by lowliness, looking with a furtive glance” [al-Shura 42:45]. This looking is the lowly person’s state: overpowering prevents him from raising his head.
The unbeliever’s humility, lowliness, and broken glance on the Day of Resurrection, through which he cannot raise his head, are toward God, exalted is He, from fear of Him. This was the believer’s state in this world through fear of God.
“That is the Day of Mutual Loss” [al-Taghabun 64:9], when a human being sees his attribute of might, pleasure, and joy upon another, and another’s lowliness, distress, and sorrow upon himself. “Judgment belongs to God, the High, the Great” [Ghafir 40:12].
(Knowledge of Modalities and Self-Disclosure in the Act)
This Abode contains knowledge of the Real’s questioning His felicitous servants concerning the ranks of the wretched: through which Name does He ask? It contains knowledge of correspondences, what thoughts give, and modalities. The latter has two kinds: one known only through tasting, and one apprehended through thought. This is broadening of expression, not realization, for realization through knowledge of modalities is only tasting.
The dear son, the gnostic Shams al-Din Ismaʿil ibn Sawdakin al-Nuri, alerted me to an affair realized with me from another aspect than the one through which this son alerted us. We mentioned it in this book’s chapter on letters.
It is self-disclosure in the act: is it possible or not? At one time I denied it from one aspect, and at another affirmed it from an aspect
