In the Name of God: the name of a thing is that by which it can be known. The Names of God, exalted be He, are the [arche]typal forms (ṣuwar nawʿiyya) whose specificities and ipseities (hūwiyya) indicate the attributes of God and His essence, and [which indicate] by their very existence His countenance, and by their individuation His oneness. For, these are the outward manifestations through which He can be known; Allāh is a name for the divine essence qua essence absolutely, without taking into consideration that it may be qualified by the attributes or indeed taking into consideration that it may not be [so] qualified; the Compassionate, is the one who causes existence and perfection to flow upon all [things] in the measure that [divine] wisdom requires and to the capacity of the receiving entities (qawābil) from the outset [of their creation]; the Merciful: (al-Raḥīm) is the one who bestows the spiritual perfection (kamāl maʿnawī) that has been earmarked for the human species in the end [sc. in the Hereafter]. It is for this reason that they say O [You Who are the] Compassionate One of this world and of the Hereafter (yā raḥmān al-dunyā wa’l-ākhira), but [say] O Merciful One of the Hereafter (raḥīm al-ākhira): the meaning then is, in the perfect human all-encompassing form, general and specific mercy, which is the locus of manifestation of the divine essence and the greatest truth with the totality of attributes, I commence and I recite. It [Allāh] is the Greatest Name [of God]. It is to this meaning that the Prophet’s (ṣlʿm) alluded when he said, ‘I have been given the sum of all [excellent] speech [sc. The Qurʾān] and have been sent to complete the noble character traits (makārim al-akhlāq). For words constitute the realities (ḥaqāʾiq) of existents (mawjūdāt) and their concrete substances (aʿyān), just as Jesus, peace be upon him, was called a Word from God [cf. 3:39,45]. The noble character traits are the perfections [of these existents] and [represent] their specifities, constituting the sources of their [the existents’] actions in their entirety, contained as they are in the comprehensive human microcosm (kawn insānī). Herein lies a subtlety (laṭīfa), namely that the prophets, peace be upon them, have made the letters of the alphabet analogous to the ranks of existents (marātib al-mawjūdāt). I have found in the statements of Jesus, peace and blessings be upon him, and of the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī [b. Abī Ṭālib], peace be upon him, and of some Companions what indicates [the truth of] this. In effect, that is why they say that existents were made manifest through the [letter] bāʾ of bismillāh (In the Name of God), since it is the letter that comes after the alif which [itself] is analogous to the Essence of God. Thus it [the bāʾ] is an allusion to the First Intellect (al-ʿaql al-awwal), which is the first thing that God created and the one to whom God’s statement, “I have not created anything more beloved to Me or more noble in My eyes than you: through you I grant, through you I seize, through you I reward and through you I chastise” is addressed [as per] the ḥadīth. [You will note that] the uttered letters in this statement are 18,^{1The 18 pronounceable letters in this statement are hamza, alif, ḥāʾ, yāʾ, bāʾ, wāw, kāf, ʿayn, dhāl, mīm, khāʾ, lām, qāf, tāʾ, rāʾ, nūn, ṭāʾ, thāʾ.} the written ones 19, and if the words were separated the letters would amount to 22. The 18 are allusions denoting the 18,000 worlds. For ‘thousand’ is a complete number subsuming all the other levels of numbers, and is as such the foundation of all [numerical] levels, higher than which there is no number. [The letters] thus are used to denote the mothers/foundations of all worlds (ʿawālim), namely, the world of power (ʿālam al-jabarūt), the world of the heavenly kingdom (ʿālam al-malakūt), the throne (ʿarsh), the seat (kursī), the seven heavens, the four elements and the three [natural] kingdoms (mawālīd),^{2Literally, ‘the three offspring’: these are the mineral, the plant and the animal (including humans).} each of which subdivides into its constituent parts; the 19 letters are allusions to these together with the world of humankind, for even if this [latter] belongs in the animal world, it, on account of its eminence (sharaf)^{3Cf. Q. 17:70. According to Ibn ʿArabī, ‘Man possesses an eminence over everything in the heaven and earth. He is God’s sought-after goal among the existent things, since it is he whom God has taken as a locus of self-disclosure […].’ (Chittick 1989, 368).