The exposition of this symbolism involves, first of all, two cardinal considerations, which afford limitless scope for investigation, but to. which I shall merely allude very briefly here.

First, the science and method of symbolism; the way in which the spirit of the ideal form is captured by the mould of the symbol; the mutual relationship of the two; the inner nature of this correspondence between the world of Sense (which supplies the clay of the moulds, the material of the symbolism) and the world of the Realm Supernal from which the Ideas descend.

Second, the gradations of the several spirits of our mortal clay, and the degree  of light possessed by each. For we treat of this latter symbolism in order to explain the former.

The world is two worlds, spiritual and material, or, if you will, a World Sensual and a World Intelligential; or again, if you will, a World Supernal and a World Inferior. All these expressions are near each other, and the difference between them is merely one of viewpoint. If you regard the two worlds in themselves, you use the first expression; if in respect of the organ which apprehends them, the second; if in respect of their mutual relationship, the third. You may, perhaps, also term

them the World of Dominance and Sense perception, and, the World of the Unseen and the Realm Supernal. It were no marvel if the students of the realities underlying the terminology were puzzled by the multiplicity of these terms, and imagined a corresponding multiplicity of ideas. But he to whom the realities beneath the terms are disclosed makes the ideas primary and the terms secondary: while inferior minds take the opposite course. To them the term is the source from which the reality proceeds. We have an allusion to these two types of mind in the Koran, "Whether is the more rightly guided, he who walks with his face bent down, or he who walks in a straight Way, erect?"

Such is the idea of the Two Worlds. And the next thing for you to know is, that the supernal world of "the Realm" is a world invisible to the majority of men; and the world of our senses is the world of perception, because it is perceived of all. This World Sensual is the point from which we ascend to the world Intelligential: and, but for this connexion between the two, and their reciprocal relationship, the way upward to the higher sphere would be barred. And were this upward was impossible, then would the Progress to the Presence Dominical and the near approach to Allah be impossible too. 

For no man shall approach near unto Allah, unless his foot stand at the very centre of the Fold of the Divine Holiness. Now by this World of the "Divine Holiness" we mean the world that transcends the apprehension of the senses and the imagination. And it is in respect of the law of that world  -- the law that the soul which is a stranger to it neither goeth out therefrom, nor entereth therein -- that we call it the Fold of the Divine Holiness and Transcendence. And the human spirit, which is the channel of the manifestations of the Transcendence, may be perhaps called "the Holy Valley".

Again, this Fold comprises lesser folds, some of which penetrate more deeply than others into the ideas of the Divine Holiness.

But the term Fold embraces all the gradations of the lesser ones; for you must not suppose that these terms are enigmas, unintelligible to men of Insight. But I cannot pursue the subject further, for I see that my preoccupation with citing and explaining all this terminology is turning me from my theme. It is for you to apply yourself now to the study of the terms.

To return to the subject we were discussing: the visible world is, as we said, the point of departure up to We world of the Realm Supernal; and the "Pilgrim's Progress of the Straight Way" is an expression for that upward course, which may also be expressed by "The Faith," "the Mansions of Right Guidance." Were there no relation between the two worlds, no interconnection at all, then all upward progress would be inconceivable from one to the other. Therefore, the divine mercy gave to the World Visible a correspondence with the World of the Realm Supernal, and for this reason there is not a single thing in this world of sense that is not a symbol of something in yonder one. It may well happen that some one thing in this world may symbolize several things in the World of the Realm Supernal, and equally well that some one thing in the latter may have several symbols in the World Visible. We call a thing typical or symbolic when it resembles and corresponds to its antitype under some aspect.

A complete enumeration of these symbols would involve our exhausting the whole of the existing things in both of the Two Worlds! Such a task our mortal powers can never fulfil; or human faculties have not sufficed to comprehend it in the past; and with our little lives we cannot expound it fully in the present. The utmost I can do is to explain to you a single example. The greater may then be inferred from the less; for the door of research into the mysteries of this knowledge will then lie open to you.

