If this is so, you become identical with the thing described. But as explained above, this is not in word, but in ḥaqīqa (inner reality)... For speech is a shell, a veil. If you break the shell, lift the veil, and reach the essence, you will truly understand, in the real sense, that the knower is none other than yourself. At that point, knowledge is attributed to you. This is necessary (ḍarūrī). There is no need for further emphasis or for evidence to reinforce the meaning. For the attribute is dependent on, and follows, the one who possesses it. The attribute exists wherever its possessor exists. With the absence of the possessor, it ceases to exist as well.
According to specialists in the Arabic language, there are two kinds of attributes: ṣifat-i faḍāʾiliyya and ṣifat-i fāḍiliyya. Ṣifat-i faḍāʾiliyya are attributes related to the essence (the fundamental being) of a person, such as the attribute of life. Ṣifat-i fāḍiliyya, on the other hand, are connected to the person but can also exist apart from them. For example, being the possessor (ṣāḥib) of generosity, or qualities such as doing good. (Insān, I, 20)
O son, listen to this secret, which is difficult to comprehend! The very exalted and transcendent essential perfections at the rank of the Divine Essence (Ḥaḍrat al-Dhāt) are identical with the Essence itself. For example, the attribute of knowledge, which is among these manifest attributes at the highest level, is identical with the Divine Essence. Will, qudra (power), and other attributes are likewise. Again, at this level, the Divine Essence is entirely knowledge and entirely power; that is, the Essence is not partly knowledge, partly power, etc. At that level, division and partition are impossible. The perfections that have been abstracted from the Divine Essence have, at the rank of knowledge, become differentiated (that is, these perfections (kamālāt) have been set forth in detail through His knowledge), and thus, while the exalted and transcendent Divine Essence remains (without any increase or decrease in His Essence), a distinction has emerged between these two levels. Compared to the undifferentiated simplicity of the first level, which is unity (waḥdāniyya), at this (second) level, there is nothing that is not included in this detail and distinguished (differentiated, made distinct from one another). On the contrary, all perfections, each of which is identical with the Essence, have entered the rank of knowledge one by one, have acquired a shadowy existence (zillī wujūd) at this second level, and have been named as attributes. The existence of this shadowy wujūd (existence) is also possible only through its origin, the Divine Essence.
According to the author of the Fuṣūṣ (Ibn ʿArabī), the aʿyān al-thābita are precisely those detailed perfections that have acquired a notional existence at this rank of knowledge. In the opinion of this humble one...