what remains. On this we have said:
Life is not clear for one who has tasted passion
until he meets the one he ardently loves.
When he beholds him, what quiets him
is that very meaning which disquiets him.
It is a meaning with differing rulings
for one who knows what he has expressed.
Since love attaches only to a nonexistent, as explained in love’s chapter, longing likewise cannot attach to one present: its object is absent and not witnessed at that moment. This is why longing describes love. It holds both ways: every lover longs and everyone longing loves; one who does not long does not love, and one who does not love does not long.
A report has come whose soundness I do not know: God, exalted is He, mentioned those longing for Him and said He longs still more for them, as befits His majesty. His longing for them is granting them rest through meeting the One they long for, while the appointed, unchangeable time has not arrived. The existence of what divine longing attaches to must therefore be delayed—if the report is sound. I know it neither through unveiling nor through a sound transmission[10], though it is mentioned
Notes
[10]
(This is the author’s own reservation concerning the report. It has been retained in full; mentioning the report here does not authenticate it.)
