Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future: Perspectives from Philosophies in Islam 3031676580, 9783031676581

Citation preview

Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8

Detlev Quintern Daniela Verducci   Editors

Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future Perspectives from Philosophies in Islam

Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue Volume 8

Series Editors William S. Smith, Executive President World Phenomenology Institute Hanover, NH, USA Jadwiga S. Smith , Co-President, American Division World Phenomenology Institute Hanover, NH, USA Daniela Verducci, Co-President, European Division World Phenomenology Institute Macerata, Italy Editorial Board Salahaddin Khalilov, Azerbaijan University Baku, Azerbaijan Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, Public Health Sciences University of California Davis, CA, USA Detlev Quintern, Faculty of Cultural and Social Studies Türkisch-Deutsche Universität Istanbul, Türkiye

Among inter-cultural dialogues of phenomenology, the Islamic philosophy remains barely touched upon. It is the intention of the World Phenomenology Institute to unfold a dialogue between Islamic philosophy and phenomenology - phenomenology of life in particular  - at the deepest philosophical level toward the uncovering common springs of philosophical meditation. It is hoped that this interchange between the Islamic and occidental philosophies will foster the 'New Humanism so urgently needed in our world'. Founder: Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, World Phenomenology Institute, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Series Editors: William S.  Smith, Executive President, World Phenomenology Institute, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Jadwiga S.  Smith, Co-President, American Division, World Phenomenology Institute, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Daniela Verducci, Co-President, European Division, World Phenomenology Institute, Macerata, Italy Editorial Board: William S.  Smith, World Phenomenology Institute Jadwiga S. Smith, World Phenomenology Institute Daniela Verducci, World Phenomenology Institute Salahaddin Khalilov, Azerbaijan University Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley Detlev Quintern, Fatih S.M.Vakif University, Istanbul All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance.

Detlev Quintern • Daniela Verducci Editors

Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future Perspectives from Philosophies in Islam

Editors Detlev Quintern Faculty of Cultural and Social Studies Türkisch-Deutsche Universität Istanbul, Türkiye

Daniela Verducci Department of Humanistic Studies-Section of Philosophy University of Macerata Macerata, Italy

ISSN 1572-1752 Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue ISBN 978-3-031-67658-1    ISBN 978-3-031-67659-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper.

Preface

The saying “reculer pour mieux sauter” [backtrack to jump better], quoted by Anna-­ Teresa Tymieniecka (2011, 10), may help readers understand why Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future: Perspectives from Philosophies in Islam was chosen as the title for this volume 8 of the Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue (IPOP) editorial series. Indeed, to explain how we came to address eco-­ imagination and sustainable futures in dialogue with Islamic philosophy, we must “backtrack” to the platform of ideas that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had developed when she initiated the IPOP series. This platform and the contribution of dialogue with philosophical Islam served as a springboard from which phenomenology could “jump” towards eco-phenomenological and eco-imaginative investigation, a further level of phenomenological inquiry which contemporaneity urges us to reach. Over the course of her forty years of research activity (1983, 1986, 1988a, b, 1990, 2000), Tymieniecka strove beyond the boundaries of consolidated phenomenological results, focusing on the “breaking point of intentionality”, the border between “the significant role of the intellect” and the area of the pre-predicative terrain, whose meaning escapes “the tentacles of the mind” (Tymieniecka, 1983, xv). Here she saw that the concrete living human individual comes into manifestation with a special endowment of creative virtualities, which express themselves in the course of his/her “self-individualization in existence” (Tymieniecka, 1983, xvii). Thus, Tymieniecka realized that in human creative acts, rather than in the cognitive processes of the human mind, the “inner givenness of vital progress common to all living beings as such” is manifested (Tymieniecka, 2000, 4–5). She also perceived the emergence of a living and sentient logos, which supported this progress through its network. Before her phenomenological eyes there emerged the expansive and evolutionary logic of self-individualization of life, which reproduced itself auto-poietically in pre-human natural constructivism, while producing being through Imaginatio Creatrix in the ontopoiesis of the human level of life. At the World Congress of Philosophy in Boston in 1997, Tymieniecka announced her discovery of the ontopoietic logos of life, based on the creative human condition in the context of everything-that-is-alive. This breakthrough allowed us finally to go beyond the limits of the modern rationalistic logos that had ensnared classical and v

vi

Preface

post-classical phenomenology. In fact, with the new phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life, by virtue of the phenomenological manifestation of an unprecedented logoic continuity between cosmic constructivism and human creativity, we see “the perspective of becoming, in which the inner ontic operations establishing beingness in linea entis occur as well as cognitio”. With this, “the level, at which the foundation of the phenomenal lies, a level that Husserl did not reach” (Tymieniecka, 2003, xv), was phenomenologically recovered and phenomenology was also restored in its vocation as “a universal philosophy in which the entire universe of human experience is to be given due consideration” (Tymieniecka, 2003, xiii). With the phenomenological discovery of the ontopoiesis of life, Tymieniecka established herself at a more original level of the genesis of objectivity, the one from which eidos and fact simultaneously spring, with the insight that “not constitutive intentionality but the constructive advance of life, which carries it, may alone reveal to us the first principles of all things” (Tymieniecka 1986, p. 3). By focusing on the virtualities of the Human Condition as the uncontaminated point of reference for the investigation of the origin, destiny, role and place that the human being occupies in the scheme of life, all cultural prejudices are eliminated. “We reach together to the fountain of life and of the community of human minds”, Tymieniecka exclaimed (1986, pp. viii–ix). The “advent of [such] a further development of the Husserlian inspiration in the form of the Phenomenology of Life in its ontopoiesis”—Tymieniecka observed (2003, xv–xvi)—was particularly congenial for the initiation of dialogue with Islamic philosophies because this phenomenological advancement overcame the situation of “estrangement” between the two cultural worlds of the West and the Islamic East. The Medieval climate of exchange, dialogue and mutual influence between Western and Islamic thinkers was supplanted by “estrangement” when Western philosophers gave in to excessive rationalization/intellectualization, exclusively pursuing the Cartesian ideal of “clear and distinct ideas” modeled on those of geometry. “This ideal – Tymieniecka commented – was also seen as responsible for the disjunction between mind and body that occurred in Western philosophy and resulted in a disruption of the metaphysical vision of the Unity of Being heretofore shared by both sides” (2003, xiv). Furthermore, in the specific dialogue between phenomenology and Islamic philosophy, the new phenomenological platform of the ontopoiesis of life allowed the possibility to apply her expansion of Husserlian method (Tymieniecka 2003, xii), thanks to contact with Henri Corbin’s comparative studies on Islamic literature (1981), and his assertion that all types of experiences presenting themselves in evidential intuitions are legitimate objects of inquiry. Thus, Tymieniecka noted, though Corbin did not cite it, he in fact asserted Husserl’s “principle of all principles” in an extended mode, which avoided identification with any particular type of intuition (e.g., “eidetic” intuition in which intellective “essences” are accessible to experiencing subjects) and therefore encompassed more than the experiential yielding of intellective essential insight (Tymieniecka 2003, xii). By making use of intuitions of all kinds to deal with experiences in which they manifest themselves and which otherwise fall outside the intellectual-natural sphere,

Preface

vii

Henry Corbin was able not only to bring to light the esoteric world contained in spiritual, visionary and mystical experiences of Islamic sages but also, even more, to constitute the common intuitive basis for a constructive comparison between the rationalistic-scientific contents of post-medieval Western thought and the esoteric content of spiritual thought and visionary and mystical experiences of Islamic wisdom (Tymieniecka 2003, xiii ). Hence, Tymieniecka proceeded “towards philosophically vindicating the realm of the spiritual, the esoteric, the sacred”, fields as important in the Islamic world as they are little investigated by classical phenomenology, albeit with significant exceptions. She was motivated neither by the intention to contribute to comparative studies nor that of finding a cultural bridge. Rather, she was animated by genuine “philosophical eros”, only aimed at searching for the “truth of things”, without prejudices. Since both parties, phenomenological and Islamic, shared faith in intuition, Tymieniecka identified “the dialogue process in terms of a coming together in the intuitive differentiation of the real” (Tymieniecka 2003, xv) as a valid tool for talking about “intuitions that renew both philosophical traditions” (Tymieniecka 2003, xiii). All the more so, since Tymieniecka’s emerging ontopoietic vision of the phenomenology of life as a post-Husserlian phase of phenomenology had established “the essential extension of the parameters of phenomenology to a level where the ‘unveiling of the phenomena’ at least reaches its proper platform” (Tymieniecka 2003, xvi). Thus, the effective dialogue with Islamic philosophy that has developed in the framework of the phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life has enriched the intuitive basis of classical phenomenology and expanded the inclusiveness of its method by introducing an approach to the microcosm that must welcome and valorize the Islamic approach to the macrocosm and transcendence (the divine), while also helping to keep the formulation of the microcosm clearly intuited sufficiently flexible, by placing emphasis not “upon concepts, but rather upon the intuitive insights that they convey”, to allow one to take into account all types of experience (Tymieniecka 2003, xiv). Thus equipped intuitively and methodologically, the phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life affords a much more general value than that expressed in the dialogue between the West and the Islamic East. In fact, Tymieniecka's Phenomenology of the ontopoietic logos of life allows phenomenology to enter into a relationship with all those phenomena, including extra-cogitative ones, that have escaped and still escape the reach of the cogitative intentionality of classical phenomenology. In addition, it equips phenomenology with the tools to positively face the new and bring about that creative dynamization of the established mental-­ cultural schemes that the new calls for. For this reason, it is only with the intuitively and methodologically expanded and shared version of the phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life that phenomenology has been able to accept the challenge posed by the increasingly pressing need for an eco-phenomenology and the related eco-­ imagination to face the present ecological crisis which urges the consolidated philosophical parameters to even broader and more shared openings.

viii

Preface

Tymieniecka revealed that the phenomenology of life had matured into an eco-­ phenomenological Enlightenment, in a 2008 interview with Norwegian journalists Lars Petter Torjussen, Johannes Servan and Simen Andersen Øyen in Bergen, where she was receiving an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the Norwegian University. Indeed, in virtue of the unifying and integrating power of the ontopoietic logos of life, discovered as the driving and ordering force that is the basis of all evolution, the usual ecological outlook centered on relationships among organisms or groups of organisms and their natural environment can expand beyond the confines of so-­ called nature. Even the human condition originated from it, since the human being is an ecological fruit formed by the earth and nourished by its juices. Thus, there are even cosmic dependencies of the human mind and human development, but the self-­ individualization of life, which is the basic instrument of ontopoiesis, draws upon the laws of the cosmos and the earth and can broaden into the supernatural, through the advent, in the midst of the just conquered unity-of-everything-there-is-alive, of the free human creativity/Imaginatio creatrix. In the Preface to the first volume of the IPOP series in 2003, Tymieniecka claimed the merit of having reached the primordial plane of phenomenology through her phenomenology of life: it coincides with the foundational and uncontaminated level established by the ontopoietic logos of life, in which the unprecedented metaphysical platform is configured for a renewed indispensable and constructive intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogue on the issues that history brings forth and makes inevitable, such as the ecological crisis which presses us today, as integral as it is cosmic and human. This evolutive platform is the source of the energetic momentum that led us to give shape to this 8th volume of the IPOP series. Macerata, Italy  Daniela Verducci

References Corbin, Henry. 1981. The Concept of Comparative Philosophy. Peter Russell Trans. Ipswich UK: Golgonooza Press. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. 1983. The Phenomenology of Man and of the Human Condition; the Decade of Phenomenological Research in The Phenomenology Institute and Its Three Societies. In The Phenomenology of Man and of the Human Condition – Individualisation of Nature and the Human Being. I. ­Plotting the Territory for Interdisciplinary Communication, ed. A.-T.  Tymieniecka. “Analecta Husserliana” X: xi–xx. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Reidel Publishing Company. ———. 1986. Tractatus Brevis. First Principles of the Metaphysics of Life Charting the Human Condition. Man’s Creative Act and the Origin of Rationalities. In The Phenomenology of Man and of the Human Condition – II. The Meeting Point between Occidental and Oriental Philosophies, ed. A.-T.  Tymieniecka. “Analecta Husserliana” 21: 1–73. Dordrecht/Boston/ London: Reidel Publishing Company.

Preface

ix

———. 1988a. Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason. “Logos and Life”  – Book 1. “Analecta Husserliana” 24. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ———. 1988b. The Three Movement of the Soul and the Elements in the Ontopoiesis of Culture. “Logos and Life”  – Book 2. “Analecta Husserliana” 25. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ———. 1990. The Passions of the Soul and the Elements in the Ontopoiesis of Culture. “Logos and Life” – Book 3. “Analecta Husserliana” 28. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ———. 2000. Impetus and Equipoise in the Life-Strategies of Reason. “Logos and Life” – Book 4. “Analecta Husserliana” 70. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ———. 2003. “Preface”. In The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. A.-T. Tymieniecka. “Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue”. vol. 1: ix–xvii. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­94-­017-­0229-­4. ———. 2011. Heralding A New Enlightenment. Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2/1: 7–13.

Acknowledgements

My first thanks go to the authors, who have honored us with their trust by offering their essays for publication in the IPOP series. My co-editor, Detlev Quintern, deserves credit for having strongly desired and superbly organized this 8th volume of the series. Special mention goes to L.W. Cornelis van Litt of Utrecht University, and Gaetano Sabetta and Mobeen Shahid of the Pontifical Urbaniana University of Rome, for the valuable editorial and communication assistance provided. Some of the essays published here were presented at the Islamic Session of the 66th International Conference of Phenomenology, Eco-Imagination for a Sustainable Future, jointly organized by The World Phenomenology Institute and the IULM University, October 27–29, 2022, at the IULM University in Milan. Our gratitude also goes to Renato Boccali and his organizing staff, Giulia Andreini and Florjer Gjepali of IULM University, who made the conference possible. . Daniela Verducci

xi

Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Detlev Quintern Part I Eco-Imagination in Islamic Philosophies and Sufism 2 Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-­imagination����������������������������������������������������������������������   11 Hamidreza Ayatollahy 3 Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology��������������������������������������������   23 Konul Bunyadzade 4 Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence Between Ibn ‘Arabī and Evagrius of Pontus���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   33 Cornelis van Lit 5 The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 Ebrahim Al-Khaffaf Part II Towards and Beyond Mulla Sadra: Current Debates on Eco-imagination 6 Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas������������������   71 Qodratullah Qorbani 7 The Problem of “Being” in Sufism ��������������������������������������������������������   87 Haydar Yalçınoğlu

xiii

xiv

Contents

Part III Islamic Eco-imagination in Mystics, Literature and Poetry 8 Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  103 Taghrid Elhanafy 9 Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  113 Ebrahim Azadegan, Maryam Faramand, and Hossein Tahmaseb Kazemi 10 A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems ������������������������������������������������������  127 Amiya Bhushan Sharma Part IV From Eco-imagination to Sustainable Future 11 The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I) for a Sustainable Future in the Islamic Philosophy of Bulleh Shah����������������������������������������������  143 Shahid Mobeen 12 Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life ����������������������������  155 Detlev Quintern Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  173

Chapter 1

Introduction Detlev Quintern

Philosophy cannot be chained to regional spaces and conserved in sequenced times. Geographical, religious, cultural, social, or other attributions are only approximations of phenomena and are subsumed under specific terminologies and cultural or religious settings. Philosophical thoughts are in continuous flux, permanently overlacing and interweaving inter-, cross- and transculturally beyond defined geographical spaces. They can be compared to long physical waves that continue to move through time and space, thus extending from prescriptural periods onwards beyond our present time. Even though they may date back a long time, they have not lost actual relevance as they envision a long flourishing of prefactual thinking and science (Tatsachenwissenschaft), which was inspired cosmologically. Islamic philosophy reveals such a rich heritage of knowledge and insights that cannot be locked away in history. In contrast, Islamic and Asian philosophy in general bears potential for the future, not least in light of eco-imagination and vision. Derived from eco-phenomenology, eco-imagination continues the Ontopoiesis of Life—or the Philosophy of Life—developed by Anna Teresa Tymieniecka during the intense study, research, and publishing of decennaries. Life driven forward by the (auto) creative logos of life is, at every moment of its continuous movement, weaving the communicative Web of Live universally. Neither the communication of life is bounded to space nor to time, to the contrary: all-life is interwoven micro-­ macro-­ cosmologically in its finest meshes at every moment of its temporal beingness. Currently, it seems that creative communication in life is broken. Wars, the climate, social, ecological, and human crises throw the flow of life back and interrupt the creative and constructive processes of everything-there-is-alive (Anna-Teresa D. Quintern (*) Faculty of Cultural and Social Studies, Türkisch-Deutsche Universität, Istanbul, Türkiye e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_1

1

2

D. Quintern

Tymieniecka), thereby progressively threatening not only the existence of human beings but also of all-life, thus including increasingly more even the Cosmos (scrap metals from satellites, Star Wars, etc.). Terms, including “war,” can no longer grasp and encompass the indescribable suffering that is hidden behind words, and ironically, the closer the “war” moves into the virtual worlds, the less so. Since all life unfolds in a cooperative, emphatic, and symbiotic process, this holds true for human beings and people’s cultures and beliefs. However, human beings are the only life form on earth that destructively interferes with all-the-life communication. Hatred, enmity scientificized in racism and similar identity ideologies not only antagonize peoples, cultures, and religions against each other but also construct isolated identities detached from the flow of the universalistic Life-Web. People and communities, nature, the biosphere, and the cosmos are mistreated simultaneously. This makes dialogues, not least eco-imagination, existentially important. In the long history of mankind, forms of human societies, faith, and culture have overlaced and intermingled, bringing forth new symbiotic cultures, modes of living, and so on—a process that is sometimes referred to as syncretism (religions) or trans- or cross-culturalism (societies). In recent years, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has turned intensively to Islamic-­ Occidental dialogue in phenomenology. Mulla Sadra began to take on an important place in her philosophical interest. It is therefore most welcomed that in Volume 8, the great postclassical mystic and thinker Mulla Sadr is, eco-imagination in mind, discussed from different perspectives. Sustainable futures, evolved by human beings in more harmony with everything-­ there-­is-alive, including the cosmos, are currently more threatened than ever. Wars, ecological destructivity, the climate crisis, and not least the crisis of the Human Being and her/his societies urgently call for a cross-religious, cross-cultural, and cross-generational or simply universalistic understanding of the human condition to avoid the ongoing destruction of life. An urgent dialogue having foremost knowledge on philosophical debates, not least among and with Muslims, to its preconditions. Far too long, Muslims were seen as the “other.” Lively debates in Islam, taking place on philosophical problems since the eighth century, often based on the same roots as Occidental Phenomenology, e.g., Plato, Aristoteles, and Plotinus, are still poorly understood in the Occident/West, where they are often studied under more philological than philosophical views. The volume not only introduces philosophies in Islam but also dialogises various approaches regarding eco-imagination and sustainable futures. In doing so, the more often philological and/or historically debated philosophies are actualized towards their potential for a sustainable future. One focus is on the great Mystics Ibn al-ʻArabī (d. 1240) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1635/40).1  In the following, a correct transliteration, which shows Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sanskrit, and Greek terms with diacritical marks that reflect phonetics, is omitted. One reason for this is that it is necessary to know the languages to read the diacritical marks. The other reason is that there is no standardized transcription of Arabic, Persian, etc. There is a different transcription in Turkey than 1

1 Introduction

3

Eco-imaginative symbols, e.g., the tree in Ibn ‘Arabī, symbolically communicate “nature” and human beings, while newer botanical research has revealed complex communication networks for tree roots. Moreover, living forests, as biospherical environments, have healing effects on people, as various studies have shown. In connection with the significance of (solar) light for plant growth, photosynthesis links philosophy via Plotinus to Suhrawardy and illuminational philosophy, in which light, which is essential for every living-being, plays a central role. Furthermore, light has metaphoric relevance in the term Enlightenment. A new Enlightenment, which Anna Teresa Tymieniecka initiated not least with the Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue (IPOP) series, has cross-­ cultural and cross-religious eco-imagination to its focus. Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue were motivated from the beginning, when Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka launched the series at the turn of this century in 2000, towards an in-depth “comparison” of the common ground that both philosophical orientations share: the logos of life. With Tymieniecka’s post-Husserlian Phenomenology, deciphering the ontopoietic logos of life, the widening of the metaphysical horizon towards a fertilizing dialogue was given new momentum. “The soul,” Tymieniecka wrote, “plays the role of the microcosm for both Islamic thought and the phenomenology of life.” (2003, XVI). The active, creative intellect (Arabic al-‘aql al-fa‘al), the core of the soul, corresponds with self-individualizing creativity in post-Husserlian Philosophy of Life. Unveiling the symphonic micro-­ macro-­ cosmological symphony of life is the field of intuition, reflection, and research in phenomenology as well as in Islamic philosophy. A cosmo-­ philosophically reflected interplay also characterizes philosophy in Asia and other parts of the global South, be it in Africa, the Americas, or the Arctic. The logos of life flow through philosophy beyond space and time. Philosophies in Islam, from sometimes so-called “classical” aera (e.g., al-Kindī d. 873, al-Fārābī d. 950, Ibn Sīnā d. 1037, al-Ġazzālī d. 1111, Ibn Rušd d. 1198, Ibn al-ʻArabī d. 1240) up to “postclassical” Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1635/40), debated the quest for knowledge from mainly Platonic, Aristotelian, and Plotinian written and oral sources and, while receiving philosophy to its larger parts but not exclusively from sources written in Greek, an intensive process of translation into Arabic began, followed by a concentrated phase of adaptation and reception before enriching and innovating the philosophical flux of thought. By far, ancient Greek sources are not exclusively woven into Islamic philosophy. Knowledge also travelled from China, India, Persia, or ancient Egypt and Iraq to Arabized lands. In the fruitful debate Pythagorean, Platonic, Peripatetic, and Plotinian understandings were facing intuitive paths of knowledge and vice versa. With the Holy Coran, in which All-Nature praises God—fundamental questions of Islamic

in France, which in turn differs from German, etc. In addition, it makes it difficult for nonphilologists to read the texts. Nevertheless, some authors have rendered the transliteration correctly, which of course is welcomed at this point.

4

D. Quintern

Theology are outlined in several contributions to the Volume—Arabic spread quickly as a philosophical and scientific language. Since the eighth century, the fruitful debate has continued. A wide variety of cultural, religious, and ethnic communities were involved in this dialogue. Since dualistic thinking became destructively scientized in the Imperiocene of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, human communities such as life in general have been split up and divided into small units that are played against each other. The human condition, in its temporality, dematerializes before rising spiritually, then coming nearer to the One/God, its primordial point of departure. The more the Human Beingness realizes/learns, perfecting her/his human condition, the more its soul unfolds, and the more perfect the knowing core of the soul becomes, as closer to the One or God the soul (re) unfolds. Spiritual stages or graduations of knowledge, which take an important place, e.g., in the philosophy of Mulla Sadra, who followed a tradition, starting with Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā then continued in modifications and spiritual refinement via Suhrawardi (d. 1191) and Mīr Dāmād (d. 1631) to Mulla Sadra. Although Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā put worldly knowledge in the focus of their scientific teachings, in the Sufi tradition, it is the mystical experience of “becoming one,” therefore not contradicting worldly and spiritual knowledge. By unfolding spiritual–worldly knowledge, human beingness is seen as the hypostatic perfection of the universal reason/intellect, descending into the finalized state of materiality or the crown of creation. The human being is understood by the philosophical community of Ikhwān al-Ṣafā (c. mid of the 10th AC) in the context of humanism (‫)النسانية‬. ‫إ‬ During the European imperial dominated nineteenth and twentieth centuries, factual sciences (Tatsachenwissenschaften) moved increasingly away from the meta-scientific and cosmological embedding of knowledge and scientific disciplines. Fragmentation and sequentialization, division, and splitting became the main characteristics of a mode of thinking that is reduced to factual thinking. The (auto-) creative unity of the web of life, if we look on the practical consequences of the derailment, is an obstacle to the development of positive sciences, bringing the logos of life and multifarious self-individualization to a stand-still before “examining” cut-outs of the sentient communicating life and, in doing so, destroying the web of life. As if only dead matter could have been the “subject” of scientific investigation. Even if this was and is not necessarily consciously intended or reflected upon, the meta-scientific disembedding of metaphysical horizons results in a destructive development of thought, sciences, and life. Philosophy and science—the early tenth century’s Ikhwān al-Ṣafā are a good example of the cosmo-philosophical embedded understanding of sciences2—paid attention to moral sentience as an integral part of knowledge and science—a sphere to which neither factual sciences nor different variants of the unknowability of beingness pay any attention.

 For an introduction to the work, see: Quintern, Detlev. 2014. Ikḫwān aṣ-ṣafā. Horizons d’un nouvel humanisme. Paris : Editions Geuthner. 2

1 Introduction

5

The communication of the human within the biospherical cosmos was philosophically reflected in allegorical narratives, e.g., animal fables, such as The Case of the Animals versus Man (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā) and the novel The Self-Taught Philosopher/ Philosophus Autodidactus (Ḥayy ibn Yaqżān) by Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) and Ibn Ṭufaīl (d. 1185), which later became an example of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Human beings endowed with reason are able to survive even when they are socially isolated on an island. In philosophical narratives, the human realizes the potentialities of (self-)knowledge, which, while applying it intensively and constantly in communication with and inside the biosphere, the intelligent soul rises to where it derived from, coming nearer to the One-ness/God in Islamic philosophies. In the introduction to Reason, Spirit, and the Sacral in the New Enlightenment. Islamic Metaphysics Revived and Recent Phenomenology of Life (IPOP 5), Anna-­ Teresa Tymieniecka emphasized, “Although in the symbiotic unfolding of life there emerges between the multifarious networks of intergenerative levels a closer and closer concatenation between the animal and the human, there is that a seemingly unbridgeable gap opens in their communion.” (Tymieniecka 2011, 2). This holds true not only for the communion of the animal species and Human Beingness but also for everything-there-is-alive: minerals, plants, animals, humans, and beyond. Life cannot unfold and flourish in fragmentation, outside the symbiotic net of all living beingness. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has pointed to the general “symbiosis of life,” “which entails a sensibility of a sphere of rootedness among all living creatures. … We might live on the ‘surface’ of earth, but we are utterly grounded in earth’s situation” (Tymieniecka 2005, xxxii). Earth and its symbols play a decisive role in “prepositivistic” philosophies, e.g., the cosmologies of indigenous peoples worldwide, such as in the vast Americas; here, the earth is understood as a living organism, the substratum of life as it is also the case for narratives of creation, which were philosophized to abstractions in Greek philosophy. This in no way means that symbiotic Cosmo-philosophies had disappeared. They were merely overshadowed by dominant occidental currents, either not noticing, ignoring, or simply not taking seriously metaphysics and spiritual cosmologies in the global south. European ethnographic literature speaks volumes about the arrogance of the “white man.” In the wake of post- and decolonization debates in recent years, the wave has also reached the Euro-American Academy. At the level of philosophy, self-critical reflection cannot be ignored, and an understanding of the philosophies, cosmologies, and corresponding ways of life in the Global South that have been marginalized for so long is first needed. However, that is another topic for a different debate. The focus here is on the fruitful encounter between Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology. Both philosophical paths have common space-time references, and they can therefore be dialogized in such a way as to trace understanding and concepts back to common grounds. Volume 8 of the Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology (IPOP) series aims at deepening the question of the symbiotic unfolding of life from a polylogical perspective of Islamic/Asian philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology, to

6

D. Quintern

motivate eco-imagination and sustainable visions for the future of life, including the human, the only responsible beingness for destructive interventions into the Bioand Cosmosphere. Chapter 1, Eco-Imagination in Islamic Philosophies and Sufism, explores the philosophical and spiritual foundations of eco-imagination from an Islamic, Sufistic, and mystic perspective. In “Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-­ Imagination,” Hamidreza Ayatollahy evolved Islamic Ecology from the teachings of the Coran before discussing secular understandings of nature, which reduced nature to a tool for benefit. Islam and the teaching of the Coran are prohibiting the destruction of the environment, which is, contrary to secular understandings, under divine ownership. In “Eco-Imagination and Sufi Phenomenology,” Konul Bunyadzade emphasizes that man is either a creator of natural environments, becoming a part of the universal system, or, to the contrary, a destroyer. Following a comparative biblical-koranic approach, Sufi phenomenology, in which logos is comprehended as unifying Mega-­ Consciousness, is introduced. Cornelis van Lit recapitulates in “Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: A Phenomenological Confluence between Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius of Pontus” similarities between the fourth-century monk Evagrius and the Islamic mystic Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240). Overcoming boredom (Latin acedia/Arabic malal) requires awareness of the ever-renewing divine revelation in each momentum of creation, chaining the unity of continuity/discontinuity of divine/worldly time dimensions. In “The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm” Ebrahim Al-Khaffaf, after recapitulating the symbol of the tree in the Qurʼān, ḥadīth, and in the mystical writings ascribed to Ibn ‘Arabī, who analogized the entire cosmos with a tree emerging from the seed of potentiality before continually growing. Finally, he compares the Islamic symbol of the tree with the occidental symbol of the Perfect Human, the cross which is combined with the first two letters of the Arabic alphabet alif (‫ )ا‬and ba’ (‫)ٮ‬. Chapter 2, Towards and Beyove Mulla Sadr: Current Debates on Eco-­ imagination, trace the arc from Mulla Sadr (1572–1641) back to early Islamic philosophy in the teachings of Mansur al-Ḥallāǧ (857–922), which are analyzed in the context of recent philosophical debates. Qodratullah Qorbani retraces in “Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas” Mulla Sadra’s interpretation of Platonic Ideas before highlighting some of the philosophical, religious, and, contrary to the assumption of a sole adaption of Greek philosophy, practical innovations, brought forward by Mulla Sadra, e.g., the teaching of gradual unity of existence, trans-substantial motion and the levelling of perfection from materiality to abstraction. In “The Problem of ‘Being’ in Sufism,” Haydar Yalçınoğlu follows the layers of the long debates on existence and essence, in which the core achievement of Sufism in matters of metaphysics is the differentiation of being, essence, quiddity, and wujud (identity).

1 Introduction

7

Chapter 3, Islamic Eco-imagination in Mystics, Literature, and Poetry, provides insight into the rich heritage of literary and poetic expressions of philosophical thought in Islam and Asia. The communication of the human within the bio-­spherical cosmos was philosophically reflected in literature and poetry. This legacy inspired the European literature. Taghrid Elhanafy follows in “Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and The One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa” Deleuze’s and Guatteri’s vision of “Oneness” back to Ikhwan al-Safa and Ma’at cosmology in Ancient Egyptian Philosophy, before applying Oneness/Plurality from a meta-scientific level to the literary studies’ theory and method of re*source. This approach enables the reconstruction of the literary layers in Shakespeare’s motifs and stories, e.g., Romeo and Juliette, which travel from ancient Arabic poetry to early modern European literature. In “Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics,” Ebrahim Azadegan, Maryam Faramand, and Hossein Tahmaseb Kazemi follow the living-on of Ancient Persian mysticism in the poetry of Nishaburi (c. 1145–1221), in which the unity-seeking, self-recognizing journey of every 30 birds, which finally realize being nothing but a feather of the ancient mystical bird Simurgh before comprehending current debates in Iran on the importance of Nishaburian mysticism. Amiya Bhushan Sharma focused on “A Study of Yeats’s Byzantium Poems” on the imagination of Byzantium through the poetry of the Irish writer Wiliam Butler Yeats (1865–1939) before discussing Indian philosophical–spiritual influences of the Upanishads in several of his poems in Crossways (1889), such as “An Indian upon God” and “Mohini Chatterjee” (1929). The philosophical reflections in Yeats’s writings in prose show similarities to Tymieniecka’s phenomenology of “aesthetic enjoyment.” Chapter 4, From Eco-imagination to Sustainable Future, addresses the question of philosophical obstacles and potential for eco-imagination and sustainable futures, which, in regard to culture, religion, society, and the ecological environment, might be embedded specifically, but as the symbiotic world of Human Beingness is indivisible, these will flow in unified pluralities moved by and in harmony with the Logos of Life. Shahid Mobeen revolves in “The Imaginatively Constituted I-centre and Fana (Annulment of egoic-I)” a string of tradition that lives on in the Sufism of the Pakistani Bulleh Shah (1680–1757) and compares the anthropological phenomenology of Edith Stein and Gerda Walther with Bulleh Shah: The Sufi fana’, the annulment of the Egoic-I, the dissolvement of the dualistic Beloved/Lover, Knower/ Known, Self/Other. Detlev Quintern questions in “Eco-Imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life” Aristotelian categorization and hierarchization along the Pythagorean harmony of life, which lives on in the tenth-century collective of philosophers and scientists Ikhwān al-Ṣafā. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka continues the horizontal and symbiotic communication in the Philosophy of Life. The collection of contributions to Volume 8 of the Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology series discusses multiperspective polylog, referring to philosophical foundations and horizons in Islamic, Asian Philosophy, and Occidental

8

D. Quintern

Phenomenology, which not only inspire eco-imagination and sustainability but also orient possible ways out of the human-made existential crisis of life. One prerequisite for this, as Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka used to say, is to continue our dialogue.

References Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa, ed. 2003. The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming. Dordrecht: Springer. ———, ed. 2011. Reason, Spirit and the Sacral in the New Enlightenment. Islamic Metaphysics Revived and Recent Phenomenology of Life. Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer. ———, ed. 2005. Phenomenology of Life. Meeting the challenges of the present day world, Analecta Husserliana. Vol. LXXXIV. Dordrecht: Springer.

Part I

Eco-Imagination in Islamic Philosophies and Sufism

Chapter 2

Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-­imagination Hamidreza Ayatollahy Abstract  If we consider the relationship between the triangle of man, nature, and God, we may say that the secular imagination of nature is its imagination of nature directly as a tool for its benefit. In this chapter, I explain the secular ecological view that is summarized in Mario Bunge’s statement. In his view, the technological process as human activity based on a kind of ecological view has usually been guided by five maxims that justify the unlimited exploitation of natural and social resources. He adds that today, all these principles have been rejected and largely modified. However, in the Islamic perspective of nature, this relationship is through God. God in the Islamic view is not only the creator of Nature but also He is the owner and resource of everything in nature. This view is about everything in the ecological system of the world such as men, animals, plants, and stones. I will analyze this ecological view from Quranic teachings. In this kind of ecological view, we have no right to do what we want in nature. Before every kind of intervention in the ecosystem, we must examine rulings, and due to those rulings, we can do our actions. Keywords  Ecology · Islamic view · Divine ownership · Divine resourcefulness · Eco-imagination

1 Cosmological View in the History of Islamic Thought There have been some cosmological views among Muslim thinkers like Ikhvan As-safa (Brothers of Sincerity) some centuries ago. They tried to introduce a comprehensive view of the universe and man in a kind of similarity. They imagined that man is a small Universe and the Universe is a great man. All the philosophical principles and concepts of Ikhwan al-Safa (Brothers of Sincerity) regarding the creation of the world and the ratio of its different levels are gathered in two philosophical H. Ayatollahy (*) Philosophy Department, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_2

11

12

H. Ayatollahy

principles, which are the similarity between the small and big world (as man and universe) and the hierarchy of the world, which is connected with each other (Nasr 1978). These two concepts are not limited to Islamic cosmology, but can also be found in the beliefs of the Greeks, Christians, Chinese, and ancient Indians, and contain allegories that with their power and beauty can draw the human soul to meanings beyond the world of the senses, and therefore limited to cosmology and it is not only a natural science but also includes a part of theology. In the science of cosmology, these theories are also of special importance because they are considered important ways to show the unity of nature and the inner relations between man and nature. As a result of the similarity between the small world and the great world, the ancient natural sciences are considered a basis for the supernatural sciences, and reflection on nature and investigation in the natural sciences play an important role in the journey of man toward the realm of the kingdom, and on the other hand, science. In fact, man himself is the key to the reservoir of the secrets of creation. Based on this eco-imagination, they tried to explain other phenomena in the world such as industries, music, art, mathematics, the goal of the world, and so on. This imagination was not an imagination of a thinker that was, in that situation, the only kind of introducing scientific view but this collective view was written by a collection of friend scholars that named themselves as brothers in kindness, in 53 treatises. The importance of this work was of two things: first, the treatises refer to an overview of all things and phenomena in the material and spiritual world in their relation. Therefore, it is named the first philosophical encyclopedia. Second, the work was written in cooperation with some scholars for the first time. The idea of the great universe and the small universe as man has been influential ideas among Muslim thinkers especially among mystics in the history of Islamic thought until now. This is a kind of comprehensive view for explaining all material and spiritual things in relation to the Divine.

2 The Consequences of Secular Imagination About Nature However, although some Islamic teachings were their origin inspired by their imagination, this overview could not account for an Islamic view that might be compatible with the structure of Islamic teachings. If we want to introduce an eco-imagination from an Islamic viewpoint based on Islamic teachings in Quran, this imagination will be different from secular imagination. If we want to explain eco-imagination from a secular point of view, it may be summarized in Mario Bunge’s statement about the character of modern man’s view about nature, which must be used for the benefit of humankind by technology (Bunge 1979). He states that in the modern era, the technological process as human activity based on a kind of eco-imagination has usually been guided (or misguided) by the following maxims:

2  Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-imagination

13

1 . Man is separate from and more valuable than nature. 2. Man has the right (or even the duty) to subdue nature to his own (private or social) benefit. 3. Man has no responsibility toward nature: he may be the keeper (or even the prison warden) of his brother, but he is not the nanny of nature. 4. The ultimate task of technology is the fullest exploitation of natural and human resources (the unlimited increase in GNP) at the lowest cost without regard for anything else. 5. Technologists and technicians are morally irresponsible; they are to carry on their tasks without being distracted by any ethical or aesthetic scruples. The latter is the exclusive responsibility of the policymakers. Although Bunge’s explanation is for the introduction of the role of technology in the modern era, it gives a very good picture of the secular imagination of ecology as well. Bunge explains that these maxims justify the unlimited exploitation of natural and social resources. He says that in recent years secular man has come to distrust these maxims and rejects them through his instrumental rationality; because he has realized that they ignore the dark side of technology. He stipulates that up to the present time, man has not offered an alternative ethical code and that it is high time we tried to create alternative ethics of technology. These alternative ethics should have different desiderata and be constructed based on our improved knowledge of both nature and society. Bunge states that man must design and enforce an ethical code for technology that includes every technological process and its implications at both the individual and the social levels. Today, all these principles have been rejected except the second principle. Although adherence to these principles is still practiced in many cases, at least theoretically, they have been largely modified. For example: 1 . We know that man is not separate from nature (Glaser et al. 2008, 14). 2. This clause is still valid. 3. Man is responsible to nature (36). 4. Side effects should be considered in technology development (37). 5. Technology stakeholders, such as users, designers, and policymakers, have a moral responsibility (Jonas 2014, 37). This is a secular treatment based on man’s own rationality for escaping from those disasters that man encountered through the last view that had at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the first five principles have been rejected theoretically, their second five alternatives are often controversial. However, it must be noted that both the first five principles and the second five principles that reject the first ones are based on secularity. This kind of secular eco-imagination shows that secular rationality is so narrow that cannot give a thoroughly suitable imagination that can continue to be dominant for all mankind at all times. Taqavi and others examined the fifth first maxims of secular eco-imagination with some Islamic teaching that he named Islamic alternatives (Taqavi et al. 2021,

14

H. Ayatollahy

1–10). He stated that in Islamic teaching the fundamental view about nature is different from the first five maxims as well as the second five maxims. His attempt is to show a different approach toward using technology in our life based on the different worldviews of qur’anic teachings that do not treat by emphasizing morality in benefitting from technology for escaping from disasters of modern attitude toward technology. He classifies these teachings in some views that Quran teaches us about God, nature, and mankind. Although his classification is introduced for a different proposal as an alternative instead of ethical consideration in using technology, it is a good introduction to the Islamic worldview that can overlap with my introduction of the Islamic view of eco-imagination. I am going to introduce an Islamic eco-imagination and show the total difference between an Islamic eco-imagination from a secular one in the following explanation.

3 Divine Lordship as the Central View of Islamic Teachings on Eco-imagination If we consider the relationship between the triangle of man, nature, and God, we may say that the secular imagination of the relation between man and nature is man’s imagination of nature directly as a tool for its benefit. However, in the Islamic perspective of nature, this relationship is through God. God in the Islamic view is not only the creator of nature but also He is the owner and resourceful of everything in nature in its widest meaning. This is the meaning of Rabb in qur’anic terminology. We have seen that in the modern era, most thinkers believe in God. The secularity is not in belief or disbelief of God but is the belief in Robubiyyat or ownership and resourcefulness of God. If we believe in God but do not believe in His ownership and resourcefulness, which is the basic view of secularity, then the only instrument for mapping man’s relation to nature is man’s own rationality. However, in an Islamic view, this rationality is due to God. Divine ownership and resourcefulness mean that His permission makes us owners of something. By His permission and order, we may intervene in nature including ourselves. We will be the owner of something because He permits us to intervene in that thing, and we cannot do anything by that thing other than those ranges that God has determined. We are not the owner of ourselves because of ourselves, but because of the permission of God. Therefore, we cannot do everything with our bodies and souls. Suicide is forbidden because He is the owner of our bodies and suicide is out of the range that God has permitted us to intervene. Likewise, this imagination is about everything in the world like men, animals, plants, and stones. Halal (legit) is what we can do within the range of Divine permission, and Haram (forbidden) is what we cannot do because it is out of the range of God’s permission.

2  Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-imagination

15

In this kind of eco-imagination, we have no right to do what we want in nature. Before every kind of intervention in the ecosystem, we must examine the rulings that we have from God, and due to those rulings, we can do our actions. The reason that we must tongue the name of Allah in slaughtering sheep or hens is that God is the owner of the life of every animal and we remember that we can slaughter them because Allah has permitted us to slaughter them only for our eating (and we have not any permission to slaughter them for some other reasons). This eco-imagination compels us to investigate God’s orders for any kind of intervention in any part of the environment. Through this investigation, we will be able to know the true eco-imagination that we must have through God’s guidance. This view can be introduced as the most important kind of Islamic eco-imagination. What we said that God is the owner and respectful of all things such as man, nature, and the universe is the fundamental teaching of the Islamic view about nature and man. This view has been elaborated on many Quranic teachings in detail. Some of these main teachings are as follows: 1. The oneness of God alongside His greatness and omnipresence. He is the One, the Absolute, and the Infinite; the Infinitely Good and All-Merciful. He is the One who is at once transcendent and immanent. Although He is transcendent He is Immanent, which means He is greater than all we can imagine, yet, as the Quran stipulates, He is closer to us than our jugular vein. We did indeed create man, and We know what his soul whispers to him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein. (Qaf/16)

All the facets of Islam are directly influenced by this unrivaled God, and attesting to this oneness is the axis around which all that is Islamic revolves. The importance of the Oneness of God in Islam is such that, according to the Quranic verses, the greatest sin in Islam and the only sin that God does not forgive is shirk, which means denying the Oneness of God, or tawhid. Truly God forgives not that any partner be ascribed unto Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whomsoever He will, for whosoever ascribes partners unto God has surely fabricated a tremendous sin. (Al-Nisa/48)

Allah is beyond all duality and relationality, beyond the differences of gender and all attributes that differentiate beings in this world. Allah is the source of all existence and all cosmic and human attributes and all things ultimately return to Him. Islamic teachings emphasize the belief in the oneness of God alongside His greatness and omnipresence. Allahu akbar, which is usually translated as “God is the greatest,” is an accurate term meaning that God is greater than anything we can conceive of Him. In the Quran, God is omnipresent, which is pointed to His nearness to man, and the fact that He is closer to man than himself and is present everywhere has been greatly emphasized, as stated in the following verse: Wheresoever you turn, there is the Face of God. (Al-Baqarah/ 115)

16

H. Ayatollahy

According to Islamic doctrine, the measure of a successful Islamic life is the degree to which one can realize tawhid. This means the integration of multiplicity into Unity (Nasr 2002, 5–6). God is absolute and infinite. The absoluteness of God means that He is devoid of otherness and relationality. There is no reality but the Divine Reality. And beyond all becoming and relativity, God is the only everlasting Reality. To say that God is infinite means that He is the origin of all cosmic reality. God is the root of all cosmic manifestation. And yet a stage of Divine reality can be found in all cosmic manifestations. Nature, in the light of the Absolute Reality of God, is the manifestation of the Divine, but it is not divine. The root of the sin of modernism is that it attributes to nature an independent reality that is distinct from the higher order of being. This has caused modern man to treat nature as a purely material reality and exploit and plunder it as he pleases (Nasr 2017, 3–11). Based on Islamic metaphysics, the entirety of Creation is the theophany of the Names and Attributes of God (Ibid). 2. Nature is conscious and is praising God. According to the Quranic verses, all beings in nature, including animate and inanimate, are conscious and praise God. Numerous verses in the Quran explicitly state this; for example: The seven heavens, and the earth, and whosoever is in them glorify Him. And there is no thing, save that it hymns His praise, though you do not understand their praise. Truly He is Clement, Forgiving. (Al-Isra/44) They will say to their skins, “Why did you bear witness against us?” They will reply, “God, Who makes all things speak, made us speak.” (Fussilat/21) The thunder hymns His praise, as do the angels, in awe of Him. (Al-Ra’d/13)

3. God is the Creator of nature. According to the verses of the Quran, God is the sole Creator and owner of the heavens and the earth, He has no partner in protecting and guiding them, and is the Creator of all that exists. Unto Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and on the earth. All are devoutly obedient to Him, the Originator of the heavens and the earth. (Al-Baqarah/116–117)

In fact, nature is God’s creation and if we are to speak of the value of the universe, we cannot overlook the fact that the Creator of nature is the source of all values and perfections. 4. God created the earth in a way that is suitable for human life. Some of the verses of the Quran stipulate that God has made the earth a repose and a cradle for man. This metaphor means that God created the earth in a way that is suitable for human life. Below are some of the verses that mention this point He Who made for you the earth a place of repose and the sky a canopy, and sent water from the sky by which He brought forth fruits for your provision. So do not set up equals unto God, knowingly. (Al-Baqarah/22) The One Who made the earth a cradle for you, and threaded paths for you therein. He sent down water from the sky, wherewith We brought forth diverse kinds of vegetation. (Ta-Ha/53) He it is Who made the earth a cradle for you and made paths for you therein, that haply you may be guided. (Al-Zukhruf/10)

2  Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-imagination

17

5. God has created everything on earth for man as well as its beauty. Some of the Quranic verses assert that everything on earth has been created for man. For instance: He it is Who created for you all that is on the earth. (Al-Baqarah/ 29) He made subservient unto you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth-all together. Truly in that are signs for a people who reflect. (Al-Jathiyah/13)

These verses demonstrate that in the Quranic worldview, nature has been created to serve mankind, it praises God, and God dominates it and swears by it. Some verses of the Quran state that the beauties of creation are for man. For instance: And cattle has He created for you, in which there is warmth and [other] uses, and whereof you eat. And in them, there is beauty for you, when you bring them home, and when you take them out to pasture. (An-Nahl/5–6)

6. Man is superior to other creatures. Some of the Quranic verses point out human superiority over other creatures. Truly We created man in the most beautiful stature. (Al-Teen/4) Then of the drop, We created a blood clot, then of the blood clot We created a lump of flesh, then of the lump of flesh We created bones and We clothed the bones with flesh; then We brought him into being as another creation. Blessed is God, the best of creators! (Al- Mu’minun/14) We have indeed honored the Children of Adam, and We carry them over land and sea, and provide them with good things, and We have favored them above many We have created. (Al-Isra/70)

7. Nature is an “ayah” or sign. Several verses of the Quran mention that the earth and the heavens as well as many of the creatures are “ayat” or signs of God for wise, faithful, and pious people. Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth; and the variation of the night and the day; and the ships that run upon the sea with what benefits mankind; and the water God sends down from the sky whereby He revives the earth after its death, scattering all manner of beast therein; and the shifting of the winds; and the clouds subdued between the sky and the earth are surely signs for a people who understand. (Al-Baqarah/164) Truly God is the Cleaver of the grain and the fruit stone. He brings forth the living from the dead, and He is the One Who brings forth the dead from the living. That is God—how, then, are you perverted—Cleaver of the dawn. He has made the night for repose, and the sun and the moon for reckoning. Such is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing. He it is Who has made for you the stars, that you might be guided by them amid the darkness of land and sea. We have expounded the signs for a people who know. And He it is Who brought you into being from a single soul, and then [has given you] a dwelling place and a repository. We have expounded the signs for a people who understand. And He it is Who sends down water from the sky. Thereby We bring forth the shoot of every plant, and from it, We bring forth vegetation, from which We bring forth grain in closely packed rows; and from the date palm and from its sheaths, [We bring forth] clusters of dates hanging low, and gardens of grapes, olives, and pomegranates, like unto one another and yet not alike.

