Dr Maroof Shah
Ibn Arabi is advocating or better helping us to demonstrate, among other things, the following:
· Only the Absolute is absolute and this implies that none of the religions, philosophies, ideologies or worldviews can claim absolute truth. Penetrating the form of Islam from within and accessing Supraformal Essence he arrives at his notion of Muhammedan station which he takes to beat the station of no station in which “one has nothing of one’s own and therefore mirrors the Real most perfectly and is not defined by any particular divine name or attribute but brings together all standpoints or stations.”
· Understanding Islam in terms of submission – Ibn al-‘Arabi states in his Fusus that what is meant by islam is the general notion of ‘submission’ (inqiyad) – and elaborating the view that to be is to submit and willy nilly worship can only have one object – God – we see how the problem of faith and doubt gets a new twist and there is hardly any point in any attempt to refute faith. Faith isn’t a question of consent to a proposition, true or false. Faith is more an orientation or attitude towards the non-self/experience or what is the case or is encountered. With this the problem of endless accusations of misguidance or sectarian conflict over access to truth gets resolved. It needs to be recognized that Ibn Arabi doesn’t place misguidance at the same plane as guidance even if both of them are effects of divine names.
· That it I hard to refute for any atheist Sufi doctrine of God as Reality converging with the understanding of Being as the ground of all beings or God as the Being of being and Ultimate Concern in Paul Tillich. He helps comprehend such key statements as “We live and move and have our being in God. (Acts 17:28) “No doubt can be entertained regarding God” and “God is the Manifest Truth. (Al-Quran), “Not for the sake of beings are beings loved but for the sake of the Self. (Brihadaryanaka Upanisad)” “The more they blaspheme, the more they praise God.” (Meister Eckhart) “Man can’t exist where there is no God” (Berdyaev) and “We see all things in God” (Melebranche). He, like Tillich, snatches the “God-given right” to be an atheist. Ibn Arabi may be better described as trans-theistic. For him ilhad/atheism denies a limited conception of divinity though in itself it is based on a narrow view of Reality. This explains how Ibn ‘Arabî grants that atheists possess a degree of vision of Divine Unity. Outright atheism is impossible or absurd if God is construed as the Essence of existence, as isness of things, as the ground of everything, as what is, as Reality.
· Islam, in Ibn Arabi’s view may well be described as “the religion of Love’, for the last Prophet(SAW) appropriated the station of perfect Love beyond any other Prophet, since God took him as His beloved.” One definition of kafir may be thus formulated: one who is not open to love. To love is to be open, vulnerable, receptive, reaching out. Hell is a place where there is no love. How open we are to love shows how much is our proximity to God. It is significant to note that for such Masters as Dante of Ibn Arabi – inspiration or embodiment of love may well be earthly. It is women – Beatrice and Nizam respectively – that provide the passport to Heaven. There is no such thing as mere women of flesh and blood. God made (wo)man is his own image. Women points beyond herself to heavenly archetype. To those who ask how does it feel to experience God one may reply “something like when one is in love.
· That it is Mercy wrapping us all in all circumstances including the darkest or when we appear lost. His hermeneutic of Mercy explains diversity of religions, philosophies, styles, temperaments, habits, preferences, obstructions we meet and even the hell we choose. God and His Mercy can’t be defeated and have the last word necessitating ultimate cooling of hell and its turning to pleasant abode as the very etymology of azab (derived from azb, sweet, tasty) indicates. He shows hidden/accompanying/compensatory sweetness of disappointments, frustration and hellish tortures. One must not despair at any cost as the fount of all sweetness or joy is ours by our very nature. Sorrow is exile or distance from this source in us and thus chosen by us. “Pain is indeed the megaphone of God” and “sweet are the fruits of adversity.” Qabz (contraction) accomplishes greater things than bast (expansion) declare many a Sufi. If you don’t receive help, this might not be/should not be available at all noting that it is the case that we don’t need to receive help in certain distress as that distress is a form of help we need at the moment.
