by Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d.1604), was said to maintain that “All is from
Him” (
hama az ust
).
2
In
Futuhat al Makkiya
we see that Ibn ‘Arabi’s approach is to deal with
any verse of the Qur’an or
hadith
or any issue by adopting the two approaches:
of the “oneness” and “manyness” of God. He often refers to these two ideas
as
tanzih
and
tashbih
, God’s transcendence and immanence.The first (
tanzih
)
he associates with the names of majesty (
jalal
) and wrath (
ghadab
), and the
second with the names of beauty (
jamal
) and mercy (
rahma
). Further, Ibn
‘Arabi associates the first with rational thinking
(‘aql
) and the second with
imagination (
khayal
) and direct vision (
kashf, shuhud,dhawk, futuh
– unveiling,
witnessing, tasting, opening). In his view, these are the two basic standpoints
of Islamic thought; the first associated with the philosophers, theologians
and jurists and the other with the Sufis. Ibn ‘Arabi emphasizes the necessity
for both types of knowledge – one being the knowledge of the philosophers,
the theologians and the jurists, and the other being the knowledge of the
Sufis. He says that these two ways of seeing reality are the “two eyes”
(
‘aynan
).
Ibn ‘Arabi, while writing his works, drew from all the Islamic sciences,
especially Qur’anic commentary, tradition, grammar, jurisprudence and
theology.What makes him different from themasters of the above-mentioned
sciences is his reliance on ‘unveiling’, or
kashf,
and ‘imagination’, or
khayal
as
helping the reason, or
aql
to understand and see the reality.
Kashf
or unveiling,
is a type of vision that sees the presence of
wujud al-haqq
, the Real Being,
manifest in God’s signs.
Khayal
, too, helps us to see the oneness of reality.
To put it briefly, Ibn al-‘Arabi’s fundamental doctrines were the unity of
all being (
wahdat al wujud
) and the idea of the perfect man (
insan al kamil
).
2
Friedmann, Y., Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, Delhi, 2000 (first published 1971), p.. 65
Th e Fo rma t i v e P e r i od 60
