The Divine Names
From Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius through the Kabbalistic Sefirot into Akbarian Sufi divine-name speculation
A six-stop reading sequence through the cross-tradition speculation on the divine names -- how a unitary divine becomes manifold in differentiated self-disclosures while remaining one.
Using this syllabus
This is a ready-to-adopt reading sequence, not a fixed course. Each reading below links to an open, provenance-transparent Hekhal edition (original beside English, apparatus exposed). Assign them in order, drop or reorder to fit your term, and add your own lectures and assessments. It is openly licensed, so you may copy it into your own materials with attribution. If you would like it built out further for your program, we will help, at no cost.
Readings, in sequence
- 01
Ein Sof (the term) term
Begin with the apophatic ground. The Kabbalistic doctrine of Ein Sof -- the limitless prior to all naming -- is the apophatic foundation that the divine-names tradition presupposes. Without the prior unity, the differentiated self-disclosures the names articulate would resolve into pluralism rather than into structured divine self-revelation.
https://hekhal.org/lexicon/ein-sof - 02
Wahdat al-Wujud (the term) term
The Akbarian counterpart. Read alongside Ein Sof: both name the prior unity from which differentiated divine self-disclosure proceeds, but in distinct technical-philosophical idioms. The structural parallel is documented; direct historical transmission across the religious boundary is not. The two terms together establish the apophatic substrate the divine-names tradition operates from.
https://hekhal.org/lexicon/wahdat-al-wujud - 03
Sefirot (the term) term
The Kabbalistic articulation of differentiated divine self-disclosure. Ten emanations through which Ein Sof discloses itself in structured form. Read for the architecture: three columns, four worlds, gendered and colored attributes that the Kabbalist contemplates as the inner life of the divine.
https://hekhal.org/lexicon/sefirot - 04
Kabbalah (codex) codex
The systematic context. Read the codex's hermeneutic-frame section especially: the divine names tradition operates within the broader PaRDeS interpretive frame and the Sefirotic system the Bahir opens. The Tetragrammaton mapping (yod-hey-vav-hey to Chokhmah-Binah-Tiferet-Malkhut) worked through in the codex shows how the divine names operate within the Sefirotic architecture.
https://hekhal.org/codex/kabbalah - 05
The Mystical Theology text
The Christian Neoplatonist counterpart. Pseudo-Dionysius's Mystical Theology pairs with his Divine Names treatise in the broader corpus. Read for the apophatic register specifically: the divine beyond all names operates as the substrate against which the Dionysian Divine Names enumerates the kataphatic affirmations. The pairing of apophatic and kataphatic registers is structurally identical to the Kabbalistic pairing of Ein Sof with Sefirot.
https://hekhal.org/texts/mystical-theology-dionysius - 06
Akbarian Sufism (codex) codex
Close with the most elaborated divine-names tradition. Ibn Arabi's science of divine names organizes Akbarian metaphysics around the ninety-nine names of God (al-asma al-husna) as differentiated self-disclosures. Read the codex's hermeneutic-frame section: the doctrine of tajalli (divine self-disclosure) provides the metaphysical scaffolding for the science of names, and the doctrine of fixed entities (al-a'yan al-thabita) grounds the names ontologically. The shared Andalusian milieu with twelfth-century Kabbalah makes this corner the strongest documented cross-tradition link in Hekhal.
https://hekhal.org/codex/akbarian-sufism