ISLAMIC

MYSTICISM AND IBN ARABI IN RELATION TO THE CONVERGENCE OF COGNITIVE DOMAINS On Buying Islamic Mystical Poetry Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi selected with explanatory notes by by Mahmood Jamal Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju I bought this book because it contains, with rich and lucid explanatory notes, selections from the poetry of Ibn Arabi, described by some as the greatest thinker in the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, if I remember well. This is a very large claim in a field that contains such figures who have shaped history as the Christians St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante Alighieri, Jews such as Moses de Leon, described as the writer of the monumental Zohar, Nahman of Bratslasv, Hillel and Rashi and the luminaries of the Islamic tradition, such as Al Ghazali and Rumi, described by one source as the greatest poet of all time, whose famous poetry is also in this book, and other Islamic lights, some being polymaths who combined genius in the arts and sciences, such as Ibn Sina. Ibn Arabi's magnum opus, Futuhat Al-Makkiyya, translated into English as The Meccan Revelations, is described as so profound, that even among devotees and scholars, humanity has not reached such a level as to adequately appreciate it, if I am not exaggerating the point made in an Amazon review of the work. I have looked into the English translation of the book, representing only a part of its totality, and it is clearly rich with a dense tapestry of ideas, some of them dizzying in their strangeness and yet communicated simply and directly. To help me gain entry into Arabi, I have decided to begin with his poetry, which demonstrates an elevation both ethereal and imagistically gripping in its concreteness, such as the image of an ocean without shore, and a shore without ocean or Arabis description of the youth he ran into while circumambulating the Kaaba, the holy stone in Mecca at the symbolic centre of Islamic geography, and who, when Ibn Arabi asked to be informed of the nature of the youth, the

youth asked Arabi to read the letters engraved on his, the youth's body, to be so informed. My very limited exposure to Islamic mysticism, to conceptions of perceiving, experiencing or understanding directly the source of existence as demonstrated by Islam, suggests that its classical form might be different in significant ways, beyond the differences of doctrine, from the related school of Christian mysticism in its classical sense, being perhaps generally more rooted in everyday imagery, such as the story of birds on a journey to meet the king of birds (?) in the famous Conference of the Birds of Attar and another mystic describing an encounter with the Ultimate experienced as a veiled woman, lovely and tender in her concealed yet immediate presence. Henry Corbin has a famous book on Arabi, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, dealing with Arabi 's understanding of imagination as a realm that enables entry into a unique form of knowledge. William Chittick has published at least two fat books, richly embedded with ideas, about him, and there exists an industry of scholarship on Arabi, including the rich fare on the site of the Ibn Arabi society (www.ibnarabisociety.org) , based in Oxford. Chittck presents Arabi as a thinker who demonstrates the significance of the individual locating themselves within a cosmological framework. Arabi's poetry is one sure way of understanding his ability, digging deep into the illumination of his religion, to anchor himself in perennial human themes in a manner that may resonate with one regardless of one's religious faith, or lack of one. A helpful scholar to read in relation to such poetry is Karen Armstrong, in any of her books and essays, but ideally taking in the full range of her works, from her autobiographical The Spiral Stair and Through the Narrow Gate, to history and philosophy of religion, as in A History of God and The Case for God, because they are all linked in terms of her journey from Christian nun, to student of literature, and eventually to former nun and scholar of religion who has moved beyond her earlier approach to religious faith as an interpretation of facts to a conception of faith as imaginative framework through which the otherwise inaccessible is brought within the courtyard of the mind, to be at least roughly accurate about her understanding of religious knowledge and action. In this she is in agreement with the epistemology of the Hermetic occultist Dion Fortune, who, as she argues in her Mystical Qabalah, Sane Occultism and Applied Magic, understands occult symbols as an imaginative shorthand, a cognitive ladder for thinking about modes of being not otherwise conceivable. These perspectives about imagination as a bridge between otherwise incompatible cognitive domains may also be compared with modern scientific efforts to answer the question "What is the ultimate origin of the universe?" . " If it was the explosion and expansion known as the Big Bang, what came before the Big Bang?". In response to these questions, one may answer "nothing", as eloquently argued by philosopher of science Tian Yu Cao in "Ontology and Scientific Explanation," in Explanations. Ed. John Conwell, Oxford UP, 2004. 173- 196.

 When all casual chains break down, when the quest for ultimate beginning regresses infinitely, what do you do? You may posit, like Cao, does, developing a trend very visible in the scientific theory of quantum mechanics, that "nothing" is the beginning of everything. Even though one, like the scientists who answer that way, could have arrived at that point from a different epistemological route than the mystics, one would therefore share a platform with the mystics who make a similar cognitive leap, through intuition rather than primarily or not at all through the intellect, and claiming direct engagement with that reality rather than addressing it only theoretically as the scientific construction of truth does. Also posted at comprosyt.blogspot.co.uk

 Dialogue with Ade Lohenragrin Lawal on Facebook in response to this post on 23 March 2012

Ade Lohenragrin Lawal It is open to debate if we can with effrontery consider Ibn Arabi the greatest thinker in the Abrahamic traditions per se. Arabi's Magnum Opus *Futuhat Al- Makkiyya* (The Meccan Openings/Illuminations) is more of a cornucopia on Sufsm than Islamic theology. Rumi is the greatest in my opinion...

Toyin Adepoju Thanks. Very interesting. This will spur me to read Rumi. Are you assessing Rumi in relation to Sufism alone or to all Islam, except the Prophet perhaps, or in relation to all of the Abrahamic religions? I hope you are doing well. Its been a long time.

Ade Lohenragrin Lawal Rumi's theosophic message reaches [across] all religious divide[s]. Arabi is great-no doubt...there is this element of elitism in his philosophical and mystical thoughts...I'm well Kindred Spirit...