Çeviri
Hatm'ül Velâyet...Azizlerin Mührü İngilizce
Seal of the Saints
PROPHETHOOD AND SAINTHOOD IN
THE DOCTRINE OF IBN CARABI
Michel Chodkiewicz
Translated by
Liadain Sherrard
Golden Palm Series
THE ISLAMIC TEXTS SOCIETY
CAMBRIDGE - 1993
The Islamic Texts Society 1993
English translation The
Islamic Texts Society 1993
Translated from the French by
Liadain Sherrard
First published as Le Sceau
des Saints by Michel Chodkiewicz
Editions Gallimard 1986
This edition published 1993 by The Islamic
Texts Society
5 Green Street, Cambridge, CB2
3JU, uk.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication
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Typeset by Goodfellow & Egan,
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Printed by The Alden Press, Oxford
Contents
System of transliterations vi
Editions and Abbreviations vii
Foreword
3
1 A Shared Name 17
2 'He who sees thee sees Me' 26
3 The Sphere of Waldya 47
4 The Muhammadan Reality 60
5 The Heirs of the Prophets 74
6 The Four Pillars 89
7 The Highest Degree of Waldya 103
8 The Three Seals 116
9 The Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood 128
10 The Double Ladder 147
Index 183
EDITIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS
EDITIONS
Fusus al-Hikam, Ibn ‘Arabi, edited A. A. Affifi, Beirut, 1946.
Al-Futilhdt al-Makkiyya, Ibn‘Arabi, Bulaq, 1329AH (4 vols.). There is also
reference to Osman Yahya's critical edition in progress (Cairo: al-Hay'a
al-Misriyya al-‘Amma Il'l-Kitab, 1972- ).
ABBREVIATIONS
FI: Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI1 first edition, EI2 second
edition).
GAL: C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen
Lit eratur, Leiden, 1945-49-
GAS: Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen
Schrifttums, Leiden, 1967- .
1st.: Ibn ‘Arabi Kitab Istildh al-$iifiyya, Hyderabad,
1948.
R.G.: the 'Repertoire general' in Osman Yahya's Histoire
et classification de I'oeuvre d'Ibn Arabi, Damascus, 1964. The
letters R.G. are followed by the number of the work as it is to be found in O.
Yahya's classification.
Foreword
In 1845, at
Leipzig, Gustav Flugel, a student of Silvestre de Sacy, published as an annex
to Jurjani's Tahifat[1] a short
treatise entitled Definitiones theosophi Muhjied-din Mohammed b. Ali
vulgo Ibn Arabi dicti. With these few pages, which were written at
Malatya in the year 615/1218, the work of Ibn "Arabi made its discreet
entrance into the field of Oriental studies.[2] However,
the first studies of any importance were long in appearing. It was not until
1911, in London, that Nicholson brought out his edition and translation of
the Tarjumdn al-ashwaq (The Interpreter of Desires). It is
true that another work attributed to Ibn 'Arabi, the Treatise on Unity, had
been translated into English by Weir in 1901, and by Ivan-Gustav Agueli
(Abdul-Hadi) into Italian (1907) and French (1910); but this attribution, which
gave rise to much misunderstanding, was unfortunately mistaken.[3] The
year 1919 was particularly fruitful: in Leyden, Nyberg published his Kleinere
Schrif- ten des Ibn al-Arabi, together with a long introduction; and
at the Royal Spanish Academy, Asm Palacios gave a notable talk which
constituted the initial version of his La Escatologia musulmana en la
Divina Comedia. In it he put foiward the hypothesis that Dante had
been influenced by Ibn 'Arabi, thereby arousing a controversy which continues
to this day.4 His subsequent studies led him to publish, in
1931, El islam cristianizado, a work which despite its
unindicative title is entirely devoted to Ibn 'Arabi.5 The year
1939 saw the appearance in Cambridge of The Mystical Philosophy of
Muhyiddin Ibnul ArabiEy A. A. 'Afifi, an Egyptian researcher, which
is, as far as I know, the first thesis on the author of the Putuhat to
be written in a Western university. The post-war years were to see a succession
of texts, translations and studies, most of which will find mention in the
course of the present book.6 For the moment, we should bear in
mind two of the most important works in this field of research: Henry
Corbin's Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (London
1970), and Toshihiko Izutsu's Sufism and Taoism (Berkeley and
London 1984), a comparative study of Ibn ‘Arabi and Lao-Tzu, to which must be
added William Chittick's more recent work, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany
1989).
The reception initially
accorded to Ibn'Arabi by those engaged in Islamic studies was one of extreme
reserve. Massignon vowed an enduring hostility towards him which his students
often inherited. Other more well-disposed authors spoke of Ibn 'Arabi with
rather comical condescension: Clement Huart, while agreeing that he is reputed
to be 'the greatest mystic of the Muslim East', expresses concern about his
'disorderly imagination'.7 Carra de Vaux acknowledges that 'in
the East, even in our own times, his popularity is on the increase', but says
of him, 'such syncretism has its charm, and his work in its entirety is earthy,
full of life and movement'8—an ambiguous commendation, and one which
4. In 1924 Miguel Asin Palacios published his Historia critica de una
poiemica, which was added to the 1924 edition of the Escatologia
musulmana (Madrid-Granada). For an account of this issue, see Mi
Rodinson, 'Dante et I'IsIam d'apres les travaux recents', in Revue de
I'histoire des religions, vol. cxl, no. 2, 1951, pp. 203-36.
5. Only the subtitle, which does not figure on the cover, describes the
subject matter: Estudio del ‘sufismo’ a traves de. las obras de
Abenarabi de Murcia. A French translation, which leaves much to be
desired, has been published under the titleL'Islam christianise, Paris
1982.
6. A well-informed critical inventory, covering the last 15 years of Western
language publications on the subject of Jbn 'Arabi, may be found in James W.
Morris' article 'Ibn Arabi and his Interpreters', published in the Journal
of the American Oriental Society, vol. cvi, iii, iv; vol. cvn, i
(1986-87).
7. ClementHuart,LztterafMrearabe,Parisi923,p. 275.
8. Alexandre Carra de Vaux, Les Penseurs de I'IsIam, Paris
1923, iv, pp. 218-23.
does not point to much
depth of understanding. That pious ecclesiastic Asin Palacios skilfully
practises what we would today call the art of rehabilitation: Ibn 'Arabi is a
Christian without Christ and owes to the Desert Fathers what all unknowingly he
was to restore to Catholic spirituality. :Afifi, and later the
far more comprehensive Izutsu, suggest an interpretation of the work which is
primarily philosophical and hence very reductionist; Ibn 'Arabi is not a
'thinker' among other thinkers, and nor is his doctrine the systematic
exposition of merely intellectual speculation. Corbin, by far the most subtle
of all these exegetes, does not commit such an error of perspective.
Nevertheless, in his persistent attempts to uncover a clandestine Shi'ite in
the writings of this self-confessed Sunni, he presents a picture of him which
in many respects needs correction.
The combination of
sainthood and genius in the person of Ibn 'Arabi, and the fusion in his work of
the most diverse sciences and literary forms, do indeed make it extremely
difficult to grasp, and to enable others to grasp, the nature and stature of
the man and his work. The bibliography of Ibn 'Arabi, although not yet
definitive, has been firmly established, thanks to the labours of Osman Yahia:
when the apocryphal or dubious texts have been discounted, there remain over
four hundred works. Some of these are no more than short opuscules. Others
consist of several hundreds or, in the case of the Futuhdt Makkiyya, several
thousands of our pages. But the list would lengthen considerably if we were
able to include in it the works considered lost, among them a commentary on the
Qur'an which even though uncompleted comprised 'sixty-four volumes'.
A serious bibliography
of Ibn 'Arabi remained to be written. The biographical notes on him written by
Muslim authors or orientalists are full of gaps, and do not make use, in any
exhaustive or critical manner, of the many sources available, beginning with
his own works. Now, however, we have Claude Addas' indispensable study of him.9 Here
we will confine ourselves to a few salient points. Muhyi al-Din Abu 'Abdallah
Muhammad b. 'Ali b. Muhammad b. al-cArabi al-Hatimi al-Ta'i was born
at Murcia on the 27th day of Ramadan 560 (7th August 1165). In France, where
Louis VII was king, the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris had been under way
for two years. In Muslim Spain, the power of the Almoravids was in decline, to
be succeeded
9. Claude Addas, Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn cArabi, Cambridge
U.K. 1993.
10.
shortly by the Almohads.
In Egypt, another dynasty was ending, the dynasty of the Fatimids that Saladin
was preparing to supplant. On the banks of the Onon in Eastern Siberia, Gengis
Khan was born; less than a century later his grandson, Hulagu, would destroy
Baghdad and have the last Abbasid caliph put to death.
Ibn Arabi spent his
childhood in Seville, where his family settled in 568/1172. At about the age of
sixteen he 'entered upon the Way'[4] and began to keep
company with the spiritual masters of Andalusia (later on, in his Riih
al-Qudsr he describes fifty or so of them). His meeting
with Averroes must have taken place at this time and not, as Corbin thinks,
when he was nearer twenty years old. His initial 'conversion', however, was
succeeded by a period of laxness (fatra) 'well-known to men of
God and which no one who takes this path can avoid'.[5] He
had a vision which rekindled his zeal; he gave up all his worldly goods,
practised asceticism, and went on retreats in graveyards.[6] By
the age of twenty he had already passed through a whole series of the
'stations' (maqdmdt) which in Sufi terminology punctuate the
journey towards God, and had received exceptional gifts of grace.x> Athough
at first his travels were confined to Andalusia, they extended after 590/1193
to the Maghrib. Until he reached the age of sixty, in fact, he was constantly
on the move. Thus in 590 he was in Tunis and Tlemcen, in 591 at Fez, in 592 at
Seville, in 593 and 594 once more in Fez, and in 595 at Cordoba. In 597 he
returned to Morocco. In 598 he went to Murcia, then to Sale, and then to Tunis,
where the period of his life spent in the West came to an end, and by which
time he had certainly written almost sixty works. A vision which came to him at
Marrakesh[7] directed him to go to the East, and he left
the Maghrib, never to return. During this same year 598 (1201-1202 of the
Christian era) he went successively to Cairo, Jerusalem and finally Mecca,
where a major spiritual event took place of which we will give an account
later. In 599-600 he stayed in the Hijaz, before resuming his way: Mosul,
Baghdad, Jerusalem (601), Konya, Hebron (602), Cairo (603). In 604 he was in
Mecca, in 606 at Aleppo, in
608 at Baghdad. Some of
his disciples accompanied him, while others were waiting for him wherever he
stopped. Princes sought his company; doctors of the Law desired to take issue
with him. A contemplative anchored in immutability, Ibn ‘Arabi nevertheless
travelled without pause over Anatolia and the fertile Muslim East, tirelessly
imparting as he went his initiatic teaching and his metaphysical doctrine. The
journeys continued, with several sojourns in Asia Minor, until 620/1223, when
he settled in Damascus. Here he completed a preliminary version of the Futuhdt, his summa
mystica begun at Mecca twenty-one years previously (a few years before
his death he was to write a second version, of which we possess the autograph
manuscript in thirty-seven volumes). Here, too, he wrote his Fusus
al-hikam after having had a dream which we will describe in due
course.
He was surrounded by an
assembly of disciples, continuing to teach and to expound his work up to the
end: the last 'attested reading' in his presence known to us (of the Tanazzuldt
mawsiliyya, a treatise on the esoteric meaning and spiritual results
of ritual practices which was written at Mosul in 601/1204) is dated the 10th
RabT al-awwal 638. In Damascus a few weeks later, on the 28th RabL al-thani
(16th November 1240) this 'Revivifier of the Religion' (a translation of his
name Muhyi al-Din) whom posterity was also to know as al-Shaykh
al-Akbar, the 'Greatest Master', and Sultan al^d-rifm, 'Sultan
of the Gnostics', died.[8]
At the beginning of
Chapter Four of his Futuhdt Makkiyya (The Illuminations of Mecca), Ibn
‘Arabi, addressing his Tunisian teacher and friend ‘Abd al-cAziz
Mahdawi—to whom the work is dedicated— recalls the occasion when he stayed with
him in 598/1201, and tried to persuade him to join him in the Holy City, 'most
noble of all the dwellings of stone and earth'. He then goes on to speak about
the nature of one's place of residence and whether it is more or less
favourable to contemplation. 'Places', he says, 'produce an effect in subtle
hearts, and a hierarchy therefore exists of corporeal dwelling places (mandzil
jismdniyya), just as there is a hierarchy of spiritual dwelling places
(mandzil ruhaniyya).' He reminds 'Abd al-'Aziz that the
latter had refused to shut himself away in one of the rooms in a lighthouse
east of Tunis, and had preferred to make his retreat a little further off among
the tombs, saying that zhe was better able to find his heart
there than in the lighthouse'. T too', he adds, 'experienced there the truth of
what you said.' He explains that the special character of certain places owes
its existence to those who have stayed or are staying there, be they
angels, jinn or men. This is so, for example, in the case of
the house of Abu Yazid Bistami, which was nicknamed the 'house of the
Just', bayt al-abrdr; of the zdwiya of
Junayd, the great Sufi of ninth century Baghdad; of the cave of the ascetic Ibn
Adham; and of all places generally which have some connection with the pious
dead (al-sdlihm).[9]
Earthly space is
therefore not neutral: the passage of a saint or his posthumous sojourn in a
place somehow establishes in it a field of beneficent power. With this personal
testimony the Shaykh al-Akbar presents us both with a warning and with the
basis of one of the most visible forms of the 'cult of the saints'. As we shall
see, he has much more to say on this subject.
The text we have just
been citing was written by Ibn 'Arabi shortly after his arrival in the East at
the start of the thirteenth century. A century later, the Hanbalite polemicist
Ibn Taymiyya launched a relentless campaign against ziydrat al-qubur, the
visiting of tombs and similar practices, and also condemned the practice of
seeking the intercession of saints, or even of the Prophet.[10] The
celebration of the mawlid (birthday) of the Prophet and a
fortiori of the saints was likewise condemned by him as bid^a, a
deplorable innovation.[11]
Although he was not the
first to engage in polemics on this subject, Ibn Taymiyya was by far the most
violent, and for centuries the most influential: it is he who is responsible,
through the Wahhabis, for the destruction of places in the Arab world which had
been venerated by countless generations of Muslims. His work, even today, is
the source of vehement campaigns against the 'deviations' which have distorted
the original purity of Islam.
Needless to say, the
'cult of the saints' did not arise in the thirteenth century. It was initially
addressed, very early on, to members of the Prophet's family (ahi
al-bayt) and to his Companions (sahdba). From the
fourth century of the Hegira at least, funeral monuments were being erected at
Baghdad in honour of the illustrious saints of the third century.[12] The
accounts of journeys, such as that written by Ibn Jubayr in the twelfth
century, the collections of fadd'il (the 'claims to fame' of a
city or a region), like the Fadd'il al-Sham by Ruba*?,[13] the
'pilgrim's guides', of which a model example is Harawi's Kitab
al-Ishardt ild mah-ifat al-ziydrdt, edited by Janine Sourdel-Thomine,[14] all
bear witness to local traditions which are without doubt very ancient, even
though they can rarely be dated with any accuracy. Finally, this fervour was
both produced and nourished by the literature of hagiography, whose major works
include Sulami's Tabaqdt and the ten volumes of the Hilyat
al-awliyd' (The Ornament of the Saints), written in the eleventh
century by Abu Nucaym al-Isfahani. Before proceeding, we should note
that, for the most part, neither at this time nor at a later date was this
hagiography 'popular' literature. This label cannot be applied either to the
works we have just mentioned or even to the more modest compilations of
strictly regional interest like the Tashawwuf by Tadili (the
learned author of a respected commentary on Hariri's Maqdmdt) about
the saints of southern Morocco of the fifth and sixth centuries ah,or like
the Maqsad written by his successor Badisi.[15] It
would be a fortiori incongruous to attach such a label to
later works of this type written by great poets such as 'Attar or Jami.
Nevertheless, and
without succumbing to the perverse taste for dividing things up into periods,
the age of Ibn "Arabi must be regarded as the start of a new era. It
witnessed the appearance both of the theoretical formulations and of the
institutions that were to dictate all later developments in Islamic mysticism
down to our day. It was a period of transition in the political history of the
community of believers, the more dramatic aspects of which are sufficiently
indicated by the taking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 and the fall of the
Abbasid caliphate. It is no accident that this was also the period of
transition in Sufi doctrine from implicit to explicit, and the start,
sociologically speaking, of its transition from informality to formality,
fluidity to organisation. Its fundamental concepts were defined and organized,
in the work of Ibn "Arabi, into a comprehensive synthesis; and from then
on, viewed as a summit or as a target, acknowledged or unacknowledged, for
followers and adversaries alike this work constituted an essential landmark
and a fruitful source of technical terminology?3 At the same
time the turuq ('brotherhoods') came into being and began to
codify the practices they had inherited into rules and methods. Although the
'cult of the saints' is not necessarily related to these brotherhoods,
nevertheless the veneration of the founding shaikh and his
more eminent successors played an important part in its development. Its forms
were progressively structured along the lines taken by the Muslim community in
its devotion to the Prophet—a devotion which was itself marked by the official recognition
of the mawlid under the Ayyubids. Ibn Taymiyya was not wrong
in thinking that the actions which he censured and the concepts underlying them
were gaining an ever-wider influence.
His critique is not
limited to a furious inventory of the ravages brought about by these
'innovations': he sets out to explain them, the
better to eradicate
them. In his eyes, these aberrant devotions on the part of the Qdmma, the
ignorant masses, are purely and simply evidence of polytheism (shirk). They
are foreign as well as heterodox: their existence and diffusion are due to the
pernicious influence of the Jews, the Sabians, the Zoroastrians and above all
of the Christians, who, in the guise either of insidious guests or of ambiguous
converts, are present at the very heart of the Muslim community.24 What
we are seeing here is the emergence of the 'two-tiered model', a theme which
has been brilliantly discussed by Peter Brown in relation to Christianity.25 Here
as there this model, in all its various forms, and often enriched by concepts
borrowed from Ibn Khaldun, was to become popular in later interpretations of
the 'cult of the saints'. Classic Islamology, whose sights are set on the
empyrean, the dwelling-place of Islam as it ought to be, tends to be
condescending towards those mental attitudes and patterns of behaviour which
are irreducible to this paradigm, and to treat them as residual archaisms or
unconscious borrowings which, in spite of being eventually canonized a
posteriori by the religious authorities, are nevertheless corrupting
influences. Colonial ethnography is formed by the same dichotomy, but tends to
overestimate the importance or even to exalt the positive qualities of the
indigenous substrata (Berber, African, Malay) at the expense of a universalist
orthodoxy which, in the hands of the pan-Islamicists, could threaten the peace
of mind of the empire's loyal subjects. 'Progressive' interpretations, which
are obviously based on very different principles, are torn between a reluctance
to defend 'superstitious' practices and 'reactionary' social structures, and
the temptation to see an emerging class consciousness in everything that
opposes the ideology of those who represent or are allied to the powers that
be. There is no need to extend this list: whether 'authenticity' is viewed as
attachment to the Islam of the culamd' or else to
the more or less exuberant forms of popular piety, the presence of the
'two-tiered model' is everywhere
24. Similarly, Abraham b. Maimonides, son of the author of the Guide of
the Perplexed and one of the great figures of thirteenth century
Jewish pietism (hasiduth), was accused by his co-religionists
of introducing practices into Judaism which were an imitation of Gentile
customs (in this case of the Muslims). A complaint was even lodged against him
with the Sultan al-Malik al-'Adil with the aim of obtaining a condemnation of
these reforms. Cf. Paul Fenton, Deux traites de mystiquejuive, Paris
1987, p. 87.
25. Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints, its Rise and Function in Latin
Christianity, Chicago 1981.
26.
apparent. It is
beginning, in fact, to be questioned, thanks above all to the response that
Peter Brown's work has elicited among some American researchers in the field
of Islamology and anthropology, and the opposition between Great Tradition and
Folk Tradition, Scripturalism and Maraboutism, is no longer a question of
dogma.[16] But much work remains to be done.
There is, of course, no
question of ignoring the differences that separate the rational, legalistic
piety of the fuqaha' city-dwellers from the turbulent faith of
the illiterate mountaineers, unconcerned with the interdicts of the
jurisprudents. But it is important to be at least as aware of the continuities
as of the ruptures. It is important to remember that within the spectrum of
religious attitudes there was always a place, between these two extremes, for a
large number of doctors of the Law and traditionalists who justified and
encouraged devotion to the saints. One example is the extraordinary cAbd
al-Qadir al-Jilam, a twelfth century Hanbalite lawyer and mufti, of
whom we will speak later.[17] The history of a tariqa like
the Naqshbandiyya, famous for its attachment to the Qur'an and the sunna, will
serve later on to illustrate the artificial nature of the diametrical
opposition that has been postulated between the Islam of the culama' and
the Islam of the brotherhoods, between an Islam which is pure and one which is
hybrid or deviant: for centuries the Naqshbandiyya retained its coherence while
bringing together attitudes which some would consider irreconcilable. Its
spiritual masters included
many distinguished
scholars, rigorous upholders of orthodoxy, and so actively opposed to
innovations (bida^) that certain modern authors have
represented them under this aspect alone. Yet these same masters were not only
wholehearted members of the brotherhoods, but taught and practised initiatic
techniques which were based on an extreme concept of sainthood, where the
saint, living or dead, is perceived as the pivot of all spiritual realisation.[18]
Many things, moreover,
lead us to question the theory of a popular origin for the 'cult of the
saints'. Sufism and sainthood are inseparable. In the absence of saints there
is no Sufism: it is born of their sainthood, nourished by it, and led to
reproduce it. In one sense, although there is no lack of saints from
distinguished backgrounds, Sufism has always been 'popular'. The ahi
al-suffa of Medina, exemplary figures in the nascent community, were
mendicants; the great saints of later hagiography were often, like their
disciples, blacksmiths, cobblers, or even slaves. They were often poor and
frequently unlettered. This is true equally of the most renowned figures of the
'golden age' in the third century of the Hegira as of Ibn ‘Arabi's masters whom
Asin Palacios, translating the Ruh al-quds, calls 'santones',
and who were extraordinary men of God. The new element in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries was not the different proportion of saints among the
patricians and the plebeians, the learned and the ignorant. In any case, the
saints, whether scholars or illiterate, are always those who possess knowledge,
the true culamd', not just miracle-workers and
rain-makers. This knowledge, in fact, is their most essential feature. Abu
Ya‘za, a rough Berber who was unable to speak Arabic, never led the prayers
himself; yet if the imam whom he had ordered to do so made a
mistake in reciting the Qur'an, he would immediately replace him with another.[19] ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz al-Dabbagh, also illiterate, amazed the learned author of the Kitab
al-ibriz, who was a great reader of Ibn ‘Arabi, by explaining to him
some of the difficult passages in the Futuhdt.[20]
What was new was the
fact that little by little, within an umma riddled with
dissension, while on its Eastern as on its Western borders storms were brewing
or bursting, Sufism was openly becoming a focus
of communal integration,
which until then it had never been and had never needed to be. Hence the
progressive appearance of the turuq which, in comparison to
the past, were mass organisations. Hence too the clearer affirmation, in
doctrinal teaching, of the reassuring, mediating function of the saints. And
hence the progressive transition from free personal practices to collective and
formal ones. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this was a
deliberate adaptation engineered from above— meaning, in the first instance, by
the princes. Ibn Taymiyya was not wrong. He railed against the Qdmma, but
he was addressing the sovereigns or the agents of their authority; and the
precaution of his discourses does not hide the fact that in inciting them to
prohibit the abominations he denounces, he is accusing them of more than negligence:
he sees them as veritable adversaries. And it is true that, either through
personal conviction or through policy, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Mughals
and the Ottomans regularly protected the saints, living or dead, and encouraged
the devotion surrounding them.[21] But behind the
princes were the princes7 counsellors: a spiritual aristocracy
whose faith and knowledge are evident in their actions and writings, and whom
we have no reason to suspect of coming under the sway of pagan revivals or
corrupt idolatries. The part played by 'Umar Suhrawardi in the case of the
caliph al-Nasir, or by Shaykh Manbiji in the case of Baybars, or by Ibn cArabi
in the case of Kayka'us the Seljukid or, later, of several members of the
Ayyubid family—all these are worth considering as indications of the conscious
or deliberate influence exerted by an elite on the changes that occurred. Here
again, Ibn Taymiyya is more perceptive than his statements give us reason to
believe at first sight, and his vehement heckling is unerringly aimed at
judiciously chosen culprits: Karim al-Din Amuli, the shaykh alshuyukh of
the khanqa Sacid al-Sucada'; the
influential Shaykh Manbiji; Ibn cAta' Allah, second in
succession to Abu-Hasan al-Shadhili and the real founder of the tariqa which
bears the latter's name; but above all Ibn 'Arabi, first expounder of a global
doctrine of sainthood—a doctrine whose foundation at this particular moment in
time can scarcely be conceived as coincidental.
The debate is open, and
it would be premature to do more than call attention to it. Since the
researches carried out by Goldziher a hundred years ago, the material has
accumulated. But the existing monographs leave many gaps to be filled and are
often permeated by pre-conceived ideas (usually the result of the 'two-tiered
model') which distort the interpretation of the facts. They certainly disallow
any attempt to write a history of sainthood in Islam which would be both a
history of the saints and an account of the community's relationship with its
saints—a history both of the doctrines and of the practices and attitudes. The
present book is no more than a simple documentary contribution to this vast
enterprise, one which we hope at a later date to supplement by researching into
the function of the saints with respect to the inception of the turuq. If
the reader comes away with the conviction that in any investigation into
Islamic sainthood, the writings of Ibn ‘Arabi constitute a major reference
point, which the researcher ignores at the risk of laying himself open to many
misinterpretations, our labours will not have been in vain.
But the present work was
not conceived with a view to this perspective alone. The saints belong to
history. Sainthood, in the understanding of the Shaykh al-Akbar, overshadows
history. It has seemed worthwhile, for the sake of those who, indifferent to
the controversies we have mentioned, nevertheless sense the importance of
Ibn cArabi but have no access to his work, to attempt an
organised and faithful presentation, of his teaching based solely on the
texts—a teaching which merits study on the grounds of its singular greatness
alone. On certain points, the succeeding pages furnish facts which have already
been indicated by previous writers who have explored the vast coipus of
writings by the Shaykh al-Akbar. On others, it is our belief that we have
introduced elements which have either escaped their attention or whose correct
significance they have foiled to appreciate. Although our aim has been to
define the main points of the doctrine, we have not attempted to give an
exhaustive description of it. It would not be untrue to say that in one sense
Ibn ‘Arabi, from the first to the last line of his work, never spoke of
anything other than sainthood, of its ways and its goals; and that 'ocean
without a shore' (to use a formula dear to the Sufis) will never be charted in
its entirety.
Here I must acknowledge,
with no hope of repaying, the debt that I owe to Michel Valsan. It was he who,
forty years ago, introduced me to the work of Ibn c Arabi,
of which his own knowledge was both extensive
and penetrating, and
aided my groping attempts at understanding. It was he, too, who enabled me to
grasp the fundamental aspects of his hagiology. My gratitude therefore is
addressed first and foremost to his memory.
Several of the themes
that will be touched upon here were first broached during the course of a
seminar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales in the years
1982-83 and 1983-84. Thanks are due in particular to Francois Furet, then
president of the Ecole, who so kindly received me into it, and to all those
who, like him, encouraged me in my work—Alexandre Bennigsen, Pierra Nora,
Lucette Valensi among others—or who agreed to take part in our discussions,
notably James W. Morris, J.-L. Michon and Alexandre Popovic. Many more were
assiduous participants under conditions which were not always comfortable. I
cannot name them all, but they should know that this book is a tribute also to
their tenacity.
The present edition
takes account of remarks and suggestions made to me by some readers of the
original edition, among whom I must mention my friend Hermann Landolt and my
daughter Claude Chodkiewicz-Addas. She likewise corrected the odd lapsus
calami or typographical error which had escaped my vigilance.
CHAPTER
1
A Shared Name
I contemplated all the
prophets, from Adam to Muhammad, and God made me contemplate also all those who
believe in them, so that there is no one whom I did not see of those who have
lived or will live until the Day of the Resurrection, whether they belong to
the elite or to the common body of believers. And I observed the degrees of
this assembly and knew the rank of all who were in it.1
This vision,
according to the Fusils al-hikam,2 took place at
Cordoba in 586/1190. Ibn 'Arabi, who was bom in 560/1165, was thus twenty-five
years of age (twenty-six lunar years), and his 'entry upon the way' had taken
place only six years previously.3 Several other texts, written
by Ibn 'Arabi himself or by his disciples, furnish us with additional details
about this event, of which we will have occasion to speak at greater length.
One of these texts4 tells us that the vision unfolded in two
stages. On the first occasion, Ibn 'Arabi saw the Prophets by themselves; on
the second, he saw them in the company of all their followers, a fact which
enabled him to conclude that the saints (awliya) walk zald
aqdam al-anbiyd’), 'in the footsteps of the prophets'—an expression
which, as we shall see, is not metaphorical but possesses a precise technical
meaning; and in this connection he cites the example of his teacher, Abu
'1-'Abbas al-'Uryabi, who was Qald qadam cIsd, 'in
the footsteps of Jesus'.5
This vision, however,
important as it is, is only one of many. According to Sadr al-Din Qunawi, Ibn
'Arabi's step-son and disciple, 'our teacher had the ability to encounter the
spirit of whomsoever he wished among the prophets and saints of the past, in
three ways; sometimes he caused those who inhabit that world [of the spirits]
to
1. Futuhatjn,p. 323.
2. Fusiis al-hikami,p. 110.
3. Futiihat n,p. 425.
4. Ibid, in, p. 208.
5. For references to this shaykh, who will be discussed at greater length in
Chapter Five, see note 8, p. 76.
descend and perceived
them in a subtle corporeal form; sometimes he caused them to be present to him
in his sleep; and sometimes he would cast aside his own material form. '6 It
is a fact that the writings of the Shaykh al-Akbar speak of innumerable
occasions when he met with the prophets7 or—especially in the
subtle dialogues of the Book of Theophanies (Kitab al-tajalliyat)—with
the saints of the past,8 in a manner as natural as when he
speaks of the awliya of his time whom he knew and visited.
Thus it goes without saying that the word 'doctrine' in the title of the
present work refers to the written translation of a visionary knowledge and a
personal experience of sainthood: we do not find in Ibn 'Arabi, in connection
with this or with any other subject, the systematic exposition of a theory such
as a theologian might write. He warns us of this often enough, moreover, when
speaking of the conditions under which his works were written: 'I have not
written one single letter of this book save by divine dictation (imld'
ildht) and dominical vouchsafing (ilqd 'rabbant)'.9 Elsewhere
he insists that even the ordering of his subject-matter does not proceed from
his own will. If that were the case, he says, the order would be different: for
example, the chapter in the Futuhdt on the sharicar the
divine Law, should logically speaking come before the chapters on ritual
prescriptions, whereas in fact it occurs some way after them.10 Thus,
only a tortuous progress through the thousands of pages which make up his work,
and a comparative reading of texts which may at first sight appear
contradictory, make it possible to demonstrate the coherence of his teaching
and to understand
6. Quoted by Ibn al-Tmad, Shadharat al-dhahab, Beirut, n.d.,
v, p. 196 (year 638).
7. See for example Futuhdt ir p. 151; iv, pp.
77,184.
8. The Kitab al-tajalliyat was edited at Hyderabad in 1948,
and again in Beirut (n.d.). Osman Yahia has brought out a new edition of it
with two commentaries, one by Ibn Sawdakin (a disciple of Ibn Arabi, who simply
transcribes the commentary delivered by the Shaykh al-Akbar himself), and the
other anonymous (attributed by Brockelmann to Abd al-Karim ai-Jili),
entitled Kashf al-ghdydt (in the review al-Mashriq, 1966-67).
Several chapters of the Kitab al-tajalliyat give an account of
meetings with a whole series of people who lived several centuries prior to Ibn
Arabi, such as Junayd, al-Hallaj, Dhu' 1-Nun al-Misri, Sahl al-Tustari, etc.
9. Futuhdtin,p.
10. Ibid. 11, p. 163. On the inspiration for Ibn Arabi's writing, see also—
among other texts—Futuhdt 1, p. 59; ibid. in,p. 334; and the
prologue to the Fusils: a work which, according to him, was delivered to him,
during a vision he had at Damascus in 627/1229, by the prophet Muhammad
himself (Fusils 1, p. 47).
11.
its implications. The
reader must not be surprised if at times in the course of this journey the wood
cannot be seen for the trees.
Ibn ‘Arabi's claim to be
divinely inspired (either directly or, as in the case of the Fusils
al-hikam which he received from the Prophet's own hands, indirectly),
his recourse, on almost every page, to the evidence of the invisible world, the
difficulty, ultimately, of grasping his doctrine in all its breadth and shades
of meaning through the profusion' of its statements and the diversity of its
successive points of view—these are sufficient, doubtless, to explain in part
the violent attacks made on his doctrine of sainthood. Blindness and bad faith
would do the rest. 'The spirit from whom the writer of the Futuhdt claims
to have received this work is a devilish spirit', declared Ibn Taymiyya (d.
728/1328); and in support of this view he cites an account given by Shaykh Najm
al-Din ibn al-Hakim, who was present at the funeral of Ibn ‘Arabi in 638/1240:
'My arrival in Damascus coincided with the death of Ibn ‘Arabi. I saw his
funeral procession and it was as though covered with a rain of ashes. I
realized that it in no way resembled the funeral processions of the awliya'.'1'1- But
Ibn Taymiyya, not content with such impressionistic observations, wrote a
lengthy pamphlet in which he systematically criticized the ideas of Ibn ‘Arabi
and his school on the awliya', and which he entitled al~Farq
bayna awliya' al-Rahman wa awliya' al-Shaytdn: 'On the difference between
the saints of God and the saints of Satan'.12 He could not have
made it more clear! Against this, as against certain other themes (Ibn ‘Arabi's
supposed 'pantheism', his interpretation of the Qur'anic verses concerning
Pharaoh in the story of Moses, and of the verses relating to infernal
punishment etc.), a polemical campaign was unleashed at the end of the
thirteenth century, just at the time when, in Paris, two hundred and nineteen
propositions of the 'Latin Averroists' (among them Siger of Brabant, whom Dante
was to place in Paradise) were being branded as 'heretical' by Etienne Tempier.13 The
campaign continues to this day. Osman Yahia lists
12. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmuc fatdwa Shaykh al-Isldm Ahmad
b. Taymiyya, Riyadh 1340-82, xi, p. 511 (the account of Shaykh Najm
al-Din comes in the Majmii'at al-rasa'ilwa l-masa'il, ed.
Rashid Rida, iv, p. 77).
13. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmilc fatawd, xi, pp.
156-310.
14. The accusations made in both cases have many points of resemblance: the
heretical interpretation of scriptural and traditional teaching on the pains of
hell, the eternity of the world, sexual licence (a constantly recurring theme
in Sakhawi's work. Cf. al~Qawl al-munbi, ms. Berlin 2849, Spr.
790, e.g. fos. 17a, 97b). The accusation of ibdha (antinomianism),
a classic anti-Sufi allegation, formalized by
thirty-four works and
one hundred and thirty-eight fatwas (jurists' responsae) between
the seventh century of the Hegira and the end of the ninth which are hostile to
Ibn 'Arabi; and this list is not exhaustive for it does not take into account
many authors of merely local repute, nor the literature written in Persian.[22] These
diatribes were repeated from generation to generation., and usually derived the
essential part of their argument from the register of 'reprehensible
propositions' compiled by Ibn Taymiyya;[23] and,
although they never came to an end, they acquired renewed vigour at the end of
the last century with the salafiyya movement.[24] More
recently, they have been revived with considerable violence in Egypt, where the
debates in the press, on the radio and even in Parliament resulted in a ban
being imposed (it has since been lifted) on the critical edition of the Futuhdt
Makkiyya, undertaken by Osman Yahia. This campaign started with an
open letter published in the daily newspaper- al-Akhbdr on the
14th November 1975. Here as elsewhere, one of the questiones disputatae which
obsessed Ibn 'Arabi's critics concerned the nature and forms of sainthood.[25]
The critics of the
Shaykh al-Akbar usually opposed those of his ideas which they judged heretical
with facts taken from the scriptures and with the opinions or practices of
'pious men of the past'—meaning the Prophet's companions and the Sufis of the
early Islamic era. Before embarking on an exposition of Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine,
therefore, we must
Ibn al-Jawzi in
his Taibis Iblis (Cairo nJ., pp. 351-56), and often lodged
against Ibn 'Arabi, is directly contradicted by his views on the divine
Law {sharTa}, to which we will return.
return to the
source par excellence, which is the Qur'an. But first we must
draw attention to a tricky problem of terminology.
The word wall, plural awliya', from
the root w.l.y., is translated here, in conformity with
established usage and for lack of a better term, by the word 'saint'. Without
anticipating the analogies or the differences which will come to light later
between the nature and function of a wall in the economy of Islamic
spirituality and those of the saints in other religions, we must observe at
once that, from a strictly etymological point of view, the true equivalents of
the terms 'saint' or 'sainthood' should be formed from the root q.d.s., which
expresses the idea of purity and inviolability, and hence corresponds
appropriately to the Greek hagios and the Latin sanctus (Hebrew qaddsh). Alternatively,
they should be formed from the root h.r.m., which, while
expressing a notion different in principle (the notion of 'sacredness',
translated in Greek by hieros and in Latin by sacer), in
practice is not always distinguishable from the idea of sainthood: in English
'the holy' means 'the sacred', but 'the holy man' usually means 'the saintly
man'. Now, neither the words derived from the root q.d.s. nor
those derived from the root h.r.m., are normally applied to a
person designated by the term wall, with the exception, in the
case of q.d.s., of the posthumously spoken traditional
eulogy, qaddasa 'Lldhu sirrahu, 'May God sanctify his secret!'
On the other hand, it is interesting to note that in Christian Arabic
terminology, the word qiddis is used to designate the saints.
This discrepancy between two vocabularies within the same language, although
easily explained by historical considerations, is nevertheless worth bearing in
mind.
The primary meaning
of w.l.y. is proximity or contiguity, and this in turn gives
rise to two further meanings. One of these is 'to be a friend', and the other
is 'to direct, to govern, to take in charge'. Thus, the wall, properly
speaking, is the 'friend', he who is close; but, as Ibn Manzur emphasizes in
the Lisdn al- carab, he is also the ndsir, 'he
who assists', and the mudabbir, he who disposes.
Here we must insert a
parenthesis. If (for the sake of convenience, and because we will define the
analogies and differences between the semantic values of the two terms later
on) we translate the word wait as 'saint', what is the Arabic
word corresponding to 'sainthood' ? We find the words wilaya and waldya used
concurrently, for Henry Corbin, who establishes a categorical distinction
between the two, the use, current in Sufism, of wilaya (which
is generally accepted as implying
the notion of auctoritas) is
a spiritual misconstruction which demonstrates the ambiguity of 'an imamology
which dares not reveal its name'.18 We will come back to this
assertion, and to similar ones which, especially in the case of Ibn cArabi,
reduce tasawwuf to nothing more thancrypto-Shfism.
From the strictly
linguistic point of view, it is beyond doubt that the fl co/apattern (wazn) on
which the word wilaya is constructed is normally used to
express the execution of a function. Thus, khilafa signifies
the function of a caliph, imara the function of an emir;
similarly wilaya, in political and administrative terminology,
signifies the function o(awali (with a long a)—a
governor or prefect—and by extension his realm of competence. The fa cala pattern
on which walaya is modelled expresses a state of
being, and would thus appear to be a more adequate basis for the term
denoting the nature of a wall (with a short a), that
which makes him what he is. Nevertheless, the original manuscripts of the Sufi
texts, when they are vocalized—for wilaya and walaya are
indistinguishable in the written form—betray a hesitation between the use of
the two terms. The spoken language, and particularly that spoken in the turuq in
the Arab countries, exhibits a clear preference for wilaya, a
vocalization that appears to be based on a long tradition. In part at least,
this preference can probably be explained by a consideration for euphony which
often leads Arabic speakers to turn a short a into an i when
it occurs near a long a. But there may be other reasons, and
this preference is not unrelated to the way in which the wall is
perceived in the Muslim community, for the camma, the
common run of believers, the powers with which a wall is
invested are more evident and of a more obviously immediate importance than the
essential characteristics from which such powers actually arise. However that
may be, the opposition between walaya and wilaya should
not be exaggerated. Arabic lexicographers, for their part, put forward various
arguments about the precise meanings to be attached to these two words and the
relationship between them; but, after citing the different opinions on the
matter, they are manifestly hesitant to come to a decision. Let us observe in
passing that for a late Roman, amicitia, the usual term for
defining one's relationship with a patron saint, also connoted (as Peter Brown
says) the idea of'friendship' in the broad sense, and the idea of protection
and power: both walaya and wilaya.19
18. Cf. En Islam iranien, Paris 1971,1, p. 48, note 20, and
in, pp. 9-10.
19. Cf. Lisdn al-carab, Beirut, n.d,, xv, p.
407; Taj aT^arils, place and date unknown, x, p. 398 ff. On
contemporary usage, see also al-Mucjam al-wasit,
The fact remains that
the best argument in favour of walaya, from the point adopted
here, is that this term, unlike wilaya, possesses Qur'anic
references—something which for the Sufi masters and certainly for Ibn cArabi
was sufficient reason for preferring it. It actually occurs twice over: on die
first occasion it is applied to men, and is connected (significantly) with the
term awliyd' which comes into the same verse (Qur'an 8:72),
and on the second occasion it has reference to God (Qur'an 18:44). We will
therefore retain the form walaya, without however condemning
the concurrent use of wilaya. This cautiousness is strengthened
by the fact that, just to complicate matters, the scriptural argument is not as
conclusive as it might appear: of the seven traditional 'readings' of the
Qur'an retained by Ibn Mujahid, the Hamza reading of thesetwoverseshas wrTaya,
whereas theothersixhave waZaya.[26]
Furthermore, the
occurrences in the Qur'an of the root w.l.y. are manifold: it
appears, in different forms, two hundred and twenty-seven times. Waif and its
plural awliyd' occur with widely divergent meanings. The
meaning can be positive, as in verse 10:62 where mention is made of awliyd'
Allah, the 'saints of God' who are exposed 'neither to fear nor to
affliction': Lakhawfun 'alayhimwaldhumyahzanun. This
expression, by a subtle play of echo, reveals that the establishment of walaya is
coincident with the starting point of thehuman cycle, for it is found again in
the text (Qur'an 2:38) in the divine speech addressed to Adam after his fault
is pardoned (God has 'come back to him': fa-tdba ’alayhi), when
he is sent to earth in order to carry out his mandate as khalifa or
locum tenens. Other verses carry a negative connotation, such
as verse 4:76 which speaks of the awliyd' al-shaytdn, the
'saints of Satan'—an expression which was to furnish Ibn Taymiyya with the
title of the work already referred to, and which holds the mysterious
suggestion of a 'counter-sainthood', a hierarchy which is the symmetrical
inversion of thehierarchyofthe'saintsofGod'andwhichlikewisepossessesaPole.[27]
published by the Arabic
Academy in Cairo, 1961, p. 1070. Orientalists are themselves divided on the
question: Massignon sometimes employs wilaya and at other
times walaya; cAfifi, in his thesis on Ibn Arabi,
and P. Nwyia in his Exegese coranique et langage mystique (both
of them native Arabic speakers) employ wilaya. On the use
of amicitia in Christian terminology, cf. Peter Brown, Society
and the Holy in Late Antiquity, London 1982.
On the other hand,
although wall can be applied to man, it is also one of the
divine Names; and for Ibn cArabi, as we shall see, this point
is of enormous importance: 'Allah is the Wall of those who
believe; He causes them to come out of darkness into the light' (Qur'an 2:257).
'Allahis the Wall of the pious' (45:19). The Muslim exegetes,
although unable at times to resist the inclusion of somewhat arbitrarily distinguished
shades of meaning, attempted to classify the different meanings of wall in
the sacred Book. Muqatil (eighth century) detected ten meanings[28] which
can in fact be reduced to two. The first is directly related to the idea of
proximity which, as we saw, is the primary meaning of the root, and signifies,
according to the context, 'friend', 'companion', 'relative', 'ally',
'counsellor'. The second meaning is 'protector' or 'governor'. The existence of
these two classes of meaning is connected with the very nature of the
word wall. This word is constructed on the ambivalent fa
'll pattern which in Arabic can possess both an active sense (normally
expressed by the form fa cil) and a passive
sense (corresponding to the form mafut). Thus the wall is
simultaneously one who is close, the beloved, he who is protected, taken in
charge, and the protector, the 'patron' (in the Roman sense), the
governor (al-wall, the active participle constructed on
the fall) paradigm. Ibn cArabi was, moreover,
to extract major doctrinal consequences from the ambivalence of the /acf/-based
divine Names in the Qur'an, demonstrating for example that al- 'Alim, usually
translated as 'the Knower', signifies God in His capacity as both al-zAlim (He
who knows) and al-Ma'lum (He who is known): the sole Knower
and the sole Known in all known things.[29]
All the doctrinal
developments of the concepts wall and walaya arise
out of the Qur'an and
lead back to it. But meditation on the revealed Book is enriched through
meditation on the hadith (pl. ahadith), the
words spoken by the Prophet. Here again derivatives from the root w.l.y. are
frequent.[30] For the moment, we will limit ourselves to
a few of the most-quoted ahadith in the writings of tasawwuf, ignoring
the slight variations present in the different readings. It should be noted
that in most cases these are ahadith qudsiyya, where God
Himself speaks in the first person through the mouth of the Prophet. 'The most
enviable of My awliya' close to Me is a believer whose
possessions are few, whose joy is prayer, who accomplishes the service of his
Lord to perfection and obeys Him in secret. He is obscure among men and no one
points at him . . ..'2? 'Know that God has servants who are
neither prophets nor martyrs and who are envied by the prophets and martyrs for
their position and their nearness to God ... on the Day of Resurrection thrones
of light will be placed at their disposal. Their faces will be of light . . ..
These are the awliya' of God.'[31]
Another hadith—man cdda
li waliyyan . . •■—is repeated over and over in countless texts and
plays a major role in Ibn 'Arabi's teaching on walaya. Since
we give the full text later on, together with the Shaykh al-Akbar's commentary,
the first line only is quoted here: T declare war on him who is my walis
enemy'.[32] Mention should also be made of two
further ahadith which are of importance in defining the wali: 'Among
My servants, My awliya' are those who remember Me' (or 'who
invoke Me', yadhkuriina bi~dhikri);[33] 'For
My awliya' I have set aside ninety-nine Mercies . . ..'[34] In
the course of this work we will come across many other prophetic traditions,
and the interpretation of these by the Sufi masters will prove essential to an
understanding of the wali. But we may as well say at once that
it is the Prophet's very being which is the definitive key to
the secret of the name that is shared between God and man.
CHAPTER
2
'He who sees thee sees
Me'
Our first brief
survey has allowed us to glimpse in the words waft"and walaya two
complementary meanings. The most general of these attaches to the notion of
'proximity' (qurb)—hence the use of these words to express kinship;
and the other, which derives from the first, to the notion of 'taking in
charge' or 'governing'. These two series of semantic values, conveyed by the
root and confirmed by scriptural references, determine, implicitly or
explicitly and to the exclusion of neither, each and every definition of the
word wall, 'saint'. For Ibn Taymiyya,1 the awliya are
purely and simply the muqarrabun, 'those who are close': a
Qur'anic term signifying the highest category of the chosen, beyond the binary
distinction of the 'People of the Right' and the 'People of the Left'; it is a
category also called in the Qur'an (56:10-11) sabiqiin, 'those
who go before', or the 'forerunners'. In the fourteenth century, Jurjani (who,
in his Tacrifdt, clearly distinguishes
between walaya and wilaya making them
correspond respectively to the state of the wall and to his
cosmic functions) defines walaya as the proximity [of God].2 Similarly,
in the eighteenth century, Ibn cAjiba gives al-uns as
the equivalent of walaya: intimacy (with God).3 Ibn cArabi,
on the other hand, sometimes emphasizes the idea of divine assistance (nu^ra). 'The awliya',' he
writes, 'are those of whom God has taken charge by aiding them (hum
al-ladhina tawallahum Allah bi-nusratihi: the verb tawalla used
here is derived from the root w.l.y.) in their battles against
the four enemies: the passions (al-hawa), the ego (al-nafs), the
world (al-dunya) andthedevil (al-shaytan). '4
But the texts we have
been quoting are, relatively speaking, late. What was the position at the
beginning of the Islamic era? According to
1. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmii "at al-rasd'il 1, p. 40.
2. Juijani, TaVf/ot, Istanbul 1327 AH,p. 172.
3. J.-L. Michon, Le Soufi marocain Ahmad Ibn Ajiba et son mizraj, Paris
*973, P-204.
4. Futuhatii,p.5}.
5. Hujwiri, Kashfal-mahjub, trans. R. A. Nicholson, London
1911, p. 44.
26
a sarcastic comment
reported by Hujwiri,5 tasawwuf (a word that, since
publication in 1821 by Tholluck of his Ssufismus, sive theosophia
Persarum pantheistica, has been rather awkwardly translated as
■'Sufism') 'is today a name without reality, whereas it was once a reality
without a name'. Bearing in mind the spiritual brilliance of the era in which
this curt judgement was pronounced, the first part of this statement must be
seen as a mere paradox intended to stimulate the zeal of novices, but the
second part has a basis in history: the first recorded appearance of the term
sufi dates from the middle of the second century of the Hegira (eighth
century ce), when it was applied in Kufa to the famous Jabir ibn
Hayyan, a follower of Jacfar al-Sadiq. In the same way, in the case
of walaya, the thing existed before the word. According again
to Hujwiri, it was actually al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi who in the ninth century
introduced the term into the technical vocabulary of Sufism, where it had not
previously existed.[35] Hujwiri was aware, of course,
that the terms walaya, wait, and awliya , which
were part of the vocabulary of the Qur'an and the hadith, could
not have been totally unknown for two centuries; but any evidence we possess of
their use prior to this date does not contradict his statement. This is
corroborated, indeed, by a fact of more importance than the mere introducing of
a term: although some of Tirmidhi's contemporaries, such as Sahl al-Tustari in
his Tafsir (of which more later) and Abu Sa:id
al-Kharraz in his Rasd'il throw light on the concept of walaya, Tirmidhi
himself is indeed the first author to provide a greatly expanded doctrinal
exposition of it, which is sufficient to explain the place occupied by his work
in the writings of Ibn 'Arabi on this subject.
Tirmidhi was born in
Khorasan, and died at a very advanced age at the beginning of the fourth
century of the Hegira. According to his pupil Abu Bakr al-Warraq, he had been a
disciple of al-Khadir (or Khizr, to transcribe the Persian form of his name),
the immortal itinerant initiator, who used to visit him every Sunday.[36] His
view on the problem of walaya apparently led him to be accused
of being a mutanabbi—of laying claim, that is, to the dignity of
the prophets; he was denounced to the governor of Balkh and underwent painful
trials. His major work,
the Kitab Khatm
al-awliya' (The Book of the Seal of the Saints, probably written
around 260/873), was long thought to be lost, and was known only through the
quotations from it in Ibn "Arabi's Futuhat Makkiyya. The
discovery of two manuscripts in Istanbul about thirty years ago (a third has
since been identified in London) has enabled Osman Yahia to bring out a first
critical edition of this work.[37]
The Khatm
al-awliya' is far from being a treatise containing a systematic
exposition of the author's ideas on walaya. Thus, in Osman
Yahia's division of it into twenty-nine chapters, the idea of a 'Seal of the
Saints' appears in chapter eight, recurs in chapter thirteen, and is the
subject of chapter twenty-five. The remarkable text, which takes the form of a
tortuous dialogue between Tirmidhi and one of his followers, is first and
foremost the record of a spiritual experience that is discreetly
veiledbyanimpersonaltone. Thesubjectofitisdefinedinthefirstlines:
You have just mentioned
the debate aroused by some people on the subject of walaya. You
have asked questions about walaya, about the dwellings of
the awliyd', about the implications of putting one's faith in
them. You asked whether the wait is conscious or not of his
state of being, because you have heard it said that those who possess walaya have
no awareness of it. Finally, you asked about those who think that they are in
possession of it even though they are in fact far from being so. Know, in
truth, that those who talk about walaya know nothing about it
whatsoever. They try to
perceive it with a knowledge which is external, and they express only their
personal opinions or else rely on fallacious analogies. Such people do not find
favour with their Lord. They have no access to the dwelling places of walaya and
have no conception of the way in which Allah operates.9
A fundamental
distinction is made at the beginning of the work. It is based on the idea
of Haqq Allah, which strictly speaking means 'the right of
Allah', that right which is the consequence of His Absolute suzerainty over all
beings. For Tirmidhi, it is essential not to confuse the wall haqq
Allah with the wait Allah haqqan. These are actually
two modalities, or, rather, two stages of the spiritual life. One is founded on
the practice of sidq—veracity or sincerity, the greatest of all the
virtues—which involves the total fulfilment of all obligations, both inner and
external, arising out of the 'feudal' relationship between the vassal and his
lord. The other is based on the operation of grace (minna). In
the first of these cases the person is characterised by cibada, 'observance';
in the second he is characterised by "ubudiyya, a word
derived from the same root but which can be rendered as 'servitude' and which,
in Tirmidhi as in Ibn cArabi, signifies the awareness of a
radical ontological indigence. Ibada, which is situated on the
level of action, does not totally exclude the illusion of autonomy; cubudiyya, which
has reference to being, does away with this illusion once and for all. The
'right of God' over a created being has as its implicit corollary the right of
the created being over the Creator: the wall haqq Allah, whose
sainthood consists in serving the right of God, gives in order to receive.
The wait Allah, on the other hand, serves God alone and has
nothing to exchange. But his absolute servitude constitutes the empty space
within which Absolute Plenitude is displayed; and this is why one of the characteristics
of authentic walaya, or rather the guarantee of its
authenticity, is, according to Tirmidhi, the descent of sakina: the
'Peace' and also, in accordance with the etymology, the 'Presence' of God. It
is not surprising, therefore, that one of the external signs whereby we may
recognize a true wall is as expressed in the hadith: 'The
saints among you are those whom one cannot see without remembering Allah'.10 The
essential feature of the awliyd' is the transparency which
makes them the privileged vehicles of theophany.
9. The translation used here corresponds, with very slight modifications, to
thatof Osman Yahia, op. cit.,pp. 100-1 (pp. 114-16 of the Arabictext).
10. Ibid.,p. 166 (p. 361 of the Arabic). Cf. also pp. 177-79 (pp- 372-74 of the
Arabic). On this hadith, cf. Suyuti, al-Fath al-kablr, Cairo
1351 ah, i, p. 214.
A question arises here
which had inevitably to be confronted in Islam by any doctrine of spiritual
perfection, whatever the terms used to describe its forms and stages: what is
the relationship between the wali on the one hand, and
the nabi (prophet) or rasul (messenger) on
the other? Here we touch on the particular point in Tirmidhi's doctrine which
aroused the ire of some fuqahd' and which caused him,
throughout a whole period of his life, to be persecuted, as he says in a short
autobiographical document entitled Bad' al-sha'n. According to
him, both nubuwwa and risdla have an end,
which coincides with the end of the world. When the Day of Resurrection dawns,
the eschatological message and the promulgation of the divine Law, which are
the respective missions of the nabi and the rasul (we
may recall that every rasul is a nablbut not vice versa) will
no longer have a point: with the consummation of the centuries, the time of faith
and of the law is over. Walaya, on the other hand, subsists to
eternity, which explains why God himself is called wali although
neither nabi nor rasul have a place among the
divine Names. This does not in the least mean that the awliya' are
superior to the prophets and the messengers: every rasul and
every nabi is above all and by definition a wali.
Walaya is superior to nubuwwa or risdla in
the persons of the prophets and messengers; it is the hidden
and enduring face of their being; and the mandate which they execute here below
represents only its external and transitory aspect. An initial link is thus
clearly established between prophetology and hagiology, which Ibn 'Arabi was
later to elucidate.
What is meant, however,
by the 'Seal of the Saints', the title of Tirmidhi's work? Here again, it was
Ibn ‘Arabi who defined its nature and function. Tirmidhi, although he speaks of
it several times both here and elsewhere, only gives vague hints as to the
meaning of the term, which no one before him appears to have used. It is
'the proof of God before
the awliya'. To these God will say: 'Oh you assembled awliya'I I
bestowed my walaya upon you but you did not protect it from
the interference of the ego. Now behold, it has been given to the weakest and
youngest among you to contain truly within himself walaya in
all its wholeness, to the total exclusion of his ego. And this is from all eternity,
by virtue of a special grace from God with regard to his servant, on whom He
will confer the Seal so as to rejoice the heart of Muhammad [literally: to
refresh his eye] and to put Satan aside , . . [On the day of Resurrection]
Muhammad will come furnished with the Seal [of Prophethood] and will be a
surety for created beings against the terror of the Judgement; and this saint
will come, likewise furnished with his seal, and for the
awliya’ who have need of him he will be the
guarantee of the authenticity of walaya.1'1
In another text quoted
by Osman Yahia,[38] Tirmidhi gives a lyrical description
of the Khatm al-awliya' which deserves to be recorded:
He is a servant whom God
has taken into his charge.
He is under the divine
aegis; he speaks through God, hears
through God,
He listens, sees, acts
and meditates through God.
God has made him famous
throughout the world
And has established him
as the imam of created beings.
He is the keeper of the
emblem of the awliya'
The surety of the
inhabitants of the earth,
The spectacle of the
beings of heaven.
Flower of paradise,
chosen one of God, object of His gaze,
Mine of His secrets,
scourge of His justice,
Through him God quickens
hearts,
Through him He guides
created beings along the Way,
Through him He enforces
the divine laws.
This being is the key to
the right direction,
The flaming torch of the
earth
Guardian of the registers
of the Saints
And their guide.
He alone gives God the
praises that are due to Him . . .
He is the lord of the
saints
Heisthe Wisest of the
Wise . . .
While this may appear
fairly enigmatic, the Kitab Khatm al-awliya' contains an even
more mysterious section: the long questionnaire which makes up the fourth
chapter of Osman Yahia's edition of the book. Challenging the claims of those
who 'talk like the awliya" without possessing the
necessary qualifications, these one hundred and fifty-seven questions are given
with no answers and no commentary. 'What is sakmal' 'What is
meant by the hadith: God created creatures in a darkness? What
was their condition in this darkness?' 'What is
meant by the hadith: Allah
has one hundred and seventeen qualities? What are these qualities?' 'What words
will Allah address to the Messengers on the Day of Resurrection?' 'What are the
Keys of Generosity?' 'How many stages are there in prophethood?' 'What is
prostration? How did it begin?' 'What is the primordial Name from which all
other Names proceed?' ‘Where is the door which reveals the hidden Name to
created beings?' In most cases, there is no obvious logical sequence to these
questions, whose very form is often so cryptic that before envisaging a reply
one would like to be sure of having understood the nature of the question. As
far as we know, for three centuries no one ventured to pass this test, which
the sage of Tirmidh imposed on any person who thought himself worthy to attain
to the secret of walaya. It fell to Ibn 'Arabi, first in a
short unedited treatise entitled al-Jawab al-Mustaqim 'ammd
sa'ala canhu al-Tirmidhi al-Hakim (The Reply to the Questions
of Tirmidhial-Hakim), and then at greater length in chapter seven
ty-three of the Rutuhat, to take up the challenge
triumphantly.[39] It was a spiritual tournament between
two solitaries, confronting each other across the ages.
