Dream and Reality
So-called 'reality', the sensible world which surrounds us and which
we are accustomed to regard as 'reality', is, for Ibn 'Arabi, but a
dream. We perceive by the senses a large number of things, distin-
guish them one from another, put them in order by our reason, and
thus end up by establishing something solid around us. We call that
construct 'reality' and do not doubt that it is real.
According to Ibn 'Arabi, however, that kind of 'reality' is not
reality in the true sense of the word. In other terms, such a thing is
not Being ( wujüd) as it really is. Living as we do in this phenomenal
world, Being in its metaphysical reality is no less imperceptible tous
than phenomenal things are in their phenomenal reality to a man
who is asleep and dreaming of them.
Quoting the famous Tradition, 'Ail men are asleep (in this
world); only when they die, do they wake up,' he remarks:
The world is an illusion; it has no real existence. And this is what is
meant by 'imagination' (khayal). For you just imagine that it (i.e., the
world) is an autonomous reality quite different from and indepen-
dent of the absolu te Reality, while in truth it is nothing of the sort 1 •
. . . Know that you yourself are an imagination. And everything that
you perceive and say to yourself, 'this is not me', is also an imagina-
tion. So that the whole world of existence is imagination within
imagination. 2
1
,--
What, then, we do, if what we have taken for 'reality' is but a
dream, not the real form of Being, but something illusory? Should
we abandon once for ail this illusory world and go out of it in search
of an entirely different world, a really real world? Ibn' Arabi does
not take such a position, because, in his view, 'dream', 'illusion' or
'imagination' does not mean something valueless or false; it simply
means 'being a symbolic reftection of something truly real'.
The so-called 'reality' certainly is not the true Reality, but this
must not be taken to mean that it is merely a vain and groundless
thing. The so-called 'reality', though it is not the Reality itself,
vaguely and indistinctively reftects the latter on the level of imagina-
tion. It is, in other words, a symbolic representation of the Reality.
8 Sufism and Taoism
All it needs is that we should interpret it in a proper way just as we
usually interpret our dreams in order to get to the real state of affairs
beyond the dream-symbols.
Referring to the above-quoted Tradition, 'All men are asleep;
only when they die, do they wake up', Ibn 'Arabi says that 'the
Prophet called attention by these words to the fact that whatever
man perceives in this present world is to him as a dream is to a man
who dreams, and that it must be interpreted' .3
What is seen in a dream is an 'imaginai' form of the Reality, not
the Reality itself. All we have to dois take it back toits original and
true status. This is what is meant by 'interpretation' (ta'wïl). The
expression: 'to die and wake up' appearing in the Tradition is for
Ibn' Arabi nothing other than a metaphorical reference to the act of
interpretation understood in this sense. Thus 'death' does not mean
here death as a biological event. It means a spiritual event consisting
in a man's throwing off the shackles of the sense and reason,
stepping over the confines of the phenomenal, and seeing through
the web of phenomenal things what lies beyond. It means, in short,
the mystical experience of 'self-annihilation' (fanii').
What does a man see when he wakes up from his phenomenal
sleep, opens his real eyes, and looks around? What kind of world
does he observe then - that is, in the self-illuminating state of
'subsistence' (baqii')? To describe that extraordinary world and
elucidate its metaphysical-ontological make-up, that is the main
task of Ibn 'Arabi. The description of the world as he observes it in
the light of his mystical experiences constitutes his philosophical
world-view.
What, then, is that Something which hides itself behind the veil of
the phenomenal, making the so-called 'reality' a grand-scale net-
work of symbols vaguely and obscurely painting to that which lies
beyond them? The answer is given immediately. It is the Absolute,
the real or absolu te Reality which Ibn' Arabi calls al-haqq. Thus the
so-called.'reality' is but a dream, but it is nota sheer illusion. It is a
particular appearance of the absolu te Reality, a particular form of
its self-manifestation (tajallï). It is a dream having a metaphysical
basis. 'The world of being and becoming (kawn) is an imagination',
he says, 'but it is, in truth, Reality itself' .4
Thus the world of being and becoming, the so-called 'reality',
consisting of various forms, properties and states, is in itself a
colorful fabric of fantasy and imagination, but it indicates at the
same time nothing other than Reality - if only one knows how to
take these forms and properties, not in themselves, but as so many
manifestations of the Reality. One who can do this is a man who has
attained the deepest mysteries of the Way (tarïqah).
'\;
Dream and Reality 9
Prophets are visionaries. By nature they tend to see strange
visions which do not fall within the capacity of an ordinary man.
