The Supreme Bareakh said concerning God's knowledge that it is eternal. since He who is described bv it is eternal.

lienee I lis knowledge of 'the things is eternal, without any beginning. It is said concerning the knowledge of the creature that it is tempurally originated, for he who is described by it at first was not. and then he came to be. Hence his attributes are like himself: Their property did not become manifest within him until
after the existence of his entity. Hence his Nature

knowledge is temporally originated like himself. But knowledge in itself docs not change from its own reality in relation to itself. In every essence it accords with its own reality and entity. Hut it has no existential entity except the entity of that which it describes. So it remains in its
root: all intelligible thing. thing. not an existent

The example of this in the sensory

realm is whiteness in every white thing and blackness in every black thing. This is in the case of colors. The same holds true: in shapes: rectangularity in every rectan-

gular thing. roundness in every round thing. octagonality in every octagon. The shape keeps its own essence in every thing that has shape: it accords with the intelligibility of its own reality. That which the senses perceive is only the thing which has shape. not the shape, while the shape is :111 intelligible: concept. Were the thing which has shape identical with the shape. shape could not become manifest ill a similarly shaped thing. But it is obvious that the one thing possessing shape is not the same as the other. These arc sirn ilitudes struck for the universal realities by which the Real and the creature are qualified. In the case of the Real they arc "names," and in the case of the creature they are "engendered things"
(akwtil1). (II 432.16)

When fbn al-'Arabi discusses the Supreme Barzakh as Universal Reality or Reality of Realities, he also refers to it as the Third Thing (ai-shay' (ll-thti/ith). He divides things into three kinds: that which exists in itself (i.c., the Necessary Being), that which exists through the other (i.c., everything other than God), and the Third Thing, which is neither existent nor nonexistent.'1

Ibn al-'Arabi' calls the Supreme Barzakh by several other names. such as the Reality of the Perfect Man and the Muhammadan Reality; these and other names call to mind related concepts which would take LIS far from the concerns of the presem work. However. it will be fitting to conclude this section with a brief analysis of one more synonym for the Supreme Barzakh, i.e., Nature. This term is fundamental to all philosophical cosmology. 13y identifying the Barzakh and Nature, Ibn al-'Arabi relates his cosmological teachings. which grow LIp from the various names which can be applied to the Barzakh, directly to the philosophical tradition. By discussing Nature here. we opt:n a door to cosmology as such, especially since Ibn al-f Arabi gives the term two basic meanings, the second of which refers to a reality which is itself a barzakh between Nature as the Supreme Barzakh and the things of the cosmos. But to develop the concept in any detail would take us in the direction of analyzing Jbn aJ-'Arabl's visionary cosmos in detail, and this is the task for another book, The root (.b.'., from which the words tabla and tab' arc derived. means to provide with an imprint. to impress, to mark with a seal or a special characteristic. Hence "nature" signifies tbe sum total of the peculiarities which arc stamped into something, that is, the thing's characteristics, character, temperament, or constitution. The word tabla alludes to the feminine side of a male/female, active/receptive, or yang/yin relationship. To speak of tabi' is to mention an "impression" and at thc same time; to point to a reality which has made the impression, a fact which is brought home in the Koranic usage of the word tab'; which refers to God's "sealing" the hearts of the un believers. Hence, the word calls to mind receptivity toward an activity coming from above. In this rel39