SUFI Ebno'I-'Arabi's Doctrine of the Oneness of Being

Ebno'l-'Arabi's Doctrine of theOneness of Being

Ebno'l-'Arabi, known as the'Greatest Master', was themost influential of all those

Sufis who employed the language ofphilosophy to express the teachings ofIslam. Born in Murcia in MuslimSpain in 560/1165, he exhibited hisoutstanding spiritual gifts at an earlyage. In a frequently quoted passage,he recalls his meeting with thefamous philosopher Averroes whenthe latter was an old man. Averroesperceived in Ebno'l-'Arabi, a youthwith only fuzz for a beard, the wisdomfor which he had been searching allhis life. The meeting is highly sym-bolic in that the works of Averroes- which were largely forgotten in theIslamic world itself - became one ofthe major factors influencing the Westto move in the direction of a ration-alism closed to the intermediaterealms of existence, while Ebn01-'Arabi's writings harmonized the ra-tional and spiritual modes of percep-tion and helped keep the minds ofMuslim intellectuals open to theluminous presence of the angels andspirits.

In the year 597/1200, Ebn01-'Arabi was told in a vision to go tothe East. In 599/1202 he performedthe pilgrimage to Mecca, and fromthen on he traveled from city to cityin the central Islamic lands, eventu-ally settling in Damascus, where hedied in 638/1240. He left behindsome 500 works, including theenormous Fotul)at al-makkiya (TheMeccan Openings') and a short sum-mary of his teachings which became

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the most famous of his books, theFo$U$ al-bekam (The Bezels ofWisdom'). His numerous studentsspread his doctrines throughout theIslamic world; within two centuries,there was no expression of Islamic in-tellectuality untouched by his genius.He has continued to influence Muslimintellectuals down to the presentcentury, and even today many Mus-lims consider him the most importantthinker ever produced by Islam.

The Oneness of BeingIn the later literature, Ebno1-'Ar-

abi is most often characterized as thefounder of the doctrine of wal)dato'l-wojud, the 'Oneness of Being' or the'Oneness of Existence'. This doctrineexpresses Islam's basic teaching,tswhid or the 'affirmation of God'sUnity', in the ontological language ofphilosophy. Ebno1-'Arabi himselfnever employs the expressionwsbdeto'l-wojud, and it was singledout as typifying his point of view notso much because of the content of hiswritings, but because of the concernsof his followers and the direction inwhich Islamic thought developed afterhim. Many important students ofEbno'l-Arabi, beginning with hismost influential disciple, Sadro'd-DinQonawi (d. 673/1274), tried to bringthe intellectual expression of Sufisminto harmony with Peripatetic phi-losophy, and wojud or 'existence?was the primary concern of the phi-losophers. Thus the very termwstuietol-wojud - built from the word

wal)da (derived from the same rootas tawi)id) and from a second wordwhich delineates the central concernof philosophy - should alert us to thefact that we are dealing with asynthesis of the religious and thephilosophical traditions. But in Ebno'l-'Arabi's own works, passages dealingwith wojud - a term which is notfound in the Koran - play a relativelysmall role. Like most earlier Sufisand in contrast to the philosophersand theologians, he derives the greaterpart of his key terminology from theKoran and the sayings of thc Prophet(l;adith), and he constantly showshow these sources of Islam are thefountainhead of the established sci-ences, such as jurisprudence, kelsmor scholastic theology, philosophy, andgrammar.

The history of the term wal;dato1-wojud has only recently been inves-tigated. Preliminary research hasshown that Ebno'l-'Arabi's discipleQonawi uses the term on at least twooccasions in his works, while Qonawi'sdisciple Sa'ido'd-Din Farghani (d. 695/1296) employs it many times in histwo influential commentaries on theTa'iyya. of the Arabic poet Ebn01-Faredh. But neither Qonawi norFarghani uses the term wslulsto'l-wojud in the technical sense which itgained in later centuries. For them,the expression does not connote awhole perspective on the nature ofthings but refers instead to the self-evident fact that wojud is a singlereality. At the same time, certain fig-ures peripheral to Ebno'l-'Arabi's

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school, such as Ebn Sab'in (d. 669/1270) in Arabic and 'Azizo'd-DinNasafi (d. before 700/13(0) in Per-sian, were employing the term toallude to the world view of the sagesand the Sufis. Then the Hanbalitejurist Ebn Taymiya (d. 728/1328),famous for his attacks on all schoolsof Islamic intellectuality, seized uponthe term wabdato7-wojud as a syno-nym for the well-known heresies ofette1)ad (,unificationism') and bolul('incarnationism'). From EbnTaymiya's time onward, wal)dato '1-wojud was used more and more com-monly to refer to the whole doctrinetaught by Ebno'l-'Arabi and his fol-lowers. For jurists like Ebn Taymiyathe expression was a term of blame,synonymous with 'unbelief and 'her-esy', but most Muslim intellectualsaccepted wabdato'l-wojud as a syno-nym for tewhid in a philosophical andmystical mode.'