In spite of its
sometimes sybilline statements and the apparent lack of organization, for those
who knew how to read it, the Kitab khatm al-awliya' clarified
certain essential aspects of walaya. Yet this first step
towards a doctrinal exposition remained for a long time without a successor.
This may possibly have been because the subject-matter cannot be handled
without seeming to call into question prophetic privilege, and therefore needed
to be approached with extreme caution as regards language.
The scandal raised by
Tirmidhi's assertions, and perhaps by his followers' imprudent remarks, may
serve to explain the circumspection of later writers on this theme. We will
leave the theologians out of it: one might expect, for example, a writer such
as Baqillani (tenth century) to come up with some definitions. He devoted a
work to the difference between mufizat (miracles of the
prophets), kardmdt (miracles of the saints), sorcery, and
prestidigitation.[40] Yet he confines himself to
affirming, as against the MuTazilites, the possibility of
kardmdt. As far as he is concerned, the awliya' are
the sdlihim, the pious—an equivalent which is no substitute
for a definition.
If one turns to the Suhs
one discovers, it is true, some allusions which can be most illuminating; but
there is also an evident desire to be discreet on the subject of what
constitutes walaya per se. Needless to say, many texts where
the word walaya does not occur make mention of 'arif (gnostic), safe or
other similar terms, and thereby contribute to a definition of the nature
of walaya. But we may well be surprised that a term which,
unlike the others, possesses Qur'anic references, is either omitted altogether
or only given a brief mention. Also surprising is a curious remark of Hujwiri's
in his Kashf al-mahjub, where he says: 'Certain shaykhs in the
old days wrote works on this subject, but these became rare and quickly
disappeared. '[41] Surely this remark, which may be
deliberately vague, can only be an allusion to the writings of Tirmidhi or of
his followers, the Hakimiyya, whose characteristic features
are described by Hujwiri in the chapter from which this quotation is taken. In
this chapter, in fact, the author simply recalls, with the help of a few
anecdotes, what we find in Tirmidhi's own writings (stressing the fact that all
prophets are awliya'. but that not all awliya' are
prophets), and does not discuss the concept of a 'Seal of the Saints'. This can
hardly be an accident, considering that Hujwiri mentions the work of that title
(calling it Khatm al-wildya).[42]
The great texts of tasawwuf, whose
authors are themselves frequently acknowledged to be awliya', prove
on investigation to be equally lacking in precision.[43] In
one section of his Qiit al-quliib (The Nourishment of Hearts'), Abu
Talib al-Maldd (died 380/990) speaks of the 'People of the spiritual stations
among the Proximate' (a.hl al- maqdmdt min al-muqarrabin)[44] and
distinguishes three categories of
awliyd'. In ascending order, these are: the
'People of the knowledge of Allah' (ahi al- cilm
bi'Lldh), the People of Love (ahi al-hubb), and the
People of Fear (ahi al-khawf); and he cites, in relation to
the saints, a remark attributed to Jesus which enumerates their characteristic
virtues. Another great $ufi classic, the Kitab al-Lumac by
Abu Nasr al-Sarraj (died 377/987), contains a chapter19 which
issues a strict warning against those who situate walaya above nubuwwa. We
may ask ourselves whether this could be an indirect criticism of Tirmidhi, who
is not mentioned by name, or of certain Hakimiyya who deviated
from him or who at any rate gave ill-considered expression to their teacher's
doctrine. Another chapter20 is devoted to the 'miracles of the
saints' (kardmdt al-awliya') and criticizes those (in this
case the Mu'tazilites) who persist in denying them. Yet here again, we will
look in vain for any detailed account of walaya.
Among the authors
contemporary with those we have just mentioned, the work of one is also
considered to contribute fundamentally to our knowledge of Sufism: Kalabadhi
(died 385/995), whose Kitab al-Ta carruf, with
its methodical construction, can truly be considered a treatise. Once again,
and not for the last time, the subject of Chapter Twenty-Six is the problem of
miracles.21 Predictably, it is a defence both of the
possibility and of the legitimacy of kardmdt: the miracles of
the saints, in relation to the prophet whose authority the latter acknowledge,
are not of a competitive but of a confirmative nature (zuhur al-kardmdt
ta'yid li 'l-nabi)—a statement which is based on a remark of Abu Bakr
al-Warraq, mentioned above as one of Tirmidhi's immediate followers, to the
effect that 'the miracle does not make the prophet'. Kalabadhi goes on to reply
in the affirmative to the question which Tirmidhi had already been asked by the
student to whom the Khatm al-awliya’ is addressed: can or
cannot the saint be aware of his sainthood? Finally, he distinguishes between
two types of walaya: in its
19. Abu Nasr al-Sarraj, Kitab al-Lumac, ed. 'Abd
al-Halim Mahmud and Taha cAbd al-Baqi Surur, Baghdad i960, pp.
535-37. (Nicholson's edition is more reliable but less complete; but the
editors, unfortunately, give no indication as to what manuscripts they have
used).
20. Ibid.,pp. 390-408.
21. Kalabadhi, Kitab al-Ta:arruf li-madhhab ahi al-tasawwuj, ed.
'Abd al-Halim Mahmud and Taha 'Abd al-Baqi Surur, Cairo i960 (copied from the
Arberry edition, Cairo 1953), pp. 71-79. There is now an excellent French
translation of this work by R. Deladriere, entitled Traite de soufisme, Paris
1981. Chapter 26 corresponds to pp. 74-83.
more general sense it
can be applied to all believers, and in the more limited sense which it
possesses in the vocabulary of Sufism it is the privilege of the elect. 'He who
possesses it is preserved from all concern with his ego {mahfiizan Zanal-nazar
ild nafsihi) . . . and from all afflictions pertaining to the human
condition {min dfdt al- bashariyya).' This passage contains
two points, not new but important enough to bear in mind. One is the relationship
between wall and nabv. the saint's role in
relation to the prophet is confirmatory, and consequently any ideas of
autonomy with regard to the Law, and of equality or superiority with regard to
the prophet, are ruled out; and the other is the definition of the saint as a
being who has lost sight of his nafs or ego.
We come now to the
authors of a somewhat later date. Sulami died in 412/1021. In the introductory
doxology of his Tabaqat al-sufiyya,[45] there
is a brief reference to the saints as the successors of the prophets {wa
atba^a 'l-anbiyd' bi 'l-awliyd'), but even though the words wall,
awliyd', walaya occur often in this hagiographic compilation, there is
an absence of doctrinal expositions even where one might logically expect to
find them. It is in fact extraordinary that the note about Tirmidhi[46] does
not refer to one single remark of his about walaya. Still on
this subject, Sulami also quotes a severe judgement made by JaTar al-Khuldi
(died 348/959): when asked whether he possessed any works by Tirmidhi, he
replied 'that he did not number him among the Sufis'[47]—a
remark which should probably be interpreted as meaning that he numbered him
among the philosophers. Needless to say, the logia compiled by
Sulami raise the classic questions (concerning kardmdt, whether
the wall knows that he is a wall), recommend frequent visits
to the awliyd' and their tombs, describe their distinctive
features and, in particular, speak of their earthly status as an anticipation
of their condition in paradise: 'It has been given to the awliyd' by
Allah in advance to enjoy His dhikr and to have access to His
proximity. The life of their body is that of earthly beings and the life of
their spirit is that of heavenly beings.' This quote is taken from Abu Said
al-Kharraz (died 286/899).[48] But the most attractive
definition of a saint to be found in the Tabaqdt and the one
which best sums up many of the ideas expressed by the Shaykh al-Akbar is
undoubtedly the following by Abu
Yazid al-Bistami (died
2.61/874 or 234/857), for whom 'the saint of Allah has no
feature by which he is distinguished nor any name by which he can be named.'[49] We
can compare this statement with another made by Bistami, and quoted by Sahlaji:[50] 'I
asked Abu Yazid, "How are you this morning?" He answered, "There
is no morning or evening. Morning and evening exist only for the man to whom
one can assign a quality; but I am without a quality (wa and la sifata
If)".' Neither morning nor evening, but the lux perpetua of
the Eternal Day which has already dawned for the man who, having shed both name
and attributes, is henceforth beyond all forms.
Another monument of
Islamic hagiography, the Hilyat al-awliya' (The Jewel of the Saints} by
Abu Nucaym al-Isfahani (died 430/1038), leaves us, despite its
title, still unsatisfied, although it contains elements of interest. This
ten-volume catalogue, containing no fewer than six hundred and eighty-nine
biographies, includes a notice on al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi;[51] and
here again there is an omission which must be intentional, for it says nothing
about the teachings on walaya which were his major
contribution to the doctrines of tasawwuf. Thus, from
scattered allusions and at times conflicting descriptions of character, a
picture emerges of the wall and a typology of the awliya' starts
to take shape. But the actual essence of sainthood escapes structured
definition. It is significant that the introduction to the work simply
describes the external characteristics (al-mTui al-zdhira) of
the wali using a series of hadith and
'sayings' (akhbar} of the ancients.[52] According
to these, the saints remember God (or invoke Him: yadhkuriina 'Lldha), and
through their mere presence arouse the desire to remember Him. They are
preserved from error during times of sedition (fitna). They
live in poverty and obscurity ('Many a man', said the Prophet, 'with unkempt
hair, whose possessions amount to no more than a couple of dates, whom no one
wants to look at, may, if he adjures God, have his prayers answered').[53] The
theme of the saint's occultation is consistently
emphasized.
Another hadith quoted by Abu Nucaym says: 'The
servants whom God loves best are the pious and the hidden. When they are away
no one misses them, and when they are present they are ignored. These are the
imams of good guidance and the torches of Knowledge. °1 Mention
is also made of the hierarchy of the saints and of asceticism (zuhd), and
sayings are quoted about the latter which are attributed to Jesus, as well as
the advice which God is supposed to have given Moses and Aaron before their
meeting with Pharaoh. Further on is a reference to Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri's
marvellous phrase, 'the Qur'an has mingled with their flesh and blood'?1 which
clearly echoes the words of 'A'isha, the Prophet's wife, who in answer to
questions about his nature (khuluq), said, 'His nature was the
Qur'an'. Another hadith which comes into this introduction
says: 'Among the best in my community, as the supreme Pleroma has taught me,
the highest ranks contain people who laugh outwardly because of the immensity
of their Lord's Compassion and weep inwardly for fear of the harshness of their
Lord's punishment.03 Among the features to which Abu Nucaym
wished to give prominence by his considered choice of quotations, we may note
in particular the fact that walaya does not necessarily
involve spectacular manifestations; on the contrary, the saint—the 'man without
a quality' as Bistami terms him—often avoids being seen. Yet paradoxically,
this effacement (which cannot be reduced to the mere practice of the virtue of
humility but is the result of a metamorphosis in the etymological
sense of the word) has the consequence that when the wali is seen,
an anamnesis (dhikr) takes place, be it only a fleeting one,
in the being of the beholder. Moreover, Dhu'l-Nun's remarks subtly introduce a
reflexion, the fruits of which will appear later, on the identification of the
divine word itself—an identification of which the Prophet is both the example
and the guarantee.
The Risdla of
Qushayri (died 465/1072) is one of the classics of Sufism. Walaya has
a chapter to itself,[54] but here as in the other works
we have mentioned, discretion prevails. After referring to verse 10:62, which,
as we saw, is the most frequently invoked reference in the
Qur'an on the subject of
the awliya', Qushayri, like his predecessors, quotes
the hadith qudsl'Man cada llwaliyyan. . . .'(T declare
war on him who is the enemy of My wall’). He then goes on to
emphasize that wall is a word in fa'll and
hence, as we pointed out earlier, possesses two meanings, passive and active.
For the author of the Risdla, wallin the first sense is he of
whose affairs God takes charge, and, in the second sense, he who takes charge
of the service of God and the obedience due to Him. Furthermore, walaya presupposes
a condition to be fulfilled: just as the true prophet must be without sin (macsum), the
true wall must be 'preserved' (mahfuz) from
all that is contrary to the Law.
We come next to the
usual question: does the saint know that he is a saint? Qushayri speaks of the
arguments aroused by this problem and cites the affirmative answer to it given
by his own teacher and father-in-law, Abu CA1I al-Daqqaq. The
chapter continues with a series of quotations which give us a brief glimpse of
themes that we have already encountered: the saint's occultation, together with
a remark of Abu Yazid al-Bistami on the awliya' as the
'brides' ('ara is) of God whom He conceals from alien eyes; the
continuity between walaya and nubuwwa, and
words of Sulami (who was also one of Qushayri's teachers) to the effect that
'the prophets begin where the saints end'; and the dissolution of the ego,
accompanied by a definition of wall by Abu cAli
al-Juzjani. Qushayri concludes with a short commentary on the verse from the
Qur'an with which the chapter begins. In a famous phrase, slightly transposed
(and more often applied to the Sufi), the wallis 'the son of
the moment': he has no past and no future, and therefore, as the Qur'an says,
is not subject either to fear or to unhappiness.
Another chapter of
the Risdla treats, as usual, of the 'miracles of the
saints' (kardmdt al-awliyd') but has nothing new to say about
them. Similarly, if we turn to Qushayri's commentary on the Qur'an, published
for the first time in Cairo a few years ago, it contains few additional
elements, apart from a definition of the difference between ma csum and mahfuz:
the prophet's freedom from sin lies in the fact that he does not even
experience the desire to commit a sin. The saint, on the other hand, is not
shielded from temptation and may yield to it; but divine grace preserves him
from persevering in his fault (wa-ldkin la yakiinu lahuisrdr).25
35. Qushayri, Lata'if al-ishdrdt, ed. Ibrahim Basyuni, with a
preface by Hasan ‘Abbas Zaki, Cairo, n.d., 6 vols. For the commentary on verse
10:62, see m, p. 105. The commentary on verse 4:76 gives no clue as to
the awliya' al-shaytan.
36.
Despite the fact that
his father had been a follower of a shaykh from Tirmidh through whom he claimed
spiritual descent from al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, “Abdallah Ansari (died 481/1089),
in what is known to us of his work, does not appear to have devoted particular
attention to the subject of walaya.[55] The
same is true of al-Ghazali (died 505/1111) who, as was standard practice in
treatises on ia$awwuf, criticizes in his Ihyd' those
who deny the kardmdt al-awliyd'.[56] Who
then are the awliya'? It is walaya that can
explain karamat, not the reverse. Sainthood is concealed
behind its manifestations and symbols, and it is in this roundabout way that
Najm al-Din Kubra (died 617/1270) for example, approaches the problem in
his Fawd’ih al—jamdl.^ Thus, among the caldmdt
al-wali, the saint's distinguishing features, Kubra singles out the
facts that he is mahfuz (stressing the difference between this
relative immunity and the cisma, the prophet's
absolute freedom from sin), that the requests he makes of God are granted, that
he knows the Supreme Name of God as well as the names of the jinns and
the angels, and so on. For him, walaya is the third and final
stage of the spiritual journey, whose division into three parts is expressed by
a series of ternaries: 'service' (or the act of worship, cibada), 'servitude' (cubudiyya), and
lastly 'absolute servitude' (fubuda)-[57] the
'knowledge of certitude' (cilm al-yaqin) which is
acquired (muktasab), the 'truth of certitude' (haqq
al-yaqin) which is a permanent state, and the 'eye of certitude' ^ayn
al-yaqm), which is the extinction (fund') of the
knower in the Known;[58] 'instability' (talwin), 'stability' (tamkm), and
the 'existentializing power' (takwin) conferred on him whose
own will has been entirely annihilated in the divine Will and through whose
mouth the divine Command itself of 'Bel' (kun!) is
expressed—an allusion to verse 16:40 ('The Word that We say to a thing when We
wish it to be is:
Be! and it is'). 'The
spiritual traveller', says Kubra, 'will acquire the qualification of sainthood
only when he has been accorded this "Be!"' Unlike Ibn ‘Arabi later,
Najm al-Din Kubra makes no attempt to justify metaphysically this seemingly
extravagant appropriation of the creative word for the benefit of a created
being; he simply finds support for it in the scriptures, citing verse 76:30 of
which the translation must now run: 'And you wish nothing which Allah does not
[also] wish. '41
Even though Najm al-Din
Kubra does not furnish us with a discursive account of walaya, he
does tell us more about it than any of the others. What we know of his
spiritual life through his own writings justifies us in thinking that, had he
wished, he could have gone a great deal further. But apart from his personal
experience, he was undoubtedly also familiar with the problem of walaya as
defined by Tirmidhi: his teacher ‘Ammar Bidlisi (died 590/1194), from whom he
borrows several of his expressions, actually refers several times in his
writings to the author of the Khatm al-awliya'. Like Tirmidhi,
Bidlisi stresses the relationship between walaya and sakma, the
divine Peace or Presence. Again, like Tirmidhi, he distinguishes various stages
of sainthood: there is, he says, a limited sainthood (muqayyada) and
an absolute sainthood (mutlaqa). The saint who possesses the
latter is no longer subject to natural appetites, nor to desires of the soul.
He knows neither personal will nor passion. He acts through God and God through
him.42 Bidlisi also derives from Tirmidhi the idea of the Seal
of the Saints, and paraphrases his definition without going any deeper into it.
But at least he bears witness to the fact that, however discreetly, the
teaching of the master of Tirmidh was still being passed on.
The great saints of the
twelfth century, among whom are included those we have been quoting, prove
through their writings that the question of walaya concerned
them and, no doubt, that they were asked about it. At first glance, however,
their laconic answers tell us nothing,
41. The usual translations give it as: 'And you wish for nothing if it is not
what God wants.' Metaphysically speaking, these two possible interpretations of
the verse are not contradictory, since the two wills (of God and of His
creations), for the man who attains to the supreme stage of walaya, are
neither successive nor distinct from each other in any relation. This is
expressed by Kubra when he says that then, 'God wishes for nothing without the
servant wishing for it, and the servant wishes for nothing without God wishing
for it' (ibid.,p. 86).
42. The passages here referred to from Bidlisi's Bahjat al-ta'ifa have
been published by Osman Yahia as an annex to the Khatm al-awliya', pp.
469-71, copied from a manuscript in Berlin.
43.
J.U.
and only a patient
exegesis of their words and actions, to which Ibn ‘Arabi holds the key, reveals
their coherence and depth. One of the greatest figures of the time, 'Abd
al-Qadir al-Jilani, whose death in Baghdad in
56i/n65coincidedwiththebirthinAndalusia,tothewestoftheMuslim world, of Ibn
‘Arabi, says only (as ‘Ammar Bidlisi also says, using another image of a tree
and its branches) that walaya is 'the shadow of the prophetic
function' (zill al-nubuwwa), as the prophetic function is the
shadow of the divine function[59]—a metaphor which, while it
confirms the close link between prophetology and hagiology, is too vague to
provide us with an adequate doctrinal perspective. We will have occasion to
return to ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani; but in order to conclude this brief survey
of the texts on walaya which appeared during the three
centuries that separate Tirmidhi from the author of the Futuhdt, we
must turn to a spiritual teacher contemporary with the latter: Ruzbehan Baqli,
who died in 606/1209, a dozen years after Ibn ‘Arabi's
arrival in the East. Henry Corbin has written a great deal about Baqli,[60] as
well as editing his Le Jasmin des Fideles d'Amour.[61] At
the risk of overlapping with him on certain points, we feel it would be useful
to draw attention to some sections of his work of which we now possess more
recent editions than were available to Corbin. There also exists at present[62] a
slightly different and more complete version of Baqli's spiritual
autobiography, the Kashf al-asrdr. First, however, we will
quote from another work, the Mashrab al-arwdh (The Watering-place of
Spirits'), in which Baqli, taking his cue from the systematic
description suggested by Ansari both in his Book of a Hundred Lands and
then in his Book of the Travellers' Stages, embarks on the
analysis of one thousand and one stations (maqdmdt), which he
divides into twenty chapters. Among them is a section on walaya.[63] 'The
start of the Way', writes Ruzbehan Baqli,
is the will [or
desire, irada], and it is accompanied by spiritual battles.
The middle of the Way is love (mahabba), and it is accompanied
by miraculous graces {kardmdt). The end of the Way is
gnosis (mahifa), and it is accompanied by contemplation (mushdhaddt). When
a being is firmly established in these stages, when the laws of change (talwiri) are
no longer operative for him and he swims in the oceans of unicity and the
secret of solitude (tafrid), then he is a wali, a
deputy of the prophets and truly pure among the pure. The word walaya is
a synthetic term encompassing all the dwelling places of men of spiritual
realisation [al-siddiqun, literally: those who confirm the
truth because they have experienced it for themselves], ... A wise man has
said: walaya is the fact of appropriating the divine
attributes to oneself (al-takhalluq bi khuluq al-haqq).
This abstract text is
illustrated by the account left to us by Ruzbehan, aged fifty-five years, of
his personal experience of the Way in the Kashf al-asrar (The Unveiling
of the Secrets)—an account so significant and so moving that we have no
hesitation in quoting a few passages from it:
I saw God—may He be
blessed and exalted!—clothed in Magnificence and in eternal Majesty, while I
was on the terrace of my house. It seemed to me that the entire universe was
transformed into a shining light, abounding and immense. He called to me out of
the heart of this light and said to me in Persian: 'O Ruzbehan, I have chosen
thee for walaya and I have selected thee for love (mahabba). Thou
art My wali and thou art My lover (muhibb). Do
not fear and do not be unhappy [an allusion to verse xo:64, quoted above], for
I will make thee perfect and I will help thee in all that thou desirest.' And I
saw as it were from the Throne to the earth[64] an ocean
like the rays of the sun. Then my mouth opened without my will and this entire
ocean entered into me until there remained no drop which I had not drunk.[65]
The words wali and walaya which
we have left untranslated are obviously to be understood here in the sense of
'proximity', which is, as we saw, the primary meaning attaching to the root.
But insofar as walaya applies to God, it is also al-nusra, the
divine Assistance from which the wali benefits and which is
promised to Ruzbehan during the course of this vision.
The texts which follow,
while not referring explicitly to walaya, nevertheless contain
very valuable indications as to its nature:
I saw God under His
attributes of Majesty and Beauty and the angels were with Him. I said to
Him, ZO my God, how wilt Thou take my spirit?' He said to me,
'I will come to thee from the inmost depths of the Eternity which has no
beginning and I will take thy spirit into My hand. Then I will bring thee to
the station of
"My home". I
will give thee the drink of proximity and I will reveal to thee for ever My
Beauty and My Majesty, as thou desirest and without a veil. '5°
One night, I saw an
immense ocean and this ocean was composed of a drink that was red in colour.51 And
I saw the Prophet seated, drunk, in the midst of the depths of this ocean. He
held a cup of the drink in his hand and was drinking it. When he saw me, he
took some of that ocean into the palm of his hand and gave me to drink. And
that which was opened to me was opened I Then I understood that the Prophet was
above all other creatures, who die thirsty while he stands intoxicated in the
middle of the ocean of divine Majesty.51
I saw, in the universe
of non-manifestation, a world illuminated by a blazing light. And I saw God—to
Whom be Glory!—clothed in the garment of Majesty, Beauty and Splendour. He
poured out the sea of Tenderness for me to drink and honoured me by according
me the station of Proximity. When I was immersed in the clarity of eternity, 1 stopped
at the gate of Magnificence and saw all the prophets there—Peace be upon them!
I saw Moses holding the Torah, Jesus holding the Gospel, David holding the
Psalms and Muhammad with the Qur'an. Then Adam made me drink 'the most
beautiful names'53 and the Supreme Name. Then I understood what
I understood of the high reserved knowledge with which God favours His prophets
and saints.34
In another vision,
Ruzbehan Baqli sees a yellow lion (the solar symbolism is doubly obvious here)
walking on top of Mount Qaf, the inaccessible emerald mountain which marks the
limit of the terrestrial world. This lion has devoured all the prophets and
their blood is still dripping from its mouth. Ruzbehan realizes that this is a
subtle reference (ishdra) to the overwhelming power of divine
Unity (qahr al-tawhid) andthatitisGodHimselfwhoisepiphanizedintheformofalion.54
A little further on
there is a long account of a spiritual event that occurred when Ruzbehan was in
his ribdt ('convent') at Shiraz. 'Then He clothed me in His
Attributes and made me one with His Essence. Then I saw myself as though I were
He (thumma ra’aytu nafei ka-anni huwa) . . .. Afterwards I
returned from this state and I descended from the rank of Lordship (rububiyya) to
that of servitude (htbudiyya)' J6 We will cite one
more of Ruzbehan's communications, in relation to
o
SEAL OF THE SAINTS
what was said earlier
about the saint's 'transparency' and his role as a favoured vehicle of
theophany:
Once, I was sitting
during the first part of the night beside my son Ahmad who was ill with a
violent fever; and my heart was almost breaking with anxiety. Suddenly I saw
God in His aspect of Beauty. He gave evidence of Goodness towards my son and
myself. Ecstasy and agitation seized hold of me . . .. I said to Him, 'O my
God, why dost Thou not speak to me as Thou didst speak to Moses?' He replied,
'Is it not enough that he who loves thee loves Me and that he who sees thee
sees Me ?'[66]
As we saw, only the
prophets are completely shielded from temptation (such at any rate is the Sunni
attitude in this regard; the Shute doctrines extend this impeccability to the
imams). While the life of Ruzbehan Baqli allows us to perceive the nature of
the divine Grace accorded the wall, it also gives us a
striking example of the dangers attendant upon the Way. In the chapter of
the Futuhdt Makkiyya which treats of the Station of
Knowledge (maqdm al-ma^rifa), Ibn cArabI
speaks of the spiritual lapses which teachers must know how to remedy in their
disciples. After speaking of 'the illnesses which affect actions' (amrad
al-af^dt}, he describes 'the illnesses which affect the spiritual
state' (amrdd al-ahwdl}, and refers to an episode in the life
of the saint of Shiraz which occurred during his visit to Mecca:
It is related of Shaykh
Ruzbehan that he was smitten by love for a woman, a singer, and was carried
away by transports of passion. It was his custom, when he experienced ecstasies
inspired by God, to utter such cries that he disturbed people who were walking
around the Kaba at the time when he was staying in Mecca and walking on the
terrace of the Holy Mosque. But his spiritual state was genuine.
When he was smitten with
love for' this singer, no one perceived it; for the state that had been
inspired in him by God was now inspired in him by the woman. When he realized
that people thought that his ectasies were still being inspired by God, as had
originally been the case, he took off his khirqa [the Sufi
'habit'], threw it towards them and related his story to everyone, saying, T do
not wish to tell lies about my condition.' Then he placed himself at the
service of the singer. She
was then told of what
had happened to him, of the transports that he experienced for her and that he
was one of the greatest of holy men. The woman was ashamed and asked God to
forgive her her faults through the baraka of Ruzbehan's
sincerity. She placed herself at his service and God caused the attachment that
Ruzbehan felt for her in his heart to cease. He returned to the Sufis and put
on his khirqa again.[67]
The example of Baqli
reveals some aspects of walaya which, in appearance at least,
contrast strongly with those aspects of it that we encounter in the case of
other people. Mad love—and its eventual aberrations—is one of the elements that
make up tasawwuf. Eminent men like Shibli or Hallaj in the
ninth century, or Jalal al-DIn Rumi in the thirteenth, and many more, bear
witness to this fact. Such love is distinguished by verbal lyricism—always
threatened by hyperbole or staleness but which sometimes attains a
heart-rending beauty—and by rather ostentatious irregularities of behaviour.
However, it would be too simple to oppose a 'way of knowledge' and a 'way of
love': spiritual life is not a choice between light and warmth. Both of them
exist in the case of all those who are recognized in Islamic tradition as awliya', including
Ibn Arabi whose Tarjuman al-ashwaq (The Interpreter of Desire) was
inspired by a woman, as was Ruzbehan BaqlTs Le jasmin des Fideles
d'Amour.[68] Although it is common,
especially for those who pay a pious visit (ziydra) to their
tombs, to designate Ibn Arabi as Sultan al- cdrifm, 'Sultan
of Gnostics', and Ibn al-Farid or Jalal al-Din Rumi as Sultan
al-muhibbin, 'Sultan of Lovers', yet it is the case that every wall is
both a ^drif, a gnostic, and a muhibb, a
lover. In a text quoted above, Ruzbehan Baqli likens walaya to
the 'appropriation of the divine characters'—an equivalence which, although not
always so clearly formulated, is present in all the Sufi writings on walaya and
is corroborated by the fact that the word wall is a name
shared between God and created being. God is both al- cAlim, He
who knows, and He who loves: yuhibbuhum, 'He [i.e. Allah]
loves them', says the Qur'an (5:54) in a passage which is immediately followed
(5:55) by the statement 'God is your wall’.
Knowledge and love are
indissolubly linked. The predominance of one or the other is just one of the
many criteria determining a typology of the saints—a typology that we will
later come to understand in all its
richness. In all cases
the Way has dangers which, however diverse, are merely forms of the ultimate
temptation of idolatry. There is idolatry of the self on the way of gnosis, if
the seeker, aiming at knowledge of the One, pauses on the road in the belief
that the One resides within his own soul. There is idolatry of the other on the
way of love, for the muhibb may forget that the other is
simply an aspect of the One. Ruzbehan Baqli fell into this trap at least once
and possibly twice, for the prelude to the Jasmin is
ambiguous. He is in love with divine Beauty, but for a time he ends up
worshipping a reflection of it. Properly speaking, this is 'infidelity', kufr in
Arabic: a term, as Ibn Arabi often reminds us, which etymologically signifies
the act of veiling or hiding something/0 for by preferring one
theophany, it excludes or conceals all the others and hides the Theos of
whom it is just one of the infinite modes of manifestation. Hence the danger,
repeatedly alluded to in the literature of tasawwuf, of
talcing any human being, whether man or woman, to be a 'witness of
contemplation'. Hence also the necessity of observing the rules of prudence
which are tirelessly reiterated by the teachers, and which are not the fruit of
conventional morality but the dictates of wisdom. Needless to say,
transgressions are numerous, and not even exceptional men are immune to the
divine guile (makr) which is a test of the believer's
sincerity. But although the saints can be deceived, they do not deceive. 'He
who loves thee loves Me, and he who sees thee sees Me': these are tire words
heard by Ruzbehan, while he watched, with such human tenderness, over his
fever-stricken son.[69]
CHAPTER
3
The Sphere of Walaya
Despite the fact
that the texts to which we have hitherto referred are far from explicit, it is
already clear that walaya cannot be reduced to a heroiciton of
the theological and cardinal virtues such as that which defines the criteria of
sainthood for Roman Catholic theologians. The concept of walaya was
to be given definition by Ibn “Arabi; and later on we will learn what the
authority was on which he based his teaching, and which was acknowledged both
by himself and by his followers, as well as the providential necessity which
called forth his disclosure at that particular moment in time.
The doctrine of walaya is
the cornerstone of all that is initiatic in Ibn Arabi's work (as opposed to
what is purely metaphysical),[70] and it comes into many
texts where the wait does not always go by the name of wali. He
may also be called Qdrif (gnostic), muhaqqiq (a
term favoured by Ibn SabTn and meaning 'man of spiritual realization'), maldmi 'the
one associated with blame', wdrith (heir), or quite
simply sufi, cabd (servant) or even rajul (man,
in the sense of vir perfectus). However, in our preliminary
investigation we will confine ourselves to the texts which refer explicitly
to walaya and to the awliya' as such.
In this connection, and
for reasons which will become clear, special prominence must be given to one of
Ibn Arabi's last works. This is the Fusils al-hikam[71] a
title which has been variously translated as The
Wisdom of the Prophets, The Gems of Wisdom, The Seals of Wisdom,3 but which strictly speaking means The Settings of Wisdom. The
book contains a prologue and twenty-seven chapters, each of which has reference
to a prophet, of whom the first was Adam and the last Muhammad. The order
followed is not chronological: the chapter about Jesus precedes the one about
Solomon, which precedes the one about David. It is worth noting, moreover, that
two out of the twenty-seven, namely Seth (Shith in Arabic) and Khalid ibn Sinan,
who is mentioned in a hadith, do not come into the Qur'an,
whereas two of the prophets whose names appear in the Qur'an (Dhu' 1-Kifl and
al-Yasa^ do not figure in this catalogue. It is also worth noting that Luqman,
whose name is the title of one of the chapters of the Fusils, appears
in the Qur'an as a sage rather than a prophet.
The setting (fass, plural fusus) of
a ring is the part which encloses the precious stone. The word recurs in the
title of each chapter where it is followed by two determinants: a
'wisdom' (hikma), which is itself qualified by an adjective;
and a 'word' (kalima) connected with one of the twenty-seven
prophets. Thus, for example, we have 'the setting of divine wisdom in the Word
of Adam', 'the setting of the wisdom of the heart in the Word of Shu'ayb', and
so on. In this way a series of spiritual types is built up, of whom each is in
some sense defined as the
fact, as established by
ms. bn 6104, If. 1 to 28b, and by Ibn Sawdakin's commentary, Fatih
5322, ££. 201-14, it>s not an autonomous text at all,
but forms the preamble to the Mashahid. al-asrdr al-qud$iyya, R.G.
432). It deals with other themes as well; and even though, in jesponse to a
remark of Mahdawi's which Ibn 'Arabi undertakes to explain to the latter's
disciples, some fundamental ideas about walaya are expressed,
there are others which are passed over completely. We will refer later to this
text, which is, even so, deeply interesting; and our thanks are due to James W.
Morris for alerting us to its publication under the title Risdla
fi'l-walaya. As regards the Fusils al-hikam, we are
still using the critical edition by A. A. 'Afifi, Beirut 1946—the best in
existence even though it does not take account of the most ancient extant
manuscript, copied by Sadr al-Din Qunawi and with an attested reading date of
630 ah (Evkaf Miizesi 1933). The chief commentaries employed are by
Jandi (died c. 700/1300), edited by Ashtiyani (not critical, many faults),
Mashhad 1982; by 'Abd al-Razzaq Qashani (died 730/1330), Cairo
1321 ah; by Dawud Qaysari (died 751/1350), lithog., Bombay
1300 ah; and by Bali Effendi (died 960/1553), Istanbul 1309 ah.
3. On the two most recent English translations of the Fusils al-hikam, by
R. W. Austin (The Bezels of Wisdom, London 1980), and by
'A'isha al-Tarjumana (The Seals of Wisdom, Norwich 1980), cf.
my review in Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques, xx,
pp. 334-37.
4.
intersection of an
aspect of divine Wisdom with the human vessel which encloses it and thereby
imposes its own limits on it. As we shall see, this structure is in no way a
mere rhetorical device, but corrresponds symbolically with the actual structure
of walaya.
We are justified in the
importance we accord to the Fusus by the information given in
the prologue about the circumstances of its composition; the prologue likewise
contains details about Ibn 'Arabi's function of which the full significance
will emerge later on. The essential passages are as follows:
In the name of Allah,
the All-Merciful, the Most-Merciful! Praise be to Allah, who has caused wisdom to
descend upon the hearts of the Words from the station of absolute Eternity by a
straight path whose unity is unaffected by the diversity of beliefs and
religions, which results from the diversity of human communities. And may Allah
bestow His Grace upon Muhammad (who by means of the most righteous word pours
out upon the aspirations [of created beings] what he draws from the
treasure-house of Generosity and Munificence) and upon his family; and may He
give him peace.
I saw the Messenger of
Allah in a vision of good augury which was imparted to me during the last ten
days of the month of Muharram4 in the year 627 at
5. Not 'the tenth day of the month of Moharram' as Henry Corbin states in the
French introduction to Haydar Amoli's Nass al-Nusus, Tehran-Paris
1975, p. 4, where he is manifestly obsessed with discovering Shiite allusions
and believes this date to correspond with the anniversary of the martyred Imam
al-Husayn. For an account of Corbin's thesis on the transposition (and the
denaturation) of Shfite concepts in Sufism, especially the doctrine of the
Imamate, see, in particular, the chapter entitled 'Prophetologie et imamologie'
in En Islam iranien 1, pp. 219-84. A similar thesis is
sustained in a more historicist fashion by Dr Kamil Mustafa Shaybi in al-Sila
bayna 'l-tasawwuf wa 'l-tashayyu', 2nd ed., Cairo 1969 (see pp. 339-79
on walaya). It would of course be absurd to deny that, both in
vocabulary and conceptually, Shfism and Sufism were connected, and therefore
interacted, with each other, especially prior to the coming of the Safavids.
But these influences were reciprocal, and the influence of Ibn ‘Arabi on the
Shiite doctrine of walaya is obvious, its importance being
acknowledged by the Shi'ite authors themselves. The case of Haydar Amoli who,
in his vast commentary on the Fusiis, forcefully expresses his
admiration for Ibn ‘Arabi and the extent of his indebtedness to hun, is
particularly significant. Let us merely note that on p. 267 of the Arabic text
of the Nass al-nusus, in a section devoted to the awliya', Amoli
justifies the need to explain the ideas he is dealing with by the need to make
them understood by the Sunnis (who refuse to admit them even though it is
implied that they are aware of them) and by the Imamite Shi'ites, for 'statements
of this kind have never reached their ears or been uttered by their tongues'.
This does not prevent Corbin from saying several times over that, in accepting
certain of Ibn 'Arabi's ideas, Shfism was merely 'taking back its own'.
6.
Damascus—may God protect
it I In his hand he held a book and he said to me, 'This is the book of
the Fusils al-hikam. Take it and bring it to men that they may
profit by it'.
I replied, T hear and
obey "Allah, His Messenger and those among us who are keepers of the
Commandment", as it has been laid down' (Qur'an 4:59).
I therefore undertook to
carry out his request. To this end, I purified my intention and aspiration with
a view to making known the book as it had been consigned to me by Allah's
Messenger, with nothing added or taken away. And I asked Allah, in this task
and in all my states, to place me among those of his servants over whom Satan
has no power, and to favour me in all that my hands write, in all that
my mouth speaks, in all that my heart contains, with a projection of His Glory,
an inspiration breathed into my spirit and an assistance to protect me, in
order that I may be an interpreter and not an author, so that the men of God
and the teachers of the heart who read this book will be certain that it
proceeds from the station of inviolable Sainthood, which is beyond reach of the
deceptive desires of the individual soul. 1 hope that God, having heard my
prayer, has answered it. I have uttered nothing which has not been sent to me,
I write nothing which has not been inspired. I am neither a prophet nor a
messenger, but simply an inheritor; and I labour for the life to come.[72]
In Chapter Fourteen of
the Fusils, which is under the sign of £Uzayr[73] (whom
Muslim tradition usually compares to the Biblical Ezra), Ibn 'Arabi throws
light on some aspects of walaya which are of major importance.
'Know', he writes,
'that walaya is the sphere which encompasses all the other
spheres, and for this reason it has no end in time . . .. On the other hand,
legislative prophethood (nubuwwa) and the mission of the
Messengers (risala) do have an end which they have reached in
the person of Muhammad, since after him there is neither any other
prophet—meaning a prophet who brings a revealed Law or submits himself to a
previously revealed Law[74]—nor any other legislating
Messenger.[75] This
news is a terrible blow for the awliya', for it implies the
impossibility of experiencing total and perfect servitude.' This last point,
which may appear obscure, is explained by Ibn cArabi as
follows: since no being can henceforth term himself nabi or rasul—names
which properly belong to created being because they form no part of the divine
Names—the only name which remains available is al-wali, which
is one of the Names of God. For the spiritual man, awareness of his "ubudiyya (his
servitude or ontological nothingness) goes contrary to such a sharing with God
of the same name, for it implies participation in the rububiyya, or
Lordship. But, he adds, if prophethood stricto sensu is ended,
'general prophethood' (nubuwwa ‘dmma) remains. This is what is
more commonly termed walaya, and even though it is not
accompanied by the legislative authority which characterizes the prophets in
the narrow sense of the word, nevertheless it does possess a legislative aspect
in that it implies the possibility of interpreting the statutes of the Law.
This is why a hadith says that the learned (al-^ulamd')—and
the awliya’ alone are truly worthy of the name— 'are the heirs
of the prophets'.[76] As we shall see, the concept of
inheritance is crucial.
Next, Ibn cArabl
broaches a theme which we encountered in Tirmidhi.
When you see a prophet
expressing himself in words which do not arise from his legislative authority,
it is because he is a wa/Fand an ^arif (a gnostic or knower);
and the station which he occupies by virtue of being calim (wise)
is more complete and more perfect than the station he occupies by virtue of
being a messenger or a legislative prophet. Likewise, when you hear a man of
God saying—or when someone tells you that they have heard him say—that walaya is
superior to nubuwwa, you must laiow that he means by this
exactly what we have just said. Similarly, if he says that the wali is
superior to the nabi or the rasul, he implies
that this is so in the person of one and the same being. In other words,
the rasul is more perfect in his capacity as a wa/F than in
his capacity as a nabi. So this does not mean that the wali who
follows a prophet is superior to the latter, for he who follows can never catch
up with him whom he follows, inasmuch as he is his follower. If it were
otherwise, he would not
be a follower. Therefore understand! The source of the rasiil and
the nabilies in walaya and in knowledge.[77]
The preliminary
conclusions to be drawn from this passage of the Fusils may
appear hard to reconcile with each other. On the one hand, walaya encompasses nubuwwa and risdla which
proceed from it, and hence it is superior to them in the person of him who
combines the three qualifications. On the other hand, we have witnessed the
emergence of the idea of 'inheritance', which implies the passing on to
the awliya' of something which was originally the property of
the prophets. Thus walaya is in some way dependent on nubuwwa, and
in short represents a mode of participation in it. This is emphasized in other
texts, such as these passages from the Futiihdt; 'If you are
a wall, you are the heir of a prophet and nothing will reach
you [literally, your composition, or constitution, ild tarkibika] which
is not in proportion to your share of this inheritance.'” 'No one receives a
prophet's heritage in full. If this were the case, it would mean that that
being was himself a messenger or a legislating prophet in the same way as he
whose heir he is.'[78] A similar notion is found in
the Kitab al-Tajalliyat (The Book of Theophanies}[79] and
the Risalat al-Anwar (The Epistle of the Lights):
Know that prophethood
and sainthood possess three things in common: a knowledge not derived from
study intended to acquire it; the faculty of acting through spiritual energy
alone (himma) in cases where it is normally possible to act
only through the body, or even in cases where the body is powerless to act; and
finally, the sensible vision of the imaginal world \fd\am al-khaydl). On
the other hand, they differ from each other as far as the divine discourse is
concerned, for the divine address to the saint is other than that made to the
prophet, and it must not be imagined that the spiritual ascensions (nuTdrij, plural
of micrdj) of the saints are
identical to those of
the prophets. This is by no means the case .... The ascensions of tire prophets
are effected by means of the principial Light (al-niir al-asty, whereas
thoseofthesaints areeffected through whatis reflected ofthisprincipial light.’4
Before attempting to
reconcile these seemingly disparate elements, and at the risk therefore of
somewhat confusing the reader, we must refer to some other texts in the work of
the Shaykh al-Akbar in which he speaks of the wait and walaya. Mention
was made earlier of Tirmidhi's famous questionnaire. Ibn cArabi
replies to it in the long Chapter Seventy-Three of the Futiihat. The
first question is: 'What is the number of the dwellings (manazil) of
the saints?' These dwellings, writes Ibn "Arabi, are of two kinds:
sensible (hissiyya) and spiritual (mahtawiyya). The
number of the first kind, which in turn is subdivided into sub-categories, is
'higher than one hundred and ten', which means that these manazil are
the 114 suras of the Qur'an. The number of the second kind is
two hundred and forty-eight thousand; these belong exclusively to this
community and no one has previously attained them. These 'spiritual dwellings'
are linked with four types of knowledge (implicitly related to four suras):
the 'knowledge through Me' (him ladunni, an allusion to verse
18:65, where this knowledge, which is related to the divine I, is attributed to
Khadir); the knowledge of the Light (him al-niir); the
knowledge of union and of separation (cilm al-jam^wa
T-tafriqa); and the knowledge of the divine Scripture (cilm
al-kitdba al-ildhiyya). Ibn "Arabi goes onto say that, according
to him, the number of saints is five hundred and eighty-nine; but he adds that
he is talking here about the awliya’ belonging to the
categories described at the start of Chapter Seventy-Three, who correspond to
initiatory functions whose titulars are at all times fixed in number: in every
epoch, as we shall see, there is a 'Pole' (qutb), four
'Pillars'
14. Risdlat al-anwar, Hyderabad 1948, p. 15. The
distinction between wait and nablis constantly
emphasized by Ibn 'Arabi in order to avoid the confusion that might be
engendered by some of his own statements or by statements to which other Sufis
have had recourse. The Risdla fi 'l-waldya mentioned in note 2
is a typical example. It is intended first and foremost to clarify a statement
made by "Abd al-'Aziz Mahdawi (died 621/1224). It was for his benefit that
Ibn 'Arabi undertook to write the Futiihdt—cf. 1, pp. 6-9—and it
was for him too that he wrote the Ruh al-quds—cf. the Damascus
edition, 1964, p. 3; in the Risdla, pp. 29-32, he enlarges on
his merits and says that he will devote a work to him, although no manuscript
of it seems to have been identified: cf. R.G. 119. The statement, to the
perplexity of his disciples, was as follows: 'The wise (=awliyd') of
this community are the prophets of other communities' (Risdla
fi'l-waldya, p. 21 ff.).
15.
(awtad),[80] and so on. But he also says[81] that the total number
of the saints in all the categories is, in perpetuity, at least equal to the
number of the prophets who have succeeded each other during the course of the
human cycle—that is, in conformity with Islamic tradition, one hundred and
twenty-four thousand. If the figure amounts to more than this, it is because
the heritage of some prophet has been divided up between several awliya'.
In reply to Tirmidhi's
nineteenth question ('How is the station of the prophets situated in relation
to that of the saints?'), Ibn cArabi says that it is its
specification, and that, in order to be more precise, one would have first to
know what Icind of prophethood is meant: legislative prophethood (to which the
answer given above applies specifically), or prophethood in an indeterminate
sense (nubuwwa mutlaqa) ? This last actually represents the
highest degree of sainthood, that of the afrad or 'solitaries'
among whom is the Pole, the supreme authority in the • initiatory hierarchy.[82]
Question Sixty-Eight
concerns the prophets, but the answer tells us something about the saints.
'What is the lot of the prophets', asks Tirmidhi, 'as far as looking towards
Him is concerned ?'
I do not know (for I am
not a prophet and what the prophets experience is known only to them) at least
if by 'prophet' he [Tirmidhi] means those to whom God has accorded legislative
authority, whether general or limited. If, on the other hand, he has in mind
those who are 'prophets among the saints' [i.e. those who are mentioned in the
preceding texts], their lot is proportionate to the number of forms of
belief (wujuh al-iVqadat) that they possess concerning God.
For the man who possesses them all, his lot is the sum of the parts
corresponding to each belief. He enjoys total felicity. He enjoys what is
enjoyed by all the types of believers, and no joy can be greater than that 1
For the man who only possesses some [forms of belief], his enjoyment is
proportional to what he possesses. The man who possesses only one enjoys what
is allotted to that form of belief and no more.[83]
In this passage we
encounter one of the fundamental themes of Ibn
‘Arabi's doctrine: each
belief concerning God is a limited representation—and thus inadequate in that
it excludes other 'aspects' of the divine infinity—yet it nevertheless contains
a part of the total Truth because it is, of necessity, based on a theophany.
'The perfect gnostic knows Him in all the forms in which He is epiphanized and
in which He 'descends'. He who is not a perfect gnostic knows [when he
manifests Himself] only in the form of his particular belief, and does not know
Him when He is epiphanized under a different form. '19 The
'looking at Him', that is to say the extent of the vision of God to which a man
may aspire, is determined by the image he already has of Him; the most perfect
vision, therefore, which is that of the 'prophets among the saints' or afrad, is
possessed by those who 'have all of the beliefs'. Needless to say, what is in
question here is not simply the sum of the mental images corresponding to these
beliefs, but a full realisation of the specific modalities of knowledge and
worship connected with each of them.
There are ten chapters
in the Futuhdt which are of particular interest in this
connection.20 In these, Ibn ‘Arabi discusses the
'stations' (maqdmdt) of sainthood, of prophethood and of the
mission of the Messengers (risald), first in general terms and
then in terms of how they relate to the human condition on the one hand and the
angelic state on the other. He does not forget to remind us that we are dealing
here, in a sense, with three concentric spheres, of which the first, the sphere
of walaya, encompasses all the others: every rasul is
a nabi and every nabi is a wali.2i He
concludes his discussion with a chapter rich in autobiographical detail, where
he speaks of the 'station of proximity' (maqam al-qurba) which
represents the fullest degree of sainthood, in accordance with the etymology
of the Arabic word for it.
In the first of these
chapters, however, the Shaykh al-Akbar draws attention to a meaning of walaya which
has a connection with this etymology but is distinct from it. Walaya, he
says, is the nasr, meaning help or assistance. This help can
be envisaged as active—the help that
19. Ibid., m, p. 132. On this recurrent theme in the teaching of Ibn ‘Arabi,
see among other texts Futiihdt 11, pp. 219-20; in, pp.
162,309; iv, pp, 142,165, 211-12, 393; Fusiis 1, pp. 113,
122-24. Henry Corbin deals with this subject—in terms concerning which we have
certain reservations—in his Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn
Arabi.
20. Chapters 152to 161 inclusive(Futuhdtn,pp. 246-62).
21. Ibid.,n,p. 256.
22.
one gives—or as
passive—the help that one receives. It is help in the active sense that is
discussed here, and specifically walaya inasmuch as it is a
divine attribute. Ibn 'Arabi makes the observation that in verse 2:257, which
states, as we have seen, that 'God is the wali of those who
believe', the reference is to 'those who believe' in general, not just to
'monotheistic believers' (muwahhidun). He concludes that
the walaya of Allah extends to the mushrik, or
polytheist, and that the latter's faith, no matter what its immediate object
may be—a stone, an idol, a star—in fact has no object but God. 'All that is in
the universe, believing or unbelieving, glorifies God.'[84] This
divine assistance accorded to the mushrik explains how it is
that the latter can triumph over the 'believer' in the usual sense (al-mu'min
al-muwahhid) who neglects the duties of his faith. This
interpretation, he says, is formulated 'in accordance with the language of the
spiritual elite': in the language of the majority of believers, when an infidel
triumphs over a believer it is perceived solely as a punishment inflicted on
the believers, not as a result of positive assistance rendered to the infidels.
Only the gnostics know that 'Allah's walaya is universal and
extends to all His creatures inasmuch ar. they are His servants', whether or
not they desire it. At the time ol the primordial Covenant, when God caused
beings to issue from Adam's loins (Qur'an 7:172), the question He asked them
was: 'Am I not your Lord?' He asked them, then, to bear witness to His
suzerainty (rububiyya), not to His unicity. The undertaking
that they made to Him in replying 'Truly' (bala) is observed
by the polytheist as well as by the believer: he may add other lords to this
Lord, but he always acknowledges Him as the Lord. God's walaya is
promised to all those who believe, and 'here below there are only believers and
non-belief is an accident' which veils the faith that is inscribed upon the
essence of all created beings. This accident is the result of the establishment
of revealed Laws which, in accordance with a providential Wisdom, determine the
particular ways in which human communities represent and therefore worship God
at certain moments of their history. Grave as the consequences may be of
disobedience to these
Laws, it cannot alter the original, imprescriptible bond established by the
Covenant.[85]
In the next chapter the
Shaykh al-Akbar turns from discussing walaya as a divine
attribute to a consideration of it as a human attribute. He makes a clear
distinction between walaya 'dmma, walaya in its broadest
sense, which consists in the co-operation of created beings, each of them volens
nolens occupying its place and playing its part in the hierarchy of
being, and walaya khassa or walaya in the
limited sense, which consists in the capacity of the saints to receive,
according to the circumstances, the authority and power of one of the divine
Names, and to reflect Justice or Mercy or Majesty or Beauty, according to what
is required by the state of things at any given moment. Among these saints, we
must also distinguish between the ashab al-ahndl, the beings
who are governed by their spiritual states, and the ashab
al-maqdmat, who master the 'stations' while remaining masters of their
states, and are 'the most virile men along the Way'. The former are relatively
imperfect, but their walaya can be seen by most people.
The walaya of the latter, in a certain way, is even more
evident, but its very brilliance conceals it from man's eyes: 'They manifest
themselves endowed with the divine Attributes (bi-sifdt al-Haqq) and
for this reason they are unnoticed.' We have already encountered, and will
encounter again, this idea of perfect sainthood as occulted.[86]
Whereas the passages
from the Futiihat which we have been considering
envisage walaya in terms of 'taking charge' or 'helping', and
are thus concerned with the function of the wait rather than
with what constitutes the wali as such, in tine concluding
chapter of the series Ibn cArabi considers walaya inasmuch
as it is proximity to God.
According to al—Ghazal!,
the coming of Muhammad put the stage of prophethood out of bounds once and for
all, the highest level attainable by human beings is the stage of siddlqiyya, a
word derived from the surname of the caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, 'the truthful'.[87] In
this as in other texts[88] Ibn 'Arabi contradicts the
author of the Ihyd’, saying that
there is a spiritual
station which is higher than the siddiqiyya, intermediate
between that and the 'prophetic station'. This is the 'station of
proximity' (maqdm al~qurba), which represents the ultimate
point in the hierarchy of the saints, a point which he also calls the station
of non-legislative prophethood or 'prophethood of the saints'. It is accessible
only to the afrad, otherwise known as the muqarrabun, 'those
who are close'—a term which, as we have seen, originates in the Qur'an. One of
these is the Pole, qutb, the one being in this world who is
'the place of Allah's gaze'/7 and who therefore carries out the
'mandate of heaven' in all the universe. But the superiority he possesses in
respect of his function does not make him superior in spiritual rank: he
is primus inter pares and has no authority over the afrad. We
will come back to the metaphysical significance of this 'proximity', as well as
to the information provided by Ibn "Arabi on the subject of the Pole and
the initiatic hierarchy, defining and supplementing the information we can
gather from tasawwuf in general. But we should note that in
this chapter Ibn Arabi gives an account of his own entry into the maqdm
al-qurba. It happened when he was in Morocco, during the month of
Muharram in the year 597 (October-November 1200)—the same year, that is, in
which he had a vision at Marrakesh of the divine Throne during which was
revealed to him the name of the companion whom he met later on at Fez, and with
whom he finally set out for the East in 598.[89] 'I
wandered about this station', he writes, 'without meeting a soul, and the
solitude oppressed me.' At that point there appeared to him "Abd al-Rahman
al-Sulami, author of the Tabaqdt al-sufiyya, who had died
almost two hundred years previously and who had come, through the operation of
divine Grace, to relieve this sense of overwhelming loneliness by his presence
and to teach Ibn "Arabi the name and nature ofthis maqdm.
Prophethood and
sainthood, therefore, are related. But there exists another relationship as
well, in virtue of which the saints are the heirs of the prophets. The idea of
this inheritance existed prior to Ibn "Arabi, although it was not much
developed: Sahl al-Tustari, for example, says:
'There is no prophet who
does not have someone similar to himself in this community, that is to say,
a wall who shares in his charisma.'[90] Earlier
on, the Shaykh al-Akbar was quoted as saying: 'If you are a wall, you
are the heir of a prophet.' He goes on to explain: 'And if you have inherited
knowledge from Moses or Jesus or from any prophet in between, all you have actually
inherited is Muhammadan knowledge.'[91] But if all the
saints are in a sense the 'heirs of Muhammad', there is a crucial difference
between those who have received this heritage in full, and the others. Before
analysing Ibn 'Arabi's views on the subject, we must go more deeply into the
doctrinal basis of the role assigned to the Prophet Muhammad.
CHAPTER
4
The Muhammadan Reality
F o R a saint, to be the
heir of one of the prophets is always to be the heir of Muhammad. Indeed, 'the
prophets were his deputies in the created world when he [i.e. Muhammad] was
pure spirit, aware of being so, prior to the appearance of his body or flesh.
When he was asked, 'When were you a prophet?', he replied, T was a prophet when
Adam was between water and clay', meaning: when Adam had not yet come into
existence. And this was so until the appearance of his most pure body. At that
moment the authority of his deputies came to an end ... the authority, that is
to say, of the other messengers and prophets.a As we ’ will see
later, other texts by Ibn cArabi define more clearly the nature
and function of this primordial Muhammadan Reality (haqiqa
muhammadiyya), of which every prophet since Adam, the first prophet,
is but a partial refraction at a particular moment of human history.
What is the real meaning
of the word haqiqa, which we have translated as 'Reality' ?
According to the Lisdn al- 'arab, it signifies the true meaning
of a thing as opposed to its metaphorical meaning (majdzi); it
also signifies the 'heart' of a thing or matter, its true nature, its essence,
and thus the inviolable inmost self of a being, its hurma.2 The
concept of a Muhammadan reality which is not only fully constituted and active
before the apj >earance in this world of the person named Muhammad, but is
also situated prior to history, has been the subject of heated debate in Islam.
Ibn Taymiyya and several other writers, in accordance with their usual
practice, attempted to prove its innovative and aberrant nature (bid ca)
by challenging the main scriptural reference for it, which is the hadith quoted
above where Muhammad says, T was a prophet when Adam was between water and
clay'. For the Hanbalite polemicist, this hadith is a forgery
and the only permissible version of it
1. Futuhat,i,p. 243.
2. Ibn Manzur, Lisan ai-^arab, Beirut, n.d., x, p. 52. See
also the article by Louis Gardet, EF,s.v. haqiqa.
is the one quoted by Ibn
Hanbal and Tirmidhi, where the Prophet apparently says, T was a prophet when
Adam was between spirit and flesh' (bayna' l-riih wa T-jasad)^ Without
stressing the fact that the differences in phraseology between these two
concurrently existing forms of the same statement seem to us, ultimately, to be
minor, we should point out that the criteria by which traditionists judge the
authenticity of a hadith are purely external and have
reference essentially to the reliability of the chain of transmission. Yet Ibn
Arabi, who, even when an old man, never ceased to study the hadith in
the usual ways and knew everything there was to know about the traditions, says
on several occasions4 that an 'unveiling' (kashf) is
the only sure way of judging the validity of a particular remark attributed to
the Prophet, and in so saying he challenges the doctrinal authority of the
doctors of the Law.
On the other hand, even
though the phrase haqiqa muhammadiyya made its appearance late
and in this sense is indeed a bicTa or innovation, the
concept that it represents in abstract terms is one of the most traditional in
Islam, where it is clearly symbolized as the 'Muhammadan light' (niir
muhammadi, niir Muhammad). Moreover, the association of the Prophet
with a symbolism of light is not, in Islamic terms, a human invention, but is
based on the actual words of God. In the Qur'an (33:4b), Muhammad is called 'a
torch which illumines' (sirajan muniran); another verse (5:15)
says that 'a light has come to you from God', which is interpreted by the
commentators as a reference to the Prophet.5 For Muslims, this
'light' is not simply a metaphor. Ibn Ishaq, who was born only seventy years
after the Prophet's death, reports that the Prophet's father ’Abdallah, just
before his marriage with Amina, met a woman who tried in vain to seduce him.
When he saw her again on the day after his wedding, and the Prophet had already
been conceived, this same woman turned away from him, and on being asked
3. Ibn Idanbal, iv, p. 66; v, p. 59; v, p. 379; Tirmidhi, mandqib, 1.
On Ibn Taymiyya's repeated criticism, see Majmu'at al-rasd'il, rv,
pp. 8, 70-71. Ghazali (al-Madniin al-saghir, printed in the
margin of Jill's al-Insdn al-kdmil, Cairo 1949, n, p. 98)
accepts the version when 'Adam was between water and mud', but interprets it
more narrowly as a reference to the predestined nature of the Muhammadan
mission. Suyuti, in response to Subki's critique, only cites the version
'between spirit and flesh', but he uses the expression haqiqat al-nabi
(al-Hdwi li'l-fatdwi, Cairo 1959, n, p. 189).
