'Arabî and the Mi'râj - Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society

31[IV-C. Jesus and Yahya (John the Baptist) in the Second Heaven] 102Ibn 'Arabi next encounters Jesus and his cousin Yahya (= John the Baptist) in the thirdheaven--the two figures being linked here by their association in the Koran with "Life," both"animal" and spiritual. The Shaykh first asks Jesus about his life-giving powers, and is told thatthey ultimately come from Gabriel (as the Universal Spirit, al-ruh al-kull):"No one who revives the dead revives them except to the extent of what he has inheritedfrom me; 103 so such a person does not occupy my station in regard to that (life-giving power),just as I do not have the station of the one (i.e., Gabriel) who granted me (the power of) revivingthe dead."Ibn 'Arabi then turns to Yahya/John, who clarifies a long series of questions involving thereferences to him (and his relations with Jesus) in the Koran and hadith. 104 Finally, after a brief102 III, 346.20-347.20 (summarized here). See also the references to discussions of Jesus in theFutuhat (including his key role in Ibn 'Arabi's own entry into the spiritual path) at n. 42 above.In the hadith concerning the Mi'raj (section II above), Muhammad encounters Yahya only in thefifth heaven, along with Aaron; that is where he also reappears later in this chapter (at the beginning ofsection IV-F). (He explains his special ability to travel through the intervening spheres in an untranslatedpassage at the end of this section.) Jesus and John are likewise mentioned together in this second heavenin chapter 167 of the Futuhat. However, there is no further discussion of John in that section (= Alchimie,pp. 63-72), which focuses instead on the miracles of Jesus and the life-giving powers of the divine Spiritmore generally.The corresponding section of the K. al-Isra' (pp. 15-18) does not mention Yahya/John at all, butfocuses instead on Jesus' role as the "Seal of (universal) Sainthood" and his descent with the Mahdi at theend of time (see explanations in Chodkiewicz, Sceau, chapter VII and index s.v.), as those are explainedto the "voyager" by Mercury (al-Katib). That section also evokes (at p. 18) Ibn 'Arabi's own exceptionalpreparedness for the "Station of Perfection" (maqam al-kamal).103 An allusion to Ibn 'Arabi's typical conception of the knowledge and powers of the saints asbeing "inherited" from the spiritual reality of one or more of the prophets (who are all encompassed bythe "Muhammadan Reality"): see the extensive references in Chodkiewicz, Sceau, chapters IV and V, andHakim, Mu'jam, pp. 1191-1202. The association between Jesus (and the second heaven) and the power ofLife--in the sense both of spiritual knowledge and of physical or "animal" (hayawani) animation--isequally fundamental in the corresponding passages of chapter 167 and, in extremely allusive form, in theK. al-Isra' and the R. al-Anwar. A more complete discussion of these questions, bringing out more clearlythe primary importance, for Ibn 'Arabi, of the revivifying spiritual knowledge brought by the prophets, isto be found in the long chapter on Jesus (no. 15) in the Fusus (I, pp. 138-150; Bezels, pp. 174-186)together with chapter 20, on Yahya/John the Baptist.104 The first of these is a famous hadith qudsi (found in Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Maja, Darimi, andAhmad b. Hanbal; see the analysis and translation in Graham, Word, pp. 202-203) concerning the"sacrifice of death," in the form of a spotted ram, on the Day of Resurrection. The Koranic versesexplained here include 19:7, referring to the inner significance of Yahya's name (= "he lives," in Arabic),."..We did not give the name to anyone before him"; 19:12-15, on the special divine blessings grantedhim; and 3:39, concerning his spiritual purity or "chastity" (hasur: the subject of an excursus on theunique condition of Mary) and the special condition of "righteousness" (salah) he shares with Jesus andother prophets.