The Level of Divine Attributes and Their Types

مرتبہ صفاتِ الٰہیہ — اقسام صفات

The Divine Attributes (Sifāt Ilāhiyya) are of several kinds. The author classifies them as follows: (1) Haqīqiyya Mahda — purely real attributes, such as Existence (Wujūd), Oneness (Ahadiyya), and Eternity (Qidam). (2) Haqīqiyya dhāt Idāfa — real attributes with a relational dimension, such as Life (Hayāt), Knowledge ('Ilm), Power (Qudra), Will (Irāda), Speech (Kalām), Hearing (Sam'), and Sight (Basar). These seven are known as the 'Mother Attributes' (Ummahāt al-Sifāt). (3) Idāfiyya Mahda — purely relational attributes, such as being Creator, Sustainer, and so on, which necessarily imply a created world.

The seven Mother Attributes — Life, Knowledge, Power, Will, Speech, Hearing, and Sight — are those without which Divinity cannot be conceived. They are real, eternal, and subsist in the Divine Essence without addition or separation. Denying them leads to the error of the Mu'tazila; affirming them as material or corporeal leads to the error of the Mujassima.

The Divine Names are further grouped as: the Names of the Inner (Bātin) and the Outer (Zāhir), the First (Awwal) and the Last (Ākhir) — each pair pointing to a dimension of the Divine Self-disclosure. The twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet are said by the masters of wisdom to correspond to degrees and levels of Divine self-manifestation.