SUFISM AND TAOISM: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts
by Toshihiko Izutsu 1983
First published 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo
This edition is published by The University of California Press, 1984,
Rev. ed. of: A comparative study of the key philosophical concepts in Sufism and Taoism. 1966-67.
=====
First published 1983 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo
This edition is published by The University of California Press, 1984,
Rev. ed. of: A comparative study of the key philosophical concepts in Sufism and Taoism. 1966-67.
=====
Contents
Preface by T. Izutsu
Introduction
Part I - Ibn 'Arabi
I Dream and Reality
II The Absolute in its Absoluteness
III The Self-knowledge of Man
IV Metaphysical Unification and Phenomenal Dispersion
V Metaphysical Perplexity
VI The Shadow of the Absolute
VII The Divine Nam es
VIII Allah and the Lord
IX Ontological Mercy
X The Water of Life
XI The Self-manifestation of the Absolute
XII Permanent Archetypes
XIII Creation
XIV Man as Microcosm
XV The Perfect Man as an Individual
XVI Apostle, Prophet, and Saint
XVII The Magical Power of the Perfect Man
Part II - Lao-Tzii & Chuang-Tzu
I Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu
II From Mythopoiesis to Metaphysics
III Dream and Reality
IV Beyond This and That
V The Birth of a New Ego
VI Against Essentialism
VII The Way
VIII The Gateway of Myriad Wonders
IX Determinism and Freedom
X Absolute Reversai of Values
XI The Perfect Man
XII Homo Politicus
Part III - A Comparative Reftection
I Methodological Preliminaries
II The Inner Transformation of Man
III The Multistratified Structure of Reality
IV Essence and Existence
V The Self-evolvement of Existence
===
Ch 4]
Metaphysical Unification and
Phenomenal Dispersion
What the preceding chapters have made clear may briefly be summarized by saying
----
- (1) that the Absolute has two aspects opposed to each other: the hidden and the self-revealing aspect;
- (2) that the Absolute in the former sense remains forever a Mystery and Darkness whose secret cannot be unveiled even by the highest degree of kashf-experience;
- (3) that the Absolute comes fully into the sphere of ordinary human cognition only in its self-revealing aspect in the form of 'God' and 'Lord'; and
- 4) that between these two is situated a particular region in which things 'may rightly be said to exist and not to exist', i.e., the world of the permanent archetypes,
- which is totally inaccessible to the mind of an ordinary man
- but perfectly accessible to the ecstatic mind of a mystic.
- This summary gives the most basic structure of Ibn' Arabi's world-view from the ontological standpoint.
----
Since the hidden aspect of the Absolute can neither be known nor
described, the whole of the rest of the book will naturally be
concerned with the self-revealing aspect and the intermediate re-
gion. But before we proceed to explore these two domains which are
more or less accessible to human understanding, we must consider
the radical opposition between the hidden and the self-revealing
aspect of the Absolute from a new perspective.
The analysis will disclose an important phase of Ibn 'Arabi's thought.
From this new perspective Ibn 'Arabi calls the hidden and the
self-revealing aspect tanzih and tazhbïh, respectively.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tanzih 탄지 tazhbïh 타시비
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the hidden the self-revealing
the hidden the self-revealing
transcendent, pure, perfect 'to liken God to created things'
God sees, hears, speaks, anthropomorphic
God sees, hears, speaks, anthropomorphic
aspect of 'absoluteness' (itliiq) aspect of' determination' (taqayyud)
-----
Noah as a representative of tanzih
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two are diametrically opposite
But, both are compatible with and complementary to each other.
One part alone is one sided. Two must be combined.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
prophet Noah - 'tanzîh by Reason' - exercised by the Reason of an ordinary man
'purifying' --- lived on the earth as a simple ordinary man
prophet Enoch - 'tanzîh of immediate tasting' - exercised by the pure Intellect or mystical Awareness
'subtraction' -- -became himself a pure spirit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are two key-terms taken from the terminology of the traditional Islamic
theology. Both terms played an exceedingly important role in
theology from the earliest times of its historical formulation.
Tanzih (from the verb nazzaha meaning literally 'to keep something away
from anything contaminating, anything impure') is used in theology
in the sense of'declaring or considering God absolutely free from all imperfections'. And by 'imperfections' is meant in this context all qualities that resemble those of creatures even in the slightest degree.
[49]
Tanzïh in this sense is an assertion of God's essential and absolute
incomparability with any created thing, His being above all crea-
turely attributes. It is, in short, an assertion of Divine transcendence.
And since the Absolute per se, as we have seen, is an
Unknowable which rejects ail human effort to approach it and
frustrates all human understanding in any form whatsoever, the
sound reason naturally inclines toward tanzïh. It is a natural attitude
of the Reason in the presence of the unknown and unknowable Absolute.
In contrast to this, tashbïh (타시비 from the verb shabbaha meaning 'to
make or consider something similar to some other thing') means in
theology 'to liken God to created things'.
More concretely, it is a theological assertion posited by those who,
on the basis of the Qoranic expressions suggesting that
'God has hands, feet, etc.',attribute corporeal and human properties to God.
Quite naturally it tends to turn toward crude anthropomorphism.
In traditional theology, these two positions are, in their radical
forms, diametrically opposed and cannot exist together in harmony.
One is either a 'transcendentalist' (munazzih, i.e., one who exer-
cises tanzïh) or an 'anthropomorphist' (mushabbih, i.e., one who
chooses the position of tashbïh, and holds that God 'sees with His
eyes', for example, and 'hears with His ears', 'speaks with His
tangue' etc.).
Ibn' Arabi understands these terms in quite an original manner,
though of course there still remains a reminiscence of the meanings
they have in theological contexts.
Briefly, tanzïh in his terminology indicates the aspect of 'absoluteness' (itliiq) in the Absolute,
while tashbïh refers to its aspect of' determination' (taqayyud). 1
Both are in this sense
- compatible with each other
- and complementary, and
the only right attitude is for us
- to assert both at the same time and with equal emphasis.
Of all the prophets who preceded Muhammad in time,
Ibn 'Arabi mentions Noah as representative of the attitude of tanzïh.
