The sustenance of sustenance, through which it is sustained, is its use. The user is sustenance for it, because it cannot rightly be sustenance unless someone is sustained through it. Know who is your sustenance, and for whom you are sustenance.
We narrate from the knower of this affair, Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī, that he, may God be pleased with him, was asked about sustenance and said, ‘God.’ He was told, ‘We are asking you about nourishment.’ He said, ‘God,’ through the dominance of his state. States are the tongues of the group, and they are tastings.
The questioner drew his attention according to what his state at that time gave him, saying, ‘Sahl, I am asking you only about the sustenance of bodies or bodily forms.’ Sahl knew that the questioner was ignorant of what he intended. He descended to him in the answer with a breath other than the first. It became known that he, may God be pleased with him, was ignorant of the questioner's state, just as the questioner was ignorant of his answer.
Sahl said to him, ‘What have you to do with them?’—meaning bodily forms—‘Leave the dwellings to their Builder: if He wills, He ruins them; if He wills, He makes them flourish.’ Sahl did not depart from his first answer, but gave it in another form. A dwelling flourishes through its inhabitant, so sustenance is God, as he said the first time.
The questioner was satisfied with the second answer only because of his descent from the unambiguous to the apparent. Such are most of the knowers' answers. When within the state, they answer through unambiguous expressions; when within the station, they answer through apparent meanings. They accord with their moments. This
