Volume 4. Number 1. March 2003
Transcendent Philosophy
An International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism
Articles
James Compton Bockmier
The
Existence of Existence: A Review of the Burhan al Siddiqin
Sayyed Yahyā Yasrebī
David Kuhrt
Identity
at the Limits: on Not Being Another
Laith Sabah Al-Saud
Ibn
Arabi’s Psychology in the Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom: A
Commentary
Salamn Bashier
Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī
on Love
Book Review
Nile Green
Qamar-ul
Huda, Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhraward¢
¯£f¢s
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Ibn S¢n¡,
Lettre au Vizir Ab£ Sa‘d
Oliver Leaman
John
Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhraward¢
and Platonic Orientalism
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Dag
Nikolaus Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West. The Formation
of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul
Oliver Leaman
Muammer
Iskenderoglu, Fakhr al-D¢n al-R¡z¢
and Thomas Aquinas on the Question of the Eternity of the World
Mohd Nasir bin Mohd Idris
Mohd
Nasir bin Mohd Idris, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed
Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas
The Existence of Existence: A Review of the Burhan al Siddiqin
James Compton Bockmier
Abstract
While of the main forms of argumentation for God’s Existence in Islamic philosophy cosmological and other a posteriori proofs have generally garnered the lion’s share of scholarly attention, the English language scholarship devoted to Islamic philosophy’s versions of a priori arguments to this end reveals a rich and fascinating tradition. This proof found its initial philosophical formulation with Ibn Sina (whose work in this regard continued with his latter day disciples such as Kwajah Nasir Din al Tusi) and then reached its maturity with the burhan al siddiqin of Mulla Sadra. Through the school of Mulla Sadra the burhan al siddiqin has continued as a part of Persia’s rich Shi’ite philosophical tradition receiving the attention of great contemporary philosophers and clerics such as Allamah Tabatabai and Shaheed Mutahhari – both of whom posit strong naqli foundations for Sadra’s proof in Shi’ite hadith.
Introduction
For a good long while the presence of a priori arguments for the Existence of God in Islamic philosophy remained an unknown commodity in the West. Only in the past several decades has English language scholarship begun to come to terms with this fascinating proof through research into its two greatest proponents – Ibn Sina and Sadr al Din Shirazi. This tradition has continued to this day through the influence of the latter’s school of thought, embracing the great ulema-philosophers of the Persian Shi’ite tradition. These ulema-philosophers in turn and in accordance with their dual role have stressed the distinctly Shi’ite religious foundations for this philosophical principle. Generally speaking, as the proof in question has begun to become an object of Western scholarship, research in the West has turned in rather different directions. While the original name of both sages’ arguments in this respect is burhan al siddiqin, Western and more specifically English language literature characterizes the burhan al siddiqin (usually Ibn Sina’s formulation) as an ontological proof as with ideas crossing cultures more familiar parallels are inevitably sought. Such an analogy has its limits given the facts that this is not a native taxonomy and the limited resemblance the burhan al siddiqin bears to Anselm’s argument. Be this as it may, the "proof of the truthful" reveals a rich tradition within Islamic philosophy treating the Existence of God as an a priori matter and a necessary truth.
Contemporary Expositions: Mutahhari, Amuli and Tabatabai
An excellent introduction to the basic concepts of the "proof of the truthful" finds itself in the work of the martyr Ayatollah Murtadha Mutahhari. He brings the rich tradition of Muslim hikmat to the fore in his book, The Causes Responsible for Materialist Tendencies in the West. Ayatollah Mutahhari presents the "inadequacy of philosophical ideas" in Occident prior to (and, according to Mutahhari, leading toward) the rise of materialism as a dominant philosophy.1 Specifically, he examines the issue of the First Cause viz. the cosmological argument – in the understanding of Islamic philosophy the best of the a posteriori arguments. He presents the seeming contradictions, absurdities, non-sequiturs, deficiency and outright invalidity of cosmological proofs in Western philosophy, citing the biting criticisms of Occidental skeptics such as Kant, Spencer and Sartre.2
While considering such objections baseless when superimposed on Islamic philosophy, he notes the West’s historic failure to address these criticisms with complete competence. The key to truly and thoroughly resolving the mystery of the First Cause lies not in simply reformulating the cosmological argument or any other a posteriori argument. This alone simply will not do for this purpose. Rather, the key of the matter lies with the form of the a priori argument specific to Islamic hikmat – the burhan al siddiqin. By explicating this argument in this text, Mutahhari nonetheless manages to provide an excellent introduction to the matter, concisely summing up a rich and living philosophical tradition going back a millennium.
After initially introducing the topic of the First Cause, Ayatollah Mutahhari presents a quote from Hegel cutting right to the core problem plaguing the issue of the First Cause in Western philosophy:
In solving the puzzle of the world of creation we should not go after the efficient cause ('illat-e fa'ili), because, on the one hand, the mind is not satisfied with infinite regress (tasalsul) and continues to look for the first cause. On the other hand, when we consider the first cause, the puzzle is not solved and the mind is not satisfied; the problem remains as to why the first cause became the first cause.3
Why did the First Cause become the First Cause? This is the key question. In other words, why is God the first cause and not another entity?
Why is it that the universe itself cannot be uncaused? Why could a sudden, spontaneous and uncaused burst of energy not have been responsible for the birth of the cosmos? Granted, this not only seems patently illogical, it is indeed a direct violation of the law of causation – among the most precious principles of both science and philosophy. And yet, why is it any more logical for God to be uncaused? Is that not every bit as much a controversion of causation? After all, if the universe (or sudden burst of energy or something of the like) needs a cause, why does God not also require a cause? If God can be uncaused, why does the universe (or anything else for that matter) need a cause either?
Then again, why does anything need to be uncaused? Why is it not possible for every single entity to have a cause, with a chain of cause and effect stretching back to infinity? Granted, such an infinite regress appears thoroughly absurd. However, is it no less absurd to posit the existence of a uniquely uncaused entity? In rushing to deny infinite regress, does not one end up contravening the principle of universal causation? In making his point regarding the confusion surrounding the First Cause in Occidental philosophy, Mutahhari not only quotes Hegel but makes reference to a number of other Western thinkers as well including Kant, Sartre and Herbert Spencer. One particular quote from Spencer provides an excellent complement to the passage Mutahhari cited from Hegel:
The problem is that, on the one hand, human reason seeks a cause for every thing; on the other, it rejects both the vicious circle and the infinite regress. Neither does it find an uncaused cause nor is capable of understanding such a thing. Thus when a priest tells a child that God created the world, the child responds by asking, 'Who created God?'4
While this illustration uses the imagery of a naive child, the fact of the matter is that the child in question is being perfectly logical. Her inquiry takes Western metaphysics to task – a task Mutahhari contends Occidental thinkers have not fully mastered. No straight cosmological proof is adequate for this purpose. This is because it does not – and as a pure cosmological argument cannot - answer Hegel’s key question: why did the first cause become the first cause?
In essence the proof argues God as the Necessary First Cause through what more or less amounts to proof by process of elimination. It attempts to prove its point by disproving its contrary, showing both the logical impossibility of the nonexistence of a necessary first cause and the logical impossibility of the universe or a sudden burst of energy being the necessary first cause. Such indirect, "process of elimination" methodology is not thoroughly adequate to solve the problem of the First Cause. The rational person may accept the conclusion under intellectual compulsion, but by virtue of the ‘process of elimination’ mode of inference her mind is left unsatisfied as there is no direct explanation or demonstration.5
The cosmological argument simply fails to explain the necessity of the Necessary Being6. As such, the First Cause remains a patently illogical exception to the law of causation. Hegel’s question thus remains an absolute mystery. Given this, all a cosmological argument can do is build a case for the existence of God by virtue of the logical absurdity of the alternatives. However, building a case is a far cry from actual absolute proof. No proof for the impossibility of infinite regress can itself adequately prove the existence of God. Nor can any proof of the contingency or temporal origination of the universe. As such, no straight cosmological proof is adequate. In this manner, the straight cosmological argument belongs in the same category as the argument from design. Without actual demonstration of the necessity of the Necessary Being, God as the Necessary First Cause remains an inexplicable alternative to a series of thoroughly irrational propositions. Atheism may be illogical, but is theism any less illogical? Thus the cosmological proof is at a philosophic impasse.
According to the conception of Kant, Hegel and Spencer, we are compelled for the sake of avoiding infinite regress to allow an exception among things which are logically similar, and say that all things require a cause except one, the first cause. As to the difference between the first cause and other causes that makes all other existents depend upon a cause while this one is an exception, the answer is that there is no logical difference. It is only for the sake of avoiding the impossibility of infinite regress that we are forced to assume one of them as not being in need of a cause.7
In order to solve Hegel’s dilemma, some sort of a priori argument is necessary. No straight cosmological argument can thoroughly explain why God is uniquely self-existent; only the burhan al siddiqin argument can do so. Thus, in order to properly explain God’s unique self-existence, Mutahhari introduces the reader to the burhan al siddiqin. This proof rests on a philosophical understanding of God’s true fundamental nature. As such, God is not simply a being. Rather God is Being Itself. Put another way, God is not simply an existent. Rather God is Existence Itself. Obviously, Existence exists and needs no extrinsic reason or cause to exist because Existence is Its very nature.8
This is indeed the core of the burhan al siddiqin – "existence exists." God is Pure, Absolute, Infinite Existence. As such it is absurd to say God does not exist, as this is to say existence does not exist. Such is absurd because a thing is itself and is not other than itself, this being Aristotle’s law of identity. Thus Existence exists and exists in-and-of itself as Existence is its very nature:
This is the meaning of the statement that 'The Truthful, when they contemplate the reality of existence and observe it sans every condition and relation (idafah), the first thing which they discover is the Necessary Being and the First Cause. From the Necessary Being they infer Its effects which are not pure existence, being finite beings bearing non-being within.' This is what is meant when it is said that in this logic there is no middle term for proving the existence of God; the Divine Being is the witness of Its existence.9
God, as Being Itself, is limitless, self-sufficient and perfect. Limits, dependence and deficiency all connote nonbeing. It is then absurd to ascribe any sort or degree of nonbeing to Sheer Existence. Thus God has no "vacuum" of nonbeing sucking in existence from without. In this respect God is unique as all other entities contain nonbeing within and thus develop such a vacuum. As such, God is alone in requiring no extrinsic cause or reason.
The Necessary Being, from the standpoint of being existence itself-it being senseless for a thing to be devoid of itself, and impossible for it not to exist while being existence itself-is not in need of a cause, because causality implies that the cause brings the being of the effect into existence, and when the essence (dhat) of a thing is actual existence and there is no vacuum in it in this regard, the need for a cause does not exist.10
Hence, the problem of the First Cause is finally solved. God and God alone requires no cause because God and God alone is Sheer Existence uncontaminated by nonbeing. This is why God is necessarily the First Cause. The mystery of why the First Cause became the first cause is no longer such a mystery. Once the proper criterion for needing a cause is established, it becomes obvious that only beings contaminated by nonbeing within require a cause. Pure Being falls squarely outside this category.
Our conception of the First Cause has now become clear. It became evident that the First Cause, which is the same as the eternal, perfect, infinite Essence (dhat) of the Necessary Being, is the first cause because existence itself is Its essence, and existence in itself is perfect, not deficient, and limitless, not limited, thus ruling out any dependence upon a cause.11
Not only does Islamic hikmat solve the problem of the First Cause, it renders Hegel’s baffling question meaningless, even absurd. Why does Existence exist? Because it is Existence and the very nature of Existence is to exist. In this light, "why did the First Cause become the first cause?" becomes the logical equivalent of "why does a triangle have three sides?"
The question as to why the First Cause became the first cause-which is considered unanswerable in Western philosophy-is actually a meaningless question. For the First Cause, Its existence is Its reality and Its very essence (dhat), and being the First Cause is also identical with Its essence, and in both capacities it has no need of a cause . . . This question is just like saying, 'Why is the number one, one? Why didn't it not become two? Why did two become number two and not one, and why it didn't take the place of one?12
Ayatullah Jawadi Amuli provides another excellent explication of the burhan al siddiqin in a chapter devoted specifically to this subject in his book, A Commentary on Theistic Arguments. Herein he provides a chronological overview of the subject through three of its greatest proponents: Ibn Sina, Mulla Sadra and Allamah Tabatabai. Unfortunately for the inquisitive reader, Amuli’s treatment of Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra’s contributions is all too brief. However, he goes into much greater depth with Allamah Tabatabai’s contribution and, in so doing, sheds much light on the proof. According to Amuli, Allamah Tabatabai is the "capstone" of the tradition as it were, having completed a process of radical simplification eliminating unnecessary elements and premises (all premises as a matter of fact) and thus yielding a most unique proof treating God’s Existence as "the first proposition of human knowledge."
In his commentary on Al-Asfar and in the fifth volume of Usul-i-Falsafa wa Rawish-I-Ri’alizm, ‘Allamah Tabataba’i, may Allah sanctify his tomb, constructs a demonstration for the affirmation of the Necessary. This demonstration does not depend on any philosophic principles and proceeds from the mere entertainment of the eternal necessity of the absolute existence to the Necessary’s existence as the first proposition of human knowledge. In view of having these unique features, the late ‘Allamah’s proof is well worthy to be adorned with the elegant title of the demonstration of the veracious.13
In his analysis of Allamah Tabatabai’s explication of the burhan al siddiqin, Amuli explains this explication in presuppositional terms. Prior to all other understanding and knowledge, one must pre-suppose and acknowledge the reality of reality as the necessary "first proposition of human knowledge." Or else one must dive into the abyss of Sophism and Skepticism and deny reality as truly and fully real. The former is necessary a priori while the latter is absurd on equally a priori grounds. Once one has truly embraced the former, one has in effect embraced the Existence of God (God being the truly real Reality).
The demonstration of the veracious claims that the existence of a reality that has eternal reality is primary (awwali) and it is impossible not to know Him; and that the boundary of philosophy and sophistry is the acceptance of that reality . . . Sophism is the negation of reality, and philosophy is its acceptance. Just as the invalidity of sophistry is primary, so is the truth of reality beyond doubt. A sophist is a person who negates reality, and a philosopher acknowledges reality and investigates how does reality manifest itself and how is it represented in concepts.14
According to Amuli, this realization – the realization of reality itself – is absolutely primary. As such Allamah Tabatabai’s exposition of the burhan al siddiqin does not discursively prove its conclusion from a set of pre-existent premises. In such a case whereas the aim of the proof is absolutely primary, a proof can only amount to "mere drawing of one’s attention." As this knowledge is absolute primary, one cannot discursively prove the reality of reality without begging the question. Yet one cannot on the other hand reject reality and embrace Sophism without falling into direct logical contradiction by claiming that something (reality) is really not itself (real) but rather is its own opposite (unreal) and in Mutahhari’s terms "devoid of itself," thereby contravening the law of identity.
The point toward which ‘Allamah Tabataba’i draws attention is that the proposition "There is a reality," and the proposition "sophistry is void" have eternal necessity. Acceptance of this claim, like acceptance of reality needs mere drawing of one’s attention (tanbih). In other words, just as the entertainment of the concept of reality is sufficient to acknowledge its truth, the conception of the notion of eternal necessity of reality is sufficient for accepting its validity.15
When one embraces Sophism and rejects reality, one necessarily assumes what one means to negate. To deny reality is in effect to establish one’s denial of reality as itself being a reality. Moreover, the same is true as regards declaring reality as being meaningless as to do so involves declaring reality as really meaningless and thereby employing the actual meaning of the very term one is declaring meaningless.
A proposition, which negates reality, is a proposition that neither its veridicality can be related in any supposition, nor its falsehood could ever be doubted. That is, its utterance always presupposes its own falsity. On the other side of the spectrum, it is impossible to doubt the meaning of the proposition, which affirms reality, because dismissing it as meaningless or doubting its meaning entails affirmation of reality.16
The fundamental reality cannot be found among the various "finite entities, such as the heavens, the earth, the cosmos." None of these realities are fully and truly real. Rather, they are all tinged with temporal origination, motion, finitude, composition, privation and contingency. In other words, all of these realities are tinged with a degree of unreality. Such realities are only "partly" real, "sort of" real, "kind of" real" and "somewhat" real. This cannot then be the fundamental reality – reality itself as its own essence -as this fundamental reality is one of unconditioned, eternal necessity. To affirm the unconditional, eternal necessity of reality is primary and its rejection is Sophism. In this sense, the materialist/empiricist is simply another sort of Sophist once removed from the pure Sophist who denies all reality completely, instead opting to declare that the only reality is one not fully real.
Therefore the first ontological proposition, which the human being cannot not know, is the affirmation of the basic reality, and its modality is eternal necessity. And since, as just explained, finite entities, such as the heavens, the earth, the cosmos, and so forth, cannot be the extension of this proposition, its extension is only an Absolute Reality – Who is above the restrictions of conditions, is present with all of the finite realities, and no absence or termination is perceivable with respect to Him.17
After offering his introductory interpretation of Allamah Tabatabai’s exposition of the proof, Amuli – much to the reader’s benefit – provides a pair of direct quotes from the Allamah which serve to further illuminate the discourse at hand. The first of these quotes is rather short. However, in this case brevity is advantageous as it encapsulates the basic underpinnings of the proof in precise, gem-like form.
The reality of existence, the truth of which is indubitable, never accepts negation and is indestructible. In other words, the reality of existence is the reality of existence without any condition or provision; and under no condition or provision does it become non-reality. However, the world is transient and every part thereof accepts nonexistence. Therefore the world is not the undeniable reality.18
The second quote is rather longer and manages to bring additional points to the discussion and delve into greater depth. Allamah Tabatabai’s treatment of the paradox inherent in skepticism and the epistemic primacy of reality brings to a head the epistemological basis of the proof.
The reality with which we reject sophistry and which every sensible person is constrained to accept, by virtue of its essence, does not accede to nullity or nonexistence, so much so that even the supposition of its nullity and nonexistence presupposes its truth and existence. If, either absolutely or in a specific period, we suppose the nullity of every reality, then every reality will really be null, which affirms the reality. Similarly, if the sophist sees things as illusions, or doubts their reality, they are really illusions to him, and their reality is really dubious for him. This amounts to affirmation of reality qua its negation . . . Therefore, if reality does not accept nonexistence and nullity by virtue of its essence, then it is necessary by virtue of its essence. Therefore, there is a reality which is necessary by virtue of its essence; and everything, which has reality, is needful to it for its reality and is subsistent by it . . . Here, it occurs to the reasonable that the existence of the Necessary is primary; and the arguments for Him, in effect, draw attention to His existence.19
Mulla Sadra’s Classic Formulation
These arguments are directly traceable to the influence of Sadr Din al Shirazi. It was with Sadra in seventeenth century Persia that the burhan al siddiqin came to its full fruition. A number of expositions of Sadra’s proof are available in English. Foremost among such expositions are a pair of works by the late Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman outlining an argument which has in the centuries since has become a mainstay of Shi’ite philosophers in Persia. The first of these works is an essay entitled The God-World Relationship in Mulla Sadra. Secondly, Part II, Chapter I, Section A (Proof of God’s Existence) of The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra provides a similar account of Sadra’s proof. While both writings are quite similar, each is of its own individual value as well.
The opening sentences of Rahman’s chapter on Proof of God’s Existence from The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra clearly brings out the a priori nature of Sadra’s methodology and intent:
Sadra states that proofs given traditionally for God’s existence are many, since "ways to God are multiple"; yet all these proofs are limited in their value, for they seek to prove God by something other than God. Now God, being the Ground of all else, cannot strictly be "proved" by all else, but is Himself the proof for all else. God has to be His own proof, or else He cannot be literally "proved".21
Such an outlook is about as a priori as things get.
Moving on to the substance of the argument, Rahman presents the core of Sadra’s reasoning much the same as does Mutahhari: God is Existence. Existence necessarily exists. God necessarily exists. QED. Well, the proof is obviously not nearly that simple, but even so this does indeed form the basic core of the argument:
Existence as such, being positive, powerful, titanic in its grasp, is therefore incapable of being negated or denied. Al-Tabataba’i, Sadra’s contemporary commentator, rightly points out that if reality were to be altogether denied, this denial would itself have to offer itself as reality and assume existential nature . . . Now this open reality which is existence is God in its absolute and "simple" form. God is not, therefore, to be searched for beyond the realm of existence but is rather to be found in it as its absolute ground: "God is His own Witness," as the Qur’an puts it.21
These two recurrent themes, the existence of existence and the paradigm of God as Existence, once again punctuate our understanding of Islamic philosophy. This former theme finds concrete formulation in Sadra’s principle of asalat al-wujud (the principality/fundamentality of existence. In addition, tashkik al wujud ("gradation of existence" - or as Rahman translates it - the "systematic ambiguity of existence") is another key principle is necessary for a sufficient understanding of Rahman’s interpretation of Sadra’s proof.
This proof is, of course, based on the principle of tashkik or systematic ambiguity of existence. We recall from Chapter I of Part I that existence while being one is also many. Further, existence does not have two aspects, one by virtue of which it is one and the other by virtue of which it is many, but is one simple reality which by virtue of its being one is many.22
In other words, existence, while one, involves many gradations. Each and every existent fills this system of gradation as an individual graded instance of existence. Each such graded instance is in turn contingent upon Existence.
While these brief excerpts from The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra provide an excellent view of both the spirit and heart of the proof of the truthful, Rahman provides a more comprehensive general outline of the argument in The God-World Relationship in Mulla Sadra. Specifically, he provides three crucial steps along these lines:
Obviously, in and of itself this is not exactly a proof per se. Rather, it is a sequence of premises without explicit inference and conclusion. However, it is the makings of a proof. Rahman states the premises in a logical order suggesting and easily adapting itself to the requirements of an actual proof. The adapted proof may follow as such:
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The first premise is the heart of the argument. It should be noted that this is strictly a priori reasoning. This simple statement is not intended as an a posteriori inference ("existents exist, therefore Existence exists"). Such a posteriori reasoning is precisely what Sadra is trying to avoid. As such, deducing the existence of Existence from the existence of existents is the logical equivalent of someone deducing the three-sidedness of triangles from the fact that every triangle she has ever seen has had three sides.
Sadra’s method, by contrast, is to affirm the existence of Existence as a matter of a priori necessity. Indeed, denial of the a priori necessity of the existence of Existence is a contra of Aristotle’s law of identity. A=A. A thing is by necessity itself and not other than itself. Existence is Existence and as such exists. Were it not to exist, Existence would be other than itself and in Mutahhari’s terms "devoid of itself," which is blatantly absurd. As such the existence of Existence is self-evident and in no way need rely on the existence of particular observable existents. In this manner, it is beyond doubt that Existence necessarily exists – even if nothing else does.
However, the Westerner may object that in and of itself this theorem has little to no religious significance. While the existence of Existence is indubitable, that Existence is God is a whole other matter. Without this latter postulation, the existence of Existence is of no theological consequence. Granted, the Westerner’s objection here fails to take into account the difference in proving God’s Essence and proving His Attributes, a key distinction in Islamic philosophy24. Be this as it may, the Westerner’s objection does not go unanswered. Herein lies the remainder of Sadra’s argument. Here Sadra uses the tashkik of existence to demonstrate the contingency of all existents on Existence. Existence is many, and as such has many particular instances (existents). Existence is one, and hence there is no other source of existence save for Existence itself. As such each existent as a graded instance of existence is contingent on Existence. Or, to use Rahman’s term, Existence is the "Ground" for all that exists.25
This fact lends itself to particular formulations so as to become self-evident. Nothing exists without existence. That with which existence is present exists; that devoid of existence does not exist. Existence extentiates all existents. In this manner, Rahman’s interpretation of Sadra’s burhan al-siddiqin may be reworded as follows:
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Sadra in essence turns upside down the cosmological reasoning of the Peripatetics and their Occidental students (e.g. Aquinas) who took as their starting point the existence of contingents. From there they deduced the First Cause, from this then deduced that the First Cause must be a Necessary Being, and from there then deduced that the Necessary Being must be Pure Existence. Sadra reversed this a posteriori cosmological reasoning in order to form his own a priori reasoning wherein he takes Pure Existence as his starting point, proceeds to infer Necessary Existence and then from there deduces that the Necessary Being must be the First Cause of all contingents. Rather than inferring God’s Existence from His effects, Sadra infers His Effects from His Existence.
In addition to Rahman’s works, Seyed G. Safavi – a research fellow at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies – has more recently provided another enlightening account of Sadra’s proof. While only a relatively short portion of his article God in Greek and Islamic Philosophy: A comparative study of Aristotle and Mulla Sadra Shirazi on the Necessary Existent is devoted specifically devoted to the burhan al-siddiqin, this portion of the article nonetheless contributes greatly to English language literature available about the subject. Of particular interest are a number of direct quotes Safavi provides from the Asfar, Sadra’s magnum opus.
Before heading on to the specifics of the proof’s structure, Safavi cites from the Asfar what he refers to as "a brief elucidation of the proof of the highly veracious":
The sages of the realm of Lordship (al-rabbaniyyin) behold existence and affirm its reality, and comprehend that it is fundamental in everything. Then, after [accurately] searching for the reality of existence, they realize that it is necessarily existent. As for contingency (imkan), need, being-an-effect (ma‘luliyyah), and so on, they are attributed to it, not due to the nature of its reality, but because of the deficiencies and nonentities beyond the essence of its reality. Then, after contemplating upon that which necessitates essentiality (wujub) and contingency (imkan) they understand the unity of His Essence and Attributes, and likewise comprehend His Acts from His Attributes. And this is the method of the Prophets.26
This passage sums up the basic contours of the argument. However, the "logical exposition of the proof" is somewhat more precise and also somewhat more complicated. Specifically, the logical exposition portion relies on the three pillars of Sadra’s ontology as premises: asalat al wujud (principality/fundamentality of existence), tashkik al wujud (gradation/systematic ambiguity of existence) and wadhat e wujud (unity of existence). The logical exposition of the proof is as follows:
Indeed [concrete] existence, as explained earlier, is a one (wahidah) and simple (basitah) tangible reality, whose extensions (afrad) have no difference, save in perfection and imperfection, strength and weakness or in additional matters (umur za’idah), as is the case with the extensions of a generic essence (mahiyyah naw‘iyyah); and the ultimate perfection of existence is when none can surpass it in completeness, and it is one that does not depend on others. And what surpasses it in completeness cannot be comprehended, for every imperfect entity depends on other than itself, and is in need of completeness; and it was also made clear earlier that completeness precedes incompleteness, actuality precedes potentiality and existence precedes non-existence. It is also clear that the completeness of a thing is the thing itself and what is in addition to itself. Hence, existence is either independent of other than itself, or essentially dependent on other than itself. The former among these two is the Necessary Being and Sheer Existence, whom nothing surpasses in completeness, nor does any kind of nullity and imperfection stain Him; and the latter are all existents other than Him, such as His Acts and Effects, and there is no support for other than Him save by Him.27
Safavi in turn has endeavoured to simplify this lengthy passage into a significantly more concise argument. In addition, phrasing the terms in specific premise-conclusion manner renders the proof significantly more accessible.
Premise 1: because concrete existence is fundamental and real,
Premise 2: and because it is one (wahid) not heterogenous (mutabayin)
Premise 3: and because it has graduated unity (wahdah tashkikiyya) and not individual [hypostatic] unity (wahdah shakhsiyya)
Premise 4: and because of its simplicity (bisata), and the fact that its plurality reverts to its unity, meaning that all the pluralities and distinctions revert to existence (this exposition in reality portrays the very spirit of the graduation of existence, even though it is discussed in a different context from that of graduation)
Conclusion: hence, we say that every entity is either Necessary or reliant upon a Necessary Being. If it were sheer existence and possessed the highest degree (of existence) and no imperfection could be comprehended for it, meaning that it did not depend on other than itself, it would then be Necessary; however, if it was not sheer existence, but imperfect, it would essentially depend on sheer existence.28
Despite the tremendous value of Safavi’s concision, it nevertheless seems that in the process of simplification a great deal of the argument has been lost. Moreover, the premises do not flow to the conclusion in model syllogistic fashion. Perhaps this should not be expected given both the nature of the original text and Safavi’s intended purpose. Even so, a somewhat more thorough and syllogistic rendering may be helpful.
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Another work, Sadra’s Wisdom of the Throne briefly alludes to another line of ontological reasoning. While most of this particular work is devoted to questions of eschatology, Sadra commences the book with a brief section recounting proof of God’s Existence. While he does not provide the full burhan al-siddiqin as in the Asfar, the opening chapter of The Wisdom of the Throne hints at another sort of a priori proof:
That which exists is either the Reality of Being or something else. By the Reality of Being we mean That which is not mixed with anything but Being, whether a generality or a particularity, a limit or a bound, a quiddity, an imperfection or a privation – and this is what is called the "Necessary Being."29
The ideas of this passage yield themselves to another sort of distinctly Sadrean proof - indeed one that Mutahhari and Tabatabai seem to contend is inherent in certain Shi’ite hadith. To put the core ideas in syllogistic reasoning, the proof may read something along these lines:
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A few paragraphs after briefly alluding to this line of reasoning, Sadra encapsulates the fundamental nature of his proof in a concise pair of sentences. "No one can describe Him or reveal Him but He Himself, and there is no demonstration of Him but His own Essence (or Self). Therefore He gave witness through His Self to Himself and to the Unicity of His Self when He said: God gives witness that there is no God but He (3:18)."30
Peripatetic Roots in Ibn Sina and Nasir Din al-Tusi
While the burhan al-siddiqin reached its full fruition with Mulla Sadra, its roots reach considerably further back in the history of Muslim hikmat. Specifically, this proof traces itself back to its first philosophical formulation with the Peripatetic master Ibn Sina. Following Ibn Sina, this line of reasoning continued through his latter-day disciple and Shi’ite theologian Kwajah Nasir Din al Tusi till it finally reached Sadr al Din al Shirazi in the 17th century wherein the argument achieved maturity after considerable alteration, addition and development. Through Ibn Sina, the essential reasoning behind the burhan al siddiqin took root. In this manner, Sadra’s debt to Ibn Sina is absolutely enormous. In the Kitab al-Masha’ir, Sadra even quotes from Ibn Sina in the Ta’liqat. "If someone asks: Does existence exist? The answer is that it is an existent in the sense that the reality of existence is being an existent. For existence is precisely being existent."31 Sadra thereby quotes Ibn Sina to the effect of establishing the most basic premise of his own burhan al-siddiqin!
Toby Mayer of the Institute for Ismaili Studies provides a valuable introduction to what he views as the ontological aspect of Ibn Sina’s proof in his article Ibn Sina’s ‘Burhan al-Siddiqin’ from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies’ Journal of Islamic Studies. Here he diligently covers Sina’s proof for God’s existence, reviewing both the ontological and cosmological aspects of his reasoning. In this process, Mayer makes reference to and provides direct quotes from both the Isharat and the Najat. In the section of his article devoted to Ibn Sina’s ontological reasoning, he leads off with a quote from the Isharat which in essence forms the basis for all his further discussion of the matter.
Remark. Every existent, if you look at it in itself (min haythu dhatihi), not looking at anything else, is either such that existence is necessary for it in itself (fi nafsihi), or it is not.
If [its existence] is necessary then it is God (al-Haqq) in Himself, the Necessarily Existent in Itself – namely ‘the Self-Subsistent’ (al-Qayyum).32
From this particular passage, Mayer gleans the basic concepts of the Islamic ontological argument. Indeed, he subjects Sina’s words to a rigorous analysis in order to get this point over. From Sina’s division of existents, Mayer takes his premise: the concept of the necessary existence. From the second paragraph quoted, Mayer extracts the conclusion: the actual necessary existence of the Necessary Being.
