Thus, each of the divine names requires a different mirror. And, since Merciful and Provider, for example, are real and fundamental, they require beings worthy of them who are needy for sustenance and compassion. Just as All-Merciful requires real beings with spirits needy for sustenance in a real world, so too, All-Compassionate requires a paradise which is thus real. To maintain that only the names of Existent, Necessarily Existent, and Single One of Unity are real and that the other names are mere shadows within them, is a sort of injustice towards those other names.

It is due to this mystery that the great highway is surely the highway of the Companions, the Purified Ones, the Imams of the Prophet’s Family, and the great interpreters of the law and founders of the four schools of law, who possessed greater sainthood and were directly the first class of the Qur’an’s students.

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise.(2:32)

O our Sustainer!  Do not  cause  our hearts  to  swerve  now that You have guided us, and bestow mercy on us from You; for You are the Bestower of Gifts.(3:8)

O God! Grant blessings to the one whom You sent as a Mercy to all the worlds, and to all his Family and Companions.

         An Addendum to the Second Matter

Q u e s t i o n : Muhyi’l-Din al-‘Arabi considered the Unity of Existence to be of the  highest  level.  Likewise,  some  of  the  great  saints  who  took  the  path  of  love followed him. However, you say that this matter is not of the highest level, and is not real;  that  it  is rather  the way,  to  a degree,  of those  who  become  intoxicated  and immersed in the divine, and of the people of love and ecstasy. So what, briefly, is the high level of the affirmation of divine unity pointed  out by the clear  verses of the Qur’an,  through  the mystery of the legacy of prophethood? Can you explain it?