O people, fear your Lord: be wary of claiming for yourselves His attribute when good things issue from you. Rather, adopt that attribute as a shield for you when good issues from you and say that it has issued from the Absolute Powerful, Who created you of a single soul, which is the universal rational-speech faculty that is the heart of the world, being the real Adam, and from it created its mate, that is, the animal soul that issues from it. They say that she was created from his left breast-bone from the aspect that is turned towards the world of engenderment, which is weaker than the aspect oriented towards the Truth. Were it not for its [the single soul's] mate, he [Adam] would not have been made to descend to this world, as is commonly known. Iblis seduced her first and by leading her astray he found the means to lead Adam astray. There is no doubt that corporeal attachment does not materialise except through the medium of this [animal soul]; and He scattered from the pair of them many men, that is, possessors of hearts who yearn for their father [Adam], and women, possessors of souls and natures yearning for their mother [his mate], and fear God, in His essence against affirming your existence and make it a shield for you when your remnants become manifest upon the annihilation in the Oneness lest you become veiled by inspecting the annihilation [as from you], by Whom, [since it is by Him] and not by yourselves that, you claim [your rights] from one another and kinship ties: in other words, be wary of severing the true kinship ties, that is, the near of kin who are the sublime points of origin, the disengaged realities (mufāraqāt) and the spirits of prophets and saints by not loving them, and make this love a protection for you so that you are able to actualise your felicities and perfections. For the severing of kinship ties by the absence of love is to be oriented away from conjunction and unity towards separation and multiplicity and constitutes the true loathing and the total distance from the Side of the Truth, exalted be He. That is why the Prophet said: 'The maintenance of kinship ties increases one's lifespan'; in other words, it necessarily results in abiding subsistence. Know also that kinship ties outwardly represent the form of true conjunction inwardly. The outward works like the inward in terms of the affirmation of Oneness and thus the one who is unable to look after the outward is more likely not to be able to look after the inward. Surely God has been watchful over you, watching over you lest you should be veiled from Him by the manifesting of one of your attributes or some of your remnants and then suffer chastisement.
