The Book of Illumination

در توحید باری سبحانه و تعالی

In the name of the Maker, the single Judge, who is beyond imagining, thought and intellect.

He is the first and He the last from the beginning; yet for Him there was no first and no last.

Intellect stands bewildered before the depth of His essence: know Him free of bodies and of directions.

How could He be seen with the eye of the head? Only the eye of the soul can see the Soul of souls.

His nest is beyond placelessness. What can I say? Whatever I say, He is more than that.

What road can our feet cut? How far can such a mount carry us?

My intellect has sunk its head into the collar of helplessness: who am I, that I should dare to speak His name?

I dare not speak His name, I dare not; I do not have that capital in my mind.

The tongue is helpless to tell His oneness, for it is beyond the reach of our reasoning.

مقالات توحید

I do not say that He is the maker of the seven and the four; I say that He is the Lord of Intellect.

What worth have the sun and the sky, that they could be traced back to Him [as His direct work]?

Why do you say that He brought forth gold, rubies and jewels out of earth, water and stone?

You say He raised the plants out of clay: it is not fitting to describe Him so.

For it is the vegetative spirit that does this work: it paints the rose and the box tree on the earth.

Know that intellect and soul are from God; what are silver and gold? Do not worship forms: what are foot and head?

Again you say that He made our form appear out of the water of seed.

Do not speak in this way, for these products came about from the influence of the heavenly bodies and the natures.

When you call unbelief His oneness, you have heard nothing of the beginning and the end.

With so little intellect, raw ignorant one, why do you keep calling yourself a Muslim?

If you think such things of God, you are lower than the Christians and the Jews.

No one but a lost Zoroastrian speaks so. From such words I ask God's forgiveness.

The Lord of the world, the all-compelling king: know Him as one, and from Him one came to be manifest.

Do not lose the road in the making of things made: from barley comes barley, and wheat from wheat.

To call the sphere, the element and the spirit of growth God is, to us, unbelief.

For that Creator of souls, the knower of secrets, has no partner in His godhead.

در عقل کل و نفس کل

First He brought forth the Universal Intellect, which the wise have called God's Throne.

Some have called it the First Cause; some have called it the Adam of meaning.

Its name is the world of power (jabarūt), for honoured Gabriel has his station there.

For this they call it God's pen; they call it the messenger of God's letter.

The first of creation, the chosen: God created it without an intermediary.

Whatever has shown its face in creation, the Intellect was its intermediary in the world.

When the Universal Intellect had first been made known, the other two were born of each other.

From the Universal Intellect the being of the Universal Soul was born: the master calls it the Eve of meaning.

Know, if your soul has become acquainted with intellect, why this one became Eve and that one Adam.

If you know the meaning of its name again, you will call it the sum of the angels.

It is the maker of the spheres and the stars; it is the encircling ocean and the soul of human beings.

It is the Tablet, and it is God's Footstool; it is the second human being, and the spirit of the human being.

From it came the radiance of the Intellect's abode, for the Footstool has its place beneath the Throne.

Doubtful reading. The Kāviyānī editor judges all three manuscripts corrupt here; Ethé prints this reading from the Leiden copy. Taqavī (1925–28) reads furūd-i ʿaql dar vāy, "the descent of the Intellect".

در آفریده شدن افلاک و کواکب

When the Intellect and the Soul were joined together, the bodily heavenly bodies were born of them.

One is the greatest sphere, around which the eight other spheres all turn.

These eight revolve against it; in a night and a day it makes one circuit.

Next is the sphere of the twelve houses, in which the fixed stars have their dwelling.

Next is the sphere that is the place of Saturn; the next has Jupiter's palace in it.

The next holds Mars, and the next the sun; the next is the paradise-abode of Venus.

Two more: one is Mercury and one the moon. I have told you the state of all nine.

Each has taken an intellect and a soul, and each is a world at its own work.

Look well into God's kingdom: these are all God's kingdom.

All our good and evil is from them; passing away has no hold on them.

All of them bewildered at the Maker's workmanship, all of them dizzy with longing for the Originator,

around the universal sphere, night and day, they turn like a candle that lights the night.

The Messiah said, "I will go out of this"; a world was turned upside down by that saying.

He spoke well, but the monks did not understand that he is the child of the Universal Intellect in spirit.

By this turning they work their effects on us; good and evil reach us from them.

One comes up from the well to the throne; one falls from the throne to the bottom of the well.

One without merit has wealth beyond counting; one with a hundred merits is sad and poor.

Keep this saying in mind from the Ḥujjat, who sits like a king in Yumgān.

در عناصر و موالید

From them the four elements came to be manifest: hear this meaning from me, like a pearl.

Ether, then air, then water, then earth: these four spheres were born [of them].

Doubtful reading. Ethé reads az-īn "from these"; the Kāviyānī prints īn "these"; Taqavī has … īn har chār z-aflāk, "these four were born of the spheres".