These extraordinary visions are known as 'veridical dreams' (ru'yà
$iidiqah) and we readily recognize their symbolic nature. We ordi-
narily admit without hesitation that a prophet perceives through
and beyond his visions something ineffable, something of the true
figure of the Absolute. In truth, however, not only such uncommon
visions are symbolic 'dreams' for a prophet. To his mind everything
he sees, everything with which he is in contact even in daily life is
liable to assume a symbolic character. 'Everything he perceives in
the state of wakefulness is of such a nature, though there is, cer-
tainly, a difference in the states'. 5 The formai difference between
the state of sleep (in which he sees things by his faculty of imagina-
tion) and the state of wakefulness (in which he perceives things by
his senses) is kept intact, yet in both states the things perceived are
equally symbols. 6
Thus, a prophet who lives his life in such an unusual spiritual state
may be said to be in a dream within a dream all through his life. 'The
whole of his life is nothing but a dream within a dream' .7 What Ibn
'Arabi means by this proposition is this: since the phenomenal
world itself is in truth a 'dream' 8 (although ordinary people are not
aware of its being a 'dream'), the prophet who perceives unusual
symbols in the midst of that general 'dream' -context may be com-
pared to a man who is dreaming in a dream.
This, however, is the deepest understanding of the situation, to
which most people have no access, for they are ordinarily convinced
that the phenomenal world is something materially solid; they do
not notice its symbolic nature. Not even prophets themselves - not
all of them - have a clear understanding of this matter. It is a deep
mystery of Being accessible only to a perfect prophet like
Mutiammad. Ibn 'Arabi explains this point taking as an illus-
tration the contrast between the prophet Yüsuf (Joseph) and the
Prophet Mutiammad regarding their respective depth of
understanding.
It is related in the Qoran (XII, 4) that Joseph as a small boy once
saw in a dream eleven stars, and the sun and the moon bowing down
before him. This, Ibn' Arabi observes, was an event which occurred
only in Joseph's imagination (khayàl). Joseph saw in his imagina-
tion his brothers in the form of stars, his father in the form of the
sun, and his mother in the form of the moon. Many years later,
before foseph, who was now a 'mighty prince' in Egypt, his brothers
fell down prostrate At that moment Joseph said to himself, 'This is
the interpreted meaning (ta'wïl) of my dream of long ago. My Lord
has made it true!' (XII, 99).
The pivotai point, according to Ibn' Arabi, lies in the last phrase:
10 Sufism and Taoism
'has made it true' .9 lt means: 'God has made to appear in the
sensible world what was in the past in the form of imagination'. 10
This implies that the realization or materialization in a sensible form
of what he had seen in a dream was, in the understanding of Joseph,
the final and ultimate realization. He thought that the things left the
domain of 'dream' and came out to the level of 'reality'.
Against this Ibn 'Arabi remarks that, as regards being sensible,
there is fundamentally no difference at all between 'dream' and
'reality'; what Joseph saw in his dream was from the beginning
sensible, for 'it is the fonction of imagination to produce sensible
things (ma}J,süsizt), nothing else'. 11
The position of Mu}).ammad goes deeper than this. Viewed from
the standpoint of the prophet Mu}).ammad, the following is the right
interpretation of what happened to Joseph conceming his dream.
One has to start from the recognition that life itself is a dream. In
this big dream which is his lif e and of which Joseph himself is not
conscious, he sees a particular dream (the eleven stars, etc.). From
this particular dream he wakes up. That is to say, he dreams in his
big dream that he wakes up. Then he interprets his own (particular)
dream (the stars= his brothers, etc.). In truth, this is still a continua-
tion of his big dream. He dreams himself interpreting his own
dream. Then the event which he thus interprets cornes true as a
sensible fact. Thereupon Joseph thinks that his interpretation has
materialized and that his dream has definitely corne to an end. He
thinks that he stands now completely outside of his dream, while, in
reality, he is still dreaming. He is not aware of the fact that he is
dreaming. 12
The contrast between Mu}).ammad and Joseph is conclusively
summed up by al-Qâshâni in the following way:
The difference between Mubammad and Joseph in regard to the
depth of understanding consists in this. Joseph regarded the sensible
forms existing in the outer world as 'reality' whereas, in truth, ail
forms that exist in imagination are (also) sensible without exception,
for imagination (khayal) is a treasury of the sensible things. Every-
thing that exists in imagination is a sensible form although it actually
is not perceived by the senses. As for Mubammad, he regarded the
sensible forms existing in the outer world also as products of imagina-
tion (khayalïyah ), nay even as imagination within imagination. This
because he regarded the present world of ours as a dream while the
only 'reality' (in the true sense of the word) was, in his view, the
Absolute revealing itself as it really is in the sensible forms which are
nothing but so man y different loci of its self-manifestation. This point
is understood only when one wakes up from the present life- which is
a sleep of forgetfulness - after one dies to this world through self-
annihilation in God.
