al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39-40 -- The Descent and the Opening (al-Nuzūl, al-Fātiḥa)

al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39 (al-Nuzūl) + 40 (Fātiḥat al-Kitāb) · ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE)

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About al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39-40 -- The Descent and the Opening (al-Nuzūl, al-Fātiḥa)

al-Insan al-Kamil ("The Universal Man," or the Perfect Human) is the masterwork of Abd al-Karim al-Jili (1366-1424), the great systematizer of the Akbarian school of Ibn al-Arabi. Across sixty-three chapters (abwab) it ascends from the bare divine Essence, through the Names, attributes, scriptures, and cosmic realities, to the figure of the Perfect Human, the microcosm in whom the whole of reality is gathered. Hekhal's edition is the first complete Arabic-and-English parallel rendering of the work, produced with controlled-vocabulary editorial discipline and provisional pending a credentialed Arabic reviewer.

This chapter gathers the chapters on the Descent of revelation and the Opening sura, the step-down of the supernal Word and its compendium in al-Fatiha. This page is the Targum apparatus edition, carrying the controlled-vocabulary translation and its full provenance.

al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39-40 -- The Descent and the Opening (al-Nuzūl, al-Fātiḥa)

al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39-40

الإنسان الكامل · في نزول الحق · في فاتحة الكتاب

canonical early 15th c. (author d. c. 1408-1428 CE) Arabic ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE) tr. Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted, provisional)

Two chapters in which al-Jīlī reads a hadith and a sūra through the single lens of self-disclosure. Bāb 39 takes the famous “descent hadith” — God descends to the lowest heaven in the last third of every night — and dissolves its apparent anthropomorphism: the “descent” (nuzūl) is the Real’s manifestation in every atom; the “night” is the darkness of createdness; the “lowest heaven” the outward of creation; the “last third” the inner divine reality (the jabarūt, above the kingdom and the dominion). Bāb 40 reads the Fātiḥa as the seven essential Attributes (the “seven oft-repeated”) and, on the hadith “God apportioned the Fātiḥa between His servant and Himself,” as the very seam between the Real and the human.

Editorial note. Bāb 40 carries al-Jīlī’s most thoroughgoing waḥdat al-wujūd exegesis: he reads “You alone do we worship” (iyyāka naʿbudu) as God addressing Himself — “He is the worshipper of Himself through the loci of manifestation that are the creatures.” This is the same logic as the Bāb 38 claim that “their shirk was the very essence of tawḥīd,” and it is framed here the same way: as al-Jīlī’s Akbarian theologoumenon, in the canonical tier in his own words, with the apparatus noting that it is not mainstream Qurʾānic exegesis (which holds the worshipper and the Worshipped really distinct). Hekhal records the reading; it does not endorse it. Genuine first-public-domain-English; scoping at hekhal-targum/docs/JILI-INSAN-AL-KAMIL-SCOPING.md.

Bāb 39 — al-Nuzūl (The Descent to the Lowest Heaven)

وقوله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «إن الله ينزل في الثلث الأخير من كل ليلة إلى سماء الدنيا» — الحديثُ يدل بإشارته إلى ظهور الحق سبحانه وتعالى في كل ذرّةٍ من ذرّات الوجود. فالمراد بالليلة هي الظلمةُ الخلقية، والمراد بسماء الدنيا ظاهرُ وجود الخلق، وبالثلث الأخير حقيقتُه؛ لأن كل شيءٍ من أشياء الوجود مقسَّمٌ بين ثلاثة أقسام: قسمٌ ظاهرٌ ويسمى بالمُلك، وقسمٌ باطنٌ ويسمى بالملكوت، والقسمُ الثالث قسمُ الجبروت، وهو المنزَّه عن القسم المُلكي والملكوتي، فهو الإلهيُّ المعبَّر عنه بالثلث الأخير. فتنزُّلُ الحقِّ هو ظهورُه بتنزيهه في نفس التشبيه الخلقي.
And his saying (God bless him and grant him peace): “God descends, in the last third of every night, to the lowest heaven.” The hadith points, by its inner sign, to the manifestation of the Real (glory and exaltation be His) in every atom of the atoms of existence. What is meant by “the night” is the darkness of createdness; by “the lowest heaven,” the outward of the existence of creation; and by “the last third,” its [inner] reality. For everything among the things of existence is apportioned into three parts: an outward part, called the kingdom (mulk); an inward part, called the dominion (malakūt); and a third part, the part of omnipotence (jabarūt), which is held transcendent of the kingly and the dominion parts — it is the divine part, expressed as “the last third” by the tongue of allusion. So the Real’s “descending” is His manifesting Himself, by His [own] transcendence, within the very likening of createdness.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ولهذا الحديثِ إشارةٌ أخرى بطريق السرّ، وهي في حق الكُمَّل: أن للوليِّ ثلاثَ معارفَ بالله: المعرفةُ الأولى «من عرف نفسه فقد عرف ربه»؛ والمعرفةُ الثانية معرفةُ الألوهية؛ والمعرفةُ الثالثة هي الذوقُ الإلهيُّ الذي يسري في وجود العبد، فتظهر آثارُ الربوبية في جسده، فيكون يدُه لها القدرة، ولسانُه له التكوين، ورجلُه له الخطوة، وعينُه لا يُحجب عنها شيء، وسمعُه يُصغي به إلى كل متكلمٍ في الوجود. وإلى هذا أشار عليه الصلاة والسلام بقوله: «حتى أكونَ سمعَه الذي يسمع به، وبصرَه الذي يبصر به»، فيكون الحقُّ ظاهرَه وهو الباطن.
And this hadith has another, inner indication concerning the perfect ones: that the saint has three knowledges of God. The first: “whoever knows himself knows his Lord.” The second: the knowledge of Divinity. The third: the divine tasting (dhawq) that flows in the servant’s existence, so that the traces of Lordship appear in his body — his hand becomes the one that holds power, his tongue the one of [creative] engendering, his foot the one of the [cosmic] step, his eye such that nothing is veiled from it, his ear giving heed by it to every speaker in existence. To this the Prophet pointed: “until I am the hearing by which he hears and the sight by which he sees” — so that the Real becomes his outward, He [also] being the inward.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)

