Ibn Al-Arabi and the Big Questions of Is

8/18/2019 Ibn Al-Arabi and the Big Questions of Is

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This translator is in the midst of a project to produce the first complete translation of Ibn al"

#Arab$’s al!Fut "#$t al! Makk & yah, one of the greatest works of Western civilization, written by the

greatest teacher, the shaykh al!akbar . Taking the many difficult and obtuse passages in this

10,000 page work seriously and literally, staying with them until they started to make sense, led

this translator to languages other than English or conventional spoken languages: namely, 19th

century mathematics, geometry, and 17th century natural philosophy. These languages are efforts

to understand the world around us, and to understand ourselves, and this is exactly the goal, and

relevance, of Islamic analytic theology.

The justification for delving into these languages and applying them to a 13th century Islamic

figure is that they convey Ibn al"#Arab$’s vision consistently: for example, there are a number of

passages in which Ibn al"#Arab$ talks of multiplying an alif by an alif , and a 1 by a 1, and getting

two results. We know that his description is not a typographical error, because in the margin of

the manuscript is written a mark “correct,” in Ibn al"#Arab$’s own handwriting. In these passages,

he says that one result puts the first element forward, visibly, and pushes the second element

back, into the unseen. The second result is if the two elements (alif or 1) are multiplied in reverse order. What he is describing is noncommutative geometry and vector multiplication, a system

developed in the 19th century by William Kingdon Clifford. Ibn al"#Arab$ also speaks of fractals,

a system developed in the 19th century in Sidi Bel Abbas, Algeria, by Gaston Julia. The

application of these languages to the 13th century is not a sin against history of science

methodology: Ibn al"#Arab$ is describing something that much later is discovered, examined, and

developed into a system. That he himself might not have known that his vision showed elements

that truly are consistent and generalizable is clear from one statement he makes: “This is to show

you that I am not a knower ('$lim) of everything I convey; nor is it necessary for me to be such.”

The same reason that languages not of Ibn al"#Arab$’s period can be so successful in conveying

his vision is the reason his ideas are relevant today: he is speaking of the fundamental, big

questions of existence. Before our excessive academic specialization, these questions were

addressed by all scholars, especially the natural philosophers. And, these are exactly the questions

that occupied the mutakallim"n, the analytic theologians of kal$m, of the Islamic tradition. We

will consider four such big questions here: limits, inertia, time, and motion.

Consider this graph. As the values on the red curve from below approach

the middle of the X they get closer and closer; and the values on the red

curve from above do the same. The two red curves—two oceans—crash

together at the asymptote but never cross, because there is a barzakh they

do not breach.

maraja(l!ba#rayn yaltaqiy$n, baynahum$ barzakh!u(l) l$ yabghiy$n [al!

Ra#m$n 55:19, 20].

Here, God sends two seas to crash together, but between them is a barzakh they do not breach. The barzakh is mathematically defined as a bounded null surface; it is a membrane. The two seas

are traditionally understood to be this world (duny$) and the other world ($khirah). We enter into

the other world through the barzakh at death and during the dream. We might try to be conscious

and aware during the dream, and we approach sleep, as the red curve approaches the middle of

the X in the graph, closer and closer, still conscious . . . until we are actually dreaming, or we

wake up hours later back into consciousness.


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This idea of “the limit” takes us into a big question about consciousness. And as the graph shows,

the “other world” is not so far away: in fact, the two worlds are separated by the thinnest of

membranes, a bounded null surface.

The big questions concerning the creation of the cosmos reveal telling assumptions we hold. The

idea of a big bang is very much a replay of some religious stories of creation. They assume that

there was a burst of energy, and then inertia took over, and the universe started to wind down. The deity sits back, having wound up the clock, and we are left with a world fizzling out and in

continual need of our energy and struggle. Margaret Wheatley describes this (false) assumption:

If we want progress, then we must provide the energy to reverse decay. By sheer force of

will, because we are the planet’s intelligence, we will make the world work. We will

resist death . . . . What a fearful posture this has been!1

In contrast, Ibn al"#Arab$ speaks of the New Creation (q$ f 50:15) and the dependence of

everyone, and every particle, on the perpetual bestowal of being from the one true being.

