DOI:https://doi-0004.org/6812/17934272263045
Dr. Haroun labidi 1, Dr. Zin El Abidine Hambli 2, Dr. Samir Abdelmalek 3,
1 University, Oum El Bouaghi. Faculty of Letters and Languages, Department of Arabic Language and Literature.
2 Larbi Ben M’hidi University, Oum El Bouaghi. Faculty of Letters and Languages, Department of Arabic Language and Literature.
3 Larbi Ben M’hidi University, Oum El Bouaghi. Faculty of Letters and Languages, Department of Arabic Language and Literature.
Received: 23/02/2026 ; Accepted: 26/07/2026 ; Published: 31/10/2026
Abstract:
Imagination is an image that inhabits its own existence, bringing together activity and receptivity in a manner that affirms existence, expresses movement, and reveals the process of becoming across the distance extending between the Real and creation. As an image, it requires the one to whom it is disclosed to come to know it as such: “It is both negated and established, existent and nonexistent, unknown. God Almighty revealed this reality to His servant and presented an example so that he might know and realise that, if he is incapable and perplexed when attempting to grasp the reality of this although it belongs to the world and he has no knowledge of its true nature then he is even more incapable, more ignorant, and more perplexed when it comes to its Creator.”
[1] This is all the more true when confronted with divine manifestations of an even subtler and more delicate nature.
Keywords: Imagination, the Imaginary, Image, Ibn ʿArabi’s Theory.
1. Imagination: Embodying Meanings and Interpreting Sensible Things in Ibn ʿArabi’s Project
This introduction offers an initial conception in which imagination is understood as operating through the definition of a shared relational field between the two poles of a duality associated with the reality of divinity. Through this process, the incoming manifestation is recognised as a form of the divine command.
Imagination, then, as God intended it to be established for His morally responsible servants, consists in allowing “meanings to follow the course of sensible things, taking forms that admit division and subdivision, as well as scarcity and abundance. The locus of this process was made the realm of imagination. Thus, meanings were embodied in discourse, and the intellects received them through analogy, just as they receive sensible things resembling the meanings with which they had been associated.”[2] These are images transformed, through a divine command, into natural forms and images reflected in a mirror-like manner within an imaginative realm. This realm is connected to the Sufi position that seeks to illuminate what lies behind these images and disclose the position of creation in relation to the Real: on the one hand, as a form of knowledge, and on the other, as an indication of the impossibility of transmitting this knowledge in its absolute subtlety.
The connection between these images and the Real deprives them of the quality of existing independently in themselves. They are thus imagined to be “something that exists independently outside the Real, although this is not actually the case.”[3] This is neither a rupture nor a conflict, contradiction, or opposition. Rather, it is a connection founded upon an impasse in which the recipient of the manifestation is placed. All identity is denied to him, allowing his selfhood to become detached from ipseity and connected to the desired otherness. The matter is therefore neither “entirely Real nor entirely creation; it is creation in one respect and the Real in another, while the essence remains one. The very form of what manifests itself is the form of the one who receives that manifestation; thus, he is both the manifesting and the recipient of the manifestation.”[4] His identity consequently takes shape anew as the formal identity of the incoming divine manifestation unfolds, enabling him to become conscious of it, since he himself is also a divine arrival and a manifestation of one of the forms of the Real.
This Sufi conception of imagination, understood as a mystical phenomenon situated between the two poles of the duality of selfhood and otherness, explains the desire to realise identity. The aim is not identity in itself, but rather the truth that emerges from it.
This is what makes imagination, as an isthmus between absolute meaning and absolute sensation, both a determination of the divine command, on the one hand, and an awareness of it, on the other. Whenever the Real appears “in one of the entities of possible things under one of the divine names, the preparedness of that entity gives rise to a newly emerging name by which it is called. Thus, it is said: this is a Throne, this is an Intellect, this is a Pen, … and then this reality spread throughout individual beings.”[5] The distinction and hierarchy between the divine command and awareness of it are therefore present in Sufi thought. This confirms that imagination is concerned with apprehending those divine commands that most fully embody absolute reality. It also reinforces the Akbarian position expressed in the following statement: “Know, then, that you are imagination, and that everything you perceive and regard as other than yourself is also imagination. All existence is imagination within imagination.”[6] This conception embodies the essence of reality, or its image, which is susceptible to a dual process of deconstruction between the subjective position and spiritual meaning, according to the existential relations that connect them.
