In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful.
A Continuation of This Chapter (The Questions of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi)
Know that, when the tongue of claims grew overbold on this path among those who lacked realization, in earlier and later times, the Imam endowed with complete tasting, Muhammad ibn ʿAli al-Tirmidhi al-Hakim, drew up questions of scrutiny and examination, numbering one hundred and fifty-five. No one knows their answers except one who has known them through tasting and drinking, for they cannot be attained through reflective consideration or the necessary truths of intellects. Their acquisition can therefore come only through a divine self-disclosure in an unseen presence, in one of the forms of manifestation. At one time the form is bodily, at another corporeal, at another embodied; at one time the form is spiritual, at another spirit-like.
This chapter of this book calls for the elucidation and explanation of those questions. I have therefore made this chapter the place of their disclosure, God the Exalted willing. Among them is:
The First Question
How many are the stations of the friends of God?
The answer: Know that the stations of the friends of God are of two kinds: sensory and spiritual. Their sensory stations are in the Gardens, although the Garden has a hundred degrees. Their
Anmerkungen
Translator’s note TN3439-1: The source distinguishes five adjectival forms: jismī, jismānī, jasadī, rūḥī, and rūḥānī, rendered here ‘bodily,’ ‘corporeal,’ ‘embodied,’ ‘spiritual,’ and ‘spirit-like.’ The passage lists these forms without explaining the precise distinction between each pair of related adjectives.