· Attachment to views is to be transcended by perfecting receptivity to the non-self. The Perfect Man isn’t limited to/by any belief. Ibn Arabi believed, Dr. Leghari noted, that
God reveals Himself to different people in different ways. This means that God cannot be limited by any one belief those people who only focus on outer rituals without giving due emphasis to the inner character building aspect of religion deny the possibility that God could manifest Himself in other forms of belief other than the ones that they themselves possess. But the arifin, those who have realised the truth, know that ‘God never discloses Himself in a single form to two individuals, nor in a single form twice.’
As such religions must necessarily differ by the very logic of what constitutes belief –uqdah/knot/a limitation or form imposed – and that atheists have a version – albeit impoverished one – of tawhid. Atheism is choosing not to travel further or closing oneself to what may come or other disclosures of the Real.
· Although Allah is one but the Lord understood as an aspect of the Real that nurtures each creature in a unique way fit for the latter can’t be one. All individuals have their own unique personal Lord and are under divine tuition and are worshipping God in some sense even though they may be ignorant regarding how or fail to see how their every legitimate quest is for the Absolute and their illegitimate (declared so by revelation) searches (such as idolization of self/power/other than God) quests of the Absolute wrongly identified or located in this or that object or plac
· The formless God is, paradoxically, manifested in every form and best revealed in the feminine face (that explains universal adoration of women, “the stars on the earth,” the fairies – pari chahra loag).
· The world is made of the substance of mercy and love as existence is ontologically mercy. All events are love letters from God or as Simone Weil would have it, coded form of God saying I love you. Some know this and some are compelled to learn this by experience. Some keep doubting but don’t doubt the value of the gift called life and thus living by the mercy and countless gifts and graces that constitute life’s bounties and joys in the form of food, sunshine and rain, smiles and relationships.
· We have never loved nor can love anything except God in disguise/for the sake of God. The fact that we love only inexistent things shows this.
· God is not an object of knowledge but the one who knows when we know anything and all perception necessarily is perception of God and perception by God. Who can say he sees or hears when it is really God who sees and hears? How is it meaningful to prove God’s existence when God is considered the very being of everything – when one says is, one has already affirmed being or God the ground of being/wujud and one sees anything because of the Light that illuminates it in the first place and the real perceiver is He. In fact, as Ghazzali would put it, God is the light with which we see the world.
· Era/Age is under a divine name and its secret or message is addressed to all that needs to be deciphered first rather than judged or reviled. What has manifested in the modern world has a reason/locus that needs first to be appreciated. We are all addressed through every event by the Spirit of Guidance. The Time and the spirit of times can’t be taken lightly.
· Whatever happens to us, has been, so to speak, asked for by us. God is wujood giving/actualizing reality and the request, albeit unconscious but quite natural, is ours. This solves problem of determinism and free will.
· We all love inexistence, in fact all love is only of the inexistent or God. We love what makes friend or spouse or beautiful object adorable. Beauty, as Plato sought to show, is a guest from the otherworld and a splendor of the Real. Beauty attracts us because God is Jameel and Wudood (the Most Loving). Muhammad is what we call the world of forms and colour – manifest face of the reality/world we seek. Things were originally inexistent (adm) and the Principle of their manifestation we call Muhammad. How come one lives and can casually speak of Muhammad (blessings and salutations on the Principle of life)? Whosever is in love with life and beauty is beholden to Muhammad, to the Light of Muhammad. Beauty is a sort of Messenger of God – in fact every event/ lowly insect has a message to convey to the Gnostic – as it is thus the sermon that interests all.
· Hell is a torment for those who can’t face truth or consumption through love. Sorrow is distance from the real and if God/the Real is resisted, one can’t but suffer.
