Of what sort is this traveller, who is this wayfarer?
Of whom shall I say that he is the perfect man?

Again you ask ‘Who is the traveller on the road?’
It is he who is acquainted with his own origin.
He is a traveller who passes on with haste,
And becomes pure from self as fire from smoke.
315 Know his journey is a progress of revelation from the contingent
To the necessary, leading away from darkness and defect.*
He travels back his first journey, stage after stage,
Till he attains the grade of the perfect man.*

Know first how the perfect man is produced
From the time he is first engendered.
He is produced at first as inanimate matter,
Next by the added spirit he is made sentient,*
And acquires the motive powers from the Almighty.
Next he is made lord of will by “The Truth.”
320 In childhood opens out perception of the world,
And the temptations of the world act upon him.*
When all the particular parts are ordered in him
He makes his way from these sources to general notions.*
Anger is born in him, and lust of the flesh,
And from these spring avarice, gluttony, pride.
Evil dispositions come into operation.
He becomes worse than an animal, a demon, a brute.
In his descent this point is the very lowest,
For it is the point directly opposite to Unity.
325 Of actions there arises an endless plurality,
He is thus directly opposed to his beginning.
If he remains imprisoned in this snare,
He goes astray worse than the beasts.*
But if from the spirit world there shines a light
From the attraction of grace or reflection of proof,*
Then his heart has fellowship with the light of “The Truth,’
And he turns back along the road which he came.
From that divine attraction or certain proof
He finds his way to assured faith.
330 He arises from the seventh hell of the wicked,
He sets his face towards the seventh heaven of the righteous;
Then is he clothed with the quality of repentance,*
And is made one chosen among the children of Adam.*
From evil deeds he becomes pure,
Like Idris the prophet he is caught up to heaven.
When he obtains release from evil habits,
He becomes thereby like Noah a saviour of his own life.
The power of his ‘parts’ remains not in the ‘Whole,’
And like “the Friend of God” he acquires trust in God.*
335 His will is joined with the pleasure of “The Truth,”
And like Moses he enters the highest door.
He obtains release from his own knowledge,
And like the prophet Jesus he becomes near to God,*
He gives up his existence utterly to be plundered,
And in the steps of the “Most Pure” he ascends.*
But when his last point is joined to his first,
There is no entrance for angel or for prophet.*

The prophet is as a sun, the saint as a moon
Is set over against him in the point ‘I am with God.’
340 Prophethood is resplendent in its own perfection,
The saintship therein is manifest and not hidden.
But the saintship in a saint is concealed,
Whereas in a prophet it is shown forth openly.
When a saint by obedience obtains fellowship,
And intimacy with the prophet in saintship;*
Then from the text ‘If ye love God’ he finds entrance
To that secret chamber ‘God will love you.’*
In that secret chamber he is beloved,
He becomes altogether ‘drawn’* to “The Truth.”
345 The saint is obedient as to his essence,
He is a devotee in the street of essence,*
Howbeit his work is finished at the time
That his end is joined again to his beginning?*

He is a perfect man who in all perfection
Does the work of a slave* in spite of his lordliness.
Afterwards, when he has finished his course,
“The Truth” sets on his head the crown of Khalifate.*
He finds eternal life after dying to self, and again
He runs another course from his end to his beginning.
350 He makes the law his upper garment,
He makes the mystic path his inner garment.
But know very truth is the station of his nature,
He comprehends both infidelity and faith.
Being endued with fair virtues,
And famed for knowledge, devotion and piety,
All these in him, but he far from all these,
Overshadowed beneath the canopy of Divine Epiphanies.*

The kernel of an almond is utterly spoiled,
If you pluck it from its husk while it is unripe.
355 But when it grows ripe in its husk, it is good;
If you pluck out its kernel, you break the husk.
The law is the husk, and the truth is the kernel,
The mystic path lies between this and that.
Error in the traveller's path is spoiling of the kernel,
When the kernel is ripe it is good without its husk.
When the knower experiences certain assurance,*
The kernel becomes ripe, and bursts the husk.
His being remains not in this world,
He departs, and returns again no more.
360 Another shines as a bright sun still retaining the husk,*
When in this state he makes another circuit.
From water and earth he springs up into a tree,
Whose branches are lifted up above the heavens.*
The same brings forth in his turn another seed,
One yielding a hundred fold by fiat of the Almighty.
Like the growth of a seed into the line of a tree,
From point comes a line, and from line again a circle.
When the pilgrim has finished the circuit of this circle,
Then his last point is joined to his first.
365 Again he may be likened to a pair of compasses,
Ending in the same impression whence they began.*
When he has finished his course to the end,
“The Truth” sets on his head the crown of Khalifate.
These circuits are not transmigrations of souls, for verily
They are manifested in the visions of Epiphanies,*
‘Verily they ask, saying, what is the end,
And the answer is the return to the beginning.’*

The first appearance of prophethood was in Adam,
And its perfection was in the ‘Seal of the prophets.’*
370 Saintship lingers behind while it makes a journey,
And like a point makes another circuit in the world.*
Its entirety will be seen in the ‘Seal of the saints,’
In him will be completed the circuit of the world.*
Individual saints are as it were his members,
For he is the whole and they are the parts.
Since he holds close relation to our lord,
Through him will be shown mercy most complete.*
He will be the Imam of both worlds,
He will be the Khalif of the children of Adam.

375 When the light of the sun is divided from the night,
You see its dawn and up-rising and full ascension.
Again from the circling of the revolving heavens
Declension and afternoon and sunset are seen.
The light of the prophet is a mighty sun,*
Now shining in Moses, now in Adam.
If you read the chronicles of the world,
You will know clearly its several degrees.
From this sun every moment is cast a shadow,
Which is one degree in the ascension of faith.
380 The time of our lord is the meridian line,*
For he is purified from all shadow of darkness.
On the meridian line he stands upright,
Casting no shadow before or behind, on the right hand or on the left.
Since he stands on the ‘narrow way’ “of The Trûth,”*
And takes his stand on the command ‘Be steadfast.’*
He casts no shadow, for that involves darkness.
Hail, O Light of God, O shadow of Divinity!
His Kibla* is between east and west,
Because it is drowned in the midst of light.
385 When by his power Satan becomes a Musulman,*
He will be as a shadow hidden under his feet.
All degrees are beneath his degree,
The existence of things of earth is from his shadow.
From his light his saintship is casting shadows,
The west is made equal to the east.*
For every shadow cast at the beginning of his course,
Another corresponding one is cast at the ending.
At this present every doctor of the faith
Is as one corresponding to the prophets in prophecy.*
390 But since a prophet is most perfect through prophethood,
He is of necessity more excellent than any saint.
Saintship will be all shown forth in the “Seal of the Saints;”
The last point will be finished in the first.
Through him the earth will be filled with peace and faith,
Through him stones and animals will receive life.*
There will remain not in the world one infidel soul,
True equity will be made manifest altogether.
By the secret of Unity he will attain to “The Truth,”
In him will be shown forth the face of the “Absolute.”*