Introduction by Ustād Fayyāḍbakhsh

Eternal praise and laudation be upon the Reality of existence, whose self-sufficient (ṣamadī) being breathed the Merciful Breath into the dark frames [of creation], and whose holy spirit, through the life-giving insufflation of "Be!" (kun), made rest and fragrance flow over the order of creation (takwīn) and of revealed law (tashrīʿ).

Everlasting salutation and praise be upon all the friends (awliyāʾ) of God — above all the Seal of the Prophets, the shining jewel of existence and the axis of the dominion (mulk) and the kingdom (malakūt), Muḥammad al-Muṣṭafā (ṣ) — and blessing and peace upon the vanguard of eternal walāya, the house of Yāsīn and Ṭāhā, the immaculate legatees of the Seal of Prophethood, who are the rightful heirs of the divine vicegerency after the Messenger of God and the holders of imamate over all creatures; especially the Master of the God-wary, the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī (ʿa); and boundless praise upon the Seal of the greater walāya and of the imamate of the friends of God, the promised Mahdī — upon them a thousandfold greeting and peace. May God hasten his radiant advent and lead the world and its peoples out of the darkness of ignorance and injustice to the light of the reality of walāya.

O Lord! With every particle of our being we profess allegiance (tawallī) to the walāya of these jewels of existence, and we disavow (tabarrī) their enemies and adversaries, who bar humanity's way to guidance and walāya. May it be that, through the blessing of such disavowal and allegiance, our souls kneel in the forecourt of the station of union with them, and that a dewdrop of the ocean of their walāya and of their praised station — which You Yourself promised to their devoted followers — be granted.

What lies before the reader is the weighty and profound treatise "Prophecies and Dreams" (Nubuwwāt wa Manāmāt) by the master of many arts, ʿAllāmah Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, who spent a lifetime expounding the reality of self-knowledge (maʿrifat al-nafs), that he might, in the light of the Qurʾān and the sayings of God's friends, make plain the reality of walāya for the wayfarers of this path.

What is meant by walāya in the statements and writings of that eminent master is not confined merely to the expression of love and affection toward the sacred persons of the awliyāʾ, nor even, at a higher level, to establishing their successorship, leadership, and command over creation after the Messenger of God (ṣ). All of that is true — yet it is but a gleam of the station of walāya and imamate in the lofty Qurʾānic sense.

To put it more clearly and precisely: what these writings mean by walāya is the exposition of the human being's station as God's vicegerent (khalīfat Allāh) within the order of creation — "Indeed I am making you an imam for the people" (Q 2:124)[1]. Its essence began from the lowest depth of the material world — "And We certainly created the human being from dry clay taken from putrid, dark-hued mud" (Q 15:26)[2] — and, passing through diverse phases, was so transformed by the Lordly breath [breathed] into the fashioned human form — "So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit" (Q 15:29)[3] — that the Creator of existence raised the cry "So blessed is God, the best of creators" (Q 23:14)[4] for his creation alone, and commanded the world's inhabitants to prostrate before him.

And by such a command He pointed to the orbit of the human journey of vicegerency and walāya along the two arcs of descent and ascent — and to the fact that this station is not of the same kind as other creations: some began from the mineral state and ended there; others had their beginning and end within the domain of the worlds of the [divine] command and the immaterial beings. But the procession of this creature begins from the Throne of the highest malakūt and descends to the carpet of the lowest-of-the-low of the world of nāsūt, and then, as caravan-leader of created beings, he shows the way of the journey of nearness toward the Real, and displays to them the way and manner of glorifying and sanctifying the Divine Essence: "We glorified, and so the angels glorified by our glorification"[5] — that each of them, drawing aid from his outpourings, might traverse the degrees of perfection proper to it.

If, in the descent from the [world of the] command to creation, the station of walāya presents to the beings of each vertical level of the world the perfection proper to them within their own measure, then in the ascent likewise it teaches them the way and manner of the etiquette of servanthood and of glorifying and sanctifying the Real, so that by the aid of the intercession of the station of walāya they may reach their own proper perfection. Thus the range of the human journey begins from the Throne of the All-Merciful and extends down to the lowest level of the earthly world — and thereafter he possesses the capacity to return to his original place, the station of "he drew near and drew closer" (cf. Q 53:8).

This is why some contingent beings have their beginning and end only within the bounds of the world of mulk, while others — such as the angels — can journey only within the bounds of the immaterial beings and to the measure of their capacity, their procession beginning not from the station of the Essence but from the universal Names, or from the middle reaches of the malakūt. In their return, too, they go back to those same levels. Only the human soul traverses all the degrees of existence — mineral, vegetal, and animal — and is honored with the station of humanity; and upon entering the circle of humanity, its distance from all that came before is such that, whereas God contented Himself with the mere word "creation" for the appearance of the others — "Indeed your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days" (Q 7:54)[6] — He made the human being the locus of manifestation of all His Names of Beauty and Majesty.

