Huwa, Divine Ipseity, and the Sacred House
Reflections on Súrat al-Huwa of the Qayyúmu’l-Asmáʼ
This post is adapted from session from the Qayyúmu’l-Asmáʼ seminar titled ‘Secrets within Secrets’, hosted by Lamp of Search in fall 2025. Select session recordings are available for paid subscribers. This post adapts an excerpt of the transcript from a session devoted to reviewing Surahs 45 through 74 of the QA. It is a useful conversational companion to the public post, a Compilation, On the Divine Ipseity (Hūwīyyah) in the Bahá’í Writings.
Let’s begin this session with Surah 45, Sūrat al-Huwa — the “Surah of He is [God]”
Sūrat al-Huwa — the “Surah of He is [God]”
At first glance, the word Huwa seems deceptively simple. In Arabic, it is simply the third-person pronoun: he or it. You encounter it constantly in ordinary speech:
huwa sadīqī — “he [is] my friend.”
But in theological and mystical discourse, Huwa has a far deeper significance.
Within Islamic spirituality, Huwa is almost inseparable from reference to God, with special relevance to His Essence. It thus transcends its grammatical & conventional role and becomes a profound affirmation of divine unity (tawḥīd). The very utterance “He is [God]” becomes charged with metaphysical and theological significance.
We will see how the very nature of the pronoun “He” becomes metaphysically charged and how it is this meaning that this Sūrah title alludes to. In this fuller theological & mystical context, the very statement “He is” thus becomes a departure point for profound reflections on transcendent ontological and metaphysical truths.
Huwa and the Question of Being
Classical Islamic philosophy developed an entire conceptual and devotional vocabulary around this seemingly simple pronoun in the course of its interaction with the fruits of the Greco-Roman philosophers, such as the works of Aristotle. One of the key terms derived from this engagement is ‘huwiyya’ ; if we translated this very directly, it would mean something like “he-ness” or “this-ness”. Often this is translated as “ipseity”, the philosophical concept indicating selfhood, identity, and the particular entity in its individual essence. Huwiyya as a word is the abstraction of huwa into a conceptual category, ripe for philosophical exploration. With respect to God it relates to the fundamental identity, the supreme ontological reality, of the Divine Being.
If you’re familiar with ‘ontology’, this is may not be an unfamiliar concept. Ontology ~ the study of being or existence at its most fundamental level ~ is one of the classical branches of philosophy, alongside others such as epistemology, which concerns knowledge, what it means to know, and how we know what we know.
These terms largely come to us, at least in the Western tradition, through the classical Greek philosophers — Plato, Aristotle, and so on. The word ontology coming from the Greek ṓn [ὤν] and óntos [ὄντως], “being”, that which is “actual; real”.
But in Arabic philosophical discourse, the equivalent conceptual territory is often expressed through terms like huwiyya, which is rendered in English with “ipseity,” “thisness,” or “isness.” Indeed it was a term developed expressly as an analogue to the equivalent Greek philosophical concepts.
Without some familiarity with this language, “thisness” or “is-ness” ventures into the nonsensical at first glance, so let’s unpack it a little more.
To understand this, let’s briefly distinguish two philosophical ideas coming to us from the Latin:
Quiddity (lit. whatness): refers to ‘what’ kind of thing something is, which is another way of referring to an essence or inherent nature. It is a term derived from an interrogative question: ‘what is this thing?’ or literally, ‘what is’ [quid est]; quid + -itas [-ness].
Ipseity (thisness or he-ness): coming from the demonstrative/intensive pronoun ipse, meaning “himself, herself, itself, the very, the actual”; in the philosophical context this has the basic meaning of what makes a particular thing uniquely itself, in other words ‘identity’.
Quiddity refers to what something is, considered in terms of its essence or kind. So if I ask, “What is Aaron?” the answer would be: “Aaron is a human being” [one can presume]. That answer does not identify Aaron as ‘this particular individual’, but states what he is according to his species. Aaron is an individual substance, while “human being” names the kind or essence under which he falls. His quiddity, therefore, is humanity, or being human.
By contrast, ipseity refers to what specifically makes me me. If we ask: “What makes Aaron Aaron?”, here we move into the realm of ipseity, or in the Arabic, huwiyya — this is my specific identity, my irreducible particularity, the qualities by which I am this person rather than someone else. In the technical sense it is a thing’s capacity to subsist on its own or to take on existence. It signaled something’s essential identity as opposed to its quiddity.