} and its subsuming of both [the animal and the human] and its comprising of existence, it constitutes another world [in its own right], one with its own affair, a genus sui generis, with its own demonstrative proof (burhān), such as Gabriel from among the angels where God says, and His angels… and Gabriel [Q. 2:98]. The three hidden alifs, which complete the 22 [letters] upon separation, are an allusion to the true divine world in terms of the Essence, the attributes and the acts. These then are three worlds at the point of differentiation (tafṣīl), but one when at that of realisation (taḥqīq). The three written ones are an allusion to the manifestation of these worlds in the supreme human form. And on account of the veiling of the divine world when the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, was asked about the alif of the [letter] bāʾ, how was it that it went away, he replied, ‘Satan stole it’, and he was commanded to elongate the bāʾ of bismillāh to compensate for its [stolen] alif, an allusion to the veiling of the divineness of the divinity in the form of diffusional mercy (raḥma intishāriyya) and its manifestation in human form such that only those who are worthy will recognise it. That is why it [the alif] has not been written in. Indeed, in the ḥadīth it is said that God, exalted be He, created Adam in his form. Thus the [divine] Essence is veiled by the attributes, the attributes by the acts, the acts by the engendered things (akwān) and the effects of these engendered things (āthār [kawniyya]). The one to whom the acts are disclosed by the lifting of the veils of the engendered things, he trusts [in God]. The one to whom the attributes are disclosed by the lifting of the veils of the acts is satisfied and submits. The one to whom the Essence is disclosed by the unveiling of the veils of the attributes is annihilated in the Unity and becomes an absolute affirmer of the Unity absolutely, doing what he does and reciting what he recites ‘in the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful’. The declaration of the unity of the acts then precedes the declaration of the unity of the attributes and this [the latter precedes] the declaration of the unity of the Essence. To these three he [the Prophet], may God’s blessings be upon him, alluded when he would prostrate and say, ‘I seek refuge in Your pardon from Your punishment, and I seek refuge in Your satisfaction from Your wrath and I seek refuge in You from You.

Praise be to God; Lord of all Worlds, to the end of the sūra: ‘praise’ in actions and utterances of the moment (lisān al-ḥāl) is the manifestation (ẓuhūr) of perfections and the actualisation (ḥuṣūl) of the ends (ghāyāt) of things, since these are opening laudations and marvelous eulogies by the one granting them in accordance with what is due to that [object of eulogy]. For all existents, on account of their specificity and specific qualities and orientation towards their end-goals, and by the bringing forth of their perfections [sc. perfected states] from the space of potentiality into actuality, are proclaimers of [His] glory and praisers, as God, exalted be He, says: and there is not a thing but proclaims His praise [Q. 17:44]. Their proclamation of His glory is the declaration that He is above the need for any associate, [exalted above] the attributes of deficiency (naqṣ) and incapacity, [and this] by their very dependence on Him and their being indicators of His Oneness and His power. As for their praise [of Him], this is the manifesting of their derivative perfections and their being the loci of the manifestation of those attributes of majesty and beauty. His Essence is singled out [for praise] on account of His being the principle (mabdaʾ) of all things, and [on account of] His preservation and management of these, which constitute the very signification of [His] lordship of all worlds. In other words [praise be] to every knowable of the knowledge of God [being that] by which He is known, as in the case of the seal and what it seals and the mould and what is moulded in it. The construction [of ʿālam] is in the sound plural [ʿālamīn] because it subsumes the signification of ‘knowledge’ (ʿilm), or on account of the prevalence [of cognizant beings in these worlds]. In the face of [His] bestowing of good generally and specifically, that is, outward graces such as health and provision, and inner [graces] such as gnosis (maʿrifa) and knowledge (ʿilm); and on account of His being the ultimate end [of all things], which is the [true] signification of [His being] master of [all] things on the Day of Judgement, since in reality the only one who will requite will be the worshipped One, to whom all mastership returns at the time of requital either through the rewarding of everlasting grace in place of ephemeral [grace] upon the disengagement from this [latter] by means of renunciation and the self-disclosures of actions upon the servant’s wrenching himself away from his actions and the replacement of his attributes with His attributes upon effacement (maḥw) and his subsistence (baqāʾ) through His Essence, and His gift to him of veridical [divine] existence (wujūd ḥaqqānī),^{1This is more than ‘real existence’ (wujūd ḥaqīqī), for it refers to al-Ḥaqq Himself, in other words, existence within the (divine) existence of the Real.