The ranking of names in the Futuhât al-makkiyya

"The divine names that are attributed to the real have various levels in attribution. Some of them depend upon others, some of them supervise others, and some have a more inclusive connection to the cosmos and more effects within it than others. The whole cosmos is the loci of manifestation for these divine names."

" We know that some names—whichever they might be—are uplifted above all others in degrees, so that some may make use of others. We know that the degree of the Alive is the most tremendous degree among the names, since it is the precondition for the existence of the names. We also know that the knowledge of the Knowing is more inclusive in connection and more tremendous encompass than the Powerful and the Desiring, since names like these have less inclusive connections than the knowing. They are like gatekeepers for the Knowing."

  The Sufi path of knowledge, William Chittick,  State University of New York press, 1989, pagse 48 – 49

Commentary

Here, al 'Arabi unerringly assigns a hierarchy of development to the effects of the divine names, indicating that the Knowing is superior to both the Powerful and the Desiring. 

It may be of interest to note that he has specifically named the triad 428 (power, desire, wisdom) in this passage. Al 'Arabi associates the specific attributes of identifiable triads together often enough that one must presume he understood the relationships in much the same way as the enneagram depicts them.

 It's necessary to mention here that the names themselves are all of equal value, in the same way that every chakra, or note on the enneagram, is part of a single whole in which all the elements have an equally important, but different, role.  The effects—that is, the actions—take place in a hierarchy, or order, but the impulses (names, or attributes) themselves cannot be assigned ranked values, because all of them are equally part of the Essence, a unity. See The Sufi Path of Knowledge, p. 57,  for a much more detailed explanation of this idea. Al 'Arabi's  understanding of this concept mirrors my contention that the yogic chakras cannot, in and of themselves, be understood as having superior and inferior values. There are no "lower" and "higher" chakras,  in the end, because all of them are part of a single unified system. Each one's presence and action is absolutely necessary.

This ranking of the effects of the Names according to a hierarchy is essential to understanding both al 'Arabi's concept of God, the nature of the cosmos, and Gurdjieff's enneagram. The diagram denotes a structured hierarchy with inferior and superior constituents; different levels of vibration. A higher level of vibration denotes a higher level of understanding.  Thus, the note Sol  has a higher level of understanding than the note Fa.  Achieving understandings, however, is an interactive process between notes, not a linear one that marches inexorably from one note to another.  An inner process takes place within the octave for understanding to evolve from note to note. This is indicated by what Gurdjieff called the multiplications.

The understanding of a hierarchy of vibration, linked to a hierarchy of understanding, is common to the Yoga (Hindu), Sufi, and Gurdjieffian systems. The Christian understanding of the nature of heaven reports a similar structure in the ranking of Angelic forces.

Readers with more familiarity of al Arabi's work may object by citing his statement that there are 99 names of God, of which approximately 83 are actually known. A close analysis of all the known names ought to indicate, however, that the six principal names to which all other names are subordinate represent the attributes of Material, Desire, Power, Being (agency, or real "I"), Purification (aka speech, = prayer), and Knowledge—that is, the same six yogic attributes that iterate the path around the periphery of the enneagram.

The organizational principles here allow us to classify the actions and nature of both man and God in a much more specific way, if they are fully understood. The ancient sciences that Gurdjieff spoke about so frequently in his conversations with Ouspensky, and in his books, were most likely based on a version of these principles.