Neoplatonism in Islamic Thought

few philosophical schools or movements have been as influential on the Western religions as that of neoplatonism originating in late Antiquity with figures like platinus porphery iamblicus and proclus it would come to play a decisive role in the Theology and philosophy of Christianity Judaism and Islam in this episode we're going to trace some of that influence and in particular look at the different ways in which neoplatonism has manifested itself and been adapted to various degrees in the intellectual and mystical thoughts of Islam a complex topic to be sure but one that is very significant for a better understanding of the history of philosophy religion and mysticism in general [Music] [Applause] [Music] once again I am so honored and happy to say that this is part of a major massive collaboration with my friends and colleagues here on YouTube I'm doing this collaboration on neoplatonism together with zevi from Seekers of unity Justin from esoterica Angela puka from Angela Symposium Dana trail from the modern hermeticist and John vervaki we're all making separate episodes covering the relationship of neoplatonism to different intellectual religious and spiritual and even scientific traditions and schools of thought throughout history and today so be sure to check out all the other videos by the other people I will leave links to those videos in the description you'll find videos about the relationship of near platonism to Kabbalah and gnosticism magic and theology uh the platonist Philosopher's Creed and even cognitive science it's really amazing stuff so be sure to follow those links and check out all those other channels neoplate is truly a massively important topic overlooked as it has often been in earlier philosophical scholarship it is a philosophical tradition that is deep and complex enough in itself and we have dedicated a separate episode to exploring and trying to understand the general ideas of near platonism which you should definitely consult before watching this episode it will provide some essential background knowledge that is needed to appreciate our discussion here today fully but as a very short summary neoplatonism sometimes called late platonism is a late antique development within the school of platonism primarily associated with figures like platinus it conceives of existence as consisting of different levels or realities hypotheses in Greek beginning with the highest reality called the one or tohen a concept that cannot be understood or described in any way being hidden in a radical apathetic Darkness this one then emanates or flows over into something called the news often translated with words like intellect or mind which is the archetype of all things in the world and the place of the platonic forms news then also emanates into the so-called Soul or Obsession which in turn creates the world of nature or our physical Universe of time and space the neoplatonists then conceive of a return back from the physical up the ladder of reality back to the Noose and eventually to the one so everything flows from the one and returns to the one and the goal of the human being is to turn away from physicality and the material traveling Inward and contemplating his true noetic reality thus returning to her home in the news and they're experiencing a mystical Unity with that noose and even maybe ultimately with the one itself there is a lot more to these ideas of course and I highly again suggest you go watch my previous episode which covers the thought of neoplatanism more generally but for sure these ideas in their different forms and different interpretations have been massively influential on the abrahamic religions influencing their Theology and the category they're often called mysticism in general and Islam is no different when we look at the intellectual history of Islam from the falsafar tradition of IBN Cena and others to the Kalam theologians and Sufi Mystics aspects of neoplatonism can be found everywhere this is truly a fascinating topic but also a complicated and very vast one there is so much to explore when it comes to neoplatonism in Islamic thought that there is no way of doing it justice in a single episode unless we want to be here all week so our goal today is to give a more General overview of this landscape touching on some examples and trying to understand the way that these Muslim thinkers conceived of the relationship between these two Traditions so where does this story begin well basically at the very beginning in the earliest years of the Islamic religion and its civilization Muslims had access to these ideas during the heights of the Abbasid caliphate in the 9th to 10th century and during the so-called translation movement texts from all around the world were translated into Arabic and studied by the Muslim and non-muslim philosophers and theologians many of these translated texts were obviously Greek and the ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had a high standing and reputation in this context there was a general attitude that any knowledge or wisdom was good as long as it didn't contradict Islamic teachings and a common opinion was that these old philosophers basically believed and taught the same thing as Islam albeit imperfectly so when we read the early Islamic philosophers like al-kindi al-farabi and ibncena we see them argue that these same truths can be found in philosophy as in the Quran only expressed in different languages both in symbolic terms and and literally a few of these translated texts became especially influential on the trajectory of the Islamic intellectual tradition in particular there was a text called the Theology of Aristotle the uthulhijia aristatales which became perhaps the most widespread and popular source for philosophical teachings as the name suggests the text was thought to have been written by Aristotle who for much of the medieval period was seen as the philosopher par excellence indeed he was often simply called the philosopher but Plato and others were also seen as important of course and in fact the Muslim thinkers did not believe that there was any major discrepancy or difference between the teachings of Plato and Aristotle but that they represented a single tradition of philosophical truth so when these texts like the Theology of Aristotle appear to have ideas that we would recognize as significantly more platonist in nature that wasn't strange at all for them but in fact as it would become clear much later the Theology of Aristotle was not a work by Aristotle at all instead it is an Arabic translation