among the Folk of God that they differ from one another in degree. Since difference in degree is intelligible in them and known through their effects, we know that the divine realities upon which these melodies rest are stronger than that upon which speech rests.
We hear a reciter recite, or someone declaim poetry, and find no movement within ourselves because of it. Indeed, at times we may be annoyed by it, because it comes outside the natural measure. Yet when we hear that verse or poem from someone with melody, giving it its due in the balance, ecstasy strikes us and moves us, and we find what we did not find before. Hence we distinguish that upon which natural melodies rest from that upon which utterance rests.
This is the balance of the sensible. As for the balance of intellect, one considers the wisdom of the divine ordering in the cosmos. If one belongs to the people of divine listening, one considers the ordering of the divine names, and one’s listening comes from there. If one belongs to the people of spiritual listening, one considers the ordering of their effects in the higher and lower worlds and finds ecstasy in every audible thing, for all audible things are melodies to such a person. Some have a sensible movement, while others do not. Spiritual movement, however, is unavoidable.
(Spiritual Movement and Divine Movement)
God has a group who have passed beyond spiritual movements to divine movements. This is al-Junayd’s saying: “You see the mountains, supposing them motionless, while they pass like the passing of clouds” [al-Naml 27:88]—yet in the very state in which you suppose them motionless. Movement is attributed to this person as it is attributed