18

H. Ayatollahy Look upon their fruits, as they grow and ripen! Truly in that are signs for a people who believe. (Al-An’am/95–99)

These verses show us another aspect of the significance of nature in the Quranic view. Nature is a sign of God; it is an arrow pointing in the direction of the Divine, which can remind us of God. The point that is noteworthy in verse 164 of Al-Baqarah is the focus on the ship in this verse. The ship is an artifact made by man and it does not exist in virgin nature. In this verse, God considers the ship, as a human artifact, to be a sign for those who think and reason. 8. God has subjugated nature for man. Several Quranic verses explicitly assert that God has subjugated nature for man. Among these verses are the following: He made subservient unto you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth—all together. Truly in that are signs for a people who reflect. (Al-Jaathiyah/13) Have you not considered that God has made whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth subservient unto you and has poured His Blessings upon you, both outwardly and inwardly? (Luqmaan/20) Hast thou not considered that God has made whatsoever is on the earth subservient unto you—and the ship sails upon the sea—by His Command? And He maintains the sky lest it falls upon the earth, save by His Leave. Truly God is Kind and Merciful unto mankind. (Al-Hajj/65)

God has subdued nature to man so that man can manipulate it to his benefit. 9. God does not permit any way of treating nature and the universe and has introduced guidelines for the way men should treat nature. In the Quranic worldview, as mentioned previously, God has created nature and everything that exists in the heavens and earth for mankind and subjugated them for him. This view gives high status to man in the universe. Thus, the question that arises is: Can men treat nature and the world in whatever way they choose? In brief, it should be stated that the Holy Quran does not permit any way of treating nature and the universe and has introduced guidelines for the way men should treat nature. In the Quran, it is stated that the appearance of corruption throughout the land and sea is the result of sins men have committed, Quran says: Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of that which men’s hands have earned, that He may let them taste some of that which they have done, that haply they might return. (Al-Rum/41)

10. Using nature for satanic purposes is prohibited. The exploitation of nature is the result of satanic temptations. It is inferred from the content of An-Nisa 119 that some of the ways of treating the creation of God are the result of satanic temptations and these ways of treating the creation of God will lead to nothing but a clear loss. Thus, the exploitation of nature with a satanic approach is forbidden. Therefore, it can be concluded that man should not develop technology in any arbitrary way. Man is responsible toward nature for making it inhabitable and improving its condition:

2  Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-imagination

19

He brought you forth from the earth and commanded you to make it inhabitable. (Hud/61)

According to this verse, mankind has been ordered to make the earth inhabitable and improve it so he can benefit from it. According to some of the interpreters of the Quran including Muhammad Hussain Tabatabai, refusing to exploit the earth for the purposes for which it was created or using it for purposes other than what God intended is ingratitude for God’s blessings. Apart from the fact that the aforementioned verse asserts the necessity of making the earth inhabitable, the prohibition of its opposite, that is, the destruction of the environment, can also be deduced from it (Mohaghegh Damad, 2014, 220–1). In several Quranic verses, man is explicitly forbidden from extravagance. For instance: Do not squander wastefully. Truly the wasteful are the brethren of satans. (Al-Isra/26–27) Eat and drink, but be not prodigal. Truly He loves not the prodigal. (Al-A’raf/31) Be not prodigal. Truly He loves not the prodigal. (Al-An’am/141) The prodigals are the inhabitants of the Fire. (Ghafir/43)

11. Man is God’s caliph and vicegerent. Man’s duty toward nature and the strategies that God has provided to man in this regard are not limited to making earth inhabitable and refraining from extravagance. In a broader approach, God introduces man as His successor on earth. Thus, Man’s treatment of nature should be such that it would be compatible with man’s high status in the universe as God’s successor. Several Quranic verses assert that man is God’s caliph and successor on earth. These include: And when thy Lord said to the angels, “I am placing a vicegerent upon the earth,” they said, “Wilt Thou place therein one who will work corruption therein, and shed blood, while we hymn Thy praise and call Thee Holy?” He said, “Truly I know what you know not.” (Al-Baqarah/30) He it is Who appointed you vicegerents upon the earth and raised some of you by degrees above others, that He may try you in that which He has given you. Truly thy Lord is Swift in retribution, and truly He is Forgiving, Merciful. (Al-An’am/165) He it is Who appointed you vicegerents upon the earth. So whosoever disbelieves, his disbelief is to his detriment. The disbelief of the disbelievers increases them with their Lord in naught but odium. And the disbelief of the disbelievers increases them in naught but loss. (Faatir/39)

Raghib Isfahani and Mohammad (1992, 293) states that the caliphate means vicegerency and the caliph is the vicegerent. Man’s caliphate is one of the concepts that determine man’s status in the universe as well as his responsibility toward nature. The fact that God has appointed man as His vicegerent on earth indicates that mankind has an elevated status in the universe. Man’s role as God’s vicegerent also implies that the principles governing human interaction with nature must be proportionate to his position as God’s vicegerent.

20

H. Ayatollahy

12. Man does not own nature. According to the Quranic verses, God is the real owner of Creation and everything is under His control. This ownership is exclusive to God and cannot be transferred to man or any other being. Unto Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and on the earth. All are devoutly obedient to Him. (Al-Baqarah/116) Unto God belongs sovereignty over the heavens and the earth, and God is Powerful over all things. (Al Imran/189)

Man has only relative ownership of what God has subjugated for him and any manipulation of it must be based on the criteria set by the Real Owner. In other words, according to Islamic teachings, nature and man belong to God, and to manipulate nature, man must have permission from the Real Owner. Obtaining permission is subject to the following of the Divine commands that have reached man through the prophets and in the form of religion (Mohaghegh Damad 2014, 32). As Mohaghegh Damad (Ibid) puts it, according to verses such as Al-Baqarah/107: Dost thou not know that unto God belongs Sovereignty over the heavens and the earth, and that you have neither protector nor helper apart from God?

and Al Imran/26: Say, “O God, Master of Sovereignty. Thou givest sovereignty to whomsoever Thou wilt, and wrestest sovereignty from whomsoever Thou wilt. Thou exaltest whomsoever Thou wilt, and abasest whomsoever Thou wilt. In Thy Hand is the good. Truly Thou art Powerful over everything.”

God is not only the owner of the heavens, the earth, and man, but also the owner of the Kingdom, Monarchy, and Dominance, and bestows them on whomever he wishes and takes them away from whomever he wishes. It means that He is the resourcefulness of all things in the world and their inhabitants in the world. Javadi Amoli (1999, 48), citing verses such as Al-Hadeed/7: Believe in God and His Messenger and spend from that over which He has appointed you as trustees.

and Al-Nur/33: Give unto them from the Wealth of God, which He has given you.

argues that, apart from nature, man’s personal assets and possessions also belong to God and man cannot use them without God’s permission and consent. He believes that man must vicariously safeguard and exploit what God has bestowed on him.

2  Divine Ownership and Resourcefulness as the Basic View of Islamic Eco-imagination

21

4 Conclusion Eco-imagination driven by Islamic teachings like what we showed in many verses of the Quran must be perceived in the light of the relationship between God, nature, and man. The most important feature of this relation is Divine ownership of all things especially man and His respectfulness.

References Bunge, M. 1979. Philosophical Inputs and Outputs of Technology. In The History of Philosophy and Technology, ed. George Bugliarello, and Dean Doner, 262–281. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Glaser, Marion, Gesche Krause, Beate Ratter and Martin Welp. 2008. Human/Nature Interaction in the Anthropocene. Potentials of Social-Ecological Systems Analysis. GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society. 17 (1): 77-80. Raghib Isfahani, and Hossein Ben Mohammad. 1992. Mofradate Alfaze Quran Tahqiq Safvan Adnan Davoudi [Quranic Words, Research by Safvan Adnan Davoudi]. Beirut: Dar Al-Ilm Al-Shamiyah. Javadi Amoli, Abdollah. 1999. Tafsire Ensan Be Ensan Tahqiq O Tanzim Mohammad Hossein Elahizade [Man’s Interpretation of Man. Research by Mohammad Hossein Elahizadeh]. Qom: Asra Publication. Jonas, Hans. 2014. Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Tasks of Ethics. In Ethics and Emerging Technologies, ed. Ronald L. Sandler, 37–47. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mohaghegh Damad, Seyyed Mostafa. 2014. Elahiyate Mohite Zeest [Environmental Theology]. Tehran: Moaseseye Pazhouheshie Hekmat Va Falsafeye. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 1978. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for its Study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa, Al- Bırunı, and Ibn Sına. London: Thames and Hudson. ———. 2002. The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity. New York: Harper Collins. ———. 2017. God is Absolute Reality and All Creation His tajalli (Theophany). In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology, ed. John Hart, 3–11. Hoboken: Wiley. Taqavi, Mostafa, Mehdi Kafaei, and Rostam Ravanbakhsh. 2021. Islamic Alternatives to the Ethical Maxims of Modern Technology from the Perspective of Mario Bunge. Technology in Society 66: 101681.

Chapter 3

Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology Konul Bunyadzade

Abstract  Eco-imagination is the reflection of nature in human thinking. It is the human position concerning the subject–object. Therefore, this point embraces the level of thought, its relationship with nature, and the human ego. The chapter contains three parts. In the first part, we will define the place of man and nature in the hierarchy of creation. In Sufi phenomenology, the human is not a part of the environment such as minerals, plants, and animals but rather divine grading. Although the biological structure of a man is within the material world, he can rise beyond this frame along the line of hierarchy. Man is the creator and destroyer at the same time. In the second part of the chapter, we consider the role of eco-imagination in the development of human thinking. In Sufi phenomenology, every creature has a light. Unlike others, a man can increase his light due to his cognition. Thus, the perception and recognition of an object mean the appropriation of its light. When a man is a creator, he gradually becomes a part of the universal system. When he is a destroyer, he interrupts and stops any process in this system and closes himself in a limited circle. In the third part, we will consider the highest point of cognition—Logos. In Sufi phenomenology, Logos is the world of truth of realized ideas. In summarizing the chapter, the author concludes that Sufi phenomenology provides a view on eco-­ imagination in the form of a thesis. Keywords  Eco-imagination · Sufi phenomenology · Phenomenology · Consciousness · Logos Knowledge has three sources: holy messages, nature, and man. Each source requires a suitable method, and each technique can open the appropriate part of the entire truth. These methods and the cognized knowledge from these sources—books— were the rezoning of the foundation of philosophical ideas and schools. Although K. Bunyadzade (*) Department of the “Philosophy of Islam”, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Baku, Azerbaijan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_3

23

24

K. Bunyadzade

each book is rich separately, the inquiry of one of them also requires the reading of others. Thus, the comprehensive study of a problem illuminates thought more than a source. This chapter will focus on the intersection point of nature and man—eco-imagination. We will research eco-imagination from the prism of Sufi phenomenology—the new philosophical approach—based on the synthesis of Sufism and Phenomenology. Our goal is to study the new possibilities of thought in the modern crisis of morality and the mind. According to the essence of eco-imagination, the red line in our article represents the research of nature and man. First, we will consider their places in the hierarchy. In Sufi phenomenology, man is part of the divine hierarchy, not of nature. Although his/her physical body exists in the material world, he/she can rise beyond this world using the mentality. The consciousness and spirit of man permit him/her to develop not only within the material frame but also beyond it. Moreover, man is a creator, although he creates through created things. This feature is reflected primarily in nature. Second, we will study the process of cognition and the role of nature in this process. Eco-imagination is the attitude of man toward nature and the reflection of his/ her thought. In Sufi phenomenology, which refers to the philosophy of illumination of Suhrawardi, cognition is the increase in the mental light of man. Thus, when a person focuses his or her intention on the object and perceives it, he or she obtains its light. In other words, the cognition of an object is also the appropriation of its light. A principal moment here is that when the person acts within the frame of the material world and identifies himself as a part of nature, he cannot increase his light and destroy the light of other objects. In contrast, when he goes beyond this world and becomes a part of the universal system, his subjective world confirms the objective world and opens its new feature. The primary condition of this process is the connection between consciousness and the soul. Thus, the spirit is the bond with the divine world and, moreover, the means of obtaining knowledge. In conclusion, we will research Logos as a final level of cognition. In Sufi phenomenology, Logos—the universal truth—is the unity of known and unknown trues. Specifically, it contains only the trues of the created world. Logos—the end of human cognition—is beyond the levels of a divine hierarchy. Nature holds most of the realized and materialized things. This means that Logos include the trues of nature. Thus, we can call eco-imagination the first step of cognition: Logos.

1 Man and Nature as a Level of the Hierarchy of Creation In its physical structure, man is similar to animals. Due to this similarity, animals have replaced humans in scientific experiments by studying their inner organs and reflexes. It is known that man and animals are the closest links in the theory of evolution. Two principal facts lay in this comparison: the animal features of a man and the human abilities of the animal. For example, today, researcher cetologists use modern technology to investigate the data in the voices of dolphins. This means that

3  Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology

25

the object of studying a man is himself. He compares himself with nature. This leads to subjectivity, of course. However, a man can understand himself and the meaning of the environment. Therefore, subjectivity is necessary. In Sufi phenomenology, man is part of the divine hierarchy, not of nature. Naturally, nature is also part of the hierarchy. One thing is when a man is a link of natural events, and the other is when his place is beyond nature and other creatures. As holy texts indicate, the first creations of God are nature, animals, light, and water, and on the 6th day, he decided to create the human. However, when we consider the essence and the aim of His creatures, we understand that the chronology is irrelevant: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, like us: and let him have rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every living thing which goes flat on the earth. In addition, God made man in his image, in the image of God he made him: male and female he made them.” (Genesis 1:26–27). The verse of the Quran says: “Remember˺ when your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am going to place a successive ˹human˺ authority on earth. ‘They asked ˹Allah˺, ‘Will You place in it someone who will spread corruption there and shed blood while we glorify Your praises and proclaim Your holiness?’ Allah responded, ‘I know what you do not know’” (Quran 2/30). Therefore, according to holy texts, man is not an addition to anything. He/she is like God, creator, and His successor. Each creature in the material world has its place and form. Their development and growth do not interfere with each other; vice versa, they complement each other, such as large trees and small bushes and plants under them. Man is more than a link in the natural chain and grows differently by occupying the place of other creatures. He engages them via his consciousness. However, although they all have their own structure, they are also a part of the whole system. This means that they are related to each other. It is the rule of divine creation. The discovery and cognition of these rules by humans do not add anything to this system. However, when he/she intervenes in processes and interrupts them, it can injure the whole system. This is the main reason that man requires knowledge of these rules and cognition. Eco-imagination is the way in which a man sees himself in an alien nature. Unlike man, nature has no consciousness and can only exist within its framework. Its origins and first idea are with God, but their existence is related to the Earth. The Holy text says, “And God said, ‘Let the earth give birth to all sorts of living things, cattle and all things moving on the earth, and beasts of the earth after their sort: and it was so’” (Genesis 1:24). However, human beings’ consciousness and spirit are related to God. Indeed, man grows through his/her knowledge. Holy texts say that God created him/her and in addition, taught him/her the names—knowledge. It helps man to be higher than angels: “He taught Adam the names of all things, then He presented them to the angels and said, ‘Tell Me the names of these, if what you say is true?’They replied, ‘Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are truly the All-Knowing, All-Wise.’” (Quran 2/31–32). The key moment here is the phrase: “We have no knowledge except what You have taught us.” Man can add new knowledge to the previous and improve his cognition. That is why he/she cannot be a part of nature. His/her physical body exists in the material

26

K. Bunyadzade

world, but with the mentality, he/she can rise beyond this world. This is the principal difference between humans and animals, although they have similar reflexes and reactions. During the pandemic, we have witnessed how nature restored its perfect inner harmony and how the absence of a person played a positive role in the lives of rivers, forests, and the atmosphere. A man can enter this harmony, use the voices of nature, investigate its secrets, and rationalize and explain its scientific basis. As the origins of the essence of man are in the divine world, his/her true harmony is there.

2 The Subjective World of Man and Opportunities for Consciousness Man’s cognition gives him power over nature. Eco-imagination is the reflection of nature in the thought of man. In addition, it is the stimulus to follow-up attitudes toward the environment. The nature object is the passive side, and the man is the active side. According to the level of thought, attitudes manifest in two ways. In the first case, he/she perceives nature as a battlefield where he/she must defend himself/ herself and fight the environment. Man tries to establish his/her absolute dominance. In the second case, a man tries to cognize his/her identity and essence through nature—a book of trues. He uses nature as a transition for going to the higher world. Consequently, the eco-imaginations of man, who sees himself as a part of nature, and man, who knows that his essence is beyond the material world, are different. According to the philosophy of illumination of Shihabeddin Suhrawardi, the essence of every creature is light. Human light has two functions—governing and illuminating. Suhrawardi called it isfahbud (leader) (Suhrawardi 1952, 147). In Sufi phenomenology, which refers to Suhrawardi’s philosophy, a man can increase his/ her light by focusing his/her intention on the object and perceiving it. Creativity involves obtaining the meaning of an object and connecting two lights. “Pieta” by Michelangelo or “Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” by Bernini is the result of the connection of the lights of master and stone. In addition, it is quite another thing to capture and turn off this light. Naturally, the light of man decreases. It is destruction. For example, somebody wants to build his dream house in a forest, and he destroys flora and fauna. In the first case, man becomes a part of the appropriate system and enters into harmony with the environment. The newly created subjective world does not distort the objective one. It is the presentation of the new feature of nature. It is not taking a drop from the sea and then returning. It is adding something from human essence to this drop and beginning to create one’s own subjective world within the objective world. This something exists only in human mentality. In the second case, the subjective world limits consciousness, and man creates his world through the destruction of the objective world. This approach closes the way to the higher system. How did Michelangelo discover the inner beauty and peculiarity of marble? In the second case, the thought of man acts only within the frame of materiality, and he/she creates the subjective world through the destruction of the objective system. He closed anyway to the higher world. Husserl wrote:

3  Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology

27

Concepts such as the valuable, the beautiful, the amiable, the attractive, the perfect, the good, the useful, act, work, etc., as well as, similarly, concepts such as state, church, right, religion, and other concepts, that is, objectivities to whose constitution valuing or practical acts have essentially contributed—all these have no place in natural science, they are not concepts pertaining to nature. But it must be understood from within, from phenomenological sources, that this abstraction from predicates belonging to the spheres of value and practice is not a matter of an arbitrary abstraction, left to one’s own discretion, for, as such, it would in fact produce no radically self-enclosed idea of a scientific domain and thus also no idea of a science self-contained a priori. (Husserl 2000, 27)

Indeed, man is the creator, although he constructs via things created by the Absolute Creator. His new system is the removal of some parts of the old system and includes them in the new one. Therefore, before creativity, he/she should enter the phenomenological structure of a thing and study it. A man has the power to build his/her world. Of course, it is a fact that animals can construct their world—living conditions. They do it according to the law of nature and never go beyond it. Man can go beyond. He/she studies the law of nature and obeys some of them unconsciously. Both creative people and destroyers dictate their rules and force others to accept them. For example, people discovered the law of gravitation, learned to avoid it, and produced an airplane. Or human knows that oxygen is necessary for his/her life, but he/she continues to destroy the source of breathable air—the forest. However, there is a paradox. Man is more than the material world. When he/she acts in this frame, he/she becomes a destroyer. In contrast, when his/her mentality connects with the divine world, the subjective world becomes a part of the universal system. In this case, nature serves with its laws and secrets as a passage to universal truth. Newtonian mechanics opens the way to the theory of relativity, and it, in succession, to quantum mechanics. The path of man, who improved his/her thought and creativity according to his essence, is open to a universal truth—Logos. Although the world of man is subjective, it is the evaluation criterion of the objective world. Every individual world has an area that should save and develop this world. It looks like a fence around the house. As a result, the objective world decreases visually and consists of subjective worlds. For instance, high buildings, highways, city noise, air pollution, and the lives of millions of people are metropolis systems. The proportion of nature in this system is too small. The objective world demonstrated itself during the pandemic due to the animals being in deserted streets, purifying channels, rivers, and so on. A decrease in the objective world led to the impoverishment of eco-imagination. The consciousness is limited and perceives only one element of complex essence. However, an entire truth spreads throughout the objective world. Consciousness requires us to rise beyond the subjective world. Thus, a man uses a beech as firewood, another as a building material, and the third one grows it for nuts. The level of consciousness and the requirements of the subjective world can change eco-imagination. The creative man can use his eco-­imagination to transfer to a higher system, and others can follow him. For example, experiments on learning the speed of light have led to several scientific discoveries. Therefore, eco-imagination can increase consciousness. Famous physicist Heisenberg wrote,

28

K. Bunyadzade

“We cannot disregard the fact that natural science is formed by men. Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is a part of the interplay between nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning” (Heisenberg 2000, 44). Consequently, on the way to the universal truth, eco-­ imagination is the first individual communication of man with nature and their first intersection.

3 Spirit, Superconsciousness, and Eco-imagination Humans and nature are parts of one system. The reflexes and feelings of the physical body are evidence of their relationship. According to holy texts and myths, man was created first from the material thing (earth) and then breathed spirit into him. For instance, in ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus created man from dirt and water; Athens gifted spirit. However, in the foreground of creation was man, not his body or spirit separately. There is little information about the spirit in Holy texts. Thus, a verse in Bible says that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) and that “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). The Quran says, “They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about the spirit.” For example, “Its nature is known only to my Lord, and you ˹O humanity˺ have been given but little knowledge” (Quran 17/85). The presence of spirits in other creatures was always an object of discussion. Although the information about the material body in holy texts is insufficient, the relation between nature and animals helps to compare the body and obtain more knowledge about it. However, the spirit is unique. Its peculiarity is that it can give life and extra possibilities to analyze and to rise to the higher level of the hierarchy. Husserl writes: Already at first glance what is striking here is the essentially grounded difference between nature in a more strict sense, the lowest and first sense, i.e., material nature, and nature in a second, broadened sense, i.e., things that have a soul, in the genuine sense of “living,” animal nature. (Husserl 2000, 30)

Mobilizing the Spirit is another way to study the inner world and realize potentiality. This means that creatures without spirits are deprived of these possibilities and knowledge. Plants and animals may also have similar opportunities, but there is no scientific confirmation of this. We want to note that man can rise beyond nature and the material world via spirit and add a new perspective to his/her eco-imagination. It is a fact that the man who acts within the frame of material desires and feelings does not differ from the plants and animals. Francis Bacon said that “knowledge itself is power.” Humans have two means for obtaining this power: consciousness and spirit. The real power that increases through the specific abilities of man is beyond his physical features and is endless. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) writes about spirit (soul):

3  Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology

29

It is the perfection of the natural body, but not of any natural body. The soul is not the perfection of fire, earth, or air. It is rather, in our world, the perfection of the natural body, from which the second perfections arise, by means of the organs, which used in the activities of life, first of all nutrition and growth. (Ibn Sina 1988, 15)

The principal moment here is that the spirit opens the way to the divine world, and the consciousness perceives the knowledge. Moreover, consciousness rationalizes and generalizes irrational knowledge due to the soul. This means that, for learning knowledge from both material and divine worlds, consciousness and soul should be related. According to the specifications of man’s organism and its similarity with other creatures, philosophers define the types of spirits: vegetative, animal, and human. For example, Avicenna writes: Let us now enumerate the forces of the soul according to a numerous sequence and then proceed to describe the state of each one. We say: according to the first division, the forces of the soul can be divided into three parts. The first part is the vegetative soul: it is the first perfection of the natural organic body insofar as it reproduces, develops, and nourishes. …The second part is the animal soul; it is the first perfection of the natural organic body insofar as it perceives individual and illusory movement. The third part is the human soul; it is the first perfection of the natural organic body insofar as it achieves action through intelligent choice and reasoning and therefore perceives the universal. (Ibn Sina 1988, 40)

Contrasted to the various spirits in Avicenna’s philosophy, in Sufi phenomenology, the soul has different levels. Only the last level helps humans obtain knowledge and develop consciousness. The material body is the form, and the soul is an aura around it. The closest and lowest level—where the body and soul seem the same—is the vegetative soul. Moreover, physical features and natural requirements subordinate the soul. At the animal level—which includes the vegetative level and has more features— of the soul is greater than that at the vegetative level. The “intelligent” acts, reflexes, and reactions of animals prove their superiority over plants and their closeness to humans. Finally, the closest to the divine world—the human level—is the highest and includes both. The influence of the body on the soul is minimal here, and it is the passageway to the Logos. Descartes writes: We must begin with the rational soul, for all our knowledge resides in it; and after considering its nature and effects, we shall proceed to its author. When we have come to know who he is and how he has created all things that exist in the world, we shall be able to see what is most certain regarding the other creatures, and we shall examine in what way our senses receive their objects and how our thoughts are made true or false. (Descartes n.d., 405)

It is not new information, but we would like to add that the soul is the inner ability to raise consciousness beyond the material world. It is the soul that can change the view of eco-imagination. One thing is to take nature as a separate object, and another is to accept it as a part of a universal system. Only consciousness using the potentiality of spirit can rise to its highest level— superconsciousness. Studying the essence of the object and reaching the higher system beyond matter, and eventually, rising to the Logos, is possible via

30

K. Bunyadzade

superconsciousness. Man perceives the external world and its truth through his/her sense. What about the essence of things, man can cognize it only in the divine world—beyond the matter. Although cognition begins from rational and general knowledge in books at secondary school, man can commence his way to Logos only after understanding his/her spirit’s capabilities. As the process of creation is individual, the way to Logos should also be individual.

4 Logos—The Final Level of Cognition In Sufi phenomenology, Logos—the universal truth—is the truth of created things. The ideas of the absolute creator are endless. In Sufism, the name of the world of ideas is a'yan-ı sabite (immutable entities). The whole created world is only a part of these ideas. The truth of all beings, including man and nature, is here too. The remaining part waits for its turn as a potential source. Logically, Logos is smaller than a'yan-ı sabite. Thus, Logos is the world of known and unknown reality. A principal moment here is that Logos is the end of the process of cognition. In addition, Logos includes the whole truth. As consciousness is limited, a human can cognize this truth piece by piece according to the radius of thought. Heisenberg wrote: To begin with, it is important to remember that in natural science, we are not interested in the universe as a whole, including ourselves, but we direct our attention to some part of the universe and make that the object of our studies. In atomic physics, this part is usually a very small object, an atomic particle or a group of such particles, sometimes much larger— the size does not matter; but it is important that a large part of the universe, including ourselves, does not belong to the object. (Heisenberg 2000, 20)

In other words, Logos is the system and unity of known and unknown trues. It is the Universal Truth that a man can reach and study. Every thought can discover and understand his truth in Logos. A'yan-ı sabite (immutable entities) is the birth of the majority in One. Consecutively, Logos is the return of the majority to unity. The trues in the material world are pieces, and their reunification leads to Universal Truth. As a part of the universal system, man has continuous inner relations with the Universal Truth. However, not everybody understands it. While someone desires One, another is content with the pieces and delimits knowledge with the frame of the material world. Before returning to the Logos, the consciousness gathers knowledge and percepts corresponding trues. Although every creature has a relation with immutable entities, a man only can cognize it. The consciousness and spirit of man are related to the first source—immutable entities. Somebody uses its relation and returns to Logos. In addition, somebody forgets about this principal fact and lives within the material world. As Logos is within immutable entities, returning to Logos means a reference to the first source. That is why each man cognizing his existence seeks the way for return. Mewlana conveys these feelings with the chant of reed in his “Masnawi”: When kept from their true origin all yearn For union on the day, they can return. (Rumi 2004, 4)

3  Eco-imagination and Sufi Phenomenology

31

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka writes in her philosophy about “the world before life” and passion to his first essence. She calls it “Passion of the Earth”: Living beingness appears as carrying within itself the prolife schema and life requirements that mother earth possesses. Through this essential existential network, the project of life appears subtended by the earth’s participation in the forces of the universe, the cosmos. Hence, we may see living beingness as a filigree, a microcosmic counterpart of the great macrocosmic horizon. (Tymieniecka 2003, XXIX)

Man can rise to Universal Truth via insight into nature, as it is also a part of this system. The difference between the Logos and a'yan-ı sabite is here. The source of immutable entities is the divine world, while the discovery of Logos is related to Human Being. On the one hand, Logos is limited because it contains only the trues of created beings. In comparison with the thinking of man, Logos is endless. Moreover, the realization of ideas in a'yan-ı sabite depends on the will of the Absolute Creator. The trues in Logos are illuminated via human thought. A truth in Logos is lightened once. The next rising superconsciousness opens another part of universal truth due to the previously illuminated trues. For example, in 300 BC, Euclid, in the twelfth century, Shihabeddin Suhraverdi, and in the thirteenth century, Bonaventure wrote different ideas about light. However, each of them is a piece of the whole. Each consciousness presented the truth that could know due to its will and power. Finally, in the twentieth century, quantum mechanics added its trues to previous ones. Thus, the radius of the truth of light in Logos gradually increases. The consciousness can perceive knowledge as much as its radius allows. The potential limitation of this radius lies in the Logos. In Sufi Phenomenology, Logos— the end of each creative man—is Mega-Consciousness as the unity of all consciousness. The idea begins with man, and nature supports his/her consciousness. If this line interrupts on this level, the cognition remains incomplete, and the light of the man decreases. The first idea should rise to Logos with the knowledge perceived in nature. In this case, it can be confirmed and returned to a man ready for realization and materialization. Only the idea confirmed in Logos can be creative and become a part of a universal system. Logos is an uninsulated world and embraces all beings in a universal system. According to quantum mechanics, the truth of things extends beyond their material form until the Logos. Heisenberg wrote: It must be observed that the system which is treated by the methods of quantum mechanics is, in fact, a part of a much bigger system (eventually the whole world); it is interacting with this bigger system, and one must add that the microscopic properties of the bigger system are (at least to a large extent) unknown. (Heisenberg 2000, 121–122)

Man and Nature are different phenomena with their truth and places in the creative hierarchy. At the higher level, they are parts of the same system and complement each other. The process of cognition of the higher systems transits nature. Eco-­ imagination is the beginning of this process.

32

K. Bunyadzade

5 Conclusion In conclusion, we would like to summarize the considerations of several of these studies. • The places of Human Being and nature in the creation hierarchy are different: eco-imagination. The first relationship between man and nature reflects the level of thought and the next steps of man. • Eco-imagination can change several times until Logos—the end of creation. • Eco-imagination is knowledge that has two forms of presentation—rational (scientific) and irrational (spiritual experience). • Eco-imagination is part of the subjective world that is based on the objective world. Consequently, the impoverishment of the foundation leads to the weakening of the structure above it. However, eco-imagination can differ from the objective world and deny it. • The relation of consciousness with nature—one of three sources of knowledge— determines the direction of eco-imagination—to creativity and destruction. When a man uses nature to pass to a higher system, it is creative. When nature is the final goal of man, it is destruction. • Although eco-imagination is based on nature, the unity of consciousness and spirit can extend new sources for development.

References Descartes, Rene. n.d. The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light. Last modified 12.24.2022. https://dokumen.tips/documents/2-­the-­search-­for-­truth-­by-­means-­of-­the-­natural-­ light-­descartes.html?page=1. Heisenberg, Werner. 2000. Physics and Philosophy. The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Penguin Books. Husserl, Edmund. 2000. Ideas Pertaining to Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer. Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Fifth printing. Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husein bin Abdullah. 1988. Al-Fannu-s-Sadis min at-Tabiiyyat (ilmu-n-nafs) min Kitabi ash-Shafa. Paris: Arabe et Islamique Editions du Patrimmoine. Rumi, Jalal al-Din. 2004. The Masnavi. Book One. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Jawid Mojaddedi. New York: Oxford University Press. Suhrawardi, Shihabeddin Yahya. 1952. Sheikh al-Ishrak. Majmua dum Musannafat. Bikalemi Henri Korben. Tehran: Chapkhane Danishkah. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. 2003. The Unveiling and the Unveiled. In The Passion of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. Anaa-Teresa Tymieniecka, XXI–XLIV.  Dordricht/ Boston: Kluwer Academic.

Chapter 4

Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence Between Ibn ‘Arabī and Evagrius of Pontus Cornelis van Lit Abstract Ibn ʿArabī, a twelfth-century Muslim mystic, speaks of “boredom” (malal) as a setting in which transcendence is only attempted through intellectual means. He makes clear how the divine realm would be misunderstood, if not attained by using the imagination. Through a phenomenological approach, using Husserl and Tymieniecka, I argue that our intellectual ingrowness in this world is so great that moving beyond it (in transcendence) crumbles our current world view, which has, in turn, such a devastating effect on our personal identity that we would rather choose the “boring” world we know than the full truth of divine reality. I corroborate this interpretation by a comparison with acedia, a notion of the fourth-century Christian mystic Evagrius of Pontus. I end my chapter by exploring new vocabulary to express this experience by invoking the psychiatric term existential feelings. Keywords  Mysticism · Imaginal world · Acedia · Phenomenology · Existential feelings

1 Introduction In this chapter, my primary objective is to examine the two notions of “boredom” (malal) and “a dream within a dream” (manām fī manām), as mentioned in the writings of Ibn ʿArabī, the Islamic mystic-sage of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. They are only briefly mentioned, the former in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya and the latter in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, but point, I think, to an interesting aspect of Ibn ʿArabī’s thinking. Both terms are meant to signify a pitiful state of transcendence, one in which a person thinks they are transcending everyday reality and entering a higher state of understanding (and thereby a higher state of being), but in actuality, they are C. van Lit (*) Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_4

33

34

C. van Lit

not. In contrast, this cardboard cut-out of a transcendence is boring, an illusion of an illusion, in comparison to true transcendence. Understanding Ibn ʿArabī’s path to self-realization is therefore much easier if we can understand this pitfall and circumvent it. Unfortunately, Ibn ʿArabī does not spend many words on it. Commentators are not much of a help either. As such, a purely historical approach is impossible. I think, however, that a good case can be made that there is a similarity verging at congruence to acedia, as it appears in Evagrius of Pontus, the Christian monk of the fourth century. If we can satisfactorily equate them, we have much more material to understand what Ibn ʿArabī’s boredom is supposed to be. To this material, I also add a phenomenological approach. As secondary objectives, this chapter can be read as a phenomenological exploration of the relationship between the plain truths that we may reach in transcendence and the psychological effects this can have on us, or in other words, between knowledge and the experience of reaching that knowledge. Indeed, this chapter may read at first as a philosophical, speculative inquiry into the nature of meditation and its ramifications for our view on our own existence, with specific reference to the joy and agony that may come from it. As a historian, this is a difficult approach for me. Indeed, I would like to maintain that I am merely drawing out similarities between thinkers of entirely different centuries and cultures: Evagrius, Ibn ʿArabī, and Husserl. The evidence for significant correlation is not as great as a historian would like, but I do maintain it is there. The issues at stake are simply too ephemeral to allow for greater correlation, and yet, the hermeneutic gain from bringing these thinkers in dialogue will hopefully speak for itself.

2 Boredom According to Ibn ʿArabī Our starting point is a passage that William Chittick already pointed out as significant by including it in The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Chittick 1989, 105–106; Ibn ʿArabī 1911, 2:554). It reads: Some people do not know that at every instant God has a self-disclosure which does not take the form of the previous self-disclosure. When such a person lacks this perception, he may become the unceasing companion of a single self-disclosure, and its witnessing may become drawn out for him […] Hence boredom will overcome him, but boredom in this station is lack of reverence toward the Divine Side, since “They are in confusion as to a new creation” (50:15) at every instant. They imagine that the situation is not changing, and so a curtain is let down over them because of the boredom which leads to irreverence, after God has deprived them of knowledge of themselves and Him. So they imagine that they are they in each instant; and they are they in respect to their substantiality, but not in respect of their attributes.

Let us unpack this passage. In the first sentence, Ibn ʿArabī refers to two elements of his metaphysics of divine epiphany. One is to see creation not as an act of God but as a reflection of His revelation, His self-disclosure, or, in other words, His epiphanies. By showing specific parts of Himself, especially through the

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

35

combinations of these parts, God is revealing Himself in an infinite and ever-unique manner. These revelations constitute something, they “become” something, that is, they are created and “exist.” Existence is put between quotation marks here because for Ibn ʿArabī, only God truly exists, but His existence is unqualified. The moment it becomes qualified, we speak of God revealing Himself, and these revelations are in certain aspects different from God Himself. The other element is that such a revelation does not know time. Any of God’s revelations is a singular point. Indeed, at every singular point, we can speak of many different revelations at the same instant. These revelations, each of which we could call a thing, with existence, together constitute what we could call the cosmos, or the existential world. It is the world around us, an uncountable number of shadows of God. However, what about our perception of time? Time is a series of singular points coming one after the other, much like the frames of a movie. At each instant, God recreates the entire cosmos by revealing Himself in all the different ways it is capable of. The sense of continuity is merely something we are lucky to have. Call it the grace of God, that He would recreate the cosmos almost exactly alike at each point. Schematically, we can understand the relationship between God and the cosmos as shown in Fig. 4.1. This schema shows that for God, time is discontinuous,1 only measured in the sequence of infinitely small moments, and that each time God “enters” another of these moments, He reveals Himself anew. Within each of these revelations, there is a whole chain of creation. More fundamental and basic revelations are combined into more complicated revelations, and as such, a chain of causation between creatures can be confirmed. A whole cosmos comes to be. The nucleus of what Ibn ʿArabī wishes to say in this passage is the observation that some people are unaware of this divine sequence of cosmoses and only think in terms of worldly time, subconsciously assuming that there is only one moment of creation/self-disclosure. Hence, they get “stuck” in one of those moments. They elevate the structure of creatures as a universal law. Doing so, they can understand quite a lot about it. Perhaps almost the entire creation of that single moment can be drawn out for them. However, Ibn ʿArabī says that at the end of the day, no matter how much insight you gain into one divine moment, such insights are plainly boring compared to the vast richness of understanding the complexity of moment upon the moment of ever renewing divine revelation. This irreverence is somewhat immediately understandable. Assuming personal identity over time, by presuming substance and continuous time, is in a way an act of irreverence toward God, as it strips him of omnipotence and creativity. In addition, by stripping God of these qualities, one is in fact severely restricting the  . Discontinuous time may seem absurd for many of us who have been steeped in the continuous concept of time from Aristotle. However, note that in physics there is Planck time (the square root of the reduced Planck constant times the gravitational constant divided by the speed of light to the power of five). This tiny interval (measured in seconds it has 43 zeroes after the comma) is the smallest for observable change. In other words, there is no way of deciding whether time is continuous or discontinuous at the Planck time level. 1

36

C. van Lit

Fig. 4.1  Diagram showing the relationship between God and the cosmos and between divine time and worldly time, according to Ibn ʿArabī

possibilities of what could exist. However, why is Ibn ʿArabī calling this “boredom” (malal)? Another place in which Ibn ʿArabī speaks of a similar assumption about creation can help us. This is what Ibn ʿArabī says in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Abrahamov 2015, 68; Ibn ʿArabī 2013, 130–131): … The period (of these revelations) continued six months, then the angel came to him. She did not know that the Messenger of God said, ‘People are asleep, and when they die, they wake up.’ Everything one sees while awake is like this, even if the states (of sleep and wakefulness) are different. She spoke of six months; however, his whole life in this world should be gauged in this manner, that is, as a dream within a dream. All things of this kind belong to the world of imagination, and for this reason, they are interpreted, meaning that a thing that is essentially in a certain form appears in another form.

He speaks here of the way in which ʿĀʾisha (Muhammad’s wife) speaks of Muhammad’s first revelation and adds that while tradition speaks of it as a dreamlike state, we should in fact see our entire life as a dreamlike state. Two commentators on this passage helped us determine the deeper meaning and connection with the previous passage. Kāshānī says about this passage: In this world, people have the appearance of an image and a shape created by God so that they may understand their actions, states and statements. In all of this are epiphanies of God apparent, but this eludes them.

Thus, “the world of imagination” (ʿālam al-khayāl) is explained by Kāshānī as meaning that in this worldly life, we are given an image and shape in accordance with certain self-revelations (epiphanies) of God. In other words, he explicitly ties it back to the metaphysics of divine epiphanies we discussed earlier. The “dream

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

37

within a dream” that Ibn ʿArabī mentions is a reference to the case in which this epiphanous character of ourselves and the world around us eludes us. In other words, Kāshānī says that calling our experience of the world a “dream within a dream” is the same as calling this experience “dull,” as Ibn ʿArabī did in the earlier passage. Now that we have the connection between the two passages confirmed by means of Kāshānī, let us look at what Dawūd al-Qayṣarī says concerning the passage in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam: Everything we see while awake is actually like a dream, similar to what the prophet saw for six months […] Just like dreams demand interpretation, so it is for what we see while awake. […] Thus, we speak of a dream within a dream because, like our state, it is ever-­ changing, so it is with dreams.