4. Futuhdt^p.-ijQ; 8,2.576.
5. Cf. Tabari, Tafsir,ed. Shakir,x,p. 143.
6.
why, said, 'The light
which was upon you yesterday has left you'.6 Ibn Ishaq explains
that his own father told him that this woman had seen between 'Abdallah's two
eyes a radiant white mark, which disappeared when the Prophet was conceived.
According to a slightly different version of this story, as related by Ibn
Ishaq, the woman speaking to 'Abdallah was no other than the sister of Waraqa
ibn Nawfal—the Christian from Mecca who, when questioned by the Prophet after
the first visit of the angel Gabriel, assured him of the authenticity of the
Revelation—and had been warned by her brother of the imminent coming of a
prophet. What she had perceived in the face of 'Abdallah was the 'light of
prophethood' of which he was the transmitter.7
This story was taken up
by later historians such as Tabari (died 310/923)8 and widely
diffused by all the writers who wrote 'histories of the prophets'.9 The
interpretation of it very soon introduced the explicit theme of the verus
propheta, based, among other things, on a hadith quoted
by Bukhari10 in which the Prophet, 'borne' century after century
and generation upon generation (qarnan fa-qarnan}, appears
7. This account of Ibn Ishaq's (died 150/767) is transmitted by Ibn
Hisham, al-Sira ahnabawiyya, Cairo 1955, 1, p. 155. Tor the
latest research on the development of the sira in Ibn Ishaq
and Ibn Hisham, see La Vie du Prophete Mahomet, ed. T. Fahd,
Paris 1983, the article by R. G. Khoury ('Les sources islamiques de la sira avant
Ibn Hisham'), pp. 7-29, and the article by W. Montgomery Watt ('The reliability
of Ibn Ishaq's sources'), pp. 31-43. This last shows the accusations of ShFism
levelled against Ibn Ishaq to be baseless.
8. The case of Waraqa ibn Nawfal—in any case a fairly mysterious person—
merits a study of its own. The confirmation he gives the Prophet must be
understood as the acknowledgement, by the inspired representative of a previous
tradition (in this case Christianity) of the validity of a new cycle of
tradition. It thereby possesses, on a more restricted scale, a meaning
analogous to that of the visit of the Three Kings to Bethlehem (cf. Rene
Guenon, The Lord of the World, Ellingstring U.K., 1983, chapter 6). It bears a
particular relation to the Qur'anic affirmation (61:6) that Jesus foretold the
coming of the Prophet—an affirmation which, as understood in Islamic exotericism,
is supported only by unconvincing exegeses of Gospel texts (John 14:16 and
14:26) or else by obvious forgeries such as the pseudo-Gospel of Barnabas. (To
our mind, the most probable theory on the origin of this work is that put
forward by Mikel de Epalza, who attributes it to Moorish writers; cf. his
article 'Le milieu hispano-moresque de 1'Evangile de Barnabe', in
Islamochristiana, no. 8, Rome 1982, pp. 159-83).
9. See the excerpt from the Zotenberg translation published under the
title Mahommed, Sceau des prophetes, Paris 1980, p. 56.
10. ThaTabi, Qisas al-anbiyd', Cairo 1371 ah, pp.
16-17.
11. Bukhari, mandqib, 23.
to be travelling through
time towards the point where his physical nature becomes manifest. Is this
journeying of the prophetic Seed to its final birth to be understood as taking
place in the 'loins' of his ancestors, of his carnal lineage, or as a series of
stopping-places in the persons of the successive bearers of the Revelation, the
one hundred and twenty- four thousand prophets of whom he is both the
forefather and the final Seal? Ibn 'Abbas (died 68/687), ^e tarjuman
al-qur'an or 'interpreter par excellence of the
Qur'an', commenting on verse 26:219, seems to favour the second meaning:
according to him, Muhammad goes from prophet to prophet (min nabiyyin
ild nabiyyin) until the moment when God causes him to 'emerge' (akhraja) as
a prophet in his turn.[92] Ibn Sacd, who
cites this, also refers to a hadith which Tabari likewise
mentions, and in which Muhammad says, T am the first man to have been created
and the last to have been sent [i.e. as a prophet].'[93] The
truth is that both these themes are bound up with each other, for the
traditional genealogy of Muhammad also includes a series of prophets, among
whom are Abraham and Ishmael. However, another hadith, which
is absent from the canonical collections, and in which explicit reference is
made to Nur muhammadi, was destined to play a major part in
the meditation on the Prophet's primordiality. It is mentioned by one of the
Companions, Jabir ibn 'Abdallah, and runs as follows: 'O Jabir, God created the
light of your Prophet out of His Light before he created things.'[94]
The Muhammadan Light and
later interpretations of it in the doctrine of the haqiqa muhamtnadiyya soon
gave rise to an idea which appears in many texts prior to Islam, under various
guises. There is the Logos spermatikos which enabled St Justin
(died c. 165) to 'christianize' retrospectively the forms of truth which had
existed prior to the coming of Christ;’4 there is, above all,
the verus propheta mentioned above, who travels from prophet
to prophet until his perfect and definitive manifestation as Jesus. The
'pseudo-Clementine romance' (attributed to the fourth Pope, Clement of Rome,
who died in 97), which derives its subject-matter from Jewish and
Judaeo-Christian sources strongly redolent of gnosticism, illustrates this
doctrine, whence Islam, according to Oscar Culman, was to reap the heritage
that orthodox Christianity rejected.[95] Goldziher was
the first to look for traces of neo-platonic and gnostic influence in the texts
relating to the Nur muhammadid6 There is evidence
that analogies exist with Manichean beliefs as well as. with the Hindu concept
of avatdra. But without ruling out, here as elsewhere, the
earlier or later borrowings by Islam of vocabulary and conceptual tools from various
religious heritages that it took under its wing, we nevertheless find these
historical explanations unacceptable, because they end by denying the
specificity and coherence of the spiritual experience of believers.. Similar
attempts have been made to prove that tasawwuf was merely a
heterogenous collection of non- Islamic ideas and practices—a thesis of which
Massignon, among others, has effectively demonstrated the inanity.
The Muhammadan
revelation is explicitly viewed as the confirmation and fulfilment of the
revelations preceding it (musaddiqan bi~ma
bayna yadayhi, Qur'an 46:30): according to the
Qur'an (2:4, 2:136, etc.), the true believers are those who believe in what was
revealed to Muhammad and in what was revealed before him. The
concept of the verus propheta, symbolized by the long
pilgrimage of the Muhammadan Light through the aeons, is a logical consequence
of this fundamental doctrine, according to which the successive prophetic
messages, as multiple manifestations of the one Truth, are so many stages
leading up to him who will bring the 'full sum of the Words' (jawdmic al-kalim),'17 simultaneously
perfecting and abrogating the previous Laws. But the Qur'an is not only a
source of doctrine. The experience of the souls and tongues which express it is
formed within it as within a matrix, and stamps its shape indelibly upon the
burning metal of its visions and symbols.
Leaving aside the
historical problem, which appears to us to lead nowhere, let us turn to some of
the texts which, from century to century, bear witness to the unwearying
attention given by the Muslim spiritual masters to the Nur muhammadi. JaTar
al-Sadiq, commenting on verse 68:1 which starts with one of the fourteen
'luminous' (nuraniyya') single letters that occur at the
beginning of twenty-nine suras, says: 'The nun is
the light of pre-eternity out of which God created all beings and which he
bestowed on Muhammad. This is why it was said [in verse 4 of the same sura]:
"You are endowed with a sublime nature"—endowed, that is, with this
light which you were privileged to receive in pre-eternity.'18 Sahl
al-Tustari, one of the teachers most frequently quoted by Ibn ‘Arabi,19 relates
how Khadir said to him, 'God
17. Utttu jawamT al-kalim; this hadith occurs
in Bukhari, ta'bir, 11; Muslim, masajid, 5,
etc.
18. This text is an extract from Jacfar al-Sadiq's Tafsir, which
has been preserved, albeit in an incomplete form, in Sulami's Haqa'iq
al-tafsir and edited by Nwyia in the Melanges of the
Saint-Joseph University, Beirut 1968, xun, with the title Le Tafsir
mystique attribue a Jafar Sadiq (p. 226). Nwyia has a
slightly different translation of it in Exegese coranique et langage
mystique, Beirut 1970, p. 167. It goes without saying that this remark
of the sixth imam is closely related to the identification (legimate but
restrictive) of the 'luminous letters' with the fourteen immaculate ones in
Imamic ShFism. Nevertheless, it is quoted by Sunni writers—along with other
remarks of Ja'far's—as the expression of a truth which is part of the undivided
Islamic inheritance. We should note likewise that Corbin mentions a reference
to the Muhammadan Light made by the fifth imam, Muhammad al-Baqir (En
islam iranien, 1, pp. 99-100).
19. Cf. Futiihdt, 11, p. 60, 662; m, pp.
41, 86, 395; iv, pp. 249, 376; Kitab al-tajalliydt, ed.
Osman Yahia, m, p. 304, etc.
20.
created the Light of
Muhammad out of His own Light.... This Light dwelt before God for a hundred
thousand years. He directed His gaze towards it seventy thousand times each day
and each night, adding a new light to it with each glance. After it, He created
all the creatures.'10 Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, a contemporary of
Sahl, also emphasizes Muhammad's pre-existence: 'The first being to be
mentioned by God was he. The first to appear within the divine Knowledge was
he. The first to be desired by the divine Will was he. He was first in the
divine Decrees, first in the well-guarded Tablet, first when the Covenant (mithaq) was
made.'[96]
In the Kitab
al-tawdsin, al-Hallaj (died 309/922), referring to the 'Verse of the
Light' (Qur'an 24:35), identifies the 'tabernacle' (mishkat) mentioned
in this famous text with Muhammad, and the 'torch' [misbah) in
the tabernacle with the Nur muhammadl. He also says of the
Prophet's tribe that it is 'neither of the East nor of the West', thereby
assimilating it to the 'blessed tree' whose oil, according to this verse, feeds
the 'torch'. 'The light of prophethood', he writes, 'has sprung from his light;
and his light issues from the Light of mystery .... The design [allotted to
this light] precedes the [other] designs, the existence [prepared for him]
precedes the void, the name destined for him precedes the Calamus .... All
knowledge is but a drop of his knowledge, all maxims are a mouthful of his
river, all epochs an hour of his time .... He is the first to have been
included in the divine prescience, he is the last to have been sent as a
prophet !'[97]
Furthermore, this
extolling of the Prophet, which assigns him a cosmic function beyond his
historical role, is not limited to a small circle, but occurs in popular texts
such as the Kitab al-Shifa bi-ta^nf al-Mustafa.^ written by
the famous Maliki judge Qadi Iyad (died
544/1149). Seven
centuries later, the emir ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri, after writing a brief
commentary on the first verse of the siira of the 'Night
Voyage', the audacity of which might alarm someone 'to whom the secret of the
Muhammadan Reality has not been unveiled', wonders whether 'Perhaps he might
say to me, as did Ibn Taymiyya on looking at Iyad's Shifd: this
little Maghrib! is exaggerating!' cAbd al-Qadir was reassured
by a vision in which he was required instead to add to what he had already
written.[98]
During the age of Ibn
'Arabi, on the initiative of the Ayyubids or, rather, of the Sufis who inspired
them, the Prophet's mawlid, or birthday, began to be
celebrated on a regular basis. In the poetical compositions, naive or
accomplished, that flourished in the same period, the themes of which we have
been speaking were developed in terms that were sometimes allusive but more
often perfectly explicit. This is so in the case of the Td'iyya by
Ibn al-Farid, in which he has the Prophet say, 'There is no living thing that
does not derive its life from me, and all desiring souls are subject to my
will'; 'Even though I am a son of Adam in form, in him I have an essence of my
own which testifies that I am his father. '[99]
However, it is
to Ibn ‘Arab! himself that we must turn for a more detailed
explanation of the doctrine which is contained incipiently within the theme of
the Niir muhammadi, and of its relationship with walaya. Chapter
Six of the Futiihdt Makkiyya is entitled 'On the knowledge of
the start of spiritual creation' (al-khalq al-ruhdm), and
lists, under this heading, the questions to be discussed: 'Who was the first to
be endowed with existence? Where was he endowed with existence ? In accordance
with what model ? What is his aim ?'
The beginning of
creation, replies the Shaykh al-Akbar, was al- habd', the
primordial 'dust'—a term which is the equivalent, in his writings, of al-hayuld, what
philosophers call the materia primal6 and the first
thing in al-habd' to be endowed with existence was the haqiqa
muhammadiyya rahmdniyya, the Muhammadan Reality which proceeds from
the divine Name al-Rahmdn, the All-Merciful, 'which was not
confined within any space because it was illimitable'.[100] God
epiphanized Himself by
means of His Light to this dust, which is called by speculative thinkers the
first universal matter and in which the entire universe existed in
potentia, and each thing that was in this dust received this Light
according to its capacity and predisposition, as tiie corners of a room receive
the light of a torch, and are more fully and brightly lit up the nearer they
are to the torch. Indeed, God said, 'The symbol of His Light is like a niche
with a torch in it" (Qur'an 24:35), thus comparing His Light to a torch.
Now there was nothing in the dust that was closer to the light, or more
disposed to receive it, than the Reality {haqiqa} of
Mufiammad, which is also called the Intellect.[101] He
(i.e. Muhammad] is thus the head of all the universe and the first being to
come into existence .... And the universe proceeeds from his epiphany.[102]
Chaptei' Three Hundred
and Seventy-one of the Futiihdt (section 9: 'On the universe,
that is to say on all that is other than God, and on its organization')
contains a long account of the birth of the cosmos, in
which Ibn 'Arabi
describes the successive appearance of the forms of beings in the original
'cloud' (al- zamS), which is no other than the
'Breath of the Merciful One' (nafas al-Rahmdn). The first
being to be endowed with existence in this 'sphere of the cloud' was the
'divine Calamus', the 'first Intellect' who is also the 'Muhammadan Reality' or
the 'Reality out of which all things were created', the 'universal Holy
Spirit', the 'point of balance of the divine Names'.[103] In
another work by Ibn 'Arabi, the cAnqd' Mughrib, whose
main theme is actually the 'Seal of Sainthood', there is a series of highly
significant observations: 'The Spirit attributed to God [in verse 32:8, where
it is said that God breathed "His Spirit" into Adam] is the
Muhammadan Reality. '[104] The Prophet 'is the ultimate
land (al~jins al- cdli) who contains all
kinds, the supreme father of all creatures and of all men, even though his
clay (tinatuhu, his physical nature) only appeared
afterwards'.37- 'The Muhammadan Reality arises out of the
Lights of Absolute Plenitude (min al-anwdr al-samadiyya) in
the dwelling of Unity (al-ahadiyya)^ 'The Muhammadan Reality
was endowed with existence, and then out of it He drew the universe'.[105] The
last chapter of the Fusus is just as explicit: 'He is the most
perfect creature of the human race. For this reason things begin with him and
will be sealed by him: indeed, he was a prophet when Adam was between water and
clay; and then [when he manifested himself] through his elemental form, he was
the Seal of the Prophets.'3 5
Another concept, which
forms a complement to the haqiqa muhammadiyya, is that of the
'Perfect Man' (al~insan al-kamty.
It is through him that
God looks at His creatures and dispenses His Mercy upon them; for he is the
adventitious man, and yet he has no beginning; he is ephemeral and yet he is everlastingly
eternal. He is also the Word which divides and unites. The world subsists in
virtue of his existence. He is to the world what the setting of a seal is to
the seal: that is to say the place where the imprint is engraved, the symbol
with which the king seals his treasures. This is why he has been called khalifa [lieutenant,
vicar, deputy]: for through him God preserves His creation, as the seal
preserves the treasures. As long as the lung's seal remains unbroken, no one
would dare to open the treasures without his permission. Thus Man has been
charged to guard the kingdom, and the world will be preserved for as long as
the Perfect Man subsists therein.36
Properly speaking, the
term insan kamil is applied to man insofar as he is in
actu what he was intended and created to be, that is to say, insofar
as he realizes in an effective manner his original theomorphism; for God
created Adam 'according to His form'.37 As such, he is 'the
place where the two seas flow together' (majmac al~bahrayn:an expression
borrowed from verse 18:60), he in whom the two realities, higher and
36. Fusiis, 1, p. 50. On the insan kamil, see R. A.
Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Cambridge 1921,
chapter 2; A. A. cAfih, The Mystical Philosophy of
Muhyid-Din Ibnul Arabi, Cambridge U.K. 1939, chapter 2; L.
Massignon, L'Homme parfait en Islam et son originalite eschatologique (1948),
in Opera minora, Beirut 1963, 1, pp. 107-25; IT. H. Schaeder,
'Die islamische Lehre vom Vollkommenen Menschen', Zeitschrift des
deustchen morgenldndischen Gesellschafts' lxxix (1925), pp.
192-268; T. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, Berkeley and London
1984, chapters 15-17; cf. also the article by R. ArnaldezinEF,s.v.,and by Su‘ad
al-Hakim in al-Maw$u:a al-falsafiyya al-carabiyya, Beirut
1986, 1, pp. 134-48; and see Masataka Takeshita, Ibn Arabi $ Theory of
the Perfect Man, Tokyo 1987. Titus Burckhardt gives a slightly
different translation of this passage from the Pusus in his
(incomplete) French version of the work (La Sagesse des prophetes, Paris
1955, p. 25). Chapter 60 of ‘Abd al-Kanm al-J5li's al-Insdn al-kamil (Cairo
^949/ PP. 44“48), where the author discusses the subject of the title, is not
included among the excerpts from this work translated by Burckhardt in
his De I'Homme universel, Lyon 1953.
37. Ibn Hanbal, n, p. 244, 315; Bukhari, isti'dhan, 1. On the
interpretation of this hadith, quoted often by Ibn 'Arabi, see
among other texts Futilhat, 1, p. 107. The idea of the Perfect
Man as the mirror of God—another expression of his theomorphism—is also based
on the hadith (Tirmidhi, birr, 8) according
to which 'the believer is the mirror of the Believer' (al-mu'min, a
word which means the man who believes, and which is in addition one of the
divine Names). Cf. Futiihdt, 1, p. 112; in, p. 134.'
lower, are united, the
intermediary or 'isthmus' (barzakh) between the haqq and
the khalq, between God and creation?8 He is
also 'brother of the Qur'an'?9 'pillar of heaven',[106] 'the
Word which totalizes' (kalima jami ^af[107]—for
all beings are Words of God[108] and He contains all of
them synthetically within His perfect nature.
These various
expressions can strictly be applied only to the haqiqa muhammadiyya, for
it alone possesses these attributes ab initio and in full
measure. In another sense, however, they are adequate to designate the qutb and
any beings who are able to assume his cosmic function. In any case, the
terms haqiqa muhammadiyya and insan kamil are
not purely synonymous, but express differing views of man, the first seeing him
in terms of his primordiality and the second in terms of his finality.
The kamdl or perfection of the insari kamil should
not be understood in a 'moral' sense (so as to correspond with the 'heroic
virtues'), but as meaning 'fulfilment' or 'completion'.[109] Properly
spealdng, this perfection is possessed only by Muhammad, the ultimate and
total manifestation of the haqiqa muhammadiyya. Yet, on the
other hand, it is equally the goal of all spiritual life and the very
definition of walaya. Hence, the walaya of
the wall can only be participation in the walaya of
the Prophet.
As we have seen, this
participation or heritage (wiratha) can be either direct or
indirect. 'Of the people on this Way, there are only two types of spiritual men
who can be called stricto sensu Muhammadans: those
who have been privileged
to inherit a knowledge relating to a legal provision which did not exist in any
previously revealed Law or else those who, after having mastered all the
stations (maqdmdt) have come to [the stage mentioned in the
Qur'an, 33:13] the "non-station",[110] such as
Abu Yazid [al-Bistami] and others like him. They also can be said to be
Muhammadans.'[111] In the first case, the word
'Muhammadan' is used in a restricted sense: it applies to those favoured with a
spiritual knowledge which results from the practice of one specific aspect of
the Law brought by Muhammad—that is to say, of a provision which belongs to
this Law and does not merely confirm a previous one.[112]*3 It
refers, therefore, to the historical Prophet. In the second case, however,
which concerns the awliyd' who have transcended all stations
on the Way, the qualification of 'Muhammadan' establishes a connection with
the haqtqa muhammadiyya itself.
'As for all the rest'
[those who cannot be called Muhammadans in either of these senses], continues
Ibn 'Arabi, 'each of them is linked to one of the [previous] prophets. That is
why the Prophet said that "the wise are the heirs of the prophets",[113] not
that they are all the heirs of one and the same prophet; and by "the
wise" are meant the wise of this community. The Prophet is also reported
to have
said, "The wise of
this community are as the prophets of other communities", or, as one
variant has it, "are like the prophets of the children oflsrael".'
Do those who inherit
directly from Muhammad possess characteristics which distinguish them from
the awliyd' who participate in the Prophet's heritage only
through the intermediary of other prophets ? Referring to two verses of siira
al-Fath (48:4 and 48:18), Ibn 'Arabi concludes that, whereas the sakina—the
Hebrew shakinah—was manifested externally to the Children of Israel
(in the Ark of the Covenant, or tdbilt, Qur'an 2:249), ^
descends 'upon' or 'into' the hearts of believers in the Muhammadan community.
This is the principle upon which the two types of awliyd' can
be distinguished: 'The Signs (aydt) given to the Children of
Israel were visible; those which are given to us are in our hearts.[114] This
is where the difference lies between the Muhammadan heirs and the heirs of the
other prophets: the latter are known to ordinary people by the suspension of
natural laws (kharq al-'awaid}[115] which
is made manifest in their person. By contrast, the heir of Muhammad is unknown
to ordinary people and known only to the elite, for in him the suspension of
natural laws is only manifested in his heart, as spiritual knowledge and
spiritual state. At every moment he increases in knowledge of his Lord—and by
that I mean a knowledge which has been realized and experienced. '5°
This initial distinction, however, is merely a starting-point for a typology of
the awliyd', about which Ibn Arabi, in the rest of this text
and in other passages of his work, has a great deal more to say.
CHAPTER
5
The Heirs of the
Prophets
And it came to pass,
when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of testimony in
Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the
skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the
children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were
afraid to come nigh him .... And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put
a veil on his face.
This biblical
account (Exodus 34,29-35) has its equivalent in Islamic tradition.[116] It
is to the episode described in it that Ibn cArabi refers when
he uses an example to illustrate the general considerations mentioned at the
end of the last chapter:
When Moses returned from
his Lord, God clothed his face in light as a sign of the authenticity of that
which he declared; and so fierce was this light that no one could look on him
without being blinded, so that he had to cover his face with a veil in order
that those who looked in his face would not be taken ill when they saw him. Our
teacher Abu Ya za in the Maghrib was [a] Moses-like [type of saint] (musawi
al-wirth), and God had bestowed on him the same miraculous sign. No
one could look him in the face without losing their sight. He would then rub
the man who had looked at him with one of the garments he was wearing and God
would give him back his sight. Among those who saw him and were blinded in this
fashion was our shaykh Abu Maydan, on an occasion when he paid him a visit. Abu
Maydan rubbed his eyes with the garment that Abu Yaza was wearing and recovered
his sight. The miracles of Abu Ya za are famous in the Maghrib. He lived at a
time when I myself was there, but I was busy with other things and never saw
him.[117] There were other
saints then—among the
Muslims—who were superior to him in knowledge, spiritual state and divine
proximity, and who were known neither to Abu Ya'za nor to anyone else.3
The quality of being
heir to a prophet—and in another passage on the wirdtha miisawiyya Ibn
'Arabi stresses that the heritage received in this way may sometimes be total,
but may also be no more than partial4— essentially means conforming
to the particular spiritual type represented by that prophet. Yet the
relationship which is established between the saint and the prophet who is his
model is not a vague 'patronage', but may rather be compared to the
transmission of a genetic inheritance. It confers a precise and visible
character on the behaviour, virtues and graces of the wali. An
entire chapter of the Futiihdt is devoted to the 'Christ-like'
saints,5 those who, whether fully or not, are the heirs
of cIsa, or Jesus. Our analysis of it follows the sometimes
disconcerting order in which Ibn 'Arabi discusses the various aspects of the
subject.
The description
'Christ-like' (cisawi) is applied first and foremost to
the actual disciples of Jesus (al-hawdriyyun; cf. Qur'an 3:52,
5:12, etc.). But it is not simply a question of historical reminiscence, for
some of them lived long enough to know and accept the revelation of
We have looked at two
manuscripts of this work from the Abbey of Toumliline, thanks to the kindness
of the librarian father at the Benedictine Abbey of En-Calcat. Also, there is
now an excellent edition by A. Tawfiq (Rabat 1989) of the Di'dmat
al-yaqin by Abu 'I-cAbbas al-'Azfi (died 633). On the
social and political context which explains the interest taken in this saint by
the Alaouite dynasty, cf. Jacques Berque, Ulemas, fondateurs, insurges
de Maghreb, Paris 1982. Ibn 'Arabi appears to intimate that he might
have met Abu Yarn. But the date generally given for the death of Abu Ya za
(572/1177) cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that he was still alive
when the author of the Futuhdt was in the Maghreb: in 1177 Ibn
'Arabi, who was then seventeen years of age, was living in Seville and had
apparently never been away from his own country. This is doubtless a
chronological error on his part—not the only one in the Futiihdt. It
seems unlikely that Abu Ya za has been confused with his son Abu 'All. On Abu
Madyan (died 594/1197), see the article by G. Margais in EF. This
shaykh, who, despite the fact that they never met in the flesh, was one of Ibn
‘Arabi's teachers, is very often mentioned in his writings (Futiihdt, 1,
p. 221; ni, pp. 65, 94,117,13 0,13 6; iv, pp. 13 7,141,195; Muhddarat
al-abrdr, Beirut 1968,1, p. 344; Mawdqi ‘ al-nujiim, p.
140, etc.)
3. Futuhdt, w,pp. 50-51.
4. Ibid., 1, p. 482: The heir can inherit up to a half, a quarter, an eighth,
a third, a sixth and so on.
5. Chapter 36 (Futuhdt, 1, pp. 222-26; O. Yahia's
edition, hi, pp, 356-89).
6.
Muhammad, and there are
still $■ ime among us today (Ibn 'Arabi comes back later on to these cases of
miraculous longevity). The former, who are obviously exceptions to the rule,
therefore possess two inheritances, one received directly from Jesus and the
other received indirectly from him through the intermediary c f Muhammad. As a
result, they have the privilege of two fath—illuminations—and of
lenowing two modes of spiritual experience (dhawq).
Furthermore, the
Christ-like saints are the awliyd' who are born into Islam and
who inherit only from Jesus, through the intermediary of Muhammad. Their chief
feature is the realisation of divine Unity through the elimination of all
sensible representations (mithdl).
In fact, Jesus was not
born of a male belonging to the human species, but of a Spirit who manifested
himself (tamaththul) in a human form; that is why, in the
community of Jesus the son of Mary more than in any other, tire doctrine of the
legitimacy of images predominates. Christians fashion representations of the
divinity and turn towards them in order to worship, because the very existence
of their prophet proceeded from a Spirit who clothed himself in a form; and so
it is to this day in his community. But then came the Law of Muhammad, which forbade
symbolic representations. Now Muhammad contains the essential reality of Jesus
and the Law of Jesus is encompassed within his own. The Prophet thus tells us
'to worship God as though we were seei) ig Him', thereby causing Him to enter
our imaginative faculty (khayal). This is the only lawful mode
of figurative representation for Muslims. But this representation, which is
permissible and even commanded when it operates within the imagination, is
prohibited in the sensible world, and it is forbidden to the Muhammadan
community to give God a sensible form.[118]
Thus, the worship of God
as though we were seeing Him—by malting use of the imaginative faculty—is a
part of Christ's law which is ratified, in a way peculiar to Islam, by the Law
of Muhammad. It is also significant, observes Ibn 'Arabi, that this should have
been prescribed by the Prophet in response to a question asked by the angel
Gabriel, the Angel of Visitation, whom Islam identifies with the Spirit who
assumed human form (Qur'an 19:17) and whose breath engendered Jesus in the
person of Mary.[119] The particular contribution of
Muhammadan Law is the remainder of the same hadith (J. . .
for if you do not see Him, He
sees you'). Insofar as
he is a Muslim, the Tsawisaint could not of course be unaware of
the second part of this hadith. But insofar as he is a saint,
it is the principle voiced in the first part which determines the specific
modalities of his course.
A little later Ibn
'Arabi cites the example, quoted at the start of this book, of his teacher Abu
'l-'Abbas al-'Uryabl,[120] who, he says, was an :i$awiat the
end of his life. He also provides us with an important piece of autobiography
when he adds that he himself, on the other hand, was an ^sawi to
begin with, then musawi ('Moses-like'), then hudi (derived
from the name of the prophet Hud; cf. Qur'an 7:i65ff., ii^off., 26:124ft.),
after which he was the heir of all the prophets in turn, ending with Muhammad
himself. We will have occasion to speak further about the very special
relationship between Ibn 'Arabi and Jesus. For the moment, let us say that the
statement we have just quoted in this connection is explained in various
passages in the Futuhat, in which the Shaykh al-Akbar says
that at the time of his entry upon the Way, Jesus was his first teacher.[121]
We have already touched
briefly on the question of the continued survival of witnesses of previous
revelations in the midst of the Islamic community. Ibn 'Arabi returns to it
here: 'In our age, and even today, there are some companions of Jesus and also
of Jonah who live apart from men.' With regard to the companions of Jonah, the
Shaykh al-Akbar tells us that he saw the tracks of one of them, who had been a
little ahead of him, on the edge of the sea: the imprint of his foot was three
and three quarters of a span long and two spans wide. A friend of Ibn 'Arabi's,
Abu 'Abdallah ibn Khazar al-Tanji, had spoken with this mysterious personage,
who had foretold with faultless accuracy the events that were to take place in
Andalusia in 585 (the year in which this meeting occurred) and 586.[122]
With regard to the
existence of the immediate disciples of Jesus in the wake of the establishing
of Islam, Ibn 'Arabi relates a story which goes
back to Ibn Umar,”
adding that even if his chain of transmission is subject to dispute, this does
not make it less valid zfor us and those like us'z because
it has been confirmed by an 'unveiling' (kashf). According to
Ibn Umar, the caliph Umar, his father, wrote a letter to Nadia ibn Mucawiya
when the latter was in Iraq with his soldiers, ordering him to undertake a
series of forays into the area surrounding the town of Hilwan. While carrying
out this order, Nadia stopped at the foot of a mountain to say the afternoon
prayer, and uttered the great call to prayer, or adhan. A
mysterious voice echoed each formula of this ritual call, and shouted to him:
'O Nadia, I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Such is [the
right] religion, which Jesus the son of Mary proclaimed to us. And the Hour
will dawn over the community of Muhammad!'
Suddenly the mountain
split open and the head of the invisible person who had spoken these words
appeared. He said that his name was Zurayb ibn Barthalma. He had been commanded
by Jesus, whose 'representative' (wasi) he was, to remain in that
place until the day at the end of time when the son of Mary would descend again
to earth. A dialogue ensued in the course of which Ibn Barthalma ('son of
Bartholomew') charges Nadia to greet the caliph Umar for him and to give him a
message in which he lists a certain number of signs which will herald the Day
of Judgement.
When this message
reached Umar, he remembered that the Prophet had mentioned that a wasiof
Jesus dwelt in this mountain on the edge of Iraq. He sent one of his companions
to the spot in order to find Ibn Barthalma and convey his greetings to him. On
this occasion, Jesus' disciple did not reply to the call to prayer, even though
the messenger repeated it five times a day for forty days, and no one was able
to find out where he was hidden. But, says Ibn Arabi, at the end of this story
Ibn Barthalma was still dwelling on this mountain, devoting himself in solitude
to the worship of God.
In his commentary on
this strange story, the Shaykh al-Akbar points out that this person and all
those who, like him, are the still living 'representatives' or
'executors' (awsiya) of past prophets, are numbered among the
saints of the Muhammadan community, even though the content of the Revelation
brought by the Prophet did not reach them in the ordinary way, but was received
by them from Khadir in person, the
11. This account, which we have taken here from the Futuhat, i,
p. 223 ff., also occurs in Muhddarat al-abrdr, n, p. 146 ff.
12.
teacher of the 'solitary
ones' (afrad). The existence of such beings is the reason why
the Prophet forbade the killing of monks (ruhbari), who live
apart from other created beings to be alone with their Lord, and ordered that
they should be left to devote themselves in peace to their worship.[123] The
duty of tabligh or transmission of the faith, which is
normally imposed on believers, does not need to be performed in their case, for
they already possess 'evidence which comes from their Lord' (Qur'an 6:V)-
Ibn 'Arabi remarks that
cases like these, in which God takes over the instruction of exceptional people
(who are not necessarily muQamma- riin like Ibn
Barthalma, i.e. men from a pre-Islamic past endowed with supernatural
longevity), resolve the apparent contradiction between the Qur'anic affirmation
that the Prophet is 'sent to all men' (7:158), and the indisputable fact that
his message has not reached all of humanity. We can guess the significance that
this elliptical statement has in relation to the esoteric status, in the
Islamic economy, of the spiritual elites who by exoteric criteria belong to
Revelations which have been abrogated. Such an interpretation is borne out by a
reference to those who receive this divine assistance and who are also 'People
of the Book', and as such have to pay the 'jizya', the tribute
levied on Jews and Christians; for, in paying this tribute, and thereby
recognizing an obligation imposed by Muhammadan Law, they are integrated into
the Islamic order of things, and by this very fact their own Law, which
theoretically has been invalidated by the coming of Islam, re-acquires for them
a validity which is so to speak derivative. Nevertheless, as we may gather from
the reference to the jizya, we are no longer speaking of
anchorites, who by definition are outside the norms of a community, but of
individuals who are, technically, 'infidels'.
As we can see, this
excursus deviates only in appearance from the main theme, for it leads Ibn
"Arabi to depict walaya in a way which is far more
inclusive than the definitions which confine it within the framework of a
sociological Islam. The chapter continues with a description of the signs
whereby one can distinguish the Christ-like type of saints: the graces they
possess present an analogy with the miracles attributed to Jesus, and this is
why they may be endowed, for example, with the ability to walk on water, but do
not possess the ability to fly through the air. The latter is associated with
the Muhammad-type of saint, who
ut
inherits from. Muhammad
a privilege of which the model and source is the nocturnal Ascension
(isra', vaCra^^ They can also be distinguished by a spiritual
energy (himma) which operates effectively on men and on
things—a probable allusion to the power of Jesus (Qur'an 3149) to heal the
blind and the lepers and to bring the dead back to life. Finally, their
behaviour with regard to created beings, whatever religion they may profess, is
remarkable for its compassion and gentleness. The Tsawi saint
sees the best in all things. This is also true of Muhammad, inasmuch as he is
the sum of all the prophetic types and consequently integrates within himself
the particular virtues of each: on passing by a decaying carcases, his
companions said: 'How it stinks!', but the Prophet said: 'How white are its
teeth!' But in the case of the Muhammad-type of saint, the universal compassion
that results from this perception of the positive quality of created beings, of
the beauty or perfection which is inherent in them, is not made nakedly
manifest as in the case of the Christ-like saint. God is compassion; but He is
also Rigour, and the latter aspect may at times veil the former in the
behaviour of the Prophet of Islam or of his heirs.
Is it possible to
identify historic personages whose characters permit them to be identified as
'Christ-like' saints? As we saw, Ibn cArabi, in the example he
gives of his teacher Abu 'l-'Abbas al-'Uryabi, explains that the latter
was cisawi at the end of his life, whereas he
himself was cisawi when he entered upon the Way,
after which he became successively miisawi, hudi, and so on.
Leaving aside for the moment Ibn 'Arabi's personal situation, let us note that
the same walimay, during the course of his existence, accumulate
several prophetic heritages, which of necessity obscures the distinguishing
features of each and effectively prevents us from mechanically employing the
Shaykh al-Akbar's typology. It is none the less true that certain awliya' possess
features that enable an identification to be made, which is sometimes
explicitly confirmed by Ibn 'Arabi himself. This is so in the case of Hallaj,
who is mentioned severa! times in Chapter Twenty of the Futuhat. where
the Shaykh al-Akbar discusses 'the knowledge of Jesus',
13. It is none the less true that all the awliya' experience
a mFraj insofar as this symbolizes the stages of the spiritual
journey which leads to perfect walaya: we will have occasion
to discuss this point further when we analyse the Risalat al-anwdr in
the final chapter of tliis booh. The restriction to the Muhammadan saints alone
of the privilege whose prototype is the Prophet's Ascension has reference only
to the physical reality of moving 'through the air'.
14.
and where he actually
says, 'This knowledge was possessed by Husayn ibn Mansur'—a remark which has
particular reference to Hallaj's doctrine of tul and card ('height'
and 'breadth'), terms which are plainly related to the symbolism of the cross.14 The
miracles traditionally associated with Hallaj, the sayings attributed to him,
especially the famous verse: 'I will die in the religion of the cross' (fa-fi
din al-salib yakunu mawti)^ even his 'passion''—all these are a
powerful confirmation of his connection with the Christ-like type of saint,
which should be seen simply as the manifestation of one of the possibilities
included in the sphereof Muhammadan walaya.
Ibn cArabi
also warns his readers against the misunderstandings to which the behaviour of
a wali may give rise: for example, his special relationship
with a pre-Islamic prophet may cause him, on the point of death, to call on the
name of Moses or Jesus, and thus make him wrongly suspected of having become a
Jew or a Christian?6 Another
15. futuhdt, 1, p. 169. On the Islamic references
to the symbol of the cross, see Michel Valsan's article of this title in Etudes
traditionettes, March-June and November-December 1971, where he
translates, analyses and comments on chapter 20 of the Futuhdt.
16. L, Massignon and P. Kraus, Akhbdr al-Halldj, Paris 1936,
Arabic text p. 82, French, text p. 95. We will not elaborate on the case of
Hallaj, concerning whom one need do no more than refer to the works by
Massignon and above all to the posthumous edition of the Passion, as
well as to R. Arnaldez' book Hallaj ou la religion de la croix, Paris
1964 (see in particular chapter 4). The fact that Massignon, even in the
vocabulary of his translation (and his choice of the word Passion) was unable
to resist the temptation to Christianize Hallaj, thereby arousing a somewhat
suspect interest in certain sections of the Christian community, accompanied by
a devaluation of other aspects of Islamic spirituality, undoubtedly justifies a
cautious approach to his works. Yet the astonishingly Christian resonance of
certain of Hallaj's words, particularly the famous And 'l-haqq, which
is difficult not to compare with 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life' in St
John's Gospel (14:6), was bound, to create a confusion that only Ibn ‘Arabi's
criteria can resolve.
17. Risdlatal-Anwar, Hyderabad 1948, p. 16. Herman
Landolthas drawn our attention to a curious story, to which this interpretation
of Ibn ‘Arabi's might provide a clue. It concerns the Mughul prince Dara
Shikuh, whose spiritual teachers were Sufis who were profoundly influenced by
the Shaykh al-Akbar, and who was executed for heresy at Delhi in 1069/1659.
According to the Venetian traveller Niccolas Manned (Indian Text
Series, Storia del Mogol, translated by William Irvine, London 1907,1,
p. 357 ff.), while he was in his cell he said several times over: 'Mahommet
kills me, the Son of God gives me life.' It is obviously doubtful that these
reported words were literally the words spoken, and the significance that
Manucci attaches to them, as the indication of an unlikely conversion to
Christianity, is more than suspect. If this story has any foundation, the
conceptof the 'Tsaun
18.
easily recognized cisawi saint,
similar in many ways to Hallaj, is cAyn al-Qudat Hamadhani,[124] a
disciple of Ahmad Ghazali. He was accused of being a zindiq (heretic)
and of laying claim to the dignity of a prophet, and was hanged at Hamadhan in
525/1131 at the age of thirty-three— the same age as Jesus, and the age,
according to one hadith, of all the chosen people in Paradise;[125] and
later $ufi writers have often said of him: ‘isawi 'l-mashrab wa mansuri
'l-maslak, 'His source was Jesus, his way was the way of Mansur
(al-Hallaj).'[126] Similarly, one of the most venerated
teachers of the Naqshbandiyya tariqa, cUbaydallah
Ahrar, says explicitly of himself that he is Tsawi, and explains that in virtue
of this fact he has inherited the ability to 'quicken hearts', aS Jesus had the
ability to bring the dead back to life.[127]
There are,[128] however,
more recent examples to be found. Michel Valsan, who forty years ago led me to
discover the importance of the idea of wirdtha in Ibn ^Arabi's
doctrine of walaya, wrote practically nothing on the subject.
However, a few precious pages of his[129] describe the
specifically cisawi nature of a contemporary Muslim
saint, Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi, who died in 1934 and whose face, in some
indefinable fashion, bore a Christ-like stamp which struck several of his
European
type' might explain it.
for other possible cases of ‘isawi saints, see the article by
M. Baliver, 'Chretiens secrets et martyrs christiques en Islam', Islamochristiaria, no.
visitors. Michel Valsan
bases himself for the most part on the recurrence of Jesus himself or of his
name in a series of visions in which the shaykh appeared to the members of
the zdwiya of Mostaghanem, at the time when their last teacher
had died and they were having to find a successor. 'For us', he writes,
this particular series
of visions is indicative not only of Shaykh al-Alawi's spiritual condition, but
also of his initiatic function . . .. [The tariqa to which he
belonged], apart from its normal role in the Islamic
scheme of things, had also to demonstrate by
its existence the effective presence of tasawwuf, as a way of
initiation, on the borders of the Western world and even within the sphere of
European influence on the Muslim world . . . and it thus had to express itself
in terms which were suited to an effective and efficient contact with Western
intellectual sensibilities.
The very powerful
attraction that the Shaykh al-cAlawi exercised over certain
Europeans who became his disciples, and the part played by his tariqa in
introducing tasawwuf into France and other Western countries,
are confirmation both of the suitability of the type of walaya he
incarnated and of the nature of the milieu in which he was called upon to
represent tasawwuf.2y A correspondence of this
sort, no doubt, can explain both the fascination of Hallaj for the Christian
world (in the wake of Massignon's writings on him), and enable us also to
understand the strange fate of a thirteenth century Sufi like Ibn Hud, in whose
house the Jews of Damascus used to gather to study, under his direction,
Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed.24 In this case,
the wall would be a miisawi type or, more
probably, ibrdhimi, since Abraham represents
23. The ‘isawi character of Shaykh al-'Alawi is further
confirmed by certain details of his dying moments, to which Michel Valsan has
chosen to make no more than a discreet reference at the end of his article. A
similar interpretation would seem to apply to the case of the emir 'Abd al-Qadir,
whose person, behaviour and virtue of character likewise mark him out as
an Tsawi-type, but who in addition played a part in the
relations between Islamic esotericism and the West which we intend one day to
explore. Some preliminary facts can be found in the introduction and the notes
of our translation of extracts from his Kitab al-Mawaqif, published
under the title Ecrits spirituals, Paris 1982.
24. Kutubi, Fawdt al-wafdydt, Cairo 1951, I, pp. 123-25;
Safadl, Wafi, Wiesbaden 1979, xm, pp. 156-57. Ibn Hud was born
in Murcia in 633/1235, and died at Damascus in 697/1297. He was connected with
the school of Ibn Sab'in (who speaks of the Guide of the Perplexed in his Risdla
Nilriyya: see Rasd'il Ibn Sab^n, ed. Badawi, Cairo 1965, p. 157) and
was therefore classed by Ibn Taymiyya among the ittihddiyya. On
the Hudid dynasty, see EP, s.v., (see the article by D. M.
Dunlop. Ibn Hud was the brother of Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Mutawakkil, the Sultan
of Granada).
25.
the common trank and the
point of junction of Judaism and Islam. The details we possess, however, are
neither sufficient nor sufficiently accurate to justify a definite
pronouncement. Neither is it possible to decide, on the basis of information
handed down by the hagiographers, that Ahmad Badawi (died 675/1276), the famous
saint of Tanta, was a miisawi type, in spite of the
similarities between him and Abu Yacza, about whom Ibn cArabi
speaks in the passage we cited earlier. Like Abu Yacza, Ahmad
al-Badawi used to veil his face, and although some writers, both Muslim and
Western, have tried to explain this in a very prosaic fashion, others tell us
that on the insistent request of one of his disciples, he agreed one day to
lift his veil and the indiscreet disciple died on the spot.Z5
Just as there is no 'key
to dreams instantly available to anyone who happens to want one, there is no
insi ant 'key to the saints' to unlock the doors of walaya: if
conjecture is permissible—and in rare cases based on evidence which is beyond
doubt—only the carif, the true gnostic, thanks
either to his spiritual perspicacity (firdsa) or to an
'unveiling' (kashf), knows how to interpret unerringly and in
all circumstances the evidence of the mark of the prophet present in the wali himself
or in his reported acts and words. The same saint can 'inherit' from several
prophets; alternatively, he may receive only part of the inheritance of one of
them. In both cases, identification becomes a more delicate matter, since the
distinguishing featu res are either too many or too few. Furthermore, we must
not lose sight of the fact that the prophetic 'words' (kalimdt) which
form the structure of walaya cannot be reduced to the
twenty-seven prophets mentioned in the Fusus; we referred in
Chapter Three to a text in which it is stated that at any given moment there
are one hundred and twenty-four thousand saints (or types of sainthood),
corresponding to the one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets who,
according to a hadith, have succeeded each other
26. Sha'rani, al-Tabaqat al-Kubrd, Cairo 1954, 1, p. 184. On
Ahmad al- Badawi, see the article by K. Vollers and E. Litmann in EF, which
contains a large number of references but the tone of which is deplorably
contemptuous (Badawi is described in it as 'representing the lowest type of derwish',
of having 'extremely feeble intellectual powers'). Veiled saints aie not rare
in the history of Sufism. In Nabhani's Jami' karamat al-awliya' (Beirut,
n. d., 1, p. 308), for example, in the pages immediately preceding the section
mi Ahmad al-Badawi, there is a brief mention of another saint of the seventh
century of the Hegira, Shaykh Abu 'I-'Abbas Ahmad, who was actually named al-mulaththam, 'tlie
veiled one', and who was considered a muammar, being gifu cl
with prodigious longevity.
since the start of human
history. As the multiplicity of the divine Names can be reduced to a limited
series of 'mother Names' (ummahat),2-6 in
the same way the multiplicity of the prophets can be reduced to a restricted
number of main types, from whom the others proceed by means of differentiation.
These are the basic models who appear in chapter after chapter of the Pusus. Even
so, whether or not we take the figure of one hundred and twenty-four thousand
at its face value, it is still a fact that from each of these models there
derives a large family of lesser 'words' whom any thorough typology would have
to take into account, and of whose very names we are ignorant.27 On the
other hand, even if we confine ourselves to the twenty-seven prophets in
the Pusus, and supplement the information, often allusive in
character, contained in it with information from other texts (such as Ibn
Arabi's account of his meeting with the prophets of the seven planetary
heavens, to be discussed later on, or the highly cryptic Kitab
al- cAbddila),28 it is still very difficult
to discover criteria in. the work of the Shaykh al-Akbar which everyone has the
ability to grasp. The content of the chapters in the Pusus, even
their very titles, alert us to particular forms of spiritual knowledge which
are the exclusive property of one or other of the prophets and which the awliyd'
will inherit: the knowledge
27. Cf. Fusils, i,p. 65. According to the point of view
adopted, Ibn. Arabi gives different lists of these ummahat al-asmd'. In Futuhdt, 1,
p. 100, he lists seven: al-Hayy, al- ^Alim (sic), al-Murid,
al-Qadir, al-Qd'il, al-Jawwad and al-Muqsit (the
corresponding passage of O. Yahia's edition omits the name al-Qadir}, and
explains that they are themselves engendered by the Name al-Mudabbir and al-Mufassil. In Futuhdt n,
p. 437, he reduces them to three: Allah, al-Rabb, al-Rahmdn.
28. Islamic literature, particularly the qisas al-anbiyd' genre,
contains a number of facts, most often considered to be suspect isra'iliyydt, and
whose sources are either Jewish (the Bible or the Talmud) or Christian (the
canonical or apocryphal Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles), about certain
people whose stories come to be included among the accounts concerning the
prophets mentioned in the Qur'an. The inclusion—hotly disputed by the culamd'—of
these people in the series of the anbiyd' does not noticeably
modify the problem.
29. One edition exists of the Kitab al- Abadila—very
imperfect but which has the merit of being the first—which we owe to Abd
al-Qadir Ahmad Ata (Cairo 1969). The emblematic names at the head of the maxims
are variously constructed, but often include the name of a prophet.
Twenty-three out of the twenty-seven prophets in the Fusils appear
(Luqman, Shu'ayb, Uzayr and Nuh are missing), as well
as several of the non-Qur'anic figures mentioned in the qisas
al-anbiya', such as Shamwil, Danyal, Yuhanna, Jirjis, Yushah In the
final chapter of this book we will speak in more detail of the Kitab
al- ‘Abddila.
30.
of the divine Names in
the case of Adam, of the divine gifts in the case of Seth, of divine
transcendence in the case of Noah, of passionate love in the case of Abraham,
of destiny in the case of TJzayr, of compassion in the case of Solomon, of
'divine lieutenancy' (khildfa) in the case of David, and so
on. Yet the information collected about each nabi from
scripture or tradition, and the record of what has been either written or
spoken of him, which we find in Ibn 'Arabi, leave large areas obscure. One central
idea, however, is fully present: the Muhammadan community, in the person of
its saints and at any given moment in its history, simultaneously recapitulates
the 'wisdoms' contained in the successive prophetic revelations which have
taken place since the start of the human cycle/9 and the modes
of spiritual realisation which correspond to them. This idea finds expression
in the equivalence between the number of the anbiyd', both
known and unknown, and the number of the awliya', even if the
exact relationship between the people in the first category and the people in
the second escapes profane perception.
The number twenty-seven,
which is the number of the main prophetic types mentioned by the author of
the Fusils, is also the number of prophets' names mentioned in
the Qur'an 'from which God has left out nothing' (cf. Qur'an 6:38). What this
means, in effect, is that this number contains synthetically the sum of all the
forms of nu.bu.wwa, and hence of walaya, manifested
by each prophet individually out of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand.
If this were not so, God, who cannot not tell us everything we need to know,
would have mentioned others, if not all, of the prophets. The replacement of
two of the names in the Qur'an by two others in the Fusils is
not explained, as far as we know, anywhere in the work of Ibn 'Arabi. But, in
the perspective of his work, the substitution makes sense only if the two
Qur'anic prophets who are not in the Fusils, Dhu '1-Kifl and
al-Yasa, about whom the Qur'an gives no precise information, are in fact
identical (in terms of their cyclic function and as manifestations of a
particular 'wisdom') with the two others whose names have been substituted for
theirs (Shith and Khalid ibn Sinan).[130] We should also
observe that the number
twenty-seven, as we saw above, is the same as the number of dajjdlun, 'impostors'
or powers of illusion, who obviously bear the same relation to the' 'saints of
Satan' as the 'major' prophets to the saints of God.[131]
Finally, it must be
noted that the number twenty-seven has a very significant connection with the
Qur'an itself: for the 'descent' of the Book took place on the Night of
Destiny (laylat al~qadr), which is traditionally celebrated on
the 27th of the month of Ramadan (Qur'an 97:1). As we saw in Chapter Four, for
Ibn cArabi the 'Perfect Man' is the 'brother of the Qur'an',
for he, like it, is kalima jamTa, the 'Word which totalizes'.
Therefore, according to the Shaykh al-Akbar's interpretation, this 'Night' is
none other than the Prophet Muhammad himself, for during it the fulfilment is
accomplished, at the end of history, of nubuwwa and walaya of
which all the previous prophets were simply aspects. Thus, laylat
al-qadr is both the symbolic date of the last divine message, and
also, for man himself, the date of the second birth through which he becomes
that which he was from all eternity. This correspondence between the Qur'an and
the insdn kdmil is strengthened by the fact that the descent
of one and the ascension of the other come under the sign of the same number.
In fact, it is on the night of the 27th of the month of Rajab that Islam each
year celebrates the ascension (mi craj) from
heaven to heaven which took the Prophet to the threshold of the divine
Presence, at a 'distance of two bow-lengths or nearer' (Qur'an 53:9). These two
bows, according to Ibn‘Arabi, are the two semicircles whose conjunction brings
together the divine realities
(Seth) is the first
prophet after Adam, and Khalid ibn Sinan the last prophet before Muhammad. We
should explain that, in order to bring the number of names to twenty-seven, the
list of Qur'anic prophets, like Ibn ‘Arabi's list in the Fusiis,
must indude the name of Luqman (who is normally counted among the
sages rather than the prophets) and that of TJzayr (the Ezra of the Bible)
mentioned in the Qur'an, 9:30, to whom the commentators do not usually
attribute the quality of nabi, even though he is the restorer
of the Torah and his association with Jesus in the same verse emphasizes the
exceptional nature of his office (Tabari, Tafsir, ed,
Shakir, xiv, p, 202, speaks of him as an inspired :dlim). Suyuti (al-ltqdn
fl culum al-Qur'an, Cairo 1368 ah, n, pp.
137-41), who does not include these two names, thus lists only twenty-five
Qur'anic prophets.
(haqd'iq haqqiyya) and the created realities (haqd'iq
khalqiyya) and restores the original unity containing the total sum of
possibilities, symbolically expressed, here agaii i, by the number
twenty-seven.[132]
CHAPTER
6
The Four Pillars
The types of
sainthood defined by Ibn 'Arabi correspond in a way to a horizontal
manifestation of the possibilities contained within the total walaya, of
which Muhammad is the source and fulfilment. On the other hand, the community
of the saints is built upon a vertical axis, along which the various degrees
and functions are distributed.
Fath—a word that we have translated as 'illumination' but
which strictly speaking means 'opening'—'tears open' time and space. It is the
immediate and instantaneous relationship of man with God, and as. such it
annuls both the 'where' and the 'when': as Abu Yazid al-Bistami said, for the
saint there is, in a sense, 'neither morning nor evening'. From another point
of view, however, sainthood, being an assumption of human nature in its fullest
sense, must paradoxically manifest itself under the forms and conditions
intrinsic to the latter. In a sense the saint is 'nobody's son': between him
and God there exists a relationship with no intermediary, expressed in Ibn
"Arabi's terminology by the technical term wajh khdss, meaning
both the 'particular face' which in each being is eternally turned towards God,
and the particular face of God or particular divine aspect which corresponds to
that being.*1 Even so, the saint included within a framework of
time, a fact which is demonstrated explicitly by his belonging to an initiatory
lineage (silsila), and more discretely by his being the heir
to a prophet. He is emancipated from the six directions which determine the
perception of ordinary men.2 His 'place' is the 'non-place'
('the "where" no longer has a place', writes Hallaj in a famous
quatrain); but he none the less occupies a strictly defined place on a cosmic
stage whose determining principle is the hierarchy of thesaints. Here typology
becomes topology.
The origin of this
hierarchical configuration and the terminology in which it is expressed are a
matter of dispute, but are certainly prior to Ibn "Arabi. In Ibn
Taymiyya's opinion, all the hadith invoked to bear
* Due to the extensive
nature of the footnotes belonging to this section they are placed at the end.
of the chapter, beginning on page 98.
out this doctrine are
apocryphal.3 Ibn Khaldun views these beliefs as borrowings from
the Shfites.4 Conversely, to call to witness a Sufi who was
also a faqih and a specialist in hadith, Suyuti
devoted an entire treatise5 to this problem, based on the
prophetic traditions that he considered authentic. It contains an account
which, being prototypal, is o£ especial interest, and which is as follows: Abu
Hurayra recounts: 'I went in one day to the Prophet. He said to me:
'In a moment a man will
come towards me through that door; he is one of the seven men by means of whom
God protects the inhabitants of the earth.' And behold, an Ethiopian (habashq came
through that door. He was bald and his nose had been cut off. On his head he
carried a pitcher of water. Allah's messenger said, 'This is he.' Now this man,
explains Abu Hurayra, was the servant of al-Mughira ibn Shuba, and it was he
who washed down and swept out the mosque. '6
An extensive literature
very soon developed around the theme of the 'Council of the Saints' (diwan
al-awliya'), and has continued to do so down to our day.7 One
of its main features is the recurring theme of the 'hidden saint', already
known to us from the hadith quoted in Chapter One ('He is
obscure among men and no one points at him'), and who also comes into the story
told by Abu Hurayra. A more detailed illustration of this aspect of walaya comes
in the hagiographic texts relating to one of the great saints of the twelfth
century, 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani. The episode has an interest which is more
than merely anecdotal, and which is conferred on it by the importance of this
saint, who is frequently mentioned by Ibn 'Arabi8 and of whom
we will speak further, by the evident connection between these types of story,
which are often held to be no more than folk tales, and by an essential element
in Ibn "Arabi's doctrine of walaya. What follows is one
version of the story:
Shaykh Abu '1-Hasan
al-Baghdadi, commonly known by the name of Ibn Satan- tana al-Baghdadi,
recounts: I devoted myself to the pursuit of knowledge under the direction of
our teacher, Shaykh "Abd al-Qadir, and I was in the habit of spending most
of the night awake in order to ensure that he wanted for nothing. One night in
the month of Safar 553,9 he went out of his house.
I held out a pitcher to him [thinking that he wanted to perform the ritual
ablution] but he did not take it, and went towards the gate of the madrasa. The
door opened before him of its own accord. He went out and I went out behind
him, saying to myself, "He does not know that I am here." Then the
gate closed again and the shaykh walked to the gate of Baghdad which opened
before him. He went out and I went out after him, and the gate shut. He only
went a short distance but suddenly we were in a country that was unknown to me.
He entered a place that
resembled a ribat ['convent']. There were six people there who
greeted him with eagerness. I took refuge behind a pillar. Then I heard a groan
nearby. After a second, the groaning ceased. A man came in and went towards the
place where the groans had come from. He came out again carrying someone on his
shoulders. Then another man came into the room. He was bare-headed and had a
long moustache.10 He sat down in front of Shaykh :AM
al-Qadir, who made him say the two shahadas, cut his hair and
moustache, made him cover his head with a skullcap and gave him the name
Muhammad. Then the shaykh said to the people who were present, 'I have been
commanded that this man should replace him who is dead' {umirtu
anyakuna hadhabadalan an al-mayyit}.
They answered, 'So be
it!' Then the shaykh went out and left them. I went out and walked behind him.
We only went a short distance, and there we were in front of the gate of
Baghdad which opened before us as before. Then the shaykh went to the madrasa, where
the gate also opened, and entered his dwelling.
The next day, when I sat
down before the shaykh to study with him, I begged him to explain to me what I
had seen. He replied, 'As regards the place, it is Nihawand.” As for the six
people whom you saw there, they were the noble abdal. The man
who was groaning was the seventh of them, and when he was on the point of death
I came there to be present for it. As for the man whom I made to say the
two shahadas, he was a Christian, an inhabitant of
Constantinople. God had ordered me to put him in the place of the badal who
had died. He came to me, made a profession of Islam before me, and now is one
of them. Finally, as regards the man who entered and who bore the dead man on
his shoulders, it was Abu'l-cAbbas al-Khadir; he took him away to
see to his funeral.'