Next in the fasl, existence is mentally subjected to a dichotomy. Either it is necessary, or it is not necessary. On the basis of the first division, Ibn Sina seems to immediately proceed to infer the actual extra-mental reality of God. As he says, the first division will amount to ‘God (al-Haqq) in Himself, the Necessary Existent in Itself – namely, "the Self-Subsistent’ (al-Qayyum)’. In this, the shaykh makes the crucial ontological move from the idea of a ‘necessary’ division in the dichotomy of existence (expressed by the technical term wajib al-wujud) to the affirmation of a particular instance of it in reality, a divinity (expressed by the scriptural terms al-Haqq and al-Qayyum).33
Mayer follows with another quote, this one from the Najat, to the effect that "if [existence] is necessary, then the existence of the Necessary proves true (sahha), and that is the [conclusion] aimed for."34 He then comments that this particular phrasing "better brings out the ontological character of Ibn Sina’s reasoning in this part of the proof."35 Mayer nevertheless grants that for certain people who consider Ibn Sina’s argument purely cosmological, these quotes may not be sufficient to establish the ontological nature of Ibn Sina’s reasoning. While an ontological reading of these quotes is certainly more than plausible, objections nonetheless remain.
For it has been interpreted by more than one of the scholars who emphasize the cosmological character of Ibn Sina’s reasoning, to amount to the merely hypothetical claim that ‘if existence can be shown to include a necessary division, then the argument would be complete.’ According to this interpretation, the fact that existence does indeed include such a division is only brought out later, strictly on the basis of the contingent.36
However, Mayer has an ace up his sleeve. This "ace," as it were, is another quote from the Najat. "The Necessarily Existent is that existent which when hypothesized as nonexistent, an absurdity occurs thereby (‘arada minhu muhal), while the contingently existent is that which when hypothesized as nonexistent or as existent no absurdity occurs thereby." As such, "Ibn Sina speaks in terms which powerfully support an ontological reading of this part of his argument."37 Indeed, Ibn Sina manifestly proclaims the logical impossibility of the Necessary Being’s nonexistence as a purely analytic and a priori matter. This in turn means that the existence of the Necessary Being is also analytic, a priori and a matter of logical necessity. The ontological nature of this reasoning is thus glaringly apparent.
In addition, Ibn Sina provided license for an ontological reading of his argument by himself elucidating his intent and methodology. In particular, Ibn Sina demarcates the special and superior nature of his proof by virtue of its a priori nature. In his own words, the lovers of truth (siddiqun) "adduce evidence through Him (yastashhiduna bihi), not towards Him (la ‘alayhi)." Rather than prove God through His effects in the manner of the common people, the scriptural theologians and the natural philosophers, they seek to prove Him through His own Essence and prove all else by Him. This outlook is indeed much like Sadra’s formulation that "there is no demonstration of Him but His own Essence." Ibn Sina even uses the same imagery of "the lovers of truth" which Sadra would later come to employ. As Mayer comments, "It is understood that Ibn Sina’s proof for God was taken as an example par excellence of the procedure in question. He was understood to have sought no evidence for God’s existence outside of ‘God’, Himself."38
In addition to Mayer’s article a much earlier exposition of Ibn Sina’s ontological reasoning finds itself in Fazlur Rahman’s article Ibn Sina from A History of Muslim Philosophy. While Rahman’s coverage of this particular matter is extremely brief, this particular elucidation of Ibn Sina’s ontological proof (and his identification of it as being such) greatly contributes to a better understanding of the subject.
Early in this section we said that God and God alone is absolutely simple in His being; all other things have a dual nature. Being simple, what God is and the fact that he exists are not two elements in a single being but a single atomic element in a single being. What God is, i.e., His Essence, is identical with His existence . . . It follows that God’s existence is necessary, the existence of other thing is only possible and derived from God’s, and that the supposition of God’s non-existence involves a contradiction, whereas it is not so with any other existent.39
In this passage, Sadra’s "Existence necessarily exists" formulation reappears. Indeed, insomuch as this formulation appears in Ibn Sina, it is the core of his ontological proof. Once again, Aristotle’s law of identity is at work (albeit in a most un-Aristotelian manner). Unfortunately, this absolutely crucial element of Sina’s proof is absent in Mayer’s exposition as he declined to elaborate on Ibn Sina’s view of God as Pure Existence in His very Essence. As such, his analysis - while extraordinarily valuable - is nonetheless incomplete as Ibn Sina’s proof falls apart and loses its validity without recourse to the "Existence necessarily exists" dictum.
While both Mayer and Rahman are incomplete in their analyses, Parviz Morewedge provides a more complete account of Ibn Sina’s proof in his article A Third Version of the Ontological Argument in Ibn Sinian Metaphysics. Morewedge’s presentation of the proof brings together the different aspects of Ibn Sina’s reasoning, filling in the gaps as it were. In particular, he encapsulates the fundamental principles of Ibn Sina’s ontological reasoning, bringing all of the basic points together in a nutshell with a short formulation:
(Ibn Sina 1) "Being-qua-being (hasti) is the most general (‘amm) concept recognized by the intelligence (khirad, ‘aql, nous, intelligentia)."
(Ibn Sina 2) "According to the intelligence, ‘being-qua-being’ is divided into ‘impossible,’ ‘contingent,’ and ‘necessary’ kinds of being."
(Ibn Sina 3) Consequently, "The Necessary Being" is "The Necessary Existent," or "The Necessary Existent is that whose essence is existence."40
This is not an argument per se. As such, (Ibn Sina 3) is the actual argument. Specifically it is in essence the same as the first premise of Sadra’s proof: "Existence necessarily exists." Even so, (Ibn Sina 1) and (Ibn Sina 2) are absolutely crucial insofar as they provide the necessary preliminaries underlying (Ibn Sina 3). In this manner, Ibn Sina’s proof –much like Sadra’s - is fully enmeshed with the basic principles of his overall ontology.
In the thirteenth century, Kwajah Nasir Din al Tusi revived Ibn Sina’s version of Peripateticism and along with it Ibn Sina’s proof for God’s existence. Hamid Dabashi, in his article Kwajah Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: the philosopher/vizier and the intellectual climate of his times from the encyclopedic History of Islamic Philosophy, sheds light of Tusi’s continuation of Ibn Sina’s proof. Specifically, in the portion of his article devoted to Tusi’s ontology, Dabashi provides a short summary of Tusi’s argument for the existence of God. This summary in turn contains the germs of the burhan al siddiqin in a manner nearly identical to Ibn Sina’s line of reasoning. "Every ‘being’ is either ‘necessary’ (wajib) or ‘contingent’ (mumkin). If it is ‘necessary,’ it cannot not be. That which is ‘necessary’ that it be is ‘the Necessary Being’ (wajib al-wujud)."41 As such, the similarities with Ibn Sina’s argument are more than obvious. In particular, that "if it is ‘necessary,’ it cannot not be" demonstrates the a priori nature of the proof.
Naqli Foundations in Shi’ite Hadith
While Ibn Sina’s work may well provide the first strictly philosophical formation of the burhan al siddiqin, a number of Sadrean philosophers –including Shi’ite clergy – have claimed a naqli (scriptural) basis for the proof. After all, Sadra said of the burhan al-siddiqin that "this is the method of the Prophets." In addition, he backs up this claim by quoting in numerous works verse eighteen of Surah al-Imran from the Holy Qur’an: "God gives witness that there is no God but He." Moreover, squarely in the Sadrean tradition Mutahhari quotes this same verse in The Causes Responsible for Materialist Tendencies in the West.
However, this particular interpretation of the verse appears somewhat cryptic. While more than plausible, it is by no means obvious. However, the Qur’an is by no means the only naqli source of import. Certain hadith sources particular to Shi’ism are of tremendous import in this regard as – unlike Sunni hadith – Shi’ite hadith at times feature an ‘aqli treatment of complex theological issues. Indeed, Sadra frequently quotes from the Qur’an and from Shi’ite hadith in his works. According to Ayatollah Mutahhari and his esteemed teacher Allamah Tabatabai, the Nahj al-Balaghah – a collection of sermons and letters of Imam Ali (‘a) – contains an essentially a priori reasoning foreshadowing Sadra. While - given the intended mass audience of Ali’s (‘a) sermons - such reasoning is generally not explicitly philosophical and syllogistic, a strong case may nonetheless be made for its presence.42
Mutahhari makes exactly such a case in Part II (Theology and Metaphysics) of Glimpses of Nahj al-Balagha. In addition to providing his own treatment of the subject, he also provides quotes from Allamah Tabatabai to the same effect. In regard to the theological discussions from Imam Ali’s (‘a) sermons, Tabatabai has this to say:
These statements help in resolving a number of problems in the theological philosophy. Apart from the fact that Muslims were not acquainted with these notions and they were incomprehensible to the Arabs, basically there is no trace of them in the writings and statements of pre-Islamic philosophers whose books were translated into Arabic, and, similarly, they do not appear in the works of Muslim philosophers, Arab or Persian. These problems remained obscure and unintelligible, and every commentator discussed them according to his own conjecture, until the eleventh century of the Hijrah (17th century A.D.). Only then [with Mulla Sadra] they were properly understood for the first time- namely, the problem of the True Unity (al-wahdat al-haqqah) of the Necessary Being (wajib al-wujud) (a non-numerical unity); the problem that the proof of the existence of the Necessary Being is identical with the proof of His Unity (since the Necessary Being is Absolute Existence, Him Being implies His Unity); the problem that the Necessary Existent is the known-in-His-Essence (ma'lum bil dhat); that the Necessary Being is known directly without the need of an intermediary, and that the reality of every thing else is known through the Necessary Being, not vice versa ...43
In this manner, Tabatabai presents Sadra as fulfilling in his philosophy the inner meaning of Imam Ali’s words which until Sadra’s time had never been thoroughly understood. The ramifications of this claim are enormous considering that this places Sadrean reasoning on a canonical level.
Mutahhari specifically singles out the cosmological method of the pre-Sadrean philosophers to contrast with the ontological method he claims Imam Ali’s (‘a) sermons share with Sadra’s philosophical writings. Indeed, Ayatollah Mutahhari makes essentially the same point here about the problem of the First Cause as he does in The Causes Responsible for Materialist Tendencies in the West. As such he singles out all pre-Sadrean philosophers for their methodology – even Ibn Sina and Kwajah Nasir Din al-Tusi as their works still prominently employed cosmological reasoning.
The arguments of the earlier Muslim philosophers such as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Kwajah Nasir al-Din al-Tusi . . . revolve around the conception of the necessity of existence (wujub al-wujud), from which all of them are derived, and the necessity of existence itself is deduced indirectly. In this fashion it is demonstrated that the existence of all possible existents (mumkinat) cannot be explained without assuming the existence of the Necessary Being. Although the argument used for proving the truth of this cannot be called demonstration per impossible (burhan khulf) in view of its indirect mode of inference, it resembles burhan khulf and hence it fails to provide completely satisfactory demonstration, for it does not explain the necessity of existence of the Necessary Being.44
According to Mutahhari, though, this is not the case with the reasoning of Ali’s (‘a) sermons. "In the Nahj al-balaghah, necessity of existence is never used to explain the existence of the possible beings." Rather, Mutahhari contents the Nahj al-Balagha takes an a priori approach based upon God as Sheer Existence. As such, a crucial commonality exists with Sadra’s ontological reasoning.
In the Nahj al-balaghah, necessity of existence is never used to explain the existence of the possible beings (mumkinat). That on which this book relies for this purpose is the real criterion of the necessity of existence, that is, the absolute reality and pure being of the Divine Essence.45
Mutahhari proceeds to deliver a quote from Tabatabai corroborating his contention:
The basis of our discussion rests upon the principle that Divine Being is a reality that does not accept any limits or restrictions whatsoever. Because, God, the Most Exalted, is Absolute Reality from Whom is derived the existence of all other beings within the ontological limits and characteristics peculiar to themselves, and their existence depends on that of the Absolute Being.46
Note the first sentence. "The basis of our discussion rests upon the principle that Divine Being is a reality that does not accept any limits or restrictions whatsoever." Once more we see the paradigm of God as Being, not merely a being. Also, note Tabatabai’s specific negation of "any limits or restrictions whatsoever." This is echoed by Mutahhari’s statement that "in the Nahj al-balaghah the very basis of all discussions on Divine Essence rests on the position that God is Absolute and Infinite Being, which transcends all limits and finitude." Such formulations clearly express an affinity with the Sadrean argument that Existence is free of all limit, bound, imperfection and privation and hence is God. Indeed this particular line of reasoning forms the intersection of the Sadrean ontological legacy and the Nahj al-Balaghah. Take, for instance, these lines from the first sermon:
The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him, the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness, the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognises His like, and who recognises His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognises parts for Him; and who recognises parts for Him mistook Him; and who mistook Him pointed at Him; and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him; and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.47
Imam Ali’s (‘a) words here reflect the very heart of a priori reasoning. Ali (‘a) rejects super-added attributes, partnership, parts, spatial location, limits and number as all constitutive of defect, privation and imperfection –all of which in turn are constitutive of non-being. Any sort of non-being, in turn, is incompatible with the Pure Being of the Divine Essence. Hence God is beyond any and all super-added attributes, partnership, parts, spatial location, limit and number. As such, this is the epitome of a priori reasoning.
Granted, it is not presented in the form of syllogism and technical metaphysics (as this would have been wildly inappropriate given the sermons’ intended audience), but the fundamental reasoning is there. It is there not just in these few lines from the first sermon, either. Indeed, Mutahhari estimates that such discussions occur approximately forty times in the Nahj al-Balaghah. Sermon 186 is a particularly rich and eloquent repository of theological wisdom complete with this sort of ontological reasoning.48 The sermons of Imam Ali (‘a) provide the canonical base for the philosophic superstructure of the burhan al siddiqin. As such Mulla Sadra is every bit as indebted (and perhaps infinitely more) to Imam Ali (‘a) as he is to Ibn Sina and Kwajah Nasir Din al-Tusi. Mutahhari went so far as to proclaim Sadra to be "under profound influence of 'Ali's discourses," and further to speak of "the burhan al-siddiqin argument advanced by Mulla Sadra under the inspiration of 'Ali's words."49
Conclusion
The rich tradition of the burhan al siddiqin throughout the history of Muslim hikmat deserves further study. Unfortunately, writing and research into this matter is scant in the West, although what contributions have been made are most instructive. The legacy of a priori reasoning in Islamic philosophy traces itself through some of the greatest minds the Muslim world has ever produced: Ibn Sina, Kwajah Nasir Din al-Tusi and Mulla Sadra. Moreover, a wealth of a priori reasoning underlies certain Shi’ite hadith, the Nahj al-Balaghah in particular. This is a most significant fact considering the burhan al siddiqin in particular and philosophy in general has for the past few centuries flourished almost exclusively in Shi’ite Persia.
The burhan al siddiqin solves thorny issues other arguments cannot. By comparison, all others are philosophically deficient. The argument from design, while valid within its own parameters, only proves the existence of some sort of metaphysical reality featuring some sort of Higher Intelligence. As dialectically potent as it may be, this is hardly a philosophically adequate proof for the Islamic conception of God. The cosmological proof, in turn, can show the absurdities surrounding God’s nonexistence –specifically the absurdities of infinite regress and of a necessarily existent cosmos. However, this is insufficient as it fails to adequately answer Hegel’s key question: why did the First Cause become the first cause? Cosmological reasoning simply fails to explain the necessity of the Necessary Being. Only an a priori proof can hope to do so. Hence the tremendous value of the "proof of the truthful" which unveils the mystery of all intellectual mysteries – the necessity of the Necessary Being and hence is the absolute, adequate proof thereof.
Notes
The Epistemology of the Mystics (Part Three)
Sayyed Yahyā Yasrebī, Allamah Tabatabai University, Iran
Abstract
The viewpoints of the mystics concerning epistemological questions have been discussed in mystical texts, although not under this title. In
the last two issues we discussed the perspectives of ‘Ayn al-Quzāt Hamadānī and Sadr al-Dīn Qūnyavī with regards this topic and in this one we shall examine those of Sheikh Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī. The author first briefly describes Qūnyavī’s scholarly accomplishments and then proceeds to extract, classify and present his views.
A great Shī’ite mystic and Sūfī, Bahā’ al-Dīn Heidar bin Alī Hussaini (720-787 H/ 1341-1408 A.D) was one of the most distinguished commentators on Ibn al-‘Arabī. He was more than j
ust a commentator, however, since in some cases he sets forth original principles and views. Among his well-known works one can mention Jam’ al-Asrār wa Manba’ al-Anwār, Asrār al-Sharī’a wa Atwār al-Tarīqah wa Anwār al-Haqīqah, Naqd al-Nuqūd fi Ma’rifat al-Wujūd, al-Muhit al-A’azam, Nass al-Nasūs fi Sharh al-Fusūs and dozens of other important books and treatises.Let us now examine a selection of his views taken from the introduction to Nass al-Nasūs concerning the fundamental principles and issues of the epistemology of the mystics. Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī devotes the third part of the third section of his introduction to Sharh al-Fusūs to the question of knowledge. In this part he deals with the knowledge attained by the mystics and the foundations of their epistemology. He attempts to distinguish mystical knowledge from that attained by theologians and philosophers from the viewpoint of its basis, range, aims and nature, and to clarify the subject as much as he can. Since some of these discussions are related to epistemological problems, we have decided to make an appropriate account of his statements, sum them up and present them as the third part of our selection of the views of mystics concerning epistemology.
1. The Definition of Mystical Knowledge
It is difficult to define this form of knowledge since some consider it intrinsic to human consciousness, self-evident and immediately perceived, while others consider it to be acquired. Although mystical knowledge, in the absolute sense, cannot be defined, it may suffice to say that:
Among
the Sūfīs, mystical knowledge is defined as that form of knowledge which is bestowed by God in through inspiration and revelation. 1
Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī then quotes a Sūfī master as follows:
Ma’rifat
(mystical knowledge) is a subcategory of knowledge, since the term is used to indicate two forms of insight, both of which are from among the types of knowledge. In the first instance it refers to perceiving someone’s inner nature by certain outward features, as we have in the Qur’ānic verse, you shall recognize them by certain signs on their faces. 2 The second meaning refers to recognising someone you have seen in the past. For example, you see someone you knew many years ago and recognise him. The knowledge referred to in the first case is the "absent" variety while that of the second instance may be called the "present" type, and the difference between the religious scholar and the mystic is based on nothing other than the difference between their respective forms of knowledge. Thus, the scholar and the mystic differ in their approaches. Some have no other means of knowing God except through the exercise of reason and logic. From observing His actions they make conclusions about His attributes, from His attributes to His names, and from His names to His essence: They are the ones who seem to be beckoned from far away. 3 Others, on the other hand, soar upon the wings of divine grace, reach the realm of direct perception and meet their Goal, just as they had met Him in the world of pre-existence. Unlike the first group, these move from the knowledge of the divine Essence to that of His attributes. Needless to say, a vast gulf separates these two forms of knowledge. In the first instance the seeker is dealing with an imaginary phenomenon since he has no first-hand experience of the Goal, while in the second case he has direct knowledge and his perception is like a fully conscious person’s direct encounter with a phenomenon. 4
Following the above quotation and another one from al-Ghazālī, ‘Amulī says:
What is meant here is that from the viewpoint of the mystics ma’rifat or mystical and spiritual insight is different from ‘ilm, or intellectual knowledge, and that spiritual and mystical insight into
wājib, necessary being, and mumkin, contingent being, is superior to intellectual knowledge, since it is not possible to know necessary being except through kashf wa shuhūd, or direct spiritual experience. In fact, a closer examination of the matter shows that knowledge of contingent being is also impossible without direct inner spiritual perception and insight, since, as it has already been pointed out, the essence of all contingent being is none other than necessary being. 5
In another place he says:
To conclude, knowledge ('ilm) is more general than mystical insight or gnosis (m'arifat) and hence the latter is included in the former. This is because knowledge is nothing but an all-pervasive disclosure and revelation (of reality) which in relation to us is reactive and distinctive but which, in relation to the Absolute, is an active and complete self-disclosure (of the Real or His essence) 6
After a brief discussion concerning various definitions of ‘ilm or knowledge, he goes on to say:
The final result of the discussions of philosophers concerning knowledge can be summed up in the following manner: knowledge consists of discovering the comprehensive portrait of the particular subject being investigated in a given field of scholarship. Moreover, this definition is also accepted by the mystics. 7
2. The Subject of Mysticism
Following a discussion of philosophy (hikmat), theology (kalām), and such other fields of learning as mathematics, natural science and logic, Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī goes on to describe the subject of mystical knowledge in the following manner:
The subject of true science, that is, the science of the Sūfīs, includes knowledge of God’s essence, names, attributes and actions and other such related matters
. 8
At this point he briefly explains that philosophy, theology and mysticism deal with the same reality and that the fundamental difference between them lies in their methods of investigation.9 He then makes the following comment concerning these differing methods:
The philosopher must discover philosophical truths through rational arguments and syllogisms, otherwise he shall remain in the dark and begin to fight and argue with other philosophers and thinkers. The theologian also bases his knowledge upon logical arguments and scriptural evidence and in this way reaches correct beliefs and certain rules, and whoever fails to realise these truths by traversing this path has failed to reach his goal and engages in arguments and disputes with other theologians and thinkers.
The Sūfīs, however, attain their knowledge t
hrough direct intuitive perception and thus gain knowledge of the truth. This intuitive perception is brought about by divine grace and manifestation, which is variously referred to as ‘revelation,’ ‘inspiration’ and ‘intuitive perception’, and includes different stages and degrees. Through this intuitive perception the Sūfī attains his goal, and having done so does not argue or fight with anyone since he realises that everyone is searching for the Truth even if he is on the wrong path, and that God is the common goal of all even though they may entertain different opinions, for, as the saying goes, ‘there are as many paths to God as there are souls.’ In any case, we (the Sūfīs) do not discuss their misunderstanding of spiritual truths except by relying on principles accepted by them, since they have already admitted their ignorance and inability to comprehend reality.Now, as far as the philosophers are concerned, the greatest of them, Ibn Sīnā, admits in most of his books that he is ignorant and unable to understand the true nature of anything, be it necess
ary or contingent, simple or compound, as he explains in one of his books: ‘It is not possible for man to realise the true nature of objects since all we can perceive of objects is their characteristics and effects. We do not know the ultimate differentiaof things so that through such knowledge we may discover their real nature. All we know is that they are things that possess certain effects and traits. We do not know the true nature of God, reason, the soul, the heavens, fire, air, water and earth. We do not understand the true nature of such accidents as white and black.’ In other words, he says: ‘We do not know God’s real nature, but we know that He is a necessary being and this is something which is inherent or concomitant to it not its reality. By means of this inherent quality we reach others through oneness, and if we take the reality of necessary being to be something that possesses essential existence, then the term also refers to something beyond our comprehension. The reality of necessary being is neither existence (wujūd) nor essence, since essences get their existence from another source while the necessary is by essence the cause of existence.’Ibn Sīnā has the following general rule concerning this issue: Man cannot know the realit
y of objects because they are either simple or compound. Simple objects cannot be known because true knowledge is gained through differentia and genus while simple objects lack these qualities. It is also impossible to have true knowledge of compound objects because to do so one must first comprehend their simple components, and since it is impossible to know these simple constituents it is also impossible to have real knowledge of the compound which they make up. It follows, then, that man should abandon trying to gain knowledge of the reality of objects and content himself with knowing their properties and effects.’ 11
Here, he criticises Ibn Sīnā’s views concerning the eternity of the world and God’s knowledge of details and then says:
Philosophers are of two kinds: the philosophical and the illuminationist. And what each group has said about the other is sufficient to refute the views of both. 12
He follows this with a critique of the views of theologians with regards to perceiving objects and the views of Imām Fakhr Rāzī, as the most prominent representative of this group, on the issue of the extraneity of existence over essence and his views and those of the Asha’rites concerning the separateness of the essence and attributes of God, and then says:
The point here is that when their understanding of God’s essence and attributes is like this, how will it be concerning other things, while the fact of the matter is that one cannot understand objects without first having knowledge of God
. 13
He then says that it is not possible to realise the truth by following their methods:
In criticising the theologians it suffices to note that they belong to two schools: the Asha’rites and the Mu’tazilites, and these two groups have so well exposed the faults and shor
tcomings of each other’s views that no more criticism is needed. Moreover, we also possess the objections and criticisms raised against them by philosophers and Sūfīs. It is said that one night Fakhr Rāzī was crying. One of his students asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ Imām Fakhr Rāzī said, ‘For thirty years I thought a particular view was correct but I now realise that it was false.’ The student said, ‘Master, what guarantee is there that what you think to be correct today will not shown to be false in thirty years time, and how can one be sure that the same is not true of all your knowledge?’Shaykh Muhiuddin Ibn al-‘Arabī also wrote a lengthy letter to Fakhr Rāzī, questioned the veracity of his knowledge and encouraged him to try, in the manner of the Sūfīs, to attain real knowledge through direct, inner realisation and not to be contented, like artisans, with the fruit of his own labour, but to enjoy divine blessings, generosity and bounty. 14
At this point Shaykh Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī quotes certain verses from Fakhr Rāzī in which Rāzī admits his inability to attain real knowledge. This is followed by a quotation from Ibn al-‘Arabī in support of ‘Amulī’s position and to the effect that the path to certain knowledge is barred to all except those who gain di
rect, inner realisation. He then quotes Imām Alī (A) on the subject, where he warns his disciples not to be like the blindfolded donkey that turns the mill stone. The donkey walks day and night but when its blindfold is removed finds itself at the starting point again. ‘Amulī then refers to the following quotation from Imām Alī (A):
The sacred law is the river, while the Truth is the sea. Experts in the religious law walk around the banks of this river, while sharp-witted philosophers reach the sea and search for pearls and God-realised mystics board ships of salvation and sail the seas. 15
Following these discussions he turns to a general definition of the subject, sources and issues dealt with in different fields of learning and quotes Sadr al-Dīn Qūnyavī on the issue:
The divine science, meaning mysticism, includes all other sciences, just as its subject, God, contains and is the Lord of all things. This science has a subject, principles and issues, problems and questions, from which the subjects, principles and issues of all other sciences are derived. Its subject is the existence of God, its principles are the realities inherent in such existence…and its issues are the questions and problems that are clarified in the light of those principles…and all these matters can be reduced to two things: knowledge of the way creatures relate to God and the way God relates to them. 16
3. The Manner in which One Enters Mysticism
Concerning the way one may enter the realm of mystical truth, Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī says:
These basic principles and beliefs, that is, the principles and fundamental beliefs of Sufism and mysticism, must at first be accepted by the seeker on the basis of faith from a mystic who has reached the appropriate stations (
maqāmat). Thus, the spiritual search begins with imitation based on faith and proceeds until the seeker reaches a stage where the veils covering the Truth are removed from his eyes and the true path is revealed to him.This unveiling of the Truth may occur in two ways. One is intellectual and rational. In this case a mystic may reveal an aspect of the Truth at a moment when the seeker is spiritually ready to receive it. In the second case, through inner illumination caused by divine grace the seeker perceives the truth of the teachings he has already received and there is no need for rational argument, instruction and so on. 17
4. The Standard and Logic of Mystical Knowledge
Concerning this question, Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī says:
Every science has measures and standards in the light of which the correct and incorrect may be separated; for example, grammar in language, prosody in poetry and logic in the speculative sciences…and since every field of learning is honoured in proportion to the honour and esteem in which its subject matter is held, mysticism is the most honourable of sciences, for its subject, God, is the highest and most honoured of subjects. It follows, then, that there is greater need for knowledge of its standards, principles and measures.
When it is said that mysticism does not bow to any logic or standard it means that mystical insight lies beyond the boundaries of all external and conventional logic and standard and not that it has none of its own. All enlightened and God-realised sages agree that intuitive and direct inner perception possesses its own particular measure and standard. This standard applies to each individual according to his particular background and level of spiritual realisation, so that at each specific stage it enables him to differentiate, distinguish and identify the variety of spiritual perceptions, inspirations, revelations, manifestations and phenomena experienced by seekers. It is through this standard and yardstick that the spiritual seeker can differentiate between divinely revealed inspiration, revelation and guidance and demonic manifestations that must not be relied upon and trusted. This is how the illuminated masters have described this standard:
A standard is that by reference to which one can discern correct statements and actions and categorise them. This standard and logic is none other than justice, which is the shadow and manifestation of the unity of Truth, which includes the sciences of the religious law, the esoteric spiritual path and the supreme Reality. This is so since this standard is accessible only to those who have reached the One that lies beyond unity and multiplicity. The standard of those who perceive only the world of appearances is the religious law (shari‘at), while that of those who perceive the inner realities is a rational faculty illuminated by divine light, that of the spiritually select is the science of the spiritual path and finally that of the select of the select, that is the masters who have reached the highest spiritual state, is divine justice, which is attained only by the perfect man (
insān-e kamīl.) This is why the spiritual master and guide (shaykh) is defined as a perfect man who has attained complete mastery over the religious law, the spiritual path (tarīqat) and the Truth (haqīqat) that lies beyond them. He knows all the diseases that can afflict the human soul and the way to cure it. He can improve the soul, and, if it has the proper aptitude, guide it. If a man does not have these qualities he cannot be called a perfect man. In other words, divine law and standard so ordains that he must have complete command over all aspects of the religious law, the esoteric spiritual path and the Truth. 18
5. Forms of Knowledge and Insight Inherited by the Sūfīs
Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī mentions a number of forms of knowledge and maintains that they are all both specific and general, for example revelation, which is particular to prophets and messengers of God but in some manner, is
also bestowed on other creatures such as bees. Another example is inspiration, which is particular to highly advanced saints who are blessed and favoured by God. However, it is experienced by other mystics and spiritual masters as well. A still third example is direct intuitive perception, which is specific to spiritual seekers but which also extends, in both true and distorted forms, to various types of mystics, priests and magicians.19Following the above remarks, he says:
Keep in mind that the knowl
edge, wisdom and insight found among the Sūfīs, that is, among those who seek God, is inherited through direct spiritual perception and realisation and not through acquisition and learning from others. 20
He then divides these inherited forms of knowledge into two kinds. The first type is knowledge and insight that the mystic receives directly from God and the second type is knowledge gained through such intermediaries as the universal intelligence [intellect?], the universal soul and the universal man. This is why Sūfī knowledge is referred to as inherited knowledge. In other words, the Sūfīs inherit it from their spiritual mother and father; that is, the universal intellect and the universal soul, and these intermediaries are, in turn, the true and spiritual inheritors of the universal man and the universal woman. This is what the Messenger (SA) meant when he said that religious scholars are the inheritors of the prophets. The Qur’ān refers to these individuals as those who have true knowledge and correct interpretation of the divine teachings.21
Jesus (A) is referring to the same inherited knowledge when he says:
O Children of Israel, do not say that knowledge is in the sky and can be had by whoever climbs up to it or that it is in the depths of the Earth and can be claimed by those who dig down to reach it or that it is on the other side of the seas and can be attained by those who cross them. Knowledge lies within you, at the very centre of your soul, and is an aspect of your innermost self and nature. Adopt the ways of the men of spirit and the manners of the righteous and then your whole being shall be filled with knowledge and wisdom. 22
The Prophet (SA) has also said:
Whoever sincerely worships God for forty days shall have springs of knowledge and wisdom flow from his heart to his tongue. 23
At this point, Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī provides another explanation of the idea that inherited knowledge is exclusive to mystics:
Inheritance can be only of two sorts: spiritual or material, and in neither case can experts in the exoteric religious law have any share in it, for material inheritance from God is meaningless and if reference is to material inheritance from the Prophet (SA), such inheritance will belong to his children and family members. Now, as to spiritual inheritance, this also cannot belong to scholars of the exoteric religious law for two reasons: the first involves indications found in the Traditions, and the second is the fact that they themselves view their knowledge as acquired and not inherited. 24
Finally, following a long discussion, he expresses his view of the issue under consideration in the following manner:
Inherited knowledge, wisdom and insight are not acquired since nowhere is acquired knowledge referred to, either literally or connotatively, as inherited. Thus, no science or knowledge that must be acquired can be inherited, and neither those who possess it shall be considered as inheritors. For this reason, all examples of acquired and formal knowledge lie outside the category of inheritance and their possessors outside the category of inheritors…. Now that we have clarified this point and have distinguished inherited knowledge from that which is acquired, you must try to prepare yourself to receive this inherited knowledge so that you shall be considered as one of the inheritors. 25
At this point, Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī summarises the most significant teachings of mysticism, philosophy and theology concerning ontology, proving the existence of God, the attributes of God, the genesis of creatures, the hierarchy of beings, the creation of the universe, categories of objects, the real nature of objects, etc.26 Furthermore, in order to demonstrate better the treatment of these issues in the aforementioned fields of learning, he provides special charts. 27 Finally, concerning his motivation in presenting this brief report he provides the following explanation:
…so that no one should imagine that mystics and men of God and spirit are ignorant of the principles and rules of philosophy and theology and cannot set forth rational arguments and positions concerning philosophical and theological issues, so that they realise that this is not the case and that mystics have the necessary prowess in these fields also. However, it is clear to men of the spirit that theological and philosophical principles and rules lack validity and reality and do not yield reliable results. Thus, realising this truth, they turn away from books and learning, turn to God and seek to experience the Truth directly, so that free of the intermediation of logic and argument they may drink from the fountain of spirit and intuition, since, as the saying goes, what is evident requires no proof or explanation. 28
Notes
1- Sayyid Heidar ‘Amulī, Nass al-Nasūs fi Sharh al-Fusūs al-Hikam, bakhsh 3, rokn 3, fasl 1. 2- The Qur’ān (Muhammad: 30, Bagharah: 273). 3- Ibid. 4- ‘Amulī, p. 474. 5- Ibid, p. 475. 6- Ibid, p. 476. 7- Ibid, p. 477. 8- Ibid, p. 479. 9- Ibid8.10- This is what maintains the specificity of the essence.
