The Bezels of Wisdom - Ibn 'Arabi's Controversial Masterpiece

in the history of Sufism and Islamic intellectual mystical thought there are few figures as famous and influential as the Arabic andalan mui also known as thebar the greatest Master a polarizing figure in the Islamic world he has been considered everything from the greatest Saint and spiritual master in history to a dangerous heretic the life and thought of iabi is fascinating and if you want to know more about it then you can check out my full episode on that topic but the school that he became associated with the Akbar school or the Akbar named after his title as thebar the greatest Master uh became associated with a certain Doctrine known as the unity or the Oneness of being although he actually never used that term himself uh this is a complicated and often misunderstood idea where God stands as the sole reality as W or existence itself and everything else only being a reflection or manifestation of God's attributes it is with these ideas that I ADI made his Mark in the world of Sufism and mysticism his books are still read and studied today and contain some of the most puzzling and yet beautifully intricate expressions of mystical experience and the various dimensions of the Islamic religion and indeed if an Arabi was a prolific writer producing a ridiculous amount of books and treatises over his life everything from Sufi poetry like his collection of mystical love poems the Talan aswak to philosophical commentaries and mystical Pros perhaps the most Central and intimidating of his works theut the meccan revelations spans over 10,000 pages in the original Arabic and functions as a kind of vast compendium of all aspects of the Islamic religion from law to spiritual practice and various different Sciences but another shorter work from late in his life serves as perhaps the most famous or maybe Infamous and controversial of his writings what some would consider the crown jewel of his literary output and a masterpiece of mystical Pros the often translated as the ring stones of wisdom or the bezels of wisdom [Music] [Applause] [Music] iabi was originally from Andalucia specifically from Moria in eastern Spain but he grew up for the most part in and around seevilla which was the capital of the al- mahad caliphate at that time eventually he entered the mystical path under several teachers had intense visions and illuminations he traveled widely in the region and started writing mystical Works some of these early Works survive for us today like the Mas the the an just being a few examples eventually however he left his homeland of andal and the MB and around the turn of the 13th century he traveled to the east during the Haj to Mecca visiting the great cities of Jerusalem Bagdad cona and Cairo and toward the end of his life he settled in the city of Damascus where he raised his family and continued being a significant and respected Sufi teacher and master until his death probably in the year 1240 and it is toward the end of this relatively long and very eventful life around 12:30 that he composed the s he or actually he claims that he didn't necessarily compose it at all in the introduction to the work he claims that he had a vision of the Prophet Muhammad who handed him the book and told him to give it to the people and then he preserved it Unchained basically in other words iabi considers this book to come directly from the prophet and to contain some of the most exalted secrets of religion and reality now as we said ABI produced a lot of writings but the Fus does hold a special place in his output not only is it one of the last if maybe not the last full work that he produced beginning to end thus representing a kind of doctrinal culmination and highest maturation of his thought and ideas the crown jewel of his output as some have said but we can also see indications of its special status due to how it was treated you see when I alabi wrote his Works he would often hold a listening session what's known as a sama so not to be confused with the uh Sufi ritual of listening to music in this case Sama means that he would or one of his disciples perhaps would read aloud his Works to an audience um as a sort of first public um performance or reading of the book basically um and the different books ofi was aimed at different audiences and we can see from the records of these Sama sessions uh that different books would have different audiences depending probably on the nature of the book so the fut Makia which was a book that was aimed to very large audience there were a lot of people there his disciples were there but also U vast amount of different kinds of people uh and what's really interesting is that when it comes to the uh for the s or reading session of this book only one person was present and that was s Al his closest student and even stepson so this says something really significant about this work that it is so um um it contains the the sort of deepest teachings in a way that only his closest disciple was in attendance at the the reading of this book so this is clearly a very special and difficult text only meant for the most advanced students on the mystical path and here we are talking about it on YouTube but this is also probably why it is the most controversial and well-known of his Works since he speaks very plain ly very directly and without filters making the statements and ideas very easy to misunderstand unless you know how to interpret them and many people did indeed misunderstand and were horrified with what was said in the book a famous example is the 14th Century hanbali theologian IBN tya who tells us that he was initially actually a fan of IB Arabi after reading some of his Works including the Makia but when he read the F his opinion changed completely and and tya from that moment became one of iab's greatest critics accusing him of heresy so there's clearly something about this book right the work is relatively short especially compared to some of his other ones but it is packed with incredibly dense mystical pros and poetry radical expressions and their formulation of iab's most daring ideas including that which is often called but also related ideas like the temporary nature of suffering in Hell the faith of pharaoh in the story of Moses and the so-called Divinity of beliefs all of which we will explore in our um exploration of this book it is divided into 27 chapters each being a fuss a ringstone or bezel of a certain wisdom and associated with one of the quranic biblical prophets so for example the first chapter is the ringstone or fast of divine wisdom so the wisdom of divinity in the word of Adam the second is the ringstone of the wi wisdom of breathing in the word of Seth Etc each chapter revolves around a prophet and often includes interpretations of stories about those prophets from the Quran and the Bible and what those stories can tell us about the doctrines of uh unity and oness for example the chapters in this sense also follow a kind of loose chronological order starting with Adam and then ending with mammad but this chronological order isn't always consistent uh for example like both Jesus and Solomon are before the chapter of David which doesn't make sense so it's not a strictly chronological order but in a very general sense you could you could see it you could see that kind of historical chronology unfolding across the 27 chapters it's also quite strange to me that there are 27 chapters in particular why do I say this well because I anabi is always very careful about the significance of numbers and and letters and all these correspondences and when it comes to um Sufism and you know all these values and numbers the number 28 is one of the most recurring ones there are 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet there are 28 Mansions of the Moon Etc um and these correspondences between all these um numbers is very significant to people like iabi and as an example um iabi wrote a lot of poetry right but he wrote most of that poetry in classical Arabic in classical Arabic forms like ca uh he did however write a kind of sweet of and Lucian style poems uh both in terms of the style it's in Mas and Z forms which was a style of poetry and song that um that that was born in Andalucia at around this time uh and so these songs uh are written by Arabi and there are in total 28 of them there is 27 masah poems and one zal poem and that last song or poem the zajal one is also structured within itself in a PEC way it is divided into seven stanzas of four Lions each what does four * seven give us 28 of course right and each one also represents you know the four lines represents the four sides of the cabba and seven is of course you you you do ta you turn around the Caba seven times so a lot of this um symbolism of number is very significant to anatomy in particular the number 28 we see this all across his thought for example in this way and then the fos has 27 chapters why doesn't it have 28 that's I I like I lose sleep over this sometimes I just don't know what's going on with this missing chapter and if he's like something so out of character of him to to to sort of leave that out in this case I can't help but think there's something significant going on with this missing chapter or maybe I'm just crazy um I haven't been able to find an answer at least from the research that I've been doing but maybe there are Scholars out there who who have already answered this question maybe it's obvious and I just haven't realized it but that that's one of the weird things to me about this book so that's the general outline and background of the book but what does it actually say what's in this book well let's explore one of the most profound books of mysticism in history while the work covers on impossibly br spectrum of Concepts and visions of reality it all boils down to the relationship between God or the real and the world of appearance and also the central role that the human being plays in this tapestry of reality as we said the basic idea of what is called the unity of being which arguably the work explores to a major degree is that God is all there is there is only God and the Islamic proclamation of Faith ill is read to mean essentially that there is no reality but the real or God but this is not meant in a crude pantheistic sense right God is not identical to the world but always remains utterly Transcendent of the world at the same time while simultaneously being its very reality in every way this is a paradox that is explored