Quite significantly, Ibn' Arabi entitles the chapter in his Fusüs, in which he
deals with Noah,
'the transcendentalist wisdom (Hikmah subbüfJiyyah) as embodied in the prophet Noah' .
2)
According to the Qoran, Noah in the midst of an age in which
obstinate and unbridled idol-worship was in full sway, denied the
value of the idols, openly exhorted the worship of the One God, and
advocated monotheism.
In other words, he emphasized throughout his life the principle of tanzïh.
This attitude of Noah, in the view of Ibn 'Arabi,
was an historical necessity and was therefore quite justifiable.
For in his age, among his people, polytheism was so
rampant that only a relentless exhortation to a pure and extreme
tanzïh could have any chance of bringing the people back to the
right form of religious belief.[50]
Apart from these historical considerations, however, tanzïh as a
human attitude toward God is definitely one-sided. Any religious
belief based exclusively on tanzïh is essentially imperfect and
incomplete.
For to 'purify' God to such an extent and to reduce Him
to something having nothing at all to do with the creatures is
another way of delimiting Divine Existence which is actually
infinitely vast and infinitely profound.
'Tanzîh', as Ibn' Arabï says,3 'in the opinion of the people who know the truth, is nothing less than delimiting and restricting God'.
This sentence is explained by al Qashani as follows: 4
Tanzïh is distinguishing the Absolute from ail contingent and physi-
cal things, that is, from ail material things that do not allow of tanzïh.
But everything that is distinguished from some other thing can only
be distinguished from it through an attribute which is incompatible
with the attribute of the latter. Thus such a thing (i.e., anything that is
distinguished from others) must necessarily be determined by an
attribute and delimited by a limitation. Ali tanzïh is in this sense
delimitation.
The gist of what is asserted here is the following. He who 'purifies'
God purifies Him from ail bodily attributes, but by that very act he is
(unconsciously) 'assimilating' (tashbïh) Him with non-material,
spiritual beings. What about, then, if one 'purifies' Him from 'limit-
ing' (taqyïd) itself? Even in that case he will be 'limiting' Him with
'non-limitation' (it/iiq), while in truth God is 'purified' from (i.e.,
transcends) the fetters of both 'limitation' and 'non-limitation'. He is
absolutely absolute; He is not delimited by either of them, nor does
He even exclude either of them.
Ibn' Arabi makes a challenging statement that
'any body who exercises and upholds tanzîh in its extreme form
is either an ignorant man
or one who does not know how to behave properly toward God'.
As regards the 'ignorant', Ibn' Arabi gives no concrete example.
Some of the commentators, e.g., Bali Efendi,5 are of the opinion
that the word refers to the Muslim Philosophers and their blind
followers. [includes Noah?]
These are people, Bâlï Effendi says, who 'do not believe
in the Divine Law, and who dare to 'purify' God, in accordance with
what is required by their theory, from all the attributes which God
Himself has attributed to Himself'.
As to 'those who do not know how to behave properly', we have
Ibn' Arabi's own remark. They are 'those of the people who believe
in the Divine Law (i.e., Muslims) who "purify" God and do not go
beyond tanzîh'. They are said to be behaving improperly because
'they give the lie to God and the apostles without being conscious of
it'.
[51]Most probably this refers to the Mu'tazilite theologians6 who are
notorious for denying the existence of Attributes in the Essence of
God.
They are believers, but they recklessly go to this extreme
driven by the force of their own reasoning, and end by completely
ignoring the aspect of tashbîh which is so explicit in the Qoran and
Traditions.
-----
Now to go back to the story of Noah which has been interrupted.
The kind of tanzïh symbolized by Noah is an attitude peculiar to,
and characteristic of, Reason. Al-Qâshâni calls it 'tanzîh by Reason'
(al-tanzîh al-'aqliy).
Reason, by nature, refuses to admit that the Absolute appears in a sensible form. But by doing so it overlooks a very important point, namely, that 'purifying' the Absolute from all sensible forms is, as we have seen a few lines back, not only tantamount to delimiting it but is liable to fall into a kind of tashbîh which it detests so violently.
Commenting upon a verse by Ibn' Arabï which runs:
'Every time (the Absolute) appears to the eye (in a sensible form),
Reason expels (the image) by logical reasoning in applying which it is always
so assiduous',
al-Qashani makes the following remark: 7
The meaning of the verse is this:
Whenever (the Absolute) manifests itself (tajallï) in a sensible form,
Reason rejects it by logical reasoning,
although in truth it (i.e., the sensible phenomenon) is a reality (in its own way) on the level of the sensible world
as well as in itself (i.e., not merely qua a sensible phenomenon but in its reality as an authentic form of the self-manifestation of the Absolute).
Reason 'purifies' it from being a sensible object
because otherwise (the Absolute) would be in a certain definite place and a certain definite direction.
Reason judges (the Absolute) to be above such ( determinations).
And yet, the Absolute transcends what (Reason) 'purifies' it from,
as it transcends such a 'purifying' itself.
For to 'purify' it in this way is to assimilate it to spiritual beings and thereby delimit its absoluteness. It makes the Absolute something determinate.
The truth of the matter is that
the Absolute transcends
- both being in a direction and not being in a direction,
- having a position and not having a position;
it transcends also
- ail determinations originating from the senses, reason, imagination, representation and thinking.
Besides this kind of tanzïh symbolized by Noah, which is 'tanzïh by Reason',
Ibn' Arabï recognizes another type of tanzïh.
This latter is 'tanzîh of immediate tasting' (al-tanzïh al-dhawqiy), and is symbolized by the above-mentioned prophet Enoch.
The two types of tanzïh correspond to two Names:
- the one is subbül) which has been mentioned at the beginning of this chapter,
- and the other is quddüs, the 'Most Holy'. 8
[52]
Both are tanzlh, but
- 1] the one symbolized by Noah is 'purifying' the Absolute from any partners and from all attributes implying imperfection,
- while 2] the second, in addition to this kind of tanzih, removes from the Absolute all properties of the 'possible' beings (including even the highest perfections attained by 'possible' things) and all connections with materiality as well as any definite quality that may be imaginable and thinkable about the Absolute. 9
The second type of tanzih represents the furthest limit of 'subtraction' (tajrid) which attributes to the Absolute the highest degree of transcendence.