The shaykh then made me
promise not to speak of all this to anyone during his lifetime.12
Although other
hagiographic accounts tell o£ the sudden appointment to a position of
importance in the invisible college of the saints of individuals who are of no
particular note, and even of avowed sinners,13 the paradox of
divine election in this case is even more surprising. The man who is suddenly
assigned a place among the abdal—one of the highest ranks in the
hierarchy of the saints, as we shall see14—is not simply an obscure
Muslim: he is an infidel, a rumi, and his investiture takes
place immediately after his profession of faith.15
Islamic information in
the first centuries about the Pole (qutb), the awtad and
the abdal is, for the most part, difficult to interpret: the
terminology is fluid, and the different sources vary and contradict each other
as to the number of holders of each 'grade' and the nature of their functions
in a way which the commentators do their utmost to resolve, without eliminating
the confusion. Here again, Ibn cArabi was the first to organize
and explain these traditional facts, allusive and variable as they were, and to
lend them coherence with an overall doctrine of
.X U;
walaya. But we would be gravely mistaken as
to the nature of his undertaking if we were to see it n terely as the
systematic classification of already existing material and the establishment of
a more rigorous vocabulary. It is with a description that we are concerned, and
the person who records it claims over and over again to have been a witness: at
Cordoba, he saw twenty-five Poles who preceded the Prophet Muhammad;16 at
Fez, in 593AH, he met the Pole of his own time.17 In the texts
to be analyzed we will come across a great deal of this sort of thing. Thus, we
are not dealing here with some sort of theoretical construct but—as we have
said from the beginning—with the expression of a conviction based on direct
vision and personal experience. Furthermore, we shall see that II >11 'Arabi
does not speak in the sole capacity of a witness, but that he prides himself on
the authority he possesses on a different account.18
The Shaykh al-Akbar
wrote a good deal about the subject in hand.19 However, the
most comprehensive survey of it comes at the start of Volume Two of the Futuhdt, in
the very lengthy Chapter Seventy- Three which also contains the ansv'ers to
Tirmidhi's questions. We will use this text as our guide. First of r H, there
are some general considerations about risdla—the status proper to
the rasul or Messenger—and nubuwwa or
Prophethood. What is sealed by Muhammad, Ibn 'Arabi says, is legislative
prophethood (nubuwwat al-tashrt^, which is acquired only
through divine election. On the other hand, there is 'general prophethood',
which doe. not involve the establishment of a new sacred law and which can be
acquired (muktasaba). There are four corner-stones of
religion (arkan al din)', risdla, nubuwwa, walaya and imdn or
faith. But risdla is the ruk 11 jdmic:
it contains the other three. This appears to contradict what was said earlier
in Chapter Three, namely, that the most universal sphere is walaya. In
fact, the problem is only one of vocabulary: to avoid all confusion, instead
of risala we should say rasul', for each
Messenger is by definition rasiil, nabi, wali and mu'min—messenger,
prophet, saint and believer—whereas the reverse is not true because not every
believer is a saint, not every saint a prophet, and not every prophet has the
supreme status of a Messenger. The status of rasiil, then, is
the most inclusive of all. Its disappearance would bring in its wake the
disappearance of the human race. As a result, the world, is never without i living rasul who
is its Pole (qutb). By 'living', says Ibn "Arabi, we
should understand: corporeally alive (hayy bi-jismihi). He
explains thav after Muhammad's death, 'Allah
preserved three of the Messengers, corporeally
alive in this world.' The first of these in the list that follows is Idris, who
is generally identified in Muslim tradition with Enoch of the Bible, but of
whom the Qur'an (19:56-57—verses 21:85-86 merely mention his name) says only
that he was 'lifted up [by God] to a sublime place'.20 'God
preserved him alive in body', writes Ibn 'Arabi,
and assigned him the
fourth heaven to be his dwelling place. Now the seven heavens are part of this
world; they exist for as long as it exists and their form vanishes when it
vanishes . . .. God also preserved, living in this world, Elijah and Jesus ....
These are the three whom everyone acknowledges to be rusul. Regarding
Khadir, the fourth, there is some divergence of opinion, though not as far as
we are concerned, about his being rasul. These four beings
exist in the flesh in this world below, and are its Pillars (awtad, singular watad). Two
of them arc the two Imams and one of them is the Pole, who is the place of
God's beholding on this earth. Messengers have not ceased and will not cease to
be in this world until the Day of Resurrection, and this does not contradict
the fact that [in spite of the status of rasiil, which usually
involves legislative authority] they do not bring a religion which revokes the
religion brought by Muhammad and profess no religion but his. But most people
are ignorant of this matter.
Thus, one of these four
Messengers, Jesus, Elijah, Idris and Khadir, is the Pole. The latter is one of
the corner-stones of the blouse of Religion, and corresponds [in the KaTa] to
the corner of the Blade Stone. Two of the others are the Imams, and the four of
them make up the whole assembly of Pillars. Through one of them God protects
faith, through another sainthood, through another prophecy, through the fourth
the mission (risdla), and through all of them He protects the
purity of religion. He among them who is the Pole will never die, that is to
say, he will be preserved from tire loss of consciousness [which will come upon
all beings when the angel's trumpet sounds on the Day of Judgement, Qur'an
39:68] . . ..Within this community, there corresponds at all times to each of
these Messengers a being who is 'on the heart' of that Messenger and is his
deputy (nd'ib). Among our companions on the way,
most of the saints lorow the Pole, the two Imams and the Pillar (watad, the
fourth person of the group) only through these deputies; and that is why all
seek to attain that station (maqam). But when they attain it,
they discover that they are merely the vicars of the Pole, the Imam and so on,
and that the true Imam is someone else; the same is true of the office of the
Pillar .... Do not under-estimate the importance of what I have been saying,
for you will find it said nowhere else among those whose words concerning the
secrets of this way have come down to us.
Even though it is
generally held in Islam that the four people mentioned by Ibn cArabi
belong forever to the world of the living (two of them, Idris and Jesus, dwell
in the celestial spheres, and the other two, Elijah and Khadir, dwell on this
earth unseen by most mortals),
this is the first time
that they have been assigned the supreme offices in the esoteric hierarchy. All
previous traditional teaching, in fact, seems to identify the rightful holders
of these offices as being individuals who, according to Ibn ‘Arabi, are really
only the successive deputies of the true awtad. Thus the
connection between prophethood and sainthood is confirmed and strengthened: the
sphere of walaya is not autonomous, but is subject until the
end of time to the perennial authority of the only prophets who are still
living since the death of Muhammad.
How are the roles
divided between these four prophets? Chapter Seventy-Three of the Futiihdt has
nothing very specific to say on the subject, but other texts fill the gap.21 Idris,
dwelling in the fourth heaven of the Sun and occupying a middle position in the
centre of the seven planetary spheres, has the office of qutb or
Pole of the universe. The two Imams are Jesus and Elijah. Lastly, Khadir is the
fourth watad.^2 The visible hierarchy described
later on is in fact simply a reflection of this permanent structure, which in
turn is itself no more than the refraction of the higher reality whence it
derives its authority. Indeed, another passage from the Futiihdt,2^ apparently
contradicting what went before, states: 'As for the one and only Pole, it is
the spirit of Muhammad (ruh Muhammad), by which all the
Messengers and all the Prophets are sustained.' Idris, Elijah, Jesus and Khadir
are, likewise, simply differentiated projections of the haqiqa
muhammadiyya: in a certain sense, they too are only 'deputies'.
Next, Ibn cArabi
embarks on a detailed description of the 'men of God' (rijdl Allah). These
are divided into many classes or categories (tabaqdt). Among
these categories, whose definition sometimes involves a highly complex blend of
criteria, a distinction is to be made between a first series of
thirty-five tabaqdt, which maintain a constant number of individuals
in every epoch and correspond to cosmic functions, and a second one which
corresponds either to types or to degrees of sainthood. The first category of
all is the category of the Poles (aqtdb),
who are the sum of all
the states and all tire stations, in either an immediate or a derivative
fashion by means of deputies, as we saw. However, the meaning of the word
'Pole' may be stretched to cover all those who are the pivots of a certain
spiritual station and who alone are in full possession of it at any given
moment. One may also say of a man dwelling in a certain place that he is its
Pole. In the same way, the shaykh who presides over an assembly is the Pole of
that assembly. But in the technical sense, and in the absence of any other
definition, the Pole is a term which
properly speaking can be
applied only to one person in every epoch. He is also named ghawth, 'help'.
He is one of the 'proximate' (al-muqarrabiin; cf. Qur'an
56:11), and is the head of the community for his time.
Some of the Poles
possess an authority which is manifested and hold the office of caliph in the
external sense, just as they are caliphs in the inner sense in virtue of their
spiritual rank. This was so in the case of Abu Bakr, 'Umar, TJthman and 'All, Hasan
and Mu'awiya ibn Yazid, Umar ibn cAbd al-cAziz24 and
al Mutawakkil.25 Others are caliphs only in the inner sense and
possess no apparent external authority, such as Ahmad ibn Harun al-Rashid
al-Sabti26 or Abu Yazid al-Bistaml and most of the Poles;
Next are the Imams, of
whom there are never more than two at any given time. One of them is called
"Abd al-Rabb ('servant of the Lord') and the other cAbd
al-Malik ('servant of the King'), while the Pole is called ‘Abd Allah: for
every man has a divine Name that corresponds to him, and the Pole is
named cAbd Allah, whatever his [profane] name may be. It is
always so, just as the Imams are always 'cAbd al-Rabb' and 'cAbd
al-Malik'.27
The Kitab manzil
al-qutb, or Book of the Spiritual Dwelling of the Pole, throws
additional light on these three offices.28 'The Pole is both
the centre o£ the circle of the universe, and its circumference. He is the
Mirror of God, and the pivot of the world. He is bound by subtle links to the
hearts of all created beings and brings them either good or evil, neither one
predominating. But from the point of view of the Pole, these things in
themselves are neither good nor evil: they are (wa-huwa hndahu la
khayrwa-ld sharr wa-lakin wujud), and become good or bad as a result
of the vessel that receives them . . ,.29 The Pole's dwelling
place is the dwelling place of pure existentiation (Ijad) . . ..
He is the universal Veil within Existence.30 He keeps the
treasures of divine Generosity. God is perpetually epiphanized to him . . .. He
is located in Mecca, whatever place he happens to be in bodily. When a Pole is
enthroned at the level of the qutbiyya, all beings, animal or
vegetable, make a covenant with him other than men and jinns (with
a few exceptions) . . .. This explains the story about the man who saw the huge
snake that God has placed around Mount Qaf,31 which encircles
the world. The head and the tail of this snake meet. The man greeted the snake,
who returned his greeting and then asked him about Shaykh Abu Madyan, who lived
at Bijaya in the Maghrib. The man said to it, 'How do you come to know Abu
Madyan?' The snake answered, 'Is there anyone on earth who does not know him?'32 Chapter
Three Hundred and Thirty-Six of the Futiihafi3 is
entirely about this pact of allegiance with the Pole, and says that all the
spirits (arwdh} participate in it; each of them asks the qutb a
question inspired by God and receives an answer it did not know.34
On the other hand, the
distinctions which apply to the awliya’ in general apply to
the aqtdb as well:
Tlie most perfect of the
Poles is the Muhammadan Pole. The ones below him are divided hierarchically
according to the rank of the Prophets whose heirs they are; for there are the
heirs of Jesus, of Abraham, of Joseph, of Noah, and so on; and the position of
each pole is determined by the position of the prophet whose heir he is, but
all of them proceed from the 'tabernacle' [mishkat, which is
of course the 'tabernacle of light', mishkat al-anwar, so
designated in verse 24:35] of Muhammad. Thus, some are superior to others, but
this superiority relates only to their spiritual knowledge, and there is no
distinction to be made between them as regards their office (qutbiyya) and
the government of the universe (tadbir al- wujud).^
This Pole, who is a
'face without a nape' (wajh bild qafd) because nothing escapes
his eyes,36 himself escapes the eyes of others. The earth does
not fall back before him, he does not walk through the air or on water, he does
not feed himself by emancipating himself from secondary causes. He makes use
of supernatural powers only at rare moments, when divinely commanded to do so.
If he hungers, it is of necessity and not through choice: he does not call
attention to himself by excessive asceticism. He is patient in wedlock, J or
there is no state in which he can more perfectly realize absolute
servitude (al-'ubiidiyya) than the state of marriage.37
The Kitab manzil
al-qutb, in common with other texts, describes the nature and the respective
roles of the two Imams.38 The Imam on the left, whose secret
'name' is cAbd al-Rabb, watches over the equilibrium of the
world (saldh al-:dlam). He is the 'sword of the
Pole' (sayf abqatb) and usually succeeds him. If he dies
first, the Imam on the right becomes the Imam on the left and is himself
replaced by the fourth 'pillar'. As regards Shaykh Abu Madyan, who as we saw
above succeeded the previous Pole one or two hours before his death, Ibn 'Arabi
explains in this passage that from now on his esoteric name was 'Abd al-Ilah
(the equivalent of 'Abdallah), and that his previous name, 'Abd al-Rabb, passed
immediately to a man from Baghdad, previously the Imam on the right, whose
esoteric name was 'Abd al-Wahhab.39 The Imam on the right, 'Abd
al-Malik, has the task of watching over the world of the spirits falam
al-arwdh): 'His knowledge is knowledge of the things of heaven and he knows
nothing about the earth. '4°
Having been viewed in
terms of their functions as such, the Pole and the two Imams are considered
insofar as they are elements of the next
category, the category
of the four Pillars or awtad which they constitute with the
addition of a fourth person, the watad, who is Khadir's
'substitute'. 'Through one of them God protects the east, through another the
west, through another the south and through another the north—all of this must
be understood from the Kaha. They are also called ■’mountains'' (jibdl) on
account of Allah's words (Qur'an 78:6): 'Have we not made the earth into a
cradle and the mountains into pillars (awtadan)? For He
stabilized the movement of the earth by means of the mountains, and the
authority (hukm) of those of whom we are speaking (over the
world) is analogous to the authority of the mountains over the earth.
Allah is also referring
to their station when He repeats the words of Iblis: 'We will approach them [i.
e. men] from in front and from behind, from their right and from their left'
(Qur'an 7:17). It is by means of the awtad that God protects
these four directions, and they themselves are guarded against all that might
come from there. Thus the demon has no power over them because he can only come
at the son of Adam from one of these sides. As for above and below [if these
are added to the four directions already mentioned], perhaps they are the
concern of the six [spiritual men] of whom, if God wills, we will speak later.41
At the start of this
section, Ibn cArabi claims to have known one of the awtad of
his time, in Fez. His name was Ibn Ja'dun, and he earned his living sifting
henna. One of the notes in the Ruh al~quds is about him, and
provides more information. There is one remark which merits particular
attention, for it describes a characteristic which we have already come across
both in the prophetic traditions and in the literature of Sufism: when Ibn
Ja'dun was absent, says Ibn 'Arabi, no one noticed, and when he was
present, no one asked him his opinion. When he arrived
somewhere, no one thought to welcome him. When a subject was being debated in
front of him, the speakers discussed it as though he were not present.42 Here,
the saint's transparency is complete.
Before going on to the
next category, the Shaykh al-Akbar makes two further points. The first concerns
the 'name' of the awtad, which in the case of three of them is
added on to the name conferred on them in their capacity as Pole or Imam: they
are 'Abd al-Hayy (servant of the Living One), 'Abd al-'Alim (servant of the
Knower), 'Abd al-Qadir (servant of the Powerful), and 'Abd al-Murid (servant of
Him Who Wills). The second point is much more general and precludes the
possibility of a serious misunderstanding: 'All that we say here', writes Ibn
'Arabi, 'is said in connection with spiritual men (rijdl), but
it may
aPply equally to women/ This statement is further
emphasized and clarified in other texts: Tach category that we speak of
contains both men and women/ 'There is no spiritual quality belonging to men to
which women do not have equal access.' 'Men and women have a part to play at
all levels, including the level of the Pole (hattafi'l-qutbiyyaY*
Notes to Chapter Six
1. On the wajh khdss, cf. Fuhihdt, i, pp.
319,347; 11, p. 294; in, pp. 23, 235, 248,260; iv, p. 315; Fusus, 1,
p. 174.
2. This spatial indeterminacy—for 'whichever way you turn, the Face of God is
there', Qur'an 2:115—is conveyed chiefly by the fact that, as
regards his physical being, the saint becomes a face without a nape: like the
Prophet who could see the faithful praying behind him, he sees in all directions
at one glance. Ibn ‘Arabi describes his experiences of this charisma in Futiihdt, 1,
p. 491, and n, p. 486. Part of the same order of phenomena is the fact that the
body is freed from the specialization of its organs. Any sense can substitute
for any of the others: the wall is able to 'see' scents or
'hear' visible things, and so on (Futiihat, 1, p. 221). On
this characteristic aspect of the experience of the fath, see
the autobiographical account by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Dabbagh (Kitab
al-Ibriz), Cairo 1961, pp. 14-16; cf. alsop. 354), which is one of the
most extraordinary documents known on this subject. All this should be compared
to Ibn ‘Arabi's statement that the divine writings which, in certain
exceptional circumstances, fall into the hands of man, are to be read in all
senses (Futuhat, in, p. 605). On this subject, see also ibid.,
1, p. 320; Taj., ed. O. Yahia,m,p. 462.
3. Ibn Taymiyya, MajmiTat al-rasd'il, 1, pp. 21-26; see also
M. U. Memon, Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion, The
Hague 1976, p. 65.
4. Discours sur I'histoire universelle (Muqaddima), trans. V. Monteil, Beirut I9b7’I9bS' ni,
pp. 1022-23. On this vast and complicated theme, see the excellent article by
F. de Jong in EF, s.v. qutb (rv, p. 548 ff.),
which, however, says nothing about an essential point of Ibn ‘Arabi's doctrine
on this subject. Without embarking on a detailed analysis of the positions
adopted by Orientalists, let us recall that for L. Massignon (Essai sur
Ies origines du lexique technique, Paris 1954, pp. 132-34), we are
dealing with 'a doctrine which is far more ancient in Islam than is generally
believed', '. . . which is not necessarily Imamite in origin, whatever Ibn
Khaldun may have said about it. In the tenth century it was already classic ....
Indeed, it was specifically spoken about from the ninth century onwards'. Henry
Corbin (En islam iranien, 1, p. 229; u, p. 76; in, p.279 • •
•) sees it as a crypto-ShTite doctrine (in his opinion, the qutb is
a metamorphosis of the imam) and he suggests that the
hierarchy of the awliya' in Sufism was inspired by the
hierarchy of the Ismaili secret societies.
5. This treatise occurs again in al-Hdwi IT l-fatdwi, Cairo
1959, n, pp. 417-37' In the next century, Ibn Hajar
al-Haytami (Fatdwd hadithiyya, Cairo 1970, P- 322)
was to adopt a position similar to Suyuti.
6. Suyuti,ibid., p.428.
7. One of the most interesting descriptions—for the topographical details it
gives—of the diwan al-awliyd' occurs in ‘Abd al-‘Aziz
al-Dabbagh-'s, Kitab al-Ibriz,p.^z6ff.
8. Cf. for example Futiihdt, 1, p. 233; n, pp. 14,19, 223,
308; in, pp. 34,560. Ibn ‘Arabi further says, in his attestation of investiture
which concludes his Kitab Nasab al-khirqa, that he received
the khirqa (the gown or mantle of initiation) in Mecca from
the hands of Shaykh Jamal al-Din Yunus al-‘Abbasi, who had it directly from
‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani. Despite being invested with the khirqa in
other ways, this investiture establishes a special relationship between him and
‘Abd al-Qadir. On ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (or al-Jili, or al-Kilani, or
al-Gilani), see the article by Margoliouth in ET and by W.
Braune in EI2; see also the thesis by Jacqueline
Chabbi, '‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, idees sociales et politiques', Sorbonne 1971,
and her article '‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, personnage historique', in Studia
islamica, no. 38 (1973), pp. 75-106. The most interesting
hagiographical source is the Bahjat al-asrdr wa ma ‘dan al-anwar by
Shattanufi (died 713/1314), Cairo 1330 ah (with Jilani's Futiih
al-ghayb in the margin), of which the Qala'id
al-jawdhirby Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Tadhafi, Cairo 1956, is a plagiary.
There are many editions of works attributed to ‘Abd al-Qadir, in
particular al-Ghunya li talibi tariq al-haqq and al-Fath
al-rabbdni.
9. This event took place, therefore, eight years before the death of ‘Abd
al-Qadir, who is said to have died in 561 ah.
10. These two details enable us to identify the newcomer as a non-Muslim.
n. This town in the
province of Hamadhan is several hundred kilometres away from Baghdad.
12. Tadhafi, Qala'id al-jawahir,p. 31.
13. The characteristic features of this type of account are found in the
apologue of the sincere murid and the false shaykh, related
by ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Dabbagh, Ibriz, pp. 371-72.
14. Unlike other terms which we will come across later in this chapter, the
term abdal (singular badat) comes into at
least one hadith (La tasubbii ahi al-Sham fa-innafihim al-abdal.:.),
mentioned by Suyuti in the treatise cited in note5.
15. Some further points of interest in this account are: the presence of
Khadir; the part played by ‘Abd al-Qadir, who is obviously the Pole (qutb)—although
this means there is one too many, for, as we shall see, the Pole is one of
the Abdal; the presence of the 'indiscreet witness'—whose part
is taken here by the narrator— which cannot be fortuitous, and which suggests
that he himself will be called on one day to fill the office of badal; the
departure from the rule according to which, at each level of the hierarchy, the
replacement of the deceased titular is effected by a member of the category
below 'going up a step'.
16. Futiihdt,1^.151.
17. Ibid., iv, p. 76. This person, who is not named in the Futilhat, is
identified in the Durra Fakhira (trans. Austin, Sufis
of Andalusia, London 1971, p. 152, number 62) as going by the name of
al-Ashall al-Qaba'ili.
18. The definitions provided by Ibn ‘Arabi and the structure of the hierarchy
of the saints as he describes it (see below) are found later, in outline at
least and often in detail, in most of the works of Sufi literature in which
these problems are raised
19.
or discussed. We cannot
here undertake a>»analysis of this vast body of documents, where, besides
the classics, consideration would also have to be given to the innumerable
smaller works arising out ol the literature of the iurut;, even to the
literature produced by a movement as unorthodox as the ansdr of
the Sudanese Mahdi. Later on, we will give several examples relating to the
Seal of Sainthood. However, strict precision is not always uppermost in the use
of traditional elements or of Ibn ‘Arabi's formulation of them: there is no
local saint who has not been proclaimed sahib al-zamdn, no
shaykh who has not been credited with the power to make his followers
into awtad or abddl, no tariqa which
does not claim the exclusive privilege of supplying at every epoch the Pole of
the time. When one is not just dealing with pious hyperbole, Ibn ‘Arabi's
explanations and his criteria usually make it possible to become aware of the
underlying confusion of doctrine.
20. Apart from chapter 73 of the Futiihdt, part of which we
summarise below and in which this subject is discussed from page 3 to page 39
of volume it, the chapters of particular interest are: chapter 270 (n, pp.
571-74); chapter 336 (n, pp. 135-40); chapters 462 to 556 (iv, pp. 74-19(0. See
also several short treatises: Hilyat al-abddl, Hyderabad 1948,
translated into French by M. Valsan with the title 'La parure des abdaT,
in Etudes traditionelles, nos. 286-87, September-October and
November 1950; Kitab Manzil al-qutb, Risdlat al-Anwdr (analysed
below), Kitab al-Tardjim, all three published in Hyderabad in
1948; Mawdqi' al-nujum, Cairo 1956. The treatise on the Mubdyazat
al-qutb, of which Osman Yahia has not registered a single manuscript,
is undoubtedly identical to chapter 336 of the Futiihdt.
21. Cf. the article by G. Vajda, s.v. in El2; the
references it contains should, of course, be expanded to include—in addition to
the passage from the Futiihdt (1, p. 5) summarized
here—chapter 4 of the Fusils (cd. ‘Afifi, 1, pp. 75-80), and
chapter 22 (1, pp. 181-87), in which Idris is assimilated to Ilyas (i.e.
Elijah).
22. Cf. Futiihat, n, p. 455; Kitdb al-Isfdr, Hyderabad
1948, p. 3 2; Tarjumdn al-ashwn9,Beiruti96i,p. 24.
23. The fourfold nature of this struci ure, which corresponds explicitly with
the four corners (rukn, plural arkdri) of the
Ka‘ba, also bears a relation to the levels of universal Manifestation, as we
shall see when we discuss Ibn ‘Arabi's cosmology (see chapter 10, n. 70).
24. Futuhdt,151.
25. The Poles named here are, firstly, the four initial caliphs (the rdshidun caliphs,
meaning orthodox or well-guided), who successively took over the leadership of
the community after the Prophet's death. Next is Hasan, son of ‘All, who, when
elected caliph, abdicated in favour of Mu awiya, who founded the Umayyad
dynasty. Mu'awiya was the grandfather of the next-named Muawiya ibn Yazid,
whose rule was brief in the extreme (forty days according to some, two or three
months according to others; cf. Ibn ‘Arabi's note on him in Muhddarat
al-abrdr, Damascus 1968, 1, p. 67—a work whose authenticity is beyond
doubt, despite certain suspicions, on which see GAL, Si,
799—and Suyuti, Ta'rtkh al-khulafd', Cairo 1969, pp. 210-11),
and who died aged twenty-one. ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, eighth Umayyad caliph,
famous for his piety, reigned from the month of Safar 99 until the month of
Rajab 101 (717-18).
26. Al-Mutawakkil (206/822-247/861), the twelfth Abbassid caliph, put an end to
the persecution (mihna)—started by the caliph al-Ma'mun—of Muslims who,
contrary to the Mu'tazilites, held that the Qur'an was uncreated in nature.
27. Ahmad ibn Harun al-Rashid, son of the fifth Abbasid caliph, is mentioned
several times by Ibn ‘Arabi-.Tanazzuldt mawsiliyya (published
in Cairo in 1961 under the title Lata'if al-asrdr, p.
194); Futuhdt, 11, p. 15 (where Ibn 'Arabi relates how he met
him one Friday in front of the Kaba in 599AH, i.e. several centuries after his
death) and w, p. 11.
28. Futiihdt, 11, p. 6.
29. Kitdbmanzilal~qutb,p. 2.
30. This means that his function is on a level which, ontologically speaking,
precedes the level at which things endowed with existence become qualified as
good or evil.
31. This perhaps surprising name derived from the fact that the Pole, his
function being what it is, in a sense comes between God and created being.
32. On the theme of Mount Qaf in Islamic cosmology, see the article by M.
Streck and A. Miquel in EI2, s.v. Kdf.
33. Kitab manzil al-qutb, p. 4. Ibn ‘Arabi explains [Kitab
manzil al-qutb, p. 12; MawdqF al-nujum, pp. 139-40)
that Abu Madyan was the 'Imam of the left' and only acceded to the qutbiyya 'one
or two hours before his death' (in 595/1197). The same story, in expanded form,
comes in the Riih al-quds, where the man talking to the snake
is identified as Musa Abu 'Imran al-Sadrani, of whom more later.
34. FutuhdLm,p. 135-40.
35. Those who are exempt from the obligation imposed by the pact are the
'sublime spirits' (al-^dlm; see Qur'an 38:75)—that is to say,
according to Futiihdt, iv, p. 312, the muhayyamun, the
'spirits overcome with love', who never cease their contemplation of the divine
Beauty and Majesty and are unaware that the world even exists. The muhayyamiln are
also called the karubiyyun, or Cherubim.
36. Kitabmanzilal-qutb,y. 6.
37. Ibid., p. 2. On the expression 'a face without a nape', see above, note 2.
38. Futuluit,11, pp. 573-74..
39. Information about the two Imams is contained in all the texts which have
reference to the Pole, as indicated in note 19.
40. Kitab manzil al-qutb, p. 12.
41. In Futuhdt, chapter 270 and in MawdqF al-nujum, p.
139, Ibn ‘Arabi alludes to the correspondence between the three functions of
the Pole and the Imams, and the three divine functions {‘Lord of men’,
‘King of men', 'God of men') mentioned at the start of the last sura of
the Qur'an (114:1-3), which is, as we Itnow, a sura of
protection. This correspondence is not without significance with regard to the
modes of operation of the protection invoked by the believer who recites these
verses. Let us note, on the other hand, that a contradiction exists between
most of Ibn ‘Arabi's texts about the esoteric names of the two Imams and Futiihdt, 11,
p. 571, where it is the Imam of the right who is named ‘Abd al-Rabb. If this is
not a mistake on the part of the author or a copyists's error, the most likely
explanation is that there has been a reversal of perspective, with the Imam on
the
42.
left of the Pole
appearing to an observer to be on his right, and the Imam of the right on his
left.
43. Futuhdt, n, p. 7. On the awtad and
the next category, the abdal, cf. Futuhdt, 1, pp.
152-61 (chapters 15 and 16).
44. Riih al-quds, p. 72, number 17 (Austin, Sufis
of Andalusia, pp. 114-16). Ibnja'dun died at Fez in 597/1200.
45. These three quotations are taken respectively from Futuhdt,■a,-p. 26;
n,p. 35;andni,p. 89.
46.
CHAPTER
7
The Highest Degree
of Walaya
Chapter Seventy-Three
of the Futiihat lists eighty-four 'classes' of spiritual men,
thirty-five of which have a constant number of occupants at any given moment.
We cannot deal with all the categories here, so we will merely mention the most
important of them, intending, in this chapter and the next, to concentrate in greater
detail on the two which represent, respectively, what we might call the arch
and the keystone of them all.
Having discussed the
four 'pillars', Ibn 'Arabi goes on to speak of the seven abdal (singular badal), so
named because
when they depart from a
place and wish to leave a substitute (badal) in it, because
they see that it will be of profit either to themselves or to others, they
leave a 'person' (shakhs) who is so like them in seeming that
whoever looks at him has no doubt that he has seen the being in question. In
fact, it is not he, but a spiritual form that he leaves in place of himself,
having in view the purpose that his knowledge has assigned [to this
substitution].
It is through the abdal that
God preserves the seven climes.[133] The first among
them is in the footsteps (literally, 'on the foot', cald
qadam) of Abraham and is in charge of the first clime, the second is
in the footsteps of Moses, the third is in the footsteps of Aaron, the fourth
is in the footsteps of Idris (this is the clime in the middle, corresponding to
the heaven of the Sun in the hierarchy of the planetary spheres, and this badal is
none other than the Pole himself), the fifth is in the footsteps of Joseph, the
sixth is in the footsteps of Jesus and the seventh is in the footsteps of Adam.
Once again, the connection between nubuwwa and walaya is
plain. The symbolic names of the abdal (among which are the
names of the awtad, since each of these categories, as we saw,
is included in the one below it) are the expression of a privileged
relationship with one of the divine Names. Besides cAbd al-Hayy, cAbd
al-cAlim, cAbd al-Wadud (servant of the Most Loving,
similar to cAbd al-Murid in the
previous listing)
and cAbd al-Qadir, there are cAbd al-Shakur
(servant of Him who is grateful), 'Abd al-Sami' (servant of Him who hears), and
'Abd al-Basir (servant of Him who sees).
To each of these divine
qualities there corresponds one of the abdal. Allah looks upon
them through these qualities and each quality has a dominant influence on one
of them.
Ibn 'Arabi saw the
seven abdal of his time at Mecca together, but says that he
had met two of them before: Musa al-Sadrani in Seville in 586* and Muhammad ibn
Ashraf al-Rundi, named Shaykh al-Jabal*
Next come the nuqabd', a
word usually translated as 'leaders' (in the Qur'an 5:12 it is applied, in the
singular, to the twelve heads of the tribes of Israel), but which it would be
better to render as 'seekers', a word which accords with its etymology and also
corresponds more closely to the characteristics of these people as Ibn 'Arabi describes
them. There are twelve of them, 't he number of the signs in the Zodiac', and
they possess the knowledge of the revealed Laws. 'They have the power to see
the evil hidden in mot's souls and to know their deceits and their trickeries.
As for Iblis [the devil], they can see right through him .... When they see
someone's footsteps in the sand, they know whether these are the tracks of one
of the chosen or one of the damned.' The nujabd', or Nobles,
are eight in number. 'The signs of the divine approval are manifest in them
because of their spiritual state, not through their own choice but because
their states govern them.' Whereas the nuqaba' know the
secrets of the ninth heaven—the heaven without stars—the nujabd' possess
the secrets of the eight lower spheres: the heaven of the fixed, stars and the
seven planetary heavens.[134] The hawdriyyun, a
rather enigmatic name used in the Qur'an to designate the apostles of Jesus
(cl. Qur'an 3:52, 5:112, 61:14, and so on), constitute a very small category,
since there is never more than one
of them at any given
time. This one hawdri 'defends religion both by the sword and
by convincing evidence, for he has been given the knowledge of how to express
himself and present evidence, and also the knowledge of swordfighting, as well
as bravery and the ability to answer the challenges made against the
authenticity of revealed religion.' Since the Prophet's death, only this
one hawdri has been permitted, as the 'inheritance' due to
him, to perform mu^izat—that is to say, supernatural
acts which, unlike the kardmdt granted to the saints, are the
exclusive privilege of the prophets.[135]
The next category, the
name and nature of which are somewhat surprising, is the category of the rajabiyyun or
'men of Rajab', who number forty. They are so named because 'the spiritual
state (hdl) which corresponds to their station (maqdm) is
manifest in them only during the month of Rajab, from the moment of the
appearance of the new moon until the end of the lunar month. They then lose
this state and do not regain it until the month of Rajab the following year . .
.. In some of them there survives throughout the year something of what they
perceived (through intuitive unveiling) in the month of Rajab, while in others
nothing of it survives at all.' Ibn cArabi tells of the visit
he paid to one of them at Dunaysir in Mesopotamia. This person, who is
identified briefly in the Durra fdkhira as al-Khatari, had the
singular gift, and not only in the month of Rajab, of being able to detect the
extremist Shntes (rawafid) even
when they were posing as Sunnis, because they appeared to him metamorphosed
into swine.[136]
Whereas the first
thirty-five categories correspond to specific hierarchical functions connected
with the government of the higher worlds (falam al-arwah, malakut) and
the lower worlds (cdlam al-ajsdm, mulk), this is no
longer so in the case of most of the tabaqdt, described, one
after another, in the rest of Chapter Seventy-Three of the Futiihdt. The
individuals who make up these groups possess knowledge and powers, and they all
have some role to play in the divine economy of Manifestation, but this role
does not define the category in question. These categories contain a variable
number of beings whose common bond is the fact of their having attained to a
certain degree, or realized a certain modality, of
spiritual life. To add to the complexity, this means that, among other things,
the same man can be present in several categories simultaneously. Several of
the modalities, in fact, can be possessed concurrently, and the attainment of a
certain degree implies that he who has attained it is eminently in possession
of the levels below. If we add to these various parameters those which are
furnished by the typology of the prophetic heritages described earlier, we
arrive at a combination of inexhaustible richness. The example of the Pole is
particularly revealing. From the point of view of function, he belongs^ the
category of the qutbiyya (of which he is the sole
representative), but he also belongs to the categories of the awtad, the abdal, and
so on (and in addition he may, or may not, hold the external office of khildfa). On
the other hand, like all saints he is part of a prophetic 'family': he is musawi,
ibrahimi, shu caybi, and so on, and, ultimately, all
of them at once. He is in possession of 'all the states (ahwdl) and
all the stations (maqdmdty concurrently, and by the same token
occupies a place in the groups or sub-groups which correspond to this double
series of distinctions. Finally, inamost logical fashion, heis also
presentinalast category which we are about to explore, and which represents the
highest degree of walaya. This is the category of the afrad or
solitaries.[137]
The information
contained in Chapter Seventy-Three on the subject of the afrad is
relatively succinct, and will therefore be supplemented here by an analysis of
the wealth of detail contained in Chapters Thirty to Thirty-Two of the Futuhat. In
these chapters, moreover, in a way most unusual in the work of the Shaykh
al-Akbar, the afrad are designated by the symbolic name
of al-rukbdn, the 'riders' or, more precisely, the
'camel-riders'. Unlike the fursan, who ride on horses (rukkdb
al-khayl), the rukbdn in question ride on
camels (rukkdb al-ibil)—an essentially Arab mount, and as such one
which possesses a symbolic character that is specifically Islamic and
Muhammadan. These rukbdn (a term to be explained later), 'who
are the solitaries' (hum al-afrdd), are divided into two
groups: those who travel 'on the camel of spiritual energy' (nujub
al-himam; in the abundant camel vocabulary of Arabia, nujub means
a pure-bred camel), and those who travel 'on the camel of action' (nujub
al-acmdl). The Pole, the awtad, the abdal, the nuqabd', the nujabd', and
the rajabiyyiin, along with others, are all included among the afrad,
the number of whom varies but is always an odd number and always
greater than three.
The afrad, situated
at the same spiritual level as the Pole, are not subject to his authority,
except for those of them who are invested with a specific function (imam,
badal, and so on) and who are thus equivalent to those in the
initiatic hierarchy. In the human order they are equivalent to those in the
angelic order who are the muhayyamiin or spirits overcome with
love, also known as al-karubiyyun, the Cherubim. The divine
Name which governs them is al~Fard, the Unique, which explains
the fact that their spiritual level is unknown (yujhal maqdmuhum) and
why they experience misunderstanding and reproach, for 'they have received a
knowledge from God which is known to them alone'. This is
illustrated by a reference to the story of Moses and Khadir (one of the afrad) in Sura 18,
in which Moses, in spite of repeated promises to keep silent, is astonished by
his companion's strange and, legally speaking, aberrant behaviour. Reference
is also made to the case of cAli ibn Abi Talib, who declared,
pointing at his own breast, that innumerable forms of knowledge were stored in
it, but that he could find no one capable of receiving them. Other past afrad are
mentioned, including Ibn ‘Abbas and Zayn al-cAbidin, Umar ibn
al-Khattab and Ibn Hanbal. Ibn “Arabi, who says that in the course of a 32 (1,
pp. 199-208). Cf. also 1, p. 93; 11, pp. 25, 675; in, p. 137; Kitab al-Tajalliyat, ed.
O. Yahia, 1967, i,p. 39; Kitab al-Masa'il, Hyderabad 1948, p.
28, etc.
107
single day at Mecca, on
Mount Abii Qubays, he met seventy afrad (in a later passage he
mentions the names of some whom he had visited in person), identifies as such
several outstanding figures of twelfth century tasawwuf-. cAbd
al-Qadir al-Jilani,[138] and two of his companions, Abu
al-Sucudibn al-Shibl[139] and Muhammad ibn
Qa'id al-Awani.[140]
Leaving aside several
paragraphs in which the fuqaha or doctors of the Law are
severely criticized for their attitude towards the gnostics (Ibn ‘Arabi calls
them the 'pharaohs of the saints' and the 'antichrists of the pious servants of
God'), Chapter Thirty of the Futiihdt furnishes us with some
essential facts. To begin with, the afrad do not, normally,
have disciples (the reservation is explained later): their task is not tarbiya, the
initiatic instruction of novices, but is confined to nasiha or
counsel. They spread knowledge around them without claiming ultimate authority
or imposing a discipline, as a gift which may be accepted or refused. In their
'spiritual ascensions' (mfraf), they see before them only the
'foot of the Prophet', whereas the other awliya', according to
their different levels, see the foot of the Pole, of the awtad, of
the abddl, and so on. This proves the autonomy of the afrad in
relation to all hierarchies. Finally, they have the right of sway over
beings (tasarruf), but those of them who belong to the first
category (the rukkdb al-himam, who are mounted on the camels
of spiritual energy) refuse to exercise it, as in the case of Abu al-Sucud
ibn al-Shibl. ‘Abd al-Qadir
al-Jilani, on the other
hand, exercised this power in obedience to a divine command. Muhammad ibn Qa'id
used it without being ordered to do so, which is a sign of imperfection. They
have entered the Tents of Mystery (surddiqat af-ghayb) and are
hidden beneath the veils of ordinary behaviour (hujub al-cawd'id). They
observe total servitude (cubuda), and their
attitude towards Allah is one of absolute dependence (iftiqar). They
are the Heroes (fitydri), the Hidden (al-akhfiyd'), 'those
who draw blame upon themselves' (al-maldmiyya).*1 Ibn
Jacdun, who was mentioned at the end of the last chapter, is a
striking example of the maldmiyya (Ibn cArabi
prefers this form of the word to the more frequent but less correct maldmatiyya):
when they are present, no one pays them any attention; when they withdraw,
their absence goes unnoticed. They blend into the 'dmma, the
main body of believers: no apparent asceticism, no excessive visible devotions,
no manifestly supernatural intervention in their very ordinary lives draws
people's attention to them. The 'blame' is both what they inflict on themselves
in a ceaseless effort to detect their own imperfections, and that to which they
are subjected by the elite: the fuqahd’ and the Sufis (in this
case Sufis who' are still far from the end of the Way) treat them with
condescension, and, insofar as they notice their existence, are critical of
their spiritual ordinariness. The motto of the maldmiyya could
be the adage of which Ibn cArabi, in the FutuhdtT2 says:
'these words conceal imrnense knowledge', and according to which '[true] Sufism
consists of the five prayers and the expectation of death'. The way of
perfection ends, paradoxically, in pure and simple conformity with the Law.
Ibn 'Arabi comments repeatedly
on the famous hadith qudsi, in which God says: 'My servant
does not cease to approach Me through supererogatory acts of obedience until I
love him. And when I love him, I am the hearing with which he hears, the sight
with which he
sees, the hand with
which he grasps, the feet with which he walks . . ..'^
Notwithstanding, this is
not the most perfect proximity—and proximity, we must remember, is the true
meaning of walaya. In the performing of supererogatory acts
there is still the implicit affirmation of choice, of the servant's own will.
But the pure servant—al-cabd al-mahd, a term which the
Shaykh al-Akbar uses of himself14—is totally without ikhtiydr, free
will. Thus, at the end of the path, it is only by practising the faraid, or
legal obligations (epitomized by the five prayers in the saying quoted above)
that he can realize fully his spiritual destiny. We are a long way from
the ibaha, the laxness of fact or alleged antinomianism of
principle that Ibn ‘Arabi's detractors so noisily condemn. He goes on to
explain that when this point has been reached it is no longer God who becomes
the hearing and the sight and the hand of the ^abd, but
the zabd who becomes the hearing with which God
hears, the sight through which He sees, the hand with which He grasps.
The maldmiyya 'in this world are the hidden, the pure, the
trustworthy, those who are concealed among men .... For them alone is there a
perpetual theophany.'15 'They are the princes and the imams of
the People of the Way; one of them is the supreme head of this world, and that
is Muhammad, God's Messenger. They are the wise men who put each thing in its
rightful place. They affirm the secondary causes where necessary and deny them
where they should be denied. '16
The ignorant man may say
of the maldmi (singular of maldmiyya') what
the infidels said of the Prophet: ya'kulu 'l-ta'dm wa-yamshi fi
'l-aswdq (Qur'an 25:7): he feeds like everyone else and attends to his
business in the market place. The maldmi, as Ibn ‘Arabi
describes him, knows at each moment that God acts within secondary
causes and not through them (cinda 'l-asbdb la bi 'l-asbdb), and
that they are thus the Veil of the Peerless One. But He has chosen this veil
and it is not up to the servant to tear it. So the maldmi, like
the ordinary man—and he is
13. Bukhari, bdb al-tawadu:. This hadith
qudsi forms part of the ahddith collected by Ibn
Arabi in his Mishkat al-anwdr, Aleppo 1346 ah, no.
91. For the commentary on this hadith, see Futuhdt, 1,
p. 406; m, p. 68; rv, pp, 20,24,30,449; Naqsh al-Fu$iis, Hyderabad
1948, pp. 3-4; see also the anonymous commentary on the Kitab
al-Tajalliyat, known by the title Kashf al-ghayat in
the edition by O. Yahia, in thejournalal-Mashriq,1966,p. 679.
14. Futuhdt, m,p. 41,572.
15. Ibid.,1,p. 181. Seealsom,p. 35.
16. Ibid.,n,p. 16. On the ma/dmiyya, see also chapter 23 ibid., i,pp. 180-82.
ordinary in the fullest
sense, through his conscious and voluntary conformity to the divine order of
things—submits to the chain of secondary causes. He never makes use of
exceptional powers and refrains from shatahdt, the ecstatic
utterances which are considered by the vulgar to be proof of the highest
sainthood. In the opinion of Ibn cArabi, who comes back often
to this point, 'the ecstatic utterance (shath) is an
imperfection in man, for in the shath he is raising himself to
the level of divinity and thereby takes leave of his essential reality.'[141] This
essential reality is 'ubiidiyya, absolute servitude. With
reference to the doctrine of man as the microcosm joining within himself the
four natural kingdoms, the Shaykh al-Akbar says, 'There is nothing higher in
man than the mineral nature (al-sifa al-jamddiyya)', for it is
the nature of stone, when left to itself, to fall, 'and this is true 'ubudiyya.'^ The maldmiis a
pebble in the hand of God.[142]
We will now return to
what Ibn cArabi has to say about the afrad who
are the highest among the maldmiyya. Chapter Thirty-One of
the Futuhdt describes the principles (tisul) on
which their special status is founded and explains the choice of the symbolic
term rukbdn as a name for them. The characteristic feature of
the afrad is their renunciation of all personal movement (al-tabarri
min al-haraka): the image of the stone which never stirs of its own
accord is exactly appropriate here. The afrad have preferred
repose (sukun) to movement because the state of repqse alone
is in conformity with the original status, the ontological definition, of the
true cabd (al-iqama 'aid ’l-asl). They are
therefore 'carried' (Ibn cArabi had already used this
expression in his early work, the Risala fi ’l-waldya), and
their 'mount' is the hawqala, the formula which is their
perpetual invocation (hijfir) and which runs: la hawla
wa la quwwata ilia bi'Lldh, 'There is no strength and no power save
through God.' The
response to this total giving up o£ their beings to God is that God takes them
totally in charge. They are not those who desire {al-muridun) but
those who are desired (al-muradim), not those who move forward
step by step under the illusion that they are walking of their own
volition (al-salikuri), but those whom God 'pulls' towards
Him (al-majdhubun). During sleep they veil their faces and
sleep on their backs, in a position of abandonment. Each of their nights, and
better still every moment of their sleep, even in the daytime, is a mi
"raj, an effortless ascension like that of the Prophet who,
similarly, did not travel but whom God caused to travel (asrd
bi-^abdihi, Qur'an 17:1). Secrecy (hitman) is one of
their principles: they conceal what they are and what they know until such time
as they are commanded to reveal it to the outside world.
The next chapter deals
with the afrad in the second category. These are invested with
an auctoritas and, in order to perform the governing
role (tadbtr) that God has assigned to them, are therefore
obliged, at least in appearance, to take initiatives and exercise powers: a
sacrificial renunciation of the zubudiyya in the
name of the "ubudiyya, since the servant must clothe
himself with the attributes of the rububiyya or lordship.
Ibn cArabi knew several rukbdn of this type
during his youth in Andalusia: Abu Yahya al-Sinhaji, a blind man who lived in a
mosque in Seville;[143] Salih al-Barbari who, after
travelling for forty years, spent the next forty years in another mosque in
Seville, where he lived in the most abject poverty;[144] Abu
'Abdallah al-Sharafi who used to disappear each year at the moment of the
Pilgrimage, having been transported miraculously to Mecca, and whose requests
to God had so great a reputation for being granted that people would sidle up
to him in the mosque and utter their own prayers aloud, thereby forcing him to
say the 'Amen' which would ensure their fulfilment;[145] Abu
'1-Hajjaj al-Shuburbali, who was so deeply absorbed in God that it took a
visitor's comment to make him aware, in extreme old age, of the existence of a
tree in front of the house he had lived in since childhood.[146]
Even though they do not
benefit to the same degree from the sort of
invisibility which
protects the inmost selves of the other afrad, the afrad who
have a function to perform and whom Ibn ‘Arabi calls al-mudabbiriin (in
the front rank of whom are the Pole, the awtad and the abdal} are
still malamiyya. They know that they are themselves included
in the secondary causes which are a veil before God; they act without acting,
like the Prophet, who is told in a paradoxical verse which both affirms and
denies that the act was performed by the seeming agent of it: Tt was not you
who threw [the dust] when you threw, but God who threw' (Qur'an 8:17).24 Their hijjir, their
initiatic formula and constant invocation, is: 'He rules (yudabbir} all
things and makes His signs visible' (Qur'an 13:2): the mudabbiriin are mudabbiriin only
in the eyes of others, the tadbir or government (all these
words have the same root) belongs to God alone. For them, the signs of God are
visible in all things, or, rather, all things in their eyes are nothing other
than the signs of God. Ibn “Arabi embarks on a rich and subtle exposition of
this concept of signs, distinguishing finely between the many occurrences in
the Qur'an of the word ayat; and, with reference to verse
30:23, he compares the decipherment of the meaning of the things of this world,
which is the attribute of this category of afrad, with the
interpretation of dreams. He ends the chapter by saying that one of the graces
bestowed on these men who are among 'the greatest of the saints' is the
knowledge of the secret and the meaning of laylat al-qadr, the
night of descent discussed above. This constitutes a most illuminating
reference to the chief feature of these mudabbiriin, which is
precisely the factjhatthey descend toward the creatures after having achieved
the ascension to the Creator—that, having arrived at Unity, they return to
multiplicity. The word 'return' (ruju} is used by Ibn “Arabiin
Chapter Forty-Five of the Futuhat25 to designate
the final stage of the Way for those who are the most perfect of the heirs,
thereby contrasting 'those who return' with the saints who 'come to a
stop' (al-wdqifUn) after
24. This verse refers to an episode during the battle of Badr. On the interpretation
of it, see Futiihdt, iv, pp. 41,213; Fusiis, 1,
p. 185.
25. Chapter 45 (Futiihdt, 1, pp. 250-53) has been translated
with a commentary by Michel Valsan in his article 'Un texte du Cheikh al-Akbar
sur la "realisation descendante"/ in Etudes traditionelles, no.
307, April-May 1953, pp. 120-39. The concept of a return toward the creatures,
the importance of which will soon become clearer, is already evident in
the Risdla fi 'l-waldya, pp. 25-27. We will leave aside the
distinctions drawn by Ibn Arabi between those who arrive (al-wdsilurij, based
on whether they have reached God through one of the Names of the Essence or
through another of the divine Names.
26.
reaching the summit. The
latter, 'who know nothing but Him and whom He alone knows', may in fact be
identified with the muhayyamun, the Cherubim overcome with
love. Their spiritual realization, however exceptional, does not have the same
character of plenitude as that of the rdji^un, those who
return; for the return to created being with the intention of teaching and
guiding, whether spontaneous, as in the case of Abu Madyan, or divinely
commanded, as in the case of Abu Yazid al-Bistami, is the supreme mode of
participation in the heritage of the prophets, who likewise had to
're-descend' from the highest station in order to carry out their mission. Such
a descent is painful. Abu Yazid, on receiving the divine command, 'took a step'
in obedience to it and fainted, whereupon God said, 'Bring My beloved back to
Me, for he cannot bear to be far from Me.' Nevertheless, it must not be
thought of as a fall or regression, or even as a real absenting. The saint who
is sent back to mankind does not lose what he has gained; his sacrificial exile
is not a banishment. Thus the second category of afrad in the
order of speaking is, in reality, the first.26
Finally, with regard to
the level of the afrad, we must remember that the 'station of
proximity' (maqdm al-qurba) is situated between the siddiqiyya (which
other Sufis, such as Ghazali, take to be the highest point of walaya) and
legislative prophethood, nubuwwat al-tashr?.27 Furthermore,
as we saw, Ibn cArabi has no hesitation in calling this supreme
degree of sainthood—which, he says, was possessed by Muhammad before the
Revelation—by the name of 'general prophethood' (nubuwwa cdmma) or'free
prophethood' (nubuwwa mutlaqa) 28 The line of
demarcation between the awliya! and the prophets in the
27. The difference between the state of the waqifun, those who
come to a stop, and that of the raji^un, those who return,
clearly presents an analogy with the drunkenness (sub) and the
sobriety (sahw) which may predominate, according to the moment
and the predisposition of one's being, at various stages of the spiritual life,
even in the case of mere novices; but it cannot be reduced to this classic Sufi
opposition: as far as these awliya' are concerned, it is no
longer a question of simple states but of permanent status and objective
realities.
28. Futulidt, n, p. 19. The siddiqiyya, or station
of 'Absolute Truth', is a term derived from the first caliph Abu Bakr, who was
sumamed al-siddiq. The notion that there may exist a level
higher than the level which bears the name of Abu Bakr has often come under
attack. These critiques are based on a misunderstanding which is possibly
deliberate in some cases, for the notion does not call into question the eminence
of Abu Bakr himself—indeed, Ibn ‘Arabi expressly considers him to belong to the
category of the afrad. Cf. Futuhdt,in,p. 78.
29. Futuhdt,n,p. 19.
30.
strict sense is clear
(the former are no more than the heirs of the latter), but it becomes tenuous,
and it is easy to understand how Ibn Taymiyya and many after him found it a
cause for alarm.
In conclusion, we should
remember that we can make two sorts of distinction between these 'solitaries'
who have arrived at the extreme point beyond which, since thedeath ofthe Seal
of the Prophets, there is no proceeding—distinctions which are necessary if we
are to grasp Ibn ‘Arabi's doctrine in its entirety. Certain of the afrad have
received in full the heritage of the Muhammadan walaya and, as
we shall see, this line of them has come to an end; others are the heirs of
previous prophets, and their line remains open until the end of time. Also,
there are some among the afrad who exercise no sway over
another creature or over themselves; and there are others who 'return' to this
world below from which they began their ascent, and they are the most perfect.
All of them, however—in spite of the seeming distance between the two
categories—are par excellence 'proximate' (hum
al-muqarrabun, as Ibn ‘Arabi writes at the beginning of the section
devoted to them in Chapter Seventy-Three). In them the equivalence
between walaya and qurba, sainthoodandproximity,
finds its definitiveandunrivalled expression.
CHAPTER
8
The Three Seals
O f the spiritual
functions listed at the beginning of Chapter Seventy- Three of the Futuhdt, by
far the most important is one which we have hitherto passed over in silence.
This is the function of 'Seal of the Saints', which we alluded to briefly at
the start of this book in connection with al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi. The use of the
singular, although doctrinally justified, does not take full account of what
follows, for as we shall see, in its historical dimension sainthood is sealed
three times.
Unlike many of the other
term:; we have encountered, the title of Seal of the Saints, or Seal of
Sainthood (both these forms appear in the writings of the Shaykh al-Akbar), has
no precedent in the vocabulary either of the Qur'an or of the hadith. It
is, therefore, an 'innovation' (bidty, condemned as such even
in our own day. The only scriptural backing it possesses, and which failed to
convince the fuqahd', is the prophetic tradition already
mentioned, according to which the wise (al-culamd')—i.e.
those who alone possess true knowledge, the awliya'—are the heirs
of the Prophets. Since there is a seal of the Prophets, who is Muhammad (Qur'an
33:4c),[147] it follows that the saints must also have
their Seal. Tirmidhi was the first to arrive at this conclusion in the third
century of tire Hegira. But the passages in his work in which reference is made
to this novel idea are hardly very enlightening. In addition to those we have
already quoted, there is the following:
Someone asked him, 'So
what qualifies this saint, who has the caliphate of sainthood, and directs it
and seals it?' He replied, 'He is close to the prophets and is almost on their
level.' They asked him, 'Where is his station (maqdmuhuyi’ He
said, Tn the highest dwelling-places [manazil) of the saints,
in the kingdom of Singularity ^ardaniyya), for he is alone in
the contemplation of Unity. His private conversations [with God] take place
face to face in the assemblies of Kings .... For
him the veil has been
lifted which covers the station of the saints, their degrees, the gifts and
presents with which they have been favoured.'1
The expressions 'close
to the Prophets' and 'Singularity' (a word that comes from the same root
as afrad) refer to themes already encountered and which will
be further elucidated in the doctrine of Ibn cArabi.
But who is the Seal of
the Saints? On this subject Tirmidhi is silent. He confines himself to asking
the question in his famous questionnaire, where it comes thirteenth and is
phrased as follows: 'Who is he who is worthy to be the Seal of the Saints as
Muhammad is worthy to be the Seal of Prophethood ?' Ibn cArabi
answers this question on two occasions. In a first text written
in 6ojah, the Jawab mustaqim (the complete title is:
'The correct answer to the questions of Tirmidhi al-Hakim'),[148] he
says only, 'He who is worthy of this is a man who resembles his father. He is a
non-Arab, of harmonious constitution .... The cycle of the Kingdom and of
Sainthood will be sealed by him. He has a minister whose name is Yahya [i.e.
John]. His nature is spiritual as to its origin and human as to its place of
manifestation.' The text of the Futiihat is more explicit and,
above all, provides additional information of major importance:
There are in fact two
Seals, one with which God seals sainthood in general and another with which He
seals Muhammadan sainthood. cIsa [i, e. Jesus] is the Seal of
Sainthood in an absolute sense. He is the saint who par excellence possesses
the non-legislative prophetic function in the time of this Community [i.e. the
Muslim community], for he is henceforth set apart from the function of
legislative prophet and ofMessenger (rasul). When he descends
at the end of time, it will be as the heir and the Seahund after him
there will be no saint to be the holder of prophethood in general. . ..
The office of the Seal
of Muhammadan Sainthood belongs to an Arab, one of the
noblest in lineage and
power. He is alive in our time. I met him in 595.1 saw the sign which is
exclusive to him and which God has hidden away in him from the eyes of His
servants, but which He revealed to me in the town of Fez in order that I might
perceive in him the presence of the Seal of Sainthood. He is thus the Seal of
free [i.e. non-legislative] prophecy about which most men know nothing. God has
tested him by exposing him to the criticism of people who dispute the knowledge
of God which he, in his innermost being, has the absolute assurance of having
received from God Himself. As God has sealed legislative prophethood through
Muhammad, through the Muhammadan Seal he has sealed the sainthood which
comes from the Muhammadan heritage, not the sainthood which comes from
the heritage of other prophets: among the saints, in fact, some, for example,
inherit from Abraham, some from Moses, some from Jesus, and after this
Muhammadan Seal there will be others; whereas no other saintwill ever be'on
theheart'ofMuhammad.
The Seal of Universal
Sainthood, after which there will be no other saint [who will reach that
level], is Jesus, and we have met a number of saints who were 'on the
Heart' (fala qalb) of Jesus or another of the Messengers. I
took my companions ‘Abdallah [Badr al-Habashi][149] and
Ismail ibn Sawdakin[150] to see this Seal. He prayed to
God on their behalf and they profited from it.[151]
There are thus two Seals,
one of whom is unambiguously identified: he is Jesus 'who resembles his
father', that is to say the Spirit (ruh) breathed by the angel
into Mary, and who is associated with John in the exercise of this function as
he was during his first mission as a rasiil. The second Seal
is an Arab, living, like Ibn 'Arabi, in the sixth century of the Hegira. In
reply to Tirmidhi's fifteenth question, the Futuhdt explains
further that his name is the same as the Prophet's (i. e. Muhammad), and that
he does not belong to the latter's physical lineage but to his spiritual
posterity. He cannot therefore be confused with the Mahdi, who is a descent of
Muhammad by blood.7 This assurance is strengthened by a poem
which comes in anotherpassage, in which Ibn 'Arabi says:
Yes, surely, the Seal of
the Saints is present
When the Imamof the
worlds is still absent, the rightly- guided lord (al-sayyid al-mahdt) of
Ahmad's line.8
Yet this still does not
tell us who the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood
is, nor does it enable
us to distinguish clearly between the respective roles o£ the two Seals—of whom
there will soon be three, which does not simplify matters. Before proceeding to
the arguments aroused by the contradictions and obscurities of Ibn ‘Arabi's
writings, and attempting to reply to the questions raised in his texts or in
the commentaries on them, we must run the risk both of increasing the reader's
confusion and of repeating ourselves, and bring together all the main facts
that we possess on the subject. Some of these have already been made known
through the work, in particular, of ‘Afifi, Corbin and Izutsu,[152] but
they are almost always in the form of short extracts which represent only a
part of the theme under consideration.
