sun or moon—or anything else—has not entered either the mirror or the water; what the observer experiences is only a conditioned perception, mediated by the image that has taken shape in the mirror or the water, whether that image results from a reflected ray or from some other cause.

Of the same order is the poet’s saying:
“When a pool lies clear and still,
Unruffled by the gentlest breeze,
You see the heavens mirrored there—
The sun, the stars, with perfect ease.
So in the hearts of those endowed with unveiling
The Almighty God is clearly seen.”

Thus it is reported that Allah is beheld in the hearts of the gnostic, just as the sun and the stars are seen in limpid water. Indeed, one of them may picture the likeness of a person he knows—tinged with red, green, or black—and exclaim, “By Allah, this is so-and-so himself!” while he and everyone who hears him are fully aware that it is merely an image exactly corresponding to that person’s form, not the person in actuality. The statement is made only because the image matches the original so precisely; it is a faithful representation, not something different.

To the same category belongs the Prophet’s ﷺ saying:
“Whoever sees me in a dream has truly seen me, for Satan cannot assume my form.”

He did not intend that the dreamer beholds his physical body now lying in the grave, nor his soul which is in Paradise—both present in the dreamer’s very being—for that is impossible for many reasons. Hence he added the words: “for Satan cannot assume my form.”