44
The Mother of Books
THE ESSENTIAL MYSTERY
Jabir rose to his feet, saying, "My lord,
tell me the meaning of the holy phrase,
Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim.
These words meaning 'In the name of Allah,
the compassionate, the merciful' begin
each chapter of the Qur'an. And many
recite them before doing anything.
All know them as the essential mystery."
Baqir said, "They are from the high king, who is god.^2
He wrote them as the loftiest line on earth:
seven and twelve parts the king made for himself.^3
Overhead he made a sea of a thousand colors
and below another sea named godliness.^4
Between the seas the king placed seven and twelve deathlessi. The Mother of Books: translated into German by Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis, 113-98;
translated from the German by Heather Terjung; retranslated as blank verse by Willis Barn-
stone.- High or exalted king, throughout the text, is god. On Jabir, the student, compare Jabir ibn Yazid
al-Ju'fi. On Baqir (or al-Baqir), compare Muhammad al-Baqir, the fifth imam, as revealer of knowl-
edge. Al-Baqir means "the one who opens," for example, the one who opens knowledge. See below. - The numbers seven and twelve also occur in the Secret Book of John and other gnostic texts.
- Another heavenly body of water, a luminous spring of living water, is described near the
opening of the Secret Book of John.