11- Ibid, pp. 480-481. 12- Ibid, pp. 282-284. 13- Ibid, pp. 484-485. 14- Ibid, p. 486. 15- Ibid. 16- Ibid, p. 488-489. 17- Ibid, p. 489. 18- Ibid, pp. 489-490. 19- Ibid, p. 491. 20- Ibid. 21- The Qur’ān, Āle Imrān: 7. 22- ‘Amulī, pp. 493-494. 23- Ibid. 24- Ibid, summarized. 25- Ibid, pp. 500-501. 26- Ibid, pp. 501-526. 27- Ibid, charts no. 27-29. 28- Ibid, pp. 526-527.Identity at the Limits: on Not Being Another
David Kuhrt, UK
Abstract
The issue (of identity) turns on the epistemological question of how things are intelligible in a community of speakers who disagree in their descriptions while knowing (as an act of faith) that the object of discussion is the same. The problem arises because unique experiences of the one object of discussion are differently located in space and time (a proposition which has its corollary in the opening paragraph of Henri Corbin's "Man of Light": "A human presence has the property of spatialising the world around it"). The identities of the speakers are therefore given by their plural realisations of a unitary phenomenon which (prior to any subsequent agreement) is intuited as self evidently existing in spite of original disagreement about its definition. If there is no agreement, and the viewpoints are not reconciled, identity suffers because it fails to apprehend a unitary and truthful phenomenon in which other speakers concur, as if time and space, which engendered the existent standpoints, did not issue from the common source of Being itself. If there is no disagreement, there is also a failure of identity because difference (in standpoint) has been sacrificed to a principle of absolute and a priori agreement which denies the reality of time and space. A concept which is fundamental to the above proposition is stated by Leibniz in his monadic philosophy. The intent of the paper is to show that oral common sense discourse about the world as object of knowledge is fundamental to empirical knowledge, and that the displacement of the former by the latter causes a crisis of identity in speakers; and that the problem of identity arises in consequence of a developmental process in occidental thought which begins with the attribution of identity to individual existences as if they were verifiable autonomously, and ends with the transference of their quantifiable states to the human subject, a process which is affirmed with reference to the changing usage of the term "identity" given in the Oxford English Dictionary, terminating in the 1971 definition of identity as not being another
. The issues of non-existence, existence and being in Heidegger, Mulla Sadrā and Gaston Bachelard are discussed as a preliminary to the conclusion that the denial of the existence of the generically human is the principle cause of a contemporary crisis of identity in the West.
Where do we discover ourselves with more certainty than within the fluctuations of consciousness?
(Gaston Bachelard)
Thinking, that active onlooker at all being as it recovers itself.
(Theodor Adorno)
You and I, when we argue, are made in each other.
(John Scotus Eriugena)
1- Identity: the Evidence of Ordinary Discourse
1.1- In a world where common sense practise is so often obscured by theory, there are some very obvious facts which go unremarked. For example, although the discourse of the humanities (principally: literary criticism, cultural studies and philosophy), includes speakers who deny that the attribution of identities to humans entails any ontological issue about existence, in ordinary discourse, including the ordinary discourse of those same intellectuals, whatever is said (including the denial) presupposes that the existence of the speakers is self-evident. This presupposition entails the premise that there is a phenomenological structure of being within which the existence takes place. That is, it does so even if some speakers, who must presuppose theirs and others' existence in order to communicate, deny at other times, in a professional environment where discourse is theoretical, that such terms as existence and being predicate anything in reality.
If whatever is said presupposes the existence of the speakers and entails the presence of a phenomenological structure of being, this is a necessary consequence of the use of language as a descriptive tool expressing an otherwise occult activity of thought; for it is in, and only in, the occult activity of thought that whatever reality is said to be, takes place and is witnessed.
But thoughts are the properties of individuals whose perceptions about reality are partial. Language serves to reveal that partiality to others because, and only because, all parties concerned agree to recognise their disagreements as limitations on what ought to be a coherent description of the same reality. It ought to be so because neither disagreement nor consensus about the nature of the reality to which speakers refer in language could be understood if the reality itself were not unitary and intelligible as such. The issue therefore turns on the epistemological question of how things are intelligible in a community of speakers who disagree in their descriptions while knowing that the object of each description is the same (for, if not, their differences could not be articulated in language). Pending agreement, the relationship between differing viewpoints must therefore be objectively given by the reality itself, even if it eludes description. The grammar of a language is a structure answering to that reality, and which requires that the existential differences in knowing are always held in parentheses (or bracketed) while being itself (in the very conjugation of the verb) is distributed between speakers as a given, if as yet unintelligible, phenomenon. This phenomenon cannot be an object of positive knowledge until, or unless, all parties agree and speech is redundant. For the time being, this attribute belongs only to God.
1.2- From our experience of the operation of language in ordinary discourse we know that, until then, our different existences are functions of time and place in combinations which are specific and unique, and that within those parameters identities are constituted.
The issue for those speakers denying existence as an intelligible phenomenon while affirming the construct of identity derives from their presupposition that the identity is a construct in-formed by a set of external factors, including hereditary determinants in the subject's own organism, for whose operation the subjective perception of volition and intentionality is irrelevant.
Whether or not the opposition between ontological and instrumentalist arguments can be conclusively resolved, the fact is that each position has radically different consequences for the perception of ourselves and others, and of our relations together as a community in the world we ordinarily suppose. In line with the methodology we call 'empirical' and 'scientific', it is, in addition to any philosophical argument, feedback on the operational effects (dysfunctional or productive) of these two interpretations of identity which, in the systematically coherent organism of the planetary environment, entitle us to find in favour of the ontological and against the instrumentalist arguments, and to conclude that the presupposition of existence informing all ordinary discourse is a natural intuition. That is, we are entitled (with or without conclusive epistemological argument between instrumental and ontological viewpoints) to claim, on experimental grounds, when observing the social and environmental consequences of the instrumentalist weltanshauung in European history, that the intuition of existence in ordinary discourse is the expression of a deep and unconscious interdependence in all species, and that the functioning of this intuition is damaged and endangered by all forms of reductionism. In short, five hundred years of instrumentalism (the product of nominalist philosophy) has demonstrated its descriptive limitations experimentally.1
1.3- But the notion of verifiability depends on the assumption of controlled experiment. This limits the field of data to suit a hypothesis, an abstraction from reality, so that what may be evidently proven in oral common sense and demonstrated over very long periods of time, and which is (or was) recognised as common knowledge, cannot be admitted in science as a claim to knowledge. Thus it is that the experimental tail of science wags the dog we call philosophy. Yet even if that same method, applied to discrete phenomena, benefits humanity by intervention, controlling or modifying natural process, its very terms preclude any acknowledgement of the relational intuition (instinctual in animals and conscious in human cognitive activity) without which its limited objectives could not be verbally formulated: for example, "the world" of ordinary discourse in which the experimental objects of normative science are located, does not exist as an experimental object (although, as we have argued, it must exist phenomenally in some sense or nothing in it could be the subject of a scientific proposition). Consequently, the instrumentalist viewpoint (which affirms identity as a theoretical construct while denying existence) plays into the hands of that momentum which divides the common interests of humanity according to perceived corporate interests, a momentum on which economic growth, investment and profit thrive at the expense of identities which have been conveniently reified.
Thus, in expectation of death, the accrual of capital by individuals in consequence of economic exchange, is transferred to institutions providing insurance. That value is then a source of investment capital: corporations acquire it to provide a security against death from those who generate it during their lives, effectively diverting the common wealth from the control of the living community to the service of corporate bodies (including states) over whose aims the living community has no control unless its members choose to play the same game and become investors. In other words, the mutable identities of individuals in the process of becoming, being conformed to those instrumental goals, undergo a living death: those persons occupy a purely statistical position in an abstract scenario in which the present is projected forward to serve the long term goals of investment capital. Since these will outlive the duration of their existence, the effective subordination of any personally defined long term goals to those defined by institutions, signifies the death in the real present of the identities who together might transform the future; for that transformation can be undertaken only by individuals who assent and consent in a present which is subject to political consensus, to a movement forward towards reciprocally beneficial, humanitarian goals.2
1.4- Although the philosophical origins of instrumentalism are not recent, we may remark that the progress of empirical science from the end of the middle ages did not impinge radically on the presumption of existence until the nineteenth century. Thus we maintain here that while a presupposition of existence as the foundation of identity is a natural intuition expressed in all normative discourse, the devolution of a sceptical and instrumentalist viewpoint (repudiating the notion of the human and its moral agency), to the market place, is a very recent phenomenon. It is, moreover, a phenomenon which is geographically limited to those enclaves of European (and European affiliated) urban intellectualism from which the mono-culture of global consumerism emerges to call the tune regarding the narration of the human and to dominate the other; for that other is hardly in a position to question his existence due to the deprivation caused by the entrepreneurial activities of other others whose identities are determined not by existence (which is their common property), but by commodities (which are individual possessions). This includes the commodities which those other others define as cultural.
1.5- To provide a provisional and, I think sufficient, foundation for the assertion that our dichotomous positions on identity are recent as far as normative discourse is concerned, we shall now compare definitions of identity taken from dictionaries published in 1867, 1959, 1971. We shall do so on the assumption that dictionaries have been compiled by editors whose purpose is to reflect the presuppositions of normative discourse in the vernacular about the current meaning of words:
Chambers Etymological Dictionary, 1867: "Identity: state of being the same, sameness." (No entry for identity as an attribute or property of persons).
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 1959 (4th edit): "Identity: absolute sameness; individuality, personality." (Note that the attribution of identity to persons has been explicitly added).
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971, in common with the two preceding citations, gives the standard adverbial definition of sameness as an abstract quality. We note that, in the 1867 instance, whether identity is of things or persons is either not perceived or taken to be contextual; and that in the 1959 instance, although the same ambiguity is followed by an explicit attribution of identity to persons, in the 1971 instance the extension of the 1959 meaning to include persons is followed (after a colon) with the rider: "the condition or fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else."
We note that whereas in 1867 the editors are unaware of a usage explicitly predicating the identities of persons, and in 1959 this predication has been added, by 1971 the added predication (of identity explicitly attributed to persons) has already become far more complex: the identity attributed to a person or thing is not a given, but depends on not being another person or thing, a factor we now refer to as "alterity"; implying that the being of one identity is contingent on the existence of others and that the being of all together determines the nature of each existential identity according to the degree of consciousness in each of all. Here, in the changing usage, we may detect the advent of the phenomenon we call "post-modernity".
If this perceived development in the usage of the word "identity" by dictionary editors appears congruent with developments in philosophy from the period of the utilitarian John Stuart Mill to the beginnings of popular post-modernism, it should not escape our notice that a certain contradiction in the mentality signified by this transformation of the usage has become apparent. In 1867, in 1959 and in 1971, identity (whether of persons or things) connotes sameness, stability; but the addition in 1971 of the rider that the condition of identity depends on not being another, poses a problem: it implies, as in early language development, that concept formation proceeds to elaborate the identities of things or persons which are distinguished, in their referential integrity, by not being that other, so that the concept horse in a child's mind is learnt only in parallel with that of the house, which the child learns empirically to be other than a horse.3
The abstract notion of identity as immutable in its sameness therefore stands in contradiction to the empirical experience that the constitution of human identities is reciprocal, and that they are reciprocally constituted in a context given by the being of a world which we suppose (and presuppose in ordinary discourse) is unitary, so that a multiplicity of non-uniform personal existences is a necessary part of it.
1.6- Here we see the expression, in normative English usage, of a phenomenon which is fundamental to concept formation in that language: if abstract qualities denoting identities (ie, existences) are not constant, cognition is impossible; at the same time, if affectivity fails (due to rigid conceptual presupposition) to inform the perception of difference in experiential reality, cognition will take place without reference to the reality; that is, the reality of the other is a factor on which personal identity is necessarily contingent, in that the existence of the other both reveals and obscures a dimension in my viewpoint which is not native to my personal disposition but which may be revealed to and by the other. The other may therefore mirror this to me. I may be unaware of this. We may also argue the truth of it together, questioning the authenticity of our adopted positions. The existence of the objective case which neither can yet see, however, cannot be in doubt. Truth is not an arbitrary construction, even if knowledge of it is postponed. The final arbiter is death since then, what is separated now by the alliance of intellect and ego, is evidently joined and re-membered.
If our cited definitions of identity in ordinary usage occur in the English language, it is the grammar and syntax of that language which poses the problem of identity which those definitions reveal. That is, they reveal in an extreme form, a conflict between the claims of instrumentalist and ontological viewpoints which is currently of global consequence for humanity as far as definitions of knowledge are concerned. Thus the English language radically expresses the predicament of the human: a being who inhabits with his thinking a dimension of being which feeds on enduring or eternal verities, while being existentially committed, as far as affectivity is concerned, to the temporal dimension. That is, the perception of enduring verities in temporal events is not given in the grammar and syntax of the language so that it must be either consciously thought, or accounted for by nominal abstraction. In the temporal dimension everything, including his own soul, is evidently indeterminate and fluid, and therefore must be quantified to provide the ontological security which the grammar and syntax of the language does not (so far) naturally provide. By contrast, we may note that Dasein, in German, signifies self-evident being; a noun designating a quality in the subject without which existence is unthinkable. It has no equivalent in English as an attribute of individual existence. In English, either the being of the whole is poetically presupposed, or the thinker founders in his subjectivity and must have recourse to the experimental method to define the objective reality of what he thinks he sees. In English, the objective relation is not given to the thinking by the language. Geist, which in German means both intellect and spirit, is separated in English between numinous spirit and positive abstraction.
1.7- In the limited context of this paper we cannot examine the relations between the discourse of the experimental method in science in English and the being-embedded-in-nature expressed in the literature of the same language (although Mary Shelley expressed this issue graphically in her novel Frankenstein). However, we can clarify our understanding of the problem by distinguishing and comparing different narrative types, the related assumptions about existence, non-existence and being which they entail, and the ways in which common sense ordinary discourse elides the theoretical contradictions. For example, in order to highlight the radical nature of the contradiction we confront in the English language between common sense and theoretical versions of reality, we note that whereas Francis Bacon may be taken as the prime mover in the language of the instrumentalist viewpoint, not only does he cohabit the language with William Shakespeare, but there has been and still is, an occult movement, a marginal narrative in the literature of the language which asserts that the works of William Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon. Thus not only does the English language radically polarise the conceptual self-denial required of a communicant with human nature (Shakespeare) against instrumental definitions (by Francis Bacon) of its component parts, whose attributes will be combined (or even possessed, as in the patenting of genetic information) to empower the individual (according to Bacon in the interests of the common good), but the two personalities who typically represent these apparently conflicting views have been conflated.
This dichotomy which the narrative of the English language poses is, at the moment when that language serves as a global medium for technology transfer, economic transaction, diplomacy and the scientific exchange of knowledge, of great consequence for our understanding of both human identity and the particular gifts of consciousness which are expressed in the English language. That is to say, definitions of identity in a language which so radically polarises notions of identity between objective and subjective viewpoints while being the principle instrument of global communication, are a matter of concern not only for English speakers but for the global community; for English language usage is institutionally identified with the spread of instrumental technologies, and these generate a monoculture of consumerism which deracinates the local cultures which diversify identity.
2- Identity: the Expression of the Conceptual Problem in Leibniz
This essay includes an account of three distinct types of narrative and the notions of identity they represent, the first of which (the narrative of non-existence) appears to be a speciality of the English language. We also clarify a dilemma in the English language posed by co-existing instrumental and ontological viewpoints. Before proceeding to these issues we divert to a brief parenthesis on the subject of Leibniz' philosophy of Monads so that our conceptual position on identity in approaching the three narrative types is explicit.4
2.1- Pursuing the notion of absolute identity to its logical conclusion, Leibniz, proceeding from Democritus' proposition on the atomic composition of matter, proposed the dissolution of located material particles which Locke, and others in the western tradition, had taken to be analogues of irreducible, existential human identities. In doing so, Leibniz anticipated the discoveries of contemporary physics concerning the indeterminacy of apparently measurable events as spatio-temporal phenomena. Leibniz concluded that the identities attributed erroneously to so-called physical phenomena, must depend on their being formalisations of the structured relationships existing between the phenomena (see John Scotus Eriugena, ref. 17); particular identities are therefore given only by that relation and not by the causal succession of materially constituted events through which the formal existence passes. Therefore this phenomenon could only be intelligible as not being that or those others, and nothing is intelligible in isolation.
2.2- The form in which Leibniz chose to express this perception, he called a philosophy of monads, in which each monad, each abstractly conceived existence, is constituted as an internalisation of the reciprocally affective structural relations between it and all other existences within the totality of being. In consequence, identities are not fixed but evolving; each existence (mineral, plant, animal, the classification depending on the descriptive intention of the enquiry) being determined, via objective structural relations between time and space which are different for each existence, by not being another (a contingency determined by discrete locations of time and space which can never be repeated).
2.3- As far as identity is concerned, just as Leibniz encountered a logical problem of causality in atomic theory, which leaves a void or absence of being at the point where phenomena are supposed to inhere in the material flux, the interminable interactive reciprocity presupposed by the theory of monads is apparently circular: if each existence is determined by all others, the theory fails to explain any particular existence causally. However, Leibniz' concept presupposes that the determining structures cannot logically be identified with the spatio temporal events they determine: they enter the otherwise inchoate material ground from a realm of purely formal being as a predisposition, round which existences within the material ground cohere and evolve. This realm of purely formal being corresponds to the usage, in neo-Platonism, of the Greek term logos.
2.4- From Leibniz' premises, we may extrapolate the following: since the sentient world of existence we call physical is the consequence of the operation of the logos in the material ground, grammatical and syntactical structure in the thinking activity defining it in language is given by the sentient apprehension, in acts of cognition, of that same structure; so that this structure is, we say, manifest both externally to the senses and internally in acts of cognition. Linguistic forms are then expressions of knowledge predicating both the specific identities of irreducible individuals whose existence depends on their being together, and on the being together, or logos, of the whole; a whole which is expressed systematically in the grammatical structure.
The grammatical structure therefore permits, but does not determine, the utterance, the existence and the identity of the individual; for the individual could not articulate his difference with other existences if the being of others were not potentially present in and given by the shared cognitive structure, and if that structure did not also derive from a unitary and shared external world. Thus both the sentient creation which is extended in space-time, and the internal cognitive activity which apprehends and transcends it in constituting identity, are structured by the same logos; an upward spiral towards a highest common factor, of which evolving identities, within the consensus, are limited and provisional expressions, depending on self-knowledge. The apparent causal circularity referred to above, 2.3 is due only to the reduction of the phenomena to events in spatial-temporal locations. In reality the existence of those events is contingent on their being within Being itself which is determinative not spatio-temporally but throughout time.
3- Identity: Three Types of Narrative
3.1- The Issue of Non-Existence
Current discussion of identity covers narratives in which identity is numinous at one extreme and reified at the other, the issue being determined by epistemological positions on the phenomenal status of the subject and the experience of being which narration presupposes. These conceptual positions have been described above in relation to the terms of ordinary discourse and with reference to a structure we called logos, which is formatively present in material evolution and therefore also in the thought and language of human existences who are cognate with its evolutionary product which, in ordinary discourse, we call "the world". From the premises of the preceding text, we now summarise some representative standpoints in scientific, critical and philosophical discourse which concern the matter of identity, and of its being in the world.
In some narratives (Sokal, Dawkins) the existence of the subject is a non-issue. We know this in Sokal's case from his paper Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity published by Social Text. This thoroughly incoherent narrative espouses the view that:
…the scientific community … cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counterhegemonic narratives …
Its author subsequently claimed, in Lingua Franca shortly afterwards, that infelicities in his citations from science invalidated the Social Text thesis in which he did not believe. It was, he claimed, a spoof on continental philosophies, jumping from indeterminism in physics to unfounded conclusions about human identity and designed to hoodwink both the editors of Social Text and the partisans of continental philosophy. Sokal failed to see that though factual inaccuracies might invalidate the first narrative, the author was nevertheless Alan Sokal, so that his authorship of the second narrative explaining the hoax and denying the validity of the Social Text thesis raises a methodological problem: since veridical conclusions can be wrongly drawn from false premises, and false conclusions drawn from premises which might lead to correct conclusions, the false inductions he admits to in the Lingua Franca article fail to invalidate the Social Text narrative in which they occur. If the corrected citations from science in the Lingua Franca article do not necessarily validate his revised conclusions, and the claim to a common authorship of both articles is valid, readers of both texts must be concerned only with the contradictory narrative and not with the identity of the author. Sokal does not exist.
Sokal's claim to identity must rest solely on the difference between truthful and false statements in order to deny the readers any grounds for stating the obvious: that even if Sokal subsequently disavows the narrative in Social Text, irrespective of deliberately incorrect inferences on which the argument was founded, the argument was Sokal's. We are not obliged to believe his second argument simply because he denies the first, nor because he demonstrates that it was ill-founded; although his facts may now be correct, it does not follow necessarily (because of his denial) that the revised conclusions he now draws follow, or even that his thesis in Social Text was mistaken. We know only that for Sokal, his existence as a subject identified by a coherent narration is a non-issue. He has an ontological problem which might be diagnosed as institutional depersonalisation; an occupational hazard in societies whose corporate and instrumental goals are best served by scientists for whom subject identities are "ghosts in a machine" and for whom the cultures of civilisation represent not the realities of Being but mental constructs, intellectual inventions which impose order on the chaos of libidinous energies. These concepts are evidence of the disturbed psychopathology of their authors and of the civilisation to whose narratives they contribute.
Similarly, when Richard Dawkins states that we are "robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes", since there are no grounds in his discourse for distinguishing the identity of molecules in his programme from those in our own, we cannot see how such an assertion about identity in general could be made if the proposition were not false. With regard to identity, Dawkins also has an ontological problem. True, he admits that though "We are built as gene machines … we have the power to turn against our creators"; but in fact his argument, far from providing any epistemological grounds for such an assertion, reduces all the phenomena to a single uniform principle which fails to explain the possible existence of such dissent. Dawkins asserts:
We, alone on earth, can rebel against the selfish replicators. 6
But if so, then his reality must be redefined so that the ontology of such normal human expectations is provided with a coherent foundation. It must explain how a consciousness which is not subject to ineluctable process can be causally determined in its relations with material constraints. The epistemological problem Dawkins fails to confront is very simple: as will become clear in the course of this discussion, the "constraints" are not "material" at all: matter is, by itself, an undifferentiated uniform plenum which is in a constant state of flux due to the formal presence of the existences which pass through it. Matter itself is invisible and what we see (and call "physical") in ordinary experience, is a spiritual world. We confuse the material ground with physical appearances and relegate the spiritual to the hereafter only because our habits of thought are so conditioned by the chosen goals of materialism, that we cannot generate a political consensus in which we think what is actually perceived is real.
3.2- Existence as a Non-Issue
In a second type of narrative it is not existence but non-existence which is a non-issue. In this case, all narrative is taken in common sense to pre-suppose a phenomenal subject. Argument here is about consensus between identities or about the expropriation of some forms of identity by others; but existence is not called in question.
For example in Stanley Fish's "The Trouble With Principle", we are not arguing for or against being and existence as attributes of identity because, to do so, according to his narrative, is to take a position in principle which has too frequently deprived the individual of the autonomy he has in practise when identifying right and wrong courses of action. In practise, as far as Fish is concerned, the existence of the parties in dispute is self-evident and the good must be a product of consensus. People therefore take "passionately held positions" within "interpretive communities". This, Fish's opponents (Raymond Tallis in TLS and Terry Eagleton in LRB) take to mean a free for all which pits "an intellectual boot-boy" (Eagleton's epithet for Fish) against a liberal democratic consensus without which less articulate minorities will not be permitted their say.7
The subtext in Fish is that identities are constituted in the free-for-all of normative discourse whereas Eagleton, believing that Fish has appealed to demagoguery, is forced into a position which appears to assert that identities require institutional inputs from the state. That neither means what the other takes him to mean is a product of the conflict in western narratives between existence perceived by instrumentalists as a non-issue and the presumption of existence which informs ordinary discourse.8
We are currently discussing not existence, but non-existence as a non-issue; and, as we shall see next, the problem is that philosophical narratives which explicitly concern being and existence have been under-represented or discredited in post-Renaissance Europe due to the ascendance of an epistemological consensus favourable to the progress of an empirical enquiry after presumed forms of knowledge which create growth, innovation and social change without reference to any preconceived (religious or other) values which define the identity of a universally human property.
In Edward Saïd (by contrast with Fish), the non-issue of non-existence takes a different turn: an alleged conflict between assertive individuals and decent standards of social order in democracies is displaced by the perception of democracies, in their relations with other societies, as social collectives which thrive on
…the notion that distant territories and their native peoples should be subjugated … so that these decent people could think of the imperium as a protracted, almost metaphysical obligation to rule subordinate, inferior, or less advanced peoples. 9
This sovereignty, of course, extends inwards from the controlled territories of the other's domain to expropriate the identity of the colonised as a cultural product for consumption back home by the coloniser, whose students are taught that their own culture ("The World We Have Lost" Peter Laslett called it) 10 is the product of intellectual invention and image-making, a process in which identities are fabricated as fictions because material process determines the imagination of reality.
Hence cultural studies runs the risk of becoming an academic industry largely (and paradoxically) staffed by individuals with socialist credentials who cannot (due to the materialist foundation of their conceptual norms and the deficit of conceptual thought with regard to being and existence), contemplate the otherness of others as a possible critique of their own loss of cultural inheritance.
Cultures are not hybrid inventions; the intellectuals who figure in the narrative past of a people have not been prestidigitators of the moment, but midwives to a process of birth which extends over generations and centuries, so that the culture they articulate implies a deep gestation, a situatedness in place and time, a web of transmitted customs, traditions and values; above all, a related form of political economy (French: gestion) based on trust and personal encounter, and wholly unlike and alien to those sanitised institutional practises of the coloniser which he calls democracy.
Hence although the tourist (in this case the author) cannot help noticing that the people he encounters in towns and villages in the Yemen seem remarkably content, in general good health and industrious, that village children who gather round (and seldom beg) are frequently able to converse intelligently in English and French, that every square inch of arable land (including the terraced hill sides) is cultivated, on returning home he will read, in his favourite liberal democratic newspaper, journalists' reports from the Yemen according to which the Yemen is not only ripe (i.e. in need of) "development", but all adult males chew qat instead of working, while the majority among Yemenis are poverty stricken, health services are non-existent and the population is illiterate.
Clearly, although Edward Saïd's thesis on cultural imperialism is well known, an unanswered question has been raised: what purposes do orientalism, cultural imperialism, and cultural studies serve as far as social and political change and evolution in the dominating democracies is concerned? Saïd asks:
What happened to the verdant valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates? What happened to the ancient truth that, of all the countries in the Middle East, Iraq had been by far the most fertile?
What purpose do cultural studies serve within the institutions of those professed democracies which, ten years after the laying waste of its own legendary Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia, continue to bomb Iraq and deny its population the prosperity they once enjoyed?11
Once, in the Christian tradition, that land, the patrimony of Abraham, signified a quest, the beginning of a dialogue between man and man (never forgetting the woman who is his mother, whose stem cells we are about to clone) which concerned his relations with other existences; relations of such complexity and so fundamental to all questions of identity that in ordinary discourse the short-hand term for the as yet undisclosed relation was once (and still is in Iraq), simply, God.
In ordinary discourse however, prior to the advent of so-called 'modernity', existence was not called in question; except in circumstances which arose in the course of a very long narrative. That is, when centres of commercial exchange, or of imperial conquest, became culturally disoriented with regard to their own indigenous traditions and coined the term 'modernity', signifying a continuous present in which all existing individuals would aspire to consume the same cultural product. This product would be determined by maximum returns to investors and therefore by an economic efficiency of design and production which, however, could not accommodate difference or cultural diversity in the consumed product. The consumed product therefore determined a uniform cultural identity. Modernism is simply that.
In consequence of modernity, when traditions were called in question, intellectuals would argue about the "nonsense" of metaphysics in general, about identities in particular, denying (against logic) the existence of a total relation.12 Intellectuals would do this in order to avoid a more fundamental question posed by exchanges and confrontations between theirs and other cultures. That is: if social norms and cultural identities are not universal, and if we do not presume that others require the imposition of our own, what modifications to the indigenous social order (the much-vaunted democracy for example) might be introduced or imported from those other societies; societies which, while being less productive in terms of growth, do not suffer those crises of identity which are the products of growth, nor the related socio-psychological disturbances at home which are discounted by those who extol the virtues of the liberal democracies? For in societies which are at home both to psychiatric disturbance and to orientalism, the terms of ordinary discourse (including that of the market place) nevertheless carry the presumption of an existence for which stable identities and enduring social norms are essential.
