from Chapter 258.
One who drinks water lives the life of the knowers; one who drinks milk is distinguished among the men of Yemen; one who drinks clarified honey is among those faithful in his revelation; and one who drinks wine does not conceal the affair.
Wine is for liberality, milk for clear expression, water for the life of spirits, and honey is the knowledge of the possessors of wings: it is unalloyed knowledge.
﴿Each people has known its drinking-place﴾ [al-Baqara 2:60], and they have realized their course.
﴿Making the angels messengers, possessed of wings, two, three, and four: He increases creation as He wills﴾ [Fatir 35:1], and setting paths within the ascents, so that they have diminution and what is willed, mashaʾ.
Had he drunk wine, the community would have gone astray and erred through displaying what it contained. This world is an abode of veiling, so the door must be closed and there must be veil-keepers: they are the messengers possessed of understanding.
The sending of messengers is to specify the paths, and establishing vicegerents on earth is obligatory, so that they may stir the longing of veiled souls through what they describe and what they prescribe of the things sought.
And among these is: One Whose Trace Is Effaced Loses His Name, from Chapter 259.
Notlar
Translator’s note: ‘Yemen’ also permits a reading connected with yumn, blessedness. The supplied «المشاء», retained as mashaʾ, is tentatively associated with what is willed; its exact sense is uncertain, and its consonants have not been replaced by a conjectural alternative.
