reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

62 Nasr Abu ZaydThe second phenomenon is a similarity between the structure of his writings andthe structure of the Qur'iin. First, as the Qur'iin includes mubkamat andmutashabihiit (3:7), Sufi writings in general, and his writings in particular, alsoplay on the duality of veiling (al-satr wa-1-ikhfli ') on the one hand, and unveiling(al-kashf), on the other. "God could have made explicit (tan$1$) what the people ofGod have interpreted (ta 'awwu/ahu); He did not do so, He inserted (adraja) thesedivine words, revealed in the language ofthe common people (lisan a/- 'amma) thekind of knowledge that is only accessible to His chosen servants by the capacity ofunderstanding ( 'ayn a/-jahm) given to them by Him.'>JJ But Ibn al-' Arabi does notreveal all that he has received; he follows the divine wisdom of unveiling·what ought to be unveiled and veiling what ought to be veiled, as "Neither abook nor the universe as it exists now can contain this.'' 34 Se.condly, as the arrangementof the Qur'iinic verses, passages and chapters does not follow a thematicorder, the arrangement of passages and chapters in Ibn a!-' Arabi's books 'matchesthe Qur'iin's structure; they are divine revelation and Ibn al-'Arabi is only atransmitter.Ibn al-' Arabi never fails to emphasize the parallelism between three manifestationsof the divine kalam: 1. divine cosmological words (ka/imat Allah) inscribedin the universe; 2. The word of God (ka/am Allah) in the 111!1$/:laf(i.e. the Qur'iin);and 3. The word of God inspired in the hearts of his chosen servants: "God dictatesto hearts by inspiration (bi-1-ilhiim) all that is inscribed in the entire universe(a!- 'iilam); the universe is a divine, inscribed book (kitab masfiir ilahf)." 35 Such auniverse of wonders and allusions is a text, a cosmological text, the domain ofGod's words, which cannot be recorded even if all the oceans were ink and all thetrees of the world pens (Q 18:109; 31:27).Here Ibn al-' Arabi establishes a parallelism between the cosmological text(kalimat Allah al-mastiir fi l-wujiid) and the speech of God, the Qur'iin, (lea/amAllah al-masfiir fi l-kitab) which, though limited in size, is unlimited in meaning.Only chosen servants of God can decipher the cosmological meaning of theQur'iin; they can encode that meaning in their own discourse, which is nothing buta divine, inspired discourse parallel to the divine, inscribed discourse in both theworld and the book. At the very beginning of the Futii/:liit, he explicitly, thoughpoetically, claims that he is the "Qur' iin and al-sab' al-mathani," 36 a claim whichcaused him trouble during his lifetime and his reputation trouble for centuries afterhis death. 37All of this makes the study oflbn al- 'Arabi's hermeneutics a difficult task. Thegreatest difficulty is not only his ambiguous language and circular style, of whichTowards understanding the Qur 'an's worldview 63.. · ·all scholars of Ibn al-' Arabi complain, but rather the impossibility of distin-. ,guishing between Ibn al-'Arabi's thought and his ta'wil of the Qur'iin. It was not· for me to distinguish his ta 'wf! from his ontology and his epistemology. Inother words, Ibn al-' Arabi's system of thought is circular; in fact he is fond of: constructing his thought in the form of "circles.'' 38· : After my thesis had been approved by the defense committee, I became awareof· the problem of the intricate relationship between Qur' iinic ta 'wf/ and Ibn. 'Arabi's philosophical worldview. I approached my supervisor suggesting I• should rewrite the thesis, moving all the details of his philosophical worldview· >to the footnotes, keeping in the body of the text that which is related to his hermeowjuLJtl,;~.My professor's comment was, "Ibn al-'Arabi is an ocean and I am veryglad that you were able to swim back. No way, you have your life ahead of.·. · return to the ocean later but definitely not now." How far did I fulfill my early·''.u.""o'•"J or uncertainty as the true knowledge. In the Futz7(1at, he narrates three•m'l•ste:riotiS encounters with Ibn Rushd (or Averroes; d. 595/1198), the first ofoccurred when Ibn al-' Arabi was a teenager while Ibn Rushd was at the top. of his career and his fame. The second encounter seems to have happened in Ibn:at-' Arabi's imagination, in a vision according to which the philosophers are busywith worldly affairs, i.e. with themselves and their own thought. The thirdencounter was not with the living philosopher but after Ibn Rushd's death. It was· an encounter with his coffin when his remains were transferred from Morocco to"'"""'ua. 39 It is within the first encounter, which is explained and interpreted indifferent ways by different scholars of Ibn al-' Arabi, that I would like to present-Ibn al-' Arabi's view of uncertainty, in opposition to what he thought to be thephilosophical certainty of Ibn Rushd.• This first meeting occurred when the philosopher heard that the young Ibn