Among them [i.e. al-rijdl, spiritual
men] there is the Seal whois unique not only in every epoch but unique in [all
the history of] the universe. Through him God has sealed Muhammadan sainthood
and there is no one among the Muhammadan saints who is above him. There is also
another Seal with whom God seals universal sainthood from Adam to the last of
the saints, and this is Jesus. He is the Seal of Sainthood as he is also the
Seal of the cycle of the Kingdom (cdlam al-mulk, for his
coming is a sign that the end of time is approaching).[153]
The Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood is the most knowledgeable of created beings on the subject of God.
There is not now, and after him there will not be, a being who knows more than
him about God and the Sunsets of Wisdom (mawdqi' al-hikam). He
and the Qur'an are brothers, as the Mahdi is brother to the sword.[154]
The 'Sunsets of Wisdom'
are here the prophets inasmuch as they are saints, for in
them—in the inmost part of themselves, their walaya—is concealed
the divine Wisdom whose essential aspects were described, as we knowy-dn^the
twenty-seven chapters of the Fusiis. On the other hand, the
prophets as such, that is to say inasmuch as they are the revealers of
the sacred Laws, are the 'Sunrises of Wisdom' (matdlic al-hikam). They
are 'oriental' in terms of nubuwwa, and occidental in terms
of walaya. The reference to the brotherhood which unites the
Qur'an with the Seal is
identical with a statement we came across in connection with the Perfect Man,[155] but
it may also be compared to a famous verse at the beginning of the Futuhat[156] in
which Ibn cArabi says:
I am the Qur'an and the
Seven oft-repeated (al-sabc al-mathdni).
The expression 'the
Seven oft-repeated' is traditionally used to designate the introductory sura of
the Qur'an, or Fdtiha, 'the one that opens'.
The role of Jesus as the
Seal of Universal Sainthood is affirmed several times, but in the various texts
where it appears it is accompanied by explanations or nuances which oblige us
to take them all into account. In Chapter Fourteen of the Futuhat ('On
the knowledge of the Secrets of the Prophets—by which I mean those of the
saints who are prophets'; the reference here is to the highest level of walaya, where
it becomes non-legislative prophethood), Ibn cArabi writes:
When Jesus descends at
the end of time, he will judge only according to the Law revealed to Muhammad.
He is the Seal of the Saints. One of the favours accorded to Muhammad was that
the sainthood of his community and sainthood in general should be sealed by a
noble Messenger Prophet .... On the day of the Resurrection, Jesus will be
present in two groups simultaneously: with the Messengers in as much as he is
one of them, and with us |i. e. with the Muhammadan community] in as much as he
is a saint. This is a station with which God has honoured only him and Elijah,
and no other prophet?[157]
The following are two
more passages which provide us with apparently contradictory information about
the relationship between the Seal of Universal Sainthood and the Seal of
Muhammadan Sainthood:
Muhammadan Sainthood,
that is to say the sainthood of the Law revealed to Muhammad, has a particular
Seal who is inferior in rank to Jesus because the latter is a
Messenger. This Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood is born into our times. I too have
seen him;[158]1 met with him and I saw in him the sign of his
office. There will be no saint after him who is not subordinate to him, as
there will be no prophet after
Muhammad who is not
subordinate to him. In this community, for example, it will be so in the case
of Elijah, Jesus and Khadir.16
When Jesus descends to
earth at the end of time, it will be granted to him by God to seal the Great
Sainthood (al-walaya al-kubrd) which extends from Adam to the
last of the prophets. This will be an honour for Muhammad, since the universal
sainthood—the sainthood of all communities—will be sealed only by a Messenger
who is a follower of the Law. So Jesus will seal both the cycle of the Kingdom,
and universal sainthood. He is thus one of the Seals in this world. As for the
Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood, who is the special Seal of the sainthood of the
community which is visibly that of Muhammad,17 Jesus
himself will be placed under the authority of his office along with
Elijah, Khadir and all the saints of God who belong to this community. In this
way, Jesus, although a Seal, will himself be sealed by the Muhammadan Seal.18
A work written by Ibn
'Arabi before his final departure for the East has the khatm as
its central theme. The work in question is the cAnqa'
mughrib?9 whose full title means: 'The astonishing Phoenix:
on the Seal of the Saints and the Sun of the West.' The expression 'Sun of the
West' draws attention to the apocalyptic nature of this book, and in this case
is a reference to the Mahdi.20 However, the information
contained in it, which is frequently cryptic, is essentially concerned with the
Seal of Universal Sainthood. Ibn CArabi singles out twenty-nine (unspecified)
verses from the Qur'an, occurring in fourteen (named) suras,
16. Futiihdt, i, p. 185. It may be noted that the
last sentence of this text seems to imply the possibility of the existence, in
other communities, of similar cases or, rather, of specific manifestations of
the universal functions which in the language of the Muhammadan community are
represented by the figures of Elijah, Jesus and al-Khadir.
17. That is, the Muslim community in the historical sense of the term. This
must be specified, since fi ’l-bdtin, all the communities
founded on the successive Revelations are Muhammadan, in accordance with the
doctrine of the haqiqa muhammadiyya.
18. Futuhdt,m,p.5-j.4;w,p.i.95.
19. We refer here to the commercial edition of the eAnqa'
Mughrib, published in Cairo in 1954. We have also consulted
the ms Ragib Pa§a 1453 (fos. i33-i8ob), and, in
particular ms Berlin Mo 3266, which is dated 597 ah and
which was read in the presence of the author. The work was probably written in
595 ah (see pp. 15-17 of the Cairo edition). Ibn cArabi
discloses that he intended initially to-write about the Seal and the Mahdi in
the Tadbirdt Ildhiyya, but eventually decided against it /(pp-
5-6).
I 20. This expression
echoes the hadith on the 'signs of the Hour', in connection
(with which Ibn cArabiwas questioned (cf. p. 10) by'a man from
Tabriz'. He refused to answer, because the questioner was prompted only by
speculative motives, and showed no aptitude for genuine spiritual knowledge.
which speak of the Seal;
a series of cross-checks establishes that these are passages in the Qur'an
which are either about Jesus or else contain an allusion to him.[159] In
any case, we should observe that in this treatise the author is emphatic about
the need to avoid confusing the office of the Seal with that of the Mahdi, and
also to avoid interpreting the concept of the Seal in chronological terms. 'The
Seal', he writes, 'is not called the Seal because of the moment in which he
appears, but because he is the person who most completely realizes the station
of direct vision (maqdm al- ciydn).'[160] Finally—and
this is a precaution to be observed whenever Ibn ‘Arabi mentions the cosmic
functions or touches on problems of eschatology—we should note that the reader
is asked not to lose sight of the fact that everything said about the macrocosm
has its correspondence in the microcosm. Within each being there is a Mahdi, a
Seal and so on: 'When I speak in this book, or in another, of an event in the
external world, my intention is simply to establish it firmly in the hearing of
the listener and then to set him face to face with that which corresponds to it
within man .... Turn your eyes towards your inner kingdom!'[161]
The following extract
from the Fusils takes us back to the Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood and gives us some clues about the relationship between his office
and the office of the Seal of the Prophets—that is to say, Muhammad himself or,
rather, the haqiqa muhammadiyya:[162]
He to whom God is
epiphanised sees nothing but his own form in the mirror of absolute
Reality (al-Haqq): he does not and cannot see absolute Reality,
even though he knows that in it he has perceived his own form. It is like a
mirror in the sensible world: when you see a form in it, you do not see the
mirror itself, even though you know that you only perceived the forms, or your
own form, in that mirror. God has made this a symbol of the epiphany of His
Essence, in order that he to whom He is epiphanized may know that he does not
truly see Him . . .. We have already explained these things in the Futiihdt
Makkiyya.[163] When you have experienced this
you have experienced the nec plus ultra of what it is given to
created
beings to experience. Do
not aspire to anything more and do not exhaust yourself in a vain attempt to
reach a higher level: there is none; beyond it there is only pure nothingness.
He is thus your mirror
in which you look at yourself; and you are His mirror, in which He contemplates
His Names and the manifestation of the powers which belong to each of them—and
all this is nothing but Him!
This is a source of
confusion. Among us, there is he who professes ignorance in spite of his
knowledge and who says, like Abu Bakr, 'To recognize that one is powerless to
reach Him is a form of reaching Him.' There is also he who knows yet does not
say this (even though these words [Abu Bakr's] are excellent), but whose
knowledge leads him to keep silent and not profess the impossibility of
reaching Him. Such a man has the highest knowledge of God.
Properly speaking, this
knowledge is possessed only by the Seal of the Messengers and the Seal of the
Saints. No one among the prophets or Messengers may acquire it save from the
Tabernacle of the Seal of the Messengers. No one among the saints may acquire
it save from the Tabernacle of the Seal of the Saints, to the extent that the
Messengers themselves only acquire it, when they do acquire it, from the
Tabernacle of the Seal of the Saints. You must know, indeed, that the
Mission (risala) and Prophecy (nubuwwa)—I am
speaking here of legislative Prophecy and the legislative Mission—come to an
end, whereas sainthood does not. That is why the Messengers themselves,
inasmuch as they are saints, may acquire that of which we are speaking only
from the Tabernacle of the Seal of the Saints; and this is a
fortiori true of the saints who are below them in rank. The fact that
the Seal of the Saints obeys the Law which was brought by the Seal of the
Messengers in no way diminishes his spiritual station, neither does it
contradict what we were saying: from one point of view he is below [the
Seal of the Messengers], and from another point of view he is above
him. Exoteric teaching confirms this when it speaks of the superiority
of ‘Umar [over the Prophet] in connection with the fate of the prisoners of
Badr,26 or in the story of the fertilization of the palm trees.27 Perfection
does not imply the pre-eminence of the perfect in all things and at all levels.
Spiritual men attach importance only to a higher degree of knowledge of God.
That is all they seek. Their thoughts take no account of what happens in the
phenomenal world. Test the truth of what we say!
When God's Messenger
compared prophethood to a wall of bricks, finished except for the placing of
one more brick,28 [he added that] he was that brick. Whereas as
far as he is concerned there is only one brick missing, the Seal of the Saints
of necessity enjoys the same vision and sees the same thing as the Messenger
26. After the battle of Badr, the Prophet asked his Companions what should be
done with the prisoners. The opinion expressed by ‘Umar, which the Prophet was
inclined not to follow, was confirmed by a revelation (Qur'an 8:67).
27. This is an allusion to an episode in the Prophet's life during which he
said to his Companions, 'When it comes to the things of this world below, you
are the ones who know most about them' (Suyuti, al-Fath al-Kabir, 1,
p, 147).
28. Bukhari, managth, 18.
29.
of God, but there are
two bricks missing from the wall, one of gold and the other of silver. They are
not in the wall and it will not be finished until they are in place. He must
then himself be put into the place reserved for these two bricks, for the Seal
of the Saints is these two bricks and it is through him that the wall is
completed. The reason why he sees two bricks is, on the one hand, because
outwardly he obeys the Law brought by the Seal of the Messengers: this
corresponds to the silver brick, which is symbolic of his outward form and also
symbolizes that to which, in this form, he submits in matters of legal status.
On the other hand, he derives directly from God, within his utmost self, the
very thing of which outwardly speaking he is merely a follower. This is so
because he perceives the true nature of the divine order of things and it
cannot be otherwise. This is symbolized esoterically by the laying of the
golden brick. For he draws from the same source that the angel draws from who
brings the revelation to the Messenger. If you understand what it is that I am
referring to, you have acquired a knowledge that will be of benefit to you in all
things.
Every prophet, from Adam
down to the last of them, draws from the Tabernacle of the Seal of the
Prophets, even though this Seal, in his corporeal manifestation, comes after
them; for in terms of his essential reality he was already in existence. This
is what the Prophet meant when he said, 'I was a prophet when Adam was still
between water and mud. '[164] But each of the other
prophets only became a prophet at the moment when he was sent [to his
community]. Similarly, the Seal of the Saints was a saint when Adam was still
between water and mud, whereas the other saints only became saints when they
fulfilled the conditions of sainthood by qualifying themselves with the divine
characters—God named himself a saint when He said He is al-Walial-Hamid [the
Saint, He who is praised, Qur'an 42:28].
Inasmuch as he is a
saint, the relationship between the Seal of the Messengers and the Seal of the
Saints is the same as the relationship between himself and the prophets and
messengers, for he is simultaneously saint, messenger and prophet. Tlie Seal of
the Saints is the saint, the heir, he who draws from the original source and
contemplates all levels. He is one of the perfections of the Seal of the
Messengers, Muhammad, who will be the head of the assembly of prophets and the
master of the sons of Adam when the gate of intercession is opened.
The last paragraph of
this long passage is of major importance in establishing a perspective. To say
that the messengers and the prophets themselves are dependent on the Seal of
Muhammadan Sainthood—to say, above all, that from one point of view this Seal
is superior to the Seal of the Prophets—does certainly appear not only to be
scandalous from the point of view of Muslim exotericism, but to contradict
other texts where it is categorically stated 1 hat the prophets are superior to
the saints. But as we have just seen, the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood is 'one
of the perfections of the Seal of the Messengers'. A few lines in
the Tutuhat throw
light on this fundamental point.[165] 'This Muhammadan
Spirit'—another of Ibn 'Arabi's names for the Muhammadan Reality—'has places in
the universe where it manifests itself. The most perfect [of these places] are
the Pole of Time, the afrad, the Muhammadan Seal of Sainthood,
and the Seal of Universal Sainthood, Jesus.' In other words, like the Pole and
the other functionaries in the initiatic hierarchy, the Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood, as a specific individual in history, is no more than a deputy, the
support of the sensible manifestation of the khatmiyya or
office of the Seal, which belongs always and forever to the Muhammadan Reality
alone. Outwardly, Muhammad is. the Seal of Sainthood, both universal and
Muhammadan; and so the somewhat surprising statements made in the Fusils have
reference not to his dependence with regard to another being but to the
subordination within himself of the visible aspect to the hidden aspect, of
the nubuwwa, which is an attribute of created being and comes
to an end, to the walaya, which is a divine attribute and
exists to eternity. The paradoxical relationship between the Seal of Universal
Sainthood, Jesus, and the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood is to be understood in a
similar fashion: as an individual, the visible holder of the latter office,
being neither rasul nor nabi, is inferior to
Jesus, who is both. But as the outward manifestation in historical terms of the
most inward and most fundamental aspect of the Muhammadan Reality which is the
source of all walaya, 'Jesus himself will come under the
authority of his office' and will be 'sealed by this Muhammadan Seal'.
Many other points need
to be clarified. But before we approach the question of the identity of the
Muhammadan Seal, and define what is respectively 'sealed' by each Seal, mention
must be made of a third person who is thus designated.[166] If
we are not mistaken, Ibn "Arabi speaks only once of this person, in the
last lines of the chapter in the Fusils from which the
preceding quotation was taken:
The last-born of the
human race will be in the footsteps of Seth (hda qadam Shith) and
will possess his secrets. No child will be born after him in the human race. He
is
the Seal of
Children (khatm al-awlad). He will have a sister born at the
same time as him but she will emerge before him [from her mother's womb] and he
after her. The head of this Seal will be near the feet of his sister. The place
of his birth will be China and his language will be the language of the people
of his country. Sterility will spread among men and women and there will be
more and more marriages with no children.
He will call people to
God and they will not respond to his call. When God takes his soul and the soul
of the believers of his time, those who live after him will be like beasts.
They will take no account either of the lawfulness of what is lawful, nor of
the unlawfulness of what is not lawful. They will obey only the authority of
their animal natures, and will follow only their passions, deprived of all
reason and all sacred Law. And over them the Hour will dawn.[167]
This 'Seal of Children'
does more than merely herald by his appearance the end of the human race, which
becomes infertile. The expression 'in the footsteps of Seth' tells us clearly
in the language of Ibn 'Arabi that we have to do with a wall, and
specifically a wall of the shithi type. No
man, and consequently no saint, will be born after him. How then is he situated
in relation to Jesus who, at the coming of the Last Day, will seal the 'cycle
of the Kingdom and of sainthood?' Before going more deeply into this, we must
approach the problem of the identity of the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood. In a
passage quoted above, Ibn 'Arabi claims to have known him at Fez in 595AH. In
another passage of the Futuhat[168] he
says, 'I was informed about him at Fez, in the Maghrib, in 594AH'. Let us say
at once that the date 595 is probably a lapsus calami, and
that we should adhere to 594. The Kitab al-Isrd', completed,
the author says in fine, at Fez in the month of Jumada 594/1198,
actually contains an allusion which in our opinion can only be explained with
reference to a major spiritual event: the meeting, that is to say, with the
Seal.[169] We
will suggest that it may
be necessary to envisage an even earlier date as the start of the process of
identifying the Seal. But first we must go back to the vision of the two gold
and silver bricks, which we have already encountered in the Fusiis
al-hikam and which occurs again in the Futiihdt in the
form of a highly personal narrative.
CHAPTER
9
The Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood
In a chapter
devoted to Paradise, its 'dwelling places' (manazil) and its
'levels' (darajat), Ibn 'Arabi speaks of the possibility for
man of perceiving his own Heavenly nature here and now, and thus of being 'in
several places at once'—of occupying, that is, simultaneously and with full
awareness, all states of Being, and not merely the human condition as it is
commonly experienced. At this point, the theme of the two bricks makes an
abrupt reappearance:
1 had a vision of myself
which was of this type, and I received it as good news (bushro) from God, for
it corresponded to something the Prophet said when he used a parable to
describe his position in relation to the other prophets. He said, 'My place
among the prophets is as when a man builds a wall and completes it except for
one brick. I am that brick, and after me there is neither Messenger nor Prophet.'[170]1 He
compared the prophetic function, therefore, to a wall, and the prophets to the
bricks which enable the wall to remain standing. This parable is perfect.
Truly, that which the 'wall' signifies and which is being alluded to here can
be made manifest only through the 'bricks' [i.e. the prophets], and the
Messenger of God is the Seal of the Prophets [and thus corresponds to what is
symbolized by the last brick].
While I was in Mecca in
599, I had a dream in which I saw the Kaba built of alternate gold and silver
bricks. The building was complete; nothing remained to be done. I looked at it
and admired its beauty. But then I turned to face the side between the Yemeni
corner and the Syrian corner, and I saw, nearer the Syrian corner, a gap where
two bricks, one gold and one silver, had not been laid in two of the rows of
the wall. In the top row a gold brick was missing, and in the row beneath a
silver one. Then I saw myself placed, in the gap made by these two missing
bricks. I myself was these two bricks, by means of which the wall was completed
and the KaTa made perfect. I was standing, looking, and I was conscious of
standing; and at the same time I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was
these two bricks and that they were me. Then I awoke and gave thanks to God.
When I was interpreting
this vision, I said to myself: my place among the 'followers', in my own
category [i.e. the category of the awliya'], is like that of
the Messenger of God among the prophets, and perhaps it is through me that God
has sealed sainthood. 'And that is not difficult for God!' (Qur'an 35:17).
Indeed, I
recalled the
Prophet's hadith in which he used the parable of the wall, and
the fact that he himself was the missing brick. I told this vision to someone
who was an expert on these matters, a man who came originally from Tozeur and
who was in Mecca at that time.2 He interpreted what had
happened to me, but I did not tell him the name of the person who had seen this
vision?
The word casd, which
we have translated here as 'perhaps', can have an optative meaning in Ibn
‘Arabi. In that case, the same phrase would run: 'May I be he through whom God
has sealed sainthood !'4 Yet, even though this text suggests
that Ibn ‘Arabi himself is, or hopes that he is, the Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood, it does not clearly affirm that this is so. Moreover, the author
leaves us in ignorance of the interpretation of his vision given by the 'man
from Tozeur' whom he consulted. The texts we quoted previously make the matter
even more ambiguous, since in them Ibn ‘Arabi speaks of the Seal as a person
whom he has met, and who must therefore be other than himself. However, it
would be most imprudent to deduce from his turn of phrase, which is ambiguous
enough in itself, that Ibn ‘Arabi is definitely not the Seal:
it is often the case, with him as with other Sufis, that an event is recounted
in which the main character is defined vaguely and in the third person, and
that a subsequent cross-checking of various passages of his work establishes
that this fuldn or unspecified person or 'man of our Way' is
no other than himself. Only a regard for discretion or prudence has dictated
the grammatical dissociation.
That this is so in the
case under discussion is evidenced by other passages in which Ibn ‘Arabi states
directly that he himself is indeed the Seal. For example, a poem at the
beginning of Chapter Forty-Three of the Futuhat reads:
I am, without any doubt,
the Seal of Sainthood
In that I am the heir of
the Hashimite and of the Messiah.5
The 'Hashimite'
obviously means the Prophet Muhammad, and the Messiah is one of the Qur'anic
names for Jesus, who was, as we saw, Ibn ‘Arabi's 'first teacher'.6 It
is important, chronologically, to note that this poem, in which Ibn ‘Arabi
formally states that he is the Seal, was written before the account of his
vision of the two bricks, in which he /seems to be less categorical. It figures
in the first draft of the Futiihdt, \ which was composed
between 599AH and 629AH, and was most probably written at the beginning of this
long period.7 Another, later text may appear to be less
specific. Speaking of the 'station of Abraham' (maqdm
Ibrahim), a term which can apply both to a
place in Mecca opposite the Kaija and to the spiritual 'station' of that
prophet, Ibn 'Arabi says, 'We hope to receive a portion of the divine
Friendship \al-khulla, in allusion to the name khalil
Allah, 'God's intimate friend', given to Abraham, Qur'an 4:125]
bestowed on Abraham, as on us was bestowed, in accordance with good news (bushra) from
God, a generous portion of the degree of the perfection and office of Seal.'8-It
could be concluded that at the time of writing these lines, Ibn 'Arabi .was not
in full possession of the office of Seal. But the reservation he expresses in
the words 'a portion' is sufficiently explained by the fact that the office of
Seal is twofold and even threefold. The khatmiyya is common to
Jesus, the last of the saints, and to the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood: the
latter, therefore, possesses only part of it. This interpretation is confirmed
by another poem (to which we have been unable to assign a date) in which Jesus
is explicitly referred to along with Ibn 'Arabi himself as holding the title of
Seal:
I was created to assist
the religion of God—
But the assistance comes
from Him, as it is laid down in the Books—• For I come of Hatimi's lineage, and
so I am generous And of Ta'i and of 'Arabi—ancestor after ancestor.
. . . I am the Seal of
all who follow him [i.e. the Prophet Muhammad]
. . . Jesus,Isaythiswithoutlying,istheSealofthosewhowent
before.9
When it is remembered
that Ibn 'Arabi's full name is Abu 'Abdallah ibn 'All al-Hatimi
al-Td'i, there can be no confusion about the identity of the 'I' in
the poem. Moreover, the verse contains a reference to a very famous figure of
pre-Islamic Arabia, the poet Hatim al-Ta'i, whose generosity was legendary and
who was an ancestor of Ibn 'Arabi's.10
But there is another
text which is even more important, both because of the nature of it—it
describes what Michel Valsan has rightly termed 'the appointment of the Shaykh
al-Akbar to the supreme Centre'—and because of its position in the work. This
is the opening account with which the prologue to the Futilhat begins,
and in which the relationship between Jesus and Ibn 'Arabi, inasmuch as they
are both, in different ways, the Seals of Sainthood, is solemnly expressed by
the Prophet himself or, rather, by the Muhammadan Reality:
He [i.e. the Prophet]
saw me behind the Seal [i.e. Jesus], a place where I was standing
because of the community of status that exists between him and me, and
he said to him, 'This
man is your equal, your son and your friend. Set up [or him before
me the Throne of tamarisk.'11 Then he made a sign to me, 'Rise,
oh Muhammad, and ascend to the throne, and celebrate the worship of Him who
sent me, and my worship also, for in you there is a fragment of me which can no
longer bear to be away from me, and that fragment governs your innennost
reality.' . . . Then the Seal set up the Throne in that solemn place. On its
front was written in blue light: "This is the most pure Muhammadan
station! He who ascends into it is its heir, and God sends him to watch over
the respect for the divine Law!" At that moment the Gifts of Wisdom were
bestowed on me: and it was as though 1 had been granted the Sum of the
Words [jawamT al-kalim)^1
'Finally', writes Ibn
'Arabi at the end of this account, 'I was sent back from this sublime vision to
the world below, and I used the holy praise that I had just celebrated as the
prologue to this book.'’’
It is to be noted that
although Ibn 'Arabi stands behind Jesus—a fact which indicates the personal superiority
of the latter, inasmuch as he is a rasul, over a mere wali who
is his 'son'—the relationship is then reversed, since Jesus receives the order
from the Prophet to set up the minbar from which the Shaykh
al-Akbar will pronounce the divine praises—a fact which testifies to the functional supremacy
of the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood.
The event described in
the first pages of the Futuhdt Makkiyya, which initiates the
series of 'openings' or 'revelations'14 recorded in the book
and reflected in its title, took place in Mecca at the start of Ibn 'Arabi's
first sojourn there. He arrived in Mecca in 598AH and the
account was written in 599AH.15 We are thus in possession of
texts which, from the date of their composition and that of the events
described in them, would seem to testify that the Meccan period following Ibn
'Arabi's emigration to the East was when he acquired the certainty that he was
indeed the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood. Yet we are informed elsewhere that it
was in Fez in 594 that he learned the identity of this Seal and saw'the sign
which distinguishes him'. Weare thus confronted with a chronological enigma;
but the problem is even more complex than it appears.
At the start of this
book, we referred to the 'vision of Cordoba'. In the Fu^us, Ibn
'Arabi says of this vision, 'Know that when God caused me to see and made me a
witness of the meeting of all the messengers and prophets of the human race
from Adam to Muhammad, in a place in Cordoba where I was taken in the year 586,
Hud was the only one among them who spoke to me. He told me the reason for
their meeting together.'16 This reason is not given in
the Futuhdt, where several
references are made to
the event .17 The biographical note in. the Ruh abquds about
Shaykh Abu Muhammad Makhluf al-Qaba'ili, who lived in Cordoba, seems to furnish
an answer, as follows:
One day, I left the
shaykh in good health and returned home. When niglit fell, I went to bed. And
behold, in my sleep I saw myself on an enormous plain covered in clouds, in
which I was suddenly aware of a neighing of horses and a noise of hooves. I saw
a troop of men, some on horseback and others on foot, who descended into this
vast space until it was filled. I have never seen faces so beautiful, such
brilliant garments, or more magnificent steeds. Among him I saw a tall man with
a full beard, whose hand was on his cheek. He was the one I spoke to among all
the members of this gathering. I said to him, 'Tell me the nature of this
gathering.' He answered, 'They are all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad. Not
one is missing.' I said to him, 'And whicli one of them are you?' He answered,
Tam Hud, the prophet of the people of 'Ad.' I asked him, 'Why have you come
here?' He said to me, 'We have come to visit Abu Muhammad [al-Qaba'ili] in his
sickness.' Then I awoke and enquired about Abu Muhammad Makhluf, and learned
that he had fallen ill that same night. He lived for a few days, and then died.
May God have mercy on him!’8
Even though this account
tells us nothing about place or date, the nature of the gathering ('all the
prophets'), the presence of Hud, the fact that Shaykh Abu Muhammad, whom Ibn
'Arabi had just left when he had this vision, lived in Cordoba, must serve to
convince us that this event is the same as the one recounted in the passages of
the Fusils and the Futuhdt quoted above.
The Rilh al-quds, then, seems to provide the explanation for
the mysterious meeting of anbiyd' and rusul which
Ibn 'Arabi was privileged to behold,
But there are more
complications to come. In his great commentary on the Qur'an, the Rilh
al-baydn, the Turkish Sufi Isma'il Haqqi (died 1137/1725) cites a text
of Ibn 'Arabi's which sounds authentic but which does not appear anywhere else,
as far as we know,19 and in which another motive is given for
the gathering at Cordoba: the messengers and prophets are supposed to have met
together in order to intercede with the Prophet Muhammad for Hallaj, who had
been insolent about him.10 This second interpretation fits in
with other writings of the Shaykh al-Akbar relative to Hallaj. But the last
words of Haqqi (or of Ibn 'Arabi: the use of inverted commas is unknown in
classical Arabic and we cannot tell where the quotation ends) casts doubt on it
again: 'Between the moment when Hallaj left: this world below and the time the
aforementioned gathering took place, more than three hundred years had
elapsed.' Since Hallaj died in 309AH, the vision must have
The Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood occurred sometime after
609. But by 598, IbncArabi had left Andalusia, never to return. If
Isma"il Haqqi's account is authentic, it must be admitted either that the
event took place somewhere other than Cordoba, or that it happened much earlier
than 609. Another consideration, too, is cause for concern: at the beginning
of the Rilh al-bay an, this same Ismael Haqqi recounts a
similar story in which the chief character is not Ibn Arabi but Abu '1-Hasan
al-Shadhili, a much younger contemporary of his, and the setting Jerusalem.a
There exists another
interpretation of the vision of Cordoba which brings us back to our main theme,
and the source of which is, in this case, very close to Ibn Arabi, In his
commentary on the Fusils, Jandi (died c. 700/1300), a direct
disciple of Sadr al-Din Qunawi who was both the Shaykh al-Akbar's stepson and
his pupil, says with regard to this vision that the messengers and prophets had
met together in honour of Ibn "Arabi himself, in order to celebrate his
accession to the office of Seal of the Saints and heir to the Seal of the
Prophets. This, without any doubt, was an oral tradition that in Ibn 'Arabi's
circle was considered reliable because it originated from the Master himself.22 The
same interpretation is given by Qashani (died 730/1330), one of Jandi's
followers,23 and then by Dawud Qaysari (died 751/1350), who was
a follower of Qashani.24
Nor is this all. In
another passage of his commentary on the Fusils,25 Jandi,
using the formula 'according to the reports that we have of the Shaykh's own
words', which in his works introduces information received from Qunawi, says
that it was in Seville, in the course of a nine-month fast, that Ibn
"Arabi was notified about his office as Seal. We know that the Shaykh
al-Akbar did actually stay in Seville during the same year (586) in which the
vision of Cordoba took place.26 A chapter of the Futiihdt which
speaks of the Seal of Universal Sainthood and the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood
also refers to an 'unveiling' (kashf) that occurred at
Seville.27 Jandi's information is thus quite likely, at least,
to be true. But he adduces a third fact which he expressly says that Qunawi
told him, who in turn claims that he is repeating Ibn "Arabi's own words.
According to the latter, when he was
preparing to sail from Andalusia to the Maghrib, he
decided.not to put to sea until all the future events of his life, both inner
and outer, had been revealed to him in detail. God granted his request and
showed him all his future situations ('including' he said to Qunawi, 'the fact
that one day your father was to be my companion') up to his death. 'Then,' he
adds,
'furnished with this
intuitive perception and this certainty, I embarked. /28 The
date of this departure for the Maghrib is undoubtedly in 589. This subtle
showing of his destiny, therefore, must of necessity have included
prefigurations of the visionary experiences he was to undergo in the East, most
notably the solemn 'appointment' related in the prologue to the Futiihdt.
What conclusions are to
be drawn from all this ? Firstly, Ibn 'Arabi, in spite of some ambiguous
statements, identified himself categorically with the Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood. He wrote it; he said it. His immediate followers transmitted it from
one to the other and never questioned it. On the other hand, although we cannot
establish a precise chronology, the news that the office of khatm was
to be his was announced very early in the spiritual life of the Shaykh
al-Akbar—at all events, it preceded both his arrival in Mecca and the 'meeting'
in Fez in 594AH by several years. If this is so, how are the apparent
contradictions to be reconciled ? If Ibn 'Arabi knew that he was the Seal from
his youth onwards (he was twenty-six lunar years old in 586AH), what is the
meaning of the visions which came later and which would seem a
priori to be redundant? The answer, it seems to us, is that we must
distinguish the announcement itself from the signs which were later to confirm
and explain it, and above all from the effective realisation of what had been
announced. The prophetic mission of Muhammad, which is the archetypal point of
reference for the 'Muhammadan heir' that Ibn 'Arabi considered himself to be,
only commenced, strictly speaking, with the appearance of the angel who brought
the initial revelation to the cave of Jabal al-Nur. But, as a famous hadith says/9 the
Prophet was prepared for the descent of the divine Word upon him by a series of
visions over a period of several months. Similarly, the 'unveilings' and dreams
which punctuate Ibn 'Arabi's career should be viewed not as merely repeating
each other but as successive stages in it. Seen in this light, his appointment
by the Prophet himself in the presence of all the messengers represents the
culminating point of his ascent, and consecrates, as Michel Valsan points out,
the universal character of the office of Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood.30
Before attempting to
describe the nature of this office and the relation it bears to that of the
other Seals, we must go further into the question of the identity of their
respective titulars. We have seen that the first disciples in direct succession
agreed on Ibn 'Arabi's being the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood.3’ The
identity of the Seal of Universal
Sainthood, Jesus, is
clearly stated by the Shaykh al-Akbar and does not generally give rise to
argument, except, as we shall see, among Shifite authors. The 'Seal of
Children' is not named, and—in the writings at any rate of Qunawi, Jandi and
Qashani—is clearly distinguished from the other two. This is not so in the case
of Qaysari,32 according to whom the title of 'Seal of Children'
is another name for the Seal of Universal Sainthood: a curious mistake to make,
considering that the Fusus describes him as having quite
different characteristics from those of Jesus. Jili (died 826/1423) confirms
the identifications made by the first commentators,33 and so
does Bali Effendi (died 960/1553), who stresses, like his predecessors, that
the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood is he after whom no saint will again be 'on
the heart of the Seal of the Prophets', although this does not mean that there
will not be saints who are the heirs of other prophets. It is only the
Muhammadan heritage that has come to a full stop.34
In his summary of
the Futiihdt,™ Sha'rani (died 973/1565) quotes Ibn ‘Arabi
briefly on the subject, without comment. In his long hagiographic work, al-Tabaqdt
al-kubrd, however, he introduces a new element. Speaking of the great
Egyptian saint Muhammad Wafa (died 801/1398), he says that the latter's
son, cAli Wafa, stated that his father was the Seal of the
Saints?6 ShaYani, with customary prudence, adds: 'Many men of
sincere spirituality have claimed to occupy this office of Seal. It seems to me
that at every epoch there is a Seal, just as—in accordance with Muhammad Wafa's
words quoted above—there is a Khadir for every saint.' What is certain is that
as we get further away from the age of Ibn “Arabi, the concept of the oneness
of the Seal— which is explicit in his writings and which seems moreover
logically inseparable from the finality of the role of Seal, as the name itself
implies—is gradually lost sight of, even by those whom one cannot accuse of not
reading his works properly.
The eminent Naqshbandi
spiritual master Ahmad Sirhindi (died 1034/1624), who is often represented
(wrongly, as Y. Friedmann has pointed out) as an adversary of Ibn “Arabi's,
claims to be in possession of the knowledge that the Shaykh al-Akbar says is
reserved for the Seal of the Saints, and even appears to attribute to himself a
rank superior to that of the Seal.37 Safi al-Din Qushashi (died
1071/1661), who had received the khirqa akbariyya and is a
link in one of its still 'living' chains of transmission, apparently claimed
the khatmiyya for himself. The author of the biography which
comes at the end of his Simt
Ill;
al-majid^ tells us that in the margin of Ahmad
Shaykhan Ba'alawi's Shaqq al-jayb, beside a passage saying
that there is only one Seal (of Muhammadan Sainthood) and that this seal is Ibn
'Arabi, Qushashi has a note which says that this refers to a 'divine
level' (martaba ildhiyya) to which all beings may hope to attain,
and that this office is secure until the end of time. 'We have achieved this',
adds Qushashi, who says that he had five teachers before attaining to this
level, 'and we have lived [in that dwelling-place].'
Also curious is the case
of ‘ Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (died 1143/ 1731), one of Ibn 'Arabi's great
commentators and defenders in the Ottoman world. In one of his poems he says,
'He [i. e. Ibn ‘Arabi] is the Seal of the Saints in his time/You will find this
to be true if you read his Fusus.'i9 In his al-Radd
al-matin, an unpublished work in which he refutes the anti-Akbarian
polemicists, he identified the Seal with the 'inheritor in full of Muhammad
sainthood' and explains that there have been many Seals, the last to date being
Ibn 'Arabi.40 But Nabulusi's grandson, Kamal al-Din al-Ghazzi,
tells us something which contradicts the above and is even more disconcerting
when he says that his grandfather considered himself to be one of the Seals of
Muhammadan Sainthood (lahu rutbat al-khat.m al-khas^S*
The examples are not
limited to these. Among the classics of the tariqa tijdniyya, a
similar claim is said to have been made by Shaykh Ahmad Tijani (died
1230/1815), who apparently even maintained that when he had claimed the office
o f Seal for himself, Ibn 'Arabi renounced his own claim to it.41 On
the other hand, there exists a Shi'ite solution to the problem of the identity
of the Seal, or rather Seals, which seems to have found its first expression in
a fundamental work to which Henry Corbin drew attention. This is the Nass
al-nusus, written by Haydar Amoli, who died at the end of the
eighth/fourteenth century, and the massive prolegomena to which have been
edited by Corbin and Osman Yahia. It constitutes a vast and penetrating
commentary on the Fusils al-hikam, a work for which Haydar
Amoli professes an admiration and even a veneration which are profound and
moving.45 Nevertheless, the Shi'ite writer differs from Ibn
'Arabi in one essential: for him, the Seal of Universal Sainthood is not Jesus
but 'Ali ibn Abi Talib; and the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood is the Mahdi.44 This
interpretation, although perfectly respectable, is none the less in direct
contradiction to Ibn 'Arabi's view of the economy of the cycle initiated by the
Prophet, in which the functions of 'Ali and the Mahdi are eminent, indeed, but
„1
totally different.
According to this view, 'All is one of the Poles of Islam—a role, says Ibn
'Arabi, which none of the Seals may assume45—and the Mahdi's task,
at the end of time, is to secure, by the sword, the submission
of the universe to the sacred Law whose inspired interpreter he is/6 Amoli,
then, exhibits typically Shi'ite characteristics: an obsessional regard for
the purely blood lineage of the Prophet ('All is his cousin and son-in-law; the
Mahdi is descended from him by blood), and, consequently, a highly exclusive
personalisation of spiritual functions, in accordance with what is ultimately
a literalistic conception of the traditional idea of ahi al-bayt. However
this may be, and leaving aside any value judgement, it can still be
acknowledged that Amoli's interpretation is a dissident version ob the Shaykh
al-Akbar's doctrine; and it is, to say the least, surprising to see Henry
Corbin or one of his students reverse the situation and represent Ibn 'Arabi's
teaching as an errant Imamology.47
We have already drawn
attention to the exceptional importance of the emir 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri,
as representing Akbarian tradition in its purest form.48 After
being released by Napoleon III, he retired to Damascus and wrote his Kitab
al-Mawaqif (The Book of Stopping Places'), a work which arises
entirely out of his meditations on Ibn 'Arabi's writings and his visionary
conversations with the Andalusian Master, close to whom he had himself buried.
Over and over again, 'Abd al-Qadir calls the Shaykh al-Akbar the 'Seal of
Muhammadan Sainthood':49 as far as he is concerned, there is no
question of argu-. ment. But he is not content simply to affirm it, and there
is a chapter where, with a clarity which is often lacking in the disciples of
Ibn 'Arabi who preceded him, he summarises and puts in order all the facts
relating to the three Seals and their respective offices.50 This
short chapter, which on every point conforms to the scattered information
provided by Ibn 'Arabi himself, will guide us here in presenting the
reader with an overall picture of the problem.
The Emir's exposition
results in the following conclusions:
—Every wall,
nabi or rasul 'draws' from the 'Muhammadan
ocean' (al-bahr al-muhammadi)—a symbolic term for the concept known
to us already as the haqiqa muhammadiyya.
—'General
prophethood' (al-nubuwwa al- himma) corresponds to the highest
degree of walaya, also called the 'Station of Proximity' (maqdm
al-qurba)—a term presenting an obvious connection with the primary meaning
of the root w.l.y., which should always be borne in mind. This
proximity, evoked by the
Qur'anic image 'of two bow-lengths or even nearer', expresses, in language
which accords with the Islamic perspective, the restoration of the primordial
Unity J1
—Those who attain this
level are the afrad. They are 'the prophets among the saints'.
Here, of course, we are concerned with a prophethood which is non-legislative,
since legislative prophethood has been definitively sealed by Muhammad.
—'General prophethood'
may be mutlaqa—free, undetermined— when inherited from a prophet
other than Muhammad, or muqay- yada—restricted—when inherited from
Muhammad.
—The general prophethood
which is restricted is sealed by the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood, who is Ibn
'Arabi. After him, the saints who attain to the maqdm al-qurba, the
rank of the afrad, are the heirs of prophets other than
Muhammad, and are thus in receipt of the Muhammadan heritage in an indirect and
partial manner.
—The general prophethood
which is undetermined is sealed by Jesus when he returns at the end of time,
after which no saint will ever be able to attain to the level of the afrad.
—The other degrees
of walaya will remain open, however, until the coming of the
Seal of Children, who is both the last-born of the human race and the last of
the saints, and will be the last guardian of the heritage of Seth. The destiny
of this third Seal, at the outer extremity of history, of necessity falls
within the period within which Jesus, according to traditional eschatology,
will cause peace to reign on earth. It is doubtless this concomitance which
explains the apparent confusion we observed in Qaysari of Jesus with the Seal
of Children.
We thus have a series of
closures, beginning with the closing-off by Ibn 'Arabi of the chief form of the
highest degree of walaya, containing the fulness of the
Muhammadan heritage. Next, Jesus closes off its lesser degrees; and finally
sainthood itself, in all its forms and all its degrees, is closed off by the
last man to be born into this world. But it must be understood that the
different Seals are never anything other than manifestations, more or less
complete, of Muhammadan Sainthood, which is veiled in the historical person of
Muhammad by his prophetic office, as Qashani tells us.52 Thus,
despite what some of Ibn ‘Arabi's texts might lead us to suppose, there is no
question of any superiority of the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood over the Seal
of the Prophets, since in fact these two offices belong to one and the same
person. In his commentary on the Fusils, Qaysari describes the
relationship between the
Muhammadan Seal (who for him is Ibn cArabi) and the Prophet
himself, employing an image which Amoli is very mistaken in criticizing: this
relationship, he says, is like the relationship of a king with the guardian of
his treasure. Everyone who takes any of the treasure, including the king
himself, has to go through the guardian of it. This does not mean, of course,
that the king is subordinate to him.53
The reference to a
'treasure' is not accidental, but is directly related to the symbolism of the
Seal. In the language derived by Islam from its Qur'anic sources, the Seal is
that which completes and fulfils: the Seal of the Prophets (Qur'an 33:40) is he
with whom the cycle of prophethood comes to a final end. But the Seal is also,
and primarily, that which preserves the thing sealed and guarantees its
inviolability. Ibn Arabi actually refers to it in this sense in a poem from
his cAnqd' mughrib:54
If the house were
without a seal
The thief would come
unexpectedly and kill the child.
Verify this, oh my
brother, by considering him who protects the house of sainthood
If he were not already
present in the father of us all [Adam]
The angels would not have
been commanded to bow down before him [cf. Qur'an 2:34].
'Guardian of the
Treasure', 'Protector of the House of Sainthood' (bayt al-waldya): for
Ibn Arabi,.the Seal is not only the holder of an office of high dignity, but
has a mission to accomplish. When the author of the Futuhdt writes
(and this is only one such comment among many): T was created to assist the
religion of Allah',55 he is referring to this mission. His
role, as he conceived it and as he has in fact fulfilled it, openly or
secretly, for more than seven hundred years, is perceived by Sufis as twofold:
it both possesses a doctrinal aspect, and is a source of grace. Through his
work, and especially through that mighty synthesis, the Futuhdt, he
has preserved the spiritual deposit (amdnd) intact when it was
being imperilled both by the internal rifts in the Muslim world and by the
dangers that threatened from outside. Solitary watcher in the night of the
century/6 he keeps, for whoever is worthy of it, the 'treasure'
which can no longer be fully transmitted by the teaching of masters; and this
is the sense in which he is the Shaykh al-Akbar, the supreme teacher, the
teacher of teachers. Through him, the spiritual
knowledge contained in
the bayt al-waldya remains living and accessible to those who
possess the necessary qualifications, until the day comes when men will be
'like beasts'.
But Ibn 'Arabi is not
only the archivist and interpreter par excellence of sacred
knowledge. Through his invisible presence, beyond death itself, he maintains
and transmits a spiritual impulse or baraka which, when the
circumstances require it, comes to quicken individuals and groups, to re-establish
the ways of sainthood, and to restore what can be restored of the traditional
Islamic order. Hence the importance of the khirqa akbariyya, whose
course, like that of an underground river, may suddenly surface for a while
into the light of day, and leave the imprint of Ibn 'Arabi on one of the
branches of an existing tariqa.57 Hence too the
importance of the appearance of the Shaykh al-Akbar's ruhdniyya in
the visions of Sufis down to our time: from Qunawi to the emir 'Abd al-Qadir, a
long succession of people, known and unknown, was guided, aided and instructed
by a teacher whom the grave did not divide from those who were still alive.58
However important the
role, at a certain time or place, of those who, like Muhammad Wafa, Qushashi,
or Ahmad Tijani, appear to have identified themselves—or whom their disciples
have identified—as the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood, it is as nothing compared
with the role that Ibn 'Arabi has played and still plays, in a fashion discreet
but observable, in the collective history of Sufism and above all in the
personal history of many Sufis. No less evident is another fact: namely, the
sincerity of the men who claim for themselves an office which is of necessity
reserved for one being alone, since a Seal is, by definition, final. Their
conviction can only derive from an inner, irrefutable awareness of a particular
connection with this office: if error exists, it lies in the interpretation of
the elements of this awareness, not in these elements themselves. Akbari.au.
doctrine, especially the idea of the 'deputy' (nd'ib) that we
encountered in the case of the Pole, furnishes us with an explanation.
According to a formula employed by Qashani in his commentary on the Fusus, the
Seal possesses the walaya shamsiyya or 'solar' sainthood,
whereas the other awliya' possess only a walaya
qamariyya or 'lunar' sainthood, whose light is therefore only
rejected. In this perspective, the people mentioned can be viewed as a series
of mirrors which receive and give back the rays of the walaya
shamsiyya, or, if one prefers, as the known intermediaries (for there
are unknown and less known ones)
through whom the grace
operates of which the one Seal is both guardian and dispenser.
Notes to Chapter Nine
1. C£. note 28, chapter 8.
2. This could be a figure whom Ibn cArabi mentions on several
occasions, namely Abu 'l-‘Abbas ibn "All ibn Maymun ibn Ab al-Tawzari,
called al-Qastallani, who died in Mecca in 636/1238. It was in answer to a
question of his that Ibn ‘Arabi wrote die Kitab al-Kkalwa al-Mutlaqa
(Futuhat, 1, pp. 391-92). for more about this person,
see also Futuhat, iv, pp. 123 and 474. He must not be confused
with Taqi al-Din Abu' 1-Qasim ‘Abd al-Raftman ibn ‘Ali ibn Maymun ibn Ab, named
in the Kitab Nasab al-khirqa and in Futuhat, 1,
p. 187, as the man who passed on the khirqa khadiriyya to Ibn
‘Arabi.
3. Futiihdt, 1, pp. 318-19 (v, pp.
68-70 in O. Yahia's edition). It should be
remembered that this vision, which occurred in 599AH is considerably earlier
than the passage from the Fusiis that we quoted in the last
chapter. The Fusiis was not written until 627AH.
4. In connection with casd and la ‘'alia, see for
example Futiihdt, 11, p. 276, and ni, p. 264. In general, the
commentators (see for example Jandi, op. cit., p. 113) are of the opinion that
whenever Ibn 'Arabi, speaking of his own function, uses an expression which
conveys hope rather than certainty, he does so out of regard for the
proprieties (adab) to be observed with respect to God.
5. Futuhat, 1, p. 244. In accordance with O.
Yahia's critical edition (rv, p. 71) li-wirth should be
corrected to read li-wirthi.
6. Cf. notep, chapter5.
7. Cf. note 15 below. A second draft of the Futiihdt, of
which we possess the autograph manuscript, was written by Ibn ‘Arabi between
632 and 636AH. See O. Yahia's critical edition for a comparison between the two
drafts. The vision of the two bricks also took place in 599, but was not
recorded in writing until much later.
8. Futiihdt, 1, p. 722 (at the time of writing,
O. Yahia's edition stops just short of the chapter containing this passage).
9. Diwan, Bulaq, 1271AH, p. 259.
10. On Idatim al-Ta'I, cf. El1, s.v., the article
by C. Van Arendonk. See also the Cambridge History of Arabic
Literature, Cambridge 1983, i,pp. 382-83.
11. The Prophet's pulpit (minbar) at Medina was made out of
tamarisk wood (Bukhari, jum'a, 26), so in this text—as
confirmed a few lines further on—the reference is indeed to the Muhammadan
throne itself, in which Ibn ‘Arabi will be seated by virtue of being the heir
of Muhammad in the fullest sense. The special relationship between the Prophet
and the Shaykh al-Akbar is further emphasized by the fact that the latter's
name is also Muhammad, and that in addressing him the Prophet uses the name
that they possess in common.
12. Futuhat, I, p. 3; O. Yahia's edition 1, pp.
44-45. The translation used here is, with a few minor modifications, Michel
Valsan's in his article 'L'investiture du
13.
Cheikh al-Akbar au
Centre Supreme', Etudes traditionelles, no. 311 (1953)/ pp.
300-11. On the hadith of the Jawam^ al-kalim, ci Bukhari, ta'blr, 11,
and Muslim, masdjid, 5-8, etc. The Wisdom is the content or
meaning of the Words, while the word 'sum' expresses the total and final nature
of the Muhammadan Revelation. As Michel Valsan observes (ibid., p. 304, note
5), the last sentence is specifically about the Shaykh al-Akbar's appointment
to the status.of heir to the Muhammadan station from the point of view of
universal Tradition.
14. Putiihat, 1, p. 6; O. Yahia's edition , 1, p.
58. The epistle in verse form addressed by Ibn ‘Arabi to his friend ‘Abd
al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi, which follows immediately after the text just quoted (Futiihat, 1,
pp. 6-9; O. Yahia's edition, 1, pp. 59-68) likewise contains several allusions
to Ibn 'Arabi's office as Seal. One of the last lines ('When I, the Imam,
depart, I will be unable to appoint a successor in my place') stresses the
strictly unique nature of this office, which for Ibn ‘Arabi has, as we saw,
only one holder, unlike the office of Pole, of watad, etc. The
term Imam in this line should be understood in its more
general sense, and not in the more limited technical sense (Imam of
the right, Imam of the left) which we mentioned in chapter 6,
and which can in fact be applied to a whole succession of individuals.
15. The word 'revelation' used here to translate the Arabic term Futuhdt is,
obviously, merely an approximation, and should normally be used as a
translation of the term wahy.
■15. On the date of
commencement of the Futiihdt, see O. Yahia's introduction to
his edition, 1, p. 28 of the Arabic text.
16. Fusiis, 1, p. no.
17. Cf. Futuhdt,m,pp. 2o8and323,andiv,p. 77.
18. Riih al-quds, Damascus 1964, p. 76, trans. Austin,
pp. 123-24 (no. 20).
19. No mention of this story appears—as far as we know—in any work of Ibn
'Arabi's in which al-Hallaj figures and in which one might logically,
therefore, expect to find this account (Kitab al-Intisdr, pp.
14 ff; Futiihat, 1, p. 169; 11, pp. 122, 126,337,364,370;
ni,pp. 17,40,104 (reference), 117; rv, pp. 84,156,194,241, 328, 332; Tajalliyat, p.
31). But Ibn ‘Arabi also wrote a treatise about al-Hallaj entitled al-Sirdj
al-Wahhaj fi sharh ka!dm al-Hallaj (cf. O. Yahya, R.G., no. 651), of
which no manuscript is known to exist, and from which Haqqi may have been
quoting.
20. Ruh al-baydn, Istanbul 1330AH, x, p. 456. This account
comes in the commentary on siira 93. Hallaj's insolence
consists in his having reproached the Prophet for not having asked God for
permission to intercede for all creatures without exception on the Day of
Judgement, but only for the gravest sinners in his community. Cf. L.
Massignon, La Passion de Hallaj, n, pp. 257, 332, 418. Jalal
al-DIn al-Rumi has a commentary on this episode in Hallaj's life, which he sees
as the true reason for his condemnation (Aflaki, Les Saints des
Derviches tourneurs, trans, into French by Cl. Huart, 2nd edition,
Paris 1978,1, p. 254).
21. Riih al-baydn, 1, p. 248. We should add that Haqqi
refers in this connection to the Muhadardt al-udabd' by
al-Raghib al-Isfahani, who died in 1108, well before the birth of Abu '1-Hasan
al-Shadhili. There must of necessity be a mistake as regards either the source
or the person. Since Shadhili arrived in the East
22.
at the end of the first
half of the seventh Hegira century, the gap of more than three hundred years
between the death of al-Hallaj and the vision is more plausible in his case.
23. Jandi, Sharh Fusiis al-hikam, p. 431.
24. Qashani, Sharh Fusils al-hikam, Cairo 1321AH, p. 130.
25. Qaysari, Sharh Fusils al-hikam, lithograph edition, Bombay
1300AH, p. 200.
26. Jandi, op. cit.,p. 109.
27. On Ibn ‘Arabi's presence in Seville in 586AH, cf. Futiihat, n,
pp. 7-8,167, and rv,p. 156.
28. Ibid., iv, p. 77.
29. Jandi,op. cit.,pp. 219-20,263.
30. Bukhari, taTir, 1, tafsir, s. 96,1-3, etc. The hadith according
to which the vision of good augury (ru'yd hasana) is the
forty-sixth part of prophethood (Bukhari, ta Tir, 3) alludes
to the relationship between the period of time preceding the Revelation and the
total duration of Muhammad's prophetic mission.
31. Michel Valsan, op. cit., p. 301. We will see later on why this character of
universality is not incompatible with the separate existence of a Seal of
Universal Sainthood.
32. Besides the texts already indicated, cf. Jandi (op. cit. pp. 234-37), who
explains that one of the signs marking Ibn ‘Arabi out as a Seal was a hollow
between his shoulder blades the size of a partridge egg, corresponding to the
analogous sign, in the form of a lump, that the Prophet has in the same part of
his body. This makes the relationship between the bdtin (walaya) and
the zdhir (nubuwwa) very clear. See also Qashani, op. cit.,
pp. 34 ff.
33. Qaysari,op. cit.,p. 78.
34. See his commentary on the Risdlat al-anwdr, Damascus 1929,
especially PP- 5' 45' 54' 294-1" his al-Insdn
al-Kamil (Cairo 1963, p. 97) he makes the khitdm (the
'affixing of the Seal') the highest of the three levels of the 'station of
Proximity' (the other two are Friendship, al-khulla, and
Love, al-mahabba). This station in Jili corresponds to what
Ibn ‘Arabi generally terms non-legislative prophecy.
35. Bali Effendi, Sharh al-Fusus, Istanbul 1309x11, pp. 52-56.
36. al-Yawdqit wa' l-jawdhir, Cairo 1369x11,
u,p. 89.
37. al-Tabaqdt al-kubrd, Cairo 1954, n, pp- 21, 30, 31. A previous
case in which such a claim was made deserves mention. H. Landolt, in his
article in the Encyclopedia Iranica about Abu '1-Hasan
Kharaqani (died 425/1033), refers to an Istanbul manuscript (Murad Molla 1796,
fos. 337 f-352 f) in which, in a text written at the end of the twelfth
century, this famous waliis called the Seal of the Saints.
38. Sirhindi, Maktiibdt-e Emam-e Rabbani, Lucknow 1889 (see
for example letter no. 31). Cf. Y. Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, Montreal/London
1971, PP- 33 ff-
39. Qushashi, al-Simt al-Majid, Hyderabad 1327AH, p. 183. The
note by Nabhani, ]dmT kardmdt al-awliya', 1, pp. 335-37, is
merely a repeat of this biography.
40. Quoted by Kamil Mustafa al-Shaybi, al-Sila bayna 'l-tasawwuf wa
'l-tashayyu ‘, Cairo 1969, p. 474.
41.
SEAL OF THE SAINTS
42. Ms Zahiriyya 9872, fo. 45b. Strangely, this text, in spite of the clear
distinctions made by Ibn ‘Arabi in works which Nabulusi read and often commented
on judiciously, states thatthe Seal ofUniversalSainthoodis , • .the Mahdi!
43. Kamal al-Din al-Ghazzi (died 1214/1799), al-Wird al-unsi wa
'l-warid al-qudst fi tarjamat al- ‘drif al-shaykh 'Abd al-Ghani al-Ndbulusi. This
manuscript. is in the possession of a descendant of Nabulusi, Muhammad Ratib
al-Nabulusi, and we owe our information about it to Mr. Bakri ‘Ala' al-Din. The
passage in question comes at the end of chapter 11.
44. Cf. the Bughyat al-mustafid by Muhammad al-'Arabl al-Tmari
al- Tijani, Cairo 1959, pp. 192 ff., which tells us that Shaykh Ahmad Tijani
had received the news of his appointment to this office from the Prophet
himself in the course of a waking vision. See alto al-Hajj ‘Umar al-Puti, Kitab
Rimdh hizb al-rahim, in the margin of ‘Ali al-Harazim's Jawdhir
al-ma ‘ani, Beirut 1383AH, n, p. 4 (section 36), and al-Fath
al-Rabbani by Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Husayn, Beirut, n.d.,
pp. 15 ff. There is also an unpublished work, which we have not been able to
consult, by Shaykh Tijani Ahmad ibn al-‘Ayyashi Sukaraj al-Ansari (died
1363/1944), entitled Qurrat al-‘ayn fi 'l-jawdb ‘an al-as'ila
al-muwada‘afi khaki at al-kaum, which is a reply toTirmidhi's
questionnaire. The idea of the khatmiyya as a level which is
in theory accessible to all, and not as an office unique in history, has been
taken up again in our day by Dr. Abu '1-Wafa al-Taftazani in his article
in Kitab tadhkari: Ibn ‘Arabi, Cairo 1969, p. 312. More
recently, in his book al-]awab al-Shdfi ‘ala as'ilat al-Hakim
al-Tirmidhi, Cairo 1988, Muhammad ‘All Salama claimed the office of
seal for an Egyptian shaykh, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah Abu' l-'Aza'im (died
1356/1938).
45. Haydar Amoli, Kitab Nass al-nusits fishark al-fusus, Paris
and Tehran 1975. See the passages in praise of the Fusiis and
their author, particularly pp. 64-U4-
46. Ibid., pp. 173,175 (where Amoli says that he bases himself on ‘aql,
naql and kashf: reason, tradition and intuitive
unveiling), pp. 182 ff. Amoli is strongly criticical of ibn ‘Arabi's Sunni
commentators—and especially of Qaysari, cf. p. 233 ff.—or else interprets them
in a most curious way, saying (p. 231) that Qashani states that the Seal of
Muhammadan Sainthood is the Mahdi, or that Jandi says that ‘Ali is the Seal of
Universal Sainthood. It is true that Qashani, in a passage of his commentary on
the Qur'an (Ta'wtlal, 1, p. 728, in connection with verse
17:79) makes an ambiguous statement which could justify this interpretation.
But in his commentary on the Fusiis (p. 35) he makes a clear
distinction between the Mahdi and the Seal, and (p. 130) is unequivocal about
the office of Seal being Ibn ‘Arabi's.
