Born in Murcia (Spain) in 1165 CE, Ab\u016b Bakr Mu\u1e25ammad ibn \u2018Arab\u012b is known by the Sufis as \u201cThe Master of Masters,\u201d \u201cSultan of the Gnostics,\u201d and \u201cReviver of Religion.\u201d He spent his early life in Seville, where he received his education and was influenced by two women mystics. In Cordoba, he met Ibn Rushd, who himself believed in neo-platonised Aristotelianism in a very dogmatic manner. Ibn Arabi traveled throughout North Africa and the Near East: Cairo, Mecca, Konya, Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus. He wrote about 350 works, which range from brief treatises to his magnum opus The Meccan Illuminations \u0641\u062a\u0648\u062d\u0627\u062a \u0645\u06a9\u06cc\u0647, containing 560 chapters dealing with different occult ideas and his own mental experiences.<\/p>\n
Another of his most widely read works is The Bezels of Wisdom \u0641\u0635\u0648\u0635 \u0627\u0644\u062d\u06a9\u0645, in which, over 26 chapters, he expounds the fundamental doctrines of Sufi esoterism. The Interpreter of Desires, \u062a\u0631\u062c\u0645\u0627\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0627\u0634\u0648\u0627\u0642 , is a poetic text centered on love and desire.<\/p>\n
Although his work lacks intellectual value but it is quite difficult to read and hard to understand, as it is written in his own style of language using very strange vocabulary, based on that used in the earlier Sufi texts. The reader must learn not only the exact meaning of his words but also the related nuances and images. This is a complex symbolic language that requires deciphering. This is one reason why some Shia scholars have praised him, they couldn’t see beyond the linguistic fog.<\/p>\n
Ibn \u2018Arab\u012b belongs to a kind of mysticism or Sufism that can be considered esoteric: he seeks mystical experiences and is strongly influenced by Neoplatonism. He claimed that the so called intuitive knowledge he possessed came directly from God. The use of Neoplatonic doctrines and terminology made his work interesting for those who followed philosophy of Plotinus. Among his doctrines, the most important are the transcendental unicity of being and the perfect man, who plays a central role in emanation of things from God, an idea starkly different to creationism of Qur\u2019an.<\/p>\n
In the third verse of chapter 112 we read:
\n\u0644\u064e\u0645\u0652 \u064a\u064e\u0644\u0650\u062f\u0652 \u0648\u064e\u0644\u064e\u0645\u0652 \u064a\u064f\u0648\u0644\u064e\u062f\u0652
\nTranslation: \u201cHe (God) begets not, nor is He begotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
His constant evocation of the meeting with the prophets, his continual affirmation that he is conversing with the saints of the past, his claim to a special divine inspiration through an angel or the prophet Mu\u1e25ammad (PBUH&P), and his incessant recourse to the so-called evidence for the invisible earned him charges of unorthodoxy and, even, of being a satanic spirit. Seen as a pantheist by some, others have emphasized the eminently spiritual character of his thought.<\/p>\n
Like most Sufis, he was a charlatan, who used superficial language that bought him influence in a medieval world infused with superstition and ignorance. He has been considered as a \u201cphilosopher\u201d like any other, precisely because he formulated a complete metaphysical and cosmological, psychological and anthropological doctrine, which in principle is in contrast to scientific worldview and falls into category of pseudoscience.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, he adopted a position against philosophy and even stated that the knowledge of the philosophers is totally vain. He rejected reflection because it causes confusion and lack of truthfulness. He also maintained that reflection is a veil, debated by some, but that is not negated by any of those who follow the Path; only those who practice speculative reflection and reasoning by induction claim otherwise. He was against reason because most reasonable people would not experience similar psychological disorders as Sufis.<\/p>\n
He, therefore, believed that it is very rare that philosophers experience spiritual states; if and when these do occur, they are similar to the introspection and contemplation of the mystics. The only true philosopher, the one worthy of the name \u201cwise,\u201d a term, which for him is the Gnostic charlatan, is someone who seeks to perfect his knowledge through contemplation and spiritual experience. The rest, who use only their intellects, will never even perceive more than a tiny part of the truth.<\/p>\n
This hatred of intellect is against the teachings of Qur\u2019an, which emphasizes the importance of reason again and again.<\/p>\n
In verse 100 of chapter 10, we read:
\n\u0648\u064e\u064a\u064e\u062c\u0652\u0639\u064e\u0644\u064f \u0627\u0644\u0631\u0651\u0650\u062c\u0652\u0633\u064e \u0639\u064e\u0644\u064e\u0649 \u0627\u0644\u0651\u064e\u0630\u0650\u064a\u0646\u064e \u0644\u064e\u0627 \u064a\u064e\u0639\u0652\u0642\u0650\u0644\u064f\u0648\u0646\u064e.
