Page 11 - Chapter
One: "According to the great Sufi theoretician ibn Arabi (d. 1240), the
divine mercy that gives rise to the universe is existence itself. The very act of bringing
things into existence is an act of gentleness and kindness. The same point is made in
terms of love in a saying constantly quoted in Sufi texts. "I was a Hidden
Treasure" God says, "so I loved to be known. Hence I created the creatures that
I might be known."
"God’s mercy
and love give rise to the world, but there is an important difference between the two
attributes. Mercy flows in one direction, from God to the world, but love moves in both
directions. People can love God, but they cannot have mercy upon Him, only upon other
creatures. When Sufis say that God’s love for creation gives existence to the
universe, they quickly add that the corresponding human love for God closes the gap
between God and His creatures. Human love makes itself known in sincerity of devotion to
the One God. The greater the love, the greater the degree of participation in the divine
image, and the greater the degree of human perfection. Hence, "love" is often
taken as a synonym for doing the beautiful."
Commentary: The
author refers to Ibn al-‘Arabi as a "theoretician". The nature of this
reference is rather obscure.
The term
"theoretician" has a variety of ‘connotations’ and
‘denotations’. Connotatively, a theoretician is someone who often is considered
to be impractical and a dreamer, and, therefore, an individual who is somewhat, or
entirely, removed from reality. Denotatively, ‘theoretician’ has several
possible meanings.
For example, a
theoretician could be someone who builds conceptual systems or frameworks which may, or
may not, be tested against empirical data through experimental activity. A theoretician
also might be someone who is preoccupied with the hypothetical in the sense that certain
assumptions are made and on the basis of those assumptions, certain statements are
deductively, inductively or abductively generated which propose to specify what follows
from the given premises.
This Commentary
is not the place for a biographical sketch of the life of Ibn al-‘Arabi. However, as
far as the connotative dimensions of the term "theoretician" are concerned, let
it suffice, for the moment, to say that Ibn al-‘Arabi was an eminently practical
individual who went on a spiritual quest to discover reality and was not at all given to
being an idle ‘dreamer’ who was caught up with conceptualizing about, rather
than knowing, the nature of reality.
With respect to the
denotative aspects of "theoretician", ibn al-‘Arabi did not build
conceptual systems, nor was he someone who developed hypotheses and, then, set out to test
them.
Ibn al-‘Arabi was a
spiritual explorer who was charting and chronicling the experiential nature of his
journey. Two of his greatest works - namely, The Meccan Openings and The
Bezels of Wisdom, were both rooted in spiritual experiences of an extraordinary
nature.
Whether one considers
these works to be flights of fantasy or an accurate reflection of authentic spiritual
experiences, neither of these characterizations falls into the category of theorizing.
Instead, Ibn al-‘Arabi was focused on the phenomenology of imagination and was
providing an account of what was manifesting itself through that phenomenological realm.
To use the term
"theoretician" in relation to ibn al-‘Arabi exhibits, at best, a
considerable carelessness in word selection. At worst, such usage is fundamentally
misleading.
The author goes on to
refer to "a saying constantly quoted in Sufi texts." - namely, "I was a
Hidden Treasure, so I loved to be known. Hence I created the creatures that I might be
known."
There is a reason why
this "saying" is "constantly quoted in Sufi texts". It is not just an
anonymous or unattributed saying, but, rather, it is from the tongue of the Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him), and this "saying" is identified as such by, among
others, ibn al- ‘Arabi - an identification of which the author was not only aware but
which he had cited in one of his works on ibn al-‘Arabi (page 66, The Sufi Path
of Knowledge).
In a footnote to the
aforementioned quote on page 66, the author indicates ibn al-‘Arabi knew that
scholars of Hadith considered the quote to be a forgery, but the Shaykh argued that the
words of the Hadith had been received through kashf, or unveiling, while in the presence
of the Prophet in the imaginal world. The footnote goes on to indicate that while ibn
al-‘Arabi acknowledges this Hadith is not found among those transmissions which have
been accepted by the scholars of Hadith according to the usual methodological principles
determining which attributions are to be recorded as authentic Hadith and which
attributions are rejected, nonetheless, ibn al-‘Arabi maintains that the attribution
in question is authentic.
Without wishing to become
sidetracked in a detailed discussion of the methodology of Hadithic literature, there are
certain principles which need to be noted in passing. First, the ‘isnad’, or
chain of transmission, of a Hadith is very important.
Today, many of us are
familiar with the legal principle which requires a ‘chain of custody’ involving
material evidence must be capable of demonstrating that its integrity throughout the
process of a criminal investigation has been maintained in order for such evidence to be
accepted into a given court proceeding as valid evidence. Similarly, an ‘isnad’
is somewhat akin to a ‘chain of custody’ except in the former instance, what
must be maintained is the integrity of the process through which a given saying,
attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), has been transmitted down to the
time of the person who is compiling a record of those attributions which are being
accepted as ‘authentic’.
There are a variety of
factors which must be considered before an individual compiler of Hadith arrives at a
judgement or conclusion concerning the ‘soundness’ or strength of a saying which
is being attributed to the Prophet. For example, one consideration is the length of the
‘isnad’ or chain of transmission.
In general, the shorter
the ‘isnad’ (and assuming there are no other counter veiling factors), the
stronger is a particular Prophetic attribution’s claim on being accepted as
authentic. Obviously, the longer the ‘isnad’ of a given attribution, the greater
is the possibility that different considerations affecting the integrity of the
transmission process surrounding the attribution might arise and, as a result, undermine
one, or more, links in the chain of transmission.
Another important factor
which bears upon the acceptability and strength of a particular Prophetic attribution
revolves around the moral and spiritual character of the individuals who make up the chain
of transmission or ‘isnad’. The methodological framework of all compilers of
Hadith gives considerable emphasis to the importance of being able to rely on the veracity
of what is being transmitted from point to point, or person to person, in the
‘isnad’.
If a given
‘isnad’ involves one or more individuals of dubious, questionable or unknown
moral and spiritual character, then, this weakness may be sufficient to exclude the
attribution from the collection of sound Hadiths. This exclusion is not necessarily
because the attribution has been proven to be incorrect (it may, or may not, be accurate),
but, rather, the attribution or saying is not acceptable because the process of
transmission through which the saying has arrived at the doorstep, so to speak, of the one
who is collecting Hadiths has not been able to satisfy the methodological conditions
governing what constitutes an acceptable ‘isnad’ for that Compiler of Hadith.
A third factor which may
affect whether a given attribution to the Prophet is, or is not, considered to be
acceptable revolves around the presence, or absence, of independently established
‘isnads’ which, if sound, serve to corroborate one another in relation to this
or that saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). All other things being equal,
the more independent isnads there are which corroborate a given attribution or saying, the
‘sounder’ is the claim of that saying on authenticity.
A Hadith that is
considered ‘weak’ is an attribution which has met the minimum methodological
conditions of acceptability for being treated as authentic, but it does not enjoy the same
degree of supporting evidence as a Hadith which is judged to be ‘strong’. For
instance, the former may have a longer isnad with no independently established chain of
transmission which corroborates that attribution, while the stronger Hadith may have a
shorter isnad and, in addition, may be supported by one, or more, independently derived
isnads concerning the same, or a similar, attribution.
Sayings attributed to the
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) but which have been excluded from a given Compilation
of Hadith are not necessarily forgeries or inventions. In fact, demonstrating that a given
attribution is, in fact, a forgery requires a stronger burden of proof than merely
excluding a certain attribution because this saying was not able to satisfy the
methodological principles which determine the conditions under which a Compiler is
prepared to accept an attribution as authentic.
To be sure, the problem
of ‘forged’ attributions was one of the factors which led to the rise of, and
need for, ‘official’ compilations of authentic Hadiths. However, most Books of
Hadith did not get bogged down in trying to prove whether various attributions were, in
fact, forgeries, as opposed to an honest mistake in which, say, someone misheard or
misunderstood or misreported a given saying being attributed to the Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him).
Instead, the Compilers of
Hadith merely stated the principles of the methodology underlying their process of judging
the ‘acceptability’ of various attributions or sayings. Then, they went about
their business of compiling those attributions which satisfied their criteria and excluded
the rest.
The Compilers of Hadith
were more concerned about judging an attribution - which was, in fact, false - as being
authentic, then, they were worried about excluding attributions which might be true. They
were prepared to err on the side of caution, and their methodological principles were
designed to exclude attributions about which, for whatever reason, they were uncertain
and, as a result, were not willing to issue a stamp of acceptability or authenticity with
respect to such attributions.
In order for a scholar of
Hadith to prove that, for instance, the attribution: "I was a Hidden Treasure, and
loved to be known, so, I brought forth creation", is a forgery, such a scholar would
have to demonstrate that all isnads concerning this attribution were
transmitted by people who either themselves knowingly invented a falsehood, or were aware
that the attribution was false and passed it on to others nonetheless.
This cannot be done, so
to label this attribution a ‘forgery’ is not methodologically warranted. At
most, a scholar only can say that it does not meet the usual methodological requirements
of this or that mode of compiling Hadiths.
In truth, even this
lesser judgement cannot be made with any degree of rigor. As noted previously, two
important factors in judging the ‘authenticity’ of a given attribution or
saying, concerns the length of an isnad and the moral/spiritual character of those who are
involved in the transmission of that saying within such an isnad.
Ibn al-‘Arabi was
reporting his experience with the Prophet, and, consequently, the isnad is as short as it
can be - a quality which lends to its strength and soundness. Furthermore, the fact this
encounter occurred within the imaginal world cannot, in and of itself, be used to
undermine the veracity of that experience, any more than the spiritual nature of the
Prophet’s mi‘raj can, in and of itself, bring into question the truth of the
Prophet’s experience when he reported what different Prophets had said to him during
his passage through the different levels of heaven.
This naturally leads to
the question of moral/spiritual character. In the case of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him), the answer is obvious, but what of the moral/spiritual character of ibn al-
‘Arabi?
One must engage in the
same kind of considered judgement concerning his life as one does with the life of any
individual who is part of an isnad. If a person takes the time to examine the life of ibn
al-‘Arabi on the basis of authentic source materials, including his writings, (and
not on the basis of hearsay evidence or diatribes by those who have not examined his
life/writings or have various ideological/theological axes to grind) such a person will
have a very difficult time trying to demonstrate that ibn al-‘Arabi was not of the
highest moral and spiritual character, and, therefore, one will have no sound, compelling
reason(s) for arguing that ibn al-‘Arabi’s report concerning what the Prophet
said in this respect is anything but true.
Someone could, of course,
state they are not prepared to accept, as authentic, the ‘Hidden Treasure’
attribution recorded by ibn al-‘Arabi. This is that individual’s prerogative,
but such a decision to exclude the Hadith in question has no special authority attached to
it, and, simultaneously, there is a considerable body of evidence which could be offered
in rebuttal to the soundness of such a judgement.
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