The Four Types of Inspiration

The second difference [between revelation and inspiration]

Revelation is shadowless, pure and solely for the elect. Inspiration, on the other hand, is shadowed, and it merges with colours. It is general, having a great many varied species, such as the inspiration of the angels, that of men, and that of animals. It sets up an occasion for the multiplication of the Divine words, so that they become like unto the droplets in the sea.

The traveller realised that this explains a particular facet of the exegesis of the Qur’ānic verse

قُلْ لَّوْ كَانَ الْبَحْرُ مِدَاداً لِكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّي لَنَفِدَ الْبَحْرُ قَبْلَ أَن تَنفَدَ كَلِمَاتُ رَبِّي (a)

He now looked to the quiddity (māhiyyah) of inspiration, along with its wisdom and testimony. He saw that its quiddity, wisdom and outcome are made up of four lights.

The first type of inspiration

He endears Himself to His creation through action, in what is known as the Divine Courtship (tawaddud), and so too is His endearing Himself through words, presence, and companionship one of the necessary entailments of His Lovingness (wadūdiyyah) and Mercy (raḥmāniyyah).

The second type of inspiration

Just as He answers the prayers of His servants through action, so too does He answer them in words, from behind the veils, a consequence of His being Compassionate (Ar-Raḥīm).

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a Say: If the ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry before the words of my Lord were exhausted. (Qur’ān, al-Kahf, 18:109) 

The third type of inspiration

He responds, through action, to the supplications and cries and seeking of help of those of His creation that have encountered severe tribulations and found themselves in difficult circumstances. So too is the help He gives through words of inspiration - a sort of of His Speech - a concomitant of His Lordship (rubūbiyyah).

The fourth type of inspiration

The traveller understood that for Allāh to notify His conscious creations - those who are so very impotent, weak, poor, and needy, and longing to seek out their possessor, protector, director and preserver - through action of His existence, His presence, and His protection is an essential, and a necessary entailment of the Divine Pity (shafqah), and the Mercy of Lordship. Likewise necessary is His notifiying particular creatures, through the telephone of their hearts, of His Presence and Existence through true inspirations. For they constitute a type of Divine Speech, and take place in a manner particular to each creature, and according to their particular capabilities.

He then looked to the testimony of inspiration. He perceived that if the sun had consciousness and life, and if the seven colours present in its light were in fact its seven attributes, it would in certain way have a type of speech through the beams and manifestations existing in its light. In this case, one would see its likeness and its reflection in all manner of transparent objects, and its speech in each mirror and in each shimmering thing. It would be seen in pieces of glass, in foam and droplets of water, even in transparent particles, according to the capacity of each one of them. One would see its response to the needs of these things, each of their testimonies 

concerning the existence of the sun, that no action debars another from taking place, and that none of its speech confounds the other of its speech.

It is self-evidently clear and fully intelligible from this example that the Speech of the Eternal Sun manifests universally and all-encompassingly, just like His Knowledge and His Power manifesting according to the capacities of each thing. That indeed is the Sultan of Beginningless and Endless Eternity, Possessor of Majesty (Sulṭānu’l-Azali wa’l-Abadi Dhu’l-Jalāli wa’l-ikrām) and Creator of all beautiful, valuable existents. No question then obstructs another, and no action another, and no speech another. None confounds any other. Our traveller thus understood, with the type of knowledge of certainty that is bordering on the vision of certainty, that each and every one of these manifestations, communications, and inspirations testifies and signifies, in perfect agreement, to the Presence of the Beginninglessly Eternal Sun, and the necessity of His existence, as well as to His unity and His singularity (aḥadiyyah).

In ‘The Fifteenth Level’ of ‘The First Station’ the following has been mentioned, as a short indication of that which this anxiously pining traveller took from the lesson of Divine knowledge in the unseen world:

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ الْوَاجِبُ الْوُجُودِ الأَحَدُ الَّذِي دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ

فِي وَحْدَتِهِ إِجْمَاعُ جَمِيعِ الْوَحْيَاتِ الْحَقَّةِ الْمُتَضَمِّنَةِ لِلتَّنَزُّلاَتِ الإِلَهِيَّةِ،

وَلِلْمُكَالَمَاتِ السُّبْحَانِيَّةِ، وَلِلتَّعَرُّفَاتِ الرَّبَّانِيَّةِ، وَلِلْمُقَابَلاَتِ الرَّحْمَانِيَّةِ، عِنْدَ

مُنَاجَاةِ عِبَادِهِ، وَلِلإِشْعَارَاتِ الصَّمَدَانِيَّةِ لِوُجُودِهِ لِمَخْلُوقَاتِهِ، وَكَذَا دَلَّ عَلَى

وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ فِي وَحْدَتِهِ اتِّفَاقُ الإِلْهَامَاتِ الصَّادِقَةِ الْمُتَضَمِّنَةِ لِلتَّوَدُّدَاتِ

الْإِلَهِيَّةِ،