He laid the robe of His vicegerency upon a being who came into manifestation by the two hands of eternal and everlasting power — "I created with My own two hands" (Q 38:75)[7] — and the distance between his world of mulk and his malakūt was such that in the ascent from the animal to the human level — though it was one receptive reality taking on diverse forms — a new origination (inshāʾ) occurred in this substantial process, and he became the gathering-place of all excellences. Thus, if the human being can, by the striving of the lover, the favor of the Beloved, and obedience to the awliyāʾ, traverse this long journey in fidelity to walāya, he attains the station of complete encounter: "O human being, indeed you are laboring toward your Lord with a labor, and will meet Him" (Q 84:6)[8]. And since the constitution of the human essence is in "the fairest stature" (aḥsan taqwīm), he has the capacity to display all the perfections and Names of Beauty of the Beloved, at the creaturely level.

The distance from the human being's level of mulk to his malakūt, and from his lower to his higher degrees, is such that for the crossing from mulk to the human malakūt He used the cryptic expression "We produced him" (anshaʾnāhu) in place of "We created him" (khalaqnāhu): "Then We produced him as another creation" (Q 23:14)[9] — to declare the greatness of this earthen creature, and that this divinely-fashioned form, for all its bodily intricacy and intellectual perfection, remains stranded amid the mud and mire of the greatest veil and the part-seeing intellect until the alchemy of walāya is breathed upon him. It is the breath of walāya alone that makes him an all-revealing manifestation of the Real at the creaturely level.

The angel, in prostrating to Adam, intended to kiss the ground before *you*, for in your beauty it found something beyond the human mode.[10]

And, within the bounds of contingency, he boldly — in hope of divine aid — put his back beneath a burden that the denizens of mulk and malakūt pleaded to be excused from carrying: "So they refused to bear it and were apprehensive of it; and the human being bore it — indeed he is most unjust, most ignorant" (Q 33:72)[11] — so that he might give a worthy response to the address "And I have fashioned you for Myself" (Q 20:41)[12], and, by the Master's favor, bring fully into manifestation his fitness for being in "the fairest stature" (Q 95:4)[13].

Thus the human soul is a "greater world" containing beneath itself not one species but a multitude of species in outwardly human form, and between the kinds of human beings the distance runs from the Throne to the floor. Some sink even below the mineral: "For they are like stones, or harder still" (Q 2:74)[14]. Others halt at the animal level, and their whole care, concern, and worldview — provided they are not a noxious animal and do no harm — is to graze the better; otherwise they fall lower than cattle: "They are like cattle — rather, more astray" (Q 7:179)[15]. And a group — however few — have traversed the degrees of shahāda (witnessing / martyrdom) according to their striving, the stride of their resolve, their hope of forgiveness, and their allegiance to the walāya of the awliyāʾ [the Persian leaves both senses of shahāda open]. These are embraced by the grace of the Master of the House and are entertained among the special guests — or the elect of the elect — of the All-Merciful at the station of "with their Lord": "Alive, with their Lord, receiving provision" (Q 3:169)[16].

To expound the reality of this intricate compound — which on one side has its feet in the clay of the denizens of mulk and the depths of the lower earths, and on the other has left behind the clamor of the cherubim, lays its head upon the threshold of the Beloved, and, in the abode of wāḥidiyya and higher still, in the aḥadiyya of the Essence, is immersed in the beauty of the Beloved — lies only within the power of the holders of the greater walāya: "Glory be to God above what they describe — except the purified servants of God" (Q 37:159–160)[17].

The true students of this school must kneel a lifetime in the forecourt of walāya — "Through us God is worshipped, through us God is known, through us God — blessed and exalted — is declared One"[18] — pour the whole capital of their existence at the feet of this reality, and, by disciplining intellect and soul, drive all the satans out of the land of the theoretical and practical intellect through the intermediate and the greater jihad; set fire, all at once, by the "incineration method" (ṭarīqa iḥrāqiyya), to the harvest of their own existence, which — in the guise of terminologies, sundry sciences and arts, and this-worldly conventions (iʿtibārāt) — had become a veil over the face of the Beloved; and bring their mount to annihilation at the abode of ʿAlawī walāya [*raḥl*, “abode,” also means “saddle,” echoing *rāḥila*, “mount,” and the following *al-rāḥil*, “the one journeying”], so that behind the dust of the impurities of the conventions the Beloved may little by little unveil His face, and that which was nearer to them than their own selves may shine forth: "the one journeying to You — the distance is short; and You are not veiled from Your creatures except that hopes veil them from You"[19].

