ibn-arabis-ontology-and-pantheism-jip-2-2006.pdf

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Is Ibn al Arab s Ontology Pantheistic?Mohammed Rustom

Being belongs to Him and non-existence belongsto you; He does not cease being and you do notcease not being.

Ibn al-Arab", al-Fut'!"t al-makkiyya

The teachings of Mu*y"al-D"n ibn al-Arab"(d. 1240), oral-Shaykh al-Akbar (the greatest master), as he is sonamed, have had a tremendous impact on the later Islamic

intellectual tradition. Many would argue that the Shaykhsinfluence has been more pervasive than any writer beforeor after him and this would not be an unwarrantedstatement.1A number of reasons can be offered to explainthis, not the least of which would be his profoundmetaphysics of Being. In due time, the Shaykhs ontologycame to be known as wa!dat al-wuj'd(the unity of Being),although he himself never used the term.2 The idea thatthere is only one wuj'din existence, namely, Gods Being,was regarded by Ibn al-Arab"to be the highest expressionof taw!$d(Gods unity). Ibn al-Arab"was not the first Sufito articulate this pointmany Sufis expressed similarviews well before Ibn al-Arab"s time.3 But whatdistinguishes Ibn al-Arab" from his predecessors in thisregard is that he articulated this concept in a unique way,

"

Mohammed Rustom is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto,specializing in Islamic thought. Several of his articles in the fields ofSufism and Islamic philosophy have appeared in academic journals. Theauthor would like to thank Todd Lawson and Atif Khalil for their helpfulcomments on an earlier draft of this paper.1James Morris, Ibn Arab"and His Interpreters. Part II: Influences andInterpretations, Journal of the American Oriental Society (1986)106:4, 733734.2 William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arab$sMetaphysics of Imagination(Albany, NY: State University of New York

Press, 1989), 79. Henceforth, this work will be abbreviated as SPK.3 William Chittick, R$m" and Wa*dat al-wuj$d, in The Heritage ofR'm$ ed A Banani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994)


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relating the implications of the unity of Being to almostevery branch of Islamic learning to such an extent that it

permeates his entire literary corpus. After the Shaykhsdeath, a school sprung up around his name,disseminating his teachings throughout the Muslim world.4

Generations of Muslims have been influenced by Ibn al-Arab"s ideas, which reach a wide audience in multifariousways, from watered-down versions of his metaphysicsdelivered in popular sermons in Morocco, to commentarieson R$m"s Masnav$ circulated in Turkey, Persia, and theSubcontinent.5Ibn al-Arab"is also well known throughout

the Islamic world because of the writings and sermons ofpeople who did not view him favorably. During the firstfour centuries following the Shaykhs death, his teachingswere denounced by his detractors as heresies of the worstpossible kind; he was often portrayed as an outrightnonbeliever. Quite naturally, many medieval Muslimscholars came to the Shaykhs defense. Amidst all thecontroversy surrounding the Shaykhs name, the debateinevitably returned to one phrase: wa!dat al-wuj'd.

Ibn al-Arab"s articulation of the unity of Being is thesubject of much debate in modern scholarship as well. Hisontology is often regarded in a derogatory or dismissivemanner, as pantheistic. But can Ibn al-Arab"s ontology bedescribed by this term? In this paper, I begin with aconcise account of Ibn al-Arab"s ontology. Since theShaykhs metaphysics of Being is intimately interrelatedwith numerous other fields such as anthropology,

epistemology, cosmology, and eschatology, I focus onpainting as bare a picture of his ontology as possible,without sacrificing the substance of his teachings. I thenexplain some of the main reasons that Ibn al-Arab"s

4 See William Chittick, The School of Ibn Arab", History of IslamicPhilosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman (London:Routledge, 1996), 510523.5On how the Shaykhs doctrines have been integrated into the teachings

and practices of certain orders see Michel Chodkiewiczs The Diffusionof Ibn Arab"s Doctrine, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society( 99 ) 9 6 d A O With t Sh t D id St i ht


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Journal of Islamic Philosophy

ontology has been described as pantheistic. Finally, I putforth several arguments to show why such a term grossly

misrepresents his metaphysical worldview.

