1 Corinthians 3:2 Meaning I Fed You with Milk

Istiʿdād: readiness to receive Ibn Arabi's name for how much a person can take in right now. More than that amount does not enlarge anyone; it spills, or it gets bent into whatever they already believed. So a smaller portion says nothing about the giver's generosity or the hearer's worth, only about the size of the cup at this moment.

Speak to people according to what they can understand: the teaching fits the hearer The Prophet said he taught each person at the level they could follow, and Sufi teachers have worked that way ever since. Anyone who has explained their job to a child knows the feeling, leaving out the hard part on purpose and feeling slightly dishonest about it. Holding that part back keeps it safe until the person can put it to use.

ʿIlm al-mukāshafa: the knowledge that comes by unveiling Al-Ghazali's name for the deepest material, which he refused to put in writing. He filled book after book with prayer, anger, money, and family, then stopped at that door and said openly that it did not belong on the page. He held that whoever hears the last thing first will get it wrong, and then defend the wrong version.

Amrāḍ al-qalb: diseases of the heart Al-Ghazali's name for envy, rivalry, and the hunger to be admired. They are the reason a person stays on the beginner's portion, because a heart busy competing has no room left over. Someone can learn every teaching by heart and still not move, since the block sits in what they want rather than in what they know.

Maqāmāt: the stations along the way The old word for the steps a traveler climbs one at a time. Each step carries its own work, and nobody reaches the next one by waiting or by wanting it badly enough. So finding a person in the same place years later stings, because time passed while the work of that step went undone.