Divine Names as the Keys for Mystic Journey

The present paper seeks to find the effects of divine names as the keys for mystic journey. Since traversing the path towards God in order to attain nearness to God requires some stages and each divine name has its own particular features which appear as manifestation and concretely existing things, the effects of divine names in ascending arc of creation can be regarded as the agents of preparatory disposition, which are related to wayfarer's capacities and inner aptitudes, and different manifestations to the wayfarer's heart can be regarded as some of their effects. Therefore, this paper discusses the ways of counting divine names and attributes at a theoretical level and by taking into consideration the prescriptions of the experts of this field along with explaining the concepts of attachment, realization and assumption of traits. To this end, seven common stages of mystic journey are selected among those intended by famous mystics of third through ninth century ('AH') and the implied or implicit names in each of these seven stages are searched for by relying on the Quranic verses which Khawjah Abdullah Ansari had selected for these stages in his book, Manazil Al-Sa'erin (the stages of wayfarers) in order to find the divine names and their effects on mystic journey by inverted explanation of the stages of mystic journey.