1. اللّه حي لا يزال ولم يزل

    في ذاته وبذاته ولذاته

    God is living, evermore and from eternity,

    in His Essence, through His Essence, and by virtue of His Essence.

  2. لا شيء غير اللّه حي كائن

    للذات قام له وجود حياته

    Nothing other than God is a living being

    whose life exists by virtue of its essence.

  3. وحقائق الأسماء في اسم الحي إذ

    هو أول الأسماء في مرقاته

    And the realities of the Names are in the Name “Ever-Living,” since

    it is the first of the Names upon His stairway.

  4. رجعت إليه عين كل حقيقة

    من بعد جامع اسمه وصفاته

    The essence of every reality returns to it,

    after that which encompasses His Name and attributes.

  5. ومن المحال وجود ذات حقيقة

    لاسم وغير الحي أصل ثباته

    And no essential reality can exist

    for a Name whose subsistence rests on anything but the Ever-Living.

  6. والحي من تجب الحياة لذاته

    للذات ليس مخارج عن ذاته

    And the Ever-Living is He whose life is necessary through His Essence,

    belonging to the Essence, not departing from His Essence.

  7. والحي من ليست حياة عينه

    كلا ولا هي بعض غيرياته

    And the Ever-Living is He whose life is not His very Essence—

    no, nor is it among things other than Him.

  8. اللّه حي لا بمعنى زائد

    فيه قديم غير نفي مماته

    God is living, not through an added quality

    eternal within Him, other than the negation of His death.

  9. يكفي وجوب حياته للذات عن

    فوز الحياة مسبباً لثباته

    The necessity of His life to His Essence suffices, without

    attaining life as a cause of His subsistence.

  10. حياً وجوباً لا لموجب عارض

    فيكون مفتقراً لمفتقراته

    Alive by necessity, not through an incidental cause,

    for then He would depend on those dependent on Him.

  11. حياً وجوباً لا لكون حياته

    سبباً أقام له وجود حياته

    Alive by necessity, not because His life

    is a cause establishing for Him His life's existence.

  12. هذا وقوع الشيء علة ذاته

    ومن المحال الشيء علة ذاته

    This would make a thing the cause of itself;

    and it is impossible for a thing to be its own cause.

  13. ليس اعتدالاً في المزاج ولا قوى

    حس لجنس حياة مبتدعاته

    His life is not equilibrium of temperament, nor powers

    of sense, of the kind belonging to the life of His created beings.

  14. الذات كاف صحة استلزامها

    دون الوسيطة من قديم صفاته

    The Essence suffices for its valid entailment,

    without an intermediary, of His eternal attributes.

  15. الواجب الحق القديم يجل عن

    ايجاب واسطة خصوصياته

    The Necessary Being, the Real, the Eternal, is exalted above

    having His distinctive properties necessitated by an intermediary.

  16. تجب الصفات له وليست غيره

    وثوبتها في نفي سلبياته

    The attributes necessarily belong to Him and are not other than Him;

    and their affirmation lies in negating His privations.

  17. وتجاذب الأسماء موجوداتها

    لحقيقة اسم الحي جمع شتاته

    And the Names draw their manifestations together

    toward the reality of the Name “Ever-Living,” gathering its scattered parts.

  18. للحي هيمنة على الأسماء من

    حيث الظهور ومجد قيومياته

    The Ever-Living has dominion over the Names with

    regard to manifestation and the glory of His sustaining acts.

  19. وعلى كمالات الحياة توقفت

    آثار كل اسم بمأثوراته

    And upon the perfections of life depend

    the effects of every Name in what it produces.

  20. وظهور كل اسم بنور خصه

    فشعاعه الوقاد من مشكاته

    And every Name is manifested through a light peculiar to it;

    so its blazing ray comes from His lamp-niche.

  21. وظهور كل اسم بقوة فعله

    للحي سلطان على قواته

    And every Name is manifested through the power of its action;

    the Ever-Living has sovereignty over its powers.

  22. برزت ظهورات الصفات وكلها

    ممدودة من ماء عين حياته

    The manifestations of the attributes emerged, all of them

    sustained by the water of the spring of His life.