47. Futiihdt, rv, p. 77. This incompatibility
between the function of the Seal and that of the Pole (which is made too
clearly for argument, even though some passages which allude to it, such
as Futuhdt, 1, p. 160, could lend themselves to a contrary
interpretation) must have been familiar to Qunawi. Nwyia's interpretation of
the meeting between Qunawi and Abu 1-fdasan al-Shadhili (Ibn ‘Ata Allah
et la naissance de la Confrerie shddilite, Beirut 1972, p. 26), which
is based on a passage in Ibn ‘Ata' Allah's Lata'if al-minan (written
in the margin of the work of the same title by Sha'rani, Cairo 1357AH, 1, p.
95), is undoubtedly wrong, as we had occasion to point out to him shortly
before his death.
48.
49. On the Mahdi's function, see Futiihat, in, pp. 327-40,
chapter 366, which deals with the Mahdi's ministers (wuzard').
50. Cf- chapter 3 of the present book, with note 4.
Corbin's thesis with regard to the doctrine of the Seal is taken up again by
Stephane Ruspoli in his article 'Ibn Arabi et la prophetologie shTite' (cf.
note 9, chapter 8), where he accuses Ibn ‘Arabi of gravely distorting Shi'ite
doctrine—an accusation which is a priori absurd, seeing that
it is addressed to a Sunni; but for Ruspoli, the account of the vision
described in Futiihdt,i, pp. 319-20 is 'the spiritual
testament of a Sunni who is a Shi'ite at heart'. Ruspoli's evidence would be
more convincing if he were not unaware of man}' of Jbn 'Arabi's writings on the
Seal (to the extent where he states—p. 232—that Ibn 'Arabi never said,' I am
the Seal of walaya'), and if his reading of the texts that he
has read were correct. Cf. p. 231 where he reads: wa-qultu muta'awwaldm
(sic), when what is actually written is: wa-qultu
muta'awwilan: Inm, etc. Cf. also p. 234, where instead of fyashran
macnan (sic) he has read hashran ma‘and. The
passage in Ibn 'Arabi’s Futiihdt, 11, p- 49 about Jesus
is not a reference to the Paraclete 'as clear as could
possibly be': Ibn ‘Arabi does not speak of 'a man like Jesus' but of 'a being
such as Jesus'. It is true that Suhrawardi (died 587/1199), in his Hayakil
al-niir (ed. Muhammad 'Ali Abu Rayyan, 2nd edition, Cairo 1957, p.
88), referring to Jesus' words in John 14: 15-17, says that while the tanzil is
entrusted to the prophets, the ta'wil and the baydn belong
to al-rnazhar aha'zam al-fdraqliti, the supreme manifestation
of the Paraclete, which for his commentator Ghiyath al-Din al- Dawwani (died
907/1501), who became a Shi'ite as the result of a dream, is the place of
manifestation of walaya (ibid., p. 104). Haydar Amoli (op.
cit., p. 212), likewise in a reference to the words of Jesus, identifies the
Paraclete with the Mahdi. But in Sunni tradition (see for example Ibn
Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, Cairo 1955,1, pp. 232-33), the
Paraclete (Baraqlitus) is none other than the Prophet himself,
in accordance with a well-known interpretation of verse 61:6.
51. Cf. my translation of extracts from his Kitab al-Mawdqif, published
under the title Berits spirituels, Paris 1982, especially the
introduction, pp. 20 ff.
52. Cf. Kitab al-Mawaqif, 2nd edition, Damascus 1966-1967 (3
volumes successively paginated), pp. 742,826,861,872,1277,1285, etc.
53. Ibid., pp. 1157-58 (mawqif 353).
54. Cf. theendofchaptery, withnoteja.
55. Qashani, op. cit., p. 34.
56. Qaysari,op. cit.,p. 60.
57. Anqd' Maghrib, pp. 62-63; Taiwan, p. 32.
58. Diwan, p. 259. See, among other references
made by Ibn‘Arabi to his own mission, Futiihdt, 1, p. 658; in,
p. 323; Kitab al-Isrd', pp. 21-26; Taj. (ed.
O. Yahia), pp. 300-1.
59. 'The entire universe fell asleep when the Messenger of God died .... We are
presently living through the last third of this night of the universe' (Futiihdt, in,
p. 188).
60. In connection with the second half of the nineteenth century, we have drawn
attention to one phase of this Akbarian renaissance (which is sometimes
indicated by the addition of die nisba ’al-akbarF to the
name of a spiritual teacher) in our introduction to the Ecrits
spirituels of the emir ‘Abd al-Qadir (pp. 35-36),
61.
where we point out that
the tariqa shadhiliyya and the tariqa naqshbandiyya seem
to have been particularly, although not exclusively, centres for this
posthumous form of Ibn'Arabi's influence •
62. This type of spiritual realisation, in which the murid is
attached in other respects to a living shaykh and through him
to a regular silsila, yet whose true teacher is in fact
a wadi who is deceased, is well known in tasawwuf, where
it comes into the category of the Uwaysiyya. We may mention,
among other famous cases of Uwaysiyya, Abu Yazid al-Bistami, a
posthumous disciple of Jafar al-Sadiq; Abu '1-Hasan Kharaqani, posthumous
disciple of Bistami; Baha' al-Din Naqshband, posthumous disciple of ‘Abd
al-Khaliq Ghujdawani. On the visions of Ibn ‘Arabi in Qunawi, cf. his Nafahdt
Ildhiyya (Ms BN 1354, fos. 70a, 70b, nob, 111a). Another important
example, this time in Jili, is the account of a vision that took place at
Yanbu‘ in 789AH, and which he reports in his commentary on the Risalat
al-anwar, p. 6 (the date of 889AH found in the Damascus edition is
obviously a copyist's error or a printing mistake: Jill died at the beginningof
the ninth century).
63.
CHAPTER
10
The Double Ladder
Akb ari
an hagiology is ultimately arranged around three fundamental
notions: wirdtha, niydba, qurba. Wirdtha—the heritage of a
spiritual knowledge or, if one prefers, of a mode of knowledge of God peculiar
to one of the prophetic models—explains the forms taken by sainthood. Niydba—the
substitution of the wall in a role which, in the last
analysis, actually belongs to the Muhammadan Reality alone— forms the basis of
the functions of sainthood. Qurba—proximity— defines its nature. We
have already mentioned qurba in connection with the highest
leyel of walaya. Its full significance will now become
apparent.
How does one become a
saint? Although sainthood of necessity forms part of a spiritual economy which
regulates its forms and allocates its functions, none the less it is first and
foremost the fruit of a quest which is personal and always without precedent:
'To each one of you We have assigned a road and a way' (Qur'an 5
.-48). Ibn Arabi always insists on the unrepeatability in an absolute sense of
theophanies, and hence of beings, things and actions. [171] Two
'travellers' (sdlik) will never travel the same road. The fate
that befalls one will never befall the other.
It is none the less true
that all initiatic journeys, whatever their particulars, encounter stages
and dangers whose nature and distribution conform to a model in the
absence of which the notion itself of a 'spiritual teacher' would make no
sense. This type of journey, enriched with innumerable variations, is one of
the topoi of Sufi literature. As elsewhere, but to a greater
extent because in Islam the Prophet's mi ^rdj is a major point
of reference, it is often described in symbolic form as an ascent.2 We
turn now to Ibn Arabi's use of this theme of ascent, considered as a symbol of
the journey leading to walaya.
The Epistle of the Lights (Risalat al-Anwar), to which we will refer for
guidance, was written at
Konya in 6ozah, and thus at the start o£ Ibn 'Arabis life in the
East, when he was forty-two lunar years old.3 There are at
least three editions of it in existence, all very inaccurate;4 so
our analysis is based on one of the oldest manuscripts, whose quality is
excellent and which carries the guarantee of having been read in Qunawl's
presence.5 The subtitle of this short work, 'On the secrets
bestowed on him who practises retreat in a cell', gives the impression that it
is a treatise on khalwa, a subject to which Ibn 'Arabi devoted
Chapters Seventy-Eight and Seventy-Nine of the Futiihat and a
separate opuscule, the Kitob al-Khalwa (or Kitab
al-Khalwa al-mutlaqa), written after the Risalat al-Anwdr, to
which it refers, but which is often confused with it.6 In fact,
although the practices of isolation (fuzla) and retreat (khalwa) are
mentioned at the very beginning of the text as prerequisites to the quest, the
intention of this risdla, as the author explains in his
introduction, is to describe 'the modes of the journey towards the Almighty
Master': a vertical journey, an ascent of the spirit which leads the sdlik from
heaven to heaven in the footsteps of the Messenger of God, whose mi
‘raj has traced the map of the journey to be accomplished. The ascent
to God is first and foremost an imitatio Prophetae.7
The Risdlat
al-Anwdr, the extracts from which are given in italics, and which
discusses the mi ^rdj of the awliyd' with
succinctness, is not the only work by Ibn 'Arabi on the subject. He speaks of
it elsewhere, under various guises: allegorically in Chapter One Hundred and
Sixty-Seven of the Futuhdt, more autobiographically in Chapter
Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven of the same work, in the Kitab al-Isrd'
(the Book of the Night Voyage). We will therefore refer to these
whenever it becomes necessary to clarify the often very elliptical statements
in the Epistle, thereby adopting—though adapting—the method
followed by 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili, whose commentary is essentially a collection
of quotations from Ibn cArabi, and will assist us on a number
of important points.
The person to whom
the Epistle of the Lights is addressed is not a novice. The
author, therefore, does not linger on the preliminaries of the Way, analysed in
detail in the classic manuals of tasawwuf, or as he himself
explains them in other passages of his works. This (unknown) person has already
arrived, through the appropriate disciplines, at the central point at which the
ascent begins. After uttering the traditional doxology, the first paragraphs
are simply a reminder of the conditions
to be fulfilled and the
disposition required of him who embarks on this perilous enterprise:
I am replying, oh my
dearest friend and most close companion, to the question you asked me about the
modes of the journey (suluk)3 to the Almighty
Master, the arrival in His presence, and the return,9 from and
through Him, to His creatures—a return which yet involves no separation, for
nothing exists other than God, His attributes and His acts. Everything is He,
is through Him, proceeds from Him, returns to Him; and were He to veil Himself
from the universe even for the space of the blinking of an eye, the universe
would straightaway cease to exist, for it survives only through His protection
and His care. Yet of Him whose appearance in His Light is so brilliant that the
eye cannot see Him (Qur'an 6:103), it must be said that His appearance is a
concealment.
It is scarcely necessary
to call attention to the density of these few lines, in which so many of Ibn
‘Arabi's fundamental ideas are summed up. 'Oneness of Being' (wahdat
al-wujud} is posited from the start. The idea that it is God's very
conspicuousness that hides Him from our view is a constantly recurring theme in
his doctrine.10 The necessity for the perfect wait to
return to created being, to follow his 'ascent' with a 'descent' (this is
discussed again at the end of the treatise) is affirmed at
once.
I will first of all
explain to you—may God assist you by His Grace I—how one makes one's way to
Him, then how the arrival happens and how one stands still before Him, how one
sits down on the carpet of contemplation of His Face and what He then says to
you. Next I will explain how one returns from Him to the level of His acts,
through Him and towards Him, and also how one is annihilated in Him—but this
spiritual station is inferior to that of the return.
Know, oh my dearest
brother, that although there are roads without number, there is only one that
leads to God; and solitary (afrad) are those who travel it!
Nevertheless, although this road is unique, it takes different forms, in
accordance with the different states of being of the travellers. Indeed, these
forms vary according to whether the travellers' constitution is or is not
harmonious, according to whether their motivation is constant or subject to
eclipse, according to the intensity or the feebleness of their spiritual
energy, according to the uprightness or the obliquity of their resolution,
according to whether their orientation is pure or tainted
The first thing about
which we must enlighten you is knowledge of the 'dwelling places' (al-mawatin), of
their number and of what is imposed upon you by the 'dwelling place' I have in
view here.
These 'dwelling places',
which are innumerable, are reduced by Ibn ‘Arabi to six. The first is the
dwelling place of 'Alastu bi-Rabbikum?' ('Am I not your
Lord?', Qur'an 7:172)—that is, of the primordial
Covenant through which
created beings solemnly acknowledged the divine suzerainty.11 The
second is the dwelling place of this world below. The third is the intermediate
world (barzakh) to which we go 'after the lesser and the
greater death'. This barzakh, says Ibnc Arabi elsewhere, is
'neither existent nor non-existent; it can be neither affirmed nor denied. And
it is no other than the khaydl, theimaginal.' It encompasses
all that is and all that is not, or all that contains within itself a
contradiction (the 'possible-impossible', a square circle). What is formless
assumes a form there, and it is this fact which, in the dreams of the ordinary
man or the visions of the gnostic, makes it possible for knowledge to appear as
milk, or wine, or a pearl, Islam as a dome or a pillar, the Qur'an as honey or
butter and God in the guise of a man.** The 'lesser death' is initiatic
death (al-mawt al-ikhtiyari), which is voluntary, while the
greater death is the common fate of all.15 The fourth dwelling
place is that of the 'gathering on the earth of awakening7 (a
reference to Qur'an 79:14), where men will assemble to await the Judgement.14 The
fifth is that of Paradise and Hell.15 Finally, the sixth is the
'Dune of Vision' (a reference to Qur'an 73:14) which is 'a hill of white musk
where created beings will be when the vision of God takes place [in the future
life].716
The reference to these
six fundamental states of total being is in the nature of a warning:
Everyone who is endowed
with intellect should know that the journey necessarily involves suffering,
discomfort, trials and tribulations, confrontations with danger and terrifying
fears. It rules out happiness, security and pleasure. The water [that the traveller
finds on the way] tastes different every time, the winds do not blow in the
same direction; the people he meets at one stage are different from the people
at the next stage . . .: all this is by way of warning to those who wish
prematurely to taste the joys of contemplation17 somewhere
other than in the dwelling place assigned to them.
The water and its
different tastes represent spiritual knowledge, and the winds are the nafahat
ildhiyya, the breath of divine Grace. Their diversity and the
diversity of the people whom he meets on the way are the result of the nature
of the journey, which in reality is a journey from divine Name to divine Name:
at every step the salik must conform to the implication of the
particular Name under whose authority he is placed. Moreover, this world below
(the 'second dwelling place'), to which he still belongs, is the world of
effort and struggle (mujahada). It is the 'prison' in which
God for a time shuts up His creatures:
He who directs his
spiritual energy and invocation to the end of bringing Him here, does in fact
do so: but this contravenes the laws of spiritual propriety which apply to Him
and must be obeyed .... You should defer the obtaining of what
you have thus obtained and reserve it for the appropriate dwelling place, that
is to say the future world in which works will no longer have a place .... The
subtle part of the human being will indeed be restored to life according to the
form of knowledge that it has acquired, and the bodies will be restored to life
according to the form, whether ugly or beautiful, of the acts performed by them
until their last breath. It is only when you have left the world of legal
obligations and the realm of levels and ascensions that you will reap the fruit
of what you have sown.
The goal of the sdlik must
not be fath (opening, illumination), nor the vision of God: if
the case arises, he will receive these as additional gifts. The time that he
spends in this world must be devoted first and foremost to the acquisition of
spiritual knowledge, in the understanding that this does not mean mere
theoretical know-how. This priority is explained in a passage from the Tusus:
'On the Day of the Resurrection, men will see God according to the degrees of
the knowledge they had about Him [here below] .... Take care, then, not to lock
yourself into one particular concept and accuse everything outside it of lack
of faith. If you do so, a great good will pass you by! Apply yourself to
becoming the materia prima of all the representations of God
!'18
At the end of this
preamble, Ibn ‘Arabi explains some practical rules. The manner in which they
are formulated, and the reference to the gifts which accompany their practice,
are clear proof that the Epistle is intended for those whose
spiritual aptitude is exceptional:
You must withdraw
yourself Cuzla) from men and you must choose retreat (khalwa) rather
than company.19 Yon will be nearer to God in proportion to your
retreating, both inwardly and outwardly, from created beings. It is demanded of
you that you should have acquired beforehand the knowledge needful for you to
discharge your responsibilities in respect of legal honourableness, prayer,
fasting, piety, and all that has been prescribed you, no more. This is the
first gateway of the journey. Next comes the performing of these
acts, the practice of scruples,20 ascesis,21 and
confident abandonment to God (tawakkul).22 In the
first of the successive states that you will experience, this abandonment to
God will confer upon you the benefit of four supernatural favours (karamat)23 which
are the signs and the proof that you have reached the first level: the earth
will fold up under your feet, you will walk on water, you will travel through
the air, and all created beings will provide you with food [without any effort
on your part]. In this matter, abandonment to God is the fundamental reality.
After that, the stations (maqdmdt), the states {ahwahi the
supernatural favours (kardmdt) and the divine descents (ianazzuldt) will
succeed each other until death. But I adjure you in the name of God, do not
enter your cell until you are aware of your station and of the
extent to which you are
able to oppose the power of the imagination. If your imagination has power over
you, you must go into retreat only under the guidance of a teacher who is
trained in discerning spirits and familiar with the Way. If, on the other hand,
your imagination is under your control, do not fear to go into retreat.
This retreat, which is
viewed here in its technical sense as a method o£ preparing one for the ascent
to God, assumes its full significance when we turn to Chapter Seventy-Eight of
the Futiihdt, in which, as we said above, Ibn 'Arabi discusses
it from a metaphysical point of view. According to him, the khalwa, properly
speaking, is the return to the original Void {al-khald', a
word which comes from the same root)— that is to say, to the cloud (al-camd') where,
according to one hadith,24 God was 'before creating
creation'. What is in question, therefore, is a de-creation, an idea which
occurs in Jill's introduction to his commentary where he compares the phases
of the journey to the successive removal of 'tunics' (thiydb, sing, thawty corresponding
to each of the levels of universal manifestation: a progressive laying bare
which is followed, during the return jou rney, by a reverse process of
re-creation in which the traveller, from stage to stage, puts on again the
coverings that he had left behind him. With regard to the word tanazzuldt in
the passage from the Epistle just quoted, Jili says, 'When the
traveller divests himself of his sensible form, which he is able to cast off
thanks to spiritual discipline, to retreat and to continual invocation, and
passes through the heavens and the spheres, through the stations of the pure
spirits and the levels of the Names, God comes down to meet him in each of the
mansions that he occupies in turn, and gives to him according to His good will.
These gifts are called mundzaldt—a word that for Ibn ‘Arabi means a
'halfway meeting' between God and the sdlik25
The text of the Epistle continues
with more advice:
It is incumbent upon
you, before you go into retreat, to submit yourself to the discipline of
initiation, that is to say, to purify your character, renounce heedlessness,
and become able to bear what does you harm. He in whom illumination (fath) precedes
tire practice of this discipline will not, save in exceptional cases, attain
spiritual virility.
Let us note in passing
that on his own admission, Ibn ‘Arabi is one of these very rare exceptions.26
Dietary precautions are
also recommended when the person in retreat breaks his fast: both 'satiety and
excessive hunger' must be
avoided. 'Excessive
dryness in the system leads to fantasies and prolonged delirium.' The ability
to discern spirits is absolutely necessary:
You must distinguish
between the inspirations (wdriddt) which are angelic in nature
and those whose nature is fiery and satanic, by the effects you observe in
yourself after they have passed. An angelic inspiration is followed by a
sensation of freshness and joy, you experience no suffering, you are not
altered in form; and i t leaves in its wake a knowledge [which is new]. A
satanic inspiration, on the other hand, leaves you with a sense of exhaustion
in your limbs, you experience pain, sorrow and humiliation, you are in a state
of bewilderment and mental derangement. Be on your guard, therefore, and
persevere in your invocation until the moment when God empties your heart [of
these suggestions]: for that is your goal?7
Neither must the sdlik allow
himself to fall into the trap of theophanies:
When you enter your
cell, let your resolution be, if it pleases God: 'Truly, nothing is like God'
(Qur'an 42:11). Consequently, if any form manifests itself to you in your
retreat and says to you: T am God!', you must reply: 'Glory be to God! You
are through God!'28 Keep in mind the form
which appeared to you, but turn away from it and absorb yourself in perpetual
invocation. This is the first resolution you must take. The second is to ask
for nothing save from Him alone, and to assign no object to your aspirations
other than Him. Even supposing that the whole universe were offered to you, you
would have to accept it out of respect for the spiritual proprieties, but pay
no attention to it and continue your quest: for He wished to test you. Each
time you pay attention to it, He eludes you. But when you attain to Him,
nothing eludes you.
There will be many
tests. For example, from the beginning of this motionless journey in the
solitude of his cell, the sdlik will see 'what is normally
invisible in the sensible world: neither walls nor darkness will prevent you
from seeing what people do in their homes.' But the secrets perceived in this
way must be silenced by the sdlik's identifying himself with
the divine Name al-Sattdr, 'He who veils'. One must also
distinguish between perceptions of this kind and mere hallucinations: if they
are genuine, they disappear as soon as one shuts one's eyes, whereas if they
are not, they persist.
In the course of his
Night Journey, the Prophet was offered wine, water and milk, and chose the
milk?9 Drink will also be offered to the sdlik. He
must accept only water, milk or honey, on their own or mixed together, but must
not drink the wine 'unless it is mixed with rainwater'. Ibn Arabi says that he
wrote an opuscule, now lost, on the subject of these symbolic drinks (which are
related to the four rivers of
Paradise, Qur'an 47:15-16)1° But
in the Kitab al-Isrd'^ he describes his own 'night journey'
during which he was offered wine and milk; fa sharibtu mirdth tamdm
al-laban, 'and I drank the prophetic heritage of milky perfection; but
I abstained from the wine for fear of unveiling the secret under the influence
of intoxication, in which case he who followed me would lose himself and become
blind.' Honey too is dangerous, for it leads to a rejection of the revealed Law
'because of a secret in the bee'. Milk, says a hadith 12 symbolizes
both knowledge and the fitra, the original pure nature. Honey
is a 'remedy for men' (Qur'an 16:69). But the 'secret of the
bees' which may cause him who drinks it to reject the Law, is found in verse
16:68 ('And your Lord revealed to the bees . . ..'), in which the verb awhd is
the same as the one used of the prophetic revelation (wahy). This
is a reference to what is communicated directly by God to all beings, quite
apart from any law brought by a prophet, and which may also cause spiritual
'intoxication'—a fact implied in another hadith which says
that an intoxicating drink is sometimes made out of honey.33 With
regard to water, one must distinguish between rainwater, which is heavenly and
pure and a symbol of the divine Rahma, and the water of
rivers, which is earthly and tainted.34 To consider these as
mere allegories, comparable to the rhetorical dangers marked on the 'Carte du
Tendre',35 would be to understand nothing of Ibn Arabi's
teaching. For him as for all Sufis they are real ordeals, which the traveller
must experience of necessity and, on occasion, with pain.
Common temptations have
long been overcome. Those that remain are the more formidable in that they are
more subtle:
Next, God will test you
by displaying before you the levels of His kingdom, If He shows them to you in
order, first will come the secrets of stones and minerals. You will thus learn
the secret of each stone and its useful or harmful properties. If your desire
is aroused by this mineral world, you will be kept there and therefore rejected
[by God]; His protection will be withdrawn from you and you will perish.
However, if you detach yourself from it and persevere in your invocation, and
take refuge with Him who is invoked, this category of unveiling will be taken
away from you. Then the vegetable world will be unveiled. Each plant will call
out to you to tell you what useful or harmful properties it contains.36
The same goes for the
animal world. 'And each of these worlds will also teach you its own way of
praising and glorifying God.' Here again, Ibn Arabi is making an implicit
reference to his personal experience, as some passages in the Futuhdt confirm:
'We heard the stones invoking
God .... Each species of
God's creatures constitutes a community and God has so created them that they
worship Him each with its own form of worship.07 'At the
beginning of our spiritual life, we heard the stones glorifying and invoking
God.'38 The Epistle, however, wisely and prudently warns
against the aberrations of the imagination:
If you consider that the
worlds invoke God with the same invocation as you, your unveiling is imaginary,
not genuine, and you are quite simply seeing your own condition in created
beings. However, if you perceive in them the diversity of their invocations,
then your unveiling is genuine.
This journey through the
four 'kingdoms' of the sublunary world (mineral, vegetable, and animal, the
human kingdom being represented by the sdlik himself)
corresponds to the first stage of the ascent proper, leading to 'the heaven of
this world below'. It also corresponds to the first phase of the progressive
laying bare referred to above: the traveller, according to what Ibn 'Arabi says
in the autobiographical account in the Futuhdt?9 has
now left behind him the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. This is
why, at this point in the journey, the Epistle points out that
the ascent (mi crdj) described is an ascent of
dissolution (mi crdj tahlll) and proceeds in a
specific order (tartib), which is the order of the levels of
existence in the universe. First to be 'dissolved' are the elemental
'coverings', which are symbolic of all that makes up the human condition. This
initiatic death, which is a necessary prelude to palingenesis, is a painful
operation: 'You will be in a state of contraction (qabd) all
the way as you pass through these successive worlds.'
For a detailed
description of this first heaven, where the traveller has just arrived, we must
turn to the first-hand account in Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven of
the Futuhdt. Here Ibn ‘Arabi, having shed his corporeal
nature (nash'atial-badaniyya), meets Adam and finds that he is
simultaneously in front of him and on his right. Adam, with a smile, says to
him: That is how I was as well at the time of the primordial Covenant: both in
front of God and i n His right hand with my sons .'land my sons', he adds, 'are
all in Allah's right hand', and thus all vowed to felicity. In reply to a
question from Ibn ‘Arabi, he explains that this felicity is eternal, even
though the places where createdbeings will dwell after the last Judgement—that
is, Paradise or Hell—are different: 'Allah will furnish each of these two
dwellings with whatever is needful for the happiness of those who inhabit it,
but each of them must be inhabited.' The divine wrath will be extinguished on
the Day of Judgement and
universal Compassion (al-rahma
al-zamma) will have the last word. This universal
Compassion, which rules out eternal punishment in Hell, is a basic element of
the Shaykh al-Akbar's doctrine.40 The knowledge imparted to him
about it is identified here as belonging to the 'heritage'of Adam.
Like Chapter Three
Hundred and Sixty-Seven, but this time in an impersonal way, Chapter One
Hundred and Sixty-Seven also describes the journey through the heavenly
spheres, employing two characters in the process. One of these is the tabi, he
who 'follows' a prophet and ' conforms to his Law, and the other is the sahib
al-nazar, the philosopher who, in his search for truth, relies on
speculative thought alone. In each heaven, the former converses with the
prophet who dwells in it (in this case Adam) and receives spiritual knowledge
from him, whereas the latter speaks only with the ruling angel of that sphere
and receives only cosmological knowledge from him. From the angel of the first
heavenly sphere, whom Jill identifies, in the language of the philosophers,
with the tenth intellect, the sdliib al-nazar receives only
the knowledge of the 'world of generation and corruption'.
The next paragraph of
the Epistle—'After this it will be revealed to you how the life of
causation in diffused within living beings, and the effect that it produces
within each essence in accordance with the predispositions of that
essence'—signals the arrival at the second heaven, which is the heaven of
Mercury ('Utarid or, especially for the Maghrib, al-kdtib, the
'scribe'., which is the form preferred by Ibn cArabi).
According to Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Seven, this is the 'dwelling of
eloquence' from which the inspiration of orators comes. The kdtib or
angel of the second heaven confirms the truthfulness of the Prophet by
demonstrating the u nsurpassable nature of the Qur'an, and also teaches the
knowledge of signs, which enables one to act 'through the letters and the
Names', and the secret of the kun\, the 'fiat!' which bestows
existence. But this is also the heaven of Jesus and John (Yahya), who are
associated here as they are in sacred history because Yahya, whose name, taken
etymologically, symbolizes life, and Jesus, whom the Qur'an calls ruh, or
spirit (Qur'an 4:171), are inseparable: where there is spirit there is life.
Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven represents Yahya as a theophany of the
divine Name al-Muhyi, 'He who quickens'; whence, according to
one hadith, it will fall to him on the Day of Resurrection to
put death to death (which will appear in the form of a ram).41 Jesus,
for his part, has the power to bring the dead back
to life and to bestow
life on the birds of clay (Qur'an 3:49). The connection of these two prophets
with the diffusion of the 'life of causation' in living beings is obvious.
The next lines of
the Epistle are more obscure, and on one point Jill himself is
at a loss:
If you do not stop at
that point, the glow of the Guarded Tablet will be revealed to you. Terrifying
voices will call out to you. Your spiritual state will undergo changes. A wheel
will be set up for you, where you will see the forms of metamorphoses: you will
see how the gross becomes subtle and the subtle gross, how the first becomes
last and the last first (literally: how the head becomes the tail and the tail
the head), how man becomes an animal and how the vegetable becomes man, and
other similar things.
Our translation of al-lawd'ih
al-lawhiyya (two words with the same root) as 'the glow of the Guarded
Tablet' is merely conjectural: Jill says that he does not know the meaning of
the phrase. The word lawd'ih in Ibn 'Arabi belongs to a family
of technical terms which designate spiritual phenomena of a luminous nature,
which differ from each other in intensity and stability (the lawd'ih are
'fleeting as lightning'). Haese phenomena also find mention in earlier authors
such as Qushayri,42 for whom they are confined to
beginners (ahi al-bidaya). The lawd'ih, explains
the Shaykh al-Akbar, are 'that which radiates from the Light of the Essence and
the burning Glories of the Face, viewed in terms of their positivity and not of
their negativity, to the gaze (basar) when it is no longer
conditioned by the limitations of its physical organ.' Every laiha (singular
of lawd'ih) comes as the result of passing from one
state (hdl) to another, and involves an increase of knowledge.43 In
short, what is in question is a mode, as yet very imperfect, of perceiving
theophanies. But what is the meaning, here, of the adjective lawhiyyal It
is derived from lawh. Now the lawh mahfuz, a
Qur'anic phrase (Qur'an 85:22) meaning the 'Guarded Tablet', is a symbol in
Islamic cosmology of the Universal Soul. Upon this 'tablet' the Calamus—itself
a symbol of the first Intellect—engraves in indelible fashion all that will
come to pass until the Day of Resurrection. Thus, its connection with the
'wheel' of becoming, with the 'metamorphoses', and with the manifestation of
life-giving power associated with the second heaven, would seem logical.44 We
may notice that in the definition of the lawd'ih, it is made
clear that this 'glow' is perceived by the gaze (basar) and
not, as one might expect, by the inner vision (basira). But
this gaze is not 'conditioned by the limitations of its physical organ'. Just
as the body of
the resurrected elect is
a glorious and transfigured body, the gnostic’s eye is also ’glorious’ and
transcends the limitations of the human condition. The continuing use of the
terms ‘eye’ and 'gaze' serves to emphasize the fact that we are speaking here
of a perception which has the force and the immediacy of visual perception. The
object of this perception is the divine perfections in their positive
aspect—that is to say, inasmuch as they are what they are, not inasmuch as they
express God’s transcendence with regard to imperfection. The gaze perceives the
fact of Beauty; the intellect, left to itself, can know this Beauty only as the
negation of all ugliness.
If you do not stop at
that point, a light will appear to you which throws out sparks in all
directions, and you will wish to protect yourself. But fear nothing and
continue your invocation: if you do, nohann will come to you.
If you do not stop at
that point, you will see the Light of the Rising Suns appear, and the form of
the universal composite. You will see what the appropriate rules are that must
be observed in order to attain to the divine Presence, to stand before God, and
then to go out of His Presence and return to created being, and what it is to
contemplate God perpetually in the infinite variety of His Faces, whether
visible or invisible. In this way you will come to know the perfection that it
is not given to all to know: for that which is missing from the visible face of
a thing is captured in the face which is invisible. Since the visible and the
invisible have but one Essence, there is no imperfection present. Similarly,
you will leam how to receive divine knowledge from God Himself and what
predispositions are required on the part of him who receives it. You will come
to know the rules of taking and giving, of contraction and expansion, and you
will learn how to preserve the heart from consuming itself to death. You will
also see that all paths go in a circle and that not one is straight; and many
other things that cannot be contained in this epistle.
The sparks mentioned in
the first of these paragraphs proceed, says Jill, ’from your own being'. The
invocation of God then causes them to disappear. On the other hand, the 'light
of the Rising Suns' (cd-tawdli) is the 'light of divine
Unity (al-tawhid) which rises over the heart of the gnostic
and extinguishes all other lights'45—particularly the ’light of
rational proof'/6 which is now useless and which furthermore
can lead only to a negative knowledge, and thus ultimately to a conflict with
revealed fact. An example of the latter is a reference to God's 'Hands' or
'Feet'. For rational speculation, these attributes are incompatible with divine
transcendence; at best one may ascribe an allegorical meaning to them. But the
gnostic sees God's Hands or His Feet; he knows by direct
vision how, in spite of human logic, these attributes can be divine. His
knowledge of God never opposes or separates the tanzlh from
the
tashblh, transcendence from immanence or
likeness.47 This synthetic knowledge alone is in conformity
with the 'appropriate rules' which must be observed in order to attain to the
divine Presence.
Our translation takes
account of only one of the possible meanings of the word 'faces' (wujuh), which
Ibn 'Arabi almost always uses in a deliberately ambivalent way. The wujuh are
simultaneously the 'Faces of God', the visible or invisible forms of the
phenomenal world, and the modes of contemplation: all these different meanings,
moreover, are obviously related. Similarly, the 'perfection that it is not
given to all to know' is the perfection of God; but it is also the perfection
of each thing inasmuch as what is manifest in it is the 'Apparent One' (al-Zdhir), that
is to say the divine Reality itself. This is a fleeting allusion to a theodicy
that Ibn 'Arabi develops elsewhere, and according to which the 'imperfection'
of created being is a necessary element of the perfection of the universe.48 At
this point Jili employs two expressive images: when, he says, the visible face
of the moon is waning, its hidden face is waxing in the same proportion, and
vice versa; when the day (nahar) becomes shorter, the
night {layI) becomes longer, but the duration of the
nychthemeron {yawm) never changes.
The part of this passage
about the 'circularity' of paths may also appear enigmatic. Ibn 'Arabi makes
the meaning clear in a chapter of the Futuhdt where he
represents manifestation in symbolic form by a circumference whose starting
point (the first Intellect or Calamus, the first being in creation) coincides
with its final point (Perfect Man).49 The 'path' which leads
from the Principle to the ultimate frontier of creation ('the lowest part of
the abyss', asfal al-safilin, Qur'an 95:5) leads back from
this extreme limit to the place of origin—symbolized in the same silra by
the 'land made safe', (al-balad al-amm)—which souls yearn after.
'If the path were straight', writes Jill, 'there would be no finishing point
for created beings to reach; and once they had "gone out" of the
Presence of God, they would never go back to Him.' The statement that 'all
returns to him' occurs in different forms over and over again in the Revelation
(cf. Qur'an 24:42,42:53, etc.). But owing to divine Infinity, which precludes
all repetition,50 the return cannot be a simple reversal of the
process of going away: created beings do not retrace their steps. It is the
curvature of the spiritual space within which they move which brings them back
to their point of departure.
After this second
heaven, where the sdlik also learns 'how beings are generated
by the reciprocal influence of the world of spirit and the world
of flesh', the journey
continues to the third heaven, 'the world of formation, of ornamentation and of
beauty. This is the level from which inspiration comes to poets, whereas the
inspiration of orators comes from the previous heaven,' It is the heaven of
Venus (Zuhra) and its resident prophet is Yusuf Joseph): a
double reference to beauty because traditionally, and on the basis of siira 12
which bears his name, Yusuf is considered to represent the perfection of the
human form. According to Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Seven of the Futuhdt (henceforth
we will refer to this chapter as Fut. a, and to Chapter
Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven as Fut. b), from this
heaven proceeds the harmony (nizdm) of the four elements and
the four humours which form the structure of the sublunary world. Here again,
the philosopher is instructed only in the cosmological knowledge that
corresponds to this sphere, whereas Yusuf, the interpreter of dreams par
excellence and the decipherer of forms, imparts to the tdbic the
knowledge of the imaginal world, symbolized by 'the earth which was created out
of what remained of Adam's clay. '5I
If you do not stop at
that point, you will find out what the levels are of the Pole's office.
Everything you had contemplated hitherto came from the domain of the Imam of
the left. But the place where you are now is the heart. When this new universe is
made manifest to you, you will leam the secret of the reflections [of divine
perfection] and also the secret of the permanence of what is permanent and of
the eternity of what is eternal. You will become acquainted with the hierarchy
of beings and with how Being is distributed among them. Divine Wisdom will be
granted to you as well as the strength required to preserve it and the
faithfulness necessary to impart it to those who arc worthy of it. You will
receive the gift of symbols and of synthetic knowledge and the power to veil or
unveil.
The sdlik now
enters the fourth heaven, which occupies the central position (the 'heart') in
the hierarchy of the planetary spheres, and is therefore the heaven both of she
Sun and of Idris, the Pole of the universe.52 From Idris, the
traveller who follows the way of prophecy (Fut. a) receives
the knowledge of the perpetual revolution of the divine realities (taqlib
al-umur al-ildhiyya)—the knowledge, that is, of the infinite diversity and
the eternal renewal of theophanies. At this stage of his ascent, he sees 'how
the night conceals the day and the day the night, how each of them in relation
to the other is sometimes male and sometimes female, the secret of their union,
and what they engender' (day and night here represent, respectively, the
manifest and the non-manifest). He learns the difference between the 'children
of
day'—those whose
spiritual perfection is visible—and the 'children of night', the maldmiyya, whose
sainthood is hidden from men's eyes. During his own mi crdj
(Fut. b), Ibn Arabi was received on the threshold of this heaven
by Idris, who saluted in him 'the Muhammadan heir par excellence':
a recognition on the part of the supreme Pole that he was in the presence of
the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood. A dialogue ensues in which Idris says that
God 'conforms to all that is said about Him'. This is one of the great themes
in Ibn ‘Arabi's writings: he maintains that all perception, whether of the
intellect or the senses, and whether one knows it or not, is perception of an
aspect of the divine Reality, for things are simply places of
manifestation (mazdhir) for theophanies. All error, therefore,
is relative (al-khata’ amriddfi, as Idris says). Thus, every
statement about God is accurate in terms of what it includes, and false in
terms of what it excludes.53
Ibn "Arabi tells
Idris of his meeting in front of the Ka"ba with a person from one of the human
races which preceded our own,54 and asks him the following
question: before this world existed, was there another dwelling place? 'The
dwelling place of existence (ddr al-wujud)', replies Idris,
'is unique. This world is only the world below because of you, and the future
world is only different from it because of you.' The realities of Paradise are
present, here and now, for him who has eyes to see them.
If you do not stop at
that point, you will see the world of combative fervour, of anger and of burning
zeal, and you will learn the origin of the seeming divergences in the universe
and of the diversity of forms, as well as many other things.
This is the fifth
heaven, the heaven of Mars (al-Ahmar, al-Mirrikh, al-Nahs al-Asghar), which
Ibn Arabi (Fut. a) describes as the heaven of terror,
fear, affliction—in a word, of all the manifestations of divine Severity. From
here the sdlik derives the necessary strength to resist his
adversaries, both inner and outer. His conversation with Harun (Aaron), the prophet
of this heaven is chiefly concerned with one of the most controversial points
of Ibn Arabi's doctrine: the posthumous fate of Firiawn, the Pharaoh who was
Moses' enemy, and whose act of faith, uttered in extremis, precludes
the possibility that he is doomed to damnation, because 'the Mercy of God is
too vast not to accept even faith under duress'.55 Severity
itself is merely a veil over Compassion—something which is also implied in the
rule, laid down by Harun for the tab?, 'to let the blood flow
in ritual sacrifices so that the animals may attain to the level of human
beings': a painful but
necessary alchemy which
integrates creatures of a lower order to the nature of the Perfect Man and
enables them to share in his destiny.
In the autobiographical
account (Put. b), other conversations take place, first
of all with Yahya (John). Ibn cArabi had already met him in the
second heaven at the side of Jesus, and meets him again with Harun. 'I didn't
see you on the path. Is there then another path?' he asks. 'Everyone has his
own path, on which he walks alone', replies Yahya: 'every being is unique and
his relationship with God is likewise unique.' Next follows a dialogue with
Harun who, like Idris, greets the 'heir of Muhammad' in Ibn ‘Arabi, and in
reply to a question affirms the reality of the world that is denied by 'certain
gnostics'. The 'imperfection' of their knowledge, says Harun, 'may be measured
by the extent to which the world is veiled from them: because for him who has
knowledge of God, the universe is nothing other than His epiphany.' In
connection with this same text/6 we drew attention elsewhere to
the radical opposition on this point between Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine and the
doctrine of the so-called school of 'Absolute Oneness' (al-wahda
al-mutlaqa), whose most famous teacher was Ibn Sab'in.
The traveller now comes
to the sixth heaven, the heaven of Jupiter (al-Birjls or al-Mushtari) where
Moses resides:
If you do not stop at
that point, you will behold the world of jealous Love and of the perception of
Truth in its most perfect forms. You will learn which opinions are valid, which
points of view correct, and which Laws are truly revealed. You will see a world
which God has embellished in the most beautiful fashion by endowing it with
knowledge most sacred. No spiritual station will be unveiled to you which does
not receive you with respect, dignity and honour, inform you clearly of its
degree in relation to the divine Presence, and desire you with all its being.
At this point of his
ascent, he who has renounced the speculative way of the philosophers and has
followed the path of prophetic teaching, receives from Moses 'twelve thousand
forms of knowledge'—an implicit reference to verse 2:60 in which twelve rivers
flow out of the rock that Moses strikes with his rod, corresponding to the
twelve tribes of Israel or, in other words, to so many aspects of the walaya
miisaw- iyya57 [Fat. a). Moses also teaches him
that 'theophanies occur only in the form of beliefs (al-i etiqadat) and
of needs (al-hajat)’, in allusion to two other verses (Qur'an
28:29-30) which refer to the episode of the Burning Bush. According to Ibn
'Arabi, it was because Moses was in search of a fire, as these verses tell us,
that the voice of God came to him out of a tree on fire.58 Each
time we think about what we need (in either
a material or a
spiritual sense), we are thinking, whether or not we know it, about God, for
'all need is need of God'.59 He who desires something for its
beauty is in love with the divine Beauty which exists in it. But he will know
no more of divine Beauty than what this object can contain. It is plain that,
in the language of the Shaykh al-Akbar, the word iztiqddat covers
a great deal more than 'beliefs' in the sense of articulated expressions of
faith, and extends to all the limited representations that we form of whatever
we aspire towards. The theophany will be in the image and the measure of our
desire.
From the prophet of the
sixth heaven, the traveller also learns how substances (al-jawdhir) can
be stripped of their forms and clothed in other forms without any change taking
place in their essential reality. An example of this is the rod of Moses, which
looks sometimes like a rod and sometimes like a serpent, even though its
essential nature is not affected by these metamorphoses. Armed with this
knowledge, the wall can no longer be duped by the illusion of
the phenomenal world, but perceives the Oneness of Being in the multiplicity of
beings: 'Say [when you see something]: this is God! or: this is the world! or:
this is I! or: this is you! or: this is He! all these designations are simply
pronouns [damd'ir, in place of the Name], and only the points
of view are different. [In this knowledge of the One beneath the diversity of
appearances] there are brimming oceans, shoreless and bottomless!'
The question of the
vision of God is at the heart of Ibn 'Arabi's conversation with Moses (Put. b).6° In
a famous episode in the Qur'an, Moses asks God, 'Oh my Lord, appear to me, that
I may look on You!' and hears the reply, 'You shall not see Me!' (Qur'an
7:143). 'God singled you out among men in making you His Messenger and by
speaking with you, and yet you asked to see Him', says Ibn Arabi in the course
of this conversation, 'but Muhammad said, "None of you will see his Lord
before he dies".' 'That is so,' replies Moses. 'When I asked to see Him,
He granted my wish. I fell down in a faint and I saw Him—may He be
exalted!—while I was unconscious.' 'So you were dead?' Twas dead!' says Moses,
who goes on to explain that he is one of those who will not have to die when
the trumpet of Israfil sounds on the Day of Judgement: he who has experienced
initiatic death already shares in the eternal life of the elect. For such a
man, 'death is dead', just as it will die for all created beings at the end of
time, slain by Yahya (John), lie who is alive'. Once again, we may observe the
close correspondence that exists between initiatic and eschatological
doctrine: the
apocalypse (in its real
sense of 'revelation'’) is a posthumous fath or illumination, and thefath of
the wall is an apocalypse in advance.
The conversation
continues. When you asked to see Him, did you in fact not see Him ? asks Ibn
‘ArabL T was already seeing Him/ says Moses, 'but without knowing that it was
Him I saw!' The difference between the layman and the gnostic does not lie in
what is seen. What distinguishes the 'dr if is the fact that
he knows whom he is seeing.
After this world, ruled
by 'jealous Love'—the love that impels Moses to destroy the golden calf (Qur'an
2:51-54, 92; 4:153; 7:148-152; 20:85-97)—th® wa^ arrives at the
seventh heaven, the heaven of Saturn (Kaywdn, Zuhal), which is
'the world of gravity, serenity, stability and of the divine ruse'. Whereas the
reigning angel of this sphere instals the philosopher (Fut. a) 'in
a dark house', which is no other than his own ego, the tab? is
greeted by Abraham, whom he finds (as did Muhammad during his own micrdj)
leaning against the Bayt al-ma ^mur, the 'Visited House',
which is the goal of the eternal procession of the angels as well as the
heavenly prototype of the ea rthly KaTja/1 'Make your heart
like this House by being present to God (bi~hudurika ma^a 'l-Haqq) at
every moment', enjoins Abraham.
As in the preceding
planetary heavens, each traveller receives instruction here according to the
purity (takhlis) of his being; but whereas the tdbf is
invited to enter the 'Visited House'/2 the philosopher learns
that hehas arrived at the end of his ascent and thathe will have to waithere
for his companion to return. Despite appearances, they are not 'brothers'; for,
says Abraham, only the 'brotherhood of milk' is important, which unites those who
have drunk the same drink—that is to say, who have imbibed the same knowledge.
The philosopher then declares that he submits to the prophetic Law and claims
the same status as the tab?. But this conversation does not
happen here: first he will have to go back down, for it is on earth that man,
created of earth, must accept faith and the Law.
As the text of the Epistle says,
it is from this heaven of serenity and stability (thabat) that
'divine ruse' [makr, istidraj) paradoxically proceeds/5 But
this is a paradox only in appearance: stability closes what is open, limits
what is infinite. It is merely a dangerous illusion, the highest and most fatal
of temptations. Spiritual perfection involves hayra —stupefaction,
perplexity, a perpetual marvelling at the incessantly changing theophanies,
each of them bringing a new knowledge which is never the nec plus
ultra.64 The description of the next stage of the mfrdj, therefore,
should come as no surprise:
If you do not stop at
that point, you will be shown the world of perplexity, deficiency and
impotence, as well as the treasure-house of actions, that is to say [what the
Qur'an, 83:18-21, calls the Tltyun.
This stage marks the
arrival at the 'Lote-tree of the Boundary' (sidrat al-muntahd, Qur'an
53:14), the point where Jibril, the angel of the Revelation, stopped during the
Prophet's mfrdj, leaving Muhammad to continue his ascent
alone. Itis also the stopping point for the pious actions of created beings,
which the angels 'carry' each day to God. From this tree, the tdbic (Tut. a) sees
a great river welling up, out of which arise three smaller rivers and
innumerable streams. The great river is the Qur'an, the other three are the
Torah, the Psalms (al-zabur) and the Gospel (al-injty, and
the streams represent the suhuf ('leaves'), or minor
revelations. He who drinks one of these waters is the heir of the prophet
corresponding to it. But the Qur'an, the river of Muhammad, contains all the
other Books, and he who drinks from it receives the fulness of all the propheticinheritances.
In Chapter Three Hundred
and Sixty-Seven of the Futuhdt, the detailed description of
the ascent (a description continued in Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Seven and
in the Kitab al-Isra') ends at this point on a note of glory.
Ibn 'Arabi sees the Lote-tree surrounded by a dazzling light, and he himself
becomes a being altogether of light. Then, he says, 'God caused to descend upon
me [anzala zalayya: the verb used here is used in
the Qur'an of the "descent" of the Revelation]65 the
verse: "Say: we believe in God, and in what has been revealed tons, and in
what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the tribes [of Israel] and
in what was given to Moses and Jesus . . .." (Qur'an 3:84). And in this
verse He gave me all the verses . . . and He made it the key to all knowledge.'
Ibn 'Arabi interprets this divine communication as an indication that he has
attained to the 'Muhammadan station'. He continues, 'During this night journey,
I acquired the meanings of all the divine Names. I saw that all these Names had
reference to one Named One and to one Essence. This Named One was the object of
my contemplation and this Essence was my own being. My journey took place only
within me and I was guided towards myself. And hence I knew that I was a
servant in the pure sense, and that there was not the least trace in me of
sovereignty.' These few lines contain the whole secret of the wall's ascent:
he has visited his own inner planets, met with the prophets of his own being,
ascending in this way from heaven
to heaven towards the
summit of himself, at which point, with his ontological destitution fully and
finally laid bare, the infinity of God is revealed to him.66
Whereas the
autobiographical account in the Futuhdt condenses the last
stages of the micrdj into a few lines/7 the Epistle
of the Lights describes the last phases of the journey in a way
equally cursory but more explicit, intersecting—in reverse order since the
ascent of the wali is a de-creation—the successive levels of
Ibn 'Arabi's cosmology.68 The 'Lote-tree of the Boundary' is at
the highest point of the 'world of generation and corruption' ('dlam
al-kawn wa 'l-fasad or cdlam al-shahada) of
which the planetary spheres are part. Thus the traveller will have to cross the
sphere of the fixed stars (falak al-kawdkib al-thdbita), then
the 'heaven without stars' (al-falak al-atlas), both of them
part of the 'World of Creation' ^dlam al-khalq), as are the
Footstool (al-kurst) and the Throne {al-:arsh). He
will then go up through the levels of the 'World of the Commandment' (cdlam
al-amr), which are, in ascending order, the 'Universal
Substance' (al-jawhar al-muzlim al-kull);69 Nature (al-tabity, in
which sensible forms are contained in potentia; the Guarded
Tablet or Universal Soul; and lastly the Calamus, identified both with the
First Intellect and with the Muhammadan Reality or Perfect Man. Leaving behind
the World of Command, he enters next what is termed the Primordial Cloud (al- camd'), which
is produced by the Breath of the Merciful One (nafas al-Rahmdri),70 and enters
the divine Presence.
The lower part of the
heaven of the fixed stars is the 'roof of Hell', and its upper part is the
'floor of Paradise'. This geography determines the landscape revealed to
the wall after the stage of the Lote-tree of the Boundary has
been passed:
If you do not stop at
that point, the paradises will be revealed to you in the ascending order of
their levels, and how they fit into each other, together with the hierarchy of
their felicities: all this will be revealed while you are standing on a narrow
path. Then you will see Hell and its levels in descending order . . . .74 If
you do not stop at that point, you will be shown, spirits annihilated in their
contemplation, who are lost and intoxicated in it, for the power of ecstasy has
overcome them . . „72If you do not stop at that point, a light will
be revealed to you in which you will see nothing but yourself. Thereupon you
will be seized by a divine ecstasy and a mad love and you will experience a joy
in the power of God such as you have never previously known .... If you do not
stop at that point, the Bed of the Majesty of Compassion will appear to you.
All things are there. There you will see all that you had seen before and much
more besides. There is no reality which you cannot contemplate
there, whether it be
present only in the divine Knowledge or whether it is endowed with existence.
Seek for your own reality among all these things: when your glance falls on it
you will recognize your goal, your spiritual dwelling-place and your ultimate
level. Then you will know which of the divine Names is your Lord, which portion
of knowledge and sainthood is yours, and in what you are unique.
Akbarian eschatology is
outlined in several chapters of the Futuhdt, in which the maps
of Paradise and Hell are described and clarified by diagrams. Without giving a
summary of it here, we will single out two concepts which throw light on the
nature of the traveller's experience at this stage of his journey. 'Know', says
Ibn cArabi, 'that the Paradise which is pre-destined for those
who will come to it in the next life is before your eyes already, this very day
.... You are there now . . . but you do not know it. '75 This
is why the Prophet was able to say that the space contained between his tomb
and his pulpit is 'one of the gardens of Paradise':74 whereas
the simple believer is content to accept this statement through an act of
faith, the 'men of unveiling' (ahi aTkashf), when they look at
this part of the mosque in Medina, actually see one of the gardens of Paradise,
here and now. The ascent of the wait is an apotheosis of his
sight, whereby a reality is revealed to him which has always been present to
all beings, but which the majority of them will not perceive in this world
unless they have learned how to 'die before death'. What another passage in
the Futuhdt says about Hell75 confirms that
the difference between the wali and the ordinary man lies
entirely in their way of seeing things: for Ibn cArabi, Gehenna
was created out of the essential reality (haqiqa) which finds
expression in the hadith qudsi where God, addressing the
sinner, says, 'I was ill and you did not visit Me. I was hungry and you did not
feed Me .... I was thirsty and you did not give Me anything to drink , . ..' He
goes on to explain to the bewildered sinner ('How could I have visited You who
are the Lord of the Worlds?'), 'My servant "so-and-so" was ill and if
you had visited him you would have found Me at his side . . ..'76 Thus,
Hell is nothing other than the blindness which prevented the man from seeing
God in all His forms, from perceiving His presence in all things, all beings,
all places, at all times. This blindness of him who looks at theophanies
without seeing them is the root of sin and the very substance of its
punishment. Only the man escapes it who is aware of 'his own reality', his
eternal haecceity (cayn thdbita)—the man, that is to say, who
knows himself to be the theophany of a divine Name and its place of
manifestation (mazhar).77 To his own transparency
corres-
ponds the transparency
of things.
At this point of the
journey of initiation, the saint attains to the level of the lawh
mahfuz, the 'Guarded Tablet'—a synonym in Ibn ‘Arabi for the Universal
Soul—on which the divine Calamus has engraved indelibly that which is, was or
will be ('all things are there'). The ascent is approaching its end:
If you do not stop at
that point, die teacher and instructor of all things [i.e. the Calamus or
Universal Intellect] will appear to you. You will see the line he traces and
you will become acquainted with its message, You will see how he changes
direction,7® how he receives knowlet Ige, and then how that which he
has received in synthetic mode from the angel of the Nun becomes
differentiated.79
If you do not stop at
that point, you will see that which moves [the Calamus]—that is to say, God's
Right Hand. At this level the traveller is shown the world of the angelic
spirits overcome by Love (al- muhayyamun), who in Islamic
tradition are usually called the Cherubim (al-karubiyyun), and
one of whom is the Calamus. Lost in their contemplation of the divine Beauty
and Majesty, these muhayyarnun 'are not even aware that God
created the world'. The same is true of the afrad, who are
their equivalents on the human plane—unless, that is, they have been assigned a
task, like the Calamus, which obliges them to turn towards created being. As we
saw earlier, the Pole—among others—is one example of this.
If the wall has
been able to resist the temptation to stop at each successive stage of his
journey (a danger to which our attention is insistently drawn by the first line
of every paragraph of the Epistle), he has now arrived at the
'Station of Proximity' (maqdm ahqurba), at the fulness of
sainthood which Jesus will seal at the end of time. The only thing forbidden to
him, since the disappearance of the Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood, is the
position at the centre, reserved in this maqdm for those who
are 'heirs of Muhammad' in the fullest sense. But to know that one is near is
still to know that one is—it still implies, for created being, a degree of
ontological autonomy. True Proximity is consummated only in the total de-creation
of what has been created, when all that survives is the Divi ne Oneness (al-wahda).
If you do not stop at
that point, yoi t will be blotted out, extinguished, obliterated, annihilated.
Then, when this erasure
and all that follows it—occultation, extinction, obliteration,
annihilation—have worked all their effects in you, you will be affirmed, made
present, existent and reassembled.
Here the loop of
becoming has come full circle: the palingenesis is complete. At the end of
this mfrdj, man is reduced to the indestructible divine
secret (sirr ildht) which was lodged in him at the beginning
of time by the breath of the Spirit (nafkh al-ruh) breathed
into Adam's clay.80 'Then', says Ibn cArabi in
his Kitab al-Isra', 'the even and the odd come together, He is
and you are not .... And He sees Himself through Himself. '81
However, even though the
'arrival' at God (al-wusul) is the final point of the ascent,
for the most perfect it is not the end of the journey. The Arabic word mi
Taj may be translated as 'ladder': but in this case the ladder is a
double ladder. The wait, having reached the summit, must go
back down by rungs which are different but symmetrical to those by which he
climbed up.
Next, you will be sent
back on your way and you will see again what you saw previously, but under
different forms; and in this way you will return to the limited, terrestrial
world of your senses. At least, this is what will happen if you do not cling on
to the place where you were occulted.
The wait, then,
will travel once more through the levels of universal existence and re-visit,
in reverse order, the hierarchy of the heavens. All that he saw he will see
again. But the same things will have 'different forms', because what he used to
look at 'with the eyes of his ego' (bi-cayn nafsihi) he
now contemplates with 'the eyes of his Lord' (bi- cayn
rabbihi). At each stage of the descent, he will take up again the part
of himself that he had left there. This progressive recovering of what he had
left behind is not a regression, however: to employ Jill's beautiful image in
his commentary,82 each 'tunic' that he took off on the way up
was by the same token turned inside out, like a garment which one pulls over
one's head hem-first. Tirus, the wrong side is now the right side; what was
hidden has become visible. The wall 'reclothes himself' on the
way back with all the elements of his being that he had returned earlier to
their respective worlds; but, through being turned inside out, these elements
have undergone a metamorphosis. Not all the awliya’ arrive at
the highest level, represented by the maqdm al-qurba, and not
all of them 'return' to created being. Furthermore, at every stage there are
different modes of spiritual realization, which correspond strictly to the
different prophetic types inherited by the saints. These features of Akbarian
hagiology are reaffirmed in the following passage:
For each traveller, the
journey's end depends on the road he has taken, Some will be spoken to in their
own language, others in a language which is different from theirs. Each will be
the heir of the prophet who corresponds to the language he has had spoken to
him. This is why you will hear the People of the Way saying, 'So-and-so'
is musawi, or hsawi, or ibrahimi, or idrisi.
Here, each language'
represents a particular form of the revelation (wahy) or
inspiration (ilham) which descends from God upon the heart of
the servant and which determines, in return, a specific form of knowledge and
worship. As we know, however, the same person can accumulate many inheritances:
But there are some among
them who will be spoken to in two languages, or three, or four, and so on.
Perfect among them is he who is spoken to in all languages: this is the
exclusive privilege of the Muhammadan.
The model par
excellence of this Muhammadan who is spoken to 'in all languages', and
who as a result is the only qualified interpreter of Universal Truth in all its
aspects, is Ibn ‘Arabi himself. We referred in Chapter Five to his Kitab
Al- ^Abadila, a highly enigmatic work which, as far as we know, has
never been studied. The very word cabadila, which
is rarely employed, is an irregular plural of cAbd Allah, 'servant
of God'. Throughout this curious work, utterances of a metaphysical or
initiatic nature are put into the mouths of about a hundred people who are
called by strange and obviously symbolic names. It would be futile to attempt
to identify these characters with known Sufi figures: as we are given to
understand by the allusions in the preface, the voice which speaks from beneath
all these masks is Ibn ‘Arabi's, 'servant of the Name which encompasses all
Names', 'totalizing son of a limited father' (ibnjami' han abmaqayyad), 'interpreter
of all languages'.^
For as long as the
traveller remains at the end point of his journey and does not retrace his
steps, he is called al-waqif, 'he who has come to a
standstill'. Some, indeed, are permanently obliterated at this station, such as
Abu clqal and others.84 These will die and be
resurrected at this station.
