It was on the basis of that knowledge that he said, O my sons, go and enquire about Joseph and his brother, and that was at [the moment of] his being unengaged in wayfaring totally and at the arrival of the effect of that disengagement to the intellect, by virtue of its proximity to his level in terms of descent (tanazzul) and drawing down close (tadallī), such that he commands [his children] the faculties to draw him [Joseph the heart] down to their station by seeking the shares in the form of the corporeal concentration (jamʿiyya) and [by] managing their particular livelihood and best interests. That was the spirit which forbade them from despairing of Him, since the believer finds this spirit and beatitude in the second life which will be through God and in which he will be alive through Him and will enjoy in His presence all manner of bliss and the pleasures of the Gardens of the acts, the attributes and the Essence, by means of the soul, the heart and the spirit, in contrast to the disbeliever, as He has said: Indeed none despairs of the [gracious] Spirit of God save the disbelieving folk'.
