intoxicated in accordance with his capacity. It is well-known that every heart has affection for someone who bestows kindnesses on it, and that it loves true perfection and is enamoured of noble beauty. And the heart loves even more one who bestows kindnesses, not only on itself, but also on those it loves and feels compassion for.
And so, as we explained before, may it not be understood from the following just how deserving of love and passion is the All-Beauteous and Glorious One, the All-Perfect Beloved One, and how intoxicated and giddy is the whole universe with love of Him? For He is named with a thousand Names each of which is the source of thousands of perfections and the means for thousands of degrees of beauty. And through His bounties, in all the Names are thousands of treasuries containing bounties, and He makes all those beings we love happy.
It is because of this mystery that the saints who manifested the Name of Loving One declared: “We do not want Paradise. One flash of the Divine love will suffice us for ever.”
It is also because of this that as is recorded in the Hadith: “A minute’s vision of the Divine beauteousness in Paradise will far surpass all its other delights.”1
Thus, these endless perfections of love only occur through the All-Glorious One’s Names and His creatures within the sphere of His unity and oneness. That is to say, those perfections that are imagined to exist outside that sphere are not perfections at all.
The Fifth Sign: The Fifth Sign consists of five Points.
First Point: The representative of the people of misguidance said next: “The world is execrated in your Hadiths and called ‘carrion.’2 Also, all the saints and people of truth have contempt for the world, they say that it is pernicious and unclean. Whereas, you show it to be the means and proof of all Divine perfections and speak of it rapturously.”
The Answer: The world has three faces.
Its First Face looks to God Almighty’s Names; it displays their impress. It is a mirror to them, reflecting their meanings. This face of the world consists of innumerable letters or missives describing the Eternally Besought One. This face is utterly beautiful, and is worthy of love, not loathing.
Its Second Face looks to the hereafter. It is the seed-bed of the hereafter and arable field for Paradise. It is the flower-bed of mercy. This face is also beautiful like the first one and is deserving of love not contempt.
Tirmidhi, Zuhd, 14; Ibn Maja, Zuhd, 3; Darimi, Muqaddima, 32; Suyuti, al-Durr al-Manthur, iii, 305-6.
Ibn Maja, No: 4112; al-Manawi, Fayd al-Qadir, No: 4281.