A thing’s face is its essence and reality. They are thus essential lights, between which and us lie the veils of the divine names. For this reason He said, “Everything perishes except His Face” [al-Qasas 28:88], according to one interpretation of this Face. In the comprehensive language of general expression, these glories are the lights of declaring transcendence: denying of Him what does not befit Him. They are judgments of nonexistence, for nonexistence in reality is what does not befit the Essence. Here is bewilderment! He is existence itself, so He is not declared transcendent beyond an existent affair. For this reason the divine names are relations, if you grasp it. The entities of possible things brought these relations about through the states they acquired from this Essence. Every state utters a name indicating it in respect of itself, whether through negation, affirmation, or both. These names fall into two divisions: one is entirely lights, the names indicating existent affairs; the other is entirely darknesses, the names indicating transcendence. He said, “God has seventy veils, or seventy thousand veils, of light and darkness. Were He to lift them, the glories of His Face would burn up whatever His sight perceives of His creation.”
Were He to remove the divine names, these veils would be removed. Were the veils that are these names removed, the Essence’s oneness would appear. No entity characterized by existence could withstand its oneness. It would take away the existence of the entities of possible things, so that they would not be described by existence. They admit being characterized by existence only through these names, and admit being characterized by all these judgments—
Notlar
Translator’s note TN3741-1: Subuḥāt, “glories,” is explained through essential lights and declaring transcendence. In “the entities of possible things brought these relations about,” the entities are read as the delayed subject of aḥdathat; the following clauses describe their acquiring states and each state uttering a name. Both seventy and seventy thousand veils are retained.
