and names every sort of perfection; for sure, in a manner fitting for the necessary existence and holiness of the Necessarily Existent Essence, in a form suitable to His absolute riches and essential self-sufficiency, in a way appropriate to His absolute perfection and freedom from defect, He has a boundless sacred compassion and infinite pure love. Of a certainty, there is an infinite holy eagerness arising from that sacred compassion and pure love; and from that holy eagerness arises an infinite sacred joy. And arising from that sacred joy, is, if the term is permissible, an infinite holy pleasure. And from this holy pleasure and from the gratitude and perfections of creatures which result from the emergence and unfolding of their potentialities within the activity of His power, arise, if one may say so, an infinite sacred gratification and holy pride pertaining to that Most Merciful and Compassionate Essence. It is these that necessitate a boundless activity. And that boundless activity in turn necessitates boundless change and transformation, alteration and destruction. And the boundless change and transformation necessitate death and extinction, decline and separation.
At one time, the benefits shown by human science and philosophy1 concerning the aims of beings appeared to me to be extremely insignificant. I understood from this that such philosophy leads only to futility. Consequently, leading philosophers either fall into the swamp of nature, or they become Sophists, or they deny divine knowledge and choice, or they call the Creator “self-necessitating.”
At that point, divine mercy sent the name of All-Wise to my aid, and it showed me the great aims of creatures. That is to say, every creature, every artefact, is a dominical missive for conscious beings to study. This aim satisfied me for a year. Then the wonders in the art of beings were unfolded to me, and the former aim began to seem deficient. Another, much greater aim became apparent, which was that the main aims of creatures look to their Maker. I understood that it consists of creatures’ presenting to His gaze the perfections of His art, the embroideries of His names, the embellishments of His wisdom, and the gifts of His mercy; it is their being mirrors to His beauty and perfections. This aim satisfied me for a long time, then the miracles of divine power and attributes of dominicality (şuûnât-ı rubûbiyet) in the extremely swift changes and transformations within the astonishing activity in the art and creation of things became apparent. The former aim too began to appear insufficient. I understood that a necessitat
Human science and philosophy refers to those philosophies which are derived from human reason and which hold science to be the source and measure of truth rather than divine revelation. [Tr.]