by Shaykh al Akbar Muhi-d-Din Ibn al-'Arabi
Chapter 3 of his book namely "Fusus Al Hikam" [The Seal of Wisdom]
Know that disconnection (tanzîh) among the people of realities in respect to Allah is the same as limitation and qualification, so the one who disconnects is either ignorant or ill-mannered if he only applies disconnection to Him and believes that about Him. (2) When the believer who follows the Sharî'a disconnects and stops at that, and does not see anything else, he displays ill manners and slanders Allah and the Messengers - may the blessings of Allah be upon them! - although he is not aware of it. He imagines that he has reached the target and yet he has missed it, so he is like the one who believes in part and rejects part. (3)
One especially knows that when the language of the various Sharî'as speaks about Allah as they do, they speak to the common people in the first sense, and to the elite in every sense which can be understood from the various aspects of that expression in any language in the usage of that language.
Allah manifests Himself in a special way in every creature. He is the Outwardly Manifest in every graspable sense, and He is the Inwardly Hidden from every understanding except the understanding of the one who says that the universe is His form (4) and His He-ness (huwiyya), and it is the name, the Outwardly Manifest. Since He is, by meaning, the spirit of whatever is outwardly manifest, He is also the Inwardly Hidden. His relation to whatever is manifested of the forms of the world is the relation of the governing spirit to the form. The definition of man, for example, includes both his inward and outward; and it is the same with every definable thing. Allah is defined in every definition, yet the forms of the universe are not held back and He is not contained by them. One only knows the limits of each of their forms according to what is attained by each knower of his form. For that reason, one cannot know the definition of Allah, for one would only know His definition by knowing the definition of every form. This is impossible to attain, so the definition of Allah is impossible. Similarly, whoever connects without disconnection has given limits to Allah and does not know Him. Whoever combines connection and disconnection in his gnosis, and describes Allah with both aspects in general - because it is impossible to conceive in detail because we lack the ability to encompass all the forms which the universe contains - has known Him in general and not in particular, as he knows himself generally and not in particular. For that reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, linked knowledge (ma'rifa) of Allah to knowledge of oneself and said, "Whoever knows himself knows his Lord." Allah says, "We will show them Our signs on the horizons (what is outside of you) and in themselves (what is your source) until it is clear to them (the contemplators) that it is the Truth," (41:53) inasmuch as you are His form and He is your spirit. You are to Him as your body-form is to you, and He is to you as the spirit which governs the body.
The definition contains your inwardness and outwardness, for the form remains when the spirit which governs it departs, and it is no longer man, but one can speak of it as resembling the form of man. There is no difference between it and the form made of wood or stone, upon which the name of man is only applied by metaphor and not by reality. Allah cannot vanish from the forms of the universe, as His definition of His divinity is by reality, not metaphor, as the definition of man applies only so long as he is alive. As the exterior of the form of man praises both his spirit, and the self governed by it, with his tongue, similarly Allah made the forms of the universe which glorify His praise, but we do not understand their glorifying. (5) We do not embrace all forms in the universe. All are tongues of Allah uttering the praise of Allah and for that reason He said, "Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds," (1:1) i.e. all types of praise refer to Him. He is the Praiser and the One praised.
If you speak of disconnection, you limit Him,
and if you speak of connection, you define Him.
If you speak of the two together,
then you are free of error
and you are an Imam and a master in knowledges of gnosis.
He who affirms duality, falls into shirk, and whoever speaks of uniqueness is a unifier. (6) Take care lest you be a dualist by connection, and take care lest you be a isolator by disconnection.
You are not Him, rather you are Him
and you see Him in the source of thing,
absolute and limited at the same time.
Allah says, "There is nothing like Him," and so He disconnects, "and He is the Hearing, the Seeing," (42:11) so He connects. Allah says, "There is nothing like Him," so He connects and doubles it, (7) and "He is the Hearing, the Seeing." Then He uses disconnection and makes Himself Unique.