3.3- The Issue of Being and Existence
So far, in this brief survey of presuppositions about existence, we have typified narratives in which existence is a non-issue and others in which existence is presupposed (so that non-existence is a non-issue). Lastly, there are the narratives in which the pre-supposition of existence is explicitly argued. In line with the terms of our preceding discussion it is supposed that the notion of identity as an attribute of the human, is void and necessarily reified except in the context given by existence and being which is entailed in the grammatical structure of language and inheres in the ordinary usage even of intellectuals who deny that existence is meaningful.
We shall therefore conclude this text by elaborating further the suggestion that narratives denying existence are the product of social systems in a state of crisis with regard to the matter and substance of identity. We admit that this discourse also carries a liberalism which insists on the equality of all value-systems, but it does so on two assumed premises: that cultures and their commensurate identities are arbitrary constructs (from which it follows that they cannot be expected to have any bearing on the political responsibilities of individuals for the social order); that the notion of the universally human exists only to serve the interests of dictatorships supported by the religious authorities who promote it. These premises, however, have their own hidden agenda: they promote the absence of values on which capitalism thrives. In consequence, the narratives of image-makers in liberal democracies continue to disseminate (in spite of theoretical cultural pluralism) a monoculture of materialism which erodes diversity and difference both at home and of others elsewhere. It is thus implied (but beyond the scope of this paper to argue) that the deficit, since the end of the middle ages, in English language philosophy of concepts relating to being and existence forms part of an imperialist agenda whose commodity markets thrive best in the context of cultural uniformity. Therefore (if so) the periodic attacks on religion and other forms of so-called idealism (in the English language in particular) by rationalists and utilitarians have served the interests of the imperialist political agenda which liberal intellectuals theoretically disown.
The common characteristic of the narrative of being and existence with which we are now concerned situates the individual identity in a realm of being from which particular identities draw their substance. In this narrative, although some say that existence is fundamental to being in order that knowledge of both is possible during existence, while others maintain that being is fundamental or nothing would exist, the dichotomy clearly depends on the authors' concept of time and the determining position it occupies systematically in the narrative. That is, those who posit existence before being are speaking from the standpoint that, since cognitive knowledge exists only if it is articulated, the existence of the narrator who discusses the notion of being itself must be presupposed even if, logically, existence can only occur in the context of being.
On the other hand, if existence is presupposed, then being itself is logically entailed. Fish knows this, but his perspective concerns the legality of reciprocal exchanges in a liberal society which legislates, in principle, to protect minorities but in practise inhibits free speech; Eagleton knows this, but seeing, correctly, that narrations purporting to discuss being itself have, in the West, been the prerogative of imperialists, he prefers to defend the identities of victimised minorities with instruments of principle which are in the hands of the state, even if liberty, also in principle, is thereby compromised.
We note that this dichotomy concerns the nature of time and the peculiar attribute of language which permits a community of speakers together to predicate the existence of other beings about whose definition there is no present agreement. That is, speakers know, or agree together, that they are discussing the same thing, even if the same thing is not uniform in the description of every speaker.
This faith, or trust, in the efficiency of language in ordinary discourse is possible only because the I which is predicated by each speaker while referring to something called 'my personal viewpoint', signifies the presence throughout of a unified Being-as-Subject to which, or to whom, the unified objective being of the world is represented. The objective nature of the human which the word I signifies, corresponds to the objective and unitary nature of the creation, including the human, from which the human subject is separated only in the cognitive act by which he becomes conscious, and thinks: This is my world, my word. In painful fact, neither the world nor the word belongs to him, and he must learn that in the negotiation of himself as a being identified among others, his intellect, the idea of an intelligence which is his own, is the chief obstacle in the acquisition of knowledge. Hence in the Islamic philosophy of Mulla Sadra which we briefly examine below, the intelligence is (and was) given in the ordered being of the world prior to any cognitive acts by which human beings enter it in consciousness.13
The possible recovery of the unified Being together of the whole in consciousness is what Catherine Pickstock calls "eschatological intersubjectivity": this "fully realised community" cannot be accomplished by the premature objectification of nature in empirical experiment, but only in the course of time during which the speakers together combine "relational space with the time of past, present and future." The product of inter-location therefore redeems identities which are otherwise materially determined by fixed coefficients in space time and so cannot accommodate the becoming of reality; a becoming which is constituted in a
…movement through time as an embodied event which itself constitutes the repeated actuality of an eternal mystery.14
Thus the I refers universally to a subject identity (myself) which is irreducibly different in each individual. While each speaker agrees about the existence, but not the definition, of common external phenomena, the I will converge in each only in consequence of discourse in time. It is therefore the genius of the consensually shaped grammatical structure of language which expresses the objective phenomenon experienced by humanity as time: it is the grammar and syntax in language which enables discourse to take place as if the identity of all interlocutors depended on a dialectic of being and existence in which the reality is continuously undisclosed. In time, each existence, and therefore its identity, is reciprocally contingent, and each grows by assimilating other perspectives to its own. The dialectic of existence and the question of where and how identity stands between self and the other it may assimilate (as an enrichment, and without any reduction of the other) is the expression of a predisposition within Being itself as a totalising, unitary and active state of which the human apprehension in time is thought. Thought is the only place where this conjunction of existences occurs, because it is only by means of the intellect (which is its instrument) that they are perceived separately in the first place.
In reality (outside time), the material foundation and the realm of pure being are necessarily and reciprocally interlocked; but in cognition, due to the appearance in evolutionary time of the human, a disjuncture occurs in which the human determines identities either as an act of redemption (a re-joining of the whole) or as a negation, in which identity is fixed and determined causally by external factors.15
4- The Depth of Human Identity
We turn now, in conclusion, to the narrative of those who situate existence in a realm of being on which existence must draw. We saw that in Sokal and Dawkins existence is a non-issue; that in Fish and Saïd, as in all ordinary discourse, existence (and identity) is neither denied nor affirmed but pre-supposed in common sense. As far as the ontological issue of identity is concerned, we shall refer in closing to the epistemological position of Christian Europe in Heidegger and to the complimentary position in Islamic philosophy of Mulla Sadra. Although the latter preceded the former by 300 years, we are concerned with neither chronology nor linear time, since the social and political histories of Christian Europe and of the Islamic world have been radically dissociated by their respective conceptions of the material foundation: in the former, a quantifiable plenum, derived from Democritus, determines the aggregate reality by incremental experimental proofs on the basis of induction; in the latter, an elastic and unquantifiable substance called being is derived from ontological necessity whose hidden constraints inform the material plenum. Then, in time (and therefore with duration) the individual identity constitutes itself in the cognition of what is given in the material flux, so that existence within the material flux transcends it and acquires being as an enrichment of temporal experience. This compounds the identity without prejudice to the universality of being itself from which enrichment issues only because the reality of duration and time is admitted in the formation of concepts. This applies to both Heidegger and Mulla Sadra. In other words, identity is not fixed or determined by causal factors operating between finite material entities, because the finiteness of material events is an abstract concept, an intellectual invention: it fails to describe the experience which is permanently represented to the imagination as reality, before factual analysis, in intuitive acts of cognition.
Heidegger and Mulla Sadra situate existence in a realm of being on which existence must draw, echoing a tradition pre-dating the separation of rational knowledge and belief (the Double Truth Theory) 16 which drew on neo-Platonism and which continued to find expression in Islamic philosophy (Mulla Sadra) after it had succumbed in the West to the very English nominalism of Ockham, Bacon and Locke.
The epistemological position of Heidegger and Mulla Sadra is not idealism, although it appears to be from the premises of nominalism: existence, and the identity it supports, depends on a material ground and on the passage through space-time of a consciousness which returns that breadth and extension of existence to a source of differentiation and plurality which is not in time.17 Identity then compounds and enriches that source from within time, its instrument being language which expresses both the enrichment (Glissant’s fulguration) and the drive towards a consensus which accommodates fulgurant, not uniform, identities. Glissant says:
The Diverse, that totality … of all possible differences, is the motor of universal energy which must be preserved from assimilations, states of generalised passivity, standardised habits … The poets of the Maghreb, the Antilles, Africa, do not move towards the elsewhere of (hegemonic) projection, nor do they return to a Centre. They create their works in the metropolis, in the resurgent company of their peoples. The space of the former trajectories, spiritual itineraries (going from Paris to Jerusalem or elsewhere) cedes to the realisation of a compact globe. One must enter these equivalencies within the Relation … All human expression is open to the fluctuating complexity of the world. The notion of the poetic preserves within it what is particular, because it is only the ensured safety of the particulars in their totality which guarantees the energy of the Diverse … We no longer reveal the totality in ourselves alone by fulguration. We approach it via an accumulation of sediment. The poetics of continuity - another leitmotiv - the essence of the sacred books on which communities were founded, reappear, furthering the poetics of the present. This fulguration is the tremor which overtakes those who desire or dream the totality of the impossible which is to come … when the conjunction of narratives, among peoples will paint a new dawn. 18
The epistemological position of the narrators of non-existence has been dominant in the narrative of western materialism since the end of the Middle Ages: representations of universals are purely nominal expressions referring to nothing which is phenomenal or in any sense intelligible to empirical science. Consequently: a) the subject which negotiates between universals (conceived as abstract principle) and events (conceived as materially specific), is incapable of meaningful knowledge by himself and must circumvent his own subjectivity in constructing valid knowledge, even though cognitive acts occur in, and not outside, that subject (which is epistemologically speaking, a nonsense); b) on these premises agreement between identities can therefore be achieved only at the expense of fulguration and tends toward compromise, (the lowest common factor) and reductive uniformity; ie one person’s complexity excludes another’s when so-called material events (genetic processes, brain chemistry etc) are said to determine the phenomenal status of the existing subject. This reification is reductive of identity; it supports a global monoculture of consumerism dependent on the fabrication of identi-kit images, false personas and styling, concealing the profound depths of the truly human.
Heidegger
But if "idealism" signifies tracing back every entity to a subject or consciousness whose sole distinguishing features are that it remains indefinite in its Being and is best characterised negatively as 'un-Thing-like', then this idealism is no less naïve in its method than the most grossly militant realism.19
Heidegger's concern here is that there can be no situated existence (whether of realist or idealist persuasion as far as epistemology is concerned) without a material foundation (on which, as we have seen, Pickstock also insists):
If idealism emphasises that Being and Reality are only 'in the consciousness', this expresses an understanding of the fact that Being cannot be explained through entities. 20
Heidegger means that there must be both a material foundation, a reality linking all contingent cognitive acts, and a substantially transcendent being who (and which) is present in acts of consciousness. If not, identities could not be established throughout the duration of time; for without duration in time and the material foundation on which that depends (in the idealist case because there can be no material relation, and in the realist case because "no unitary thing can inhabit a multiplicity of things", as in William of Occam), the being whose parts are immediately accessible to sense perception, while knowledge of the whole depends on an intuition, cannot enter existence in conscious acts of cognition. That is, the material foundation provides a momentum towards the completion of the whole only via the intermediary of human cognition, since it can only be in human cognitive acts that the whole is separated in the first place. It is only there that I know and it (Being itself) becomes known.
For this reason Heidegger says:
Our task is not to prove that an 'external world' is present-at-hand or to show how it is present-at-hand, but to point out why Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, has the tendency to bury the 'external world' in nullity 'epistemologically' before going on to prove it. The reason for this lies in Dasein's falling and in the way in which the primary understanding of Being has been diverted to Being as presence-at-hand … 21
What has been lost in that diversion of Being-in-the-world from the whole to its parts, is the movement of thought itself, as witness within existence, a witnessing which otherwise occurs in the consciousness throughout the contingent episodes of what Heidegger calls "Being in Time". Identity (that of the witness) then becomes the agent of instrumental pressures which construct the identity as a defence against that giving and receiving between contingent existences (which have 'viewpoints' in human consciousness) in which existences constitute themselves as a growing consensus of reciprocal enrichment. In the former case, the defence produces consolidated identities which thrive on differences determined by corporate interest and which paralyse individual growth while corporate profit capitalises on an absence of difference in identity; an absence which is obscured by the variety of consumer products and the marketed identities their consumption confers.22 In the latter case, because consensus grows, between individuals, towards a highest common factor, there is neither conformity nor uniformity: the growth towards consensus is also a growth of difference which enriches the individual. The former case, the defence against reciprocity, consolidates resistance and hiatus between corresponding identities because that defence depends (and thrives) on the definition of identities as material beings which endure only in measurably located abstraction and not in reality. They therefore have no being in any reality we know, for knowable realities must first be thought, and nothing which exists can be proposed as existing without that occult activity and the grammatically ordered world issuing from it as language.
If the latter (the Being-present-to-itself of the whole) grows and thrives on reciprocal enrichment, it does so because the reality is not expressed in a construction of component material events but in a fluid movement of thought throughout existent human identities. This movement reflects the totality of Being, not in the individual identity whose intellectual construal of it is always provisional but throughout the human body in time. Identities are cognate with each other, via a total relation, within Being itself. This, none presumes to have determined in advance by acts of knowledge which are experimentally based on the present; for that present is, in reality, always moving forward through the material foundation towards a goal which is given by the whole of which each sees only part. The notion of consciousness in this movement of the spirit, and the notion that it is present in human cognition as representational thought which passes through the specific material limits of other contingent existences in different ways in its apprehension of them, informs the philosophy of Heidegger, Bachelard and the Islamic philosopher Mulla Sadra. When Heidegger says:
What is thus permanent is the condition which makes it possible for the 'changes in me' to be present-at-hand. The experience of the Being-in-time of representations posits something changing 'in me' and something permanent 'outside of me'
he anticipates Mulla Sadra (as far as the West is concerned), who lived three centuries before and reciprocates the standpoint of Bachelard in L'Intuition et l'Instant, published four years after Being and Time in 1931.23 As we shall see, both Bachelard and Mulla Sadra illuminate further the notion of identity being clarified here. These three philosophers together anticipate a moment (now) at the end of both enlightenment and modernity, when Europe can no longer sustain the pretence that human identities are, in reality, finitely determined, instrumentally subject, material constructs.
It surely strains credulity that although we inhabit a cultural environment in which it is evident in common sense and ordinary discourse that the existence, and therefore the being, of the world and of ourselves within it must precede every act of cognition in which it is represented, the philosophical tendency which has been dominant in that cultural environment (European) since the end of the Middle Ages, holds that the being of the world and the existence of things in it cannot properly be called the objects of knowledge but of belief only. Although the finite states and events which that philosophy considers to be the objects of empirical knowledge are without existence (in a reified state of non-being), they could not be apprehended or described in language if they were not already evidently and empirically existing. It is thus clear that the questions which empiricism properly answers concern only the quantification and definition of component elements in the things which are supposed to have been perceived. But the being and existence of those things could legitimately be questioned only if the question itself (of existence and being) could not logically be raised.
Furthermore, one could reasonably maintain that the grammatical form of every sentence in this text is constructed around the declension of the verb 'to be', so that every proposition (including assertive and negative statements), assumes the relational being in the world of both the subject and the objects which its sentences predicate. If a predicative utterance is contested by others, those others must be clear about what is meant before disputing the descriptive terms. The argument is never, in reality, about either existence or being in the objects predicated, but only about the specific nature of their existence. Since this latter serves to clarify the meaning of their being at all, questions about the nature of Being-in-and-for-itself are necessarily being raised in every limited descriptive statement. In western, or European, philosophy, these questions have remained in parenthesis. In Islamic philosophy, whose development has been dominated by the notion that the Qur'an is a 'revealed' text, philosophy has been persistently drawn into those epistemological issues which became a cul-de-sac for medieval Christian scholasticism.
Whereas, however, the legendary preoccupation of scholastics with the number of angelic beings which might be contained on a pinhead unjustifiably endures in western memory as a yard-stick with which to judge medieval Christian philosophy, the Islamic movement culminating with Mulla Sadra elaborates a coherent, if unsystematic, statement about the nature of being and existence. It entails a notion of human identity which is not passive and instrumentally determined, but fulgurant and radically developmental.
Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi (Mulla Sadra)
Mulla Sadra affected an entire revolution in the metaphysics of being by substituting a metaphysics of existence for the traditional metaphysics of essences, and giving priority ab initio to existence over quiddity (thing-ness). His thesis that there are no immutable essences, but that each essence is determined and variable according to the degree of intensity of its act of existence, invokes another theses, namely that of the intrasubstantial or transubstantial movement that introduces movement (motion) into the category of substance. Mulla Sadra is the philosopher of metamorphosis, of transubstantiations … the concept of matter is neither that of materialism nor of spiritualism. Matter" (as with Heidegger) "passes through infinite states of being. 24
Therefore Mulla Sadra introduces to philosophy a notion which is essential to a solution of the epistemological problem determining our notions of identity: in as far as idealist and realist accounts propose abstract and empirical explanations for cognition which are in conflict, they polarise thought itself, the primary instrument of knowledge, between subject and object. For the absence in the empirical tradition, of any concept of cognition as a movement in, and of thought, leaves both the known phenomenon and the identity of the cognising subject trapped: a fixed, spatio temporal event in the moment of its apprehension; an intellectual abstraction in which the living reality is transformed into a morbid dimension of non-being. Here, metaphor ceases to function in language as the means by which the intellected component parts of reality are assimilated to the being of the whole; for it is from this being that their actualised existences have been drawn into the material flux by the evolutionary processes of time:
The meaning of their (ie, the philosophers') statement that every type of knowledge involves a kind of abstraction and that difference in the ranks of knowledge corresponds to the difference in the levels of abstraction is … not that abstraction involves the removal of certain qualities and the retention of others, but its meaning is that existence changes levels - from lower and baser to higher and nobler.25
The agent of this transformation is in the human activity of thought since, without that, the world could not exist in and for consciousness in the first place so that language denominates it. Hence:
Perception in general does not take place - as the well known doctrine of the majority of philosophers states - by the perceptual faculty's abstraction of the perceptible form itself from matter and encountering it along with its enveloping material attachments - since it has been established that forms imprinted in matter cannot move locally … Perception occurs because the giver (of forms, ie, the soul itself) bestows another psychic and luminous cognitive form, thanks to which perception or knowledge arises … As for form-in-matter, it is neither sentient nor sensible, but is only a condition (or occasion) for the emanation of that (actually cognised) form.26
Mulla Sadra: an Intervention from Gaston Bachelard
In order to appreciate more fully the importance of Mulla Sadra's contribution to the epistemological issue which so much concerns our notion of identity, the following series of statements, taken from L'Intuition et l'Instant by Gaston Bachelard, have been selected to illustrate the way in which events which are diversely localised in space, and (consequently) separated in time, are assimilated to being by the presence in consciousness of the subject. Although he is not primarily concerned with the nature of thinking as such, the thinking activity itself is predicated in the narrative of Bachelard as a mobile and plastic substance, conforming itself, in the moment of cognition, to the phenomena; phenomena which are spatially and temporally discrete in physical reality, so that the being of the world becomes, by degrees, the being of its subject thinkers. Their knowledge therefore grows towards a reality in which identities converge, paradoxically, by consensual enrichment and not by reduction to uniformity.
The configuration of the atom organises nothing but separates (spatial) points, just as its volition organises isolated (temporal) instants. Instants are distinct because they are fertile.
What is it then which gives time its appearance of continuity? It is the fact that we are apparently able, by imposing a hiatus which we choose, to describe a phenomenon which exemplifies the moment (instant) we have arbitrarily selected … in other words, at any particular moment we can prove the efficacy of our (cognitive) acts … but we can be sure of those only … what guarantee have we in fact of the continuity thus conferred on ourselves? … it is sufficient that in occasioning a private (occult) act of cognition … a coincidence of space-time-consciousness is affirmed.
Bachelard means that duration is given in the continuity of a relation in and through moments of cognition, only by the subject's being present in those cognitive acts. The continuity is in that being and not in duration itself, in which events, attached as they are to physical phenomena, pass into oblivion with the flux of matter. The difference in time between the passing of blossom and the passing of a galaxy being a function of the located consciousness which perceives duration subjectively in relation to its own embodiment, a condition it transcends only in the activity of thought. Hence Bachelard says:
One does not remember having lasted (because time has not come to an end), one remembers having been ("existence being, precisely, prior among all possible determinations").27
(Furthermore he says:) The world offers no guarantee - for the time being at least - that our individual lastings, experienced in the intimacy of consciousness, will converge. But here is something worth remarking: the instant, very precisely, remains, in the doctrine of Einstein, an absolute.
To give it this absolute value, it is sufficient to consider the instant in its synthetic state, as a point in space-time. In other words, being is to be understood as a synthesis applying simultaneously to both space and time. It occurs (is) at the point of convergence of location and presence … not here and tomorrow, not there and today … it follows that measurement of the time lapse (duration) separating discrete instants must be adjusted to an always relative definition of simultaneity.
We are being awakened from our dogmatic reverie by an Ensteinian critique of objective duration. It soon becomes apparent that this critique confounds the notion of absolute duration while preserving, as we have seen, the absolute notion of what is, which means the absolute of the instant (in which cognition brings the world into consciousness) … It is at the lapse, the lasting, of time that Einstein's thinking strikes. That lasting reveals itself relatively, according to the method of measurement (which, as cited above, "we have arbitrarily selected" in a "coincidence of space-time-consciousness" of which the cause is the presence of being; a presence which enriches the identities reciprocally, and without spatio-temporal contradiction).
(Thus it is that the idealist substitutes, for the instant we mean) "an abstraction without reality. Imposed externally by the intellect, the notion of becoming is made comprehensible by aggregating a succession of immobilised states.
Thus it is (on the other hand) that in the most humble of hearts, history inscribes itself.28
Following the last-quoted citation from Bachelard, we may note (as far as "the heart" is concerned) that in ordinary discourse (in which we bracket the intellectual preconceptions of academic philosophy), we are moved by what touches us affectively. As far as the presumption of intellect is concerned, the objects of knowledge are static, but we are frequently so moved in spite of intellectually formalised preconceptions, so that, in the vernacular, the intuitions which precede intellectual formalisation are said to be something we know "in our heart of hearts".
An important feature in our discussion of identity so far has been recurrent reference to the linguistic usage which determines both acts of knowledge and the content of knowledge; we are not concerned with theoretical propositions from psychology or from the neuro-sciences which presuppose the locus of cognitive activity to be "in" the physical instruments by which whatever is known comes to consciousness; for the objects which are perceived in reality, and which have spatial extension and temporal duration, are clearly not in anyone's brain, even if it is only there that they are re-membered as being in the domain of existence (to which the identities of individuals who come to know also belong). What possible objective foundation is there then from which vernacular wisdom about the heart as the locus of knowing might proceed?
The heart is situated at the centre of the circulatory system; the blood-stream unites the consciousness which is "in" the cognitive system with the unconscious metabolism in which the being of the individual is immersed unconsciously in its engagement with the environment. Environment is perceptually mediated to the consciousness via a complex synchronicity of the sympathetic nervous system and the respiratory system which brings the blood stream to the reticular cortex and to the synapses where cognition is said to occur (however, although it "occurs" in consciousness, there is no evidence that the consciousness of knowing is located in synapses). The breath therefore unites the intellectual consciousness with the total reality of the world, from which it is separated by the experience of itself as arbiter of what it knows (even though it knows only partially due to the discrete physical condition of embodiment and a lack of self-knowledge).
The heart, being thus linked by the blood stream to the total operation of the organism which (in the reality beyond knowledge, is immersed in the totality of being), is continuously moved between subjectivity and objectivity by the systole and diastole of the respiratory system. We say thoughts are "inspired". The perceptual apparatus is linked to respiration, so is being inspired "only" a metaphor, or does metaphor reveal more of the reality than is accessible within the delimited operations of scientific methodology? The heart figures metaphorically, in any case, as the locus of instinctual knowledge in the vernacular and oral traditions of all literature.
Since it is the framework of ordinary language which determines our understanding of scientific propositions, and all language is fundamentally metaphorical, scientific descriptions can be positively referential only within that context which is given first by ordinary usage. If therefore it is clear that "the world", as an object of perception, cannot be "in" our heads, we are entitled to ask, in enquiry about the nature of human identity, where it is, what it is and how we come to know it, while bracketing all empirical knowledge concerning the mechanics of its transmission to consciousness as being only that: descriptions of spatio-temporal states which accompany consciousness tell us nothing whatever about the being itself which is "in" consciousness.
We note that the consciousness, in the jargon of cognitive psychology, is located only where (and when) its passage through (or being with) the individual is verifiable as a physical phenomenon. However, the perennial notion that a person knows "in his heart of hearts" expresses metaphorically the experiential facts which cognitive psychology and the neuro-sciences fail to accommodate; as Bachelard suggests, their descriptions reduce the spatio-temporal phenomenon of the world to synaptic events located in the cortex. On the contrary, the whole human organism is a complex receptor which situates consciousness in and throughout the experience of objects which are located elsewhere; and there is but one organ in the human body whose operations within it are theoretically capable of bearing that knowledge, and that is the organ we call the heart.
Mulla Sadra: continued
Mulla Sadra describes the movement which unites separate existences, their subjective human experience, their being and becoming, and the nature of being and existence.
Movement, in Mulla Sadra, unites all existences perceived as separate being in space-time, such that (as we have seen Henri Corbin state) there is an ongoing metamorphosis within being and among existences by which "existence changes levels - from higher to lower." This movement is given in evolution by hidden and formal constraints which have determined the natural order of the creation in time, of which we experience the appearance of the human as a culmination because the defining human experience is to be conscious of that extension of being throughout time. If that consciousness is in thought, then thought is in that extension of being because the logos which informs thought also informs the world so that language denominates it.
The existence of those "hidden and formal constraints" which constitute the logos is given, for human consciousness, in two ways: externally in the natural order of the phenomena which compose the reality we recognise as being "the world", and internally in the grammatical structures of language; for language issues from the active thinking of the consciousness in that world to which it is conformed in acts of knowledge.
In Mulla Sadra, the hidden constraints are angelic intelligences: "angelic" because they are component beings within a formative order which necessarily preceded the appearance of the human; and "intelligences" because, if human thought within existence witnesses the being of the whole (even if its positive description is beyond definition), then those formal constraints cannot be reduced to blind forces; the empirical data of the natural sciences refers only to the mode of their manifestation in phenomena, and these consist, experimentally, of discrete events. In the discrete events there is only non-being, causally determined, which cannot evolve by any means other than replication, unless something outside the context of the causal operations in those events intervenes; in which case, the causality is not determinate, but contingent. The movement which unites discrete events in varying orders of complexity is therefore intelligent because it proceeds to order the creation purposefully, orchestrating its evolution in time so that the human appears and is conscious of it. Being conscious of it is consciousness of being, but that being is always beyond the identity of the conscious.
Intelligence inheres not in the intellect, or in any other personal attribute, but within the consciousness of the relational whole. Although this is devolved to the human, existence being contingent and consciousness being limited by intellect, the intelligence is imperfect, always provisional, and conditioned by the dialectic between self and others (as described by Adorno, see references 12, 29).
In Mulla Sadra therefore, as in the tradition preceding him, from Ibn Sina (Avicenna) to Suhrawardi and Ibn Arabi, as also in pseudo-Dionysius (the Areopagite) and John Scotus Eriugena, the Being which is apprehended in human cognition is complex and composed of hierarchies whose forces (or attributes) are, and have been, intelligent in shaping and upholding the form of the given order we recognise, a posteriori, as the reality we are in. They are, unquestionably beings, and not inanimate forces; because, if not, human consciousness could not represent the reality in thought such that, in empirical fact, it corresponds and answers to remembered experience. That correspondence signifies the intelligence invested by those governing beings in the material ground through which the reality of the world passes, evolving in time so that the human learns to articulate what is. If not, no knowledge distinguishing parts in a complex whole, would be possible. There could be nothing but undifferentiated non-being in the mind of God, and before creation.
The point of being then, is its consciousness, and the identity of the human depends on what is focussed at that point. Since this focus is always partial, the reciprocal experience of not being another is the very occasion by which identity compounds enrichment, so that each may be differently identified with being itself, but equally fulfilled.
The paradox of identity is that, by denying the reality of being (the cornerstone of grammar and syntax in every language), the subject has recourse only to those discrete phenomena which, from the literal point of view of embodiment are external to himself, if he wishes to affirm his existence as author of the narrative he chooses to tell. In consequence, his identity is constituted as the expedient construct which best suits those goals which thrive in social institutions as predatory impulses, leeching the ontological sources of individual existence to serve corporate and instrumental purposes. When we read in a national newspaper a headline reporting: "High noon in LA as Gore bids to reinvent himself", the instrumentalism which negatively defines identity as a construct of external forces is clearly signified. What is further signified is that, not only is being itself in abeyance, but the consensual truths of existence which remain to be discovered are also (and dangerously) forced into abeyance.
We are entitled to conclude that the denial of existence of the generically human and the epistemological errors on which that denial is founded, is the principle contributing cause in the contemporary crises of identity in the West.29
Notes
1- Instrumentalism: the subjection of identity to the service of corporate goals, whether of state or of commerce; a tendency which, this text maintains, is a product of nominalist philosophy whose principle author is Francis Bacon; he begins with the assertion that the common or speculative knowledge (which we call now traditional, whether oral, or preserved in the canon of literature) which he calls "abstractions" is unreliable, so that "it is by far the safest method to commence and build up the Sciences from those foundations which bear a relation to the Practical division, and to let them mark out the Theoretical." (Francis Lord Verulam, Novum Organum, George Routledge & Sons, London 1898). In other words, we shall not proceed towards an understanding of the discrete operation of parts in nature with any presumption in common sense that the world exists, for that presumption has, hitherto, been so embroidered by fancy and superstition that the attempt to describe the phenomena as they are must fail. We appeal therefore (as Bacon's successors have done since and into the 20th century) to a court of jurisdiction provided by the empirical facts, from which we shall deduce or extrapolate theoretical concepts about the world which are positively founded and not imagined. Now that the imagination has been side-lined by the nominalist tendency in English philosophy from Bacon through Locke and Hume to the chattering commentators in weekend papers who currently mediate the received instrumentalist position to students of cultural studies, literature is no longer the province of the imagined world (from which even the pragmatic scientist looks out on the phenomena before testing his presuppositions), but of invented fictions whose authorship, theoretically, is equally fictitious.2- John Kenneth Galbraith, The Rise of the Industrial State, (the BBC Reith Lectures, in The Listener; 17 November, 8, 22 December 1966) refers to "the techniques by which the individual is made to conform to the planning process - how our behaviour is guided so that we will not, by undue independence of will, upset the convenience of those who serve us." / "The important decisions in the modern economy are made by producing organisations in the service of their own goals. And in one way or another, public behaviour is accommodated to these decisions." / "If we are to continue to believe that the goals of the modern industrial system and the public policies that serve these goals are co-ordinate with all of life, then all of our lives will be in the service of these goals."
3- "Words occur in more than one syntactic environment ... instead of mapping words to world the child maps sentence structures onto the world," (Professor L. Gleitman, Dept of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania), and "there is no perceptual categorisation of concept formation ... sensory motor schemes fail as an explanation for concept formation ... (so) language reflects a pre-existing cognitive foundation ... All knowledge is representational ... That's what grammar is, (the) relational parts of language ... you cannot get to relational terms unless you have underlying meaning." (Professor J.M. Mandler, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California), both addressing the conference, "The Acquisition and Dissolution of Language", at The Royal Society, London; March 24, 1994.