Dawūd al-Qayṣarī confirms the illusory state in which we live if we take the world around us for granted. Things are not as we might think they are: they are not existential things as such for us to come across. Rather, everything we perceive is subject to interpretation. Similarly, things are not substantial, carrying forth their identity on their own, but they are divine epiphanies that renew at every single moment. This makes our life like a dream within a dream: our life is a (first-level) dream because everything in it (and indeed life itself) does not exist on its own but is a reflection of God’s revelations. In addition, our life is within this a (second-­ level) dream because at every instant it is changing, twisting, and turning. Understanding one of these levels is insufficient. Understanding that everything in our life is ripe to be interpreted to better understand God would be boring if we would assume that this creative epiphany is a stable universe that was once brought into being and remained the same. We need that second layer of understanding: to understand that the epiphanous cosmos is epiphanized every single moment, in whichever way God sees fit. On a technical philosophical level, this process is relatively straightforward. Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysics certainly does not lack an internal logic. What still stands out is this language of “boredom” and “dream within a dream.” These are clearly not technical philosophical terms but evoke emotion or perhaps something deeper. There is something disturbing and uneasy about it. Is it something that Ibn ʿArabī or his associates experienced first-hand? What kind of experience is this? Would that Ibn ʿArabī had spent more words on it! I propose to introduce remarks from different mystics of equal capacity that signal a similar phenomenon. In this regard, we are helped the most by entirely different perspectives, as they will contribute the newest information. I hasten to add that I do not wish to come to some sort of “full” comparison here, drawing in all relevant information. What I will do in this chapter is to show a rather deep confluence with Evagrius of Pontus, a Christian ascetic from the fourth century, and his peculiar notion of acedia.

38

C. van Lit

3 Boredom According to Evagrius Unlike Ibn ʿArabī’s malal, Evagrius’s acedia did catch on and was incorporated into mainstream Christian thinking as one of the standard vices often translated as sloth. This means that the term was no longer applicable only to monks but to everyone. The laicization of the term was done through emphasizing bodily effects, making it sound more like melancholia or boredom (Wenzel 1966; Theunissen 1996; Bellebaum 2016). In early modern times, we find Kierkegaard’s “despair” as a rekindled version of it. While Kierkegaard’s “despair” is quite close to the meaning we are after, phrasing it “he does not know the true God, but this is not the whole of it, he worships an idol as God” (Kierkegaard 2013, 266), he nevertheless called it a sickness, and this is an interpretative direction that is unhelpful for us. The medicalization and biologization, notably pointed out by Foucault (Foucault 1988), has gained full maturity in this domain, overshadowing other meanings. The combination of the medieval sloth and the early modern despair turned the notion in modern times into a psychological affliction such as depression or bore-out (Altschule 1965; Daly 2007). In this chapter, we ignore this modern reception and return to Evagrius’ own statements on the matter, which show a striking similarity with Ibn ʿArabī. Evagrius does not treat acedia in a rigorous manner but only mentions it descriptively in various ways. One simple statement that strikes at the heart of the resemblance between acedia and malal is when he says in Schola on the Psalms (Sinkewicz 2003, 251): It is a drowsiness of the rational soul, neglect of the virtues and of the knowledge of God; it is a sleep of the rational soul and a willful separation from true life.

Evagrius’ drowsiness is close to Ibn ʿArabī’s boredom. Evagrius’ hinging on the rational soul is implicit in Ibn ʿArabī by saying that they are stuck in only one creative moment of God’s epiphanies and only exploring the structure among creatures within that one moment: this is a task par excellence for the rational soul. Evagrius’ neglect of God is in line with Ibn ʿArabī’s irreverence. Evagrius’ sleep is similar to Ibn ʿArabī’s dream within a dream. Finally, Evagrius’ separation from true life is comparable to Ibn ʿArabī’s argument that people are focused solely on this worldly life, which is illusory. A final common element, not mentioned in this passage by Evagrius but repeated elsewhere, is that they both suggest that this is a widespread phenomenon, while only a few notice it. I therefore maintain that Evagrius and Ibn ʿArabī aimed to describe the same thing, with acedia and malal, respectively. Independently, they discovered the same phenomenon in their practice of drawing closer to God. Of course, arguing that a fourth-century Christian monk and a twelfth-century Muslim Sufi are talking about the exact same thing is in first instance tenuous. My aim is only to show the likelihood of it and the hermeneutical benefit of drawing this comparison. We would do well to read Ibn ʿArabī in light of Evagrius. Let us therefore observe what else Evagrius can tell us about acedia.

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

39

Readers familiar with acedia will probably think of a passage in The Monk: A Treatise on the Practical Life, which calls acedia the “Noonday Devil,” and situates it as an anxiety to leave your cell (Sinkewicz 2003, 99). In the broader context of Evagrius, this passage does not define acedia. It does not even describe it somewhat satisfactorily. Instead, a typical passage that does a much better job is the following from On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues (Sinkewicz 2003, 64, cf. 83–85): Acedia is an ethereal friendship, one who leads our steps astray, hatred of industriousness, a battle against stillness, stormy weather for psalmody, laziness in prayer, a slackening of ascesis, untimely drowsiness, revolving sleep, the oppressiveness of solitude, hatred of one’s cell, an adversary of ascetic works, an opponent of perseverance, a muzzling of meditation, ignorance of the scriptures, a partaker in sorrow, a clock for hunger.

What this passage demonstrates quite well is the inability of Evagrius to concisely define acedia. He is only able to describe it in various ways. In these descriptions, we read about both psychological challenges and bodily effects. These challenges and effects are expanded into more vivid details than what Ibn ʿArabī offered as a description. In other words, something very serious is happening to a person afflicted by acedia (and, by extension, malal). In virtually all of the different aspects, we see that a person is pulled in two different directions. On the one hand, someone’s desire is tempered, but on the other hand, someone’s desire is roused. As Evagrius says in The Foundations of Monastic Life (Sinkewicz 2003, 9), “acedia lies in wait for laziness and ‘is full of desires.’” Thus, acedia promotes laziness in us but at the same time promotes a desire to do all kinds of things. Crucially, a particular kind of desire is tempered, and a particular kind of desire is roused. Evagrius describes acedia in To Eologios (Sinkewicz 2003, 36) as when “our souls become blind to contemplation and are rendered torpid, especially when we rise together with the captivity of our thoughts.” The desire for contemplation is tempered, and the desire for thoughts is roused. Brought in dialogue with Ibn ʿArabī, we can understand this as meaning that the contemplation for the divine is tempered. Becoming torpid then means we get stuck in one moment of creative epiphany. The captivity of thoughts becomes a reference for intellectually understanding the chain of causation worldwide. This further corroborates the idea that intellectual inquiry into existence will most likely die out with an understanding of what happens in worldly time, while rising to divine time will require us to use our imagination. In summary, from Ibn ʿArabī, we gained insight into the metaphysics of this malal/acedia experience: there are two realms of existence, one of constantly renewing divine epiphanies that can be best understood through imagination and one of everlasting causation of creatures that can be best understood through intellection. This second realm is contained within every single moment of the first realm, and it is this second realm into which we are born. To draw closer to God, we may reach the first realm, but this requires us to fully understand the ever-renewing aspect of this first realm. From Evagrius, we learned the disastrous effects that successful transcendence can have on our psyche. It is such a shock to learn how divine reality is so flagrantly opposite to worldly reality, and indeed, it is such a shock to understand that this also

40

C. van Lit

changes everything we thought we knew about the material world, that we become inert to get any closer to the divine realm and anxious to become absorbed again in the material world. Although, on average, many mystics will speak of the sweet and delightful pleasure of reaching a higher realm, Evagrius points out the tremendousness of the experience and its possible effect of becoming anxiously preoccupied with worldly affairs. The boredom Ibn ʿArabī speaks of is, in a way, a wished, longed for boredom. To make better sense of what our mystic-sages are saying, we will now take a phenomenological turn.

4 A Phenomenology of Boredom What we are considering, then, is ontology from an epistemological angle, specifically that part of epistemology, which considers the subject–object dichotomy. Luckily, a vast modern philosophical toolset has been developed around this topic in the form of phenomenology. This branch of philosophy is particularly fruitful for us since its basic attitude is remarkably close to what our mystic-sages are describing. Husserl describes the phenomenological attitude in opposition to a more common natural sciences attitude. He says that in science, “we effect experientially and logically ordered acts of thinking in which these actualities [i.e., the world around us, CvL], being accepted as they are given, become conceptually determined.” In the words of Ibn ʿArabī, this is akin to exploring the inner logic of one and only one epiphanous created cosmos. However, as Husserl says, in phenomenology, “we ‘parenthesize’ the positings effected; for our new inquiries we do not participate in these positings” (Husserl 1983, 114). In other words, we do our best to stand outside of the life-world to understand a more foundational level of consciousness and being. This is not an easy task to do, since “consciously, we always live in the life-­ world” (Husserl 1970, 379). Tymieniecka calls this “its ingrownness in the world texture” (Tymieniecka 1966, 14). This is not just a dreaminess, a forgetfulness that there is more than the reality that displays “a well articulated nature” (Tymieniecka 1966, 12), but as Tymieniecka points out, “the actual existence of a being, of the world itself, consists of nothing else but its complete ingrownness in the world texture” (Tymieniecka 1966, 15–16). As though we are dreaming within a dream, as Ibn ʿArabī would have it, or as though we find ourselves in lackluster preoccupied with worldly affairs, as Evagrius would have it. Thus, stepping outside the rational inquiry of the world and making a considerable effort to do so is perfectly aligned with our mystic-sages, which makes phenomenology all the more applicable, even though I am less convinced that it is the self-same. Unlucky for us, specific developments within phenomenology, on the thematics that Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius bring up, are few and scant. This is because, it seems that most phenomenologists work on the assumption that the immaterial self is impervious from any world-breaking changes and indeed are keen to emphasize the central place of the self within their philosophical framework (Tymieniecka 1966, 25ff). In this contribution, it is not feasible to develop a full-fledged

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

41

phenomenological inquiry into the topic that our mystic-sages broach. Instead, I focus on several snippets of phenomenology from Husserl and Tymieniecka that have a near-immediate connection with our mystic-sages. This, then, sheds light on the true meaning of what they are expressing and will hopefully also inspire us to develop a more extensive phenomenology in this direction.

5 Becoming Disillusioned with This World The central passage from Edmund Husserl that helps us here is the following: On the other hand, all of that does not imply that there must be some world or some physical thing or other. The existence of a world is the correlate of certain multiplicities of experience distinguished by certain essential formations. […] experience, because of conflict, might dissolve into illusion […] it is conceivable that there might be a host of irreconcilable conflicts […] in short, that there might no longer be any world.

The implication he speaks of here is actually a realization. At some point, it will dawn upon the phenomenologist that there may not be any world, as the life-world may be peeled apart into positions that are essentially mutually exclusive. What is left is the positing itself, not as a reality but as an illusion. This is despite the assertion by Tymieniecka, quoted above, that our worldly reality is entirely derived from this positing. The correlation with some remarks by Ibn ʿArabī is obvious and should allow us to color in Ibn ʿArabī’s statements with more philosophical precision. However, it is even more so the experience of realization that I wish to discuss here, as this is the precise overlap with Evagrius. We come to realize, according to Husserl, that positing is an illusion, and this implies that there might not be any world as truly existing (because positing was the exact realization of our existence). In short, then, we come to realize that our inquiry casts serious doubt on our most inner self. In a few places, here and there, Husserl relates the devastating effect this realization can have. He calls it the paradox “of humanity as world-constituting subjectivity and yet as incorporated in the world itself” (Husserl 1970, 182), and he explains that “the subjective part of the world swallows up, so to speak, the whole world and thus itself too. What an absurdity!” (Husserl 1970, 180). Notice the choice for the words “paradox” and “absurdity.” In addition, if we look back at the previous passage, “illusion.” These terms express experience. Husserl, it is true, is mostly occupied with expressing the matter of fact of that experience. However, in the choice of words, there is also a psychological impression. In his 1920 lectures, he went into slightly more detail. He rephrases the end of the passage quoted above (“… that there might no longer be any world”) as follows (Husserl 2001, 64): “without a certain measure of unity maintaining itself in the progression of perceptions, the unity of the intentional lived-experience would crumble.” If I translate this a little closer to Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius; once we undo ourselves of the idea that natural laws hold together the entire creation, which was brought about only once, and once our deeper insights progress to realize that epiphanies come and go every

42

C. van Lit

instant, our psyche needs to process a paradox so absurd that it might very well crumble. Change itself is processable, of course. However, this requires “a unity of the object remaining concordantly the same as the substratum of its continuous alterations in and through which it becomes otherwise,” as Husserl says (Husserl 2001, 64), or in Ibn ʿArabī’s words, “So they imagine that they are they in each instant; and they are they in respect of their substantiality.”2 However, the change that is so devastating it can crumble our psyche, is a change “all of a sudden, and contrary to all expectation” (Husserl 2001, 64). Alternatively, as Ibn ʿArabī puts it, “at every instant God has a self-disclosure which does not take the form of the previous self-disclosure.” It is this kind of change, at the divine level, that Husserl is speaking of. In addition, this change, changes everything. “Instead of the acquired knowledge being preserved and enriched further, it can be placed in question, annulled,” writes Husserl (Husserl 2001, 63). The knowledge is annulled, and our epistemological existence crumbles. Oddly enough, the worst word Husserl can think of to describe the feeling we ought to have during such a moment is the mere “disappointment.” I think it is best to see this as an affirmation that Husserl’s intent is with developing the philosophy that brings forth technical–factual conclusions and not with the human experience of reaching such conclusions. To better understand the experience of reaching such conclusions, we can turn to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. She phrases Husserl’s paradox differently (Tymieniecka 1966, 103): While the natural being cannot stop for an instant in its transformatory process, making each phase of it an unrepeatable event, the intentional being is infinitely reproducible in individual experience, as a fixed point of reference for reflection and communication. And yet, in spite of his very important role within the world, his nature and mode of existence, rooted in, yet different from reality, make his specific distinctiveness as a being doubtful. If accepted as existing distinctively, his status within the world appears puzzling and incomprehensible.

It is a rather long quote, but it is difficult, for our purposes, to shorten it, as every part adds a precise element to the unfolding of the paradox. She moves the paradox right to the center of individual existence, specifically where our existence touches our experience. In a changing world, we can be assured of our own continued existence (presumably based on a Cartesian cogito-argument). However, this makes our own partaking incomprehensible. This is because it assumes predetermination, intrinsic to the process and limited to our consciousness (based on the ingrownness argument mentioned above). This would not allow for any sudden change in  . To not break the flow of argumentations I put it here in a footnote: the Aristotelian notion of substantiality and its concomitant substratum is useful for as long as our intellectual reasoning stays within the bounds of our worldly life. Beyond it, through imaginative transcendence, we are forced to let it go. This is a reflection of the same break we undergo with regards to our personal identity, only put more generally. While it would seem that a more general break is of more importance, the challenge to our personal identity is felt more deeply within ourselves and is therefore the more prominent issue. Husserl seems to be keenly aware of this issue. In short: substance/ substratum are somewhat useful terms for making sense of the world around us, but do not hold reality and can therefore certainly not be carriers of existence. 2

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

43

perception. Such a change would render previous perceptions utterly mistaken and incomprehensible (Tymieniecka 1966, 119). Or, as Tymieniecka puts it succinctly elsewhere (Tymieniecka 1966, 72): “The real individual would appear incomprehensible, even absurd, if he were entirely separated from the world context, from the set of processes going on incessantly within the world, and from his own place and role there.” It is the interplay between perception and existence within the individual (in its position in the world) that Tymieniecka points out as the problem that is experienced by the psyche as “puzzling,” nigh unsolvable. However, it is exactly this experience that Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius are driving at as essential, perhaps exactly the same, as their mystical transcendence. In summary, in Husserl and Tymieniecka, we read about the occurrence of a devastating change, which is similar to what Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius spoke of, in an absolute sense. We learn that such a change entails a perception so sharply different from the ones we had before; it annuls our knowledge and crumbles our existence. This is because individuality is intrinsically related to perception, which is in turn not only of the world but also from the world, as previous perceptions shape expectations for the next one. A negating experience of transcendent proportions is therefore an attack on our individuality and personal identity. This matter-of-fact explanation is a welcome depth to our understanding of malal and acedia, as it explains what exactly is happening and explains the gravity and depth of the experience that goes along with it. However, the effect of the emotive shock itself is not satisfactory. We have to make a last turn toward theoretical psychology to understand this better.

6 The Uncanny Existential Feeling of Mystical Insight For this purpose, I would like to introduce the term uncanny (unheimlich). Ernst Jentsch introduced it, and Sigmund Freud made it famous. Jentsch explains it by contrast (Jentsch 2008, 218): “That which has long been familiar appears not only as welcome but also—however remarkable and inexplicable it may be—as straightforwardly self-evident.” In other words, perceptions can be quite different from previous ones, but as long as they fit in lived-world expectations, they do not challenge us on a fundamental level. This is the same as to say that which is utterly unfamiliar to us is not evident and, by extension, not welcome. Says Jentsch: “Among all the psychical uncertainties that can become a cause for the uncanny feeling to arise, there is one in particular that is able to develop a fairly regular, powerful and very general effect: namely, doubt as to whether an apparently living being truly is animate.” (Jentsch 2008, 221). What if this living being is our very self? Would that not be the most uncanny of all? In this way, the uneasily sharp sense of impending doom that Evagrius evokes is all the more understandable. In the context of our mystic-sages, Freud most fruitfully deepens the discussion of Jentsch. Freud seemingly turns the argumentation around by saying that “the uncanny element is actually nothing new or strange, but something that was long

44

C. van Lit

familiar to the psyche and was estranged from it only through being repressed” (Freud 2003, 148). Therefore, the actually uncanny is that which was familiar all along but on a repressed level. This makes sense when we consider Ibn ʿArabī calling people boring or Evagrius calling them lackluster and torpid. Furthermore, Freud says that “the term ‘uncanny’ applies to everything that was intended to remain secret, hidden away, and has come into the open” (Freud 2003, 132). This is applicable to the insights into the divine world that our mystic-sages advocate. It is the interplay between the known, material world, readily explored by intellectual means, and the unknown divine world, which is to be entered by other means. The everyday experience is transcended in meditation, and by it our personal existence is put into question, and yet at the same time we enter something both utterly familiar all along (but otherwise repressed) and we make known what is otherwise kept secret. Paradoxes abound, and the puzzling experience is not just “disappointment,” as Husserl dryly states, but a feeling of uncanny. Let us make one last interpretative move, now that we have established the connection between malal, acedia, and unheimlich. There are feelings that run a lot deeper than ordinary feelings, and the uncanny is a primary example of it. These feelings are not fleeting. They are bodily, also psychological, but in addition seem to run even deeper than that to the level of the existence of our personal identity. For one reason or the other, they have hardly been explored in a scholarly fashion, and it is only recently that Matthew Ratcliffe usefully called them “existential feelings.” (Ratcliffe 2008, 53–54). These feelings are roused when our existence is put into question. Ratcliffe primarily developed this approach to apply it to severe psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, but some general conclusions are readily applicable to our case as well. One such conclusion is that our whole bodily surface is constitutive of our sense of being in the world (Ratcliffe 2008, 93), as the literal contact between us and others provides connection and integrity (Tymieniecka’s ingrownness). Therefore, existential feelings are rarely only abstract in nature. Rather, they permeate our entire constitution and manifest themselves on our bodily level, where they can explore the disconnect between us and the others in a literal and therefore most urgent manner. This explains Evagrius’ remarks about the somewhat paradoxical effect of anxious behavior from the primarily torpid psychological sense. Our sense of unbelonging, in moments of transcendence, naturally seeks a solution by reestablishing the material connection between us and the world. Of course, our mystic-­ sages would hold that there is a promise of remaking the sense of belonging, namely, within the divine realm, but they both express that the jump toward this new sense of being in the world (or rather, this sense of being in a new world) is a big one. We can see a stark difference between Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius on this point. Ibn ʿArabī encourages us to make that jump by calling the natural inclination to a sense of belonging boring and the relationship with the material world a dreamy illusion. Evagrius warns us that such a jump is not for the faint of heart; by describing all the bad things we might feel while mid-air during that jump. Another result of Ratcliffe’s existential feelings is that they are not an absence of familiarity; rather, they are a sense of unfamiliarity (primarily a feeling of loss)

4  Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence…

45

(Ratcliffe 2008, 54). This shows that the experiences that our mystic-sages talk about are experiences of something real. The experienced divine realm is not an illusion, while the real material world is absent. Rather, the experienced divine realm is real and entered for the first time. The loss is what was always only somewhat real, real to the extent to which we immersed ourselves in the material world. This entails that we actually lose the reality of the material world. Once we pierce through it and wake up in the divine realm, we cannot but see the worldly realm as a dream within a dream. Going back to sleep is not an option. Perhaps Evagrius would not immediately accept this conclusion, as acedia is clearly described as desperate attempts to draw back into the ingrownness of our familiar worldly realm. However, within this context, we can see it for what they are: feeble attempts. In addition, it is exactly this futility that makes the experience all the more dreadful. The torpid quality is derived especially from the attempts to go back to the way things were knowing full well; this is not possible. Few mystics speak of this, but Ibn ʿArabī and Evagrius do seem to wish to point out that there is tremendous grief and traumatic loss in the process of attaining deeper insights into reality.3 We started out inquiring into the meaning of malal (boredom) in Ibn ʿArabī and travelled through a variety of philosophical literature to give more words to an experience our mystic seemed to have had that left him somewhat speechless. Mystic-­ sages from very different cultural and religious backgrounds seem to be talking about the very same experience, just from slightly different perspectives. Overall, a phenomenological approach has proven to be the most fruitful. Nonetheless, I think I have only been able to give a sense, a hint, of the various harmonies that ring through mystical literature from many centuries ago and modern phenomenology. I can only hope that some readers will take the hint and continue to explore these confluences.

References Abrahamov, Binyamin. 2015. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Fusus al-hikam. London: Routledge. Altschule, Mark D. 1965. Acedia: Its Evolution from Deadly Sin to Psychiatric Syndrome. British Journal of Psychiatry 111: 117–119. Bellebaum, Alfred. 2016. Acedia-Menschen. Wiesbaden: Springer. Chittick, William C. 1989. The Sufi Path of Knowledge. Albany: SUNY Press. Daly, Robert W. 2007. Before Depression: The Medieval Vice of Acedia. Psychiatry 70 (1): 30–51. Evagrius. see Sinkewicz Foucault, Michel. 1988. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. R. Howard. New York: Vintage Books. Freud, Sigmund. 2003. The Uncanny. Trans. D. McLintock. London: Penguin. Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. D. Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

 . A distant echo is perhaps heard in the Allegory of the Cave by Plato, when people who left the cave are unable to make meaningful connections with those who stayed behind. 3

46

C. van Lit

———. 1983. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Trans. F. Kersten. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ———. 2001. Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. Trans. A.J.  Steinbock. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Ibn ʿArabī. 1911 [1329]. al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. 4 vols. Cairo: Dār al-kutub al-ʿarabiyya al-kubrā. ———. 2013. In Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. Saiyad Ahmad al-Lakhnawi. Beirut: Klaus Schwarz. Jentsch, Ernst. 2008. On the Psychology of the Uncanny. Trans. R. Sellars in Uncanny Modernity, ed. J. Collins and J. Jervis, 216–228. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Kierkegaard, S. 2013. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness unto Death. Trans. W.  Lowrie. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ratcliffe, Matthew. 2008. Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinkewicz, Robert E. 2003. Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Theunissen, Michael. 1996. Vorentwürfe von moderne. Berlin: De Gruyter. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. 1966. Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. Wenzel, Siegfried. 1966. Acedia 700-1200. Traditio 22: 73–102.

Chapter 5

The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm Ebrahim Al-Khaffaf

Abstract Symbolism is the means best adapted to the teaching of higher religious and metaphysical truths, that is, of all that the modern mind spurns or neglects. Symbolism is entirely contrary to rationalism… (Guénon 1995, 6).

Ibn ‘Arabī, the well-known philosopher on cosmology, often highlighted the interconnectedness of all the creation as a way of explaining the idea of tawḥīd [oneness] to consequently demonstrate how everything is essentially derived from God. He repeatedly employed the model of tree in examining different complex ideas as well as in imagining the various layers of existence. For example, in a book attributed to him Shajarat al-kawn [Tree of Universe], as its name clearly suggests, he imagined the entire world as a tree which emerged from the seed of potentiality to which God said “kun” [Be!] (Ibn ‘Arabī 1985, 41–42; Qur’ān 16: 40). Elsewhere, he referred to al-Insān al-kāmil [the Perfect Human] also as a tree (Ibn ʻArabī, Rasā’il Ibn ʻArabī [Epistles of Ibn ʻArabī]. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, Beirut, 2010, 414). In this sense, the spiritual greatness of this Perfect Human becomes analogous After completing the first version of this chapter, I learned from Prof. Stephen Hirtenstein that many of the Arabic works referenced in the chapter and attributed to Ibn ʻArabī were not actually written by him. For example, “Al-radd,” “Baḥr al-shukr,” and “Inkhrāq al-junūd” were probably written by one of his circle, specifically Saʿd al-Dīn Ḥamawayh. Similarly, “Shaq al-jayb,” “Al-Shajara al-nuʻmānīyah,” Shajarat al-kawn, and Tafsīr al-Qurʼān were not authored by Ibn ʻArabī. Prof. Stephen Hirtenstein also made some remarks about the accuracy and reliability of the edition of Futūḥāt, as well as Rasāʼil Ibn ʻArabī used in this chapter. Therefore, it seems that some Arabic publications are not keeping up with the recent studies regarding the authenticity of Ibn ʻArabī's works. On the other hand, I considered renaming the chapter to “The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Thought [and Among His Immediate Followers],” but that might make it more confusing. E. Al-Khaffaf (*) History of Science, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University, Postgraduate Education Institute, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_5

47

48

E. Al-Khaffaf

to the huge physical size of the universe, after succeeding in breaking free from his earthly restrictions. The Greatest Master often linked this analogy with the famous ḥadīth, “Neither can My sky nor My earth contain me, but the heart of My bondsman can contain Me” (Ibn ʻArabī, Rasā’il Ibn ʻArabī [Epistles of Ibn ʻArabī]. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, Beirut, 2010, 31, 48, 161, 224, 258, 331). In other words, when God metaphorically sits in the heart of the Perfect Human, the latter will be the center of the universe and consequently he will be able to do anything in this world (Ibn ʻArabī, Rasā’il Ibn ʻArabī [Epistles of Ibn ʻArabī]. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, Beirut, 2010, 331). In fact, Ibn ‘Arabī did not only use this symbol in investigating the realms of reality but in the spiritual ones as well. He maintained that Adam basically received his knowledge from a tree. As a consequence, the structure of the tree was imprinted in his very soul. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to explore the presentation of trees in Ibn ʻArabī’s philosophical system, which was essentially tackled by Mubayyiḍīn’s and Muqābala’s significant article “Al-Shajarah: dalālātuhā wa-rumūzihā ladā Ibn ʻArabī” [The Tree: Its Indications and Symbols in Ibn ‘Arabī Writings]. Be that as it may, before starting this investigation, this chapter will provide a background about the sacred and metaphysical aspect of trees in the Qurʼān and ḥadīth. Then, we will have glimpses of Ibn ʻArabī’s imagination concerning this issue. The third part of this chapter, however, is a more in-depth exploration of this symbolism of trees. Hence, in order to further comprehend the significance of Ibn ʻArabī’s focus on this particular entity, we will see its spiritual practicality and consistency when we compare the occidental symbol of the Perfect Human (the cross) with the Islamic one (the tree), which likewise necessitates a brief account regarding the Arabic alphabet, in order to highlight that alif (‫ )ا‬is the fundamental connection between the two symbols. Keywords  Ibn ‘Arabī · Tree · Symbol · Cosmos · The Perfect Human

1 Introduction Tree is an ever-present entity that always appears in the Qurʼān. It is often presented in the most critical, transcendental times and settings. To provide an example, Adam and Eve’s very fate was determined, so to speak, near to a tree while they were in Heaven, that is, when they were deceived by the Satan, who made them eat from it against God’s warning, And when they tasted of the tree, their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten together over themselves from the leaves of Paradise. Then their Lord called out to them, ‘Did I not forbid you from that tree and did I not tell you that Satan is your sworn enemy?’ (Qurʼān 7: 19–22).

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

49

Bearing in mind that according to Ibn ‘Arabī’s surprising yet original interpretation, it seems that the origin of Adam was a tree, thus, he was forbidden from getting close to that specific tree. In a work attributed to the Greatest Master, he wrote that after Adam ate from that tree, “Adam came out of it” then the tree started talking to him giving him its wisdom. To put it another way, Adam was in a tree entity but once he ate from that tree he—along with Eve—got out of the organic shape of the tree, and consequently became naked. Additionally, from that tree [shajara] Adam learnt how to breed [ishjār] and how to produce fruits [ithmār] since he ate from that tree’s fruit [thamar]. Therefore, Adam’s core is from the nature of the tree [ḥaqīqatuhu min ḥaqīqat al-shajara] (Ibn ‘Arabī 1998b, 206–208; Mubayyiḍīn and Muqābala 2012, 88–91, own translation). In short, according to this interpretation, which is shocking to the common sense, the division and propagation occurred after the meeting of the two trees.1 However, another important reference to the tree in the Qurʼān is the one that inflamed the minds of most philosophers and mystics, that is to say, that which linked the divine light with a tree, Allāh is the Light of the heavens and the earth. His light is like a niche in which there is a lamp, the lamp is in a crystal, the crystal is like a shining star, lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, [located] neither to the east nor the west, whose oil would almost glow, even without being touched by fire. Light upon light! Allāh guides whoever He wills to His light. And Allāh sets forth parables for humanity. For Allāh has knowledge of all things (Qurʼān 24: 35).

This particular verse received many different interpretations, for example, according to al-Suhrawardī, given that it is neither from east [pure intellect] nor the west [pure hyle: prime matter], it consequently means that it is the active imagination, which is like a burning tree (Corbin 2012, 264). Based on Ibn ‘Arabī’s reading, this tree is intermediate between the west [world of bodies] in which the divine light is set, and the east [world of lights] from which the divine lights rise (Ibn ‘Arabī n.d., II, 71). Without going into other interpretations regarding this tree, it is sufficient to emphasize here the significance of this tree, which was used in this metaphorical context that linking it to the very light of God. Indeed, this importance of the tree— being associated to the Infinite and Absolute—appears again in the symbolism of the Tree of Ṭūba and the Tree of Sidrat al-Muntaha [Lote Tree of the Farthest Boundary], which is the tree that is located in the seventh heaven, and as its name implies, it is where the entire existence ends, that is to say, it is the farthest area that can be reached after ascending to the seven heavens. As for its transcendent

 This original divine state before the division and fall can apparently be re-achieved in the Perfect Human by collecting the best feminine and masculine qualities; hence, Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawīya was considered a man (Schimmel 2006, 491–492), while male Sufis reached a highly sensitive state, as was well-explained in Annemarie Schimmel’s My Soul is a Woman. And this is the meaning of Ibn ‘Arabī’s discovery of the similarity between the numerical value of the name of “Allāh” (‫ )هللا‬and “Adam-wa-Eve” (‫)ادم وحوا‬. That is, the former equals 66, and that of Adam and Eve combined together equal 66 as well. Likewise that corresponds with the famous ḥadīth “Allāh created Adam in His image” (Al-Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 6227). 1

50

E. Al-Khaffaf

dimension, it is the place to which God’s revelation and other divine manifestations descend first. It represents the place of pure good entities, where no demonic spirit could come near. More importantly, it is the place to which the Prophet ascended in his well-known journey (Qurʼān 53: 14). As a matter of fact, there is not enough space here to dwell on all the Qurʼānic verses that deal with the subject of the tree, but we will look only at some important ones. For example, when God spoke to the Prophet Moses, a tree was centrally involved in that significant event, “when he [Moses] reached it [the fire], he was called from the right side of the valley, in the blessed place from the tree: ‘O Moses! It is truly I. I am Allāh—the Lord of all worlds’” (Qurʼān 28: 30). Hence, the tree here played a significant role of communication, so to speak, being an entity that lies between the finite and the infinite worlds. In other words, the tree is, as it were, the threshold or boundary between the physical and the spiritual worlds.2 Therefore, it is not surprising that the mystical archetype of the tree can always be found in Ibn ‘Arabī’s strange interpretations, and often in the places less expected. For instance, when Ibn ‘Arabī discussed the other incident whereupon Moses struck the rock with his staff causing the emergence of 12 fountains of water (Qurʼān 7: 160; 2: 60), Ibn ‘Arabī demonstrated how that process was spiritually linked to the symbolism of the tree, by stating that the rock that Moses hit took the shape of the tree near to which God spoke to him earlier, and therefore, the branches sprouted on the example of that tree but in the form of 12 springs of water. Hence, water came out of the rock as fire previously came out of the tree. Likewise, Ibn ‘Arabī found a relationship between this tree and Noah’s tree, from the wood of which he built the ark (Ibn ‘Arabī 1998c, 160). Elsewhere, Ibn ‘Arabī analyzed the story of God’s conversation with Moses near to the tree, by explaining that this means that the fruit of the tree of the divine command is the listening and associating with God: “the fruit of the tree of command is the exact place of the descent of the revelation” [Thamarat shajarat al-amr maḥall nuzūl al-amr] (Ibn Arabi 1998b, 206, own translation).3 By the same token, this somewhat transcendent aspect of trees is repeated in the most crucial moments of the life of the prophets, such as in the times of divine revelation. For instance, when labor came to the Virgin Mary, and while she was alone wishing for death, the Qurʼān recounted that it was at that critical time that she was inspired, apparently from below the tree, “So a voice reassured her from below her, ‘Do not grieve! Your Lord has provided a stream at your feet. And shake the trunk of this palm tree towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you’” (Qurʼān 19:

 We find such an understanding even in the thoughts of the Muʻtazilah, as one of their most important intellectual foundations is that when God spoke to Moses, it was by making the tree speak, that is, it was speech that God caused in the tree. This was also mentioned by Ibn Jinnī (Ibn Jinnī n.d., 396). 3  Among what Ibn ʻArabī mentioned elsewhere was a story about a person who was lying under a tree on the road to Mecca, and when some passers-by asked him about his condition, he said: “I was walking to Mecca the last year, and when I passed by this tree, I found my heart [near it]. And I have been here for a year, and I will not leave this place unless I lose my heart.” And he told them that God sends him food and drink (Ibn ʻArabī 1999 IV, 235, own translation). 2

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

51

24–25). Similarly, in the story of the Prophet Yūnus, after he was thrown on the shore with a naked, wounded body, God provided him with a tree to shelter as well as feed him, “We caused to grow over him a tree of gourds” (Qurʼān 37: 146). What further strengthens this understanding about the divine nature of trees in Islam is the mention of the tree in another context, that is, when God inspired the bees, which are the only animals to be inspired in the Qurʼān, which also might have taken place near to trees: “And your Lord revealed to the bees that they take houses from the mountains and from trees...” (Qurʼān 16: 68). In fact, trees were given very sublime status in the Qurʼān to the point that a reference was made about their prostration to God “and the stars and the trees prostrate” (Qurʼān 55: 6). In this context, we must not forget that one of the most important events in Islamic history—namely, the early Muslims’ pledge of allegiance to the Prophet— took place under a tree, “Indeed, Allāh was pleased with the believers when they gave the pledge to you under the tree, He knew what was in their hearts, and He sent down al-Sakīna [tranquility] upon them” (Qurʼān 48: 18, emphasis is mine). It is evident that based on this verse, the tree played a role similar to a gateway between heaven and earth, that is to say, in the very process of descending of the divine tranquility upon the believers. Another metaphorical reference to a tree in terms of its association with the infinite is repeated in more than one verse. For example, God likened the “good word”—which is sometimes taken to be the Qurʼān4 itself—particularly to a tree that can reach as high as heaven, “Have you not considered how Allāh presents an example, [making] a good word like a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed and its branches [high] in the sky?” (Qurʼān 14: 24). Needless to say that this verse refers to the truthful speech whose impact remains in this world and continues to grow, which is the opposite of the false speech, which is like a wicked tree uprooted from above the earth (Qurʼān 14: 26). In many other verses we find that God has referred to trees as signs of His perfect creation, whether those that are found here on earth, or those to be seen in heaven. Ibn ‘Arabī asserted that God has planted a blissed tree [Shajarat Ṭūba] within the human being; thus, if human does what corresponds with God’s laws and purifies himself from the impurities, this tree will grow in him and “give him whatever he wants by God’s command” (Ibn ‘Arabī 1998a, 303). On the contrary, Ibn ‘Arabī interpreted the Qurʼānic cursed tree (Qurʼān 37: 62; 17: 60) to be the metamorphosis of that divine tree within the human being, that is to say, of the normal God-oriented instinct. On the one hand, according to the Qurʼānic narrative, the tree with its colorful transcendent and sacred aspects appears to be a link between what is human and what is divine. On the other hand, the tree is the very source and origin of existence. To put it differently, tree by its very innate nature is a complete good entity but there may occur a sort of deterioration in it when human being moves away from the divine good instinct that resides in his/her very depths.

 However, according to Ibn ‘Arabī’s world-view, this “good word” is the soul of the good believer (Ibn ‘Arabī n.d. I, 346), who can transcend the physical existence and consequently make a mystical union with God. 4

52

E. Al-Khaffaf

Furthermore, before diving into Ibn ‘Arabī’s writing, it must be highlighted here that just like we have seen based on the glimpses presented about the mystical aspect of trees in the Qurʼān, a similar pattern can be seen in the ḥadīth as well. The books of ḥadīth are full of the implicit and explicit references regarding the sacredness of trees. Thus, it would be constructive in this context to provide a few examples from one specific book of ḥadīth. The prophet was known to plant trees with his own hands and he similarly encouraged people to do so. He even said that if one hears that the Judgment Day has begun, and that person has a tree sapling in his/her hand, then that person should not get up before planting the sapling. By the same token, he warned against cutting trees even in times of war. At one interesting session with his friends, the Prophet said: “Among the trees, there is a tree whose leaves do not fall, and it is like a Muslim, so tell me what it is?... It is the date-palm tree” (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 61, own translation). Additionally, there is the ḥadīth about the Prophet’s dream whereupon he ascended a tree, which led him to the house of martyrs (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 2791). The Prophet also mentioned that the date-palm tree is the aunt of the sons of Adam, because she was created from the rest of the soil from which Adam was created (Qtd. in Al-Sijistānī 2002, 29).5 Another ḥadīth, often quoted by mystics in general and by Ibn ‘Arabī in particular, is the one about the stem of the date-palm tree upon which the Prophet used to deliver the sermon, and that cried after he started to use a pulpit (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 918). In a similar context, there is the ḥadīth regarding the date-palm tree that “wept over what it heard from the religious preaching” (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 2095, own translation). Another important ḥadīth that inflamed the Sufis’ wild imagination is the one likening a person to a tree, “no Muslim is afflicted with any harm but that Allāh will remove his sins as the leaves of a tree fall down” (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 5647, own translation). Indeed, there are various prophetic stories that provide trees with such a mystical prominence, the last one that can be referred to in this context is the one about the story of some prophet with the ants, where he received a divine inspiration under a tree (Bukhārī 2018, ḥadīth 3319). It is not surprising that there is such a repeated spiritual emphasis on trees in the Prophet’s sayings, whose seeds are implicitly and explicitly found in the Qurʼān. Having provided such few examples from the Qurʼān and the ḥadīth about this important entity, the next part of this chapter will dwell on Ibn ‘Arabī’s various metaphysical employment of the tree, which is seriously dominant in his entire spiritual paradigm.

 Even in Islamic dream interpretation, we find that the symbolism of trees is related to the subject of this research. Trees represent men, and their condition among men is comparable to the condition of trees among other trees. Thus, whoever sees in a dream that they have many palm trees, it means they will have control over men to that extent. The fruits of the tree indicate earning money from these men. If someone sees themselves planting trees in their garden, it means they will have male children (Ibn Sīrīn 2011, 325). This relationship is also implied in the Qurʼānic metaphor, where procreation is likened to the process of cultivation: “Your wives are like farmland for you” (Qurʼān, 2:223). 5

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

53

2 Ibn ‘Arabī’s View of Tree as a Model of Creation According to Mircea Eliade, seeing the world as a chaos stops once the human being finds its center (Eliade 1963, 22). “Life is not possible without an opening toward the transcendent; in other words, human beings cannot live in chaos” (Eliade 1963, 34). Yet, the problem stems out after the human being accomplishes and experiences such spiritual goal, this problem is the desire to transfer this newly obtained knowledge to others. In doing so, the mystic will face the impossibility of using the normal language as a tool of communication by the means of which he may pass this type of divine knowledge. Hence, the mystic will often find himself forced to use a symbolic language, since unlike a normal person, who uses logic and rationality in analyzing and dividing the world of multiplicities, the mystic is in the world of oneness (Stace 1960, 305). So, based on such background we can comprehend why the model of tree appears in various areas of Ibn ‘Arabī’s paradigm of creation. He did not only see the entire cosmos as a tree that emerged from the seed of potentiality and is continually growing (Ibn ‘Arabī 1985, 41–42), but he also saw the universal human himself as a tree (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 414).6 This universal human— according to the Greatest Master—is the “good word” discussed earlier, because Jesus was also referred to as “His Word [Allāh’s]” (Qurʼān 4: 171), who ultimately reached God, which is totally expected because the Qurʼān elsewhere said, “To Him good words ascend” (Qurʼān 35: 10). Consequently, Ibn ‘Arabī concluded that this Perfect Human can surpass the physical space to spiritually arrive to God. In this sense, the spiritual greatness of this universal human becomes analogous to the huge physical size of the universe, after this human succeeds in breaking free from his earthly restrictions. The Greatest Master often linked this analogy with the famous ḥadīth: “Neither can My sky nor My earth contain me, but the heart of My bondsman can contain Me” (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 31, 48, 161, 224, 258, 331). When God metaphorically sits in the heart of the Perfect Human [the center of the world], the latter will be able to do anything in this world (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 331). As discussed earlier, Ibn ʻArabī interpreted the story of the fall of Adam based on his untraditional understanding of the possibility that Adam originally had the shape of a tree and he was also taught by a tree, so he had within him the basic structure of the tree, which can grow higher to bring him near to the Divine. It goes without saying that this Akbarian7 established connection did not stop at the limit of the microcosm and the macrocosm but it exceeded that. This analogous usage of tree can be implicitly traced back in another entity, that is, in the Qurʼān itself.8 Ibn ʻArabī often referred  Note that Plato too said that human is a heavenly plant.  The word “Akbarian” is derived from Ibn ʻArabī’s nickname, “al-Shaykh al-Akbar,” meaning “the Greatest Master.” Term such as “Akbariyya” or “Akbaris” may now be used to refer to all historical or contemporary Sufi metaphysicians and Sufis influenced by Ibn ʻArabī’s doctrine of Waḥdat al-wujūd. It is not to be confused with Al Akbariyya, a secret Sufi society founded by Swedish Sufi ‘Abdu l-Hadi Aguéli. 8  In fact, this analogy of tree is found in different layers of cosmology, for example, in the book Al-Nuʻmānīyah Tree attributed to Ibn ʻArabī, it seems that he considered alif as the tree of letters, 6 7

54

E. Al-Khaffaf

to his own spiritual state of perfection by stating, “I am the Qurʼān,” meaning that he had reached his self-realization through applying the Qurʼān perfectly. The Greatest Master often referred to the famous report about the Prophet’s wife when she was asked about him, “His character was the Qurʼān” (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 226). In fact, this necessitates another analogy between the Prophet, who is taken as the highest model of perfection, and the cosmos, which in Ibn ʻArabī’s depiction is “the magnificent Qurʼān,” and the book of the Qurʼān itself, which is the ultimate tool of establishing this union between the two.9 This equation demonstrates that a tree symbolically covers the three entities. According to Mubayyiḍīn’s and Muqābala’s observation, using the symbol of tree as a model of creation solved what may look as an ambiguous metaphysical contradiction, that is to say, the famous ḥadīth, “I was a Prophet while Adam was between clay and water.” In this sense, the Prophet was the very seed of the tree of the existence but at the same time he became its ultimate fruit, and this is the meaning of the Muḥammadian Reality from which the world was created (Mubayyiḍīn’s and Muqābala 2012, 86–88). Hence, the goal of the tree of the universe is to produce more fruits: Perfect Humans, following in the Prophet’s steps (Fig. 5.1). Ibn ʻArabī asserted that humanity is the soul of this universe, because only they have the divine breath within (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 55). In other words, humans are the keys to the universe (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 218). But just because the human being is potentially the soul of the universe does not necessarily mean that he can fulfill that goal easily, “a person should not be deceived because he is the soul of the world and say, ‘I am more honorable than him.’ He is your brother. The world and the human being are twins, so know your mother and father”10 (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 233, own “the standing alif is like the first human being, while the other letters are his sons” (Ibn ʻArabī 2011a, 28, own translation). Whether in its verbal spoken sound or in its written form alif is the tree/basic of the alphabet, that is, it is found in all other letters, and this will be further discussed later. Bearing in mind that the word “Quṭb” [‫ ]قطب‬and the word “alif” [‫ ]الف‬have the exact same numerical value, which is the number 111, that is, literally three ones [the Lover, the Loved, and the Love] (Schimmel 2006, 480). To reduce the confusion, the numerical value of letter alif (‫ )ا‬is 1 but as a word (‫ )الف‬is 111. In other words, alif could refer to the monotheistic aspect of Islam if read as a letter and to the trinity aspect of Christianity if read as a word. Schimmel was surprised by the Muslim scholar who made this interesting observation (Schimmel 2006, 480). 9  Thus, in Ibn ʻArabī’s world-view, the Qur’ān is the brother to the Perfect Man (Chodkiewicz 1993, 173). Furthermore, Guénon drew an interesting analogy between a book and a tree, because just like the latter, a book also has leaves, while “the characters in the book alike represent all the beings in the universe” (Guénon 1996, 67). I would add that the Qurʼān says, “We have neglected nothing in the Book” (Qurʼān 6: 38), and this expands the relevant analogy. In other words, the symbol of the tree could be attached to the metaphysical order of the entire creation. 10  Ibn ʻArabī is apparently referring here to the Active Mind (Father) and the Soul of the World (Mother), respectively, came to existence in the first and second sequence, and ultimately producing the Hyle, the material of the world in the third from which the multiplicities emerged in the fourth stage, that is to say, the four elements and their ramifications. In doing so, Ibn ʻArabī is showing the analogy between the human being and the universe. At the same time, the four stages of creation which stopped at number 4 where the multiplicities came to existence also show the importance of numbers 4 from which all numbers came to existence [1+2+3+4=10=infinities].

