" Then know that Allah has described Himself as the Outawardly Manifest and the Inwardly
Hidden; He brought the universe into existence as a Visible world and an Unseen world
so that we might know the Hidden by the Unseen and the Manifest by the Visible. He
described Himself with pleasure and wrath, and so He brought the world into existence as a
place of fear and hope so we fear His wrath and hope for His pleasure. He described Himself
with majesty and beauty, so He brought the universe into existence with awe and intimacy. It
is the same for all that is connected with Him, may He be exalted, and by which He calls
Himself. He designates these pairs of attributes by the two hands which He held out in
the creation of the Perfect Man. Man sums up all the realities of the universe and its
individuals. So the universe is seen and the Khalif is unseen. It is with this meaning that the
Sultan veils himself, even as Allah is mentioned and described as having with veils of
darkness, which are natural bodies, and luminous veils which are subtle spirits (arwâh). The
universe is composed of both the gross and the subtle. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom