Divine lovers are divided into [268] five groups. Those in the first group were so vanquished by love that it made them like itself and translated them to its own abode alive, so that they became spiritual beings together with the angels. Those in the second group were given authority to judge over this terrestrial abode and over all persons and things in it. They enjoined good and forbade evil, and they declared things to be lawful or unlawful. Then, when what it had been willed they should do was accomplished, they asked God to take them back to their original places. Those in the third group were translated from place to place and from life to life. They are alive in their tombs, and at times they can be found there, while at others they cannot. Those in the fourth group, after having remained long on earth, asked their Beloved for release from this abode and escape from this prison so as to be joined with him. Those in the fifth group, having passed continually through veil after veil, at length reached the last veil, which was the veil of their selves. When they cast off this veil, the branch was rejoined to the trunk, and that which had emerged out of it [269] returned to it. The part was rejoined to the whole, and means were abolished. These, then, are the five groups.

So that it will be easier to remember, we may divide those who belong to these groups into three classes: two of prophets and one of saints (awliycāʾ). None of them passed away, however, before choosing to die.

[Section One.]

The first class includes Idrīs, a-Khaḍir, Elijah, and Jesus. In the case of these prophets and those like them, their demise consisted in their being vanquished by the attribute of love to the degree that it made of them spiritual beings like itself. Thus they soared up with the angels and became both celestial and terrestrial, angelic and human.

Idrīs (Enoch), it has been said, was sent to all the people of the earth in his time and gathered for them all the knowledge of those before him and added to it thirty books.