Though Ebno'l-Arabi never em-ploys the expression wehdsto'l-wojuditself, he frequently makes statementswhich approximate it, and wc are cer-tainly justified in claiming that hesupported wshdsto'l-wojud in the lit-eral sense of the term. However, wecannot claim that 'Oneness of Being'is itself a sufficient description of hisontology, since he affirms the 'ma-nyness of reality' with equal vigor.Hence, we find that in many passageshe refers to wojud in its fullness asthe One/Many (al-wa/;ledo'l-kathir).

Ebno'l-Arabi employs the termwojud with a variety of meanings indifferent contexts; simply put, wojudis a single reality which can beperceived on many different levels,like its near synonym, 'light' (nur),which is a Koranic name of God. On'the highest level, wojud is the abso-lute and nondelimited reality of God,the 'Necessary Being' (wajebo'1-wojud) which cannot not exist. Onlower levels, wojud is the underlyingsubstance of 'everything other thanGod' (ma sawa' Allah) - which ishow Muslim thinkers define the'cosmos' or 'universe' (al-'aJam).Ebno'l-'Arabi does not attempt to

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A cflOgramof Ebno'~'Arabl'stheory of ethical and spiritual development. found in the second volume ofthe Fofuhoto'~mokJdyo. 16th century. Courtesy of the BrijishLibrary (Arabic manuscript. OR 132).

define wojud itself, since in itself itis indefinable and unknowable. Buthe does provide many analogiesthrough which we can grasp the natureof wojud. For example, light is initself a single, invisible reality, butthrough it, all colors, shapes, andobjects are perceived; in the sameway wojud is a single reality through

which all things come into existenceand are found in the universe, thoughin itself it remains invisible andbeyond reach.

In short, if we say that Ebno'l-'Arabi believed in wsiuistol-wojud;this is correct, since he affirms thatwojud is a single reality and thatthere cannot be two wojuds. Like

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others before him, he frequentlyglosses the Islamic declaration oftawl)id - the statement, There is nogod but God' - to mean, 'There isnothing in wojud but God: Never-theless, Ebnol-'Arabi devotes most ofhis writings to explaining the realityof manyness or multiplicity (kathra)within the context of the Divine Unity.It would be a great error to suppose- as some short-sighted critics havesupposed - that he simply affirms thatwojud is one and attributes the ma-nyness we perceive in the world toillusion or human ignorance. Multi-plicity is almost as 'real' as unity.However, by affmning the 'reality'(haqiqa) of multiplicity, Ebno'l-'Arabidoes not mean to imply that multiplic-ity exists in the same sense that Godexists, since there is only one wojud.To return to the analogy of light, wecan affirm the reality of colors with-out claiming that each color is anindependently existing thing. Redand green exist only through light; sothey are one in their luminous sub-stance and two in their specificrealities.

If on the one hand, the universeexists through God's wojud, on theother hand, the 'things' (shaYJ or'entities' ('ayn) found within the uni-verse possess their own specific.properties. These things are 'otherthan God', and, as we have seen, Godis wojud. It follows that in them-selves the things do not exist. Ebno'l-'Arahi maintains that everything weperceive in the cosmos is nonexistentin itself, but existent in some sensethrough the wojud of God. In thesame way, every color we perceiveis nonexistent in itself, but existentthrough the existence of light.

If we ignore the existence of thethings for a moment, we can askabout the things 'in themselves'. Whatis an entity - a rock, a tree, a humanbeing, a sun, a world' - in itself,without reference to its existence';Ebno'l-'Arabi tells us that no entitypossesses real existence, so the realityof the entity stays exactly the same,whether or not it is found in the

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Ebno'!-'Arabi's Doctrine of the Oneness of Being

cosmos, since existence does notbelong to it. But each entity has twostates or situations. When an entityis found within the phenomenal world,it displays a certain borrowed exis-tence, which it gives back to Godwhen it disappears, as when a mandies, or a stone turns to dust Nev-ertheless, the reality of the entitynever changes through its apparentexistence; it did not exist in the firstplace - it only borrowed existencefrom God for a moment - so it doesnot cease to exist in the second place.It stays in its original state of 'per-manence' or 'immutability' (thobut).

