Hi, in regards to Islam, there is one Islam tradition that is
more agreeable with me. It is Sufi Islam. They follow the teachings
of Islam, but follow a more contemplative practice.
I have looked and researched into some of the Quran teachings and
also into Sufism before, and found that there are many realised
mystics, similarly there are many realised mystics in the Christian
counterpart - Christian Mysticism. In fact there are many
contemplative traditions that we just do not know much.
Just as Mohammed is the most
uncompromising of monotheists, so Ibn al-'Arabi is the most
rigorous of panentheists. Everything that exists is a part of and a
manifestation of the Oneness of God. Humans are part of God. The
idea of a separate self is the result of ignorance.
Ibn al-'Arabi was born in Murcia, Spain, in AH 560 [AD 1165]. At
the age of twenty he was initiated into Sufism. From the 1190s he
engaged in three decades of travels as a wandering scholar, poet
and mystic, visiting the Maghreb, Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Asia
Minor. In 1223 he finally settled in Damascus.
One source of Ibn al-'Arabi's panentheism is Sufism, which seeks to
efface the self in mystical union with God.
The other is Islamic theology. Panentheism is already strongly
present - in the Quran: "Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of
God." [Quran, II.115.] And in Islam shirk - association - is one of
the gravest sins: "God does not forgive anyone for associating
something with him." [Quran, IV.48] This bans the linking of other
divinities with God, as in polytheism and the Christian
trinity.
But Ibn al-'Arabi applies it more rigorously. To associate anything
at all with God would be shirk. Therefore nothing can exist except
God.
However, Ibn al-'Arabi believed that God had a transcendental as
well as an immanent aspect. He was manifested in, but also extended
beyond the material universe. He had a hidden, veiled side.
The texts are from The Bezels of Wisdom [BW], translated by R.W.J
Austin, Paulist Press, New York 1980, and The Treatise on Being,
[TB] translated by T. H. Weir, Beshara Publications, London
1976.
The true authorship of the Treatise on Being is not known. It was
probably written by a disciple of Ibn Al'Arabi. It reflects his
thinking, but perhaps in a more ecstatic, intense and
uncompromising way.
--------------------------------------
Oneness and uniqueness of God.
Praise be to God, before whose oneness there was not a before,
unless the before were He, and after whose singleness there is not
an after, except the after be He. He is, and there is with Him no
after nor before, nor above nor below, nor far nor near, nor union
nor division.[TB]
For He will not have anything to be other than He. Indeed, the
other is He, and there is no otherness.[TB]
God is all things.
The Cosmos is His form. The forms of the Cosmos are the manifest
Reality, He being the manifest. He is also their inner essence,
being also the unmanifest. He is the first, since He was when they
were not, and also the Last, since in their manifestation He is the
Essence. [BW X]
The eye perceives naught but Him. We are in His presence at all
times, in all states. [BW X]
God is essentially all things. He permeates through all beings
created and originated. [BW X]
He is Being itself, the Essence of Being, He is the Preserver of
all. In preserving all things, He is preserving His form, lest
anything should assume a form other than His Form, which is not
possible. [BW X]
The existence of all created things is His existence. Thou dost not
see, in this world or the next, anything beside God. [TB]
God is observer and observed.
He is the observer in the observer, and the observed in the
observed. [BW X] None sees Him, save Himself. None perceives Him,
save Himself. By Himself he sees Himself, and by Himself he knows
Himself. His Veil is part of his Oneness; nothing veils other than
he. . . His Prophet is he, and his sending is He, and His word is
He.[TB]
The knower and that which he knows are both one, and he who unites
and that with which he unites are one, and seer and seen are one.
[TB]
Identity of self and God.
Thou art not thou: thou art He. Thou never wast nor wilt be, Thou
art neither ceasing to be nor still existing. Thou art He.
[TB]
Thou art not what is beside God. Thou art thine own end and thine
own object in thy search after thy Lord. [TB]
He who knows himself understands that his existence is not his own
existence, but his existence is the existence of God.
[TB]
