Among the knowledge He taught them was that there is a kernel concealed by a shell[37]. Thus both the denier and the affirmer spoke truly.
Whoever says that God is Manifest has said nothing concerning God except what God said of Himself. There is no point in an affair’s being manifest except its being witnessed, so in this respect He is witnessed and seen.
Whoever says that God is Inward has said nothing concerning God except what God said of Himself. There is no point in an affair’s being inward except that ‘eyes do not apprehend Him’ [al-An‘am 6:103], so in this respect He is neither witnessed nor seen.
(The Human Form and What Lies beyond It)
When this invoker followed the better speech, he apprehended that there is a concealed kernel, while the other said, ‘There is nothing but this upon which sight has fallen.’ The latter is like someone who does not see that behind this manifest human form is another affair governing and directing it. In his view, whoever has seen Zayd’s form has undoubtedly seen him.
The one who acknowledged the kernel knew that behind this form is another affair: this effect manifest from the form belongs only to that inward reality concealed within this veil. His proof is death, with the form remaining and the ruling removed.
Whoever says that Zayd is that very governor, not the form itself, and that in his view the form differs in no way from what we have agreed concerning
Notes
[37]
(The previous copy read «لنا مستورا», ‘concealed for us’; this was corrected to «لبا مستورا», ‘a concealed kernel,’ by comparison with the new edition, vol. 10, p. 441.)