Ibn al-Arab$s Ontology:

Necessary and Impossible Existence

For Ibn al-Arab", Being and God are inseparable.6 Inother words, Being and God are, in actuality, identical.Being cannot not be and this is how Gods existence is

defined: He is the w"jib al-wuj'd (the necessarilyexistent).7 It may also be noted that the word wuj'd,meaning Being or existence, can also mean finding.The primary meaning of the trilateral Arabic root W J D isto find and in the passive form (wujida) it means to befound. This has many implications, for it denotes that theOne who Is, is also the One who finds. At the same time,the One who Is, is also the One who is found. Throughwuj'd, creatures can find God, because God is Being and

everything that exists necessarily participates in somemode of being; nothing in the created order escapes GodsBeing. What this means is that there is no other type ofexistence but that it receives its existence from Him. GodsBeing is necessary and therefore all the other things intheir ontological indigence8 depend on Him for theirexistence, or all the things in the created order have someform of existence, which is, in a way, borrowed fromGod.9But how, exactly, does Gods Being differ from thatof the rest of the created order? Ibn al-Arab" tells us thatGods existence has two aspects: non-manifest Being andmanifest Being:

6Chittick, SPK, 801.7Ibid., 80.8 Mu*y" al-D"n Ibn al-Arab", al-Fut'!"t al-makkiyya, trans. ClaudeAddas in The Voyage of No Return, trans. David Streight (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2000), 29.9See William Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-A b$ C l (Alb NY St t U i it f N Y k P


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God reported about Himself that He possessestwo relationships: a relationship with the cosmos

through the divine names which affirm theentities of the cosmos, and the relationship of Hisindependence from the cosmos. In respect of Hisrelationship of independence, He knows Himselfand we know Him not.10

All that we can say about Gods non-manifest Being isthat it is Gods Essence (dh"t). Ibn al-Arab"calls it themost indeterminate of all indeterminates (ankar al-nakir"t).11 In other words, Gods non-manifest Being is

only known to Him and cannot be spoken of in anydeterminate fashion whatsoever. The cosmos, on the otherhand, is brought about by Gods manifestation through Hisdivine names, which I examine in due course.

Impossible things, on the other hand, do not share inBeing at all. They are non-existent in every sense of theword. It must be noted that impossible for the Shaykhdoes not simply mean that which cannot come into being.His understanding is slightly more nuanced, because heargues that things such as the objects of our thoughts,however unrealistic they may be, do in fact have some kindof being. Unicorns cannot be said to actually exist in theworld like a car can be said to exist in a parking lot.However, what unicorns and cars do share in common isthat they both exist in the created order in some way oranother. Unicorns may not physically exist like cars do,but we can nonetheless imagine them, draw pictures of

them, and talk about them. So they can be said to havesome type of existence, because they can exist mentally,pictorially, and even linguistically. Impossible things, onthe other hand, are those things that cannot even bediscussed or imagined. As the Shaykh reminds his readers,

10Ibn al-Arab", Fut'!"t, 2:533.4, trans. Chittick in SPK, 64.

11Ibn al-Arab", Fu&'&al-!ikam, 188, trans. Toshihiko Izutsu in Sufismand Taoism,2ndedition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983),

At 6 I t t th t i th th f th


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impossible things are absolute non-being (al-adam al-mu#laq) and thus, the exact opposite of Absolute Being:

The Real possesses the attribute of Being and theattribute of Necessary Being through Himself. Hiscontrary is called absolute nonexistence (al-adamal-mu#laq), and it possesses an attribute throughwhich it is called impossible (mu!"l). Because ofthis attribute, it never receives existence. So it hasno share in existence, just as the Necessary Beingthrough Himself has no share in nonexistence.12

Thus, absolute non-being is the polar opposite of

Absolute Being. Absolute Being is necessary, for it is thatwhich cannot not be, whereas absolute non-being isimpossible, for it is that which can never be in any waywhatsoever.

Possible Existents: Immutable Entities and the Loci of

Gods Manifestation

It is Gods manifest Being that brings about existence,not His Absolute, non-manifest Being. On the other hand,things that can never come into any type of existence arethe exact opposite of Gods non-manifest Being. What liesbetween Absolute Being and absolute non-being is possiblebeing, which is the realm of the possible existents orpossible things. For Ibn al-Arab", the possible things areequivalent to the cosmos or everything other than God.13That is, the possible things are in an intermediate state, anisthmus (barzakh) between necessary and impossibleexistence. The reason for this is given in the followingpassage of the Fut'!"t:

If the possible thing were an existent which couldnot be qualified by nonexistence, then it would bethe Real. If it were a nonexistence which could not

12 Ibn al-Arab" Fut'!"t 2:248 24 trans Chittick in SPK 87


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be qualified by existence, then it would beimpossible.14

In reality, the possible things are non-existent, but notin an absolute sense. They are characterized by a relativenon-existence, as opposed to an absolute non-existence,So the things are never in sheer nonexistence. On thecontrary, the apparent situation is that their nonexistenceis a relative (i("fi) nonexistence.15Since only God can becharacterized by pure Being, all the other things increation, although they may be existents that do receivetheir being from God, are always in a state of possibility.