Listen now. If the World of the Realm Supernal contains Light-substances, high and lofty, called "Angels", from which substances the various lights are effused upon the various mortal spirits, and by reason of which these angels are called "lords," then is Allah "Lord of lords," and these lords will have differing, grades of luminosity. The symbols, then, of these in the visible world will be, pre-eminently, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.

And the Pilgrim of the Way rises first of all to a degree corresponding to that of a star. The effulgence of that star's light appears to him., It is disclosed to him that the entire world beneath adores its influence and the effulgence of its light. And so, because of the very beauty and superbness of the thing, he is made aware of something which cries aloud saying, "This is my Lord?" He passes on; and as he be. comes conscious of the light degree next above. it, namely, that symbolized by the moon, lo! in the aerial canopy he beholds that star set, to wit, in comparison with its superior; and he saith, "Nought that setteth do I adore!" And so he rises till he arrives at last at the degree symbolized by the sun. 

This again, he sees is greater and higher than the former, but nevertheless admits of comparison therewith, in virtue of a relationship between the two.  But to bear relationship to what is imperfect carries with it imperfection - the "setting" of our allegory. And by reason thereof he saith: "I have turned my face unto That Who made the heavens and the earth! I am a true believer, and, not of those who associate other gods with Allah!" Now what is meant to be conveyed by this "THAT WHO" is the vaguest kind of indication, destitute of all relation or comparison. 

For [if] anyone were to ask, "What is the symbol comparable with or corresponding to this That?' no answer to the question could be conceived. Now He Who transcends all relations is ALLAH, the ONE REALITY. Thus, when certain Arabs once asked the Apostle of God, "To what may we relate Allah?' this reply was revealed, "Say, He, Allah is one! His days are neither ended nor begun; neither is He a father nor a son; and none is like unto Him, no not one [1] ; the meaning of which verse is simply that He transcends relation. 

Again, when Pharaoh said to Moses: "What, pray, is the Lord of the Universe?" as though demanding to know His essence, Moses, in his reply, merely indicated His works, because these were clearer to the mind of his interrogator; and answered, "The Lord of the heavens and the earth." But Pharaoh said to his courtiers, "Ha[ve] marked ye that!" as though objecting to Moses' evasion of his demand to be told Allah's essential nature. Then Moses said, "Your Lord, and your first fathers' Lord." Pharaoh then set him down as insane. He had demanded an analogue, for the description of the divine Essence, and Moses replied to him from His works. And so Pharaoh said, "Your prophet who has been sent you is insane."

Let us now return to the pattern we selected for illustrating the symbolic method. The science of the Interpretation of Visions determines for us the value of each kind of symbol; for "Vision is a part of Prophecy." It is clear, is it not, that the sun, when seen in a vision, must be interpreted by a Sovereign Monarch, because of their mutual resemblance and their share in a common spiritual idea, to wit, sovereignty over all, and the emanation or effusion of influence and light on to all. 

The antitype of the moon will be that Sovereign's Minister; for it is through the moon that the sun sheds his light on the world in its own absence; and even so, it is through his own Minister that the Sovereign makes his influence felt by subjects who never beheld the royal person. 

Again, the dreamer who sees himself with a ring on his finger with which he seals the mouths of men and the secrets of women, is told that the sign means the early Call to Prayer in the month of Ramadan. 

Again, for one who sees himself pouring olive oil into an olive tree the interpretation is that the slave girl he has wedded is his mother, unrecognized by him. But it is impossible to exhaust the different ways by which symbols of this description may be interpreted, and I cannot set myself the task of enumerating them. I can merely say that just as certain beings of the Spirit World Supernal are symbolized by Sun, Moon and Stars, others may be typified by different symbols. when the Point of connexion is some characteristic other than light.

For example, if among those beings of that Spirit World there be something that is fixed and unchangeable; great and never diminishing; from which the waters of knowledge, the excellencies of revelations, issue into the heart, even as waters well out into a valley; It would be symbolized by the Mountain. 

