CREATION 69

tions, at any rate to the extent that we can separate
them logically from Being. “In truth”, writes Ibn
‘Arabi in his Fusas al-Hikam, ¢ all possibilities (mumki-
nat) are principially reducible to non-existence (‘udum)
and there is no Being (or, Existence) other than the
being of God, may He be exalted, (revealing Himself)
in the ‘forms’ of states which result from possibilities
as they are in themselves in their essential determina-
tions”” (in the Chapter on Jacob).

This distinction of Being from the principial possi-
bilities or immutable essences—a distinction which is
at the very limit of what is conceivable and is resolved
in the Divine Infinity—allows us to envisage universal
manifestation in two complementary relationships, on
the one hand in that of “autodeterminations’ ““or sub-
jectivations™ (ta‘ayyunat) of the Essence and on the
other in that of the divine ‘““revelations™ (tajalliyat)
which appear in them. Being is conceived by integra-
tion, so that it reaffirms Itself as one in each manifes-
ted possibility and as alone in all, whereas the possibi-
lities as such establish diversity without ever being
essentially detached from the One. If the metaphysi-
cal distinction thus established is indisputable and if
it can be defined by logical formulae, it is none the less
true that it does not pertain to the rational level. The
coincidence of Being (Wujad) and the principial possi-
bilities (a‘yan)—which, according to Ibn ‘Arabi, have
“never so much as sensed the odour of existence”—is
as paradoxical as the coincidence of “existence”
(Wujud) and ““absence” (‘udum), and it is precisely in