"Yea, in me the Zephyr kindled longing, O my loves, for you; Sweetly breathed the balmy Zephyr, scattering odours when it blew; Whispering to my heart at morning secret tales of those who dwell (How my fainting heart it gladdened!) nigh the water and the well; Murmuring in the grassy meadows, garmented with gentleness, Languid love-sick airs diffusing, healing me of my distress. When the green slopes wave before thee, Zephyr, in my loved Ḥijáz, Thou, not wine that mads the others, art my rapture's only cause. Thou the covenant eternal[743] callest back into my mind, For but newly thou hast parted from my dear ones, happy Wind! Driver of the dun-red camels that amidst acacias bide, Soft and sofa-like thy saddle from the long and weary ride! Blessings on thee, if descrying far-off Túḍih at noonday, Thou wilt cross the desert hollows where the fawns of Wajra play, And if from ‘Urayḍ's sand-hillocks bordering on stony ground Thou wilt turn aside to Ḥuzwá, driver for Suwayqa bound, And Ṭuwayli‘'s willows leaving, if to Sal‘ thou thence wilt ride— Ask, I pray thee, of a people dwelling on the mountain-side! Halt among the clan I cherish (so may health attend thee still!) And deliver there my greeting to the Arabs of the hill. For the tents are basking yonder, and in one of them is She That bestows the meeting sparely, but the parting lavishly. All around her as a rampart edge of sword and point of lance, Yet my glances stray towards her when on me she deigns to glance. Girt about with double raiment—soul and heart of mine, no less— She is guarded from beholders, veiled by her unveiledness. Death to me, in giving loose to my desire, she destineth; Ah, how goodly seems the bargain, and how cheap is Love for Death![744]
Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ came of pure Arab stock, and his poetry is thoroughly Arabian both in form and spirit. This is not the place to speak of the great Persian Ṣúfís, but Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, who was executed in the Caliphate of Muqtadir (922 a.d.), could not have been omitted here but for the fact that Professor Browne has already given an admirable account of him, to which I am unable to add anything of importance.[745] The Arabs, however, have contributed to the history of Ṣúfiism another memorable name—Muḥyi’l-Dín Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, whose life falls within the final century of the ‘Abbásid period, and will therefore fitly conclude the present chapter.[746]
Muḥyi ’l-Dín Muḥammad b. ‘Alí Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí (or Ibn ‘Arabí)[747] was born at Mursiya (Murcia) in Spain on the 17th Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí. of Ramaḍán, 560 a.h. = July 29, 1165 a.d. From 1173 to 1202 he resided in Seville. He then set out for the East, travelling by way of Egypt to the Ḥijáz, where he stayed a long time, and after visiting Baghdád, Mosul, and Asia Minor, finally settled at Damascus, in which city he died (638 a.h. = 1240 a.d.). His tomb below Mount Qásiyún was thought to be "a piece of the gardens of Paradise," and was called the Philosophers' Stone.[748] It is now enclosed in a mosque which bears the name of Muḥyi ’l-Dín, and a cupola rises over it.[749] We know little concerning the events of his life, which seems to have been passed chiefly in travel and conversation with Ṣúfís and in the composition of his voluminous writings, about three hundred in number according to his own computation. Two of these works are especially celebrated, and have caused Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí to be regarded as the greatest of all Muḥammadan mystics—the Futúḥát al-Makkiyya, or 'Meccan Revelations,' and the Fuṣúṣú ’l-Ḥikam, or 'Bezels of Philosophy.' The Futúḥát is a huge treatise in five hundred and sixty chapters, containing a complete system of mystical science. The author relates that he saw Muḥammad in the World of Real Ideas, seated on a throne amidst angels, prophets, and saints, and received his command to discourse on the Divine mysteries. At another time, while circumambulating the Ka‘ba, he met a celestial spirit wearing the form of a youth engaged in the same holy rite, who showed him the living esoteric Temple which is concealed under the lifeless exterior, even as the eternal substance of the Divine Ideas is hidden by the veils of popular religion—veils through which the lofty mind must penetrate, until, having reached the splendour within, it partakes of the Divine nature and beholds what no mortal eye can endure to look upon. Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí immediately fell into a swoon. When he came to himself he was instructed to contemplate the visionary form and to write down the mysteries which it would reveal to his gaze. Then the youth entered the Ka‘ba with Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, and resuming his spiritual aspect, appeared to him on a three-legged steed, breathed into his breast the knowledge of all things, and once more bade him describe the heavenly form in which all mysteries are enshrined.[750] Such is the reputed origin of the 'Meccan Revelations,' of which the greater portion was written in the town where inspiration descended on Muḥammad six hundred years before. The author believed, or pretended to believe, that every word of them was dictated to him by supernatural means. The Fúṣúṣ, a short work in twenty-seven chapters, each of which is named after one of the prophets, is no less highly esteemed, and has been the subject of numerous commentaries in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