or in kind of a paraphrasing semi-copy of the any ads by platinus the figure is often seen as the founder of neoplatonism in particular it was a translation or paraphrase of any ads four through six so while the Muslim thinkers thought that they were reading the ideas of Aristotle and they would indeed adopt actual Aristotelian teachings in terms of logic and natural science through other actually authentic Works they were actually reading and adapting ideas from neoplatonism and this becomes a decisive thing for the whole history of Islamic thought which became infused with neoplatonic influence just to drive this point home even more another key text in this early context was another semi-translation called discourse on the pure good known later in Latin translation as the Liber of the causes this text was also attributed to Aristotle for much of the ages but as it turns out it was actually a modified translation of the elements of theology by proclus another Central neoplatonic thinker so as you can see the Islamic scholars were introduced to key neoplatonic ideas and texts even if they didn't realize it themselves but after all this is all just semantics in the end because regardless if this was neoplatonic or Aristotelian ideas the Islamic scholars saw in these ideas a kindred tradition to that of Islam that the same truths were expressed in these texts as in the Quran only in a different way and as we'll see soon you can kind of see why so now we have a general understanding that Muslim Scholars of various kinds were introduced to near platonic ideas through these different translated texts and that there was often although not always of course a general open attitude towards these ideas that were often seen as being in harmony with Islam and that they could actually complement that religion so how does this show itself or how does this manifest itself across history in Islamic thought of various kinds well like I said the Islamic thinkers saw in the Quran many indications that it was expressing the same truth as that of philosophy in verses like quote surely we belong to God and to him we return and quote as he originated you so you will return the meaning of these verses of everything originating from God and eventually returning back to God sounds very neoplatonic don't they everything originates from the one and returns to the one this is one of the core characteristics of the philosophy furthermore the concept of the one and the strictly Transcendent monotheistic god of Islam seems to basically be pointing to the same thing indeed one of the names of God and Islam is literally al-wahed the one in any case the Islamic thinkers saw these similarities and ran with them this was clearly the same truth expressed in two different ways and we find this in different schools and movements in Islamic history the least surprising place to find neoplatonic influence is perhaps in the falsafa tradition that group of philosophers that very openly were reading and building on ideas of their Greek predecessors in other words thinkers like al-kindi al-farabi and ebencina adopted the ideas and language of new platonism to a major degree in their philosophical exposition of the Islamic religion and Beyond while platinus himself oscillated between using the word God to refer to the news sometimes and the Run other times the Islamic thinkers would basically exclusively identify God Allah with the concept of the one the utterly Transcendent Simplicity Beyond description and understanding which originates all other realities this originating or creation especially in thinkers like al-farabi and the bencina often take the form of emanation as a key feature the one or God emanates or flows over into that which is other than him in other words creation god is perfect and that Perfection necessitates that he creates the universe through an overflow and emanation from his eternal light they also then theorized that the first thing that God creates is the first intellect followed by a bunch of other intellects often identified with the planetary spheres of ptolemaic astronomy so as you can tell here we have some of the most basic characteristics of neoplatonism used to complement and explain Islam's conception of God creating the world to dive a little deeper into this let's look at one particular figure probably the most famous influential and significant philosopher in Islamic history IBN Cena also known under his Latin name avicenna in most of his philosophical work including the massive ashifa the healing the fascinating remarks and admonitions and even short treatises like the resellers the Treatise on love he shows his clear debt to neoplatonic language and metaphysics famously it been seen at the find God as the necessary being or necessary existence the only existent in reality that is necessary the only being that has to be by its very nature and whose Essence is existence itself he has a whole famous argument for the existence of God in which he comes to this conclusion which we should probably discuss properly in a separate episode in any case God is necessary in himself and the causal Factor behind all other existence who are contingent rather than necessary they exist but they might as well not exist so they they don't have to exist but they always have a cause so to say in any case we find similarities in have been seen as God or necessary being both with the neoplatonic one but also with Aristotle's prime mover he along with his colleagues didn't just copy the ideas of the Greeks as many have wrongly claimed as I hope you will see the Islamic thinkers built and developed those ideas further in fascinating ways partly as a result of the fact that they based their interpretations on the Quran and Islamic you know the basic teachings of Islam so many people often claim that well the Muslim thinkers they simply copied the Greeks this is not true the Muslim thinkers were very original they took of course huge inspiration from many of the Greek philosophers but they built upon those and innovated on those ideas to a major degree which again I hope you'll see in some of these thinkers that we'll be talking about today for example it been seen as necessary being is in many ways similar to the platinian one but in other ways it differs while patanus would say that the one is beyond things like being or existence and knowledge have been seen as God is that reality which has those attributes per definition he writes in a word called the idanesh namah report it has become evident therefore that there is a primary entity in the world which is not in the