Sunday, December 27, 2009

IBN AL'ARABI AND GOVERNING THROUGH SPIRIT IN TIMES OF THREAT


Yousef Daoud
Spirituality

[Revised from a previous blog]

1.

Ibn al ' Arabi, perhaps the greatest philosopher of Sufism and the greatest Sufi Master of his time (1165-1240) is read more by intellectuals, and scholars of religion and mysticism than is Rumi, who has a broader following. Yet the Moroccan memoirist and feminist Fatima Mernissi has told me that Ibn Al'Arabi is her "darling," among the Sufi writers. Two garrulous aging journalists in Orhan Pamuk's enigmatic novel The Black Book insist that the Existentialists were way behind their time, as Ibn al'Arabi had transmitted their message eight hundred years earlier. "It's all there," one of them snorts, in condescension toward the European intelligentsia.

I am going to suggest that the so called "greatest master" also had a thing or two to teach us about the most dangerous obsessions haunting us today. And that is whether we belong to the anti-humanism of so-called jihadist political Islam, or the anti-intellectuals of the War-on-Terror fanatics. (Both groups have symptoms of both diseases.) Tolerance and good governance, in the human spirit and in the human realm were outlined in one of the early works Ibn al-Arabi al-Andalusi was commissioned to write: Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (At-Tadbirat al -ilahiyyah fi islah al mamlakat al-insaniyyah)

The great Andalusian Shaikh began his prodigious career of writing and teaching in his native Spain. As a young man he had two elderly female Sufi instructors, to whom he was very dedicated. In his twenties his abilities to communicate the teachings of Sufism and Islam (especially through the study of the traditions or "hadiths") and his high level of illumination had won him recognition. It was only in the latter half of his career, that he journeyed through the Middle East, wrote his Meccan Revelations and the cryptic Bezels of Wisdom-finding different keys to Wisdom in all the Biblical and Koranic prophets. (In Mecca he had also become infatuated with the daughter of a Shaikh, who was herself a fine teacher of Sufistic interpretations of scripture. The impossible match led to an outpouring of writing, including the long poem The Interpreter of Desire (Tarjuman al-Ashwaq).

The key idea found in his philosophy--or theosophy--in the estimation of almost every authoritative commentator, is termed the "Unity-of-Being" (wahdat al-wujud). This is all the more striking perhaps because his works numbered in the hundreds, and not all have been discovered, let alone translated, no one has found the term used in any of his works. It may have been passed along by his disciples in Baghdad or Konya. Nevertheless, strangely, it is agreed: the Unity-of-Being, as a philosophy, comes to fruition in the Ibn al-Arabi's work. Its implications are immense. But in this mode of thinking, the idea of a quest for realizing divine illumination is a paradox -- as the divine Essence flows through all things at all times. God is never gone, in other words. "There is no wayfarer, and no way upon which to fare," wrote the master, in his Meccan Revelations. (I 183) That is to say: Though I must reach out to embrace it, it is already within me. And I am within it.

Furthermore Ibn-Arabi suggests a paradox: I cannot seek God, for that is something which exists eternally, and I have no existence at all. How can something like me, with no real existence—a passing form which transforms and dies, and is never the same one day after another as I move about as a flux of molecules toward final dissolution—possibly grasp the ground of existence? Instead, I should look to see where that spiritual Essence lies within myself, as I continue my growth and transformation in this life. Furthermore, what is in me is in all other "engendered things"—temporal things which arise due to cause and effect from the ground of Being. Sentient beings, and for the Sufis like Ibn-Arabi, even rocks, sand, and (these days) subatomic particles are all imbued with that Essence.

2.

Ibn Arabi sometimes criticized the mystics who thought that the ego must be annihilated, as well as the concept of annihilation, as all concepts must be annihilated, to allow God -- the Light – to illumine the emptied self, soul or mind. For, like the Mahayana Buddhists, he believed there was no ego to annihilate. The extinction of the ego (nafs) was, in his teaching, an absurd concept. For there is no ego to extinguish. It is a delusion, with no inherent existence – however delicious it is to us to worship it. Yet he agreed it was so powerful within human beings it could cause, through the greed, habits, and lusts it generated, damage, destruction and suffering.

