  And so on until the last intellect arises. This last intellect arising in the great cosmic chain of being is the active intellect, described by al-Farabi here as the “eleventh existence.” For al-Farabi, the active intellect is—as in other Arabic philosophical texts—the 10th of the emanated intellects; its description as “eleventh existence” does not challenge that idea, but simply follows from the fact that Farabi counts God as a first intellect above the other separate intellects, the first emanated intellect after God as the first intellect (separate, that is, from God), and so on until the active intellect, which, as the 10th emanated intellect after God, is the “eleventh existence,” (see PS II.3.9-10, W 105; PS IV.13.2, W 203). 