But how can we speak of theimmutability of an entity that does notexist? Briefly stated, Ebno'l-'Arabiexplains these 'immutable entities' (al-a'yano'th-thabeta) as follows: The'existence' and 'nonexistence' of theentities about which we have beenspeaking pertain to the cosmos, thephenomenal world. But the phe-nomenal world is the manifestation ofthe non-phenomenal world, which isultimately wojud itself. In Koranicterms, God 'creates' the universe andeach thing within it. And God is notonly infinite wojud; He is also infiniteand eternal knowledge. He knows allthings forever, even before He cre-ates them, and He knows them in allthe details which they will manifestduring their sojourn in the cosmos.God's knowledge of the things corre-sponds precisely to the things as theyare in themselves. The 'thing in itselfis known as the 'reality' (/;Iaqiqa) ofthe existent thing or its 'immutableentity'. Hence the entities remain for-ever immutable in the knowledge ofGod, which never changes. while inrelation to the cosmos they may beeither existent or nonexistent The.things within God's knowledge aresometimes called the 'nonexistent ob-jects of knowledge' (aJ-ma1umato7-ma'dwna);their plurality cannot bringabout plurality in wojud any morethan the plurality of our own ideascauses our minds to have many parts.

Ebno'l-Arabi explains the myste-rious relationship between cosmic ex-

istence and the nonexistent things ina wide variety of contexts. Here wecan look briefly at two of these ex-planations, the first metaphysical andthe second more cosmological. TheKoran (57:3) affirms that God is theManifest (a~-~aher) and the Non-manifest (aI-baien). This means thatwhat we see manifest before us isGod or wojud. We know that wojudis one, but in fact we see a cosmosof infinite multiplicity, not one God.How then do we account for the ma-nyness which we see? Ebno'l-Arabiexplains that when wojud becomesmanifest in the cosmos, it displaysitself to us within a 'locus of mani-festation' (ma:(,har), which is thecosmos itself; it does not display itselfas the Nonmanifest, since by definitionwojud as the Nonmanifest is incon-ceivable and unknowable. Moreover,within this one locus of manifestationknown as the cosmos, there are manylesser loci of manifestation, known asthe things or entities found within thecosmos. These loci of manifestationare nonexistent in themselves, sinceonly God has wojud. So what weperceive is wojud permeated by theproperties of the entities, whichthemselves remain immutable innonexistence. The situation is analo-gous to what happens when lightpasses through a prism: We perceivemany different colors, but the onlything that exists is the one lightHence, says Ebno'l-Arabi, in respectto Himself God is Nonmanifest, butin respect to His loci of manifestationHe is Manifest. The loci are pluralin themselves, but not in respect tothe wojud which is Manifest withinthem. Unity lies in their manifesta-tion - which is wojud - while multi-plicity lies in their entities. which donot exist in themselves. Hence, Godis identical with the existence of thethings, but He is not identical with thethings.

In a context which pays more at-tention to the structure of the cosmos,Ebno'l-Arabi explains the relation-ship between wojud and the entitiesin terms of the Breath of the AlI-

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merciful (mfaso'r-Ralpnan). In Ko-ranic language, God is the All-mer-ciful, and His mercy 'embraces allthings' (7:156). Ebno'l-Arabi pointsout that the only reality which em-braces each and every thing in thecosmos is existence, so existence isGod's mercy, since through it Hebrings all things from the state ofnonexistence within His knowledge -where they enjoy no bounties what-soever - to a state of existence withinthe world, where they are able toperceive, enjoy, and experience theirown realities. Building on /)adiths inwhich the Prophet refers to the 'breath'of the All-merciful and Koranic versesin which God's 'breathing' is men-tioned, Ebno'l-'Arabi compares theprocess of creation to the breathingof a breather. The breath itself is likethe underlying substance within whichall things assume their specific char-acteristics; through it the 'immutableentities' (a1-a'yano'th-thabeta) become'existent entities' t el-e'y ano'l-mawjuda) (without losing theirimmutability in God's knowledge aIlgwithout gaining true existence)," Inthe same context Ebno'l-Arabi alsorefers to many Koranic verses whichmention the creative act of God interms of His speech and allude to theinfinite 'words of God'. These wordsof God, says Ebno'l-Arabi, are the in-dividual entities or creatures. WhenGod exhales the Breath of the AlI-merciful, He also speaks. Within theBreath the whole cosmos takes spe-cific form. Since the words of Godare individual and distinct realities,multiplicity is real; but since theBreath of God is the reality of exis-tence, all things share in that realityinasmuch as they exist within the cos-mos. Words depend absolutely uponthe Breath, but the Breath has noneed for the words; God speaks notbecause some external factor forcesHim to speak, but because He ismerciful and generous by nature andwills to bring creatures into existence.Hence, absolute wojud displays itsinnate qualities of mercy and com-passion through overflowing and