world though the being of the world comes from it its existence which is necessary is due to itself in reality it is absolute existence all things exist due to it in the same manner as the light of the sun is due to itself whereas the illumination all other things receive from the Sun is accidental this analogy would have been correct if the sun were the basis of its own illumination this is not the case because the illumination of the sun has a subject whereas the being of the necessary existence has not subject but stands by itself God has existence he isn't Beyond existence but absolute existence itself which all other existence derives now you could argue that this is just a semantic difference and that platanus meant a similar thing when he said that the one is beyond existence but the difference is definitely there on the page at least and as we go down the chain of being we see that he like we said before adopts the idea of emanation from the first principle or necessary existence through the mediation of intellect through the material world as well as the possibility of an Ascent or return back up that ladder according to bencina from one there can only appear one and so the first thing that originates or emanates from God is the numerically singular first intellect which is called in Arabic the aqual the intellect or literally the owl the first intellect now this of course very similar to the position of the news and translated as intellect in platinus as well unlike God himself this one intellect has a kind of Multiplicity in it though as it contemplates both itself and its source God so this leads to the fact that it creates another second intellect as well as the body and the form of a celestial sphere in ibncena system there follows nine intellects in the descending order from the first intellect all associated with a particular planetary sphere and sometimes also identified with the angels of religious language at the bottom we reach the 10th intellect also called the active intellect which rules over and emanates the sublunary material world that we live in now keep in mind that to ibncena all of this is controlled by God it is not that these intellects have creative powers in themselves per se the active intellect doesn't create the material world God creates the material world but he creates the material world through the active intellect so we have a pretty platonic or plutinian system here one that however expands the simple idea of the one intellect Concept in platinus to instead include 10 separate intellects we also mentioned that ebencina includes the idea of the ascent or return which is so important in neoplatonism indeed even though ibencina is seen as a peripatetic rational philosopher who figures in a strictly logical philosophical tradition he also has a pretty strong mystical side to him was Eben Cena and Mystic and there's debate over this but we can certainly confirm that his writings include some definitely mystical ideas the last part of his Masterpiece called isharatan bihat was dedicated to mysticism or Sufism and works like the Persian Danish Nama the Treatise of love and the commentary on not to be confused with the novel of the same name by even to fail describe a kind of mystical descent back from the material to the higher realities in some places he even speaks of the possibility of the self uniting with the necessary being in any case IBN Cena or avicenna is obviously one of the most if not the most significant philosopher in the history of the Islamic world and its influence was immense both in Scholastic Christendom in Europe but also in his native region and religion even the Kalam theologians were influenced by him and his ideas although they often criticized and rejected many of these particular ideas some aspects have still made their way into mainstream Kalam theology as well both in Sunni and Shia Islam and in Shi Islam we in fact have one of the most clearest manifestations of neoplatonist philosophy in all of the Islamic World indeed the ismailis who are the second largest branch of shi Islam basically adopted neoplatonism as the core of their entire theology from the earliest periods until this very day while they of course added their own flavor to it the ismailis are possibly the Muslim group that adopted the system of platinus to the fullest extent and connected it in unique ways to Islamic concepts of Prophecy and Revelation eschatology creation Etc their idea of God is also identified with the one and then a similarly apathetic way God is beyond all being and descriptive concept whatsoever this is followed by the intellect or the uncle which is the source of Revelation and the Quran the intellect is the umal kitab or mother of the book mentioned in the Quran and it is the light which the prophet Muhammad received and translated into human language as the Quran this is similarly followed by the Universal Soul the nefsel kulia in Arabic and then the world of nature when we read the greatest Smiley theologians and Scholars there is no denying the fundamentally near platonist basis of their entire system thinkers like Abu yakubal sejastani followed platinus relatively closely while hamidadin al-kirmani expanded the vision of reality into further complexity ismailism has already gotten a dedicated episode which you can go back and watch if you want to know more particularly about their fascinating neoplatonic Theology and the ways that they Implement that into their perspectives and and ideas on the Islamic religion but it is a very significant and important piece of the puzzle here it's really interesting to see how core Islamic and quranic concepts are equated often very elegantly with neoplatonic themes for example in the jamiel hechmatane of the ismaili philosopher and poet Nasir khusro he describes eschatological themes of the Resurrection Gathering paradise and hell in allegorical Teutonic ways quote if it is asked what is Paradise we replied that it is a world of spirits and a mind of delights and if it is asked what is hell we say that it is a mind of agonies and torments if it is asked what the Gathering is on the day of judgment we reply that it is the Assembly of particular souls in the presence of the universe also a key part in the chain of neoplatonic influence on Islamic thought is the anonymous and mysterious group known as the ichwan as Safar or the Brethren of Purity who is known to us through their 50 Epistles in it they tackle themes of philosophy and Islam through esoteric ways and with strong neoplatonic leanings while they were Anonymous most Scholars today are