again and again from different angles in the Fus essentially the world of creation so all of the cosmos that which is quote other than God is a manifestation or appearance of the infinite attributes and names of God in limited form I sometimes summarize it by saying that the cosmos is caught the unfolding of possibilities inherent in infinite actuality so as the Quran says whichever way you turn there is the face of God while simultaneously God remains hidden and Transcendent at the same time in the book IAB uses various similes and metaphors to explain this one of my favorites being the different uses of the mirror metaphor the essence of God or the that of God in Arabic remains hidden and inaccessible while being the very reality of all things it's like looking into a mirror the mirror of being or wud and seeing all these images in the mirror the images are God in so far as they are manifestations of his attributes in limited forms so mirrorings of the names of God but it is also the images in the mirror so the being the world in other words that veils us from seeing the very surface of the mirror itself so here the surface is God's essence or Wu being itself the images are only reflections of that Wu it's not the same as that wud in a certain sense but it's also the images of of the world that we experience that veils the very surface of the mirror itself because we never see the surface of a mirror we only see the images this is a very powerful Sim that he uses he says when you see a form in a mirror struggle within yourself to see the body of the mirror you will without any doubt out never see it so God veils himself with himself we'll return to these themes a bit later on too but the human being especially the complete human being which is known as the insan camel as a cosmic archetype or logos principle is probably one of the key themes of iab's thought and the Fus in particular and this becomes apparent especially in the very opening chapter on the word of Adam who represents mankind as a whole in fact the opening line or section of the entire work summarizes in very simple terms a significant chunk of what the rest of the work elucidates basically so the very first words in the first chapter of the F says quote the real world glorified be he in virtue of his beautiful names which are innumerable to see their identities if you so wish you can say to see his identity in a comprehensive being that comprises the whole Affair in so far as it is possessed of existence and his mystery is Manifest to himself through it for the vision a thing has of itself in itself is not like the vision a thing has of itself in another thing which would be like a mirror for it indeed he is Manifest to himself in a form accorded by the locus scene which would not have manifested to him without the existence of that Locust and his self-disclosure to it now there's a lot going on in this paragraph to begin with as we have discussed in earlier videos about there's a that is very Central to his thought namely the one where God says quote I was a hidden treasure and I love to be known so I created the world that I might be known God in his essence or the that his absolute form so to say is completely unknowable and Beyond any attribution or description no qualities or attributes can be ascribed to it and we can say absolutely nothing about it other than that it is the name of God that adabi likes to use when referring to this absolute essence of God is Al which means literally the real or the truth and this is the name that he uses in that very first line the real will glorified be he in virtue of his beautiful names which are innumerable this apophatic essence of God the real has a hidden treasure namely the names and attributes that are ascribed to him but at this point or level the names are not separate Concepts at all because there's only the one Essence but as the Hadith says the real wants or even loves for his treasure to be known so this leads to something happening God entify himself in order to create something God must become more entify or qualified in stages the first step of this called the first entific is a kind of self- knowledge where God knows his own nature thus introducing a kind of Duality between the knower and the known and what does God know about himself well of course the infinite attributes and qualities that are the hidden treasure and all the ways that those attributes and names can manifest themselves and we see this in that first line of the Fus where the beautiful names are called innumerable right so there are infinite names Nam infinite attributes of God and God knows these attributes and names as he begins knowing himself he always knows himself of course in the essence but there's a a new level of of knowing introduced at this first identification where he knows himself as these attributes and qualities right he becomes more qualified and this is the first stage in that process what happens as the Hadith suggests is that God creates the cosmos that which is other than God as a way for himself self to be known to himself but through another the cosmos in its Infinity of possibilities changes and developments over time is nothing but the manifestation in limited form of those infinite attributes and qualities inherent in the Divine Essence the whole Cosmos is therefore a reflection of God like in a mirror and I'm not talking here about only the physical Cosmos at this particular moment in time but all the possible worlds material and immaterial for all time extending in the past and in the future and even Beyond but the whole Cosmos as such reflects all the attributes of God that is the macrocosm but the same process is also true of the microcosm that is the human being just as the entire Cosmos reflects all the attributes in a kind of um spread out way you could say the microcosm the human being Adam in in in this case right he also reflects all the attributes of God but in a comprehensive and kind of unified form at least in potential right not that every single human being is perfectly reflecting all the attribut at all time but in potential the human being uh the the insan C right this lest principle which also is the potential of every human being that reflects all the names and attributes of God but in a comprehensive way so this is once again that idea of the macrocosm mirroring the microcosm that we find in so many TR itions and it is very much present here inabi so this is the basic situation the world is a mirror reflecting the attributes of God in being where the human being plays a central role as the microcosmic reflection not only of the macrocosm but of the very Divine itself so now let's read that first section again with all of this in mind quote the real will glorified be he in virtue of his beautiful names which are innumerable to see that their identities if you so always you can say to see his identity because even though the names and attributes of God are many they are really only different ways and relationships uh to a single thing right it's it's all of it is just God there's just one there's just one being one reality even though we call it by all these different names and attributes and these attributes are different relationships to the created world there's only one being so to say that he wanted to see um their identities as in the name is a the names is the same thing as saying he wanted to see his identity in singular right this is what he's saying here uh he wanted to see their identities if you so wish you can say to see his identity in a comprehensive being that comprises the whole Affair in so far as it is possessed of existence and his mystery is Manifest to himself through it this reflection right that we talked about for the vision of thing has of itself in itself is not like the vision of thing has of itself in another thing which will be like a mirror for it indeed he is Manifest to himself in a form accorded by the locus scene which would not have manifested to him without the existence of that Locust and his self-disclosure to it so again right this says a lot he starts with a bang here as you can see uh and already here we can we've been introduced to some of the key Concepts and ideas that he would further elaborate on and expand upon in dazzling ways all throughout this book for example the second chapter dedicated to Seth one of Adam's Sons goes deeper into the concept called the a which is also very Central to a system remember that we said that as God sort of metaphorically turns to himself and knows himself he knows his infinite attributes and qualities in a unified way well because these attributes are infinite God also knows the infinite ways that these attributes can become qualified and manifested in particular forms particular things in the cosmos these archetypes you could say or particular objects of knowledge in God's mind are the Ayana or the immutable entities they exist there always in God's knowledge as the infinite possibilities determined by the names and attributes and when God wants to create something he simply gives or lends existence or being to that immutable entity like you would pour water into a vessel importantly in this metaphor the water being W or existence always remains one and unchanged because being is identical to God and God never changes or you know becomes bigger or lar smaller God just remains always what he is he remains one without change uh but this water when it is poured into a vessel it is formed according to that vessel that it is poured into and so the vessel is the the immutable in God's knowledge and when he gives existence to it it's like you pour the water into the vessel right so so being is the very reality thing but being without water itself being changed or formed it sort of takes the shape of that particular vessel so that's what's going on when God creates something when he gives existence to these immutable entities which are in themselves non-existent now you may think this is similar to Plato's world of forms and there are certainly similarities here but also key differences unlike Plato's forms the entities the ayab are the things that exist in the Manifest world and in particular form as opposed to being on the archetypes that the existing things are emulating like in Plato in this way the ayanaba always remain nonexistent too because they never have being of their own they can only serve as the receptacles of God's being the particular ways that the being of the real shows itself at that particular