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bringing the 'other' into existence.If we pursue the analogy of the

divine Breath with the human breatha little further, we come across anotherprimary teaching of Ebno'l-Arabi,concerning which we will have moreto say in what follows. Is the breathof a human being the same as himself?One cannot answer this questionsimply by saying 'yes' or 'no'. In onerespect, the person's breath is not thesame as himself, since he is a humanbeing and his breath is a breath. Buta human being without breath is acorpse, and breath without a humanbeing is moist air. So, in fact, thetwo terms, human being and breath,are somehow inseparable. 10 thesame way, the Breath of the A11-merciful is the same as God; yet itis different from God. Likewise, thewords which become articulated withinthe Breath are the same as the Breath,yet different. Hence, there is noabsolute identity between an existententity and God, nor is there an absolutedifference. The exact relationshipalways remains a mystery,· eventhough we can gain a certain graspof it through investigation and God'shelp.

Perfect Man: The Onto-logy of the Divine Names

What do we know about wojudas such? First, we know nothing; orrather, we know that wojud is inde-finable and inconceivable, since wecan only know of it what we have ofit in our hands, yet, strictly speaking,we have nothing, since we are nonex-istent. Put otherwise, how can thewords encompass the speaker? Howcan a visible calor comprehend thereality of invisible light? Yet, in spiteof this, we can, indeed, know some-thing of wojud, precisely because wehave a certain knowledge of our-selves and the cosmos around us, andall these realities give us intimationsof the Absolute Reality from whichthey have issued forth.

Analyzing the qualities of wojudwithin the cosmos to grasp the nature

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of wojud in itself corresponds to acertain type of philosophical approach,and although Ebno'l-Arabi does notneglect this approach, he is far moreconcerned with investigating the self-revelation of wojud in human lan-guage, that is, the holy scriptures. Inpractice, the 'holy scriptures' are theKoran and the Hadith (though not intheory, since Ebno'l-Arabi acknowl-edges the validity of the scriptures ofother religions). Through scripturewojud - God Himself - reveals itselfto man in a linguistic mode in orderto inform him of its nature. This'information' concerning God whichwe receive through the scriptures issummarized in terms of the names ofGod, traditionally said to numberninety-nine. Each name of God men-tioned in the Koran and the Hadithtells us something of the ultimatereality of wojud, though that ultimatereality in itself can never be known.Most of Ebno'l-'Arabi's writings dealwith the explication of the Koran andHadith, since he is constantly con-cerned to find the 'divine roots' (a1-osulo']-elahiya) or 'divine supports'(a1-mostanadato'1-elahiya) of all phe-nomena in the universe through thehelp of scripture. God in Himself -often called the 'Essence' (adh-dhat)- transcends phenomena absolutely,but there is something about the wayin which God brings the existentthings into the cosmos which tells usabout God and makes clear for us thenature of wojud. On the one hand,this something is expressed linguisti-cally by the Koran; on the other, itis expressed ontologically and epis-temologically through the universeand our own self-knowledge. Ebn01-'Arabi frequently quotes the Koranicverse which tells us to gaze upon thecosmos and within ourselves in orderto perceive the 'signs' (ayat) of God'sReality (41:53).

What, then, do we know aboutwojud! We know what the Koran hastold us. Hence we know, for ex-ample, that wojud is Alive, Knowing,Willing, Powerful, Speaking, Gener-ous and Just. These seven Koranic

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SUFI Ebno'I-'Arobi's Doctrine of the Oneness of Being

The opening page from the second volume of the Fotuhato'l-mak/dya, by Ebno'l'Arabi, 16th century, Courtesy of the British library (Arabic monuscript, Or 132),

names of God are frequently cited asthe key attributes upon which all theother divine names depend. Throughthese and other divine names, we cangrasp many of the characteristics

which flow forth from wojud andwhich belong to wojud, but we cannever grasp wojud itself, which tran-scends all its attributes while possess-ing each of them fully. These names,

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then, refer to God on the one hand;but they also refer to the things orentities, since, in order to come intothe world, the things must reflectwojud in some manner, or else theycould not exist in any sense.

For Ebn01-'Arabi, the divinenames are the bridge between theNon-phenomenal and the phenome-nal, both epistemologically and onto-logically. In other words, without thedivine names and attributes as re-vealed in scripture, we could have nocertain knowledge of the nature ofwojud. At the same time, thesenames denote the actual reality ofwojud, and hence, they delineate themodes in which wojud comes to mani-fest itself through its 'signs: the thingsof the cosmos. On the one hand, onlyGod possesses true life, true knowl-edge, true will, true power, and so on.On the other hand, each thing in thecosmos manifests certain aspects ofGod's life, knowledge, will and powerby the very fact that it manifestswojud. The life which we possess isnot true life, since true life belongsonly to God. But at the same time,our life does possess a certain reality,or else we would neither know norperceive.