,
Dream and Reality 11
The basic idea which, as we have just observed, constitutes the very
starting-point of Ibn 'Arabi's ontological thinking, narnely, that
so-called 'reality' is but a dream, suggests on the one band that the
world as we experience it under normal conditions is not in itself
Reality, that it is an illusion, an appearance, an unreality. But
neither does it mean, on the other hand, that the world of sensible
things and events is nothing but sheer fantasy, a purely subjective
projection of the mind. In Ibn' Arabi's view, if 'reality' is an illusion,
it is not a subjective illusion, but an 'objective' illusion; that is, an
unreality standing on a firm ontological basis. And this is tan-
tamount to saying that it is not an illusion at all, at least in the sense
in which the word is commonly taken.
In order that this point become clear, reference must be made to
the ontological conception peculiar to Ibn 'Arabi and his school of
the 'five planes of Being'. The structure of these 'planes' (IJ,a<J,arizt) 13
,îs succinctly explained by Al-Qâshâni as follows. 14 In the Sufi
world-view, five 'worlds' ('awizlim) or five basic planes of Being are
distinguished, each one of them representing a Presence or an
ontological mode of the absolute Reality in its self-manifestation.
(1) The plane of the Essence (dhizt), the world of the absolute
non-manifestation (al-ghayb al-mu(laq) or the Mystery of
Mysteries. 15
(2) The plane of the Attributes and the Na mes, the Presence of
Divinity (ulühiyah) .16
(3) The plane of the Actions, the Presence of Lordship
(rubübiyah).
( 4) The plane of Images (amthizl) and Imagination (khayizl). 11
( 5) The plane of the sen ses and sensible experience
(mushizhadah).
These five planes constitute among themselves an organic whole,
the things of a lower plane serving as symbols or images for the
things of the higher planes. Thus, according to al-Qâshâni, what-
ever exists in the plane of ordinary reality ( which is the lowest of all
Divine Presences) is a symbol-exemplification (mithizl) for a thing
existing in the plane of Images, and everything that exists in the
world of Images is a form reflecting a state of affairs in the plane of
the Divine Names and Divine Attributes, while every Attribute is
an aspect of the Divine Essence in the act of self-manifestation.
Details about the five planes will be given in the following chap-
ters. Suffice it here to note that the whole world of Being, in Ibn
'Arabi' s view, consists basically of these five levels of Divine self-
manifestation, and that there exists between the higher and lower
levels such an organic relation as has just been mentioned. With this
in mind, let us return to the problem of our immediate concern.
12 Sujism and Taoism
Anything that is found at the lowest level of Being, i.e., the
sensible world, or any event that occurs there, is a 'phenomenon' in
the etymological meaning of the term; it is a form ($ürah) in which a
state gf affairs in the higher plane of Images directly reveals itself,
andindirectly and ultimately, the absolu te Mystery itself. To look at
things in the sensible world and not to stop there, but to see beyond
them the ultimate ground of all Being, that precisely is what is called
by Ibn' Arabï 'unveiling' (kashf) or mystical intuition. 18 'Unveiling'
means, in short, taking each of the sensible things as a locus in which
Reality discloses itself to us. And a man who does so encounters
everywhere a 'phenomenon' of Reality, whatever he sees and hears
in this world. Whatever he experiences is for him a form manifesting
an aspect of Divine Existence, a symbol for an aspect of Divine
Reality. And in this particular respect, his sensory experiences are
of the same symbolic nature as visions he experiences in his sleep. 19
In the eyes of a man possessed of this kind of spiritual capacity,
the whole world of 'reality' ceases to be something solidly self-
sufficient and turns into a deep mysterious forét de symboles, a
system of ontological correspondences. And dreams which arise in
the 'imaginai' plane of Being turn out to be the same as the things
and events of the world of sensory experience. Both the world of
sensible things and the world of dreams are, in this view, the same
domain of symbols. As al-Qâshânï says, 'Everything which cornes
manifesting itself from the world of the Unseen into the world of
sensible experience - whether it manifests itself in the senses or
imagination, or again in an image-similitude - is a revelation, an
instruction or communication from God' .20
The symbolic structure of the world here depicted, however, is
accessible only to the consciousness of an extremely limited number
of persans. The majority of people live attached and confined to the
lowest level of Being, that of sensible things. That is the sole world
of existence for their opaque consciousness. This lowest level of
Being only, being tangible and graspable through the senses, is real
for them. And even on this level, it never occurs to them to 'inter-
pret' the forms of the things around them. They are asleep.
But since, on the other hand, the common people, too, are
possessed of the faculty of imagination, something unusual may -
and does - occur in their minds on rare occasions. An invitation
from above visits them and flashes across their consciousness like
lightning when it is least expected. This happens when they have
visions and dreams.