} upon his annihilation (fanāʾ). To Him and His what-ness, exalted be He, pre-eternally and sempiternally, as befits Him in His Essence at the beginning stage and at the end stage and in-between the two at the stage of union (maqām al-jamʿ), belongs all praise by the differentiated tongues, absolutely. For He is the One praising and the One praised at [the level of] differentiation and [at the level of] union, the Worshipper and the Worshipped, whether at the starting point and or at the end. When He discloses Himself to His servants in His words through His attributes, they witness Him in His greatness and resplendence and in His perfect power and majesty, and they address Him in word and deed ascribing worship to Him [alone] and seeking assistance from Him [alone], for they find none to be worshipped other than Him and [find that] there is no might or power in anyone except through Him. If they stand present [at this witnessing] their motions and their stillness would all constitute worship of Him and through Him, and they would ‘maintain their prayers’ [cf. Q. 70:23], supplicating with the tongue of love witnessing as they are His beauty from every aspect and in every aspect.

Guide us to the straight path, in other words, fix us upon [the path of] guidance and empower us to remain upright along the path of oneness, that is, the path of those favoured [by You] with the special favour pertaining to [Your] Mercifulness (raḥīmiyya), which is gnosis, love and guidance, such as the prophets, the martyrs, the truthful and the friends (awliyāʾ) who have witnessed Him as the First and the Last, and as the Manifest and the Hidden, and who through the witnessing of the rise of His abiding countenance, became absent from the existence of ephemeral shadow.

not [the path] of those against whom there is wrath, those who stop at the outward [aspects], concealing themselves behind the veil of the Compassionate One’s favour and that of corporeal bliss and physical taste, [stopping] short of the spiritual realities and the bliss of the heart and the tasting through the intellect, such as the Jews. For their call was one to outward things, such as the Gardens, the [paradisiacal] maidens and palaces, which is why He was wrathful with them, for wrath requires banishment and distance. To [be content to] stop at the outward aspects [of things], which are the veils of darkness, is the ultimate in distance [from God]; nor of those who are astray, those who stand [content] with the inner aspects, which are the luminous veils (ḥujub nūrāniyya), and have concealed themselves behind the favour pertaining to [His] Mercifulness to the exclusion of the favour emanating from [Him as] the Compassionate One. They are unmindful of the manifest nature of the Truth and have erred from the even path, and have thus been denied the witnessing of the beauty of the Beloved in all things, as is the case with the Christians. For their call was to inner things and to the lights of the world of the Holy, whereas the call of the Muhammadans, the proclaimers of [God’s] oneness, was to both [the inner and the outer] aspects, combining love for the beauty of [His] Essence with [love of His] most beautiful attributes as attested [in the Qurʾān]: hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden…; be wary of God and believe in His Messenger and He will give you two portions from His mercy and He will make for you a light by which you may walk; worship God and do not associate anything with Him. They [the Muslims] thus heeded all three calls, as is mentioned in support of: they hope for His mercy but fear His chastisement, and they say, ‘O our Lord, complete for us our light; they say our lord is God and then are upright and are thus rewarded with union, according to what God, exalted be He, has informed: their reward with their Lord shall be gardens of Eden. They will have their wage and their light; whithersoever they turn, there is the face of God; for those who have been virtuous, theirs shall be the fairest reward and more [Q. 10:26].