Essence and Being

ذات و وجود

Dhāt (Essence) and Wujūd (Being) in relation to Allah: The Divine Essence is identical with the Divine Being — there is no distinction in the Divine Self between 'what it is' and 'that it is.' Allah's Essence is Being itself; He is the Necessary Being whose essence it is to exist. This is fundamentally unlike contingent things, where essence and existence are conceptually distinct.

In contingent things, the essence (dhāt) is, so to speak, neutral with respect to existence — it could exist or not exist, and existence is superadded to it from without (from the Divine gift of existence). This is the fundamental ontological difference between the Creator and the created.