If Nuh had combined these two calls for his people, they would have answered him. He called them openly (71:8), and he called them secretly (71:9). Then he said to them, "Ask forgiveness of your Lord. Truly He is Endlessly Forgiving." (71:10) He said, "I have called my people night and in the day, but my calling has only made them more evasive" (71:5-6) because they knew what they had to do in answering his call.
So the knowledge of those who know Allah is what Nuh indicated in respect to his people by praising them through blame. He knew that they would not answer his call because of the furqân (8) it contained. The command is the Qur'an, not the Furqân. Whoever is established in the Qur'an does not incline to the Furqân. Even if the Furqân is in the Qur'an, the Qur'an contains the Furqân but the Furqân does not contain the Qur'an. For this reason, no one was favoured by the QurÕan except Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and this community which is the "best community ever to be produced before mankind." (3:110)
So "there is nothing like Him" unified several matters in one single matter. If Nuh had articulated something like of this âyat, his people would have responded to him, because it contains connection and disconnection in a single âyat, rather in half an âyat.
Nuh, peace be upon him, peace be upon him, called on his people at night in respect to their intellects and spirituality (rûhânîyya), which are unseen; and by day he called on them in respect to their outer forms and arrival. In his call, he did not unify with anything, like "there is nothing like Him." So their inward had a distaste for this separation, and it increased them in evasion. Then he said of himself that he called upon them that He might forgive them, not that He be unveiled to them. They understood that from him. That is why "they put their fingers in their ears and wrapped themselves in their clothes," (71:7) and this is the form of veiling to which he called them. So they answered his call by action, not by saying, "At your service."
There is both the confirmation of likeness and its negation in "There is nothing like Him." For this reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said of himself, "I have been given all the words." (9) Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not call on his people by night and day, but rather he called upon them by night in the day and by day in the night. Nuh said in his wisdom to his people, "He will send heaven down on you in abundant rain," (71:11) which is intellectual gnosis in meanings and metaphorical speculation, and "He will reinforce you with wealth," i.e. by what comes to you from Him.
Thus it is your wealth in which you have seen your form. So whoever among you imagines that he has seen Him, does not have gnosis, and whoever of you knows that he has seen himself, he is the gnostic. For this reason people are divided into those who know Allah and those who do not know. "And sons" is what results from their logical speculation while the knowledge of the business (to which Nuh called them) is based upon contemplation which is far from the results of thought. Their trade did not profit them, (10) so what they had in their hands, which they only imagined they possessed, vanished from them.
The kingdom belongs to the people of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, for Allah says "Give of that to which He has made you successors." (11) (57:7) For the people of Nuh it is, "Do not take anyone besides Me as a guardian." (17:2) The kingdom was confirmed for the people of Muhammad, and the guardianship in it belongs to Allah. The people of Muhammad are the khalîfs in it. The kingdom belongs to Allah and He is their guardian, and that is the kingdom of being appointed khalif. For this reason, Allah is the "King of the kingdom" (12) as at-Tirmidhi says. "They have hatched a mighty plotting," (71:22) because calling to Allah is the plotting of the the One called; since He does not lack the beginning, He is called to the end, so they call to Allah. This is the source of devising according to inner sight. Nuh said, "The affair belongs entirely to Him," so they answered Him with plotting as He called them.
The people of Muhammad came and knew what the call to Allah was in respect of its He-ness, rather what it is in respect to His Names. Allah says, "The day those who are godfearing are gathered to the All-Merciful." (13) So He used the "particle of the end" (ilâ - to) and joined it to that Name, and we recognise that the universe is under the care of a Divine Name which requires them to be among the "godfearing". The reality of taqwâ (14) is that man avoids ascribing blessings, perfections and praiseworthy attributes to himself or to others, except for Allah. He fears Allah through His acts and attributes. These things are evils from the spring of possibilities. They said in their plotting, "Do not abandon your gods. Do not abandon Wadd or Suwa' or Yaghuth or Ya'uq or Nasr." (71:22) Then they abandoned them ignorant of the Truth according to what they left of the idols. Allah has an aspect in every worshipped thing. Whoever recognises it, recognises, and whoever is ignorant of it is ignorant among the people of Muhammad. Your Lord decreed that you should worship only Him that is the judgement of your Lord.