From this point, we may ask: Does this duality affirm the process and becoming of the image as a creative force within Sufi imagination?
2. Manifestation and Representation: The Thesis of Imagination in Symbolising and Bringing the Absolute Closer
Imagination arises from the depth of the relationship between two absolutes, sensation and meaning. This relationship reflects the need of God’s morally responsible servants, who seek the Absolute Truth, for an object through which it may be apprehended. The discussion here concerns a divine origin associated with change, namely “the transformation of forms during manifestation, and the variation of relations and considerations with respect to the Divine. The Essence is one, while the relations are diverse. It is knowing in one respect, powerful and creating in another […] Since the origin of existence that is, God Most High admits different considerations, this reality extends into certain existing things, indeed into all existing things without exception.”[7] It thus takes shape in an image situated within an existential field. This also raises the question of the possibility of becoming aware of its reality and of the mechanism through which it is represented as a new position within imagination. Imagination, in this sense, brings the divine command closer, allowing it to acquire meaning within the Presence of Imagination. It grants the capacity for manifestation, on the one hand, while determining its potential for embodiment and visualisation, on the other. In this respect, it constitutes a reality that precedes existence in its contemplative, cosmic depth.
There is a causal relationship between the precedence of the divine command and the cosmic depth of imagination and existential contemplation. Through this relationship, images seek to break free and recover their movement and power. It therefore becomes necessary for the image, in this particular case, to be “a single image encompassing both its outward and inward dimensions, with its inner dimension encompassing its outer one, its outer dimension corresponding to its inner one, and this all-encompassing image containing every image and including them all, so that no image of any existing thing lies outside it, whether outward or inward.”[8] This is because the distance separating the divine command from existence extends beyond the realm of the living and is associated with the metaphysical. It escapes both the rigidity of absolute density and the subtlety of absolute immateriality. Imagination thus emerges as a dynamic creative process between every divine command and the awareness of it. It contributes to the construction of an imaginary whose purpose is to embody that command by bringing to light its hidden cosmic relationships and identifying the most appropriate indications through which it may be understood.
This representation, as a meaningful and mutable reality capable of embodiment and originating in the Real, possesses two dimensions: a semantic dimension represented by the divine command, and a sensory dimension represented by the perceived image. These correspond to the transformation of the Real through its divine names, which give rise to forms that “constitute the ultimate limit of transformations through the Divine Names. Meanings therefore diversified, as did their inner realities, encompassing human, spiritual, and natural faculties, spirits, souls both exalted and lowly, and separate intellects, whether particular or universal […] Knowledge likewise diversified, that is, the divine and possible judgements in their detailed forms, derived from every source according to what it bestows through the manifestations in which they appear. The manifestations, in turn, diversified according to the diversity of sensory forms.”[9] Between formal transformation and transformation through the Divine Names, a creative transformation thus takes place within an isthmic scene. Here, the spiritual manifests itself in a sensory form, yet without absolute subtlety or absolute density. Both dimensions converge within this isthmus to establish the features of what is to appear to the senses, endowing it with its cognitive significance and its new, yet ancient, identity.
