Describing water...

Describing water, in this hadīth , as Allah's mercy, or interpreting it to be so, denotes that water is one of the great manifestations of Allah's mercy, which He sent down to the world of nature, and made it the source of life for the beings. Rather, the vast divine mercy, which descended from the high heaven of His Names and Attributes, and with which the lands of the individual entities [ ta'ayyunāt-i a'yān ] were revived, is called “water” by the people of knowledge.

And as the vast divine mercy is more obvious in the apparent substance of water than in other things, Allah, the Exalted, has assigned to it the task of purifying the outer filths, and made it the key to the door of His proximity and of the supplications to Him, and the guide to the court of His service, which is the door of the doors of the inner mercies.

Actually, the water of Allah's mercy descends and appears in every growth [ nash'ah ] of existence and in every visible and invisible scene to purify the sins of Allah's servants according to that growth [ nash'ah ] and suitable to that world.

So, the invisible sins of the individual entities are purified with the water of mercy which descends from the heaven of His Oneness [ ahadiyyat ], and the sins of the non-existence of “the outer quiddities” [ māhiyyāt-i khārijiyyah ] are purged with the water of the vast mercy descending from the heaven of His Unity [ wāhidiyyat ] in every stage of existence according to that stage.

In the stages of human growths [ nasha'āt ], too, the water of mercy has different manifestations, as with the water descending from His Essence onto “the purgatorial collective individuations” [ ta'ayyunāt-i jam'iyyat-i barzakhiyyah ] the sins of the “existential secret” [ sirr-i wujūdī ] are purified: “Your existence is a sin incomparable with any other sin.” With the water descending from His Names and Attributes and the manifestation of Act, the vision of the attribute and the act is purged.

With the water descending from the sky of His “Decree of Justice” [ hukm-i 'adl ] the inner moral impurities are purified. With the water descending from the sky of His Forgiveness the sins of the servants are purged. And with the water descending from the sky of “the kingdom of heaven” [ malakūt ] the formal impurities are purged. So, it is clear that Allah, the Exalted has made water the key to His proximity and the guide to His court of mercy.