When we apply this concept to God, al-Huwiyya refers to what we can term the “Divine Ipseity” — the specific identity or essence of God, the unique reality of ‘the One’ who is, the reality of the Divine beyond generalized descriptions. It is now “what God is,” [the God], but the mystery of the ‘Essential Identity’ who is and its supreme self-subsistence.
In Arabic philosophical discourse, the word huwiyya points toward this latter meaning also on devotional and theological grounds. As we saw, it is derived from the Arabic 3rd person pronoun Huwa made into an abstract noun so on a basic level it signifies ‘identity’, and in the philosophical sense all that applies to the concept of ipseity. But from a devotional and theological level the phrase is inseparable the omnipresent devotional refrain of “Huwa Allāh” — “He is God”, found in the Qur’an and as a mainstay of Islamic spirituality [cf. Q112:1, passim]. It is thus philosophically and spiritually charged. The pronoun Huwa itself evokes the divine & sacred by connection to the Word of God in the Qur’an and one’s devotional life. By extension in the concept al-Huwiyya, it becomes a reference to the highest expression of God’s uniqueness and singularity, the Hidden Essence.
Throughout the Qayyūm al-Asmāʾ, the Báb repeatedly makes reference to the devotional refrain “Huwa Allah”: “lā ilāha illā huwa | “There is no god but Him”” in hundreds of instances; it is also omnipresent in Bahá’i prayers. This exact phrasing subtly shifts the familiar Islamic formula of the shahada [the testimony of faith] by inputting “Huwa” where “Allah” is traditionally used. Elsewhere, He and Bahá’u’lláh make specific mentions of al-Huwiyyah as a term directly. See the following post for examples:
“I Am” and “He Is”
There is an interesting parallel & continuity with the Biblical tradition here as well.
In the Hebrew Bible and later the New Testament, one encounters the divine declaration: “I Am”, in such phrasings as “I am the Lord”, and most famously “I am that I am” [Exodus 3:14].
In the New Testament, Christ specifically calls this to mind in John 8:58: “Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
From a spiritual-linguistic point of view, these testimony can be understood as God and Jesus speaking directly from the divine positionality.
In the Islamic dispensation, “He is” is arguably the equivalent structure of similar stature; however, we see the positionality has shifted into a different grammatical orientation. That is why it functions as a testimony of divine unity [tawḥīd]. In every statement of ‘He is’, one is affirming the reality of God. Rather than God speaking directly in the first person, it is the believer bearing witness to God’s absolute transcendence and pointing away from themselves.
Yet within the theology of ‘theophany’ or Manifestation-hood, we know there are twin stations at play. The Manifestation may speak from one positionality and another at different times. One, the station of servitude, points toward God as “He”. At another they simultaneously the appearance of divine revelation itself, and hence can just as well say ‘I am’ from the divine positionality (as seen in the statement of Christ in John cited above).
This profound tension between absolute transcendence and revelation/manifestation is explored extensively in Bahá’í theology; the quintessential exploration is in the Kitáb-i-Íqán. There, Bahá’u’lláh addresses how the Manifestation both speaks on behalf of God and yet is not identical with the unknowable Essence, but rather, is His highest and first creation, the Primal Will or First Intellect.
Thus, Huwiyya — divine ipseity — is one of the key conceptual tools for navigating this tension between transcendence and revelation.
Why These Terms Matter
Without some familiarity with concepts like ipseity, quiddity, essence, and being, portions of the Bahá’í Writings can feel nearly impenetrable. These are fundamental aspects of ‘First Philosophy’. Yet do not let the ‘First’ here fool you, first means first in importance, rank, and fundamental role, not first in the sequence of understanding! Ultimately, such matters are the most challenging to grapple with, and perhaps best reserved, ironically, for last!
Yet grapple with them we must if we wish to gain an understanding of the Báb’s and Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings, for we do find them in use in numerous instances.
Huwiyya directly appears in many instances. One of our available translations from the Qayyum’u’l-Asma, for example, translates huwiyya as “divine ipseity”, in line with our discussions above. In one Surah, we find it used in this verse:
“…Veiled up within the theophanic cloud of the divine ipseity.”
That language can sound forbiddingly exalted or abstract unless one grapples with the underlying philosophical & symbolic vocabulary [ipseity, theophanic, the cloud, etc.]. But once we do grapple with them, an entire dimension of the text opens up, and a new level of revelatory discourse becomes available.
In such instances the Báb is participating in a centuries-long, millennia-spanning metaphysical discourse concerning the nature of reality, identity, essence, divine manifestation, and Existence/Being itself. So, this is exploration is really about building that basic familiarity with the conceptual world the Báb has chosen to operate within by use of these concepts, not merely a philosophical exercise.