For years the heart sought the Cup of Jamshīd from us — what it possessed itself, it begged from strangers. A pearl that lay outside the shell of being and space — it sought from those lost on the seashore. In every state, God was with the heart-lost one — he saw Him not, and from afar kept crying "O God!"[20]

The whole discussion concerns the manner of drawing a spark from the flame of the Mount Sinai of walāya, and how the human soul — in which such potential has been placed — can pass safely through the arduous passes of the commanding, satanic soul. Satan all at once set fire to the fruit of six thousand years of striving and worship at the feet of his own pride, envy, and arrogance, and brought upon himself curse and disgrace, stoning and rejection by God the Glorified, and the everlasting Fire. He is an enemy who never has mercy on anyone; in every manner and in every land and time, he attacks the person's intellect and heart. He never abandons the hostile oath that he declared in the presence of the Real — swearing by His very might and majesty, and expressing it with repeated emphasis: "By Your might, I shall lead them astray, all of them" (Q 38:82)[21]. Not for a moment is he heedless of leading the human intellect and heart astray, and he attacks by every path and every means he can: "Indeed he sees you — he and his tribe — from where you do not see them" (Q 7:27)[22].

Satan's dissimulation in the intellectual arena of the soul begins with the raising of doubts and sophistries in the matter and form of demonstrations, so that intellects, in acquired knowledge (ʿilm ḥuṣūlī), can no longer be in harmony with the heart's witnessings in presential knowledge (ʿilm ḥuḍūrī). If the soul escapes this steep pass in the intermediate jihad, he then makes the intellect a veil over the heart and sets the two at war with one another. He presses upon the soul that what is known by acquisition can never equal what is witnessed by presence — in order to darken the veil over the soul's face in the domain of the practical intellect, obstruct the concord of theory and practice, and leave the wayfarer helpless to reconcile the products of acquired knowledge with presential witnessings. And when, in the intermediate jihad, the soul has driven the devils back from the field of the intellect, only then comes the turn of the greater jihad and of grappling hand-to-hand with their chief — Satan the outcast — who with all his power entangles the wayfarer's soul, by sundry stratagems and tricks, in the field of the conventions (iʿtibārāt) and the faculties of the soul, until the wayfarer's heart, in the tug-of-war between outer conventions and inner realities, the confusion between them, the banditry of satanic dissimulations, and the passing-off of appearances in place of realities, falls into doubt. It is thus that Satan has cast many travelers of the Beloved's lane — in the Beloved's own name — into the snare of false mysticisms, so that they choose the potsherd in place of the pearl and content themselves with it. Alas, falling in the field of the greater jihad is far more perilous than defeat in the intermediate and lesser jihads.

Not everyone who brightens their face knows the art of winning hearts; not everyone who fashions a mirror knows the craft of Alexander. Not everyone who tilts their cap and sits with a swagger knows the keeping of a crown and the rites of lordship. A thousand points here are finer than a hair — not everyone who shaves their head knows the qalandar's way.[23]

To command the field of conquest and victory in the intermediate and the greater jihad, and to unite intellect and heart, theory and practice, acquisition and witnessing, lies only within the power of seasoned adepts who, on one side, in the field of the greater jihad, present the heart's witnessings in the mold of demonstrative and rational rules — so that the wayfarer of the lane of witnessing can, by rational criteria, distinguish true witnessings from satanic dissimulations — and, on the other side, in the field of the intermediate jihad, drawing on the heart's witnessings, rescue the intellect's errors in the drawing of conclusions from the mischief of satanic doubts, and bring as their gift convictions that are demonstrative and in harmony with mystical witnessings; and who then place the produce of both in the service of the Qurʾān, so as, first, to correct their possible errors and, second, to probe deeply the profound teachings of the Divine Book and of its counterpart, the speech of the station of inerrancy and walāya — and so behold a sound union of intellect and transmission, witnessing and presence.

The sign of the Real, the master of many arts, ʿAllāmah Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, was one of the few figures to whom God granted, under the shade of the Qurʾān and the pure Progeny, a sound union of theoretical and practical intellect, of witnessing and demonstration. Besides reaping the harvest of teachers such as the grand āyatollāhs Sayyid Abū al-Ḥasan Iṣfahānī, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Gharawī Iṣfahānī, Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥujjat Kūh-Kamarī, Bādkūbaʾī and Nāʾīnī, and Āyatollāh Ḥājj Mīrzā ʿAlī Īrawānī in the rational and the transmitted sciences, he was admitted to the presence of a great man who was himself annihilated in tawḥīd and walāya: the sign of the Real, Āyatollāh Sayyid ʿAlī Qāḍī Ṭabāṭabāʾī — a rarity who, in the greater and the intermediate jihad, was a true disciple of the school of Mullā Ḥusayn-Qulī Hamadānī and of its forebears and followers, and who, with God-given genius and his innovation of the "incineration method," so placed the soul's intellectual level in the service of its witnessings that the two together burned away the tarnish in the fire-temple of the tawḥīdī primordial nature, became chosen, set apart from all that is other-than-the-Real [as printed: muṣṭafā, "chosen"; muṣaffā, "purified", would suit "from" better], and, at the station of ḥanīfiyya, brought the reality of religion and of the Divine Book — in knowledge and in direct vision — as a gift to his students.

ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī — beyond his depth of thought, his acumen and God-given discernment, and his abundant talent besides — was able to profit richly from the jewel of his master, Āyatollāh Sayyid ʿAlī Qāḍī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, and alongside him gleaned from the harvest of his other teachers as well, himself becoming an ocean of lofty tawḥīdī knowledge. The fruit of that champion of tawḥīd's day-and-night labors, in pen and speech, ripened in works such as the noble exegesis al-Mīzān, Bidāyat al-Ḥikma, Nihāyat al-Ḥikma, and various treatises on tawḥīd and epistemology; and he offered to the thirsty of the valley of tawḥīd and walāya a fresh re-reading of the presentation of tawḥīd and walāya by way of self-knowledge and of the degrees and stations of the straight path of walāya — in eloquent, demonstrative, Qurʾānic language, with rational and transmitted proofs, in a coherent and interwoven form.

What is the axis, exemplar, and final end in all that master's works is the question of tawḥīd — and that not from a demonstrative standpoint, but by way of knowledge of the reality of the human soul, and a rational, transmitted, and demonstrative showing that knowledge of the Real is not only not a matter of demonstration but is clearer than the most self-evident of self-evident truths, and is the foundation of all other beginnings [the printed *badāya* may be a mistake for *badāʾih*, ‘self-evident truths’], and the Reality-of-realities, in the order of creation and of revealed law [the Persian construction takes ‘the Reality-of-realities’ as a second predicate, not as another object of ‘foundation’]. The great ʿAllāmah's art lies in weaving the tawḥīdī worldview together with the question of walāya in the order of creation — arriving, by way of self-knowledge and a re-reading of the human reality, at the wellspring of walāya and thence at tawḥīd.

The conventions (iʿtibārāt) — for all their breadth and length — are confined within the walls of the world of mulk. The soul, passing beyond the nāsūtī level and entering the inner malakūt, returns them all to their reality, and establishes a sound union of intellect and heart, moving by way of self-knowledge to knowledge of walāya and thence to tawḥīd. With the late ʿAllāmah's innovative approach, the other human sciences — psychology, sociology, law, political science, and their derivatives — can be thoroughly re-examined from a tawḥīdī standpoint.

Without this insight, any effort at knowing the human being — under whatever name, art, or science — is assuredly the polishing of an old or a new unbelief; as our master, ʿAlī (ʿa), said: "Do not be ignorant of your own soul, for one ignorant of the knowledge of his soul is ignorant of everything"[24]. Conversely, whoever attains the depths of self-knowledge has had a true and singular gate opened for him toward the City of Knowledge: "He has won the greatest triumph who attains knowledge of the soul"[25].

The treatise "Prophecies and Dreams" is an exposition of the phases (aṭwār) of the soul — a subject that has been committed to writing by various thinkers and from various angles. In this field, some have regarded the soul as an external reality like other realities, investigating the soul and its faculties from outside, by acquired knowledge; others have seen it as an inward sign, and, present within the very object known, have contemplated its facets.

The treatise in question is a wayfarer's look at the human soul from within. The ʿAllāmah's composition — written from the standpoint of self-knowledge and combined with the heart's observations — contains points that are precise yet cryptic and terse, concerning the human soul, not only for the people of the rational sciences but for the wayfarers of the Beloved's lane: "Indeed in that is a reminder for whoever has a heart, or gives ear while being a witness" (Q 50:37)[26]. It is hoped that, by careful attention to the folds of its discussions, something of the intricate dimensions of the human soul in the stations of prophecies, walāyāt, and dreams may be grasped.

Before entering the discussions of this weighty treatise, several points must briefly be stated:

First: The soul, like existence, is a reality predicated by gradation (tashkīk) and possessed of levels. In the Qurʾān's vocabulary these levels are expressed under various names and, in one broad view, divide into three vertical levels: the "commanding" (ammāra), the "reproaching" (lawwāma), and the "tranquil" (muṭmaʾinna).

Second: The levels of the soul, like the levels of existence, are predicated by gradation; and the soul, while remaining one, possesses all the multiplicities of its levels, its faculties, and the effects of those faculties. In other words, whatever the soul apprehends and relates to — rational or transmitted, in theory or in practice — is within itself; and knowing the soul from within is the key to knowledge of all knowledge, above all the questions of tawḥīd.

Third: The soul, at each level, is united with that level and possesses its concomitants. Consequently, at the intellectual level it is pure intellect; at the imaginal level, an imaginal form; and at the material level it is united with the body and bears the properties of the world of matter.

