 The word used to designate the Essence, al-dhât, is a pronoun meaning “possessor of”. Originally it was an abbreviation for dhât al-asmâ’, “the possessor of the names”; hence the synonymous term, al-musammâ, “the Named”. The Koran refers to the Essence as “He” (huwa), which alerts us only to the fact that something is there. The word can just as well be translated as “It”, of course, because the Essence is beyond gender, but Arabic grammar classifies all nouns and pronouns as either masculine or feminine (indeed, when speaking of the Essence, Ibn ‘Arabî and others use the pronoun hiya, “She”, because dhât is feminine, and they sometimes explain why the Essence is more properly feminine than masculine; Murata 1992, 196–99). What we know from the names is that “He/She” is merciful, knowing, alive, and so on, but in itself the Essence remains unknown. Each name designates a specific quality that becomes manifest the moment there is talk of the Real (al-haqq) and creation (al-khalq). Hence Ibn ‘Arabî says that the divine names can properly be called relations (nisab).