When both are considered in relation to attribution (izāfa), you call one sensory and the other intellectual; when both are considered in relation to each other by attribution, you call them sublime and lowly. Sometimes, one is named ʿālam-i mulk wa shahāda (the world of dominion and witnessing), while the other is called the world of the unseen and malakūt.
Someone who investigates the realities of words may be astonished (ḥayra) at the sheer number of terms and may think there are many meanings. However, the one to whom the ḥaqīqas (inner realities) are unveiled accepts the meanings as primary and the words as subordinate to those meanings. The situation is the opposite for one who is weak in this matter, for he tries to derive the realities from the words. (Mishkāt, 70)
There are two worlds: the first is the world of the unseen (ʿālam-i ghayb), and the other is the world of shahāda (witnessing), free from doubt. There are also two rulers: the first ruler is the Name al-Ẓāhir (the Manifest), and the other ruler is the Name al-Bāṭin (the Hidden), which does not admit analogy. (Latāʾif, 56)
Regarding the understanding of tanzīh (transcendence) and tashbīh (immanence), the circles we have described are as follows: the white circles surrounded by two black lines are examples of the circles of Divine Presence (Ilāhī Ḥaḍra) pertaining to tanzīh. When this encompasses everything, Allah says: "Unquestionably, He encompasses all things." "Allah encompasses all things in knowledge." (al-Ṭalāq 65:12)
The white circle separated by a round line in the middle is the human circle. The part from the small round single line toward the Divine Presence is an example of the human being's resemblance to the Divine Presence. The part from the smallest line to an even smaller line is an example of the human being's resemblance to the material world. The section divided into four within it is to enumerate the worlds as a whole.
The white circle surrounding the center is the circle of the world over which the human being is khalīfa (vicegerent) and which has been placed under his command. The four lines outside the center, up to the place encompassed by the divisions among the worlds, are the intervals separating the worlds. This is an example of the realization of the secret we have set forth. (Inshāʾ, 24)
Ārās-i ilāhiyya: ... Ārās is derived from taʿrīs and refers to a person being hosted at a certain house during a journey. There are two kinds of journeys: spiritual and sensory. The sensory journey is well known. The spiritual journey is when certain meanings continuously and successively arise in the qalb (the heart), following one another. When these meanings come to the qalb and unite with it, that qalb becomes a place where these meanings are joined. This union is to express the incoming meaning as a reality. The reason for attributing this to Allah is that Allah sends those meanings to the qalb and makes the qalb a locus for those meanings to appear. These are the 94 worlds.
Subsisting by itself, by itself, not by another
like bodies and spatially located substances, separated
like spatially located intellects
Not subsisting by itself or by another
subsisting by another, non-existent or
spatially located, not existent
like accidents that are by another or
Among the states of the Exalted Truth (God) about which He says: "Every day He is upon a matter (kulla yawmin huwa fī shaʾn)" (He is each day engaged in a new affair, a new creation). That ḥāl (spiritual state) world is in a state of journeying upon the continuity of dunyā (this world) and the hereafter. For the Real (al-Ḥaqq), the acts of creation are based on the continuity of this world and the hereafter. (Futūḥāt, III, 498)
The world is the second shadow. It is, together with the forms of possible existents, the Manifestation of the Real...