Fourth: On the basis of the foregoing premises, each level affects the remaining levels and is affected by them. The soul is perpetually in transformation and variegation according to its diverse incomings from the worlds of matter, image, or intellect. That the narrations insist on the twinship of knowledge and action shows the tight bond between the two and the effect of each upon the other across the soul's levels. Conviction and knowledge always precede action and arouse it; for this reason, in the Noble Qurʾān, intentions — invisible though they be — precede deeds, and what is presented before God Most High is pure intentions and convictions, deeds being the vessels of intentions: "To Him ascends the good word, and the righteous deed raises it" (Q 35:10)[27].

Fifth: The highest level of the soul (reading the printed compressed `اعلامرتبهٔ` as `اعلا مرتبهٔ`) is the station of God's vicegerency, referred to under various expressions as the "tawḥīdī primordial nature" (fiṭra) or the "divine insufflation." The late ʿAllāmah names it in this treatise the station of "innate ḥanīfiyya," which belongs exclusively to God's inerrant friends; all others must walk this path in complete obedience to them. The loftiest level of this station belongs to the Messenger of God (ṣ), and then to the house of Ṭāhā and the Messenger's progeny (ṣ), the Imams of guidance; after them stand the other resolute (ulū al-ʿazm) prophets, and then the inerrant prophets.

Sixth: The purpose of legislating the revealed laws, sending the prophets, and sending down the heavenly books is to bring this innate capacity to manifestation and to guide human beings to this station; the prophets' message does not summon to something outside the human essence, but is the awakening of the human tawḥīdī fiṭra and the bringing forth of those very innate jewels from the buried treasury of human nature — as the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī (ʿa), said: "So He sent His messengers among them and dispatched His prophets to them in succession, to exact of them the covenant of His primordial nature, to remind them of His forgotten blessing, to plead with them by conveyance [of the message], and to stir up for them the buried treasures of the intellects"[28] — that the soul may pass from the level of the commanding to that of the reproaching, then settle in the rank of tranquility under divine walāya and constant intimacy with the Real, and in the Garden of Encounter, beside the servants of the All-Merciful, delight in the perpetual draught of the sealed nectar and be enraptured by the radiance of the Face of God.

Seventh: The soul's station of divine vicegerency, on account of the intensity of its bond and connection with the Real, is called the "station of walāya." Though its complete actuality lies in the station of inerrancy (ʿiṣma), the rest of the community can, by following the directives of the awliyāʾ and the heavenly books, attain degrees of this station. If innate ḥanīfiyya belongs exclusively to the inerrant awliyāʾ, the road to the station of walāya and to natural ḥanīfiyya lies open to others [ṭabīʿī, "natural," is contrasted here with fiṭrī, "innate"; the Persian does not say "acquired"], and the world of this life is the racecourse where the pious (abrār) compete to reach the station of those brought near (muqarrabūn): "Indeed the book of the pious is in ʿIlliyyīn. And what will make you know what ʿIlliyyūn is? A written book, witnessed by those brought near" (Q 83:18–21)[29].

Eighth: From the foregoing premises it becomes clear that the capacity for the station of walāya has been deposited in all human beings through the divine insufflation; this is the very covenant that God names repeatedly in the Qurʾān, enjoining its guarding and protection: "Fulfill My covenant, and I will fulfill your covenant" (Q 2:40)[30]. The Qurʾānic terms for sinners — "disobedient, profligate and offender" — are so many hints at betrayal of this divine trust. More plainly: falling into sin is, first of all, a betrayal of oneself (through betrayal of the tawḥīdī fiṭra and the divine trust), and only then a wrong against others: "Indeed God does not wrong the people at all, but the people wrong their own souls" (Q 10:44)[31].

Ninth: The soul, like existence, is a many-leveled reality, and at each level it is united with that stage; consequently it takes on the form and concomitants of that level — material, or imperfectly or completely immaterial. Accordingly, the soul's practical and theoretical effects at each station depend on the strength or weakness of its attention to the faculties, and to the faculties' effects, at that level. The more intense the soul's attention and concentration upon a thing — imaginal or conventional, estimative or intellectual — the more it takes on that thing's coloring and the more manifest that level's effects become upon it. For example, when the soul concentrates in its faculty of imagination upon the image of a beloved — even if that face does not exist externally — it becomes joyful; conversely, concentrating on something loathed, it falls into constriction. And if this concentration grows intense, it reaches the point where the soul is as if united with the beloved: "They were made to drink the calf into their hearts by their unbelief" (Q 2:93)[32]. The secret of the holy Lawgiver's insistence on presence of heart in acts of worship springs from here: the worshipper, through concentration in prayer and presence of heart at each level, is united with that level of the prayer; and if prayer is direct converse with the Lord, then the worth of such a prayer is measured by the degree to which one perceives being present before the Real.