Bāb 40 — Fātiḥat al-Kitāb (The Opening of the Book)

اعلم أن فاتحة الكتاب هي السبعُ المثاني، وهي السبعُ صفاتٍ نفسيةٍ: الحياة والعلم والإرادة والقدرة والسمع والبصر والكلام. وقال صلى الله عليه وسلم: «إن الله قد قسم الفاتحة بين عبده وبينه» — إشارةً إلى أن الوجود منقسمٌ بين الخلق والحق، فالإنسانُ الذي هو الخلقُ باعتبار ظاهره هو الحقُّ باعتبار باطنه؛ ألا ترى أن الصفات النفسية إنما هي عينُها صفاتُ محمدٍ صلى الله عليه وسلم، فكما يقال في الحق إنه حيٌّ عالم، يقال في محمد إنه حيٌّ عالم، إلى جميع الصفات.
Know that the Opening of the Book is the seven oft-repeated (al-sabʿ al-mathānī), and they are the seven self-attributes (al-ṣifāt al-nafsiyya): Life, Knowledge, Will, Power, Hearing, Sight, and Speech. And he said: “God has apportioned the Fātiḥa between His servant and Himself” — an indication that existence is apportioned between creation and the Real: the human, who is “creation” by the reckoning of his outward, is the Real by the reckoning of his inward. Do you not see that the self-attributes are the very same as the attributes of Muhammad? As it is said of the Real that He is living, knowing, so it is said of Muhammad that he is living, knowing — and so through all the attributes.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
قال الله تعالى: «بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم». قالت علماءُ العربية: الباءُ في البسملة للاستعانة، وتُرك ذكرُ الفعل ليعمَّ كلَّ شيء. وتقديرُ الفعل بلسان الإشارة: «بسم الله يَعرِفُ اللهَ»، بأنه لا سبيل إلى معرفته إلا بعد تجلي هذا الاسم عليك؛ لأنه وضع مرآةً للكلمات تشاهد فيها وجهَك، فلا سبيل إلى مشاهدة وجهك إلا في المرآة؛ لأن مرآتك مركَبٌ في بحر الحقيقة: «باسم الله مَجراها ومُرساها» لا باسم غيره.
God said: “In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate.” The Arabic scholars said the bāʾ of the basmala is for seeking-aid (istiʿāna), the verb left unstated so as to comprehend everything. By the tongue of allusion: “in the name of God, one comes to know God” — there is no way to His knowledge except after the self-disclosure of this Name upon you; for He set up a mirror for the words, in which you behold your own face, and there is no way to behold your face except in the mirror. For your mirror is a vessel embarked upon the sea of Reality: “in the name of God be its course and its mooring” (11:41), not in the name of another.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
فقال: «الحمدُ لله» — أثنى اللهُ على نفسه بما يستحقه، وثناؤه على نفسه عينُ ظهوره وتجليه فيما هو له. واختُصَّ الاسمُ «الله» بالحمد لأن الألوهية هي الشاملةُ لجميع معاني الوجود. ثم نعت الاسمَ «الله» الذي هو حقيقةُ الإنسان بأنه «ربُّ العالمين» أي صاحبُ العوالم ومُنشئُها ومُظهرُها. واعلم أن «الرحيم» أخصُّ من «الرحمن»: فالرحمةُ التي وسعت كل شيءٍ هي فيضُ اسمه الرحمن، والرحمةُ المكتوبةُ للذين يتقون هي من فيض اسمه الرحيم؛ فالرحمنُ يعمُّ كلَّ رحمةٍ سواء مازجتها نقمةٌ أم لا، بخلاف الرحيم فإنه يختصُّ بكل رحمةٍ محضةٍ لا يشوبها نقمة.
Then He said: “Praise be to God” — God praised Himself with what He deserves, and His praise of Himself is the very [act of] His manifestation and self-disclosure in what is His. The Name “Allāh” was singled out for the praise, because Divinity comprehends all the meanings of existence. Then He qualified the Name “Allāh” — which is the reality of the human — as “Lord of the worlds”: the owner of the worlds, their originator, their manifester. And know that “the Compassionate” (al-Raḥīm) is more specific than “the All-Merciful” (al-Raḥmān): the mercy that embraces all things is the effusion of His Name al-Raḥmān; the mercy decreed for the God-fearing is of the effusion of His Name al-Raḥīm. For al-Raḥmān comprehends every mercy, whether or not requital is mingled in it, whereas al-Raḥīm is proper to every pure mercy unmixed with requital.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ثم خاطب نفسَه بنفسه فقال: «إياك نعبد» أي لا غيرَك — يعني هو العابدُ نفسَه بمظاهر المخلوقات، إذ هو الفاعلُ بهم ومحركُهم، فعبادتُهم له عبادتُه لنفسه؛ ولأن إيجادَه إياهم إنما هو لإعطاء أسمائه وأوصافه حقَّها، فما عبد إلا نفسَه بهم. ثم قال يخاطب حقَّه بلسان الخلق: «وإياك نستعين»، لنبرأ من الحول والقوة والقدرة بصرف جميع ذلك إليه سبحانه، لنرتقي من ذلك إلى معرفة واحديته.
