The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names of God in the Qurʾan

A Sufi scholar’s philosophical interpretation of the names of God The Divine Names is a philosophically sophisticated commentary on the names of God. Penned by the seventh-/thirteenth-century North African scholar and Sufi poet ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī, The Divine Names expounds upon the one hundred and forty-six names of God that appear in the Qurʾan, including The All-Merciful, The Powerful, The First, and The Last. In his treatment of each divine name, al-Tilimsānī synthesizes and compares the views of three influential earlier authors, al-Bayhaqī, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Barrajān. Al-Tilimsānī famously described his two teachers Ibn al-ʿArabī and al-Qūnawī as a “philosophizing mystic” and a “mysticizing philosopher,” respectively. Picking up their mantle, al-Tilimsānī merges mysticism and philosophy, combining the tenets of Akbarī Sufism with the technical language of Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Avicennan philosophy as he explains his logic in a rigorous and concise way. Unlike Ibn al-ʿArabī, his overarching concern is not to examine the names as correspondences between God and creation, but to demonstrate how the names overlap at every level of cosmic existence. The Divine Names shows how a broad range of competing theological and philosophical interpretations can all contain elements of the truth. A bilingual Arabic-English edition. Frontmatter Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Map: al-Andalus, the Maghrib, and the Near East in al-Tilimsānī’s day Note on the Text Notes to the Introduction The Opening Surah The Surah of the Cow The Surah of the House of ʿImrān The Surah of Women The Surah of the Cattle The Surah of the Heights The Surah of the Spoils The Surah of Jonah The Surah of Hūd The Surah of Joseph The Surah of the Thunder The Surah of Abraham The Surah of the Bee The Surah of the Night Journey The Surah of the Cave The Surah of Mary The Surah of Ṭā Hā The Surah of the Prophets The Surah of the Pilgrimage The Surah of Light The Surah of the Criterion The Surah of the Poets The Surah of the Ants The Surah of the Story The Surah of the Byzantines The Surah of the Parties The Surah of Sheba The Surah of the Cleaver The Surah of the Concealer The Surah of the Private Chambers The Surah of the Scatterers The Surah of the Mount The Surah of the Star The Surah of the All-Merciful The Surah of Iron The Surah of the Gathering The Surah of the Congregational Prayer The Surah of the Kingdom The Surah of the Ascending Pathways The Surah of the Jinn The Surah of the Constellations The Surah of Sincerity Concluding Prayer Notes Glossary Bibliography Further Reading Index of Qurʾanic Verses Index of Arabic Poetry Index of the Names Index About the NYUAD Research Institute About the Typefaces Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature About the Editor–Translator A Sufi scholars philosophical interpretation of the names of God The Divine Names is a philosophically sophisticated commentary on the names of God. Penned by the seventh-/thirteenth-century North African scholar and Sufi poet Aff al-Dn al-Tilimsn, The Divine Names expounds upon the one hundred and forty-six names of God that appear in the Quran, including The All-Merciful, The Powerful, The First, and The Last. In his treatment of each divine name, al-Tilimsn synthesizes and compares the views of three influential earlier authors, al-Bayhaq, al-Ghazl, and Ibn Barrajn. Al-Tilimsn famously described his two teachers Ibn al-Arab and al-Qnaw as a philosophizing mystic and a mysticizing philosopher, respectively. Picking up their mantle, al-Tilimsn merges mysticism and philosophy, combining the tenets of Akbari Sufism with the technical language of Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Avicennan philosophy as he explains his logic in a rigorous and concise way. Unlike Ibn al-Arab, his overarching concern is not to examine the names as correspondences between God and creation, but to demonstrate how the names overlap at every level of cosmic existence. The Divine Names shows how a broad range of competing theological and philosophical interpretations can all contain elements of the truth.