Ordinarily, imagination or fantasy means the faculty of producing
in the mind a deceptive impression of the presence of a thing which
is not actually there in the external world or which is totally non-
existent. With Ibn 'Arabï, it has a different meaning. Of course in
,
Dream and Reality 13
his theory, too, imagination is the faculty of evoking in the mind
those things that are not externally present, i.e., things that are not
immediately present in the plane of sensible experience. But it is not
a wild fantasy or hallucination which induces the mind to see things
that are nowhere existent. What it produces is not a groundless
reverie. It makes visible, albeit in an obscure and veiled way, astate
of affairs in the higher planes of Being. It is a fonction of the mind
directly connected with the 'world of Images'.
The 'world of Images' ('iilam al-mithiil) is ontologically an inter-
mediate domain of contact between the purely sensible world and
the purely spiritual, i.e., non-material world. It is, as Affifi defines it,
'a really existent world in which are found the forms of the things in
a manner that stands between "fineness" and" coarseness", that is,
between pure spirituality and pure materiality' .21
All things that exist on this level of Being have, on the one hand,
something in common with things existing in the sensible world, and
resemble, on the other, the abstract intelligibles existing in the
world of pure intellect. They are special things half-sensible and
half-intelligible. They are sensible, but of an extremely fine and
rarefied sensible-ness. They are intelligible, too, but not of such a
pure intelligibility as that of the Platonic Ideas.
What is commonly called imagination is nothing but this world as
it is reftected in the human consciousness, not in its proper forms,
but obliquely, dimly, and utterly deformed. Images obtained in such
a way naturally lack an ontological basis and are rightly to be
disposed of as hallucinations.
Sometimes, however, the 'world of Images' appears as it really is,
without deformation, in the consciousness even of an ordinary man.
The most conspicuous case of this is seen in the veridical dream. The
'world of Images' is eternally existent and it is at every moment
acting upon human consciousness. But man, on his part, is not
usually aware of it while he is awake, because his mind in that state is
impeded and distracted by the material forces of the externat world.
Only when he is asleep, the physical faculties of his mind being in
abeyance, can the faculty of imagination opera te in the proper way.
And veridical dreams are produced.
However, even if a man sees in his sleep a veridical dream, it is
always presented in a series of sensible images. And it remains
devoid of significance unless it be 'interpreted'. Ibn 'Arabi sees a
typical example of this in the Biblical-Qoranic anecdote of
Abraham sacrificing his son.
Abraham once saw in a dream a sacrificial ram appearing in the
image of his son Isaac (Isb.âq). In reality, this was a symbol. It was a
symbol for the first institution of an important religious ritual;
1
1111,
14 Sufem and Taoism
namely, that of immolation of a sacrificial animal on the altar. And
since this ritual itself was ultimately a symbol of man's offering up
his own soul in sacrifice, Abraham' s vision was to be interpreted as a
sensible phenomenal form of this spiritual event. But Abraham did
not 'interpret' it. And he was going to sacrifice his son. Here is the
explanation of this event by Ibn 'Arabi. 22
Abraham, the Friend (of God), said to his son, 'Lo, I have seen
myself in my dream sacrificing thee'. (Qoran XXXVII, 102). Dream,
in truth, is a matter, pertaining to the plane of Imagination. 23 He,
however, did not interpret (his dream). What he saw in the dream
was a ram assuming the form of the son of Abraham. And Abraham
supposed his vision to be literally true (and was about to sacrifice
Isaac). But the Lord redeemed him from the illusion of Abraham
with the Great Sacrifice (i.e. the sacrifice of a ram). This was God's
'interpretation' of the dream of Abraham, but the latter did not know
it. He did not know it because all theophany in a sensible form in the
plane of Imagination needs a different kind of knowledge which
alone makes it possible for man to understand what is meant by God
through that particular form ....
Thus God said to Abraham, calling out to him, 'O Abraham, thou
hast taken the vision for truth' (XXXVII, 104-105). Mark that God
did not say, 'Thou has grasped the truth in imagining that it is thy
son'. (The mistake pointed out here) arose from the fact that
Abraham did not 'interpret' the dream but took what he had seen as
literally true, when all dreams must of necessity be 'inter-
preted' ... If what he imagined had been true, he would have
sacrificed his son. 24 He merely took his vision for truth and thought
that (Isaac, whom he had seen in the dream) was literally his own son.
In reality, God meant by the form of his son nothing more than the
Great Sacrifice.
