Observations placeholder

Shaikh Muhammad Karim Khan Kirmani – Irshad al-‘awamm [translated by  Henry Corbin and Nancy Pearson]

Know that a creature has two faces or dimensions, the one is the divine face or dimension, the other is the face or dimension of its own selfhood.  By divine face or dimension what must be understood is not that creatures are God, but have a face or dimension toward God which is Light, Good perfection, because each creature is a trace born of the Divine Will and since the Divine Will is Light, Good and perfection the trace naturally resembles that which imprinted it.

The other face or dimension of the creature is its face toward itself, and this dimension is darkness…. All creatures are made with these two faces or dimensions.  However, the nearer the creatures are to the primordial Will, the more abundant is their light and the more rarefied their darkness.  On the other hand, the farther away they are from that primordial Will, the denser becomes their darkness and the weaker their light.  On the one hand, therefore, everything is light on the plane coinciding with the greatest proximity to the primordial Will; there, the proportion of darkness is but that of a speck of dust, its effect is exhausted, it is but a drop of water lost in the ocean.  On the other hand, all is darkness on the plane most distant from the primordial Will; there only one atom of light remains.