Just as the letter Alif (the first letter of the Arabic alphabet) has no sound of its own but gives shape to all others, God is pure actuality with no potentiality. From God emanates the First Intellect, then the Second, and so on, down to the material world. Each level of existence is like a "word" formed from the "letters" of intellect and soul.
Farabi’s Kitab al-Huruf is not a dusty medieval text. It is a direct precursor to: Farabi - Harfler Kitabi
Farabi concludes that the philosopher’s ultimate task is to trace all "letters" (words, concepts, beings) back to their first principle. This is the — the "grammar" of reality itself. Just as the letter Alif (the first letter