Look carefully and you find something; look directly and it is gone. That is how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes ‘amá, a cloud so light and subtle that it is at once seen and unseen, and he uses it to name the station in which the divine attributes exist in the Essence without yet being distinguished from it, the Hidden Treasure before it is known. Bahá’u’lláh calls it an ocean placed above the seas of names, which no creature has comprehended, and from its Point the letters of revelation are composed. The Báb hears in the word an echo of blindness: a state where nothing existed but God and every eye was veiled. The cloud can also mean the human body of a Prophet, which both carries the light and hides it from those who expect a sun without a sky. At Sinai God tells Moses He will come in a thick cloud so that the people may hear Him speak [1], a kindred pairing of concealment and voice, though the two images need not share one technical sense. Approached with imagination and restraint, the cloud opens onto God’s oneness, His unknowability and transcendence, and the workings of symbolism in sacred language.
Al-'Ama' in the language means a very light and subtle cloud that is seen and unseen. If you gaze with utmost care you find something, but as soon as you look, it cannot be seen. That is why, in the tradition of the investigators, by Al-'Ama' they mean the Universal Reality with no specifications, for specifications exist in the mode of simplicity and unity and are not distinguished from the essence. So it is both specified and unspecified, and this station is described as Divine Oneness and Al-'Ama', and it is the station of the Hidden Treasure mentioned in the Hadith.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1920-Jul-20, to Mahmud Fahmi Effendi -- AB06442)
02
As to what thou didst ask about the Ocean of the Cloud ('Ama), know that it is an ocean which God hath placed above the seas of names, and the people of creation have not comprehended it. Were We to expound this station and interpret it as befitteth, the Tablets would not suffice, by thy Lord, the Cleaver of Dawn!
Sanctified is His holy Essence from every abstract essence, and exalted is His pure Countenance above every praise and tribute.
Then, through the requirements of the establishment of the Sovereign of justice upon the throne of mercy and grace, He created, through pure origination and sheer invention, the Point of existence and the Praiseworthy Countenance, which has been expressed through various terms such as the Eternal Countenance, the Divine Reed, the Primal Point, the Warbling of the Dove, the Perfect Word of Manifestation, the Divine Identity of the Cloud of Unknowing, and the Countenance of Ahmad and Muhammad.
The Beauty of the Unseen lifted the veil of Glory from the Countenance of the Exemplar, and immediately His face appeared - and unto God belongs the most glorious similitude - manifest and visible from the Throne of the Divine Cloud. O joy to him who is illumined by the lights of His presence, the Self-Subsisting, and who is brightened by the radiance of His holy countenance.
The Point of the Cloud ['ama] journeyed until it came to rest upon the Throne of utterance. Then It composed the Temples of the Most Glorious Letters through a wondrous new arrangement. The [blessed] Word shone forth from the manifest brow, and He made all of it manifest and visible in the threefold Tha before the fourfold one, that "Blessed be God, the Best of Creators" might don a new garment and, through the outpouring of "He is the Truth, there is no God but Him," might bless all lands, that the universal divine power might be established and the [divine] lordly fruit might appear.
The Tree of the Cloud is in motion and the Lote-Tree of Faithfulness is in joy, that the Tree of Eternity might be planted in the land of oneness and the leaf of light might be joined with the mystic dove through the arts of the Divine Presence. Perchance from the companionship of these two divine subtleties and these two eternal mysteries a third countenance might appear, that the fruition of "We strengthened with a third" might become manifest in the realm of appearance.
(Bahá’u’lláh, to Aqa Siyyid Ismail Khalil Zavarihi -- BH09880)
07
O people of Ha! Hearken unto the song of the Crimson Leaf in the atmosphere of the cloud of unknowing, that verily He is Light, the Temple of Glory, Who hath been, from God unto the worlds, a manifest light. And witness ye the Countenance of Manifestation from the garments of light appearing behind the Qaf on the right side of the Mount, that verily He is the Truth, the Essence of Oneness, the Source of Camphor, Who hath been the Singer.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Suratu'l-Kifaya, 1290 [1873] or earlier, to People from Ha et al -- BH00952)
08
And shower Thy blessings upon the Mystery of the Cloud, the Point of Light, the Beloved of the mystics.
He said the Blessed Perfection, in the Book of Ighan, in explaining the meaning of the statement about Christ coming in heaven and riding on the clouds, says that one meaning of the expression 'cloud', is the body of the prophet. Why is it that sometimes we cannot see the sun in the sky? It is because it is veiled from us by thick clouds: and in this sense, the body, the human nature of a prophet is a cloud, preventing the people from seeing His glorious light.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to E.J. Rosenberg et al, spoken around Feb. 1901 -- ABU0044)
10
Several divines came to visit Us [during those days, and] one of them inquired, "Where do You come from?", to which We replied, "We are from 'Ama'" [an allegorical reference to Heaven]. He asked what kind of place it was and where it was. We answered that 'Ama' has weather so pleasant as to be considered divine, trees laden with fruit, is green and verdant, has flowing rivers,and is a gathering-place for spiritual people. "Can we go there also?" asked one of the men, but I replied, "No, it is not possible; such a place is not suitable for you."
(Bahá’u’lláh, words recollected by Mirza Habibu'llah Afnan, 1308-1309 [1891-1892] -- BHU0033)
11
The word 'ama' (cloud) in the language of the people is related to 'ama (blindness): there, nothing existed but God, and the eyes were blinded from His Face and the gazes from His Countenance. It is an absolute, unmingled, pure cloud, wherein, whether in His hiddenness or His manifestation, His outwardness or His inwardness, naught was seen but God, the One, the Single, the Eternal, the Self-Sufficient, the Peerless, besides Whom there is no other God and with Whom there is none.
