upon what is passed over in silence. There is nothing but a ruling, so this is alteration. He, Most High, has said, “The word is not changed with Me” [Qaf 50:29]. According to this account there is therefore no abrogation.
Were there abrogation, it would belong to wisdom. Its form is that, when time differs, the ruling undoubtedly differs. Abrogation is therefore always established, because difference always occurs. Wisdom affirms abrogation and wisdom removes abrogation, but in particular loci that require it intrinsically. The wise one gives them their due in this.
(The Difference between Wisdom and Knowledge)
The wise one is one in whom wisdom subsists. Its ruling operates through him, just as his ruling operates through it. He is its very entity, and it is his very entity. Wisdom is the very judge, the very judgment, and the very thing judged. Wisdom is a particular knowledge, even if it is general. The difference between wisdom and knowledge is that wisdom has fashioning, whereas knowledge does not, for knowledge follows the known.
Wisdom rules that the affair should be thus. Through the Wise One’s wisdom, order is established within the entities of possible things in their state of fixity. No possible thing is attributed to another possible thing without its being intrinsically possible to attribute it to yet another. Yet wisdom, through its ruling, requires that it arrange it as it is, with its time and state, within its state of fixity.
This is the knowledge the Real, Most High, possesses alone and which is not known of Him. Through it the ruling appears in the ordering of the entities of possible things in their state of fixity before their existence. Divine knowledge attaches to them according to how the Wise One has ordered them.
Wisdom has thus imparted to
Notes
Translator’s note: The source’s wa-juhila minhu, rendered “which is not known of Him,” is compressed; its reference to this knowledge or to the Real in this respect is not explicit.