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

55

Fig. 5.1  The very last page of the manuscript of the Ṣalāt al-fayḍiyya, a book attributed to Ibn ʻArabī, where the writing ends in the form similar to a tree and returns to its seed in the form of the letter M (‫)م‬, which is the first letter of the name of the Prophet Muḥammad. (The source of the illustration: Beneito & Hirtenstein 2021: 186). This shows the importance of tree symbol and also reminds us of the aforementioned ḥadīth, “I was a Prophet while Adam was between clay and water,” that is, he is the seed of existence and its fruit as well

translation). Thus, when the human being achieves his self-realization, everything will be attracted to him, including the entire universe itself. This should be on our minds when we look at the dream of the Prophet Joseph, who is undoubtedly taken by Ibn ʻArabī as a model of the Perfect Human, “I dreamt of eleven stars, and the sun, and the moon—I saw them prostrating to me!” (Qur’ān 12: 4), with such an akbarian understanding we can think of the Prophet Joseph’s dream mystically depicting him as a Perfect Human who is at the very center of the universe, and to

56

E. Al-Khaffaf

whom everything is attracted due to his divine qualities.11 Based on the rule that the weak follows the strong, the universe would be enslaved to this universal human. Ibn ʻArabī talked about setting one’s self “free from the slavery of the universe” [taḥrīrihā ʻan riq al-kawn] (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 306, own translation). To put it in other words, when a human being is attached to the desires of this physical world, he becomes enslaved to the world, but when he liberates himself from them, the world will submit itself to him.12 Consequently, he will get that divine place. Ibn ʻArabī emphasized that when the human being leaves things, things will follow him and vice versa (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 311). And returning to his reading of the story of the Prophet Joseph, who run away from earthly desires and temptations, therefore, the soul of the world [al-nafs al-kullīyah] gave itself to him, consequently the human individual souls [al-nufūs al-juzʼīya] became attracted to him declaring that “This is not a human” (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 373, own translation).13 This idea in a nutshell shows that when the soul of the human being succeeds in attracting all the virtues and goodness scattered in the existence, it will become itself the soul of the entire universe, who—without it—is nothing but a body (Ibn ʻArabī 1911 II, 67). Gril highlighted an interesting connection between the two: “The truth is that none can speak except the one who can hear, and so the human being and the cosmos share in audition, because the root of their existence derives from hearing the word ‘Be!’ (kun), through which they were brought into existence” (Gril 2013, n.p.). Hence, this should be remembered when we see that the tree was used by the Greatest Master as an ultimate symbol for the two entities. All the same, Ibn ʻArabī’s excessive interest in the symbolism of the tree is strengthened by his strange report in which he talked about seeing the Prophet in a dream and Ibn ʻArabī asked him about the nature of “the blessed tree,” whereupon  In fact, even the following report about al-Ḥallāj should be understood in the light of this analysis. In the famous incident in which al-Ḥallāj was being led to the execution, people were throwing stones and dirt at him while al-Ḥallāj was dancing and laughing. But when his friend, al-Shiblī, threw a rose at him, al-Ḥallāj was so touched to the point that he lost his conscious. When the executioner asked him later why he was thus affected by that rose while he was laughing when people threw stones at him, al-Ḥallāj told him that these people did not know what they were doing, while the man who threw the rose knew (Qtd. in Schimmel 2006, 80–81). The rose, as a symbol of beauty, contains within itself all the material in the existence, and by throwing it to al-Ḥallāj, al-Shiblī seemed to console his friend, far from the public understanding, that from that moment on the universe is attracted to al-Ḥallāj who achieved the highest level of perfection. Even in the Blakean sense, a rose represents the universe in an intense and compressed manner. 12  Ibn ʻArabī often referred to the very nature of duality of this world, he reminded us about the Qur’ānic verses, “We created pairs of all things” (Qur’ān 51: 49), “He merges the night into the day and the day into the night” (Qur’ān 35: 13). Hence, what a mystic does is to get out of this law of duality via an absolute monotheistic perspective. In other words, he goes beyond good and evil, cause and effect, love and hate, heaven and hell, sleeping and wakefulness, satisfaction and hunger, and so on. In one place Ibn ʻArabī wondered, “how will the two be able to know the one?” (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 336, own translation). 13  “And when they saw him [Joseph], they greatly admired him and [in their astonishment] cut their hands and said, ‘Perfect is Allāh! This is not a human; this is none but a noble angel’” (Qur’ān 12: 31). 11

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

57

the Prophet told him that he (Ibn ʻArabī) already knew what that tree was, hence, Ibn ʻArabī asserted that he indeed knew it well yet he wanted to hear that information from the mouth of the Prophet (Ibn ʻArabī 2007, 90). Elsewhere, notably at the beginning of Interpretation of the Qur’ān,—a work attributed to him—in a strange context, he started praising “the blessed tree” that apparently inspired him to write that book (Ibn ‘Arabī n.d., I, 3). On the one hand, Ibn ‘Arabī reminded us of the Qur’ānic verse, “Allāh has caused you to grow from the earth like a plant” [Anbatakum min alʼarḍi nabātan], emphasizing that the extra infinitive [nabātan] asserts that it was not merely a metaphor. On the other hand, Ibn ‘Arabī strengthened his view of the origin of Adam who apparently was a tree by showing the etymological connection between “tree” [shajara] and the very nature of human beings, that is, “dispute/contraries” [tashājur], “and because the first human was a tree, God forbade him from approaching the tree which belonged to his very category” (Ibn ʻArabī 1999 V, 203–204, own translation). In other words, it was accepted for Adam to go near other trees but that specific one, for the highlighted reason, was forbidden. Hence, that tree which had a potential nature of procreation and division—because it belonged to Adam’s same category—did change his very original nature of oneness and caused him to become that of various elements (Ibn ʻArabī 1999 V, 204). At any rate, we can end this part of this chapter by referring to a quotation found in Ibn ʻArabī’s early work The Universal Tree and the Four Birds,14 which shows clearly the inseparable connection between Adam and the tree. Bearing in mind that the following is taken from the dialogue between the Perfect Human and the Universal Tree, which mirrors human’s own image, … Then He revealeth to me the Universal Tree of the garden, described as the Likeness. So, I looketh at it and it appeareth as a tree whose roots are firm in the ground while its branches reaching out to heaven… I greeted the Tree, and it answered my greeting with a better one, then she said: ‘listen to me, o thou wayfarer of the spiritual paths, I am the Universal Tree of Likeness, the owner of the deep roots and the lofty branches, I was planted by the hand of Aḥad [God] in the garden of eternity, I am not affected by the process of time, I have a body and soul… my middle [trunk] is sought for… the one who hath made thee hath made me too in a symmetrical fashion, and the one who brought me to existence is He who brought thee to existence following our symmetrical fashion. Hence, I hath emergeth from thine own power, and I am manifested on thine own image (Qtd. in Ibn ʻArabī 2011c, 82, own translation).

As a matter of fact, we can further comprehend the spiritual importance of this symbol after we look in detail at its practicality when it is used as a link between the Perfect Human and humanity, which will be tackled in the next part of this chapter.

 The Universal Tree and the Four Birds is his earlier work (Ibn ʻArabī 2006, 16). The original full title of this book is pretty long yet very relevant with this paper’s analogy, Cosmic Unification in the Presence of the Eye-witnessing through the Assembling of the Human Tree and the Four Spiritual Birds. 14

58

E. Al-Khaffaf

3 The Occidental Symbol of the Perfect Human (the Cross) Compared with the Islamic One (the Tree): Alif as the Connection Between the Two It must be clarified here that the following comparative analysis of symbolism will not focus on the historical approach, for example, the Cross will not be linked to the Egyptian symbol of eternal life (Ankh), and neither will the Tree be associated with ancient Shamanistic and Buddhist traditions. Given that most of Ibn ʻArabī’s ideas were built based on language, and given that all the Abrahamic religions have similar Semitic languages, and most importantly given that this section particularly focuses on the stem of the tree as the mutual shared basis of the Christian and Islamic symbols of the Perfect Human,15 the next employed analysis will therefore be built based on a simplified perspective, that is, on the alphabetical layers within the relevant symbols. So, in order to prepare the ground for the next approach, a cursory discussion will be presented regarding the Arabic alif,16 which is the first letter of most of the Semitic alphabets. Just like it was demonstrated so far regarding tree as a model of creation, it seems that the letter alif—being the trunk of this imaginary tree—was also considered to be the model of creation in the alphabetical front. The ninth-century Muslim mystic, al-Muḥāsibī, said that, “when Allāh created the letters, He incited them to obey (and they were originally all in the shape of alif) except for alif who remained in the same original form and shape in which it was created” (Qtd. in Schimmel 2006, 478, own translation). Based on this idea, the letter alif (‫ )ا‬is the very first letter to be created. Not to forget that it is the first letter of Allāh’s name (‫ )هللا‬as well. So, from that alif all the other alphabet came to existence. But alif, being the nearest to Allāh and having many monotheistic aspects, remained praying to Allāh standing, also because it is similar to the first movement of the Islamic prayer. Hence, we see that some letters are bowing, some are prostrating, and others are kneeling down, and so on. In this sense, all the Arabic letters originally had the shape of alif (‫ )ا‬within them, that is to say, alif (‫ )ا‬is the basic material of all Arabic letters. In essence, “alif is the only divine letter” (Schimmel 2006, 478). Later, Farīd al-Dīn alʿAṭṭār mentioned that given that the numerical value of the letter alif (‫ )ا‬is number one (١), it simply means that not only letters have their  Needless to say, the connection between language and creation is also shared in the two religions. For example, according to the New Testament, everything started with the Word (The Gospel of John 1:1), likewise according to the Qur’ān everything started with “kun” [Be], as discussed in detail earlier. While Christians look at this Word to be Jesus, Muslims talk about the Muḥammadian Reality from which everything was created. Therefore, the following in-depth alphabetical investigation will go to the backbone, so to speak, of the two symbols in question, because both of them having their basic source embedded in language itself. 16  I have already discussed this notion in more detail in my paper presented to The 4th Icon International Students’ Conference at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, “Looking through the Lens of Language: How Early Muslim Intellectuals Tried to Reach Hidden Truths by Examining the Arabic Language” (Al-Khaffaf 2023, 29–42). 15

59

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm Arabic Letters after their creation

Arabic Letters before their dots

Arabic Letters after their dots

(as imagined by Al-Muḥāsibī)

were added in the Islamic Age

were added in the Islamic Age

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ٮ‬

‫ٮ‬

‫ٮ‬

‫ا‬

‫ث‬

‫ت‬

‫ب‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫د‬

‫ح‬

‫ح‬

‫ح‬

‫د‬

‫خ‬

‫ح‬

‫ج‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫س‬

‫ر‬

‫ر‬

‫د‬

‫س‬

‫ز‬

‫ر‬

‫ذ‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ط‬

‫ص‬

‫ص‬

‫س‬

‫ط‬

‫ض‬

‫ص‬

‫ش‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ٯ‬

‫ع‬

‫ع‬

‫ط‬

‫ف‬

‫غ‬

‫ع‬

‫ظ‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫م‬

‫ل‬

‫ک‬

‫ٯ‬

‫م‬

‫ل‬

‫ك‬

‫ق‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ا‬

‫ى‬

‫و‬

‫ه‬

‫ٮ‬

‫ي‬

‫و‬

‫ه‬

‫ن‬

Fig. 5.2  These three charts help us comprehend Al-Muḥāsibī’s notion about alif as the source of the alphabet. If we look at the second chart, which demonstrates the shape of letters before the dots were added, it becomes clearer that the basic shape of each letter is an alif bowing down or bending over in various ways. This was even clearer with the original shape of these letters, which was more rudimentary and likewise closer to the shape of alif. I have originally made these charts for my paper “Looking through the Lens of Language: How Early Muslim Intellectuals Tried to Reach Hidden Truths by Examining the Arabic Language”. (Al-Khaffaf 2023, 41)

basic shape in the alif but also all numbers have their basic material in the alif. And that is how the different created things came to existence from the divine oneness (Schimmel 2006, 479). And if we put these views in a bigger context, we can say that even the geometrical shapes have their source in the shape of alif, which is basically a line (/), which was ambiguously implied by Ikhwān al-Safā’ when they talked about the line as the source of the geometrical shapes (Ikhwān al-Safā’ 2011 I, 80).17 In short, alif is the very source of all letters, numbers, shapes, and so on. And with this monotheistic shape (‫ )ا‬we remember the divine oneness seen in the world of creation. Considering that Ikhwān al-Safā’ said the origin of the alphabet of all languages—if traced back to their origin—is the straight line and the arch line (Ikhwān al-Safā’ 2011 I, 219), what might seem paradoxical here is that, even though the Arabic language, considered the last development of the Semitic languages, has the most primitive form. That is to say, the shape of its letters is basically an alif in various changing forms. With this in mind, the next paragraphs will be easier to comprehend (Fig. 5.2). Rene Guénon—the main authority on symbolism as well as Islamic science of letters—analyzed the symbol of the cross alphabetically. So, even though discussing his view may seem unrelated to the subject topic, it is significant in exploring  Dots cannot be the basis of the created world because even if you have an endless number of them, they cannot produce a shape of line (Guénon 1996, 76). Additionally, this analysis of the alif (‫—)ا‬similar to the trunk of the tree—which has the potential existence of all alphabetical/numerical/geometrical entities within itself, suggests an analogy with the tree as the symbol of all the creation. In his “Book of Alif: aka Book of God’s Oneness,” Ibn ʻArabī asserted that the divine oneness penetrates all the creation yet very few people are able to recognize it (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 38). In this short work he also shared the same idea regarding number one as found within all the numbers (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 39, 44). 17

60

E. Al-Khaffaf

the meaning of the symbolism of the cross, in order to consequently highlight the elements of invention in Ibn ʻArabī’s development of the symbol of the tree. The term “Universal Man”—as commented by Guénon—establishes an analogy between the universal manifestation and its individual human modality, that is to say, between the “macrocosm” and the “microcosm” (Guénon 1996, 6). The Universal Man is “the principle of all manifestation” (Guénon 1996, 8). Despite the fact that Guénon had talked about the sign of the Cross in terms of its connection with the two Biblical trees of Eden (Guénon 1996, 46–47), he maintained that the sign of Cross is the specific symbol of the Perfect Man.18 He elaborated on this issue in his groundbreaking book The Symbolism of the Cross. According to Guénon’s fascinating explanation, the two lines seen in the cross represent—in a compressed manner—the union between what is divine and what is made. Hence, the sign of the Cross is the symbol of the Perfect Man, because the vertical line represents the divine oneness, while the horizontal line represents the multiplicity of creation (Guénon 1996, 10, 79). As a matter of fact, Guénon provided a deep analysis of the two lines of the Cross. On the one hand, the vertical one is linked with the alif (‫)ا‬, the first letter in the alphabet, which is active, masculine and above all divine, while the horizontal line is linked with the second letter of alphabet, ba’ (‫)ٮ‬, which is taken by Guénon as the letter of creation,19 it is passive and feminine, and unlike the alif whose numerical value is one, the numerical value of this letter is two. He maintained that the world was created by the ba’, hence, both the Bible and the Qurʼān open with this specific letter (Guénon 1996, 19). In short, the Cross is made of these two letters: alif (‫ )ا‬and ba’ (‫)ٮ‬. Guénon talked in considerable detail about the four sides of the Cross in order to establish the connection between that particular sign and the Perfect Man, that is, the center of the existence (Guénon 1996, 31). For instance, he asserted that the tree of the Old Testament was described to be in the center of the garden (Guénon 1996, 38, 46). Guénon assimilated the Biblical tree with the sign of the Cross [trunk and branches]. Moreover, he linked the two horizontal sides of the Cross with the duality of the Tree of Good and Evil (Guénon 1996, 46–47). He remarked, “the cross of Christ is itself symbolically identified with the Tree of Life,” because the Cross itself was made by the wood of the Tree of Good and Evil, hence, both trees unified in him (Guénon 1996, 48).

 It is interesting to note that even though Jesus was named the Tree of Life, yet the specific chosen sign for the Perfect Man was the Cross, and not the tree. And even the Christmas-tree is relatively new; hence, when it started to be put in the houses it was considered a pagan custom (Philpot 1897, 165). The reason behind this choice is undoubtedly the love of Christians to Jesus, but the negative implication of the tree of the Original Sin could be taken as another contributing factor. On the contrary, Ibn ʻArabī was at pains to explain the pure, positive nature of the tree, and that was clear in his shocking interpretation of the story of the fall in which he put the cause of the fall on the “similarities” between Adam and the tree, rather than on the tree itself. However, this chapter will conclude with another possible reason regarding the difference in choosing these two symbols. 19  “Allāh created the world not by the alif, which is the first of the letters, but by the ba’, which is the second” (Guénon 2004, 24). 18

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

61

However, when it comes to Islam, particularly to Ibn ʻArabī, namely to his “Terminology of Sufis” he showed that one name of the Perfect Human is “the tree” (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 414). Needless to say that this symbol not only corresponds with the Islamic tradition that glorifies the tree but it also fits perfectly to Ibn ʻArabī’s philosophical paradigm. Thus, we can consider the trunk of the tree [the alif] as the Perfect Human, who receives the divine manifestation from above, and then he must have four branches [sides], rather than only two [as was discussed in the sign of the Cross]. That is why according to Ibn ʻArabī, number four can be found in all the physical as well as spiritual layers of existence (Abū Zayd 2011, 109–110). However, as often expected, the reader may find different contradicting views about specific issues in the Greatest Master’s writings. Yet, the principle of fourness always appears throughout his books as a way of describing essential structures. According to one description of Ibn ʻArabī about this issue, we are told about a sort of diamond-shaped hierarchy: Quṭb, two Imāms/Guiders (right and left), and one extra (Wātād/Support), each with their own function. At the same time, these four together are the Supports (Awtād) of the cosmos: this corresponds to the four corners of the Ka’ba, both terrestrially as the directions of East, South, West, and North, and celestially as four prophetic immortals [Idrīs, ʻĪsá, Ilyās, and al-Khiḍr] (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 254–257).20 In other words, Quṭb (the Spiritual Pole around which everything turns) is in the very center of the world, because he is the sole one in his own category (Quṭbiyya), but at the same time he is also a part of the category of the four (Awtād), likewise those four are a part of the bigger category (Abdāl/Substitutes), followed by the bigger one (Nuqbāʼ/Leaders) and the larger (Nujbāʼ/Nobles), and so on (Chodkiewicz 1993, 106). So, the mission of these four Awtāds [Supports/Pillars] is to protect the earth from all harm or evil, and each one has a position on one side of the earth (Ibn ʻArabī 2010, 408–409, 250). Highlighting the importance of number four, Ibn ʻArabī asserted that “the Awtād by whom God preserves the world are four, there is no fifth in them [al-Awtād alladhīna yaḥfaẓ Allāh bi-him al-ʻālam arbaʻat lā khāmis la-hum]” (Ibn ʻArabī 1999 I, 244, own translation). Based on this demonstration, the divine manifestation descends from above on the Quṭb, who is the cosmic axis, then it spreads horizontally to the four sides, and from those four main persons (branches), it is distributed to the subcategory branches, until it reaches all humanity.21

 I would like to thank Prof. Stephen Hirtenstein for providing this explanation as well as sharing relevant books about this issue. And I would also like to thank Prof. Jane Clark for her comments. 21  Sometimes the reader may feel confused about Ibn ʻArabī’s nonlinear way of using such terms. For example, “Quṭb” could refer to the original one, that is, the Prophet Idrīs, but when the context is about the Quṭb of the time, that could mean the deputy of the original eternal Quṭb (Hirtenstein 2006, n.p.). So, it must be said that the first connection between the Perfect Human and the figures around him is somewhat ambiguous in Ibn ʻArabī’s writing. Moreover, Ibn ʻArabī wrote about many types of Quṭb (Ibn ʻArabī 2011b, 152). Then he talked about a specific one who seems to be linked with the four elements [Quṭb yataḍammanu arbaʻat arkān] and—he continued—from the divine river of oneness comes the manifestation via him to the sides of the world (Ibn ʻArabī 2011b, 157–158). 20

62

E. Al-Khaffaf

Elsewhere the Greatest Master provided a slightly different description about this issue. In particular, in the title of his interesting book (The Universal Tree and the Four Birds), we see an obvious depiction of the tree with its four branches, with a bird on each one, thus fashioned in order to show the four essential aspects of existence (Ibn ʻArabī 2006, 7). In other words, these four birds sitting on the four branches of the Universal Tree represent the “images of the Perfect Human Being and his four cosmic faculties” (Ibn ʻArabī 2006, 18). That is, the Perfect Human [alif/trunk] connected with the One form above, and must have four connections with the earthly entities [the first main branches]. Bearing in mind that even according to the philosophical paradigm of the Brethren of Purity, the human spirit is “like a tree from which four branches are coming out” (Qtd. in Mubayyiḍīn’s and Muqābala 2012, 100). Needless to say that the very seed of this Akbarian depiction can be found in the Qurʼān, that is to say, in the Qurʼānic story about the Prophet Ibrāhīm, who according to Ibn ʻArabī’s Fuṣūṣ represents the best role model of his Perfect Human, because this particular prophet represents the Oneness and the Multiplicities (Al-Tilimsani 2015, 126). According to the famous story when the Prophet Ibrāhīm wanted to see how God give life to the dead in order for his heart to be reassured with certainty, he was told, “Take four birds, then cause them to incline towards you, (then slaughter them, cut them into pieces), and then scatter them on different mountaintops, and call them, they will come to you in haste” (Qurʼān 2: 260). In this story, we can imagine the model of Perfection in the center, surrounded by the four mountains, bearing in mind that based on Ibn ʻArabī’s understanding of the Qurʼānic verse “the mountains as pegs [of earth]” [wāljibāla awtādan] (Qurʼān 78: 7), these mountains are the spiritual Sufi Awtāds (Qtd. in Hirtenstein 2006, n.p.). In this manner, the Perfect Human must have four main branches so that the connection between the eternal and the temporal is established. And that is why the symbol of the tree provides a more coherent function than the one of the Cross as far as Ibn ʻArabī’s philosophical system is concerned. At any rate, it is not fair to oversimplify such two significant symbols and to consequently jump into a speedily made conclusion after only such a short study but it seems that choosing the symbol of tree for the Perfect Human by Muslim Sufis in general and by Ibn ʻArabī in particular is much fitted to the philosophical/Mystical system at the time, while the Christian symbol of the Perfect Man was rather taken for aesthetic purposes. In this context we can remember Türker’s valuable observation regarding the general mindset of the people of the two religions: What is interesting is that the early responses of Christians and Muslims to their heritage contradicted each other. While early Christians were resistant to philosophy, owing to their religion and probably politics too, they welcomed the Hellenistic art. On the other hand, while early Muslims gave credit for the philosophical thought of antiquity, they did not show interest in its art in narrow sense, that is, painting, sculpture, and some literary species like tragedy (Türker 2011, 70).

Consequently, based on this short comparison of the two symbols, it can be said now that the symmetry of Cross—as was noticed by Guénon as well—has many aesthetic elements, while the tree is rather more consistent to the philosophical and

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

63

Sufi relevant system. In his same study, Türker mainly focused his analysis based on two things: “Rationality for Islam and love for Christianity” (Türker 2011, 77), and this compressed framework can somehow be considered here as the central cause of the difference between these two symbols. Having said that, it should be highlighted that both symbols have an alif as their basic material, which undoubtedly is the primitive sign of monotheism shared by the two religions.22 But while the divine and the human were directly “connected” in the symbol of the Cross, due to the Christian theological understanding of Jesus, we see in the Islamic symbol of the tree that there is a sort of “separation” between what is divine and what is perfect—but still human. In short, alif was sometimes taken as a pure divine letter but it was also considered at other times as a letter of the Universal Human. In this sense, the trunk of the metaphorical tree symbolically represents the “inward” divine aspect of the Perfect Human, while the branches represent his “outward” earthly aspect, which is made of the realities of the physical existence. In other words, this Perfect Human, who was correctly assimilated to a tree, is able to achieve his highest self-realization and to ultimately become “[God’s] vicegerent on earth” (Qurʼān 2 :30), yet he remains human being, because even though he could spiritually reach the divine realms, he will still be connected to earth by his very roots.23  In this context we have to remember again that the numerical value of letter alif (‫ )ا‬is 1 but as a word (‫ )الف‬is 111. In other words, alif refers to the centered monotheistic aspect of Islam if read as a letter and to the trinity aspect of Christianity if read as a word. This strengthens the hypothesis that alif can be considered as the trunk of the cross and of the tree as well. As a consequence, this conclusion can further explain the importance of the earlier discussion about the Arabic alphabet followed by Guénon’s view about the symbolism of the cross. 23  In short, it can be concluded that the tree can be considered as the most important symbol in Islam, at the same time this particular symbol has an alif as its trunk which can be taken as its basic central form, which likewise represents the very core of Islam, that is, Tawḥīd (oneness). Yet, as we saw, Ibn ʻArabī seemed to give different views about the Perfect Human, maybe he intentionally provided more than one description about the connection between God, the Perfect Human and the humans. The one of the four Awtāds including the Quṭb himself as a part of the four entities was described with ‫( تنزيه‬incomparability). On the contrary, the one of the Perfect Human receiving the divine manifestation from God vertically and distributing it horizontally to the four sides was described with ‫( تشبيه‬likening). In other words, the one to be seen in the Tree and the four branches (with the Four Birds), whose seed is found in the story of the Prophet Ibrāhīm, he is in the very center among the four mountains (Awtāds) with the four dead birds on. In this sense, he is somewhat separated from what is created and closer to the One. That is, because he is a Prophet, the description was supplied with ‫تشبيه‬. Thus, in the first description the Perfect Human is like waw (‫)و‬ because the divine connection is somehow annihilated and so he is a part of the four created beings. But in the second description, the Perfect Human is like alif (‫ )ا‬seen in the trunk of the tree. Bearing in mind that both these letters have the ability to disappear, yet waw should be connected more with what is created, since it is annihilated in the world of creation “Be” (‫)كن‬, while alif is more divine as most Sufis maintained, and as it is also annihilated after the very first letter in the Qurʼān “By the Name of Allah” (‫)بسم هللا‬. It could be relevant here to quote Prof. Stephen Hirtenstein’s paper concerning al-Khiḍr: “the real mystery or ‘secret’ is the essential paradox that it is God who manifests in what appears as other, without Him becoming other than Himself or other becoming Him. It is the One who appears in number, without Him becoming multiple or multiplicity becoming One” (Hirtenstein 2006, n.p.). 22

64

E. Al-Khaffaf

Appendix The consequences of Ibn ʻArabī’s development of this rich symbol for the Perfect Human in specific and for creation in general are ample. For example, it obviously shows the interconnectedness of all existence. Moreover, this symbol encourages toward spiritual growth. Put differently, just like a tree grows from a seed to a mature entity, the human being is called to transcend his limited self and to reach a state of higher consciousness. Thus, the true human being must arrive to his own self-­ realization to consequently share the fruits of this unique spiritual experience with others. By the same token, just as a tree bears fruit according to its inherent nature, the human being too—by following his innate good nature—should manifest virtuous qualities that reflect his high spiritual essence. Furthermore, Ibn ʻArabī’s selection of the tree symbol suggests that humanity occupies a central position within the cosmic order, serving as intermediaries between the divine and the material world. But this does not imply that human being can become a god. It is quite the opposite, this presentation of the tree as a model for the Perfect Human, who is the metaphorical connection between what is divine and what is created help making a separation between the two. Because in this light, even the Qurʼānic verses tackled previously—such as when God spoke with Adam after he ate from the tree in heaven, or when God spoke with the Prophet Moses near the tree—would be understood differently. In other words, this means that in these occasions and their likes, God did not speak directly to humans but rather through the medium of the tree. And this is theologically dissimilar from the otherwise understanding. And this sheds lights on the religious doctrine of Tanzīh, that is to say, the declaring incomparability between Human and God.24 In short, this study, which focused on the exceptional role of the tree in Ibn ʻArabī’s writing, encourages others to examine this seemingly transcendent entity in the books of other Muslim writers, because the same pattern can be found in many other writings, from the ʻAbbāsī era until the modern times. And this will bring more attention toward the eco-imagination extending from long-standing religious discourse as well as its continuation. Below are a few examples about this pattern as found in some Sufi literature, but it can definitely be spotted even in non-Sufi writings.25 According to the Sufi Ibn Qasī, the tree carries many supreme connotations. It is a symbol of existence and knowledge, and it is “inherent in human in his upper and  Look at this relevant verse: “And it is not for any human being that Allāh should speak to him except by revelation or from behind a partition [veil] or that He sends a messenger to reveal, by His permission, what He wills. Indeed, He is Most High and Wise” (Qurʼān 42: 51). 25  For example, I collected all the stories mentioned by al-Masʻūdī (d. 956) that contain a tree in their context, and I surprisingly found out that most of these stories presented the tree as a place of contact with the spiritual world, and as far as I know, no researcher has analyzed these stories within this spiritual framework. I decided not to mention these stories in this chapter because the context here is about Ibn ʻArabī, but perhaps analyzing the spiritual function of the tree in al-Masʻūdī’s writings could be a good topic for a separate future article. 24

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

65

lower worlds” (Ibn Qasī 1997, 424–338). Ibn Qasī believed that all angels and al-Ḥūr were created from the tree of Ṭūba (Ibn Qasī 1997, 366–367, own translation). However, when it comes to al-Qushayrī’s treatise we read about a Sufi who was passing by a deserted place: “at that time it occurred to me that the Sufi truth is contrary to the sharīʿa law, whereupon someone shouted to me from under a tree: ‘Every truth that is not followed by sharīʿa law is blasphemy’” (Al-Qushayrī n.d., 305, own translation). It is obvious that the tree in such stories is the center of the divine call from the beyond. We also find in the same book another interesting story narrated by the famous Sufi al-Shiblī, he thought for a time that he would eat only what was religiously permissible, so he was wandering in the prairie, and he saw a fig tree, so he extended his hand to it to eat, but the tree called out to him and warned him that its owner was not a Muslim (Al-Qushayrī n.d., 320, own translation). Finally, we can look at a relatively modern report that might be relevant to this mystical dimension of trees for Muslims. Al-Būṭī (d. 2013), the famous Muslim scholar, recounts a wonderful story about his father Mullā Ramaḍān (d. 1990), a renowned ascetic and religious figure, when he visited a suburb of Beirut. As he was contemplating “in a garden overflowing with lemon trees, shining with blossoms, and emitting their fragrant scent throughout the area, I continued to contemplate. With my hands clasped behind my back... and so it was, with a hand grasping my arm from behind. I turned and saw a man I did not know... He said, ‘Can you show me the way to the house of the Lemon Painter [Ṣabbāgh al-Laymūn]?’ I told him, ‘I am a stranger to this entire neighborhood, and I don’t know anyone here.’ He looked at me and said, ‘And I am a stranger like you!’” (Al-Būṭī 1995, 75, own translation). What concerns us in this story, as narrated by al-Būṭī’s father, about the appearance of this angelic figure to alert him of his neglect in contemplating the created things (the lemon trees) and forgetting its Creator (the Lemon Painter) is that this event apparently occurred near to a tree.

References Abū Zayd, Naṣr Ḥāmid. 2011. Falsafat al-taʼwīl: dirāsah fī taʼwīl al-Qurʼān ʻinda Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī [The Philosophy of Hermeneutics: A Study of Ibn 'Arabī's Hermeneutics of the Qur'ān]. Beirut: Al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi. Al-Bukhārī. 2018. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Damascus: Risalah Publishers. Al-Būṭī, Muḥammad Saʻīd Ramaḍān. 1995. Hādhā Wālidī [This is my Father]. Damascus: Dār al-Fikr. Al-Khaffaf, Ebrahim. 2023. Looking Through the Lens of Language: How Early Muslim Intellectuals Tried to Reach Hidden Truths by Examining the Arabic Language, in Identities and Representations, Reaching One Another: Language as Interface and Performance, Joint Proceedings of the 3rd and 4th International Students’ Conference ICON 2020 and 2021, ed. Jan Jokisch in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Schmicking. Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, pp. 29-42. https://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-­8988. Accessed 2 Feb 2024. Al-Qushayrī. n.d. Al-Risālah al-Qushayrīyah, available online in Majallat al-Kutub al-ʻArabīyah. Al-Sijistānī, Abī Ḥātim. 2002. Kitāb al-nakhla [Book of Date-Palm Tree], ed. Ḥātim al-Ḍāmin, first edition. Beirut: Dār al-Bashāʼir al-Islāmīya.

66

E. Al-Khaffaf

Al-Tilimsani, ‘Afif al-Din. 2015. Šarḥ fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam [Commentary on The Ringstones of Wisdom], ed. Akber Rashidi Niya. Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiya. Beneito, Pablo, and Stephen Hirtenstein. 2021. Patterns of Contemplation: Ibn ʻArabi, Abdullah Bosnevi and The Blessing-Prayer of Effusion. Oxford: Anqa Publishing. Chodkiewicz, Michel. 1993. Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn ʻArabī. Trans. Liadain Sherrard. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society. Corbin, Henry. 2012. Muqaddimāt li-muʼallafāt Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī al-falsafīyah wa-al-­ Ṣūfīya [Henry Corbin’s Introductions to Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī’s Philosophical and Mystical Works]. Baghdad & Beirut: Manshūrāt al-Jamal. Eliade, Mircea. 1963. The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion. New  York: Brace & World. Gril, Denis. 2013. Ibn al-ʿArabī in Egypt  – The Speech of Things. Reprinted from the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 53: https://ibnarabisociety.org/the-­speech-­of-­things-­denis-­ gril/. Accessed 30 May 2023. Guénon, René. 1995. Fundamental Symbols: The Universal Language of Sacred Science, revised and edited by Martin Lings. Cambridge: Quinta Essentia. ———. 1996. The Symbolism of the Cross. In ed. James R. Wetmore. London: Luzac. ———. 2004. Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism, ed. Samuel D. Fohr and trans. Henry D. Fohr. New York: Sophia Perennis. Hirtenstein, Stephen. 2006. The Mantle of Khidr: Mystery, Myth and Meaning According to Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi. Presented at ARAM conference on Iconography and Mythology of Prophet Elijah, St George and al-Khodor in the Syrian Orient. Oxford. https://sufipathoflove. com/the-­mantle-­of-­khidr/. Accessed 22 Jul 2023. Ibn ʻArabī. 1911. Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya [The Meccan Revelations]. Cairo: Dār Sādir. ———. 1985. Shaḥrat al-kawn [Tree of Universe], ed. Riyāḍ al-ʻAbd Allāh. https://foulabook. com/ar/book/%D8%B4%D8%AC%D8%B1%D8%A9-­% D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83% D9%88%D9%86-­pdf. Accessed 4 June 2023. ———. 1998a. Al-radd, in Fī sharḥ mubtadaʼ al-ṭūfān wa-rasāʼil ukhra, edited and studied by Qassem Muhammad Abbas and Hussein Muhammad Ajeel, first edition, 301–320. Abu Dhabi: Manshūrāt al-Majmaʻ al-Thaqāfī. ———. 1998b. Baḥr al-shukr fī nahr alnukr, in Fī sharḥ mubtadaʼ al-ṭūfān wa-rasāʼil ukhra, edited and studied by Qassem Muhammad Abbas and Hussein Muhammad Ajeel, first edition, 204–226. Abu Dhabi: Manshūrāt al-Majmaʻ al-Thaqāfī. ———. 1998c. Inkhrāq al-junūd ila al-julūd, in Fī sharḥ mubtadaʼ al-ṭūfān wa-rasāʼil ukhra, edited and studied by Qassem Muhammad Abbas and Hussein Muhammad Ajeel, first edition, 142–193. Abu Dhabi: Manshūrāt al-Majmaʻ al-Thaqāfī. ———. 2006. The Universal Tree and the Four Birds. Trans. Angela Jaffray. https://sufinama. org/ebooks/ibn-­arabi-­the-­universal-­tree-­and-­the-­four-­birds-­angela-­jaffaray-­ebooks. Accessed 4 June 2023. ———. 2007. Risālat almarāʼi al-musammā bālmubashirāt. In al-rasāʼil al-ilāhīya, ed. Qāsim Muḥammad ʻAbbās. Dār al-Mada: Damascus. ———. 2010. Rasā’il Ibn ʻArabī [Epistles of Ibn ʻArabī]. Beiru: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya. ———. 2011a. Al-Shajara al-nuʻmānīyah, in Al-Shajara al-nuʻmānīyah fī al-dawla al-ʻUthmānīya wa-Rasāʼil ukhrā, explained by Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, ed. ʻĀṣim al-Kayyālī, 21–59. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmīya. ———. 2011b. Kitāb al-ʻaẓama, in Al-Shajara al-nuʻmānīyah fī al-dawla al-ʻUthmānīya wa-Rasāʼil ukhrā, explained by Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, edited by ʻĀṣim al-Kayyālī, 145–174. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmīya. ———. 2011c. Shaq al-jayb, in Al-Shajara al-nuʻmānīyah fī al-dawla al-ʻUthmānīya wa-Rasāʼil ukhrā, explained by Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, edited by ʻĀṣim al-Kayyālī, 63–99. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmīya. ———. n.d. Tafsīr al-Qurʼān [Interpretation of the Qurʼān], 2 volumes, available online in the Internet Archive.

5  The Tree as an Absolute Phenomenological Symbol in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Paradigm

67

———. 1999. Al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya [The Meccan Revelations], ed. Ahmed Shams al-Din. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya. Ibn Jinnī. n.d. Al-Khaṣāʼiṣ [The Characteristics of the Arabic]. Digital Library. https://www. alarabimag.com/read/13632%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A6%D 8%B5.html. Accessed in 17 Oct 2023. Ibn Qasī. 1997. Khalʻ alnʻlyan wa-iqtibās al-nūr min mawḍiʻ al-qadamayn, ed. Muḥammad al-Amarānī, first edition. Marrākech: Jāmiʻat al-Qāḍī ʻIyāḍ. Ibn Sīrīn. 2011. Tafsīr al-aḥlām. Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr. Ikhwān al-Safā’. 2011. Rasa’il Ikhwān al-Safā' [Epistles of Brethren of Purity]. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir. Mubayyiḍīn, Mahā ʻAbd al-Qādir, and Jamāl Muḥammad Muqābala. 2012. Al-Shajarah: dalālātuhā wa-rumūzihā ladā Ibn ʻArabī [The Tree: Its Indications and Symbols in Ibn ‘Arabī Writings]. Damascus University Journal 28(Second Issue): 79–107. https://www.damascusuniversity. edu.sy/mag/human/images/stories/2-­2012/a/79-­107.pdf accessed in 5 May 2023. Philpot, J.H. 1897. The Sacred Tree: the Tree in Religion and Myth. London: Macmillan. Schimmel, Annemarie. 2006. Al-Ab'ād al-Ṣūfīyah fī al-Islām wa-Tārīkh al-Taṣawwuf [Mystical Dimensions of Islam]. Translated into Arabic by Mohammed Ismail Al-Sayyid & Rida Hamid Qutb. Baghdad: Al-Kamel. Stace, Walter Terence. 1960. Mysticism and Philosophy. Philadelphia/New York: Lippincott. Türker, Habip. 2011. Beauty and its Projection in Christian and Islamic Tradition. In Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue Volume 6, Sharing Poetic Expressions: Beauty, Sublime, Mysticism in Islamic and Occidental Culture, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, 69–80. London/New York: Springer.

Part II

Towards and Beyond Mulla Sadra: Current Debates on Eco-imagination

Chapter 6

Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas Qodratullah Qorbani

Abstract  It seems that the theory of Platonic Ideas has played an extensive role in the history of Islamic philosophy. Mulla Sadra (1571–1640), a Muslim and Iranian philosopher and founder of Islamic Transcendent Wisdom, used this theory extensively by using mystical and illuminative approaches, as well as verses from the Quran. He first criticizes some of the interpretations of Platonic Ideas from previous Islamic philosophers, such as Farabi, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Mir Damad. He then tries to demonstrate and explain its virtues by utilizing four different approaches, namely, ontological, epistemological, mystical, and religious approaches. The ontological approach argues that there must be a unity and end to trans-substantial motion in material existents, and this end is one or more Platonic Ideas. From an epistemological aspect, he argues that in intellectual perception, the human soul observes ideal and abstracted samples of corporeal things, which we can call Platonic Ideas. His mystical approach considers Platonic Ideas as Divine Attributes and Archetypes. Finally, in a religious approach, he relies on some verses of the Quran in which the origin of corporeal things is said to be the abstract, heavenly universe. Mulla Sadra considers the relationship between Ideas and corporeal existence extensively. The ontological relation of causality and the epistemological relation of imitation are emphasized. This chapter considers some basic aspects of Mulla Sadra’s interpretation of Platonic Ideas and highlights some of its philosophical, religious, and practical innovations. Keywords  Plato · Mulla Sadra · Immateriality · Universality · Constancy

Q. Qorbani (*) Department of Philosophy, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_6

71

72

Q. Qorbani

1 Introduction Before we can properly begin to analyze Mulla Sadra’s interpretation of Platonic Ideas, we first need to establish some general observations regarding the relationship between Greek and Islamic philosophy. This will help us understand how Mulla Sadra was under the influence of Platonic thought, particularly regarding his theory of ideas. The relationship between Greek and Islamic philosophy has been interpreted in different ways by Muslim and Western scholars. Some Western scholars consider Islamic philosophy to be a mere continuation of Greek philosophy. Consequently, Muslim philosophers deny any kind of innovation and creativity. In this narrow approach, they argue for an end to Islamic philosophy with the death of Ibn Rushd. Other scholars retain a more moderate approach by speaking of Greek elements in an otherwise authentic, original tradition of Islamic philosophy. They emphasize the role of Muslim philosophers in innovating new philosophical theories and schools. In this case, factors such as the historical extension of Plato’s thought in the Middle East through Alexandrian, Jewish, and Christian philosophers, their contact with Islamic nations, and the closeness of Plato’s illuminative and spiritual thought and Islamic teachings caused them to speak of a kind of Islamic Platonism among Muslim philosophers that started from the time of Al-Kindi and Farabi and continued in the writings of Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra and is still present in some contemporary philosophers. I argue that with regard to the influence of Greek philosophy in the Muslim world, Plato is the most important factor to consider. By studying the philosophical systems of philosophers such as Al-Kindi, Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ikhwan al-Safa’, Nasir al-Din Tusi, Suhrawardi, Qutb al-Din Shirazi, Mir Damad, and Mulla Sadra, we can find that Plato’s writings had an effect on them. This necessitates rethinking how Muslim philosophers encountered Plato’s philosophical thought. We can structure our inquiry according to the following three questions: (1) Do Muslim philosophers follow Plato’s philosophy? (2) How and what elements of Plato’s philosophy have played a role in forming Islamic philosophy? (3) How can the authenticity of Islamic philosophy be defined in regard to Plato’s philosophy? Comprehensive answers to such questions fall outside the scope of this chapter. Instead, I wish to reduce the scope to just one of the above-mentioned philosophers, Mulla Sadra. Understanding Mulla Sadra’s relationship with Plato will help us tremendously in understanding the wider significance of Plato for Islamic philosophy due to the prominent place of Mulla Sadra in Islamic philosophy as the founder of an independent school of thought known as Islamic Transcendent Wisdom. To analyze his theory of ideas, I shall consider the totality of his philosophical system, according to the following questions: (1) How does Mulla Sadra interpret Platonic Ideas? (2) How does Mulla Sadra’s interpretation of ideas depend on Plato’s interpretation? (3) How does Mulla Sadra follow Platonic principles in explaining the theory of ideas? (4). What are the similarities and differences between Mulla Sadra and Plato in interpreting the theory of ideas? (5) How does Mulla Sadra accept

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

73

Plato’s Ideas, while Mulla Sadra upholds some Aristotelian philosophical theories? (6) Does Mulla Sadra believe in all epistemological and ontological obligations of Plato’s theory of ideas, or does he make changes to it? To answer these questions, we first review some foundations, principles, and aspects of Mulla Sadra’s philosophy known as Islamic Transcendent Wisdom. We then review his explanation of his theory of ideas by investigating four approaches, namely, epistemological, ontological, theological, and mystical approaches.