When God grants existence tothe entities, they come into existenceaccording to their own realities, Thismeans, for example, that God givesexistence to a particular tree, and itenters into the cosmos exactly as Hehas known it for all eternity, with allthe specific qualities relating to thatparticular tree in that particular timeand place. The immutable entitiescannot be compared to the Platonicideas, because the ideas are univer-sals rather than particulars. But wecan compare the divine names to thePlatonic ideas, since each Koranicname of God denotes a specificontological attribute in which theentities share to some degree. Some-times, however, Ebno'l-Arabi declaresthat God's names are infinite, foreach entity displays a property ofwojud, thereby signifying wojud and'naming' it; in this sense each thing

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is a name of God; so the names areparticulars. These two views of thedivine names led some of Ebno'l-Ar-abi's followers to distinguish betweenthe ninety-nine names of God and theimmutable entities by calling the firstthe 'universal names of God' and thesecond the 'particular names of God:

According to Ebno'l-Arabi, eachexistent entity shares in all divine at-tributes, since each displays exis-tence, and existence is God, theEssence named by all the names. Butevery entity does not manifest allattributes, and hence the whole cosmosis ranked in degrees of excellence(tafar,fhoI) in accordance with theextent to which the existent entitiesdisplay the attributes of God withinthe universe. Some creatures havea greater life, some a lesser life, andsome seem to have no life whatso-ever - though the Sufis can perceivean invisible life even in stones, throughthe eye of mystical 'unveiling' (kashi).So also each and every attribute ofGod manifests itself in varying inten-sities - knowledge, will, power,speech, generosity, justice, mercy, for-giveness, and so on. Each entity hasa specific 'preparedness' (esle'dad)which allows it to manifest the attrib-utes of wojud to a greater or lesserdegree. A stone manifests power ina certain passive way. A plantmanifests traces of life, knowledge,will, and active power. An animalmanifests all these attributes withmuch greater intensity. At the top ofthe visible hierarchy of existence,human beings have the potential tomanifest every divine name.

A famous btuiitl: tells us that Godcreated Adam upon His own form,and Ebno'l-Arabi makes much of thefact that here the name 'Allah' isemployed, since Allah is the 'all-com-prehensive name of God' (el-esmo'i-jame), to which all the other namesrefer. Hence human beings werecreated with the potentiality ofdisplaying all names of God, whileother creatures in the cosmos canonly manifest some names of God.Though all creatures are loci of

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manifestation for wojud, wojud canmanifest itself in its full splendor onlyin a human being. This can easilybe seen if we look again at the sevenprimary names of God referred toabove. Humans share with animalsthe fact that they manifest life,knowledge, will and power. Buthuman beings can manifest theseattributes with much greater intensitythan animals. Who would comparethe power of an elephant to that ofa Genghis Khan? Or the knowledgeof a bee to that of Buddha? More-over, only humans can manifest theremaining three attributes within thesensory world. 'Speech' is a specifi-cally human quality, while 'generos-ity' and 'justice' cannot be applied toanimals except metaphorically.

But not all human beings employtheir speech in a manner appropriateto the full perfection of wojud, andfew people are generous and just.Nor do men possess knowledge, will,power, or any other divine attributein equal measure. Since peopleactualize the divine attributes andmanifest them in their lives in varyingmanners, Ebno'l-Arabi distinguishesfive basic categories of human beings:unbeliever (kafer), person of faith(momen), friend of God (waJi),prophet (nabi), and messenger (ra-suI). He devotes hundreds of pagesto explaining how different kinds ofpeople manifest the divine names indifferent degrees. Thus, his anthro-pology is in fact an ontology, frrmlybased on the Koranic doctrine ofGod's names and attributes.

It is worth stressing that for Ebno'l-'Arabi, as for most other Muslimthinkers, morality and ethics, like an-thropology, are rooted in ontology. Inother words, a human being whowants to actualize his full humanitymust bring out the divine qualitieswhich are latent within himself. Thequalities of a true human being areGod's qualities, which is to say thatthey belong to wojud itself. Thesedivine qualities are moral qualities inthat they provide the model for everyproper, compassionate and humane

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act. The Koran tells us that God isGenerous, Just, Forgiving, Kind,Patient, Clement, and so on, andthese are precisely the attributes whicha human being must gain in order toreach moral and spiritual perfection.Hence, Ebno'l-Arabi identifies theSufi path with the 'assumption of thecharacter traits of God' (at-takhalloqbe akhliiqe11iih), and he identifiesthese character traits with the divinenames. In other words, there areabsolute standards for ethics and socialbehavior grounded in the same prin-ciples which govern the natural world.As a result, wojud can find its fullmanifestation only in a proper moralorder established among humanbeings.

