۞

« the first veil is his intellect (ʿaql), the second his knowledge (ʿilm), the third his heart (qalb), the fourth his fear (khashiya), the fifth his self (nafs), the sixth his wish (irāda) and the seventh his will (mashīʾa). The intellect [is a veil] in its preoccupation with the management of the affairs 1 The ‘Traverse’ (ṣīrāṭ) is traditionally described as a bridge stretched over the gulf of Hell, sharper than a sword and thinner than a hair, which all the believers are made to cross at the Resurrection. It is described in Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Book 40: Kitāb Dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʿdahu, trans. Timothy J. Winter, as The Remembrance of Death and the »