The one who possesses knowledge knows who the slave is and in what form he is manifested as far as he is a slave. Separation and multiplicity are like the limbs of the sensory form and like faculties of meaning (15) of the spiritual form. He only worships Allah in every worshipped object. The lowest one is the one who imagines that godness is contained in it. Were it not for this illusion, stones and other things would not have been worshipped. This is why He said, "Say: Name them!" (13:33) If they had named them, they would have named stone, tree, or star. If they had been asked, "Who do you worship?" they would have replied, "God". They would not say "Allah" or "the god".
The highest knower does not use this imagination, (16) but rather he says that this is a divine tajalli which one must exalt, and he does not restrict himself. The lowest one is the one possessed of fantasy: "We only worship them so that they bring us neared to Allah." (39:3) The highest knower says, "Your god is One God, so submit to Him," (22:34) wherever He is manifest, "and give good news to the humble-hearted" who humble the fire of their nature. They spoke to it (the fire), and did not say "nature". "They have misguided many people," (71:24) i.e. they perplexed many in the multiplicity of the One by aspects and relations. "Do not increase not the wrongdoers" because their selves are from the totality of the chosen ones who inherited the Book and they are the first of the three, (17) which precedes the ambivalent and the outdoer, "in anything but misguidance", except in the perplexity of the man of Muhammad who says, "Increase me in perplexity." (18) "Every time it shines on them, they walk in it. When the darkness comes over them, they stop." (2:20) So the perplexed one turns about, and the circular movement is about the axis which he does not leave.
The one who has a stretched-out path is inclined to leave the goal, seeking what the possessor of imagination has in it, and his end is that imagination. He has "from" and "to" and what is between them. The one who has a circular movement has no beginning, "from", which clings to him, and no end, "to", is judged of him. Thus he has the most perfect existence. He "is given all the words" (19) and wisdoms. "And because of their errors" which is that which is recorded for them, "they were drowned" in the seas of the knowledge of Allah which is perplexity among the men of Muhammad. When the seas were heated up, (20) "they were put into a fire" in the source of water, "and they found no one to help them besides Allah." (71:25) Allah is the source of their helpers, and so they were destroyed in it for time without end. If He had brought them out to the shore, the shore of nature, He would have brought them down from this high degree. All belongs to Allah and is by Allah, rather it is Allah.
Nuh said, "My Lord!" and he did not say, "My God," for the Lord has immutability, and "God" differs according to the Names. So "every day He is engaged in some affair." (55:29) By Lord, he meant something with an immutable quality. "Do not leave upon the earth" and he called on them to go into its Muhammadan interior. "If you let down a rope, it would fall on Allah," (21) "to Him belongs what is in the heavens and what is in the earth." When you are buried in it, you are in it and it is your container, and "We will return you into it and We will bring you forth from it again," (20:55) by the difference of existence. "...of the unbelievers" who wrap themselves in their garments and put their fingers in their ears, seeking veiling because he called on them that He might forgive them. Forgiveness is the veiling of wrong actions, "not even one" so that the benefit will become universal like the call. "If You leave any," i.e. if You call them and then leave them, "they will misguide Your slaves," i.e. confuse them and so bring them out of their service to what they have of the secrets of lordship. They will think themselves lords after they were slaves in themselves. Thus they are slaves and lords. "They will spawn nothing" i.e. they will not have any result or manifest anything except their being shameless that is, the manifestation of what veils the unbelievers is that they were veiled from what appeared after their manifestation. They manifested that which veils, so they were veiled after their appearance.
The thinker is confused and does not recognise the goal of the shameless in shamelessness, (22) or the unbeliever in his disbelief, yet the person is but one. "My Lord, forgive me," i.e. veil me and that which concerns me so that my rank and station are unknown, as the rank of Allah are unknown in His statement, "They do measure Allah with His true measure"; (23) "and my parents" of whom I am a result, and they are the intellect and nature; "and all who enter my house," i.e. my heart, "as believers" believing in what it contains of divine reports, and it is what their selves occasioned, "And all the believers, men (the intellects) and women (the selves)."
