 It was noted that one of Ibn ‘Arabî’s cosmological schemes describes the universe in terms of twenty-eight letters that articulate words in the All-Merciful Breath. Twenty-one of these letters correspond to stages of the descending arc, which reaches its lowest point with the four elements. The remaining letters designate the stages of the ascending arc, beginning with minerals, going on to plants, animals, angels, and jinn, and then on to man, the twenty-seventh letter. The twenty-eighth and final letter designates “the levels, stations, and stages”, that is, the invisible degrees of perfection achieved by the unfolding of human souls on the path of the Return.