moment so when we do read the quranic statement that c whichever way you turn there is the face of God this is read quite literally and can be said to be true in two different ways first of all everything that is is simply being or W the W of God but that Wu this being qualified or manifests itself or even veils itself in a way through the immutable entities but secondly those immutable entities are also nothing but the reflections or particular manifestation of God's attributes so it's all a Divine display the way that God can know or experience himself but through another another that at the end of the day is nothing but God in a sense too this is the essence of the idea of that so many people have ascribed to Arabi and which we see so unusually clearly espoused in this particular work and the she likes to employ various different similes and metaphors to explain this concept and a lot of these simile do show up already in the second chapter dedicated to the prophet Seth one of the most prominent of these metaphors we've already mentioned which is of course the one of the mirror all the world is a mirror of God's attributes and being quote the world of nature consists of forms in a single mirror nay of one form in diverse mirrors this tackles the exact same themes and portrays the perspectives of Oneness versus multiplicity Oneness versus Duality from the point of view of Oneness all things that is all diverse forms are simply multiple forms reflected in a single mirror that mirror being wul or the real whereas from the perspective of Duality one form the real is reflected in a multitude of mirrors so the world of Multiplicity in this case as we saw earlier this is also expanded to point out that because the very surface of the mirror is the W or being of the real itself we can never see the real but only the reflections of the multiple things in the mirror quote thereafter the object of self-disclosure sees nothing but his own form in the mirror of the real and it is not possible that he should see him although he knows that it is only in him that he sees his own form it is similar to what one finds in a visible mirror when you see a form in it you do not see it the mirror although you know that only there do you see forms or your own form now God has manifested this in a similitude employing it to represent the self-disclosure of the essence so that the object of self-disclosure will know that he does not see him and him he refers to the essence of God right there is no symbol which comes closer to or more closely resembles this vision and this self-disclosure when you see a form in a mirror struggle within yourself to see the body of the mirror you will without any doubt never see it a second metaphor that he uses talks about our own self awareness as a likeness to the relationship between the one and the many remember there is only God and God remains one but in order for God to know himself fully an artificial Duality must be created iabi says quot the hidden says no when the Manifest says I and the Manifest says no when the hidden says I this is so with every opposite the speaker is one and it's the same as the listener the prophet may God bless him and Grant him peace says what their souls spoke they speak and listen to their speaking having knowledge of what their soul spoke the identity is one while the determinations differ there is no way of failing to know the lacks of this for every man knows this in himself each is a form of the real I can know about myself I can think about myself and even talk about myself like I am a conscious being for example uh and inherit in that as a kind of paradox of Duality versus Oneness because on the one hand um the one that I'm talking about is the same as the one talking because I am talking about myself so from one perspective of oness it's all just me whereas from another perspective of of Duality there is a kind of Duality created an artificial Duality created between the speaker and the the spoken of the the knower and the known similarly the world is God experiencing himself through another that hidden treasure that loves to be known thus there is Duality from one perspective but a Oneness from another he also employs the simil of numbers in a fascinating way he says quote the determinations of numbers can appear only in what is numbered what is numbered can have either non-existence or existence the thing can be non-existent with respect to sense perception while existent with respect to the intellect it must needs be that there is number and what is numbered moreover there must needs be the one which generates them they are generated by means of it each level of number is a single reality take for example 9 10 anything smaller or anything larger at infinum none are a sum but neither can any Escape being called a grouping of ones indeed two is a single reality and there is a single reality no matter what level one reaches even though they are one so none of them are identical with any other However the fact of there being a grouping is predicated of them and we speak of them in these terms terms and it is judged to be present among them all numbers are individual and have an identity of their own six is not the same as seven and neither are identical with one and they are considered as units of their own but at the same time all numbers is nothing but one or ones so that two is really 1 + 1 and four is just 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 the individual numbers are certainly different from one from one perspective and different from all other numbers which expresses the multiplicity of creation but from another perspective it is all one because they are made up of nothing but ones added upon each other in the Mak he develops the same idea too where he adds a striking observation that if you remove one from any number it ceases to be that number and thus loses its identity so the very thing that makes that number unique and what it is is the one that is hidden by virtue of the number's unique identity this is another example of this idea that God veils himself with himself it is the oness that creates The Duality and is the very essence of the identity of the multiple so to say and later in the chapter of Joseph which naturally deals a lot with dreams and the or world of imagination he uses other powerful similes regarding light he uses two powerful similes here again to explain the situation and both having to do with light one is the metaphor of the world being the shadow of God the surface that the shadow is cast upon are the Ayana faab Which shapes the shadow in different ways without the shadow itself becoming multiple in itself and then both the lights and the body that casts the shadow is of course the real as we have to remember though from the ultimate perspective of Oneness it is all the real light body and Shadow and he extends this met into light shining through glass too if we see light on the other side of the glass it'll be colored based on the glass in this case he uses green as an example from our perspective it is correct to say that the light is green this is um sensory perspective right this the perspective of the world as multiplicity as we experience it that we see a green light that shines through this this glass but it's also correct to say that the light has no color which is the perspective of transcendence God's Transcendence and uh that that there is that that the world that God is not like the world at all these two perspectives are always at play like this a later poet from the school of Builds on this theme very beautifully in his l or Divine flashes expressing that the world is one light shining through many different vessels taking different colors and shapes but it is all the same one colorless light it can indeed be pretty hard to talk about this stuff without simplifying or maybe missing understanding it and this is likely whyi uses a lot of these different metaphors and different ideas of expressing it to to to counteract those kinds of um simplified perspectives U indeed if you just go into this reading it um without having a broader understanding of iab's ideas or Islamic metaphysics and Theology and so on uh it's very easy to conclude that a Babi teaches some kind of pantheism or at least a more crude form of pantheism which would be very inaccurate in fact another one of the most recurring themes that he returns to again and again throughout the text is the very important relationship between the perspectives of tan and Tash Transcendence or difference and imminence and similarity and this becomes perhaps most clear in the third chapter dedicated to Noah where he explores the story about this ancient prophet in Surah 71 of the Quran and how Noah in this story had trouble winning over the people because according toi he emphasized tan or Transcendence too much instead of balancing the two perspectives what this essentially is saying is that some people view God as utterly Transcendent and different from the world particularly philosophers and rational theologians whereas others view him as similar or imminent which can lead to things like anthropomorphism and even pantheism although iabi doesn't use this term in this case of course and to iabi both of these perspectives are true but they are also both false god is certainly Transcendent and is unlike anything in the world he doesn't have a body or hands or anything that can be compared to things in the universe there's a very definite difference between the two but at the same time as we saw earlier the world is nothing but the self-disclosure or display of the Divine itself it is all God so somehow both are true and both are false and is only through balancing the two looking at things with both eyes of Reason which sees Transcendence and the eye of intuition which sees similarity that we can get the full picture and this becomes very well and famously expressed in one of the poems in this chapter says if you insist only on his Transcendence you restrict him and if you insist only on his imminence you limit him if you maintain both aspects you are right an Imam and a m in the spiritual Sciences who so would say he is two things is a polytheist while the one who isolates him tries to regulates him beware of comparing him if you profess Duality and if Unity beware of making him Transcendent you are not he and you are he and you see him in the Essences of things both boundless and limited Noah focused on thean which in Arabic comes from the root meaning to separate