The Upright, Illuminated Intellects, and the Luminous, Sound Hearts

As he was thinking this, he suddenly heard a heavenly voice. ‘Since you want to meet us and listen to the lessons we have to give, you should know that we were the very first to believe in the matters of faith and the Miraculously Clear Qur’ān (Al-Qur’ānu’l-Mu‘jizu’l-Bayān), that were both revealed, through us, to all of the prophets (‘alayhimussalām) and foremost amongst them, Muḥammad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām). Moreover, those pure spirits from amongst us who take form and appear to people, have all testified, in perfect accord and without exception, to the necessity of the existence of the Creator of this universe, His unicity and Divine Attributes (ṣifāt). They have all given news of this congruently and concordantly’. He came to know that they say ‘The congruence and concordance of a limitless number of reports is a guide like the sun’, and the light of his faith glowed radiantly. Thus, he ascended from the earth to the heavens.

In ‘The Eleventh Level’ of ‘The First Station’ the following has been mentioned, as a short indication of the knowledge that the traveller acquired from the angels’ lessons:

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ الْوَاجِبُ الْوُجُودِ الَّذِي دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ فِي وَحْدَتِهِ

اتِّفَاقُ الْمَلاَئِكَةِ الْمُتَمَثِّلِينَ لِأَنْظَارِ النَّاسِ وَالْمُتَكَلِّمِينَ مَعَ خَوَاصِّ الْبَشَرِ

بِإِخْبَارَاتِهِمُ الْمُتَطَابِقَةِ الْمُتَوَافِقَةِ

There is no god but Allāh, the Necessary Being. The agreement of

the angels that take form to the vision of men, those who speak to

the elite of men with their concording reports, demonstrates the

necessity of His unitive existence.

Having taken his lessons from the physical and material domain in the languages of each community therein and in the languages of their states, this curious and fervent guest of the observed world now wanted, in a state of deep yearning, and passionately in love, to begin roaming in the unseen world (‘ālamu’l-ghayb) and the isthmus world (‘ālamu’l-barzakh), in order to seek for the truth, and in order to explore.

[Suddenly] in front of him, the door of the upright, illuminated intellects, and the luminous, sound hearts was opened. These exist in every community of mankind. They are the fruits of the universe, and the effective kernels of human beings, that can, despite their small size, expand spiritually to the size of the universe.

He saw that they are human isthmuses between the unseen world (‘ālamu’l-ghayb) and the observed world (‘ālamu’sh-shahādah). Because he was able to see that the relationships and dealings that these two worlds have with human beings occur within these two loci, that is, intellects and hearts, he now addressed his intellect and his heart.

‘Come you both, for the road leading to the reality is shorter from the door of your peers. We must benefit from that road, not as we learned from the languages on the other roads, but rather through our observing the descriptions that they have, and of their circumstances and colours with respect to faith.’

He began his observation, and found that the convictions of all of the rightly guided, illuminated intellects about faith (īmān) and the unity of Allāh (tawḥīd) were concordant and their opinions and established, untroubled certainties were, with respect to description and deep-rootedness, totally congruous.

This despite the fact that their capacities vary greatly, and their schools of thought are greatly divergent and separated from one another. These intellects must then have all relied upon and been connected to a single changeless truth. The roots of the intellects cannot be severed, for they have entered into a firm reality. Their common consent to faith, necessity and unity, then, are a luminous chain that can never be broken, and an illuminated window looking out onto the truth.

He saw too that the mystical unveilings and visions related to the Divine unity and the fundamental articles of faith are serenely and ecstatically congruous in every single of these sound, luminous hearts, though they are of ways (masālik) separate one from the other, and their spiritual methods (mashārib) vary. That is to say, those luminous hearts, which look onto and have reached the truth, and indeed embody it, have become an infinitesimal throne of Divine knowledge and an encompassing mirror of Eternality. They are windows opening onto the sun of the reality, and, together as a whole, constitute a great mirror, like a sea performing its role as a mirror of the sun.

Their consensus in affirming the necessity of a necessary existent, and that of unity, is a perfect guide and a supreme spiritual teacher that does not mislead, and cannot be led astray, ever. For there is absolutely no possibility and potentiality whatsoever, from any perspective, for all of these perceptive eyes to have been deceived, so continuously and in a deep-rooted fashion, by delusions or baseless ideas and qualities.

The traveller understood that even the foolish Sophists who, seeing such a conclusion to be within the sphere of possibility, use their corrupt, rotten intellects to deny this universe, 

would be unhappy with such a conclusion and reject it. So he said, آمنت بالله ‘I believe in Allāh’ with his intellect and with his heart.

In ‘The Thirteenth Level’ of ‘The First Station’ the following has been mentioned, as a short indication of the knowledge of faith that the traveller benefited from the rightly guided intellects and the illuminated hearts:

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ الْوَاجِبُ الْوُجُودِ الَّذِي دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ فِي وَحْدَتِهِ إِجْمَاعُ

الْعُقُولِ الْمُسْتَقِيمَةِ الْمُنَوَّرَةِ بِاعْتِقَادَاتِهَا الْمُتَوَافِقَةِ وَبِقَنَاعَاتِهَا وَبِيَقِينِيَّاتِهَا

الْمُتَطَابِقَةِ مَعَ تَخَالُفِ الاِسْتِعْدَادَاتِ وَالْمَذَاهِبِ، وَكَذَا دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ

فِي وَحْدَتِهِ اتِّفَاقُ الْقُلوُبِ السَّلِيمَةِ النُّورَانِيَّةِ بِكَشْفِيَّاتِهَا الْمُتَطَابِقَةِ

وَبِمُشَاهَدَاتِهَا الْمُتَوَافِقَةِ مَعَ تَبَايُنِ الْمَسَالِكِ وَالْمَشَارِبِ

There is no god but Allāh, the Necessary Being. The consensus of

the upright intellects, through their congruous beliefs and their

corresponding convictions and certainties despite their differing

capabilities and schools of thought, demonstrates the necessity of

His unitive existence, as too does the agreement of the luminous

sound hearts through their corresponding mystical unveilings, and

their congruous visions despite their disparate ways (masālik) and

spiritual methods (mashārib).

This traveller, who had looked upon the unseen world from nearby, and who had journeyed in the heart and the intellect, then knocked fervently and longingly upon the door of the unseen world. ‘I wonder what the unseen world will say!’ he said to himself. He bore the following thought: ‘It is intuitively obvious that, behind the veil of the unseen,