Answering Islam

High; and therefore this unveiling which exists in this degree is called by the name of God, and there is no god but God, because all worshippers turn towards this degree in which He is unveiled, and because it is their goal, to which their souls retire to rest, and in it their hearts repose.' ¹

Jilani also in the commentary on the Gulshan-i-Raz-i-Mahmudi has thus written: 'When ² the essence of the oneness required the first self-manifestation, which is the all-embracing gulf between the necessary and the contingent, the oneness in connexion with these circumstances became the unique divine names. (And they call that first self-manifestation the universal reason, and the pen, and the greatest spirit.) And the multiplicity of these (the divine) names is in connexion with the variety of attributes. And the sources of all things,

both the invisible and the visible (which they have termed "the two existences"), attained stability in the form of this first self-manifestation by means of differentiation in God's consciousness. And in this unveiling the merciful soul appeared. And "the merciful soul" denotes the appearance of the reality in the form of the contingents (= existent things). And it is this unveiling which poured forth existence on all things that exist. And the first degree which received this grace is the first self-manifestation.'

The poet Jami also in his book entitled Tuhfatu'l-Ahrar (تحفة الاحرار) has written in verse of these matters thus:—¹

The spectator of the unveiling place ² from the first
Had promptly girt up His loins for the unveiling.
Before Him He had a mirror showing the invisible:
The whole unveiling He had with Himself.
Seer and seen too He alone was:
Except Him no one traversed this field.
The sperm of fathers in the narrow path of causes
Was hid from the womb of mothers.