In this passage below, Ibn al"#Arab$ will read verses from the Qur%&n that teach us that God acts

every moment in creation. Here, the red font indicates a translation of the verses from al! Ra#m$n

55:24"31 which Ibn al"#Arab$ is citing and the green font indicates this translator’s annotations.

wa lahu(l! jaw$ri, He has the coursing ships:

the jaw$r

[the jaw$r are ships coursing, and the Sun coursing from region to region, and the stars, and the

winds; also, a girl or young woman, “so"called because of her activity and running” (E. W. Lane),

and a benefit or blessing bestowed by God. For Ibn al"#Arab$, all these meanings coalesce in the

spirit"beings, who are the original templates and preservers of creation; they are also the

archetypal letters in their zodiacal positions]

are the spirit"beings,

(l!munsha($t , commencing their origination courses

from the [Divine] name"based truths,

f &(l!ba#ri, across the ocean

of the Substantive dh$t , most holy,

k $(l!(a'l$mi, fa!bi!ayyi $l$(i rabbikum$ tukadhdhib$n, like the tall mountains; so then which of

your Cherisher’s gifts will you deny?

yas($luhu, Of Him demands (whoever is in the Heavens and the Earth)

Of Him demands the upper world [its being], in its elevation and wholly apartness, and the lower

world, in its descent and its diminishment, during every tiniest kha) rah:

Paraphrasing from Lis$n al!'arab: May God not make it (the rain shower) kha) ratahu (only this,

that tiny rain drop), nor make it the last makh) ar of it. The kha) r is the fleeting thought, the tiniest vibration, the slightest rain drop.

[He is] f & sh$(n, in a brilliant radiance,

1 Margaret Wheatley [2006] Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World . San Francisco: Berrett"Koehler Publishers, p. 19.


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The yawm here in 55:29 is the quantum time period ( zaman fard ), the shortest quantity of time,

during which the Divine lights up in radiant tajall ! every point ('ayn, particle) with His wuj"d , clothing them all in being. Since the quantum is singular, yawm, Ibn al"#Arab$ says that each

particle gets its brilliant radiance in a single quantum time period. Therefore, particlessolarsystem x

timequantum = Week creation, with the time quantum being perhaps Planck time, 10"44.

fa!bi!ayyi $l$(i rabbikum$ tukadhdhib$n, Then which of your Cherisher’s gifts will you deny? kullu man 'alayh$ f $n!in, everything on her will disappear;

because the entities [sg., 'ayn] will not be voided, but she [the Earth] is a journey from near to

nearer,

fa!bi!ayyi $l$(i rabbikum$ tukadhdhib$n, Then which of your Cherisher’s gifts will you deny?

sanafrughu, We shall finish

sanafrughu minkum: “We shall cease from you,” and ilaykum: “We shall make you the object to

which We direct Ourselves,”2

fa!bi!ayyi $l$(i rabbikum$ tukadhdhib$n, Then which of your Cherisher’s gifts will you deny?

“If the Qur%&n were to be read like this, no two would disagree, and there would come about no two antagonists, and no two rams would butt heads. Therefore oversee carefully your [pl.] signs

[verses], and do not exit from your substantive dh$t ; if that happens, then definitely devote

yourself to clarity [that is, your essential posture of 'ubud & yah, implying passivity and receptivity

to truth]. When the cosmos [m.] is safe from your opinion and your management,3 he will be truly

under your subjugation. Because of this he was created. He—exalted—said, Subjugated for you is

whatever is in the Heavens and whatever is on Earth, entirely, from Him.4 God guide us and you

to what has our betterment5 and our happiness, in this world and the next; He is the most

Generous Friend!”

Julian Barbour wrote The End of Time to propose a physics and cosomology that is atemporal.

From ideas going back as far as Zeno’s paradoxes, he developed a physics that operated in a

single moment.6 In analytic philosophy, the Ash#&r$ position is that the 'ara* , the “thing that

subsists in, or by, another thing” (Lane) disappears every moment. Ibn al"#Arab$ speaks

approvingly of this position, but he says that not only the colorings and variegations disappear

every instance; the inorganic atoms and the organic bodies also disappear every moment. The

blank, skeletal platform called the thing, as in Indeed Our word to a thing, when We want it to be,

2 The first gloss is for the verb with minkum and the second for the verb with ilaykum.

3 Compare this “management” to Wheatley’s “because we are the planet’s intelligence.”

4 al! j$th& yah 45:9

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+al$# is connected to +ul#, which is a community’s finding resolution and harmony after conflict, and ma+$li#, the harmonious working of the parts in the whole—which is where we get masala, the sauce

which brings out the best in each ingredient and brings them out as a whole. This social ideal may be

distinguished from ideals which negate the individual’s needs in favor of the society’s needs or which favor

the individual at the expense of the society. The taskh& r (subjugation) Ibn al"#Arab$ is speaking of is found

after one’s arrogance (cf ., rub"b& yah) that we are the managers has vanished and one has returned to one’s

true nature ('ubud & yah).