Further, if the beings that are the recipients of those excellencies are of diverse grades, they would be symbolized by the Valley; and if those excellencies, on reaching the hearts of men, pass from heart to heart, these hearts are also symbolized by Valleys. The head of the Valley will represent the hearts of Prophet, Saint, and Doctor, followed by those who come after them. So, then, if these valleys are lower than the first one, and are watered from it, then that first one will certainly be the "Right" Valley, because of its signal rightness and superiority. And finally will come the lowest valley which receives its water from the last and lowest level of that "Right" Valley, and is accordingly watered from "the margin of the Right Valley", not from its deepest part and centre.

But if the spirit of a prophet is typified by a lighted Lamp, lit by means of Inspiration ("We have inspired thee withSpirit from Our power"), then the symbol of the source of that kindling is Fire. If some of those who derive knowledge from the prophets live by a merely traditional acceptance of what they are told, and others by a gift of insight, then the symbol for the former, who investigate nothing, is a Fire-brand or a Torch or a Meteor; while the man of spiritual experience, who has therefore something in some sort common with the prophets, is accordingly symbolized by the Warming of Fire, for a man is not warmed by hearing about fire but by being close to it. If the first stage of prophets is their translation into the World of Holy Transcendence away from the disturbances of senses and imagination, that stage is symbolized by "the Holy Valley". 

And if the Holy Valley may not be trodden save after the doffing of the Two Worlds (that is, this world and the world beyond) and the soul's turning of her face towards the One Real (for this world and the world beyond are correlatives and both are accidentia of the human light substance, and can be doffed at one time and donned at another), then the symbol of the putting off of these Two Worlds is the doffing of his two sandals by the pilgrim to Makka, what time he changes his worldly garments for the pilgrim's robe and faces towards the holy Kaaba.

Nay, but let us now translate ourselves to the Presence Dominical once more, and speak of its symbols. If that Presence hath something whereby the several divine sciences are engraved on the tablets of hearts susceptible to them, that something will be symbolized by the Pen. That Within those hearts whereon those things are engraved will be typified by the Tablet, Book, and Scroll. If there be, above the pen that writes, something which constrains it to service, its type will be the Hand. If the Presence which embraces Hand and Tablet, Pen and Book, is constituted according to a definite order, It will be typified by the Form or Image. 

And if the human form has its definite order, after that likeness, then is it created "in the Image, the Form, of the Merciful One". Now there is a difference between saying, "In the image of the Merciful One," and, "In the image of Allâh." For it was the Divine Mercy that caused the image of the Divine Presence to be in that "Image." And then Allâh, out of His grace and mercy, gave to Adam a summary "image" or "form," embracing every genus and species in the whole world, inasmuch that it was as if Adam were all that was in the world, or were the summarized copy of the world. 

And Adam's form -- this summarized "image" -- was inscribed in the handwriting of Allâh, so that Adam is the Divine handwriting, which is not the characters of letters (for His Handwriting transcends both characters and letters, even as His Word transcends sound and syllables, and His Pen transcends Reed and Steel, and His Hand transcends flesh and bone). Now, but for this mercy, every son of Adam would have been powerless to know his Sovereign Lord; for "only he who knows himself knows his Lord." 

This, then, being an effect of the divine mercy, it was "in the image of the Merciful One," not "in the image of Allâh," that Adam was created. So, then, the Presence of the Godhead is not the same as the Presence of The Merciful One, nor as the Presence of The Kingship, nor as the Presence of the Sovereign Lordship; for which reason He commanded us to invoke the protection of all these Presences severally. "Say, I invoke the protection of the Lord of mankind, the King of mankind, the Deity of mankind!" If this idea did not underlie the expression  "Allâh created man in the image of the Merciful," the words would be linguistically incorrect; they should then have run, "after His image."' But the words, according to Bokhari, run, "After the image of the Merciful."

But as the distinction between the Presence of the Kingship and the Presence of the Lordship call for a long expression, we must pass on, and be content with the foregoing specimen of the symbolic method. For indeed it is a shoreless sea.

