Someone who only knows man as a heap of water and clay...

Someone who only knows man as a heap of water and clay, and does not wish to acknowledge the fundamental; فَإِذَا سَوَّيْتُهُ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ مِنْ رُوحِي “So when I have made him complete and breathed into him of My spirit,” (15:29) And does not even want to consign a figurative meaning to this expression, has no remedy against the denial of real nearness to al-Haqq.

But what need is there for us to suppose that man is so lowly and mundane that we are forced to give everything an allegorical explanation and justification? Allah is pure perfection and infiniteness, and from the point of view of reality existence is the same as perfection, and every true perfection returns back to the reality of existence which is true reality, as with knowledge, power, life, will, mercy, goodness, and more.

Existents, in the source of their creation, in every respect in which they share in a more perfect existence, that is to say, a more powerful and stronger existence with the Divine Essence which is absolute existence and pure transcendence, are nearer; naturally the angels are nearer to Allah than inanimate things and plants, and similarly some angels are more in advance than others.

Some have control over and are obeyed by others: and remoteness is connected with the source of creation, and, as they say, is connected with the arc of descent. [^3] Existents, especially man, according to Quran: قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ “Surely we are Allah's and to Him we shall surely return” (2:156) Return to Allah.

Man, according to the degree of his existence, must make that return in the form of obedience and in acts of free-will and the accomplishment of his duty, and what does Nearness to Allah Mean? Form of choice and liberty. Man truly passes through stages and degrees of nearness to his Lord by travelling the way of obedience to his Lord; in other words he journeys from the station of animalist to the station above the angels.

This ascension and rising is not a matter of formality and routine, it is not an arrangement or a construct of our minds, it is not a kind of promotion from simply belonging to some ministry to being a minister, or from simply being a party member to being a party leader, rather it is an ascendance of the ladder of existence, which is the same thing as the increasing and completion of knowledge, power, life, purpose, will, extending the bounds of penetration and possession.

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