This dynamism contributes to establishing a Sufi understanding of imagination, one that accords with the belief that the outward signifies the inward, without being identical to it, and that the image is not identical to the reality of the image itself. Rather, it carries one of its spiritual meanings, as well as the content of the divine command as the original image of its spiritual constitution. It also conveys the meaning of belonging to the Real as a universal principle that “descends from the Mother of the Book to the World of the Preserved Tablet which serves as the heart of the world and from there to the World of Images, where it becomes embodied; then it descends to the sensory world, where it becomes actualised in the visible realm. This constitutes the fourth level of existence, descending from the upper world to the lower world, from the inward to the outward, and from knowledge to the cosmos.”[10]
Within the Presence of Imagination, where the unity of the relationships between absolute meaning and absolute sensation is manifested, these connections emerge to dispel the ambiguity surrounding the relationship between the Real and creation. It is within this isthmic interval that a distinction arises between the existence of the image and creation in the image. As for the existence of the image, it derives from “the determinations of the existence of the Real in the forms of the immutable entities within eternal knowledge, which continue to renew themselves without interruption.”[11] As for creation in the image, it derives from the act of breathing, understood as “mercy and bringing into existence. This breathing is itself the primordial Cloud (al-ʿamāʾ), in which the Divine Being has existed eternally, receiving all forms from this Being and then actualising them.”[12] The Breath of the All-Merciful thus becomes the cause of creation; through it and its continuous operation, manifestation and formation are determined. Moreover, this Breath is the cause of the moderation and equilibrium of existence, as well as the origin of the relationships between the outward and the inward.
This imagination carries a spiritual significance in its isthmic constitution, where relationships become unified as a result of divine governance. It also affirms the enduring will of the Real, sustained by the continuity of the Breath of the All-Merciful and renewed with each renewal of that Breath. Imagination is neither the original, luminous, absolute image imbued with meaning, nor the image that exists in the outward world in a state of absolute density and awareness associated with it. Rather, it is the image situated between luminosity and elemental nature. The depth of imagination lies precisely in this in-between realm, which is subject to the active divine light operating in the cosmic genesis of its unseen existence. This light “reveals to the Divine Essence the immutable entities of possible things existing within its substance, that is, the entities of possible things that constitute the contents inherent in the Divine Names.”[13] In this way, the nature and form of the image are determined, along with the spiritual significance it conveys in the outward realm or the sensory world.
Since the representation of the image, subject to transformation and associated with a Divine Name, is determined a priori through divine governance within the Presence of Imagination, it proceeds “from one form to another. This is what is conventionally termed corruption. We, however, avoid this expression, as well as the term transformation in its usual sense, and instead employ the terms conversion, analysis, and composition. Whatever undergoes a change in its essence has been converted, while whatever changes in its attribute has undergone analysis or composition. The term conversion may also be used figuratively when the essence remains while the attribute changes.”[14] The complete representation and stabilisation of this image in the sensory world affirm the will of the Real, which governs the image in its elemental nature. This image conveys the significance of a form transformed from its original luminous state, revealed through divine light.
This leads us to question the relationship between the image and the other image: Does this mean that there is only one image?
3. Existence: The Akbarian Analysis of the Dialectical Relationship Between the Real and the Imaginary
The multiplicity and diversity of natural forms are connected to spiritual unveiling in the contemplation of the states of existence, as Ibn ʿArabi states:
“When you contemplate the states of existence,
within the vastness of unveiling and witnessing,
remain attentive to the diversity of forms,
in the worlds of emergence and civilisation.
For through their diversity, meanings diversify for you;
through the diversity of meanings, the sources of knowledge diversify;
through the diversity of these sources, knowledge diversifies;
through the diversity of knowledge, manifestations diversify;
and through the diversity of manifestations, your companionship with the Real
and your witnessing of Him continue with every passing instant.”[15]
As forms undergo transformation, meanings, sources of knowledge, and forms of understanding likewise diversify, in accordance with the diversity of manifestations in the sensory world. They thereby reach the ultimate stage of their transformation through the manifestation of the Divine Names, establishing Sufi imagination upon metaphysical foundations. The image, in this context, is nothing other than the outcome of the alternatives that this transformation, as a Sufi value, may offer for embodying the relationship between unity and multiplicity, or plurality and diversity. This conception connects these two dimensions rather than separating them, since neither can exist without the other.
The Real is likened to creation in terms of His attributes, while He remains incomparable in His Essence. This connection between the two poles of the duality concerns identity in the world, which is capable of being realised in its entirety or in its cosmic dimension. This opens up a field of inquiry into the possibility of moving imagination beyond its status as a product of human fancy, through which the human being creates in the power of imagination things “that have no existence except within it, and this is a general matter.”[16] From this outward dimension, imagination moves towards its Sufi form, which is subject to transformation and through which it passes into a state of formation between the elemental and the luminous within the Presence of Imagination. This Presence constitutes an original locus in which the image appears as the very essence of the divine command that is, it resembles the luminous image in its attributes, while differing from it in its identity and essence.