Ebno'l-Arabi connects the fullmanifestation of wojud to humanbeings most clearly in his famousdoctrine of 'perfect man' (al-cnsano7-kiunel), In one respect, perfect man(who is contrasted with 'animal man',al-ensano1-l;!ayawan) is the embodi-ment of every praiseworthy humanquality; he is the exemplar of humanwisdom, compassion, and all moraland spiritual good. He guides indi-viduals and society to an ideal equi-librium with the ultimate Good. Herepresents God among human beings,leading them to their supreme happi-ness in the next world. In his humanmanifestation he is found in the formof the prophets and the great friendsof God (akabero1-awjia).

In another respect, perfect man isthe goal of the cosmos, since Godmanifests all His attributes onlythrough perfect man; in him alonedoes wojud come to a full flowering.No creature other than perfect manpossesses the requisite preparedness(este'dad) to manifest all God's moraltraits within the cosmos. If wojud initself is the absolutely non-phenome-nal, it only attains to its full manifes-tation within the phenomenal worldthrough perfect man, who displaysevery name of God in perfect har-mony and equilibrium. This is whyEbno'l-Arabi says that the 'Moham-madan' friends of God - that is, those

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who have inherited the sciences andmoral traits of Mohammad, the mostperfect of perfect men - possess 'thestation of no station' (maqam lamaqam). In other words, they haveactualized every perfection found inexistence, so they cannot be identi-fied ir a limiting sense with any spe-cific perfection. Other friends of Godare dominated by specific divinenames, or specific perfections ofwojud, such as kriowledge, speech,generosity, justice, compassion, love,patience, perserverance, and so on.But the Muhammadan friends of Godactualize every name and everyperfection; hence, they are dominatedby no name, no perfection, 'no sta-tion'. On the contrary, they act inperfect accordance with the necessi-ties of every situation, since theymanifest the ultimate reality of wojuditself. Like the divine Essence, theyare unknowable and ungraspable, yetthey overflow with every imaginablegood.

Incomparability andSimilarity

On the one hand wojud in itselfis unknowablc and transcendsabsolutely the existent and nonexistentthings, which are infinite in number.On the other hand, wojud shows itselfthrough the existent entities andthrough the revealed scriptures, sohuman beings can acquire knowledgeof its qualities. In the terminologydeveloped by Islamic scholastictheology, kelsm, God's unknowabilityand transcendence are referred to astanzih, or 'incomparability'. In otherwords, God cannot be compared withanything; no existent thing stands ona par with wojud in itself. Our onlyknowledge about God is that we donot truly know anything about Him.This position was affirmed bytheologians long before Ebno'l-Arabi,and he accepts it as true. However,he points out that this description ofthe divine Reality does not provide uswith a full picture of wojud, since itdoes not account satisfactorily for the

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'signs' of God which appear in thecosmos. In fact, says Ebno'l-Arabi,the theologians based their analysisof the divine nature on reason (al-'aqI), and reason functions such thatit can understand only what God isnot On its own, reason can gain nopositive knowledge of God's attributes.Hence, the scriptures provide us withthis positive knowledge, and reasonwill not go astray if it follows thescriptures. But most rational thinkers- theologians in particular - insistupon interpreting (ta'wil) scripture inaccordance with their own rationalperception of what can be attributedappropriately to God. As a result,they refuse to accept the face valueof any description of God whichsuggests that He is similar to thethings of the cosmos.

If reason by its very nature wantsto negate attributes from God andaffirm His incomparability, 'imagina-tion' (khayaI) has the power to graspGod's similarity (tashbih). Here wecannot begin to describe Ebn01-'Arabi's extremely detailed compari-son of the two kinds of knowledgeacquired through reason and imagina-tion, but we can summarize his con-clusions: Perfect knowledge of Godmust declare God both incomparableand similar. God in Himself - absolutewojud - is incomparable with allexistent things, but God also mani-fests the properties of wojud in thecosmos, and in this respect we haveto say that God is somehow similarto the created things.

What, then, is the cosmos? It isthe 'other', since it is defmed aseverything other than the Essence ofGod. But it is not other in everyrespect, since it is all the wordsarticulated within the Breath of theAll-merciful, and the Breath issomehow identical with the Breather.Again, the cosmos is God's self-dis-closure (tajalll) within His loci ofmanifestation. Through the cosmos,wojud displays its characteristics andproperties, that l..-i, its universal andparticular names, both the ninety-ninenames of God and the immutable

enunes. Hence, the Breath of theAll-merciful brings the invisible reali-ties out to the visible plane. In onesense, the universe is other than God,since the Essence lies infinitelybeyond it. In another sense, theuniverse is identical with God, sincenothing is found within it which doesnot name Him. The inexhaustiblewords spoken by God are the sameas the Breath, and the Breath is thesame as the All-merciful; so, thewords are the same as the All-mer-ciful. Ebno'l-Arabi constantly movesback and forth between these twopoints of view, that of identity anddifference. He sums up his positionwith the deceptively simple state-ment: 'He/not He' (howa la howa).Each entity in the cosmos is identicalwith wojud and other than wojud atone and the same time.

