suggests impotence and abasement. One says, “The sovereign secluded himself from his servants,” and, “So-and-so was barred from entering the sovereign’s presence.” A veil in the literal sense is impossible in relation to Allah, the Exalted, for it is a body interposed between two other bodies. Rather, we understand this to mean that Allah, the Exalted, does not prevent the effects of His beneficence and grace from reaching a person.

As for the first report—the Prophet’s saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “His veil is light”—know that whenever something is posited as a cause acting upon something else, every perfection attained by the effect is derived from that cause. Undoubtedly, that perfection belongs more properly to the cause than to its effect, and is present in it more powerfully and completely. There is no doubt that the bestower of all perfections is the Real, the Exalted. Thus, every perfection of contingent beings is as nothing compared with the perfection of Allah, the Exalted. There is also no doubt that contingent beings comprise only the realm of bodies and the realm of spirits, and no doubt that the totality of the perfections of the realm of