Ibn E Arabi Quotes

On both sides we encounter the idea that the Godhead possesses the power of Imagination, and that by imagining the universe God created it; that He drew this universe from within Himself, from the eternal virtualities and potencies of His own being; that there exists between the universe of pure spirit and the sensible world an intermediate world which is the idea of "Idea Images" as the �afis put it, the world of "supersensory sensi- bility," of the subtile magical body, "the world in which spirits are materialized and bodies spiritualized" ; that this is the world over which the Imagination holds sway; that in it the Imagina- tion produces effects so real that they can "mold" the imagining subject, and that the Imagination "casts" man in the form ( the mental body ) that he has imagined. In general we note that the degree of reality thus imputed to the Image and the crea- tivity imputed to the Imagination correspond to a notion of creation unrelated to the official theological doctrine, the doc- trine of the creatio e.x nihilo, which has become so much a part of our habits that we tend to regard it as the only authentic idea of creation. We might even go so far as to ask whether there is not a necessary correlation between this idea of a creatio e.x nikilo and the degradation of the ontologically creative Imagi- nation and whether, in consequence, the degeneration of the Imagination into a fantasy productive only of the imaginary and the unreal is not the hallmark of our laicized world for which the foundations were laid by the preceding religious world, which precisely was dominated by this characteristic idea of the Creation.

The Prophet was asked, ‘Where was God before creation?’ And the Prophet replied, ‘He was in the state of ama, a dark cloud or state, above which there was emptiness and below which there was emptiness.’ This dark mist is the intermediary world between meaning and its embodiments.The intermediate state is no more than a shadow of the Absolute. The divine revelations, i.e. the created world, are only shadows of this shadow; things that are perceptible through the senses are shadows of the created world, as perceived through sensory perception. Using the word ‘shadow’ here signifies cessation, which distinguishes it from existence, which does not cease and which is the permanent Absolute. This shadow is the manifestation or it is the image whose form is represented in divine knowledge before the creation of creation, so the world, according to Ibn ‘Arabi, appears in the image of God (Truth). Existence in relation to this image is like a cloth, i.e. it is a shadow, which is changing, vanishing.

Generally speaking each man (i.e., of the class of the 'ignorant') necessarily sticks to a particular religion ('aqidah, i.e., religion as a system of dogmas) concerning his Lord. He always goes back to his Lord through his particular religious belief and seeks God therein. Such a man positively recognizes God only when He manifests Himself to him in the form recognized by his traditional religion. But when He manifests Himself in other religions, he flatly refuses to accept Him and runs away from Him. In so doing, he simply behaves in an improper way towards God, while imagining that he is practicing good manners toward Him. Thus a man who sticks to the belief of his particular religion believes in a god according to what he has subjectively posited in his mind. God in all particular religions (i'tiqadat) is dependent upon the subjective act of positing (ja'l) on the part of the believers. Thus a man of his kind sees (in the form of God) only his own self and what he has posited in his mind.

From the point of view of Ibn Arabi, the atomism of the Ash'arites, though it is not a perfect description of the real structure of Being, does grasp at least an important part of the reality. Mentioning together with the Ash'arites a group of sophists knows as Hisbaniyyah or Husbaniyyah, he begins to criticize them in the following manner: The Ash'arites have hit upon the truth concerning some of the existents, namely, accidents, while the Hisbanites have chanced to find the truth concerning the whole of the world. The Philosophers consider these people simply ignorant. But (they are not ignorant; the truth is rather that) they both (i.e. the Ash'arites and the Hisbanites) are mistaken.