2 Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Philosophical Thought Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi (1572–1640), known as Mulla Sadra, is one of the greatest Muslim and Iranian philosophers of four recent centuries who successfully established the Islamic philosophical school of Transcendent Wisdom. The significance of his philosophical school is almost not known to European thinkers. By using philosophical sources such as Peripatetic wisdom, Illuminative wisdom, Islamic mysticism, Islamic theology, the Qur’an and Islamic narrations, and Greek wisdom, he founded a new form of philosophical thought in the Islamic world. This philosophical school answered most of the fundamental philosophical questions that are currently in the Islamic world in a new and distinct way. It thereby opened new horizons for Islamic and contemporary philosophical thought. Some foundational principles of Mulla Sadra’s philosophy have an important role in the interpretation of Platonic Ideas. These include the principles of existence, unity and gradation of reality of existence, trans-substantial motion, the rule of simple reality covering all perceptions of things, and unity in plurality and plurality in unity. Of these, the most significant one is the principle of principality of existence, since out of it follows the foundation of the whole philosophical system of Mulla Sadra and it permeates into all of its philosophical elements. According to the principality of existence, whatever constitutes the external and objective reality is existence, and it is existence alone from which all realities originate. Quiddity (or essence) is only a concept ascribed to existence, which has no reality in itself. Sadrian principality of existence means that creation, causality, effectiveness, and every effect in the world is in the reality of existence and that every kind of motion, becoming and changing happens in (and through) existence, and there is no reality except existence (Mulla Sadra 1996, 7–8). The centrality of the reality of existence, in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy, leads to the second principle, which is called gradation of the reality of existence. This principle states that the authentic reality of existence has multiple levels, or stages, differentiated by intensity and weakness or perfection and defect. In fact, every existent is in a different stage of ontological perfection, as some of them have less and some have more perfections. Consequently, the whole system of existents is structured hierarchically, yet at the same time, all of them participate in the reality of existence. Their different participation assigns them to different places in the global system, such that everything has its special place according to its proportional ontological

74

Q. Qorbani

perfections (Mulla Sadra 1996, 13–14; 1997, 35–40; 2002, 129–130). According to this Sadrian principle, it can be argued that there are different stages and universes within the whole system of existence. Thus, the whole system of being has several universes, each being aside and apart from each other but correlated through causal relations. The importance of making causal relations among plural universes, according to Mulla Sadra’s philosophy, is the possibility of making real links between corporeal and intellectual universes and removing the gaps between them. As such, the whole system of being is not constructed of separate universes, but it is composed of universes that, in effect, are one universe that has different and graded participation in the reality of existence. This difference in participation caused them to divide into distinct universes (Mulla Sadra 1984, 331). Another basic principle of Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is the principle of unity in plurality and plurality in unity. This principle says that all plurality, as evident in the system of being and all apparently plural phenomena, has unity by participating in the gradual reality of existence. The origin of all pluralities is, after all, the unique reality of existence. Through the principle of gradual participation in the reality of existence, causal gradation can be discerned, which fosters accidental differences, thereby allowing us to speak of accidental plurality (Mulla Sadra 1981a, Vol. 9, 110). The significance of this principle is to explain how to link the unity of ideas with the plurality of corporeal things. The simple and pure reality of existence has all perfections of other existents to the greatest degree. Thus, the simple reality of existence, while ultimately utterly different from that of other existents, has perfections. This rule functions as an explanation of the relation among Ideas, between Ideas and the Platonic One or Absolute Good, and between corporeal things and the Ideas. Finally, the principle of trans-substantial motion, in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy, helps him to argue that the totality of the corporeal world is in continual flux, mobility, and motion from materiality to immateriality. No longer existents bound to their essence (as the Peripatetic tradition argued), but from this principle (introduced by Mulla Sadra), it follows that existents can undergo an evolutionary process from one thing to another. In the context of our discussion, the importance of this principle is in demonstrating Platonic Ideas as an efficient and final cause of trans-substantial motion in materials. In each of these principles, we can deduce a Platonic element and an authentic innovation by Mulla Sadra. His adoption of Platonic Ideas in his system of thought was successful by deviating from Plato’s original theory. Because Mulla Sadra explained their nature, function, and relation to corporeal things in his own way, he opened a new horizon to Platonic Ideas for philosophical thought.

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

75

3 Virtues of Platonic Ideas To understand the usefulness of Platonic Ideas in solving philosophical problems, particularly Mulla Sadra’s solutions, the following two questions arise: (1) What is the background from which Platonic Ideas appeared? (2) What are the functions of Platonic Ideas? To answer the first question, we need to take into account the history of Greek philosophy before Plato and Socrates. On the one hand, Heraclitus emphasized constant flux and motion in the world and its existents and denied any kind of fixity. On the other hand, Parmenides had a unified existence with fixity and considered flux and becoming an illusion. The greatest concern of Plato and Socrates was determining the reality of fixity and reconciling it with flux and becoming (Plato 1971, Cratylus, 402a). In the same time frame, Sophists introduced epistemological relativism by confirming the realistic function of sense perception in all humans and considering humans as the main epistemic criterion. In fact, epistemic and moral doubts became so widespread that Plato and Socrates felt obliged to develop new philosophical theories to try to remove such doubts. Consequently, Plato’s most significant epistemological concerns were demonstrating the primacy of intellectual perception, finding universal criteria for real knowledge, showing the invalidity of sense perception, and rejecting any kind of relativism. Thus, removing epistemological doubts was one of the most significant reasons for introducing the theory of ideas. Plato’s efforts extended to finding universal and stable rules regarding morality, politics, and aesthetics since the epistemic relativism of sophists also challenged these realms. Therefore, Plato needed universal and stable criteria not only for human perceptions but also for moral, political, and aesthetic affairs to speak of them as global and infallible rules (Plato 1971, Phaedo 78). The Platonic theory of Ideas was used for this purpose as a moral, epistemological, and ontological effort for establishing a stable foundation throughout human life. Plato emphasized the possibility of acquiring certain knowledge and that such knowledge cannot be a sense perception since it shows only the phenomenon and appearances of things and is subjected to change. Only intellectual knowledge, characterized by stability and universality, shows the reality and origin of things, which he called Ideas (Plato 1971, Theaetetus 152). These ideas are universal, objective, stable, and immaterial affairs. These ideas, in the Platonic view, can come from epistemological, ontological, political, moral, and aesthetic virtues. The most important epistemological virtue of Ideas is that they are objective referents and the origin of universals and conceptions that we comprehend. According to Plato, universal conceptions that exist in our minds have an objective origin and referent in the Ideas world and can be understood only by intellectual perception or intuition. These ideas are rational and abstract and are not subjected to any kind of change or annihilation, contrary to corporeal things and their sensory perception, which are subjected to change and becoming. Therefore, for Plato from an epistemological approach, believing in Ideas leads to demonstrating real

76

Q. Qorbani

knowledge and its certain object, namely, Ideas, and that such knowledge is suitable for being named certain and real knowledge (Copleston 1993, Vol.1, 175–180). The ontological virtue of Platonic Ideas lies in the relation between the Idea world and the corporeal and material universe. Since ideas are the origin and referent of corporeal things, Plato considers two kinds of relations: imitation and participation. The imitative relation means that particular things are pictures and imitations of ideas. The participative relation means that Ideas are their origin and highest, most pure sample. We can speak more specifically of these relations between material things and ideas as ontological participation and epistemological imitation. Ontological participation refers to Ideas as formal and paradigmatic causes in the process of Demiurge building and creating material things. The participation of Ideas in this process indicates a causal–ontological role (Copleston 1993, Vol. 1, 181–183). In other words, participation means that every natural thing participates in its Idea and form, and therefore, participation is similar to its Idea. For example, something brave participates in the Idea of bravery, a beautiful being in the Idea of beauty, and a just being in the Idea of justice (Plato 1971, Parmenides 132). Epistemological imitation means that ideas are the patterns to which corporeal things correspond. In this case, Plato has two different explanations: in the first one, he says that Ideas are premade samples and patterns to which material things are built; and in the second one, he argues that Ideas are the very origins and truths that natural things are as a thing is to its shadow or picture. We can conclude that the causal relations between Ideas and natural things amount to Ideas being their origins, while natural things are their effects, and Ideas being stable and unchangeable realities, while natural things are their shadows. For Plato, the beauty of everything is the effect of the Idea of beauty (Plato 1971, Parmenides 100–101). The moral, political, and aesthetic aspects of ideas are related to everyday affairs. Concepts such as justice, beauty, goodness, and love have proper ideas according to Plato. Hence, we have universal and stable knowledge of them. In fact, in Plato’s thought, the existence of beautiful and good things that have plural virtues and the possibility of thinking about beauty, justice, love, and goodness itself without reference to external things is an indication of their originally independent existence, which we call Ideas. In the Symposium, Socrates’ explanation of Ideas is one of ascendance from the ordinary and mundane toward the fully abstract. From observing beautiful forms, a man ascends to the contemplation of the beauty that is in human souls, which amounts to a reflection on science. From here, he may look upon the appreciation of wisdom and turn toward the “wide ocean of beauty” and the “lovely and majestic forms which it contains,” until he reaches the contemplation of a beauty that is “eternal, unproduced, indestructible; neither subject to increase nor decay; not partly beautiful and partly ugly… but it is eternally self-­ subsistent and monoacidic with itself. All other things are beautiful through the participation of it, with this condition, that although they are subject to production and decay, it never becomes more or less, or endures any change.” This is the divine and pure, indivisible beautiful itself (Plato 1971, Symposium 209–210), the thing that is more proper than all can be called “beauty.”

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

77

Plato also believes in causal relationships within the realm of Ideas, including through the principle of participation. This leads him to speak of the Idea of the One or the Good, which is the cause of all other Ideas (Copleston 1993, Vol. 1, 175–178). Plato’s wording indicates that he considered Ideas separated from the Idea of the One since he maintains that the Demiurge—as the Maker God of the universe— made this world according to patterns of Ideas. It should be noted, however, that in some passages, Plato considers Ideas God’s thoughts to reside within Him (Plato 1971, Philebus 22). By paying attention to the fact that Plato takes into account the Idea of One as the origin of the whole system of being, it seems that Ideas and the Demiurge, as the Maker God, do not exist out of the One and the Good but are within Him as His knowledge (Plato 1971, Timaeus 29–39). In addition, Plato has a psychological approach to Ideas. This is expressed in his belief in the eternity of the soul and its ability to understand intellectual realities. This leads him to consider a kind of relation between the soul and Ideas. In fact, in Plato’s thought, the rational part of the soul, because it is eternal, is related to rational realities from the realm of Ideas and participates in them. The soul’s unity with the body and its attachment to the material universe makes the soul temporally ignore the previous realities with which it was related. This can be revived by intellectual efforts. Plato calls this virtue of soul Remembrance (Plato 1971, Timaeus 69–70; Republic 444). Therefore, most of Plato’s explanations about virtues and functions of the realm of Ideas indicate that he wants to remove the epistemological problem of relativism and to find a universal criterion for rational and certain knowledge. By demonstrating the existence of ideas, he tries to provide a rational explanation for the relation between corporeal things and ideas. The introduction of universal rules for moral, aesthetic, and political affairs is performed to avoid the relativism of understanding and practical misuses of sophists. Plato’s explanation of ideas did not reveal a singular response in the Islamic world. Some Peripatetic philosophers, such as Ibn Sina, have denied it, while some Illuminationists, such as Suhrawardi, and followers of Transcendent Wisdom, such as Mulla Sadra, have accepted it and provided new explanations and functions for them, diverging from Plato’s original intent.

4 The Place of Platonic Ideas in Mulla Sadra’s Philosophy Mulla Sadra’s confrontation with Plato’s Ideas made significant new openings for understanding their nature and functions. Mulla Sadra constructed his thoughts in dialogue with Greek and Muslim philosophers. His two principles of Principality of existence and Gradual Unity of existence, unique to his thought, were a major factor in allowing him to generate a new interpretation of Platonic Ideas. While the basic Platonic theory of Ideas as it came down to Mulla Sadra was acceptable for him, his principality of existence and gradation of stages of existence allowed him to introduce a new ontological explanation of Platonic Ideas.

78

Q. Qorbani

4.1 Definitions of Platonic Ideas in Mulla Sadra’s Thought His works, such as al-Asfar al-Arba’a [Four Journeys], Shawahid al-rububiya [Divine Witness], and Mafatih al-ghayb [The Keys of the Unseen World], introduce similar definitions of Platonic Ideas. In his thought, for every kind of corporeal thing, there is a kind of rational existence that is immaterial and perfect and the origin of material things. Corporeal things are as effects, manifestations, or works of that rational Idea. Because this Idea is absolutely perfect, it does not need space and matter (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 54–57; Mulla Sadra 1996, 248). These definitions of Platonic Ideas provide a background for defending their existence. For example, Mulla Sadra will say that it is a fact that Plato’s and other prominent sages’ doctrines about the existence of Ideas as origins of corporeal things are right and that there are no acceptable objections against them. Mulla Sadra also says he demonstrated the doctrines of Plato so that there can be no objections that can reject them (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 1, 307). Such statements are indicative of the philosophical labor he put into Platonic Ideas, which confirms his own belief in them.

4.2 Criticizing Former Muslim Philosophers’ Thought Mulla Sadra’s positive tendency to Platonic Ideas made him criticize incorrect understandings of Ideas. This happens when he explains the viewpoints of previous Muslim philosophers by criticizing their misunderstanding or defective comprehension. His viewpoints are explained in more detail in several of his books, such as al-Asfar al-Arba’a [Four Journeys], Shawahid al-rububiya [Divine Witness], Mafatih al-ghayb [The Key of the Unseen World], Asrar al-ayat [Mystery of Verses], and Tafsir al-Quran al-karim [Interpretation of the Koran]. Mulla Sadra maintains that Plato has said that for any kind of corporeal thing, there is a kind of incorporeal, imperishable, and rational form or Idea in the divine world (Mulla Sadra 1996, 238; 1981c, Vol. 2, 47). He rejects Farabi and Ibn Sina’s viewpoints. Mulla Sadra rejects Ibn Sina’s viewpoint about Platonic Ideas since Ibn Sina considers them abstract nature or Quiddity. Mulla Sadra also does not accept Farabi’s explanation because he maintains that Ideas are divine knowledge. Mulla Sadra argues that their viewpoints are the result of their misunderstanding of Ideas (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 48–49; 1996, 240–241). Ibn Sina’s reason for rejecting Platonic Ideas is that it is impossible to accept that a thing with nature and quiddity has some material and some immaterial referents (Ibn Sina 1997, 319–320). In his view, Platonic Ideas are natural universals, or as Aristotle would have it, universal conceptions with their concrete being only in particular and external things. Instead, Mulla Sadra pays attention to Suhrawardi’s explanation. Mulla Sadra says that according to Suhrawardi’s point of view, Platonic Ideas are intellectual lights that have no causal relationship among them, but all of them are beside each

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

79

other and have the same ontological stages. They are placed in the last level of the intellectual realm so that all corporeal and heavenly things originate from them (Mulla Sadra 1996, 241; 1981c, Vol. 2, 48–48). Mulla Sadra agrees with Suhrawardi’s acceptance of Platonic Ideas since Suhrawardi pays attention to the ontological functions of Ideas. Suhrawardi considers two types of ideas, called intellects or lights. One type is at the same ontological level and has relationships with each other without causing a causal hierarchy. The other stand in relationship to each other as a causal chain. At the end of such chains are intellects, which are called “masters of species.” They are called so because they are the origins of earthly beings and manage and preserve corporeal things (Suhrawardi 1993, Vol. 1, 68; Vol. 2, 92). Mulla Sadra argues that Suhrawardi’s explanation of the place and functions of Ideas is defective. Although Suhrawardi made a fine attempt at explaining the place of Ideas and their relations to each other, it is not clear from this how the relation to corporeal things works. Furthermore, Suhrawardi’s belief in the principality of quiddity makes gradation and substantial change impossible, which leads Mulla Sadra to doubt how the unity of a thing and its Idea can be justified. Additionally, gradation among intellects is only compatible with the principality of existence, not quiddity (Mulla Sadra 1996, 243). Mulla Sadra adds other philosophers’ explanations of Ideas, such as Mir Damad and Dawani, and by doing so develops four different approaches, namely, ontological, epistemological, religious, and mystical approaches.

4.3 Ontological Approach to Ideas In the ontological approach, Mulla Sadra demonstrates the existence of Ideas and their relations and functions with the corporeal world. Here, his method for proving the existence of ideas is to use his own theory of trans-substantial motion in the material world. According to this theory, nature is in continual flux and mobility in all substances of material things, driven by a cause that must be immaterial, stable, and unchangeable. This trans-substantial motion produces motion in the essence of nature and preserves its identity. Since the reality of the natural world is composed of rational and material substances, there must be a kind of ontological and spiritual relation between them. The abstract, rational part of this relationship is identified as the Platonic Ideas by Mulla Sadra. This is considered to be the cause of the trans-­ substantial motion. Hence, the essence and acts of corporeal things originate from rational ideas, while ideas are abstract and lack material qualities (Mulla Sadra 1996, 244–245). The significance of this argument is to demonstrate the existence of Platonic Ideas by referring to trans-substantial motion. Accepting the principle of trans-­ substantial motion leads to accepting abstract and rational causes as ideas. They bestow trans-substantial motion to nature and have a kind of ontological unity with it that shows their similarity. This argumentation makes it possible for Mulla Sadra,

80

Q. Qorbani

contrary to Plato, to remove the gap between corporeal and rational realms. In fact, Mulla Sadra does not accept the division of reality into separate corporeal and rational universes. Instead, in agreement with his principle of principality and gradation of the reality of existence, he considers corporeal and rational universes as two different stages of one united reality. He argues that their differences are effectuated through their intensity and participation in the reality of existence. This means that not only are the Ideas a real cause for the material world but also that the relation between them is one of real cause and effect in which the effect owes its reality to its cause (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 127–129). Therefore, corporeal things are truly in need of rational existents. They are not independent from any real separation between them such that they can be called imitations. It should be noted that such a viewpoint does not accept the Platonic theory of creation through Ideas, since in Mulla Sadra’s conception, the creation is nonexistent rather than a previous matter that Demiurge can shape according to a sampling of Ideas. In short, Mulla Sadra, like Plato, encountered the problem of making a rational relation between stable and changeable things. While Plato separates these two into different worlds, Mulla Sadra considers them as two different stages of one reality of existence that has different levels of perfection. Consequently, in Mulla Sadra’s ontological explanation, the relation between the corporeal and Ideas worlds is similar to the relation of two different stages of one united reality, which has different degrees. The identity of the corporeal world is the effect of the Ideas world. The corporeal world is not separated and independent but may be seen as a weaker stage of the ideas world. In Plato’s ontological system, the corporeal world is introduced as a world without reality and not much more like a shadow, but in Mulla Sadra’s theory, the corporeal world has reality, but its reality is the lower level of reality of the Ideas world. Both worlds are placed in the gradual chain of existence. 4.3.1 Applying the Prevalence Possibility Rule Mulla Sadra uses the rule of preeminent possibility for his ontological demonstration and explanation of ideas. This rule was first used by Suhrawardi to argue for the existence of ideas. The rule of preeminence states that whenever the lower, less-­ than-­perfect contingent is brought about, it is necessary that the eminent contingent, which is the same thing but in all its perfection, already existed prior to it. When we apply this rule to corporeal existents, it follows that perfect, preeminent, eternal exemplars need to exist prior to them, which are rational existents in the realm of Ideas (Mulla Sadra 1996, 259). The similarity to his theory of gradual stages of existence should be evident. With this in mind, Mulla Sadra tries to arrange all corporeal and rational existents based on their lower or higher positions. Platonic ideas are placed at the highest level because of their ontological noble state and causal relation to material things. Similarly, he recognizes three stages of humanity: corporeal, mental, and rational. The first human is a material and sensible human, defined through perishable, corporeal faculties and organs.

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

81

The mental one is a human having some corporeal and incorporeal virtues, while the third one, the rational human, is the real Idea of a corporeal and mental human and the origin of all their perfections. According to Mulla Sadra, a rational human still has some sensual faculties, such as a corporeal and mental human, but at a much higher level (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 7, 244). By considering the ontological nobility of Ideas toward corporeal things, Mulla Sadra does not accept Ideas as formal causes and samples of the corporeal things that are made according to that higher form but believes that Ideas are superior existents that share in necessitation of existence of all corporeal things. He says that we should not think that the application of the term Ideas to rational forms means that the aim of Platonic sages was to consider them formal causes or samples for lower things. In fact, Mulla Sadra, contrary to Plato, does not consider ideas as formal causes but, based on his ontological principles and the rule of preeminent contingency, maintains that corporeal things are the lower stages of ideas. The Ideas are a map and perfect paradigm, ontological cause, manager and origin of material existents (Mulla Sadra 1996, 251–252). In other words, Mulla Sadra makes a kind of real causal relation between the corporeal and Ideas worlds and maintains that corporeal things are manifestations of Ideas. He believes in such a relation between all things in the corporeal and Ideas world and, concerning the earth, says that this sensory earth, with its length and width, is a picture and sample for a rational earth that exists in the Ideas world. He also thinks that there is a kind of similarity between the structural system of ideas and the corporeal world. This means that the beauty or perfection found in the material world is a weak picture and shadow of the same thing in the realm of ideas. Therefore, the relations among Ideas are similar to those among natural things, and all virtues of the natural world are shadows and pictures of the rational Ideas world (Mulla Sadra 1996, 252–250). In addition, Mulla Sadra tries to explain the relation of each Idea to its individuals. In his view, there can be four ontological and necessitated worlds differentiated that have causal and linear relationships with each other. These are the divine, rational, imaginary, and natural stages (or worlds). Every stage is the effect toward its higher stage, and each higher stage is the reality and origin of the lower stage. Based on this, in Mulla Sadra’s view, Platonic Ideas are placed in the rational world. They are the reality and origin of imaginary and natural universes (Mulla Sadra, 1984, 447). Mulla Sadra maintains that ultimately Ideas and the individuals at lower stages share essentially the same species. Therefore, all things of one natural species have only one Idea, and there is no difference between that Idea and its natural species except that the Idea does not need matter while natural individuals do because of their defective state (Mulla Sadra 1984, 224). In short, Mulla Sadra’s tendency to use the principles of ontological principality and gradual unity makes it possible to consider the whole system of being in its totality in which the corporeal and Ideas worlds are only two different stages of one united ontological system. Their various ontological perfections lead to their differentiation in nobility, causality, and principality. Recognizing universal virtues

82

Q. Qorbani

within the material world can help human beings gain recognition of ideas within the rational world.

4.4 Epistemological Approach to Ideas Mulla Sadra’s epistemological approach to Platonic Ideas also demonstrates their existence while also clarifying their epistemological functions. In this case, he argues for the existence of ideas by reviewing the nature of perception. He maintains that we have several conceptions concerning existents; for example, when we consider the difference between external and mental beings, we notice that the latter has universality. Hence, there are some universal conceptions, such as “human” and “tree.” Since they do not exist in the external world and since the human soul is not the only originator of such concepts, it must have real referent and origination outside of the material world. Mulla Sadra’s realism implies that such concepts cannot be without a referent. Therefore, these universal concepts have a real origin, which is called Platonic Ideas, and the human soul is able to observe and reflect on them. In Mulla Sadra’s words, the forms that are pictured in the human soul have a kind of sensory quality that helps the soul observe and examine the rational and universal realities behind the forms, which are called ideas. Thus, this sensory conception represents and indicates the existence of Ideas (Mulla Sadra 1996, 246–247). In fact, Mulla Sadra argues that universal concepts that are perceived by rational perceptions are not figments of the imagination but have a concrete referent that enables the human soul to form concepts about them. The significance of this demonstration is its similarity to Plato’s discursive method for the existence of ideas. Both Plato and Mulla Sadra prove the existence of ideas by using universal concepts that indicate referents and by arguing that real knowledge is applied to such concepts because of its universality and stability. Therefore, the goal of knowledge is to achieve rational recognition of ideal and spiritual realities. Mulla Sadra and Plato also show differences. Plato believes in remembering the ideas that the human soul ignored after its creation and unification with the body. For Plato, the process of knowledge is to remember Ideas that the soul had forgotten because the soul is old and had known such Ideas at an earlier stage of its existence. Mulla Sadra, on the other hand, confirms the Aristotelian theory of perception, which states that all perception starts from sense perception and travels through imaginary and rational stages. Mulla Sadra maintains that the soul’s trans-­substantial motion enables spiritual evolution by decreasing its material aspects and increasing its abstract ones. This enables the soul to create universal conceptions that are in accord with ideas. For Mulla Sadra, then, knowledge is established in this world by substantial motion within the soul, not by remembering preexisting ideas (Mulla Sadra 1996, Vol. 8, 330–338).

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

83

According to both Plato and Mulla Sadra’s viewpoints, the final goal of knowledge is to develop universal concepts in reference to Platonic Ideas. Both philosophers are concerned with attaining universal, stable, global, and rational knowledge, and both think that the origin of such knowledge is the Ideas world. Based on this, Plato considers the process of knowledge as trying to remember forgotten ideas, but Mulla Sadra, because he ascribes to the corporeal and temporal creation of the soul, maintains that the process of knowledge is the soul’s trans-substantial motion from sense perception to a rational and intuitive motion and from materiality to abstraction to observe spiritual realities such as ideas. Both philosophers agree on the practice, pedagogy, and purification of the soul for successfully attaining the Ideas.

4.5 Religious Approach to Platonic Ideas Mulla Sadra also tries to confirm Platonic Ideas from a religious and theological point of view. This led him to interpret some verses of the Holy Quran, as evidenced by his notes in his works, such as al-Asfar al-arba’a [Four Journeys], Mafatih al-­ ghayb [Keys of the Unseen World], and Asrar al-ayat [The Mystery of Verses]. The main point of the religious approach is that some religious texts, such as the Quran, indicate that there are rational existents that govern the corporeal world with the permission of God (Mulla Sadra 1984, 455). We can, for example, see some verses of the Quran that Mulla Sadra links with Ideas. He points to the verse “when I have shaped him and ran my created soul in him” (Quran, 15:29), which he considers to mean that there is a soul as Idea (here called “lord of species”) of human beings, which has the whole reality and virtues of a human being in the most eminent way (Mulla Sadra 1996, Vol. 9, 329). In addition, concerning the verse “that which you have is transitory, but that which is with Allah endures” (Quran, 16:96), he says that God’s purpose of “what is with Allah endures” is the Platonic Ideas and lord of species that remain in divine knowledge since His knowledge is stable and unchangeable (Mulla Sadra 1980, 64). He also believes, regarding the verse “he taught Adam (the father of all humans) the names” (Quran, 2:31), that the real meaning of names in this verse is the Platonic divine Ideas. God taught them to Adam so that he can have the reality of all kinds and species of all natures (Mulla Sadra 1996, Vol. 2, 363). Mulla Sadra also uses prophetic narratives. He uses this to maintain that rational and spiritual realities descended from their original place to be understood by our human reason. The Prophet of Islam, for example, narrates that there are 17,000 lights and darknesses for God, and would they be clarified as a portrayal of divine lights, they would burn the whole system of being (Mulla Sadra 1984, Vol. 2, 111). In short, from Mulla Sadra’s viewpoint, Islamic religious texts confirm that reality is divided into gradual and multiple stages and that we, as humans, encounter its primary levels in this world first before attaining the higher levels.

84

Q. Qorbani

4.6 Mystical Approach to Ideas Mulla Sadra owes his mystical approach to Platonic Ideas to the viewpoints of Muslim mystics about “immutable archetypes” (al-A’yan al-thabita). Already before him, similarities between Islamic mystical explanations of the Immutable Archetypes and the Platonic Ideas were noted, which led Mulla Sadra to make his own case for it. He starts by saying that divine abstracted forms that are nearby God are not aware of their own essences, and nobody knows them but God. The reason for this, from Plato and other Greek sages’ points of view, is that such divine forms do not have any attention to their own essences and due their servitude to God absorb toward God. Their existence is due to divine remaining, and their actualization is attached to God’s existence (Mulla Sadra 1984, 436). Mulla Sadra, insofar as Platonic Ideas are like rational and pure realities, tries to argue that Ideas are the same as divine forms, which have functions such as mystical Archetypes. Hence, Mulla Sadra believes that Platonic Ideas are divine forms of God’s essence. Thus, Platonic Ideas are the divine attributes and sciences that are subjected to His existence. Divine exaltation, however, is due to His essence, not divine Ideas. Therefore, these divine Ideas are not independent and separate beings apart from God, but their reality and existence are nothing without God (Mulla Sadra 1996, Vol. 5, 216). Mulla Sadra, in his book Mafatih al-ghayb [The keys of the absent], confirms this virtue of divine Ideas by saying that they are not a part of the world and not in addition to God but that they are eternal divine words that are not finished, as God says “if the sea is become the ink for writing all My words, it is depleted before the ending of My words” (Mulla Sadra 1996, Vol. 1, 1). These arguments indicate the ambiguity that is in both Plato and Mulla Sadra’s point of view regarding the place of ideas. If Ideas are considered divine forms of God and are similar to mystical Archetypes, it means that Ideas, like God, have necessity by essence and would be outside of the realm of contingency. However, if they are considered outside of God’s essence and knowledge, they will be possible in themselves, just as contingent beings and creatures who can have their own world. In other words, Mulla Sadra believes in Platonic Ideas as light, pure and independent, and abstract existents, but it is not clear whether they are contingent beings or necessary by essence. He confirms both viewpoints, as on the one hand, he says that since Ideas are contingent beings and out of God’s essence, then they are God’s creatures and their effects, while on the other hand, he maintains that Platonic Ideas are not separate from God but that their existence is attached to and sustained through Him (Mulla Sadra 1981b, Vol. 5, 216; 1984, 436). Hence, it can be possible to consider Ideas divine forms or divine knowledge (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 5, 205). In general, it seems that he inclines toward placing Platonic Ideas out of the divine world and as a part of the contingent world (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 46; Vol. 5, 191; 1984, 424). In addition, in the mystical approach, Mulla Sadra emphasizes the purification of the soul for understanding the reality of Platonic Ideas. He believes that the only

6  Aspects of Mulla Sadra’s Interpretation of Platonic Ideas

85

way to reach divine ideas is direct intuition, which is only attained by the purification of material vices. Divine Ideas are simple and pure realities that can be observed by internal purification (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 62–77). He believes that to understand that the world has plural stages, it is necessary to comprehend divine mysteries since it is possible to know that all perfections and faculties that are in the world are shadows and samples of the real and rational world. Based on this, Mulla Sadra suggested that the effects of divine lights are manifested throughout the world. With respect to rational and spiritual stages, these effects become clear in the form of particular things. It is their composition with corporeal darkness that has weakened these things. However, wise people and sages have been astonished by them, as we can see (Mulla Sadra 1981c, Vol. 2, 78). Mulla means, then, that by comprehending rational realities, it is possible for humans to have some bodily virtues insofar as these realities were descended from the Ideas world. In other words, God has installed a kind of similarity and symmetry between corporeal and rational beings to make understandable the rational and spiritual realities for humans (Mulla Sadra 1981, Vol. 2, 81).

5 Conclusion It is clear that Mulla Sadra was influenced by Plato in his theory of ideas and the whole system of Platonic thought. This not only pertains to their philosophical thought but is also present in their mystical and intuitive approaches, as evidenced by Mulla Sadra calling Plato a “divine sage.” While the Platonic Theory of Ideas is accepted by Mulla Sadra, there are some notable differences between them in terms of their descriptions, proofs, and functions. In fact, Mulla Sadra inherited a long philosophical and mystical tradition of Islamic and Greek philosophy, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Ibn Arabi, and in particular the Quranic teachings, which he integrated into his interpretation. In this case, the mystical teachings of the Quran and the thoughts of Ibn Arabi play important roles. Mulla Sadra is, of course, the founder of the philosophical school of Islamic Transcendent Wisdom, which has some fundamental principles such as the principality of existence, gradual unity of existence, trans-substantial motion, corporeal creation, and the spiritual survival of the soul. These principles make it possible (perhaps necessary) for him to provide an innovative interpretation of Platonic Ideas, which is strikingly different from previous philosophers. First, Mulla Sadra considers acquiring knowledge as a process to be established from sense perception and not, as Plato would have it, as an act of remembrance. This is because he draws from the Peripatetic tradition to see the process of knowing as an evolution of intellect from the Potential Intellect to the Acquired Intellect, which links to the Active Intellect. This is also because he believes in the corporeal creation of the soul. Second, by using his principle of trans-substantial motion, he considers gradual and causal relations among all ontological stages, from material

86

Q. Qorbani

existents to abstract ones. By arguing for three ontological stages of existence and three perceptions, Mulla Sadra developed a special approach to Ideas. Third, the principality of existence and gradual unity of different levels of existents have the effect of removing the Platonic gap between corporeal and Ideas things. Whereas Plato would believe in distinctly different worlds, Mulla Sadra indicates that the corporeal world is actually a lower stage of rational ideas. They form one unitary world that is distinguished only by perfection but also by species. At the same time, we have noted some similarities between Plato and Mulla Sadra. Both are concerned with a rational and intuitive perception of ideas, and both describe in a similar vein the epistemic, moral, and mystical travelling toward the world of spiritual realities, which are, in the end, the Platonic Ideas itself.

References Copleston, Frederick. 1993. A history of philosophy. London/Toronto: Continuum/Doubleday. Ibn Sina, Hossain Ibn Abdullah. 1997. Ilahiat Min Kitab Al-lshifa [Theology from the Book of Healing], ed. Hasan Hasanzadeh Amoli. Qom: Islamic Center. Mulla Sadra, Sadruddin Muhammad. 1981a. Asfar Arba'a [Four Journeys]. 9 Volumes. Beirut: Dar Ehyaul Trath. ———. 1981b. Asrarul Ayat [Secrets of the Verses], ed. Muhammad Khajavi. Tehran: Iranian Association for Wisdom & Philosophy. ———. 1981c. In Commentary on the Quran, ed. Muhammad Khajavi, vol. 1–7. Qom: Bidar Press. ———. 1984. Mafatihul Ghayb [The Mysteries of Verses], ed. Muhammad Khajavi. Tehran: Iranian Association for Philosophy and Wisdom. ———. 1996. Shavahedul Rububiyah [Divine Witness]. Trans. by Javad Mosleh. Tehran: Soroush Press. ———. 2002. A Commentary on Al Mash'er, ed. and trans. Henry Corbin and Karim Mojtahedi. Tehran: Siprin Press. Plato. 1971. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. ed. Edith Hamilton and Carins Huntington. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Suhravardi, Shahabuddin. 1993. Opera Metaphysica et Mystica I-II-III [Metaphysical and Mystical Works], ed. Henry Corbin. Tehran: Mu’assasa-yi Mutala‘at va Tahqiqat-i Farhangi.

Chapter 7

The Problem of “Being” in Sufism Haydar Yalçınoğlu

Abstract  In this chapter, I will discuss the ontological foundations of Sufi thought. The most prominent feature to be discussed is that Sufism is a nondualist worldview. With the bourgeois revolution, the dualist worldview, that is, the opposition between mental subjects and physical objects, as introduced by Descartes, became predominant. Later, with Marx and Hegel, dualism was replaced by monism. From this point of view, there is a unity of subjects and objects, but only in a contradictory manner. Throughout history, however, Sufis has argued for a nondualistic worldview. For them, there is neither the subject nor the object, neither the conceiving reason nor the conceived object. To explain this, I analyze Ibn Arabi, Avicenna, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s views on being and existence. I will also discuss the concept of existence and essence in Mulla Sadra and his successors. The views described here are taken from my comprehensive work on Sufism from cosmological, ontological, and epistemological perspectives, which is the result of 13 years of research. Keywords  Being · God · Haqq · Ibn al-Arabi · Avicenna · Mullah Sadra

1 Being or Epistemology I should, of course, start by pointing out that the problem of being and existence has been the main subject of philosophy throughout history. Early Greek philosophy first dealt with the problem of arche physis (nature) and then with the problem of the psyche (soul). The very conception of the notion of the soul is clearly one of the most daring and radical ideas of mankind. Concurrently, the discourse on the philosophy of existence also emerged. On the other end of history, following the tumultuous era of the French Revolution, a consequential tide of nationalist movements emerged, marking an epoch known as modernism. This period is characterized by H. Yalçınoğlu (*) Independent researcher, lawyer, writer, poet, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_7

87

88

H. Yalçınoğlu

three pivotal tenets: the consolidation of the unitary nation-state, the ascendancy of liberalism, and the prominence of rationality-scientism. With the evolution of the nation-state, philosophy began to address epistemology instead of the problem of being. The culmination of this process is with Hegel, who focuses on whether human reason can fully comprehend and conceive the material reality. Hegel presented the proposition that “what is rational is actual and what is actual is rational” (Hegel 1991, 20). Rationality-scientism appeared in philosophy as positivism and rationalism. Thus, some manifestations of modernity were based on rationalism, such as the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Lenin dealt with this issue in his work “Materialism or Empiriocriticism” and argued that human thought and reason are capable of providing a close and comprehensive understanding of material reality. In this work, he engaged in a bitter debate with Ernst Mach and his successors (1977, 346–356). If “rational is actual,” whose reason would be this reason? The Soviet leaders thought, of course, the reason for the historically most advanced class, is the working class. This is because of the Communist Party and its central committee. Is it not that the socialist movement is based on an objective analysis of the eternal laws of society on which the movement is based? Others, such as the later modernized Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and the Baathist movement, were based on positivism and made it the foundation of the nation-state. Among other things, this is a claim for a republic against all forms of religious reaction, against the eschatology of the church, against dogma and Nas!1 This is why Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, said that “the truest guide (murshid) in life is science, wisdom and technique.” If one considers that murshid means the chief or leader of a religious sect, science acquires a religious character, and a “religion of science” is born. The conception of material reality effectively supplanted the notion of truth within modern Islamic thought. The notion of truth resides within the metaphysical domain, denoting the comprehension of the divine through a gradual process. Thus, in the Islamic world, there was the idea of a double reality called “double variety.” The first was how to comprehend the laws and functioning of the physical universe, and the second was how to comprehend the metaphysical universe, the divine. In this field, reason is useless and almost dysfunctional. Such a concept of truth is lacking in the Western philosophical tradition, in any dominant form. In the twentieth century, only two people made major interventions on the subject: Sartre and Heidegger. Sartre wrote Being and Nothingness. An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology and Heidegger wrote Being and Time. When they disappeared, philosophy became fruitless and almost extinct.

 Nas is the words of Allah and Prophet Mohammed.

1

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

89

2 Existence and Being In Antiquity, the inquiry into the predicament of existence was initially brought to the forefront of philosophical discourse by Parmenides. This deliberation revolved around the concept of the “One.” The “One” meant both existence and the struggle against the polytheistic religions that prevailed at the time. Aristotle wrote in his Metaphysica that what He is only can be one. From a metaphysical definition of being as “one,” the properties of being were investigated. This allowed existence to be expressed in religious terms. In fact, one could argue that all Enlightenment thought has done is to transfer religious concepts back into philosophy. Enlightenment is, in this sense, rooted in the church because the first abstract thought in history is religious in nature. This abstract thought, which developed in a metaphysical context over thousands of years, played a critical role in the development of human thought and reason. All abstract and conceptual thought that proceeds in an analytical way corresponds to the real historical process and scientific creation. This abstract thought emerged from the imagination of an abstract being, God. As such, it is only through religion that human beings acquire the power of abstraction. On the one hand, every religion is a moral and legal order. On the other hand, it has a purely theoretical metaphysical essence and ritual. Its ritual is easily known to the masses of people—fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, and so on—whereas the purely theoretical metaphysical essence contains the concept of being. This is what we are interested in. We can understand this by examining the characteristics of God in Islamic metaphysics. These are as follows: Allah Hakk (Haqq) Attributes of Allah The names of God. God philosophically corresponds to the concept of essence. Haqq to substance God’s attributes to quality God’s names also correspond to quantity.

In Islamic thought, the worldview that addresses this metaphysical essence is called Sufism. Sufism integrates the notion of existence, which has been explored by philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Parmenides, Pythodoros, Zenon, and Heraclitus. Sufism constructed both a comprehensive worldview and a distinct way of life upon this foundation. In practice, this integration transpired through notably violent means. As a natural consequence of the problem of being, the connection between existence and the object to be conceived and the subject to conceive it emerged. This led to perspectives such as dualism, monism, and nondualism. On the other hand, the discussion of “one” and “many” and the problem of change emerged from this.

90

H. Yalçınoğlu

3 One–Many. Self-revelation–Exteriorization If the One is God, how did all other beings come into existence, how is there a connection between this “one,” i.e., the Wajib al-wujud (absolute being), and all other things? We call this the one/many dialectics. All naturalistic philosophers accept the “many.” However, according to Parmenides, there is only “one.” According to this, being exists; nonexistence does not exist. In this case, would there not be parts of a whole? The system is closed and does not allow for dialectics of one/many. Heraclitus takes a different approach. He argues that things are both whole and not whole; they are both harmonious and disharmonious, together and disorganized. The whole has become a unity from everything and everything from unity (Denkel 1998, 24). In short, one is many, and many are one. This may be considered a first development toward what would, centuries later, evolve into pantheism, the unity of being, and the idea of Wahdat al-wujud (oneness of being) in Ibn al-Arabi. Aristotle takes the above ordering of essence, substance, quality, and quantity in a different way. According to him, the first category of being is not essence but substance. According to Aristotle, substance contains four elements. The first is the subject, the second is quiddity, i.e., essence, the third is universal, and the fourth is genus. The subject consists of matter (sensible essence) and form. The composite substance in Aristotle consists of matter and form. Matter, which is composed of sensible substance, contains accidents and qualities. Thus, matter and spirit coexist in substance. We owe this to the concept of the subject. The notion of the subject as “substratum” (Aristotle 1908, 1028b 35–37) arises as a hypostasis out of the substance. “Subject” is the very first property of substance. It is that about which everything else is affirmed, but which itself is not affirmed about anything else. As a second property, substance is independent (in the absolute sense) and individual. Aristotle phrases it in the Metaphysica that the subject is a substance because of its first property. However, when the second property of substance, independence and individuality, is taken into account, matter is not substance (Aristotle 1908, 1029a 20–29). Aristotle therefore does not accept the sensitive substance as a substance, which is one of the components of the subject; because it is accidental, it contains matter. Since the subject contains matter, it is accidental, and since it is accidental, it is never included in the concept of substance. However, since matter or sensible substance is a subunit of the subject, how is it related to the substance? The concept Aristotle refers to here is quality. Since the sensible substance contains accident and quality, the quality of matter, which is free from accidents, enters the substance. This is where the division of quality into quality in the first sense and quality in the second sense comes into question. Quality in the first sense is quality in the sense of pure kath’autò (in itself). The quality in the second sense is the quality in which the quality and the accident coexist, and this is called quality in the second sense. Aristotle makes frequent use of this distinction by stating that “from this point of view, matter can be a substance if it is considered as form rather than matter and as a composite substance composed of

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

91

matter and form” (Aristotle 1908, 1029a 7–27). The main concept here is the form. Since form precedes the composite substance, which in turn precedes matter, the analysis of substance must start from form. While in Plato, “form” appears as independent entities (or ideas), in Aristotle, it appears together with matter. This is called a composite substance, and it is one of the most important points of Aristotle’s metaphysics. By placing matter in the composite substance, Aristotle enabled Western thought to proceed on a material–physical basis. The East, on the other hand, remained on the basis of idea spirit. This is why the West’s break with the East involves a process of 2500 years, and the West, which proceeded on the basis of physics, has kept a distance for centuries with modern science and technique, which it built on the analysis of all material things. While this led to the development of a separate analytical logic there, analogy and syllogistic logic have reigned in the East. Aristotle, who approached materialism with the idea of sensitive substances, formed the starting point for Islamic Peripatetic philosophers (Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd) to arrive at materialism. This is the most critical point in theory. Essentially, the West has come out of Aristotle’s coat. Separated from the accident, matter forms a composite substance together. Matter in this sense is substantial. This is because form carries essence (quiddity),2 and only the genus that bears form can be freed from the accident. These sensitive essences are either eternal and perpetual or subject to annihilation insofar as they are accidental. The immobile substances are divided into ideas and mathematical things. Islamic Sufi thought, especially theosufism, that is, thought starting from Mansur al-Hallaj and extending to Mevlana Jalaleddin Rumi, put the concept of essence above that of substance, which was considered the first category of being in Aristotle, and placed substance in a subcategory of essence. This essence was subsequently argued to be the true God. Here, I need to briefly introduce Mansur al-Hallaj. Murdered in 922 in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph Muqtadir, Hallaj was accused of putting himself in the place of God. His famous saying is “Ana al-Haqq” (I am the True One) (Massignon 2006, 186). Here, Haqq is not essence but substance. In other words, Hallaj meant to say that “I am the substance.” God (Allah) is not substance but essence, so Hallaj was actually saying “I am not God (Allah).” Since this distinction was not recognized, he was declared a heretic and killed. In Sufism, Dhât (Allah) = Essence and Haqq = substance. If Haqq was the essence, Mansur al-Hallaj would have said “I am Allah (Dhāt)” when he said “Ana al-Haqq.” Such a public statement is tantamount to hulul.3 This would invoke certain Islamic Shari’ah rules to prosecute him for a death sentence. However, under the above interpretation, killing him is a great cruelty. This situation is similar to that of Schrödinger’s cat experiment. Hallaj is both alive and dead. He must both live and die. If the essence (Dhat) is a substance, it would contain an Aristotelian photon,  Quiddity: means MAHİYET in Sufism. It is not essence, not substance. It will be explained later and may be said it contains quality and quantity such as predicate. However, essence and quiddity are the same in Aristotle. 3  Hulul means the unity of human and God. 2

92

H. Yalçınoğlu

and the weight of this photon would move the needle of the scale. This movement will untie the guillotine rope, and the guillotine will land on Hallaj’s neck. Hallaj is dead in this possibility. Now, if Dhat is an essence, it will contain only knowledge and will have no weight. In this case, the needle of the scale will not move, so the guillotine will not descend on Hallaj’s neck. Hallaj is currently alive with this possibility. This experiment was performed in a closed space with no observer. As soon as the experimenter participates in the experiment, Hallaj will be dead since the essence will already be transformed into substance. In this case, we will never know whether Hallaj is alive or dead. Hallaj is both alive and not alive. He is both living and not living; he is both dead and not dead. This paradox is the same as the paradox in which everything is “one” and “not one.”

