On the Self-Disclosure of the Names (Tajallī al-Asmāʾ)

When God (exalted is He) discloses Himself to a servant of His servants in a name of His names, the servant is overwhelmed [/effaced] under the lights of that name. So whenever you call upon the Real by that name, the servant answers you -- because of the falling of that name upon him. So the first witnessing of the self-disclosures of the Names is that God discloses Himself to His servant in His name 'the Existent' (al-Mawjūd), so that this name is applied to the servant.

And higher than it: His disclosing Himself to him in His name 'the One' (al-Wāḥid). And higher than it: His disclosing Himself to him in His name 'Allāh' -- so the servant is overwhelmed at this self-disclosure, and his mountain is crushed to dust,

So the Real calls to him, upon the Sinai (ṭūr) of his [own] reality: 'Truly, I am God.' There, God erases the name of the servant, and affirms for him the name of God (exalted is He).

So if you say: 'O God!', this servant answers you: 'At Your service, and at Your pleasure!'

And if he ascends, and God strengthens him, and makes him abide after his annihilation, [then] God becomes the answerer of whoever calls upon this servant.

So if you say, for example: 'O Muhammad!', God answers you: 'At Your service, and at Your pleasure!' Then, when the servant grows strong in the ascent, the Real discloses Himself to him in His name 'the All-Merciful,' then in His name 'the Lord,' then in His name 'the Sovereign,' then in His name 'the Knower,' then in His name 'the Powerful.' And whenever God discloses Himself in [any] one of these mentioned names, it is mightier than what is before it in the [descending] order.

And that is because the self-disclosure of the Real in detail is mightier than His self-disclosure in summary. So His appearing to His servant in His name 'the All-Merciful' is a detailing of a summary by which He appeared upon him in His name 'Allāh'; and His appearing to His servant in His name 'the Lord' is a detailing of a summary by which He appeared upon him in His name 'the All-Merciful'; and His appearing in His name 'the Sovereign' is a detailing of a summary by which He appeared upon him in His name 'the Lord'; and His appearing in His names 'the Knower' and 'the Powerful' is a detailing of a summary by which He appeared upon him in His name 'the Sovereign.'

And likewise the rest of the names. [This is] unlike His essential self-disclosures: for when His Essence discloses itself to itself by the rule of [some] rank of these ranks, the more-general is above the more-particular -- so the All-Merciful is above the Lord, and above them both is 'Allāh.' So understand.

And that is unlike the mentioned Name-disclosures. So the servant arrives, in these Name-disclosures, at their essential reality -- until all the divine Names seek him, [with] the seeking of [their] falling [upon him], as the name seeks the named. And then the bird of his intimacy warbles upon the bough of his holiness, saying:

The caller calls by her name, and I answer him; / and I am called, and [for me] Laylā answers my call.

And that is only because we are a single spirit, / [whom] two bodies have passed back and forth -- and it is a wonder.

Like a person who has two names, while the essence is one: / by whichever [name] you call the essence of him, you hit [the mark].

For my essence has [in] her an essence, and my name is her name; / and my state, in her, in [this] union, is strange.

And we are not, in verification, two essences for one [thing]; / but rather it is the very self of the lover [that is the] beloved.

And the wonder, in the Name-disclosures, is that the one to whom [the disclosure comes] witnesses nothing but the sheer Essence, and does not witness the name [itself]. But the discerning one knows his [own present] state from the names by which he is with God (exalted is He) -- because he inferred the Essence by that name. So he knows from it, for example, that it is 'Allāh,' or that it is 'the All-Merciful,' or that it is 'the Knower,' or the like of that. So that name is the rule over his [present] moment (waqt), and it is his witnessing-site of the Essence.

And the people, in the self-disclosures of the Names, are of [several] types. And we will mention a portion of them, since there is no way to enumerate all the Names. Then, [for] every name by which the Real discloses Himself, the people in it differ, and the paths of their reaching it differ.

And I mention, of the sum of the paths of each name, only what occurred to me in the particular [course] of my [own] wayfaring in God. Indeed, all that I mention in my book -- whether by way of relating [it] from another or from myself -- I mention only according to what God opened to me, in the time of my journeying in God and my going-onward in Him, by way of unveiling and direct vision.

So let us return to what I am engaged in, of mentioning the people in the self-disclosures of the Names; and they are of [several] types:

Of them is one upon whom the Real disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the Pre-eternal' (al-Qadīm). And his path to this self-disclosure was that the Real unveiled to him his [own] being existent in His [God's] knowledge, before He created the creation. Since he was existent in His knowledge by the existence of His knowledge, and His knowledge is existent by His [own] existence (glory be to Him) -- so it [the known] is pre-eternal; and the knowledge is pre-eternal, and the known is annexed to the knowledge, so it is pre-eternal.

because knowledge is not knowledge except when it has a known. So the known is what gave the knower the name of 'knower-hood.' So there follows, from this consideration, the pre-eternity of the existents in the divine knowledge.

So the reference of this servant is to the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) from the standpoint of His name 'the Pre-eternal.' So when the divine pre-eternity disclosed itself to him from His Essence, his origination dwindled away, and he abided [as] pre-eternal by God (exalted is He), annihilated from his [own] origination.

