IBN AL-'ARABI AND HIS SCHOOL

IBNU ARABI - SHORE OF AN ENDLESS SEA

• Speaking about Ibnu Arabi, we now come to the shore of an endless sea, to the foot of a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds: all these metaphors are appropriate to the gigantic scope of the work of Ibn al-'Arabi, one of the greatest visionary theosophers of all time. We must radically alter the false perspective, which stems from some unadmitted prejudice, according to which Ibn al-'Arabi's work signals the end of the golden age of Sufism. Far from this being the case, we may say that this work marks the beginning of something novel and original—so original that it could have occurred only at the heart of Abrahamic esotericism, and, of the three branches of this esotericism, only at the heart of the Islamic.

• The philosophy of the falasifa, the kalam of the scholastics, the asceticism of primitive pious Sufism—all these are swept away in a torrent of unprecedented speculative metaphysics and visionary power. This is the beginning of the 'golden age' of mystical theosophy. As is well known, Ibn al-'Arabi's theosophy and the 'Oriental' (ishraq) theosophy of al-Suhrawardi are related to each other.

• When both united with the Shiite theosophy deriving from the holy Imams, the result was the great flowering of Shiite metaphysics in Iran (with Haydar Amuli, Ibn Abi Jumhur, Mulla Sadra etc.) whose potential even today is far from being exhausted. Ibn al-'Arabi was born in south-eastern Spain, in Murcia, on the 17th Ramadan 569/28th July 1165. His formative years and the years of his apprenticeship were spent in Andalusia. At the age of seventeen, Ibn al-'Arabi had an extraordinary conversation with the philosopher Averroes. There was no further encounter between them until the day when the ashes of Averroes were transported to Cordoba. The young Ibn al-'Arabi was present at this occasion, and he composed some poignant distichs which presage the orientation that he was to give to Islamic philosophy and spirituality. He was strongly influenced in his formative years by Ibn Masarrah's school of Almeria, which propagated the teaching of Ismaili and Shiite missionaries. Later, when Mulla Sadra's school of Isfahan accepted the doctrines of Ibn al-'Arabi, the grandiose circuit of this return to the origins was completed. In the meantime, to remain in Andalusia was intolerable for anyone who wished to reject literalism. Ibn al-'Arabi decided to leave for the East, and undertook a voyage that for him possessed the value of a symbol.
  

• After an admirably full life and a prolific literary output, he died peacefully at Damascus, surrounded by his family, on the 28th Rabi' II 638/16th November 1240. He is buried there with his two sons on the side of Mount Qasiyun, and his tomb is still for many a place of pilgrimage. It is impossible to summarize the doctrines of Ibn al-'Arabi in a few lines. All we can do is to indicate very briefly some of the essential points.
  

• As in all gnosis, the keystone of the system, if the term is acceptable, is the mystery of a pure Essence which is unknowable, unpredictable, and ineffable. From this unfathomable Abyss the torrent of theophanies arises and proliferates, and the theory of the divine Names is born. Ibn al-'Arabi is in complete agreement about this with Ismaili and Twelver Shiite theosophy, both of which rigorously respect the rule and consequences of apophatic {tanzih) theology. Is there a breach between them in so far as Ibn al-'Arabi gives the name of Pure Light to this Ineffable Being, or identifies it with absolute Being, whereas Ismaili theosophy sees the source of being as strictly beyond being—as supra-being? Both interpretations result in a sense of the transcendent unity of being (wahdat al-wujud), which has been so widely misunderstood.
  

• The divine abyss conceals the mystery of the 'hidden Treasure' that aspires to be known, and that creates creatures in order to become in them the object of its own knowledge. This revelation of the divine Being is accomplished in the form of a succession of theophanies characterized by three stages: the epiphany of the divine Essence to itself, which can only be spoken of by allusion; a second theophany which is the sum total of all the theophanies in and through which the divine Essence reveals itself to itself in the forms of the divine Names—that is to say, in the forms of beings such as they exist in the secret of the absolute mystery; and a third theophany in the forms of concrete individuals, which bestows upon the divine Names a concrete and manifest existence. These Names exist from all eternity within the divine Essence, and are this very Essence, because the Attributes which they designate, although they are not identical with the divine Essence as such, are nevertheless not different from it. These Names are known as 'Lords' (arbab) who possess the appearance of so many hypostases.{We may recall the procession of the divine Names in the Hebrew Book of Enoch, or 'Third Enoch'.) In terms of actual experience, we can know these divine Names only through our knowledge of ourselves: God describes himself to us through us.
  

• In other words, the divine Names are essentially relative to the beings which name them, as these beings find and experience them in and through their own mode of being. This is why these Names are also designated as constitutive of the levels or planes of being (hadarat, nazarat, meaning presences or, as Ramon Llull translated it, 'dignities'). Seven of them are the Imams of the Names, and the others are known as the 'guardians of the temple' or templars {sadanah): the theory of the divine Names is modelled on the general theory of the hadarat. Thus the divine Names possess meaning and full reality only through and for the beings who are their epiphanic forms (mazahir). Equally, these forms which support the divine Names have existed in the divine Essence from all eternity; they are our own latent existences in their archetypal state,' eternal haecceities' (a 'yan thabita).
  