6 See this translator’s Time is not real: Time in Ibn ' Arabi, and from Parmenides (and Heraclitus) to

Julian Barbour , Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ' Arabi Society, 51:2012:77"102


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is Our saying to it, Be! and it is,7 is stable (th$bit ), but its being (wuj"d ) must be supplied by God

every moment. Each brilliance radiating to each particle is unique; Ibn al"#Arab$ cites this truth as

Ab' (&lib al"Makk $’s maxim that no two tajall& ’s are the same, and no two people get the same

tajall& . In this passage, Ibn al"#Arab$ argues that everything, not just the 'ara* , disappears every

moment.

The world of organic bodies and inorganic atoms has no permanence unless there is a bringing about of variegations in the two [Heavens and Earth]; thus when no variegation

is found in the two—the variegation by which the atoms and bodies may persist and have

being—the atoms and bodies get voided.

Thus the variegation is what keeps the seemingly “solid” things going. Working from Leibniz’s

“best of all possible worlds,” physicists Julian Barbour and Lee Smolin developed a process of

“extremal variation” describing how the universe could be created, by the principle that every

particle must be maximally different from each neighboring particle. They showed how atomic to

cosmic structure may arise simply from this process. Here, Ibn al"#Arab$ is saying that each

particle which supposedly stands on its own actually exists and persists only when a variegation

streaks over it; when that tint or variegation vanishes, the particle—the atoms and bodies—

disappears.

And there is no question that the varieties become void at the second time period after the

time period of their being. Thus True One [#aqq] never stops overseeing and preserving

the world of organic bodies and inorganic atoms, upper and lower; as often as He voids

an 'ara* of them, during which is its being, He creates in that time period an 'ara*

similar to it or opposite it, preserving the world thereby from being voided, during every

time period. He is creating ever, and the world is dependent on Him—exalted—ever and

ever, with an essential dependency, both the world of varieties and the atoms. Therefore

this is the watchful guard True One has over His creation, in order to secure being for it.

These are the flickering radiances which are expressed in His book as His being every

day upon a radiant brilliance.8

This existence flickering in and out is described by Ibn al"#Arab$ using the allegory of the

buskers his audience would have seen at night festivities around an 'urs of a saint. Ibn al"#Arab$has his audience envision the shapes the buskers form which are seen but aren’t actually “there,”

by the movement of the ember at the end of the stick which is never actually seen.

If you want to recognize the form of the configuration of the universe, and its visible

emergence, and the rapidity of the diffusion of the Divine command [ Be!] throughout the

universe, and what the sights and the insights perceive of the universe, then look at what

comes about in the air with the rapidity of the motion of the ember [f.] of fire in the hand

of her mover when he rotates her. In the eye of the observer there newly appears a circle,

or a line drawn out, if he makes a motion which is lengthwise, or whatever shape he likes.

These folk “drawings” would later be adopted by artists Man Ray and

Picasso. [See photo of Picasso.] The creation is the Qur%&nic “New

Creation” which takes place during the shortest time period, the zaman fard .

Consider the flip"book and the movie frame. We never actually see the

frames, when they move faster than 15 frames per second. We see only the

7 al!na#l 16:40

8 al! Ra#m$n 55:29. From Him demand (seek) everything in the Heavens and the Earth [their being]; every

day [smallest time quantum] He is upon a brilliant radiance [providing them their being].


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image. The form (image, movie) we see is the being given to each frame. With the New Creation

flickering in and out, the “movie” we see is wuj"d (being); the frames, we, are invisible! Ibn al"

#Arab$ describes this situation with the philosophical principle that there is nothing “behind” God

(laysa war $( All$h marman, literally, there is nothing behind God to shoot"at), so all we see is

God. We are as invisible as the movie frames.

The vision that Ibn al"#Arab$ was given of the Youth, with the headings of the Fut "#$t al! Makk & yah “etched in light throughout his body” (consider the word photo!graph), is illuminated

by every language and insight. Islamic analytic theology is a structure for asking the big

questions. For centuries this structure examined ancient ideas from China, India, and Greece;

perhaps now this structure may also radiate insights and ideas back across the globe.

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Ibn Al-Arabi and the Big Questions of Is