Thus He 'redeemed' him (i.e., Isaac) simply because of what occurred in
Abraham' s mind, whereas in itself and in the eye of God it was not at ail a
question of redeeming. 25
Thus (when lsuac was 'redeemed') his visual sense perceived a
sacrificial animal (i.e., a ram) while his imagination evoked in his
mind the image of his son. (Because of this symbolic correspondence)
he would have interpreted his vision as signifying his son or some
other thing if he had seen a ram in imagination (i.e., in his dream,
instead of seeing his son as he actually did). Then says God, 'Verily
this is a manifest trial' (XXXVII, 106), meaning thereby the trial (of
Abraham by God) concerning his knowledge; namely, whether or
not he knows that the very nature of a vision properly requires an
'interpretation'. Of course Abraham did know that things of Im-
agination properly require 'interpretation'. But (in this particular
case) he carelessly neglected to do that. Thus he did not fulfil what
was properly required of him and simply assumed that his vision was
a litera] truth.
Abraham was a prophet. And a man who stands in the high spiritual
, .!
.
Dream and Reality 15
position of prophethood must know (theoretically) that a veridical
dream is a symbol for an event belonging to the plane of higher
realities. And yet Abraham actually forgot to 'interpret' his dream.
prophets are like that, how could it be expected that ordinary men
'interpret' rightly their dreams and visions? It is but natural, then,
that an ordinary man cannot see that an event occurring in so-called
'reality' is a symbol for an event corresponding to it in the higher
plane of the Images.
How can man cultivate such an ability for seeing things symboli-
cally? What should he do in order that the material veil covering
things be removed to reveal the realities that lie beyond?
Regarding this question, Ibn' Arabi in a passage of the points to
a very interesting method. lt is a way of discipline, a way of practice for
cultivating what he calls the 'spiritual eyesight' ('ayn ). lt is a
way that renders possible the inner transformation of man.
This inner transformation of man is explained by Ibn 'Arabi in
terms of transition from the 'worldly state of being (al-nash'ah
al-dunyawïyah) to the 'otherworldly state of being' (al-nash'ah
al-ukhrawïyah ). 26 The 'worldly state of being' is the way the major-
ity of men naturally are. It is characterized by the fact that man, in
his natural state, is completely un der the sway of his body, and the
activity of his mind impeded by the physical constitution of the
bodily organs. Under such conditions, even if he tries to understand
something and grasp its reality, the object cannot appear to his mind
except in utter deformation. It is a state in which man stands
completely veiled from the essential realities of things.
In order to escape from this state, Ibn 'Arabi says, man must
personally re-live the experiences of Elias-Enoch and re-enact in
himself the spiritual drama of the inner transformation symbolized
by these two names.
Elias (Ilyiis) and Enoch (Idns) were two names assumed by one
and the same person. They were two names given to one person in
two different states. Enoch was a prophet before the time of Noah.
He was raised high by God and was placed in the sphere of the sun.
His name was Enoch in that supreme position. Later he was sent
down as an apostle to the Syrian town of Baalbek. In that second
state he was named Elias. 27
Elias who was sent down in this manner to the earth from the high
sphere of heaven did not stop halfway but became totally 'earthly'.
He pushed the 'elemental ('un-îuri) state of being' on the earth toits
extreme limit. This symbolizes a man who, instead of exercising his
human reason in a lukewarm way as most people do, abandons
himself thoroughly and completely to the elemental life of nature to
the degree of being less than human.
16 Sufism and Taoism
While he was in that state, he had once a strange vision, in which
he saw a mountain called Lubnàn split up and a horse of tire coming
out of it with a harness made entirely of tire. When the prophet
noticed it, he immediately rode the horse, bodily desires fell from
him and he turned into a pure intellect without desire. He was now
completely free from all that was connected with the physical self. 28
And only in this purified state could Elias see Reality as it really is.
However, Ibn 'Arabi observes, even this supreme 'knowledge of
God' (ma'rifah bi-Allàh) attained by Elias was nota perfect one.
'For in this (knowledge), Reality was in pure transcendence
(munazzah), and it was merely half of the (perfect) knowledge of
God' .29 This means that the pure intellect that has freed itself
completely from everything physical and material cannot by nature
see God except in His transcendence (tanzih). But transcendence is
only one of the two basic aspects of the Absolute. Its other half is
immanence (tashbih). Ali knowledge of God is necessarily one-
sided if it does not unite transcendence and immanence, because
God is transcendent and immanent at the same time. Who, how-
ever, can actually unite these two aspects in this knowledge of God?
It is, as we shall see in Chapter III, the prophet Mul).ammad, no one
else, not even Elias.
Keeping what has just been said in mind, let us try to follow the
footsteps of Enoch-Elias in more concrete, i.e., less mythopoeic,
terms.