· Invitation to belief in God is ultimately open invitation that one may take or decline and one is punished not by some revengeful God in some torture chamber for sinning/refusal but by the sin, by one’s own choice to be veiled from the Truth/Beauty/Love that radical innocence or openness makes accessible.
· Ultimate stage is that of bewilderment that assimilates/builds upon various ideas like wonder, ceaseless travelling, utter novelty of everything, no bragging about one’s accomplishment or humility to acknowledge “I know that I don’t know” and surrender of will to truth, to ever-new unveilings or manifestations of the divine – that seeks to encompass, limit and manipulate.
· Life can’t be sacrificed for belief/ideology – nothing is holier than human life as it is a divine image. Wherever sacred law allows taking life as last measure it is a means for letting greater life, social equilibrium, freedom and life of the other to bloom.
· Possibly infinite meanings or interpretations of scripture are all intended by the Real, the All-Possibility/Infinite and that one must receive anew the meaning with every new reading.
· God alone is/counts in the ultimate analysis. Who brags he exists or is proud for any reason is decimated by experiences – suffering, humiliation, encounter with the sublime – or purified by hell fire until realizes one’s error and nothingness.
· Whatever we see or happens is a play of divine attributes or effect of divine names and as such “endorsed” at ontological plane though what has been prohibited by scriptures doesn’t please God the Guide with whom man in search of perfection/joy/heaven is concerned. One sins by virtue of God’s leave but suffers for the same by virtue of God’s other names such as al-Qahar (the Subduer). Existence/life has to be approached ultimately in aesthetic terms. Don’t worry for anything or feel like advising God for doing this or that as that implies we fail to appreciate that particular manifestation/tajalli of the Real. God is also Justice that seeks realization through those who work for justice. As such every good work done by anyone or say social activists/NGOs/right policing is worshipping/realizing God.
· We are here or the world is there because we desired/have accepted being as against nothing. God is That which grants the requests for being that creatures make – who is ready to die and be gone or be nothing? In fact we are not – He alone is. The world expresses plenitude of the Being whose very nature is to radiate or see itself in a mirror – get recognized by the projected other and that we are all seekers or travelers and are ultimately the projects of Being or hired actors who however also choose to act to further their own ends which are ultimately the play for the sake of playing well. Ibn Arabi helps us dissolve or resolve certain seemingly intractable theological problems such as those of fate, of misguidance, of el and heaven and what is it all for – the why question. A contemporary Ibn Arabi scholar has noted in this connection regarding the question of why are we here.
The answer is provided by the second: “Then guided.” We are here to follow guidance and engage in right thought and appropriate activity. Right and worthy thought and activity is called “worship” (‘ibāda), that is, being a “servant” (‘abd) of the Lord who created us. As God says in the Quran, “I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me” (51:56). Worshiping and serving God—that is, putting oneself in harmony with the Absolute Haqqby observing the haqqthat is present in all things—is the means whereby human beings achieve their purpose in creation.
· Besides/instead of looking at the world from God the King and man the subject angle (and the anxiety of this world and otherworld) as has been the case with Muslim revivalists, one may consider appreciating that God alone is there playing a game, projecting Himself in the mirror called the world/man. God is more than a King, a Lover and the Beloved playing hide and seek that constitutes the drama we call life. How thankful we should be of those who play the other – our enemies, critics or opposite team in a contest – as they make life interesting or at least eventful. Just be a spectator (actualize the name Shahid) deep inside though outwardly one might adopt a role given situation requires, say try hitting, Afridi style high and handsome sixes and resist bullying – and the life seemingly full of sound and fury becomes a festival of lights and celestial songs.
· We have nothing to lose in any case. We indeed need to be saved from hell because we have wrongly imagined a hell in the first place. The reality is God has decreed Mercy for Himself and as such He needs no reminder to have mercy on us but we need to be reminded that we are already blessed, showered with mercy in every case. God has not prepared any hell but from the vain desires and imagined phantoms and wild thoughts we project. The fuel for hell is self-will and that explains why pride can’t be forgiven and has to be eliminated through burning. We are all actors on a stage and those who want to be directors ape God and deserve to be hurled to hell and we find them burning everywhere as we see how self assertion/agency is punished by vain desire for revenge or rage against what can’t be cured or lamentations and regrets for defeats.
