The Mālikīs present a special case, because their small numbers in the schools belied their pervasive influence especially in the Quranic sciences. Their numerical preponderance in iqrā’ (Quran recital) and naḥw (grammar) managed to sway the general interest even more toward Arabic philology. In view of his special relationship with Ibn 'Arabī, Qūnavī had easy access to their exegetical sources. Apart from themes characteristic of Ibn 'Arabī, however, there is little evidence of anything peculiarly Mālikī or Maghrebi in the works of Qūnavī, including in grammar. His affiliations remained close to the traditional eastern centers of learning, where the Mālikīs were underrepresented. That said, Damascus was not the only place to which Qūnavī paid regular visits. He also traveled to Aleppo and Cairo, where he had a faithful following. More intriguing is how Qūnavī's spiritual bond with Rūmī, a scholar in his own right but the self-professed opponent of bookish scholars, developed to the point of mutual admiration—according to Aflākī—as Qūnavī continued to produce works rarely equaled in the “Arabic sciences” (Huart 281-82). As the primary vehicle of human expression, language has the capacity to convey the most profound experiences available to human beings. For Qūnavī, its “devices of conveyance” (adawāt al-tawṣīl) disclosed “incorporeal and immaterial meanings,” which he explored at a certain remove from the original experience that presumably lay at the core. He may not have differed markedly from Rūmī in this respect, but he was not a “literary practitioner” (i.e., a poet) after the manner of Rūmī, nor was he even a grammarian by profession. The challenge was to take the demonstrative science of traditional philosophy toward an exegetical grammar that could act as a quintessential language of experience, where knowledge implied the obligation to instruct in the intricacies of spiritual peregrination, but without substituting this derived knowledge for direct personal experience. This model remained legitimate so long as the central fact and semantic unity of divine speech was maintained. What we find in the mystical reflections of Ibn 'Arabī and Qūnavī alike are encoded utterances embodying an asymmetrical division between two components of instructive knowledge.