fairly certain in identifying the Brethren as a group of ismailis in particular which makes sense based on what we have just said but their Epistles nonetheless would be very influential on later developments both in XI and Sunni Islam we already talked about the mystical tendencies that have been Cena and mysticism is indeed perhaps the most fruitful part of this whole discussion now as we know the word mysticism is incredibly flawed in many ways but I think we all kind of know what we mean when we use that term and in Sufism which is often called Islamic mysticism we find a lot of parallels with neoplatonism and this is for good reason as we saw in the dedicated episode on neoplatonism platinus is often considered a kind of Mystic himself an important part of his philosophy was the idea of the ascent of the soul the idea that because everything comes or emanates from the one it all also returns back to it the cell for some aspect of the self is always in the noetic world it is in the news or the intellect and there is a possibility and even encouragement to turn away from this lower material world and return inward to Journey inside oneself and soul to go to its deepest depths where it is one with the nose and thus experience what is called a mystical Union with the news thetanus even seems to think that it is possible to shed all forms of individuality and separateness and thus be mystically United with the one itself if you know your mysticism these are obviously some of the most recurring and important themes in that Hall tradition or that you know the whole category of mysticism and platinus and neoplatonism is a key point and a key influence on that whole vocabulary and the whole symbolism and all these descriptions and and ways of describing the mystical experience and obviously in Sufism or Islamic mysticism in general we find it as well and all over the place from the earliest sufis Like a Villain Junaid dharani and the school in Baghdad we see an emphasis on the mystical Journey or path that the devoted Muslim Mystic should purify himself through renunciant practices asceticism prayers and devotion so that his soul can become refined eventually shed its attachment to the material world entirely and even reached the state of fanaa or annihilation in God when the Mystic loses all sense of separate existence becomes extinguished and Only God himself is witnessed as the truly real like the only reality it is this experience similar in many ways to the union with the one described by platinus that is expressed in ecstatic utterances like halaja's famous anal haq I am the truth and at the same time in this early period we see similar but unique mystical developments in the Islamic West in al-andalus here the charismatic Mystic slash philosopher IBN masara develops a former philosophical Islamic mysticism strongly near platonist in nature where there is a focus on the concept of ET de Bar contemplation and ibra literally crossing over from the sensible world to the world Beyond a process of ascent which starts by contemplating nature itself and its beauty which are the signs of God then ascending to the higher Realms through gradual levels of contemplation until one reaches the top of the ladder the followers of IBN Masada which came to be known as the al-mu attabirun the contemplators became quite influential in Al andalus and the Maghrib and would become a major influence on the philosophical Sufism of figures like IBN Arabi and IBN sabayin because these neoplatonic adjacent ideas are indeed present throughout Sufism broadly defined not just these spiritual Ascent that we have mentioned but also the idea that the created world is a kind of image or mirror of the Divine archetype something similar to the platonic world of forms and this is not just in the sometimes more controversial thinkers like IBN Arabi who will dedicate a lot of time to later but some of these themes can also be found in some of the most mainstream and widely accepted Islamic authorities in history such as for example in his mishkatel Anwar the niche of Lights which is essentially a commentary on the light verse in the Quran gazali seems to present ideas that are rather neoplatonist in nature such as for example a process of emanation and reality using the symbolism of light from the Quran gazali writes in the mishkat that there is a hierarchy of light from the lowest to the highest that the human you know Sufi as he was the human being can climb up this sort of hierarchy on the journey back to God and God is seen as the first light he also writes that these lights flow out from each other and in the end he states that there is actually just one light which is God and this is all very neoplatonic furthermore in the same book in the mushrattle Anwar he also seems very strongly to indicate that everything in this physical world is a kind of copy or mirror of the spiritual World which reminds us a lot of course of the world of forms and the News Doctrine in neop mechanism he writes quote even though there are two worlds spiritual and physical sensible and intelligible Etc the Divine Mercy provides a correspondence between the two Realms in such a way that there is not a single entity in this world which is not a symbol of the other world but one of the most interesting and significant figures in this context is of course the sheikhil Akbar the greatest Master IBN Arabi perhaps the greatest expounder of sufi-oriented metaphysics in history his school of thought which is often known under the name akbari or akbariya contains some really strong new platonic themes whether or not that was intentional on his part or not indeed he has even sometimes been called IBN aflatoon the son of Plato because it is sometimes really strong platonic features of his system now it's important to once again stress the fact that these thinkers themselves simply saw themselves as explicating Islam and nothing else if the pre-islamic Hellenic philosophers said things that correspond to their own ideas that is simply because of the fact that truth is truth and truth is not exclusive to Islam even if it is the truth to the fullest extent earlier philosophers and Mystics also had access to truth sometimes even earlier Divine Revelations which explains why the ideas of someone like platinus are so similar to their understanding of the Quran and of Islam in general according to them this was a long mystical tradition that stretched back to figures like Aristotle Plato and all the way back to the first man Adam but which was perfected in the Islamic tradition and even though IBN Arabi wasn't