But if you are conscious of a certain repulsion from this symbolism, you may comfort yourself by the text, "He sent down from heaven rain, and it flowed in the valleys, according to their capacity;" ] for the commentaries on this text tell us that the Water here is knowledge, and the Valleys are the hearts of men.

Pray do not assume from this specimen of symbolism and its method that you have any licence from me to ignore the outward and, visible form, or to believe that it has been annulled; as though, for example, I had asserted that Moses had not really shoes on, did not, really hear himself addressed by the words, "Put thy shoes from off thy feet."

God forbid! -- The annulment of the outward and visible sign is the tenet of the Spiritualists (Bâtiniyya), who, looked, utterly one-sidedly, at one world, the, Unseen, and were grossly ignorant of the balance that exists between it and the Seen. This aspect they wholly failed to understand. Similarly annulment of the inward and invisible meaning in the opinion of the Materialists. (Hashawiyya). In other words, whoever abstracts and isolates the outward from the whole is a Materialist, and whoever abstracts the inward is a Spiritualist, while he who joins the two together is catholic, perfect. For this reason the Prophet said, "The Koran has an outward and an inward, an ending and a beginning" (a Tradition which is, however, possibly, traceable to 'Alî, as its pedigree stops short at his name). I assert, on the contrary, that 'Moses understood from the command "Put off thy shoes" the Doffing of the Two Worlds, and obeyed the command literally by putting off his two sandals, and spiritually by putting off the Two Worlds. 

Here you just have this correlation between the two,  the crossing over from one to the other, from outward word to inward idea. The difference between the true and false positions may be thus illustrated. One man hears the word of the Prophet, "The angels of Allâh enter not a house wherein is a dog or a picture," and yet keeps a dog in the house, because, he says, "The outward sense is not what was meant; but the Prophet only meant, 'Turn the dog of Wrath out of the house of the Heart, because Wrath hinders the knowledge which comes from the Lights Angelical; for anger is the demon of the heart."' While the other first carries out the command literally; and then says, "Dog is not dog because of his visible form, but because of the inner idea of dog -- ferocity, ravenousness. If my house, which is the abode of my person, of my body, must be kept clear of doggishness in concrete form, how much more must the house of my heart, which is the abode of man's true and proper essence, be kept clear of doggishness in spiritual idea!" 

The man, in fact, who combines the two things, he is the perfect man; which is what is meant when it is said, "The perfect man is the one who does not let the light of his knowledge quench the light of his reverence." In the same way he is never seen permitting himself to ignore one single ordinance of religion, for all the perfection of his spiritual Insight. 

Such a thing is grievous error; an example of which is the evil which befell some mystics, who called it lawful to put by literal prescriptions of the Shariat as you roll up and put [away] a carpet; inasmuch that one of them perhaps went so far as to give up the ordinance of prayer, saying, forsooth, that he was always at prayer in his heart! 

But this is different from the error of those fools of Antinomians (Ibâhiyya) who trifle with sophisms, like the saying of one, "Allah has no need of our works"; or of another, "The heart is full of vices from which it cannot possibly be cleansed,"  and did not even desire to eradicate anger and lust, because he believes he is [not] commanded to eradicate them [completely]. These last, verily, are the follies of fools; but, as for the first-named error, it reminds one of the stumble of a high-bred horse, the error of a mystic whom the devil has diverted from the way and "drawn him with delusion as with cords".

To return to our discussion of "the Putting-off the Shoes." The outward word wakens one to the inward signification, the Putting-off of the Two Worlds. The outward symbol is a real thing, and its application to the inward meaning is a real truth. Every real thing has its corresponding real truth. 

Those who have realized this are the souls who have attained the degree of the Transparent Glass (we shall see the meaning of this presently). For the Imagination, which supplies, so to speak, the clay from which the symbol is formed, is hard and gross; it conceals the secret meanings; it is interposed between you and the unseen lights. But once let it be clarified, and it becomes like transparent glass, and no longer keeps out the light, but on the contrary becomes a light-conductor. nay, that which keeps that light from being put out by gusts of wind. 