4- G W Leibniz, Monadology; in G W Leibniz: Philosophical Texts (Oxford University Press, 1998). Leibniz' concept of reciprocally contingent identities in a field of phenomena is applied to the movement of thought in human cognition by Friedmann Schwarzkopf, The Metamorphosis of the Given (Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York; 1995): "That which interprets all these 'given' entities is the 'not given'." (p.165). And also (with reference to Bacon's scepticism about given worlds): "… world can only mean an already cognised world" in which "our attentional movement … will oscillate … between the shore of sense perception and the shore of consciousness." (p XXIV).
5- Alan D Sokal, Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, in Social Text 46-47 (Duke University Press, 1996). And: A Physicist's Experiment with Cultural Studies, Lingua Franca, May-June 1996).
6- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, (Oxford University Press, 1989) ppV, 201.
7- Terry Eagleton, in the London Review of Books (2 March 2000), and Raymond Tallis, in The Times Literary Supplement (25 February 2000).
8- Stanley Fish, The Trouble With Principle (Harvard University Press, 1999): "… a boutique multiculturalist does not and cannot take seriously the core values of the cultures he tolerates." This is because: "Those who follow the practises of their local culture to the point of failing to respect the practises of other cultures … have simply mistaken who they are by identifying with what is finally only an accidental aspect of their being." Fish crosses the boundary between demagoguery (attributed to him by Eagleton) and liberalism: he seems to plead tolerance for cultural positions which are intolerable to liberalism: "… the strong multiculturalist faces a dilemma: either he stretches his toleration so that it extends to the intolerance residing at the heart of a culture he would honour, in which case tolerance is no longer his guiding principle, or he condemns the core intolerance of that culture (recoiling, in horror when Khomeini calls for the death of Rushdie) … it turns out that strong multiculturalism is not a distinct position but a somewhat deeper instance of the shallow category of boutique multiculturalism." pp 57, 61. Or putting it another way: When Moammar Ghaddafi says: "I was formed in the desert, the pasture and the sand. It's my natural environment and I aim to preserve it. I live under a tent, but even the tent is too much, I would prefer to live under a palm", the liberal who, in principle, accords him that right, must reckon with investors who worry about how commodities could be marketed if such values were widely admired, and if liberals expressed an equal indifferent to material comfort; equally detached, that is, from what Fish says "is finally only an accidental aspect of their being." But we do not need a touch of post-colonial orientalism to perceive this: Shakespeare makes Duke Senior, banished to the woods in "As You Like It", affirm (in another climate, and another culture) the same sentiment expressed by Ghaddafi, a sentiment which is bad news for an economy which thrives on excessive consumption and the reduction of identity to public gestures of self-expression:
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference; as, the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
9- Edward Saïd, Culture and Imperialism (Chatto & Windus, London 1993); p 10.
10-
Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, (Methuen and Company Ltd, London 1971) in which it is clear that, for the majority in pre-industrial Europe, identities were forged in the face of hardship: "… the fear of poverty, the insecurity which that fear brought with it and the resentment against the system, all these things went deep down into the character of the English working man." (p. 223). If this condition is still the lot of non-Europeans, who maintain their cultural traditions in the teeth of the same hardships while our investments (once gained at the expense of the working class here at home) support the oligarchies who rule, that is because the everyday identities we are free to construct are divorced in their representational foundations from the realities of those others. Nothing serves the instrumental purpose of this divorce better than the dumbing down of traditions and the disparagement of our indigenous values by liberal intellectuals who nevertheless purport to espouse multiculturalism; values which, once the dashiki and the fatiques are off, are, in many essential respects, common across the globe in spite of culturally diverse traditions.11- Edward Saïd, op.cit.; p. 360. What did happen? "The United Nations imposed a sweeping economic embargo … but ordinary Iraqis are increasingly finding strength in their history … 'We are an ancient civilisation, and 10 years of sanctions mean nothing compared with that' said Qassem … 'We invented the alphabet, the wheel, art and poetry. What can the American government do to a people like this?'" The Independent, 14 August 2000. For an account of how Arabs are represented in the United States, see Natasha Walter A Racist Demonisation of Arabs, The Independent, 14 August 2000; reviewing the Hollywood film "Rules of Engagement."
12- In 1962, at University College London, the author heard the philosopher A J Ayer inform his students that "all metaphysical propositions are meaningless." However, the operations of language itself (including Ayer's assertion) are metaphysical because its referents are not in the organism of the speaker but physically elsewhere. Hence Adorno says: "The concept of objectivity which logical absolutism offers the world cannot dispense with the concept on which the very notion of objectivity draws: that singular object, the world." In Zur Metakritik der Erkenntnistheorie (Edition Suhrkamp, 1972); p. 95.
13- For a description of cognition as the entry of the human subject into the intelligently ordered being of the world, as it is including himself and as it was prior to the cognitive acts it must determine, see Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Penguin Books, 1938). Whitehead, co-author with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica, was not predisposed to believe that "the universe is an accidental co-location of atoms … in which we are destined to perish." (Russell, in Why I am Not a Christian).
14- Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Blackwell, 1938); p. 273
15- Catherine Pickstock, op.cit., refers to "the rise of centralised powers which construe human beings not as individual narratives but as a spatial accumulation of statistically equivalent reactions … isolating matters of fact from phenomenal processes of becoming." (pp. 103-104). This reification of the human by "centralised powers" applies not only to the consumption of commodities but also to the production of cultural products.
16- On p 28 we referred to the moment when "those epistemological issues … became a cul-de-sac for medieval Christian scholasticism." That moment coincided with the growth of dialogue between Christian Aristotelians (that is Christian philosophers attempting to reconcile works of Aristotle previously known only in the Arab world, with Christian doctrine) and the Latin Averroists in Paris, who were more concerned to reconcile Christian doctrine with the Aristotelianism of the Andalusian Arab philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes): "The main exponent (of Latin Averroism) was Siger of Brabant: he openly represented the Aristotelian teaching on the eternity of the world and on motion found in the Averroist doctrine of the unity of intellect in mankind, and attempted to resolve the difficulty of reconciling this with ecclesiastic dogma by adopting a double truth theory… a complete separation of philosophy from theology, of rational knowledge from belief." This account is taken from Ernst von Aster, History of Philosophy, (Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1963); p. 151. In relation to the discussion here of instrumentalism and its foundation in the nominalist tendency in English philosophical narrative, it is interesting to note the following: in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1992) there are 34 indexed pages (and 5 footnotes) discussing the works of Siger of Brabant containing one reference only to double truth theory. This occurs in the footnote to p. 619 as follows: "Siger did not maintain the so-called 'double truth theory', but neither did any of his contemporaries." The Cambridge History adumbrates the respective teachings of Siger and his contemporaries with a scholastic pedanticism (there is and "Index Nominum" and an "Index Rerum") which fails to illuminate the mutually reciprocal fluctuation of their respective positions in the wider context given by von Aster. In philosophy, as in every kind of narrative, reciprocal contextual relations (or their absence) determine the understanding of what is being said. The academicians' understanding of the texts so as to exclude a double truth theory in name which is there in the contextual sense (and therefore in effect), is entirely appropriate in an environment of marketed cultural enterprise in which the Minister for Culture and Sport (Chris Smith), and the pop star celebrity Bob Geldorf promote a Day of National Literature with a competition to find Britain's favourite word (as if words without contexts mean anything).
17- Among the most lyrical expressions of the relations between Being and existence and the material ground was given to medieval Europe by the Irish monk, John Scotus Eriugena, who was active at the court of the Frankish king Charles the Bald. In his Patrologia Latina Eriugena wrote: "Matter itself (apart from the forms it receives) is … invisible and even indefinable. It is merely a formlessness or mutability capable of receiving forms. When, at a certain time, matter is joined to a certain form, a visible body is produced. Thus bodies are composed if incorporeal things, qualities, quantities, forms and times. They are not substances, being composed only of accidents, and are therefore corruptible, for they can be resolved only into the accidents which compose them; when these are taken away, nothing remains. All these accidents are accidents of an essence and substantial form, but not of the body; rather the body is an accident of the accidents. In every body, therefore, three aspects are considered: the matter, that is quality and quantity, of which it is made; the qualitative form which makes it a solid and visible body, and the eternal essence of substantial form of which there are the accidents … man is the unity of all creatures. He is intellect, reason, sense, life and body … All things are made in the divine mind, but they are made in other minds also. You and I, when we argue, are made in each other." (Pickstock's "eschatalogical intersubjectivity" perhaps). "For when I understand what you understand, I become your understanding … Diffusion is goodness: reunion is love … Love is the end and quiet cessation of the natural motion of all moving things …" (in The Age of Relief, The Mentor Philosophers, The New American Library, 1961; edited by Anne Freemantle).
18- Édouard Glissant, Poétique de la Relation (Gallimard, Paris 1990); pp42-45.
19- Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Blackwell, 1999); pp251-252
20- Martin Heidegger, op.cit., p 251.
21- Martin Heidegger, op.cit., p 250.
22- Catherine Pickstock (op.cit., p 102) on the absence of difference in identity: "It was seen that the lure of desire as a lack is a condition of possibility for absolutist power, for it provokes the subject to strive for the eradication of absence by searching for the superlative acquisition to end all acquisitions (which) guarantees an unwitting collection in (the subject's) own objectification."
23- Martin Heidegger, op.cit., p 248.
24- Mulla Sadra, in Henri Corbin, History of Islamic Philosophy (Kegan Paul International in association with Islamic Publications, for the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London 1993); pp 342-343
25- Mulla Sadra, in Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (State University of New York Press, 1975); p 233
26- Mulla Sadra, in Fazlur Rahman, op.cit., p 224
27- Titus Burckhardt, in his translation from the Arabic of L'Homme Universelle by 'Abd al Karim al-Jîlî (Dervy-Livres, Paris, 1986); footnote p 32; in which Burckhardt elaborates on the point in al-Jîlî's text which states that: "… after having traversed the extent of becoming, and everything which precedes time (the bird of sainthood) planes the zenith of non-existence." Burckhardt points out that "metacosmic non-existence should not be confused with nothingness ("le néant"), for this is beyond all determinations of which the most fundamental is existence."
28- Gaston Bachélard, L'Intuition et l'Instant, (Editions Stock, Paris 1992); in order of citation pp 60, 86, 40-41, 34, 30-31, 29, 25, 100 (contents bracketed are alternative expressions where English usage will not render the sense of the original).
Theodor Adorno, op.cit: "That consciousness takes a monadological form, that the knowledge he acquires of himself appears more direct and dependable to the individual than the same knowledge in others, is the right form of appearance for a world which is false, in which others appear to people as strange and unreliable, and in which no one hesitates to stick by his particular interests, in which of course generalised rules of (bourgeois) well-being find expression ever again … Enemy equally of the necessity of appearances in induction and of the apparent necessity in deduction, (Heidegger) undertook to obviate the paradox in idealism (between subject and object) … The foundation of the paradox, the monadological constitution of the human, cannot be transcended until, once and for all, consciousness prevails over being, from and within which it was always maintained untruthfully that being was grounded in consciousness." (p. 235). But what is the ground of consciousness? "Thinking, that active onlooker at all being as it recovers itself …" (p. 10). We may note that in the medieval controversy between the Muslim philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd) and Thomas Aquinas (to which Siger of Brabant also contributed) the argument essentially turned around the question of whether I think (the 'I' signifying for Aquinas, the redeemed intellect of the logos Pauline theology which is identified with the being of Christ), of whether it (the world) thinks in me. The question we confront in our time is whether these positions are in reality, contradictory, for it is clear that individual human existences can be predicated only in the grammatical terms of language which refer to individual being with generic signifiers and could not do so if those signifiers were merely nominal abstractions.
Ibn Arabi’s Psychology in the Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom: A Commentary
Laith Sabah Al-Saud, Purdue University, USA
Abstract
Sheik Ibn Arabi is well known for spending his entire life perfecting and elaborating upon his experience of God. At a young age he had a magnificent experience of the union of being and tailored his philosophy to express the power of that moment to his fellow Muslims, and man in general with a magnanimous amount of work. The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom is such a work, where Ibn Arabi provides an account of the Soul’s relation to God and man and the spiritual peace it harnesses. Conveying his theme in a shroud of symbolic language and in the form of a decorative analogy I have attempted to comment upon this work (trans. By Sheik Tousan al-Halveti) in terms of its metaphysics, ontology (briefly), and practical psychology.
Sheik Ibn Arabi’s Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom is one of the relatively unknown, or at the very least, relatively unstudied works of the twelfth century philosopher. Perhaps this is due to its lack of maturation as a metaphysical work, the Divine Governance does not articulate as well the famous micro/macrocosm relationship that Ibn Arabi spent his life investigating and articulating, as some of his other works. The Divine Governance is unique, however, in that it has a very practical purpose. Namely, to provide a comprehensive account of the psychological processes of man, the components involved, and inclination and reality of those components. It is important to note that the Divine Governance takes the form of a decorative analogy, paralleling the psychological process of man with the social process of a city or state. And finally as the head of that state, Ibn Arabi elects the soul as the only qualified entity worthy of governing human will and action. We will, hopefully, elaborate on how and why this premise, of the soul being the governing entity, is the foundation for Ibn Arabi’s normative psychology. Also, we will try to touch upon any moral or ethical implications of such an assertion, and the metaphysical designation it lays upon the soul as a real source of morality.
I. The Psychology of Man
The Soul as the ‘Deputy’ of God:
Ibn Arabi, although recognizing the unity of man, divides man into several components. These components include the mind harboring the intellect and concept of the self, and the heart, which harbors the soul. How these components facilitate the function of the soul and self as identities to the body will be discussed later. Ibn Arabi, however, is precise in his election of the soul as the governing deputy of the individual. For Ibn Arabi, the recognition of the soul as the governing feature of man is not one of intellectual preference, such as Plato’s selection of reason as the governing feature of man. Rather, it is based on an understanding of the God-world relation, or more accurately the Creator-created relationship. The soul is the extension of the eternal God, and as such, it itself is eternal. This gives the soul the status of a permanent reality, rather than the contingent reality of the material world, which is the basis of its supremacy to the other features of man.
As man is created central to the universe and is the microcosm to the macrocosm, the soul is central to the human being and is the deputy of the Lord. To protect ourselves from the criticism and the assault of those who look upon life and the world only from the outside and who are blind to their outer and inner selves, we must explain what we mean. 1
Ibn Arabi goes on to provide a metaphysical explanation of the soul quoting Sheik Al-Ghazali who said on the subject:
The deputy which God sent as the master of all things is the soul, and the soul is not created, it is directly from the realm of God’s command. 2
The soul is a divine (and eternal) entity and therefore, functions in a very different way then the contingent realities of the material world. Almost immediately we come across our first description of the nature of man, and specifically the soul of man. Similar to the philosophical inclinations of the mystics preceding Ibn Arabi, the eternity of the soul posed problems for the orthodoxy, however, the eternity of the soul is not meant to equate the soul with God. It is, rather, a perpetual act of God manifesting His creation as His act (of which we will say more about later). The soul is the center of human experience, as man is of the created order, or the cosmos. But why does the soul, or man, deserve such a designation? Ibn Arabi’s designation of the soul as the center of man is clearly not a physical assertion; however, it is not only an epistemological claim as well. We must refer to the role or relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm as seen by Ibn Arabi. The Universe is the macrocosm of the created order, meaning that it exists as the full manifestation of creation. It harbors the attributes, which accompany an entity created by God, which is existence and relation to the pure and real light that is God. Man is the microcosm to the Universe, in that he is a pivot point in the decree of the Universe. Without man the potential of the Universe becomes unrealized, its moral and aesthetic worth unfulfilled; with man, the Universe becomes a Divine occurrence, a source and inspiration of life and an arena where man may enjoy its meaning and value.3 The soul, of course, is the microcosm to man. The soul is the "meaning" of the body as Ibn Arabi will describe it later. Just as the value and potential of the universe is unrealized in the absence of man, the value and potential of man is unrealized in the absence of the soul. The soul is the vehicle of human potentiality, giving man the opportunity to embrace and actualize the essence of eternity (and be carried off by eternity). The fulfillment of the soul has the priority of being valued as an eternal essence of the human being. The various other components of the human being are accidents of existence; they are merely relative to the existence of the human being as a temporal being. The soul, however, is the essence of the human being and in its self-fulfillment man embraces, identifies, and is carried on by a permanent entity rather than the temporary entities such as the senses and ego (which is the totality of the physical components of identity) that man normally identifies with.
As we have seen, Sheik Ibn Arabi describes man as the microcosm to the macrocosm, drawing parallels to their features as created entities. They are material in existence, designated as existing by their material presence, however they are eternal in essence, for permeating their existence, is an unchanging permanent reality which maintains the consistency of their existence as the same entity. It is important to note that the soul does not provide the individual with an identity in itself. It is the totality of the created order, which provides for the conception of the self. In light of the Creator, man is created, in light of the eternal, man is temporal, and in light of the material, man has a soul that reflects the juxtaposition, which provides man with an identity. And, man is created central to the universe. Man, in experiencing his essence reflects the attributes of eternity. The attributes, although eternal, become manifest in the temporal created order. The nature of man is to identify those attributes, within the soul and the attributes as essence become realized for the whole-created order. At that moment of realization, the individual and the cosmic (microcosm and macrocosm), actualize the created order as the self-disclosure of the Absolute.4 For Ibn Arabi, this is the foundation of the individual’s relationship with the Absolute as the true and ultimate Reality. Ibn Arabi’s exposition of man’s psychology and his more general ontology does not follow a linear path of disclosure, the Sheik begins his work with the most comprehensive and encompassing assertion, that of the Soul-God relation. The soul is not a created entity, in that it is not related to the created order as the body is to clay. The soul transcends the material world; it is of the divine realm. Perhaps, an analogy would be of some use, if we have a lifeless piece of rubber and we blow air into it, it becomes a balloon. The air we breathe into it is not of it, rather it is of our own volition, however, that air (an extension of ourselves) gives the balloon life. The Universe, as a material entity, exists unrealized lacking compassion, imagination, reason, admiration and love. The soul is the breath of God, giving life to lifeless clay, and in fact, a lifeless universe. For Ibn Arabi, therefore, God is the only source of life, and is then the only source of knowledge. The soul is a fountain of that ultimate source, reflecting and participating in the process of life giving. The soul then becomes the ‘deputy’ of God for it is an eternal and perfect entity, which implies its intrinsic knowledge, its peaceful and harmonious relationship with the Reality, and its position at the center of the created order acting as the "mirror" of Reality.
The benefits of electing the deputy of God as the governing component of man is that the soul exists in itself and does not pursue temporary satisfactions as does components of the material world. For man to be governed by features of the material world such, as the body (being only concerned with satisfying physical appetites such as hunger, thirst, desires, etc.) is to commit a fallacy of existence. It is to assert the primacy of a contingent feature of the identity of the individual over the permanent and therefore real self, the soul. The body seeks to fulfill appetites that place it in constant contention with the intellect, which acts as the witness to the soul and body. And the intellect seeks satisfactions that place it at odds with the soul, depending on an individual’s choice (will the intellect identify with the soul or ego). For the former two are rooted in the material world and therefore only find satisfaction in a temporal existence while the soul is essence in itself and is thereby never in pursuit but simply fulfills its own existence. The material features, then if allowed to govern the self, are themselves governed by their appetites and hence an insufficient feature to govern the individual. The soul does not share the blemish of pursuits and therein lays its perfection. As a perfect entity the soul is the same in essence, although not equal, as the Absolute, as an eternal being existing as essence rather than existing as a material presence. The soul’s status as eternal does not belie its contingency upon God’s command. The soul as a breath and reflection of the Divine essence is not contingent upon man as a being creating the soul. The soul, however, is contingent upon God’s command to create and provide the possibility of the soul to be reflected upon and experienced as the "soul." The soul becomes the "soul," in Ibn Arabi’s sense, when man realizes it and God. Ibn Arabi explains the Creator-created relationship as one of authority and potential, the former of course being God and the latter man. Ibn Arabi quotes Sura al-Taha from the Qur’an: "God, most gracious, is firmly established on the Throne (of authority.)" He then provides an account of this verse in its application of the Creator-created relationship.
There is a hidden meaning to this verse, to be told to the ones who follow this path so that they taste the sweet taste of the inner meaning which Sufism seeks. The word "Throne" is balanced by the word "grace," and there is a level of perfect balance of God’s attribute and the place of the source of power. The Throne is the place where the soul of man resides. The only way in which God’s magnificence can be realized is by ascending to that place. The Throne is the vicinity of the Names "God" and "The All-Gracious." 5
The "Throne" as so eloquently used by the Qur’an, and cited by Ibn Arabi is the essence of the Absolute in its relation to the created as the Creator. The existence of God is "firmly established" upon the "Throne" of his authority which are His attributes and the attributes are His essence. It is the attributes of the Creator, furthermore the eternity of those attributes, which signify His authority as the Creator and authority over the created order. Ibn Arabi’s psychology is constantly echoed by his ontology, in which the two are so intertwined (which is typical in Islam) it is impossible to discuss one without the other. The soul’s essence is vested in the "Throne" of authority, which are the attributes and essence of God. Ibn Arabi declares the individual must ascend to the Throne in order to realize the magnificence of God. It would seem that in the context of the discussion, Ibn Arabi is seeking the intellect to ascend to the place of the Throne, via the soul. By way of reflection, the intellect attaches itself to the soul in conception of reality and the human being begins to see and live in the world as it really is rather than in a state of egotistical seclusion. If the intellect occupies itself with considering features of the material or physical identity as sources of knowledge then it becomes attached to a singular temporal phenomenon, rather than the eternal unity of the realm of the soul. It is clear that Ibn Arabi considers the soul as the righteous teacher of the individual based on God’s authority and the soul’s relation to God. God is independent of the material world; His essence is independent of the accidents of existence, as is the soul.6 In its eternal nature it is perfect and unblemished by the pursuits, as has been discussed, of the contingent phenomenon of the material world. Its essence, therefore, is of more value upon reflection by the individual for it is free in the ultimate sense, while the features of the material world are of relatively less value due to their temporality. Quite simply, the soul is the governing component of man for it is the ‘deputy of God’ in essence. Meaning its existence is always in harmony with eternal Reality and as such it brings the individual peace in the created order; for the individual then transcends the temporality of that order.
The Structure of Man’s Psychology
Ibn Arabi provides a comprehensive explanation of the interaction of the various components of human cognition. He designates the cognitive process and the individual in general, as a "city." As the heading of Chapter Three of the Divine Governance, indicates: "The Structure of the City of Man Whose King is the Soul, the Deputy of God."; the Sheik's explanation continues the general sentiment that the soul is the governing component of the individual. In this chapter he expounds upon concepts such as the "Mind," as to what he means by this term, how it is related to the other components involved, and the purpose of those components. He also provides an explanation of how intellect (reasoning) and the ego, along with the soul, facilitate the manifestation of the "self" as a recognizable identity (and one often in conflict with itself).
The Lord built the city [man] on a foundation of four walls made of earth, water, air and fire. Some say that the place of the Lord’s deputy is not the heart but the mind. I insist that it is the heart, although no one has evidence or proof. But for establishing stability and for heedfulness and remembrance, the heart is surely the center. 7
It is important to note, that by the heart Ibn Arabi is not referring to the anatomical heart (Ibn Arabi uses the term "vegetal"), rather, he is referring to it as a residence; harboring intuition beyond the intellect and rationale. For Ibn Arabi it is irrelevant how this relationship takes place, between the soul and heart, it is only relevant that the source of knowledge is rooted in intention and intuition rather than pure reasoning.8 The Sheik then draws parallels between the rule of a society by a just or unjust ruler and the rule of the individual by a just or unjust soul. Just as a society ruled by a corrupt leader will itself become corrupt, an individual ruled by a corrupt soul will in turn become corrupt. If the soul "betrays the trust" laid upon it, it dislodges itself from its eternal source. The temporal features of man, therefore, run wild having no connection to the eternal Reality. Ibn Arabi, however, does not dismiss the importance of the Mind, in fact he declares the Mind crucial in aligning the individual with the soul.
One sees so many things in oneself, without knowing why they are, whether they were there in the beginning or happened afterwards or will be the same tomorrow-for one does not know the procedures of the secret government within, or how to protect that little piece of meat, the heart, whose disorder can destroy us all. The Lord created a tower on the higher levels of the city of man. He built it with refined materials and set it to overlook the whole city, and called it Mind. He opened four large windows on top of it, for the enjoyment of the four corners of the city, and called them Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Nose. 9
He identifies the Mind with the senses, and in general as the apparatus that conceives of the created order. Ibn Arabi, then places at the center of the Mind the intellect, allowing the senses and conception of the Mind to refer to the intellect (or reasoning) to understand the world. Between the senses and intellect a relationship of interaction takes place, the senses gather information of the created order and the intellect investigates and tries to understand it; in turn, providing the senses with an ability to function in the world.
Finally we arrive at the notion of personality, which Ibn Arabi interestingly refers to as the "daughter of the deputy of God"; he identifies this personality as self-hood. He qualifies this characterization of the self by quoting Sheik Al-Ghazali who said on the subject: "The human being is that child whose father is the soul and whose mother is the self." So it seems that Al-Ghazali attributes an equal status to the Soul and self as facilitating the individual with an identity, while Ibn Arabi places the soul on a higher level and in fact declares it the progenitor of the self. It is unclear whether Ibn Arabi, means the personality and the self are one and the same, or that the personality is a component of the self. This distinction is of the utmost importance for Ibn Arabi attributes determinism to the self and freedom to the soul. Is the self the embodiment of the contingent features of man such as the senses, intellect (both harbored by the mind), and the personality, thereby assigning it to the physical world and cause and effect? It is not clear, no such reference is made to physical cause and effect, but it is quite clear that all predestination is the will of God. Ibn Arabi’s justification of the freedom of the soul is left unsaid, but if similar to Al-Ghazali’s, it is due to its transcendence of the material order and physical cause and effect (rather the soul is of the Divine realm).
It is the two main components of the identity, namely self and soul, which are the causes of conflict for the individual. When Ibn Arabi uses the term ‘self’ he does not use it in the general sense as comprising of all the features resting under the umbrella of an individual’s identity. Rather, he designates the self as more consistent with the ego, meaning a peculiar and unique feature of the identity, which is contingent to the temporal existence of an individual. It is the momentary manifestation of a concept of individuality based on one’s circumstances; such as physical appearance, occupation, wealth, position in society, privilege of birth, etc. The ego seeks to preserve that identity and therefore, the self is a contingent entity which is inclined to fulfill momentary satisfactions which always detract from the ultimate good, the individual’s relationship with the eternal God. The self is then inclined to do evil, which is any act of forgetting God, and its own connection to God. The soul is not such a feature, in that it is not peculiar and unique in the sense of being contingent upon the identities of individuals’, rather, the soul is consistent with the essence of the ultimate unchanging reality. The soul of course, as has been discussed, is only inclined to fulfill itself as an eternal entity, an extension of the Absolute. Ibn Arabi, however, does not dismiss the self. As typical for a Muslim, he embraces contingent reality as prepared and designed by the Perfect God. He quotes the Qur’an as stating quite simply: "All things are from God". (Nisa’, 78) 11 There is a purpose and a function of the self contributing to the order of creation, rather than detracting from it in the ultimate sense.
Selfhood is a place of order and enlightenment, but it is also inclined toward the Evil Commanding Self. If it is tempted, then it loses its purity. All things are from God-it is He who made the Commanding Self desirous of evil, and it is he who made human selfhood bent from time to time to evil as well as good. When the self is rationale and heedful, it is pure and in order. Then it is called the Self-Assured Self. That is the lawful state. Although God has created his deputy with the most perfect attributes, He saw that, on his own, he was nonetheless weak, powerless, and in need. God wanted his deputy to realize that he would only find strength in the help and support of his Lord. He created a strong opposition for him to provoke this realization. That is the secret of the two possibilities of human selfhood. 13
Here perhaps Ibn Arabi captures the distinction between the "personality" and the "self" as was discussed previously. "Selfhood" is central to the identity of the individual; it is the "place" where the direction of the individual is pushed forth. If selfhood recognizes and allows the soul to be the governing component it will be elevated into a higher status of knowledge and reality; but if selfhood as a reality attaches itself to the personality it becomes only a momentary manifestation of the concept of individuality. Selfhood in this context is not individuality, rather it is the potentiality of the realization of the Creator-created relationship, where the human becomes a created individual and the Universe is transfixed as the disclosure of the Absolute. A psychological process must occur in order to facilitate this realization. The self, possessing its intellectual capabilities is aware of its situation, the conflict of its various components and its own mortality. The self is the intellectual force which "provokes" rationale reflection and refuge into the soul. It realizes the soul is the eternal essence of the individual, and is then the only unchanging reality of the true self. It is not subject to the temporal constraints of the other features of the self.
It is only pain and trouble that make one realize the value of peace and safety. 14
Through the confusion and eventual dissatisfaction caused by pursuit of the material world, man seeks to quench the thirst of attempting to pin down an identity. He does so by eliminating that which he has attached to his identity by coincidence, his wealth, name, fame, etc. When the individual has stripped away the accidental features of his identity the soul is what remains and if the famous occasion could ever be expressed as occurring at a specific time it would be this one. This is the moment of realization and union with the Absolute, a flash of true knowledge. It is this moment that Ibn Arabi spent his life disclosing, yet, for many (perhaps even for Ibn Arabi himself) one is uncomfortable in attempting to express and locate this moment.15 And that is certainly not the purpose of the Divine Governance, which attempts to provide guidance and a rationale discourse to encourage one to have faith in that moment. This faith brings about the unity of the bond between soul and God.16
The Causes of Conflict between Intellect and Ego
Ibn Arabi begins Chapter Four of the Divine Governance, addressing the issue, and consequently, spiritual awakening caused by the conflict of intellect and self. This conflict captures the alarm of all the components of human cognition, facilitating an intense self-analysis, to relieve the suffering it creates. This personal reflection serves as the catalyst to spiritual reformation and submission to the Divine law, which is revealed as a refuge for peace of mind and a personal destiny, amidst the confusion and anguish caused by spiritual (and intellectual) bankruptcy.
O’ reader, may God lead you to recognize that falsehood becomes evident only when the mind and the ego start fighting, for when they attack each other the whole human realm is caught in the crossfire. So every member is rudely awakened and becomes aware of the conflict-that one or the other is striving to get hold, by force, of the whole of the human kingdom.17
Conflict between various aspects of human thought and will causes frustration on the part of the individual. The individual is subject to the desire and concerns of pursuing certain actions rather than others. For Ibn Arabi, these concerns are natural and fundamental to the human experience. It is the result of struggling with human mortality, personal and physical desires (rooting us into a physical existence), and an attempt to cultivate immortality, or at least a compatibility with eternity. The "ego" is the contingent identity, self-designated according to the physical body and personality. The personality is itself rooted in a contingent existence, relative to time and place with a certain value placed on the individuality of that identity.
The soul, on the other hand, enjoys an eternal and perfect state. It is an extension of God, and as such it is a component of the individual’s identity, but the individual is not a part of the identity (if we may use the term) of the soul. The soul’s assignment to the individual, as a contingent reality, is a temporary assignment. Ibn Arabi describes the soul as the "meaning of the body." 18 The soul corresponds with the "truth" of our existence; it is the life of our bodies just as our breath is the life of the balloon. The physical existence corresponds with the "facts" about our existence, the features of existence that we may measure and calculate according to our physical understanding of existence. The "facts" of existence are entirely relative to man’s definitions of such and such, and man’s acceptable standards for knowledge. The "truth", however, is above and beyond any definitions or boundaries that man manufactures. The soul is the "meaning of the body," providing the body with its purpose, an experience of the Truth and the body provides the soul a contingent individuality.
