Dr. Muhammad Maroof Shah
Ibn Arabi is already compelling attention from non-Muslim and secular world. He has been much discussed and invoked by believers and scholars from other faiths. Religion as understood by the greatest sages in all traditions is neither an ideology, nor a system, nor a talk about this world or the otherworld. It is not a picture of the world. It is not a metanarrative. It is not a perspective or a view that could possibly be refuted. It is too existential an affair to be left to mere speculation or ignored or discredited. Science can, in no way, show it exit. In Islamic tradition we can cite Ibn Arabi as presenting this formulation that could be appreciated by not only other religious traditions, especially their respective saints and sages but non-theistic or even secular people. Let us see how non-theistic Buddhist world may appreciate Akbarian formulation and vice versa.
Religion, in one formulation that is easy to appreciate for even diehard critics of religion or non-believers of diverse hues, is constituted by four noble truths of the Buddha who had a better sense of empirical reality than even Hume or positivists promulgated. The four noble truths can be put in the following way.
1 There is suffering in the world. The suffering constituted by alienation, unfulfilled intention, bereavements, death, lack of knowledge, pain, misery etc. There is a malady of alienation, an alienation much deeper than that which separates a labourer from his work. The alienation of a labourer is an aspect of this alienation. People are living lives of “quiet desperation” – hellish lives. Sophocles expressed universal feeling of desperation by stating the best thing is not to be born at all and the second best to leave early. Maari, the famous blind poet said our very existence is the sin. In Akbarian terms we can state that to be is to suffer as any sense of being apart from the Real is to court suffering/dukkha.
2 Desire is the root cause of suffering. Craving, ignorantly, to see things from the viewpoint of a self or ego, to construct a world according to our heart’s liking, to wish for inexistent or impossible things, to wish objective reality bend in one’s service, to dictate terms to reality, to laws of nature, to be spared encounter with the other that humbles oneself or demands sacrifice, to grab other’s wealth, a wish to be consoled or fulfilled or exalted or praised or in other’s shoe, to possess this or that thing or object of love, to live long and to be spared encounter with death, with the other, to wish to opt for suicide and so on. In Akbarian terms, seeking anything other than the Real or counterfeits of the Absolute is the basic ignorance and root cause of suffering.
3 There is an end to suffering. We can access the Real.
4 There is a way to end the suffering. Right view, right effort and right action are needed for that. Paradoxically, the right view is no view or attachment to no particular view or resistance against absolutization of one’s perspective. All salvific schemes, this worldly and otherworldly prescribe paths to end the suffering. All religions prescribe essentially similar paths. More precisely they don’t prescribe a path but describe a path which has resulted in ending suffering. One can try one’s own path but one may not reach the other end of the road. One is free to experiment at the cost of possibility of error.
Alternative formulations of basic truths of religion include or embrace similar insights. For instance central call of many traditions from Taoism to Islam is for the surrender (of the self) and finding peace in life lived under the shade of non-self/Other/God or Real/Tao/Good. Looked from another angle (Vedantic) this amounts to recognition of the Self by losing illusory ego. Avidya is the sin in all traditions and it is in knowledge that lasting peace and blessedness lies. Suffering is consequence of avidya. Perversion of will or moral sin too follows ignorance. No man is willfully bad, says Socrates. So sinners are not to be hated but pitied and given eyes to see. That there is dukkha in the world, that people are terribly ignorant of the joy and peace that the Self/non-self/Being is, none can dispute. For sages Reality/ Truth is one with us and to be distant from It constitutes sorrow.
Mysticisms of various traditions have losing the self and finding true life as a refrain. Ibn Arabi has elaborated in his thousands of pages this point. His elaborate treatment of hell and heaven or fruits of life of Spirit and his anthroposophy and epistemology may well be expressed in terms of this insight. Revisiting Ibn Arabi helps us evolve a language of dialogue with major traditions, philosophies, and thought currents. It is in his terms that the World of Islam can reach out to the religious other and make comprehensible its invitation to God/the Real which is the meaning of its call to submit.
Ibn Arabi like none else illuminates the whole web of experience and every science including the supreme science scientia sacra. He is providential interpreter of human experience and world’s heritage of intellectuality and spirituality. He helps me tackle almost all important problems facing us today from identity crisis to environmental crisis, the crisis of meaning to crisis of relationships, and crisis in sciences, theology and philosophy. He is the Compass of Truth in the age of contesting fundamentalisms because he doesn’t hold onto any particular version or formulation or aspect of truth but stands only for our receptivity or openness to truth. Ibn Arabi by virtue of his hermeneutics of mercy, his explication of treasures of scripture and his mastery of sciences of soul and spirit may be of help for any seeker of any tradition. He is amongst the thinkers or sages whose meditations on key questions we all face are arguably amongst the most comprehensive and profound. In whatever circumstances life forces one, seek what the Greatest Master has to say. If he can’t help, remain assured there is no help under God’s vast earth as he is God’s help, the greatest broadcaster of Divine Mercy.
Author can be reached at Marooof123@gmail.com