Hū: Naming God Without Describing Him

A companion called Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ “the description of the Merciful,” and it opens on one word, huwa, “he,” the grammarians’ pronoun of the absent. From the dhikr that shrinks to a breath, through Rāzī’s ladder, Ibn ʿArabī’s letters and the Qurʾān’s “nothing like Him,” to Plotinus and the bewilderment (ḥayra) where knowing ends.

27 Oct 2026

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Talks and interviews

• Joseph Lumbard: My Favourite Mystic 22: Joseph Lumbard on Aḥmad al Ghazālī ↗
  My Favourite Mystic · talk page
  • 17:30 The ladder: sentence, name, then only “He”
• Mahmud Erol Kılıç: İbn Arabî | Mahmud Erol KıIıç | Tasavvuf101 ↗
  Gemi · talk page
  • 15:40 Any name limits God; He can only be pointed to with huwa
• Abdelbaqi Meftah: أسماء الله الحسنى في رؤية الشيخ محيي الدين ابن العربي (الجزء الأول)، عبد الباقي مفتاح ↗
  Ibn Arabi Interreligious Research Initiative · talk page
  • 23:15 Futūḥāt ch. 177 read aloud: huwa, the pronoun of absolute unseen-ness
• Stefan Sperl: Stefan Sperl "Ibn Arabi’s ‘Doves of the Arak Tree’ and its Antecedents" ↗
  Ibn 'Arabi Society · talk page
  • 9:13 Plotinus, Ibn ʿArabī and “there is no thing like him”
• Pierre Lory: "Oublie le chemin, tu parviendras à Dieu" par Pierre Lory ↗
  Conscience Soufie · talk page
  • 59:31 Discussion after the talk: Ḥallāj and the pronoun of the absent

Thinkers in this post

Joseph Lumbard Mahmud Erol Kılıç Abdelbaqi Meftah Stefan Sperl Pierre Lory