In this respect, imagination is connected to the knower through the latter’s creative capacity, whereby he brings into existence, through his spiritual resolve, “that which comes to have an existence outside the locus of that resolve.”[17] This capacity preserves what has been created from non-existence, which results when the knower becomes heedless of one of the spiritual Presences, including the Presence of Imagination. Whenever he becomes heedless of a Presence, what he has created through his spiritual resolve within it ceases to exist, unless he attains a level at which the images preserve themselves independently.
The second conception, constructed upon the results of analysing the first, concerns the composition and relationship between the two poles of the duality: the luminous image the image of the Real and the natural, elemental image. Although their manifestations in imagination differ from their manifestations in the sensory world, this is because “the manifestation of imagination is subtler than that of the senses to an extent that admits of no comparison; for this reason, it changes more rapidly from one state to another.”[18] Imagination is therefore distinct, being connected to the image that undergoes transformation within the Presence of Imagination as a consequence of affirming the will of the Real. The two images are interconnected. This Sufi distinction between the three forms the luminous, the transformed, and the elemental is intended to clarify their respective levels and draw attention to each rank individually, so that the veils that must be known and unveiled may become clear.
Is the image a veil?
Imagination, or the transformed image, involves a deep ambiguity between the image and the reality of the Real, which “is understood to accept no description belonging to the attributes of originated things. Yet when it manifested itself […] to eyes restricted by common sense, the judgements associated with this particular manifestation followed accordingly […] Whoever has no need of an indication pointing to Him finds that He Himself is the proof of Himself, owing to the intensity of His clarity.”[19] Since the relationship between them operates through the link that affirms the will of the Real, failure to perceive or recognise this link amounts to the collapse and death of Sufi imagination as one of the levels of divine governance. It consequently eliminates the intermediary between the reality of the Real and the image, leading to the attribution of reality or divinity to the image itself. This occurs when the image is treated as the very essence of the divine judgement, according to the observer’s prevailing illusion that divinity resides in the elemental image.*
Denying the role of this link amounts to eliminating the veil. Just as “the senses are veiled by a wall, excessive distance, and excessive proximity, the eye of insight is not so veiled. Nothing conceals it except what we have mentioned: rust, covering, and similar things. Yet there is also a veil of meaning […] the unveiling light that extends from the Presence of Generosity over the unseen world, within the Presences of existence.”[20] To deny the role of the link is therefore to displace imagination from its proper existential position and undermine Sufi imagination and its dual function as both veil and revealer within Sufi practice as a whole.
This problem, involving the confusion between the reality of the Real and the divinity attributed to the image, requires us to reconsider the links through which the divine will is affirmed and the transformations of images that result from this will within the Presence of Imagination. It also necessitates, or at least demands, a reordering of the relationship between the two poles of the duality: the Real remains real, and the imaginary remains imaginary. We cannot overlook the fact that “existence has two aspects: real and imaginary. Real existence is God, while imaginary existence is everything other than Him. This brings us back to the one Reality as it manifests itself to Him in its two aspects: the aspect of the Real and the aspect of creation.”[21]
Creation thus points towards the Real, but this does not mean seeing or imagining that the Real is fully or entirely incarnated within a natural or elemental form, or even within the highest form represented by the Perfect Human. Nevertheless, the Real created “His outward image from the realities and forms of the world, and He created His inward image according to His own form. Hence, He said of him, ‘I was his hearing and his sight,’ but He did not say, ‘I was his eye and his ear,’ thereby distinguishing between the two images.”[22] What must be understood is that the outward appearance of this highest image is merely one among infinitely many forms of transformation and multiplicity. Its underlying cause is the Breath of the All-Merciful, operating through the will of the Real and its activity within images across the intermediate realms.