"Do not increase the wrongdoers (dhâlimîn)" who are from the darkness (dhulumât), the people of the unseen, hiding behind the veils of darkness, "except in ruin" i.e. in destruction. Thus, they do not recognise themselves because they see the Face of Allah outside of them. Among the men of Muhammad, "All things are passing except His Face." (28:88) Ruin is destruction. Whoever wishes to understand the secrets of Nuh must rise into the sphere of Nuh. (24) It is in our book, at-Tanazzulat al-Mawsuliyya.
Notes to to Chapter 3:
1. Subbûh, name applied to Allah, the All-Perfect, disconnected from imperfections.
2. If he does not go on to include tashbih, connection.
3. cf. Qur'an 4:149: "Those who reject Allah and His Messengers and desire to make division between Allah and His Messengers, saying, 'We believe in some and reject some.'"
4. By manifesting His attributes and Essence since everything is a proof and indication of Him.
5. Ref. to Qur'an 17:44, "There is nothing which does not glorify Him with praise, but you do not understand their glorification."
6. In this case, ignorant of the multiplicity of His Names and Attributes.
7. "Like Him" = "ka-mithlihi", the word "like" occurs twice: "ka" and "mithl", so like negates like, like a double negative.
8. Furqan: One of the names of the Qur'an, meaning a "discrimination" that which separates or distiguishes. Here presented as an opposite in a dyad: Qur'an/furqan, that is, discrimination/gathering.
9. Hadith in al-Bukhari and Muslim.
10. Reference to Qur'an, 2:16, "Those are the people who have sold guidance for misguidance. Their trade has brought no profit. They are not guided."
11. Khalifs.
12. Since He answers His slave who is the "kingdom". Technical term used by al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi and Abu Madyan, discussed by Ibn al-'Arabi in the Futuhat al-Makkiyya, Chapter 24, vol. I, p. 182.
13. ref. Qur'an 19:85.
14. Fearfulness of Allah which is reflected in one's behaviour.
15. Meaning. Meaning does not carry the ordinary connotative significance that it has in the science of semantics. In the Sufic science meaning is not allied, but inseparable from the experience of the recognition of meaning. In other words, it is not a "thing" which can be apprehended with the qualities of thingness. It is a mode of experiencing which takes places in a zone of awareness that is in itself a realm of the inward reality cognised in the waking state. Meaning/sensory, ma'na/hiss.
16. Khayal: An important term. Khayal means imagination, but in the special technical language of Ibn al-'Arabi the khayal contains an outer and inner meaning. Its outer (not inner) meaning is imagining in the ordinary sense of a "tangible reality" which is experienced mentally yet remans unreal, that is, untouchable and non-physical. Its inner meaning, however, is that faculty by which we solidify the objects - which are according to unveiling basically "not-there" - spatiality itself. There is much resistance to this in "rational" and programmed intellects as there is of the hand to the rock in "common sense" experience. The rock is there, it does not budge. There is, it must not be forgotten, a threshold situation where this is not so, for if the subject were brain-damaged, subjected to a hallucinogen, or hypnotic trance, then the object would experientially melt away. That is still not the same as seeing in which things are seen as-they-as in one unified field without differentiation, while altert within that condition of experiencing. And this state brings with it wisdom beyond the recognition of how-it-is at that moment - in other words a new understanding is established by the experience.
17. Ref to Qur'an 35:32, "...but some of them wrong themselves, some are ambivalent, and some outdo each other in good."
18. Hayra: Bewilderment. A Key term. Hayra is not a negative situation - it is the condition in which the seeker finds every intellectual channel blocked, every pathway of reason clashing against the other in contradiction so that it induces in the seeker a state of intensity. This intensity by virtue of its inner tension creates a condition we call hayra. It is a collapse of separation - a kind of "white hole" - which results in gatheredness. That is, the hayra creates a new condition which is its result and that result is a breakthrough into an illumination of the Real.
19. Meaning the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who was given all the words.
20. By the oven (from which the water gushed out of the earth in the Flood.)
21. Hadith.
22. The manifestation of lordship.
23. 6:91, 22:84, 39:67.