According to Ibn 'Arabi, the prophet Enoch was literally an embodiment of such tanzih. Depicting the mythological figure of Enoch as a symbol of this kind of tanzih, al-Qàshànï says: 10
Enoch went to the extreme of 'subtracting' himself (i.e., not only did
he 'subtract' everything possible and material from the Absolute, but
he 'subtracted' ail such elements from himself) and 'spiritualization'
(tarawwul)), so much so that in the end he himself was turned into a
pure spirit. Thus he cast off his body, mixed with the angels, became
united with the spiritual beings of the heavenly spheres, and
ascended to the world of Sanctity. Thereby he completely went
beyond the ordinary course of nature.
In contrast to this, al-Qàshàni goes on to say, Noah lived on the
earth as a simple ordinary man with ordinary human desires, got
married and had children.
But Enoch became himself a pure spirit.
All the desires fell off from him, his nature became spiritualized, the
natural bodily properties were replaced by spiritual properties.
The assiduous spiritual discipline completely changed his nature, and he
was transformed into a pure unmixed Intellect ('aql mujarrad). And
thus he was raised to a high place in the fourth Heaven.
In Jess mythological terminology this would seem to imply that
- the tanzih of Noah is that exercised by the Reason of an ordinary man living with all his bodily limitations,
- while that of Enoch is a tanzïh exercised by the pure Intellect or mystical Awareness existing apart from bodily conditions.
Intellect, being completely released from the bondage of body,
works, not as the natural human faculty of logical thinking,
but as a kind of mystical intuition. [?]
This is why its activity is called 'tanzih of immediate tasting'.
In either of the two forms, however, tanzih, in Ibn Arabi' s view, is one-sided and imperfect. Only when combined with tashbih does it become the right attitude of man toward the Absolute.
The reason for this is, as has often been remarked above, that the Absolute itself
- is not only an absolute Transcendent
- but also Self-revealer to the world in the world.
The Absolute has an aspect in which it appears in each creature. Thus it is the Outward making itself manifest in everything intelligible, while being, at the same time, an Inward concealing itself from every intelligence
except in the mind of those who hold that the world is its Form and its He-ness as (a concrete manifestation of) the Name 'the Outward'. 11
[53]
This passage is reproduced by al-Qàshani in a more explicitly articu-
late form as follows: 12
The Absolute appears in every creature in accordance with the
'preparedness' (i.e., natural capacity) of that particular creature. lt is
in this sense the Outward appearing in everything intelligible in
accordance with the 'preparedness' of the individual intelligence.
And that (i.e., the particular 'preparedness') is the limit of each
intelligence ....
But (the Absolute) is also the Inward, (and in that capacity it is) never
accessible to the intelligence beyond the limit set by the latter's own
'preparedness'.
If the intelligence attempts to go beyond its natural limit through thinking, that is, (if it tries to understand) what is naturally concealed from its understanding,
the heart goes off the track, except in the case of the real sages whose understanding has no limit.
Those are they who understand the matter of God from God,
not by means of thinking.
Nothing is 'inward' (i.e., concealed) from their understanding.
And they know that the world is the Form or He-ness of the Absolute,
that is, its inward reality, manifesting itself outwardly under the Name 'the Outward'.
For the Divine Reality (l)aqïqah) in its absoluteness can never be' He-ness' except in view of a determination (or limitation), be it the determination of' absolute-
ness' itself, as is exemplified by the Qoranic words:
'He is God, the One.'
As to the Divine Reality qua Divine Reality, it is completely free
from any determination, though (potentially) it is limited by all the
determinations of the Divine Names.
Not only does the Absolute manifest itself in everything in the world
in accordance with the 'preparedness' of each,
but it is the 'spirit' (rüh) of everything, its 'inward' (bàtin).
This is the meaning of the Name 'the Inward'.
-----
And in the ontological system of Ibn' Arabi,
the Absolute's constituting the 'spirit' or 'inward' of anything
means nothing other than that
the Absolute manifests itself in the archetype (or the essence) of that thing.
lt is a kind of self-manifestation (tajalli) in no less a degree than the outward tajalli.
Thus the Absolute, in this view, manifests itself both internally and
externally.
-----
(The Absolute) is inwardly the' spirit' of whatever appears outwardly
(in the phenomenal world). In this sense, it is the Inward. For the
relation it bears to the phenomenal forms of the world is like that of
the soul (of man) to his body which it governs.13
[54]
The Absolute in this aspect does manifest itself in ail things, and the
latter in this sense are but so many 'determined (or limited)' forms
of the Absolute. But if we, dazzled by this, exclusively emphasize
'assimilation' (tashbïh), we would commit exactly the same mistake
of being one-sided as we would if we should resort to tanzïh only.
'He who "assimilates" the Absolute delimits and determines the
Absolute in no less a degree than he who "purifies" it, and is
ignorant of the Absolute' .14
As al-Qashani says: 15
He who 'assimilates' the Absolute confines it in a determined form,
and anything that is confined within a fixing limit is in that very
respect a creature.
From this we see that the whole of these fixing limits (i.e., concrete things), though it is nothing other than the Absolute, is not the Absolute itself.
This because the One Reality that manifests itself in all the individual determinations is something different from these determinations put together.
Only when one combines tanzïh and tashbïh in one's attitude, can
one be regarded as a 'true knower' ('ârif) of the Absolute.
Ibn 'Arabi, however, attaches to this statement a condition, namely,
that one must not try to make this combination except in a general,
unspecified way, because it is impossible to do otherwise.
Thus even the 'true knower' knows the Absolute only in a general
way, the concrete details of it being totally unknown to him. This
may be easily understood if one reftects upon the way man knows
himself.
Even when he does have self-knowledge, he knows himself
only in a general way; he cannot possibly have a comprehensive
knowledge of himself in such a way that it would cover all the details
of himself without leaving anything at all.
Likewise no one can have a truly comprehensive knowledge of all the concrete details of the world, but it is precisely in all these forms that the self-
manifestation of the Absolute is actualized.
Thus tashbïh must of necessity take on a broad general form; it can never occur in a concretely specified way .16
As to the fact that the Absolute manifests itself in all, i.e., all that
exists outside us and inside us, Ibn 'Arabî adduces a Qoranic verse
and adds the following remark: 17
God says (in the Qoran):
'We will show them Our signs 18 in the
horizon as well as within themselves so that it be made clear to them
that it is Reality' (XLI, 53).
