The Single Monad Model of the Cosmos

We have already discussed the unique Unity of Allah and the diversity of His divine Names in section V.3. In Ibn Arabi's wider metaphysical perspective, the divine Names just like the spiritual world of the angels, prophets and saints are also arranged in a corresponding specific metaphysical hierarchy. In section III.1, we have already encountered the four and seven fundamental divine Names which correspond to the four awtad and the seven abdal respectively. But Ibn Arabi talks about this hierarchy of the divine Names in more detail early on in chapter four of the Futuhat. Here we only want to draw the attention to his explanation there of the difference between the two key divine Names 'Allah' and 'the All-Merciful' (al-Rahman).

Already in his al-Tadbirat al-Ilahiyya, Ibn Arabi compares the relation between those two Names with the cosmological/metaphysical relation between the Throne and the Single Monad, as we explained in section 6 above (see also: Tadbirat: 89). Because the Single Monad is itself also called 'the Throne', Ibn Arabi says that in cosmological language Allah mounted on the Throne of the Single Monad, while the All-Merciful mounted on the Throne (following the literal Qur anic verses that we discussed earlier in section I.4. So the relation between these two Names is like the relation between the two divine 'Thrones'. It is to be noted here that the Name 'the All-Merciful' is more specifically described by all the multiplicity of the divine Names, just like the Name Allah. For as Allah said in Qur an: Call upon Allah or call upon the All-Merciful, Whoever you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful Names (17:110). So the Name Allah is also described by all the divine Names, but the Name 'the All-Merciful' is closer to the multiplicity of the world through those diverse divine Names. Likewise, the Throne that encompasses the heavens and earth is a place of manifest multiplicity, whereas the Single Monad, in its mysterious intrinsic 'hiddenness', is more described by the transcendent divine qualities of unity and oneness.