The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, by Ibn al-Arabi, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson, [1911], at sacred-texts.com
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1. She said, 'I wonder at a lover who in conceit of his merits walks proudly among flowers in a garden.'
2. I replied, 'Do not wonder at what thou seest, for thou hast beheld thyself in the mirror of a man.'
COMMENTARY
1. 'Flowers,' i.e. created things.
'A garden,' the unitive station (###), i.e. his essence.
‘Utba al-Ghulám used to walk proudly and swagger in his gait. 'How should not I do so,' he said to one who found fault with him, 'since He has become my Lord and I have
become His slave?' When a man realizes God in the sense of 'I am His hearing and His sight', this station justifies the attribution to him of whatever is attributed to God.
2. He says, 'I am like a mirror to thee, and in those qualities with which I am invested thou beholdest thyself, not me, but thou beholdest them in my human nature which has received this investiture.'
This is the vision of God in created things, which in the opinion of some is more exalted than the vision of created things in God.