The story of the Transparent Glass, however, is coming; meanwhile, remember that the gross lower world of the imagination became to the Prophets of God like a transparent "glass" shade and "a niche for lights"; a strainer, filtering clear the divine secrets; a stepping-stone to the World Supernal. Whereby we may know that the visible symbol is real: and behind it lies a mystery. The same holds good with the symbols of "the Mountain," "the Fire," and the rest.

When the Prophet said, "I saw Abdul-Rahmân enter Paradise crawling," you are not to suppose that he did not see him thus with his own eyes. No, awake he saw him, as a sleeper might see him in a dream, even though the person of Abdul-Rahmân b. `Awf was at the time asleep in his house. 

The only effect of sleep in this and similar visions is to suppress the authority of the senses over the soul, which is the inward light divine; for the senses preoccupy the soul, drag it back to the Sense world, and turn a man's face away from the world of the Invisible and of the Realm Supernal. 

But, with the suppression of sense, some of the lights prophetical may become clarified and prevail, inasmuch as the senses are no longer dragging the soul back to their own world, nor occupying their whole attention. And so it sees in waking what others see in sleep. 

But if it has attained absolute perfection, it is not limited to apprehending the visible form merely; it passes direct from that to the 'inner idea, and it is disclosed to such an one that faith is drawing the soul of an Abdul-Rahmân to the World Above (described by the word "Paradise"), while wealth and riches are drawing it down to this present life, the World Below. 

If the influences which draw it to the preoccupations of this world are more stubborn than those which draw it to the other world, the soul is wholly turned away from its journey to Paradise. But if the attraction of faith is stronger, the soul is merely occasioned [with] difficulty, or retarded, in its course, and the symbol for this in the world of sense is a crawl. 

It is thus that mysteries are shown forth from behind the crystal transparencies
of the imagination. Nor is this limited to the Prophet's judgement about Abdul Rahmân only, though it was only him he saw at that time. 

He passess judgement [from] therein on; every man whose spiritual vision is strong, whose faith is firm, but whose wealth has so much multiplied that it threatens to crowd out his faith, only failing to do so because the power of that faith more than counterbalances it. This example illustrates to you the way in, which prophets used to see concrete objects, and have immediate vision of the spiritual, ideas behind them. Most frequently the idea, is presented to their direct inward vision first, and then looks down from thence on to  the imaginative spirit and receives the imprint of some concrete object, analogous to the idea. What is conferred by inspiration in sleeping vision or dreams needs interpretation. 

The gradations of human Spirits Luminous in knowing which we may know the symbolism of the Light-Verse in Koran.

The first of these is the sensory spirit. This is the recipient of the information brought in by the senses; for it is the root and origin of 'the animal spirit, and constitutes the differentia, of the animal genus. It is sound in the infant at the breast.

The second is the imaginative spirit. This is the recorder of the information conveyed by the senses. It keeps that information filed and ready to hand, so as to present it to the intelligential spirit above it, when the information is called for. It is not found in the infant at the beginning of its evolution. This is why an infant wants to get hold of a thing when he sees it, while he forgets about it when it is out of his sight. No conflict of desire arises in his soul for something out of sight until he gets a little older, when he begins to cry for it and asks to have it, because its image is still with him, preserved in his imagination, This faculty is possessed by some, but not all animals. It is not found, for example, in the moth which perishes in the flame. 

The moth makes for the flame, because of its desire for the sunlight, and, thinking that the flame is a window opening to the sunlight, it hurries on to the flame, and injures itself. Yet, if it flies on into the dark, back it comes again, time after time. Now had it the mnemonic spirit, which gives permanence to the sensation of pain that is conveyed by the tactile sense, it would not return to the flame after being hurt once by it. On the other hand, the dog that has received one whipping runs away whenever it sees the stick again.

Third, the intelligential spirit. This apprehends ideas beyond the spheres of sense and imagination. It is the specifically human faculty. It is not found in the lower animals, nor yet in children. The objects of its apprehension are axioms of necessary and universal application, as we mentioned in the section in which the light of intelligence was given precedence over that of the eye.

