86 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

Al-Haba is to the uncreated Intellect as the universal
Soul (an-Nafs al-kulliyah)! is to the created Intellect.?
On the other hand the uncreated pair is in a sense the
equivalent of universal Nature (at-Tabi‘ah) and the
Divine Command (al-Amr), since universal Nature, it-
self principially identified with the Divine ‘“Exhalation”
(an-Nafas ar- Rahmani), is as the “maternal > aspect of
substance (al-Haba). Thus we have, theoretically, three
cosmogonic pairs the terms of which are related to one
another as masculine and feminine principles. But
from the cosmological point of view it is only implicitly
that the Spirit or Intellect is uncreated, for it is only the
created Spirit which represents a reality distinct from
God. Again, the Materia Prima or Substance (a/-Haba)
can be envisaged at different levels; as for its purely
principial nature, which Ibn ‘Arabi names the * Sup-
reme Element” (al-’Unsur al-a‘zam), this is necessarily
outside the scope of cosmology since it is only a non-
manifested divine possibility. Such applications of the
same terms to different degrees in the hierarchy of
existence explains some of the seeming contradictions
between one Sufi writer and another or even between
different expositions by the same author.

As the mediator par excellence the Spirit is also the
prototype of prophetic manifestations, and in this
aspect is to be identified with the archangel Gabriel
(Jibril) who announced the Word to the Virgin Mary
and transmitted the Quran to the Prophet.

1. The Psyche in Plotirus. 2. The Nous in Plotinus.