We seek among the Names only those through which the existence of the cosmos subsists. The Names became too numerous for us, so we turned to their lords and entered their Presences. We found none but those we have mentioned, and we have presented them according to how we witnessed them.
(The Most Beautiful Names’ Turning toward the Name God to Bring Our Entities into Existence)
The cause of the lords of the Names turning toward the Name God to bring our entities into existence was the remaining Names. The first to arise in pursuit of this cosmos were the Names the Disposer and the Differentiator, at the request of the Name the King. When the two turned toward the thing from which the model arose within the Knowing, there was no preceding nonexistence. Rather, the precedence was one of rank, not existence: like the sun’s rising preceding the beginning of the day. Although the beginning of the day coincides with sunrise, it is clear that sunrise causes the existence of the beginning of the day, while accompanying it in existence. Such is this matter.
When these two Names disposed the cosmos and differentiated it, without preceding ignorance of it or lack of knowledge, and the form of the model arose within the Knowing, His Name the Knowing then became connected with that model, just as it became connected with the form from which the model was taken. That form is unseen because it is nonexistent, as we shall mention in the chapter on that from which the cosmos came into existence.
These two Names are thus the first Names of the cosmos. The Name the Disposer determined the appointed time of bringing it into existence. The Willing then became connected with it precisely according to—
