So We said, 'Smite him with part of it', with its tail or its tongue, according to what is recounted in the story, so that he might come back to life and inform you of the [identity of his] killer. The smiting [of him] with the tail is alludes to rendering the soul dead while keeping alive its weakest and last faculties and that aspect [of it] that adjoins the vegetative soul and constitutes a link with it, such as the sense of touch, for example, and all of the external senses, namely, its [the cow's] tail. The smiting [of the dead man] with the tongue alludes to the rectification of its character traits and its faculties, while keeping alive its [faculty of] reflection, namely, its tongue. Both of these [smitings] represent two paths: [the first is] the path of spiritual discipline and the mortification of wrath and lust, as is the way of the Sufi, [a path] which is more befitting of those powerful criminal souls of conquest and transgression' [the second is] the path of securing and rectifying character traits, which is the way of the scholars and the sages and which is more befitting of those weak souls and those that are pure and easily-led. They smote him and he rose, the blood gushing forth from his veins, and he informed them of [the identity of] his killers, in other words, he became alive subsisting through true life while the traces of the killing were on him because of his attachment to the body and his being polluted by his demands according to necessity. And he came to know the state of the corporeal powers in preventing him from perceiving and their veiling of him from his light. Thus God brings to life the dead, in other words, in the manner of that tremendous bringing back to life does God bring to life those who are dead through their ignorance of true practical life; and He shows you [His signs], His proofs and the signs of His attributes, so that you might understand.
