through madness and henbane. If he were to ask about intoxication, he would be told: “Pleasure accompanied by the disappearance of sorrow.” Our saying “pleasure” excludes the intoxication of anger and sorrow, since that is painful, unlike the intoxication of passionate love. Yet the one is not like the other, so it can be made known to him only through what this pleasure shares with other pleasures, and what the loss of reason from this cause shares with its loss from other causes. When it is then added that it is a drink, this distinguishes the thing asked about from other things.

Thus, the reality is that definitions given in answer to “What is it?” merely distinguish the thing defined from other things. As for conceiving its actual reality, this cannot be achieved through speech and discourse, whether by definition or otherwise, but through the soul’s apprehension of the thing defined.

If the questioner asks, “What is the Lord?”, answers can be given that distinguish Him—glory be to Him—from all else, such that the answer applies to none but Him. Shared features may also be mentioned, according to the questioner’s understanding, through which he acquires whatever knowledge Allah wills.

As for knowing the innermost reality of His essence, this cannot be attained through words alone—not because His essence has no innermost reality, but because the innermost realities of things cannot be made known through verbal expressions alone.

Thus, when it is said, “He is light,” this does not preclude His being light in reality, just as when it is said, “He is living,” “knowing,” “powerful,” or “existent.” But He is not like any created light, just as He is not like any created beings endowed with life and knowledge, nor like any created thing that exists.