Indeed, it is the most concretely dangerous illusion to ever "exist!"

And this is where Ibn Arabi, through his often complex and esoteric style, has much to tell us today, if we are patient and take his writings to heart. He wrote in a time when Sufism was an ascendant tradition throughout the Islamic world, after the great theologian and philosopher Mohammad al-Ghazzali succeeded, with the support of many scholars, in binding Sufism inextricably with Islam (a famous moment in Islamic scholarship. conveniently ignored by the self-aggrandizers of political Islam today, who abhor "inner" readings of the holy Book).

Ibn Arabi returns over and over to an Islamic oral tradition, known as a hadith qudsi: "To know thy Lord is to know Thyself." Our search, absurdly, leads us far afield into groves of illusion and more illusion, creations of the imagination. He quotes the Qur'an: "What you seek is in your own selves. Will you not then see?" (Zariyat, 21.)

3.

Let's examine some of the wisdom Ibn al-Arabi has to offer us in the grim times we are currently confronting. Rendered in pristine English by Shaikh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti (Fons Vitae 1997) Divine Governance gives advice in which the human spirit is viewed as a kingdom which must be governed. It is of course a spiritual metaphor. For Intellect given to us from the Source must be in "our" service, not that of our "ego." He write of the good Prime Minister, who must constantly call upon intellect, and keep it from being seduced by the cravings of the nafs-al ammara, the commanding self (in common parlance today, the ego.)

Opt for freedom, and with this new freedom, fight the tyranny of your ego. Sit on the throne of intellect. Put the crown of service on your head. Judge, not with preconceptions, but by the reality of the Now. The truth is in the present." (21)

Nine times out of ten, conflicts are the result of preconceptions, due to ignorance of realities, and by locking the mind in anger about the past or anxieties about the future. One chapter Ibn al-Arabi entitles: "On the Qualities to be sought in the Prime Minister and the Definition of his Deputies." As a metaphor, we are speaking of a Self higher than the ego. That which can impose order and productivity on the recklessness engendered by greed, lusts and habits in the human self as it rises above itself, shapes itself, and tries to create a realm of increasing growth and productivity. If you are to rule your land with such results, you must have the right people about you. Incorruptible ones:

O one whom God has chosen as His Deputy, realize that it is an obligation for you to cooperate with your minister, "Intellect," to support him and protect him, as you have to co-exist. Your peace and order and prosperity in fact, the existence of your kingdom--depends upon his ability to serve you.

If the mind attaches itself to anyone but you, then it can only work against you, which will cause incalculable disasters. Haven't you see n the destruction of men who have lost their minds, and the inability of the spirit to cure this ill? Thus, as long as the Intellect is safe, you are safe. He is he hand with which you hold and the eye with which you see. (92)

It is clear to most Sufis that here the writer is finding parallels: that the Prime Minister is the higher Self which must rely on his/her minister and key advisor (Intellect) to organize that lower "self" or ego productively. However, putting his metaphor back on its head -- there are many who would agree that those in charge of governance in our land "have lost their minds" to the greed, lust and habits - of wanting power, of wanting to slay their enemies, of economic compulsiveness, for oil, for outsourcing big war contracts to their own companies. Of a desire to create more power through creating oppressive new institutions. Of egoistically blinding themselves, to impose a "better order" upon others. For the ego, the "commanding self" - many Sufi teachers agree, is not just a phenomenon within this or that individual. It can be kindled through individuals into a wild fire, moving from one mind to another.

