[Verily there has come to you] a messenger from among yourselves, so that there might be genus-correspondence in terms of the soul between you and him, [a correspondence] by means of which affinity comes to exist between you and him and you mix with him by virtue of that genus-correspondence and become mixed with him, such that your souls are affected by the luminosity of that [genus of his] that is derived from the light of his heart and they are thus illumined by it and the darkness of innate disposition and habit is removed from them; for whom it is grievous, it is harsh and burdensome for him that you should suffer, be wretched or encounter [God] as loathsome ones, [and this] because of his compassion, which itself is a concomitant of the divine love that he possesses for His servants, and because he sees them as being like his own organs and limbs, since he considers [them] through the eyes of the unity. And so just as it would grieve any of us that an organ should be painful, so for him [the Prophet] it is grievous that any one from among his community should be chastised; who is full of concern for you, because of his intense concern for your preservation; in the same way that one of us would be intensely concerned for every single part of his body and limbs, and would not accept that the slightest part of him should be missing or that it should suffer, so is the case with him [the Prophet]. Nay, his concern is greater by virtue of the precision of his consideration; to the believers full of pity, saving them from punishment by warning them against sins and acts of disobedience by virtue of his pity; merciful, effusing upon them forms of knowledge, gnoses, and perfections that bring propinquity [to the divine] by instructing [them in it] and making [them] desire them by virtue of his mercifulness.