Here the expression 'signs in the horizon' refers to all that exists outside yourself, 19 while 'within themselves' refers to your inner essence. 20
And the phrase: 'that it is Reality' means that it is Reality in that you are its eternal form and it is your inner spirit.
Thus you are to the Absolute as your bodily form is to yourself.
[55]
The upshot of all this is the view mentioned above, namely, that the
only right course for one to follow in this matter is to couple tanzïh
and tashbïh.
To have recourse exclusively to tashbïh in one's conception of the Absolute is to fall into polytheism;
to assert tanzïh to the exclusion of tashbïh is to sever the divine from the whole
created world.
The right attitude is to admit that, 'thou art not He
(i.e., the phenomenal world is different from the Absolute), nay
thou art He, and thou seest Him in concretely existent things
absolutely undetermined and yet determined' .21
And once you have attained this supreme intuitive knowledge,
you have a complete freedom of taking up the position
- either of' unification' (jam', lit, 'gathering')
- or of 'dispersion' (farq, lit. 'separating'),22
Concerning these two terms, jam', and farq, al-Qashani remarks: 23
Taking up the position of 'unification' means that you turn your
attention exclusively to the Absolute without taking into considera-
tion the creatures. This attitude is justified because Being belongs to
the Absolute alone, and any being is the Absolute itself.
(The position of 'dispersion' means that) you observe the creatures in
the Absolute in the sense that you observe how the essentially One is
diversified into the Many through its own Names and determinations.
The position of 'dispersion' is justified in view of the creaturely
determinations (of the Absolute) and the involvement of the 'Heness' of the Absolute in the 'This-ness' (i.e., concrete determinations) of the created world.
The distinction between 'unification' and 'dispersion', thus explained by al-Qashani, is an important one touching upon a cardinal point of Ibn 'Arabi's ontology.
As we already know, the distinction is more usually expressed by tanzïh and tashbïh.
We shall now examine the distinction and relation between the two in more detail and from a somewhat different angle.
Ibn' Arabi starts from a well-known and oft-quoted Qoranic verse:
Laysa ka-mithli-hi shay'un, wa-huwa al-samï'u al-ba$ïr
meaning
'there is nothing like unto Him, and He is All-hearing, All-seeing'
(XLII, 11),
which he interprets in an original way.
The interpretation makes it clear from every aspect that tanzïh and tashbïh should be combined if we are to take the right attitude toward God.
Let us start by observing that the verse grammatically allows of
two different interpretations, the pivotal point being the second
term ka-mithli-hi, which literally is a complex of three words: ka
'like' mithli 'similar to', and hi 'Him'.
The first of these three words, ka 'like', can syntactically be
interpreted as either (1) expletive, i.e., having no particular mean-
ing of its own in the combination with mithli which itself connotes
similarity or equality, or (2) non-expletive, i.e., keeping its own
independent meaning even in such a combination.
[56]
If we choose (1), the first half of the verse would mean, 'there is
nothing like Him' with an additional emphasis on the non-existence
of anything similar to Him. It is, in other words, the most emphatic
declaration of tanzïh. And in this case, the second half of the verse:
'and He is All-hearing, All-seeing' is to be understood as a state-
ment of tashbïh, because 'hearing' and 'seeing' are pre-eminently
human properties. Thus the whole verse would amount to a combi-
nation of tanzïh and tashbïh.
If we choose the second alternative, the first half of the verse
would mean the same thing as laysa mithla-mithli-hi shay'
meaning
'there is nothing like anything similar to Him'.
Here something 'similar to Him' is first mentally posited, then the existence of
anything 'similar' to that (which is similar to Him) is categorically
denied. Since someth'ing similar to Him is established at the outset,
it is a declaration of tashbïh. And in this case, the second half of the
verse must be interpreted as a declaration of tanzïh. This interpreta-
tion is based on the observation that the sentence structure - with
the pronominal subject, huwa 'He, put at the head of the sentence,
and the following epithets, samï' (hearing) and ba$ir ( seeing) being
determined by the article, al- (the) - implies that He is the only
saml' and the only b0$ir in the whole world of Being.24 Thus, here
again we get a combination of tanzih and tashbih.
The following elliptic expression of Ibn' Arabi will be quite easily
understood if we approach it with the preceding explanation in
mind. 25
God Himself 'purifies' (i.e., tanzih) by saying:
laysa ka-mithli-hi shay,
and 'assimilates' (i.e., tashbïh) by saying:
wa-huwa al-samï' al-ba$Ïr.
God 'assimilates' or 'declares Himself to be dual' by saying:
laysa ka-mithli-hi shay,
while he 'purifies' or 'declares Himself to be unique' by saying:
wa-huwa al-sami' al-ba$ir.
What is very important to remember in this connection is that, in
Ibn 'Arabi' s conception, tanzih and tashbih are each a kind of 'delimitation' (talJ,dï.d).
In both the Qoran and Tradition, he observes,26 we often find God describing Himself with 'de limitation', whether the expression aims at tanzih or tashbih.
Even God cannot describe himself in words without delimiting Himself.
He describes Himself for example, as,
- 'sitting firm on the throne' ,·
- 'descending to the lowest heaven',
- 'being in heaven',
- 'being on the earth',
- 'being with men wherever they may be', etc.;
none of these expressions is free from delimiting and determining God.
Even when He says of Himself that 'there is nothing like unto Him' in the
sense of tanzih, 21
He is setting a limit to Himself, because that which is distinguished from everything determined is, by this very act of distinction, itself determined, i.e.,
as something totally different from everything determined.
For 'a complete non-determination is a kind of determination'.
[57]
Thus tanzih is a 'delimitation' no less than tashbih.
It is evident that neither of them alone can ever constitute a perfect description
of the Absolute. Strictly speaking, however, even the combination
of the two cannot be perfect in these respects, for delimitations will
remain delimitations in whatever way one combines them.
But by combining these two delimitations which of all the delimitations are
the most fondamental and most comprehensive in regard to the
Absolute, one approaches the latter to the utmost extent that is humanly possible.