thus representing Transcendence instead of Quran which here is very interestingly read to be based on the three-letter root rather than the which is usually how it is conceived uh in's reading the root this would mean something like Binding Together so the opposite of of far of separating the prophet Muhammad on the other hand was able to perfectly balance the two in the Revelation that he was given which is perfectly exemplified in one single verse according to Babi which says not is there like onto his likeness in Arabic this sentence contains both sides within itself within a single sentence on a Surface reading it expresses Transcendence by simply stating that there is nothing like God but the same time it says that there is nothing like his likeness myth he which also Express say the similarity and imminence this is a perfect example to show how deeply II is always in conversation with the Quran and the Hadith and the very unique and fascinating ways that he interprets and read these text in some ways the whole Fus could be seen as a kind of commentary on the Quran and this distinction between tan and Transcendence and imminence and the way that he plays with and switches between these two in his Expressions can be found all over his writings he will often surprise you by first saying something that seems very let's say non-dualistic but then the next moment he says the opposite and reading him can be quite confusing in that way unless you keep this essential balance and paradoxical apophaticism in mind both of these perspectives are always equally true and equally false when he says something that comes off as very shocking and non-dualistic one must always keep in mind that the opposite statement also hides behind the words and vice versa and how these two play off each other so to say but one of the things that are so unique about the f is that at least according to me among the writings of the there is no other book that leans so heavily into the imminence and Oneness perspective even for someone like me who has read quite a lot of his Works some statements in the fuls come off as quite radical and shocking in their plainness just listen to this quote from the chapter of or Enoch which I think is one of the most clear statements on in his entire output he says quote by virtue of existence he is identical with existent things those things we call that which comes to be are exalted in their Essence and are none other than he quite profound right there is nothing but the wud of God and in the sense that they exist all things are quote none other than he you can understand how people reading this without keeping all the nuance and complexity in mind that we have just discussed might easily misunderstand or get a very simplified impression of his Doctrine but of all the chapters in the F the one that hammers down on the message of Oneness more than any other I would argue is the 10th chapter dedicated to the Arab Prophet H famous for the story in the Quran about the people of AD and the city called Iram of the pillars it's fitting that the name of this chapter is the ringstone of the wisdom of unity a in the word of H because it is really a t of force of of unitive expression the Sheikh Begins the chapter by commenting on the quranic verse verily my Lord is on a straight path as you might be able to guess he comes to the conclusion that because us as creatures that walk on the path to God are self-disclosures of God from one perspective God not only guides us on the path but is ultimately also the one walking the path himself quote everything other than the real is a crawling creature because each is specific of a spirit there is nothing that crawls on its own it can only crawl by another it crawls in a state of dependence upon him who is on the straight path and indeed it is a path only in its being walked upon this perspective of Wess is then beautifully also captured in the poem quote when creation bows to you the real bows to you if the real bows to you then creation may not follow realize our words in him for all I say is true true there is no existent thing in being that thou shalt see not able to speak there is no creature whose identity Thou shalt see whose identity is not the real yet he's lodged within it because of this are his forms containers and the chapter continues In This Very radical way in a section where the Sheikh gets unusually philosophical he explains in a very profound way how the nature of God's Transcendence and boundlessness necessitates his becoming delimited thus being the reality of all he says quote we are delimited things and he describes himself employing nothing but limits his saying there is not like onto him is also a limit if we take the like to be extraneous and not for the purposes of the description whosoever is distinguished from a delimited thing is delimited by not being identical with that delimited thing to be absolute Beyond qualification is qualification in the sight of one who possesses understanding the absolute is qualified by being absolute and if we consider the like to be part of the description we delimit him if we take not is there like onto his likeness as the negation of likeness then we will have realized through this idea and the authentic sayings that he is identical with things things are delimited though their limits are diverse he is delimited through the limit of every delimited thing no no thing is limited without this being the limit of the real he flows in all things that bear the name created and originated if the matter were not so existence would not be a fact he is identical with existence because God is unlimited and absolute to say that he couldn't delimit himself that he couldn't limit himself in some way is to put a limit on God then he wouldn't be unlimited or absolute there's one quote in there that is particularly striking in that he says whosoever is distinguished from a delimited thing is delimited by not being identical with that delimited thing the conclusion thus being that God must delimit himself and must in some way although not other ways be identical with things or he wouldn't be unlimited this reminds us or at least me of the expressions of the medieval Catholic Mystic master eart who expresses himself in rather similar ways about God and being he argues that being is distinct precisely by being indistinct it is different from all things by the fact that it is the only thing that is identical to all things I do sense a kind of similar line of philosophical argument here in the in fact while the essence of God remains perfect without need of other things and without Ever Changing as such on the level of his names there needs to be creation right he needs to create the universe in order to be complete because if God is the creator what sense does that name and attribute make if there is nothing created for him to be Creator over if he is the merciful that name has no meaning unless there is something else over which his Mercy can be extended this is well explored in the chapter of Abraham who is often called or friend of God and this becomes an expression of this relationship between God and the world and that is a relationship of reciprocal friendship where we as creation are constantly in need of God to give us existence but God is also in some strange way dependent on us for his names to have a place of manifestation and for their function to be carried out now keep in mind that this dependency is only on the level of the names and not the essence the essence remains completely independent and unchanged uh but but this becomes a reality when this relationship between uh this relative relationship between Creator and creation comes into being right this this as God delimits himself self this becomes relevant whereas in God's very essence itself these questions don't make any sense and to return then to the chapter on Hood this Oneness is expressed as you can see in various different ways hammering home that there really is only God and toward the end of the chapter the Sheik does a kind of mic drop with a very profound poem that summarizes these ideas [Music] he is all of being and he is the one in whose being my being resides because of this I have said he feeds from my existence is his nourishment and we follow his example in him and from him if you so contemplate this from one aspect I do seek my refuge this is in the translation of jali which is very beautiful but if we look at the actual Arabic things are even more radical than they may seem when the shik says he is all of being in another translation by Austin it's he is all of becoming we might think he means the word wud for being here right which while pretty striking wouldn't be all that surprising given what we have said so far we know that you know there is only one being or one wud which is God and that all other things are non-existent and only serve as the locai of God's wud the vessels in which the water is poured in the metaphor and and and so on but here IB Arabi says thus using the word con which also means existence or being but in a more specific way wheni uses the word and its related terms he is referring to being or existence more generally right it can mean the being of God or the being of created things depending on the context that he is using it in right but the word con and its different forms is basically exclusively used to refer to existence or being in terms of the universe right the created universe created things so what the she Expresses in this poem especially through his word use is quite radical in that way he is is all of being all of cone in terms of being right there is only God this is one of the most to me one of the most radical expressions in the book because of the word that he uses in this PA con rather than but again all this talk about Oneness and similarity is only one side of the coin imabi is famous for this idea of the Oneness of being and so is perhaps most associated with expressions of um you know unity and and and and similarity which are certainly there but arguably when we look at his text he arguably talks more about the reality of Multiplicity than he does about Oneness the other side is equally important to ibarabi the forour is filled with statements about the reality of Multiplicity and the world and how this multiplicity expresses the underlying Oneness of being without ever being regulated to the status of a simple illusion or something like that it is a dream in the mind of God the Alam or world of imagination