the group.
“As for whether this additional thing is a single entity with many differing rulings, or each ruling has an additional meaning that makes it necessary, we have no proof of its oneness or multiplicity.
“This is fairness in this question, in my view. Whoever strains to produce a proof beyond this is unsound. Something additional is indispensable, but we say that it is neither He nor other than He, because of what you know, our master, of the doctrine of the people of this discipline concerning two things that are other than one another.”
I said to him, “Abu ʿAbd Allah, I say to you what the Messenger of God, God’s blessings and peace be upon him, said to Abu Bakr concerning his interpretation of the dream: ‘You were right in some and wrong in some.’”
He said to me, “By God, I do not distrust you concerning what you know. Yet I cannot abandon the judgment that there is something additional unless God opens to me what He has opened to you, despite the disagreement of rational investigators concerning your position.”
These were his words. I marveled at his fairness and his persistence, while he testified of himself that he did not distrust me, yet opposed me. He resembled someone whom God had led astray with knowledge. In my view, however, this does not impair his faith; it impairs only his intellect.
(The Name, the Named, and the Concept)
We then return and say[14] that the eye of the heart is nothing other than what the Real is in the world’s states, outwardly and inwardly, first and last. Although the Names are many, the Named is one, while the concept is not one.
The caller is bewildered when he calls, not knowing what he calls upon: is he calling upon the Named or upon the concept?
For the divine Names
Notlar
[14]
(A return to the subject of the eye of the heart after the discussion of the attributes related by the author.)
