Mālik, who said: “The inscription on the Prophet’s signet ring, peace and blessings be upon him, was set out in three lines: ‘Muḥammad Messenger of Allah’—Muḥammad on one line, Messenger on another, and Allah on the third.” His purpose in listing these three names was simply to indicate the written lines allotted to each—this one, that one, and the other—not to refer to the spoken words themselves, nor to the One who bears the Name.

A comparable illustration is what one sees in a mirror or in water. Suppose the sun—or anything else—appears reflected in water or in a mirror; a person may then point to the reflection and say, “This is the sun,” or, “This is my face,” or, “This is So-and-so’s face.” He does not mean that the very substance of the sun, or of his face, or of that person’s face has settled in the water or the mirror. Rather, because the object sought by that act of seeing is the sun itself or the face itself, he names it accordingly.

Thus one might say, “He saw it—though only as a sight confined to the water or the mirror,” or, “He saw it by means of the water and the mirror,” or, “He saw its likeness, its image that imitates it.” Yet the aim of the vision is the thing itself—and cases like this are many.

It is likewise clear that the mental image lodged in the heart, when it corresponds exactly to the object known, is closer to that object than the spoken word, and the spoken word is closer than the written script. If, therefore, one may point to the utterance or the writing while intending the reality itself—even though writing and speech are not that very reality, but only the media through which it appears and becomes known—then, a fortiori, one may point to what is in the heart and, by so doing, intend the familiar reality that has manifested itself to the heart, disclosed itself to it, and whose light now resides within it.