This state of conflict, between satisfying momentary desires and aligning oneself with the eternal order sharpens the awareness of the intellect in assessing what is of value in human existence. It thereby suggests which path to take and what force to follow in relieving the conflict. Ibn Arabi is confident that upon reflection the intelligent individual realizes that multiple authorities will lead to disruption and emotional chaos. For the reasons discussed earlier, the intelligent individual elects the soul as the governing deputy. The Divine Law corresponds with the nature of the soul and vice-a-versa, for they are both eternal in essence.
The reason for the revelation of the Divine Law is to eliminate disorder and to establish harmony¼ it is known that the Lord wanted to delegate the government of the human kingdom to one single entity. The example of it has been given in the person of our Master [Nebi Muhammad], may God’s peace and blessing be upon him, who also declared: "If, in a single nation, men swear allegiance to two rulers, eliminate one of them." 19
In the tension between the intellect (as a witness to the supremacy of the soul) and the ego (as the "evil-commanding" self), doubt, suspicion, and misunderstanding cause the individual to be unable to distinguish the right path from the wrong path. Ibn Arabi compares the crisis of leadership as a spiritual condition; to the crisis of leadership as a social one. Once again, drawing parallels between the individual and society, just as between man and universe. And what follows is the unfolding of Ibn Arabi’s theory of leadership spiritually in strongly analogous references to civil leadership.
Everything depends upon the conditions in which you find yourself. They are like the conditions which decide who is going to lead the congregational prayer: Whoever best fills these conditions becomes the imam. Thus one of the two contenders who have claims to rule must adapt successfully to the existing conditions. The one who is unable to do so must be eliminated by the order of God. 20
In order for the individual to live in a healthy spiritual state, which strongly corresponds with one’s mental state they must eliminate the ego as a persuasive factor in the direction of one’s life. Ibn Arabi will continue the Divine Governance elaborating upon the shape that the soul’s leadership over the individual will take. He provides a comprehensive metaphor of social leadership, the spiritual and political functions of the imam, and the prophecy of Nebi Muhammad (pbuh) as an accurate account and measure of the leadership of the soul. He defines what is a good and just leader or imam and complements that definition by drawing examples from the life of Nebi Muhammad.
For Ibn Arabi, civil leadership, the place of the imam, and the mission of Nebi Muhammad comprise just positions in the social order. When a society enjoys just leadership or a community a wise imam, they enjoy a communal disposition to goodness and justice. Of course, these communal attributes are culminated in the prophecy and life of Nebi Muhammad and are consistent features of the society he cultivated and the religious culture that followed. Ibn Arabi articulates that a prudent community would hope for the leadership of a just leader or imam who followed the example of Nebi Muhammad. The most interesting feature of this analogy is a theory of the prophecy of Nebi Muhammad is revealed reflecting the relationship of the soul with knowledge.
The context by which the prophet-hood and life of Nebi Muhammad (pbuh), is looked upon by Ibn Arabi is not one of chronological finality of revelatory scripture, a conclusion to the sequence of prophets beginning with Adam, and ending with Jesus, preceding Nebi Muhammad. Rather, the prophet-hood and life of Nebi Muhammad is seen as encompassing and professing the totality of divine truth as embodied by the particular figures of human history, which have been deemed as Prophets. Since the mission of Nebi Muhammad transcends the chronology of divinely revealed truth, his message and example have become a complete and accessible feature of human existence and ethics to be acted upon. It is no longer the case where man must await an intervention (in the way of prophetic missions), of sorts, to be configured into the future and destiny of society. The message of the eternal order now resides as a permanent and permeating staple of the social order. As such, the totality of social and spiritual ethics (Islam) is available to leaders and the common man as a guideline and measuring principle of a self-correcting society. Therefore, the leadership of a society must reflect this new status, of being self-correcting, by electing or selecting leaders, which fit the model set for leadership by the social ethic(s) (of Islam).21 Nebi Muhammad’s social and spiritual liberation of his particular people in his particular time is not limited to his particular people in his particular time. It is an expression and affirmation of the Eternal truth, and is, therefore, a message not only for a particular people, but indeed all of mankind, and even the whole created order. Ibn Arabi, draws a parallel between the Prophet’s, relationship with the created order and the soul’s relationship to man. Just as Nebi Muhammad, reflects the truth for the whole created order, the soul reflects the truth for the whole individual and the individual‘s position in the Universe.22 It is not the case that the soul fulfills some sort of component of the individual. The soul is central to the individual and is the "meaning of the body" just as the eternal order is the "meaning" of the created order, giving the whole universe a condition of spirituality.
When we examine the soul in this context we find it to be a perpetual source of the Divine order. The citing of Nebi Muhammad as a reflection of the Divine order also facilitates the grander scheme of coordinating the soul with selfhood as a conscious and fully recognizable affair. In order for the insight of the soul to be differentiated from the ego and acted upon as valid transmission of knowledge, the soul is complemented by religion.
II. Insight: Taught and Preserved by Religion.
Religion the Voice of the Soul
Ibn Arabi begins Chapter Five by declaring that one of the "four pillars of Islam" is the station of the imam as a religious figure and civil leader.23 He characterizes the imam’s position as unique in the community and in relationship to God. He re-emphasizes the point that the station the imam enjoys is one of absolute authority (in the context of Islam) and that it must be so in order for there to be efficiency in rule. If leadership arises in opposition to the legitimate leadership involved, such leadership should be suspect and rejected. Of course such opposition contributes to war, chaos, and the overthrow of order. Al-Ghazali took an explicitly political viewpoint on this matter along the same lines. He rejected rebellion and optioned for patience under persecution to avoid putting the state into civil war.24
For Ibn Arabi, in regards to the individual, the soul must be in absolute command. The method by which that authority is preserved is by religion.
If the kingdom of your being is to be ruled well, then protect your religion; be sure to be in its service. Don’t oppose it. If you do, you will be opposed. Keep in sight the divine commands, whether you know them all or not. His commands are the gift of your Lord to humankind. 25
The process of protecting your religion involves protecting the dignity of the self as a created being, possessing reasonable ways of conducting your behavior. Ibn Arabi instructs man to hold his temper, respect the old and love the young, and appreciate the generous.26
No age is better than another: to be old, famous, or honored are not spiritual levels in themselves. Every age and station has its value, and the young, the humble, may be more worthy of respect. What is important are deeds. To appreciate the good deeds of others may lead one to do the same.27
In the conduct of behavior one must consider the end of an action, if it is good, then act upon it, if not then refrain. That is the basis of dignified behavior, to recognize there are good and bad, and that is the mandate of religion to illuminate the right and prohibit the wrong. So by the study of religion one may realize one’s own dignity in the place of the universe. When one realizes this dignity, which is found only in the soul, one refrains from the company of those who follow the ego rather than the soul. This is the basis of truly Islamic leadership to be a model of mankind and to inspire in others to search themselves for the abilities they possess to act in the same dignified manner. When opposition to such leadership exists it is caused by the imprudent pursuit of satisfactions that are unsanctioned components of society or the individual.
The individual must "attach" him or herself to the eternal by disregarding the appetites of the flesh as ends-in-themselves. The potential of selfhood is driven by the ability of the individual to will the course of his or her life in accordance with the soul or the flesh. Since selfhood is the summation of the components by which the individual identifies the self, it is not disregarded by the soul, rather, it is fulfilled as a real everlasting entity. Ibn Arabi leaves the power of the Will as a component in itself unjustified, whether it is an attribute of the soul, mind, or ego is unclear. But to coerce the flesh to embrace the soul is to secure it an eternal abode, to do otherwise is to rot the soul and decline it as a source of the identity of the self (which of course is to extinguish the "light" of the self). Ibn Arabi explains this state of affairs as being a "servant" of the world.28 As a responsible enlightened individual, aware of this state of affairs, one has the responsibility to evoke others by example to tread the same path. One-self need not articulate the path, it has been provided by religion, however, the success and prudence of this path can only be manifested by living examples.
But you who are master of them all, you have to care for those left in your trust. You must love and yearn for the things among them that you wish to have. You must consider, as you consider yourself, the ones under you. You must know their ranks and their states and their needs, in accordance with which you must bestow upon them what they need. But you must also prevent them from the sin of passing their boundaries.
You must teach them to obey the One who created them as well as their sustenance, and to abide within the limits which are traced by them. You must instill in them both the love and the fear of their Lord. You must teach them to teach those who come after them.29
Of course, in order for this responsibility to be fulfilled one must be aware of his or her own human condition. Ibn Arabi describes the "faithless one" [the one which deviates from the created order] as the ego. And interestingly Ibn Arabi draws a compelling parallel of the tyranny of leadership with the tyranny of the ego. He describes the tyranny of political leadership to be only a temporary obstacle that can result in reward if one perseveres under its suffering. However, the tyranny of the ego is absolute and does harm to the entire realm of the human being. Causing not only momentary despair, in fact it may cause momentary satisfaction, but an eternal defeat by extinguishing the essence of the human being.30 Ibn Arabi then determines that the one who has defeated the ignorance of the ego and dissolved the ego into the knowledge of the soul, the soul leads the individual to love, freedom, and ultimate selfhood.
The Divine Governance goes on to cover a variety of mystical issues; including Gnostic practices, the hidden angelic realm, and character assessments based on physical appearance. The former focusing on whirling dervishes and the material world’s influence on the ego; while the latter is an odd (by contemporary standards) exposition and analysis of the physical attributes of an individual and the character traits they reflect. Such an analysis has no real Islamic basis but does resemble certain Kabbalist trends approximating the same time period. Our issue, however, of central importance to the purpose of the Divine Governance is the relation of the soul to the body and how this facilitates a cognitive awareness of the soul as a source of knowledge. Furthermore, how and why does the soul have knowledge of reality?
The Soul and the "Inner Eye"
Firstly, the insight, described by Ibn Arabi as being taught by religion, once again refers to his epistemology. For Ibn Arabi, all true knowledge is derived from the soul and the intellect serves as a "scribe" to facilitate the reiteration of such knowledge. Such knowledge is taught by religion and confirmed by the Soul possessing the capability of understanding it and the world.
May God open the eye of your heart, shedding His divine light: The angelic realm which contains the future potential of creation, incorporeal existences, the meaning of all and everything to come, and divine power, is the element from which the material world is created and, therefore, the material world is under the influence and domination of the angelic realm. The movement, the sound, the voice, the ability to speak, to eat and to drink is not from the existences themselves in this visible, material world. They will pass through the invisible world of the angelic realm.31
Ibn Arabi describes conceptual reality as the "veils" of the truth, something similar to Kant’s noumenal realm some five centuries later, where there is an ultimate reality residing behind the temporal reality of the created world. The senses, however, may only conceive of the veil of reality; the ultimate reality is not accessible to the senses. The force of nature, that which drives nature, cannot be deduced by reasoning, comparisons, contrasts, or associations.32 Such things find knowledge in the veil of reality. The soul, however, is the mirror of truth, for it is of the ultimate reality itself. This is the crux of Ibn Arabi’s epistemology; the soul reflects truth when it is reflected upon by the intellect. It becomes the "inner eye" of the human being, transcending temporal phenomena and disclosing the meaning and force of nature. The veils to this disclosure involve man’s mistaking temporal phenomena as truth-in-itself, or reality-in-itself. This ignorance is exacerbated by mistaking certain aspects of the identity as the self-in-itself, such as the ego or body.
Such determined calculations of behavior to arrive at such a spiritual state is uncommon amongst most men, therefore, religion serves the purpose of revealing the ultimate reality as real and identify the material world as reflecting, but not containing total knowledge. Ibn Arabi then announces the missions of the prophets. When knowledge of the ultimate reality is penetrated or delivered to certain unique individuals, such as the prophets, the force of the ultimate reality is revealed. It is not necessary for the prophets to divulge the ultimate nature of reality; rather it is for them to guide man to call upon the Ultimate reality rather than the temporal reality of the material world. Ibn Arabi considers it a mercy that the knowledge of the infinite is beyond the capability of the finite minds of human beings.33 However, when man recognizes that there lies beyond his or her senses the "truth," he or she will begin to become more aware of the material world as it really is. They then become more aware of themselves, as they really are, and the soul is discovered as the element and force of their own experience and reality. For Ibn Arabi, religion is the light by which man sees the truth reflected by the soul, the "mirror" of reality. The Holy Qur’an is a component of reality in the same manner the soul is for man; it reflects divine truth and acts as the deputy of God. In the Qur’an’s words and voice reality is revealed, just as in the intuition of the soul, reality does the same.
Regarding the soul’s relationship to the body, Ibn Arabi maintains the soul is the "meaning" of the body and central to the individual in the context of the general micro/macrocosm relationship. In Chapter Two of the text he covers some of the common theories of the soul held by Islamic scholars.34 Ibn Arabi, though, does not take a position on how the soul and body function together; he is only willing to claim that the soul does not occupy a "place" and announces the legitimacy of the Soul-Body relationship. In concluding this Chapter Ibn Arabi celebrates the wondrous relationship of Soul and God, and wishes us all the same.
When the Lord created the human soul as his deputy, He made it His mirror within which He saw all that he had created, and all His own Names and attributes. Humanity is the proof of God’s existence and a guide to lead the creation to Him. He sent man into the universe as His deputy in order to make the created know the Creator. He gave him his trust and the light to enlighten others. He gave him all that and more, not to support tyranny but so mankind might rule in justice, and made him responsible for all that might happen in the whole of creation. If we accept this, all that we have said is in concordance with the religious canons and scriptures. All existence is His, and so is all that happens, for He is the Creator. May God make you successful in your search. He is the one who guides one to truth, for He is the truth.35
Notes
1- Ibn Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, Trans. by Sheik Tosun al-Halveti, Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, U.S.A., 1997, p. 23 2- Ibid, p. 24 3- For a broad and deep analysis of Ibn Arabi’s micro/macrocosm ontology, see William Chittick’s The Sufi Path of Knowledge, SUNY, NY, NY, 1989 4- McGreal, Ian (Editor), Great Thinkers of the Eastern World, Michael A. Sells essay on "Ibn ‘Arabi", Harper Collins, NY, NY, 1995 5- Ibn Arabi, Divine Governance, p. 27 6- Chittick, William, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, State University of New York Press, 1989 7- Ibn Arabi, Divine Governance, p. 41 8- Ibid, p. 41-42 9- Ibid, p. 43 10- Ibid, p. 44 11- Ibid 12- Ibid, p. 45 13- (See William Chittick’s The Sufi Path of Knowledge) 14- Ibid, p. 46 15- When addressing that awesome moment in human development, Ibn Arabi consistently couches it in symbolic terms and poetic insights, rather than in literal (usually deductive) language. Since such language is usually the only common standard of philosophical discourse in the West, a large gap exists between the East and West in their approach to notions of revelation and intuitive knowledge. 16- Ibid, p. 46-47 17- Ibid, p. 51 18- Ibid, p. 38. 19- Ibid, p. 51 20- Ibid, p. 52 21- Ibid, p.55 22- Ibid, p.56 23- Ibid, p. 61 24- Black, Anthony, History of Islamic Political Thought, Routledge, NY, NY, 2001 25- Ibn Arabi, Divine Governance, p. 63 26- Ibid, p. 63 27- Ibid, p. 63 28- Ibid, p. 67 29- Ibid, p. 71 30- Ibid, p. 75 31- Ibid, p. 104 32- Ibid, p. 105 33- Ibid, p. 109 34- Ibid, p.37-40 35- Ibid, p. 40Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī on Love
Salamn Bashier, University of Utah, USA
Abstract
This article draws a comparison between Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī’s views on love. The comparison is based on Plato’s
Symposium and chapter 178 of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Futūāt. It seeks to provide answers to two main questions: 1) What is love? 2) What is love’s purpose? The discussion will be divided into 4 sections as sections 1 and 2 provide an answer to the first question and section 3 provides an answer to the second question. In section 4, the author brings Donald Levy’s account of Vlastos’ criticism of Plato’s theory of love and Levy’s answer to the criticism. He also attempts to develop Levy’s answer to the criticism by referring to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s theory of Creative Imagination.
This article draws a comparison between Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī’s views on love. The comparison is based on Plato’s Symposium and chapter 178 of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s
Futūāt.1 Like other comparisons that I have drawn between the two thinkers, 2 this comparison is conducted on the basis of the assumption that Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī’s treatment of certain important philosophical themes may be seen as clarifying and, in a sense, complementing each other. I must make it explicit, however, that my assumption is not based on any considerations to the effect that a direct ideological connectedness could be established between the two thinkers.3
According to Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns the Symposium gives the most vivid and arresting portrait of Socrates and contains an excellent expression of Plato’s belief that things not seen are eternally important.4 The Symposium consists of a series of speeches given by participants, who were considered by Socrates as authorities on love, rather than a continued argument carried out by Socrates and followed by one or more interlocutors, as it is the case with most of the Platonic dialogues.5 Unlike other dialogues in which Socrates seems to be speaking with the voice of the skeptic and proclaiming that the only thing that he knows is that he does not know anything, 6 in the Symposium he seems to be explicitly assertive of being knowledgeable about a certain matter, namely, love 7 assuring his interlocutor that what he says is "the truth that you find unanswerable."8 However, this relaxation of the skeptical, or, what is seen by many as, the Socratic ironic tone in the Symposium becomes even more ironic when Socrates’ special manner of characterizing the subject matter that he confesses knowledge about is carefully examined. For, the main definition that Socrates provides for love in the Symposium is that it cannot be subject for rational definition.9
One might detect in the Symposium a certain gap between Socrates’ philosophical investigations, which seek to establish the transcendent character of things not seen, and his personal conduct, which seems to be as sensual as the title of the dialogue under discussion might indicate. Socrates expresses in the Symposium the view that things that are not seen, like the Form of beauty, are nobler than bodily things and that the student of philosophy must abandon the latter for the sake of the former. Yet, in this dialogue he is expressing this view in a drinking party, which he opens by sitting next to Agathon, "the handsomest man in the room," and ends up by sitting besides Alcibiades, with whom he "fell in love".10 Thus, one might be tempted either to think, with Alcibiades, that Socrates was practicing that "ironical simplicity of his."11 Or, one might seek to explain the gap away by referring to some conceptual failure in our part to connect with certain social or personal conducts that were considered rather ordinary in the Greek world. It turns out, however, that even when Socrates was pressed to take part in sensual activities, his participation never seemed to affect his (balanced) rational behavior.12 From dialogues like Symposium we learn that Socrates engaged himself in such occasions as drinking parties, in which he associated with his beloveds and admirers, because he found in these the context of the philosophical conversation that allowed him to carry out his philosophical inquiries.13 Although Socrates’ frequent mention of his inclination to beautiful youths like Agathon and Alcibiades makes it hard to altogether deny any kind of homosexual tendency in his part,14 this mention of homosexual inclination must be understood as indicating a philosophically rooted inclination, an inclination that is rooted in the love for the beautiful wisdom that dwells in beautiful bodies. It is something much like the inclination of Sūfis (Muslim mystics) for contemplating the beauty of a beardless boy (fatā amrad).15 As we are going to see, Ibn al-‘Arabī mentions the love for boys in chapter 178 of the Futūāt,16 in addition to other explicit sensual allusions that he provides in this chapter.17 However, his mention of these things should be considered from his unique perspective of the unity of the natural and the spiritual aspects of reality. Stripped from the context of this perspective, Ibn al-‘Arabī’s sensual allusions become, as they sometimes have, the subject of unjustifiable misunderstanding.18
William Chittick states that, unlike many Sūfis, who emphasize love more than knowledge, Ibn al-‘Arabī considers knowledge a superior means of arriving at God.19 Although correct, this view must be qualified to account for Ibn al-‘Arabī’s unique depiction of the close interconnection between love and knowledge. This is partly what this article aims to do, namely, to emphasize the mutual relationship between love and knowledge in Ibn al-‘Arabī’s mystical theory. Ibn al-‘Arabī provides his most extensive discussion of the subject of love in chapter 178 of the Futūāt, entitled "On Knowing the Station of Love."20 He opens the chapter with a long recitation (60 lines) of poetry. Here are the first three lines:
Love is related to the human being and to God with a relationship that is not known to our knowledge.21
Love is a tasting; 22 its reality is not known. By God it is a wonder.
The identity (hawiyya) of the necessities (lawāzim) of love clothes me with the garment of opposites [so that I become] like the absent-minded (sāhī) present. 23
Ibn al-‘Arabī follows these lines of poetry with an account of the Qur’ānic verses and the sayings of the Prophet that bear mention to love, emphasizing the Prophet’s saying:
I was a Treasure but was not known, so I loved to be known; I created the creatures and made Myself known to them, so they came to know me. 24
He says that love is the root of existence, since it is out of His love to be known that God creates the creatures. In the following three sections of chapter 178 he provides a discussion of what he considers as the three kinds of love: natural, spiritual and divine. In the rest of the chapter he provides an account of the attributes and the descriptions of the lovers.25
The following comparison between Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī seeks to provide answers to two main questions: 1) What is love? 2) What is love’s purpose? The discussion will be divided into 4 sections as sections 1 and 2 provide an answer to the first question and section 3 provides an answer to the second question. In section 4, I bring Donald Levy’s account of Vlastos’ criticism of Plato’s theory of love and Levy’s answer to the criticism. I also attempt to develop Levy’s answer to the criticism by referring to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s theory of Creative Imagination. I will conduct my discussion on the basis of an epistemological model of the mystical experience borrowed from Plato’s Seventh Letter. I will first cite Plato’s words and then elaborate:
The study of virtue and vice must be accompanied by an inquiry into what is false and true of existence in general and must be carried on by constant practice throughout a long period, as I said in the beginning. Hardly after practicing detailed comparisons of names and definitions and visual and other sense perceptions, after scrutinizing them in benevolent disputation by the use of question and answer without jealousy, at last in a flash understanding of each blazes up, and the mind, as it exerts all its powers to the limit of human capacity, is flooded with light. 26
Plato makes a distinction between two processes of acquiring knowledge, as one process is carried out by means of rational conceptualization, while the other process extends beyond rationalization. I consider this account of the two processes of acquiring knowledge as Plato’s comprehensive depiction of the epistemological aspect of the mystical experience. Epistemologically, the mystical experience consists of an activity that 1) exhausts all conceptual means and arrives at the limits of rationality, 2) transcends these limits and enjoys a presence in a realm beyond conceptual rationalization. This epistemological model of mystical transcendence invites a definition of the rationalism that is to be transcended. In the following I arrange a definition of rationalism that consists of three parts:
As we can see, the three parts of the definition of rationalism continue one another, since existence implies limitation and limitation implies the possibility of representation. In the following three sections of the discussion, which I arrange in correspondence to the three parts of the proposed definition, I attempt to show that Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī’s treatment of the subject of love fits into the epistemological model of the mystical transcendence presented above.
1. Love’s Object is a Nonexistent Thing
1a. Plato
In the Symposium, Socrates brings his interlocutor, Agathon, to the conclusion that Love’s desire is related not to what Love is in love with, but rather to the permanence of what Love has, that is, to something that Love attempts to secure forever:
And so, if we heard someone saying, ‘I’m healthy, and I want to be healthy; I’m rich, and I want to be rich; and in fact I want just what I’ve got,’ I think he should be justified in saying, ‘But, my dear sir, you’ve got wealth and health and strength already, and what you want is to go on having them, for at the moment you’ve got them whether you want them or not. Doesn’t it look as if, when you say you want these things here and now, you really mean, what you have got now, and you want to go on keeping?’ Don’t you think, my dear Agathon, that he’d be bound to agree?
Why, of course, he would, said Agathon.
Well, then, continued Socrates, desiring to secure something to oneself forever may be described as loving something which is not yet to hand.
Certainly. 29
Loving something that is not yet to hand is loving something that has not existed yet. From here we can draw the conclusion that loving is always for that which is bound never to exist, because once it has existed it is no longer that which is not yet to hand. Socrates draws the further conclusion that Love lacks in what is beautiful and what is good. For it is agreed that Love’s will is related to what is beautiful. It is also agreed that the good is beautiful. But it has been shown that Love’s will is related to a thing that Love lacks. Therefore, Love must be lacking both in what is beautiful and in what is good. This conclusion seems to be in contrast to all the speeches that preceded Socrates’, which emphasized Love’s noble traits like beauty and goodness, and to the very purpose for which sake the symposium was arranged, namely, to praise Love.
1.b Ibn al-‘Arabī
In a striking similarity to Plato, Ibn al-‘Arabī states that Love is a will that is related to something and that that something is a nonexistent thing. Like Plato, he argues that it would not make sense to say that Love can be related to something that exists with the lover:
Our saying that the will seeks the existence of the beloved [from the one side] and [from the other side] that the beloved is in reality a nonexistent thing means the following. The beloved for the lover is a will that necessitates union [connection] with a specific person, whosoever that person might be. The person might be one who is interested in embracing and so the lover loves to embrace him, or, engaging in sexual intercourse and so the lover engages in sexual intercourse with him, or, one who likes to converse and so the lover engages in conversation with him. The love of the lover depends in all these occasions on a nonexistent thing at the time of being with the person, even though the lover thinks that the object of his love depends on the person himself. In fact, the nonexistent thing is what makes the lover want to meet the beloved and see him… Given that the beloved exists with him in his person, it would not make sense to say that the love of the lover bears reference to something [that exists with the lover]. 30
Ibn al-‘Arabī brings the following objection to his statement - that Love’s object is a nonexistent thing - and states his own answer to the objection, which emphasizes that Love’s object is the permanence of what the lover has achieved and that this permanence can never enter into existence entirely:
You may object and say: We loved sitting with a person, or kissing, or embracing, or intimacy, or conversation. Then we saw that it was achieved, but love did not disappear, even though there was embracing and mutual arrival. Hence, the object of love does not have to be nonexistent. We would reply: you are mistaken. When you embrace the person, and when the object of your love had been embracing, or sitting together, or intimacy, you have not achieved the object of your love through this situation. For the object is now the continuance and permanence of what you have achieved. This continuance is nonexistent. It has not entered into being (
wujūd in Chittick), and its period has no end. Hence, in the state of arrival, love attaches itself only to a nonexistent thing, and that is its permanence.31
Love seeks a state in which the permanence of loving is achieved. But the permanence of loving is by definition infinite. Since existence is identified with finitude, the infinity of the state of Love implies its nonexistence. It is the same to say that the object of Love is infinite and that it is nonexistent. This is so provided that we properly conceive the nature of the nonexistence in question. It is not the nonexistence that is the simple negation of existence but rather the nonexistence that transcends the limited existence, which is only the limited manifestation of Love’s object.
2. Love is not Subject to Rational Definition
2a. Plato
Socrates argues that Love lacks in what is beautiful and what is good. His reasoning seems to be convincing and Agathon finds himself forced to agree. But had Socrates been able to convince himself? From what follows it becomes clear that that was not the case. Socrates now tells Agathon about lessons that he was taught by Diotima, a woman who, according to him, possessed divine powers and who taught him the philosophy of Love.32 Socrates does not reveal the rationale that leads him to committing this shift in the conversation. But it is not hard to figure it out. For, the same logic that teaches us that love must be lacking in beauty and goodness also teaches us that it cannot be lacking in beauty and goodness absolutely. For, although it is true that Love cannot long for what it has already achieved, it is also true that Love cannot long for what it lacks absolutely.33 From here, the sort of nonexistence claimed for the object of Love must be qualified and that is what Diotima tries to do by creating a middle term between existence and nonexistence. Diotima says that if a thing is not beautiful it is not bound therefore to be ugly but could be something that comes between the two.34 She is telling Socrates that Love’s reality is liminal. Love is a Limit between the existence of beauty and its nonexistence, the existence of the good and its nonexistence. Socrates now asks about the manner of the coming to being of this liminal entity, and Diotima answers in the form of a myth. The heroes of the myth are the god Resource, the son of Craft, who got drunk of the heavenly nectar on the day of Aphrodite’s birth party in the garden of Zeus, and Need, who came begging at the door. Resource sank into a deep sleep and Need used the opportunity to bring him to the bed of Love. Eros was born; his conduct becoming the embodiment of the curious gathering of the opposites:
Then again, as the son of Resource and Need, it has been his fate to be always needy; nor is he delicate and lovely as most of us believe, but harsh and arid, barefoot and homeless, sleeping on the naked earth, in doorways, or in the very streets beneath the stars of heaven, and always partaking of his mother’s poverty. But, secondly, he brings his father’s resourcefulness to his designs upon the beautiful and the good, for he is gallant, impetuous, and energetic, a mighty hunter, and master of device and artifice—at once desirous and full of wisdom, a lifelong seeker after truth, an adept in sorcery, enchantment, and seduction. He is neither mortal nor immortal, for in the space of a day he will be now, when all goes well with him, alive and blooming, and now dying, to be born again by virtue of his father’s nature, while what he gains will always ebb away as fast. So Love is never altogether in or out of need, and stands, moreover, midway between ignorance and wisdom.35
Plato’s description of Eros as standing midway between opposites might be misleading if Eros’ position is reflected upon in static terms. Eros’ position is characterized by constant shifting or fluctuation. What keeps Eros shifting between opposite states is that the two opposite states are not outside but rather within him. Hence, Eros is not differentiated from and, in a sense, is identical to the two opposite states between which he fluctuates. Consequently, the very identity or definition of Eros turns out to be identical to the constant fluctuation from one state to another. The very definition of Love indicates the impossibility of its rational definition.
2b Ibn al-‘Arabī
Ibn al-‘Arabī views the paradoxicality that is involved in the liminal definition of love through a certain dialectic that holds between the natural and the spiritual aspects of reality. True lovers activate this dialectic by combining natural and spiritual love. Natural love is the love that seeks to fulfill its (selfish) needs whether this pleases the beloved or not. Spiritual love is the love that seeks to please the beloved so that the lover rules according to what is required from him, thus abandoning his selfish interests and his very will to his beloved. Ibn al-‘Arabī says that it is one of the attributes of Love that the lover brings together the opposites.36 But he makes it clear that not every lover is capable of this. The natural lover does not bring together natural and spiritual love, since all he cares about is fulfilling his natural needs. Only true, or, divine lovers bring together the opposites. And they do this by becoming the locus of a paradox. Ibn al-‘Arabī describes this paradox, which I will entitle “the paradox of the lover,” as follows:
The description of the bringing together of the opposites is the following. One of the necessary attributes of Love is that the lover must love to be connected with his beloved. Another necessary attribute of Love is that the lover loves whatever the beloved loves. Now what if the beloved loves disconnection? If the lover loves disconnection he will not be doing what is necessary for Love, that is, connection. If, however, he loves connection then he will not be doing what is necessary for Love, since then he will not love whatever the beloved loves, that is, disconnection. The lover is protested against (ma
jūj) in both situations. 37
The lover is protested against no matter which option he follows. He is described by bewilderment and straying from the way and is contrasted to the possessor of rational determination, whose rational determination holds him together and binds him to one direction rather than another.38 This seems to be a negative characterization, as it is responsible for such descriptions of lovers as being blind and detached from reality. As we are going to see, however, Ibn al-‘Arabī’ turns this negative characterization into a positive one by concentrating on a radically different sort of reality.
3. The Purpose of Love
3a. Plato
Diotima explains to Socrates that gods do not seek wisdom, since the wise does not seek what is already his. Nor do the ignorant seek wisdom. Absolutely lacking in beauty, goodness, and intelligence the ignorant is not stirred by their absence. The seekers after truth, therefore, come between the wise and the ignorant, and one of them is Love. They are halfway between the mortal and the immortal, man and god and, as such, they perform a most important task:
They are the envoys and the interpreters that ply between heaven and earth … and since they are between the two estates they weld both sides together and merge them into one great whole… For the divine will not mingle with the human, and it is only through the mediation of the spirit world that man can have any intercourse, whether waking or sleeping, with the gods. And the man who is versed in such matters is said to have spiritual powers, as opposed to the mechanical powers of the man who is expert in the more mundane arts. There are many spirits, and many kinds of spirits, too, and Love is one of them. 39
Love is one of the spirits that bridge the gap between god and the world. Diotima considers the work of mediation that Love performs to be an ideal that the human being must strive to aspire to. Consequently, the mission of lovers – to- be becomes to imitate the form of the activity of mediation of Love. The purpose of this activity is to arrive at the knowledge of the beauty of wholeness. Diotima elaborates on the procedure that the candidate for the initiation in Love must follow. I will summarize her account of this procedure in the following steps:
When the candidate for the initiation of Love has arrived at the knowledge of beauty his vision of the beautiful will be one of oneness and wholeness:
Nor will his vision of the beautiful take the form of a face, or of hands, or of anything that is of the flesh. It will be neither words, nor knowledge, nor a something that exists in something else, such as a living creature, or the earth, or the heavens, or anything that is—but subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness, while every lovely thing partakes of it in such sort that, however much the parts may wax and wane, it will be neither more nor less, but still the same inviolable whole. (emphasis added) 41
Diotima’s description of the state of the lover at this point seems to be considerably different from her characterization of him as a person who is torn apart between opposite states, constantly fluctuating and changing color. It seems that the lover has transcended the state of instability to a state of stillness and tranquility. He is no longer searching for god; he is dwelling now in his presence. The lover has mounted "the heavenly ladder, stepping from rung to rung…until at last he comes to know what beauty is,"42 and has become a possessor of wisdom rather than a seeker for it. Should we say then that he has transcended the state of Love and that he is no longer a lover? The answer to this question is to be found in the Republic in which there is waiting for the lover or the seeker for wisdom another mission that is not less, if not more, difficult than ascending the ladder to oneness. The lover, who has possessed knowledge of oneness, is forced to descend the same ladder that he ascended in the process of learning how from the One comes the many. As his way up was full of pain and suffering, due to the uncertainty that colored his unstable state, so is his way down is full of confusion and bewilderment, due to the same uncertainty that colors his new state. The difference, however, between the two states is that the uncertainty that characterizes the state of descending is joined with knowledge of truth while the uncertainty that characterizes the state of ascent seems to be devoid of it. The lover is still a lover and is still behaving like one; it is only that he has become a true lover of wisdom.
3b. Ibn al-‘Arabī
In elaborating on the purpose of love, Ibn al-‘Arabī tells the story of the journey of the human soul from a state of ‘animality’ to a state of perfection, from a state of natural selfishness to a state of divine unity. The journey begins when the soul finding herself in charge of a corporeal body. She conducts her affairs in a manner that accords with her natural needs. Totally occupied with the fulfillment of her natural concerns, she forgets about a certain Covenant with her Lord, according to which she belongs entirely to Him and to Him alone. Then, the rational faculty comes to the scene and demonstrates to the soul that she possesses only a contingent nature and that there must exist a Maker who is necessary-of-existence to provide for the possibility or the continuity of her existence. Next, a person appears and claims that he is a messenger sent by Him who made her. Her immediate response is to ask the messenger for a rational proof to the effect that he is telling the truth. He introduces his proof, which persuades the soul of the necessity of believing in her Maker. Her belief, however, is mixed with love for the Maker, desire for fulfilling her natural needs, and fear that her needs may interfere with her obedience for Him. The following description that Ibn al-‘Arabī provides for the soul’s struggle is important because it presents his special account of the human struggle to arrive at perfection in knowledge:
She joined in her worship between two affairs, her worship for Him and her worship that is based on fear and desire. She loved Him for Himself in respect of her spiritual configuration, and she loved Him for her own self in respect of her natural configuration. Her fear and desire pertained to her natural configuration, while her worship for Him, which was based on love, pertained to her spiritual configuration. When she came to love a certain entity, other than Him, she loved that entity out of her spiritual inclination to Him, and also out of her natural desire to meet a certain [selfish] concern. The Real saw her condition and knew the fact that she was divided in herself and in her joining between two kinds of love. The Real has described Himself by jealousy, and disliked to be associated with. He wanted her to be devoted to Him entirely and to love none other than Him. Hence, He revealed Himself to her in a natural form and gave her a mark that she could not deny. This mark bestowed on her necessary knowledge. Thus she came to know that He is identical with the natural form in which He disclosed Himself. This [recognition] made her incline to Him both naturally and spiritually. Then, once He gained full possession of her and knew that due to her natural configuration she could have been affected by her relations with certain affairs (
asbāb) He gave her a sign by which she would recognize Him in all matters. Hence, she knew Him, and loved the affairs for His sake and not for her own. Then she became His in her entirety, not due to some natural inclination or for any other reason apart from Him. She saw Him in all things and she shone and rejoiced and realized that she was privileged over other souls with the possession of this truth. Then He revealed Himself to her in her natural and spiritual configurations with that same mark, and she came to realize that she had seen Him only through Himself not through herself and that she loved Him only through Him, not through herself, since in reality He was the one who loved Himself. Then she looked at Him in every existent entity with that same ‘eye of recognition,’ and knew that no other loved Him but Himself, since He was the lover and the beloved, the seeker and what is sought. 43
This is a description of the human journey towards perfection. The Perfect Man (al-insān al-kāmil) begins his journey in the state of animality, in which state the fulfillment of his natural needs constitutes the sole object of his Love. Rational reflection, combined with religious belief, prepares the soul of Man for a state of spirituality. This state of spirituality, however, is based on the sort of love that is mixed with fear and desire. Man begins a process the purpose of which is to purify his Love from the elements that disturb its purity and attain a state of pure or unmixed worship. Man can obtain this state only when he reaches a stage in which he combines natural love, which is identical to the manifest aspect of reality, and spiritual love, which is identical to the nonmanifest aspect of reality. That is, Man attains a state of perfection when he has become a divine medium between the natural (manifest) and the spiritual (nonmanifest) aspects of reality. As such, he will have attained a state of perfection and become a Limit (barzakh) 44 between the Real (God as the nonmanifest) and His creation (God as the manifest):
The perfect human being brings together the form of the Real and the form of the cosmos. He is a barzakh between the Real and the cosmos, a raised-up mirror. The Real sees His form in the mirror of the human being, and creation also sees its form in him. He who gains this level has gained a level of perfection more perfect than which nothing is found in possibility.45
The perfect Man has arrived at the highest level of perfection. Does this mean that he has exhausted all the possibilities of love or that he has ended his love journey? The answer is no. The state of love can never come to an end because love is identical to the lover and cannot be separated from him:
Our purpose from loving Him is to know the truth of our Love. Is it a psychological attribute or an attribute of the lover pertaining to a certain meaning (ma‘
nawī) that is attached to him? Or is it a relation between the lover and the beloved, a connection that attracts the lover to connection with the beloved? We say: it is a psychological attribute. If it is said: we witness its vanishing, we say that it is impossible for it to cease to exist unless the lover ceases to exist. But the lover never ceases to exist and, therefore, Love never ceases to exist. Hence, Love is identical to the lover and is not anything other than the lover’s entity, not a description of a certain meaning that is attached to him, which could be removed and with its removal its ruling property could removed as well. 46
Ibn al-‘Arabī arrives at the same conclusion that Plato arrives at in Symposium: philosophy is the philosopher. This conclusion can bear significant implications on our treatment of the very purpose of philosophy or philosophizing. For, following this conclusion, we have to shift our attention from seeking some philosophical truth, which is the outcome of the philosopher’s eternal search for the ultimate object of love, to the search for the human being or the philosopher who is its author.47 Our search must be for the human being rather than some meaning that is attached to him, to use Ibn al-‘Arabī’s words,48 or some knowledge that is the outcome of his search endeavor, to use Plato’s words. 49 It is here that Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī begin to sound like existentialists. However, Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī do not see the roots of Man in this existence. On the contrary, they see it in the endless endeavor at transcending (limited) existence. This act of transcendence secures a very important aim. It prevents philosophy from becoming religion.50
4. Vlastos’ Criticism of the Platonic Theory of Love
In "The Definition of Love in Plato’s Symposium," Donald Levy brings Gregory Vlastos’ criticism to Plato’s theory of love and suggests an answer to the criticism. Vlastos’ main objection is that in Plato’s theory what we love in persons is not the persons themselves but only their being examples of the idea of absolute beauty, an abstract entity. Levy points out that, according to Vlastos, the defect in Plato’s definition of love can be discerned by contrasting the Platonic definition with Aristotle’s: "Love is wishing good things for someone for that person’s sake." 51 Levy mentions a number of flaws in Vlastos’ criticism. But the most important of them and the one that is relevant to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s theory of love is the following. According to Plato, Loving a person for the sake of absolute beauty does not necessarily imply that that person cannot be loved for himself. For example, if we use Thomas Jefferson as an example of a great president, this does not mean that we do not truly admire him. More importantly, Platonic love can be considered an imaginative process in which the lover can ‘use’ people as examples of absolute beauty and, at the same time, love them for themselves. Levy elaborates:
Besides, when Diotima speaks of using examples of beauty, she is speaking of those who seek to be initiated into love’s mysteries, who seek to learn what love really is. For that, a person must understand absolute beauty, and to achieve that, one must use the objects of one’s love as examples, images of absolute beauty. In saying these things, Diotima seems to be thinking of a quite distinctive imaginative process—one people might engage in without being obliged to treat the objects of their affections merely as examples of something else. Certainly, a person might engage in such activity without necessarily believing that all anyone is ever really doing in loving is using the objects of love as examples of something else, or that using the objects of love as examples of something else is all that we ought to do with them. (emphasis added) 52
Platonic love can be looked at as an imaginative process, a process in which a person might be engaged in loving objects without necessarily believing that all he is doing is using the objects of his love as mere examples. Levy does not elaborate on this imaginative process, or, on the status of love’s objects as images. In my view, Ibn al-‘Arabī’s unique treatment of imagination might assist us in providing an explanation for the possibility of the Platonic love. I must make it explicit, however, that what I am going to bring here from Ibn al-‘Arabī’s theory of imagination is only a simplified account of a very complicated theory that is spread over hundreds of pages of his work.53 I will first cite Ibn al-‘Arabī’s characterization of the ontological status of images and then elaborate on its connection with the subject under discussion:
If you possess the power of reasoning and you perceive the image [in the mirror] you realize that you have perceived an affair of existence, on which your sight has fallen. But you immediately know, with manifest certainty, that originally there was nothing there to be witnessed. Then what is the thing for which you have affirmed entified being, and that you negated even in the very state of affirming it? Imagination is neither existent nor non-existent, neither known nor unknown, neither affirmed nor negated. A person who sees his image in the mirror knows decisively that he has perceived his form in some respect and that he has not perceived his form in some other respect. Then if he says: ‘I saw my form I did not see my form,’ he will be neither a truth teller nor a liar. What is then the truth of the perceived form? The form is negated and affirmed, existent and non-existent, known and unknown. God manifested this truth to the servant as a sign so that he realizes that once he has become incapable of recognizing the truth of this affair [the truth of the liminal nature of the image], although it is an affair of this world, then he knows that he is even more incapable in relation to the knowledge of its Creator. 54
The image signifies a liminal reality. Its existence can neither be affirmed nor negated. Its truth can neither be known nor unknown. This characterization of the ontological status of the image in relation to our epistemological attitude toward it seem to designate an extreme skeptical position, one that adheres to indefinability and absolute uncertainty. However, Ibn al- ‘Arabī’s differs from the skeptical position in holding that it is particularly because of its unique indefinability that the image can function as a sign that points at a higher truth. The uncertainty that characterizes the ontological status of the image is not a defect in its definition. On the contrary, it is what enables it to represent a higher form of truth, or, enables us to conceive the possibility of a higher truth through such a representation.55 Likewise, defining love by treating the ontological status of the loved person, who might be seen as an image that points at the Form of beauty, in terms of indefinability does not render the definition of love defective. Rather, the imaginal process that is involved in the liminal definition of love lifts the ontological status of the beloved to the level of love itself.
In my view, this is what we learn from Ibn al- ‘Arabī’s account of the most important love story in the Arabic tradition, the love of “Qays the Mad” to Laylā.56 According to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s account, Laylā came to Qays when he was calling her name and taking the ice and throwing it on his chest. The ice was melting because of the heat of his heart. She said to him: “I am what you seek, your object of desire, your beloved and darling. I am Laylā.” He turned to her and said: “Away with you! Your love has distracted me from you.”57 Ibn al-‘Arabī’s description of this incident that took place, according to him, between the two lovers seems to confirm Vlastos’ view that the sort of spiritual love involved here minimizes the status of the lover to nothingness. However, Ibn al- ‘Arabī’s explanation of the incident might provide for a different interpretation, one that brings us back to Levy’s characterization to love as an imaginative process:
A group of us looked at the Form, which is in the Imagination, of the existent in which the beloved appears. [The companion of this group] contemplates the existence of his beloved, as this contemplation consists of connecting with the beloved in Imagination. Thus, he sees the beloved as connected to his imagination by a connection that is subtler than the connection that pertains to the entity of the beloved in the outside existence. This
is what kept Qays distracted from Laylā’s presence when she approached him from the outside. He said to her: “Away with you!.” He did not want the density of the perceptible Laylā to prevent him from this subtle imaginal contemplation, since Laylā was in his imagination subtler than she was in her [perceptible] entity and also more beautiful. This is the description of the subtlest type of love, and the companion of this description is always blessed, since he never complains from separation. 58
The love story that took place between Qays and Laylā and that ended in the death of the two lovers, is not only tragic but can be considered also paradoxical. In the incident mentioned above, Qays refused to connect with Laylā although she was the only thing in the world that he was seeking. He roamed about the dessert looking for Laylā and when he finally had the opportunity to be with her he refused it.59 It is madly paradoxical to refuse to be with a person that you are looking for, which is the same as to continue to seek to be with a person who is with you. There seems to be no rational explanation for this behavior, 60and a Vlastos seems to be justified in denying that Qays was in love with Laylā. However, the story of Qays and Laylā is considered in the Arabic tradition as the example of true love and, in order to understand the mind of the creator of this story, we must find some explanation for the strange behavior of the lovers rather than simply discard their it as illogical. It turns out that the needed explanation is based on considering a dimension of the human intellectual activity that is to be distinguished from the rational dimension. It is the dimension that Ibn al-‘Arabī identifies as Imagination.61 Qays’ intention was not to merely connect with Laylā, but rather to connect with her permanently. But he thought that he could not possibly connect with Laylā permanently had this connection been attached to her corporeal entity, or, as Ibn al-‘Arabī says, in the “outside existence”. Qays knew that one day that entity would vanish and he could not bear the idea that his love would vanish with it. That is why he connected the person of his beloved to the Imaginal Form of Laylā. Contrary to Vlastos, Ibn al-‘Arabī would say not only that Qays loved Laylā for her own person, but that he loved her person so much that he could not limit it to some corporeal form. For, this would break the continuity or the permanence of his love, as the limitedness of the corporeal form would break the continuity or the permanence of the personality of the beloved person. Following Ibn al-‘Arabī’s interpretation, the difference between Plato and Vlastos’ definition of love would boil down to a difference in the definition of what constitutes a person. According to Ibn al-‘Arabī, the person’s identity cannot be identified only, or, exclusively with this or that formal state, but rather with the Fixed Entity, the person’s fixed and unchangeable Form. From Ibn al-‘Arabī’s standpoint, Vlastos’, or, Aristotle’s definition of love is not incorrect it is only incomplete as it attaches itself to a limited, or, existent manifestation of the Nonexistent Form of the beloved person.
Notes
1
Chapter 178 was translated to the French by Maurice Gloton (1986).2
"Proofs for God’s Existence and Unity in Greek and Islamic Philosophical Traditions: With an Emphasis on Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Conception of the Limit and its Role in Proving God’s Existence and Unity,” Journal of Transcendent Philosophy, vol. 2, no.1, March 2001, 29-51; "Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabī on Skepticism,” Journal of Muyiddīn Ibn ‘Arabī Society. Vol. XXX, 2001, 19-34.3
As Dimitri Gutas points out, Plato’s Symposium was very little known in the medieval Arabic world and that no direct and full translation to Arabic was ever made of the Greek text. Dimitri Gutas, "Plato’s Symposion in the Arabic Tradition," in Greek Philosophers in the Arabic Tradition (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2000), 36.4
Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (eds.), The Collected Dialogues of Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 526. Hamilton and Huntington consider the Symposium and the Republic as Plato’s two greatest dialogues. Ibid.5
Chronologically, the Symposium belongs to a middle category among Plato’s dialogues, coming right before the Republic or perhaps after the first part of the Republic. See Leonard Brandwood, "Stylometry and Chronology," in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 109-111.6
See, for example, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Apology 21d.7
The Collected Dialogues, Symposium 177 d.8
Ibid., 201 c.9
Later on I elaborate on what I mean by "rational" in the context of the discussion of the present chapter.10
Ibid., 213, c.11
Ibid., 216 e: 6.12
In his speech, which comes last in the Symposium, Alcibiades says: "But on the other hand, when there was plenty to eat he was the one man who really seemed to enjoy it, and though he didn’t drink for choice, if we ever pressed him to he’d beat the lot of us. And, what’s the most extraordinary thing of all, there’s not a man living that’s ever seen Socrates drunk." Ibid., 220a: 3-8.13
Alcibiades says that he exhausted all tricks to bring Socrates to bed of love, until in the end he tempted him into the night by philosophical conversation to find him in the end only laughing at his youthful beauty. Ibid., 219c.14
In Charmides (155d), Plato presents a Socrates having an erection while glancing down into a boy’s cloak. Allan Bloom comments that Socrates who was a married man with children would seem to have the morals of a bohemian. Bloom explains, however, that Plato’s aim in the Symposium is to show us how these ‘perverse’ details are related to the ascent from the bodily sexual attractions of individuals to the spiritual peaks. Allan Bloom, "The Ladder of Love," in Plato’s Symposium (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), 57.15
It is worth noting that a fragment of the Symposium which deals with Alcibiades’ visit to Socrates and the latter’s refusal to engage in sexual relationship with him is preserved in the Arabic (fragmentary) translation of the Symposium. A portion of the relevant fragment reads: "I loved philosophy and I used to go frequently to Sokrates. While teaching others, however, he kept looking at me, and so it occurred to me that he might want from me what people want from fresh –faced [al-ghulām al-wadī’ al-wajh] young boys". Dimitri Gutas, "Plato’s Symposion in the Arabic Tradition," 39.16
For example, he says: "love does not occupy the whole of the lover unless his beloved is the Real or one of the Real’s kind like a slave girl or a slave boy." Mui al-Dīn Ibn al-‘Arabī, al- Futūāt al-Makkiyya, 4 vols (Cairo, 1911), II 325: 25-26.17
For example, Ibn al-‘Arabī says: “When the two lovers embrace each other and suck each other’s saliva and when that saliva is dissolved inside each one of the lovers as each breathes from the two [originated] forms at the time of embracing and kissing, then the breath of each one of them enters the inside of the other. The spiritual animal in the natural forms is nothing but that breath." Futūāt II 334: 10-13.18
It was a common charge against Sufis that they made illicit use of their ideological convictions as cover for their blamed conduct.19
William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 147.20
Following a chapter on knowledge, entitled "On Knowing the Station of Knowledge". Ibn al-‘Arabī’ provides another discussion of the subject of love in chapter 173 of the Futūāt.21
That is, not known to our rational knowledge, knowledge that is based on rational consideration and not on revelation. See the following note.22
Ibn al-‘Arabī distinguishes between the method of tasting (dhawq) and the rational method of acquiring knowledge. The main difference between the two methods is that the method of tasting provides a direct way of acquiring knowledge in contrast to the rational method which relies on proofs and demonstrations. Because of its directedness the method of tasting prevents error and creates harmony between the ‘tasters’ in comparison with the inevitable disagreements and contradictions in the part of the rational thinkers. Futūāt III 81.23
The Present (ādir) is the essence of Time (zamān). Time is a nonexistent relation. The Present is the Instant (al-ān) that separates between past time, which is a realized (muaqqaq) nonexistence, and future time, which is unrealized nonexistence. Futūāt, II 69: 13-14.24
See William Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Cosmology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 437.25
Most of these descriptions emphasize the instability and the constant variegation of the lover which are due to his reliance on the determinations of his heart, as "heart" in Arabic (qalb) means "fluctuation, overturning", in contrast to his descriptions of the rational thinker in terms of stability and fixity which are due to his reliance on his reason, as "reason" in Arabic (‘aql) means "binding, tying". See note 39.26
The Collected Dialogues, Letter VII, 344b.27
In his famous hexameter poem, Parmenides specifies the only two possible ways of inquiry, as the first way is about that which is and the second is about that which is not. Parmenides states that only the first way of inquiry yields knowledge, as the second way remains indiscernible "for you could not know what is not--that cannot be done—nor indicate it." See G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 245.28
Daniel Garber, "Rationalism," in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 673.29
The Collected Dialogues, Symposium, 200 c, d, e: 1-2.30
Futūāt II 327: 5-9.31
The Self-Disclosure of God, 21-22. Futūāt II 327: 9-13.32
Ibn al-‘Arabī also makes a reference to a woman who possessed, according to him, divine powers:I served a woman from among the Gnostic lovers in Seville called Fātimah bint Ibn al-Muthanā al-Qurtubī. I served her for years. At the time of my service to her she was more than ninety-five years
old. I blushed when I looked at her face even at her old age because of the redness of her cheeks and the perfection of her grace and beauty. You would think that she was fourteen years old due to her softness and gracefulness. She held a state with God. She preferred me to all those who served her. She said: ‘I have never seen like so-and-so. When he enters to me he enters with his entirety leaving nothing of it behind, and when he leaves he leaves with his entirety, leaving behind nothing of it with me.’ Futūāt, 347: 16-20.33
In Meno, Socrates introduces the following dilemma:Meno: But how will you look for something when you don’t in the least know what it is? How on earth are you going to set up something you don’t know as the object of your search? To put it another way, even if you come right up against it, how will you know that what you have found is the thing you didn’t know?
Socrates: I know what you mean. Do you realize that what you are bringing up is the trick argument that a man cannot try to discover either what he knows or what he does not know? He would not seek what he knows, for since he knows it there is no need of the inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case he does not even know what he is to look for. The Collected Dialogues, Meno, 80: d-e.
34
The Collected Dialogues, Symposium, 202 b: 2-5.35
Ibid., 203 c: 5-7, d.36
In Futūāt II 327: 14-17 Ibn al-‘Arabī says:One of the attributes of Love is that the lover brings the opposites together, so that through the capacity of choice he may become in the image of God. In this lies the difference between the natural and the spiritual kinds of Love. Only man brings them together, while animals love but do not bring together the opposites. Man is capable of bringing the opposites together because he is in the image of God who described Himself by the opposites in His saying: "He is the First and the Last/ the Manifest and the Hidden." [Qur’
ān 57: 3]37
Ibid., 327: 17-20.38
Ibn al-‘Arabī says:Love is described by straying from the way and by bewilderment. Bewilderment negates reason. Reason is what holds you together whereas bewilderment divides you and disunites you. That is why Love is described by dispersion, since it disperses the lover’s concerns in many directions. Ibid., II 338: 3-4.
39
The Collected Dialogues, Symposium, 202 e: 5-18.40
Ibid., 210, 211.41
Ibid., 211 a 5-8, b: 1-4.42
Ibid., 211 c: 3-8.43
Futūāt II 331: 9-21.44
The barzakh is Ibn al-‘Arabī’s notion of the Limit. It is a paradoxical notion in the sense that the barzakh is a liminal entity that differentiates between things and, at the same time, provides for their unity. Ibn al-‘Arabī provides an elaborated account of the notion of the barzakh in chapter 382 of the Futūāt. See chapter on the barzakh in Chittick’s The Self-Disclosure of God (Chapter 10 entitled "The Imaginal Barzakh"). See also Andrey Smirnov’s comparison between two notions of the Limit in his "Nicholas of Cusa and Ibn Arabi: Two Philosophies of Mysticism," Philosophy East and West 43, no. 1, January 1993: 65-85.45
Chittick, The Self- Disclosure of God, 249. Futūāt III 398: 16-18.46
Futūāt II 332: 3-8.47
Thus, the very search for objectivity requires a serious reconsideration of the role of the subject. This requirement is often overlooked in the academics of our times as Elizabeth Roberts points out:According to the academic mores of our time, true knowledge, that is, knowledge of the realities of things as they are, is often equated with objective knowledge, meaning knowledge unbiased and uncoloured by the personal prejudices of the subject, and even independent of the subject. But, in truth, there is not objective judgment that exists independently of its subject. Elizabeth Roberts, "Love and Knowledge," Journal of the Mu
yiddīn Ibn ‘Arabī Society, Vol. VII, 1988, 71.48
Futūāt II 332: 7-8.49
The Collected Dialogues, Symposium, 210 c.50
In "On Plato’s Symposium," Seth Benardete writes:Through Diotima Socrates sets out to prove that Eros is not a god and no religion can form around him. Socrates thus answers Phaedrus’s original question, which prompted this famous night of speeches, why no poet ever praised Eros, Eros is not a god, Socrates is not his prophet, and Plato not the poet for whom Phaedrus is waiting. Seth Benardete, "On Plato’s Symposium," in Plato’s Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete with commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), 181.
51
Donald Levy, "The Definition of Love in Plato’s Symposium," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 1, no. 1, January-March 1979, 286.52
Ibid., 288.53
Henry Corbin provided one of the most serious studies of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s theory of Creative Imagination in Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ‘Arabi, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).54
Futūāt I 304: 22-32.55
I elaborated on the difference between the position of Ibn al-‘Arabī’ and that of the skeptics in “Plato and Ibn al-‘Arabi on Skepticism,” Journal of the Muyiddīn Ibn ‘Arabi Society. Vol. XXX, 2001, 26-34.56
For details about the love story of Qays and Laylā in the Arabic and other literatures see J. A. Haywood, “Majnūn Laylā,” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986, Vol. V, 1102-1107. It is worth noting that we can learn a very similar lesson to the one stated in the present discussion from Ibn al-‘Arabī’s account of his own love to Nizām. See discussion by Ralph Austin, “The Lady Nizām—An Image of Love and Knowledge,” Journal of the Muyiddīn Ibn ‘Arabī Society, Vol. VII, 1988, 42-44. For more on the relationship between love and Creative Imagination see Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination, 136-175.57
Futūat II 325: 5-8.58
Futūāt 337: 22-27.59
In a sense Laylā’s behavior can be described in similar terms. Her passive reaction her father’s refusal to wed her to the person she was madly in love with, her passive acceptance of a certain Ward as husband and her passive refusal to consume the marriage with him all can be considered paradoxical elements.60
By rational is meant here a normative concept that is characterized in such a way that "for any action, belief, or desire, if it is rational we ought to choose it." See The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 674.61
The word for imagination in Arabic is "khayāl". Renate Jacobe points out that the khayāl is explained by medieval Arabic commentators and modern scholars as a vision that the person sees in a dream. Jacobe points at an early signification of the term that preserves its original meaning. The khayāl signifies a real entity (a woman) that appeared to the poet at "the time of the night when darkness is beginning to fade and dusk is setting in" and that inspired him to create his poetry. Renate Jacobe, "The Khayāl Motif in Early Arabic Poetry," Oriens, Vol. 32, 1990, 52, 54.Book Reviews
Qamar-ul Huda, Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual Exercises for Suhraward¢ ¯£f¢s
London/New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003, pp. xiv + 221, paper, £16.99.
Striving for Divine Union is directed towards two important lacunae in the study of Sufism. The first of these themes was brought out in the title of the UCLA doctoral thesis on which the publication is based and addresses the question of the transference of the Sufi §ar¢qa founded in Baghdad by Ab£ °af¥ ‘Umar al-Suhraward¢ to Multan during the thirteenth century. The second theme, made explicit in the title of the book, deals with the place of spiritual exercises (particularly the various forms of dhikr) in the Sufi life as practised within a particular tradition of ta¥awwuf. The addressing of both of these themes is important and timely. Current scholarly interest in migration and the development of transregional communities renders the precise character of the ‘transfer’ of the Suhraward¢ order to northern India an important case study. While this transfer was partly affected by the migration from Baghdad of Sufis themselves, it was nonetheless surrounded by wider processes of movement and migration in the development of the Delhi sultanate. As Huda himself notes (p. 139), rival Chisht¢ hagiographers carped at the presence of wealthy Iraqi and Khurasani merchants in the circle of Bah¡’ al-d¢n Zakariyy¡ (d. 1262) in Multan. It was amid this mobile North Indian social world of merchants and saints that the Suhraward¢ order took root, both in providing a powerful lineage of Sufi masters and a specific tradition of Sufi writings and practice.
The latter category of actual Sufi practices and the written sources that describe them form no less important a topic for research. During much of the twentieth century, scholarship on Sufism concentrated largely on the technical traditions of Sufi metaphysical writings and its aesthetic counterparts as represented by the classical poetry of Sufism in Arabic and Persian. The welcome shift in scholarly focus in recent decades to questions surrounding the social and political history of Sufism has filled out our understanding of the place of Sufis in medieval Islam but has left one important dimension of Sufism in relative neglect. This dimension is the issue of the actual Sufi practices that constituted the soft core of Sufi life that has long formed the interface between the other aspects of Sufi history and thought. Our understanding of the philosophical thought of such figures as Ibn ‘Arab¢, for example, is gravely circumscribed without addressing the ritual, devotional or mystical exercises that were envisaged as surrounding the conception and reception of philosophical ideas. Similarly, it is only a study of actual Sufi practices of prayer, meditation and pilgrimage that can afford insight into the precise relationships between §ar¢qa and shar¢‘a in different Sufi contexts. Such studies might also suggest ways in which to reconsider the long standing application to Sufism of the dichotomy of popular and elite by exploring the common practices that formed the gel binding an Arabic and Persian writing Sufi intelligentsia and its class of elite patrons to the anonymous masses who have made up the greater number of practitioners of ta¥awwuf in history.
It is with a criticism of such two-tiered models that Striving for Divine Union begins, before moving on to a brief account of previous work on the founders of the Suhraward¢ tradition. Regrettably, it is here that the first weaknesses in the book begin to emerge. The review of previous literature begins with a discussion of studies of the °ikmat al-ishr¡q of Shih¡b al-d¢n Ya¦yá al-Suhraward¢ (d. 1191) that elides into a summary of work on Ab£ °af¥ ‘Umar al-Suhraward¢ (d. 1234). Many scholars would be puzzled by the statement that it is a commonplace of scholarship on Persian Sufism "that there are no Suhraward¢s after Shih¡b al-d¢n [Ya¦yá] al-Suhraward¢ or that ishr¡q¢ Sufism is the foundation of all Suhraward¢ ¥£f¢s" (p. 5). In an implicit confluence that might prove misleading to some readers, neither at this point nor at any point later in the book does the author hint at the connections (or lack of them) between the two traditions initiated by these two figures united chiefly by a common home town.