As a necessary first step, one has to go down to the most elemen-
tal level of existence in imitation of the heavenly Enoch who went
down to the earth and began by living at the lowest level of earthly
life. As suggested above, one must not stop halfway. Tuen abandon-
ing all activity of Reason and not exercising any longer the thinking
faculty, one fully realizes the 'animality' (IJ,ayawàniyah) which lies
hidden at the bottom of every human being. One is, at this stage, a
pure animal with no mixture of shallow humanity. Such a man 'is
freed from the sway of Reason and abandons himself to his natural
desires. He is an animal pure and simple' .30
In this state of unmixed animality, the man is given a certain kind
of mystical intuition, a particular sort of 'unveiling' (kashf). This
'unveiling' is the kind of 'unveiling' which is naturally possessed by
wild animais. They experience this kind of 'unveiling' because, by
nature, they do not exercise, and are therefore not bothered by, the
faculty of Reason.
In any case, the man who seriously intends to re-experience what
was once experienced by Enoch-Elias must, as a tirst step,
thoroughly actualize his animality; so thoroughly, indeed, that 'in
the end is "unveiled" to him what is (naturally) "unveiled" to all
Dream and Reality 17
animais except mankind and jinn. Only then can he be sure that he
has completely actualized his animality' .31
Whether a man has attained to this degree of animality may be
known from outside by two symptoms: one is that he is actually
experiencing the animal 'unveiling', and the other is that he is
unable to speak. The explanation by Ibn' Arabi of these two symp-
toms, particularly of the tirst one, is quite unusual and bizarre, at
least to our common sense. But it is difficult to deny the extraordi-
nary weight of reality it evokes in our minds. It strikes as real
because it is a description of his own persona! experience as an
unusual visionary.
The first symptom, he says, of a man actually experiencing the
animal kashf, is that 'he sees those who are being chastised (by the
angels) in the graves, and those who are enjoying a heavenly felicity,
that he sees the dead living, the dumb speaking, and the crippled
walking'. To the eye of such a man there appear strange scenes
which our 'sane and healthy' Reason would unhesitatingly consider
sheer insanity. Whether such a vision is rightly to be regarded as
'animal' experience is a question about which the ordinary mind is
not in a position to pass any judgment. For here Ibn' Arabi is talking
out of his persona! experience.32 But we can easily see at least that,
in the mind of a man who has completely liberated himself from the
domination of natural Reason, all those petty distinctions and dif-
ferentiations that have been established by the latter crumble away
in utter confusion, and things and events take on entirely different
and new forms. What Ibn' Arabi wants to say by all this is that all the
seemingly watertight compartments into which Reality is divided by
human Reason lose their ontological validity in such an 'animal'
experience.
The second symptom is that such a man becomes dumb and is
unable to express himself 'even if he wants and tries to describe in
words what he sees. And this is a decisive sign that he has actualized
his animality' 33 Here he gives an interesting description of his own
experience concerning this point:
Once 1 had a disciple who attained to this kind of 'unveiling'. How-
ever, he did not keep silent about his ( experience). This shows that he
did not realize his animality (in perfect manner.) When God made
me stand at that stage, 1 realized my animality completely. 1 had
visions and wanted to talk about what 1 witnessed, but 1 could not do
so. There was no actual difference between me and those who were
by nature speechless.
A man who has thus gone all the way to the furthest limit of
animality, if he still continues his spiritual exercise, may rise to the state
of pure Intellect.34 The Reason ('aql) which has been abandoned
18 Sufism and Taoism
before in order to go down to the lowest level of animality is an
'aql attached to and fettered by his body. And now at this second
stage, he acquires a new 'aql, or rather recovers possession of his
once-abandoned 'aql in a totally different form. The new 'aql, which
Ibn 'Arabi calls 'pure Intellect' ('aql mujarrad),35 fonctions on a
level where its activity cannot be impeded by anything bodily and
physical. The pure Intellect has nothing at all to do with the body.
And when a man acquires this kind of Intellect and sees things with
the eye of the pure Intellect itself, even ordinary things around him
begin to disclose to him their true ontological structure.
This last statement means, in terms of Ibn 'Arabi' s world-view,
that the things around us lose their independence in the eye of such
a man and reveal their true nature as so many 'phenomena' of things
belonging to the ontological stage above them.
(Su ch a man) has transformed himself into a pure Intellect away from
all natural material elements. He witnesses things that are the very
sources of what appears in the natural forms. And he cornes to know
by a sort of intuitive knowledge why and how the things of nature are
just as they are. 36
In still more concrete terms, such a man is already in the ontological
stage above that of the things of nature. He is in the stage of the
Divine Names and Attributes. In the language of ontology peculiar
to Ibn' Arabi, he is in the stage of the 'permanent archetypes' (a'yim
thllbitah ),37 and is looking down from that height on the infini tel y
variegated things of the sensible world and understanding them in
terms of the realities (IJ,aqa'iq) that lie beyond them.
