And verily Our messengers came to Abraham with good tidings, to the end of this [verse]: noble human souls possess connections with higher disengaged principles and the holy spirits of the celestial spheres in the way of the vanquishing intellectual lights and the heavenly governing souls and [they also enjoy] mixing with the higher council of the inhabitants of the realm of [divine] invincibility (jabarūt) and ingressions into the realm of dominion (malakūt). For each soul, depending on its primordial nature, there is a principle that corresponds to it from the realm of invincibility and a governor that nurtures it from the realm of dominion. From the former [the principle] it derives the effusion of knowledge and light, while from the latter [the governor] it derives its supply of strength and deeds, as alluded to by His words and every soul will come accompanied by a driver and a witness [Q. 50:21]. And [for each soul] there is also an original resting-place to which it resorts from the Side of the realm of the Divine Essence (lāhūt) should it disengage, as he [the Prophet] said, 'The spirits of martyrs shelter in lanterns of light that hang from below the Throne'. Every time that it [a soul] is attracted to the lower aspect by inclining to natural physical pleasures, it is veiled by the subsequent coverings from that [Divine] Side and is cut off from the supplies that it receives from that aspect in the way of the lights of invincibility and the angelic faculties. As such it becomes weaker in its perception, since it has become veiled from the reception of those irradiations and [weaker] in vigour and strength, cut off as it is from those supplies [provided] by that [angelic] faculty. But each time that it orients itself towards the higher aspect by rising above corporeal configurations and disengaging from material garments and drawing closer to God, the Principle of all principles and the Light of all lights, exalted be He, by [acts of] renunciation and worship and by adhering to these principles with cleanliness and probity, with his [this person's] deeds bound to sincerity of intention and devoted conscience, God will reinforce that person, by virtue of his correspondence with the residents of His presence, from their world with the reinforcement of light and power so that it [that soul] will know what no one else knows from among those of its own genus and will have the power to do what no one else will have the power to do from among those of its own species; it will also have moments in which it penetrates that [world] by detaching itself from its body and other moments where it will be remote therefrom depending on what afflicts it from [its] governance of its body. During its moments of connection and penetration it might receive [some knowledge of] the Unseen therefrom, either: as it is, by way of revelation, inspiration, having it cast into the heart (rūʿ) or being apprised thereof by inspecting the form of the Unseen with which it [the soul] is etched, or, by means of call and termination [?], or in the form of scripture in a scroll which it inspects. [Each of] that depends on the orientation of the receptivity of the tablet of its shared sensory domain and the specification of this [tablet] for the species of some sensory objects as opposed to others in the case of the aforementioned states and temporary coincidents. Certain forms of that [Unseen] may be envisioned by it [the soul] which correspond to it in terms of beauty and subtlety and are thus embodied for it either by the power of its imagination and the manifestation of these [forms] within its shared sensory domain, because of the firmness of the connection and its steadiness so long as the imaginal faculty is communicating with it; or by the imaginalisation of these within the universal imaginal faculty, being the heaven of this world, and their being imprinted in its imaginal faculty by reflection, as occurs between counterposed mirrors, in which case it [the soul] is spoken to by the lips in an unseen form as is experienced in truthful dreams, with no difference [between the two]. For the truthful vision and revelation both derive from the same source and there is no dissimilarity between them except [that one is during] sleep and [the other during] consciousness. The recipient of revelation is able to be absent from his senses and their perceptions and to separate them from their functions and suspend their use, connecting instead with the higher disengaged realities by the power of his soul and the actualisation for it of the aptitude for conjunction (malakat al-ittiṣāl). The recipient of the truthful vision receives it by virtue of [his] nature; this is the vision that requires no interpretation, as alluded to in the QurÌān in the case of the visions of God's Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, where He says: verily God has fulfilled the vision for His Messenger in all truth: 'You will assuredly enter the Sacred Mosque, God willing, in safety, to shave your heads or to shorten [the hair], without any fear' [Q. 48:27]. That is why truthful vision constitutes one of the forty six parts that make up prophethood. The preface to his [Muḥammad's] revelations were truthful dreams that lasted for six months after which they became clearer and came during wakefulness. The imaginal faculty may transfer in both states, that is, in sleep and wakefulness, to its concomitants such that there is then a need for explanation and interpretation. There may also manifest upon that soul trained in that aptitude for conjunction drilled into it the breaking of habits and all kinds of charisms and miracles as a result of the arrival [to it] of reinforcement from the world of power what would be denied by those who have no knowledge thereof of those veiled by habit and those whose hearts are hard and crude and those veiled by deficient intellects that are tainted with illusion and unable to attain the limits or to perceive the Truth; but what would be received by those whose hearts are illumined by the light of guidance and are protected from error and misguidance by means of insight and certainty; or [by] the one whose primordial nature is free of dark veils and foolishness and are untainted by ignorance and coverings as a result of imitation [of others] and [their] faith by virtue of the suppleness of their hearts in their volition and the strength of their receptiveness to polishing. That [reception] is either by the reinforcement of that soul from the world of the angelic realm and its strengthening by the principle of eternity and power, as in the case of ʿAlī [b. Abī Ṭālib], peace be upon him, when in reference to his pulling out of the gates of Khaybar he said: 'By God I did not pull out the gate of Khaybar with my physical strength, rather I pulled it out with a strength that came from the angelic realm and [with] a soul that walks by the light of its Lord'. Or, [that reception takes place] by that [reception itself] issuing from these angelically-supported souls and principles of divine invincibility with which that person has become connected as a result of his supplication, that the angelic realm obey him, being granted by God's permission, His command, His determining, His wisdom and His disposition [of that realm to him]. The verse in which the angels were imaginalised for God's Intimate [Abraham], blessings and peace be upon him, and embodied, is proof of these three states: their addressing him in the Unseen, namely, the good tidings of the [coming into] existence of a child, the destruction of the Lot's people and his deliverance; their reinforcing of him in the breaking of the habit when an old barren woman gives birth from a frail old man; and their effective power in the extermination of Lot's people and their destruction by his invocation. But God knows best the realities of matters.