the other entities.
(The Modes of Addressing a Human Being)
As for His saying, exalted is He, “It is not for a human being that God should speak to him except through revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger who reveals by His permission what He wills. He is High, Wise” [al-Shura 42:51], He calls the one addressed here a human being in all these modes of speech, because of the matters he directly encounters that occupy him and prevent him from attaining the rank of the spirit he possesses in respect of his spirituality.
If he rises beyond the degree of humanity, God speaks to him as He speaks to spirits. Spirits are more capable of resemblance, since they admit neither spatial occupation nor division and disclose themselves in forms without possessing an inward and an outward aspect. They have only one relation from their essence, which is their very essence.
The human being, in his constitution, is not like this, for he is in the image of the whole cosmos. Within him is what requires direct contact, spatial occupation, and division: that which is called the human being. Within him is also what does not call for this: his spirit breathed into him. The two hands were directed toward his humanity, so the evenness of the two hands appeared in his constitution. Insofar as he is a human being, he hears the Real’s speech only through these modes mentioned, or one of them.
When in his contemplation he passes beyond his humanity and realizes the witnessing of his spirit, God speaks to him as He speaks to spirits stripped of material substrates. An example is His saying concerning Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the Bedouin, “Grant him protection until he hears God’s speech” [al-Tawbah 9:6]. None recited it to him but Muhammad’s tongue, may God bless him and grant him peace. In this form He placed Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, in the position of the Trustworthy Spirit
Notes
Translator’s note TN3572-1: Bashariyyah is rendered “humanity” here for the aspect of human constitution associated with direct contact, spatial occupation, and division, distinguished from the spirit. The discussion concerns modes of receiving divine speech; “evenness” translates shafʿiyyah, the condition of being paired.
