On Knowing Allah...

Allah communicates to us knowledge of Himself through contemplation of the in-time. He tells us that He shows us His signs in the in-time, so we draw conclusions about Him through ourselves. We do not describe Him with any quality without also possessing that quality, with the exception of that essential autonomy. Since we know Him by ourselves and from ourselves, we attribute to Him all that we attribute to ourselves. For that reason, divine communications came down on the tongues of our interpreters, and so He described Himself to us through ourselves. When we witness, He witnesses Himself. We are certainly numerous as individuals and species, yet we are based on a single reality which unites us. So we certainly know that there are distinctions between individuals. If there were not, there would be no multiplicity in the One. - Shaykh al Akbar Muhi-d-Din Ibn al-'Arabi