There is in fact, a universal nafs, which sucks in all those who live without mindfulness, that is, in ignorance. Unchecked, this leads to Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq. It also leads to the Twin Towers, fundamentalist woman-battering regimes, and car bombs in the market place of innocents. "Haven't you seen the destruction of men who have lost their minds" writes the Shaikh – and here we can answer Ibn al-Arabi's simple inquiry with a resounding "Yes, this year, this minute, this week – and it goes on and on." Here is some more admonishments that our leaders have never received, about letting the subservient, the obedient (to power, not God), and the obsequious fire up the imagination of leaders to dangerous, grandiose or paranoid levels:

Hold on to reality, and protect yourself from distortions in imagination's sight. Otherwise you will be tyrannizing yourself- for there is no God in a realm where rationality does not rule." (93)

Our leaders, in this sense, tyrannized themselves before they did it to others. The Colin Powell phenomenon, a clear sighted warrior, allowed the overwhelming power of negative imagination to sweep him into its net, and he then contributed yet more to the great fantasy before the world's highest deliberative body. Due to the climate, one might say the CIA became the Central Imagination Agency. Intelligence was not what this was about (And we are reminded once again of the gift of Intellect which we ignore at our peril.)

This is not to say imagination is egotistical. Ibn al-Arabi himself explores the "imaginal realm" in great detail, and had no objections to works of literary or musical imagination that those self-twisted alleged Muslims who feast on the egotism of religion ("My religion is the answer, yours is the devil") reject in knee jerk fashion. But that is a subject for another essay. Here we speak of the form of imagination which is dark: delusion.

On leadership and scholarship in the area of Law, Ibn Arabi suggests to the ruler an "Imam" that is justice incarnate - and he defines justice as a middle path: one in which there are never extremes, neither cruelty and the iron fist, nor chaos allowing criminals to go free, leaving people to be victims of crime.

The wise of olden times said, "Don't be too sweet, you will make people's mouths water. Don't be too sharp, you will turn peoples' stomachs." The principle of justice is balance, equality, the middle course. It must be applied to all things. Let justice rule in the inner meaning of what you say and what you do. Apply it first to yourself, then to those who are closest to you - your ministers and the officials governing the realm of your being - and then to all those over whom you have authority. (85)

4.

In What the Seeker Needs, an essay from the same period, he writes: Anger is a result and sign of the ego not being under control, like a mean wild animal untied and uncaged." Here the Sufi's interest in the dynamics within the individual, once again speaks to the world of many individuals - the polis.

As you hold your temper, it is as if you put a bridle on its [the ego's] head and barriers around it. You begin to tame it, teach it how to behave, to obey, so that it cannot hurt others or itself, because it is part of you. (214)

As for those suffering in the hell of their delusions among the so-called "jihadists," the esteemed Sheikh had much to say. He was appalled by reports that the followers of the two legal schools of Islam were fighting bloody battles with each other in Iran and trans-Oxiania, present-day Afghanistan. All to see who would have the right to control over people's lives! He writes in The Meccan Revelations, that the true seeker "doesn't depend on any [legal] school," and those who try to impose the "external forms" of religion through the state:

[D]o not have [a high spiritual level], because of having devoted themselves to their love for prominent social position, the domination of others, furthering their precedence over God's servants .... "Hence they do not prosper" (Qur’an 16:16) with regard to their souls, nor shall one prosper through [following] them. This is the inner position of the jurists (fuquha') of [our] time. As for those of them who cunningly hide themselves in [the guise of] religion - those who hunch their shoulders and look at people furtively, with a pretense of humility ... they are dominated by the weaknesses of the carnal self and '"their hearts are the hearts of wolves," so that "God does not speak to them nor look at them." (Meccan Revelations, 183-84)

The final quote, of course, comes from the Qur'an, which relentlessly admonishes those who serve the ego and call it religion. In another chapter on the "collecting of taxes" and the business of "governing," (we are still in the realm of metaphor, and yet it works for politics as well) the sage once again makes use of a hadith of Islam: "Whoever makes a tyranny of my religion, and whoever in the future will do the same, will be defeated by that religion."

Ibn Al-Arabi raised the stakes on the matter eight hundred years ago. He speaks to Muslims –and he speaks to all who would govern themselves with wisdom, and govern others with justice.


Works Cited Above

Ibn al'Arabi. Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (At-Tadbirat al-ilahiyyah fi islah al mamlakat al-insaniyyah) Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1997.

_________. The Meccan Revelations. Michael Chodkiewicz, Ed. Vol 1. New York: Pir Press, 2005.