In them cold and dry and hot and wet are bound together, just as hot and dry and cold and wet exist.

From them come pain and ease; from them the salve, and from them the wound.

The wise have told us this: these four are the mothers, those nine the fathers.

From these four and those nine, brother, three other children came into being:

minerals, then plants, then animals; they bound them all together in the pleasure of soul(?).

Doubtful reading. The sense of rā khvushī-yi jān is unclear; one manuscript (I) has ākhshījān, "the elements"; Taqavī reads ʿahd u paymān, "they all bound covenant and pact together".

The pearl in the sea and the ruby and jewel in the mine make the poor man rich.

It is food, fruit and bread from which the blood in vein and sinew comes to be.

Horse and sheep, ox and camel, of which the face of the earth is full,

all are at work for the human being: one carries his saddle, one his load.

These are the offspring, and from them the human body appeared in this six-cornered hall.

Come forward, Ḥujjat, speaker of fair words: you have carried off the ball of speech from all creatures.

در فطرت انسان

Our blood, which is the root of life, is a child of the animal and the plant.

That blood is refined once again, and from that blood comes out a white blood.

The people of meaning call it the seed-drop, that is to say, what has been filtered from that blood.

And after that, when it has fallen into the womb, the master of the sphere lays its foundation.

Saturn nurtured it for a month; in the next month Jupiter strengthened it.

In the third month Mars became its helper; in the fourth month the sun is the painter of its form.

When it had found life from the shining sun, there it found the power to move.

In the fifth month Venus works on it; in the sixth month Mercury is its helper.

In the seventh the moon is its helper; in the eighth Saturn watches over it.

In that narrow prison, tossed to and fro, its place is between water and blood, at its ease.

After nine months blessed Jupiter brings it out by that closed road.

From that dark place it comes to this place and sees the world, pleasant, fair and heart-adorning:

a house so wide and a dwelling so pleasant, an air so fine, fair and charming.

So the poor wretch supposes that here there is no better dwelling than this.

He does not know that there is a house pleasanter than this, beside which this is a dark place.

For a while his state is like a plant's: from it his sapling springs up, moist and fresh.

After that, for a time, like an animal, he knows no work but eating.

The third time the speaking soul appears in him, and by it he is illumined.

در شرف انسان

You do not know who you are. Tell me, what are you here in the world?

You are "you": tell me then, which is it? Body or soul: what, then, is your name?

This beard, head and moustache that you see, you think are you: no, no, you are not this.

This is your talisman, your bond and your prison. Go, open the eye of intellect and see yourself.

You are not form: seek the meaning. Look at the wondrous body and soul.

What an ignorant one, to think yourself a body! Let that saying go, for you are soul.

Which soul? Not this natural soul. Look well: you are something very wondrous.

You are the true speaking soul, which keeps company with the Holy Spirit.

You are free of place and of direction. See who you are, and do yourself justice.

Take care that you do not fall into opinion here; press your foot firm so that you do not fall.

Your beauty cannot be seen with the eye of the head: whoever saw your face is the eye of meaning.

Your attributes are from the attributes of God; this brightness of yours is from that light.

He keeps giving, and nothing is lessened in Him; He gave to you, and gives to whom He will.

You exist like a ray from His light: cast your own being away, and become Him.

Your veil keeps you far off. If you seek, and lift the veil from before you, you are He.

Paradise and hell are something other than this: only the subtle-sighted know it otherwise.

در باز گشتن

If you come once again out of this ruined furnace toward that flourishing rose garden,

you will return by the road by which you came; but you must go well prepared,

for at every stage they put a hard question to him, in a different way each time.

If he has the answer to that question, he reaches the abode that does not decline;

if not, he stays in this stage: at the first stage he remains in the clay.

So he goes on, stage by stage: his clay goes to clay, his heart to the heart.

If his heart is perfect, he reaches back from God the abode of bounty and delight.

And if he is incomplete in the return, he stays in the fire, because he is raw.

This is the belief about the Resurrection, even if I am blamed by asses.

در جوهر و عرض

Whatever there is, from the highest to the lowest, from the last to the first, is of two things:

one is the accidents and the other the substances: so the skilled masters have said.

What is substance? That which is everlasting, always standing by itself.

Accident is receptive to substance's essence; intellect has accepted these sayings.

Accident is without doubt receptive to passing away; but substance is receptive to permanence.

You are branch and accident, and also root and substance: you are the whole world, brother.

They created you from both worlds; for that they chose you above both worlds.

Make this one subject to you, and that one: make certainty and opinion into truth.

Know this one by this and that one by that, both: the body by this and the soul by that, both.

در حواس ظاهر و باطن

For you, out of this six-sided house, a way through has been made: in this house your room has five doors.

Each door opens on a garden; through each door a caravan comes in.

