55:3-4 He created man. He taught him the explication.
Some people say that He created man means all people generally-faithful and unbeliever, self-purifier and hypocrite, truthful and heretic. Whoever is human is included in this address. They say that He created everyone and taught them all explication. In other words, He gave everyone intellect, understanding, and upbringing so that they would find the road to their own best interests and discern between good and bad. He gave everyone language so that they would know each other's desires-in every region a language; or rather, in every city a language; or rather, in every neighborhood a language. He specified the human individual for this and separated him out from other animals with this specification and bestowal of eminence.
It has also been said that He created man means all the faithful of Muḥammad's community. He taught him the explication means the road of the Real, the pure Shariah, the unswerving religion. He taught it to them and showed its road to them: Say: "This is my path. I call to God" [12:108]. Call to the way of thy Lord with wisdom! [16:125].
He set this road up in three stations: first, recognition of the outward Shariah; second, recognition of the inward struggle and discipline; third, talk of the heart and its Beloved and the story of the friends.
Then He turned this over to three groups and taught the people on the tongues of these three groups: "Ask the ulama, mix with the possessors of wisdom, and sit with the great ones."* Learn the science of the Shariah from the ulama, the science of discipline from the possessors of wisdom, and the science of recognition from the great ones.
It has also been said that man in He created man is Adam the Chosen. This is the same man about whom He says, "He created man of dried clay, like pottery" [55:14]. Although in form he is pottery and clay, in conduct he is worthy of the pavilion of proximity and union. Outwardly, he is sculpted from water and clay; inwardly he is the carrier of the ruling power of love. Outwardly he is an extraction of clay [23:12]; inwardly he is the precious stone in the seal-ring of good fortune.
"What should be considered is the joining, not the root. The joining is proximity, the root dust. The root is in respect of the sperm-drop, the joining in respect of God's help."
He taught him the explication. This is the knowledge of the names that He taught him. Through this one knowledge He made him surpass the angels, such that for his sake He said to the angels in response to them, "Surely I know what you do not know" [2:30].
How wonderful! The secrets of lordhood become apparent in places that the intellects of the intellectuals will never reach. What do you say: He grasped a handful of dust in the hand of His attributes with the perfection of His power. Then He kept it for forty years in the sunshine of His gaze until the dampness of being left it. Then He commanded the angels of the Dominion, ow did He take "Go to the gate of this wondrous form and marvelous guise and kiss the doorstep of his majesty." How could a handful of dust have the worthiness for the residents of the Holy Palisades and the preachers on the pulpits of familiarity to come to him and prostrate themselves? No, no-that level, distinction, and rank did not belong to the door-keeper of clay, rather to the sultan of the heart: "The heart is between two of the fingers of the All-Merciful."
One of the specifications and bestowals of eminence for the Adamite is that He created two oceans within his makeup: one, the ocean of the secret core, and the other the ocean of the heart. To this He alludes with His words,