This ambiguous situation renders the possible thingspoor before the Lord of the Worlds, and is one of themeanings of the Qur!nic verse, God is rich and you arepoor(47:38).

For Ibn al-Arab", Gods knowledge of the cosmos is thesame as His knowledge of Himself.16 This is becausenothing, whether it has already existed, is existing, or willexist, can be outside of Gods knowledge. Those entities inGods knowledge before they are existentiated, are knownas the al-ay"n al-th"bit" (the immutable entities).17Thus,the things in existence are known to God before theyactually exist, since they have always been objects of Hisknowledge in their fixity. It must be noted that theimmutable entities are not the same things as the Platonicforms.18 The immutable entities are the things foreverfixed in Gods knowledge, whereas Platos forms act asontological archetypes for everything (be they concepts or

physically existing things) in existence.19

It should also be noted that the immutable entities, likethe actual existent possible things, are always in a state ofpossibility and, thus, are relatively non-existent.20 But,

14Ibid., 3:275.5, trans. Chittick, SPK, 82.15Ibid., 3:193.3, trans. Chittick, SPK, 87.16Ibid., 1:90.23, trans. Chittick, SPK, 84.17Chittick, SPK, 8384.18Ibid., 84.19 Ibid


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when they become entified, they take on relativeexistence.21 When God wants to existentiate them, He

orders them to become through the divine fiat expressed inthe Qur!n: Be!(35:7). This is an act of kindness since thepossible things begged God for existence: They ask theNecessary Being with the tongue of their immutability tobring their entities into existence, so that their knowledgemay become tasting. Hence He brings them into existencefor themselves, not for Himself.22

But, if as Ibn al-Arab"tells us, there is nothing in beingbut Gods Being, and the things are existentiated by the

divine fiat, what is the difference between their state intheir immutability and their existing as entities? In termsof their fixity, there is no difference. However, eachimmutable entity, when existentiated, acts as a locus(ma%har) for Gods manifestation (%uh'r) or self-disclosure(tajall$). As Ibn al-Arab"himself explains in the Fut'!"t:

The existence of the possible thing is necessarythrough Him, since it is His locus ofmanifestation, and He is manifest within it. Thepossible entity is concealed (mast'r) by theManifest within it. So manifestation and theManifest become qualified by possibility.23

Although there are many loci of manifestation, it isGods wuj'd that permeates all of them. Along with this,Ibn al-Arab" upholds the idea put forth before his time,that the divine self-disclosure never repeats itself. Becauseof His divine Vastness, God continually creates, perpetually

permeating the cosmos with His wuj'd. This is why Ibn al-Arab" speaks of creation as being in a state of perpetualrenewal (tajd$d al-khalq). Since all things in the cosmos areontologically indigent, they depend on the One who isinfinitely rich for their existence at every single moment.24

21Addas, Voyage, 88.22Ibn al-Arab", Fut'!"t, 3:306.19, trans. Chittick, SPK, 86.23 Ibid 2:56 16 trans Chittick SPK 90


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The Role of Gods Divine Names

Through the divine names, which are found both in theQur!n and the prophetic traditions, we can come to knowGod, for they refer to concepts familiar to us. Thus, whenGod says He is the Merciful, we know what mercy isbecause it existsalbeit, in an imperfect manneramongstus in the world. For Ibn al-Arab", all of this holds true, buthe also assigns a very unique role to Gods divine names inhis ontology. It was shown above that the things inexistence act as loci for Gods manifestation. However, it isnot Gods Essence that manifests itself to these loci, for thisis impossible since Gods Essence is entirely outside thegrasp of the created order and is only known to Him. Thisis why in Islam there is the famous tradition, cited byMuslim thinkers belonging to every intellectual persuasion,which forbids reflection upon the divine Essence (l"tafakkar' f$ al-dh"t). If Gods Essence were to somehowinhere in a thing this would result in divine indwelling or

incarnation (!ul'l), which is absolutely forbidden in Islam.Rather, the Shaykh argues, it is Gods divine names thatpermeate the cosmos, assuming a relational status to it.25What this implies is that the cosmos is the conglomerationof Gods divine names.26The divine names themselves aredispersed throughout the cosmos through the nafas al-ra!m"n(the Breath of the All-Merciful)27and each thingreceives a particular name in accordance with itspreparedness or receptivity (istid"d) which has always

been a part of the things immutability: Just as God gavethe cosmos the name wuj'd, which belongs to Him inreality, so also He gave it the most beautiful names through