\nTranslation: \u201cand He will place defilement upon those who will not use reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
In verse 18 of chapter 39, we read:
\n\u0671\u0644\u0651\u064e\u0630\u0650\u064a\u0646\u064e \u064a\u064e\u0633\u0652\u062a\u064e\u0645\u0650\u0639\u064f\u0648\u0646\u064e \u0671\u0644\u0652\u0642\u064e\u0648\u0652\u0644\u064e \u0641\u064e\u064a\u064e\u062a\u0651\u064e\u0628\u0650\u0639\u064f\u0648\u0646\u064e \u0623\u064e\u062d\u0652\u0633\u064e\u0646\u064e\u0647\u064f\u06e5\u0653 \u06da \u0623\u064f\u0648\u06df\u0644\u064e\u0640\u0670\u0653\u0626\u0650\u0643\u064e \u0671\u0644\u0651\u064e\u0630\u0650\u064a\u0646\u064e \u0647\u064e\u062f\u064e\u0649\u0670\u0647\u064f\u0645\u064f \u0671\u0644\u0644\u0651\u064e\u0647\u064f \u06d6 \u0648\u064e\u0623\u064f\u0648\u06df\u0644\u064e\u0640\u0670\u0653\u0626\u0650\u0643\u064e \u0647\u064f\u0645\u0652 \u0623\u064f\u0648\u06df\u0644\u064f\u0648\u0627\u06df \u0671\u0644\u0652\u0623\u064e\u0644\u0652\u0628\u064e\u0640\u0670\u0628\u0650.<\/p>\n
Translation: \u201cThose who listen to what is said, and follow the best in it: those are the ones whom Allah has guided, and those are the ones endued with intellect.\u201d<\/p>\n
See also: Ibn-e-Arabi was a heretic \u2013 Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq Fayadh<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n For Ibn Arabi, the truth has two aspects, the manifest and the concealed. There is a truth that is reached by following a new path; not that of human reason, but that of the heart, the true organ of mystical perception. This idea has been rejected by recent advances in linguistics, epistemology and neuroscience.<\/p>\n Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b expounded the doctrine of Being and its manifestations more gnostically than philosophically in the usual sense of the term. He talked about Divine Essence, the Names and Qualities, theophany, and other issues of this kind, but he did not use the language of the so called muslim philosophers either. His metaphysics starts at the Beginning, which is above Being, of which Being is the first \u201cdecision.\u201d<\/p>\n His doctrine of necessity included an exposition of the meaning of the term \u201cexistence\u201d understood as Being, although he approached the problem from a different angle with respect to that of the Neoplatonic philosophers of his time. He was the first to formulate the doctrine of the unicity of existence or transcendental unicity of being. This means that as God is totally transcendent in relation to the universe, then the universe is not totally separate from Him. This is opposite to how the school of Ahlulbayt (PBUT) interprets the oneness of God, i.e.: God is radically different from his creation.<\/p>\n In the Sabah supplication, we read: Imam Ja\u02bffar al-\u1e62\u0101diq (PBUH) said: Translation: \u201cVerily, Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, is empty from His Creation, and His Creation is empty of Him. Whatever can be defined by the word `thing\u2019 is a creation other than Almighty Allah. Exalted is He who is beyond compare.\u201d (Shaykh Saduq, The Book of Divine Unity, Ch. 7, Hadith 3.)<\/p>\n Imam Ali al-Rida (PBUH) said: But for Ibn Arabi, the reality of God forms a unicity that spans complementary and opposite terms. He is the center in which all oppositions meet, and it transcends all the contradictions involved in multiplicity. In Him, there is a kind of \u201ccoincidence of opposites,\u201d which cannot be reduced to the categories of reason.<\/p>\n God is at once exterior and interior, One and multiple, first and last, Creator and creature, eternal and temporary, necessary and contingent, lover and beloved, intelligent and intelligible. All of these conflicting divine attributes form a single reality. This thesis has led shia scholars to view it as pantheistic.