revealed law generally, not prescribing law. Particularly they preserve hearts and observe courtesies.
Among knowers of God they are like the physician among those knowing natural science. The physician knows nature specifically as governing the human body. The natural scientist knows it without restriction, even if not a physician.
(What a Shaykh Needs for Education)
A shaykh may combine both, but the shaykh’s share of knowledge of God is knowing among people the destinations and sources of their movements; knowing passing thoughts, blameworthy and praiseworthy; and the confusion entering them when a blameworthy thought appears in a praiseworthy form.
He knows breaths and the glance, what belongs to both and what good pleasing God and evil displeasing Him they contain. He knows ailments and remedies, times, customary ways, places, foods, what corrects or corrupts temperament, the difference between true unveiling and imaginal unveiling, and divine self-disclosure.
He knows education and the disciple’s passage from childhood to youth to mature adulthood. He knows when to leave governing the disciple’s nature and govern his intellect, when the disciple’s passing thoughts prove truthful to him, the rulings belonging to the self and those belonging to Satan, and what lies within Satan’s power.
He knows the veils protecting a person from devils’ casting into his heart, and what the disciple’s self conceals that is not perceived
Notes
Translator’s note TN4792-1: The unvowelled y-ṣ-d-q clause is read with the passing thoughts proving truthful to the disciple. It could also be read as the disciple crediting his thoughts. The source’s list combines knowledge of constitution and spiritual discernment as requirements of training.
