Truly he succeeds who purifies it,(91:9)

his purification at this stage is to know his perfection to lie in imperfection, his power in impotence, and his wealth in poverty.

Fourth Step

As the verse, “Everything will perish save His countenance” teaches, the evil- commanding soul considers itself to be free and independent and to exist of itself. Because of this, man claims to possess a sort of dominicality. He harbours a hostile rebelliousness towards his True Object of Worship. Thus, through understanding the following fact, he is saved from this. The fact is this:

According to the apparent meaning of things, which looks to each thing itself, everything  is  transitory,  wanting,  accidental,  non-existent.  But  according  to  the meaning that signifies something other than itself and in respect of each thing being a mirror to the All-Glorious Maker’s names and charged with various duties, each is a witness, it is witnessed, and it is existent. The purification and cleansing of a person at this stage is as follows:

In his existence he is non-existent, and in his non-existence he has existence. That is to say, if he values himself and attributes existence to himself, he is in the darkness of  non-existence  as  great  as  the  universe.  That  is,  if  he  relies  on  his  individual existence and is unmindful of the True Giver of Existence, he has an individual light of existence like that of a fire-fly and is submerged in an endless darkness of non- existence and separation. But if he gives up egotism and sees that he is a mirror of the manifestations of the True Giver of Existence, he gains all beings and an infinite existence. For he who finds the Necessary Existent, the manifestation of whose names all beings manifest, finds everything.

          Conclusion

The four steps in this way of impotence, poverty, compassion, and reflection have been explained in the twenty-six Words so far written, which are concerned with knowledge of reality, the reality of the Shari‘a, and the wisdom of the Qur’an. So here, we shall allude briefly to only one or two points, as follows: