and this is true in reality.
That is, being stone did not turn into gold. Rather, this substance received the reality of being stone, just as a body receives heat and is called hot. When God wishes to clothe this substance in the form of gold, He removes the form of stone from it and clothes it in the form of gold. The substance or body that had been stone then appears as gold.
Likewise, He removes heat from a hot body and clothes it in coldness, so that it becomes cold; the entity of heat has not turned into coldness. The cold body is the very same body that was hot. The entities have not changed into one another. So it is in ʿUlaym’s account: the substance that received the form of gold when struck is the one that had received the form of stone. The substance is the very same substance. Stone did not become gold, nor did gold become stone.
Similarly, the material substance receives the form of water and is undoubtedly called water. If you place it in a pot and boil it upon the fire until it rises as vapor, you know with certainty that the form of water has left it and that it has received the form of vapor. It then seeks to ascend toward its predominant element, just as, when the form of water subsisted in it, it sought its predominant element and moved downward.
This is the meaning of ʿUlaym’s saying, within this dwelling particular to the saints and the spiritual aspiration adjoining the science of the miracle, that entities