24. The Sphere of the Sun.
Chapter 3 of his book namely "Fusus Al Hikam" [The Seal of Wisdom]
Know that disconnection (tanzîh) among the people of realities in respect to Allah is the same as limitation and qualification, so the one who disconnects is either ignorant or ill-mannered if he only applies disconnection to Him and believes that about Him. (2) When the believer who follows the Sharî'a disconnects and stops at that, and does not see anything else, he displays ill manners and slanders Allah and the Messengers - may the blessings of Allah be upon them! - although he is not aware of it. He imagines that he has reached the target and yet he has missed it, so he is like the one who believes in part and rejects part. (3)
One especially knows that when the language of the various Sharî'as speaks about Allah as they do, they speak to the common people in the first sense, and to the elite in every sense which can be understood from the various aspects of that expression in any language in the usage of that language.
Allah manifests Himself in a special way in every creature. He is the Outwardly Manifest in every graspable sense, and He is the Inwardly Hidden from every understanding except the understanding of the one who says that the universe is His form (4) and His He-ness (huwiyya), and it is the name, the Outwardly Manifest. Since He is, by meaning, the spirit of whatever is outwardly manifest, He is also the Inwardly Hidden. His relation to whatever is manifested of the forms of the world is the relation of the governing spirit to the form. The definition of man, for example, includes both his inward and outward; and it is the same with every definable thing. Allah is defined in every definition, yet the forms of the universe are not held back and He is not contained by them. One only knows the limits of each of their forms according to what is attained by each knower of his form. For that reason, one cannot know the definition of Allah, for one would only know His definition by knowing the definition of every form. This is impossible to attain, so the definition of Allah is impossible. Similarly, whoever connects without disconnection has given limits to Allah and does not know Him. Whoever combines connection and disconnection in his gnosis, and describes Allah with both aspects in general - because it is impossible to conceive in detail because we lack the ability to encompass all the forms which the universe contains - has known Him in general and not in particular, as he knows himself generally and not in particular. For that reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, linked knowledge (ma'rifa) of Allah to knowledge of oneself and said, "Whoever knows himself knows his Lord." Allah says, "We will show them Our signs on the horizons (what is outside of you) and in themselves (what is your source) until it is clear to them (the contemplators) that it is the Truth," (41:53) inasmuch as you are His form and He is your spirit. You are to Him as your body-form is to you, and He is to you as the spirit which governs the body.
The definition contains your inwardness and outwardness, for the form remains when the spirit which governs it departs, and it is no longer man, but one can speak of it as resembling the form of man. There is no difference between it and the form made of wood or stone, upon which the name of man is only applied by metaphor and not by reality. Allah cannot vanish from the forms of the universe, as His definition of His divinity is by reality, not metaphor, as the definition of man applies only so long as he is alive. As the exterior of the form of man praises both his spirit, and the self governed by it, with his tongue, similarly Allah made the forms of the universe which glorify His praise, but we do not understand their glorifying. (5) We do not embrace all forms in the universe. All are tongues of Allah uttering the praise of Allah and for that reason He said, "Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds," (1:1) i.e. all types of praise refer to Him. He is the Praiser and the One praised.
If you speak of disconnection, you limit Him,
and if you speak of connection, you define Him.
If you speak of the two together,
then you are free of error
and you are an Imam and a master in knowledges of gnosis.
He who affirms duality, falls into shirk, and whoever speaks of uniqueness is a unifier. (6) Take care lest you be a dualist by connection, and take care lest you be a isolator by disconnection.
You are not Him, rather you are Him
and you see Him in the source of thing,
absolute and limited at the same time.
Allah says, "There is nothing like Him," and so He disconnects, "and He is the Hearing, the Seeing," (42:11) so He connects. Allah says, "There is nothing like Him," so He connects and doubles it, (7) and "He is the Hearing, the Seeing." Then He uses disconnection and makes Himself Unique.
If Nuh had combined these two calls for his people, they would have answered him. He called them openly (71:8), and he called them secretly (71:9). Then he said to them, "Ask forgiveness of your Lord. Truly He is Endlessly Forgiving." (71:10) He said, "I have called my people night and in the day, but my calling has only made them more evasive" (71:5-6) because they knew what they had to do in answering his call.