The question of killing imagination that is, abolishing its role and the role of the links that distinguish the reality of the Real from creation deepens the divide between the outward and the inward, and between creation and the Real. It also entails the denial of an entire Sufi dimension and world: an isthmic dimension that “becomes subtle in its density and dense in its subtlety. This is because it lies between two worlds, one sensory and the other meaningful. It therefore manifests the properties of both the world of subtlety and the world of density in a single image.
The intellect brings it forth through its demonstration. In other words, through thought and demonstration, the intellect brings forth images of imaginary things, since imagination belongs to the realm of the isthmuses. These are rational proofs which produce images in thought according to what their premises entail.
The Sacred Law then modifies it through the power of its authority. In other words, the Sacred Law redirects it away from what has appeared to the intellect, because the Sacred Law is connected to divine revelation and therefore has authority over every image and meaning. For this reason, the intellect has no jurisdiction within the Sacred Law […].”[23]This, too, does not eliminate the act of creation through images within this isthmus, nor the process of bringing existing things into awareness and determining their status.
Returning to the original disagreement concerning representation through images and the distinction between its three categories in the Akbarian theory the luminous image, the transformed image of the imaginary world, and the natural or elemental image we find that these correspond, respectively, to the categories identified within the Akbarian corpus as the divine, the angelic, and the human realms. As for “the human Presence, it is the Presence of the spirit when stripped of its material attachments, representing the stage of human spiritualisation while retaining the human form.
As for the angelic Presence, it is the world of the spirit when stripped of its material attachments, assuming an angelic quality. The domain of this Presence is the seven heavens.
Finally, there is the Presence of Omnipotence, or the divine realm, whose domain extends from the seventh heaven to the Footstool. This is the Presence in which the mysteries of the divine effusion unfold and the Names and Attributes of God appear through their mysteries, lights, emanations, and manifestations.”[24]
These three Presences, together with the worlds manifested within them, fall under a broader spiritual hierarchy encompassing all the stations associated with the degree of spiritual excellence.
Conclusion
In this sense, imagination, understood as a series of transformed images, constitutes the foundation lying between the luminous and the elemental. The formation of images within the isthmus of imagination represents an attempt to establish harmony and affirm the mediating role necessary to dispel any ambiguity arising from the assumption of direct communication between creation and the Real. This is particularly relevant to the multiplicity and transformation of images and the reception of divine influxes, a process in which elemental forms constitute the foundation. This is because the emergence of a form composed of elements “ultimately leads to remote and proximate transformations, which are expressed in terms of exertion and fatigue. The lower the existing being descends through the stages of mineral, plant, animal, and human, the greater the fatigue becomes at the final stages […] For it possesses the faculty of estimation. There is no doubt that estimations play tricks on the intellects, just as actions play tricks on names.”[25] This is precisely what the faculty of estimation brings about.
[1] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 4, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, 1st ed., Cairo, 1993, pp. 409–410.
[2] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 12, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, Cairo, 1988, n.p.
[3] Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 1, Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1st ed., Beirut, Lebanon, 2008, p. 376.
[4] Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 2, Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1st ed., Beirut, Lebanon, 2008, p. 15.
[5] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 14, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, Cairo, 1992, p. 369.
[6] Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 1, p. 381.
[7] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 8, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, Cairo, 1983, pp. 505–506.
[8] Muḥammad Yāsir Sharaf, The Philosophy of Absolute Unity in Ibn Sabʿīn, Publications of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Studies Series, Republic of Iraq, 1981, p. 169.
[9] Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Tajalliyāt al-Ilāhiyya, edited by ʿUthmān Ismāʿīl Yaḥyā, Markaz Nashr Dānishgāhī, Tehran, 1988, p. 261.
* An explanation of the Sufi terminology of images, meanings, sources of knowledge, and manifestations from the perspective of the Sufi tradition:
“The sensory images diversified, as they represent the ultimate stage of transformations through the Divine Names. Meanings consequently diversified, as did their inner realities, encompassing human, spiritual, and natural faculties, spirits, souls both exalted and lowly, and separate intellects, whether particular or universal […] The sources of knowledge likewise diversified, since everything, according to its essential and hierarchical particularities, constitutes a source of knowledge. Knowledge therefore diversified, meaning the divine, possible, and detailed judgements derived from every source according to what it bestows through the manifestations in which they appear. The manifestations, in turn, diversified according to the diversity of sensory images. The principle governing this transformation is therefore cyclical.”
Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Tajalliyāt al-Ilāhiyya, p. 261.
[10] Nūr al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Jāmī, Naqd al-Nuṣūṣ fī Sharḥ Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ, edited, corrected, and annotated by ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kiyālī, Muḥammad ʿAlī Bayḍūn Publications, Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, Beirut, Lebanon, n.d., pp. 102–103.
[11] Nūr al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Jāmī, Naqd al-Nuṣūṣ fī Sharḥ Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ, p. 142.
[12] Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabi, translated by Farīd al-Zāhī, Manshūrāt al-Jamal, Cologne, Germany, 2nd ed., Baghdad, 2008, p. 236.
[13] Ibid., p. 243.
[14] Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabi, Kitāb al-Iʿlām bi-Ishārāt Ahl al-Ilhām, Ottoman Encyclopedia Society Press, 1st ed., Hyderabad, 1362 AH, p. 17.
[15] Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Tajalliyāt al-Ilāhiyya, p. 92.
* Wahm (the faculty of estimation) is a “motive faculty that sets in motion and governs the spiritual faculty preceding the intellect in perception. It rushes towards everything, and for this reason it is prone to error. It creates that is, estimates and forms—within every human being, through the rational soul distinguished from all other animals by its capacity for discursive thought, something within the power of the spiritual imagination that has no existence except within that faculty. This refers to anything or whatever the individual wishes to imagine. This is a general condition shared by every human being, whether a knower or otherwise.”
Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 1, pp. 304–305.
[16] Ibid., p. 304.
[17] Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 304.
*“As for the knower of God, he creates—that is, estimates and forms within himself through spiritual resolve (himma), not through estimation (wahm). Spiritual resolve is that which emanates from his heart in response to the command of his Lord. It is a power through which God Most High brings something into being […] The expression ‘something’ refers to a thing or any object that acquires an established existence outside the locus of spiritual resolve. Its existence arises from that locus, meaning from the power of God Most High through which this knower subsists, a power that emanates from him and directs itself towards the creation of the aforementioned object […]”
Ibid., p. 305.
[18] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 5, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, Cairo, 1977, p. 490.
[19] Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 8, p. 507.
* Ibn ʿArabi discusses this issue in detail in his work Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Later commentators sought to make his ideas more accessible to Sufi disciples and those interested in Sufism. For further discussion, see Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 1, p. 93 ff.
[20] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 14, pp. 467–468.
[21] Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, Al-Muʿjam al-Ṣūfī, Dar Nadra for Printing and Publishing, 1st ed., Beirut, Lebanon, 1981, p. 450.
[22] Al-Nābulusī, Jawāhir al-Nuṣūṣ fī Ḥall Kalimāt al-Fuṣūṣ, Vol. 1, p. 99.
[23] Yūsuf Zaydān, Ibn ʿArabi, al-Jīlī: Explaining the Difficulties of Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Dar al-Amīn, 1st ed., Cairo, 1999, pp. 201–202.
[24] Muḥammad ibn Barīka, Islamic Sufism: From Symbol to Gnosis, Dar al-Mutūn, 1st ed., Algiers, 2006, p. 328.
*“The World of Omnipotence (ʿĀlam al-Jabarūt): the world of the Divine Names and Attributes.
The World of the Command, the World of the Angelic Realm, and the World of the Unseen: the world of spirits and spiritual beings, since they came into existence through the command of the Real, without the intermediary of matter or duration.
The World of Creation, the World of Dominion, and the World of Witnessing: the world of bodies and corporeal beings, comprising that which comes into existence after the divine command through matter and duration.”
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī, Muʿjam Iṣṭilāḥāt al-Ṣūfiyya, Dar al-Manār, 1st ed., Cairo, 1992, p. 124.
[25] Ibn ʿArabi, Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 7, edited by ʿUthmān Yaḥyā, reviewed by Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Egyptian General Book Authority, Cairo, 1981, pp. 226–227.