Abstract
This chapter concerns with the biography, studies, journeys, and bibliography of Ibn ʿArabı̄ (d. 637 H/1240), followed by his conceptualizations of the key terms including wilāya, the seal of wilāya (khatm al-wilāya), nubuwwa (prophethood), khilāfa (vicegerency), and al-insān al-kāmil (the Perfect Man). The author intends to show how he was inspired by previous mystics and mystical traditions which were available in his time, what he added to the existing traditions, and what he left as his legacy for future generations. Focusing on several of his texts, such as Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, ʿAnqāʾ Mughrib, Risālat al-Anwār, and Tajalı̄yāt ul-Ilāhı̄ya, we learned that although wilāya was a well-established concept in the deepest soil of Islamic mysticism, but it was Ibn ʿArabı̄ who promoted it to a creative construction at the heart of his theory on waḥdat-i wujūd.
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Notes
- 1.
Reynold Nicholson discusses the impression of Ibn ʿArabī on the next generations and particularly shows how ʿAbdul al-Karīm Jīlī was indebted to his theory of the Perfect Man. Nicholson adds that both Jīlī and Ibn ʿArabī “are inspired by the same mystical philosophy … [and use] similar methods in order to develop their ideas”. See:
Reynold A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, Appendix II, Some Notes on the Fuṣūṣ ‘l-Hikam, 1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 149.
- 2.
Elmore’s opinion seems to me surprising, since the names as well as the spiritual and legal affiliations of Ibn ʿArabī’s masters are well documented. Some of them were a famous Sufi and mutakallim (theologian), a few were illiterate, and some others were, at the same time, his masters and disciples both. Addas not only enumerates them but also lists the names of the ʿirfānī and philosophical schools of his time (Addas 1993, p. 44ff).
- 3.
Alexander Knysh also believes that he not only was not Uwaysī but also the reason behind his extensive journeys was to study under “the most prominent religious teachers of his time” (Knysh 1999, p. 7).
- 4.
Nettler has given a full account of this. See:
Ronald L. Nettler, Sufi Metaphysics and Qur’anic Prophets: Ibn ʿArabī’s Thought and Method in the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, 2003 (Cambridge: the Islamic Texts Society), pp. 5–6.
- 5.
Khurāsānī claims that Ibn ʿArabī wrote the second copy of the book in Damascus, and the first one having been written in Mecca in 599. Khurāsānī, p. 7.
- 6.
Such praise and celebration of Man’s status in creation has been unprecedented in Islamic culture until the time of Ibn ʿArabī. Additionally, as history attests, in subsequent centuries, it became the typical understanding of Man and his vicegerency. The author is not sure whether any scholarly research has been done on the term dervish and its humble status, in contrast to the egoistical and overconfident status of the Perfect Man. Such an investigation would be very helpful because it considers the historical changes of Islamic mysticism, from its formative period to its theorization by Ibn ʿArabī. Furthermore, and addressing our concern here, for example, the doctrine of wilāya and its developments in the post-Safawid era, this research would show, whether there was any possibility that numerous mystical and/or messianic movements revolving around the concept of the Perfect Man, could be conceived. In other words, in the absence of concepts like the Perfect Man, were Islamic Mysticisms still capable of nurturing such movements?
- 7.
ʿAfīfī believes that it was Manṣūr Ḥallāj who, for the first time, drew our attention to “this Jewish maxim” that God has created Man on a Divine image (ṣūrat ul-ilāhīya), and therefore Sufis err in attributing it to the Prophet of Islam (ʿAfīfī 1423 H/2002, p. 35).
- 8.
Masataka Takeshita, Ibn Arabi’s Theory of the Perfect Man and Its Place in the History of Islamic Thought, University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation, 1986.
- 9.
“[God] said, ‘O Iblis! What had prevented thee from prostrating unto that which I created with My two Hands? Dost thou wax arrogant, or art thou among the exalted?” (Nasr 2015, p. 1115).
- 10.
“So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him prostrating” (Nasr 2015, p. 646).
- 11.
Ibn ʿArabī’s argument for the nature of true knowledge, for example, His gnosis and accessibility of khawāṣṣ to it, is in fact a Platonic one. Only the philosopher is the owner of the true knowledge and the ‘just’ one, and hence, has every right to be the ruler, or the philosopher-king.
- 12.
