One is to travel and wander for a year to reach it. One has to traverse a year’s distance to gain proximity to it. This is the method of those who embark on spiritual journeying, the way taken by most of those who follow the Sufi path.

The second is to slip free of and be divested of the sheath of corporeality, which is restricted by time, to rise in the spirit and see the Night of Power, which was last night, together with the night of the ‘Id, which is the day after tomorrow, as being present like today. For the spirit is not restricted by time. When the human emotions rise to the level of the spirit, present time expands. Time, which for others consists of the past and the future, is as though the present for such a person.

According to this comparison, to reach the Night of Power one has to rise to the level of the spirit and see the past as though  it were the present.  Essentially,  this obscure mystery is the unfolding of divine immediacy. For example, the sun is near to us, for its light and heat are present in the mirror we are holding. But we are far from it. If we perceive its immediacy from the point of view of luminosity, and understand our relation to its reflection in our mirror, which is a similitude; if we come to know it by that  means  and  know  what  its  light,  heat,  and  totality  are,  its  immediacy  is unfolded to us and we recognize it as close to us and we become connected to it. If we want to draw near to it and get to know it in respect of our distance from it, we are compelled  to embark on an extensive journeying  in the mind, so that by means of thought and the laws of science we can rise to the skies in the mind and conceive of the sun there, and through lengthy scientific investigation understand its light and heat and  the  seven  colours  in  its  light.  Only then  may  we  attain  to  the  non-physical proximity the first man attained with little thought through his mirror.

Thus, like this comparison, the sainthood of prophethood and of the legacy of prophethood looks to the mystery of the unfolding of divine immediacy. The other sainthood proceeds mostly on the basis of proximity, and is compelled to traverse numerous degrees in spiritual journeying.

Second Station

The persons who were the cause of those events and instigated the trouble did not consist of a few Jews so that having discovered them the trouble could have been averted.   For   with  numerous   different   peoples   entering   Islam,   many  mutually conflicting  currents  and  ideas  had  confused  the  situation.  Particularly  since  the national pride of some of them had been terribly wounded by ‘Umar’s (May God be pleased with him) blows; they were waiting to take their revenge.

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