Some, on the other hand,
are 'sent back'. He who is sent back in this way is more perfect than he who
comes to a standstill and is annihilated, always provided that their spiritual
stations are similar . . . otherwise he who is sent back has to live until the
moment when he reaches the same level as he who is annihilated: when this
happens he will be above him as regards the approach (tadani) and
the descent (tadallz) and will outmatch him in terms of
ascent (taraqqt) and reception (talaqqi).65
We must distinguish
between two categories of those who are 'sent back'. He
who belongs to the first
category is sent back for his own sake, as in the case discussed above. He is
termed a gnostic ('arif), and in order to perfect himself he
returns by a different way from the one he took before.
But there is also he who
is sent back to created beings in order to direct and guide them by bis words.
He is the wise man (alnlim) through inheritance.86
We have drawn attention
several times to the importance of the concept of 'return' (rujufi Here,
we see once more that it occupies a central position in the definition of
sainthood. On this point the Shaykh al-Akbar's doctrine is forcefully expressed
from his earliest writings onwards. In the Risdla fi ’l-waldya, written
when he was thirty years old, Ibn ‘Arabi makes the same distinctions: 'Among
them', he writes, 'are those who are sent back [to created being], those who
are not sent back, and those who are left to choose. He who is not sent back is
called in our technical vocabulary by the name of wdqif ....
He who is sent back specifically [i.e. for his own sake] is called an ‘drif. He
who is sent back in a general sense [i.e. in order to guide created beings] is
called cdlim and wdrith.' But
although Ibn ‘Arabi is the first to explain this concept and to bring out its
implications clearly, both as regards the course of sainthood and in the wall's personal
experience, it must be stressed that it is already present in the teaching of
earlier awliyd', and above all that, like all the other
aspects of walaya, it is included within the Muhammadan
paradigm. The rest of the text just quoted alludes to a very significant
statement made by Shaykh Abu Madyan: 'To flee from created being is one of the
signs of a novice's sincerity. To reach God is a sign of the sincerity of his
flight from created being. To return to created being is a sign of the
sincerity of his having reached God.' This return, comments Ibn ‘Arabi,
represents 'the perfection of the Station of Inheritance (wa huwa kamdl
maqdm al-wiratha)': in fact, he says, withdrawal from created being
corresponds to the period in the Prophet's life which preceded the Revelation.
The Revelation marks the end of the phase of ascent following which Muhammad is
'sent to all created beings'. The 'perfection of the Station of Inheritance'
implies that there is a strict equivalence between the journey of the heir and
that of the Prophet whose heir, directly or indirectly, he is.87
The 'heirs' who call
[created being] to God in this way do not all possess the same rank .... Some
of them call created being in the language of Moses, of Jesus, of Shem, of
Isaac, of Ishmael, of Adam, of Idris, of Abraham, of Aaron or of other prophets.
They are the Sufis; who, in comparison with those of us who are the perfect
Masters, are termed ashab al-afywal, the 'People of the
Spiritual States'.
Others of them call
created beings to Godin the language of Muhammad. They are the 'men ofblame' (al-maldmiyya), the
Peopleof Immutability and EssentialTruth.
What distinguishes
the maldmifrom the sufi&nd explains the
'blame' that attaches to him is, as we said, his refusal to free himself from
secondary causes, to tear the veil beneath which God conceals the mystery of
His presence. Because he preserves God's incognito, God preserves his. Because
he has knowledge of God, he perceives Him in all things. But because the Law
prescribes servitude, he keeps his Lord's secret: it is the transparency of his
own being which reveals him to those who have eyes to see. Only the maldmi, through
his total acceptance of the order of things in this world, fully satisfies all
the conditions of the return to created being, in the absence of which the
saint is only half a saint. This expression may appear to be an exaggeration,
but it merely transposes what Aaron (Harun) says to his visitor in the fifth
heaven, or, even more directly, what Ibn ‘Arabi himself says in the Fusus. 'Elijah',
he writes, 'possessed only half of tbe knowledge of God', because he was 'a
pure intellect emancipated from all passion' faqlan bi-la shahwa) ,88 God
was therefore known to him only in His transcendence (tanzih) and
not, simultaneously, in His similitude (tashbih). Yet God is both
the First and the Last, the Invisible and the Visible. The wdqif, who
remains forever motionless at the highest point o f the ascent, knows God only
in terms of the first two of these four Names, which in the Qur'an form
inseparable pairs. The world was not created in vain ('abathan, Qur'an
23:115), it is not an illusion (batilan, Qur'an 3:191): it is
the theatre of theophanies, it displays the 'Hidden Treasure' to which God
compares himself in a hadith qudsi,89 it is the
place where one acquires that other half of the knowledge of God which is the
essence of sainthood. In this way the 'two bows' are joined together, and
the wali arrives at that indescribable 'nearer', qdb
qawsayn aw adnd, evoked in the sura of the Star
(Qur'an 53:9). This necessary complementarity finds figurative expression in
the rites of the pilgrimage—another symbol of the journey of initiation in the
course of which the believer, after completing the tawdf, the
act of circling the KaTa or bayt Allah, the dwelling of the
One who has no second, must return to duality by making a journey in a straight
line between the hills of Safa and Marwa.90
The title as a whole of
the Epistle of the Lights suggests a treatise on the khalwa, retreat
in a cell. But although monastic solitude appears at the beginning of the text
to be a necessary preliminary to the journey, it is radically opposed to the
state of perfection to which it should lead. The
place of the living
saint is among men; and when he is dead he will continue, through his rilhaniyya, or
spiritual presence, to mingle with them and watch over their fate. His true
'retreat' consists in concealing himself while remaining visible, khalwa
fi jalwa, also expressed in a Persian formula, which occurs among the
eleven cardinal rules of the tariqa naqshbandiyya, as retreat
among the crowd (khalvat dar anju- man).91 Like the
architecture seen in certain dreams, his mi craj is
a stair which ascends downwards; for 'all roads are circular'. His exile,
prefigured by the exile of the Prophet when he was driven from the Sacred
Territory, separates him only in appearance from the goal of his search; he who
has arrived at the centre knows that the points of the circumference are all
equidistant from God, and that this distance is no distance, for 'He is with
you wherever you may be' (Qur'an 57:4).
Walaya is, literally, proximity. But this
proximity is twofold; the wali, close to God, is not wholly
a wall unless he is also close to created being. Ibn cArabi
identifies the Perfect Man with the tree92 'whose root is firm
and whose branches are in heaven' (Qur'an 14:24). Earthly as well as heavenly,
the saint is he who brings together the high and the low, the Haqq and
the khalq. Like the Muhammadan Reality whose heir he is, he
forms the 'isthmus' (barzakh) of the 'two seas'. Even though
he is the guarantor of cosmic order, and thus ultimately the instrument of
divine Severity, his function—whatever rank he holds in the hierarchy of
initiation—is first and foremost to be the agent of 'the Compassion which embraces
all things' (Qur'an 7:156). This is why his 'heroic generosity' (futuwwa) extends
'to minerals, to plants, to animals and to all that exists.'93
Although properly
speaking the role of axis mundi belongs to the Pole,
every wali shares in it to some degree. But although the walaya. exists
forever in the life to come, here below it comes, of necessity, to an end. With
the coming of the first Seal, its most perfect forms were placed out of reach
for ever. The coming of the second Seal will close off permanently the maqdm
al-qurba, the highest degree of proximity. When God 'seizes the soul'
of the third Seal, who will also be 'the last-born of the human race', 'men
will be like beasts'.94 Then the Qur'an, 'brother' to the
Perfect Man, will also be erased in the space of one night from the hearts of
men as from their books.95 Empty of all that united heaven with
the earth, an icy and insane universe will sink into its death. The end of the
saints is nothing less than another name for the end of the world.
Notes to Chapter Ten
1. Futiihat, i, p. 735; ni, pp. 127,159, 288; rv, p.
235; Fusiis, 1, p. 202; Kitab al-eAbadila,p. 200.
2. A start has been made in studying this theme by Nazeer El-Azma in his
article 'Some notes on the impact of the story of the Mi“raj on Sufi
Literature', The Muslim World, uon, April 1973, pp- 93-104. We
have not been able to consult the work by Qassem al-Samarrai, The Theme
of Ascension in Mystical Writings, Baghdad 1968. See also in C.
Kappler ei al., Apocalypses et voyages dans l'au-dela, Paris
1987, pp. 167-320, the articles by E. Renaud and A. Piemontese on an Arab
version and a Persian version of the mi'rdj. If we are more in
favour here of the spiritual journey described in the form of a miQrdj, because
of its clarity and synthetic character as well as its unequivocally Muhammadan
references, it is none the less true that Ibn ‘Arabi's work is susceptible to
other modes of representation, based (as suggested by the six-section structure
of the Futuhat) on the classic Sufi distinctions: ahwal (states), maqdmdt (stations), manazil (dwellings),
etc.
3. The place and date of writing are given in one of the manuscripts listed by
Osman Yahia, Histoire et classification, 1, p. 162, R. G. no.
33, ms §ehit Ali 1344. The authenticity of this treatise is
established by Ibn “Arabi's references to it in the Pihris and
the Ijaza, and finds ample confirmation in the style and
ideas.
4. Damascus 1329AH (with the commentary by “Abd al-Karim al-jill), Cairo
1322 ah, and Hyderabad 1948.
5. This is the ms Bayazid 1686 (written in 667AH), fos. 21 b-26. We
have also referred at times to a later manuscript (ms Yahya Ef. 2415,
fos. 86 b-9ob, dated 1293 ah), which has the advantage of being
largely vocalized. There are two translations of this text into Western
languages: one is by Asin Palacios (El islam cristianizado, Madrid
1931, pp. 433-49), later re-translated from Spanish into French (LTslam
christianise, Paris 1982, pp. 321-33), in a form which is incomplete
and unannotated; while the other, in English, is by Rabia Terri Harris, Journey
to the Lord of Power, New York 1981, the accuracy of which leaves much
to be desired (see our review of this translation in Bulletin critique
des Annales islamologiques, xxi (1985), pp. 278-82). The commentary by
Jill, published in Damascus in 1329AH, and the attribution of which is
confirmed by—among other things—the mention on p. 29 of his Kitab
al-Insdn al-Kdmil, is entitled al-Isfar can
risalat al-anwdr ft ma yatajalld li ahi al-dhikr min al-anwar ('The
removal of the veil from the Epistle of the Lights: on the
light which appears to those who devote themselves to the dhikr').
6. The two chapters of the Futuhat ('On khalwa' and
'On giving up khalwa’) have been translated by Michel Valsan
in Etudes traditionelles, no. 412-13, March-June 1969, pp.
77-86. They centre on the metaphysical meaning and the principles of the khalwa, but
refer only briefly to practical rules or effects. The Kitab al-Khalwa, which
is much more technical in character, is in the same collection (Bayazid, 1686,
fos. 6b-n) as the manuscript of the Risalat al-anwdr which we
are using here, and alludes to this last fo. 10b (wa-qad dhakarna
tartib al-fath ft risdlat al-anwdr). The Kitab al-Khalwa was written
(cf. Futiihdt, 1, p. 392) in response to a
7.
question from someone
whom we have already encountered, Abu l-'Abbas al- Tawzari(cf. note2,chapter9).
8. On the Muslim sources dealing with the Prophet's micrdj, see
EI1, s.v. the article by J. Horovitz. The version by Ibn ‘Abbas,
which was far and away the most popular, has been through many editions.
The Kitab al-Micrdj by Qushayri, Cairo 1954, is of
interest in that it has all the versions that were in circulation during the
fifth century of the hegira.
9. Ibn 'Arabi (Futiihdt, n, pp. 380-82) distinguishes four
types of sdlik (bi-rabbihi, bi-nafsihi, bi T-majmii', sdlik Id sdlik) and
five types of suliik (minhu ilayhi (from theophany to
theophany), minhu ilayhi fihi (from Name to Name within a
name), minhu Id fihi wa la ilayhi, ilayhi la minhu wa lafihi (of
which the model in the Qur'an is the flight of Moses), la minhu
wa-ldfihiwa Id ilayhi (this is the case of the ascetic, al-zahid).
10. On the rujif, the return to created being, which will be
discussed again later, we refer the reader as before to chapter 45 of the Futiihdt (1,
pp. 250-53), and to the Risdla fi' l-waldya, pp. 25 and 27.
See also Junayd, Enseignement spirituel, transi. R.
Deladriere, Paris 1983, pp. 45-46 (pp. 53-54 of the Arabic text in A. H.
Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings ofAl-Junayd, London
1962).
11. Cf. Futiihdt, rv, p. 67. On the theme of the veil, see
also Fusiis, 1, pp. 54"55; Futiihat, rv,
pp. 39 and 72. Besides the reference to Qur'an 6:103, there is an allusion here
to the hadith on the seventy thousand veils of light and
darkness (Ibn Maja, Sunan, 1, 44; cf. Ghazali's commentary
in Mishkat al-anwar, trans. R. Deladriere, Le
Tabernacle des Lumieres, Paris 1981, pp. 85 ff.).
12. On the mithdq, see Futiihat, n, p. 247;
in, p. 465 (where Ibn 'Arabi explains that at the moment of theophany in the
life to come, created beings would recognize their Lord if He showed Himself to
them in the form in which He had appeared at the time of the mithdq); iv,
p. 58 and 349.
13. On the barzakh, see Futuhat, 1, pp.
304-7.
14. The four levels or forms of initiatic death are distinguished in Futiihdt, 11,
p. 187.
15. Cf. ibid., 1, pp. 307-17.
16. The description of Hell occurs in Futiihdt, 1, pp.
297-304, that of Paradise at ibid., 1, pp. 317-22.
17. Futiihdt, 1, p. 320; ni, p. 465; iv, p.
15; Kitab al-Tardjim. Hyderabad 1948, p. 27. The kathib is
situated in Eden, which is the citadel of Paradise.
18. Contemplation (mushdhada) is different from vision (ru'ya). In
fact, 'it is preceded by knowledge about the Object of Contemplation, and this
is the knowledge envisaged when speaking about beliefs (caqd'id, a
term whose etymology suggests a limitative representation). Consequently, the
Object contemplated can be either affirmed [i.e. if He conforms to our
previous idea of Him] or denied [i.e. if He does not], whereas in the case of
vision, properly speaking, there can be only affirmation .... All contemplation
is vision but not all vision is contemplation' (Futiihdt, 11,
p. 567; see also Futiihdt, u, pp. 494-96; 1st., definitions
§§60 and 188).
19. Fusus,1,p. 113.
20. On the concept of khalwa, see the article by H. Landolt
in EF, s.v. In spite
21.
of Ibn Taymiyya's
criticisms, who saw it as a reprehensible innovation (Majmu 'at
al-rasd'il wa 'l-masd'il, ed. Rashid Rida, v, p. 85), the retreat,
whose Islamic prototype lies in the practice of the Prophet himself prior to
the Revelation, has a long history in Sufism. Cf., among others, Abu Said
al-Kharraz, Kitab al-Haqd'iq, quoted by Nwyia, Exegese
coranique . . ., p. 303; Muhasibi, Kitab al-khalwa, ed.
Abdo Khalife, al-Mashriq, 1955, xlix, pp. 43-49; Abu
Nuaym al-Isfahani, Hilyat al-awliya', Beirut 1967, vi, p. 376;
tx, p. 356; Qushayri, Risala, Cairo 1957, pp. 50-52; Hujwiri, Kashf
al-mahjub, trans. Nicholson, pp. 51 and 324; Ghazali, Ihyd', Cairo,
n.d., n, pp. 221-41; Suhrawardi, Awdrif al-macdrif (vol.
5 of the edition of the Ihyd'), pp. 121-31, in which chapters
26, 27, and 28 discuss the arba Tniyya, the forty-day retreat.
22. Scrupulousness (warac) and the abandoning of
scrupulousness (tark al-wara ^ form the subject of chapters 91
and 92 of the Futiihdt (n, p. 175). The author explains that
in the case of the gnostic, the abandoning of scrupulousness comes about
because his gaze fells not on things but on the Face of God within those
things: as he cannot escape the evidence of this theophany, he is unable to
perceive the signs which might cause him to have scrupulousness—might cause
him, that is, to renounce that which might be, legally speaking, suspect. To
renounce what is lawful but superfluous is a result not of scrupulousness but
of ascesis; whereas to renounce what is lawful and necessary is disobedience
pure and simple.
23. On ascesis (zuhd), see Futuhdt 11, p. 177.
24. Tawakkul (Futuhdt, 11, pp. 199-202) 'consists in the
heart's leaning on God alone and remaining untroubled by the absence of the
secondary causes which are [divinely] established in the universe and on which
souls are in the habit of depending.'
25. On kardmdt, see Futiihdt, 11, pp. 369,
374-75; iv, p. 65. Kardmat can be either sensible (hissiyya) or
spiritual (ma'nawiyya). The latter are all, essentially, a
question of greater knowledge. The former consist in the suspension of
secondary causes (kharq al^awa'id); they may conceal a divine
ruse (makr) for testing the servant, who will be questioned
about the use he made of them. The true kharq al-^awdhd, in
accordance with the literal meaning of the expression, is the unloosening of
the bonds of habit, and being aided by grace in full observance of the Law and
in the acquisition of noble character (makdrim al-akhldq).
26. Tirmidhi, tafsir, s. n; Ibn Hanbal, rv, pp. 11-12.
27. Cf. Futuhdt, in,p. 523 ff.
28. Ibid, 1, p. 616.
29. The distinctions between wdridat (or khawdtir) are
classic in Sufism. Cf. Junayd, Enseignement spirituel, trans.
R. Deladriere, Paris 1983, pp. 74-79 (pp. 58-62 of the Arabic text in A. I L
Abdel-Kader, The Life . . . of Al-Junayd); Qushayri, Risdla, Cairo
1957, p. 43. Suhrawardi, cAwdrif, pp. 221 (chapter
57). In the work of Ibn 'Arabi, cf. Futiihdt,), pp. 281-84; IL PP-
77-78 (the 55th question of Tirmidhi), pp. 563-66. Like earlier teachers, Ibn
‘Arabi usually distinguishes between four kinds of warid: rabbdni (lordly), malakt (angelic), nafsi (proceeding
from the soul), and shaytdni (satanic). Let us note that, as
an example of the way in which satanic suggestions may enter the soul under
cover of feelings which are themselves praiseworthy, Ibn 'Arabi cites the case
of the Twelver ShTites
(al-imdmiyya) whom the demons have led astray
through their (legitimate) love for the ahi al-bayt. To
persist in seeing the author of the Futuhdt as a Shi'ite at
heart is indeed something of a paradox.
30. Tf the forms—be they spiritual, corporeal or conceptual—which appear to you
also speak to you', notes Jill in his commentary, 'it is because the divine
Ipseity is diffused in all manifested beings; for within all beings, God has a
Face which is His own' (on this concept of Face, cf. note 1, chapter 6). For Jili,
the formula 'Glory be to God' avoids the error of immanentism, while the
utterance 'You are through God' avoids the error of
transcendentalism.
31. Bukhari, anbiyd', 24,48, etc.; Ibn Hisham, Sira, Cairo
1955,1, pp. 397-98. Cf. also Futuhdt, ni,p. 341.
32. Futuhdt,346.
33. Kitab al-Isrd',p. 10.
34. Bukhari, fada'il ashab al-nabi, 6.
35. Inna min al- 'asalkhamran: AbuDawud, ashriba. Jiliinterprets honey as a symbol of the path of wisdom (al-:ulum
al-hikmiyya) which leads to a claim of autonomy with respect to the
prophetic Law. Nevertheless, honey can also signify something wholly positive:
not merely a remedy (apart from Qur'an 16:69, c^-
Bukhari, tibb, 14), but a symbol of the Qur'an, and thus of
the prophetic way (Darimi, ru'ya,13).
36. Jill warns specifically atthis point against well water, symbol of
the ‘ilmfikri or speculative knowledge, which is particularly
dangerous when mixed with wine ("ilmal-ahwdl, uncontrolled
ecstatic knowledge).
37. A famous allegorical rendering in La Clelie, a
seventeenth-century French novel by Mademoiselle de Scudery. The lover travels
from 'New Friendship' through 'Sweet Verses', 'Gallant Notes', and
'Generosity'; he must avoid 'Negligence' and 'Lightheartedness' which would
take him to 'the Lake of Indifference', but also 'Grief' or 'Calumny' which
would attract him to the 'Sea of Enmity', and so on. It is thus a
profaneversionof Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
38. As far as Ibn'Arabi is concerned, there are no inanimate beings. The beings
that are called mineral and vegetable also possess spirits (arwdh) which
are not normally perceived, except by the People of the Unveiling (ahi
al-kashf] (Futiihdt, 1, p. 147). This position is based on various
Qur'anic verses, particularly Qur'an 17:44, 13:13,24:41,59:24,62:1,3s well as
on personal experience, as weshall see.
39. Futiihdt,1^.147.
40. Ibid.,1,p.382.
41. Ibid.,ni,p. 345.
42. Ibid., 1,p. 656; n,p. 408; rv,p. 248; Fastis,p. 94(theverse), etc.
43. Bukhari, tafsir, s. 19,1; Muslim,janna, 4,
etc.
44. Qushayri, Risdla, p. 40.
45. Futiihdt, 11, pp. 498-99. Cf. 1st., definitions
§§87, 88, 89. (The technical termswhichbelongtothesamefamilyarefl/-iawah'candaMawtimz').
46. Without going into further detail, let us note at this point that Ibn
'Arabi (Futiihdt, in, p. 61) makes a distinction between al-lawh, in
the singular, and the plural form al-alwah, the use of which,
for him, has reference to a cosmological level below that of the Tablet. What
is engraved on the Tablet is engraved indelibly.
47.
What is engraved on the
tablets generally may, possibly, be rubbed out (mahw) or
abrogated (naskh).
48. 1st., definition 88.
49. Futuhdt,n, p. 389.
50. This point is further emphasized by the verses, quoted by Jill in his
commentary, on the concept of the Universal Composite (al-tarkib
al-kulli), which is the 'manifestation of God in the form of created
being':
Do not look on God (al-Haqq) and
strip him of created being (al-khalq)
Do not look on created
being and clothe it with something other than God.
Affirm both His
transcendence and His likeness
And stand in a place of
truth [a reference to Qur'an 54:55].
The need to know God
under both these aspects simultaneously is a recurrent theme in the Shaykh
al-Akbar's doctrine. Cf. Fusus, fass Nuh (1, pp. 68-75), and
the numerous passages in the Futuhdt which comment on verse
42:11 (Laysa ka mithlihi shay'un . . .): 1, pp. 62,97,111,
220; n,pp. 129,510,516-17,541,563; in, pp. 109,165,266,282,340,412,492; iv, pp.
1325,141,306,311,431.
51. Cf. in particular Ibn ‘Arabi's commentaries on Ghazali's famous
phrase: Laysa fi '1-imkdn abda^ min hddha '1-dlam, Futiihat, 1,
p. 259; m, pp. 11,166,449; Fusus, 1, p. 172; Tadbirdt, p.
106. The basic idea is that God manifests His Infinity by bestowing existence
on all possibilities, including the possibility of imperfection. This idea is
expressed in the verses quoted by Jili in his commentary:
If imperfection were not well established in the universe The Being of God
would thereby be imperfect It is through me that God possesses perfection.
On the question of
theodicy in Islam, cf. Eric L. Ormsby in his Theodicy in Islamic
Thought, Princeton 1984, and our review in Bulletin critique
des Annales islamolo- giques,xxn (1986).
52. Futuhat,1,p. 125.
53. Cf. the references given in note 1 above.
54. Chapter 8 of the Futuhdt (1, pp. 126-31) concentrates on
this earth which is the place of theophanic visions. Henry Corbin has
translated part of it in his Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, Princeton
1977.
55. Idris (who is mentioned twice in the Qur'an, in verses 19:57-58, and
21:85-86), is identified in Islam sometimes with Enoch, sometimes with Elijah
(Ilyas), sometimes with al-Khadir, and in addition is often assimilated to
Hermes. On Enoch, the father of Methusalah, cf. GenesiS5:2i-24, where weare
told that all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years—a
statement that has an evident connection with solar symbolism. The same passage
adds: 'And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him', which
corresponds to the observation in the Qur'an about Idris: 'Then We took him up
to a sublime place' (Qur'an 19:58). On the person of Idris in Ibn ‘Arabi's
work, see Fusils, chapter 4 (1, pp. 75-80), partially
translated by Burckhardt (pp. 62-67), translated in its entirety by Austin (pp.
82-89), a™! chapter 22 (1, pp. 181-87; Austin, pp. 228-35), whose subject is
Elijah but in which the latter is identified with Idris. Ibn ‘Arabi speaks of
his own arrival in the fourth heaven in the Kitab al-Isra', p.
21, where he is greeted
as the master of
saints (sayyid al-awliya')—a reference to his office of Seal, an
equivalentto which comes in theaccountinchapter367oftheFutwhflf.
56. Cf. Futiihat, □, pp. 219-20; in, pp. 132,162,309; iv, pp.
142,165, 211-12, 393; Fusiis, 1, pp. 113,122-24,6«. The scriptural backing
which is usually given for this is the hadith qudsiwhich says: T
conform to the opinion that My servant has of Me' (Bukhari, tawhid, 15, 35; Muslim, tawba, 1, dhikr, 3,
etc; this hadith appears underno. 19 inlbn ‘Arabi's Mishkat).
57. This account, which corresponds to Futiihat, nr, p. 348,
occurs at the end of thesamevolume,p. 549.
58. On the question of the fate of Firiawn, see the article by Denis Gril, 'Le
personnage coranique de Pharaon d'apres 1'interpretation dTbn ‘Arabi', Annales
i$lamologiques,xrv(i978),pp.y7-57.
36. Cf. our introduction to the Epitre sur I'Unicife absolue by
Awhad al-Din Balyani, Paris 1982, pp. 32-37.
57. The transition from twelve to twelve thousand in this context signifies
the tafsil, the setting forth in detail of the forms of
knowledge under discussion: the learningimpartedtothewo/iis not only
syntheticbut distinctive.
58. ThisthemeisdiscussedinthechapteroftheFususonMoses (i,pp. 212-13).
59. Futuhdt,w,pp. 208,265; iv,pp. 221,318.
60. OnthequestionofthevisionofGod,seealsoFwtuhat,rv,p. 2.
61. According to some traditions, the bayt al-ma 'milr (which
is mentioned in Qur'an 52:4) is no other than the primordial Ka‘ba, which was
taken up to heaven at the time of the Flood.
62. Unlike the seventy thousand angels who enter the 'visited House' each day
by one door and leave it by another, never to return, the tdbT (who
is destined to return to it) enters and leaves by the same door. On this stage
of the walis ascension, cf.
theverybeautifulpassage,inverseandprose,intheKitabaMsra',pp. 28-34.
63. On the divine makr, cf. Futuhdt, 11, pp.
529-31, and iv, pp. 144-45. The nature of this problem in Islamic theology is
discussed more generally by R. Brunschvig, 'Dela fallacieuseprosperite'
in Studialslamica, lvih (1983), pp. 5-33.
64. The doctrine of hayra (the epokrasis of the Greek fathers)
is discussed repeatedly in the Futiihat (1, p. 270 ff; n, p.
607; 661; ni, p. 490; iv, p. 43,196-97,245, 280) andin the Fusils (i,pp.
41,78,113,200).
65. This phenomenon of the descent, in the absence of any intermediary, upon
the awliyd' of the Revelations received by the prophets is
described in the Futuhdt, n, p. 506; ni, pp. 94,181; iv, p.
178. With regard to the specific event described here, we learn From the Kitab
al-Isrfl‘thatittookplaceinFezin594/ii98.
66. The doctrine of the inner prophets was to be made explicit in the works
of cAla' al-Dawla Simnani (died 737/1336). Henry Corbin gives a
summary of it in his The Man of Light inlranian Sufism, London
1978.
67. The rest of chapter 367, however, includes four very dense pages which list
the forms of knowledge acquired by the wali during this phase
of his journey: knowledge of the acquiring of the divine character traits (al-takhalluq
bi-akhlaq Allah)—that is to say, knowledge of 'deification'; knowledge of
the correspondences between the Qur'an and the Perfect Man; knowledge of the
final return of all things to the divine Compassion (which consequently rules
out eternal punish-
68.
ment); knowledge of the
secret of man's pre-eminence over woman (which is accidental, not essential);
knowledge revealing that Allah is the One who is worshipped in everything that
is worshipped (huwa 'l-ma'bud fi kulli ma'bud}, whether or not
the worshipper is aware of it, etc. For an explanation of the relationship
between these sciences and the manzil (spiritual abode)
described in this cliapter, see our book, Un ocean sans rivage, Ibn
'Arabi, le Livre et la Loi, Paris, chapter 3.
69. The cosmological order is described in the Kitab Uqlat
al-mustawfiz, edited by Nyberg in his Kleinere Schrifien, Leiden
1919, pp. 41-99 of the Arabic text, and in chapter 295 (n, pp. 674-79) of
the Futiihdt. The geographical distribution of the levels of
existence is illustrated by a series of diagrams in chapter 371 (in, pp.
416-55). Cf. also M. Asin Palacios, El mistico murciano Abenerabi, iv, Su
teologia y sistema del cosmos, Madrid 1928; Titus Burckhardt,
Cie spirituelle de l'astrologie musulmane, Milano 1974; Nasr
Hamid Abu Zayd, Falsafat al-ta'wll, Beirut 1983, pp. 45-149.
The twenty-eight levels of universal existence (mardtib al-wujiid) correspond
to the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet (cf. Futiihdt, 11,
p. 395), which are themselves connected with the spiritual categories
(cf. Futiihdt, n,p. 591).
70. The names given by Ibn 'Arabi to the mardtib al-wujud are
variable and, in the event, interchangeable. The level ai tributed here to the
universal substance is sometimes attributed to the universal Body (al-jism
al-kull) and sometimes to habd' ('Dust') or materia
prima (hayuldf But at times Ibn 'Arabi speaks of Nature (tabl'd) and habd' as
two twins who engender between them the universal Body (which is then no longer
the lowest level of the World of the Commandment but the highest level of the
World of Creation).
71. Akbarian cosmology is characterized by the recurrence of quaternate series
in the successive worlds described, the last (fourth) term of each series being
the first of the next. Even though the term al-cama', the
Cloud, can be used in a global sense to mean the ontological level which is in
a certain way intermediate between the absolute, single, unconditioned Essence
and the world of multiplicity, it is also used by Ibn 'Arabi to mean the second
of the four aspects of this level. The level is then made up of al-uluha (the
divine function, the Essence considered from the point of view of its inner
determinants—the divine Names—and thus as involving multiplicity), al-'amd', the
Cloud or divine Reality out of which all things are created (al-haqq
al-makhlUq bihi), the haqiqat al-haqd'iq or Reality
of Realities, and finally the haqiqa muhammadiyya, the
Muhammadan Reality, which is thus the barzakh, the term which
is common to this quaternate series and to the one after it that makes up the
level of the World of the Commandment.
72. A detailed description of posthumous dwelling places is found in chapters
61-65 of the Futiihdt (1, pp. 297-322). Cf. also the diagrams
in chapter 371 (in, pp. 423'425/426).
73. The ecstatic intoxication of these spirits is also caused by the joys of
Paradise and must not be confused wit! 1 that of the muhayyamiin (the
spirits overcome by love) or their equivalents on the human plane, the afrad, whom
we encounter later.
74. Futuhat,ni,p. 13.
75. IbnHanbaI,m,p. 64.
76. Futiihdt,1^.297.
77. Muslim, birr, 43; ibn 'Arabi, Mishkdt al-anwdr,
hadith, no. 98.
78. On the divine Name which is the Lord of each being, cf. our introduction to
Balyani's Epitre sur I'Unicite absolue, p. 30. For Ibn ‘Arabi,
no created being possesses more of God than his own Lord {Fusiis, 1,
p. 90). Only the Muhammadan saint, whose Lord is the totalizing Name (al-ism
al-jdmic) attains to God 'through all the Names at once'.
79. The Calamus is alternately active and passive. When it is turned towards
God, it receives from Him in synthetic mode the knowledge that, having changed
direction, it proceeds to inscribe on the Guarded Tablet in specific mode.
80. There seems to be a contradiction between this reference to the angel of
the Nun (al-malak al-nuni) and the statement made elsewhere
('Uqki al- mustawfiz, ed. Nyberg, p. 55) according to which
there is no intermediary between the Calamus and God. The Nun, which
is both a letter in the Arabic alphabet and a name for the divine Inkwell
(which contains the letters that the Calamus will write on the Guarded Tablet)
should not in fact be considered as a separate entity, but as a symbol of the
Calamus itself inasmuch as it contains synthetically (ijmalan) what
it will proceed to inscribe in detail (tafsilan). On this
distinction, see 1st., definitions §§138 and 140. On the
symbolism of the letter niin, cf. Futuhat, 1
pp. 53-54; Rene Guenon, Les Symboles fondamentaux de la science sacree, Paris
1962, chapter 23.
81. Onthenafkhal-ruhrcf. Futiihdt,i,p. 168.
82. Kitab al-Isra',p. 44.
83. Seehisintroduction,p.33.
84. Kitab al-cAbadila, Cairo 1969^. 39.
85. This ecstatic saint who lived in chains (whence his name meaning 'man of
bonds') at Mecca for several years without eating or drinking is mentioned
several times by Ibn‘Arabi. Cf. Futiihdt,i,pp. 248and25i; Mawdqi'al-nujunvp. 81.
86. On these four technical terms which designate the modes of spiritual
realisation, see Futuhat, chapter 331 (in, pp. 115-19), and
1st., definitions §§123, 124,125,126.
87. Unlike the majority of authors, Ibn "Arabi generally puts zilm (knowledge),
which is a divine attribute, and the zalim (the
wise man) higher than ma 'rifa (gnosis) and the earif (the
gnostic). Cf. Futiihdt, 11, p. 318; but see also ibid., 1, pp.
636,712.
88. Risdla fi'l-waldya,pp. 25-28.
89. Fusiis,1,p.181.
90. On this hadith, which is often quoted by Ibn "Arabi,
see in particular Futiihdt,n,pp. 252,5^; in,p. 267.
91. Verse 2:158, which institutes the ritual of the journey (sa'i) between
al-Safa and al-Marwa, has been the object of esoteric commentaries which we
cannot analyse here (cf. Futiihdt, 1, pp. 708-11;
Qashani, Tafsir, Beirut 1968,1, p. 100). We will draw
attention briefly to two essential aspects of this text from the Qur'an.
Firstly, al-Safa and al-Marwa are defined as part of the sha:a'ir
Allah—that is to say, in accordance with the etymology, the sacred
places insofar as they are modes of knowing God. Secondly,
only he who completes the pilgrimage
92.
to the House or the
visit may come and go with impunity (la junaha calayhi) between
the two hills: duality is without danger only for him who returns from Unity
and never ceases henceforth to behold It in multiplicity.
93. Verse 95 :j ('Then We sent him back to the lowest depths of the abyss') can
be interpreted as referring to this necessary return to created being:
although, taken in its obvious sense, as we said above, it expresses man's fall
from Eden, esoterically speaking it expresses the perfection of the being who,
by redescending to the world, takes on the divine Lieutenancy (khilafa) in
all its fulness.
94. 1st., definition no. 116.
95. Futiihat, a, p. 283. See also ibid., i,p. 244.
96. See note 32, chapter 8, for the reference to this passage of the Fusiis.
97. This erasing of the Qur'an is one of the signs of the Hour foretold by the
Prophet (Ibn Maja, fitan, 26). Cf. SWrani, Mukhtasar
tadhkirat al-Qurtubi, Cairo, n. d., p. 272. On the identification of
the Qur'an and the Perfect Man as two brothers, see note 39, chapter 4.
98.
Index
Aaron: 37,74,103,161,162,171,172.
Abddila (Kitab al-): 52a. 10,85,170, 1740.x,1810. 83.
'Abdallah (Father of the
Prophet): 61, 62.
Abdul-Hadi: 3.
Abd el-Jalil (M.):
820.17.
Abdel-Kader (A. H.):
1750. 9,1760.
27'
'Abd al-Qadir
al-Jaza'iri (emir 'Abd al-Qadir): 67,830. 23,137,140, 145"- 57-
Abraham:
63,83,86,96,103,118,129, 130,164,165,171.
Abu Bakr (ist caliph):
4m. 46,57,95, 1140,27,123.
Abu Dawud: 630.13,1770.33.
Abu Hanifa: 1050. 5.
Abu Hurayra: 90.
Abu Madyan:
74,95,96,1040. 2,114, 171.
Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani:
9,36,37, 1760.19.
Abu Rayyan (Muhammad
'Ali): 1450.
47-
Abu Su udb. al-Shibl:
108,1090.12, inn. 17.
Abu Talib al-Makld: 33.
'Adawi (Salih al-): 112
n. 21.
Addas (C.):5,i6.
'Adi: 690. 30.
AbuYa'za: 13,74,75,84.
Abu Yazid: seeBistami.
Abu YusufYa'qub: 770.10.
Abu Zayd (Nasr Hamid) :
i8on. 68. Adam: 17,23,43,48,56, 60,61,67,69,
70,86,870.30,119,121,124,131,
132,139,155,156,160,169,171.
'Afift (A. A):
4,5,230.19,480. 2,700.
36,11m. 19,119.
Aflaki: 1420. 20.
Agueli: (I.G.): 3.
Ahlal-bayt: 9,137,1770. 27.
Ahl al-suffa: 13.
Ahmadb. Harun al-Rashid:
95.
'A'isha (wife of the
Prophet): 37,71m
c 39-
'Ajaluni(Isma'ilal-):
630.13.
Ajurri (Abu Bakr al-):
670. 25.
'Ala' al-Din (Bakri):
172.
cAlam al-Khaydl: 52.
'Alawi(Ahmadal-): 82,83.
Aleppo: 6.
'Alib. AbiTalib: 68n.
29,95,107,136,
t 137-
Ama': 69,152,166, i8on. 70.
Amina (mother of the
Prophet): 61.
Amma: 11,14,22,109.
Amoli (Haydar): 490.
4,68n. 29,136,
. *37/139-
Amuli (Karim al-Din):
14.
Anatolia: 7. .
Anderson (J.): 120. 26.
Anqa' mughrib: 69,121,122m 21, i22n. 23,1260.
34,139.
Ansari ('Abdallah):
39,41.
Anwar (Risalat al-): 52,8in. 16, loon.
19,1460.58,147,148,1740.
6.
Aql al-awwal (al-): 68n. 28.
Arberry (A.J.): 28x1.
8,340.21.
Ard: 81.
Arnaldez(R.):
700.36,8in. 15.
A'rab (Said): ion. 22.
"Arsh: 166.
Ashab al-ahwal: 57,171,
Ashab al-maqamat: 57.
Ashall al-Qaba'ili
(al-): 9911.17.
Ashtiyani(Jalalal-Din):
48a. 2.
Asin Palacios (M.):
3,4,5,70.15,13, 1740.5,i8on. 68.
‘Ata (‘Abd al-Qadir):
520.10,850. 28.
‘Atiyya (AhmadZaid);
720. 46.
"Attar (Farid
al-Din): 10,2811.8.
Austin (R.); 70.15,480.
2,1040.3.
Averroes: 6.
Awani (Muhammad b. Qa'id
al-): 108, 109.
‘Ayoal-qudatal-Hamadhani:
82. cAyn al-yaqm: 39.
Azma (Nazeerel-): 17411.
2.
Baalawi (Ahmad): 136.
Badal, pl. abdal: 91,9911.14,990.15,
loon. 18,i02n.41,103,104,106, 107,108,113.
Bad' al-sha'n: 280. 8,30.
Badawi (Ahmad): 670.
25,84.
Badawi (A. R.): 360.
27,44m 57,830.
24.
Badisi: 10.
Badr: 1130.24,123.
Badral-Habashi: 118.
Baghdad: 6,7,90,91,96.
Baghawi: 820.18.
Bali Effendi: 48m 2,135.
Balyani (Awhad al-Din):
30. 3,1790.
56, i8in. 77.
Baqillani: 32,1050. 5.
Baqli (Ruzbehan): 41-46.
Baraka fAbdal-Fattah):
28 n. 8.
Barbari (Salih al-):
112.
Barzakh: 71,150,173,175m 12, i8on. 70-
Baybars: 14.
Bayhaqi: 1260.32.
Bel (A): 740. 2.
Bennigsen (A.): 16.
Berque (J.): 750. 2.
Bidlisi fAmmar): 40,41.
Bistami (Abu Yazid):
8,36,37,38, 44n' 57/ 72/ 89,95,114,146m 58.
Bowering(G.):59n.
29,660. 20.
Braune(W.): 990. 8.
Brockelmann (C.): 18 n.
8.
Brown (P.)
11,12,22,230.19.
Brunschvig (R.); 179 n.
63.
Bukhari: 250.
27,510.9,62 n. 10, 650.17,700.37,720.47,760. 6, 790.12, non. 13,1230. 28,1430.
29,1770. 29,177m 30,1770.41, i79n. 53 ■
Burckhardt (T.): 70m
36,1190. 9, 178m 52, i8on. 68.
Cairo: 6.
Calamus: 630.13,68n.
28,69,157, 159,166,168.
Carra de Vaux (A.): 4.
Chabbi ().): 990. 8,
inn. 19.
China: 126.
Chodkiewicz(C.): 2on.
15.
Cirillo (L.): 640.15.
Clement of Rome: 64.
Colin (G.S.): ion. 22.
Corbin (H.);
4,5,6,70.15,21,41, 420.48,450.59,490. 4,550.19, 630.12,640.15,650.18,980. 4,
119,136,137,1450. 47,1780. 51, 1790. 66.
Cordoba:
6,17,91,131,132,133.
CulmanfO.): 64.
D'Souza (A.): 52m 10.
Dabbagh ("Abd al-cAziz):
13,98m 2, 9911- 7/99n'!3'
Dajjal,ipl. daydlun: 230. 21,87. Damascus:
7,19,50,83,137. Dante: 3,19.
Daqqaq (Abu ‘Ali al-)
:3s.
Darimi: 5m. 9,177m 33.
Dasuqi (Ibrahim): 670.
25.
David: 43,86.
Dawwani: 1450. 47.
Deladriere (R.): 34m
21,690.35,
T84
175m 9,1750.10,1760.27.
Dermenghem (E.): 740. 2.
Dhawq: 76.
Dhikr: 37.
Dhu'1-Kifl: 48,86.
Dhu'l-Nunal-Misri: 180.
8,37.
Diwan al-awliya': 90.
Dunaysir: 105.
Dunlop(D.M.): 83m 24.
Durra Fdkhira: 990.17,1040.3,105, 1060. 6,1180. 4.
Elijah: 93,94, loon.
20,120,121,172, . 1780. 52.
Enoch:93,1780. 52.
Epalza (M. de): 620. 7.
Fahd(T.): 620. 6.
Falakal-atlas: 166.
Falakal-kawdkib: 166.
Fana : 39.
Fara’id: 110.
Fard, pl. afrad: 54,55,58,79,106,107,
108,1090.11,111,112,113,114, 115,117,125,137,149,168, i8on. 72-
Fardaniyya: 116.
Fath: 76,89,980. 2,151,152,164.
Faure (A.): ion. 22,740.
2.
Fez: 6,58,91,97,io2n.
42., 118,126, *3 ri 134-
Firdsa: 84.
Fitra: 154.
Fityan: 109.
Flugel(G.): 3.
Fremeaux(M.): 640.15.
Friedmann (Y.): n6n.
1,135.
Furet (F.): 16.
Fursdn: 107.
Fusfeld (W.): 12.
Fusiis al-Hikam: 7,17,19,47,48,49, 50,52,55m 19,69,700.
36,760. 7, 84,85,86,870.30,980.1, loon. 20, 119,122,125,1260.32,127,131, 132,
233,135/136/138/ 240,14211.
16,151,172,1740.1,1750.10,
175m 18,17711.40,1780. 47,1780. 52,1790. 58,1790. 64, i8in.88, 1820. 94.
Futi(al-Hajj
"Umaral-): 1440. 42. Futiihat al-Makkiyya: 30. 2,5,6n.
10-14,7/ So. 16,13,170.1,170. 3-4,18,19,20,240. 23,260. 4,32, 390.39,41,44,450.
58,460. 60,52., 530.14,540.15-18,55,560. 22,57, 590.30,6on.
1,6in. 4,650.19,67, 68,69m 30,700. 37,7m. 39-42, 720.45,720. 46,730.50,75,77,
780.11,8m. 14,85m 26,860. 29, 92,94,95,980.1,980. 2,990. 8, 990.16,990.17,
loon. 19, loon. 20, loin. 26,10m. 27, loin. 33-34, 10m. 37.10m. 40,1020,41,
loin. 43,103,1040.3,1050.5,106,107, 108,109, non. 13, non. 14,111, 1120.
20-23,113,1140. 27-28,116, H7,118,1190. 9-II, 120,1210. 16, 12m.
18,122,125,126,129,130, 131,132,134,135,139,1410.2-5, 14m.
7-8,1410.12,1420.13-15, 1420.17,1420.19.1440.45,1450.
46,1450.55-56,148,152,154,155, 159,160,161162,163,164,165, 166,167,1740.1,1740.
6,1750. 8-17,1760. 20-23,1760. 25-27, 1770.30,177m 36-40,1770.43-44, 1780.
46,178m 49,17811.51,17911. 52,1790,53-54,1790. 59-60,1790. 63-65,1800.68,1800.71,
i8on. 73, i8io. 75,1810. 79-80,18m. 84-86, i8in.89-90,1820. 93.
Futuwwa: 1090.11,173.
Gabriel: 62,76.
Gardet(L.): 6on. 2.
Ghazali (Abu Hamid):
39,57,6in. 3, 114,1760.19.
Ghazali (Ahmad): 82.
Ghazzi (Kamal al-Din al
-): 136. Ghujdawani fAbd al-Klialiq): 1460.
58.
Goldziher (1.): 15,6311.
12, 64.
Gospel: 43.
Gospel of Barnabas: 62m
7,640.15.
Gril(D.):
690.35,1790.55.
Guenon (R.): 6zn. 7,18m.
79.
Haba': 68, i8on. 69.
Hakim (S.): 700. 36.
Hallaj: i8n.
8,45,66,80,81,82, 83, 89,132,1420.19,14m. 20,1430. 21.
Hamza: 23.
Haqiqa muhammadiyya: 60,61,630. 12,64,670,
25,68,690.30,690. 34, 70,71,72,94,122,123,137, i8on. 70-
Haqiqat al-haqd'iq: i8on. 70.
Haqq al-makhluq bihi (al~):6yn. 30, i8on.70.
Haqqal-yaqin: 39.
Haqqi (Ismail) 132,133.
Hawaii fAli b. Abi Bakr
al-): 9.
Harazim (‘Ali):
14411.42.
Harris (Rabia Terri): 3m
2,174m 5.
Hasanb. ‘Ali: 95.
Hassar (Muhammad al-):
58m 28.
Hatimal-Ta'i: 130.
Hawa: 26.
Hawdri, hazvariyyim: 75,104,105.
Hayra: 164.
Hayuld: 68.
Hebron: 6.
Hermes: 17811.52.
Hijjir: 111,113.
Hikma: 48.
Hilwan: 78.
Hilyat al-abdal: loon. 19, io4n. 3.
Himma: 52,80.
Hoca (Nazif): 4m. 46,4m.
47.
Horovitz ().)•. 1750.7.
HRM (root): 21.
HuartfC.): 4,1420. 20.
Hud: 77,131,132.
Hiidi: 77,80.
Hujwiri: 27,33,1760.19.
Husayn fAli Safi): 670.
25.
Husayn (imam): 49m 4.
Husayni (‘Abd al-Muhsin
al-): 28n. 8.
I liqad, pl. i liqdddt: 54,162,163.
Ibada: 29,39.
Ibaha: 19m 13,110.
Iblis: 97,104.
Ibn‘Abbas: 63,107,1750.
7.
Ibn Adham: 8
lbn‘Ajiba: 26.
Ibn al-Farid: 45,67.
Ibn al-‘Imad: i8n. 6.
Ibn al-Jawzi: 2on. 13.
IbnAshras (Mu‘adh):
1040.3.
Ibn‘Ata'Allah:
14,1440.45.
Ibn Barrajan: 690.30.
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami:
980.5.
Ibn Hanbal: 250. 25,25m
26,250. 28, 6in. 3,63n. 13,7on. 37,107,176m 24,18m. 74.
IbnHisham: 62m 6,145m
47,177m
29-
Ibn Hud: 83.
IbnIshaq: 61,62.
Ibnja‘dun: 97,109.
Ibnjubayr: 9.
Ibn Khaldun: 11,90.
IbnMaja: 250. 27,72m 47,
i75n. 10, 182m 95.
IbnManzur: 2i,6on. 2.
Ibn Mujahid: 23.
Ibn Qadib al-Ban: 44m
57.
Ibn Sa‘d: 63m 11.
Ibn Sabin: 83m 24,162.
Ibn Salma (Abdal-Majid):
1040.3.
IbnSatantana: 90.
Ibn Sawdakin: i8n.
8,480. 2,118.
IbnTaymiyya:
8,9,10,14,19,20,23, 26n. 1,52m 10,56m 22,60,6qn. 13,67,83m 24,89,115,176m 19.
Ibn‘Umar: 78.
Ibrdhimi: 83,106,170.
Idris:
93,94,103,160,161,162,171.
Idrisi: 170.
dim al-yaqin: 39.
Ilqd' rabbani: 18, Imld' ilahi: 18.
Insdn kamil: 70,71,87.
Inshd' al-dawd'ir: 71m 38.
Intisar (Kitab al-): 142m 19.
Irada: 42.
Isaac: 165,171.
cIsawi: 75,77,80,82,83n.
23,170.
Isfahan! (al-Raghib
al-): 1420. 21.
Isfdr (Kitab al-): loon. 21.
Ishdra: 43.
Ishmael -.63,165,171.
Isrd' (Kitabal-): 1260.34,145m 55,
148,154,165,169,1770.31,1780. 52,179m 62,18m. 81.
Istilahat al-sufiyya (Kitab); 3,580. 27,1780.45,
i8in. 79,18m. 85, 182m 92.
‘Iyad (qadi): 66,67.
Izutsu (T.): 4,5, yon.
36,119.
Jabirb. ‘Abdallah: 63.
Jabir b. Hayyan: 27.
Ja‘far Sadiq:
27,65,1460.58.
Jalwa:175, Jami: 10.
Jandi: 48m
2,500.5,133,135,14m. 4, 144m 44.
Jawdbmustaqim: 32,117, JawamK al-kalim:
65,131. Jerusalem: 6,33.
Jesus: 17,34,37,43,5m.
8,52m 10, 59,64,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82, 83,870.30,93,94,96,103,104,
117,118,119,120,121,122,125, 126,129,130,131,135,136,138, i45n.
47,148,156,162,168,171.
Jilani (‘Abd al-Qadir);
12,41,90,91, 99n. 8,990. 9,990.15,108, inn. *7-
Jill (‘Abdal-Karim):
i8n. 8,70m 36, 135,1460.58,152,155,157,158, 159,169,1740.5,177m 28,1770.
33,177m 34,178m 47,178m 48.
Hzya: 79.
John (Evangelist): 8in.
15.
Jomier(J.): 2on. 16.
Jonah:77.
Jong(F.de): 980. 4.
Joseph: 96,103,160.
Junayd: 8, i8n. 8,1750.
9,176m. 27.
JurJani: 3,260. 2.
Justin (Saint): 64.
Kaba: 43,93,97, loon.
22,10m. 26, 128,130,161,164,172.
Kalabadhi: 34.
Kalima, pl. kalimdt: 48,71,84,87.
Kamal Ahmad‘Awn: 2on.
17.
Kapper (C.): 174m 2.
Kurama,pl. kardmdt: 32,33,34,38,
39,42,105,151.
Karubiyydn: 10m. 34,107,168.
Kashf: 61,78,84,133.
Kathib: 1750.16.
Kayka'us: 14.
Khadir:
27,65,78,91,93,94,97,990.
15,107,121,135,178m 52.
Khald': 152.
Khalidb. Sinan: 48,86.
Khalifa: 23,70.
Khalife (A.): 1760.19.
Khalwa: 148,151,152,172,173,1740.
6.
Khalwa (Kitab al-): 148.
Khalwa al-mutlaqa (Kitab al~): 14m.
2.
Kharaqani(AbuaI-Hasan):
i43n. 36, 146m 58.
Kharq al- dwa'id: 73,176m 23.
Kharraz (Abu Said al-):
27,35,1760.
19.
Khatari(al-): 105.
Khatm al-awlad: 126,
Khatm al-awliyd': 31.
Khatm al-awliyd (Kitab): 28,31,32,
34,40,1170.2.
Khatm al-wilaya: 33.
Khatmiyya: 125,130,135,1440.42.
Khawdtir: 1760. 27.
Khaydl: 76,150.
Khildfa: 86,106,io8n. 9,1820. 91.
Khirqa: 44,45,99a. 8.
Khirqa akbariyya: 135,140.
Khirqa khadiriyya: 14m. 2.
Khirqa qddiriyya: nn. 27.
Khoury (R.G): 62m 6.
Khuldi (Jalar al-): 35.
Konya: 6,148.
Kraus (P.): 8in. 15.
Kubra (Najm al-Din):
39,40.
Kufr: 46.
Kun: 39,156.
Kursi: 166.
Kutubi: 830. 24.
Landolt (H.); 16,460.
61,8in. 16, 1430.36.
Lata'if al- asrdr: 720.46.
Laugier de Beaureceil
(S. de): 390,36.
Lawd'ih: 157.
Lawdmi: 1770. 43.
Lawh al-mahfuz (al-): 157,168.
Laylatal-qadr: 87,113.
Lings (M.): 82m 22.
Littmann (E.): 840. 25.
Logos spermatikos: 64.
Loubignac (V.): 74a. 2.
Luqmdn: 48,8511. 28,8711.30.
Mabifa: 42.
Mahabba: 42.
Mahdawi (‘Abd al- ‘Aziz
al-): 7,8,470.
2,4811. 2,53n. 14,72a.
47,14211.13.
Mahdi:
118,119,121,122,136,137, 14411.40, i45n. 46,1450.47.
Mahmud (Abd al-Halim):
34m 19, 34n. 21.
Maimonides: 83.
Mafma ‘al-bahrayn: 70.
Makr: 46,164, 176m 23.
Maldmi, pl. maldmiyya:
47,109,110, 111,113,161,172.
Malatya: 3, n8n. 4.
Manbiji: 14.
Manzibpl. mandzil: 7,8,53,116,128,
1740. 2, i8on. 67.
Manzil al-qutb {Kitab): 95,96,loon.
19,10m. 39.
Masaru, pl. maqdmat: 6,41,55,58,
72,8211. 20,93,105,106,151.
Maqdmal- ciyan: 122.
Maqdm al-khildfa: 44.
Maqdm al-ma 'rifa: 44.
Maqdm al-qurba: 55,570. 26,58,114,
137,138,168,169,173.
Maqdm al-wirdtha: 172.
Maqdm Ibrahim: 129.
Maraboutism: 12.
Maratib al-wujiid: i8on. 67.
Marcais (G.): 75m 2.
Margoliouth: 99m 8.
Marrakesh: 6,58.
Martin (R.C.): 12.
Marwa: 172.
Masd'il (Kitab al-): 1070.7.
Massignon (L.): 4,9a.
19,220.19, 28n. 8,630.12,64,66n. 20,66n. 22, yon. 36,8in. 15,820.17,83,980,4,
1420. 20.
MawdqK al-nujum: 72m 44,750. 2, loon. 19,10m. 32,10m.
40,18m. 84.
Mawld: 240. 23.
Mawlid, p[. mawdlid: 8,10,140.31, 67‘
Mawt: 150,
McCarthy (R.):
3211.14,1050.5.
Mecca: 6,7,43,95,99a.
8,104,108, 112,128,129,130,131,134,14m. 2.
Medina: 167.
Meier (F): 390.18.
Memon (M.U.): 8n.
17,98n. 3.
MKrdj, pl. ma "drip 52,80,87,108,
112,147,148,155,161,164,165, 166,169,173,1740. 2,1750.7.
Michon (J.L,): 16,26n.
3.
Minna: 29.
Miquel (A.): 10m.
31,1030.1.
Mirrikh(al~): 161.
Misbdh: 66.
Mishkat al-anwar: 250. 25,250. 27, non.
13,1790.53,18m. 76.
Mithdl: 76.
Mithdq: 66.1750.11.
Mohn (M.): 4m. 45.
Monteil (V.): 98n. 4.
Montgomery Watt (W.)
62a. 6.
Morris (J.W.): 4,16,480.
2.
Moses: 19,37,43,44,5on.
7,59,74, 81,103,107,118,161,162,163,164, 171,17511. 8,179m 58.
Mosul: 6,7.
Moammar: 79,84m 25.
Mu‘awiyab. Yazid: 95.
Mu fiza, pl. mu fizdt: 32,105.
Mubarak(Ahmadb. al-): 130.30. Mubdyacat al-qutb: toon.
19. Mudabbir (al~): 21.
Muhddarat al-abrdr: 750. 2,y8n. 11, loon. 24, io6n. 6.
Muhammad (the Prophet):
17, i8n. 10,30,43,48,49,50,57,59,60,61, 63,65,66,71,72,73,76,77,78,80, &7,89,91,93,94,96,
no, 114,116, 117,118,120,121,122,124,125, 129,130,131,132,134,138; 14111.
11,162,163,164,165,168,171, 172.
Muhammad al-Baqir: 65a.
18.
Muhammadan Reality:
60,67,68,69, 130,147,166,173, i8on. 70.
Muharram: 49,58. Muhasibi: 1760.19. Muhayyamiin: loin.
34,107,114, i68,i8on. 72.
Mujdhada: 150.
Munajjid (S-): 9n. 20.
Munawi: io8n. 10.
Mundzaldt: 152.
Munson Jr. (H.): 12.
Muqarrabun: 26,33,58,95,115.
Muqatil: 24.
Murcia; 5,6.
Musawi: 74,77,80,83,106,162,170. Mushahada: 42,1750.17.
Mushtan (al-): 162.
Muslim: 65m
17,790.12,177m 41, 1790.53,18111.76.
Mutawakkii: 95.
Nabhani (Yusuf): 8n.
17,84n. 25, io8n. 10,1430.38.
Nabulusi (Abd al-Gham
al-): 136.
Nadia b. Mu'awiya: 78.
Nafas al-Rahmdn: 69,166.
Nafs: 26,35.
Nd'ib: 93,140.
Najib, pl. nujabd': 104,107.
Najm al-Din b. al-Hakim:
19.
Naqlb, pl. nuqabd': 104,107.
Naqsh al-fusils: non. 13.
Naqshaband
(Balia'al-Din): 146m 58. Naqshabandiyya: 12,130. 28,82, 146m
57,173.
Nasab al-khirqa (Kitab): 990. 8.14m.
2.
Nasir (al-): 21.
Nasir Li-Din Allah
(caliph): 14.
Nasr: 55.
Nicholson(R.A.):
3,2611.5,28a. 8, 34m 19,45m 59,70m 36.
Nihawand: 91.
Niydba:147.
Noah: 85m 28,86,96.
Nora(P.): 16.
Nubuwwa cdmma : 51,114,137.
Nubuwwa mutlaqa: 54,114,138.
Nun: 65,168.
Nurasli: 53.
Nurdniyya: 65,
Niir muhammadi: 61,63,64,65,66, 67-
Nusra: 26,42.
Nwyia(P-): 230.19,24m
22,65m 18, 1440.45,1760.19.
Nyberg (H.S.): 3,69m
30,7m. 38, i8on. 68,18m. 79.
Ormsby (E.): 178m 48.