The reality of 'He/not He' can beperceived most clearly through imagi-nation. Ebno'l-Arabi discusses imagi-nation on many levels, and it playssuch an important role in his teach-ings that he claims no one can gainany true knowledge without under-standing it An imaginal (not 'imagi-nary') reality is one which dwells inan intermediate domain between twoother realities, so that we must affirmand deny it at the same time. Oneof the most common examples is amirror image. Your reflection in amirror acts as a kind of bridge be-tween yourself and the mirror; youhave to affirm that the image is bothyourself and the mirror, and that it isneither yourself nor the mirror. Like-wise, dreams are imaginal realities.If you see your father in a dream,you have seen your father and notyour mother or brother; at the sametime, what you have seen is nothingbut your own self. So the imaginalreality you have perceived is a bridgeor 'isthmus' (barzakh) between your-self and your father. The most succinctstatement you can make about thedream image is 'he/not he'.

Ebno'l-Arabi perceives imagina-tion on three different cosmic levels.On the human level, man's world of

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inner experience is imagination. Thisis the 'soul' (nafs), which dwells atan intermediate stage, or 'isthmus',between the spirit, which according tothe Koran (32:9) derives from God'sBreath, and the body, which Godkneaded from clay. The spirit is onereality composed of pure light, life,knowledge and the other divine at-tributes, while the body is a multiplic-ity of parts, overcome by darkness,inanimate matter, ignorance, and thelack of divine attributes. The soul isa mixture of the two sides. It is nei-ther pure light nor pure darkness, butan intermediate stage between lightand darkness. It possesses everydivine attribute to a certain ambigu-ous degree. Each human soul rep-resents a unique mixture of qualitiesand a unique possibility of ascensiontoward the perfection of 'no station',where all the divine attributes arcpossessed in the fullest possiblemeasure. But each human being mayalso descend toward multiplicity anddarkness, thus becoming lost in dis-persion and passing into an infrahu-man state. The whole intermediatedomain of the soul is one of imagi-nation and ambiguity, mixture andperplexity. The only path of safetywithin this maze of affirmation anddenial is the route set down by theprophets.

On a second level, Ebno'l-Arabiperceives imagination in the macro-cosm, the world outside of man. Thereare two fundamental created worlds,the invisible world of spirits and thevisible world of bodies, correspondingto spirit and body in the microcosm.The world of spirits is inhabited byangels, who are said, in the tradi-tional symbolism, to be created from'light', while the world of bodies is in-habited by animals and humans, whosevisible parts are made of 'clay'.Between these two worlds stand manyother worlds which combine thequalities of the two basic worlds andwhich are known collectively as the'World of Imagination'. For example,the 'jinn' are said to inhabit some ofthese intermediary worlds. They are

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made of 'fire', which is clearly abridge between light and clay. Fireis luminous like light, yet it cannot dowithout fuel from the world of clay.It tries to ascend to light; yet it isattached by its root to the world ofdarkness. Angelic beings descendfrom the world of light into the worldof imagination and are perceived invisions by the prophets and the friendsof God. Here also the prophetsreceive the scriptures, which bring to-gether the cognitive luminosity of theupper world with a linguistic crystal-lization through which human beingsdominated by dispersion and dark-ness can perceive the light of thespirit.

In a third sense, 'imagination' re-fers to the greatest of all intermedi-ate realities, which is the wholecosmos, or the Breath of the All-merciful. The cosmos stands halfwaybetween absolute wojud and absolutenothingness. Everything that 'exists'in the universe is He/not He, itself/not itself. Moreover, this descriptionapplies to the cosmos not only as astatic reality but also as a dynamicreality. In other words, each momentis both identical and not identical withthe preceding and following mo-ments. Ebno1-'Arabi points to theinfinity of wojud and cites the axiom,'Self-disclosure never repeats itself,'since God in His infinite effusion isunder no constraints; hence, no twothings and no two instants are exactlythe same. This is Ebno'l-Arabi'sfamous doctrine of the 'renewal ofcreation at each 'instant'. As Ebn01-'Arabi writes concerning the cosmos,