.
Of these two basic attitudes of man toward the Absolute, Noah, as
remarked above, represents tanzïh. In order to fight idolatry which
was the prevalent tendency of the age, he exclusively emphasized
tanzïh. Naturally this did nothing but arouse discontent and anger
among the idol-worshippers, and his appeal fell only upon unheeding ears.
'If, however, Noah had combined the two attitudes in dealing with his people, they would have listened to his words'. 28
On this point al-Qashàni makes the following observation:
In view of the fact that his people were indulging in an excessive
tashbïh, paying attention only to the diversity of the Names and being
veiled by the Many from the One, Noah stressed tanzih exclusively.
If, instead of brandishing to them the stringent unification and
unmitigated tanzïh, he had affirmed also the diversity of the Names
and invited them to accept the Many that are One and the Multiplic-
ity that is Unity, clothed the Unity with the form of Multiplicity, and
combined between the attitude of tashbïh and that of tanzïh as did
(our prophet) Muhammad, they would readily have responded to
him in so far as their outward familiarity with idolatry was agreeable
to tashbïh and in so far as their inner nature was agreeable to tanzïh.
As is clearly suggested by this passage,
the idols that were worshipped by the people of Noah were,
in Ibn' Arabi's conception, properly 'the diversity of the Names';
that is, so many concrete forms assumed by the Divine Names.
The idols in this sense are sacred in themselves.
The sin of idolatry committed by the people of Noah consisted merely in the fact that they were not aware of the idols being concrete forms of the self-manifestation of the One, and that they worshipped them as independent divinities.
The kind of absolute tanzïh which was advocated by Noah is called
by Ibn 'Arabi fùrqiin, a Qoranic term, to which he ascribes an original meaning,29 and which is to play the role of a key-term in his system.
The al-Furqan refers to the Torah, saying "We sent Moses The Book, and appointed his brother Aaron with him as minister"
[58]
The word fùrqiin, in Ibn 'Arabi' s interpretation derives from the root FRQ meaning 'separating'.
One might expect him to use it to designate the aspect of 'dispersion' (farq) referred to a few paragraphs back, which is also derived from exactly the same root.
Actually, however, he means by furqân the contrary of 'dispersion'.
'Separating' here means 'separating' in a radical manner the aspect
of Unity from that of the diversified self-manifestation of the Abso-
lute.
Furqân thus means an absolute and radical tanzïh, an intrans-
igent attitude of tanzïh which does not allow even of a touch of
tashbïh.
Noah exhorted his people to a radical tanzïh, but they did not
listen to him. Thereupon Noah, according to the Qoran, laid a bitter
complaint before God against these faithless people saying, 'I have
called upon my people day and night, but my admonition has done
nothing but increase their aversion' (LXXI, 5-6).
This verse, on the face of it, depicts Noah complaining of the
stubborn faithlessness of his people and seriously accusing them of
this sinful attitude. However much he exhorts them to pure mono-
theism, he says, they only turn a deaf ear to his words. Such is the
normal understanding of the verse.
Ibn' Arabi, however, gives it an extremely original interpretation,
so original, indeed, that it will surely shock or even scandalize
common sense. The following passage shows how he understands
this verse.30
What Noah means to say is that his people turned a deaf ear to him
because they knew what would necessarily follow if they were to
respond favorably to his exhortation. (Superficially Noah's words
might look like a bitter accusation) but the true 'knowers of God' are
well aware that Noah here is simply giving high praise to his people in
a language of accusation.
As they (i.e. the true 'knowers' of God) understand, the people of Noah did not listen to him because his exhortation was ultimately an exhortation to furqân.
More simply stated, this would amount to saying that (1) Noah
reproaches his people outwardly but (2) in truth he is merely
praising them.
And their attitude is worthy of high praise because
they know (by instinct) that that to which Noah was calling them
was no other than a pure and radical tanzïh, and that such a tanzïh
was not the right attitude of man toward God.
Tanzih in its radical form and at its extreme limit would inevitably lead man to the
Absolute perse, which is an absolutely Unknowable. How could man worship something which is absolutely unknown and unknowable?
If Noah had been more practical and really wished to guide his
people to the right form of religious faith, he should have combined
tanzïh and tashbïh. A harmonious combination of tanzïh and tashbïh
is called by Ibn' Arabi qur' ân.31 The qur' ân is the only right attitude
of man toward God.
The right (religious) way is qur'ân not furqân. And (it is but natural)
that he who stands in the position of qur' ân should never listen to (an
exhortation to) furqân, even though the latter itself is contained in
the former. Qur'ân implies furqân, but furqân does not imply
qur'ân .32
[59]
Thus we see that the relation of Noah with his people, as Ibn' Arabi
understands it, has a complex inner structure.
On the one hand,
Noah, as we have just observed, outwardly reproaches his people
for their faithlessness,
but inwardly he praises them because of the
right attitude they have taken on this crucial question.
On the other
hand, the people, on their part, know, if not consciously, that pure
monotheism in its true and deep sense is not to reduce God to one of
his aspects such as is implied by the kind of tanzïh advocated by
Noah, but to worship the One God in ail the concrete forms of the
world as so many manifestations of God.
Outwardly, however, they give the impression of committing an outrageous mistake by refusing to accept Noah's admonition and exhorting each other to stick to the traditional form of idol-worship.
Ibn 'Arabi terms this relation between Noah and his people '(reciprocal) makr', a word meaning 'stratagem', 'artifice' or 'cunning deceit'.
This is based on a Qoranic verse:
'And they tried to deceive by a big artifice' (LXXI, 22).
This situation is explained by Affifi in a very lucid way. He writes: 33
When Noah called upon his people to worship God by way of tanzïh,
he did try to deceive them. More generally speaking, whoever calls
upon others to worship God in such a way, does nothing other than
trying to exercise makr upon them to deceive them. This is a makr
because those who are admonished, whatever their religion and
whatever the object they worship, are in reality worshipping nothing
other than God. (Even an idolater) is worshipping the Absolute in
some of its forms of self-manifestation in the external world.
To call upon the idolaters who are actually worshipping God in this
form and tell them not to worship the idols but worship God alone, is
liable to produce a false impression as if the idolaters were worship-
ping (in the idols) something other than God, while in truth there is
no 'other' thing than God in the whole world.
