Folio 2b

All praise of every kind, and the glorification of all who bow and prostrate, belong to God who knows no decline, whose being is necessary and whose bounty is abundant.

Thus: so that His holy essence and attributes might be hallowed and glorified, and His eternal being conceived and declared one, He brought being and place out of nothing with the command «Be»; and for the manifestation of His eternal, unfading decrees He created the world and time.*1*2

A Lord to whom the heavens are a servant, and the king of the world is His nursling. The whole universe lies in His power: «He turns it as He wills» and «He creates of what you do not know whatever He wills».

He is the All-Merciful, whose mercy reaches His servants in this world and in the hereafter; He is the Compassionate, from whose sea of mercy the obedient and the rebellious alike take their share.

This sovereign is the one whose dominion is ancient and whose works are glorious; witness to the permanence of His dominion: «Whose is the dominion today? God's, the One, the Subduer.»

He is the Holy One — His attributes hallowed, His signs miraculous; with the breeze of His grace and bounty He covers the courtyard of the world with flowers from end to end.

He is Peace, who bestows the drops of the rains of His mercy and gives freshness and adornment to the hearts of His servants.

He is the Faithful, who makes the affirmation of His oneness and its acknowledgement a provision for those of His servants who are endowed with faith.*3

He is the Generous, who made earth and sky a table of bounty; the abundant table of His beneficence is a cause of ease for the one who does good and the one who does evil alike. The Owner of Sovereignty…*3