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Through Thy revelation, O my God, Thou hast enabled me to know Thee, and through the radiance of Thine effulgent splendor Thou hast inspired me with Thy remembrance. Thou art the One nearest to me with naught else between Thee and me, and Thou art the One Whose power nothing whatsoever can frustrate. Far be it then from Thine Essence that the mightiest birds of the souls of men or of human imaginings should ever scale its heights, and too exalted is Thy holy Being for the loftiest sentiments of men of understanding to attain unto Thee. From everlasting no one hath comprehended Thine Own Self, and unto everlasting Thou shalt remain what Thou hast been since time immemorial with no one else besides Thee.

Magnified be Thy Name, Thou art the Best-Beloved Who hast enabled me to know Thee and Thou art that All-Renowned One Who hast graciously favored me with Thy love. Thou art the Ancient of Days Whom none can ever describe through the evidences of Thy glory and majesty, and Thou art the mighty One Whom none can ever comprehend through the revelations of Thy greatness and beauty, inasmuch as the expressions of majesty and grandeur and the attributes of dominion and beauty are but the tokens of Thy divine Will and the effulgent reflections of Thy sovereignty which, by reason of their very essence and nature, proclaim that the way is barred and bear witness that the pathway is inaccessibly beyond the reach of men.

O my God! Thou knowest my station and beholdest my inner being, and Thy knowledge encompasseth my disobedience. How can I commune with Thee when I see no benefit in reaching Thee, and my heart is never free from separation from Thee?

By Thy might and majesty, by the light of Thy Being and the mystery of Thy Essence, and by the dawning-place of Thy Self, in no matter have I ever sought aught but Thee, and if my soul hath committed evil, it was not to deny Thy oneness nor to reject Thy unity nor to turn away from the Day-Spring of Thine eternity, but rather because desire for the pleasure of bounty overcame the soul and it approached that which was not permitted in the Book.

And even though this was pure disobedience, when I look at its reality I see its disobedience only in its love for Thy favors, for had it not loved them it would not have approached them. And since Thou didst forbid it, this is disobedience, and I seek Thy forgiveness and turn to Thee in repentance, and confess my sin and the evil my hands have wrought, hoping for Thy forgiveness, even though what I count as good in myself is evil.

But since in Thy sight the decree of light and darkness is equal, and the ruling of evil and good is just—unless Thou willest to change evil deeds into good ones—I beseech Thee, O God, by Thy bounty, to transform what Thy knowledge hath encompassed from myself, then from him who hath cried out in his book and persisted in his appeal to Thee, then from those who have followed Thy command and feared Thy justice and awaited Thy grace, by virtue of what Thou art in station and unity and majesty and greatness and beauty and power and glory and might. Verily, Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.