Faṣṣ or bezel of [Divine] wisdom, in the mysticism of Ibn ʿArabī is an allegory for ḥikmat or the esoteric heritage which is inherited to all the prophets and the awalīyā from the spirit of Muḥammad (al-ḥaqīqat al-muḥammadīyah). Al-ḥaqīqat al-muḥammadīyah is the logos carrying ḥikmat from Deity to the prophets and to the awalīyā (ʿAfīfī, vol. 2, p. 3). The Fuṣūṣ is mostly “on the nature of God as manifested through prophecy, each of its twenty-seven chapters being attached to the logos (kalima) of a prophet typifying a particular Divine attribute. Since God does not reveal Himself completely except in Man, the first chapter treats of Adam as the microcosm, the Perfect Man, the absolute mirror of Divinity” (Nicholson 1921, p. 149). Nicholson in this chapter, entitled “Some Notes on the Fūṣūṣ ‘L-Ḥīkam” points to the difficulties he had in reading, understanding and translating Ibn ʿArabī’s complicated text and states that “the theories set forth in the Fuṣūṣ are difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain, … [as] the author’s language is so technical, figurative and involved that a literal reproduction would convey very little. On the other hand, [Nicholson states] if we reject his terminology, we shall find it impossible to form any precise notion of his ideas” (Nicholson 1921, p. 149). Other non-Arab scholars, such as Sharaf al-Dīn Khurāsānī and William Chittick, both of whom have written entries on ‘Ibn ʿArabī’, refer to this point.
- 13.
For different meanings and usages of the term ḥaqq in the terminology of Ibn ʿArabī, see:
Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, al-Muʿjam al-Ṣufi: al-Ḥikma fī Ḥudūd al-Kalima, 1401 H/1981 (Beirut: Dendera), p. 337.
- 14.
William Chittick, in his article entitled the Chapter Headings of the Fūṣūṣ, elaborates on the significance of each chapter heading of this book, and the way chapters are understood by Ibn ʿArabī’s first commentators. See:
William C. Chittick, The Chapter Headings of the Fūṣūṣ, the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society, Vol. II, 1984.
- 15.
The italic is in the text.
- 16.
ʿAfīfī explains these two as such: the Reality has two theophanies, the Theophany of the Invisible and the Theophany of the Evidence. In the first theophany, He manifests for His Essence in His Essence upon His names and attributes and is called the emanation of the more sacred (fayḍ al-aqdas) (ʿAfīfī, Ibid., vol. 2, p. 145). The reason for this theophany is the love of the Deity for His Essence which motivates Him to be manifested in Divine names and attributes. As a result, permanent archetypes (aʿyān-i thābita) appear. In the second theophany, He appears “in the images of the extraneous archetypes” (aʿyān-i khārijī), and is called the emanation of the sacred or fayḍ-i muqaddas (Ibid., p. 145), and as a result, the concomitants (lawāzim) of permanent archetypes in the world appear. These two realms are in contrast, as the former represents unity and inward, while the latter displays outward and multiplicity (Ibid., p. 145). Aʿyān-i thābita have two modulations: the first one is the images of the names and attributes, while the second modulation is designated to the realities of the extraneous archetypes. The emanation happens at both levels.
- 17.
Though again I should emphasize that the himma of the ʿārif does not stem from his free will or personal choice but through Divine injunction, although, even it does, the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ itself, both God’s and man’s, are “compelled and ordained in the very order of things” (Nettler 2003, p. 215). Nettler reads: “the divine and human ‘free’ choices and their results are subsumed within the larger universe of metaphysical order and determination – and the choices are then fixed in their own domain” (Nettler 2003, p. 215).
- 18.
Muḥammad Sūrī, in his article Ḥakīm Tirmidhī va Naẓarīyayi Wilāya, explains why Tirmidhī and some of his other contemporary ʿārifs were not called Sufi, but ḥakīm or faqīr (poor), and why they did not reveal any affiliation to official Sufi ṭarīqas (lit. path). Sūrī maintains that in the third century, terms such as Sufi and taṣawwuf were solely referred to the ʿārifs of the School of Baghdad, and therefore, in order to refer to the masters of other schools/ṭarīqas, and especially those of Transoxiana, either ʿārif or ḥakīm has been used. People of the Levant used to call their ʿārifs as faqīr and not Sufi. See:
Muḥammad Sūrī, Hakīm Tirmidhī wa Naẓarīyayi Wilāya, the Journal of Falsafeh va Kalām, vol. 4, Winter 1385, p. 91.
- 19.