So the knowledge of those who know Allah is what Nuh indicated in respect to his people by praising them through blame. He knew that they would not answer his call because of the furqân (8) it contained. The command is the Qur'an, not the Furqân. Whoever is established in the Qur'an does not incline to the Furqân. Even if the Furqân is in the Qur'an, the Qur'an contains the Furqân but the Furqân does not contain the Qur'an. For this reason, no one was favoured by the QurÕan except Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and this community which is the "best community ever to be produced before mankind." (3:110)
So "there is nothing like Him" unified several matters in one single matter. If Nuh had articulated something like of this âyat, his people would have responded to him, because it contains connection and disconnection in a single âyat, rather in half an âyat.
Nuh, peace be upon him, peace be upon him, called on his people at night in respect to their intellects and spirituality (rûhânîyya), which are unseen; and by day he called on them in respect to their outer forms and arrival. In his call, he did not unify with anything, like "there is nothing like Him." So their inward had a distaste for this separation, and it increased them in evasion. Then he said of himself that he called upon them that He might forgive them, not that He be unveiled to them. They understood that from him. That is why "they put their fingers in their ears and wrapped themselves in their clothes," (71:7) and this is the form of veiling to which he called them. So they answered his call by action, not by saying, "At your service."
There is both the confirmation of likeness and its negation in "There is nothing like Him." For this reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said of himself, "I have been given all the words." (9) Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not call on his people by night and day, but rather he called upon them by night in the day and by day in the night. Nuh said in his wisdom to his people, "He will send heaven down on you in abundant rain," (71:11) which is intellectual gnosis in meanings and metaphorical speculation, and "He will reinforce you with wealth," i.e. by what comes to you from Him.
Thus it is your wealth in which you have seen your form. So whoever among you imagines that he has seen Him, does not have gnosis, and whoever of you knows that he has seen himself, he is the gnostic. For this reason people are divided into those who know Allah and those who do not know. "And sons" is what results from their logical speculation while the knowledge of the business (to which Nuh called them) is based upon contemplation which is far from the results of thought. Their trade did not profit them, (10) so what they had in their hands, which they only imagined they possessed, vanished from them.
The kingdom belongs to the people of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, for Allah says "Give of that to which He has made you successors." (11) (57:7) For the people of Nuh it is, "Do not take anyone besides Me as a guardian." (17:2) The kingdom was confirmed for the people of Muhammad, and the guardianship in it belongs to Allah. The people of Muhammad are the khalîfs in it. The kingdom belongs to Allah and He is their guardian, and that is the kingdom of being appointed khalif. For this reason, Allah is the "King of the kingdom" (12) as at-Tirmidhi says. "They have hatched a mighty plotting," (71:22) because calling to Allah is the plotting of the the One called; since He does not lack the beginning, He is called to the end, so they call to Allah. This is the source of devising according to inner sight. Nuh said, "The affair belongs entirely to Him," so they answered Him with plotting as He called them.
The people of Muhammad came and knew what the call to Allah was in respect of its He-ness, rather what it is in respect to His Names. Allah says, "The day those who are godfearing are gathered to the All-Merciful." (13) So He used the "particle of the end" (ilâ - to) and joined it to that Name, and we recognise that the universe is under the care of a Divine Name which requires them to be among the "godfearing". The reality of taqwâ (14) is that man avoids ascribing blessings, perfections and praiseworthy attributes to himself or to others, except for Allah. He fears Allah through His acts and attributes. These things are evils from the spring of possibilities. They said in their plotting, "Do not abandon your gods. Do not abandon Wadd or Suwa' or Yaghuth or Ya'uq or Nasr." (71:22) Then they abandoned them ignorant of the Truth according to what they left of the idols. Allah has an aspect in every worshipped thing. Whoever recognises it, recognises, and whoever is ignorant of it is ignorant among the people of Muhammad. Your Lord decreed that you should worship only Him that is the judgement of your Lord.
