pale ivory; “blackness,” as predicated of the blackness of pitch and the blackness of the Abyssinians; “height,” as predicated of the height of the sky and the height of a ceiling; “vast,” as predicated of the sea and a vast house; “existence,” as predicated of that which is necessary in itself and of a possible being that exists through another, and of that which subsists in itself and that which subsists in another; the term qadīm (“old” or “beginningless”), as predicated of a date-palm stalk and of that which has no beginning; “newly originated,” as predicated of something brought about today and of everything Allah created after it had not existed; and “living,” as applied to human beings, animals, and plants, as well as to the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining, who never dies.

Not only that: the [Most Beautiful] (1) Names of Allah Most High that are also borne by His creatures—such as “King,” “Hearing,” “Seeing,” “Knowing,” and “Aware” (2), and the like—all belong to this category.

Thus, when it is said of all universal terms and their universal meanings—whether they are equal or differ in degree—that their individual instances share in them, agree in them, or the like, this does not mean that there is in external reality a universal meaning that exists (3) universally in external reality and is itself shared. Rather, it means that particular existents share in this universal, which is universal only in the knowledge of the knower, just as a universal term is universal only in a speaker’s utterance, and a universal written form is universal only in a writer’s writing.

By its being universal is meant its encompassing the particulars in external reality, not that it (4) is itself something