1ST LETTER

This letter, written to As-sayyed Murshid-i kâmil Hadrat Mîr Muhammad Nu'mân, explains that Allahu ta'âlâ and His Attributes and Deeds are very close to His born servants.

My hamd (thanks) be to Allahu ta'âlâ, and goodness and salâms to the people whom He chooses and loves! We have received your precious letter. You went to a great trouble. May Jenâb-i-Haqq reward you for your efforts! You ask us time after time to explain Allahu ta'âlâ and His Attributes and Deeds, which are closer to these classes of beings than anything else is, and you are eager to learn the answer. So I feel compelled to reveal the matter a little:

Everything exists with its true nature, with its essence. There is no need for giving something its own nature, or for anybody to give it, for everything has its nature in itself. It is for this reason that it was said that the nature of anything could not be made. Every substance has an essence, a nature. It is not necessary to do some work to give substances their natures. But, some work is to be done to produce the nature of something in something else. For example, the dyer's work is to dye fabrics, but not to make a fabric fabric or to make a dye dye, which is unnecessary. Then, the nature of a thing is not given to that thing later. But some work is done to bring that thing and its nature together. Everything is itself together with its own nature. This word of ours is not valid when shade is considered. The shade of something, or its reflection or fancy, or its image on a mirror, has become a shade, or a reflection, etc., not with its own nature, but with the nature of the original that causes it to be formed, for a shade, or an image, does not have a nature of its own. The nature that exists in the shade is the nature of the original thing that forms it. Then, the original is closer to its shade than the shade is to itself, for the shade has become the shade with the nature of its original, that is, with the original, not with its own nature; for it does not posses its own nature.

Since all classes of beings, all creatures are the shades, reflections, and images of allahu ta'âlâ's deeds, these works, which are the originals of these beings, are closer to these beings than these beings are to themselves. And since these deeds are the shades of the divine attributes, allahu ta'âlâ's attributes are closer to the beings than the beings and the deeds, that is, the originals of the beings, for they are the originals of originals. and since the divine attributes are the shades of the divine person (zât-ı ilâhî), and since allahu ta'âlâ himself is the original of all the originals, the person of allahu ta'âlâ is closer to the beings than the beings themselves, the divine deeds, and the divine attributes. The intellectual individuals, who will understand these by reading them carefully, will admit our word, if they are reasonable enough. If there should be any person who does not believe us, it is not important at all, for our word is not intended for them.