The Sacred House in the Heart
All this is just background on the title of the Surah! Let’s turn to more content from the Surah 45 itself, for which our available translated excerpts are few.
We only have a translation of the first full verse, from Nader Saiedi’s book, the Gate of the Heart:
«… فإنّا قد جعلنا البيت الحرام في قلبه بالحقّ …»
“…For verily We have appointed the Sacred House in truth to be in His heart …”
~ the Báb, QA45:4c, provisional translation
The phrase “Sacred House” obviously has a very specific meaning within the Islamic dispensation, the Kaaba in Mecca. But more broadly, it calls forth the entire sacred geography of Islam: Mecca, Medina, Karbala, Najaf, Jerusalem, and other sanctified places.
Each carries enormous devotional and eschatological significance within Islamic sacred history.
One of the things the Báb repeatedly does throughout His writings ~ especially the Persian Bayán ~ is resituate these inherited sacred categories in relation to His own Revelation and the onset of a new age of mankind.
There are entire sections of the Persian Bayān devoted to spiritually interpreting and reconstituting concepts like:
the Sacred House,
pilgrimage,
holy lands,
sacred directions,
eschatological symbols,
and so on. The Báb continually reframes these concepts so that they become centered on:
The Person of the Manifestation of God,
Their Revelation,
the Book,
Their sacred reality.
So when He says:
“We have appointed the Sacred House in truth to be in his heart,”
He is recentering sacredness itself away from association with an outward form, which is a material building in a specific geography. The true Sacred House is no longer [or ever was] merely a physical structure in a geographical location. The deeper principle is that the sacredness of place does not exist independently of its relationship to the Divine. It derives its sacredness from divine designation and its association with a Revelation as it appears in time, history, and place.
Its true reality, then, exists actually within the heart, or the fundamental essence, of the Manifestation of God.
Why the Qibla Can Change
Among many profound implications, this principle explains the changing of the Qibla in Islamic history. Jerusalem was once the direction of prayer; later, the Prophet Muhammad designated Mecca as the Qibla, instituting a complete reorientation of sacred geography. The sacredness was never inherent in soil or stone itself. Rather, sanctity flowed from God’s will as expressed through the Manifestation.
When Muhammad changed the Qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca, the sacredness did not arise because Mecca possessed some intrinsic holiness independent of revelation. Rather, sacredness derives from divine designation.
The place becomes holy because God sanctifies it through association with revelation and the Manifestation. In principle, the divine will could have designated any point on earth as the Qibla.
This is something the Báb is extremely emphatic about in the Persian Bayán: the holiness of places, objects, laws, and forms derives entirely from their relationship to divine revelation. The sacredness is not inherent in the dust itself.
This idea has enormous implications. It recenters sacred geography, sacred law, and sacred history around the living pulse of revelation throughout history, moving us away from an attachment to inherited forms and outer semblences. This is a paramount principle, because very often religious communities become attached to the form of revelation rather than its essential reality.
When a new Manifestation appears and changes certain laws or sacred orientations, believers can become scandalized by the alteration. But if one truly understands that the essence of sacredness lies in association with the Manifestation of God, then these transformations become comprehensible.
If the same divine reality has returned in a new form, changes in law, sacred orientation, or devotional structure become not only possible but expected, even necessary. They become diverse expressions of the same underlying essence.
This is naturally intuitive for Bahá’ís, because progressive revelation is the centerpiece of Bahá’í theology, and is so central to the Faith. This opening passage of the Surah gives us a very direct example of that principle in action: the Sacred House is ultimately located within the heart of the Manifestation when He appears anew. Any designation of holiness or place is ultimately secondary to that reality, and hence is subject to change.
— EXCERPT ENDS HERE —
Further Reading:
[1] The Archeology of the Kingdom of God by Jean-Marc Lepain
[2] Baha’Allah’s Tafsir Huwa (Hu), The Commentary on the Huwa “He is” (God), introduction and provisional translations by Stephen Lambden
[3] Avicenna’s Philosophical Approach to the Qur’an in the Light of His Tafsir Surat al-Ikhlas by Daniel De Smet & Meryem Sebti
[3] Lala, Ismail. “Chapter 3 Al-Qāshānī and Huwiyya”. In Knowing God: Ibn ʿArabī and ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī’s Metaphysics of the Divine, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019)
[4] Stephen Lambden, Notes on Huwa and Huwiyya in Babi and Baha’i Contexts
