The Resources of the Human Spirit - Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society

26 Souad Al-HakimCommandment”. God Almighty says: “His is Creation and theCommandment.” 8 These two ways are different: existence “dueto Creation” takes place in several stages, such as the creation ofHeaven, Earth, etc.; existence “due to the Commandment” happensin just one stage: God said “Be”, and it was. On this basis,Ibn ¡Arabi states that the human spirit was created by divineCommandment. According to our philosophical language, thesespirits are simple creatures, not complex ones, and are thereforeliving and immortal creatures, since they have not been createdin stages, in which case their fate would be decay and decomposition.Ibn ¡Arabi says:Letters are the raw material of words, just as water, earth, fire andwind are the necessary raw materials for the existence of our bodies.After that, He breathed into them the “commanded” spirit and thehuman being was created, just as the winds accepted the breathof the “commanded” spirit, and the jinn was created, and just asthe lights accepted the breath of the “commanded” spirit, and theangel was created. 9Therefore, we can infer that the spirit of the human beingcomes from the “world of the commandment”, whereas its bodycomes from the “world of creation”.4. The spirit cannot be located or dividedOne of the characteristics of the spirit, according to Ibn ¡Arabi,is that it constitutes an enduring entity in itself. Just like transcendentalintellects, 10 the spirit cannot be located; that is, it isnot composed of any material element: it is immaterial. At thesame time it is indivisible, that is, it is simple and cannot bedecomposed. Ibn ¡Arabi states:Spirits do not accept either location or division; they manifestthemselves in shapes, without exterior or interior … The existence8. Q. 7:54.9. Fut. I.85.10. Ibn ¡Arabi, Inshå¤ al-dawå¤ir, p. 23.