And of them is one to whom He disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the Real' (al-Ḥaqq). And his path to this self-disclosure was that He (glory be to Him, exalted is He) unveiled to him the secret of his [own] reality, pointed to by His saying: 'And We created not the heavens and the earth save by the Real' (15:85, al-Ḥijr).

So when His Essence disclosed itself by him [/to him] from the standpoint of His name 'the Real,' the creation was annihilated from him, and he abided [as] hallowed of essence, transcendent of attributes.

And of them is one to whom the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the One' (al-Wāḥid). And his path to this self-disclosure was that the Real unveiled to him the origin [/root-stock] of the world, and its emergence from His Essence (glory be to Him, exalted is He) -- like the emergence of the waves from the sea. So he witnessed His appearing (glory be to Him, exalted is He) in the multiplicity of the creatures, by the rule of His unicity. And at that, his mountain was crushed to dust, and his [inner] Moses was struck senseless; and his multiplicity went away in the unity of the One (glory be to Him, exalted is He), and the creatures were as though they had never been, and the Real abided as though He had never ceased.

And of them is one to whom the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the All-Holy' (al-Quddūs). And his path was that He unveiled to him the secret of 'And I breathed into him of My spirit' (15:29, al-Ḥijr). So He made known to him that his spirit is His [own] self, not another, and the spirit of God is hallowed [and] transcendent. So at that the Real disclosed Himself to him in His name 'the All-Holy,' and the deficiencies of the beings were annihilated from this servant, and he abided by God (exalted is He), transcendent of the description of origination.

And of them is one to whom He (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the Manifest' (al-Ẓāhir). So He unveiled to him the secret of the appearing of the divine light in the densities of the originated [things], that it might be a path for him to the knowledge that God is the Manifest. So at that He disclosed Himself to him [as] the Manifest, and the servant went inward, by the inwardness of the annihilation of the creation in the appearing of the existence of the Real.

And of them is one to whom the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the Inward' (al-Bāṭin). And his path was that He unveiled to him the subsistence of things by God, that he might know that He is their Inward. So when His Essence disclosed itself to him from the standpoint of His name 'the Inward,' his [own] appearing was effaced by the light of the Real, and the Real was [his] Inward, and he was the Outward for the Real.

And of them is one to whom the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'Allāh.' And the path to this self-disclosure is not confined -- rather, [it is] toward the self-disclosure of every one of the names of God (exalted is He), as has preceded -- [in] that they are not [exhaustively] bounded, on account of the difference of the loci-of-manifestation by the difference of the receptacles. So when the Real discloses Himself to His servant from the standpoint of His name 'Allāh,' the servant is annihilated from himself, and God becomes a substitute for him, [belonging] to him, in him. So his frame is freed from the bondage of origination, and his fetter is unbound from the fetter of the beings. So he is one-of-essence (aḥadī al-dhāt), one-of-attributes (aḥadī al-ṣifāt), [and] knows not the fathers and the mothers. So whoever remembers God has [thereby] remembered him, and whoever looks upon God has [thereby] looked upon him. And then the tongue of his [spiritual] state recited -- its saying strange [and] wondrous:

You concealed me, so I became, within myself, a deputy in place of myself; / [too] glorious [to be merely] a substitute -- nay, [I am] the very reality of what I am, as occurring.

So I was she, and she was I; and there is not, / for her, in a single existence, any contender.

I abided by her, in her, with no [letter] 'tāʾ' between us; / and my state, in her, is [now] past and likewise present.

But I raised up [/removed] the [lower] self, so the [veiling] intellect was lifted; / and I was roused from my sleep, so I am not [now] lying down.

And I witnessed myself, truly, by the eye of my [own] reality; / so mine, upon the brow of beauty, are those first-gleams.

I polished my beauty, so I beheld [it in] mirrors, / that there might be imprinted in them, for perfection, [its] imprints.

So her qualities are my quality, and my essence is her essence; / and her traits are, for me, in beauty, [risen] horizons.

And my name, truly, is her name; and the name of her essence / is, for me, a name; and those attributes are, for me, followers.

And of them is one to whom the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself from the standpoint of His name 'the All-Merciful.' And that is because, when the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) disclosed Himself to him from the standpoint of His name 'Allāh,' He pointed him, by His Essence, to the great lofty rank, which comprehends the qualities of glory flowing in all the existents.

And that was a path for him to the arrival at the essential self-disclosure from the standpoint of His name 'the All-Merciful.' And the [characteristic] affair of the servant in this self-disclosure is that the divine Names descend upon him, name by name; and he does not cease to receive of them, according to the measure of what God deposited in this servant of the light of His Essence, until the name 'the Lord' descends upon him.

So when he receives it [the name 'the Lord'], and the Real discloses Himself to him in it, the self-related, shared Names that are under the dominion of 'the Lord' descend upon him -- like the Knower (al-ʿAlīm) and the Powerful (al-Qadīr) and their like -- until the name 'the Sovereign' descends upon him.

So when he receives it [the name 'the Sovereign'], and the Real discloses Himself to him in his [own] essence, the rest of the Names descend upon him, in their completeness, name by name, until he reaches His name 'the Self-Subsisting' (al-Qayyūm). So when God strengthens him, and the Real discloses Himself to him in His name 'the Self-Subsisting,' he passes from the self-disclosures of the Names to the self-disclosures of the Attributes.