101 Hadith Qudsi by pImam ibn Arabi

Notes to the translation
Part One
1. That is to say, if a needle were put into the sea and then withdrawn, the tiny
drop of water adhering to the needle would not diminish the sea itself.
2. “But when [the sun] set [Abraham] said: ‘O my people, surely I am quit of
what you associate. I have turned my face to Him who originated the heavens
and the earth, a man of pure faith; I am not of the idolaters’” (Q. 6: 78).
3. The ¥nal sentence is a personalised form of the S¬rat al-Ikhlåß (Q. 112).
4. Another version of this ¢ad¨th, quoted by Ibn ¡Arab¨ in the Fut¬¢åt (II. 102–
3), reads: “Exalted Might (¡izza) is My loincloth, and Grandeur My cloak.
Whoever contends with Me over either of these, I shall shatter him.” See also
the ¥rst lines of Psalm 93: “The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with majesty
(pride); the Lord is clothed with strength (grandeur), wherewith He hath
girded Himself.”
5. Q. 10: 26.
6. Literally, “From every thousand” [Muhammad said:] I think He said: “Nine
hundred and ninety-nine.”
7. Q. 22: 2, describing the earthquake of the last Hour.
8. The Arabic words for these two injunctions would be very similar.
9. Compare with Isaiah 64: 4: “Since ancient times no-one has heard, no ear
has perceived, no eye has seen any god besides You, who acts on behalf of
those who wait for Him;” and I Corinthians 2: 9: “No eye has seen, no ear
has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love
Him.”
10. This is the basis for Ibn ¡Arab¨’s description in the Fut¬¢åt (II. 190): “When
the Form of the Image revealed itself in the Mirror of the Essence, [the
Creator] said to [the Adamic Form] – when [the latter] perceived [its likeness
in the Mirror of] the Essence, and [the Form] sneezed and made its Self
to stand out – ‘Praise whom you see!’ So [the Form] praised its Self and said:
‘Praise belongs to God.’ And [the Creator] said to [the Form]: ‘May your
Lord have mercy on you, O Adam! For this did I create you.’” (Translated
by G. Elmore in “±amd al-¢amd: The Paradox of Praise in Ibn al-¡Arab¨’s
Doctrine of Oneness”, in Praise, p. 86.)
11. In some manuscripts this ¥rst section reads as follows:
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