really a big fan of falsafar philosophy as such he does recognize that there is truth there he even refers to Plato himself as a flatoon ilahi the Divine Plato in the futohatel Makia furthermore in the preface to that massive magnum opus the futohatan Makia the meccan revelations even Arabi makes clear the truth is always truth regardless of who says it we shouldn't disregard everything a person says just because he is an unbeliever or that he has faulty opinions in some respects because some of what that person says can still be true and Truth is always good quote as for your statement the philosopher has no religion the fact that he has no religion does not prove that everything he says is false this ability to assess truth and falsehood is a perception by means of Reason using the primary rational faculty which every intelligent person has later he says quote so when there comes some matter that the intellect deems possible and the lawgiver is silent about it is inappropriate for us to reject it outright we may choose whether or not to accept it furthermore we must not forget the mystical and experiential side of things not only did these thinkers see a correspondence between quranic Islamic teachings and for example neoplatonism but their mystical experiences confirmed as much too when someone like IBN Arabi writes he does so based on mystical unveiling and illumination experiences of the truth itself experiences of the real or reality as it is these experiences not only confirm the truth of the Islamic religion to them but also corresponded to ideas in neoplatonism when titanus describes not only Union with the one but also the general structure of reality as emanating from the one and consisting of a kind of unified whole in some way as well as the mirroring of the spiritual and mundane world this seemed to be the same thing as what they themselves experienced while in heightened mystical state so if we want to believe their claims of mystical experience this is an important piece of authenticating evidence and even still when we read IBN Arabi and find what are arguably neoplatonic themes he usually doesn't use the philosophical terms he does talk about the intellect every now and then but more usually he will use quranic terms such as the pen the Kalam and only sometimes sort of allude to the philosophical concept saying oh by the way this is synonymous with the intellect or whatever this will be clear soon but it confirms what we have been saying even Arabi and his followers as well as those like them saw themselves as simply explicating and exploring the depths and the truths of the Islamic religion of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad and if there is a correspondence there with ideas in other schools like neoplatonism that is a mere assault of the universality of truth and not that they have been quote unquote influenced by that school and then apply it to their religion whether we want to share their view of the situation or believe them so to say is of course up to us but it is an important perspective to keep in mind so the teachings of IBN Arabi are incredibly complex and deep and there is no way we can do it justice here but according to this Mystic all of the cosmos is seen as the self-disclosure or manifestation of God to be more specific it is the manifestation of the attributes of God he likes to employ a famous Hadith kudzi where God says quote I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known so I created the world so that I might be known the hidden treasure referred to here is God's own reality his qualities and attributes which he loves or wishes to see manifested to be experienced in a mode other than his eternal self-knowledge of himself to IBN Arabi God in his absolute form God in himself so to say is referred to as the essence avat in Arabic the essence cannot be described or understood in any way it is utterly impossible to experience God's Essence it is utterly Transcendent of all qualifications or delimitation we can only say that it is if even that but not much else this essence of God and the name al-haqor the real slash the truth is often used by banana but to refer to it is beyond all Concepts even Concepts like Unity or Oneness itself but at the same time it somehow contains unlimited possibility or should I say actuality pretty similar to the platinian one isn't it but God also has a relationship with that which is other than him that is the world of creation and when we talk about God in relation to Creation we refer to him with various attributes and qualities which are also expressed through his names God in fact has an infinite number of attributes his reality is completely unlimited after all so this aspect of God as a reality in relation to the world is sometimes referred to as the level or the Divinity but these attributes names and qualities are only actualized as relationships to the world because as we saw the actual essence of God is completely Beyond any such descriptions the essence contains these unlimited attributes somehow even though we can't attribute anything to it they are as we saw the hidden treasure talked about in the Hadith but they don't exist there as separate realities or parts of the essence as such they cannot be conceptualized as different from the utterly simple Essence but as we also saw in the Hadith God wants or even loves to see his treasure manifested actualized as something to be experienced so he creates the world for this reason to be a place of manifestation for the attributes in his essence but in order for this unfathomable Essence to become something more concrete it needs to delimit itself somehow and indeed because God is utterly non-deliminable not even non-delimitation can limit him in other words because there is no limit to what God can do he is also able to limit himself in some way because if he couldn't limit himself then that would of course be a limitation on him so while the essence itself always remains utterly perfect and unchanged the Divine reality somehow delimits itself in stages in the process of creating the world he becomes conditioned or entified in a process of identification the first step in this process is often referred to as the most holy effusion or the first antification which results in something often called the al-ahadiya the Unicity this is still God but God as he sort of looks at himself here the attributes of God become a thing that can be recognized but still as part of an essential Unity this Most Holy effusion or emanation known as the neoplatonic language here is still taking place in