Tirmidhī himself was accused of having prophetic ambitions, while he had chosen an obscure life. He believed that there is no difference between nabī and rasūl, except the fact that the latter has a sharīʿa that should be proselytized to his people, while nabī submits to the existing sharīʿa of his time and does not bring a new law. Aside from their differences, these two have a similarity, in the sense that both benefit from revelation, and hence, it is obligatory for people to accept them. The office of wilāya, in turn, is devoid of such features; unless when walī reaches the status of muḥaddath, which is equal to risāla and nubuwwa. Muḥaddath is the one who receives His revelation by inspiration and talks to God through ilhām. Only in this case, walī—like nabī and rasūl—is immune from sin. Tirmidhī, despite having anti-Shīʿa beliefs, believes that twelve Shīʿī imāms are walī and immune from sin. See: Ibid., pp. 94–99.
- 20.
For typology of awlīyā, see:
Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, al-Muʿjam ul-Ṣūfī: al-Ḥikma fī Ḥudūd al-Kalima, 1401 H/1981 (Beirut: Dendera), pp. 518–519.
- 21.
The idea of awlīyā being selected by God’s will to the office of wilāya and having no right or authority in choosing the course of their life is very dominant in the Shaykhī School. Imāms, from a Shaykhī viewpoint, are totally devoid of any power to make any decision and even their daily actions are determined by Him. They are immune from sin, not because they voluntarily decide not to commit sin, but because they are not able to do sin. From this perspective, their status is very close to that of the angels who worship God involuntarily and not out of their decision. This is discussed further in Chap. 3.
- 22.
Tirmidhī emphasizes that by ‘essence’ he means walī’s absolute and unconditional faith and trust to God, and therefore walī’s deeds are not as determinative as his faith and submission. Perhaps, the idea that “believer should be like a dead corpse in the hands of His God” generated from this idea which teaches absolute submission and subordination.
- 23.
The impact of Tirmidhī on Ibn ʿArabī has been discussed in a number of sources. For a useful study of the impact of Tirmidhī on Ibn ʿArabī, see: Takeshita, Op.cit, 1986, p. 128ff.
As for the influence of the preceding Sufis on Ibn ʿArabī, Schimmel rightly believes that although the old ideas were upgraded to a theoretical level by Ibn ʿArabī, but his mysticism can be regarded as a reason for the stagnation of Islam: “but with Ibn ʿArabī, Sufism becomes ʿirfān, a kind of special mystical knowledge and does not necessarily its personal voluntaristic character; this change has been considered by critics in both East and West as one of the reasons for the ‘stagnation’ of Islam after the thirteenth century”. See:
Annemarie Schimmel, Islam: an Introduction, 1992 (Albany: State University of New York Press), p. 115.
- 24.
Along with wilāyat al-takwīnīya (Introduction, a., p. 11), the idea of the eternity (azalīyya) of wilāya is also new and belongs to the later generations of scholars. The author’s understanding is that later conceptualizations of wilāya and related terms are intoxicated by Shīʿa extremist movements and ghālī scholars whose contributions to these ideas as well as further developments of wilāya have not been studied appropriately yet. In the early ages, as we observed in Tirmidhī, wilāya was not understood and conceptualized by wilāyat al-takwīnīya or the idea of eternity.
- 25.
Walī/perfect ʿārif ’s close friendship with God results in his powerlessness and absolute submission to His will, a virtue which is absent in the office of nubuwwa. This idea, which is basic and predominant in mysticism, finds its maximal understanding in Shaykhīsm, and is prevalent in the conceptualizations of wilāya in the Schools of Tehran and Qum too. They are discussed in Chaps. 3 and 4 of this research.
- 26.
The Seal of the wilāya “is simply the nāʾib or substitute for the Seal of the Prophets within the ranks of sainthood. In the case of the person of the Prophet, sainthood (walāya) is ‘veiled’ by prophecy (nubuwwa); in the case of the Seal of the Saints it is openly displayed” (Addas 1993, p. 200).
- 27.
I borrow the term from Binyamin Abrahamov, as I believe it is closer to the meaning and connotations of al-ḥaqīqat al-muḥammadīyah, than the established term ‘Muḥhammedan Reality’. The latter seems to be superfluous.
Binyamin Abrahamov, Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, an annotated translation of ‘The Bezels of Wisdom’, 2015 (London and New York: Routledge), p. 7. The spirit of Muḥammad in the terminology of Ibn ʿArabī is called ‘the First Father in Spirituality’ (abul awwal fi al-rawḥānīyāt), or ‘the origin of the cosmos’, as opposed to Adam, the first prophet, who is called abul ajsām al-insānīya (the Father of Human Bodies) (al-Ḥakīm 1401 H/1981, pp. 46–47).