The people of Noah, on their part, exercised makr when they, to fight
against Noah's admonition, called upon one another saying, 'Do not
abandon your gods!' This is also a clear case of makr, because if they
had abandoned the worship of their idols, their worship of God
would have diminished by that amount. And this because the idols
are nothing other than so many self-manifestations of God.
[60]
makr 마크라 makr/ means planning for someone else in a way it is not revealed to him, that is a hidden plan.
Affifi in this connection rightly calls attention to the fact that, for Ibn
'Arabi, the Qoranic verse:
'And thy Lord hath decreed that you should worship none other than Him' (XVII, 23) does not mean, as it does normally,
'that you should not worship anything other than God',
but rather
'that whatever you worship, you are thereby not (actually) worshipping anything other than God' .34
In explaining why Noah's call to the worship of God is to be understood as a makr, Ibn 'Arabi uses the terms the 'beginning' (bidayah) and the 'end' (ghayah). 35
That is to say,
- he distinguishes between the 'beginning' stage and the 'end' stage in idol-worship,
- and asserts that these two stages are in this case exactly one and the same thing.
The 'beginning' is the stage at which the people of Noah
were indulging in idol-worship, and at which they were reproached
by Noah for faithlessness. They were strongly urged by him to leave
this stage and go over to the other end, i.e., the 'end' stage where
they would be worshipping Godas they should.
However, already
at the 'beginning' stage Noah's people were worshipping none other
than God albeit only through their idols. So, properly speaking,
there was no meaning at all in Noah's exhorting them to leave the
first stage and go over to the last stage. lndeed, it was even more
positively an act of makr on the part of Noah that he distinguished
between the 'beginning' and the' end' when there was nothing at all
to be distinguished.
As al-Qâshânï puts it,
'how can a man be advised to go to God when he is already with God?'
To tell the idolaters to stop worshipping God and to worship God alone amounts exactly to the same thing as telling those who are actually worshipping God to abandon the worship of God and to resort to the worship of God!
lt is absurd, or rather it is worse than absurd, because such an admonition is
liable to make people blind to the self-revealing aspect of the Absolute.
The secret of idol-worship which we have just seen may be
understood in more theoretical terms as a problem of the compatibility of the One and the Many in regard to the Absolute. There is no contradiction in the Absolute being the One and the Many at the same time.
Al-Qâshânï offers a good explanation of this fact, comparing it to the essential unity of a human being.36
(Since there is nothing existent in the real sense of the word except
the Absolute itself, a true 'knower of God') does not see in the form
of the Many anything other than God' s face, for he knows that it is He
that manifests Himself in ail these forms. Thus (whatever he may
worship) he worships only God.
This may be understood in the following way.
The divergent forms of the Many within the One are
either spiritual, i.e., non-sensible, such as angels,
or outwardly visible and sensible such as the heavens and earth and ail the material things that exist between the two.
The former are comparable to the spiritual faculties in the bodily frame of
a man, while the latter are comparable to his bodily members.
The existence of multiplicity in man in no way prevents him from having a
unity. (Likewise, the existence of the Many in God does not deprive
Him of His essential Unity.)
[61]
The conclusion to be reached from all this is that there is nothing
wrong with idolatry, for whatever one worships one is worshipping
through it God Himself.
Are all idol-worshippers, then, right in indulging in idolatry?
That is another question. ldolatry, though in itself it has nothing blamable, is exposed to grave danger.
ldolatry is right in so far as the worshipper is aware that the object of his
worship is a manifested form of God and that, therefore, by wor-
shipping the idol he is worshipping God.
Once, however, he forgets this fundamental fact, he is liable to be deceived by his own imagination and ascribe real divinity to the idol (a piece of wood or a stone,
for example) and begin to worship it as a god existing independently
of, and side by side with, God. If he reaches this point, his attitude is
a pure tashbïh which completely excludes tanzïh.
Thus in Ibn 'Arabï's view, there are two basic attitudes toward
idolatry that are opposed to each other: the one is an attitude
peculiar to the 'higher' (a'là) people, while the other is characteris-
tic of the 'lower' (adnà). He says: 37
The 'knower' knows who (really) is the oqject of his worship;
he knows also the particular form in which the object of his worship
appears (to him).
He is aware that the 'dispersion' and 'multiplicity' are comparable to the corporeal members in the sensible form (of man's body) and the non-corporeal faculties in the spiritual form (of man), so that in every object of worship what is worshipped is no other than God Himself.
In contrast to this, the 'lower' people are those who imagine a divine
nature in every object of their worship. If it were not for this (wrong)
imagination, nobody would worship stones and other similar things.
This is why (God) said to men of this kind, 'Name them (i.e., desig-
nate each object of your worship by its name)!' (XIII, 23). If they
were really to name these objects they would have called them a
stone, a tree, or a star, (because their idols were in fact stones, trees
and stars). But if they had been asked, 'Whom are you worshipping?',
they would have replied, 'a god!' They would never have said, 'God'
or even 'the god' .38
The 'higher' people, on the contrary, are not victims of this kind of
deceitful imagination. (In the presence of each idol) they tell them-
selves, 'This is a concrete form of theophany, and, as such, it deserves
veneration'. Thus they do not confine (theophany) to this single
instance (i.e., they look upon everything as a particular form of
theophany).
If we are to judge the attitude of Noah's people who refused to
respond to his advice, we must say that it was right in one respect
and it was wrong in another. They were right in that they upheld
[62]
( though unconsciously) the truly divine nature of the outward forms
of theophany. This they did by resolutely refusing to throw away
their idols. But they were wrong in that they, deceived by their own
imagination, regarded each idol as an independently existing god,
and thus opposed in their minds 'small goods' 39 to Godas the 'great
God'.