God in a way so to say and Beyond time and space it is God as he knows his own infinite attributes and qualities as well as coming to know the infinite ways that these attributes can become manifested in particular forms we often see IBN Arabi refer to this reality as the reality of realities the or the universal reality sometimes also the muhammadan reality it is the realm in which all things take place a kind of place that is neither God nor the cosmos but also kind of both God and the cosmos at the same time it is the archetype of all reality the place where God has knowledge of all things all of his own attributes and all of the ways that those attributes can be manifested as actual particular things but it's also a kind of term for the totality of everything that is other than God God that is God as the essence but in an unmanifested way although from a certain perspective there is nothing other than God in other words it's kind of a logos principle about this topic The Scholar William chiddick writes quote drawing from terminology he uses elsewhere his followers call this reality in God the most holy effusion and they Define it as God's self-disclosure to himself in himself or the self-knowledge by which he knows every concomitant of his own Infinity they contrasted with the Holy effusion and the creative act that brings all realities and entities into manifestation this reality of reality slash Mohammed in reality the unmanifest aspect of all these entities in God's knowledge appears rather similar to the news or intellect of neoplatonism it has a lot of the same characteristics and seem to have a similar role to play but this statement also becomes difficult and problematic as we will see soon I've personally always had trouble grasping this particular aspect of IBN arabic's thought it's really difficult and confusing and to be honest to actually understand all of this on a rational level probably isn't even possible according to IBN Arabi himself what we need to know is that God knows himself his attributes and their possibilities of manifestation and the world is created to actualize that purpose so through his merciful breath the breath of the old merciful he creates the cosmos this is the holy effusion his being is given a place of manifestation God creates the world through his merciful breath and thus the Ayana fabita the immutable entities those ways those infinite ways that God's infinite attributes can become manifested as particular things come into being right they are given existence of their lent existence from God and thus they exist but in ibnabis thought it is also a very central theme that just as everything is Created from God and everything comes into being it also constantly returns back to God so here is that classic neoplatonic doctrine of the inflow and outflow or rather the outflow and the inflow right that everything comes from the one and returns to the one in IBN Arab is thought this is represented by the breath of the all-merciful god breathes the world into existence and at every single instant at every moment the world has created Anew so existence as we look around in the world it is a constant flow of things coming into being and then disappearing and coming back into being at every instant which is represented by this breathing this breathing out and breathing in of God's breath which creates and returns in which the world is created and returns to back at every moment it's really beautiful symbolism and what is the first thing that God creates the first step in the origination or emanation of the cosmos the first intellect alcohol so here we see the triumphant appearance of the intellect or noose again in classic neoplatonic fashion but IBN Arabi also seems to have extended part of the classic news Doctrine to his idea of the reality of realities in any case the first intellect has the role that it usually has in these kinds of schemes IBN Arabi himself describes it as quote the bearer of everything that is known high and low which takes from God without intermediary it is the place where all the knowledge of things that will be is collected and stored it is still Beyond time and space and so it contains all of God's knowledge and the different ways that God manifests himself in a unified way so to say quote the first student that accepted knowledge through learning not Essence was the first intellect he came to understand from God what he taught it he commanded it to write what he taught it in the preserved tablet the Universal Soul that he created from it so he named it a pen God replied to it write what has been or what I have taught and what will be or what I will dictate to you which is my knowledge concerning my creation until the day of Resurrection nothing else the intellect has a central role to play in reality it is sometimes equated with the concept of the Holy Spirit and with the Nur muhammadiya the light of Muhammad which is the inspiration for all prophecy indeed aside from being the place where all of realities contain so to say it also has a strong connection with revelation in the thought of IBN Arabi there are three modes of Revelation where the entirety of God's attributes are mirrored one is the Quran of nature that the cosmos as a whole is a sacred scripture and the place of God's self-disclosure the second is the human being the microcosm to the universal macrocosm that also reflects all of God's qualities and then thirdly there is of course the actual Quran in terms of the scripture recited by the prophet Muhammad indeed in the compendium of Sufi terminology by Abdul razak al-kashani a famous 14th century thinker from IBN Arabi School the first intellect or pen is synonymous with the quranic concept of um the mother of the book a kind of archetype for all sacred scripture including the Arabic Quran whatever the case this first intellect then emanates the second Creation The Universal Soul mafs El culia this Soul has one phase turned towards the intellect and God and one towards creation quote so the first Mentor in the cosmos is the first intellect the first learner who takes from a created Mentor is the preserved tablet that is the universal soul this nomic literature is shariaite that is According to Islamic law for the rational thinkers the name of the preserved tablet is the universal soul it is the first raised up existent thing that is acted upon by the intellect in relation to the intellect it is like Eve in relation to Adam it was created from it and it was coupled with it thus it became two just as her existence became too through the newly arrived thing and knowledge