(336) It is related from our Master al-Sadiq—exalted be his glory—that he said: "Truly the Name is other than the Namer; the inhabitant is other than the inhabited—distinct from him in his originality, manifest in his perfection." The Mu'tazilites said: "The Name is other than the Namer," but they were blind to the true knowledge of that.

As for the theologians among the philosophers, they said: "The Name does not separate or disconnect from the Namer; it is from him like the ray from the solar disc, like the flame from the fire, like the coldness of the snow from the snow, like the whiteness of the cotton from the cotton, and like the ripples of the water from the water." Each of these attributes exists with its possessor; it is other than him, yet never parts from him, nor is he ever devoid of it.

A group of the People of Reality said: The Name was produced by the Namer and manifested for us so that we might recognize Him through him. This is because knowledge resides in us, and the need for His recognition belongs to us; the Meaning is independent of him and has no need for him. As for what I heard from the sheikhs I met, the People of Oneness collectively said: The Meaning—Exalted—was when there was neither place, nor epoch, nor time. When He willed to turn the massed into the split, stillness into motion, and being into observation, He invented the Name—exalted be his glory—from the light of His Essence. Through him, He created all His creatures and established him as His Name by which He is invoked, His intended Place, His Veil pointing to Him, and the Supreme Example of which God—the Mighty and Sublime—said: {And He it is who begins the creation, then repeats it, and that is easier for Him. To Him belongs the Supreme Example in the heavens and the earth. And He is the Mighty, the Wise.}¹