Oriental Mysticism: Part II: Chapter II. Concerning the Attributes of God

This is a 19th-century scholarly exposition of Sufi Islamic theology, drawn from E.H. Palmer's *Oriental Mysticism* (1867), presenting classical Muslim metaphysical debates about the divine Names and Attributes. The central dispute is between two medieval Sufi authorities: Sheikh Sa'ad-ud-dín Hamawí, who holds that Attributes are intrinsic to God's Nature while Names are descriptive of His Aspect, and Sheikh Sadr-ud-dín Rúmí, who argues the Attributes are simultaneously identical to and distinct from God's Nature — identical because nothing exists outside His Nature, yet necessarily multiple because distinct concepts require distinct terms. The text then lays out the standard Sufi classification of divine Names into three categories: Positive Attributes (eternal qualities like Living and Omnipotent, which constitute the "four pillars of Divinity"), Relative Attributes (powers expressed in relation to creation, such as Giver of Life and Death), and Negative Attributes (names denoting the absence of imperfection, such as The Holy One). A notably distinctive claim is that the name *Allah* stands apart from this entire classification system, functioning as a meta-name that encompasses all other attributes and can grammatically qualify any of them. The passage also reflects the Quranic doctrine that all divine names, however various, point to a single God — grounded in the Islamic dogma that the Quran and the Arabic language itself are pre-existent to creation.

Oriental Mysticism: Part II: Chapter II. Concerning the Attributes of God

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