became two through the newly arrived pen the soul then emanates the World of Nature and the sensible universe as we know it come to be after this point and sort of below Soul so to say now as we said earlier in this discussion while there is no doubt that IBN Arabi employs these very neoplatonic themes he doesn't necessarily like to use the philosophical terms as such at least not as much and he doesn't even consider himself to be doing philosophy or to take these ideas from the platonism at all indeed in terms of the intellect being the first aspect of creation he doesn't have to look further than the hadiths themselves in fact there is another famous Hadith that IBN alabi likes to refer to where Muhammad is thought to have said quote the first thing that God created was the intellect or in another version he says quote the first thing that God created was the pen which tribunal abuse of course synonymous with the intellect and indeed rather than using the philosophical terms IBN Arabi prefers to use these quranic ones as we have seen in the quotes the intellect is called the pen al-qalam and the soul is called the tablet aloha the pen contains the knowledge of all things and writes upon the tablet which thus receives that knowledge and actualizes it in some way aside from quranic terms you will sometimes also use metaphorical language for example the intellect is often represented by the eagle and the Soul by the dove or the ring dove nowhere is this as explicit as in a relatively early and short Treatise called Cosmic unification in the presence of the eyewitnessing through the Assembly of the human tree and the four spiritual Birds we refer to it simply as the itihadal county or the the Treatise on unification from here on out in this work even Arabi describes a mystical experience where he has plunged into the depths of his own reality which turns out of course to be God's reality and their experience is a vision of a universal tree and four birds that are sitting in this tree each of these characters the tree and the birds present itself to the Mystic and even has their own poem to go along with it to summarize very briefly it turns out that the tree represents the universal or perfect man the insanal camel the accomplished person who perfectly reflects the reality of realities that is the totality of all God's names and attributes in a single form we might assume that it is in some way himself that have been out of the experiences here in any case this tree also has four birds all of whom represent important aspects of that reality the reality of the perfect man which is synonymous with in a way with reality itself because he's a reflection of the structure of reality and of the Divine the Divine world the ring Dove represents the tablet the Universal Soul the Royal Eagle represents the pen or the first intellect the Anka or Phoenix represents Prime matter another philosophical concept that should not be confused with matter as we know it but a kind of higher matter from which even imaginal and spiritual forms are made and lastly the fourth bird is the black crow which represents something called the universal body which we could consider the the the the physical world as a whole in a sense this is the crow that represents the sort of lowest aspect of reality which in this text turns out to not be very low at all if not actually sort of praises the physical world in a sort of anti not not outrightly anti-agnostic but I kind of the opposite of the Gnostic argument of saying that the people who who discard the physical and the material world as evil or dirty or ugly are completely mistaken there is a nobility and Beauty to the to the created world and the physical world as well as it is a reflection of of God and of God's attributes so in this particular Treatise we have a pretty straightforward exposition of key neoplatonic ideas but expressed through quranic and Islamic language but like I said we find these ideas all over his writings and the writings of his followers of the akbari school to this very day from the concept of the essence of God being very similar to the platinian one to the ideas of emanation or effusion to the news or intellect concept which while confusing can be found in both the teachings of the reality of realities as well as the Divine pen and even of course the next stage of the emanation which is the universal soul or tablet this is all very neatly within a very characteristically neoplatonic kind of scheme being a Mystic IBN Arabi also of course emphasized the return back a renouncing of worldliness and turning inward to our true reality ultimately we can become annihilated to reach the state of fanaa and become United with God becoming one with the one alone with the alone just like platinus IBN Arabi teaches us that God is always present to us and that it isn't a question of returning to God or even actually uniting with him but in a way just realizing that God was our very being and reality to begin with the world including ourselves are simply the ever-changing and fluctuating self-manifestation of God's being and attributes the Eternal unfolding of possibilities inherent in infinite actuality itself whether this is the result of direct or indirect influence or rather question of two expressions of the same truth based on mystical experience and unveiling is hard to say but it's without doubt true that ideas of a neoplatonic character can be found in the the key teachings of the school of IBN Arabi and really all of Sufism and to some degree all of Islamic thought in general or I should say most of Islamic thought of course it should be remembered that ibnada behind the school while of course very influential and important do not represent all of Sufism or even the majority of Sufism but he has been and still is an important piece of that puzzle and we can see from this and from our general discussion that neoplatonic ideas can be found in various places all over Islamic thought from philosophy to Kalam theology to Sufi metaphysics even today there are many in the Muslim Community who try to maintain and revive the school or in philosophy of neapolitanism as a very strong component of the Islamic religion and its and its theology basically people who belong to the akbari school the school of IBN Arabi of course who still have many followers around the world to Modern Scholars like khalilandani who I've worked with on this channel in the past who has written many articles arguing for the value of neoplatonism in Islamic theology as a very important tool for for for doing Islamic theology but also for