- 28.
Claude Addas in her Quest for the Red Sulphur has explained the dream in details. See:
Quest for the Red Sulphur; the Life of Ibn ʿArabī, Translated from French into English by Peter Kingsley, 1993 (Cambridge: the Islamic Text Society), p. 213.
- 29.
Italic is in the text.
- 30.
As Gerald T. Elmore has shown in his survey on ʿAnqāʾ, the book was written “long before the production of his great masterpieces, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah and Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, by and in which the Akbarīan teachings would attain final definition”. Elmore also maintains that the book “should be understood as a personal treatment and an existential expression of man’s presentation of himself to the world”. Gerald T. Elmore, Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn ʿArabī’s Book of the Fabulous Gryphon, 1999 (Brill Academic Pub), pp. 12–13 & pp. 76–108. Elmore observes ʿAnqāʾ as the very personal narrative of the author’s desire for rising up out of his obscurity and making himself known to others. p. 48. And for the appellation of ʿAnqāʾ, see Elmore 1999, pp. 184–195.
- 31.
Focusing on the trio of ‘visions, retreats and revelations’, Addas maintains that it was at the end of a nine-month retreat in the year 586 H/1190 in Seville that Ibn ʿArabī was told he was the Muḥammedan Seal, the supreme Heir (Addas 1993, p. 92). This incident, having been elected as the Seal, is going to be repeated many times later. In the same year (in 586 H) in Cordoba, Ibn ʿArabī had a dream in which he is announced “that he has been designated the Muḥammadan Seal; the incident that occurred a few years later at Fez …” (Addas 1993, p. 200). In Mecca, he experienced the vision again, and as Addas rightly mentions, what happened in this holy city “marked the definitive and solemn fulfilment of the divine promise, and the recognition by the Messengers of God, … of the universality of office conferred on the al-Shaykh al-Akbar: a kind of pact of allegiance in the tabernacle of Sainthood” (Addas 1993, p. 200).
- 32.
Shabistarī’s brightness of mind is revealed by means of his comprehension regarding the complexities of waḥdat al-wujūd and his skills in adding to Ibn ʿArabī’s intellectual system. He could be regarded as the representative of a brand of mysticism whose main characteristic was pouring ʿirfān into Persian literature as means of expounding and illuminating it. For Shabistarī, the rich tradition of Persian literature was a framework through which the intricacies of the Akbarīan mysticism were expressed more fully. In his magnum opus Gulshan-i Rāz (the Rose Garden of Mystery) which is written in the form of an ode (mathnawī), Shabistarī discusses the main ʿirfānī/kalāmī ideas of the First Emanated, the state of completeness or totality (maqām-i jāmiʿ), as well as the theory of the Perfect Man, of wilāya and nubuwwa (Shabistarī, n.d., p. 16).
- 33.
From among Amir-Moezzi’s books, I particularly am interested in these two:
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiism; the Sources of Esotericism in Islam, Translated into English by David Streight, 1994 (New York: State University of New York Press).
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, the Spirituality of Shii Islam; Beliefs and Practices, 2011 (London & New York: I. B. Tauris Publisher).
- 34.
The main two messages of this trio (supplications, salutations, and psalms), are tawḥīd and servitude (lit. ʿubūdīyah), with a special emphasis on safeguarding believers from the hardships of life and death. The allegory of ḥiṣn (lit. castle) and/or silāḥ (lit. weapon), which shelter believers or arm them to overcome difficulties is a recurring theme in the Twelvers’ prayer culture. The most prominent example is the well-known Jawshan al-Kabīr and Jawshan al-Ṣaghīr (Major and Minor Armor, respectively), which has taken its name from it.
- 35.
Shahrām Pāzūkī, Jāmiʿ al-Asrār: Jāmiʿ bayn Taṣawwuf wa Tashayuʿ (the Comprehensive of Mysteries: the Comprehensive of Sufism and Shīʿīsm) in ʿIrfān-i Iran (Iranian Mysticism), (collected essays), No. 7, Muṣṭafā Azmāyish (ed), 1379 shamsī (Tehran: Ḥaqīqat Publication), pp. 78–103.
- 36.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi Essays, 1977 (New York: Schocken Books).
Kāmil Muṣṭafā Al-Shaybī, A-Ṣala Bayn al-Taṣawuf wa al-Tashayuʿ (The Correlation Betwixt Sufism and Shīʿīsm), 2 volumes, 3rd edition, 1382 H / 1962 (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus).