25 A. E. Affifi, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhy$d D$n-Ibn ul Arab$(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), 35.26 Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn al-Arab$,trans. Ralph Manheim (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969),

121.27See Corbin, Creative Imagination, 1156 and Chittick, SPK, 127. Thist i i i d b l h ti t diti lth h it i t f d


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its preparedness and the fact that it is a locus ofmanifestation for Him.28

Thus, the immutable entities become entified throughthe divine fiat and receive their particular realities throughthe divine names, receiving the names in accordance withtheir preparedness. The names are innumerable since theexistent things, as objects of Gods knowledge, are alsoinfinite. But the divine names must be differentiated sincethey do not all mean the same thing, each name beingdifferent because each locus of manifestation is different.Further, although they do signify aspects of Gods divinity,

they in no way name the divine Essence. They do, however,point to it, and also to their own realities:

The Name the Strengthener is not understood inthe same way as the Name the Abaser, and so on.However, from the standpoint of the Unity, everyName evinces both the Essence and its ownreality, for the One named is One. Thus theStrengthener is the Abaser in respect of thenamed One, whereas the Strengthener is not theAbaser in respect of its own [relative] reality, thesignification being different in both of them.29

The names are all subsumed under the divine nameAllah, which is the all-comprehensive name.30The nameAllah itself, like the name a!ad (One) is not manifest.However, as William Chittick points out, a!ad and Allah,although designating the Essence, are also slightlydifferent. A!ad is as close as we can get to a name that

denotes the Essence Itself.31

On the other hand, Allahdesignates the divine Essence inasmuch as Itcomprehends all attributes in an exclusive manner.32Thus, God is known through the multiplicity of His names,but He is never known as Allah or as a!ad. From one side

28Ibn al-Arab", Fut'!"t, 2:122.14, trans. Chittick, SPK, 95.29Ibn al-Arab", Fu&'&al-!ikam, trans. R. W. J. Austin in The Bezels ofWisdom (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 109.30Chittick, SPK, 66.31 Chittick SDG 53


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of the spectrum, He is qualified by transcendence (tanz$h),while from the other side, He is qualified by immanence

(tashb$h). In an oft-quoted Qur!nic verse (42:11), we aretold that There is nothing like unto Him, and He is theHearing, the Seeing. The verse affirms Godstranscendence in the first part, but in the second part itaffirms His immanence. Hence, the cosmos as such onlyhas access to God in His state of being manifest orimmanent, which itself is a result of His divine name, theManifest (al-%"hir). This is why the Shaykh al-Akbar says,Every name in the cosmos is His name, not the name of

other than He. For it is the name of the Manifest in thelocus of manifestation.33On the other hand, in His hiddenor transcendent state, He remains forever unknown to thecosmos, which is a result of His name, the Hidden (al-b"#in).

In terms of His He-ness or transcendence, God remainsalone, So He is Manifest in respect of the loci ofmanifestation, while He is Non-manifest in respect of HisHe-ness (huwiyya).34 This is why Ibn al-Arab" says thatthe cosmos is He/not He (huwa l"huwa). He explains howthis is so in the following passage:

So in existence they are/they are not: TheManifest is their properties, so they are. Butthey have no entity in existence, so they are not.In the same way, He is and is not: He is theManifest, so He is. But the distinction amongthe existents is intelligible and perceived by the

senses because of the diversity of the properties ofthe entities, so He is not.35Therefore, the cosmos is not God with respect to His

non-manifest Being, but it is Him with respect to Hismanifest Being. That is to say, the cosmos is not Godinsofar as His Being remains outside the grasp of thecosmos, but it is Him insofar as the created order receivesbeing through His self-disclosures. As for the entities, they

33Ibn al-Arab", Fut'!"t, 2:122.14, trans. Chittick, SPK, 95.34 Ibid 2:93 33 trans Chittick SPK 90


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themselves exist from the perspective of the cosmosbeing not He, but they do not exist from the perspective of

the cosmos being He.

