Thus, to this extent we say: divine solicitude had already favoured this servant with this equality in the imparting of knowledge. Hence Allah says:

‘Until We know.’

This is an expression whose meaning is fully realized; it is not as someone unfamiliar with this spiritual approach imagines. The furthest that one who affirms divine transcendence can go is to attribute this arising in knowledge to its relation. This would be the highest understanding of this issue that a speculative theologian could attain, were it not that he posits knowledge as something additional to the Essence, thus attributing the relation to knowledge rather than to the Essence. In this respect he differs from the realized knower among the people of Allah who possesses unveiling and witnessing.

We now return to gifts and say: gifts are either from the Essence or from the divine names. As for favours, bestowals, and gifts from the Essence, they can only come through a divine self-disclosure. Self-disclosure from the Essence can only accord with the form of the preparedness of the servant to whom it is disclosed; nothing else is possible. Thus, the recipient of the self-disclosure has seen nothing but his own form in the mirror of the Real. He has not seen the Real, nor can he see Him, although he knows that he has seen his own form only in Him. It is like a mirror in the visible world: when you see images in it, you do not see the mirror, although you know that you have seen those images—or your own image—only in it.

Allah has therefore presented this as an example of His self-disclosure from the Essence, so that its recipient may know that he has not seen Him. There is no example closer or more similar to vision and self-disclosure than this. Strive as you may, when you see the image in the mirror, to see the physical substance of the mirror: you will never see it at all. Indeed, some who have perceived something like this concerning the image seen have held that the visible image lies between the beholder’s sight and the mirror. This is the utmost knowledge such a person could attain; the matter is as we have stated and maintained.

We have explained this in al-Futūhāt al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Openings). When you taste this, you have tasted the ultimate limit, which has no