According to Ibn 'Arabi, the ideal combination of tanzih and
tashbih was achieved only in Islam. The real qur' iin came into being
for the first time in history in the belief of Muhammad and his
community. On this point Ibn 'Arabi says: 40
The principle of qur' an was upheld in its purity only by Mul:tammad
and his community 'which was the best of all communities that had
ever appeared among mankind' .41
(Only he and his community realized the two aspects of) the verse: laysa ka-mithli-hi shay 'There is nothing like unto Him', for (their position) gathered everything into a unity.42
As we have seen above, the Qoran relates that Noah called uponhis
people 'by night and day'. Over against this, Mub.ammad, Ibn 'Arabi says,
'called upon his people, not "by night and day"
but "by night in the day and by day in the night" '.43
Evidently, 'day' symbolizes tashbih and 'night' tanzih,
because the daylight brings out the distinctive features of the individual
things while the nocturnal darkness conceals these distinctions.
The position of Muhammad, in this interpretation, would seem to suggest
a complete fusion of tashbïh and tanzih.
Was Noah, then, completely wrong in his attitude? Ibn 'Arabi
answers to this question in both the affirmative and the negative.
Certainly, Noah preached outwardly tanzih alone.
Such a pure tanzih, if taken on the level of Reason, is, as we have already seen,
liable to lead ultimately to assimilating the Absolute with pure spirits.
And tanzih in this sense is a 'tanzih by Reason', and is something to be rejected.
With Noah himself, however, tanzih was not of this nature.
Far from being a result of logical thinking, it was a tanzih based on a deep prophetic experience.44
Only, the people of Noah failed to notice that;
for them the tanzih advocated by Noah was nothing but a tanzih to be reached by the ordinary process of reasoning.
Real tanzih is something quite different from this kind of logical tanzih.
And according to Ibn' Arabi,
the right kind of tanzih was first advocated consciously by Islam.
It does not consist in recognizing the absolute Unknowable alone with a total rejection and denial of the phenomenal world of things.
The real tanzih is established on the basis of the experience by which man becomes conscious of the unification of all the Divine Attributes, each Attribute being actualized in a concrete thing or event in the world.
63
In more plain terms, the real tanzih consists in man's peeping through the things and events of this world into the grand figure of the One God beyond them.
It is 'purifying' (tanzih ), no doubt, because it stands on the consciousness of the essential 'oneness' of God, but it is not a purely logical or intellectual 'purifying'.
It is a tanzih which comprises in itself tashbih.
In Ibn 'Arabi' s view, the tanzih practised by Muhammad was inviting men not to the absolute Absolute which bears no relation at all to the world,
but to Allah the Merciful, that is, the Absolute as the ultimate ground of the world, the creative source of all Being.
It is worthy of notice also that of all the Divine Names the 'Merciful' (al Rahman) has been specially chosen in this context.
The name 'Merciful' is for Ibn 'Arabi the most comprehensive Name which comprises and unifies all the Divine Names. In this capacity the 'Merciful' is synonymous with Alliih.
Al-Qâshâni is quite explicit on this point.45
It is remarkable that the 'Merciful' is a Name which comprises all the Divine Names, so that the whole world is comprised therein, there being no diff erence between this N ame and the N ame Allah. This is evidenced by the Qoranic verse:
'Say: Call upon (Him by the Na me) Allah or call upon (Him by the Name) Merciful. By whichever Name you call upon Him (it will be the sa me) for all the most beautiful Names are His' (XVII, 110).
Now each group of people in the world stands under the Lordship of one of His Names. And he who stands under the Lordship of a particular Name is a servant of that Name. Thus the apostle of God (Mul:tammad) called mankind from this state of divergence of the Names unto the unifying plane of the Name Merciful or the Name Allah.
To this Bali Efendi46 adds the remark that, unlike in the case of Noah, there is no relation of reciprocal 'deceit' (makr) between Mul)ammad and his people, for there is no motive, neither on the part of Muhammad nor on the part of the community, for having recourse to makr.
Muhmmad, he goes on to say, certainly invited men to the worship of the One God,47 but he did not thereby call men to the Absolute in its aspect of He-ness.
In other words, he did not unconditionally reject the idols which men had been worshipping; he simply taught men to worship the idols (or, indeed, any other thing in the world) in the right way, that is, to worship them as so many self-manifestations of God.
In the Islamic tanzih there is included the right form of tashbih.
If a man wants to know the Absolute by the power of his Reason alone, he is inevitably led to the kind of tanzih which has no place for tashbih
[64]
If, on the contrary, he exercises his Imagination (i.e., the
faculty of thinking through concrete imagery) alone, he falls into
pure tashbih. Bo th tanzïh and tashbih of this sort are by themselves
imperfect and positively harmful.
Only when man sees by the experience of 'unveiling' the true reality of the matter, can tanzih and tashbih assume a form of perfection.
If Reason fonctions by itself quite independently of anything else so
that it acquires knowledge by its own cognitive power, the knowledge
it obtains of God will surely be of the nature of tanzïh, not tashbïh.
But if God furnishes Reason with a (true) knowledge of the Divine
self-manifestation (pertaining to the tashbïh aspect of the Absolute),
its knowledge of God attains perfection, and it will exercise tanzïh
where it should, and exercise tashbïh where it should.
Reason in such a state will witness the Absolute itself pervading ail cognizable forms, natural and elemental. And there will remain no form but that
Reason identifies its essence with the Absolute itself.
Such is the perfect and complete knowledge (of God) that has been
brought by the revealed religions. And the faculty of Imagination
exercises its own judgment (upon every thing) in the light of this
knowledge (i.e., Imagination collaborates with Reason by modifying
the tanzïh-view of Reason with its own tashbïh-view).48
The gist of what Ibn' Arabi says in this passage may be summarized
as follows.
Under normal conditions, tanzïh is the product of Reason, and tashbih is the product of Imagination ( wahm).
But when the experience of 'unveiling' produces in the mind a perfect
knowledge, Reason and Imagination are brought into complete
harmony, and tanzïh and tashbih become united in the perfect
knowledge of God.
Of Reason and Imagination in such a state, however, it is invariably the latter that holds regal sway (sultan).
Concerning the proper activity of Reason in this process and the
controlling fonction exercised by Imagination over Reason in such a
way that a perfect combination of tanzih and tashbih may be
obtained, Bali Efendi makes the following illuminating remark: 49
In just the same place where Reason passes the judgment of tanzïh,
Imagination passes the judgment of tashbïh.
Imagination does this because it witnesses how the Absolute pervades and permeates ail the forms, whether mental or physical.
