THE ASPECTS OF UNITY 63

 

The Divine Qualities, each of which is unique, are
indefinite in number. As for the Divine Names, they
are necessarily limited in number, being nothing other
than the Qualities summarised in certain fundamental
types and ‘promulgated” by Sacred Scriptures as
“means of grace” which can be “invoked.” But Sufis
speak of “Divine Names > meaning by that all the uni-
versal possibilities or essences included in the Divine
Essence immanent in the world. This terminology is
only an extension of the symbolism of the Quran. In
the Quran God reveals Himself by His Names, just
as He manifests Himself in the universe through His
perfect Qualities.!

When considered as a determination, the Names or
Qualities are “universal relationships” (nisab kulliyah)
“non-existent’ in themselves and so “virtual” and
permanent in the Essence. They are only manifested,
i.e., known in a distinctive mode, in so far as their
implicit terms, such as active and passive, are defined.
This amounts to saying that the Divine Names or
Qualities ““exist’ only so much as the world *exists”.
From another angle we may say that all the Qualities
of the world are logically reducible to the universal
Qualities, or in other words to pure relationships.?

1. In Sufi language the Divine Names designate, as supports for in-
vocation, both what Christian scholasticism calls **The Presence of Immen«
sity”’, wh'ch particularly corresponds to the Qualities, and ‘‘the Indwelling
Presence”. The former relates to the universal immanence of God in the
world and the latter to His ‘‘Real Presence’ in the sacraments and in con-
templative vision. On the Sufi theory of Divine Presences (Hadarat) see the
chapter on Union of this book.

2. Some Sufi masters envisage a Divine aspect intermediate between
Unity and Oneness which they call the Divine Solitude (Wa%dah). In this the
possibilities of distinction or manifestation are principially *‘conceived’’ with-
out being actually deployed. Divine Solitude includes in Itself four princi-
pial “ faces”’ : Knowledge (al-‘7im), Consciousness (ash-Shudiud), Light (an-
Nir) and Being (al-Wujud). The idea of ‘‘ccnsciousness’’ must here be trans-
posed beyond its psychological aspect : it is the quality of witness shahid).