mation of divine unity pointed out by the clear verses of the Qur’an, through the mystery of the legacy of prophethood? Can you explain it?
T h e A n s w e r : It is a hundred times beyond the ability of an utterly powerless unfortunate like myself to judge those elevated stations with his limited thought. I shall just explain one or two extremely brief points proceeding from the effulgence of the Wise Qur’an. Perhaps they will be useful in understanding the matter.
First Point
There are many reasons for becoming embroiled in the way of the Unity of Existence. One or two of them may be explained as follows:
The First Reason: Because they could not squeeze into their brains the maximum degree of the creativity of divine dominicality, nor entirely establish in their hearts the idea that everything, through the mystery of divine oneness (ehadiyet), is held directly in the grasp of dominicality and that all things have existence through divine power, choice, and will, those who took that way were obliged to say that everything is either Him, or does not have existence, or is imaginary, or is His manifestation or emanation.
The Second Reason: The mark of passionate love is to want never to be separated from the beloved and to flee desperately from such separation; to tremble at the thought of parting, to fear distance from the beloved as though fearing Hell, and to abominate transience; to love union with the love of one’s own spirit and life, and to yearn for nearness to the beloved as though longing for Paradise. Thus, through adhering to a manifestation of divine immediacy in all things, those who took the way of the Unity of Existence disregarded separation and distance; supposing union and meeting to be permanent, they said: “There is no existent but He;” through the intoxication of love and as demanded by the ecstasy of permanence, meeting, and union, they imagined that in the Unity of Existence was a most pleasurable way of illumination whereby they could be saved from the dreadfulness of separation.
That is to say, the first reason sprang from the fact that the hand of their intellects was unable to reach up to some of the truths of belief, which were extremely broad and elevated; they were unable to comprehend them and had not developed completely in regard to faith. And the source of the second reason was the extraordinary unfolding of their hearts in respect of love, and their wondrous expansion and breadth.
However, the supreme level of divine unity that the Purified Ones – who were the people of sobriety and great saints of the legacy of prophet