4 Existence in Islamic Sufism Plato developed his views on “one” over a period of time in his works Menon, Phaidon, Sophist, Republic, and Parmenides. In the Republic, he writes that we get the different objects that we name the same, from an idea, a form that contains them all at once. All the different couches and tables in the world fall into two ideas: the idea of the couch and the idea of the table (Plato 2000, 596/b). According to his view in the Republic, everything in the realm of multiplicity (we call this the realm of masiva or the realm of multiplicity) takes its share only from an idea that is the creator (share). However, in Parmenides, Plato will question this view. He articulates that the real problem is whether this one form is partial or not. If it is partial, it remains to be seen whether other objects will share from it, and if so how. Furthermore, if it is partial, it needs clarification whether it will be “one.” Meanwhile, the form or idea of “One” is naturally always what it is, and it is not subject to any change. In this case, two separate worlds emerge: the world of ideas and the world of things. As Cornford MacDonald puts Plato’s division, there is “the world of ideas, which are invisible and immune to all change, and the world of things, which are visible in our world and constantly changing” (Cornford MacDonald 1989, 10–11).

5 Sophist: Unity and Being. Multiplicity and Nothing The famous thesis of the school of Elea and Parmenides is that a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing is either “one” (few) or many (not “one”). If there is “one,” there is no many; if there are many, there is no “one.” This thesis, as will be seen, is the opposite of Heraclitus’s view of one from everything and everything from one. Plato wavered between his two masters and tried to form his own view of “one.” Keeping in mind the proposition that reality is that which is “one,” “one” is used in the sense of “form” or “idea” in this tenth chapter of the Republic on the Platonic

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

93

order of genesis. Plato tries to overcome this with the concept of “eidolon.” An eidolon is something that has a certain being—a copy—without having a real being. This means that, just as existence in a mirror owes its image to the mirror, so sensible forms as images of forms (i.e., anything that contains matter) owe their existence to the space extension that reflects it. This space is the space of “ground of possibility,” as Shams al-Din Tabrizi called it to Mevlana Rumi, where we exist as forms, as images of the realm of ma’na.4

6 Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabî’s “One Without Being One” Let us now move on to Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi’s thinking on “One without being one.” To understand Ibn Arabi’s perspective on this matter, the following excerpt is important to note: He is ‘one’ without ‘oneness’ and ‘unique’ without ‘uniqueness’. Praise is reserved for God, before whose oneness there is no front. Know that He is the front. In addition, there is no (end) at the end of his uniqueness. Know that He is the end. God exists, and with Him there is no front, and with Him there is no end. There is neither nearness nor distance. There is no Kayfa5 (quality). There is no during, time and âwân [present tense, past indefinite tense and... any tense—my addition]. There is no waqt (time), no top, no bottom. There is no kawn,6 and there is no space. It is as it is now and as it was before [it has no motion—my addition]. Neither is it only a name and a musamma7 [the referent of a name—my addition]. The name of the moment is itself, and its musamma is itself. Therefore, the name is not other than the moment [it has no name other than itself—my addition]. It is also not other than the name. That is why the name and the musamma are both Him [close to the characteristics attributed to the “One” by Parmenides that the “One” cannot be given a name]. He is the before without precedence, the eternal without being eternal, the esoteric without being esoteric. the exoteric without being exoteric. Now understand this well so that you do not fall into the fallacy of hululiyat8 [i.e., the extremism that God and human beings or the whole other realm of existence are identical—my addition]! Understand this well! He is not a thing. There is nothing in Him. He is not in or out of anything... No one perceives Him except Himself [reminiscent of Parmenides’ first thesis, which states that there is no knowledge of the “one”]. He sent His essence (being-Dhat) with His essence and from His essence to His essence without any cause or means other than Himself. There is no difference between Mursil (the sender) and Mursal (the one sent with Him). He does not have fana’ 9 either. That is why, sallallahu ‘alaihi wa-sallam [may His blessings and peace be upon him] said, “He who knows his soul knows his Lord”. With these words, our Prophet pointed out that you are not you. In addition, you are that without being you. He is not in you, and you

 Ma’na is the opposite of image. It approximately corresponds to “idea.” The realm of ma’na is what is found in the divine world. 5  Keyf means quality in Arabî. 6  Kevn: to exist, to occur, to come into being. 7  Müsamma: named, endowed with a name. 8  Hululiyet: it means human beings and god are identical. 9  Fena means perishment and melting or fusion of one thing in another thing. 4

94

H. Yalçınoğlu are not in Him. In addition, Haqq is not outside of you. In addition, you are not outside of Haqq. In addition, I do not desire by these words that your essence and attributes exist. Perhaps I desire that you do not exist eternally (Arabi 1948, 7−8).

In the last paragraph, Ibn Arabi refers to the transition from one to many and the emanation of things. In the closing words he emphasizes that the existence of many actually exists, and while desiring that it does not exist eternally, he approaches Plato’s idea of the world of phenomena by saying that we are forms of Him (God) and that our existence in this world consists of an image or reflection of the world of ma’na (let us call it the absolute idea or dhat). The “nothingness” (the absence of God’s creation of us from nothing) is like a mirror, and this material realm is like a reflection or image in that mirror. In this figure of speech, man is like the eye of the image, with the image in front of the mirror being hidden in that eye. The (material) substance of “individual” beings is in reality one. This suggests that material individuals neither exist nor are one. Their existence and being “one” is wajib (necessary). Thus, in Ibn Arabi’s reading of Aristotle’s concept of substance, there is participation in the “one.” However, Sufis renders this idea slightly different. Since material individuals neither exist nor are one, only He exists. He is one, and the realm of multiplicity in which individuals reside (ruled by division, multiplicity, and diversity) is a revelation of Him. Material substances, then, do not “participate” to the One but are a “revelation” of the One. Such multiplicity does not unite Him, and multiplication does not diminish, diversity does not separate, division (into particulars) does not make Him universal, materialization does not make Him abstract, internalization does not make Him transcendent, nor does immanence (theomorphism) make Him transcendental. However, His multiplicity confirms His unity, His multiplication (proliferation) confirms His nondiminution, His universality confirms particularity, and His materialization confirms His abstractness. It is its immanence that makes it transcendent, and its transcendentalism that makes it theomorphic (immanence). For Plato, if the ideas multiply by taking a share from each other, things receive a share from the absolute idea with a divisible plurality. They share an absolute idea with divisible multiplicity. Such ideas depend on the universal and the genus because they are the unity of multiplicity. Only in the universal and genus is there the unity of multiplicity. However, the Idea in Plato does not contain a genus and is therefore immaterial. According to Sufi thinkers, they neither share nor give.There is no participation, nor is there a share. This is evidenced in the Divan by Farid al-Din Attar, who rejects this view of sharing as follows: Everything other than you, is a mirage and an image; for neither more nor less a share has fallen [to someone else—my addition].

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

95

7 Dualism–Monism and Nondualism The emergence of the many, that is, the realm of the multitude (kathra10), from the absolute being is called emanation, or self-revelation. What will be the relationship between us, who live in this realm of the kathra, and the absolute being? Absolute being is also absolute truth. How will we reach this absolute truth? This has been a fertile ground for discussion. The problem is expressed as follows: There is a conceiving subject and a conceived object. The subject is the being of conceiving and thinking. The object is the being to be conceived. Descartes expressed this as “cogito ergo sum” (I think; therefore, I am). Here, we are presented with subject–object opposition, and the way to reality is through reason. Later, Marx and Hegel replaced the subject–object opposition with a contradictory, organic, dynamic unity of subject, and object. This is called monism. The means that conceives is mind-reasoning. In Hegel, the problem is more complex. In his intellectual process, the distinction between subject and object varies. In my opinion, he solves the problem through conscience, self-consciousness, and spirit. Only at the stage of absolute knowledge do the subject and object dissolve in each other and reach unity. In phenomenological consciousness, the subject–object load continues. This allows us to argue for a monism present in Hegel’s thought (Özcangiller 2016). In Hegel, the fact that understanding is a tool for conceiving objective reality does not fully explain the problem. He appeals to reason to overcome the dilemmas of understanding. This makes idealism not as easily distinguished in Hegel’s thought as it is usually made out, but this is beyond the scope of this chapter. In Sufism, however, there is neither a conceiving subject nor an object to be conceived. Therefore, Sufism is a mono-subject worldview and is sui generis in this respect. It is therefore best described as nondualism. The following lines express this very well. The bee that wants to make honey takes honey from every flower Not every flower has honey the bee is the honey.

Here, the bee is the honey and the honey is the bee. Because the bee and the honey are in the same decoction. Nondualism finds its best expression in the image of the moth (actias luna). The moth flies in ever-closer circles around the fire and eventually becomes engulfed, becoming a fire itself. The melting of the subject into the object is an epistemological process that enables it to access and understand the truth in the same sense as the moth and the fire. Thus, existence enables understanding the truth, thereby fusing knowledge and absolute being. According to the famous Sufi Sadr al-Din Qunawi, God is the knowledge of the truth. Here, the knowledge of the truth cannot be accessed by reason, science, or

10

 The realm of kesret: it means things in universe other than God.

96

H. Yalçınoğlu

logic. This knowledge can only be accessed through a sayr al-suluk,11 that is, by travelling through individual spiritual guidance and by melting into that truth. This is described in poetic language in Farid al-Din Attar’s Mantiq al-tayr. The hoopoe birds set out in search of the truth, the Simurg. Most of them perish on the way. Eventually, 30 birds remained. When they reach Simurg, they realize that Simurg is themselves; that is, the conceiving subject is also the object to be conceived. Therefore, how will people endure the difficulties of this journey? How will they gain the necessary strength and willpower? These Sufi thinkers explain that it is love that provides the necessary energy. Love strengthens the will, and the traveler thus finds the strength to reach the destination. In this sense, love is an epistemological element in Sufism. As a result, the epistemological, ontological, and cosmological processes are intertwined in Sufism, making it nondualistic. This is alluded to by Yunus Emre in his poem: Your love took me from me I need you, you I need I burn day after day I need you, you I need Neither am I glad to exist Neither do I resent to not I take solace in your love I need you, you I need Your love kills lovers Dips one into the sea of love Fills with reveal I need you, you I need.

8 Quiddity–Mahiyet or Essence. Ibn Sina (Avicenna)– Mulla Sadra Islamic philosophy learned the problem of being from Aristotle. Farabi and Ibn Sina were his main interpreters. Aristotle proposed the concepts of being and essence. Ibn Sina’s first intervention was to distinguish between being and wujūd.12 Because this distinction did not exist in Aristotle, the scope of the concept of being was limited. Ibn Sina distinguished between essence and quiddity. In Aristotle’s metaphysics, quiddity corresponds to the concept of essence. However, in Ibn Sina, quality can replace quality in philosophy.

 Seyr-i sulûk shows the attitudes, deeds, practices, actions, movements, and behaviors that bring people to the Truth or God. 12  Vücûd or wujud approximately corresponds to existence. 11

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

97

In Sufism, on the other hand, Wujud (wajib al-wujud—absolute being) corresponds to essence. Wajib al-wujud is the absolute being; it is God. The notion wujud is existence, which is differentiated from the notions of being, essence and quiddity. Wajib al-wujud is absolute being or existence-of-itself. The meaning of the word wajib is “necessary” or “apodictic.” The opposite of this is contingency. Necessary being is a being that itself does not depend on any cause-and-effect relationship, which is impossible not to exist but unthinkable not to exist. He is the one and only (unique), God in theology. This leads to the conclusion that wujud is stable and invariable and that Wajib al-wujud is “one.” On the other hand, being variable. While wujud is one and the same (unique), being is many. Everything in the universe is contingent except for absolute being. Contingency is not possible or probable. The concept of contingency (mumkin) should not be confused with the concept of accident (‘arad’). The main difference between contingency and accident is that the contingent necessarily depends on a cause (a wajib). However, accidents necessarily do not depend on a cause. A crow is contingent, but it is being black is an accident. The contingent is, therefore, that which exists because of absolute being, that which exists due to a cause, that which can both exist and not exist, that which is not necessary to exist, but that which is not necessary to not exist because of absolute being (everything other than the absolute being). We ourselves are contingent. It was not necessary for us to exist, but it is also impossible for us not to exist. Then, there would be no wajib left, neither the hands that wrote it nor the tongues that said it. Not a nightingale, not a rose. Sufism intertwines wajib with mumkin. That is why Hallaj says to God that the only difference between me and you is that you are first and I am later. This leaves open the question of what the notion of being is. As Plato says in the Sophist, “being” is what we know what it is when we do not ask what it is, and when we ask what is it, we hesitate about. However, let us return to Ibn Sina. In the quiddity of anything, the Necessary Being (Wajib al-wujud) does not partner with it. The quiddity of everything outside of it requires the contingency of being. As for being, it is neither the quiddity of anything nor part of the quiddity of anything. I mean to say that being is not included in the comprehension of things that have quiddity. In contrast, being is superimposed on quiddity (being comes upon the quiddity). Therefore, the necessary being does not exist in common with anything in the genus and species sense, so it needs to be separated from them in a primary or incidental sense. In contrast, it is itself the separated one. Therefore, there is no definition of its essence. (İbn Sina 2013)

In this line of thinking, existence is quiddity plus wujud. Here, the wujud is an accident of quiddity. This is the thesis attributed to Ibn Sina. If the wujud is one despite the multiplicity of existence, and if the wujud is unchanging despite the change of being, how can being be a composition of quiddity (quality) and wujud? In this case, are we going back to Aristotle’s unified (composite) substance? In other words, is the wujud imprisoned in being? To eliminate this issue, Ibn Sina suggested that being comes upon the quiddity. This means that the wujud is seen as an accident. Toshihiko Izutsu summarizes Ibn Sina’s view as follows that everything we

98

H. Yalçınoğlu

encounter in the world is composed of quiddity and wujud. Each being is a combination of quiddity and wujud (İzutsu 1995. 112). Aristotle says in volume four of the Organon, it is one thing for a human being to be, and another thing for him to exit (Aristotle 1901). Aristotle can say so, because to him it is not a problem how the world of being, the sensible world, came to be. It is already a full and existing world. In Aristotle’s concept of “composite substance,” matter and spirit are common or coexist in the composite substance. Islamic philosophers could not accept this. They overcame this with the concept of wujud. The wujud as a thing cannot be confined within the substance. This is because an object that is around us has a quiddity and a wujud (identity). The quiddity is not the same as that of the wujud. Nor is the wujud (as a constitutive element) included in the quiddity (İzutsu 1995, 116). As the famous Sufi phrase goes, “Your identity is your freedom” and is not a slave. We understand that quiddity (essence in Aristotle) is the “what-ness” of being, while wujud is the “is” of being. In other words, quiddity is the “what-is it ness” (to ti en einai) of being, and wujud is the “to be” of being (being this thing—being that thing). Existing is in a “moment” in the “becoming” mode of existence between existence and being. Its position in space is the object. The differentiation between these notions led to a discussion among Sufi philosophers. If Being is a compound of quiddity and wujud, one may ask what is the “essentiality”13 of this compound, i.e., it is one of the two actual and primary, while the other is merely nominal.14 Perhaps is it wujud primary (asaliyya) and quiddity nominal (‘itibari), or is it the other way around? This is not a mere hypothetical distinction but should help us understand the corresponding reality in the extramental world. Both views have been argued for in a long-standing debate. The first view is that of the executed Suhrawardi (d. 1191), the representative of Illuminationist philosophy. According to him, quiddity precedes wujud. Many Iranian mystics, such as Mir Damat (d. 1613), have developed this view further. In recent times, one of them was Jalal al-din Ashtiyani. According to Ashtiyani, “the being that exists has an essence that must be malul”,15 and the being (here) is pure being and is the necessary being (wajib al wujud) (Öçal 2018). The predominant second view is that wujud is primary and quiddity is nominal. Its first representative was Mulla Sadra (d. 1635). The conclusion I wish to draw from all these discussions is that essence is not the quiddity of being but of the wujud. In this respect, Sartre’s thesis that “existence (wujud) precedes essence” was expressed by Mullā Sadra 500 years before him and was reproduced identically by him. Thus, it is erroneous to use quiddity, which represents quality, instead of essence in discussions of being because essence is not quality (i.e., quiddity). If it is accepted that essence is not a quiddity, all existentialist theses from Aristotle to Sartre are left aside. This is because this thesis would

 The Arabic asalet means essentiality, primary, or actual. It is used in this meaning in the text.  In Arabic itibari is nominal and is used in this meaning in the text. 15  Malul means invalid, null, void. 13 14

7  The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

99

make the absolute being, the Essence, which is Wajib al-wujud, a simple phenomenal being. This reduces it to an intelligible phenomenon. Existence is already essential, whether it comes before or after essence or whether it is primary or nominal. This remains mere speculation from this point on. This is the core achievement of Sufism in metaphysics. From Aristotle to Sartre to Mullah Sadra, the whole existence–essence debate, whether existence precedes essence or essence precedes existence, loses its meaning. If essence is the reality to be known, existence in Sufism is inherent in essence itself.All this is aptly embodied in the lines of a poet with which I would like to close. I am the mirror of the universe Since I am a human being I am the sea of being of Haqq Since I am a human being If it is Human in Haqq (God) and Haqq in human You are looking for, look a human: There is nothing lacking in man Since I am a human being All these wishes and desires Spin the wheel of fortune Let the angels bow down before me Since I am human I can write the Torah I can type the Bible I can intuit the Koran Since I am human. Aşık Daimi (poet).

References Aristotle. 1901. Posterior Analytics. Trans. E.S. Bouchier. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell. See: https:// oll.libertyfund.org/title/bouchier-­posterior-­analytics. Accessed 30 Jan 2024 ———. 1908. Metaphysica. Trans. W.  D. Ross. In “The Works of Aristotle” VIII.  Oxford: Clarendon Press. See:https://philocyclevl.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/aristotle-­metaphysic-­ ed-­ross.pdf Cornford MacDonald, F. 1989. Platon'un Bilgi Teorisi [Plato’s Theory of Knowledge]. Ankara: Gündoğan Publications. Orig. Title: Plato’s Theory of Knowledge. 1957. New  York: The Liberal Arts Press. Denkel, Arda. 1998. İlkçağ'da Doğa Felsefeleri [Philosophies of Nature in the First Age], Istanbul: Özne. Hegel, G.W.F. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Trans. H.  Barr Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

100

H. Yalçınoğlu

Ibni Arabi. 1948. Nefsini Bilen Rabbini Bilir [Who Knows His-self knows God]. İstanbul: Işıl Matbaası. Ibn Sina (Avicenna). 20132. İşaretler ve Öneriler [Signs and Recommendations]. Istanbul: Litera. Izutsu. T. 1995. İslam'da Varolma Fikri [The Idea of Being in Islam]. Istanbul: İnsan. Lenin, V.I. 1977. Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy. Trans. A. Fineberg. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Digital Reprints: 2010. From Marx to Mao Publisher. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/pdf/lenin-­cw-­ vol-­14.pdf Massignon, M.  Louis. 2006. Hallac-ı Mansur’un Çilesi [The Passion of Hallaj-i Mansur]. Ankara: Ardıç. Öçal, Sami. 2018. İran’da İşraki Düşünce'nin Seyri [The Course of Illuminationist Thought in Iran]. In Osmanlı ve İran’da İşrâk Felsefesi [Philosophy of Illumination in the Ottoman Empire and Iran]. ed. M.  Nesim Doru, et  al. İstanbul: Divan Kitap, 31–48. https://www.academia. edu/35936378/%C4%B0randa_%C4%B0%C5%9Fraki_D%C3%BC%C5%9F%C3%BCnce nin_Seyri. Accessed 30 Jan 2024. Özcangiller, Ihsan Berk. 2016. Hegel’in Fenomenolojisi’nde Özne Sorunu [The problem of the Subject in Hegel’s Phenomenology]. https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/169690/yokAcikBilim_10130765.pdf?sequence=-­1.%202016. Accessed 30 Jan 2024. Plato. 2000. The Republic. Trans. T. Griffith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part III

Islamic Eco-imagination in Mystics, Literature and Poetry

Chapter 8

Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa Taghrid Elhanafy

Abstract  This chapter starts from the conviction that literary sources are nexuses in long chains of other recycled sources. No source exists alone. An epistemological source is a product of a complex process of reading, rereading, writing, rewriting, adaptation, and readaptation. In this process of source recycling, the author adds to her/his own text new cultural, historical, or political perspectives, as well as fresh imageries, motifs, and symbolisms. Nevertheless, authors may not be consciously aware of where their imaginations/sources stem from. Here, the concept of the Re*source comes into play. The West’s underestimation of the epistemological contributions of the East hinders a sustainable understanding of not only the West’s own epistemological history but also of all humanity’s history. Lori Humphrey Newcomb, in her essay “Toward a Sustainable Source Study” (2018), called for a sustainable source study. Borrowing the ecosystem term of sustainability evokes the ramifications that sources should be regarded as naturally recyclable. Accordingly, the everflowing human fountain of imagination and inspiration must not be discontinued for the sake of a superior hegemonic West at the expense of a deemed inferior East. The This chapter is inspired by my research on the Islamic Oriental sources that ignited Shakespeare’s imagination. Both my PhD research and my master’s degree research have been placed within the theoretical frameworks of the university of Bayreuth’s Cluster of Excellence  Africa Multiple Project “Travelling Knowledge and Trans*textuality. African and Asian Sources in the Shakespearean Drama” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This chapter includes some of my research results. My supervisor Prof. Susan Arndt has contributed to the project with her research on the West African oral aesthetics, which have influenced William Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello. Furthermore, my other supervisor Prof. Michael Steppat has contributed to the project with two studies. The first of which is a trans*textual influence from the West African Yoruba culture on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His second study highlighted  North African influences which informed  William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra. Prof. Detlev Quintern, who is an editor of this volume, is also a member of the same project. Prof. Quintern’s work on the philosophy of Ikhwan Al-Safa has enriched my doctoral degree research and, in turn, has inspired this chapter T. Elhanafy (*) Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_8

103

104

T. Elhanafy

one human literary and cultural corpus itself contains endless multiplicities of creative formations, hence Ikhwan Al-Safa’s Al-Aql Al-Kuli. Some of the trans*textual literary examples given in this chapter are based on the research results of my book Trans*textual Shakespeare the Arabic and Persian Pretexts of Romeo and Juliet (2020). Keywords  Sustainable source study · Re*source · Thoth’s the One · Ikhwan Al-Safa’s Al-Aql Al-Kuli · Non-European sources of Shakespeare

1  Introduction When it comes to literary knowledge, Western academia, for instance, still limits William Shakespeare’s work to European sources. This is because Shakespeare is a Western literary icon. Although there are, in fact, sources of Shakespeare’s work coming from the Islamic  East, the Westerncentric thought, at least in regard to Shakespeare’s academia, would either undermine or altogether ignore knowledge about non-European sources of Shakespeare’s work. Dennis Austin Britton and Melissa Walter, in Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study (2018), criticize the nationalist and Eurocentric approaches of Shakespeare source studies. In the same vein, Newcomb, in the essay mentioned above, states that Shakespeare source study is an integral part of the Western colonization that marginalized non-European texts and termed them inferior (Newcomb 2018, 20). Thus, any attempt to trace sources of Shakespeare’s work from the East could lead to the anxiety of contaminating Shakespeare’s supernatural talent and superior imagination, as the following paragraph explains. This structuralist construct of a superior West and an inferior East  proves that Eurocentrism is unnatural and unsustainable. This is because history; literary, and cultural history, in  this light, are continuous. Shakespeare’s imagination is not a closed circle; this circle contains discontinuities, as Michel Foucault writes in the Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (1969). Additionally, according to Foucault in the same book, history is not a “oneway process” (Foucault 1972, 7, 11). Shakespeare’s talent has been described as exceptional and supernatural since the seventeenth century by literary figures such as Ben Jonson. For instance, Ben Jonson, in his elegy dedicated to Shakespeare in 1623, expresses that nature itself was proud of Shakespeare’s work: [N]ature herſelfe was proud of his deſignes, And joyed to weare the dreſsing of his lines!1 (Jonson 1623)

1  No page numbers are specified in the preface of this edition of the first folio. There are also no line numbers in Jonson’s elegy.

8  Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa

105

Jonson even went further by stating that Shakespeare’s work was not influenced by Latin or Greek works by writing that Shakespeare knew “Small Latine and Lesse Greek” (Jonson 1623). By stating that, Jonson ensures that Shakespeare’s genius cannot be contaminated by other previous literary works written in either Latin or Greek. Nevertheless, centuries after Jonson’s elegy and as mentioned above, there was still anxiety about contaminating the claimed originality and exceptionalism of Shakespeare’s imagination that was able to produce such literary works. John Drakakis, in his essay “Inside the Elephants’ Graveyard: Revisiting Geoffery Bullough’s Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare” (2018), writes about this anxiety. He states that this anxiety started with Shakespeare source studys scholars such as Geoffery Bullough in his seminal eight-volume book Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957–1975). Drakakis criticizes Bullough’s vocabularies, which cast skepticism about any source that could have influenced Shakespeare’s work. Phrases such as “a potential source” or “a possible source” have become attached to the field of Shakespeare source study (Drakakis 2018, 58). From an English nationalist point of view, such vocabularies are designed to distance Shakespeare’s imagination from being (God forbid) contaminated by even French or Italian sources. Moreover, Robert S. Miola, in Shakespeare’s Reading (2000), states that “[T]he idea of Shakespeare as a reader may shock and disturb” (Miola 2004, 1). Why? Simply because Shakespeare’s talent is original and supranational. Miola has also highlighted, in his study, the role the printing industry and translation played during Shakespeare’s time, which could have facilitated an access to Shakespeare and other authors to have read works from other countries translated into English or in other European languages. Literary evidence shows that Shakespeare’s work is part of closely connected layers of imagination and creation stemming from different cultures and different languages. These closely interwoven layers of creative possibilities could be regarded as  a singularity  of all humanity’s creation.  When Felix  Guatteri and Gilles  Deleuze discussed their theory of the rhizome  in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism in Schizophrenia (1981), they represented the Eurocentric structuralist thought as a tree stemming from one root. The tree keeps growing vertically then its growth terminates (Deleuze and Guatteri 1983, 25). In order to make “ruptures” in the Western structuralist historical continuity, inspired here by Foucault’s notions mentioned above, Guatteri and Deleuze spoke of a root which creates rhizomatic formations horizontally (Deleuze and Guatteri 1983, 9). In fact, Deleuze’s and Guatteri’s very notion of the one singularity that contains in itself limitless multiplicities can be traced back to the tenth-century AD philosophy of Ikhwan Al-Safa, who regarded all knowledge to be one singularity, as will be explained below. Interestingly enough, the idea of the One seed or the One singularity that contains limitless multiplicities can be further traced back to the ancient Egyptian philosophy of Thoth. According to William York Tindall in “James Joyce and the Hermetic Translation” (1954), Thoth’s tradition, which states that all creation is connected in One singularity, was adapted and Hellenized in Greek thought and attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Thus, if the epistemological corpus of all humanity is considered One seed or One singularity, then this seed contains closely

106

T. Elhanafy

woven multiplicities of recycled forms of creations and imaginations. Here in this light,  Shakespeare’s imagination is  also an integral part of this limitless pool of recycled imaginations. This chapter is divided into two sections. Section 1 constitutes a theoretical framework about the idea of the One that forms multiplicities. It stresses that those multiplicities, stemming from the One, grow and expand as rhizomatic formations of creations  which are ecologically built on previous formations of creations in the humanity’s epistemological corpus. Hence, Sect. 1 discusses Susan Arndt’s theory of Trans*textuality, which argues that sources of literary and cultural works flow in all directions of the globe (hence the asterisk), not just from the West. Because not all authors are consciously aware of where their sources originate from, Arndt’s concept of Re*source comes here into play2, as will be explained below. Section 2 highlights that Shakespeare’s work is but a rhizomatic nexus in a long chain of ecologically sustainable formations of creations. Hence, Sect. 2 offers trans*textual examples from the eighth-century Arabic story of “Majnun Layla” and Nizami Ganjavi’s Persian narrative poem Layla and Majnun (1188 AD) as sources of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet (ca. 1595). Thus, the chain of influences, presented in Sect. 2, illustrates that  Shakespeare’s imagination was  organically  influenced by Islamic culture and ­literature despite the West-centric Shakespeare source study. 

2  The One The idea of the One that encompasses multiplicities can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian teachings of the demi-God Thoth. That is where the singularity of the cosmos contains multiplicities, and those multiplicities are all connected. Thoth’s teachings have been Hellenized and attributed to Hermes Trismegustus. Accordingly, for Thoth and afterward Hermes, all cosmos is connected in one unity. Similarly, in today’s Iraq, the tenth-century AD Ikhwan Al-Safa or the Brethren of Purity, in their Rasael Ikwan Al-Safa or the Epistles of Ikhwan Al-Safa, influenced by Thoth’s “the One,” ask their readers not to discriminate against forms of knowledge. That is because, according to the group, all knowledge stems from the same concept, the same reason, the same universe, and the same spirit, which is, in their opinion, the universal mind, or Al-Aql Al-Kuli. Hence, the singularity of Al-Aql Al-Kuli, which according to Ikhwan Al-Safa, contains in itself multiplicities. These multiplicities are represented by the brethren as the sciences. According to Detlev Quintern in his essay “Aql al-Kuli Meets the Logos of Life: A Cross-Cultural Path Towards a New 2  Susan Arndt mentions her concept of Re*source in the outline of the cluster of Excellence: Africa Multiple’s project “Travelling Knowledge and Trans*textuality: African and Asian Sources in Shakespearean Drama” at the university of Bayreuth. For more information about the project, see https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/Research/1research-sections/knowledges/ Travelling-Knowledge-and-Trans_textuality_-African-Sources-in-Shakespearean-Drama/ index.html

8  Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa

107

Path of Enlightenment” (2014), Ikhwan Al-Safa developed an ethically established system of theories based on different disciplines of knowledge, such as philosophy, the natural sciences, anthropology, mathematics, the social sciences, and theology. They termed this system of the multiplicity of all the sciences Al- Aql Al-Kuli or the universal mind stressing on the connectedness of all epistemologies (Quintern 2014, 185). What makes Ikhwan Al-Safa’s idea about the One that contains multiplicities peculiar, is their down-to-earth approach, which distances itself from the esotericism of the Hellenized teachings of Thoth. According to Butrus Elbustany, in his introduction to an edited edition of the brethren’s epistles ‫ رسائل اخوان الصفا‬or The Epistles of Ikhwan Esafa (2008), Ikhwan Al-Safa state in the first Resalah/the first Epistle that:3 ‫ وال يتعصبوا على‬،‫ أو يهجروا كتابا من الكتب‬،‫ أن ال يعادوا علما من العلوم‬،‫ أيدهم هللا تعالى‬،‫و بالجمله ينبغي إلخوانا‬ ‫ و ذلك أنه هو النظر في جميع‬،‫ ألن رأينا و مذهبنا يستغرق المذاهب كلها و يجمع العلوم جميعها‬،‫مذهب من المذاهب‬ ‫بعين الحقيقه من حيث‬،‫جليها و خفيها‬،‫ ظاهرها و باطنها‬،‫أولها الى آخرها‬ ‫ و من‬،‫ الحسيه و العقليه‬،‫الموجودات بأسرها‬ ‫ و‬،‫ و نفس واحده محيطة جواهرها المختلفه‬،‫عالم واحد‬ ‫و جزئياتها المتغيره‬،‫ و عله واحده‬،‫هي كلها من مبظأ واحد‬ ‫ه‬ .‫ و أنواعها المفننه‬،‫أجناسها المتابينه‬ (Ikhwan Al-Safa and Elbustany 2008, 48) Generally, our siblings, May Allah come to their aid, should not oppose any science, nor should they relinquish a book. They should not also be intolerant of any doctrine/Mazhab, that is, because our doctrine/Mazhab and our opinions not only encompass all the other doctrines but also encompass all the other sciences. This is because all existence stems from one principle, one reason and one world.4 (Ikhwan Al-Safa and Elbustany 2008, 48)

It is obvious in the above-mentioned quotation that Ikhwan Al-Safa stressed the idea of the One from which all existence, including all the sciences and ideologies, stems. The theory of the Rhizome of the 1980s, in fact, echoes the early poststructuralist thought of Ikhwan Al-Safa’s Al-Aql Al-Kuli or the universal reason. In fact, the theory of the Rhizome, where, the singularity of the root from which other roots emerge and, in turn, create other roots of multiplicities, is a theory that is itself a nexus in a long line of rhizomatic epistemologies. Before the Rhizome, there was Thoth’s teaching of the One (cosmos), which contains multiplicities, as well as Ikhwan Al-Safa’s Al-Aql Al-Kuli, as illustrated above. There is an instance of an ideational transference from Ikhwan as-Safa’s Rasa’il to Deleuze and Guatteri’s the Rhizome. According to Giom Defoe in ‫ رسائل اخوان الصفا‬or The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (2017), Ikhwan Al-Safa did not sign their names on the epistles/Rasael because they believed that they were one spirit in separate bodies. Hence, they made every epistle appear as if it were written by the whole group “‫”و هذا التأليف المشترك ما هو اال إثبات لحقيقة إخوان الصفا نفس واحده في أجسام منفصله‬ (Defoe 2017, 2). Here, they state that this “coauthoring is but a proof that Ikhwan Al-Safa are one spirit in different bodies.”5 This last notion is interesting because Guattari and Deleuze mention in their introduction of the chapter of the theory of

 My translation from the Arabic language.  My underlining for emphasis. 5  My translation from the Arabic language. 3 4

108

T. Elhanafy

the Rhizome, in the book mentioned above, that they are no longer different individuals: “[W]e are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied” (Deleuze and Guatteri 1983, 3). Guattari and Deleuze do not feel their separateness; rather, they state their unity exactly as Ikhwan Al-Safa had stated it before them. Whether it is the singularity of the cosmos, Al-Aql Al-Kuli, or the rhizomatic root; all those singularities celebrate multiplicities which they encompass. However, placing Shakespeare’s imagination as a self-contained singularity is against the objectives of Arndt’s theory of Trans*textuality, which is, in turn, inspired by the theory of the Rhizome. Arndt’s theory is in opposition to the well-­intentioned but still Eurocentric theories of Intertextuality of Julia Kristeva and Transtextuality of Gérard Genette, who support their theories with literary examples limited to Western works. As mentioned above, the asterisk shows that knowledge flows in all directions. Knowledge does not stop only in the North or the West. Because of the fluidity of knowledge, ideas, inspirations, and imaginations, oral or written texts can sustainably influence and get influenced by one another. This does not mean that authors are always aware of the sources that inspired and ignited their imagination. An author could adapt a written or an oral text without consciously knowing where it comes from or what kind of cultural or religious ramifications it has. Here, Arndt’s concept of Re*source is considered. Re*source not only states that orality plays a role that is as important as the written text but also states that authors may not be conscious of the sources from which their works stem. Nevertheless, their works are components of a complex ecological process of creation and recreation.

3  T  he Ecological Sustainability of Shakespeare’s Imagination This section of the chapter gives some examples, based on the research in my book mentioned above, to illustrate how ecologically sustainable Shakespeare’s imagination was and that the singularity of a Shakespearean play contains complex layers of cultural, religious, and literary multiplicities. A  Shakespearean play such as Romeo and Juliet, which was written in ca. 1595, has a long rhizomatic line of cultural and literary transmissions. The sources of Romeo and Juliet can be traced back to the eighth-century AD Arabic story of “Majnun Layla” in today’s Saudi Arabia. The Ghazal poems, which Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah (Majnun) wrote to his beloved Layla, were compiled by Al-Isfahani in the tenth-century AD book Kitab Al-Aghani or The Book of Songs. The story of “Majnun Layla” along with Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah’s poems were transferred to Persia. That is where Nizami Ganjavi adapted them, with their Islamic Sufi ramifications, in his narrative poem Layla and Majnun in 1188 AD. The same story influenced the Italian Masuccio Salernitano’s short story “Mariotto e Ganozza” (1476), the Italian Luigi Da Porto’s novella Giulietta e Romeo (1531), Muhammed Fuzuli’s Azerbaijani-Turkish narrative poem Leyla ile Mecnun (ca.1535), the Italian Matteo Bandello’s novella Of the Sad End of

8  Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa

109

Two Lovers (1554), the French Pierre Boaistuau’s novella Histoires Troisieme de deux Amants (1560), Arthur Brooke’s English narrative poem The Tragicall Historie of Romeus and Juliet (1562), and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (ca.1595). In accordance with this rhizomatic line of textual transmission of the Arabic story of “Majunun Layla,” I concluded in my research that Nizami Ganjavi’s Persian poem Layla and Mecnun is  a direct source of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  Shakespeare’s text adapted not only very similar character constellations, plotlines, and even Islamic Sufi aesthetics about divine love but also annihilation in  the beloved, pilgrimage, fate, and madness. Shakespeare’s  text also adapted Ganjavi’s poem verbally, in several instances, as will be illustrated below. An example of the Sufi aesthetics that was trans*textually adapted by Shakespeare in his play Romeo and Juliet is madness: [M]adness in Sufism is a state attributed to Sufis who are attracted by the divine energy. Such sufis have achieved a high level of unity with God through love. A mad Sufi is called Majdhub, which means in Arabic both attracted and mad. The relationship between extreme levels of love for the beloved and madness is one of the themes shared among the poetry of Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah, Ganjavi’s narrative poem, and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In fact, madness in the Arabic, Persian and English texts is represented as imprisonment and/ or the caging of a bird. (Elhanafy 2020, 128)

Romeo, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, who is called mad by Mercutio, declares to Benvolio that the state of his love makes him mad, even madder than a madman who is imprisoned and tormented: Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;6 Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipped and tormented […]. (Shakespeare and Weis 2016, 145)

Although the state of madness and feeling of imprisonment that Romeo refers to are linked to his unrequited love for Rosaline, the new love story with Juliet lends itself a new form of imprisonment. Juliet uses the same imagery of imprisonment as she addresses Romeo in the balcony scene: ´Tis almost morning I would have thee gone, And yet no farther than a wonton’s bird, That lets it hop a little from his hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyres, And with a silken thread plucks it back again […]. (Shakespeare and Weis 2016, 198–199)

Four centuries before Romeo, Qais, in Ganjavi’s poem, also uses the same imagery of being a madman, not a bird but an animal hunted by his beloved: Huntress, beautiful one whose victim I amlimping, a willing target for your arrows. I follow obediently my beloved, who owns my soul. If she says “Get Drunk” that is what I shall do. If she orders me to be mad, that is what I shall be. To

 The lines are underlined by me to emphasis the verbal similarities among the texts.

6

110

T. Elhanafy tame a madman like me, fate has no chains, crushed. (Ganjavi and Gelpke 1966, 20)

Here, Majnun describes himself as a helpless animal whose soul is imprisoned, like Romeo’s soul, by the beloved. Moreover, in one of Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah’s poems, the same imagery of the imprisoned madman is evident: I’m O so restless and I’m O so madly in love; like a slave kept in chains so long I’ve suffered! This reasonable mind of mine is O so weak… now all sleep has left me and eyes are opened! I’m only veins and bones nothing else to see… body, heart, soul by love for her are destroyed. (Ibn Al-Mulawwah and Smith 2011, 84)

In another poem, Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwah describes himself as a bird in the snare: “partridge in defeated heart’s net, squawking,” as he heard that Layla was moving to another place (Ibn Al-Mulawwah and Smith 2011, 86). In the lines quoted above, Ibn Al-Mulawwah uses the same imagery of madness, imprisonment, being chained, and being physically and mentally tormented by his love for Layla. Finally, the verbal parallels found in the theme of madness and its relationship with imprisonment and mental and physical suffering among the three texts are clear. Both Romeo in Shakespeare’s play and Majnun in Ganjavi’s poem are a hunted bird and a hunted animal, respectively: [W]hile the bird hops, the animal limps. Both the bird and the animal cannot fly or walk as they please because of being captives to the female beloveds. Like Juliet, who controls the bird with a silken robe deciding for him when to hop and when to be caged, so does Layla, who controls the soul of Majnun; she can make him drunk or mad. His madness is not caused by fate; it is caused by Layla, who can exempt him from his suffering. While Juliet controls the bird with a robe, Layla controls Majnun with a chain. Like Romeo who is a tormented imprisoned madman, so is Majnun who describes himself as crushed. (Elhanafy 2020, 130).

It is obvious now, from the literary examples mentioned above, that Shakespeare’s work, represented here by the play of Romeo and Juliet, is a part of an ecologically sustainable system of imagination. That is where literary epistemologies, as far as this chapter is concerned, are rhizomatically built on one another whether the author is aware of that or not. The chain of trans*textual transmissions that follows the Arabic story of “Majnun Layla” can be considered  as the One seed from which recycled multiplicities of imaginations have emerged and have been formed.

References Arndt, Susan. 2018. “Transtextuality in William Shakespeare’s Othello. Italian, West African and English Encounters”. “Frontmatter”. Anglia 136 (3): i–iv. https://doi.org/10.1515/ ang-­2018-­frontmatter3. Bonta, Mark. 2010. Rhizome of Boehme and Deleuze: Esoteric Precursors of the God of Complexity. SubStance, 39 (1): Project Muse, 62–75. https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.0.0066.

8  Recycled Imaginations, Re*source, and the One According to Ikhwan Al-Safa

111

Britton, Dennis Austin, and Melissa Walter. 2018. Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies. Routledge/Taylor Et Francis Group. Bullough, Geoffrey. 1958. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare Vol. 1: Early Comedies, Poems, Romeo & Juliet. Routledge/Kegan Paul. Defoe, Giom. 2017. ‫رسائل إخوان الصفا و خالن الوفا‬. [The Epistles of Ikhwan Al-Safa and Khelan Al-Wafa]. ‫الهيئه المصريه العامه للكتاب‬, p. 2 Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Félix. 1983. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press (originally published in 1981), p. 3. Drakakis, J. 2018. Inside the Elephant’s Graveyard: Revising Geoffrey Bullough’s Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. In Shakespeare and Authority, Palgrave Shakespeare Studies, ed. K. Halsey and A. Vine, 58. Palgrave Macmillan. Drakakis, John. 2021. Shakespeare's Resources. Manchester University Press. Elhanafy, Taghrid. 2020. Trans*textual Shakespeare the Arabic and Persian Pre-Texts of Romeo and Juliet. Edition Assemblage, p. 128, 192, 130. Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Trans. Smith Sheridan A. M. Pantheon Books, p. 7, 11. Ganjavii, Niẓami, and Gelpke, Rudolf. 1966. The Story of Layla and Majnun. Cassimer, p. 12, 20. Genette, Gérard. 1997. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. University of Nebraska Press. Ibn Al-Mulawwah, Qais, and Paul Smith. 2011. Poems of Majnun. New Humanity Books: 84. Ikhwan Al-Safa, and Elbustany, Butrus. 2008. ‫ المجلد االول‬٠ ‫[ رسائل إخوان الصفا و خالن الوفا‬The Epistles of Ikhwan Al-Safa, Vol. 1]. The Center of Islamic Media, p. 48 https://www.hindawi.org/ books/95926405/ Jonson, Ben in Shakespeare, William. Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. First Folio (1623). Internet Archive, 1623. https://archive.org/details/firstfolio/ mode/2up Kristeva, Julia, et  al. 2006. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Columbia University Press. Mahé, Jean-Pierre. 1996. Preliminary Remarks on the Demotic ‘Book of Thoth’ and the Greek Hermetica. Vigiliae Christianae 50 (4): 353–363. Jstor. www.jstor.org/stable/1584313. Miola, Robert S. 2004. Seven Types of Intertextuality. In Shakespeare, Italy & Intertextuality, ed. Michelle Marrapodi. Manchester University Press. ———. 2012. Shakespeares Reading, 1. Oxford University Press. Newcomb, Lori Humphrey. 2018. Toward A Sustainable Source Study. In Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies, ed. Dennis Austin Britton and Melissa Walter, 20. Routledge/Taylor Et Francis Group. Quintern, Detlev. 2014. Aql al-Kulli Meets the Logos of Life: A Cross-Cultural Path Towards a New Enlightenment. In Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue: The Logos of Life and Cultural Interlacing, 185. Dordrecht: Springer. Shakespeare, William, and Weis René. 2016. Romeo and Juliet. Bloomsbury, pp. 145, 198–199, 176–180. Source Materials. 2020. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews. Taylor & Frances Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0895769X.2020.1835455 Steppat, Michael. 2022. The African Imprint in Shakespeare. Vol. 1:33, Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts. www.athensjournals.gr/humanities/2022-­4670-­AJHA-­LIT-­Steppat-­05.pdf Tindall, William York. 1954. James Joyce and the Hermetic Tradition. Journal of the History of Ideas 15 (1): 23–39. Jstor.