He who has attained to this spiritual height is an 'arif or 'one who
knows (the transcendental truth)', and his cognition is rightly to be
regarded as an authentic case of dhawq or 'immediate tasting'. Such
a man is already 'complete' (tamm).
As we have remarked before, however, the cognition of Enoch
was only 'half' of the cognition of the Absolu te reality. A man of
this kind is certainly tiimm, but not yet 'perfect' (kiimil). In order that
he might be kami!, he has to go a step further and raise himself to a
point where he sees that all, whether the 'permanent archetypes' or
the things of nature or again he himself who is actually perceiving
them, are after ail, nothing but so many phenomenal forms of
the Divine Essence on different levels of being; that through ail the
ontological planes, there runs an incessant and infinite fkw of the
Divine Being.38 Only when a man is in such a position is he a' Perfect
Man' (insan kami!).
The above must be taken as an introduction to the major prob-
lems of Ibn 'Arabi and a summary exposition of the experiential
basis on which he develops his philosophical thinking. It has, 1 think,
Dream and Reality 19
made clear that Ibn 'Arabi's philosophy is, in brief, a theoretic
description of the en tire world of Being as it is reflected in the eye of
the Perfect Man. It is, indeed, an extraordinary world-view because
it is a product of the extraordinary experience of an extraordinary
man. How, then, does the Perfect Man, that is, a man who has been
completely awakened, see the world? That will be the main theme
of the following chapters.
Before we close this chapter, however, it will not be out of place
to look back and re-examine the major concepts that have been
touched upon, and consider the relations that are recognizable
among them. In so doing we have to keep in mind that we are still at
a preliminary stage of our research, and that all we have done is
simply to adumbrate the structure of the whole system.
First and foremost, 1 would like to draw attention to a fact of
capital importance which has been suggested in the course of the
present chapter but not explicitly stated; namely, that the
philosophical thought of Ibn' Arabi, with all its perplexing complex-
ity and profundity, is dominated by the concept of Being. In this
sense, his thought is, in essence, through and through ontological.
The concept of Being in the double meaning of ens and esse is the
highest key-concept that dominates his entire thought. His philoso-
phy is theological, but it is more ontological than theological. That is
why even the concept of God (Allah) itself which in Islam generally
maintains its uncontested position is given here only a secondary
place.39 As we shall see presently, God is a 'phenomenal', i.e.,
self-manifesting, form assumed by Something still more primordial,
the Absolute Being. Indeed, the concept of Being is the very found-
ation of this world-view.
However, it is by no means a common-sense notion of Being.
Unlike Aristotle for whom also Being had an overwhelming fascina-
tion, Ibn 'Arabi does not start his philosophizing from the concept
of Being on the concrete level of ordinary reality. For him, the
things of the physical world are but a dream. His ontology begins -
and ends - with an existential grasp of Being at its abysmal depth,
the absolute Being which infinitely transcends the level of common
sense and which is an insoluble enigma to the minds of ordinary
men. It is, in short, an ontology based on mysticism, motivated by
what is disclosed only by the mystical experience of 'unveiling'
(kashfl.
The absolute Being intuitively grasped in such an extraordinary
experience reveals itself in an infinite number of degrees. These
degrees or stages of Being are classified into five major ones which
were introduced in this chapter as 'five planes of Being'. Ibn' Arabi
himself designates each of these planes of Being IJ,adrah or 'pres-
ence'. Each IJ,adrah is a particular ontological dimension in which
20 Sufism and Taoism
the absolute Being (al-wujüd al-mut/aq) manifests itself. And the
absolute Being in all the forms of self-manifestation is referred to by
the term }Jaqq
The first of these five planes of Being, which is going to be our
topic in the next chapter, is Reality in its first and primordial
absoluteness or the absolute Being itself. It is the Absolute before40
it begins to manifest itself, i.e., the Absolute in a state in which it
does not yet show even the slightest foreboding of self-
manifestation. The four remaining stages are the essential forms in
which the Absolute 'descends' from its absoluteness and manifests
itself on levels that are to us more real and concrete. This self-
manifesting activity of the Absolu te is called by Ibn 'Arabï tajallï, a
word which literally means disclosing something hidden behind a
veil.
/faqq
(Absolute)
non-tajallï the first l;a<J,rah (the Absolute in its
ta ·allï absoluteness) 1 the second l;a<J,rah (the Absolu te mani-
festing itself as God)
1 tajallï ) the third l;a<J,rah (the Absolute mani-
festing itself as Lord)
1 . . ) the fourth l;a<J,rah (the Absolute mam-
festing itself as half-spiritual and
half-material things)
1 . ) the fifth l;a<J,rah (the Absolute mam-
festing itself as the sensible world)
As this diagram shows, everything in Ibn 'Arabï's world-view,
whether spiritual of material, invisible or visible, is a tajallï of the
Absolute except the Absolute in its absoluteness, which is, needless
to say, not a tajalli but the very source of all tajalliyât.
