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Question No. 3369 2 November 2023 Official answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) verified Content level: Intermediate

Could you explain the Greatest Veil and the Greatest Names in more detail?

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The essence and first answer at a glance (60-word summary)

The Greatest Veil is connected to the Greatest Names. The relationship of pure delight and beauty with the Creator transcends beauty and delight. At the beginning of creation, the Divine Will is the Greatest Name; because it is created, it serves as a veil. The Essence of Allah cannot be pointed to, and the Will is a veil that guides the servant toward knowledge of Allah.

Answer by Master Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat)

Teacher and researcher in the intellectual tradition of wisdom and the Ahl al-Bayt | Soroush Bamdadān Cultural Center

With regard to the phrase:

“The individuation of absolute beauty and absolute pleasure through the Greatest Veil goes back to the Greatest Names; and the relation between absolute pleasure and absolute beauty and the Creator is one that transcends beauty and pleasure, for the Creator is beyond both.”

The created world is connected to the Creator solely through the Creator’s act of creating—through nothing else. The will issued from the sacred presence of the Real is the highest sign of God for the creature. At the beginning of creation, that will may be understood as the Greatest Name. Since the creature’s knowledge of God is confined to this very will, the first Greatest Name is that first will: God’s will in its purest form. By way of approximation, we may treat the Greatest Name and the first will as one and the same. But will is created, and so it serves as a covering, a veil. Since this veil is other than the Essence of God, Glorified and Exalted is He, it is a veil of grace that guides the servant towards knowledge of God. That is why we have called the Greatest Veil the Greatest Names. The covering itself is the sign! For the Essence of God cannot be pointed to—not by word, meaning, name, or any veil.

Now, each will brings into being a world of Names and veils!

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