but multiplicity is real and interacts with Oneness in this way I Arabi is also very different from the various quote unquote Gnostic systems in Antiquity which saw the physical world as evil or as a dirty prison to be escaped I Arabi very strongly disagrees to him as we have seen the world is a beautiful manifestation of the Divine attributes an expression and self-disclosure of the Divine self and of in another work by iabi the he finds himself discoursing with four Birds sitting in a universal tree the last of these birds a black crow represents the universal body or the material world and it's made clear that those who reject this physical aspect of reality are seriously mistaken the crow in this text says quote some alleging to be endowed with unshakable reason may their claim and impos their dubious judgment they showered me with unseemly derision and divested me of the robe of seemly Praise but the evil consequences of their actions will turn against them and their mocking will Encompass them when in the depths of my hell they will call for help and be answered be gone therein and speak not unto me while in the breadth of my Paradise those who praise me well will make marry with their spouses in a garden made joyful the law has already praised me so what do I care the received text has made clear my rank so why say more it's a pretty harsh criticism of those who uh deny the the the nobility of the physical world basically saying that they will go to hell for doing so right so this is very different those kinds of Gnostic systems or um perhaps extreme forms of aestheticism and sometimes even extreme forms of monism where the world of Multiplicity because one emphasizes the the reality of Oneness so much that multiplicity become a kind of Illusion that this physical world of the illusion is something be to be turned away from and this is this is only true from a certain sense as we will see but from another perspective this is this is very this is an inaccurate way to see the world according toi the world should be seen as this beautiful manifestation expression of the Divine attributes right so this is very important of course his mystical Sufi practice involved things like aestheticism in order to control things related to the NFS or the ego the self and the world in that sense is seen as dangerous in the way that it can lure you in through things like power greed lusts sensory um pleasures and things like this but seen in itself the world is a beautiful and even Divine thing so you will hear sufis and talk about the dun the world as something that should be uh neglected right but there's a difference often between dun on the one hand and right so is not it translated as the world but usually it doesn't mean the world as in in the more General sense it means the world as in worldliness right being attached to things in the world um that that our ego seeks for example like what I mentioned like like money and greed and power and and and uncontrolled sensory pleasures and things like this but that's dun whereas Alam is the more um the more general term for for for the world right and the world in itself just in itself as such is not uh an evil thing whereas when he talks about dun in terms of these things that is what's dangerous and that is what should be fought against on this mystical path and that's a pretty important difference this is given pretty beautiful expression in the f as expresses that all things are ultimately good and that God's mercy encompasses all things the attribute of God that is primarily responsible for giving existence isman or the merciful and the giving of Mercy or rahma in Arabic is identical to giving existence now to understand what he is saying here properly it's worthwhile to look at the Arabic word again the English translation of rahma Mercy can be pretty unsatisfactory to a lot of people my friend once said that it reminded him of uh like video games like Mortal Combat where showing Mercy uh is something related to you know an oppressive person who chooses against his will to to to be merciful right so it has these more negative it's not negative association itself but but it reminds you of those kinds of associations right but the word rahma in Arabic is a lot more profound in meaning than that um perhaps most importantly here it has the same root the Arabic linguistically it is the same root as the word for womb thus caring meanings of motherly caring love rather than the usual connotations for the word mercy in English when you talk about Mercy we see this we at least Me Maybe that's not true for all of you but when someone says Mercy I see this King sitting on some throne and deciding to have some people executed other people he shows Mercy to like that's the association with Mercy whereas rahma has this in Arabic has this Association with with the womb with motherly love and care Like Loving kindness that kind of thing which is very different so uh the word mercy is not always a great translation and sometimes I just like to use the Arabic rahma instead but but when I say mercy here you you should keep these connotations in mind so when God extends rahma over all things we should see it more as this caring love this motherly love in fact to an Arabi All Things Are encompassed by Mercy mer by the very fact that it exists and mercy or Love Is the End of All Things God's mercy overrides his wrath as he likes to quote meaning that rahma is always primary all things are love in this way he says quote the straight path is God's manifest and unconcealed for all in the small and in the great is his very self in the man ignorant of things in the knower because of this does his Mercy Encompass everything from the meager to the Grand the often talks about the the breath of the all merciful as the existentia action of the real God breathes the cosmos into existence and that very breath the sort of substance of that breath in this metaphor is that Mercy which all things are made from but this very central idea about love or Mercy or rahma extends to other significant ideas of theik indeed it becomes very relevant for his conception of our ultimate fate in the afterlife because God's Mercy is always prioritized over his wrath this means that the end destination for everyone is a return to that mercy and love that is at the core of existence in other words iban anabi very famously argues that the suffering that Sinners experience in hell will be temporary now what does he mean here exactly he discusses this topic in a number of places including in the chapters on Ishmael and hood and in the former he talks about it in a poem where he says quote nothing remains but the one true to his promise the threat of the real has no identity to be seen though they enter the Abode of suffering they have pleasure therein and clear enjoyment the enjoyment of Eternal Gardens the reality is one difference arises between them upon self-disclosure it is called punishment because of the sweetness of its food it is to it as a husk and the husk protects here the Sheikh is playing with the fact that in Arabic the word for punishment and the word for sweetness has the same root to come to his conclusions what he's saying here really follows the previous line of thought that Mercy is one of God's primary attributes and that his Mercy always supersedes his wrath furthermore iabi points out that according to the Quran God must keep his promises of reward but there's nothing that says that he has to follow up on his threats right so when he promises Paradise to those who do good he must keep that promise but when he when he threats people when he threats Sinners to that you know that they will go to hell after death um he doesn't have to keep that threat in the same way that that he has to keep his promises of reward this is different from the school of Thea for example which was a prominent Islamic school especially in in early Islam which argued in a quite different way that the punishment or the fate of people in the afterlife is basically set there's once you there's nothing you can do about it right God can't um show you Mercy despite the fact you're a sinner uh the prophet can't intercede on the day of judgment for you um you are sort of bound to to the Justice um based on what you have done in life right but but in this theology God's mercy always ends up on top right God's mercy always comes first and God has to keep his promises but he doesn't have to follow through on his threats right so that's a an interesting theological um discussion in that way and because everything always returns to rahma to Mercy this also includes the fate of those suffering in hell some people will go to the fire for sure and iabi actually agrees that if you go to hell you will stay in hell for eternity so he doesn't say that our stay in hell is temporary what he is saying is that the suffering that Souls experience in hell that suffering is temporary and eventually that suffering will end and will turn to a sweetness hell is essentially a distance from God and it is the knowledge about what you are missing so to say what you're missing out on that is the most painful but eventually those in the fire will realize that even the fire is part of the reality of the real that too is a self-disclosure of God and then the fire will become a pleasure to them in the chapter on Hood it's made even more clear he says quote among the slaves of God are those who will be seized by the suffering in the life of the Hereafter in the Abode called hell none amongst the folk of knowledge those who unveil the affair as it is deny that they shall have an enjoyment particular to them in that Abode either the pain they were experiencing shall be lifted from them their enjoyment consisting of the relief from the consciousness of that pain or they shall have a separate and independent enjoyment of the folk of paradise within paradise and God knows best all of reality as we can see is a display not only of the Divine generally but particularly of Mercy or R and of love everything comes from love everything consists of love and everything returns to love this theme is beautifully explored in the chapter on Moses which is a long Tek or esoteric interpretation of the story of The Exodus and the longest chapter in the F in one section iTab makes the profound statement that everything is based on love even those things we wouldn't associate with love are really only its backside it is because of love that God gives existence to the immutable identities and it is