Everything other than the Es-sence of God stands at the stationof transmutation, speedy and slow.Everything other than the Essenceof God is intervening imaginationand vanishing shadow ...undergoingtransformation from form to formconstantly and forever. Andimagination is nothing but this ....So the cosmos becomes manifestonly within imagination. (Fotul;!at,vei n, n.d., p. 313)

Wojud is one in its Essence and

SUFI

many through its names and self-dis-closures; it is both incomparable withall the entities and similar to everycreated thing. Wojud finds its mostcomplete outward expression in per-fect man, who manifests all the namesof God in their fullness. Just as Godhas two perfections, that of the Es-sence and that of the names, so alsoperfect man has two perfections, thatof his essential reality as the form ofGod Himself and that of his acciden-tal manifestations, through which hedisplays God's names in particularcontexts. In respect of the firstperfection, all perfect men are essen-tially one, and one might speak of 'theperfect man' as a unique reality or asthe 'logos'. In respect of the secondperfection, each perfect man has aspecific function to play within thecosmos; so there are many perfectmen fulfilling the roles God has givento them. In respect of the essentialperfection of the perfect men, theKoran says that there is no distinctionamong God's messengers (2:285), butin respect of their accidental perfec-tion, it declares that God has rankedthem in degrees of excellence (2:253).In short, the perfect men are fixed intheir essences, which are not otherthan the essence of wojud itself; atthe same time, they undergo constanttransformation and transmutation byparticipating in the ceaseless self-disclosure of God and manifesting theproperties of the divine names in anever-ending variety of cosmic situ-ations. The heart (qajb) of perfectman experiences endless fluctuation(taqallob), since it is the locus withinwhich he perceives God's self-disclo-sures, which never repeat themselves.

God created the universe to mani-fest the fullness of His own nature.As the famous badith qodsi expressesit, God says, 'I was a hidden treasure;so I wanted to be known; hence, Icreated the creatures, in order that Imight be known.' In other words,through the cosmos, wojud disclosesthe infinite possibilities latent withinitself. Yet it manifests itself in itsfullness only through perfect man.

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SUFI

since he alone actualizes every on-tological quality - every name andattribute of God. Perfect man alonehas reached the goal of human life,which is to manifest the divine formin which man was created.

Ebno'l-Arabi devotes most of hisattention not to ontology but to 'an-thropology', that is, describing thenature of perfect man and the mannerin which human beings can reachperfection. The practical sides ofEbno'l-Arabi's teaching - which arefar more detailed than the theoreticalside which we have been discussing- describe how a human being candiscipline the intellect and the imagi-nation in order to combine the visionof incomparability with that of simi-larity. A mere rational understand-ing of the reality of He/not He willnot aid a person to ascend to theworld of light. The inward world ofimagination cannot be transformedinto a place of the self-disclosure ofwojud unless we follow the guidanceof those human beings who havereached perfection before us - themessengers, prophets, and friends ofGod.

In short, the ultimate reality ofwojud is both infinitely beyond us andever-present with us. In itsincomparability wojud is one with anabsolute oneness, but in its similarityit manifests itself through the realplurality which we perceive in thecosmos. The Non-phenomenal re-mains forever incomparable, just aslight remains forever light; but theNon-phenomenal brings the phenome-nal into existence through mercy andcompassion toward everything thathas the potential to exist. The cosmosin turn displays all the properties ofwojud in a differentiated manner.Human beings are able to return byway of their own selves to the Non-phenomenal, thereby realizing theiroriginal state as nonexistent immu-table entities; but, by the same token,the perfect men come to manifest thefullness of wojud, since their nonex-istent entities were made in the divineform, which is the form of wojud.

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Ebno'l-Arobl's Doctrine of the Oneness of Being

'No station' is at once every station.Not He is He. Oneness becomesmanifest in the plurality of man'sperfections.

Notes

1. For detailed explanations of the ideasdiscussed in this paper, see w.e. Chittick,The Sufi Path of Knowledge: lbn sl-i\rabl:S Metaphysics of Imagination, Al-bany: SUNY Press, 1989.

2. Translating the term wojud as 'exis-tence' rather than 'Being' or 'finding' (itsliteral sense) in the context of Ebno'l-'Arabi's writings raises a number ofproblems, which are discussed in Chittick,The Suii Path of Knowledge.

3. On the history of the term, see Chittick,"Rumi and Wahdat el-wujud', in TheHeritage of Rumi, edited by Amin Bananiand Georges Sabagh, Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, forthcoming.

If You Wish

by Alex Cowie

If you wish

I will be the voiceless cryin Your green house of falling stars

I +.il! be the cavewhere Your wounded leopard sleeps

I will be the light of peaceupon all Your broken fences &the dancing fish in Your warm rivers

I will be the softest pillowIn Your sweet bed of night

& Youshall be

my only love

Issue 4