Defining Pantheism

Before beginning to discuss Ibn al-Arab"s ontology andthe question of pantheism, the term pantheism must bedefined. The English word pantheist was first used byJohn Toland (d. 1722), who identified himself as apantheist, but did not employ the term pantheism.36

Toland taught that the cosmos and God were identical and,thus, in due course the term pantheism came to serve asa proper noun for the beliefs of someone who claimed to bea pantheist.37 The word pantheism itself also has definitepejorative shades of meaning, as is evidenced by its earliestEnglish usage in 1735, when it was referred to as a form ofatheism, and in 1867, when pantheism was understood asthe veneration of all the deities in existence.38

Etymologically, the term pantheism means that all is God,or that God is everything.39 The term is derived from theGreek words pan, meaning all and theos, meaningGod.40Hence, pantheism denotes Gods identity with thecosmos.41Having defined pantheism in this way, one mustdistinguish it from panentheism and monism, which arealso terms that have been used to describe Ibn al-Arab"sontology. Panentheism means that the things in the

36 Pantheism, Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. 1989. Onlineresource.37 Charles Hartshorne, Pantheism and Panentheism, TheEncyclopedia of Religion, vol. 11, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York:Macmillan, 1987), 169.38Pantheism, OED.39Ibid.40Hartshorne, Pantheism and Panentheism, 165.41 A. P. Martinich, Pantheism, The Cambridge Dictionary of

Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999), 604; Keith Yandell, Pantheism, The RoutledgeE l di f Phil h l d Ed d C i (L d


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universe are in God, whereas pantheism means that thethings in the universe are God.42 The distinction between

pantheism and monism is a little harder to draw, for thedefinition of monism depends on a number of interpretivefactors that are not always altogether clear.43Although it iswell beyond the scope of this paper to address the termspantheism and monism with respect to Ibn al-Arab", thearguments offered below that seek to defend the Shaykhsontology against the accusation of pantheism can apply tothese terms as well.

Ibn al-Arab$s Ontology and Pantheism

It is worth noting that although there is no medievalArabic equivalent to the English word pantheism, in themedieval Islamic world Ibn al-Arab" was oftenmisunderstood to be a pantheist. As Alexander Knyshnotes, the Shaykhs explications of Gods self-disclosure,shocked his opponents who (mis)took it for a veiled

acknowledgement of the substantial identity between Godand the world.44 The medieval polemic against Ibn al-Arab"has undoubtedly exercised a great deal of influenceon subsequent generations of scholars down to moderntimes. It is partly for this reason, and partly because of thereductionist tendencies among the majority of scholarswriting in the nineteenth and early/mid-twentiethcenturies, that Ibn al-Arab"s worldview was defined vis--vis such simplistic expressions as monism, pantheism

or panentheism. In the first half of the twentieth century,the Indian scholar S. A. Q. Husaini confidently named hisbook on Ibn al-Arab"s metaphysics The Pantheistic

42Hartshorne, Pantheism and Panentheism, 165.43 See R. A. McDermott, Monism, The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol.10, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York, Macmillan, 1987), 5764. In theopening paragraph of this article, the author acknowledges the elusivenature of the term and hence, seeks to establish one or more definite

examples of a monistic system and to abstract from such examples thespecific features that render them monistic.44 Ale ander Kn sh Ibn al Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition


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Monism of Ibn al-Arab$. In fact, Husaini was guidedthrough his research by Orientalists such as Miguel Asn

Palacios, who himself used a host of misleading terms toclassify Ibn al-Arab"s writings.45Scholars have also triedto subsume Ibn al-Arab"s ideas under neat categoriesbecause of their own intellectual shortcomings. As JamesMorris remarks, these were reactions to the difficultchallenge of unifying and integrating such diverse andchallenging materials.46With regard to those Orientalistswho dismissed Ibn al-Arab"s thought, William Chitticknotes, The easiest solution was to call Ibn al-Arab" a

pantheist or to claim that he stood outside of orthodoxIslam and to move on to greener pastures. . . After all,Chittick sarcastically asks, what would be gained byadmitting that the Orient had produced forms ofknowledge that cannot be filed into neat cubbyholes?47