Tenth: A person's deeds, inner intentions, environment, inclinations, and outlooks all work upon the shaping of the soul, and their resultant molds the soul either along the path of perfection toward the tawḥīdī fiṭra, or in gradual descent through the abysses of the commanding self and the darknesses of error; and the soul thinks and acts according to them: "Say: each acts according to his own mold" (Q 17:84)[33].

Eleventh: Although the soul, through its outer and inner faculties, is perpetually subject to hundreds of items of information and to the processings of the imaginative, estimative, and intellective faculties, its being-affected and its taking-on-of-form are shaped by concentration upon only a few of them; and the external effects that issue from it are proportioned to what is fixed and concentrated within it. In this respect there is no difference between conventions and external realities; what matters is the manner of the soul's concentration on the imaginal forms within its own imaginative or intellective faculty. The Lord's repeated insistence that God does not love fancy-spinning people — "Indeed God does not love any conceited boaster (mukhtāl fakhūr)" (Q 31:18)[34] — is not confined to false fantasies [Fayyāḍbakhsh links Persian khiyāl-pardāz, "fancy-spinning," with Qurʾānic mukhtāl through their shared Arabic root; English cannot reproduce the play]; it embraces everyone whose soul, in its inner space — at whatever level — keeps company with what is other than tawḥīd.

Twelfth: An important point in self-knowledge is that the forms apprehended within the soul are perceived by virtue of the soul's union with them; fundamentally, perception is derivative of union. On this basis, the soul sometimes unites with imaginal forms it has itself made and, through them, knows what is external (knowledge by acquisition); in other words, the primarily intended object of knowledge and the source of the imagining is the external thing. In that case correspondence may be mistaken; from this arises error in the matter of syllogisms — let alone their forms — and false conclusions and erroneous judgments in perception originate here. But sometimes the essentially known object—the source of the perceived forms—is not external; rather, it is the soul's link and connection with the immaterial realities themselves within itself. In that case, first, error has no way in, because the soul is directly connected with the essentially known object itself; second, the perception is more complete and exact in proportion to the intensity of the connection; and third, in the first station, when the soul itself created the forms, the soul's taking-on-of-form and being-affected were weaker and it ruled over those forms, whereas in the second station, when it connects with the immaterial realities themselves within itself, it is subject to them and thus affected by them; a fortiori, its taking-on-of-form from them is far more intense than in the previous level, the first station.

Thirteenth: With the foregoing premises — hinted at cryptically in the treatise — the secret of the Lawgiver's insistence on presence of heart in worship, on the wayfarer's watchful practices (murāqabāt), and on their degrees becomes clear. In the phrase "presence of the heart at the remembrance (dhikr)," the annexation of "presence" to its complement is sometimes an annexation to its object — that is, what is meant is making the heart present at the time of dhikr. Presence of heart of this kind belongs to the level of the mukhliṣīn (those who purify): with effort and toil they strive to escape satanic promptings during vocal or silent dhikr and, at the time of dhikr, to render their heart pure for God Most High: "And they were commanded only to worship God, purifying religion for Him as ḥanīfs" (Q 98:5)[35]. This itself has degrees whose exposition does not fit in this brief compass. But sometimes the annexation is to its agent — that is, the heart makes the soul present at the dhikr; and that is the "station of the mukhlaṣīn (the purified)," in which the soul comes under the dominion of the higher levels and of the reserved Names (asmāʾ mustaʾthara) within itself. In this case all the soul's perceptual and motor organs, and its imaginal, estimative, and intelligible forms, stand under the sway of the relevant Names, which shape and govern the soul; and "heart" here means the tawḥīdī fiṭra, which in the awliyāʾ is by primordial nature united with the Active Intellect, and for the wayfarers this comes about by nature [bi-l-ṭabīʿa, in literal contrast with bi-l-fiṭra, "by primordial nature"]. The rank of each soul, of course, depends on the rank of the Name that governs it: "And you did not throw when you threw, but God threw" (Q 8:17)[36].

Fourteenth: The soul's concentration upon anything occupies it with the object of concentration, and in consequence it remains heedless of attending to anything else or perceiving its effects. One locked in fierce battle with an enemy, all of whose concentration is on the enemy's movements, perceives nothing of what happens around him — not even the pain of the enemy's hard blows — until he is free of the fight; only then does he notice the wounds and blows he has received. The same holds for intense concentration on things agreeing with the fiṭra or contrary to it. In matters of tawḥīd, if the wayfarer's soul is concentrated on tawḥīd and on its own higher levels, it becomes oblivious of what is contrary to them, and either does not perceive un-tawḥīdī afflictions at all or, if it does, finds them sweet. Conversely, the worldly, whose concentration is on the world and on satanic promptings: first, worldly pains are hard and crushing for them, so that illness, death, and the seizing of the spirit — all of which amount to separation from the objects of their fixation — are hard and painful; second, they take no pleasure in worship and intimacy with the true Beloved, having no concentration upon or intimacy with Him; third, satanic promptings and worldly, un-tawḥīdī concerns give them no leave for presence of heart in worship and in secret converse with the Beloved.