<\/p>\n See also: Was Ibn Arabi a devotee of Ahlulbayt (PBUT)? \u2013 Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Sadiq Rouhani<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The perfect man of Ibn Arabi is a very superficial construct of his own imagination. He is the reason for the world\u2019s existence, is the full image of Almighty Allah and contains within him all the possibilities of the universe: he is a microcosm, and, this man is the prototype of creation, because human perfection is linked to the divine image. He is a being which does not need adornment or special characteristics to be honored and respected, because he is God\u2019s representative on earth.<\/p>\n Like the concept of Atman in Hindu Mythology, for Ibn Arabi too the human soul is part of the universal soul represented as matter, and residing in the human body. This idea is contested by modern science. Every human body has it’s own chemistry and every soul is distinct from the other. Anyways, this is a reason that the mystic\u2019s purpose is to unite with the divine, an act, which is the result of the love that divine beauty stirs within humans.<\/p>\n This union does not imply an end or annihilation of existence, rather an understanding of human existence as a ray of divine Being not possessed by other things. Such ideas may result in political violence in present times, because the spiritual unification of cult members may result in them attacking the other. Peaceful coexistence requires plurality and individual freedoms.<\/p>\n
\n\u064a\u064e\u0627 \u0645\u064e\u0646\u0652 \u062f\u064e\u0644\u0651\u064e \u0639\u064e\u0644\u064e\u0649\u0670 \u0630\u064e\u0627\u062a\u0650\u0647\u0650 \u0628\u0650\u0630\u064e\u0627\u062a\u0650\u0647\u0650
\nTranslation: \u201cO He Who demonstrates His Reality by His Reality\u201d,
\n\u0648\u064e\u062a\u064e\u0646\u064e\u0632\u0651\u064e\u0647\u064e \u0639\u064e\u0646\u0652 \u0645\u064f\u062c\u064e\u0627\u0646\u064e\u0633\u064e\u0629\u0650 \u0645\u064e\u062e\u0652\u0644\u064f\u0648\u0642\u064e\u0627\u062a\u0650\u0647\u0650
\nTranslation: \u201cand transcends from unicity with His creation\u201d,
\n\u0648\u064e\u062c\u064e\u0644\u0651\u064e \u0639\u064e\u0646\u0652 \u0645\u064f\u0644\u0627\u0626\u064e\u0645\u064e\u0629\u0650 \u0643\u064e\u064a\u0652\u0641\u0650\u064a\u064e\u0627\u062a\u0650\u0647\u0650
\nTranslation: \u201cand is exalted beyond conformity with His qualities\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n\u0625\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062a\u0628\u0627\u0631\u0643 \u0648\u062a\u0639\u0627\u0644\u0649 \u062e\u0644\u0648 \u0645\u0646 \u062e\u0644\u0642\u0647\u060c \u0648\u062e\u0644\u0642\u0647 \u062e\u0644\u0648 \u0645\u0646\u0647 \u0648\u0643\u0644 \u0645\u0627 \u0648\u0642\u0639 \u0639\u0644\u064a\u0647 \u0627\u0633\u0645 \u0634\u064a\u0621 \u0645\u0627 \u062e\u0644\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0639\u0632\u0648\u062c\u0644 \u0641\u0647\u0648 \u0645\u062e\u0644\u0648\u0642\u060c \u0648\u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062e\u0627\u0644\u0642 \u0643\u0644 \u0634\u064a\u0621\u060c \u062a\u0628\u0627\u0631\u0643 \u0627\u0644\u0630\u064a \u0644\u064a\u0633 \u0643\u0645\u062b\u0644\u0647 \u0634\u064a\u0621.<\/p>\n
\n\u0643\u0646\u0647\u0647 \u062a\u0641\u0631\u064a\u0642 \u0628\u064a\u0646\u0647 \u0648\u0628\u064a\u0646 \u062e\u0644\u0642\u0647
\nTranslation: \u201cThe Core of His Reality is the distinction between Him and His Creation.\u201d
\n(Shaykh Saduq, The Book of Divine Unity, Ch. 2, Hadith 2.)<\/p>\n