because of love for Perfection that we act in our lives everything we do and feel is based on Love In An inward sense even though outwardly we may say that it is for another reason this is exemplified by Moses fleeing from Egypt out of fear for the Pharaoh now this is the outward sense but inwardly fleeing out of fear is nothing other than fleeing out of love to preserve one's life so fear is like the shadow of Love similarly feelings of hate only stem from love too because you only hate that which offends what you love love is the essence of every reality and every action quote were it not for this love the world would not have been manifest in his identity its motion from non-existence into existence is the motion of the existentia love for it the world also loves to witness itself in existence as it did in immutability in every respect its motion from immutable non-existence into existence is a motion of love from the side of the real and from its own side Perfection is beloved in itself he later also says quote motion is always the motion of love but one who sees it veils it with other occasions and later still thus it is established that motion belongs to love for there is no Motion in being that is not that of love when he says motion here he means not physical Motion in space he means any anything that happens right any Motion in in reality anything we do anything we think and everything everything that happens basically this also leads to an interesting discussion about the ways that prophets speak to the people right uh based on this idea of the uh the outer and the inner right that everything is love that is the the fact that everything and every motion is the motion of love that is the underlying reality the esoteric aspect and the outer realities all these other reasons that we act while we do that is in terms of Moses the outward action is that he fled out of fear whereas the inw is that it was love and this becomes a lesson in how prophets speak to the general masses of people um the Revelation that they are given is a revelation that aims to speak to as many people as possible and therefore it speaks mostly in terms of the outer sense it talks about Moses fleeing out of fear whereas the the gnostics the Arun the mystics right those who can see beneath the surface who can see reality for what it is they know they can see this more hidden esoteric aspect which is that everything is love the two sort of levels to to in this case to to Revelation for example but this love isn't just some abstract cozy thing right love is enacted understanding that love is the essence of things leads us to act according to love to love God of course just as he loves us but also to love our fellow human beings our fellow creatures and all aspects of this reality in the chapter on Jonah we get some really beautiful ethical expressions in that vain he states that even in legal circumstances one should always do One's best to choose Mercy to Pardon rather than to punish and to not retaliate when someone hurts you he says quote do you not see him saying the recompense of evil is evil the lack of it he made retaliation an evil meaning that the ACT is evil even though it is prescribed but whoo Pardons and put things right his wage falls upon God for he is his image whosoever pardons someone and refrains from killing him will have his wage fall upon he whose image he is such is more worthy for he made him for himself he is only manifest through the name the Manifest by means of his existence so whoever guards him guards the real this is a very profound statement but also a natural extension of his General metaphysics all things are quote unquote images of God the whole world is the manifestation of God including your fellow creature so to care for your neighbor is to care for God in a sense charity and a loving relationship with the world around you thus becomes a very profound metaphysical practice this inevitably reminds us or at least me of the famous quote that we find both in the gospel of Matthew in the New Testament of the Bible and in a Hadith in the Islamic tradition they are almost identical in in their wording quotes oh son of Adam I fell ill and you visited me not did you not know that my servant so and so had fallen ill and you visited him not did you not know that had you visited him you would have found me with him oh son of Adam I asked you for food and you fed me not as you can see all the different aspects of iab's thought really make up a complex but coherent hole where all things sort of make sense within the larger framework and where everything is also deeply connected to and in conversation with the Quran and the Hadith literature it is an incredibly sophisticated and impressive metaphysical scheme or framework right regardless if you think it is heretical or if you love it right you can't deny that there is a incredible coherence and sophistication to iab's at least the Akbar system of thought it's really incredible stuff and it really comes through so clearly and so radically in the Fus in particular and this also leads us to another one of the most famous and again controversial teachings of IB Arabi and one of the most prominent themes in the Fus namely that concept which today is often referred to as the Divinity of beliefs this is an idea that is expressed in one of the most widely quoted sections in the book and which comes at the end of the chapter on H quotes beware lest you bind yourself with a specific belief and reject others for much good will escape you indeed the knowledge of reality as it is will escape you be then within yourself a Haula matter for the forms of all belief for God is too vast and too great to be confined to one belief to the exclusion of another for indeed he says wheresoever ye turn there is the face of God he did not mention one wheresoever as opposed to another now there's a lot going on in this quote as we saw in the beginning the essence of God can never be known as human beings and created things we can never know God as he truly is he simply too Transcendent for any mind to grasp but God discloses himself to us in various different forms indeed this whole reality is again the self-disclosure of God and as human beings with different con institutions different aan or immutable entities our preparedness means that we will only receive God in a certain way here ibab uses a quote by the earlier Sufi master juned of bdad who said that the water takes on the color of the cup toi this means that God shows himself or discloses himself to different people in different ways depending on their innate preparedness youve probably heard that famous quote that if a cow worshiped a god that God would look very different from how we humans conceive of God I see this as a kind of extension of a similar idea in fact we all create our own Gods that we worship even monotheists and iconoclastic Traditions like Muslims and Islam quot at all events it must be that each individual be possessed of a belief regarding his Lord by means of which he returns to him and within which he seeks after him the real discloses himself to him within it and and acknowledges it if he disclosed himself to him as something else he would deny it and seek Refuge from it and would in reality be showing bad adab with him adab means like manners basically one only believes in a Divinity through what he has made within his own soul the Divinity of beliefs comes about through this making they see not but their own souls and what they have made therein in reality in a way everyone worship ship themselves and the creation of their own soul as the way that God discloses himself to that particular person thus being that particular person's Lord r and because everything is actually the manifestation of God and there is nothing but God all these divinities that we worship are actually true there is nothing that we can worship that is not God in fact IAB here interprets The Chronic verse your lord has decreed that you worship none but him to literally mean that you cannot worship anything but God because there is nothing but God in fact all the beliefs and Creeds about God are correct but all of them are also incorrect God transcends all beliefs no one belief can Encompass God but he encompasses all beliefs now this does not mean that iabi is a relativist in terms of religion or teaches some kind of pluralism he is very firmly a Muslim who believes that Islam is the true religion to be followed Muhammad was the last prophet the Quran is the last Revelation the law of of of of of the Sharia of of the Islamic religion is the way to live in the world that is the correct way to live in the world right so he he's very clearly a Muslim uh some kind of pluralism religious PL pluralism is not what he is getting at here now he would argue that even if you worship a rock or even a statue you are indeed worshiping God but to do so is bad adab or bad manners toward God because God has explicitly asked us not to worship any images so it is sinful in that way even if it is metaphysically true and furthermore this is only on the physical level because even if you don't worship God in the form of physical things or images you are still creating that Idol or image in your mind or in your soul about God and worshiping that God of your own creation this simply cannot be escaped but to understand the full implications of this teaching we also need to look at the microcosmic level and the human heart so beautifully explored in the important chapter dedicated to the prophet Shu the heart or is the spiritual center of the human being it is here and not in the intellect or the mind that we can truly encounter God and when we get down to it the human heart because it is a reflection of the Infinity of the attributes is itself infinite and boundless an ocean without any shore a person who has reached these station of no station who has accomplished uh the goal of becoming the insan camel his or her heart has become so vast that it is an ocean without a Shore which can take on all forms as he says in his very famous poem here he uses a quote from bistami and the labates himself that even if the Throne of God itself and all that it encompasses th the entire Cosmos if all that would appear in the heart 100,000,000 times he would not even notice it that is how vast the heart is quote if all that God created were in my heart its luminous Dawn would not appear whosoever encompasses the real is not confined by creation the heart is always fluctuating the word heart or