and Malik, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and al-Shafiʿi, far be this from them! None ever did this, nor has it been transmitted that they told anyone, “Confine yourself to us,” or, “Follow me in what I have given you as a legal opinion.” What has been transmitted from them is the opposite. God be pleased with them.
(Knowledge and Remembrance in Secret and in Public)
This Abode also contains the difference between His knowledge’s attachment to what the servant conceals within himself and to what he discloses and manifests: does this return to one relation or two? Connected with this chapter is what the Real intends by His saying, “Whoever remembers Me within himself, I remember him within Myself; whoever remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in an assembly better than they.”
These are two states in remembrance and knowledge. Know that the Real, glorified is He, has an unseen aspect and a locus of manifestation. Insofar as He is unseen, He has the name the Hidden: His remembering His servant within Himself and His knowledge of what he conceals. With this name are the servant’s secret, which the Real knows, and the remembrance within the self through which the servant remembers his Lord.
Insofar as He has the locus of manifestation through the name the Manifest, there are His remembering His servant in an assembly of His angels or an assembly of divine names, and His knowledge of what the servant discloses in the witnessed realm. With this name are the servant’s public expression, which the Real knows, and the public remembrance through which the servant remembers his Lord.
Knowledge of what is more hidden than the secret, however, is what God alone knows. This servant has no knowledge of it, nor