First, he criticizes the sophists of the Hisbanite school. The Hisbanites maintain that nothing remains existent for two units of time, that everything in the world, whether it be substance or accident, is changing from moment to moment. From this they conclude that there is no Reality in the objective sense. Reality or Truth exists only subjectively, for it can be nothing other than the constant flux of things as you perceive it in a fixed form at this present moment. Though the Hisbanites are right in maintaining that the world as a whole and in its entirety is in perpetual transformation, they are mistaken in that they fail to see that the real oneness of the Substance which underlies all these (changing) forms. (They thereby overlook the fact that) the Substance could not exist (in the external world) if it were not for them (i.e. these changing forms) nor would the forms be conceivable if it were not for the Substance. If the Hisbanites could see this point too (in addition to the first point), their theory would be perfect with regard to this problem. Thus, for Ibn Arabi, the merit and demerit of the Hisbanite thesis are quite clear. They have hit upon a part of the truth in that they have seen the constant change of the world. But they overlook the most important part of the matter in that they do not know the true nature of the Reality which is the very substrate in which all these changes are happening, and consider it merely a subjective construct of each individual mind. Concerning the Ash'arites, Ibn Arabi says: As for the Ash'arites, they fail to see that the world in its entirety (including even the so-called 'substances') is a sum of 'accidents', and that, consequently, the whole world is changing from moment to moment since no 'accident' (as they themselves hold) remains for two units of time. And al-Qashani: The Ash'arites do not know the reality of the world; namely, that the world is nothing other than the whole of all these 'forms' which they call 'accidents'. Thus they only assert the existence of substances (i.e., atoms) which are in truth nothin, having no existence (in the real sense of the word). And they are not aware of the one Entity ('ayn) which manifests itself in these forms ('accidents' as they call them); nor do they know that this one Entity is the He-ness of the Absolute. This is why they assert (only) the (perpetual) change of the accidents. According to the basic thesis of the Ash'arite ontology, the world is reduced to an infinite number of 'indivisible parts', i.e., atoms. These atoms are, in themselves, unknowable. They are knowable only in terms of the 'accidents' that occur to them, one accident appearing in a locus at one moment and disappearing in the next to be replaced by another. The point Ibn Arabi makes against this thesis is that these 'accidents' that go on being born and annihilated in infinitely variegated forms are nothing but so many self-manifestations of the Absolute. And thus behind the kaleidoscopic scene of the perpetual changes and transformations there is always a Reality which is eternally 'one'. And it is this one Reality itself that goes on manifesting itself perpetually in ever new forms. The Ash'arites who overlook the existence of this one Reality underlies all 'accidents' are, according to Ibn Arabi, driven into the self-contradictory thesis that a collection of a number of transitory 'accidents' that appear and disappear and never remain for two moments constitute 'things' that subsist by themselves and continue to exist for a long time.

However this may be, the preceding explanation has at least made it clear that the Way has two opposite aspects, one positive and the other negative. The negative side is comparable with the metaphysical Darkness of Ibn Arabi. In the world-view of the latter too, the Absolute (haqq) in itself, i.e., in its absoluteness, is absolutely invisible, inaudible and ungraspable as any 'form' whatsoever. it is an absolute Transcendent, and as such it is 'Nothing' in relation to human cognition. But, as we remember, the Absolute in the metaphysical intuition of the Arab sage is 'Nothing', not because it is 'nothing' in the purely negative sense, but rather because it is too fully existent-rather, it is Existence itself. Likewise, it is Darkness not because it is deprived of light, but rather because it is too full of light, too luminous-rather, it is the Light itself. Exactly the same holds true of the Way as Lao-tzu intuits it. The Way is not dark, but it seems dark because it is too luminous and bright. He says: A 'way' which is (too) bright seems dark. The Way in itself, that is, from the point of view of the Way itself, is bright. But since 'it is too profound to be known by man' it is, from the point of view of man, dark. The Way is 'Nothing' in this sense. This negative aspect, however, does not exhaust the reality of the Absolute. If it did, there would be no world, no creatures. In the thought of Ibn Arabi, the Absolute by its own unfathomable Will comes down from the stage of abysmal Darkness or 'nothingness' to that of self-manifestation. The Absolute, although it is in itself a Mystery having nothing to do with any other thing, and a completely self-sufficient Reality-has another, positive aspect in which it is turned toward the world. And in this positive aspect, the Absolute contains all things in the form of Names and Attributes. In the same way, the Way of Lao-Tzu too, although it is in itself Something 'nameless', a Darkness which transcends all things, is the 'Named' and the 'Mother of the ten thousand things'. Far from being Non-Being, it is, in this respect, Being in the fullest sense. The Nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The Named is the Mother of ten thousand things. This passage can be translated as follows: The term 'Non-Being' could be applied to the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The term 'Being' could be applied to the Mother of ten thousand things. Whichever translation we may choose, the result comes to exactly the same thing. For in the metaphysical system of Lao-Tzu, the 'Nameless' is, as we have already seen, synonymous with 'Non-Being', while the 'Named' is the same as 'Being'. What is more important to notice is that metaphysically the Nameless or Non-Being represents a higher - or more fundamental - stage than the Named or Being within the structure of the Absolute itself. Just as in Ibn 'Arabi' even the highest 'self-manifestation' (tajalli) is a stage lower than the absolute Essence (dhat) of the Absolute, so in Lao-Tzu Being represents a secondary metaphysical stage with regard to the absoluteness of the Absolute. The ten thousand things under Heaven are born out of Being (yu), and Being is born out of Non-Being (wu).