Kāmil Muṣṭafā Al-Shaybī, Sufism and Shīʿīsm, 1991 (Surbiton: LAAM).
And many other younger scholars who studied Shīʿīsm and Sufism from this perspective. One of them is Rebecca Masterton, whose research delves into the spiritual authority of awlīyā and its similarities in Sufism and Shīʿīsm. See:
Rebecca Masterton, A Comparative Exploration of the Spiritual Authority of the Awliyā’ in the Shi‘i and Sufi Traditions, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2015), pp. 49–74.
- 37.
Bernd Radtke has discussed the importance of this goal in Sufism in light of “the impress of enlightenment and science”. See: Bernd Radtke, Between Projection and Suppression: Some Considerations Concerning the Study of Sufism, in Shi’a Islam, Sects and Sufism, Historical Dimensions, Religious Practice and Methodological Considerations, Ed: Frederick De Jong, 1992 (Utrecht: Publications of the M. Th. Houtsma Stichting), pp. 70–82.
- 38.
In his Sufi Essays, Seyyed Hossein Nasr maintains that “the Sufi teachings revolve around the two fundamental doctrines of the Transcendent Unity of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd) and the Universal or Perfect Man (al-insān al-kāmil)” (Nasr 1977, p 35). The doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd, as Nasr emphasizes, was not the main Sufi outlook about tawḥīd prior to Ibn ʿArabī. Putting the lens of Akbarīan mysticism on eyes, Nasr has, in fact, a posteriori analysis of Sufi developments up until the seventh century when al-Shaykh al-Akbar’s mysticism, gradually but continuously, turned to be the prevalent brand of Sufism in the Muslim world. Before Akbarīan mysticism, Sufis’ first concern was tawḥīd and not necessarily the sophisticated theory of waḥdat al-wujūd. The doctrine of “the Universal or Perfect Man” had the same destiny. As a number of scholars, including Masataka Takeshita in his Ph.D. thesis entitled Ibn Arabi’s Theory of the Perfect Man and Its Place in the History of Islamic Thought (University of Chicago, 1986), discussed it extensively, it was Ibn ʿArabī who converted the doctrine of al-insān al-kāmil to one of the cornerstones of his theoretical mysticism, as prior to him the Second Pillar of Sufism was asceticism and piety.
- 39.
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, in his newest interview entitled “Dīn Pazhūhī dar Muwājiha bā Falsafah wa Tārīkh” (Religious Studies in Facing History and Philosophy), calls the fourth century “a Shīʿa century”, due to the political achievements of the Buyids in establishing the first ever Shīʿa government in a majority-dominated Sunni society. See:
http://ccip-iwan.com/Maghaleh3-3.html?fbclid=IwAR1O0v9zaDa-OZME2xddXA8e5rPh-df6CvdV6bsIgiSQxPrCW0ImdS-S5c0, last accessed November 18, 2018.
- 40.
This question is important because it helps us understand the reason(s) for the relative isolation of some theological schools, such as Shaykhīsm, which resisted Akbarīan mysticism and therefore remained an elite-friendly, limited school. Although, any assessment of the social weight and acceptance of Shaykhīsm requires more research and investigation.
- 41.
Kāmil Muṣṭafā Al-Shaybī, Al-Ṣala Bayn al-Taṣawūf wa Tashayūʿ (The Correlation Betwixt Sufism and Shīʿīsm), 2 volumes, 3rd edition, 1382 (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus).
- 42.
These journeys are as such: min al khalq-i ila al-Ḥaqq (the journey of creation/the creature to the Truth), bil Ḥaqq-i fi al-Ḥaqq (in the Truth with the Truth), min al-Ḥaqq ila al-khalq-i bil Ḥaqq (from the Truth to creation with the Truth), and fi al-khalq-i bil Ḥaqq (with the Truth in creation).
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H027.htm, last accessed December 27, 2016.
- 43.
James W. Morris, in his article entitled An Arab “Machiavelli”? Rhetoric, Philosophy and Politics in Ibn Khaldun’s Critique of “Sufism”, has discussed Ibn Khaldun’s criticisms of contemporary ‘Sufism’. The article is accessible here http://www.ibnarabisociety.org/articlespdf/hi_critics.pdf, last accessed February 7, 2017.
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Chamankhah, L. (2019). Ibn ʿArabī and Wilāya. In: The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800–1989). Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22692-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22692-3_2
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