The one who possesses knowledge knows who the slave is and in what form he is manifested as far as he is a slave. Separation and multiplicity are like the limbs of the sensory form and like faculties of meaning (15) of the spiritual form. He only worships Allah in every worshipped object. The lowest one is the one who imagines that godness is contained in it. Were it not for this illusion, stones and other things would not have been worshipped. This is why He said, "Say: Name them!" (13:33) If they had named them, they would have named stone, tree, or star. If they had been asked, "Who do you worship?" they would have replied, "God". They would not say "Allah" or "the god".
The highest knower does not use this imagination, (16) but rather he says that this is a divine tajalli which one must exalt, and he does not restrict himself. The lowest one is the one possessed of fantasy: "We only worship them so that they bring us neared to Allah." (39:3) The highest knower says, "Your god is One God, so submit to Him," (22:34) wherever He is manifest, "and give good news to the humble-hearted" who humble the fire of their nature. They spoke to it (the fire), and did not say "nature". "They have misguided many people," (71:24) i.e. they perplexed many in the multiplicity of the One by aspects and relations. "Do not increase not the wrongdoers" because their selves are from the totality of the chosen ones who inherited the Book and they are the first of the three, (17) which precedes the ambivalent and the outdoer, "in anything but misguidance", except in the perplexity of the man of Muhammad who says, "Increase me in perplexity." (18) "Every time it shines on them, they walk in it. When the darkness comes over them, they stop." (2:20) So the perplexed one turns about, and the circular movement is about the axis which he does not leave.
The one who has a stretched-out path is inclined to leave the goal, seeking what the possessor of imagination has in it, and his end is that imagination. He has "from" and "to" and what is between them. The one who has a circular movement has no beginning, "from", which clings to him, and no end, "to", is judged of him. Thus he has the most perfect existence. He "is given all the words" (19) and wisdoms. "And because of their errors" which is that which is recorded for them, "they were drowned" in the seas of the knowledge of Allah which is perplexity among the men of Muhammad. When the seas were heated up, (20) "they were put into a fire" in the source of water, "and they found no one to help them besides Allah." (71:25) Allah is the source of their helpers, and so they were destroyed in it for time without end. If He had brought them out to the shore, the shore of nature, He would have brought them down from this high degree. All belongs to Allah and is by Allah, rather it is Allah.
Nuh said, "My Lord!" and he did not say, "My God," for the Lord has immutability, and "God" differs according to the Names. So "every day He is engaged in some affair." (55:29) By Lord, he meant something with an immutable quality. "Do not leave upon the earth" and he called on them to go into its Muhammadan interior. "If you let down a rope, it would fall on Allah," (21) "to Him belongs what is in the heavens and what is in the earth." When you are buried in it, you are in it and it is your container, and "We will return you into it and We will bring you forth from it again," (20:55) by the difference of existence. "...of the unbelievers" who wrap themselves in their garments and put their fingers in their ears, seeking veiling because he called on them that He might forgive them. Forgiveness is the veiling of wrong actions, "not even one" so that the benefit will become universal like the call. "If You leave any," i.e. if You call them and then leave them, "they will misguide Your slaves," i.e. confuse them and so bring them out of their service to what they have of the secrets of lordship. They will think themselves lords after they were slaves in themselves. Thus they are slaves and lords. "They will spawn nothing" i.e. they will not have any result or manifest anything except their being shameless that is, the manifestation of what veils the unbelievers is that they were veiled from what appeared after their manifestation. They manifested that which veils, so they were veiled after their appearance.
The thinker is confused and does not recognise the goal of the shameless in shamelessness, (22) or the unbeliever in his disbelief, yet the person is but one. "My Lord, forgive me," i.e. veil me and that which concerns me so that my rank and station are unknown, as the rank of Allah are unknown in His statement, "They do measure Allah with His true measure"; (23) "and my parents" of whom I am a result, and they are the intellect and nature; "and all who enter my house," i.e. my heart, "as believers" believing in what it contains of divine reports, and it is what their selves occasioned, "And all the believers, men (the intellects) and women (the selves)."