Chapter 9

Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics Ebrahim Azadegan, Maryam Faramand, and Hossein Tahmaseb Kazemi

Abstract  About 150 years ago, two famous Iranian mystic and jurisprudent Najaf seminary people debated the interpretation of one of the poems of Attar Nishabouri. In this chapter, we try to outline the key points of the dispute between these two Hercules of contemporary Islamic mysticism and then try to extract out of this debate a conception of the relation between the unity of God and the manifold and plurality in His creatures to introduce a type of symbiotic perspective of a man–God relationship. To explain the social and even political role of human beings in the journey toward the ethical community, we appeal to the metaphor of the mystical journey from thirty birds [si murgh] toward unified Simurgh. If every person in society does her role perfectly, they will reach the Qaaf of a good and unified society. Keywords  Simurgh · Islamic mysticism · Essence of God · Existence · Unity · Moral community

E. Azadegan (*) Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] M. Faramand Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Department of History of Science, Encyclopedia Islamica Foundation, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] H. T. Kazemi University of Religions and Denominations, Qum, Iran e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_9

113

114

E. Azadegan et al.

1 Introduction The Language of Birds by Attar Nishabuori is a well-known mystical poetry that, together with his other works, has dominated the history of Islamic mysticism in Iran both directly and indirectly through interpretations up to the present. There is a branch of Shia clerics and jurists in contemporary Iran who have pursued and continued the Islamic mysticism path, despite being a minority and possibly under some pressure from the majority of the anti-Sufi society. Mulla Hoseingholi Hamedani (1239–1311 AH), the founder of a group of mystics in the Najaf seminary, was the pupil of Sheikh Morteza Ansari (1214–1281 AH) and Haj Mulla Hadi Sabzevari (1212–1289 AH). We may trace the trajectory of this mystical line from Seyed Ali Shushtari to Mulla Hoseingholi Hamedani to Seyed Ahmad Karbalaii to Seyed Mirza Ali Qazi Tabatabaii to Allameh Seyed Muhammad Hosein Tabatabii (the author of Almizan fi tafsir al-Quran) to Allameh Seyed Muhammad Hosein Tehrani. With the interpretation of one of Attar Nishabouri’s poems in “The Conference of the Birds” (Attar Nishabouri, 1984), there is a debate between Seyed Ahmad Karbalaii (the teacher of Allameh Tabatabii in mysticism) and Ayatollah Sheikh Muhammad Hosein Isfahani Kompani (the teacher of Allameh in Jurisprudence). This written debate between these two heads of different viewpoints in contemporary Islamic thought was initiated by one of their students in a reciprocal dialogue. Allameh Tabatabaii and Allameh Tehrani have also written some commentaries on the debate of course, mostly in favor of Seyyed rather than Sheikh. This discussion stems from a metaphor in Attar’s book and concerns the concept of “Simorgh” in the Persian literature. Simorgh is the name of a legendary bird that resides on the highest peak “Qaf.” Although “Simorgh” is regarded as a single noun in Farsi (with its own meaning and etymology): SIMORḠ (Persian), Sēnmurw (Pahlavi), Sīna-Mrū (Pāzand), derived from Avestan mərəγō saēnō “the bird Saēna,” can be deduced from the etymologically identical Sanskrit śyená, the prefix “Sēn/ Sīn/Syen” has been interpreted as light (also paid attention to the word Sun). Suhrawardi also called Simorgh the light of lights in his philosophy by a literary array (pun); it can be split into the words “Si” and “Morgh” in Persian literature. “Si” refers to thirty (as a number), which is an allude to plurality, and “morgh” means a fowl, which alludes to beings. In mystical poems, the highest essence of the one and only God has been willed from Simorgh, while the plurality of beings has been willed from Si-Morgh (thirty fowl). As a result, these two settings elegantly speak to the concept of unity in plurality. The debate forms upon the interpretation of this attar’s poem: ‫دائما او پادشاه مطلق است در ﮐمال عز خود مستغرق است‬ ‫( ”او ﺑﮫ سر ناید ز خود انجا ﮐﮫ اوست کی رسد علم و خرد انجا ﮐﮫ اوست‬Attar Nishabouri 1968, 45) He reigns in undisturbed omnipotence, bathed in the light of His magnificence—No mind, no intellect can penetrate the mystery of his unending state (Attar Nishabouri 1984, 15)

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

115

In this controversial poem, Attar says that God is the Sovereign and soaks in His self-contemplation of His greatness. There is no manifestation of Him where He is; no reason of existence could ever reach His great standpoint. In this chapter, we try to outline the key points of the dispute and then try to extract out of this debate a conception of the relation between the unity of God and the manifold and plurality in His creatures to introduce a type of symbiotic perspective of a man–God relationship. Summary of Sheikh’s first answer (hereafter referred to as Sheikh and Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Husein Esfahani Kompany): God in His essence is the pure existence, so He is not limited by any type of metaphysical limitations. This unlimitedness makes Him unknowable since knowability is either representational or direct. Indirect representational knowledge of God’s essence is impossible since to achieve representational knowledge, one needs to have judgment on a given phenomenological existence of the perceived object. However, God’s essence cannot be (totally) given phenomenologically to our mind. Therefore, the representational knowledge of Him is impossible. Direct representation of God’s essence to our mind is also impossible since, in direct representation, the unity between the subject and the object is needed, but God as the necessary existent cannot be unified with a limited subject such as a human being. Attaring in his poem, thus, means that God soaks in His self-contemplation of His greatness, and no one can ever understand His highness. Summary of Seyyed’s first answer (hereafter we mean by Seyyed, Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Tehrani Karbalai): Attar in this poem says that we cannot know God unless we know Him through His self-understanding. God is in a deep self-soaking standpoint in His essence, and so, He in His self-contemplation does not think about us or any creatures; therefore, there is no creature at all, let alone that they are able to understand God. However, if God in Himself sees us and thinks about us, then we can see Him and His face through His eyes. This is the other meaning of Imam Sajjad praying when he says: “O’ my Lord, I know Thee through Thee, and Thou guidest me towards Thyself” (Imam Ali Ibn Husein Sajjad, “Abu Hamzah Thomali prayer,” in Al-Sheikh Tousi’s Mesbah (402)). Our Commentary on the First Round of Debate  From their first answers, we can see their different viewpoints on the relation between God and man. Sheikh emphasizes the essential unknowability of God and the impossibility of human access to His standpoint, but Seyyed, despite acceptance of divine unknowability, emphasizes the way we can reach Him through Him. In the following, we shall see this divergence in more detail. Summary of Sheikh’s Second Response  He disagrees with the idea that God in His essence only thinks about Himself and nothing else. However, he thinks that God’s understanding of His mutable creatures is through His relational and extrinsic attributes that are derivative from His essential and intrinsic attributes. Therefore, he thinks that God, through self-contemplation, also contemplates His creatures since He is the simple truth. According to the “simple truth” [basit-al-haghighah] doc-

116

E. Azadegan et al.

trine, all the beings are in One. Therefore, there is no deep self-soaking standpoint for God, contrary to Seyyed’s belief. Summary of Seyyed’s Second Response  We should distinguish between the different stages of God’s existence. In the stage of essence, there is nothing, no limitation, no distinction, and no things. In this stage, there is the stage of divine attributes, the stage of names, and the stage of the multitude of things. God exists in all of these stages, but the stage of essence is precisely the stage in which all the other attributes, names, and entities are soaked and annihilated. This stage of total annihilation is the stage in which Imam Ali says that “the end of His unification is to deny any attribute of Him” (Nahj al-Balaghah, Lecture 1). This pure annihilation is the end of the mystical journey that we wish to reach. Our Commentary on the Second Round of Debate  While Seyyed sees the end of divine unification in the annihilation of all names and attributes in God’s essence, Sheikh could not accept such a total annihilation since he thinks that the result of this total annihilation is the deletion of the line between necessary existent and contingent beings, between One and manifold, between God and other beings. This sort of demarcation between contingent beings and necessary being in the idea of Sheikh seems to be the point of departure between these two great theologians. Summary of Sheikh’s Third Response  Sheikh is a monist, so he thinks that there is metaphysical only pure existence and its manifestation. Therefore, he agrees that there are God’s stages of the essence, attributes, names, and multitude of creatures, but these distinctions between stages are only conceptual rather than metaphysical. In other words, God in His state of essence is aware of all of the other His stages and so creatures. Therefore, there is no annihilation of names and attributes in God’s essence, but they exist indistinguishably in His essence. Seyyed argues that in the essence of God, all the names and attributes are metaphysically annihilated, but Sheikh thinks that in God’s essence, there is indistinguishability of names and attributes that is the result of the conceptual annihilation of all beings in God’s essence. Contra Seyyed’s claim about metaphysical annihilation in the sense that in God’s essence, there would be no name or attribute at all. Sheikh believes that only conceptual annihilation is possible according to which names and attributes exist in the essence of God, but they all refer to the same name and attribute. Since their reference is one, then they are conceptually indistinguishable, but they are different in their haecceity or thisness. According to Sheikh, this metaphysical annihilation is impossible since the requisite of metaphysical annihilation of names and attributes is that they cannot be the object of God’s knowledge. If it would be so, then we cannot explain how God could create the multitude because He does not know them essentially and eternally. In other words, to explain God’s eternal plan for His creation process, he has to have the knowledge of His plan in His essence. Therefore, the object of His knowledge in His essence exists conceptually and is not metaphorically annihilated. It is noteworthy that Imam Ali’s hadith that “the end of His

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

117

unification is to deny any attribute of Him” means not to deny any attribute to Him but to deny any differentiation between His attributes in His state of the essence. Summary of Seyyed’s Third Response  All beings other than God should be considered conventional or suppositional in their existence. God creates beings according to the normative rules of His preferred providence. Only God exists truly, and other beings are just the extended shines of His light. If God considered Himself in His self-contemplation as unity, then He is in the state of Uniqueness, but if He contemplates Himself alongside other creatures as their creator, then He is in the stage of One, and if He sees Himself as without any condition and limitation, then He is in the stage of His Great Highness name, the stage that is the end of mystical path. Our delusion that there are truly other beings comes from the fact of divine omnipresence. We see God in His creatures alongside seeing His creatures, but since we cannot distinguish between beings as itself and being a sign of God, we mistakenly think that being in itself exists as an independent substance. Therefore, beings other than God, not only their haecity or thisness but also their existence as a substance, are conventional and conceptual. In addition, their form of existence is completely dependent on one’s existence, which is essentially formless. Here, there is a large difference between the existence of human beings and that of other beings. Humans can respond to God’s mercy and initiate the return path toward God. Among all the creatures, God calls and invites us to do this responsibility. Of course, all the path is taken by Him, from Him, for Him, and toward Him. Shabistari in Golshan-e-Raz says: Know the whole world is the beam of the light of the Truth, yet the Truth within it is concealed from manifestation. (Shabestari 1880, 10). He that knows the Truth and to whom Unity is revealed, Sees at first glance the light of the Being. Nay more, as he sees by illumination that pure Light, he sees God first in everything that he sees (Shabistari 1880, 8).

Our commentary on the Third Round of Debate  The difference between the two contributors is clearer in this round. While Seyyed emphasizes a conception of unity of God according to which nothing truly exists other than God and all the beings are only conceptually considered as beings, Sheikh argues that God has different levels or stages and, in each stage, that he has different attributes and forms that are metaphysically real. However, according to Seyyed, there is no real variance between the stages of God, and any distinction should be considered conceptual rather than metaphysical. Summary of Sheikh’s Fourth Response  What makes contingent beings exist is different from what makes necessary beings exist because of the difference between the possibility of nothingness in contingent beings and the impossibility of nothingness in necessary beings. Thus, we have no reason to accept the idea that the pure existence in His deep self-contemplation as God’s essence prevents any contingent being contemplated. Therefore, God essentially contemplates other beings as His manifestation, and other beings are totally related to God’s essence. Therefore, mul-

118

E. Azadegan et al.

titudes are existentially and metaphysically dependent upon God, such as the beam of light from the sun, unlike waves from the sea. The latter metaphor is not a correct metaphor since it requires unification between other beings and God, such as waves of sea, while we must deny such unification. The beam of light example shows the total relatedness of the beam to the source of light and its existential dependence but does not necessitate any sort of total unification. Beams of sunlight are not the sun or modifications of the sun, while waves are modifications of the sea. The other illustrative metaphor is the relation between a picture of a man and the real man. The picture is related totally and existentially to the man but has different types of properties, history, and functionality. This metaphor can help us to understand the relation between the creator and creatures and between the one and manifolds. Accordingly, we ought to understand other beings not as entities annihilated in God but as beings that are telecommunicated by God as His words and signs. The other noteworthy point is that if we reflect on God’s attributes such as omnipotence and omniscience, we confirm their unlimitedness. If so, then we ought to attribute God’s knowledge to all His stages, including His essence. In other words, God essentially has knowledge and power. Therefore, His existence is the same as His power and knowledge. However, since the object of God’s knowledge is existentially related to Him and the knowledge relation is also the presence of the object for Himself, then God is knower, known, and the knowledge Himself. Thus, we ought to consider the annihilation of names and attributes in God’s essence merely as conceptual rather than metaphysical. This state of unlimited knowledge and goodness is the essence of God, according to Sheikh’s conception of unity of God as pure existence. Summary of Seyyed’s Fourth Response  If the essence of God as the necessary being is pure existence, then other beings alongside pure existence could exist only as nothingness or normative concepts. As Sadrudin Qunavi says, “Describing a name to the essence of God is possible only by understanding its determinations and limitations in His creatures, which depends on the subject’s conceptual analysis. Therefore, truly it would be a negative description of the essence. The only positive account of the essence can be its first determination, which is the key to the hidden. Only in this way can one name the essence. The first determination of the essence, then, has different names for its different descriptions, even contradictory descriptions. However, the essence permits all of these descriptions because of their limitations. The first is the attribute of the first determination of the essence, not the attribute of the essence as such. Pure existence has no name and no attribute. In addition, God works in the world through these different names, so we can say God works in the world through His essence, since the names are the name of the first determination of the essence” (Al-Hikam Year 288). Our Commentary on the Fourth Round of Debate  According to a famous distinction, Abdurrazzaq Kashani distinguishes between three levels of divine abstraction from other beings: God’s essence is the pure existence without any limitation (la bishart), God as the One is the pure existence free from any determination or

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

119

relatedness to others (bishart-i la), God as the one who is the source of existence of others, and the pure existence that all others depend existentially on Him (bishart-i shei). Sheikh emphasizes that he sees no difference between the stage of pure existence as la bishart and bishart-i la. In other words, Sheikh thinks that God’s essence as condition-free is the same as His existence as free from any condition. However, according to Seyyed, there is a large difference between these two stages. In the stage of pure existence as condition-free, God is totally unknowable and u­ nreachable, but in the stage of Oneness free from any condition, God can be characterized as unlimited omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. The la bishart existence just is; we cannot say anything else about Him, and only by a pronoun such as He can we allude to it. To understand the difference more clearly, we should again read the famous surah of Tawhid in the Quran: “Say He is Allah, the One.” The la bishart (unconditioned existence), He, is introduced by Allah the One. There is no name or attribute in the la bishart pure existence. This unreachable and complete unknowability is what makes mystics enthusiastic. This total hiddenness makes the mystics motivated to intend to pace the mystical journey toward the unreachable peak Qaaf and the home of Simurgh: the pure unity. Summary of Sheikh’s Fifth Response  Shaikh asks that if Seyyed’s theory about the conceptual existence of other beings was true, then how could he explain the causal efficacy of material objects, including human beings’ actions in the material world? Sheikh thinks that we ought to accept the metaphysical existence of other beings, while of course, we assert that all other beings are existentially dependent on God. He believes that both unity and multitude are real. It is not the case that only unity is real. Since the unity of existence is not the numerical unity of One but a unity of pure existence that penetrates all beings, there is no contradiction in believing in the reality of multitude. The mystical path has different routes: Hafez himself, in some of his mystical stages, sees unity in multitude, and in other stages, he sees multitude in unity. Hafez says: When, into the mirror of the cup, the reflection of Thy face fell, From the laughter of wine, into the crude desire of the cup, the Aref fell. With that splendor that in the mirror, the beauty of Thy face made, all this picture into the mirror of fancy fell. All this reflection of wine and varied pictures that have appeared Is a splendor of the face of the Saqi that, into cup fell. (Divan Hafez, Ghazal 111).

Here, he sees the face of the beloved in the mirror of the wine cup, while in some other stages, he sees multitude in unity: A nightingale had a rose leaf, pleasant of hue in his beak, and on that leaf and pleasant food, bitter lamentation held. To him, I said, “In the very time of union wherefore is this lament and cry?” He said, “In this work, of lament, me the beloved’s beauty is held.” If the true Beloveset not with us beggars, room for complaint is none; King, prosperous was He; shame of beggars, He held.

120

E. Azadegan et al.

Our supplication and entreaty affect not the Friend possessed of beauty, Happy he, who from beloved ones, the fortune of prosperity held. Arise! so that on the reed of that Painter, we may scatter our soul; for, all this wonderful picture, in the revolution of His compass, Lie held. (Divan Hafez, Ghazal 78).

Hafez looks at the painter, the above face, and then sees painting and a wonderful picture of natural beauty through Him. Summary of Seyyed’s Fifth Response  Contra Sheikh, Seyyed, thinks that the multitude is conceptual and does not exist metaphysically; rather, what exists is the Truth, the necessary being. The best way to understand the prolonged debate between determinism and freewill is to see the middle way as God’s permission to His creatures to act under His authority. Therefore, God as the sovereign is the final cause and the final doer of any action or event occurring in the world. “... you did not throw when you threw, rather, it was Allah who threw, that He might test the faithful with a good test from Himself. Indeed, Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing.” (Q 8:17). An illuminating example of the existing unity in the multitude is our actions, which have been performed by our soul through several different senses and bodily parts. Each part has its own responsibility and dedicated action, while it is truly me who is the main responsible and doer of any action. Our Commentary on the Fifth Round of Debate  We gradually reached the final stages of the debate in this round. It seems that the two contributors repeat their claims again with some emphasis on their main idea. Sheikh places stress on the reality and causal efficacy of multitude, while Seyyed denies any reality for other beings to the extent that, according to his monism, they are mere modifications of pure existence. According to Seyyed, there is no substance in the world but God, while Sheikh accepts the existence of countless substances, each of which depends existentially on God. This difference is important for our purpose since we, in a closer position to Seyyed, would like to emphasize the unity-seeking journey, which every bird has to go through to reach its own real existence by recognizing itself as nothing but a feather of Simurgh. The social role and responsibility of each of us then is under scrutiny. Each of us has a special role in the flight of Simurgh, but it is truly Simurgh who is flying. Summary of Sheikh’s Sixth Response  When we say that other beings exist not conceptually but metaphysically, we mean that God as the necessary and pure existence has paid attention to their nature to be actualized from nothingness. Then, God manifests Himself and His existence through the thing that is actualized. Of course, the actualized contingent being is not the necessary being but the His sign. Summary of Seyyed’s Sixth Response  Ibn Kamouneh famously asks why it would be impossible if two separate gods had a different and completely separate territory, each of which has its own world and rules in His world, and no conflict can be imagined between them. Considering that both of the worlds exist and that pure

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

121

existence penetrates both of them, it could be impossible for pure existence to exist separately and in two different worlds. Therefore, only if we consider the pure existence as la bishart, i.e., without any limitations or any determinations, can we answer Ibn Kamouneh’s question. However, if we mistakenly define pure existence only as infinite and limitless (bishart-i la), then Ibn Kamouneh can suppose two (and even much more) separate infinite sets of worlds, each of which has a separate god. Therefore, it seems that the tawhid can only be understood as we understand the nature of pure existence in a la bishart conception. Our Commentary on the Sixth Round of Debate  In this section, Seyyed appeals to the most fundamental point of disagreement between him and Sheikh by giving the example of Ibn Kamouneh’s question. He argues that the doctrine of Tawhid as the foundation of Islam can be truly conceptualized only when we see God’s unity as la bishart, i.e., pure existence, without any limitation or determination. The consequence of such a special view about the unity of God is the denial of the reality of all other beings rather than God, a claim that Sheikh blatantly disagrees with. Accordingly, one might think that Seyyed’s conception of Tawhid saves no room for individual persons’ real role in the world, while for Sheikh, this mystical journey consists of analyzing and understanding our social and even political role in our world. According to Sheikh’s mystical theology, while we see God’s presence in all the beings as His manifestation, we still view the existence of other beings not as conventional and conceptual but as real. Sheikh’s understanding of the multitudes as real makes them actual signs of God’s logos or Word. The whole world, then, is the book that has been said and written by God. This conception makes our world replete with meaningful words that ought to be read. However, Seyyed’s picture of the world is deeper and more thought provoking. He sees the world as a mirror and each part of the world as a little mirror that only reflects God’s face. Every drop of rain, every flower, every stone, and every human being are not only signs of God but also demonstrations of His different names and attributes. Summary of Sheikh’s Seventh (Last) Response  Sheikh claims that the pure existence as bishart la is the same stage as la bishart since pure existence without any limitation, la bishart, is nothing unless we call it pure existence without limitations that depend on other contingent beings rather than necessary existence, that is, bishart la. It is important to note that through this conception of God’s essence as bishart la, we can essentially ascribe several good attributes to God. Otherwise, if one follows Seyyed, one should say that God’s essence has no attribute at all, but this claim is contradictory to God essentially being pure existence since pure existence has several good attributes, including self-consciousness. Therefore, God, essentially as pure existence, is aware of all other beings through His self-awareness and self-­ contemplation processes.

122

E. Azadegan et al.

Summary of Seyyed’s Seventh (Last) Response  I cannot say anything else. Just I say that if my eyes are so blind that they are unable to see other beings than God, I ask God to keep me blind forever. Our Commentary on the Seventh (Last) Round of Debate  It is interesting to observe the world totally as a picture of divine unity, which both Seyyed and Sheikh are common in this viewpoint, but the main difference in their views can be seen in two points: first, they differ in their conception of God’s essence as pure existence. Second, they disagree about the attribution of existence to other beings rather than God. We will illustrate the social and political consequences of these two different viewpoints.

2 Analysis of the Discussions Following Sheikh, we see any individual bird (murgh) as an independent substance and Simurgh as the state of unification of the birds to fly together as one organized system. The conference of birds as Simurgh empowered them to reach the telos of Qaaf, the peak of unity, beauty, and goodness. Sheikh argues that while other beings are existentially dependent on God, nevertheless, they actually exist. Human beings stand in the world as real persons and agents who can freely choose to act in the world, albeit by God’s bestowment upon them. This view accordingly puts human beings in an axiological point of view, in the highest position of the world, and expects human beings to engage in social activities together to be like God through building an ethical society in which every human being, as the reflection of God’s face of His Caliph and successor, deserves special respect. The social consequence of this mystical/philosophical view of course is a sort of individualism and existentialism that leads to the establishment of a democratic and moral/rational society. Sheikh’s political activities in favor of people’s demonstrations against oppression and dictatorship in the Iranian constitutional revolution in combination with Mulla Mohammad Husein Naeini (the main leader of revolution in the Najaf seminary) in the early years of the twentieth century are famous, and because of that, he was exiled from Najaf to Qum. Sheikh maintains the social role of every individual person as long as he believes that a just ethical society has to go toward unity with the source of all goodness, justice, and value that is God. Thus, we can understand the social and even political role of human beings by reflecting on the metaphoric journey from thirty birds [si murgh] toward unified Simurgh. A journey from the creatures to God. This important and unique responsibility is the important role that human beings can do to others as different parts of a whole organism, of course, through their freely chosen way toward God. Sheikh’s conception of respect for humanity can provide a foundation for the definition of human dignity, which is a substantive concept of human rights declaration. According to the teachings of Islamic mysticism, as mentioned above, God is essentially a pure existence, and existence is the source of all good attributes. God

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

123

guarantees the establishment of summon bonum (the sum of all goods) in the case that the individuals in the society (each as a sign or manifestation of God) try to perform their own ethical roles in relation to each other toward reaching unity. If every person in society does her role perfectly, they will reach the Qaaf of the summon bonum. God guarantees this way to reach the valuable point, and He, as the lawgiver, is the source of norms that absorb all individuals and rearrange their movements toward unification. Thus, the mystical/religious path is the moral path. Seyyed’s conception of Tawhid (divine unity), however, seems to provide a better apprehension of Attar’s metaphor of Simurgh. According to Seyyed, we cannot reach the unreachable Qaaf peak of the mountain unless the thirty birds see each other as a unity in Simurgh. In reality, the unity has not been actualized as long as every bird exists in its own existence (as Sheikh claims). As long as they exist in their own haecceity, only conceptually can they be unified. Notably, metaphysical unification requires the metaphysical annihilation of birds’ individuality and haecceity in Simurgh. Despite the fact that it seems difficult to comprehend Seyyed’s viewpoint, upon a deeper reflection, we try to explain his view. Briefly, Seyyed thinks that any existing contingent entity has two natures, a nature that alludes to its dependence on God and a nature that is actualized as what it is. Its divine nature demonstrates its relation with God, its saturatedness with Truth, and its fullness of divine different names. In other words, from a true mystical view, all beings are existentially dependent on God, as exists through the manifestation of His different names and attributes. Therefore, in fact, there is nothing except God’s manifestation veiled by His names, through which His hidden treasure is addressed. A mystic perceives the truth that any action is a divine action, and all the beauty, power, and knowledge are truly reflections of God’s beauty, power, and knowledge. Based on this mystical perception, one reaches the stage of practical, attributional, and, finally, essential annihilation. That is why the mystics claim that they cannot see other objects independently since they merely see them as virtual beings representing divine names as their real essence. Other than God as the essential existence, nothing is real. Therefore, all beings are nothing but the presence of manifestations of divine names, or in other words, representations of divine faces. As the Quran states, “Wherever you look at, you are just looking at the face of God” (The Quran, 2:115). Following Seyyed’s mystical view, the face of God as the medium of the manifestation of His names makes Him recognized. The mystic establishes a relationship with God through His face and by acknowledgement of His names. On the other hand, from an objective view, objects as creatures demonstrate their full dependence and pure neediness. The objects are nothing but complete poverty. “O mankind! You are in complete need of God” (The Quran 35:15). As a social consequence of Seyyed’s view, since the essence of human beings is demonstrations of God’s different names, all human beings, regardless of their culture, religion, beliefs, acts, and even their actual relationship with God, deserve dignity and respect as ends. The source of human dignity for all human beings then comes from the sacredness of divine names. This mystical worldview has several consequences: a mystic loves all the creatures in the world since she perceives them

124

E. Azadegan et al.

as God’s beloveds. The world is satiated with divine names, and whenever one looks, she perceives her beauty, warmness, calmness, and compassion. There are differences between the capacity of divine names; each name has its own stage of sacred sovereignty over other names beneath. Therefore, there seems to be a hierarchy between names. A more inclusive name is more closely related to the totality of names it stands. The mystical journey is then to pace the way toward conscious recognition of divine names in His world and reaching the knowledge of God, unified wholeness, and becoming in companionship and peace near Him. Now, the question is whether the mystic, after reaching the stage of annihilation with God and being in companionship with Him, still need to observe the multitudes (as Sheikh believes), or upon reception of this stage, she will eliminate manifolds (as Seyyed argues). Seyyed believes that self-annihilation in God is not the last stage of the mystical journey. It is a starting point for a comeback round path toward people and the world of creatures to help them rise from a mundane and profane world toward light. After this redemptive stage, the mystic becomes the perfect human being who is also the bestower of guidance toward perfection to others because her lack of unity prevents her from seeing the multitude, and no multitude disturbs her from seeing unity. This stage of the mystical journey is called the stage of “abiding in God after annihilation.” Mulla Sadra in Asfar declares four stages of the mystical journey. The first stage is the journey from the creatures to the truth, and the second stage is the journey from the truth, in the truth, to the truth. The third stage is the journey from the Truth toward the creatures in the Truth, and the last stage is the journey from the creatures toward the creatures in the creatures by the Truth. Therefore, reaching the point of mystical vision of God (mighaat) and subsequently being self-annihilated is not the last stage of the mystical journey, but as mentioned, they are the first and second; afterward, in the third stage, when she arises from self-annihilation, she is already a perfect human being in her solitude. However, the mystic requires returning to people and the world of multitudes to perform her duty as a mystical mission for others to become perfection bestowers. The mystic now sees God’s face before seeing the creatures, while in the first round of the journey, she sees God’s face in the creatures. Through our mystical journey, we ought to try to put aside the veils of forms that cover all of our conceptual scheme. The famous poem of Sa’di can be read as referring to this stage of unification: “The members of the human race are limbs one to another; for at creation, they were of one essence. When one limb is pained by fate, the others cannot rest. You who are unsympathetic to the troubles of others, it is not fitting to call you human” (Sa’di 2008, 22). The difference between Sheikh and Seyyed in the interpretation of this verse can be described as one unique soul that is in suffering, but for Sheikh, there are different parts of one organism that are in pain. Seyyed argues that God’s essence as the pure existence is without any limitation and determination and thus cannot attribute, or the name can be ascribed to that state. He thinks that this is a true interpretation of Attar’s verse. Accordingly, God in His essential state engages deeply in His self-contemplation. All other beings are then the result of the divine self-contemplation process, which, according to Seyyed,

9  Review of the Contemporary Mystical Debate on Simorgh’s Symbiotics

125

is the process of self-love. Through divine love, all the names and attributes and then all the creatures are created, which are simply mirrors in which they represent God’s beloved face. There are two different social consequences in comparison with Sheikh’s viewpoint and Seyyed’s point of view, which result in rational order and the Love relationship, respectively. This view leads to the generation of the highest value that every creature may obtain as the reflector of God’s beloved, the most beautiful face. In accordance with this unification of love that constitutes all the bounds and relations in the world, there would be no place for self-insolence, arrogance, or egoism since what truly remains is love of God, love of truth, neighbors, or the whole world. The social consequence of this view is altruism, tolerance, and friendship in the whole world—a totally peaceful world.

References Amuli, Seyyed Heidar. 1990. Jame-o-al-Asrar va Manba-o-al-Anvar. Tehran: Ministry of Culture Publication. Attar Nishabouri, Faridudin. 1968. In Mantiq ut-tair, ed. Mohammad Javad Mashkur, 3rd ed. Tehran: Islamiah Publishing. Attar Nishabouri, Farid ad-Din (Shaikh Attar). 1984. Mantiq al-Tair [The Conference of the Birds], Translated with an Introduction by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis. Penguin. Gheisari, Davoud Ben Mohammad. 2006. In Sharh-e Fusus al-Hekam, ed. Seyyed Jalal Ashtiani. Tehran: Elmi Farhangi Publishing. Hafez Shirazi, Shamsudin Mohammad (Hafez). 2023. Divan [Collection of poems], English Translation by Henry Wilberforce Clarke, Compiled and Corrected by Behrouz Homayoun Far. http://www.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/far Javadi Amoli, Abdullah. 2012. Rahigh-Makhtum. Qum: Asra Publishing. Kashani, Abdurrazzaq. 2003. Sharh-e Fosus-al-Hikam. Qum: Bidar Publishing. Qunawi, Sadrudin. 2002. In Al-Fukuk, ed. Muhammad Khajavi. Tehran: Mula Publishing. Sa’di of Shiraz. 2008. Gulistan [Rose Garden]. Trans. W. M. Thackston. Maryland: Ibex. Sadra Shirazi, Sadruddin Muhammad (Mulla Sadra). 2010. Asfar, ed. Mohammad Khajavi, Tehran: Mula. Shabestrai, Sheikh Mahmoud. 1880. Gulshan-e-raz [The Secret Garden, The Mystic Rose Garden]. Trans. E. H Whinfield. London: Trubner. Tabatabii Tehrani, Seyyed Muhammad Hosein. 1999. Sharh-e-Tawhid Elmi va Eini [Commentary on God’s Unity: Theoretical and Mystical]. Mashad: Allameh Tabatabii. Tousi, Abu Jafar Muhammad Hasan (Sheikh Tousi). 1977. Almesbah Almujtahed. Beirut: Moassesah Feqh Shia.

Chapter 10

A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems Amiya Bhushan Sharma

Abstract Like Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900), the German-born British Indologist, and Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), the author of the famous novel Siddhartha (1922), who never came to India, Wiliam Butler Yeats (1865–1939), who wrote “Sailing to Byzantium” (1925), and “Byzantium” (1930), who never visited Istanbul (The original name of Constantinople was Byzantion. It was conquered by Byzos of Megara, a city-state near Athens in the seventh century B.C.E. People of Byzantion spoke Greek until its conquest by the Ottomon Turks took place in 1453. Before the city was under the control of the Spartans between 411 and 408 B.C.E. In 196 C.E., the city passed into the hands of the Romans who called it Byzantium. In 330 C.E., Constantine the Great (274–337), a Roman emperor (r. 306–337), transferred his capital to Byzantium, which was then called Roma Nova, which he later renamed Constantinople. Sultan Mehemed II of the Ottomon Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453). His interest in Byzantium life and art began in the 1890s and continued through his life. “Rosa Alchemica” became a first in a series of short stories published in 1896 with Byzantine Life and Culture as its theme. In addition, in Book V of A Vision (1937), Yeats wished to spend a month of Antiquity in Byzantium shortly before Emperor Justinian opened St. Sophia and closed the Academy of Plato. Keywords  W. B. Yeats · Byzantium poems · Journey of the soul · Hindu influence · Birth and death

A. B. Sharma (*) Department of English, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_10

127

128

A. B. Sharma

1 Prelusion Like Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900), the German-born British Indologist, and Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), the author of the famous novel Siddhartha (1922) never came to India, W.B. Yeats (1865–1939), who wrote “Sailing to Byzantium” (1925), and “Byzantium” (1930), never visited Istanbul. His interest in Byzantine life and art began, as Curtis Bradford pointed out in “the Nineties and continued through his life” (110). In “Rosa Alchemica,” the first in a series of three short stories published in 1896, Yeats observed: I opened the door and found myself in a marvelous passage, along whose sides were many divinities wrought in a mosaic, not less beautiful than the mosaic in the Baptistery at Ravenna, but of a less severe beauty… (Yeats 1959, 287)

Bradford has called attention to a reference to the Byzantine aristocrat John Palaeologus (1225/30–1274), by Yeats in the 1912 edition of “The Cutting of the Agate” in his Discoveries: Prophet, Priest and King. Palaeologus was the brother of Emperor Michael VIII (r. 1259–1282), Commander-in-Chief of the Byzantine Army. Yeats believed that “an unstable equilibrium of the whole European mind… would not have come had John Palaeologus … a hearty disposition to fight the Turk” (Yeats 1961, 297). In the meantime, in the spring of 1907, Yeats visited Urbino, Ravenna, Ferrara, and Florence in the company of Augusta Gregory and her son Robert. Yeats did not write about this trip, but we can conjecture that the mosaics adorning the sixth century Basilica di Saint Apollinaire Nuovo, the cross-shaped Mausoleo di Galla Placidia and the octagonal Bisilica di San Vitale must have made a profound impact on his creative imagination. “I think” Yeats wrote in Book V of A Vision (1937) “if I could be given a month of Antiquity and leave to spend it where I chose, I would spend it in Byzantium a little before Justinian opened St. Sophia and closed the academy of Plato.” Yeats went on, “I think I could find in some little wine-shop some philosophical worker in mosaic who could answer all my questions …” because Yeats believed that the “supernatural descended nearer to him than to Plotinus even” (279). Yeats wrote: I think that in early Byzantium, maybe never before or since in recorded history, religious, aesthetic and practical life were one, that architect and artificers … spoke to the multitude and the few alike. The painter, the mosaic worker, the worker in gold and silver, the illuminator of sacred books, were almost impersonal, almost perhaps without the consciousness of individual design, absorbed in their subject—matter and that the vision of a whole people; … and this proclamation of their invisible master, had the Greek nobility … (279–80)

Yeats believed that there was something numinous about the Byzantium of Justinian the Great (482–565) and the Eastern Roman Emperor (527–565). This was marked by the blossoming of the Byzantine culture. Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was completed in 537 C.E. It was the most eloquent expression of Byzantine culture. “To me it seems,” Yeats declared, “that He, who among the first Christian communities was little but a ghostly exorcist, had in His assent to a full Divinity made possible this sinking-in upon a supernatural spendour, these walls with their little glimmering cubes of blue and green and gold” (Yeats 1937, 279–281). Yeats

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

129

mentions Jesus Christ periphrastically but weaves around him the oriental grandeur and gaiety. We now read the two poems “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Byzantium.”

2 Sailing to Byzantium “Sailing to Byzantium” (CP 217–218) was written in 1926. It was first published in 1927 in October Blast. In 1928, it appeared as the introductory poem in The Tower. Now, in his sixties, Yeats was apparently meditating upon the state of his soul. “[M]y thoughts upon that subject,” Yeats said, “I have put into a poem called ‘Sailing to Byzantium.’” He went on: When Irishmen were illuminating the Book of Kells [in the 8th century] and making the jewelled croziers in the National Museum, Byzantium was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolized the search for a spiritual life through a journey to that city. (Jeffares 1989, 575–76)

The Book of Kells containing the four Gospels was compiled at approximately 800 C.E. by Celtic monks at the Columban Monastery on Iona. In the “Sailing to Byzantium,” Yeats takes as his theme the contrast between youth and age and their concomitant decrepitude as a condition for rebirth. Yeats opens his poem with an indictment of the sensuality of “the young/In one another’s arms,” which has alienated the old man who wants to leave his country. Yeats goes on to give shape to the experience of the old man through visual and audial images of summer: birds in the trees, ----- Those dying generations ---- at their song, The salmonfalls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Unaware of their mortality, the young, the dying generation, like the birds in the trees, are celebrating their concupiscence with their songs. The fish—the salmon— spend a major portion of their lives in large lakes feeding themselves. In autumn, they return to rivers and streams in search of ideal gravelly areas to spawn, completing their life cycle, after which they die. The mackerel symbolize the confusion of life. Yeats points out that only the old wise man knows that the sexual embrace is a “happy prologue” to the “swelling act” of death. Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

The young are “caught,” rather trapped, by the sensual music, which makes them neglect the advice of the old men. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.

In “Dove and Swan,” Section V of A Vision (1937) Yeats noted:

130

A. B. Sharma

God is now conceived of as something outside man and man’s handiwork, and it follows that it must be idolatry to worship that which Phidias and Scopas made, and seeing that He is a father in Heaven, that Heaven will be found presently in the Thebaid, where the world is charged into a featureless dust and can be run through the fingers … (273–74)

Phidias, the fifth century B.C.E. sculptor and executor of the sculptures of the Parthenon and the colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia were favorites of Pericles (ca. 495–429 B.C.E.). The architect and sculptor Scopas (395–350 B.C.E.) is remembered for his statues of the Greek hero Meleager, Aphrodite, and Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius. He also sculpted parts of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Statius’ (45–96 C.E.) Latin epic poem Thebaid (90 C.E.) in 12 books describes the clash between Eteocles and Polynices for the throne of the Greek city of Thebes. Yeats contrasts the piety of the former two sculptors with the lust for power of Statius’ characters in his poem. In the second stanza, Yeats compares an “aged man” with a scare crow—“a tattered coat upon a stick”—but Yeats says that the old man can overcome his paltriness if he sings and claps his hands. Yeats chose to call the old man “Soul,” which has spiritual significance and makes his song a prayer. Through his enthusiasm, suggested by “louder,” Yeats says that the old man will be able to overcome his decrepitude—“every tatter in its mortal dress”—with the help of his ecstasy in his songs, which he can learn by “studying” the “monuments of its own magnificence” in the Hagia Sophia, i.e., Holy Wisdom, completed in 537 C.E. during the reign of Justinian the Great, the Eastern Roman Emperor. The sibilants in the fifth line— “Nor is there singing school by studying”—suggest the old man’s confidence earned by his triumphant journey to and arrival in “the holy city of Byzantium.” “Three types of men” wrote Yeats in his The Cutting of an Agate, “have made all beautiful things,” Aristocracies have made beautiful manners because their place in the world puts them above the fear of life, and the countrymen have made beautiful stories and beliefs because they have nothing to lose and so do not fear, and the artists have made all the rest, because Providence has filled them with recklessness. All these look backwards to a long tradition, for, being without fear, they have held to whatever pleased them. The others being always anxious, have come to possess little that is good in itself …

Yeats pointed out that the others prefer the stalk to the flower and believe that painting and poetry exist that there may be instruction and love that there may be children, and theatres that busy men may rest, and holidays that busy men may go on being busy. At all times, they fear and even hate the things that are worth in themselves …

“If we would find a company of our own way of thinking” Yeats wrote, “we must go back to turreted walls, to Courts, to high rocky places, to little walled towns … to all those who understood that life is not lived, if not lived for contemplation or excitement.” (EI 251–252). “Such elitist imaginings” wrote Terence Brown, Yeats’s biographer, “could have cut no ice with the majority of the Irish people who believed their history had been a grim story of religious and political persecution by an elite.”

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

131

(171). Yeats in the mid-1920s, belonging to such an elite, from which the common Irish felt alienated. Yeats climbs higher in his spirit in the third stanza since he is now conversing with the “sages standing in God’s holy fire/As in the gold mosaic of a wall.” He exhorts them to Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of [his] soul.

Gayatri Chakrovorty Spivak pointed out (91) that Yeats was moved by the mosaics of the apostles standing in a row he saw in Ravenna 20 years ago in the company of Lady Gregory and her son, which inspired him to pen the above lines. “Perne’, Peter Faulkner has pointed out, “is a dialect word based on a memory of Sligo speech, referring to the spool on which thread is wound.” “Gyre’ Faulkner goes on, “is a more learned word (which Yeats pronounced with a ‘g’) defined in the OED as ‘A turning round, revolution, whirl; a circular or spiral turn’” (19). The spiral or circular movement is a favorite, almost a signature image of Yeats. We consider two more examples. “The Second Coming” (1920) (Yeats 1933, 210–11) thus opened: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The facon cannot hear the falconer;

In “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” (1921) (Yeats 193, 232–237) published in The Tower Yeats alluded to the American Loie Fuller’s (1862–1928) troupe of Chinese dancers who danced in the 1890s “in a whirl of draperies manipulated on sticks” (Jeffares 1989, 583). Yeats depicted the whirl as follows: When Loie Fuller’s Chinese dancers Enwound A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, It seemed that a dragon of air Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them around Or hurried them off on its own furious path;

Yeats yoked together Fuller’s dancers with the “whirls” of the “Platonic Year”: Therefore, the Platonic Year Whirls out new right and wrong, Whirls in the old instead; All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong. (Yeats 1933, 234)

Yeats constructed a theory of history in the image of two gyres imposed on one another, but on opposite sides, the narrow end of one on the base of the other. One gyre was shaded, and the other was not. He characterized persons and periods in history in terms of sun-promoting creativity and the moon, the will, the mask, and the antithetical faculties. He also had great interest in arcane knowledge. These received great encouragement from his wife George Hyde-Lees’s “automatic handwriting.” (Hassett 2010, 131–156). They provided him with material for his poetry. Yeats scholars have attempted to unravel the complexity of Yeats’ poetry with the help of such arcane material.

132

A. B. Sharma

After having invited the “sages” from the mosaic of the wall to become “the singing-masters of [his] soul,” he wanted them to Consume [his] heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather [him] Into the artifice of eternity.