the World At Large as a kind of very usable philosophical system so as you can see some of those core ideas associated with neoplatonism can be found all over the intellectual tradition of Islam in different ways from the apathetic nature of the one the idea that the core of reality the source of all things is this apathetic nature that cannot be described or understood in any way that is completely Transcendent of everything in terms of the world of Multiplicity or anything we can imagine or conceive of that is one of the core features of a lot of Islamic thinking about God even in the Quran we see similar Tendencies of this incredibly Transcendent monotheistic God but also in a lot of the Islamic thinkers from IBN Cena to the sufis of course a lot of the theological schools had these ideas even though they do affirm that God has certain attributes as mentioned in the Quran that has always been a kind of debate within Islamic theology how do we reconcile this idea of the Divine attributes with the other idea of God's complete Transcendence and dissimilar Clarity from All Things some Islamic scholars chose to follow the neoplatonic system more closely and have a more extremely apathetic conception of God such as the ismailis for example who adapted the neoplatonic model to to a much larger degree than perhaps most Muslim Scholars but also people like IBN Arabi who conceives of the absolute nature of God as this concept of the essence of art which is completely Beyond any description or understanding secondly another key near platonic idea is this idea of emanation that the one or reality the different hypotheses or levels of reality emanate from one another the one emanates the intellect which emanates the soul which emanates the world and in a lot of Islamic thinking and philosophy we also see the very same idea from people like IBN Cena same with people like al-farabi who also conceives of this emanation of various different intellects to many of the sufis who would also conceal reality in many similar ways Surah vardadi and his illuminationism has these different lights that emanate from the the noodle Anwar the the light of Lights even it talks about lights that emanate from or flow out from each other and of course as we saw IBN Arabi has an incredibly new platonic system where even God becomes antified or becomes somehow somehow emanates into these different uh levels in which the being of God can can sort of manifest himself it's all over the place in that sense and lastly in neoplatonism there's this idea of climbing back up this ladder of reality from the mundane world to leave the physical behind and travel inward to find our true spiritual home or our true reality and somehow even become United with the Divine this idea of Union mystica which is so common to neoplatonic thinking in general this we also find of course all over the Islamic intellectual tradition even in the rational philosophers like IBN Cena he also conceives of the sort of highest achievement as this Union with the necessary being becoming United somehow with God however that is interpreted that language in that symbolism is is key to many of these philosophers even IBN rush to veruis who is very anti-neoplatonic in that way he also conceives of this idea of of United with the active intellect and these themes are of course perhaps mostly visible in the tradition of Sufism or Islamic mysticism often so-called where there is this emphasis on traveling on the spiritual path on a ascending levels or stations until one reaches the highest stations which include for example the idea of fanaa of becoming an annihilated in God or becoming completely extinguished and realizing that God is the only reality so this is of course very similar to platinus's idea of uniting or becoming the one in that sense it is clear there are many parallels and correspondences between the school of neoplatonism and a lot of Islamic thought which I hope I have given you proper examples of in this episode and today we've only looked at a really tiny selection of of thinkers and movements within Islam that has these kind of of ideas and these kind of neoplatonic features to it right but there's the topic is much faster than that and even then we've only focused on one of the major abrahamic religions because indeed neoplatonism has been influential on all of the so-called Western religions or abrahamic religions and even Beyond it's it's one of the most influential and and important philosophical movements in schools systems in all of history that has influenced everything from Judaism Kabbalah within Judaism Christianity uh western esotericism or esotericism generally all across the board neoplatanism is incredibly influential and that is again why it is so incredible that I am part of this massive collaboration with some of my great colleagues here on YouTube uh a collaboration that is sorely needed in order for this this very significant school near platonism to be to be presented to a broader audience and to also talk about the different ways that has influenced our world and the way that we see things and some of the major religions and intellectual schools that are still part of our society and world today hopefully you've learned a thing or two here about neoplatanism both in general but also in particular in this episode about its relationship with Islamic thought and Sufism we will of course be discussing the application more in the future because it is a topic that's going to come up whether we like it or not but now we've laid some of the groundwork to see how this tradition has well first of all in our previous episode what this tradition and philosophy is to begin with but also now also how it is influenced some of the greatest in intellectual and religious traditions in history and even today so look forward to more episodes on this topic check out the videos by the other channels thank you as always to all of my patrons of course to keep this channel going without whom I would not be able to do any of this and I will see you next time [Music]

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 226,709

Keywords: Neoplatonism in Islam, Islamic philosophy, Islamic neoplatonism, neoplatonism, platonism, Islamic mysticism, mysticism, Sufism, sufi islam, islamic spirituality, Ibn sina, Avicenna, Ibn Arabi, Unity of being, islamic theology, tassawwuf, plotinus, al farabi, al ghazali, ghazali, philosophy, history, islamic history, islam explained, middle east, persian philosophy

Id: VDfJSbPtAEI

Length: 58min 19sec (3499 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023