Paraclete: 145m 47.
Pharaoh: 19,37,161.
Piemontese(A.): 174m 2.
Pole: 23 n. 21,53,54,58,92,93,94,95,
96,97,98,9911.15, icon. 18,10m. 30, loin. 38,10m. 40,103,106, 108,113,
125,1420.13,14411. 45, 160,161,168.
Popovic (A.): 16.
Psalms: 43,165.
Pseudo-Clementine
romance: 64.
Qaba'ili (Abu Muhammad
al-): 132. Qab qawsayn: 88n. 32,172.
Qadam, pl. aqdam: 17,103,125, Qaf
(Mount): 43,95,10m. 31.
Qashani: 48a.
2,670.25,133,135, 138,140,1440.44,18m. 90.
Qaysari: 48n.
2,133,135,138,144m 44-
QDS(root): 21.
Qiddis: 21.
Qunawi (Sadr al-Din):
17,4811. 2,5on. 5,133. *35' *4°, *44«- 44/ M^' 58, 148.
Qurb: 26.
Qurba: 115,147 (see maqdm al-) Qurba (Kitab
al-): 570. 26.
Qurtubi(al-); 24m
21,i82n. 95.
Qushashi: 135,136,140.
Qushayri; 37,38,157,175m
7,17611, 19,176m. 27,1770.42.
Q«(k
53,58,71,91,94,95,98«. 4, 99n. 15-
Rajab: 87,105.
Rajabi, pl. rajabiyyiin:
105,107.
Raji "ibn (al-): 114.
Rakhawi (Muhammad al-):
82n. 20.
Rawafid: io6n. 6.
Razi: 230. 20.
Ribdt: 43,91.
Rida (Rashid): 8n.
17,190.11,56m 22, 176m 19.
Rodinson (M.): 4.
Ruba‘i (Abu 1-Hasan
al-): 9.
Rubin (U.): 63n. 12.
Rububiyya: 43,51,36,112.
Ruh al-quds: 6,7n. 15,13,53m 14,
77n. 8,97,10m. 32,102m
43,10411.
2, i04n. 3, ii2n. 21,
inn. 22, nzn. 23,13^,
Ruju : 113,172,1750. 9.
Rukban: 107, ill, 112.
Rumi (Jalal al-Din):
45,1420. 20.
Rundi (Muhammad b.
Ashraf al-): 104.
Ruspoli (S.): 119m
9,145m 47.
Sdbiqiln (al-): 26.
Sadrani (Musa): 10m.
32,104.
Safa: 172.
Safadi: 830. 24.
Sahaba: 9.
Sahlaji: 36
Sakhawi: 19,2on. 14.
Sakina: 29,31,40,73.
Saladin: 6,14m 31.
Salafiyya: 20.
Sale: 6.
Salim I; 14m 31.
Samarrai (Qassem): 174m
2.
Sarraj (Abu Nasr al-):
34.
Scripturalism: 12.
Schaeder (H.H.): yon.
36.
Schimmel (A.): 670. 25.
Seal of children:
126,135,138.
Seal of sainthood:
69,116,117,118, 119,120,121,122,124,126,129, 130,131,133,134,136,137,138,
140,161,168.
Seal of saints:
28,30,40,116,117,118, 120,121,123,124,133,135,136, i43n- 3^
Seth:
48,86,87,125,126,138.
Seville: 6,75m
2,104,112,133.
Shadhili (Abu 1-Hasan
al-): 14,133, 167,173,1420, 21,1440.45.
Shadhiliyya: 1460.57.
Shajara numdniyya: 1260.32.
Sharaft (Abu ‘Abdallah
al-); 112.
Sha‘rani; 23m 21,84m
25,135,1440.
45,182m 95.
Shand: 18.
Shath,pl. shatahdt: in.
Shattanufi: i2n.
27,4m. 43,9Sn- 8/ io8n.10.
Shaybi (Kamil Mustafa):
49n. 4,143m
39-
Shaytan (awliya' al-): 19,23,38m 35.
Shem: 171
Shibli; 45.
Shiraz: 43,44.
Slnthi: 126.
Shuayb: 48,85m 28.
Shu dybi: 106.
Shuburbali (Abual-Hajjaj
al-): 112.
Siddiq: 42.
Siddlqiyya: 57,58,114.
Sidq: 29,io8n. 9.
Siger of Brabant: 19.
Silvestre de Sacy: 3.
Simnani: 179m 66.
Sinhaji (Abu Yahya al-):
112.
Sirdj al-wahhdj (al-): 142m 19.
Sirhindi (Ahmad): 135.
Solomon: 48,86.
Sourdel-Thomine(J.): 9.
Streck (M.): loin. 31.
Subki (Taqi al-Din al-):
8n. 17,6in. 3.
Suhrawardi (al- Maqtul):
145n. 47.
Suhrawardi (‘Umar):
14,1760.19, 176m 27.
Salami: 9,35,38,58,65n.
18, inn.
*9-
Surur (Taha ‘Abd
al-Baqi): 34m 19, 3411.21,72m 46.
Suyuti: 24m 21,290.10,3
70.31,6in. 3,87m 30,90,990.14, loon. 24, izyn.27,126n. 32.
Tabaqdtalsufiyya: 9,35,58, Tabari: 6in. 5,62,63,87m
30.
Tabriz: 12m. 20.
Tab iit: 73.
Tadalli: 170.
Tadani: 170.
Tadbirat ilahiyya: 690.30,12m. 19, 1220.23.
Tadhaft (Muhammadal-):
99m 8,99n.
12,
Tadhkira: 69m 35.
Tadili: 9, i3n. 29,74m
2.
Taftazani (Abu al-Wafa):
144m 42.
Tafrid: 42.
Taher (Hamed): 47m 2.
Tajalliyydt (Kitab al-): 18,52,65m 19, 107m 7, non. 13,142m
19,145n. 55-
Takhalluq: 42,1790. 67.
Takwin:39.
Talaqqi: 170.
Talwm: 39.42.
Tamaththul: 76.
Tamkin: 39.
Tanazzuldt: 151,152.
Tanazzuldt mawsiliyya: 7,720.46, 10m. 26.
Tanji (Abu ‘Abdallah
al-): 77.
Tanzih: 158,172.
Tarajim (Kitabal-): loon. 19,1750.
16.
Taraqqi: 170.
Tariqa, pl, turuq: 10,12,14,15,22,83,
loon. 18,136,140.
Tarjumdn al-ashwaq: 3,43, icon. 21.
Tarjumana (‘A'ishaal-):
48n. 2.
Tasarruf: 108.
Tashawwuf (Kitab al-): 9,13m 30.
Tashbih: 158,172.
Tawakkul: 151.
Tawdlf: 158,1770.43.
Tawfiq (Ahmad): ion.
22,74m 2,
Tawzari (Abu l-‘Abbas b.
‘Alt al-) 14m. 2,1750. 6.
Tempier (E,): 19.
Thadabi: 6zn. 9,74m 1.
Theophany: 55.
Tholluck: 27.
Tijani (Ahmad): 136,140.
Tirmidhi (Abu ‘Isa): 25m
25,25m 26, 6in. 3,63m 13, yon. 37,176m 24.
Tirmidhi(al-Hakim):
27-32,33,34, 35> 36,39/40/ 52n. 10,53,54,66,92,
116,117,118, i44n. 42.
Tlemcen: 6.
Torah:
43,720,46,870.30,165.
Tozeur: 129.
Tradition (Great-Folk):
12.
Till: 81.
Tunis: 6,8.
Tustari(Sahlal-): 18m 8.
27,58,65, 66,690.30.
'Ubaydallah Ahrar: 82.
‘Ubuda, ‘ubudiyya: 29,39,43,51,96, 109,111,112.
Uluha: i8on. 70.
TJmar (caliph):
78,95,107,123.
TJmarb. cAbdaPAziz:
95.
Ummahat: 85.
Uns: 26.
'Uqlat al-mustawfiz: i8on. 68,181 n. 79-
TJryabi (Abu l-'Abbas):
17,77,80.
^Utarid: 156.
'Uthman(caliph): 95.
Uwaysiyyai 1460. 58.
TJzayr:
50,85,86,8711.30.
^Uzla: 148,151.
Vajda (G): icon. 20.
Valensi(L): 16.
Valsan (Michel): 15,8in.
14,82,83, loon. 19,1040. 3,1130. 25,130,. 134,14m. 12,17411. 6.
Verus propheta: 62,64,65.
Vollers(K.): 84a. 25.
Wafa fAli): 135.
Wafa (Muhammad):
135,140.
Wahdat al~wujud: 149.
Wahy: 14211.14,154,170.
Wajh bi-ld qafd: 96,98n. 2.
I be ^ Sot I
i ^ /
13. Futuhatu,p.
425.
23. For this see the
introduction (pp. 17-37) °f my ^n ocean
sans rivage: Ibn Arabi, le Livre et la Loi, Paris 1992.
25. Tirmidhi, zuhd, 35;
Ibn Hanbal, v, pp. 252, 260; Ibn 'Arabi, Mishkdt al-anwdr, hadith no.
3.
ii. O. Yahia, ibid., pp.
232-33 (p. 422 of the Arabic). The translation has been slightly modified. At
the end of the second paragraph of the Arabic text, the reading which makes
most sense is fa-htdju ilayhi ’l-awliya' ,notfa-haju ila 'l-awliyd'.
31. Suyuti, al-Fath
al-kabir, Cairo 1351AH, 1, p. 47, mentions this hadith —which
does not occur in the canonical collections—with reference only to Abu
Nu'aym's Hilyat al-awliya'.
32. Hilyat
al-awliya i,p. 14.
33. Ibid. i,p. 16.
This hadith does not appearin tire canonical collections.
38. Najm al-Din
Kubra, Fawd’ih al-jamal wa-fawatih al-jaldl, ed. Fritz Meier,
Wiesbaden 1957, p. 82 ff. of the Arabic text.
48. Al-thard; Corbin—or
the copyist of the Mashhad manuscript whom he used—reads al-thurayyd, the
Pleiades, by mistake.
50. Ibid.,p. 104.
51. The frequent
occurrence of oceanic images and the colour red is characteristic of the
visions reported in the Kashf.
52. Kashf
al-asrar,-p. 107.
53. This is a double
Qur'anic allusion, to verse 2:31 ('And He taught Adam all the names'), and to
verse 71180 ('And the most beautiful Names belong to Allah').
54. Kashf
al-asrar,p. 107.
55. Ibid.,p. 109.
56. Ibid., p. 111.
60. Cf. for example Fuhr
Jwi i,p. 415; n,p. 511; in,pp. 27,92,406.
11. Futiihdt,rv,p.
398.
27. fat.,definitionno.
19.
13. Ismail
al-Ajaluni, Kashf al-khafa, Beirut 1351 ah, i, pp.
265-266; Zurqani, Sharh al-mawdhib, Cairo 1329AH, 1, pp.
46-47. We must remember that several ahadith exist which are
similar in form and differ only in the term used at the end: 'The first thing
that God created was the Calamus' (Tirmidhi, tafsir, s.
68; qadar, 17; Abu Dawud, sunna, 16; Ibn
Hanbal, v/317); 'The first thing that Allah
14. Patrologie
grecque, vr, 397, b, c.
16. I. Goldziher,
'Neuplatonische und Gnostische Elemente im Hadith' (Zeitschrift fur
Assyriologie, 1909, xxu, pp. 317-44). Cf. also A. A. ‘Afifi, Nazariyydt
al-islamiyyin fi 'l-kalima (Majallat kulliyat al-addb, Fuad I
University 1934. PP- 33-75). and The Influence of Hermetic Literature
in Muslim Thought, B.S.O.A.S., xni,i95t>,pp. 840-55.
20. Louis
Massignon, Textes inedits concernant I'histoire de la mystique en pays
d'Islam, Paris 1929, p. 39. The importance of the Muhammadan Light in
the doctrine of Sahl al-Tustari has been analysed by Gerhard Bbwering, The
Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, Berlin-New York 1980,
p. 149 ff; particular attention should be paid, on p. 150, to Sahl's commentary
on verses 13-18 of siira 53-
23. Qadi'Iyad, Kitab
al-shifa, Damascus 1392/1972.
26. Cf. Futiihat, m,
p. 107.
32. Ibid.,p. 41.
33. Ibid.,p. 36.
35. Fusus, 1,
p. 214. See also Profession de Foi (Tadhkira), edited and
translated by R. Deladriere, Paris 1978, chapter 2 ('La Realite principielle de
1'Envoye'). In our opinion, this work cannot be attributed to Ibn 'Arabi,
although it bears the stamp of his doctrine and contains extracts from his
writings. On the problem of the attribution of the Tadhkira, see
Denis Gril's review in the critical bulletin of the Annales
islamologiques, xx,i984,pp. 337-39.
38. Irisha
al-dawa'ir, ed. Nyberg, p. 22.
39. Futiihdt, in,
p. 94. That this term, properly speaking, can be applied only to the Prophet in
terms of his haqiqa is illustrated in another passage (Futuhat, iv,
p. 21), where Ibn Arabi says: He who—among the members of his community who did
not live during his epoch—wishes to see Muhammad, let him look at the Qur'an. There
is no difference between looking at it and looking at God's Messenger. It is as
though the Qur'an had clothed itself in a form of flesh named Muhammad ibn
'Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib. This identification of the Prophet with the
divine Word itself is corroborated in scripture by the words of A'isha quoted
above, who, when, questioned about the Prophet's nature, answered: 'His nature
was the Qur'an'.
50. Futuhdt, rv,
p. 50.
16, Rome 1990.
29. In all strictness,
one should speak here of a human cycle, since for Ibn Arabi, innumerable
'Adams' have succeeded each other, each of whom is the starting point of one of
these cycles (Futuhat, ni, pp. 348,549).
2. There is a number
about Musa al-Sadrani in the Ruh al-quds (pp. 74-76, number
19; Austin's translation, pp. izi-23), where it is explained that he visited
Ibn 'Arabi to bring him a message from shaykh Abu Madyan.
3. Cf. Riih
al-quds (pp. 72-74, number 18; Austin's translation, pp. 116-21).
The Durra Fakhira (trans. Austin, p. 131, number 60) also
mentions the story of the meeting of one of Ibn 'Arabi's companions, cAbd
al-Majid ibn Salma, with another badal, Mu'adh ibn Ashras.
This story also comes in Hilyat al-abdal, p. 3 (French
translation by M. Valsan, La Parure des abdal, Paris 1951, pp.
n-13), and in Futuhdt,!,p. 277. The passage from the Futuhdt analysed
here is from vol. n,p. 7.
ii. In Ibn ‘Arabi's
technical vocabulary, maldmiyya refers to a type of sainthood
while afrad refers to the highest degree within this type.
Therefore, all the afrad are maldmiyya but
not the reverse. The passage which we summarize here (Futuhdt, i,
p. 201) might lead one to think that the last characteristics described apply
exclusively to the afrad in the first category. Taken in full,
the texts concerned with the afrad and particularly the two
following chapters clearly prove that they apply equally to all of them. On
the futuwwa and the fitydri in the doctrine
of Ibn‘Arabi, seeFutiihdti,pp. 241-44, andn,pp. 231-34'
12. Futiihat, 1,
p. 188. Ibn ‘Arabi attributes this phrase to Abu Su‘ud ibn al-Shibl.
18. Futiihdt, 1,
p. 710. Cf. also ibid., 1, p. 529.
2. Tirmidhi, Khatm
al-awliya', p. 367. The section of this passage immediately following
might lead one to think that the office of Seal of the Saints does not have one
sole holder, and that it is maintained through history by successive holders.
But Tirmidhi's reply to the question asked ('Do the saints in the categoiy
experience fear on their own account?') makes it clear that the theme of the
dialogue has changed and that the conversations reported are concerned not with
the Seal in particular, but more generally with the category of the afrad to
which he effectively belongs.
* Due to the extensive
nature of the footnotes belonging to this chapter they
[1] The Fliigel edition of the Tahifat has
been published with tlie title Definitiones Sejjidi Sherif Ali b.
Mohammed Dschordshani.
[2] This is the Kitab al-lstildhdt
al-sufiyya or Kitab Istildh al-sufiyya of which at least two other
editions are in existence (Cairo 1357, Hyderabad 1948). It was translated by
Rabia Terri Harris in the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi
Society, Oxford 1984, vol. ni, pp. 27-54. A misinterpretation of a
mention of the colophon relating to the completion of the copy (and not to the
writing of the treatise itself) leads the translator to say that it is only
partially the work of Ibn ‘Arabi, whereas in reality the authenticity of the
attribution of the Istildhdt is beyond doubt. The autograph
manuscript §ehit Ali 2813/24 is incomplete, but the text of the treatise exists
in full in Chapter 73 of the Futiihdt (n, pp. 128-34), of
which we possess a manuscript written by Ibn ‘Arabi himsel f.
[3] On this problem, see the introduction to our
translation of the Epitre sur I'Unicite abso/ue by Awhad
al-Din Balyani, Paris 1982.
[4] A passage in the Futiihat (11,
p. 425) appears to give the date of this 'entry upon the Way' as 580. Other
scattered references, however, seem to indicate that Ibn Arabi's 'conversion'
took place several years earlier.
[5] Futwhdtiv,p. 172.
[6] Futnhntni, p. 45.
[7] Futuhatii,p.^6.
[8] More biographical details can be found in the
first part of El islam cristianizado by Asin Palacios, and in
Henry Corbin's Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. A
brief but accurate biographical outline is in R. W. Austin's introduction to
his translation of the Riih al-quds (Sufis of Andalusia, London
1971)-
[9] Futuhati,pp. 98-99.
[10] Ibn Taymiyya, Majmudt al-rasa’il wa
'l-masd'il (MRM), ed. Rashid Rida, v, pp. 85,93; al-Fatawd
al-kubrd, Beirut 1965,1, pp. 93,127,344,351; u, pp. 218, 226. See also in
M. V. Memon's Ibn Taimiya's Struggle against Popular Religion (The
Hague-Paris 1976) chapters 18 and 19 of the Kitab Iqtida' al-sirdt
al-mustaqim. In connection with the visits to the Prophet's tomb and
the prayers for his intercession, cf. the answer given by his contemporary Taqi
al-DIn al-Subld, the Shafute jurist, in his Shifd’ al-siqdm (Beirut
1978), who finds justification for this practice in a series of hadith. The
later compilation by Yusuf Nabhani, Shawahid al-haqq fi istighdthat
sayyid al-khalq, Cairo 1974, gives a summary of several centuries of
polemics on this subject and on the intercession of the saints.
[11] Cf. Ibn Taymiyya, MRM v, pp.
81-104, Risalat al-'ibadat al-shar'iyya wa
'1-farqbaynahawa-bayna'l'bida‘iyya.
[12] Cf. L. Massignon, 'Les saints musulmans enterres
a Baghdad', in Revue de I'histoire des religions, 1908, reprinted
in Opera minora, Beirut 1963, in, pp. 94-101. See also his
article dealing with Cairo, 'La cite des morts' in Bulletin de
I'lnstitut fran^ais d’archeologie orientale, Cairo 1958, reprinted
in Opera minora, m, pp. 233-85.
[13] Abu '1-Idasan al-Ruba'i, Fadd'il al-Sham
wa-Dimashq, ed. S. al- Munajjid, Damascus 1951.
[14] cAli b. Abi Bakr al-Harawi, Guide
des lieux de pelerinage, ed. J. Sourdel- Thomine, Damascus 1953. See
also J. Sourdel-Thomine, 'Les anciens lieux de pelerinage damascains', in Bulletin
d'etudes orientales, xiv, Damascus 1954, PP. 65-85.
[15] The edition of the Tashawwuf by
Ahmad Tawfiq, Rabat 1984, is more complete and more accurate, especially with
regard to place-names,than tire edition by Adolphe Faure, Rabat 1958. The Maqsad by
Badisi, formerly translated by G. S. Colin (Les Saints du Rif, Paris
1926), is now available in a critical edition by Safid ATab, Rabat 1982.
[16] See for example vol. xvn of Contributions
to Asian Studies, entitled Islam in local contexts, ed.
Richard C. Martin, Leiden 1982, in which explicit reference is made to Peter
Brown both in the prefac e and in several of the articles. It is significant
that the title of this collection, like that of the original symposium held in
1980 in Dallas, was initially going to be Islam and Popular Religion. The
title which was chosen instead wisely avoids any petilio principii. Cf.
also Henry Munson Jr., The house of Si Abd Allah, Yale
University Press 1984, p. 28; Warren Fusfeld, 'Naqshbandi Sufism and Reformist
Islam', in Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology, Leiden 1984, pp.
89-110; Jon W. Anderson, 'Conjuring with Ibn Khaldun', ibid, pp. 111-21.
[17] It has come to be thought by some people that
‘Abd al-Qadir was no more than a pious faqih and that his
reputation for sainthood merely reflected a later legend. But we possess
sources of information about him other than the work of Shattanufi, which can
assuredly be challenged by historians in spite of its chain of transmission.
The judgement of Ibn 'Arabi—of which we will speak later—who arrived in the
East a mere forty years after 'Abd al-Qadir's death, is based on the evidence
of several of the latter's immediate followers, particularly Yunus al-'Abbasi,
from whom he received the khirqa qadiriyya in Mecca.
[18] Cf. my 'Quelques aspects des techniques
spirituelles dans la tariqa naqshbandiyya’ in the proceedings
of the Table ronde sur I'ordre naqshbandi, Istanbul-Paris
1990.
[19] Tadili, a!-Tashawwufila rijdl
al-tasawwuf, ed. A. Tawfiq, p. 323.
[20] Ahmadb. al-Mubarak, Kitab al-ibriz, Cairo
1961 (e.g.,pp. 179-80).
[21] In particular, they were often responsible for
the mausoleums built on the saints' tombs (the one on Ibn Arabi's tomb was
constructed on the orders of Salim I after the conquest of Damascus in
972/1516) and which became centres of devotion for the faithful. They
patronized and regulated the mawdlid, whose prototype was
the mawlid of the Prophet, first celebrated at the Fatimid
court and later, on the initiative of one of Saladin's brothers-in-law,
institutionalized in Sunni Islam.
[22] Osman Yahia also lists thirty-five fatwas which
are favourable to the Shaykh al-Akbar. With regard to the hostile fatwas, we
should note that Yahia's principal source is the Qawl al-munbiby
Sakhawi (died 902/1497). But the 500 or so folios of this work are frequently
reduced to a catalogue of gossip or spiky remarks which cannot easily be
regarded as fatwas stricto sensu. Of course, this does not
make the polemic less violent and far-reaching.
[23] On this subject, see the PhD thesis of Cyrille
Chodkiewicz, Paris iv, November 1984, 'Les Premieres Polemiques autour d'Ibn 'Arabi:
Ibn Taymiyya', and on the subject of sainthood in particular, see. pp. 142-221
of the same work.
[24] On the position adopted by the salafiyya with
regard to the saints, and on the cult of saints in Sufism, see J. Jomier, Le
Commentaire coranique du Mandr, Paris 1954, chapter 7.
[25] See the articles by Shaykh Kamal Ahmad 'Awn
(Dalalat fi kitab al- Futuhat) in the review Liwd' al-isldm, first
five numbers of 1976, especially May-June, pp. 32-39, and September-October,
pp. 23-30.
[26] Razi's Tafsir, Tehran,
n.d.,vx,p. 210, in connection with verse 8:72.
[27] The 'pole' of the 'saints of Satan' is no other
than the Dajjdl or impostor, who is not only identified with
the Antichrist but also represents a function of which the Antichrist is the
ultimate possessor. (Cf. ShaTani, Mukhtasar tadhkirat
al-Qurtubl, Aleppo 1395 ah, p. 179,
where he quotes a hadith according to which the number
of dajjalun approaches thirty; cf. also Suyuti, al-]amic al-saghlr, Cairo
1954, 11, p. 78, who quotes another hadith which states that
there will be twenty-seven, 'four of them women').
[28] P. Nwyia, Exegese coranique et langage
mystique, Beirut 1970, pp. 114-15.
[29] Eutuhat in, p. 300. There is another
word from the root w.l.y. which is frequently employed in the
Qur'an and which possesses, for different reasons, the same ambivalence
as wall, so that it can be applied sometimes to God and
sometimes to man. This is the word mawld, an approximate
translation of which may be either 'patron' or 'client'—in the Roman sense—and
which is part of the 'false addad'; the words, that is, which
can be used impartially to designate either side of a relationship, as in the
French 'hote'.
[30] Cf.Wensinck, Concordances et indices de
la Tradition musulrnane, vn, pp. 322-36.
[31] Tirmidhi,zuhd,53; IbnHanbal, v,pp.
229,239,341,342,343.
[32] Bukhari, riqdq,38; Ibn Maja, fltan, 16;
Ibn'Arabi, Mishkdt, no. 91.
[33] IbnHanbal, ni,p. 430.
[34] Ibid., 11,p. 514.
[35] Ibid., p. 210. This section of the Kashf
al-mahjub on the hakimiyya, the followers of al-Hakim
al-Tirmidhi, illustrates the confusion which surrounds the meaning to be
attributed to the terms walaya and wilaya respectively.
[36] Ibid., p. 141. See also p. 142, the anecdote
reported by Abu Bakr al-Warraq, in which Khadir also figures.
[37] Kitab Khatm al-awliya', Beirut 1965. Osman
Yahia, in his dissertation for the diploma of the Ecole pratique des Hautes
Etudes, has made an (unpublished) translation of this work. The dissertation
contains (pp. 41-69) a bibliography of Tirmidhi's works (cf. also GAL 1,
p. 2 99, and S I, 355; GAS 1, pp. 653-59). To our knowledge,
the only published works of his, apart from the Khatm al-awliya', are
the Kitab al-riyada wa adab al-nafs, ed. Arberry, Cairo 1947;
the Baydn al-farq bayna 'l-sadrwa ’l-qalb wa T-fu'adwa T-lubb, ed.
Nicholas Heer, Cairo 1958; and al-Hajj wa-asrdruhu, ed. Husni
Nasr Zaydan, Cairo 1969. On Tirmidhi himself see the translation of the
principal passages fr< >m his spiritual autobiography, Bad'
al-sha'n, in Osman Yahia's introduction to his translation of
the Khatm; 'Attar, Tadhkirat al-awliya’, ed.
Nicholson, London 1905-7, n, pp. 91-99; L. Massignon, Essai sur les
origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, Paris 1954,
pp. 286-94 (a superficial and somewhat malicious piece,
written, moreover, at a time when Massignon had no access to the text of
the Khatm); ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Husayni, al-Ma 'rifa
hnda 'l-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, Cairo, n.d. (in any case prior to the
following work in which it is quoted); 'Abd al-Fattah 'Abdallah Baraka, Al-Hakim
al-Tirmidhi wa-nazariyyatuhu fi T-walaya, Cairo 1971, 2 vote, (of
which the first is biographical); M. I. el-Geyoushi, 'Al-Tirmidhi's Theory of
Saints and Sainthood', Islamic Quarterly xv (1971), pp. 17-61;
B. Radtke, Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, Ein islamischer Theosoph des 3/9 Jahrhunderts, Freibourg
1980; Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rabim al-Sabili, al-Suluk 'indaT-Hakim
al-Tirmidhi,Cairo-iySS.
[38] Ibid.,p. 91 (adapted from the Nawadiral-usiil,pp. 157-58).
[39] Futuhat 11, pp. 40-128; O. Yahia, in
his edition of the Khatm, gives the text of the replies in
the Jawdb mustaqim, as well as excerpts from the corresponding
text in the Putuhdt (pp. 142-326).
[40] Baqillani, Kitab baydn al-farq bayna
'1-miTjizdt wa' l-kardmdt wa 'l-hiydlwa ’l-sihr,ed. Richard McCarthy,
Beirut 1958, p. 56.
[41] Hujwiri, Kashf al-mahjub, trans.
Nicholson, p. 212. A little further on (p. 216), Hujwiri observes again, 'All
the Masters have alluded to the true meaning of walaya'—an
observation which highlights the exceptional character of Tinnidhi's far more
specific teaching on the subject.
[42] Ibid., p. 141. It is possible tliat Hujwiri
feared that confusion might arise between the doctrine of the Seal of the
Saints and certain Ismaili teachings. As Herman Landolt has pointed out, it was
during this same time that the daet al-Mu'ayyad fi
'1-Din al-Shirazi (died 470/1077) formulated the notion of the 'Seal of the
Imams', which was evidently suspect in the eyes of the Sunnis.
[43] Apart from the examples given here, there are
the quotations collected by O. Yahia in the Appendix to his edition ofthe Khatm, p.
449 ff.
[44] Abu Talib al-Makki, Qiit al-qulilb, Cairo
1350 ah, i, pp. 111-12 (fast 29).
[45] Sulami, Tabaqdtal-sufiyya,^. Nural-DmShariba,Cairo
1953,p. .
[46] Ibid.,pp. 217,220.
[47] Ibid.,p. 434.
[48] Ibid.,p.229.
[49] Ibid.,p. 103.
[50] A.R. Badawi, Shatahat al-silfiyya, 1, Abu
Yazid al-Bistami, Cairo 1949, P-7°-
[51] Abu Nubym al-Isfahani, Hilyat al-awliya'
wa tabaqat al-asfyd', Beirut !967/X,pp. 233-35.
[52] Ibid.,1,pp. 5-17.
[53] This hadith occurs in a
slightly different form in Muslim, birr, 138, and janna,^.
[54] Qushayri, Risdla, Cairo 1957,
p. 117-19.
[55] On Ansari, see S. de Laugier de
Beaurecueil, Khwddja Abdullah Ansari, mystique hanbalite, Beirut
1965.
[56] Ghazali, Ihyd’ ‘ulumal-dm, Cairo,
n.d.,rv,pp. 355-59.
[57] Ibn ‘Arabi also distinguishes in principle
(cf. Futilhdt 11, p. 519) between 'ubudiyya and 'ubiida, without
always taking account in his writings of this theoretical distinction. Tirmidhi
uses both of them impartially.
[58] This hierarchy of degrees of certainty, which is
classic in Sufism, is a reference to verses 5 and 7 in siira 102,
where the expressions cilm al-yaqin and zayn
al-yaqin occur. But the usual order of these three terms is cilm
al-yaqin, zayn al-yaqin, haqq al-yaqin.
[59] Shattanufi (died713/1314), Bahjat
al-asrdr, Cairo 1330 ah, p. 39.
[60] See especially En Islam iranien, in,
pp. 9-146.
[61] H. Corbin and M. Mo'in, Le Jasmin des
Fideles d'Amour, Tehran-Paris 1958-
[62] Dr Nazi! Hoca, Riizbihan al-Bakli ve
kitab ka^f al-asrdr, Istanbul 1971. The text of the Kashf has
been established from a manuscript preserved at Konya. We should note in
passing that the Shiite tone that Corbin detects in Baqli can in no way be
reconciled with the mention of Abu Bakr which occurs in the account of the
vision on p. 104.
[63] Kitab mashrab al-arwdh, ed. Nazif
Hoca j—Khwddja), Istanbul 1973, p. 377 of the Arabic text plus
8 pages of introduction in Turkish, chapter four, section
[64] p. 89.
[65] Kashf al-asrdr,p. 103.
[66] Ibid., p. 117, This divine reply is the same as
the answer craved by Abu Yazid Bistami when he addresses God as follows: 'Raise
me up to Your Unity, that when Your creatures see me they will see You' (Kitab
al-Lumac, p. 461). And four centuries later, Shaykh Ibn
Qadib al-Ban (died 1040/1630) was to hear himself called by God in the same
terms as Baqli, during a vision in which he beheld himself invested with the
station of divine Viceregency (maqdm al-khildfa): Man ra'dka ra'dniwa
'l-ladhi turtduhu irddati ('He who sees you sees Me, and what you wish
is My will'). Cf. Ibn Qadib al-Ban, Kitab al-Mawaqif al-ildhiyya, ed.
by A. R. Badawi in his al-Insdn al-kdmilfi’l-isldm, 2nd
edition, Kuwait 1976, pp. 175-76.
[67] Futuhatu,]!. yij.
[68] On the circumstances in which the Tarjuman
al-ashwaq was written, cf. the Beirut edition, 1961, pp. 8-10, and
Nicholson's translation, London 1911, pp. 3-5. On the Jasmin des
Fideles d'Amour, cf. Corbin, En Islam iranien, ni, p.
71 ff.
[69] More valuable information on the concept
of walaya in Sufism, and on its juridical and political
implications, can be found in H. Landolt's article in the Encyclopedia
of Religion, New York 1987, xv, pp. 316-23.
[70] It is scarcely necessary to explain that these
two aspects are inseparable from each other, and thus form a unity. The word
'opposed' as it is used here does not, of course, imply the existence of any
contradiction between Ibn 'Arabi's metaphysical doctrine and his initiatic
teaching; it merely refers to the distinction between the two complementary and
alternating perspectives which inform his work.
[71] In spite of the title 'Sainthood and
Prophethood' given to Hamed Taher's article in Altf, no.
5,1985, Cairo, pp. 7-38, which contains the first edited version of it, the
untitled Risala, corresponding to no. 625 and possibly also to
no. 632 of Osman Yahia's R.G., and written by Ibn 'Arabi in
590 ah after a visit to Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi in Tunis, is
not a straightforward treatise on walaya {in
[72] Fusils 1, pp. 47-48. Because of the
particular nature of the prophetic trust of which the Fusils is
the repository, and concerning which, as we saw, Ibn ‘Arabi said that he was
the interpreter and not the author, we leant from Jandi (a pupil of Qunawi, who
was an immediate follower of Ibn ‘Arabi) that he had forbidden it to be bound
together with any other of his books (Jandi, Sharh al-Fusus, p.
5 of the Arabictext).
[73] Fusils 1, p. 134 ff. ‘Uzayr is only
mentioned once in the Qur'an (9:30).
[74] This explanation, which defines
prophethood stricto sensu, is necessary because of the
extended meaning which Ibn ‘Arabi, as we shall see, attributes to the
term nubuwwa. For example, the prophets who submit to a
previous Law are the biblical prophets who come after Moses and who do not
bring any laws to their community.
[75] The case of Jesus, who is one of the
messengers (rasiil} and who will return on earth at the end of
time, apparently contradicts this statement. The attitude adopted by Ibn ‘Arabi
with regard to this problem, which conforms in every point with the attitude of
Islamic exotericism, will be dealt with in the next chapter.
[76] Bukhari, <tlm,^o;T)anmi,muqa(ldm^
[77] This last passage was the object of a violent
attack from Ibn Taymiyya (Majmu cat al-rasa'il, iv,
p. 58ff.). In view of Ibn Arabi's explanations concerning what should be
understood by the superiority of the wall over the nabi
or the rasul (in the person of one and the same
being), the remark made by A. D'Souza in his article on Jesus in Ibn
Arabi's Fusils ('Ibn Arabi, I believe, leaves the question
open . . .') is inexplicable (see Islamochristiana no. 8,
1982, pp. 185-200). The superiority of the nabi over the
mere wali is affirmed over and over again in the work of the
Shaykh al-Akbar. Cf. for example his Kitab al- Abadila, ed.
Abd al-Qadir Ata, Cairo 1969, p. 82.
[78] Ibid., 11,p. 80 (question58 ofTirmidhi's
questionnaire).
[79] Kitab al-Tajalliyat, ed. Osman
Yahia, in the review al-Mashriq, 1966-67 (cf.no. i,i967,pp.
53-54).
[80] Futiihdt, 11, pp. 40-41. The 35
categories (totalling 589 saints) described at the beginning of chapter 73
correspond to permanent cosmic functions; the 49 categories listed afterwards
represent types and degrees of sainthood.
[81] Ibid.,in,p. 208.
[82] Ibid., n, p. 53. The expression nubuwwa
mutlaqa is one of those terms whose ambiguity requires the kind of
elucidation mentioned in note 14, regarding the respective status of nabiand wait.
[83] Futuhdt,u,p.85.
[84] This concept, which needless to say is closely
related to the concept mentioned above of the 'god created in. beliefs', is
often discussed by Ibn ‘Arabi in relation to his interpretation of verse 17:23
('And your Lord decreed that you should worship Him alone'), as for example in
the Futiihat 1, p. 405. For Ibn Taymiyya'$ criticism of this
interpretation, see Majmii 'at al-rasail, ed. Rashid Rida,
i,p. 173.
[85] All these remarks are taken from Chapter 152 of
the Futuhdt (n, pp. 246-48).
[86] Ibid., 11,p. 249.
[87] Ihyd' cu/u??iflLdinni,p.
99; iv,pp. 159,245, etc.
[88] The maqdm al-qurba, which forms
the subject of chapter 161 of the Futiihat (n, pp. 260-62) to
which reference is made here, is further discussed in ibid, n, pp. 19, 24-25,
41; in, p. 103. It also comes into the Kitab ai-Qurba, Hyderabad
1948, which makes a more cautious mention of Ibn
‘Arabi's arrival at this spiritual station, and also makes a brief reference to
some of the general facts concerning walaya and its relation
to nubuwwa and risdla.
[89] Futiihat/11, p. 436. This companion,
Muhammad al-Hassar, died in Egypt shortly after their arrival.
[90] Quoted by Gerhard Bowering, The Mystical
Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, Berlin-New York 1980, p. 65.
[91] Futiihat, rv,p. ^8.
[92] Ibn Sad, Tabaqdt, Leiden
1909,1/i, p. 5.
[93] Ibid., l/i, p.96. Tabari, Tafsir, Cairo
1323AH, xxi, p. 79. A wealth of information about the Muhammadan Light may be
found in the article by U. Rubin, 'Pre-existence and Light', Israel
Oriental Studies, v, 1975, pp. 62-119. Th’5 almost
exhaustive study is not, of course, rendered less indispensable by our own
brief reference to the subject. Even though we are unable to accept Goldziher's
thesis (of which more later), Rubin's charge that he twisted the meaning of the
texts in order to make them confirm the idea of Neoplatonic influence,
particularly in the case of Ibn Abbas' words quoted above, seems to us to go
too far. Apart from the books and articles to which direct reference is made in
this chapter, the Nur muhammadi is the subject of L.
Massignon's article of that title in El1. See also
Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien (cf. index, s.v. haqiqa
muhammadiyya and 'lumiere muhammadienne').
created was the Intellect'. On Ibn Taymiyya's discussion of the Sufi
interpretation of these, see Majmu^fatdwd xi, p. 232, and
xvin, pp. 336-38.
[95] O. Culman, Le Problems litteraire st
historique du roman pseudo-clementin, Paris 1930 (see p. 208 ff. and
230 ff. on the verus propheta). It is hardly necessary to say
that, despite Henry Corbin's support of him, we are unable to accept the thesis
of L. Cirillo, according to which the Gospel of Barnabas (cf. note 7)
transmits, on this and other points, a genuinely Judaeo-Christian teaching. Cf.
L. Cirillo and Michel Fremaux, L'Evangile de Barnabe, Paris
1977.
[96] Al-Hakfm al-Tirmidhi, Khatm al-awliya' (section
8), p. 337.
[97] The Kitab al-Tawdsin has been edited
by L. Massignon, Paris 1913. On the subject of this work, which is a posthumous
collection of texts dating from the end of Hallaj's life, see the second
edition of La Passion de Hallaj, Paris 1975, tn, p. 297 ff.,
from which (pp. 304-6) the following quotations are taken.
[98] Kitab al-Mawdqif, Damascus
1966-67,1, pp. 219-20.
[99] Ibn al-Farid, al-Td'iyya al-Kubrd, Cairo
1310 ah, together with Qashani's commentary in the margin of his Diwan, verse
639 p. 189 and 631 p. 175. Examples of these poems in praise of the Prophet,
which plainly convey the doctrine of the haqiqa muhammadiyya, can
be found in ‘Ali Safi Husayn, al-Adab al-sufi fi Misr fi 'l-qarn alsdbic al-hijri, Cairo
1964, pp. 230 ff., which contains works by Ahmad al-Badawi, Ibrahim al-Dasuqi,
etc. We can mention only a few representative texts; but a systematic enquiry
into prophetological doctrine would go beyond Sufi literature to the
'professions of faith', especially those of the Hanbalites or of writers
influenced by Hanbalism, such as Abu Bakr al-Ajurri (died 360/970) in his Kitab
al-SharTa. A great deal of information about the different forms of
venerating the Prophet in Islam is contained in Annemarie Schimmel's book And
Muhammad is His Messenger, Chapel Hill, 1985.
[100] Ibid., i,p. 118; O. Yahia's edition, n, p. 220.
[101] This identification of the haqiqa
muhammadiyya with the first Intellect {al- eaql
al-awwal) is based on the equivalence established between them by
the ahadith mentioned in note 13. Ibn 'Arabi uses both
versions of these ahadith according to the context. See for
example Futiihdt, 1, p. 125 ('The first thing that God created
was the Calamus').
[102] Futuhdt, 1, p. 119; O. Yahia's
edition, n, pp. 226-27. The end of this sentence draws attention to the
eminence of 'All ibn Abi Talib, the closest to him (i.e. Muhammad) of all men.
Cf. O. Yahia's note on line 6, p. 227, and his introduction on
p. 36 of the same, pointing out the difference in this passage between the
first and second drafts of the Futiihdt (cf. the
1293 ah edition of it, 1, p. 154). O. Yahia sees it as expressive of
a 'tendency towards ShTism' which is more marked in the first draft. It should
be noted, however, that, unlike the second draft, which was completed in
636 ah and of which we possess an autograph manuscript, the first is
known to us only through a manuscript postdating Ibn 'Arabi (the copy was
completed in 683 ah) and is thus not equally reliable. On the problem
of the identification of the Seal of the Saints, of which we will speak later,
this passage furnished Haydar Amoli {Nass al-nusus, p. 195)
with an argument for making Ibn 'Arabi contradict himself—and this in spite of
the fact that he was unaware of the first draft.
[103] Futiihat, in, pp. 443-44. We find
here the equivalences referred to in note 28, in addition to other technical
terms borrowed from previous Sufis: Ibn ‘Arabi explains (Futiihdt, in,
p. 77) that tire expression 'the Reality out of which all things are
created' (al-haqq al-makhluq bihi kullu shay’) goes back to
Ibn Barrajan (died 536/1141) who derived it from verse 15:85, and that it
corresponds to what Sahl al-Tustari, for his part, calls al- cadl, Justice.
A similar description of the levels of universal manifestation, in relation,
this time, to the structure of the human being, and which assigns priority to
the haqiqa muhammadiyya, can be found in the Tadbiratllahiyya,ed. Nyberg,
p. 211.
[104] Anqd' Mughrib, Cairo 1954, p- 40.
[105] Ibid.,p. 37. On the haqiqa muhammadiyya,
see alsopp. 50-51.
[106] Futiihdt, in, p. 418 (identified for
this reason with the tree; cf. 1st., s.v. shajara).
[107] Futiihdt,n,]>. 446. 42. Ibid.,
i,p. 366; rv, pp. 5,65.
43. The haqiqa muhammadiyya, the
animal aspect, of man, and the insan
kamil correspond respectively to the three stages
(creation fi ahsani taqwim; fall asfala sdfilin; restoration
through faith and works) described in verses 4, 5, and 6 of sura 95.
[110] Yd ahla Yathrib la muqdma lakum. Our
translation takes into account the interpretation that Ibn 'Arabi gives of this
verse in several passages of his work (Futuhdt, in, pp. 177,
216, 500; iv, p. >8; MawdqY,p. 141, etc.). It is to this
verse, also, that he alludes (although the editor is evidently not aware of it)
in the Risdlaft 'l-waldya, p. 21, where he speaks of the
'station of the inexpressible' which is beyond all the others and says that it
is mentioned 'in siira al-Ahzab'.
[111] Futuhdt,i,p. 223; O. Yahia's
edition, in, pp. 358 ff.
[112] Indeed, as Ibn 'Arabi says in die passage
immediately preceding this one, on a certain number of points the dispositions
of Islamic Law coincide with previous rulings. He stresses, however, that the
believer should accept and practise these inasmuch as they are part of the
Muhammadan Law, and not, for example, because they used to form part of the
Torah. The idea of a spiritual knowledge that is generated through the practice
of rules laid down by the law, and whose nature corresponds symbolically with
the nature of the rules under consideration, occurs particularly in chapters 68
to 72 of the Futuhdt as well as in the Tannazuldt
mawsiliyya (published in Cairo in 1961, under the title Lata’if
al-asrdr, by Ahmad Zaki 'Atiyya and Taha ‘Abd al-Baqi Surur). The
problem of the relationship between the Law and the Way is discussed later on.
[113] Bukhari, him, 10; Ibn
Maja, muqaddima, 17. The hadith which is
quoted next in two different forms is absent from the canonical collections. As
we saw (chapter 3, note 14), in the Risdla fi 'l-waldya the
phrase 'The wise of this community are as the prophets of other communities' is
attributed to 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi.
[114] This distinction, together with the consequences
that Ibn Arabi sees it as having for the typology of the Muhammadan heir and
the heir of another prophet, is connected with the distinction made in verse
41:53: 'We will cause them to see Our signs in the distance [i. e. in the
macrocosm] and in themselves.'
[115] Strictly speaking, kharq al- zawaid should
be translated as 'the breaking of habits', since, for Ibn Arabi as for most
Muslim theologians, natural laws are simply statistical regularities, which man
interprets in terms of the chain of cause and effect, but which cannot bind the
Almighty. A miracle contravenes, not the nature of things, but our idea of
them.
[116] Thalabi, Qisas al-anbiyd', Cairo
1371 ah, pp.123-24.
[117] On Abu Yaza, who was one of Abu Madyan's
teachers, see V. Loubignac, 'Un saint berbere, Moulay Bou Azza', Hesperis xxxi
(1944); Al-Tadili, al- Tashawwuf ila rijal al-tasawwuf, ed. A.
Faure, pp. 195-205, ed. A. Tawfiq, pp. 213-22; E. Dermenghem, Le Culte
des saints dans I'lslam maghrebien, 2nd edition, Paris 1982, pp.
59-70. A. Bel {'Sidi Bou Medyan et son maitre Ed-Daqqaq a Fes', Melanges
Rene Basset, Paris 1923,1, pp. 31-68) mentions an unpublished work,
devoted entirely to Abu Yaza, by Abu 'MAbbas Ahmad al-Tadili (who died in
1013/1604 and is thus different from the Tadili referred to above, who lived in
the seventh/thirteenth century), the Kitab al-Ma'za fimandqib al-shaykh
Abi Yacza.
[118] Tliis passage alludes to the well-known hadith which
says that perfection (al-ihsan) is to worship God as though
vou were seeing Him (Bukhari, tafsir, s. 31, Iman, 37,
etc.). This 'as though' is of major importance, since it sanctions the use of
the khayal in the spiritual life.
[119] On Ibn 'Arabi's interpretation of this Qur'anic
verse concerning the conception of Jesus, see Fusils, 1, pp.
138- 39.
[120] Ibn 'Arabi often mentions Abu 'l-'Abbas
al-'Uraybi (sometimes called Abu Jafar), The first biographical note in
the Rilh al-quds (Damascus 1964, pp. 46-48) is abouthim. See
also Futuhdt, i,p. 186; n,p. 177; m,pp. 208,336,539; xv, p. 123.
[121] Futuhdt,i,p. 155; in,pp. 43,341;
rv,p. 77.
[122] Tire same story occurs in the Futuhdt, it,
p. 415. The years 585 and 586 of the Hegira correspond to the years 1189 and
1190 of the Christian calender. It was at this time that the Almohad sovereign
Abu Yusuf Ya'qub repulsed the Portuguese and Castilian attacks.
[123] Bukhari, anbiya, 45;
Muslim, tawba, 46-47, zuhd, 73.
[124] On ‘Ayn al-Qudat, cf. L. Massignon, Passion, index,
s.v. Hamadhani. His Shakwa T-gharib (The Complaint of the
Exile), written in prison in the year of his death, has been edited
and translated by M. b. Abd El-Jalil, Journal asiatique, 1930
(January-March).
[125] Baghawi, Masdbih al-sunna, ii, p.
152.
[126] Abd El-Jalil, op. cit., pp. 12-13; L.
Massignon, Passion, n, p. 177. It is hardly necessary to point
out that the use of these terms is later than Ibn ‘Arabi and is evidence that
his doctrine of walaya, and the distinctions established by
him between the types of sainthood, were accepted in Sufi circles.
Characteristically, cAyn al-Qudat performed a 'Christ-like'
miracle by restoring a dead man to life (cf. his Tamhiddt, ed.
A. Usayran, Tehran 1962, pp. 250-51).
[127] Cf. Muhammad al-Rakhawi, al-Anwdr
al-qudsiyya fi manaqib al-sada al-naqshbandiyya, Cairo
1344 ah., pp. 157-58. (The sentence about the maqdm ihyd' al-quliib
refers to the Qur'an, 3:49).
[128] Cf. Etudes traditionelles, July-October
1962, p. 166, note 2 and p. 169, note 12.
[129] 'Sur le cheikh Al-Alawi', Etudes
traditionelles, January-February 1968. This note completes a review,
already published in the same review, of Martin Lings' book, A Moslem
Saint of the Twentieth Century, London 1961.
[130] It is interesting to note that the two
non-Qur'anic persons who are named in the Fusils are situated
at the two extremes of the cycle of prophethood: Shith
[131] See the hadith mentioned in
chapter 1, note 21. Let us repeat that the rendering of dajjal as
’antichrist' must therefore be applied only to him who is
the seal of the dajjalun, and whose appearance is one
of the traditional signs that the end of time is approaching.
[132] On the identification of laylat al-qadr with
the human nature of the Prophet, see Futuhat, iv, p. 44.
(According to Ibn 'Arabi, die Night of Destiny, even though for the Muslim
community its date is fixed as the 27th of the month of Ramadan, circulates
during the course of the year, but it is given to the 'drifun alone
to recognize it when it comes and to reap the full benefit of the grace which
the periodical recurrence of this descent brings with it. Cf.
Fufuhat, ih, pp. 94,159; iv, p. 486). On the meaning of the two
arcs (qdb qawsayn), see Futiihdt, 11, p. 558;
in, P- 543; w,pp. 39,51; Kitab al-Isrd', p. 50. See also
the Tafsir by Qashani (published under the name of Ibn cArabi),
Beirut 1908, n, p. 554, commentary to verse 53 :9.
[133] On the iqlims or 'climes', see
Andre Miquel's article in EI2, s. v. 'Iklim'.
[134] Ibid.,n,pp. 7-8.
[135] Ibid., 11, p. 8. For a definition of the mtTjizai, see
Abu Hanifa, al-Fiqh al-akbar, Cairo 1327 ah, p. 69;
Baqillani, Kitab al-Baydn, ed. McCarthy, Beirut *958' PP- 37~49‘
Unlike the kardmdt, the mujizdt are preceded
by a challenge [tahaddiy In this passage from the Futuhdt, Ibn cArabi
criticizes the attitude adopted by Abu Ishaq al-Isfara'ini, an Ash'arite
theologian who died in 418/1027, according to whom the saints cannot perform
supernatural acts similar to those performed by the Prophet. The difference
between mu Jizdt and kardmdt lies not in the
form taken by the supernatural act, but on the one hand in the intention (or
absence thereof), of the agent of it, and on the other hand in the fact
that mu ‘jizat are the rightful property of the
prophets, whereas kardmdt are inherited by the saints (and
modelled in accordance with the prophetic type who predominates in the wait's heritage).
Ibn cArabi also says, without further explanation, that he met
the hawdri of his time in 586. He says further that during the
time of the Prophet, this office was held by al-Zubayr ibn aI-cAwwam.
Al-Zubayr was one of the first to be converted (the fifth, apparently) and was
one of the ten Companions who received the promise of paradise, and did in fact
receive the name al-Hawdrl from the Prophet himself.
[136] Futuhat, n, p. 8; Durra
fakhira, trans. Austin {Sufis of Andalusia), p. 160; Mufyadarat
al-abrdr, Damascus 1968,1, p. 418 (where the animals are not swine but
dogs). This anecdote, even though it concerns the rawdfid, could
not conceivably have been written by someone with a secret sympathy for
Shfism. On the subject of Ibn'Arabi's attitude towards Shiism, see
Futiihdt, i,p. 282 and in, p. 343.
[137] Many passages in Ibn 'Arabi's writings concern
the afrad. We are specifically referring here to Futiihdt, chapter
73 (n, p. 19) and above all to chapters 30,31,
[138] On ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and the references to
him in Ibn ‘Arabi, see chapter 6, note 8.
[139] On Abu Su‘ud ibn al-Shibl, see Futuhdt, 1,
pp. 187, 201, 233, 248, 288; n, PP- *9' 49/ So, 131, 370, 522, 624; in, pp. 34,
223, 560. Ibn ‘Arabi several times emphasizes the difference in status between
‘Abd al-Qadir and Abu Su‘ud: the former possessed the hdl al-sidq but
not the corresponding maqdm; the latter, however, possessed
the maqdm and not the hdl, and thus remained
unknown to the world (11, p. 223); ‘Abd al-Qadir held the office of the khildfa, whereas
Abu Su‘ud, although equally able to hold it, had handed over to his Lord all
authority over His servants (11, p. 308); ‘Abd al-Qadir sometimes succumbed to
the temptation of idlal (impudence, casualness), while Abu
Suud was exempt from this imperfection. However, for a critique of Abu Su‘ud,
see Futiihdt, n, p. 64.
[140] The Bahjat al-asrdr by Shattanufi,
Cairo 1330 ah, pp. 7-8, explains that Muhammad ibn Qa'id al-Awani was
present when ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani uttered the famous phrase that established
him in his capacity as Pole of his time: 'This foot of mine is on the neck of
every saint of God.' Nabhani's note in ]dmic kardmdt
al-awliyd', Beirut, n.d., 1, p. 112, repeats, after Munawi, the
information given by Ibn Arabi (cf. Futiihdt, 1, p. 201; n, p.
130; ni, p, 34), and says, wrongly, that al-Awani was one of his teachers.
[141] Ibid.,n, p. 232. Cf. ibid., 11, pp.
387-88; Istildh al-sufiyya,p. 3. It is chiefly because of this
imperfection that ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, even though he is one of the maldmiyya
(Futuhdt, in, p. 34), is situated on a less eminent level than Abu
Suudibnal-Shibl(cf. note 9).
[142] The fundamental text concerning the maldmiyya is
Salami's Risdlat al-maldmatiyya, ed. A. A. ‘Afifi in al-Maldmiyya
wa 'l-sufiyya wa-ahl al- futuwwa, Cairo 1945, pp. 86-120. The
historical aspect of the problem—the emergence in Nishapur in the ninth century
of a maldmi movement and its consequences—does not concern us
here, but forms the subject of Jacqueline Chabbi's article 'Remarques sur le
developpement historique des mouvements ascetiques et mystiques au
Khorassan', Studia islamica xlvi, Paris 1977, pp. 5-72.
[143] Futiihdt, 1, p. 206; Sufis
of Andalusia, p. 79, number 5.
[144] Futiihdt, i,p. 206; n,p. 15; in, p.
34. This character is discussed in the Riih al-quds, pp.
51-52, under the name of Salih al-Adawi; Sufis of Andalusia, pp.
73-76, numberj.
[145] Futiihdt, 1, p. 206; Ruh
al-quds, p.52; Sufis of Andalusia, pp. 76-79.
[146] Futuhat,i,p. 206; Ruhal-quds,p. 53; Sufisof
Andalusia,pp. 79-83.
[147] On the notion of the Seal of the Prophets and
the doctrine that developed around it, see Y. Friedmann, 'Finality of
Prophethood in Sunni Islam', Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, vn
(1986), pp. 177-215.
[148] We quote from the text of the Jawab
Mustapim edited by O. Yahia, following each of the questions asked by
Tirmidhi (here, p. 161 of the Khatm al-awliya').
[149] This much-loved friend of Ibn ‘Arabi's died at
Malatiya around 618/1221. On his death, see Futuhat, 1, p.
221, and the Durra Fakhira, p. 158, number 71, in
Austin, Sufis of Andalusia.
[150] Ismail ibn Sawdakin, another very close follower
of Ibn ‘Arabi's (and who transcribed, among other things, his precious oral commentary
on the Tajalliyat), died in 646/1248.
[151] Futuhdt, TL,p. 49. 7. Ibid.,n,p.50.
8. Ibid.,in,p.328.
[152] A. A. 'Afifi, The Mystical Philosophy .
. ., pp. 98-101; Henry Corbin, introduction to Haydar Amoli's Nass
al-nusus; En Islam iranien, cf. index, s.v. 'Sceau'; T. Izutsu, Sufism
and Taoism, chapter 16. Stephane Ruspoli, in his
article 'Ibn Arabi et la prophetologie shi'ite’, Cahiers de I'Heme, issue
dedicated to Henry Corbin, Paris 1981, pp. 224-39, gives a French
translation—very inaccurate in places—of Futiihdt, 1, pp.
319-20, and Futuhdt, n, p. 49. The texts from the Fusils are
evidently included in the various translations of this work, including the
partial translation by Burckhardt.
[153] Futuhdt, n, p. 9.
[154] Ibid., in, p. 329.
[155] See chapter 4 of this book, and note 39 of the
same chapter.
[156] Futuhat,i,p. 9. This verse is taken
from the Kitab al-isrd',p. 4.
[157] Futuhat, 1, p. 150.
[158] The implication here is 'as I saw Jesus'. On Ibn
‘Arabi's meetings with the prophets, see chapter 1 and its note 3; on his
special relationship with Jesus, see chapter 5, and note 9 of the same.
[159] cAnqd' Mughrib, pp.
72-74. Note that the numbers mentioned coincide: the first 'fourteen' with the
fourteen 'single Letters' or 'luminous Letters', and the 'twenty-nine' with the
twenty-nine siiras where the letters occur.
[160] Ibid.,p. 71.
[161] Ibid., p. 7. This insistence on the
correspondence between the microcosm and the structure of the macrocosm occurs
equally in the Tadbirat, which was written during the same
period of Ibn ‘Arabi's life (but before the Anqd’ Mughrib).
[162] Fusus, 1, pp. 61-64 tfa^
Shith).
[163] Cf. amongothertextsfwtuhut,!,p. 163.
[164] On this hadith, see chapter 4
and ibid., note 3.
[165] Futuhdt, 1, p. 151. See also ibid.,
nr, p. 514, where Ibn 'Arabi says, in connection with the Seal of Muhammadan
Sainthood: His rank in relation to the rank of God's Messenger is no more than
that of a hair of his body in relation to the wholebody. Cf. a\soFutuhdt,i,p. 3.
[166] It should be added that for Ibn 'Arabi there is
also a 'Seal of the Divine Names': the Name Huwa or 'He',
which designates the absolutely unconditioned Essence (Futuhdt, in,
p. 514).
[167] Fusus, 1, p. 67. The symbolic
meaning of China as the ultimate place of spiritual Knowledge is suggested in
the hadith (absent from the canonical collections but which
occurs in Bayhaqi and also in Suyuti's al-Fath al-Kabir, I, p.
193): 'Seek for knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China'. Some
commentators have also seen an allusion to China in the enigmatic observation
which comes in the apocryphal Shajara FJumaniyya (cf. O.
Yahia, R.G., no. 665): 'When the shin enters the sin .
. ..'
[168] Futiihdt, w,p. 514.
[169] Kitab al-Isra', p. 14. The date when
the text was completed is given on p. 92. The date 594 is likewise explicitly
confirmed in a poem in the Diwan, Bulaq 1271 ah, PP-
332"33- However, we should also note that a somewhat unclear
passage in the Anqd' Mughrib (pp. 15-16) seems to put the date
at 595, and it is therefore difficult to be categorical on this question of
chronology.
[170] Due to the extensive nature of the footnotes
belonging to this section they are placed at the end of the chapter, beginning
on page 141.
are placed at the end of the chapter, beginning on page 174.
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