And verily We have honoured the Children of Adam, with [the faculties of] speech and discrimination, the intellect and gnosis, and carried them over land and sea, that is, We have facilitated for them the means for [their] livelihood and [their] final return in their ability to journey to seek these [means] across the two and to actualise these [means], and We have provided them with good things, that is, with [those] composite things which no creatures other than them have been provided with, and We have preferred them above many of those whom We created, with the exception of the holy essences of the High Council. As for the preferment of certain humans, like prophets, over the near angels, it is not because of the fact that they are sons of Adam, since from that perspective they do not go beyond the station of the intellect, but it is rather from the perspective of the mystery that has been deposited in them, the one alluded to by His words Assuredly I know what you know not [Q. 2:30], which is the complete divine gnosis which He has prepared for that certain individual by means of the concentration in him, namely, the station of unity. In that instance, considered thus, he is not a son of Adam, as has been said:
'Even if I am indeed a son of Adam in form, I also have a meaning within that is witness of my paternity [of him]'.
Nay, indeed he is the very essence of the honoured one, the one who is known, as has been said:
'I saw my Lord with the eye of my Lord; He said, "Who are you?", and I said, "You".
In this station, the son of Adam has been annihilated and nothing of him remain - how else [could it be] when one is dust and the other the Lord of lords! Or [the verse means] that We have honoured the sons of Adam with proximity and knowledge of the affirmation of Oneness and have carried them over the land of the world of bodies and the sea of the world of spirits by making him journey across them since he is composed of them; and [We have honoured him] by making him rise higher in seeking perfection and We have provided them with the good things that are the forms of knowledge and gnosis and We have preferred them over a great number of what We have created, that is to say, [over] all creatures, provided that [the preposition] min [of mimman] is explicative and hyperbolic, intended to exalt him by describing those [creatures] over whom preferment is being expressed as being 'many' and by making the qualifier indefinite and placing this [indefinite] before what it qualifies, in other words, the [qualifier] kathīr ('many'). Yet, what 'many' can it be when in fact it is the entirety of Our creatures by virtue of the fact that min is used to indicate generality; with a marked preferment, one that is complete and clear.