  The first and most basic connotation of al-amr al-ilahi signifies an arrangement, dispensation or ordering of things which governs the affairs of all who belong to and participate in it, such as angels, prophets, and pious friends of God, among others. (K 1: 4, 41–43; 3: 5) Thus, “the divine order,” one of several literal renderings of the Arabic term, corresponds to the supreme level in the hierarchy of things, which God, its supreme member, has willed to be as it is. The second connotation of “the divine order,” which is derived from the first, signifies the gift or influx of prophecy, both as an experience of the divine and as the power, capacity, or faculty within the soul that enables one to apprehend it. (K 1: 4, 25, 43, 95, 97, 109) It is typically bestowed on those belonging to the divine dispensation as a sign of favor or recognition of noble rank in a special audience with God or a divine appointee that typically confers recondite information, specific instructions, and special powers to speak or act on his behalf, along with the possibility of future access. In this sense, bestowal of the divine order quaprophetic gift is comparable to what a patron does in awarding an order of merit or a commission to his client or what a monarch does when conferring the Order of the Empire upon a worthy subject. The third and final connotation of “the divine order” signifies orders or commands in the conventional sense of directives that mandate what pleases God and prohibit what displeases him. However, even this very specific sense of the term sometimes allows for a broader usage that signifies the power or authority that lies behind such commands. (K 1: 87, 98; 2: 4, 6, 50; 3:23, 53) References to the divine order in this third sense clearly presuppose the prior reception of prophecy itself and whatever knowledge or instruction it provides, plus the transmission of such knowledge over time through reliable tradition from parent to child and teacher to student. Without these, one can only speculate about divine things in general terms and largely out of ignorance.