12 THE KEY OF MYSTERIES

therefore, God Most High were to reveal to His servants those particular points and the mysteries which are peculiar to His own nature, even then we should not be able to apprehend them properly. Nay more, it is not possible that, while we are in this world, such mysteries should be made quite clear and plain to us, since their analogues are not visible here so as to enable us by beholding them to form some idea, however imperfect, of these mysteries. For example, a man blind from birth must be quite unaware of what the light of the sun is; and, if to the best of our ability and as clearly as possible we describe to him the sun and the sunlight, yet he will not properly understand the explanation, nor is it possible that he should correctly conceive of the sun, or light, or sight, though from the analogy of his other senses he may gain some faint idea of these things. But were he, because of his own blindness, to deny that sight existed in other men, and that they could behold the light and know something of what was so mysterious to him, he would not thereby prove his keenness of intellect but his folly. Still, that would not justify us in leaving him exposed to danger, if we could in any manner by warning and guidance enable him to escape it. As the poet says:

If I see a blind man and a well,
It is wrong to sit silent, nor tell.1


1 كر بينم كه نابينا و جاه است * اكر خاموش بنشينم كناه است

— 'Gulistan,' Bab I.

INTRODUCTION 13

It is evident to all that the most holy nature of the invisible God has nothing on earth exactly similar to it, nothing that is strictly analogous. Hence we cannot fully comprehend even what the word of God (كلام اْلله) has revealed to us on this subject. Yet, were such knowledge unnecessary for us, we may be sure that the All-Wise God would not have given us any such teaching. Hence, as such teaching as that which the holy Scriptures contain regarding Christ's Deity and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity in Unity in the divine nature has been bestowed by God upon His servants, it is clear that it is profitable and even necessary for us to learn it. Doubtless these holy mysteries are above our finite understanding, but let us never fall into the error of fancying that they are therefore opposed to reason. This they cannot be, for they have been revealed by Him who is the Author of reason itself.

If, therefore, any one deny these mysteries on the plea that they cannot be discovered by man's reason, he is truly like a blind man who denies the existence of the sun because he cannot see it and cannot understand it. The man who denies the things which his intellect cannot fully understand, and who rejects those doctrines of God's holy word which are beyond reason and superior to human understanding, prefers his own imperfect reason and intellect to God's word. Nay more, in his boundless arrogance, he elevates himself above God