Then He addressed Himself by Himself, saying: “You [alone] do we worship” — that is, none but You: meaning that He is the worshipper of Himself through the loci of manifestation that are the creatures, since He is the agent in them and their mover; so their worship of Him is His worship of Himself — for His bringing them into existence was only to give His Names and qualities their due, so He worshipped none but Himself, through them. Then He addressed His own Reality with the tongue of creation: “and You [alone] do we ask for help” — that we may disown [any] power, strength, and capacity of our own, referring all of that to Him, so as to ascend thereby to the knowledge of His oneness.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
ثم قال بلسان الخلق: «اهدنا الصراط المستقيم»، لأن النصف الأول كله إخبارٌ بلسان الحق عن نفسه، والنصف الثاني مخاطبةٌ بلسان الخلق للحق. فالصراطُ المستقيم هو طريقُ المشهد الأحدي الذي يتجلى الله به لنفسه. ثم نعت أهلَ هذا المشهد فقال: «صراط الذين أنعمتَ عليهم» يعني أهلَ هذا المشهد بوجودك وشهودك؛ «غيرِ المغضوب عليهم» وهم أهلُ البُعد الذين تجلى عليهم باسم المنتقم؛ «ولا الضالين» وهم الذين ضلوا في هَدْي الحق فما وجدوه، ولكنهم ليسوا بمغضوبٍ عليهم، بل رضي الحقُّ عنهم فأسكنهم بجواره لا عنده، فهم منعَّمون بنعيم الأكوان في روضات الجنان، غيرَ أنه لا يتجلى الله عليهم بما هو له، فهم ضالُّون عن الرحمن، بل منعَّمون بلذات الجنان.
Then He said, with the tongue of creation: “Guide us to the straight path” — for the first half [of the sūra] is all a report, in the tongue of the Real, about Himself; and the second half is an address, in the tongue of creation, to the Real. The straight path is the way of the unitive witnessing by which God discloses Himself to Himself. Then He qualified the people of this witnessing: “the path of those You have favored” — the people of this witnessing, by Your existence and Your contemplation; “not of those against whom is wrath” — the people of distance, upon whom He disclosed Himself by the Name “the Avenger”; “nor of those who go astray” — those who strayed in seeking the Real’s guidance and did not find Him, yet are not the objects of wrath; rather the Real was pleased with them and lodged them in His neighborhood, not in His presence. So they are blissful with the bliss of the engendered things in the gardens of Paradise, save that God does not disclose to them what is His — so they are “astray” from the All-Merciful, though blissful in the delights of the Garden.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
An orientation

This edition sets the verbatim original-language text beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus: a running commentary on the passage, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, and cross-references to the lexicon and to related sections. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.

Apparatus
Tradition
islamic-sufism
Language
Arabic
Period
early 15th c. (author d. c. 1408-1428 CE)
Attribution
ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE)
Translator
Hekhal Targum Project (machine-assisted draft; pending scholarly review)
License
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Provenance
The underlying text is in the public domain by age. The original-language text is reproduced verbatim from an openly-licensed digital transcription (credited on the page), and this English rendering and its apparatus are a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.
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ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 826-832 AH / 1422-1428 CE). "al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 39-40 -- The Descent and the Opening (al-Nuzūl, al-Fātiḥa)." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified May 2, 2026. https://hekhal.org/texts/jili-insan-al-kamil-bab-39-40-descent-fatiha-targum.