Fifteenth: The soul's concentration on, and constant intimacy with, this-worldly life is its principal veil against attending to its own original worlds and communing with the worlds of the discrete imaginal realm (mithāl munfaṣil), the intellect, and beyond. But in sleep, when the soul gains relative respite from attention to the body and the material world, it establishes contact, as far as is feasible, with its true worlds, and truthful dreams or glad-tiding visions (mubashshirāt) — in which the soul's accidents have interfered less and in which lie chinks of reality — become manifest to it. All this, of course, on condition that the soul during sleep is not in the grip of external or bodily disturbances; in that case its dreams are "jumbled dreams" (aḍghāth aḥlām), and beyond interpretation.

Sixteenth: At death the soul is delivered from the veil of concentration on the world and on the promptings arising from it — though their dark or luminous effects, formed within the soul, will remain with it. With death, likewise, concentration on the material world is cut off; the soul turns to its true worlds and discovers its inner ailments, which it ought to have treated in the worldly opportunity. There it realizes that no way of treatment remains, and the world of the barzakh will be an ocean of sighs, regret, and lament over burnt-away opportunities: "Until, when death comes to one of them, he says: My Lord, send me back, that I may do righteousness in what I left behind. By no means! It is but a word he speaks; and behind them is a barzakh until the day they are raised" (Q 23:99–100)[37]. The pain of exile from the original homeland was with him in worldly life too, but the soul's concentration on the world's tinsel and all it holds kept him from perceiving the real pain. Such a person in this world is like an ailing mother who has lost her beloved child: the violence of her grief at the child's loss keeps her from noticing the pain of her own illness. In the words of the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa), human beings are born into the world, the world is as their mother, and love and affection for the world lie in the inner depths of all[38]. Concentration on the world during worldly life bars the human soul from attending to its original homeland and communing with the universal Names, and the part-seeing intellect thinks only within its own narrow bounds, giving no attention to its real ailments.

Seventeenth: Every perceiving being's concentration is, in the first degree, upon its own essence; at subsequent levels, through attention to the essence, it attends to the essence's belongings and concomitants. From this rational principle follow corollaries in self-knowledge that form the basis of the wayfaring directives in ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī's system. The upshot: on the stated basis, the primary rule is that the soul must keep its greatest concentration upon its own essence and must never fall into self-forgetfulness; self-forgetfulness, in truth, comes of heedlessness of one's true essence, tumbling into the abyss of fantasy, and taking the not-self for the self.

Eighteenth: Since the soul's very subsistence is by its own reality — that is, the Essence of the Most High Maker — everyone, before attending to himself, in fact finds his own reality and attends to it; at the next level he attends to himself, and at lower levels to his intelligibles and imaginings, and from there to the external world. On this basis all human beings are at all times attending to the very Root of reality and the word of tawḥīd; but the difference between the wayfarer and others is that he attends to his own attending, while others do not. Hence in the ḥanīf human being — all of whose faculties are in innate equilibrium — the principal concentration at every instant is upon the Real Most High, that is, upon the reality of his own soul, and in its light attention is given to everything else. In the late ʿAllāmah's phrase, in his gloss on the Proof of the Veracious (burhān al-ṣiddīqīn)[39], all realities take their being-real from the Reality-of-realities, the absolute Real, the essentially Necessary; without Him they are a semblance of truth [the print reads *bidūn-i ū*, “without Him”; *bā ū*, “with Him,” is a conjectured alternative], and in themselves, without the Real, they are null.

Nineteenth: As noted, the primary rule is the soul's concentration upon its own essence; and since the highest level of the human essence is the station of walāya and the soul's divine fiṭra, attention to the station of walāya — after tawḥīd — is an essential attending present in all human beings. In the soul's wayfaring through the degrees of faith, the greater its concentration on the reality of walāya — which lies within its own essence — the swifter its progress through the degrees of faith. By way of parable: if a mountaineer, through the way-stations of the road, keeps his whole attention on the principal goal — reaching the summit — he is not wearied and worn down by the passes along the way; and the nearer he draws to the summit, the greater his vigor in the climb and the more his speed increases. Since the station of walāya stands at the summit of human perfection, and the reality of humanity takes its shape and meaning by being settled upon it, the soul's constant concentration on this meaning quickens its pace in wayfaring — until it becomes established in the station of walāya, annihilated in its forecourt, and all its affairs take on the color of tawḥīd: "The coloring of God — and who is better than God at coloring?" (Q 2:138)[40].

Twentieth: Conventional affairs outside leave real, existential effects within the soul. The soul, according to the inclinations it bears toward its own conventional forms within, is perpetually choosing the more important over the important, and willingly bears the pain and distress of losing the important in order to attain the more important — like a fasting person in whom the desire for food and water is intense, yet who, to preserve the fast and out of devotion to keeping the soul true to the divine ordinances, does not touch food.

Twenty-first: Although the soul possesses many faculties, since it is a many-leveled reality, each level — according to its subtlety or its heat [as printed: sukhūnat, "heat", a sense a Persian logic lexicon attests; the expected pairing with laṭāfat is kathāfat, "density"] — has faculties of its own corresponding subtlety or heat. The relation among these faculties, like that among the soul's levels, is the relation of the outward and the inward of a single reality. Consequently, the outer eye is merely the instrument of sight in the world of this life; the visual center in the brain processes the things seen and presents them to the soul; and the soul, at its lowest level, creates a form with it [as printed: bā ān; basān-i ān would give "a form like it"] in the connected imaginal level — and that is the outward face of the faculty of sight at the level of the imaginal world, which in turn is the outward face of the seeing faculty in the soul's worlds of intellect and beyond. Through concentration on the faculties of the lower levels, the soul grows heedless of the objects of vision of the higher levels — which are the inward of the lower. The root of heedlessness of tawḥīd — which lies in the inward of all the soul's perceptions — begins just here; and with death all these inward matters become manifest to it. Then it sees God the Glorified with every person and every thing, nearer to itself than itself, and can only heave the sigh of regret over its heedlessnesses and burnt-away opportunities: "Lest a soul should say: Alas for me, for what I neglected of God's side!" (Q 39:56)[41].

I said: "One day I shall reach the enjoyment of union with you." He said: "Look well — perhaps you have already arrived." The Friend is nearer to me than my own self — and stranger still, that I am far from Him. What am I to do? To whom can it be said, that the Friend is at my side — and I am the one estranged?[42]

Twenty-second: Nor are the soul's faculties at any one level co-equal and uniform. The faculties of hearing and sight, for instance, hold the office of chief over the other faculties in reception, and the faculty of speech holds that office in expression; hence, in the discipline of the soul, the stress laid on governing the chief faculties — hearing, sight, and tongue. At the same time, in the person of faith, the faculties of the lower levels must be placed in the service of the higher faculty, so that by their own perfection they aid the soul in its journey from the outward to the inward. The higher the faculties ascend, the more they pass from multiplicity toward unity: the seeing faculty, for example, while able to see, can also hear; or touch bears witness among things seen; and so on with the other faculties. Thus all the faculties of the Perfect Human are in complete equilibrium, melted into his highest and principal faculty — love for the reality of his own essence and for the Beloved of the world, God the Glorified; and the perfection of the other faculties at this station lies in bringing that faculty, at its own loftiest level, to the fullness of its good[43].

Twenty-third: The soul, at its higher levels, unites — in proportion to the perfection it has acquired — with the divine Names at that level; consequently the workings of that Name issue from it by divine leave. The station of prophethood — whether taken as announcing (inbāʾ) from the unseen, or as nubuwwa in the sense of eminence above others — is in every sense rooted in the higher levels of the soul.

Twenty-fourth: In dreams, the soul — according to the measure of intimacy it has with its original worlds — journeys to those worlds once freed from managing the body; and glad-tiding visions and truthful dreams are the fruit of these connections — provided the wayfarer, before sleep, frees his soul to some degree from the world by reciting verses of the Qurʾān and the transmitted invocations, and avoids whatever throws the soul into excitement and agitation. For stronger souls, indeed, these states may occur in waking; they are then called "dream-like witnessings" (mushāhadāt manāmiyya).

Twenty-fifth: In this treatise there are further points concerning the phases and transformations of the human soul, which can serve the wayfarers of the Beloved's lane as a key to understanding the foundations of wayfaring and of the "greater jurisprudence" (fiqh akbar) — though understanding the soul's mysteries and phases requires a subtle taste, a sound heart, and an intellect clean of the outcast one's dissimulations.

Tell not the pretender the secrets of love and intoxication — let him die uninformed, in the anguish of self-worship. With weakness and frailty, be pleasant as the breeze! On this road, sickness is sweeter than health. So long as you look to merit and learning, you sit without gnosis — let me tell you one point: see not yourself, for then you are saved! At the threshold of the Beloved, think not of heaven, lest from the height of eminence you fall to the dust of abasement. Become a lover; otherwise, one day the work of the world will end before you have read the intended design from the workshop of being.[44]

And from God is success, and upon Him is reliance. Muḥammad-Taqī Fayyāḍbakhsh Ābān 1401 [October–November 2022], coinciding with the forty-first anniversary of the passing of the ʿAllāmah, the sign of the Real, Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī.