Biography
(1165 – 1240)
Al-Arabi
studied sciences and traveled extensively as a youth, and he was converted
to Sufism and at the age of thirty he made the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj),
where he circled the Kabah (the holiest shrine in Mecca) and prayed
and meditated for two years before resuming his travels.
In 1201, again
in Mecca, al-Arabi had a theophany upon the vision of Nizam, the beautiful
daughter of a sheikh. The vision inspired him to write a volume of love
poems, The Interpretation of Desires, and along with several
other mystical experiences (documented in the twenty-volume The Meccan
Revelations), it profoundly influenced al-Arabi’s conception of God
and cosmology. Nizam was an incarnation of Sophia, the divine
Wisdom that was none other than the presence of God brought to the
material world to make Him known. With his mystical experiences came the
realization that, “Knowledge of mystical states can be obtained solely
by experience; human reason cannot define it, nor arrive at it by
deduction.” The rationality of the philosophers (Faylasufs),
which emphasized the transcendence of God, could not adequately grasp the
love and beauty that could be inspired by creatures, such as Nizam, in
which “the object of love is God alone.” Such love and beauty was seen
with the grace of God, and the Creative Imagination that he gave to human
beings.
A central
theme of al-Arabi’s mysticism is his definition of the nature of God.
God, at the highest level, is an undifferentiated and transcendent Reality
in which Being and perception are united as one, in which there is no
separation of Creator from creation. This Reality is known as al-Haqq—the
Real, the Truth. However, because of its essential goodness (an Islamic
hadith has God saying, “I was a hidden treasure and I yearned to be
known. Then I created creatures in order to be known by them.), al-Haqq
divides itself into two parts—knower and known, subject and object,
Creator and Created. Through the Creative Imagination of His creatures,
who are able to see the divine archetypes that are reflected in the lower
realms, God sees himself in creation, and there is union between knower
(God the Divine Subject), and known (the creatures that are the objects).
Insofar as human beings are conscious of their essence (using the Creative
Imagination), which is not other than God Himself, they are the bridge
between the two parts or poles of Reality, the means by which God knows
Himself, and by which unity is attained.
In contrast to
the intellectual path to union with God stressed by some other Sufi
mystics and philosophers, al-Arabi’s focus was on love as the catalyst
that unites the creature with the Creator. Creation was born through
God’s Love, and it is through love that God and human beings are
reunited, and the Creative Imagination sparked, as exampled by al-Arabi’s
own experience with Nizam.
Al-Arabi
believed in the uniqueness of each human beings' spiritual experience and
path. As Frithjof Schuon said, “there are as many paths as there are
human souls.” This characteristic of al-Arabi’s thought has two
implications. First, it is difficult to understand the depths of the
mystical experience through another person’s eyes; we must experience it
for ourselves because our paths are unique; our vision of God who
transcends objective reality is for us alone, made possible through the
Word (logoi or Name) that God planted in our being. Secondly, since each
person was given a different Word by which to find God, and by which God
recognized himself in His creation, no single religion could fully express
the Reality of God. “God” as represented in a given religion is not
the same as the Ineffable God that could be known by the infinite but
unique Names; our understanding of God is colored by our religion, and
each is a valid revelation, but none can entirely encompass the Infinite
Being, the transcendent God that unites all religions and all beings.