• It is these latent individualities which aspire from all eternity to be revealed: their yearning is that of the 'concealed Treasure' aspiring to be known. From this there eternally proceeds the 'Sigh of compassion' (al-Nafas al-Rahmani) which brings into active being the divine Names that are still unknown, and the existences through and for which these divine Names are made manifest in actuality. Thus in its hidden being, each existence is a breath of the divine existential Compassion, and the divine name Allah is the equivalent of the name al-Rahman, the Compassionate, the Merciful. This 'Sigh of compassion' is the origin of amass whose composition is wholly subtle, and which is known by the name of Cloud ('ama): a primordial Cloud which both receives all forms and bestows upon beings their forms, is both active and passive, constructive and receptive. Primordial Cloud, existential Compassion, active, absolute or theophanic Imagination—these words designate the same original reality, who is the created God (Haqq makhluq) by whom all creatures are created. He is the Creator-created, the Hidden-manifested, the Esoteric-exoteric, the First-last, and so on. It is through this Figure that esoteric theosophy in Islam can be situated on the level of the 'speculative theology' which we mentioned above in our general survey.
  

• The First-created (Makhluq awwal, Protoktistos) in the bosom of this primordial Cloud is the Muhammadan Logos, the metaphysical reality of the prophet (Haqiqah muhammadiyah, also called the Muhammadan Holy Spirit (Ruh muhammadi), the source and origin of a theology of the Logos and of the Spirit which reproduces, in the form appropriate to it, the theology of the neo-Platonists, of gnosis, of Philo and of Origen.
  

• The pair Creator-created (haqq-Khalq) is repeated at all levels of theophany and at all stages of the 'descent of being'. This is neither monism nor pantheism; rather, it can be called theomonism and panentheism. Theomonism is no more than the philosophical expression of the interdependence of Creator and created—interdependence, that is, on the level of theophany. This is the secret of the personal divinity (sirr al-rububiya), of the interdependence, that is, between the lord (rabb) and him who chooses him as his lord (marbub), to the extent that one cannot subsist without the other. The diety (uluhiya) is on the level of pure Essence; the rububiya is the divinity of the personal lord to whom one has recourse, because one answers for him in this world. Allah is the Name designating the divine Essence which is qualified by all its attributes, while the rabb or lord is the divine Being personified and particularized by one of his Names and Attributes. This is the whole secret of the divine Names and of what Ibn al-'Arabi calls 'the God created in beliefs', or rather the God who creates himself in these beliefs. This is why knowledge of God is limitless for the gnostic, since the recurrence of Creation and the metamorphoses of the theophanies are the law itself of being.
  

• In this brief summary we can only suggest, not systematize. Ibn al-'Arabi was an enormously prolific writer. As we know thanks to the exemplary labours of Osman Yahya, his works in all number eight hundred and fifty-six, of which five hundred and fifty have come down to us in the form of two thousand one hundred and seventeen manuscripts. His most famous masterpiece is the vast work of some three thousand large quarto pages entitled The Book of the Spiritual Conquests of Mecca (Kitab al-futuha tal-Makkiya), which is at present being edited for the first time by Osman Yahya. This work has been read throughout the centuries by all the philosophers and spiritual men of Islam. The same can be said of the collection entitled The Gems of the Wisdom of the Prophets (Fusus al-hikam), which is not so much a history of the prophets as a speculative meditation on twenty-seven of them, regarded as the archetypes of the divine Revelation. The work itself pertains to the 'phenomenon of the revealed Book', for Ibn al-'Arabi presents it as having been inspired from Heaven by the Prophet. Both Shiite and Sunni authors have written commentaries on it. Osman Yahya has compiled an inventory of one hundred and fifty of them, about a hundred and thirty of which are the work of Iranian spiritual men. These commentaries are not simply innocuous glosses, for although the work of Ibn al-'Arabi aroused fervent admiration among his followers, it also provoked passionate wrath and anathema among his adversaries.
  

• Among other famous commentaries on the Fusus, there is one by Da'ud al-Qaysari (751/1350-1351), a Sunni, and one by Kamal al-Din 'Abd al-Razzaq {died between 735/1334 and 751/ 1350-1351), a famous Shiite thinker, to whom we also owe a mystical commentary on the Quran, a treatise on the vocabulary of Sufism and a treatise on the futuwwah. Mention should also be made of the lengthy Shiite commentary by Haydar Amuli, which is in the process of being edited, and which includes a severe criticism of Da'ud al-Qaysari on a point which is decisive for all the philosophy of the walayah. Two questions arise: how is one to conceive of an integral history of Islamic philosophy before all these texts have been studied? And how long will it be before they have been studied?
  

• There can be no question here of even a brief outline of the history of Ibn al-'Arabi's school. But we must not omit to mention the name of Sadr al-Din al-Qunyawi (meaning from Quniyah or Konia or Iconium, often mistakenly transcribed as Qunawi). Sadr al-Din (671/1272 or 673/1273-1274) was both the disciple and the son-in-law of Ibn al-'Arabi, and his thought was steeped in Ibn al-'Arabi's doctrine. He wrote a number of important works. He is of great interest in that he himself in some sense represents a crossroads: he was in touch with Jalal al-Din Rumi and Sa'd al-Din Hamuyah (or Hamu'i), and corresponded with the great Shiite philosopher Nasir al-Din Tusi, as well as with other shaykhs. None of the texts necessary for an analysis of his thought has yet been edited.

REZA