· Shifting one’s perspective from moralistic, judgmental, legalistic and utilitarian one to that of non-judgmental aesthetic/artistic ontological one helps resolve the problems created out of binaries dissolve. Jihad, moral struggles etc. catered by shariah would remain at the levels they pertain to but, as Barbariq would see at the level of haqiqah, it is really God fighting from all sides in Mahabharata or epic battles of life.
· Sha’riah constitutes rules of the game/authority of Umpire to be respected to help every player play natural game to perfection. Outside/after the game, we all exchange smiles and handshakes. Hell is taking winning or losing seriously and seeking to play foul or exchanging sides/roles or assuming to be In-charge of the game/Director of the whole show. Heaven is focusing on playing one’s part in the game well without an anxiety against losing. We all win, in a way. We are already winners if we knew. We just play for the sake of joy as little children do, as God does. If God creates for the joy of self-expression or observing His hidden beauty, why shouldn’t we imitate Him and not behave as shopkeepers or traders? We are heaven; we don’t go to heaven. We simply manifest our own riches as heaven and our penury as hell. This is the Akbarian insight we find developed in in the 20th century in Allama Anwar Shah Kashmiri.
· There is no such thing as evil; what we call evil is only evil from our perspective, the perspective of a finite self. The Divine Will overrides the good/evil binary. The revealed law designates as evil something which is nevertheless approved by the more primordial Divine Will. Everything is perfect when looked from the viewpoint of the Absolute. Everything happens in accordance with archetypal constitution or possibilities. God doesn’t determine or influence archetypal possibilities. His Goodness can’t be affected by the evil in creation which is acquired by things/individuals as per there nature. As nothing is outside God or Reality (as God is Reality) so nothing is against His will or His control. The realization of God/Truth implies the realization of perfection of everything. Time, history, becoming, progress, struggle and thus evil all lose their traditional importance in the absolutist perspective. The world is a play of God rather than something that involves real tragedy. Tragedy is unknown to the Eastern/mystical worldview. There is no waste, no loss, no suffering, no evil in the real sense. Problems arise when the categorical, conceptual view is imposed on a Reality that transcends all binaries, although it manifests itself to the mind or thought in terms of binaries. All questions that the mind asks, that the essentially dualistic thought asks, are misformulated or unwarranted. This is what Zen so forcefully argues. We as the questioning selves are not. Only God is. We aren’t outside God though we believe otherwise as long as we identify with the separating principle of ego. In the Infinite there are no boundaries, no categories that delimit, no concepts that encompass. We need to scrutinize our right to ask questions. Religions demand submission or transcendence from the kingdom of the self that seeks justifications, that evaluates, that imposes its categories on what transcends it. A believer has no questions because he has risen above the level of the mind where questions arise. Islam as a religion of submission demands that man is nothing outside God or apart from God.
· Ibn ʿArabī has been described by Shaykh Muḥibb Allāh who has been called a second Ibn Arabi as “free of ecstasy and states.” For him “the great Sufis avoid states at all cost, because these are passing gifts that have no ultimate significance.” This disarms those novices in Sufism who keep bragging about their secret achievements/states/ecstasies. Sufism is hard work on stations/virtues and the best key is humility while the supreme station is “the station of no-station” which means keeping wonder alive – reliving the child in us. This objective of wonder/defamiliarization/quest is also the ultimate end of philosophy, art and arguably of science.
A few points presented above need some elaboration to show what makes Ibn Arabi the metaphysician irrefutable or at least so hard to disagree with his essential project though not with each of his conclusions or opinions. This explication would address key doubts and anxieties about Islamic tradition of which he is a providential spokesperson.