All existent things are the words of Allah which are inexhaustible (18) because they are from "kun" and "kun" is the word of Allah. Is the word ascribed to Him according to what He really is? His what-ness is not known. Or is it that Allah descends to the form of the one who says, "kun", and so the word "kun" is the reality of that form to which he descended or in which He is manifest? Some of the gnostics take one side and some take the other side, and some of them are bewildered in the business and do not know. This is a question which can only be recognised by taste (dhawq), as was the case with Abu Yazid al-Bistami when he breathed into the ant which he had killed and it returned to life. He knew in that action by Whom he had breathed, and that was an 'Isawian witnessing. As for the revival of meaning by knowledge, that is the divine life, essential, eternal, sublime, and luminous, about which Allah said, "Is someone who was dead and whom We brought to life, supplying him with a light by which to walk among the people..." (6:123) Whoever gives life to a dead soul by the life of knowledge in a particular problem connected to knowledge of Allah, has brought him to life by it, and it is "a light for him by which he walks among the people, i.e. among his likes in form.

Thus we see that it is not strictly exact to regard the archetypes as non-existent. More exact it is to say they are neither existent nor non-existent. And, in fact, Ibn Arabi himself explicitly says so in a short, but exceedingly important article to which incidental reference was made in an earlier place. It is to be noted that in this passage he takes up a more philosophical position than in his Fusus in dealing with the problem of the archetypes. 'The third thing is neither qualified by existence nor by non-existence, neither by temporality nor by eternity (a parte ante). But it has always been with the Eternal from eternity....It is neither existent nor non-existent....But it is the root (i.e., the ontological ground) of the world....For from this third thing has the world come into being. Thus it is the very essential reality of all the realities of the world. It is a universal and intelligible reality subsisting in the Mind. It appears as eternal in the Eternal and as temporal in the temporal. So, if you say that this thing is the world, you are right. And if you say that it is the Absolute, the Eternal, you are equally right. But you are no less right if you say that it is neither the world nor the Absolute, but something different from both. All these statements are true of this thing. Thus it is the most general Universal comprising both temporality (huduth) and eternity (qidam). It multiplies itself with the multiplicity of the existent things. And yet it is not divided by the division of the existent things; it is divided by the division of the intelligibles. In short, it is neither existent nor non-existent. It is not the world, and yet it is the world. It is 'other', and yet it is not 'other'.

The term for this concept is wahadat al-wujud, or the Unity of Being, first coined by one of the greatest philosophical minds in history, Muhyiddin ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240 C.E.). Seeking to provide a firm philosophical basis for the Sufi conception of the divine, Ibn al-Arabi began by addressing the fundamental flaw in the doctrine of tawhid: If, in the beginning, there was nothing but God, how could God have created anything, unless God created it from himself? And if God did make creation from himself, wouldn’t that violate the oneness and unity of God by dividing God between Creator and creation? Ibn al-Arabi’s solution to this problem was to confirm what Sufis like Shams and Bayazid had been saying all along: If God is indivisible, then nothing can come into existence that isn’t also God. At the very least, Creator and creation must share the exact same eternal, indistinguishable, inseparable essence, meaning everything that exists in the universe exists only insofar as it shares in the existence of God. Therefore, God must be, in essence, the sum total of all existence.10

When Allah undertakes the destruction of this organism by what is called "death", that is not negation (i'dam) , but rather separation. He takes man to Him, and what is meant is only Allah's taking man to Him, "and to Him the whole affair will be returned." (11:123) When He takes him to Him, He fashions him a different composition than this composition. The new composition is from the genus of the abode to which he has moved, that is, the Abode of Going-on, because equilibrium exists. The creature thus will never die, i.e. his parts will never be separated.

Guidance is that man is guided to bewilderment (hayra). He knows that the business is bewilderment. Bewilderment is being unsettled and movement. Movement is life. There is no non-movement nor death. There is existence and not non-existence. It is the same with the water which gives life to the earth. Its movement is His word, "so it quivers" and conceives, "and swells" with pregnancy, "and sprouts plants in beautiful pairs." (7) It only gives birth to what resembles it, i.e. has a nature like it. It has being linked in pairs (zawjiya) which is the state of being doubled by what is born from it and what appears from it.