Curiously enough, Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí combined the most extravagant mysticism with the straitest orthodoxy. "He was a Ẓáhirite (literalist) in religion and a Báṭinite (spiritualist) in his speculative beliefs."[751] He rejected all authority (taqlíd). "I am not one of those who say, 'Ibn Ḥazm said so-and-so, Aḥmad[752] said so-and-so, al-Nu‘mán[753] said so-and-so,'" he declares in one of his poems. But although he insisted on punctilious adherence to the letter of the sacred law, we may suspect that his refusal to follow any human authority, analogy, or opinion was simply the overweening presumption of the seer who regards himself as divinely illuminated and infallible. Many theologians were scandalised by the apparently blasphemous expressions which occur in his writings, and taxed him with holding heretical doctrines, e.g., the incarnation of God in man (ḥulúl) and the identification of man with God (ittiḥád). Centuries passed, but controversy continued to rage over him. He found numerous and enthusiastic partisans, who urged that the utterances of the saints must not be interpreted literally nor criticised at all. It was recognised, however, that such high mysteries were unsuitable for the weaker brethren, so that many even of those who firmly believed in his sanctity discouraged the reading of his books. They were read nevertheless, publicly and privately, from one end of the Muḥammadan world to the other; people copied them for the sake of obtaining the author's blessing, and the manuscripts were eagerly bought. Among the distinguished men who wrote in his defence we can mention here only Majdu ’l-Dín al-Fírúzábádí († 1414 a.d.), the author of the great Arabic lexicon entitled al-Qámús; Jalálu ’l-Dín al-Suyúṭí († 1445 a.d.); and ‘Abdu ’l-Wahháb al-Sha‘rání († 1565 a.d.). The fundamental principle of his system is the Unity of Being (waḥdatu ’l-wujúd). There is no real difference between the Essence and its attributes or, in other words, between God and the universe. All created things subsist eternally as ideas (a‘yán thábita) in the knowledge of God, and since being is identical with knowledge, their "creation" only means His knowing them, or Himself, under the aspect of actuality; the universe, in fact, is the concrete sum of the relations of the Essence as subject to itself as object. This pantheistic monism puts on an Islamic mask in the doctrine of "the Perfect Man" (al-Insán al-Kámil), a phrase which Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí was the first to associate with it. The Divine consciousness, evolving through a series of five planes (ḥaḍarát), attains to complete expression in Man, the microcosmic being who unites the creative and creaturely attributes of the Essence and is at once The doctrine of the Perfect Man. the image of God and the archetype of the universe. Only through him does God know Himself and make Himself known; he is the eye of the world whereby God sees His own works. The daring paradoxes of Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí's dialectic are illustrated by such verses as these:—
He praises me (by manifesting my perfections and creating me in His form), And I praise Him (by manifesting His perfections and obeying Him). How can He be independent when I help and aid Him? (because the Divine attributes derive the possibility of manifestation from their human correlates). For that cause God brought me into existence, And I know Him and bring Him into existence (in my knowledge and contemplation of Him).[754]
Thus it is the primary function of Man to reveal and realise his Divine nature; and the Perfect Men, regarded individually, are the prophets and saints. Here the doctrine—an amalgam of Manichæan, Gnostic, Neo-platonic and Christian speculations—attaches itself to Muḥammad, "the Seal of the prophets." According to Moslem belief, the pre-existent Spirit or Light of Muḥammad (Núr Muḥammadí) became incarnate in Adam and in the whole series of prophets, of whom Muḥammad is the last. Muḥammad, then, is the Logos,[755] the Mediator, the Vicegerent of God (Khalífat Allah), the God-Man who has descended to this earthly sphere to make manifest the glory of Him who brought the universe into existence.
But, of course, Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí's philosophy carries him far beyond the realm of positive religion. If God is the "self" of all things sensible and intelligible, it follows that He reveals Himself in every form of belief in a degree proportionate to the pre-determined capacity of the believer; the mystic alone sees that He is One in all forms, for the mystic's heart is all-receptive: it assumes whatever form God reveals Himself in, as wax takes the impression of the seal.
"My heart is capable of every form, A cloister for the monk, a fane for idols, A pasture for gazelles, the pilgrim's Ka‘ba, The Tables of the Torah, the Koran. Love is the faith I hold: wherever turn His camels, still the one true faith is mine."[756]
The vast bulk of Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí's writings, his technical and scholastic terminology, his recondite modes of thought, and the lack of method in his exposition have, until recently, deterred European Orientalists from bestowing on him the attention which he deserves.[757] In the history of Ṣúfiism his name marks an epoch: it is owing to him that what began as a profoundly religious personal movement in Islam ends as an eclectic and definitely pantheistic system of philosophy. The title of "The Grand Master" (al-Shaykh al-Akbar), by which he is commonly designated, bears witness to his supremacy in the world of Moslem mysticism from the Mongol Invasion to the present day. In Persia and Turkey his influence has been enormous, and through his pupil, Ṣadru ’l-Dín of Qóniya, he is linked with the greatest of all Ṣúfí poets, Jalálu ’l-Dín Rúmí, the author of the Mathnawí, who died some thirty years after him. Nor did all those who borrowed his ideas call themselves Moslems. He inspired, amongst other mediæval Christian writers, "the Illuminated Doctor" Raymond Lull, and probably Dante.[758]