As for the King who says, 'I saw in [a dream]: this is said to have been [one] Rayyān ibn al-Walīd gave dominion and governance of Egypt to Potiphar (Qiṭfīr) and not the ʿAzīz himself who is called Potiphar. If [the term] al-ʿAzīz means 'King' according to the tongue of the Arabs, then 'the King' [mentioned in the verse] would be an allusion to the Active Intellect (ʿaql faʿʿāl), the King of the kings of spirits, called the Holy Spirit (rūḥ al-qudus). For God, exalted be He, does not give life to the folk of sanctity upon complete annihilation, that which is the beginning of prophethood, except by means of His breath (nafkh) and His inspiration (waḥy), and it is by conjunction therewith that the differentiations become manifest at the source of the union. That is why they say that when he entered into his [the King's] presence he spoke to him in Hebrew to which the other responded in kind, since he had knowledge of seventy tongues, all of which he spoke in when he was spoken to in them.