Fourth, the discursive spirit. This takes the data of pure reason and combines them, arranges them as premises, and deduces from them informing knowledge. Then it takes, for example, two conclusions thus learned, combines them again, and learns a fresh conclusion; and so goes on multiplying itself ad infinitum.

Fifth, the transcendental prophetic spirit. This is the property of prophets and some saints. By it the unseen tables and statutes of the Law are revealed from the other world, together with several of the sciences of the Realms Celestial and Terrestrial, and pre-eminently theology, the science of Deity, which the intelligential and discursive spirit cannot compass. 

It is this that is alluded to in the text, "Thus did We inspire thee with a spirit from Our power. Thou didst not know what is the Book, nor what is Faith, but we made that spirit a light wherewith we guide whom We will of our vassals. And thou, verily, dost guide into a straight way." 

And here, a word to thee, thou recluse in thy rational world of the intelligence! Why should it be impossible that beyond reason there should be a further plane, on which appear things which do not appear on the plane of the intelligence, just as it is possible for the intelligence itself to be a plane above the discriminating faculty and the senses; and for relations of wonders and marvels to be made to it that were beyond the reach of the senses and the discriminative faculty? 

Beware of making the ultimate perfection stop at thyself! Consider the intuitive faculty of poetry, if thou wilt have an example of everyday experience, taken from those special gifts which particularize some men. 

Behold how this gift, which is a sort of perceptive faculty, is the exclusive possession of some; while it is so completely denied to others that they cannot even distinguish the scansion [the analysis of verse to show its metre] of a typical measure from that of its several variations. 

Mark how extraordinary is this intuitive faculty in some others, inasmuch that they produce music and melodies, and all the various grief-, delight-, slumber-, weeping-, madness-, murder-, and swoon-producing modes! Now these effects only occur strongly in one who has this original, intuitive sense. A person destitute of it hears the sounds just as much as the other, but the emotional effects are by him only very faintly experienced, and he exhibits surprise at those whom they send into raptures or swoons. 

And even were all the professors of music in the world to call a conference with a view of making him understand the meaning of this musical sense, they would be quite powerless to do so. Here, then, is an example taken from the gross phenomena which are easiest for you to understand. Apply this now to this peculiar prophetical sense. And strive earnestly to become one of those who experience mystically something  of the prophetic spirit; for saints have a specially large portion thereof. If thou canst not compass this, then try, by the discipline of the syllogisms and analogies set forth or alluded to in a previous page, to be one of those 'who have knowledge of it scientifically. 

But if this, too, is beyond thy powers, then the least thou canst do is to become one of those who simply have faith in it ("Allâh exalts those that have faith among you, and those who acquire knowledge in their several ranks"). Scientific knowledge is above faith, and mystic experience is above knowledge. The province of mystic experience is feeling; of knowledge, ratiocination [reasoning], and of faith, bare acceptance of the creed of one's fathers, together with an unsuspicious attitude towards the two superior classes.

You now know the five human spirits. So we proceed: they are all of them Lights, for it is through their agency that every sort of existing thing is manifested, including objects of sense and imagination. For though it is true that the lower animals also perceive these said objects, mankind possesses a different, more refined, and higher species of those two faculties they having been created in man for a different, higher, and more noble end. In the lower animals they were only created as an instrument for acquiring food, and for subjecting them to mankind. But in mankind they were created to be a net to chase a noble quarry through all the present world; to wit, the first principles of the religious sciences. For example, a man may, in perceiving with his, visual sense a certain individual, apprehend, through his intelligence, a universal and absolute idea, as we saw in our example of Abdul Rahmân the son of `Awf.

[1.] (Note by Ghazzâlî.) The proportion borne by dreams to the other characteristics of prophethood is as one to forty-six. That borne by waking vision has a greater ratio-as one to three, I believe, for it has been revealed to us that the prophetic characteristics fall definitely into three categories, and of these three one is waking vision.