Imagination in this state observes the Absolute in the ( completely purified) form peculiar to tanzïh as established in Reason, and
it realizes that to affirm tanzïh ( exclusively, as is done by Reason) is nothing but delimiting the Absolute, and
that the delimitation of the Absolute is nothing but (a kind of) tashbïh (i.e., the completely purified Absolute is also aparticular 'form' assumed by the Absolu te). But Reason is not aware that the tanzïh which it is exercising is precisely one of those forms which it thinks must be rejected from the Absolute by tanzïh.
[65]
These words of Bali Efendi makes the following argument of Ibn
'Arabi easy to understand: 50
It is due to this situation that Imagination51 has a greater sway in man
than Reason for man, even when his Reason has reached the utmost
limit of development, is not free from the control exercised over him
by Imagination and cannot do without relying upon representation
regarding what he has grasped by Reason.
Thus Imagination is the supreme authority (sultan) in the most
perfect form (of Being), namely, man. And this has been confirmed
by ail the revealed religions, which have exercised tanzïh and tashbïh
at the same time;
they have exercised tashbïh by Imagination where
(Reason has established) tanzïh,
and exercised tanzïh by Reason where (Imagination has established) tashbïh.
Everything has in this way, been brought into a close organic whole, where tanzïh cannot be separated from tashbïh nor tashbïh from tanzïh.
It is this situation that is referred to in the Qoranic verse:
'There is nothing like unto Him,
and He is All-hearing All-seeing',
in which God Himself describes
Him with tanzïh and tashbïh ...
Then there is another verse in which He says,
'exalted is thy Lord, the Lord of majestic power
standing far above that with which they describe Him
(XXXVII, 180).
This is said because men tend to
describe Him with what is given by their Reason.
So He 'purifies' Himself here from their very tanzïh, because they are doing nothing but delimit Him by their tanzïh.
Ali this is due to the fact that Reason is by nature deficient in understanding this kind of thing.
====
Notes
1. Cf. Affifi, FU'f., Corn., p. 33.
2. The epithet subbü}Jiyyah is a derivative of subbü}J or sabbü}J which is one of the
Divine Names meaning roughly 'One who is glorified' 'the All-Glorious'. The verb
sabba}Ja (Allâh) means to 'glorify' God by crying out Sub}Jâna Allâh! ('Far above
stands God beyond ail imperfections and impurities!')
3. Fu$., p. 45/68.
4. p. 45.
5. FU'f., Corn., p. 47. (The commentary of Balï Efendi is given in the same Cairo
edition of the FWiÜ$ which we are using in the present work.)
6. Cf. Affifi, FU'f., Corn., p. 12.
7. p. 88.
8. Ibn· Arabî calls the wisdom embodied by Noah 'wisdom of asubbül} nature', and
calls the wisdom symbolized by Enoch · wisdom of a quddüs nature' (l}ikmah qud-
düsïyah ), Fu$., p. 6 175.
66 Su fism and Taoism
9. Cf. Qashanï, p. 60.
10. ibid.
11. p. 46/68.
12. pp. 46-47.
13. ., p. 47/68. Ibn' Arabï takes this occasion to point out that the Absolute does
not allow of definition not only in its absoluteness but also in its self-revealing aspect.
The impossibility of defining the Absolu te perse has already been full y explained in
Chapter II. But even in its aspect of self-manifestation, the Absolute cannot be
defined because, as we have just seen, the Absolute in this aspect is everything,
external or internai, and if we are to define it, the definition must be formulated in
such a way that it covers all the definitions of all the things in the world. But since the
things are infinite in number, such a definition is never to be attained.
14. p. 47/69.
15. p. 47.
16. p. 47/69.
17. p. 48/69.
18. 'Our signs', that is, 'Our Attributes' - al-Qashanï.
19. 'in so far as their determinations (ta'ayyunat, i.e., properties conceived as
'determinations' of the Absolute) are different from your determination' - al-
Qashanï. This means that, although essentially it is not necessary to distinguish the
things of the outer world and yourself, there is a certain respect in which 'all that exist
outside of yourself', i.e., the modes of determination peculiar to the things of the
outer world, are different from the mode of determination which is peculiar to
'yourself', i.e., the inner world.
20. 'i.e., what is manifested in yourself by His Attributes. If it were not for this
manifestation, you would not exist in the world'. - al-Qashani.
21. p. 49/70.
22. Fu$., p. 98-99/93.
23. p. 99.
24. that is to say, whenever anybody sees or hears something, it is not the man who
really sees or hears, but God Himself who sees or hears in the form of that man.
25. Fu$., p. 49/70.
26. Fu$., p. 1311111.
27. taking ka as expletive.
28. Fu$., p. 50/70.
Metaphysical Unification and Phenomenal Dispersion 67
29. The wordfurqan, whatever its etymology, denotes in the Qoran the Qoran itself.
For Ibn 'Arabi, its meaning is totally different from this.
30. ., p. 51/70.
31. Qur' an as a technical term of Ibn 'Arabi' s philosophy is not the na me of the
Sacred Book Qur'an (or Qoran). Hederives this word from the root QR' meaning'to
gather together'.
32. p. 51170.
33. Corn., p. 39.
34. ibid. Cf. also ., p. 55/72.
35. p. 54/71-72.
36. p. 55. The problem of the One and the Many will form the specific topic of
Chapter VII.
37. p. 55/72.
38. This implies that for these people each idol is 'a god', i.e., an independent
divinity; they are not aware that in the forms of the idols they are ultimately
worshipping the One God.
39. Cf. Qashanï, p. 55.
40. p. 51/71.
41. Reference to III, 110 of the Qoran.
42. i.e., it affirmed 'separating' (farq) in 'gathering' (jam'), and affirmed 'gathering'
in 'separating', asserting thereby that the One is Many from a relative point of view
and that the Many are One in their reality - al-Qashanï, p. 51.
43. p. 52/71.
44. p. 53/71.
45. p. 54.
46. ibid., footnote.
47. Outwardly this might be considered a pure tanzïh.
48. p. 228/181.
49. p. 229, footnote.
50. p. 229/181-182.
51. The word Imagination ( wahm) must be taken in this context in the sense of the
mental faculty of thinking through concrete imagery based on representation
(t0$awwur).