Another point to note is that these five planes constitute an
organic system of correspondences. Thus anything found in the
second IJ,a<J,rah, for example, besides being itself a 'phenomenon' of
some aspect of the firstlJ,a<J,rah, finds its ontological repercussions in
all the three remaining IJ,a<J,arat each in a form peculiar to each
IJ,atf,rah.
lt is also important to remember that the first three planes are
purely spiritual in contrast with the fifth which is material, while the
fourth represents a border-line between the two.
With these preliminary notions in mind we shall turn immediately
to the first IJ,a<J,rah.
Dream and Reality 21
Notes
1. Fu$i4 al-/fikam, p. 117/103. In quoting from the al-/fikam I shall
always give two paginations: (1) that of the Cairo edition of 1321 A.H., containing
al-Qàshànï's commentary, and (2) that of Affifi's critical edition, Cairo, 1946 (1365
A.H.).
2. Fu$., p. 199/104. 'Imagination within imagination' here means that the world as
we perceive it is a product of our persona! faculty of imagination which is active
within the larger domain of the 'objective' Imagination. For a lucid and most
illuminating exposition of the concept of Imagination in this latter sense, see Henry
Corbin L'imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d'Jbn 'Arabi, Paris, 1958.
3. p. 200/159.
4. p. 200/159
5. p. 110/99.
6. p. 111199.
7. ibid.
8. i.e., a system of symbols pointing to the Absolute.
9. ja'ala-hà IJ,aqqà.
10. p. 112/101.
11. p. 113/101.
12. pp. 112-113/101. The following words of al-Qàshànï are found in his
commentary, p. 113.
13. literally, (Divine) Presences. They are the five fundamental modes or dimen-
sions of the self-manifestation of the Absolute.
14. p. 110. It is to be remembered that this is not the only form in which the 'planes
of Being' are presented. Al-Qàshànï himself gives in another place a slightly different
explanation (see later, Chapter XI).
15. to be explained in the following chapter.
16. to be discussed in Chapter VII together with the next plane, the plane of the
Actions.
17. This is an intermediary plane which lies between the properly Divine domain of
Being (1, 2, 3) and the material world of senses, the so-caUed 'reality' (5). It is a world
sui generis of eternal Archetypes or Images, in which the originally formless Ideas
assume 'imaginai' forms and in which the material things of our empirical world
appear as 'subtle (latin bodies' having been divested of their grossly material forms.
18. p. 111199.
19. ibid.
11
1111
i
11,
11111111
22 Sufism and Taoism
20. p. 110.
21. Commentary on the FWiü.î, p. 74. This commentary is found in the above-
mentioned Cairn edition by Affifi. Throughout the present work, this commentary
will be referred to as Affifi, FWi ., Corn.
22. FWi., pp. 84-86/85-86.
23. i.e., it is a symbol, and needs 'interpretation'.
24. i.e., God would not have stopped him.
25. The last sentence means: God redeemed Isaac with a sacrificial ram. But the
truth is that the whole matter merely looked to Abraham as 'redeeming'. There was,
in fact, no 'redeeming' because from the beginning it was not God's intention to
make Abraham sacrifice his son. Since, however, Abraham had misunderstood
God's intention, what God did to his son was in his eyes an act of redemption.
26. Fu:f., pp. 234-235/186.
27. FWi., p. 227/181.
28. FWi., p. 228/181.
29. ibid.
30. Fu:f., p. 235/186.
31. ibid.
32. Besides, ail bis statements are, in general, based on his personal experience,
whether he explicitly says so or not. And this is one of the reasons why his description
(of anything) is so powerful and persuasive.
33. These words, together with the following quotation, are from FWi., p. 235/186-
187.
34. i.e., a spiritual state in which the intellect ('aql) is free from ail physical fetters
( al-Qashanï).
35. The Arabie here is a bit confusing because the same word 'aql is used for both
forms: the 'physical' or 'natural' 'aql which a mystic must abandon and the 'pure'
'spiritual' 'aql which he acquires afterwards.
36. Fu:f., p. 236/187.
37. About the 'permanent archetypes' details will be given later.
38. FWi., p. 236/187.
39. unless, of course, we use, as Ibn' Arabi himself often does, the word Alliih in a
non-technical sense as a synonym of the Absolute (IJ,aqq).
40. Strictly speaking, the word 'before' is improper here because the 'absoluteness'
is beyond ail temporal relations: there can be neither 'before' nor 'after' in the
temporal sense.