(The Báb, Fi'l-Maut wa'l-'Ama' (on death, and "the cloud") -- BB00651)
12
He who hath believed in That, he hath no place to flee to, should he desire to remain firm in faith, except to believe in These verses, otherwise his inmost reality and his deeds would be dissipated and lost, as it was in the day in which naught was mentioned before God."
(The Báb, Bayan-i-Farsi (Persian Bayan) -- BB00001)
13
Verily I am the Mystery within mysteries, I was the visible cloud of the Almighty.
… O Eternal Tha! All have heard the verses flowing from the attraction of the All-Merciful in wondrous wise, and behold the countenances in the horizon of the divine cloud with the Most Hidden Secret, the Flowing Attractor, made manifest.
(The Báb, Ma Qala'l-Mir'at, 1265 or 1266 [1848-1849] -- BB00204)
14
How excellent is the soaring of this Bird in mentioning the First Solution in the atmosphere of the cloud of unknowing, facing those impenetrable, pitch-dark shadows where none knoweth what it warbleth and concealeth and hideth, save what the All-Merciful willeth in the depths of the mysteries of those hidden, ardent, radiant, and glistening allusions from the lights of the Sun of Glory. Far, far removed are the conjectures of them that conjecture, the deeds of them that act, the attainments of them that attain, and the detachment of them that are detached!
(The Báb, Tafsir-i-Suratu'l-Kawthar (Commentary on the Surah of Kawthar), 1262-05 [1846-Apr], to Yahya Darabi (Vahid) -- BB00007)
15
Praise be to God, Who causeth the oceans of light to surge with divine, fiery waters; Who stirreth up the letters of manifestation through the Point of the Divine Cloud of Unity; Who unfoldeth the mountain of the unseen from the heaven of manifestation - the essence of hiddenness and the countenance of eternity; and Who causeth the Point of Lordship to revolve in the most glorious and eternal manner - that all may testify that verily He is the Truth, there is no God but Him, and that He is indeed the Single, the One, the Eternal, Who begetteth not nor is begotten, and there is none like unto Him, and He is God, the Supreme, the Compelling.
… Were there to surge over me but a drop from the seas of permission from the Sovereign of the divine cloud and the King of Glory, I would interpret that verse with the melodies of the spiritual ones, the myriads of the sanctified ones, and the songs of those who are attracted.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Lawh-i-Kullu't-Ta'am (the Tablet of All Food), to Haji Mirza Kamalid-Din Naraqi -- BH00267)
16
Verily God created Joseph and his brethren in the realms of holiness from a sprinkling upon a name from the drop of creation, from that water brought into being. When We found in Joseph love for the Most Great Remembrance, We clothed him, by God's leave, in the garments of prophethood, according to what was decreed for him in the Mother Book around the Fire.
(The Báb, Qayyumu'l-Asma' (Commentary on the Surah of Joseph), 1260-05 [1844-May] -- BB00002)
17
Know then that, inasmuch as all the Prophets are but one and the same soul, spirit, name, and attribute, thou must likewise see them all as bearing the name Muhammad and as being the son of Hasan, as having appeared from the Jabulqa of God's power and from the Jabulsa of His mercy. For by Jabulqa is meant none other than the treasure-houses of eternity in the all-highest heaven and the cities of the unseen in the supernal realm.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Javahiru'l-Asrar (Gems of Divine Mysteries), to Haji Siyyid Muhammad Mujtahid Isfahani -- BH00012)
18
I yield Thee such thanks as can cause the Nightingale of Glory to pour forth its melody in the highest heaven: "'Ali (the Bab), in truth, is Thy servant, Whom Thou hast singled out from among Thy Messengers and Thy chosen Ones, and made Him to be the Manifestation of Thyself in all that pertaineth unto Thee, and that concerneth the revelation of Thine attributes and the evidences of Thy names."
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19
The Divine Breathing exhales what our shaikh designates as Nafas al-Rahman or Nafas Rahmani, the Sigh of existentiating Compassion; this Sigh gives rise to the entire 'subtile' mass of a primordial existentiation termed Cloud ('ama'). Which explains the following hadith: 'Someone asked the Prophet: Where was your Lord before creating His (visible) Creation? - He was in a Cloud; there was no space either above or below.'...
(H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, p. 185. Tirmidhi, Ibn Maja, Ahmad, also cited in The Sufi Path of Knowledge, p. 397 n1)
Supplied quotation · catalogue passage not verified
Sentence boundary needs source review; the supplied wording is retained.
20
We failed to entreat Thee on those darkest of nights in which the Dove of Command sang out upon Mount Sinai at the right hand of the Crimson Tree with the melodies of Thine Eternity (azaliyyih), and during those lengthy periods of gloom when the bird of light warbled behind the cloud of unknowing ('ama') with the melodies of Thy Perpetuity (sarmadiyyih).
O People of the Realm of Unknowing ('ama')! Issue forth from your habitations and present yourselves in the sanctum of Light, the manifest Cloud of Unknowing ('ama'), the most great House of God, as hath been decreed, with the permission of God, the Exalted, Who beareth witness in the Tablet of the Heart (fu'ad).
Yahweh is is Who, from the Realm of Unknowing (ghayb al-'ama'), hath enabled me [Moses] to hearken unto His voice and be attentive to His Call, but I have neither seen Him nor gazed upon Him.