Al-Farabi's Notion of Intelligence

According to Jos Decorte’s Louvain lecture notes from A History of Medieval Philosophy: “Al-Farabi (c.875-c.950) is notable as having made the epoch making distinction between essence and existence…Existence is regarded as the accident of the essence which can come upon it or depart from it. At the summit of the hierarchy of being is the Neoplatonic One, identified with the Aristotelian First Cause and self-thinking intellect and also with Allah. From the One proceeds eternally the first subordinate intelligence which gives rise to the second intelligence and, on the physical side, to the highest celestial sphere. The second subordinate intelligence brings about the third subordinate intelligence and the second celestial sphere, and so forth (enzovoort). The active intellect, the tenth and lowest of the hierarchy of pure intelligences, has no sphere corresponding to it, but acts as an intermediary between the realm of intelligences and individual human minds, perpetually illuminating them with the forms of things. Al-Farabi has thus made a fusion of Aristotle and Neoplatonism. Moreover, as the cause of the existence of things, God, is also the cause of their intelligibility, our ideas or universal concepts are necessarily true (Decorte, para. 2.50-2.51).”
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H021.htm

The Non-Religion of the Future

Nine Rings: Tolkien

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Rings_of_Power

From one to three...

One is the original number.
Zero is not a number.

Two is the schism within the one: polarity.

Three is the synthesis or harmony of one and two. From three comes "all things."

From the album sutras by Donovan:
I stay behind I walk ahead
Apart yet a part of ev'rything
Nothing done and all is well
Never used yet always full

Out of nothing comes the one
Out of one comes the two
Out of two comes three
Out of three comes all things

The more it moves the more it yields
The valley spirit never dies
The root of heaven and of earth
Empty now of ev'rything
From above it is not bright
From below it is not dark
You cannot see when it began
Follow it there is no end

It has no aim it is so small
It has no name it is so great
It is not seen it is not heard
Nothing done or left undone
The weak can overcome the strong
The supple overcomes the stiff
Ev'ryone knows this well
yet so few can practice it

Out of nothing comes the one
Out of one comes the two
Out of two comes three
Out of three comes all things

Al-Farabi Psychology

Note the subordinate intelligences from the celestial sphere are numbered 9.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/palf/palf08.htm

Nine Orders of Angels

http://www.angelfocus.com/dionysius%20hierarchy.htm

The Nine Ways of the Zhikr