Although you are a stranger in this house, you have a share in all five doors.

One is the eye, which sees wonders: by this seeing your judgment becomes sound.

Next your ear, which is the high road of speech: it is a perfect gift to your heart.

Next the nose, which takes in the scent of the rose: brain and heart take delight in its scent.

From taste and touch your pulse(?) has its share, as the hand has its share of softness or roughness.

Doubtful reading. nabḍat ("your pulse"?) is Ethé's combination of damaged manuscript readings; Taqavī reads tan rā, "the body has its share of taste and touch".

These five are the outer senses; and there are five others, the inner, good friend:

imagination, estimation, understanding, and memory besides, at whose head you place the common sense.

These five see wrongly in turn: can you make them see rightly or not?

Bear discipline and make it see rightly; then turn your opinion into certainty.

When these have come to see rightly, after that this is capital enough for you in the world.

Then the eye of insight opens, and you see what lies beyond creation.

در صفت کمال بنی آدم

This world is a tree and we are the fruit, for we grow glad upon its tree.

The others are like leaves, and we the fruit: all these became there for our sake.

Yes, the tree has its honour from the fruit: what is it if it bears no fruit?

As fruits have honour from scent and sweet savour, so do we from intellect.

The ignorant man finds no enjoyment in that world: unripe fruit has no scent or savour.

Do not be like unripe fruit: windfall refuse is never like the chosen.

What is common is refuse in this garden: the wise are fruits of pleasant taste.

It is a most wondrous, fruit-bearing tree, and its gardener is the Lord.

He wants no fruit but the fragrant and the sweet; He throws away the ill-natured refuse.

The refuse is base: let baseness go. Seek completeness and make yourself precious.

Any fruit that has no taste or scent, the gardener does not go looking for it.

Your savour is from knowledge, your scent from action: go, seek your perfection in knowledge and action.

If you drink water from the spring of meaning, you become pure fruit in the garden of paradise.

And if you are refuse, you remain in the dust, tormented in everlasting affliction.

You are not worthy of the king of kings' table: you are base, like the dust on the road.

You burn in the fire like dry wood if you sew your eyes shut.

If you want to find knowledge and understanding, do not forget the counsel of the wise.

در مراتب نقصان و کمال مردم

The children of Adam are a very subtle company: in truth they are both base and noble.

Their body is of earth and their soul of pure substance; they have a nobility above the elect of the spheres.

From the Intellect, from the Soul and from the bodies, from the four and the three I named before,

all the particles are gathered in the human being: his heart is luminous, and his clay is his dark part.

This they have called the lesser world, and that the greater world.

He has become chief over the whole creation: in reality both the world and the world's ruler.

Before and behind, hidden and manifest, he is; he knows himself and he is a nurturer.

All of them are both originated in time and eternal; all of them are both ignorant and wise.

All of them have the capacity for every thing; in meaning and in form, dead and living.

Although they are created from this and that, from themselves they create something at every moment.

Such are their saints and prophets, that both worlds are worth the dust of their feet.

Among them is a handful of worthless, raw people, whom the man of reason calls demon-men.

In deed Iblīs and in form like Adam, a hundred degrees lower than horse, ox and ass.

In form they are living, but they have no soul; and if they have a soul, they have no Soul of souls.

vv. 328–338 (dar ʿawāmm al-nās, on the common run of people) are not in this selection

در شناختن نفس

Know yourself: if you know yourself, you will know from yourself both good and evil.

Become the knower of your own being; then become the one who holds his head high in the gathering.

When you know yourself, you will have known all; when you have known, you will be freed from every evil.

You do not know your own worth, and that is why you are as you are: you would see God if you saw yourself.

The nine spheres and the seven stars are your servants, and you are the body's apprentice: a complete shame.

Go, tear yourself loose from bestial pleasures, if you seek that flourishing bliss.

Be like men: give up sleep and food; like the wandering ascetics, travel within yourself.

For sleep and food are the work of beasts; your soul subsists by the intelligibles.

Wake up at last: how long have you slept? See yourself, a world full of wonder.

Reflect and see where you are from, and for what you are in this prison like this.

Break the cage and go to your own tower; like Abraham son of Āzar, become an idol-breaker.

You were created like this for a purpose: it is a pity that you spend it in idleness.

It is a pity for an angel to obey Satan; it is a pity for an angel to serve a doorkeeper.

Why must Jesus be blind? It is fitting that Qārūn be stripped bare.

You have a dragon on top of a treasure: kill this dragon and be free of pain.

And if you feed it, you are a coward, and you are left without a share of the boundless treasure.

There is a treasure in your house, and you are poor; the salve is in your hand, and your heart is wounded.

You are asleep: how will you reach the stage? You adorn the talisman and forget the treasure.

Break the talisman quickly and take up the treasure; bear one labour, and lift labour off yourself.