Clearly, we must approach a topic with the intention tounderstand its subject matter on its own terms, not on ourterms. Thus, if we were to interpret the thought ofNietzsche (d. 1900), who was an anti-systematic thinker,and label it within the framework of our own points ofreference and terminology, we would be grosslymisrepresenting him. Needless to say, the same ruleapplies to Ibn al-Arab"s worldview. As Seyyed HosseinNasr argues in his Three Muslim Sages, pantheism is asystem whereas Ibn al-Arab"s worldview is not.48 If theShaykh did not claim to formulate his ideas into ametaphysical system of any sort, then from whence comes

the impetus to put them into one? Any word used todescribe Ibn al-Arab"s ontology without recourse to theShaykhs own terminology will definitely paint the wrong

45 See James Morris, Ibn Arab" and his Interpreters. Part 1: RecentFrench Translations, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 106:3(1986), 542545, where Morris appraises Palacios studies on Ibn al-Arab".46

Ibid.47Chittick, R$m"and wa*dat al-wuj$d, 88.48 Se ed Hossein Nasr Three Muslim Sages (Cambridge Har ard


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picture. Simplistic expressions cannot account for theShaykhs dynamic and elaborate metaphysical

formulations, mainly because his teachings themselvesdefy classification. Any attempt to classify Ibn al-Arab"sworldview with an expression or even a combination ofexpressions will inevitably miss a great deal of what he wastrying to say.49

Pantheism emphasizes one aspect of the divinity,namely, immanence. But it would be a plain misreading ofIbn al-Arab"s ontology to say that he only focuses onGods immanence. While Ibn al-Arab" emphasizes Gods

immanence, he definitely never ceases to stress Histranscendence. In fact, much of his writing is devoted todemonstrating Gods transcendence. Ibn al-Arab"sconception of the cosmos as He/not He could only bepossible if God were transcendent. If He were onlyimmanent, then Ibn al-Arab" would have no need to callthe cosmos Not He. But, even in the realm of the cosmosbeing He, it is not He with reference to His Essence. AsTitus Burckhardt points out, pantheism denotes that Godand the cosmos are united by their substance.50 In otherwords, if God and the cosmos are identical, this wouldmean that the same substance that comprises God alsocomprises the universe. Yet Gods utter transcendence

49 There are certain similarities between monism and Ibn al-Arab"sontology. For example, just as Ibn al-Arab"s ontology acknowledges themanyness and relative reality of things, certain monistic worldviews alsohave this feature. For more on this see McDermott, Monism, 634 andCraig, Monism, 474. But one of the main reasons why Ibn al-Arab"sontology cannot be called monistic is due to the fact that, likepantheism, monism often implies a system of some sort, whereas theShaykhs writings are anything but systematic. Moreover, such terms asmonism cannot do justice to Ibn al-Arab"s complex understanding ofthe multiple relationships and interconnections between God and Hiscreation implied by the notion of the cosmos being both He and not He.Even the expression wa!dat al-wuj'd has limitations. See Morris, Ibnal-Arab" and his Interpreters, 544545n21. As was pointed out in theintroduction, though the expression is not used by the Shaykh himself,

wa!dat al-wuj'd nevertheless does come closer than any other term inconveying the spirit that underlies his metaphysical teachings.50 Titus Burckhardt An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine trans D M


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means that there is nothing at all by which He can beidentified, including substance.51 This is why for Ibn al-

Arab", the Qur!nic assertion that there is nothing likeunto Him, is taken in its most literal sense. Gods absolutetranscendence does not allow for His Essence to resembleany thing in any fashion, let alone be identical with thecosmos. If the cosmos is simply a manifestation of Godsself-disclosures, then it would not in any way imply thatGod is somehow diffuse throughout the universe. This isbecause His self-disclosures occur through His divinenames, or through His manifest Being, not His Absolute,

non-manifest Being. This is why there does remain adistinction between God in His non-manifest state and thethings in existence. As the Shaykh al-Akbar himself says,Hence He is identical to all things in manifestation, butHe is not identical to them in their essences. On thecontrary, He is He and the things are the things.52As wehave outlined earlier in this paper, the loci ofmanifestation, which are nothing but the existentiatedobjects of Gods eternal knowledge, receive His self-disclosures through the dispersal of His divine names.From this perspective, even when the cosmos is He, it isnever He in the same way as He is He to Himself. Eachthing in the universe manifests one of His names, and eachname points us to the divine Essence. However, in HisEssence, God remains alone and hidden forever.

51 Ibid


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ERRATA

1. P. 55: trilateraltriliteral

2. P. 58: ifiif

3. P. 58: al-ayn al-thbit

al-ayn al-thbita4. P. 58: the al-ayn al-thbitaal-ayn al-thbita

5. P. 64 (4 lines before the next section): pantheismpanentheism

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