actually comes from a word literally meaning turning in Arabic it's always turning it's always in motion fluctuating and it's shaped by what it encompasses so to say and because the human heart is boundless in this way it is the only thing in reality that can Encompass God as the famous Hadith says neither my Earth nor my Heavens could contain me but the heart of my believing servant does contain me the more we quote polish the mirror of our heart removing all stains of ego and limitation the more perfectly God can be reflected in that mirror of the heart the human being in potential has a heart that encompasses all things and even the real in a complete sense but most people aren't that way of course the regular person's heart only encompasses and takes the form of his particular Lord the Divinity of his particular belief now let's look at that very famous quote again beware lest you bind yourself with a specific belief and reject others for much good will escape you indeed the knowledge of reality as it is will escape you be then within yourself a Haula a matter for the forms of all belief for God is too vast and too great to be confined to one belief to the exclusion of another he says here that we are to be a h a Haula for the forms of all beliefs now Haula in Arabic means matter and this connects to Aristotelian teachings about matter as a pure receptacle that receives and takes on forms he's saying here that we our heart should be like that matter to be a knower means to not be limited by any particular beliefs but to see all beliefs and all things as the Divine dis play this discussion on the encompassment of the heart is key to understanding IB Arab's most famous poem where he says my heart has become capable of every form the heart takes the form of preparedness for receiving or witnessing a particular quote unquote form of God in the Infinity of ways that he can become manifested every person has a particular belief concerning God based on their preparedness and their heart quote unquote takes the shape of that belief just like the Haula or matter takes on form matter being passive and then sort of being shaped by form right this is the same way that the heart Works according to manatomy but the heart of the realized Gnostic the adif is the heart that encompasses the real absolutely including all its manifested forms and all its qualifications it thus takes on the form of all things quote the real of what is believed is that whose form is encompassed by the heart so when he says in his famous poem my heart has become capable of every form and then after that listing a bunch of things like the pasture for the gazel the cloer for the monks the the the the temple for the idols Etc this expresses a view of reality where the heart can Encompass the real and where all things in the world are seen as nothing other than him as the self-disclosure of his reality and of the Oneness of being this is therefore not a defense of idol worship but rather a natural extension of his wider metaphysics which are always understood in tandem with and under the basic requirements and restrictions of the Islamic religion all things are the self-disclosure of God everything is alive even things that we considered to be dead like rocks or um this floor or or um trees are considered to be alive uh anything in the world everything is alive minerals are alive everything is alive and everything is continually praising God even straws of grass blowing in the wind or waves on the ocean dancing back and forth It's all singing the Praises of God even though we can't hear their particular language quote just as the Manifest form of man Praises its spirit and its governing soul with its tongue so too did God make the forms of the world to glorify with his Praises although we do not understand their glorification since we do not whole grasp the forms of the world they are all tongues of the real and so speak the Praises of the wheel for this reason God says praise be to God lord of the world that is the culmination of all praise stems from him he thus gives praise and is praised he makes a quite radical and profound claim here too namely that as all things are praising God at the end of the day it is all God that is praising himself he gives praise and he is praised as he wrote the hidden treasure that love to be known becomes known through the creation of another but that Duality is only on the surface we are really God knowing himself through us and when we praise God that is from one perspective God praising himself through us and he mentions here the quranic phrase and the very common prayer in in Islam ald praise be to God lord of the worlds and what he means with that in particular is further elucidated in that other major work of his the the or the mechan revelations in that work he interprets this phrase in classic Akbar fashion in similar ways as he worked with other quotes that we have talked about in this episode looking at the word alhamdulillah there are two levels to it the obvious surface meaning is alhamdulillah right all praise belongs to God that is all praise is to be directed at God he is the only one worthy of such praise but looking closer at the Arabic there's another reading hiding here too alhamdulillah the praise belongs to God in the sense that the praise is God that is it is God that is the praiser so he gives praise and is praised in a single act of praising this is why we love these Mystics and their interpretations of scriptures right it's really hard to choose what to talk about when it comes to this text because every page every paragraph there's so much fasinating stuff that we could talk about for half an hour right so um but as a kind of final thing we should probably explore what is maybe the most controversial aspect or part of this whole book and it's not what you might expect it's not these ideas about the Oneness of being or uh these these unitive expressions or anything like that rather what is arguably the most controversial part of this book is IB alab statements about the faith of the Pharaoh in the story of Moses so in the story about Moses and the Pharaoh as most of us know the latter is killed when the Red Sea sort of returns to itself and the Pharaoh and his army drown in in the sea and just before he dies the Pharaoh repents and asks God for Mercy now the majority of Muslim commentators and Scholars see this repentance as invalid the Pharaoh only turned to God because he knew he was dying and wanted to save himself at the last moment he is still destined to spend eternity in Hell In other words butb alabi disagrees in a way the arguments here are also a continuation of the ideas about Mercy that that the priority of Mercy over all other things but there is also more to it in fact the Sheikh argues that the Pharaoh actually wasn't entirely sure that he was dying at the moment of his repentance which means that it was after all valid he says quote thus Pharaoh was taken killed despite his sudden Faith which would also have been the case if he had been certain of dying in that moment the evidence however indicates that he was not certain since he watched the Believers walking along the dry path that had appeared when Moses struck the sea with his staff thus when he believed Pharaoh was not certain of Destruction unlike the dying man who only believed that death might not touch him he believed as the children of Israel believed although he was falsely certain that he would be saved from destruction what he was certain of occurred but in a form other than that he had wish wished for God saved him from the punishment of the Hereafter in his soul and also saved his body or his corpse in general the character of the Pharaoh is very interesting throughout the whole chapter there's a long section that is an amazing example of quranic t or esoteric interpretation of the conversation between Moses and Pharaoh where it becomes clear that the Pharaoh knows the truth about God and reality the whole time but he purposely hides that truth for his own gain and the way that interpret this conversation it's just so fascinating you should definitely go read this chapter if you're interested in U mystical interpretation of scripture in general uh this conversation between uh Moses and the Pharaoh uh in in the in in the the Great Hall you know when when he turns the staff into a snake and all that um he iab's interpretation of that conversation is really interesting finally in the last chapter dedicated to the word of Muhammad iabi gives us some really interesting sometimes surprising statements about our relationship to reality indeed as he has been alluding to throughout the text God is the hidden Essence behind all things being veiled by the multiplicity of the Manifest world but at the same time that Veil or multiplicity is also God God veils himself with himself and the ultimate goal in a sense is not to reach Oneness with God and to be annihilated this is an important step on the way for sure as you probably know the ideal of f or Annihilation is often portrayed as the goal of Sufism and it is a central theme for sure when the Mystic is able to annihilate his s for ego the NS he becomes nothing and there is simply God Experiencing God in the absolute Oneness of divinity but this is only half of the story only a step on the way and not the full picture because the world of Multiplicity is also part of being it is an essential part of Oneness so after fa comes Baka or subsisting in God when one returns to the world and our individuality with a new found understanding of things and here we find ourselves at the ultimate stage of not seeing God as the hidden Essence behind the veil of Multiplicity but of seeing God in the veil to truly know that wherever you turn there is the face of God a Oneness even in Multiplicity and the chapter in the word of Muhammad in some ways deals with this aspect at the core of the chapter is a statement by the prophet Muhammad that three things were made worthy of special love to him prayer perfume and women and I alabi interprets all three of these in fascinating ways a large chunk of the chapter is in fact spent praising femininity in some beautiful ways he criticizes men who approach their wives sexually only for the sake of their own lost and sensual pleasure not realizing the Divinity that is inherent in the feminine manifestation and the reciprocal relationship between the two indeed he even says the fullest way to experience God the most perfect way to experience God is through a woman