"Do not increase the wrongdoers (dhâlimîn)" who are from the darkness (dhulumât), the people of the unseen, hiding behind the veils of darkness, "except in ruin" i.e. in destruction. Thus, they do not recognise themselves because they see the Face of Allah outside of them. Among the men of Muhammad, "All things are passing except His Face." (28:88) Ruin is destruction. Whoever wishes to understand the secrets of Nuh must rise into the sphere of Nuh. (24) It is in our book, at-Tanazzulat al-Mawsuliyya.
Notes to to Chapter 3:
1. Subbûh, name applied to Allah, the All-Perfect, disconnected from imperfections.
2. If he does not go on to include tashbih, connection.
3. cf. Qur'an 4:149: "Those who reject Allah and His Messengers and desire to make division between Allah and His Messengers, saying, 'We believe in some and reject some.'"
4. By manifesting His attributes and Essence since everything is a proof and indication of Him.
5. Ref. to Qur'an 17:44, "There is nothing which does not glorify Him with praise, but you do not understand their glorification."
6. In this case, ignorant of the multiplicity of His Names and Attributes.
7. "Like Him" = "ka-mithlihi", the word "like" occurs twice: "ka" and "mithl", so like negates like, like a double negative.
8. Furqan: One of the names of the Qur'an, meaning a "discrimination" that which separates or distiguishes. Here presented as an opposite in a dyad: Qur'an/furqan, that is, discrimination/gathering.
9. Hadith in al-Bukhari and Muslim.
10. Reference to Qur'an, 2:16, "Those are the people who have sold guidance for misguidance. Their trade has brought no profit. They are not guided."
11. Khalifs.
12. Since He answers His slave who is the "kingdom". Technical term used by al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi and Abu Madyan, discussed by Ibn al-'Arabi in the Futuhat al-Makkiyya, Chapter 24, vol. I, p. 182.
13. ref. Qur'an 19:85.
14. Fearfulness of Allah which is reflected in one's behaviour.
15. Meaning. Meaning does not carry the ordinary connotative significance that it has in the science of semantics. In the Sufic science meaning is not allied, but inseparable from the experience of the recognition of meaning. In other words, it is not a "thing" which can be apprehended with the qualities of thingness. It is a mode of experiencing which takes places in a zone of awareness that is in itself a realm of the inward reality cognised in the waking state. Meaning/sensory, ma'na/hiss.
16. Khayal: An important term. Khayal means imagination, but in the special technical language of Ibn al-'Arabi the khayal contains an outer and inner meaning. Its outer (not inner) meaning is imagining in the ordinary sense of a "tangible reality" which is experienced mentally yet remans unreal, that is, untouchable and non-physical. Its inner meaning, however, is that faculty by which we solidify the objects - which are according to unveiling basically "not-there" - spatiality itself. There is much resistance to this in "rational" and programmed intellects as there is of the hand to the rock in "common sense" experience. The rock is there, it does not budge. There is, it must not be forgotten, a threshold situation where this is not so, for if the subject were brain-damaged, subjected to a hallucinogen, or hypnotic trance, then the object would experientially melt away. That is still not the same as seeing in which things are seen as-they-as in one unified field without differentiation, while altert within that condition of experiencing. And this state brings with it wisdom beyond the recognition of how-it-is at that moment - in other words a new understanding is established by the experience.
17. Ref to Qur'an 35:32, "...but some of them wrong themselves, some are ambivalent, and some outdo each other in good."
18. Hayra: Bewilderment. A Key term. Hayra is not a negative situation - it is the condition in which the seeker finds every intellectual channel blocked, every pathway of reason clashing against the other in contradiction so that it induces in the seeker a state of intensity. This intensity by virtue of its inner tension creates a condition we call hayra. It is a collapse of separation - a kind of "white hole" - which results in gatheredness. That is, the hayra creates a new condition which is its result and that result is a breakthrough into an illumination of the Real.
19. Meaning the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who was given all the words.
20. By the oven (from which the water gushed out of the earth in the Flood.)
21. Hadith.
22. The manifestation of lordship.
23. 6:91, 22:84, 39:67.
24. The Sphere of the Sun.
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