The Meccan Revelations

Manuscript volume 30 · Page 241

Konya manuscript

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Arabic

في الحقيقة إلا الله، ولا يخشاه إلا العالِم، ولا أعلم من الله، فلا يخشى الله إلا الله، لكن الصور مختلفة لاختلاف النسب، أو النسب مختلفة لاختلاف الصور.

فلو لا النسب ما حدثت الصور، ولو لا الصور ما علم اختلاف النسب، فالوجود مربوط بعضه ببعضه، فإبرامه عين نقضه. ثم إنه في هٰذا الذكر: ﴿إِنَّ الله عَزِيزٌ غَفُورٌ﴾ [فاطر: ٢٨].

(العزة وستر مجموع العلم)

فعزته امتناعه تعالى عن أن يكون له حكم الأسماء الإلهية من نظر بعضها إلى بعض كما ينظر العالَم بعضه إلى بعض، فيتصف لذٰلك بالخوف والرجاء والكره والمحبة. والله عزيز عن مثل هٰذا، فإنه الذي يخاف ويرجى ويسأل ويجيب إن شاء وإن شاء[85].

وغفور بما ستر من هذه العلوم والأسرار الراجعة إليه تعالى وإلى أسمائه وإلى العالَم عن الخلق كلهم بالمجموع. فلا يعلم المجموع ولا واحد من الخلق، لكن له العلم بالآحاد، فعند واحد ما ليس عند الآخر، فهو بالمجموع حاصل، لا حاصل فهو حاصل في المجموع غير حاصل عند واحد واحد.

وهو قوله: ﴿ولا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ من عِلْمِهِ إِلَّا بِما شاءَ﴾ [البقرة: ٢٥٥]، فجاء بباء التبعيض. فعند واحد من العلم بالله ما ليس عند الآخر، فلذٰلك قال: ﴿إِنَّ الله عَزِيزٌ غَفُورٌ﴾ [فاطر: ٢٨].

Notes

[85]

(تكررت «إن شاء» هنا في المصدر دون تتمة بعد الثانية، فحفظت العبارة ولم تستكمل.)

English

except God. None fears Him but the knower, and none knows more than God, so none fears God but God. Yet the forms differ because the relations differ, or the relations differ because the forms differ.

Were it not for relations, forms would not originate, and were it not for forms, the differences of relations would not be known. Existence is bound together, part to part: its tying is its very untying. Then, in this invocation, ‘God is Invincible, Forgiving’ [Fatir 35:28].

(Invincibility and the Concealment of the Totality of Knowledge)

His invincibility is His being inaccessible, exalted is He, to the ruling that the divine Names have when they regard one another, as parts of the world regard one another, thereby becoming qualified by fear, hope, aversion, and love. God is invincibly beyond such things, for He is the one feared, hoped for, asked, and who answers if He wills, and if He wills[85].

He is Forgiving through what He has concealed of these sciences and secrets pertaining to Him, exalted is He, to His Names, and to the world, from all creation as a totality. Not one created being knows the totality, though it has knowledge of individual parts: one possesses what another does not. Thus, as a whole, it is attained and not attained; it is attained in the aggregate, not attained by each individual.

This is His saying, ‘They encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills’ [al-Baqara 2:255]. He used the partitive ba’. One possesses knowledge of God that another does not; for this reason He said, ‘God is Invincible, Forgiving’ [Fatir 35:28].

Notes

[85]

(‘If He wills’ is repeated here in the source with no completion after the second occurrence; the phrase has been preserved without supplying a continuation.)

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Cairo source reference

Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 30 · Page 241 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=9049&text=both