Chapter One recounts the history of the formation of the Suhraward¢ order in Baghdad, including an account of the involvement of ‘Umar Suhraward¢ in the diplomatic and political life of Baghdad during the late renaissance of ‘Abbasid power in the reign of al-N¡¥ir (1180-1225). The account makes for a useful summary of the earlier work of such scholars as Claude Cahen in discussing the association of a major Sufi with the state against the background of caliphal interference in the futuwwa sodalities. Huda also addresses the issue of the connections of Suhraward¢ with Isma‘ilism. While we learn of Suhraward¢’s diplomatic visit to the court of al-Malik al-²¡hir in Aleppo, it is disappointing that no mention is made of the earlier execution at the court of this same ruler of the other Suhraward¢ discussed in the introduction. Reference to primary source material would also have made this chapter more useful to specialists. A valuable account of Suhraward¢’s diplomatic visit to Konya as seen from the Saljuq perspective may be found in the Persian court history of Ibn-e B¢b¢, for example.
Chapter Two is devoted to a summary of the major themes of ‘Umar Suhraward¢’s well-known ‘Aw¡rif al-Ma‘¡rif, a work which has previously been thoroughly studied by Richard Gramlich. Nonetheless, the chapter is a useful vehicle for Huda’s claim that the text shows how "the ¦ad¢th functions as the prime model for existence" in the Sufi life (p.47). There are fascinating references to ¦ad¢th in which the Prophet refers to the Sufi practice of dhikr, though there is unfortunately no further information on the provenance of such sayings. The chapter also features an interesting discussion of the role of ¦ad¢th in the practice of mystical prayer. However despite the author’s emphasis on the Sufi importance of ¦ad¢th, little place is given to the role of the traditions of earlier Sufis which also play a large role in Suhraward¢’s text. More important however is the failure of the chapter to address what has often been seen as the crucial role of the ‘Aw¡rif al-Ma‘¡rif in the institutionalisation of Sufi life through its provision of a formal programme for kh¡naq¡h life. It is also regrettable that we hear nothing of the subsequent history of the text itself in India, nor of the fortunes there of Mi¥b¡¦ al-Hid¡yah, the early paraphrase of the text into Persian by ‘Izz al-d¢n Ma¦m£d K¡sh¡n¢ (d. 1334-5).
It is in Chapter Three that the most valuable aspects of Huda’s research begin to emerge. After eighteen pages of general discussion of the importance of devotional poetry (especially of the na‘t genre) among mostly non-Suhraward¢ Sufis follow five fascinating pages of discussion of dhikr in the writings of Bah¡’ al-d¢n Zakariyy¡ of Multan (d. 1262) and Sayyid B¡qir ‘Uthm¡n Bukh¡r¢ of Ucch (d.c. 1687). Unfortunately, however, the reader is given no historical background to connect these two figures either to one another or to the founder of their order in Baghdad. This historical haze continues in the following chapter on the Suhraward¢s in Multan and Ucch in which only fifteen dates emerge in a chapter covering several dozen figures and numerous events over a course of four centuries. While this may reflect the publisher’s aim at attracting a wider readership it is troubling nonetheless.
Huda laments the lack of early sources on the order in Multan and Ucch and instead makes use of such court historians as Baran¢ and ‘Is¡m¢ as well as well-known sources primarily dedicated to the Chisht¢s. We hear nothing of the actual process of the transfer of the order and, in a reflection of earlier studies and the nature of the sources, the slant is towards the political rather than the devotional aspects of Suhraward¢ activity. It is surprising that there is no mention in this chapter of Fakhr al-d¢n ‘Ir¡q¢ (d. 1289), whose own writings and journey from Multan to Konya and Damascus would seem to be of the utmost relevance.
The final chapter on spiritual exercises will prove the most useful section of the book to specialists through demonstrating the types of spiritual practices that Suhraward¢ Sufis were urged to perform by one of their leading Indian masters. Here two manuals of spiritual exercises written by Bah¡’ al-d¢n Zakariyy¡ are analysed with special reference to their connection to the Qur’an. We learn of different types of dhikr appropriate during different months, prayer times and activities (including pilgrimage).
Scholars will certainly find some new material of interest in Striving for Divine Union. However, given the potential of the subject matter and the primary source material listed in the bibliography the carelessness with which the book has been prepared is a great pity. The grammar and style of the book are frequently perplexing. The present reviewer at least has reservations about the constant use of the verbal noun ta¥awwuf as an adjective in English sentences and the more sensitive reader might also question the appropriateness of describing medieval Baghdad as a centre of "global Islamic politics" peopled by "expert advisors" of Sufis who counsel "a centrist policy". Ultimately, however, the book is undermined most by the mistakes in the transliteration and spelling of Arabic and Persian words found on almost every page (including four in one chapter subheading alone). Different transliterations of al- (an-N¡¥ir, al-Suhraward¢, ‘Ainu’l-Quz¡t, etc), double plurals (e.g. a¦¡d¢ths) and a host of other inconsistencies (e.g. N£r, Noor) may also be found throughout. Several paragraphs in the opening pages of Chapter Two (pp. 42-43) are an exact repetition of the opening paragraphs of the previous chapter (pp. 13-14).
Nile Green
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, UK
Ibn S¢n¡, Lettre au Vizir Ab£ Sa‘d
editio princeps d’après le manuscrit de Bursa, traduction de l’arabe, introduction, notes et lexique par Yahya Michot, Sagesses Musulmanes, 4, Beyrouth/Paris: Les Éditions al-Bouraq 1421/2000, pp. 130* + 187, paper, 285 FF.
Yahya Michot, Lecturer in Islamic theology at Oxford University, is one of the most eminent scholars of Avicenna and a pioneering interpreter of Avicennan philosophy as an ‘Islamic philosophy’ and a religious psychology. His Avicenna is a serious philosopher and a religiously committed one at that. This is made clear at the outset of this book where he ridicules the sensationalism surrounding the figure and the rejection of the ‘Eastern magician’ among some contemporary Arab philosophers. He has also published important work on the manuscript tradition of his works and on the Avicennan tradition and its ‘pandémie’. This valuable work considers some technical issues in metaphysics and psychology and Avicenna’s disputes on them with the old Peripatetic Ab£ l-Q¡sim al-Kirm¡n¢, which he presents to the vizier Ab£ Sa‘d at the Buyid court of Majd al-Dawla at Hamadhan for adjudication in 1015. It represents the frustrations of a bright young philosopher ‘without tenure’ seeking patronage and being blocked partly due to the stupidity of an older philosopher established at court. Alongside this text, Avicenna also wrote a letter with the details of the dispute and sent it to the Baghdad Peripatetics seeking adjudication or a philosophical fatw¡. The quest for adjudication, for posing penetrating questions and for seeking a responsum suggests that the juridical training of Avicenna did have some impact on his philosophical method and mode of presentation. Furthermore the adjudication is not merely the quest of a self-interested and prodigious young man but also an affirmation that the truth, as Michot puts it, is important and ought to be recognised first and foremost. Self-interest thus works hand in hand with a sort of altruistic notion of perpetuating the truth, the aim of a truly religious philosophy seeking to understand and disclose Reality.
The introduction, which is double the length of the translation itself, is an important study of the ambitions and intellectual biography of Avicenna. It provides us with a more detailed and plausible account of the social and professional life of the philosopher than the hagiography of his disciple al-Juzj¡n¢. One critical puzzle within this concerns the identity of this old Peripatetic Ab£ l-Q¡sim. Michot equates him with an old Peripatetic trained in Baghdad and associated with the circle of Miskawayh and others including eminent Christian theologians. Furthermore, the dispute and its concepts of a Western Peripatetic tradition based in Baghdad and an Eastern one associated with Avicenna’s hometown of Bukhara could help to solve the old riddle of his ‘Oriental Philosophy’ that has plagued Western academia for a century now. The question of Avicenna’s ‘mysticism’ is associated with this text because in bibliographies it has been conflated and confused with a ‘correspondence’ with the Sufi Ab£ Sa‘¢d Abi l-Khayr (d. 1049). Of course, no such correspondence is extant: all references to it should in fact be to this ris¡la to the vizier. Michot agrees with Gutas in rejecting the idea that Avicenna’s later philosophy, his ‘Oriental’ work represents a mystical superseding of Peripatetism. While Avicenna was no mere Arab Peripatetic, he was also not a mystically inclined philosopher in the mould of the later Illuminationist tradition in Iran. What is clear is that good historical scholarship which locates and presents texts in their environment makes an important contribution to our understanding of the intellectual content of those texts. A proper assessment of the mysticism of Avicenna must therefore be textually grounded.
The text itself has to be read as a petition for adjudication. The premises of this petition are that the old Kirm¡n¢ is a bad philosopher for three reasons: he is a bad logician and since logic is the standard for philosophical discourse, he is not worthy of philosophy; he misunderstands and misrepresents philosophy and especially the ‘philosopher’, i.e. Aristotle; and finally, he is unworthy of the Baghdadi tradition of philosophy but also a good example why the vizier should patronise someone from the ‘Oriental’, i.e. Khurasani, tradition. The second important premises is that Avicenna is a worthy and excellent philosopher: he can construct syllogisms, accurately present and criticise Aristotle, and is a worthy exemplar of an alternative, critical Peripatetism. Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, the main body of the text presents reasons for these premises. The first issue broached concerns the non-essential finitude of the body. What is really at stake in this issue is the nature of man and his intellect and the relationship of his faculties to his body. The second issue related to the nature of the infinite and its relationship to the world of generation and corruption. The third issue concerns the dimensions of the body, its continuity and unity. Along the way argument is conducted with appropriate concern for syllogistic correctness. These issues reveal the importance of problems in physics, epistemology and psychology as key matters of debate between the Baghdadi or rather Kirm¡n¢ and Avicenna and may reveal something of Avicenna’s particular concerns around 1015.
The translation is smooth and faces the Arabic text. The text is edited from a single manuscript in Bursa, Turkey, the majm£‘a °useyin Çeleb¢ 1194, a manuscript that Michot has already described in earlier publications.
The text is appended with two further related texts on the dispute, namely the ris¡lat al-qa¤¡’ and ris¡lat al-‘ahd. All the texts are usefully complemented with lexicons of Arabic philosophical and technical terms rendered into French in the alphabetical order of their trilateral roots. A facsimile copy of the manuscript of the letter to Ab£ Sa‘d is provided at the end.
Michot’s work contributes a certain way of perceiving Avicenna and locating his literary expressions within the social and intellectual trajectory of a career in search of patronage and afflicted by the vicissitudes of war and dynastic upheaval. It also reveals the rivalry among philosophers and their positioning at court. For a moderen practitioner, it is perhaps heartening (or maybe equally depressing) to note that academic politics played a part in the quest for truth and patronage in the 11th century.
Sajjad H. Rizvi
University of Bristol, UK
John Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhraward¢ and Platonic Orientalism
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001, pp. xiii + 170, paper, $17.95/$54.50.
The first thing to say about this book is that it is great fun. Walbridge manages to discuss a good deal of complex material in a light and easy manner, and in a little over a hundred pages we find accounts of thousands of years of philosophy and culture. His main target is the idea that Shih¡b al-D¢n Suhraward¢ (d. 1191), the epitome of ishr¡q¢ philosophy, owes a good deal of his thought to pre-Islamic "oriental" ideas. It is not difficult to find in illuminationist philosophy ideas which hark back to Zoroastrianism, and the idea that Suhraward¢ was in some way the representative of a long tradition of ancient wisdom is attractive in a Romantic sort of way. It is certainly true that Suhraward¢, like many Islamic philosophers, refers with respect to his predecessors in the classical world, and he also uses a lot of imagery from pre-Islamic Iranian mythology. But the idea that his thought is based on ancient Egyptian, Buddhist, Persian and other esoteric traditions is fanciful. Walbridge quite correctly identifies this idea in modern times with the work of Henry Corbin, the champion of Suhraward¢ in the twentieth century, who nonetheless had an agenda of his own. Corbin’s agenda was to defend the idea of a perennial philosophy, one which extends through time and space and runs through a vast variety of apparently different cultures. "Real" philosophy is the wisdom that is contained within this body of spiritual truths and it is characterized in distinct ways but in reality it is a common set of beliefs and principles. Suhraward¢ is one of those thinkers who worked within that tradition, and if we want to understand his basic framework we need to understand that tradition, or so the agenda goes. When Suhraward¢ wanted to express his real views he wrote in his own language, Persian, and when he wanted to address the academic world he wrote in Arabic, so if we want to know what he really believed we need to concentrate on his Persian texts. These do resonate with classical references and ancient Persian symbols, and so the conclusion is that really he was a participant in an esoteric tradition of wisdom which preceded Islam.
Walbridge demolishes this argument completely. He shows that there is no evidence for it at all. He points out quite correctly that the exotic nature of oriental thought had been a theme of many other kinds of philosophy as well as ishr¡q¢ thought, in particular the Neoplatonists and even the Peripatetic Greeks had similarly Romantic attitudes to the mysterious East from where light arises. He does not actually have a great deal to say about Suhraward¢’s thought as a whole, although it is clear that he identifies it with the Pythagorean and the Platonic, and Walbridge suggests that readers of Suhraward¢ have concentrated on those aspects of his thought which they find the most exciting and exotic. These are the mystical aspects, and they are certainly there in his work. But then there is a great deal of analysis also, much logical argument, admittedly based on a different account of logic as compared with that of Aristotle, yet certainly recognizable as a very similar philosophical enterprise to that of many other Islamic philosophers. We still need an adequate account of precisely where ishr¡q¢ thought lies as between mashsh¡’¢ (peripatetic/Avicennan) and sufi philosophy, and it is not difficult to push it closer to one alternative rather than another. It does seem from what Suhraward¢ often says that he has in mind the creation of a form of philosophy which is somewhere in the middle, and there is no reason why we should not take him at his word here. On the other hand, that would mean that we would have to treat his work as philosophy and not as the poetic description of some ineffable and profound level of reality, which clearly would disappoint those of a more spiritual disposition, but has the advantage of accurately reflecting the general direction of his work. It seems much more likely that he wrote in Persian when he wished to address non-specialists, and then he used a less technical and more figurative language, but there is nothing there which contravenes his more academic work nor his general philosophical principles.
Walbridge establishes this, and much more, concisely and comprehensively, and yet again he has made a strong contribution to this important area of Islamic philosophy.
Oliver Leaman
University of Kentucky, USA
1160-1300, Warburg Institute Studies and Texts, 1, London/Turin: The Warburg Institute and Nino Aragno Editore 2000, pp. x + 350, paper, £32.
The significance of Avicenna in the medieval scholastic West and in the formation of Peripatetism in Europe cannot be stressed enough. Scholars of medieval philosophy have focused upon the metaphysical and logical influences of Avicenna, expressed most clearly in the Latin translation of his magnum opus, al-Shif¡’, and commentaries on the Aristotelian corpus that took into account Avicennan positions. However, the present study of the Avicennan philosophy of the soul and its influence on the Latin West is particularly appropriate and required. The popularity of Avicenna’s De Anima (f¢ l-nafs) is attested by the fact that while we possess some twenty-five manuscripts of the Latin translation of Avicenna’s Metaphysics, we have some fifty manuscripts of Avicenna’s De Anima in various collections. This simple statistical comparison ought to suggest that a study of the influence of Avicennan ‘psychology’ on medieval scholasticism is imperative. Hasse has admirably risen to the challenge and provided a sophisticated and exhaustive analysis of the question in a book, which represents a revised version of his doctoral dissertation undertaken at the Warburg Institute under the supervision of Professor Charles Burnett. He sets out to reconsider the role of Avicenna in the teleological view of medieval philosophy, an approach that condemns him for his ‘errors’ and for his influence on a trend of ‘Avicennized Augustinianism’ that required the masterful condemnation of Saint Thomas Aquinas before it subsided. Hasse places Avicenna at the heart of medieval philosophy, especially on the role of the intellect and the soul.
The study is divided into two parts. It is prefaced with a short introduction on Avicenna and his psychological works. His De Anima was, unlike the work of Averroes, not a commentary on Aristotle’s work but an independent work that drew upon the Aristotelian tradition. That text is divided into five ‘books’: on the nature of the soul, the faculties of the external senses, vision, the internal senses and the rational faculty. Although Hasse mentions the problematic of the chronology of Avicenna’s work (mainly the Gutas versus Michot debate) and its implications for an understanding of his philosophy, he does not discuss whether the psychology presented in the De Anima is superseded by the Ish¡r¡t or the Mub¡¦ath¡t or any other such text. But that is, in any case, not Hasse’s project. Those later texts were never available in Latin versions and so the question of their reception could not arise. But it does present to us one of the peculiarities of Avicennan studies (as Hasse recognises): the Latin Avicenna and the Arabic Avicenna never seem to come together in academic study. A more systematic and critical engagement with Avicennan psychology (as attempted perhaps unconvincingly by Lenn Goodman in his general monograph on Avicenna) would need to take the analysis beyond Hasse’s very competent and scholarly study.
Part One analyses the history of approaches to ‘psychology’ from the translation of Avicenna’s work by the Jewish philosopher/translator Avendeuth/Abraham Ibn D¡’£d (d. 1180) and the archdeacon Dominicus Gundissalinus in the twelfth century to the later thirteenth century. Thus "the story of the rise and decline of Avicenna’s De Anima as a methodological model for philosophers and theologians is largely identical with the history of psychology in this period" (page viii). In this part we are presented with a clear and brief history of the psychological doctrines and approaches of some of the most important thinkers of the period in the Latin West. Hasse’s claim is that Avicenna’s work revolutionised the approach of the Latin West to psychology. He discusses the work of thirteen authors and commentators on Avicenna including Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. The reader is given a tour through citations of Latin text, contents listings and astute observations on historical context and manuscript traditions. All the signs that one expects to see in a work of careful scholarship in intellectual history. Some instructive points emerge: often when the authors mention the De Anima, they refer to the Avicennan text and not to Aristotle; psychology is caught up in discussions of cosmology and even astrology (somewhat akin to the thought of Ab£ Ma‘shar); the divisions of the faculties of the soul follow Avicenna more closely than the influence of some medical treatises; the famous theory of the active intellect is vigorously debated but apart from William of Auvergne is not rejected on theological grounds. His analyses of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas require some comment. As Hasse says, Albertus’ De homine is a critical text since it provides the reader with a veritable history of Peripatetic psychology (page 60). But the text retains a theological bent on the subject. And yet Avicenna is praised as a ‘philosopher’ while most Islamic authors such as Averroes are described as ‘commentators’. Albertus consistently sides with Avicenna against Averroes and even criticises Averroes for misunderstanding Aristotle. What is clear is that despite his claim to be following Aristotle’s text closely, Albertus draws more heavily upon the structure and content of Avicenna’s De Anima. In a sense Albertus’s work illustrates the peak of Avicennan influence. However, the work of his student Thomas Aquinas displays the opposite: the decline of the influence of the De Anima and a restructuring of psychology. He spends little time on the internal senses and does not favour a psychology like Avicenna’s that is grounded in physiology that locates certain faculties in certain brain ventricles. What is more interesting for the historian is that he equates Avicenna’s theory of the intellect with the theory of emanation and he criticises this as a view akin to Plato’s. To an extent, this critique resembles Averroes’, but Aquinas’ own problems with the monopsychism of Averroes are clear in his De Unitate Intellectu.
Part Two traces the influence of Avicennan psychology by examining six specific doctrines in the period stemming from the De Anima. Each chapter begins with a discussion of that doctrine and then assesses and analyses its understanding and reception in the Latin West. Chapter One looks at the famous homo volans (flying man) argument for the nature of the soul in De Anima I. While Avicenna’s intent might be seen as a (proto-Cartesian) affirmation of the independence of the soul and the true self, most of the scholastic commentators used it to establish the incorporeality of the soul. Given the recent reassessment of Descartes in the light of Augustinianism (especially in Stephen Menn’s monograph on them), a systematic study of the flying man may reveal further features of a robust ‘Avicennan Augustinianism’ that survived into the early modern period. Hasse suggests that the import of the theory is to establish the independence of the soul from the body (tajarrud) and the theses of incorporeality, existence and substantiality are merely implied. While these theses are regarded as complementary in the Avicennan tradition, I would suggest against Hasse’s citations that the flying man is an affirmation of the existence of a self that has psychological, ethical and epistemological implications. Dualism is not a central concern of Avicennan psychology. Anyway Hasse suggests that the argument was of little importance except as a thought experiment cited in some texts. It is thus a good example of an important Avicennan thesis that fails to attract much interest in scholastic commentaries in the West.
Chapter Two looks at the case of shellfish and nerves as examples of sense perception through touch. Avicenna equates the sense of touch with voluntary motion that he considers to be an essential attribute of all animals. In the De Anima, he quotes shellfish as a Peripatetic objection to the proposition that all animals have touch and motion. Now because this theory was rallied against Aristotle and it proposed a new conception of motion (with significant implications for the faculties of the soul and their motion), it was embraced.
Chapter Three is a discussion of optical theory. Avicenna’s book on vision in the De Anima is the longest section of the work and yet seems to have attracted the least interest among scholastics and moderns alike. His distinctions between types of light were successful and the connection with his medical treatises and other treatments of optics made his views acceptable. But despite all this, the Aristotelian conception of vision and light seems to have prevailed.
Chapter Four considers estimation and intentionality as part of the theory of the internal senses. The Avicennan theory of wahm has caused much ink to be spilt. Hasse provides a lucid and quite insightful exposition of the doctrine and its philosophical significance. He agrees with Rahman in seeing it as the animal cognate of the rational faculty and points out the anachronism and debatable extrapolation that the ma‘¡n¢ of the internal senses may be compared with the modern theories of intentionality. The question raises the issue of what it means to be rational and what it is to be animal. The implications of the debate concern the nature of animal rights and the moral agency and rationality across species, a quite modish topic of contemporary ethics. This is the strongest chapter in Part Two and shows how a good historical study can take ideas seriously and analyse them.
Chapter Five analyses Avicenna’s theory of prophecy. The very fact that prophecy is considered in the context of the faculties of the soul and their hierarchy suggests a corroboration of Michot’s understanding of Avicenna as an ‘Islamic philosopher’, one who sought to integrate philosophy with the doctrines and stipulations of the faith and a response to the event of the revelation. An important aspect of the theory was the suggestion that causation can be both non-material and non-contactual. It raises interesting questions for the so-called ‘mind-body’ problem and whether the mind can be some sort of cause. Hasse suggests that because there was little cognate in Aristotle on this issue, the Latin reception of the Avicennan theory of prophecy represents a significant case of theological dialogue. However, the lack of success in the Avicennan doctrine becoming accepted in the West was due not only to the Islamic provenance of such a theologically charged topic, but also due to existing Western Christian discourses on the topic, not least those of Augustine.
Finally, Chapter Six examines the role of intellection in Avicennan psychology and its impact. The nature of abstraction and the doctrine of the active intellect are also properly epistemological and ontological issues. This topic was rightly recognised as being central to Avicenna’s concerns. Hasse argues that the scholarship on the De Anima has spent disproportionate time on the question. But surely that is because it is so critical. It is also of importance to his reassessment of the question of ‘Avicennized Augustinianism’, the proposition that the active intellect of Avicenna is God.
The study is appended with an indispensable index locorum of the De Anima and its citations in Latin.
A study of the reception of a text and its ideas begs the question: what is the original text and in what form was it available? My main criticism of this book relates to this point. I would have liked to have seen more about the De Anima itself and about its Latin version. How faithful was it? How was it read? What can we discern from comparing the reception of the Latin De Anima to the Arabic F¢ l-Nafs? These questions pose the wider context of the enterprise that would shift the study from a dissertation in medieval philosophy in the West to the reception of Avicenna, a much larger and more interesting venture. But this criticism should not detract from the excellent scholarship presented by Hasse. Indeed it is a worthy complement to Avicennan studies.
Sajjad H. Rizvi
University of Bristol, UK
Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science Texts and Studies vol. 48, Leiden: Brill, 2002, pp. 198, cloth.
This book (the unrevised publication of a recent doctoral dissertation) considers the topic of the eternity of the world within the context of Greek philosophy and its later development in Islamic, Jewish and Christian theology and philosophy. This is rather too large a topic for just one book, and the author concentrates on a comparison of the views of Fakhr al-D¢n and Aquinas on the topic. He starts by outlining the classical Greek discussion and its Neoplatonic elaboration, and then the interaction of those theories with Jewish and Christian thinkers like Philo and Philoponus. Within the Islamic tradition he looks at al-B¡qill¡n¢ and ‘Abd al-Jabb¡r, the al-Ghaz¡l¢/ibn Rushd debate, and the general way in which the issue entered into Islamic philosophy. Then he gets on to the detailed discussions of Fakhr al-D¢n and Aquinas, putting their work firmly within the intellectual context of the times, and he argues that they are distinct from many of their co-religionists in attempting to incorporate philosophy into their view of the issue. In the case of Fakhr al-D¢n it is the philosophy of Ibn S¢n¡, and for Aquinas it is Aristotle. Both recognize that the ordinary understanding of religion on creation implies creation from nothing, but they also argue that there is enough latitude in the theological description of creation for a more nuanced understanding of time and motion to be viable. One of the interesting points which both of them make is that the issue cannot be decisively settled either way, and so the philosophical critique of revealed religion turns out not to rest on as solid foundations as might be thought.
The style of the book is judicious and the emphasis is on careful explanation of the different arguments of the main protagonists and their implications. Some readers will regret that the author does not really enter into the debate and so the discussion is a bit bloodless. We get little idea of the significance of the debate for the religion/reason issue, and this makes the whole issue a bit like Hamlet without the ghost. Although the different arguments produced by the various thinkers are accurately described, they are not really evaluated, it is very much of a historical and descriptive approach which some will feel is not really sufficient for dealing with theoretical material dealing with such an issue. After all, the question of the creation of the world was a potent symbol not only of the reason/revelation clash, but is also crucial for the metaphysics of all the different thinkers considered in the book. We just do not get much of a sense of the controversial nature of the issue from the account we find in this book. On the other hand, we do get a reliable account of the issue as it developed over time and the author is certainly to be congratulated for having compared and contrasted two very important and interesting thinkers. I would encourage the author in his next book to involve himself more directly with the issues themselves, and so produce a more accurate account of the significance of the whole area of discussion.
Oliver Leaman
University of Kentucky, USA
Mohd Nasir bin Mohd Idris, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas
Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Malaysia, 1998, pp. 507, cloth, $58.
Nor Wan Daud is the deputy director of International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) and has had direct contact with al-Attas both as a philosopher and more importantly as a person. This book is not just an intellectual text but also an exposition of the thoughts and deeds of one of the most distinguished contemporary ‘concerned’ Muslim thinkers who, in the words of ‘Ali Shari‘ati, has Dard-i Din, i.e. religious concern. That is, a concern with humanity which springs from his religious worldview and consciousness and is not a by-product of academic preoccupations.
The book is composed of seven chapters, which are in turn combined with inter-related themes that demonstrate the systematic outlook of al-Attas himself. Nor Wan Daud sets on the road by presenting the problem of metaphysics and Weltanschauung in the thought-system of al-Attas. The problem of epistemology and the very emergence of ‘meaning’, not just in the mind, but in the human soul is aptly discussed in chapter two. It is of importance to note that the concept of ‘soul’ or the ‘contemplative self’ (as an attribute of human soul) in relation to epistemological discussions is totally absent in all mainstream secularly-oriented disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy. Al-Attas makes the soul the key point of his analysis.
The pedagogical exposition by Wan Daud is admirable where the latter explicates the thought-system of al-Attas in accordance to the latter's understanding of existence. In al-Attas’ view, existence is not confined to one or even two dimensions of sensibility or rationality. On the contrary, there are, as the poet-philosopher Attar says, valleys or cities of love, ‘love’ being the very raison d'être of cosmic theophanous motion. Wan Daud brings out these multi-layered dimensions in al-Attas’ philosophy in relation to the idea of education or adab as understood in the School of al-Attas by putting forward a coherent logic which works from the metaphysical dimension down to the very building (concrete reality) of the Islamic University which is the main topic of chapter four.
In all educational discourse one is concerned with practice and how to translate philosophical and existential ‘concerns’ into daily activities such as ‘curriculum’ and ‘teaching’, and Wan Daud explicates this aspect of al-Attas. This concern is not just a by-product of Wan Daud's empiricalization of al-Attas’ philosophy but a cornerstone of the latter's approach to the role of religious thought in relation to everyday reality. It is one of the most significant contributions, in contrast to another prominent school called the Perennialist School, of al-Attas that religion is exactly directed to this realm. In other words, the revolutionary impulse of Islam (and all its religio-legal apparatus) is a reflection that this realm should be transformed or Islamised and man should lift up his suflawi status from this realm. So, the curriculum is not just a reflection of an administrative modern concern but more of an existential thought-through reflection where the ‘curriculum’ is understood as one’s course of life. Or to put it differently, curriculum must reflect an attempt at finding the serat.
It might sound a truism that al-Attas’ philosophy is a ‘response’ to contemporary dilemmas faced by the Muslim community based on Islamic tradition. But this claim is weakened when one considers that the very basis of current dilemmas among Muslims is far from clear and how to improve or transform the everyday reality of the Muslim Umma is what Islamisation tries to address. This is the theme of chapter six and seven where the responses of the Islamisation of contemporary knowledge as represented by Isma’il R. al-Faruqi, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Fazlur Rahman, Jaafar Sheikh Idris, and others such as Abdul Karim Surush are considered. Wan Daud demonstrates a close familiarity with each of these authors and after a concise exposition of each of them, he puts forward al-Attas’ and his own original responses in relation to both epistemological and ontological problems of Islamisation as embedded in the history of Islam as represented by the Holy Quran and Prophetic Sunna (and elaborated by major Muslim intellectual traditions).
However, there is another significant, though polemical, underlying theme, which runs through Wan Daud’s exposition of al-Attas’ educational philosophy, i.e., the position represented by the Perennialist School. It is rather unfortunate that the author condemns the religio-intellectual efforts of traditionalists, or as he calls them transcendentalists, as an ontologically confused and theologically misconceived project. But the irony is that Wan Daud praises al-Attas’ approach to other religions as a step forward without exploring the metaphysical foundations of the Perennialist School. But if al-Attas has discerned the common grounds between religions as a fundamentally significant point of departure in terms of ethics and morals, then Wan Daud should notice that the traditionalist school has taken one step, or I would rather say several steps, recognizing the metaphysical similarities between all world religions. And again, Wan Daud (p. 419) holds that al-Attas does not deny the possibility of ‘transcendence’ but adds that this transcendence is not of ‘religion’ as such. On the contrary, it is of religious ‘experience’ of an elite. One is left with a fundamental question regarding ‘religious experience’ and ‘religious thought’ and the probable interrelation between these two significant dimensions which Wan Daud would definitely admit as the basis of religious civilization. The question, which is an outcome of Wan Daud’s critique of the Perennialist School, is whether ‘religious thinking’ based on ‘transcendental religious experience’ is possible at all. And if the answer is an affirmative one, then could one think of some kind of convergence (taqarub) or even conjunction (taqarun) but not homogeneity (tajanus) of religious horizons. If not, then how could one account for the visible similarities between world religions and more importantly what would be the fate of ‘religious thinking’ as an intellectual concept in addressing contemporary issues in each age?
Mohd Nasir bin Mohd Idris
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia