee in abasement in it.

8. The party of the people of heaven and earth are in the abasement of circumscription. But I have servants, whom heaven cannot contain with all its tiers, and whose hearts the sides of earth cannot support. I have caused the eyes of their hearts to witness my Glory's lights, which fall not on anything but they destroy it. Their hearts behold nothing in the heavens, that they should affirm it, and they have no place of return in the earth, that they should dwell in it.

9. Take that which thou needest to concentrate thee upon Me, or I will restore thee unto thy need and separate thee from Me.

10 When My gnosis is present, there is no need: while My gnosis is coming, take what thou needest.

11. My self-revelation which I have shown forth cannot support My self-revelation which I have not shown forth.

12. I am not self-revelation, and I am not like knowledge: I am not like self-revelation, and I am not like knowledge.

French translation

'Ayn al Yaqin

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© From The Book of Spiritual Stayings of Al Niffari. Edited for the first time, with translation, commentary, and indices, by Arthur John Arberry, Luzac & Co, London, 1935.