quote witnessing the real in women is the greatest and most perfect witnessing now that's a pretty radical statement what is going on here in iab's view of the world the Rel relationship between masculine and feminine is very important and to him just like in the water Aristotelian and Western tradition the masculine is associated with the active principle and femininity with the passive now this doesn't have to be connected with a particular human sex or gender but represents wider principles in the world that can change depending on the context but which are of course on the human level represented by the male and female sex all of the world on all levels consist of this relationship between male and female active and passive and the first example of this is the very first thing that God creates the intellect or is the masculine to the feminine World soul but on the level below that it is the soul that is the masculine to the level below it which is nature so you can see that these identities change depending on the context but remain very important nonetheless right so one principle or or or aspect of reality that is feminine in one context or circumstance becomes the masculine in another circumstance right but this principle of masculine feminine active passive is present at all levels in different ways of reality it's very important to his wider system so to say heaven is masculine and Earth is feminine Etc and it is the coming together of the masculine and The Feminine that creates a child so to say so on all levels you have the masculine the feminine and when they come together they create something new and this happens on again on all all these different levels and this principle of these three this this relationship um rules all of the world you could say rain that falls from heaven fertilizes the Earth and plants are born right so rain comes from Heaven the masculine falls to the passive feminine Earth and then the child of a plant is born this is just one example so the whole world is this coming together of masculine and feminine and the fruits that result from it and on the human level this of course becomes very OB obious in the relationship between man and woman the two are drawn toward each other because they complete each other and the ultimate desire of the man for the woman and vice versa is to become United in the sexual act representing the culmination of that love when the active and the passive come together which also represents the union of the lover and the Divine beloved in mystical Union in the sexual act the active and passive become one and thus we can see ourselves mirrored in each other the active principle of the masculine as well as the passive principle of the feminine comes together and with us get a complete picture of the human reality and how it relates to the Divine acting as a mirror and a manifestation it is for this reason that the best way to experience God is through a woman as he says and perhaps especially through the sexual act through sex as long as it is approached from the right holistic perspective and not simply for fleshly desire right the Sheikh says quotes when man Witnesses the real in woman it is a witnessing in a passive thing when he Witnesses him in himself with respect to woman's manifesting from him he Witnesses him in an active thing when he Witnesses him in himself without the presence of any form that has been existential out of him he is witnessing only something that is passive without intermediary in relation to the real thus his witnessing him in woman is more complete and more perfect since he Witnesses the real with respect to being both active and passive in himself it is only with respect to his being passive that is why the prophet may God bless him and Grant him peace loved women owing to the Perfection of his witnessing the real in them since the real is never witnessed separate from matter for the essence of God is beyond the need of the world now since it is impossible in that respect and since witnessing can only take place in a matter witnessing the real in women is the greatest and most perfect witnessing a powerful statement he then also further explains the other two things that were loved by the prophet prayer is pretty obvious and he has some beautiful things to say about prayer and then perfume seems to me to represent the breath of the all merciful that we mentioned earlier right so thus all of Creation in a sense but since perfume is Pleasant smells in particular he might be referring to goodness here that perfume that the prophet loved perfume is that the prophet loved goodness in the world this is my uh interpretation at least my reading of this this this section finally II ends the last chapter of returning to the theme of the Divinity of beliefs and that we are to know God in every form and in every belief at the end of the day we are back at that Central Paradox he transcends all things and is utterly hidden but at the same time is present in all things indeed is all things the very last paragraph is almost like an encouragement to the reader quote the Divinity of beliefs is subject to limits and this is the Divinity encompassed by the heart of its slave indeed the absolute Divinity is not encompassed for it is identical with things and with itself of a thing one neither says that it encompasses itself nor that it does not Encompass itself so understand and God speaks the truth and guides the way the f is a work that leaves no reader unaffected whether you see it as beautiful expression of reality if you take spiritual nourishment from it if it's philosophically or academically interesting or if you see it as completely heretical or Blasphemous uh no one you know is unaffected emotionally by this text everyone has very strong emotions uh about this text I would say and regardless of one's opinion about it it's safe to say that this is one of the great masterpieces of mystical literature not just in Islam and Sufism but in the world more generally in terms of IB Al's Legacy this work would become his probably most famous and notable it is certainly the work that has received the largest amounts of commentaries across history commentaries that often become important Works in their own right and which try to elucidate the very difficult teachings of the greatest Master II himself wrote a kind of summarizing comment um his student wrote a semi commentary but also a and just within the first few generation of the akbari school later on there are significant commentaries by the likes ABD rman ji ABI several notable Aran intellectuals and Scholars uh the famous Algerian abdad ja whose is essentially a kind of commentary on the F and many others it is in other words a classic and one of the most significant works in the history of Sufism and Islam but while these commentaries and works mentioned are positive in their interpretation of the work it has as we've already said also been a pretty controversial book because it is the one book by Ian adabi that in my opinion at least expresses his ideas in the most unfiltered and radical ways it has often been the work that his critics point to in order to prove his status as a heretic so to say famously as I mentioned in the beginning the hanbali scholar and foundational figure of salafism I tya is said to been a fan of at first admiring his works like the but again when he read the Fus it shocked him so much that he completely changed his opinion and became one of iab's greatest critics and even Sufi Masters across the world will often forbid their students from reading the Fus or ibarabi generally until they have reached a certain level of spiritual attainment because it is so uh Advanced and so easy to misunderstand right it is a book with a very varied Legacy in other words some seen it as a one of the greatest books of mysticism and history others as a expression of dangerous heresy but we can't help but be fascinated and intrigued by its radical expressions its metaphors it's it's the images that it that it paints and the way that ways that he talks about some of these Advanced and and very profound uh ideas about reality and the Oneness of all things right to read this book is really to go on a journey and a journey that no one leaves unaffected thank you so much for watching this video This was um probably a very long one it is a very long one uh it was in fact the result of a poll or or a sort of Patron's choice so on my patreon page I sometimes do polls and I asked the patrons to vote for suggestions on what they wanted the next video to be and the the the the one that got the most votes was this right here this video about the ful so I hope uh both my patrons out there who I very um thankful for but also all of you out there enjoyed this deep dive into this incredibly difficult but very fascinating and uh beautiful in many ways uh work of mystical literature um supporting me on patreon is really the best way to support this channel of of providing this kind of free uh educational content so I would highly appreciate if anyone else wanted to become a patron and as always I am incredibly thankful for those who are currently supporting me I will leave links to that in the description you can also support by giving a one-time donation through PayPal or it always just helps if you like subscribe U to the channel and and leave a comment under the video uh again thank you so much for watching if you want to follow my stuff you can find me on my socials here you can also find me on my other channel Philip Hol where I post music and music content I actually have a new uh single a new song coming out pretty soon it's going to be in Swedish called uh good old stink so uh keep an eye out for some new music coming soon as well as new videos uh covering everything from yoga to Norse mysticism or Sader in the near future hopefully so um hope to see you then and uh yeah I'll see you next time time [Music]

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 2,224

Keywords: Ibn arabi, wahdat al wujud, Oneness of being, unity of being, mysticism, fusus al hikam, bezels of wisdom, ringstones of wisdom, monism, pantheism, islam, islamic philosophy, islamic mysticism, philosophy, spiritual islam, spirituality, mystical, ibn arabi explained, ibn al-arabi, akbari, akbariyya, Filip Holm, Let's Talk Religion, literature, mystical literature, arabic poetry, arabic literature, arabic, andalusia, middle east

Id: DYmeStRCGXo

Length: 93min 42sec (5622 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2024