The passage shows the influence of Hinduism on Yeats. One of the earliest influences was that of Mohini Mohun Chatterjee (1858–1936), who went to Dublin on an invitation from Yeats and his friends in the Hermetic Society in 1885 (Jeffares 1989, 600). The influence of Hindu is evident in some of his poems in Crossways (1889), such as “An Indian upon God.” In his poem “Mohini Chatterjee” (1929), Yeats wrote: I asked if I should pray, However, the Brahmin said, ‘Pray for nothing, say Every night in bed, “I have been a king, I have been a slave, Nor is there anything, Fool, rascal, knave, That I have not been, And yet upon my breast A myriad heads have lain” (Yeats 1933, 279)

This body is a conundrum—“a dying animal” headed for death and rebirth endlessly. Yeats, somewhat like a Hindu ascetic, wants a cessation of this cycle of birth and death and birth again and to be “gathered”—just as a mother picks up her child in her arms—not by trick and wile, feint or ruse but through some ingenious contrivance or invention—“Into the artifice of eternity”—to a life eternal. Richard Ellmann has recorded that Yeats was “deep in occult study” with George Russell. According to Ellmann, they “took a room in a ‘dirty back street’ to be the headquarters of their new ‘Dublin Hermetic Society’” (42). Abinash Chandra Bose and Sankaran Ravindran have also drawn attention to Yeats’s close friendship with George Russel, who believed that “The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads … contained god-like fullness of wisdom” (Ravindran 1990, 14). Hindus believes that the soul will take on a new body from nature at the time of its rebirth. Bhagwan Shri Krishn advised Arjun (in Chapter 6 of Bhagavad Gita) to become a yogi. Arjun asked him what would become of him if he did not attain perfection in Yog before his death. Bhagwan Shri Krishn told him (Shlok 40 onward) that he would be born into a family of learned, cultured, and pious people. In the fourth stanza of “Sailing to Byzantium,” Yeats says he will not take his “bodily form from any natural thing.” Critics have read the fourth stanza as an anticlimax. Lentricchia wrote “Taking on unnatural form,” “underscores the artist’s desire to transcend the organic, but his role so transformed can be looked at in two ways: he is the transcendentally sanctioned prophet, yes, but his duty to keep a sleepy ruler awake is a pretty menial task—at best the artist is an entertainer, at

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

133

worst an alarm clock” (106). “[T]he test of poetry,” wrote Yeats in his ‘Discoveries: Prophet, Priest and King’, “is not in reason but in a delight not different from the delight that comes to a man at the first coming of love into the heart.” (Yeats 1961, 279). Yeats’s models were “Villon [and] Verlaine, with impediments plain to all, who [sang] of life with the ancient simplicity.” (Yeats 1961, 278). For Yeats, the arts create civilizations because they tell us what we must aspire for, and simultaneously, it is we who imparts life to those works of art by understanding and appreciating them. “Pythagoras planned it. Why did the people stare?” asked Yeats in “The Statues” and went on to answer his question: His numbers though they moved or seemed to move There was a lack of marble or bronze. However, boys and girls, pale from the imagined love Of solitary beds, knew what they were, That passion could bring character enough, In addition, pressed at midnight in some public places Live lips on a plummet-shaped face. (Yeats 1933, 375)

As a work of art, a golden nightingale “set upon a golden bough to sing/To lords and ladies of Byzantium/Of what is past, or passing, or to come.” would gain immortality just like Keats’s “Fair youth, beneath the trees.” thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never, never canst thou kiss, Although winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! (Yeats 1933, 210)

Like Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” the last stanza of “Sailing to Byzantium” can be read as one more avowal of Yeats’ faith in the permanence of art.

3 “Byzantium” “Byzantium” (CP 280–281) was written in 1930 and published in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). It is a poem about the journey of the soul as well as that of the artist. In his “A General Introduction for My Work” (1937), Yeats wrote, “When mind is lost in the light of the Self,” says the Prashna Upanishad, “it dreams no more; still in the body it is lost in happiness.” Yeats went on, ‘A wise man seeks the Self’ says the Chandogya Upanishad, ‘those that are alive and those that are dead and get what the world cannot give.’ The world knows nothing because it has made nothing, we know everything because we have made everything. (Yeats 1961, 509–510)

The “Self” with the upper case “S” and the self-confidence of the poet in “we know everything because we have made everything” remind us of the “kavi” in the eighth shlok of Isha Upanishad, which means both “a poet” and “all seeing” on the

134

A. B. Sharma

one hand, and of the Mahavakyani, i.e., the noble sayings, such as Tat Tvam Asi (That art Thou) in the Chandogya Upanishad, Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahm) in the Brihadaranyak Upanishad, Prajnanam Brahm (Intellect is Brahm) in the Aitareya Upanishad, and Ayam Atma Brahm (The Self (Atma) is Brahm) in Mandukya Upanishad on the other. For a better understanding of “Byzantium,” we should read it in light of Yeats’s growing interest in Vedant. “Byzantium,” like “The Statues,” is a midnight poem. The four opening lines portray the midnight scene in Byzantium: The unpurged images of the day recede; The Emperor’s drunken soldiery abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song After great cathedral gong;

The poet draws our attention to the “drunken soldiery,” not only their crassity and degrading conditions in a state of inebriation but also their sexually aroused state. “[N]ight walkers” are the prostitutes who are active, as suggested by their “song.” They provide the backdrop of the “fury and mire of human veins” against which the drama of the poem unfolds. Against such a tapestry, we hear the gong of the Hagia Sophia and then see it: A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and mire of human veins.

The dome of the cathedral looks down upon the “unpurged” man—the off-duty drunken soldiers and the prostitutes at their song. The “or” in the “starlit or a moonlit dome” removes the dome of Santa Sophia from a particular to a general condition. The dome symbolizes divinity in its purity, beauty and completeness. Unlike the first stanza, which is grounded in hard reality, the second lacks the ballast: Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than man, more image than a shade; For Hades’ bobbin bound in the mummy cloth May unwind the winding path; A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

The poet is unable to make out what he sees in the floating image. The chiasmus in the first two lines above echo the confusion in the mind of the observer. However, since these images are of the night, they are “purged” images. They are reminiscent of Dante’s address to Virgil in the Inferno I. Referring to Virgil, Dante wrote, At sight of him in that friendless waste I cried: “Have pity on me, whatever thing you are, Whether shade or living man.” … (Dante 1954, 30)

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

135

Yeats used the figure of speech—chiasmus—to describe a poet as “more type than man, more passion than type” (Yeats 1961, 509). The god of the underworld, Hades, in Greek mythology, was the son of Cronos (Time). Yeats believed that “the dead dream back for a certain time through the more personal thoughts and deeds of life” while the “wicked … dream themselves to be consumed by flames and persecuted by demons.” Yeats on the authority of Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), the German polymath and occultist, wrote, “The shade is said to fade out at last, but the Spiritual Being does not fade, passing on to other states of existence after it has attained a spiritual state, of which the surroundings and aptitudes of early life are a correspondence” (Jeffares 1989, 601). The “mummy cloth” in the poem symbolizes our acts while in life. The unwinding of the cloth stands for a relook by the “Spiritual Being” at the thoughts and acts of life. This stanza, which began somewhat ambiguously with a reference to Dante, ends with an allusion to Heraclitus of Ephesus describing the process of purification of the spiritual beings: Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living the other’s death, dead in the other’s life. (Kahn 1979, 71). “Yeats” opines Vendler, “gets most of his best poetic effects from his reciprocal symbols of birth and death” (111). The desire to unfold the complexities of life informs the third stanza also in which the bird, a handiwork of some Grecian goldsmith, comes back but with a different purpose. Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miracle than bird or handiwork, Planted on the starlit golden bough, Like the cocks of Hades crow, Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In glory of changeless metal Common bird or petal Complexities of miring or blood.

Both birds in nature and human artifacts are “miracles.” The golden bird perches on a golden branch of a tree crow, similar to the cocks of Hades. Yeats in “The Adoration of the Magi,” a story about three mysterious brothers from some island near Ireland published in Mythologies, made the second oldest of the three brothers “[crow] like a cock, till the room seemed to shake with the crowing.” There was an old lady in her bed who remained undisturbed by the noise, sleeping “in her death-­ like sleep.” The youngest of the three old men cried out, “A devil has gone into him, and we must begone or it will go into us also.” Yeats went on in his narration: Before they could rise from their knees, a resonant chanting voice came from the lips that crowed and said, ‘I am not a devil, but I am Hermes the Shepherd of the Dead, I run upon errands of the gods, and you have heard my sign. The woman who lies there has given birth, …’ (311–312)

The man-made bird in the poem crowing on a moonless night, i.e., the first phase of the moon, is announcing the birth of a new child, a new age, and a new era in human

136

A. B. Sharma

civilization. The golden nightingale, a human artifice, on the other hand, on a full moon night looks scornfully at nature, a common bird or petal because it is made of “changeless metal.” Ironically, like the bird in the earlier Byzantium poem, which fell below its estimation of its status and performed a menial job, the bird in “Byzantium” was also mired by its pride. It is midnight, and the scene has shifted to the Byzantine Emperor’s floor. At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbances, flames begotten of flames, Where blood-begotten spirits come and all complexities of fury leave, Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agonist of a flame that cannot sing a sleeve.

The flames on the emperor’s floor are not common because they are not fed by bundles of wood, nor have they been lit by a spark produced by steel. It is also unaffected by the real world—the “storm”—nor will they influence it—they “cannot singe a sleeve.” These flames are begotten of flames, the flames of faith. The “blood-­begotten spirits” have been purged of their passion, wild anger, rage, and impetuosity and become flames in their purity in their glory. They have acquired transcendence and become pure like music, even more pure like a Samadhi. Yeats, in the two poems, has dealt with the antinomies of body and soul, “art” and ”life,” the golden bird and the “fish, flesh or fowl.” These dichotomies are brought into their final play in the final stanza of “Byzantium.” Astraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood, Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood, The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marbles on the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

The Neo-Platonists believed that the dolphins carried the souls of the newly dead to the Islands of the Blest. Yeats drew the attention of T. Sturge Moore to Raphael’s dolphin statue, which carried one of the Holy Innocents to Heaven. The poet converts the “mire and blood” of the world to immortal art just as the “golden smithies of the Emperor” and the “Marbles of the dancing floor” “break the flood” of the complexities of life. The poem ends with the realization that the “dolphin-torn” slime of life must cohabit with the admonitions of faith, the gong.

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

137

4 A Philosophical Coda Yeats wrote two very different poems on Byzantium—“Sailing to Byzantium” in 1927 and 3 years later “Byzantium.” While the first is optative in character, the second one appears to be oneiric. It is less easy to speak with confidence what the latter means. The ancient city of Byzantium had a very special place in Yeats’s imagination as a site for the meeting of Asian and European cultures and for crucial transitions in European history. However, Yeats did not bring these facts into these poems. We learn about them from Yeats’s writings in prose. “All energy,” wrote Yeats, “that comes from the whole man is as irregular as the lightning, for the communicable and forecastable and discoverable is a part only …” Yeats went on, “the test of poetry is not in reason but in delight not different from the delight that comes to a man at the first coming of love into the heart.” (Yeats 1961, 279). In a similar vein, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka also pointed out that “First, it is through marveling/wonderment that art, and in particular literature, takes off and second, that it is through aesthetic enjoyment—as one of the primogenital factors of the Human Condition—that literature and the fine arts are generated.” (Tymieniecka 1991, ix). Thus, the two poems of Yeats under discussion should be read as phenomenological entities, and we must go a step further and treat them as ontological objects. (“On” or “ont” in “ontology” in Greek means “being.”) In his preface to the English edition of Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), a contemporary of Yeats, talked about “a priory science (‘eidetic’, directed upon the universal in its original intuitability) which appropriates … the empirical field of transcendental subjectivity with its factual (faktischen) experiences (11).” He further explained his “method of approach” as follows: …the reduction to the transcendental and, with it, this further reduction to the Eidos is the method of approach to the field of work of the new science … (12)

“[D]escriptions of all sorts” Husserl further went on, “which attach themselves purely and truly to the data of intuition, are referred to as phenomenological, there here grows up, on the pure basis of inner intuition of the soul’s own essence, a phenomenological psychology (14).” Husserl borrowed the idea of Epoche, which he defined as “pure state through phenomenological reduction” (18–19) from Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360–270 B.C.E.) and Anaxarchus (ca. 380–320 B.C.E.), who had accompanied Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.E.) to India and met the “naked philosophers” or gymnosophists, as they called the Digambar Jain monks. These philosophers preached “ataraxia,” i.e., peace and happiness derived from “indifference” or “sang-froid” through epochē or “suspension of judgement.” Husserl called this “bracketing.” In India, the Jains have the “Syatwad,” the Buddhists use “upekha,” and the Rajyogis talk about “pratyahars,” which correspond to the Greek epochē.

138

A. B. Sharma

“I had once known Blake as thoroughly as his unfinished confused Prophetic Books permitted,” admitted Yeats and went on, “and I had read Swedenborg and Boehme, and my initiation into the ‘Hermetic Students’ had filled my head with Cabalistic imagery …” After the appearance of the first version of A Vision in 1925, Yeats, according to Grosvenor Powell, began to “read widely and thoughtfully in such philosophers as Plato, Plotinus, Berkeley, Kant, and Hegel …” (273). “When I speak of idealist philosophy,” Yeats wrote in 1931 in his essay “Bishop Berkeley” (EI 396–411): “I think more of Kant than of Berkeley, who was idealist and realist alike, more of Hegel and his successors than of Kant ...” (405). Yeats could not reach up to Edmund Husserl. However, Yeats was interested in Hinduism, especially Vedant, from early on through George Russell, Mohini Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, and later, Shree Purohit Swamy and appears to have gained a deep understanding of Hinduism, as exhibited by some of his essays “An Indian Monk,” “The Holy Mountain,” and “The Mandukya Upanishad” published in his Essays and Introductions and his preface to The Ten Principal Upanishads. In the preface, he remembered his friend of student days George Russell or AE (1867–1935), a theosophist and mystic, in the following words: He expressed in his ceaseless vague preoccupation with the East a need and curiosity of our time. Psychical research, which is currently deeply concerned with religious philosophy, for its evidence surrounds the pilgrim and the devotee, although they never take the centre of the stage, has already proven the existence of faculties that would, combined into one man, make that man a miracle-working Yogi. (9)

Yeats was prepared to receive oriental wisdom before he met Shree Purohit Swamy. “When I read the travels of Purohit Swamy, or of his Master Bhagwan Shri Hamsa,” Yeats wrote, “I am among familiar things” (Yeats 1961, 448). When Snukal opined, “Yeats were anti-Christian” (120) or Vendler pointed out, “Yeats, [was] never a devout believer” (118); they grossly overlooked Yeats’s spiritual hankering and eclecticism. He wanted to discover the eternal felicities of life in nature. “Byzantium” should be read as a proof of such a progress. Acknowledgment  The author would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Dr. Claus Detlev Quintern for editing this chapter rigorously for publication. For the shortcomings that remain, the author is entirely responsible. I will appreciate the favor.

References Alighieri, Dante. 1954. The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library. Hassett, Joseph M. 2010. W.B. Yeats and the Muses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Jeffares, A. Norman, ed. 1989. Yeats’s Poems. London: Macmillan. Kahn, Charles H. 1979. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary, 1981. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ravindran, Sankaran. 1990. W.B. Yeats and Indian Tradition. Delhi: Konark Publishers.

10  A Study of Yeats’s Byzatium Poems

139

Tymieniecka, A.-T. 1991. The Theme: Vindicating the Enjoyment of Literature. In Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research; Phenomenology and Aesthetics: Approaches to Comparative Literature and Other Arts, ed. Marlies Kronegger, ix–x. Yeats, W.B. 1933. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (CP). . London: Macmillan, 1963 ———. 1937. A Vision (AV). London: Macmillan, 1978 ———. 1959. Mythologies (M). London: Macmillan, 1971. ———. 1961. Essays and Introductions (EI). London: Macmillan, 1971.

Part IV

From Eco-imagination to Sustainable Future

Chapter 11

The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I) for a Sustainable Future in the Islamic Philosophy of Bulleh Shah Shahid Mobeen Abstract  The religious experience of a human being is rooted in the early conscious experience of oneself beginning from the origination experiences in which the I-center is still not constituted but is only a terrain of the flow of living experiences (Erlebnisse) with five senses in the body, instincts and impulses in the psychic dimension, intellectual acts and free will in the spirit. These living experiences are already present in a very early form in a child in almost a passive mode. The deeply rooted experiences in a human being, such as one’s religion, culture, and family, develop only with the passage of time and education. The three-dimensional flow of the living experiences of the human being occurs in the human consciousness of a living body in which the individual originary consciousness is located spatiotemporally and constitutes the subjective imagination, based on one’s experiences with and in the surroundings, starting from one’s fantasies motivated by his or her curiosity. Phenomenological analysis of I-centers, founded philosophically, reveals the common anthropological roots of Fana (annulment) of egoic-I, built imaginatively in the Islamic philosophy of Bulleh Shah, who is considered a Pakistani philosopher, poet, and mystic. His philosophical thoughts are expressed in an original poetical paradigm that introduces the ideally imaginative constitution of the realizable world/cosmos through Islamic comprehension of values. Therefore, there are images but not an imagination, in the Western philosophical sense, as the creation of a different world. His perspective is coherent with human nature and is philosophically open toward an analysis of the human inner world to imagine an ecology of creation. Keywords  Imagination · I-center · Sustainable future · Presence · Fana (annulment)

S. Mobeen (*) Faculty of Missiology, Pontifical Urbaniana University, The Vatican City, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_11

143

144

S. Mobeen

1 Phenomenological Constitution of the I-center Phenomenological analysis of human subjectivity by Edmund Husserl delineates the three dimensions of the human body, psyche, and spirit (Husserl 1989). Temporality and space are measures of change occurring in the experienced and living perception of the human being in his body–psyche–spirit dimensions. The Husserlian phenomenological method (Husserl 1967, 1982) was applied by Edith Stein (2004) and Gerda Walther (1955) to investigate the constitution of the essential structure of a human subject as an individual and as a community in physical, psychic, and spiritual experiences. In particular, the definition of an originary being as an I-center who is the medium of the flow of living experiences (Erlebnisse) is the originary consciousness, which, through free will and in its individuality, constitutes the sense of the transcendent appearing to the originary perception. The origination of sense of the transcendent phenomenon delineates the path to bring out or to put in front of the cognizing individual the very gnoseological structure that belongs to oneself. The philosophical anthropology delineated by Edith Stein and Gerda Walther poses the very metaphysical question of the sense of the truth lived in human interiority (Mobeen, 2022). Both women philosophers reply phenomenologically to this query. Stein analyzes the essential nature of the human being and individuates the experiential core of the human singularity as “soul of the soul” through deeper/ higher levels of soul. Gerda Walther remains at the experiential level; in particular, through detailed analyses of personal telepathic and para-psychological experiences in which the living body is not only conscious of the experience of the other but also at the level of sensations/feelings lives, it is original peaceful and remains transcendent to the other at the same time as its corporeal individuality. Historical period, geographical distance, and cultural identity are secondary characteristics or details of the lived experience when it is narrated or expressed. The I-center of the human being discovered in both female philosophers is the originary-­conscious individual, which is essentially psychic and spiritual (geistlich) and is present in the living body. This very presence of the I-center in the living body makes it manifest and evident to the perception of the other who looks at the human being as the alter-ego of his/her similar subject. At the same time, the I-center of the other is in contact and relates to the originary perceiving subject through the physical dimension of his/her living body. The succession of the material and nonmaterial phenomena perceived by the originarilly constituted I-center needs to be measured qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative measurement is at risk of illusions, and the quantitative measurement is at risk of quantitative error. Both qualitative and quantitative errors are the possibilities of the original perceiving subject and the criterion of the applied method of evaluation. The definition of possible pasts and projection of possible futures originates from the “present moment/instant” in the living experience of the originary I-center. At this point, the following question arises: Can the finite being experience infinite Being, which is Eternal? The possible answers to this question

11  The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I…

145

could be in the introspection of the human subject investigating into one’s inner-­ world guided by a method and its validity rooted in the constitutive truth. The religious experience of a human being, as consciousness of transcendence, is rooted in the early conscious experience of oneself beginning from the originary experiences in which the I-center is still not fully constituted but is only a terrain of the flow of living experiences (Erlebnisse) with five senses in the living body, instinct, and impulse in the psychic dimension and intellective acts in the spirit, present already in a very early form in a child. One’s religion, culture, and family develop only with the passage of time and education. The three-dimensional flow of the living experiences of the human being occurs in the human consciousness of a living body in which the individual originary consciousness is located spatiotemporally and constitutes the subjective imagination, based on one’s experiences with and in the surroundings, starting from one’s fantasies motivated by his or her curiosity. Desire for knowledge and constitution of the sense of perceived objects starts from the early stages of life and can develop through experiences, opportunities, culture, religion, and atmosphere through which a human being lives and moves around. Islam is one of the main religions in human history, and it is possible for an individual to constitute a sense of things surrounding oneself. Several religious denominations and spiritual paths have developed in the Islamic history (Mobeen 2010) of the 57 Islamic nations even if they started in the small city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula. Sufism (Ales Bello and Mobeen 2012) is one spiritual, philosophical, and theological path in this direction.

2 Philosophical Sufism and Islam Sufism, Tasawwuf, which is the esoteric or inward aspect of Islam, is to be distinguished from exoteric or “external” (zahir) Islam, just as direct contemplation of spiritual or divine realities is distinguishable from the fulfilling of the laws that translate them in the individual order in connection with the conditions of a particular phase of humanity. Sufism contains its end or aim within itself in the sense that it can give access to direct knowledge of the eternal. This knowledge, being one with its object, delivers knowledge from the limited and inevitably changing state of the ego. Because orientalists were anxious to bring everything down to the historical level, it could hardly be expected that they would explain this double aspect of Sufism otherwise, except as the result of influences coming into Islam from outside, and according to their various preoccupations, they have indeed attributed the origins of Sufism to Persian, Hindu, Neo-platonic, or Christian sources. However, these diverse attributions have ended by discounting one another because there is no adequate reason for doubting the historical authenticity of the spiritual descent of the Sufi masters, a descent that can be traced in an unbroken chain (silsilah) back to the Prophet himself.

146

S. Mobeen

Sufi symbolism is a succinct form. Such, for example, was the case of cosmology, a science derived from the pure metaphysis that alone constitutes the indispensable doctrinal foundation of Sufism. Sufi cosmology was very largely expressed by means of ideas that had already been defined by ancient masters such as Empedocles and Plotinus. Again, those Sufi masters who had had philosophical training could not ignore the validity of the teachings of Plato, and the Platonism attributed to them is of the same order as the Platonism of the Christian Greek Fathers, whose doctrine remains nonetheless essentially apostolic. The orthodoxy of Sufism is manifested not only in the maintenance of Islamic forms but also in its organic development from the teaching of the Prophet and, in particular, by its ability to assimilate all forms of spiritual expression that are not essentially foreign to Islam. This applies not only to doctrinal forms but also to ancillary matters connected with art. Monasticism does not consist mainly of historical events. As Abd al Karim al Jili explains in his book, al Insan al Kamil (Universal man), the message of Christ contains certain inner and therefore esoteric aspects of the monotheism of Abraham. In a certain sense, Christian dogmas, which can be all reduced to the dogma of the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, sum up in a historical form all that Sufism teaches on union with God. Moreover, Sufis holds that the Lord Jesus (Sayyidna Isa) is of all the divine envoys (rusul), the most perfect type of contemplative saint. To offer the left cheek to him who smites one on the right is spiritual detachment, which is a voluntary withdrawal from the interplay of cosmic actions and reactions. In most cases, it (=Sufi wisdom? What is it?) is transmitted by the master who also communicates the method and confers the means of spiritual concentration that are appropriate to the aptitudes of the disciple. The general framework of the method is Islamic law, although there have always been isolated Sufis who, because of the exceptional nature of their contemplative state, no longer took part in the ordinary ritual of Islam. The different branches of the spiritual family tree of Sufism correspond quite naturally to different paths. Each great master to whom the origin of a specific branch can be traced has the authority to adopt the method to suit a particular category of those who are gifted for their spiritual life. Thus, the various paths correspond to various vocations, all of which are oriented to the same goal and are in no sense schisms or sects within Sufism, although partial deviations have also arisen from time to time and given birth to sects in the strict sense. Authentic Sufism can never become a movement because it appeals to what is most static in man, namely, the contemplative intellect. In this regard, it should be noted that if Islam has been able to remain active throughout the centuries, despite the changes in human psychology and the ethnic differences between the Islamic people, this is assuredly not because of the relatively dynamic character it possesses as a collective form but because, from its very origin, it includes the possibility of intellectual contemplation, which transcends the effective currents of the human soul.

11  The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I…

147

3 Imaginative-Spiritual Progress in a Sufi Experience Regardless of their operative strength, collective rites alone cannot assure arrival at the final steps of the journey toward a higher truth/God. Spiritual realization can only be an affair of each instant, as is well put in the expression “son of the moment” (ibn al-waqat), by which the Sufi is defined. For each moment of the life of the faqir, there is a corresponding adab, a convention, which can be a ritual practice, a correct behavior, or, better still, an inner attitude in conformity with that which God expects from His servant. In fact, according to the teaching of Abu’ l-‘abbas al-­ Mursi (death 686 H/1287 B.C.), who was the master of Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah of Alexandria: For the servant, four movements exist, not one more: the blessing and the test of which he is the object on the part of God, the obedience and the disobedience with which he himself tests. At each of these moments, the servant has a duty to God: in blessing, this duty is gratitude; in the test, constancy; in obedience, the awareness of grace; and in disobedience, repentance and contrition (Ibn ‘Ajibah 1961, 357).

To reach such a “presence of spirit” (muhadarah), which allows, according to a hadith frequently encountered in treatises on Sufism, “to render to each one and to each thing his due,” the faqir must follow, under the direction of his master, a discipline that includes two inseparable aspects: a sustained effort toward self-­knowledge and daily spiritual exercises-based essentially on invocation. That self-knowledge is not only a condition but also the very goal of the mystical quest is affirmed by the hadith of the Prophet, “He who knows himself knows his Lord” (man ‘arafa nafsahu faqad ‘arafa rabbah’). Such knowledge obviously would not stop at the simple psychological level since the human soul, the psyche, always makes up a fragmentary entity that veils the vision of the total reality of the divine self. However, the very existence of this veil allows, on its own level, for a seizure of the source of existence, and the concern of the faqir must be to render the veil transparent so that the lights of the heaven can illuminate it and pass through it unhindered. This means first recognizing one’s shortcomings, which are displeasing to God, known as Higher-Truth, and preventing Him from shining in human beings and working toward their elimination through ascetic discipline (al-mujahadah). This is the purgative aspect of inner knowledge, the aspect that often predominates during the initial portion of the path. The positive aspect of this same knowledge consists of recognizing in oneself the reflection of the qualities and beauties of the Creator and attributing to Him all glory; this increases the intimacy between the praise and the praised. The practices recommended by the masters for better self-knowledge include “setting conditions” (musharatah), which take place in the morning upon awakening and consist of admonishing oneself and reaffirming one’s intention to consecrate oneself entirely to God. One then tells oneself: “Here is a new day which will be a test for you, so force yourself, my soul, to fill each instant with that which draws you nearer to God”1 (Ibn ‘Ajibah, rubrics 14–15. French trans. in Michon  Own English translation.

1

148

S. Mobeen

1982, 190–191). The same evening, the faqir must examine his conscience (mushasbah, literally an accounting), the object of which is not only the measurement of how the morning’s resolutions were followed but also a “gathering up of time” (ittihad al-waqat) by evoking simultaneously a vision of the acts and the thoughts of the day in imitation of the man on the threshold of death who sees his entire life pass before him. The two techniques are, in fact, only particular methods for meaning constant vigilance, which the faqir must have in order to waste time, not to be distracted by “that which does not concern him” (ma la yughnih) and to keep himself constantly attentive to the desire of the Beloved. This vigilance is called muraaqabah, a word derived from the Divine Name al-Raqib, the All-Seeing, and it is synonymous with the guardian of the heart (al-assa ‘ala’ l-qalb). The acquisition of muraqabah is the highest level of self-mastery, the victory on three fronts of the interior battle waged by the faqir: that of the external faculties, which implies scrupulous respect to the legal prescriptions and abstentions; that of the internal faculties, where the battle consists of dispelling evil thoughts and remaining fixed on the divine Presence; and that of the depths of the heart, in which no other concern must enter except that of the Adored. “Vigilance,” wrote Ibn ‘Ajibah, “is the source of all goodness and contemplation (mushahadah) is proportionate to it; he whose vigilance is great will attain great contemplation” (Rubric 13. French trans. in Michon 1982, 189–190).

4  Egoic-I in the Islamic Sufi Philosophy of Bulleh Shah In the present philosophical reflection, an original perspective from Islamic philosophy is one important starting point for reconsidering the essentials of the main questions regarding the Triade: I-World-God, present in each philosophical investigation of the sense of reality/Reality. Phenomenological analysis of I-centers, founded philosophically, reveals the common anthropological roots of Fana (annulment) of egoic-I, built imaginatively in the Islamic philosophy of Bulleh Shah, who is considered a Pakistani philosopher, poet, and mystic. His philosophical thoughts are expressed in an original poetical paradigm that introduces the ideally imaginative constitution of the realizable world/cosmos through Islamic comprehension of values. In Bulleh Shah as such and in Islamic philosophy, there are images, but not an imagination, in the Western philosophical sense as the creation of a different world. His perspective is coherent with human nature and is philosophically open toward an analysis of the human inner world to imagine an ecology of creation for a sustainable future in Islam. However, very little is known about Bulleh Shah internationally. He belongs to a Sufi tradition of asceticism closer to Al-Halaj and Bastami. He was born in 1680 A.D. in a village called Pandoke in the Lahore District, which is currently in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and he died in 1753. His name shows that he was a Sayyid, that is, a descendant of the Prophet. He is mentioned in the Multan Gazetteer as a writer of religious ballads called Kafis. There is nothing on record, apart from

11  The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I…

149

his own poems, to show what influences molded his youth or what sort of man he was. We do not know whether he came of a family that had always professed Sufism or whether it was under the influence of his spiritual teacher Inayat Shah that he adopted those doctrines. It appears that to a certain extent, he practiced the asceticism that he preached because he remained unmarried, and his sister followed his example. The saintly character of the poet and the simplicity and directness of his poetry have made his verses popular among all those who profess Sufism in the Punjabi and Saraiki. However, as his ballads are written in Punjabi, their popularity is limited to the Region of Punjab and to those natives of Punjab who are not ashamed to read works written in the popular local and antique language of common people. The language of the ballads is essentially simple, and the language is fortunate in being peculiarly rich in rhymes. They show very little elaboration of thought or imagination. Some of the poems contain a larger proportion of Sanskrit words than are usually found in Muslim writers of the present time, but this is possibly because the Punjabi of 1700 A.D. contained far fewer Arabic and Persian words than the Punjabi of today. We need to distinguish the Punjabi language in Pakistan from the Punjabi spoken and written in the Punjab region in India since at present, the local cultural approach is to introduce more Arabic wording to more closely resemble Islamic culture and language. It is also probable that Bulleh Shah became acquainted with the language of Hindu philosophy through his friendship with Darshi Nath, a Hindu Fakir. It is difficult to say, as the writer of the Multan Gazetteer does, that the ballads are written in the Multani dialect of the Punjabi language. Undoubtedly, they contain some forms of verbs that are peculiar to that dialect, but any peasant from Rawalpindi to Delhi or from Delhi to Multan could understand them. Bulleh Shah’s assorted spirit, which chafed at the restriction of caste and sect, exposed him, during his lifetime, to the reproach of being unorthodox, but the holiness of his life effectively silenced his critics, and he has since acquired such a saintly reputation that he is now spoken of by the title “Hazrat,” which is usually reserved by Muslims for the saints. The Sufi believes that everything that exists is a manifestation of the Deity and that the spiritual aim of man is to be united with and absorbed into the universal Divine Spirit. The recognized way for a Sufi is to attain spiritual salvation for him to attach himself to a religious teacher, just as Bulleh Shah attached himself to Inayat Shah. The disciple must then go through a course of service to God under the direction and guidance of his teacher. Soon after, he will begin to feel that love toward God, which is such a prominent feature of Sufi poetry. All worldly desires are abandoned, and after much study and contemplation, he begins to learn about the mystery of God. Passing thence into a state of spiritual and physical ecstasy, the devotee in a whirl of rapture loses his senses and gains his soul in an ecstatic and mystical union with the Divine Being into which he is finally absorbed. Of course, one does not expect to find in Bulleh Shah’s ballads a logical exposition of Sufism. He takes for granted that his readers are familiar with the main principles of the creed that he expounds. His ballads only allude to those portions of

150

S. Mobeen

the Sufi creed that the poet thinks are worth emphasizing. One feature of his ballads that is very striking to Western readers is the exaggerated and almost hysterical devotion of the poet to his spiritual teacher Inayat Shah. Bulleh Shah uses the familiar Sufi imagery of the Beloved, and as the Beloved in the Sufi phraseology always refers to the Deity, the conclusion is irresistible that the poet has carried the hyperbole of adoration to its furthest limit and has actually identified his master Inayat Shah with the Deity. This imagery of the Belove is the most characteristic feature of Sufi poetry. Some passages of Bulleh Shah’s ballads are worth quoting to see how he treats the same subject. The Beloved has stolen my heart away and made me ill. My mother is angry; my father beats me; my brother taunts me. He played his tabret at my door. I fell in love, and my peace of mind was gone (Bulleh Shah,……. ). Drive the watchman with his bell away. My beloved has come home to me. Every watch, he rings his bell, and the night of union is shortened. If he could read my heart, he would cast away his bell. What excellence there is in union with my Beloved: all my griefs have vanished away. Let the night be a long night. The sun is blocked with a high wall, and the watchman is driven away with his bell. Bulleh, the bed of flowers of my Beloved is sweet; I have crossed the stream of Love with his aid. Chance sent me to his side; now it is difficult to tear myself away from him. Oh, drive away the watchman and his bell (Bulleh Shah,……). The Beloved has gone away and deserted me. What fault have I committed? I cannot sleep at night, and I weep bitterly all day. The arrows of love are sharper than swords. Love is the hardest tyrant of all. There is no cure for love. The pain of being severed from his side gives me no peace, not for a moment. If the Beloved be gracious, all my misery turns to joy. The Beloved has left my side. Oh, God! What shall I do? (Bulleh Shah,……).

Punjab is proud of giving birth to a prolific poet who revolutionized the entire social and political environment and introduced a unique style of teaching and preaching Sufi philosophy and Islamic theology. He appears as a Sufi poet and philosopher in Punjab. His obviously aggressive approach has earned him the title of a “rebel,” who revolutionized the beaten track of preaching. He is distinguished for his exquisite combination of “knowledge and practical relish of knowledge,” which should be the real outcome of knowledge. Very few had been carrying these two “tastes” simultaneously. He distinguishes between blending learning and practical delights. Like another Sufi Farid, Bulleh Shah laid the foundation for a remarkable style of spreading teaching in the Islamic religion. Farid, with his depth of imagination, introduced Ajudhan as Pak Pattan. Bulleh Shah gave a clarion call with courage and straightforwardness and invited people to teach the Holy Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) through his Kafis. His Kafis are short phrases but carry deep imagination and extensive messages leading toward Tawhid (faith in the oneness of God). He denied all his falsehood, hypocrisy, and disloyalty and dedicated himself to Tawhid. His style is exceptional and unrivalled: ‫الف ہللا دل رات مریا مینو ''ب'' دی خرب نہ ایئ‬ ''‫!ب'' پیا جہ مسجہ نہ �آوے الف دی ذلت �آیئ‬ ''‫ع'' ےت ''غ'' دا فرق نہ جاان ایہہ ل الف جسایئ‬ ‫بلیا قول الف دے پورے جیےہ دل دی رن صفایئ‬ (.....)

11  The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I…

151

My heart is illuminated with the light of “Alaf “(Allah). I am unaware of the “Bay”. If I study “Bay”, I fail to decipher, and “Alaf” enthralls me. It is taught by “Alaf”. The effects of “Alaf” are perfect and eliminate all pollution from the heart.2

The above quatrain (Kafi) displays the spiritual illumination of the Bulleh Shah. His principal emphasis is on “absorption.” His heart was aglow with divine learning. “Alaf is inequity of God” “and next to it is nothing.” He observes that Alaf has taught me not to be curious beyond Alaf. Alaf is the fountainhead of all light, knowledge, and learning. He is outspoken while talking to God. It is a mystery to an ordinary man. However, there is no veil between a Sufi and God. Bulleh Shah was soaked in spiritual learning and consequently frankly speaks. Obviously, it is poetic punk and disrespectful. However, if it is viewed with spiritual spectacles, then there is a supernatural understanding of the two dears. ‫مینو ی ہوای ہن میتو یئ وہیت می‬ ‫یو میل �آے لوا مینو ی ہوای ےہ‬ ‫ می و�سناای یت‬،‫می و وای ےت می نہ�ی بندی‬ ‫ اندر ابہر ہی‬،‫رس اے پری ت یب تو ہی‬ ‫ا پارا ارارسنیدا ا بریی ا ننی‬ ‫ٹ پاۓ اورو پرو ان بریی انننی‬ ‫منصورپیارے ال اان احلق ہواہئیا ی‬ ‫ �آپ اپنا وحناای جنی‬،‫بلے شاہ اےس داعاشق‬ (.....) What happened to me, my dignity has been lost in myself Why do you people call me mad, what happened to me? When I looked into myself, I did not find myself there You are present inside and outside of me everywhere I hear that on this side and on the other side there is only one boat and the fountain is one Here, there is no boat and no fountain. Beloved Masoor (Al-Halaj) says I am God but who is the reason to say so Bulleh Shah says I am the lover of the same God and I have demolished my Ego.3

When Bulleh Shah preached Sharia Muhammadi, he was extremely cautious and thoroughly observed the sanctity. Bulleh Shah often referred to the hereafter and explicitly warned mankind against the accumulation of wealth, and it is all purity and virtue practiced in this world that will stand in good stead. He admonishes in explicit and strong words to collect merit for the next world and admonishes the believers not to waste life in mundane desires and extravagances. “As you sow, so shall you reap” is a prominent proverb, and he has elaborately enlightened it. Bulleh Shah renounces personal vanities and discarded sectarianism. However, he proposes a message of universal love and affection and invites mankind to one center. He strongly rejects the controversies of caste and creed. The Shrine of this subcontinental Sufi is located in Kasur, which is situated in Punjab.

2  Since I am from the same region and belong to the same regional language, the English translation is my own. 3  Own English translation.

152

S. Mobeen

5 The Idea of Creation from an Islamic Perspective The idea of creation, which is common to the three monotheistic religions, in appearance contradicts the idea of the essential unity of all beings, since creation ex nihilo seems to deny the preexistence of possibilities in the divine Essence and, consequently, denies their subsistence. However, the idea of manifestation as taught in Hinduism relates relative beings to absolute absence, as reflections are related to their luminous source. However, these two conceptions or symbolism approach one another if we consider that the metaphysical meaning of the “nothingness” (undum) when the Creator “draws” things can only be the “nothingness” of “nonexistence.” They are also not “existing” (nawjud) because existence already implies a first condition and a virtual distinction of “Knower” from “known.” The action of “creating” in the sense of the Arabic word khalaqa is synonymous with “assigning to each thing, its proper measure.” This, transposed into the metaphysical order, corresponds to the first determination (la’ayyum) of possibilities in the divine intellect. According to this meaning of the word, khalq, “creation,” can be envisaged as logically preceding the “production to existence” (ijad) of these same possibilities. Thus, cosmogony can be described in this way: first, God “conceives” the possibilities susceptible to manifestation in a state of perfect simultaneity and assigns to each its “capacity value” (qadr) to develop in a relative mode. Then, He brings them forth to existence by the quality of Creator (Khaliq). God operates a choice of the possibilities to manifest. Thus, creation appears inasmuch as it relates to the Divine Person (an-Nafs) conceived by analogy with the human person and designated by attributes such as Judgment (alhukm), Will (al-iradah), and Action (al-fil); now, the anthropomorphism of these expressions is only an “allusion” (isharah) and not a limitation of the perspective in question. There is, however, a metaphysical perspective that is wider and considers things in relation to the infinity of the divine essence. From all these different points of view, the world is essentially the manifestation of God to Himself. Thus, it is expressed in the sacred saying hadith qudsi, which brings back the idea of creation to the idea of knowledge. In the same sense, Sufis compare the Universe to a combination of mirrors in which the Infinite Essence contemplates itself in a multiplicity of forms or which reflect, to differing degrees, the irradiation (at-tajalli) of the One Being it contains by virtue of its Infinity (Kamal). Such at least is the purely principal meaning of the mirrors, but they also have a cosmological meaning, that of receptive substances (qawabil) passive in relation to the pure Act (al-Amr). In either case, we have a polarity, but it is integrated in Unity, the two opposing terms, the higher is resolved in the Divine Being (al-Wujud), which is nothing other than the first affirmation, perfect, and unconditioned, of the essence (adh-Dhat), whereas the lower finds its resolution in the “principal possibilities” (al-a yan ath-thabitah), and these are themselves likewise reducible to the Essence, of which they are merely “determination” or “relations (nisab), nonexistent as such, though permanent,” according to Ibn Arabi, in the Chapter on Enoch, of his Fusu-al-Hikam.

11  The Imaginatively Constituted I-Center and Fana (Annulment of Egoic-I…

153

The symbolism connected with it, which presents divine being as a source of light, the “outpouring” or “overflowing” (al-fayd) of which spreads out on to the possibilities, which can themselves be compared to a dark space, must not be understood in the sense of a substantial emanation because it is clear that being could not go outside itself. Being reveals the Essence by affirmation whereas the principal possibilities are reducible to it by a sort of negation since they are only limitations, at any rate of the extent that we can separate them logically from Being.

6 Conclusion The Infinite through Its Divine action gives origin to the creation and human being is, according to Islamic theology, the highest expression of the existent. Through intuitive intellectual living experiences, humans can physically experience sensible existents and can relate to them through psychic acts and acts of spirit (geists). One can project images through different modes of elaboration of one’s perception. In this way, imagination finds place in one’s fantasy, which can create or give origin to the images. One example of this Bildbewusstsein is in art, if considered on a larger scale in Western culture, whereas in Islamic civilizations, art expresses itself in different modes, especially in architecture and paintings created through the art of writing Quranic verses. Sacred art in Islam forbids any pictorial images. There are images in the two above-mentioned techniques, but there is no imagination as creation of a different world understood in the Western sense. It is possible to develop a perspective of the human future on earth based on an Islamic philosophical ideality in which there are values that orient and guide the organization of a future world, but there are no images or imagination as such. In this Islamic philosophical sense, the writings of Bulleh Shah are an open dimension of the search and definition of sense through fantasy, and in this way, they become a utopia that can pave the way toward a possible realizable ideality. God, as creator, is the one as Lord of all the creatures and is also the one who takes care of all the existents. Just as He loves all what He has created, all human beings, according to Bulleh Shah, are also made to live in a relationship of love: ‫اےت وال واساوسن نو‬ ‫رہن نو اےت یرہ ےہ‬ Humans should live as pastors in pastures His last residence is the grave.4

 Own English translation.

4

154

S. Mobeen

References Ales Bello, Angela, and Shahid Mobeen. 2012. Lineamenti di antropologia filosofica. Fenomenologia della religione ed esperienza mistica islamica [Outlines of Philosophical Anthropology. Phenomenology of Religion and Islamic Mystical Experience]. Roma: Editrice Apes. Husserl, Edmund. 1967. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. William R. Gibson. New York: Macmillan. ———. 1982. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book 1: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Trans. Fred Kersten. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 1989. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book 2: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andrè Schuwer. Dordrecht: Springer. Ibn ‘Ajibah. 1381/1961. In iqaz al-himam fi sharah al-Hikam [Awakening the Pigeons in Sharh al-Hikam]. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi. Michon, Jean Luc. 1982. L’Autobiographie (Fahrasa) du Soufi marocain Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajîba (1747-1809). Milan: Arché. Mobeen, Shahid. 2010. L’origine dell’Islam e i suoi cinque pilastri [The Origin of Islam and its Five Pillars]. «Humanitas» 65/2: 292–297. Brescia: Morcelliana. ———. 2022. Essere finito e Essere infinito Alcune questione metafisiche e gnoseologiche tra Occidente ed Oriente [Finite Being and Infinite Being. Some Metaphysical and Epistemological Issues Between the West and the East]. Vatican City: Urbaniana University Press. Stein, Edith. 2004. Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person. Vorlesung zur philosophischen Anthropologie. Edited by Beate Beckmann-Zöller. “Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe” [ESGA]. Klaus Mass and Hanna-Barbara Gerl Falkowitz Eds. Vol. 14. Freiburg-Basel-Wien: Herder. Walther, Gerda. 1955. Phänomenologie der Mystik. Freiburg i. Br: Walter Verlag.

Chapter 12

Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life Detlev Quintern

Abstract  Prima facie, the concept of the “Axial Time” [Achsenzeit] by Carl Jaspers seems to be non-Eurocentric. However, it follows a Hegelian dualism, polarizing East and West, Orient, and Occident. Jaspers juxtaposes logos with myth, the latter characteristic of preaxial thought. Logic, self-reflection, and autonomy are understood in a teleological ascending line. An apparently coherent historic line from Greek philosophy to Scholasticism and finally the so-called modernity as a teleological conception of history remains trapped in Eurocentrism. If we follow the Jaspersian concept, then Aristotle is certainly central for the reception and inculturation of a hierarchical understanding of being. A fall back behind the moral and justice-­oriented Ma’at philosophy in ancient Egypt. Among others, Pythagoras continued the harmonic, balanced, and reciprocal philosophy in his number philosophy, which was further developed and applied to a system of unity of all life by the sincere brothers and sisters (Ikhwan as-Safa) in the tenth century AC. Here, morality— justness—is conveyed reciprocally along animal fables. The heritage lines of Ma’at, Pythagoras, and Ikhwan al-Safa, which focus on justice as a moral value, are traced to the symbiotic ontopoiesis of life of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Reciprocal moral sentience encompassing everything-there-is-alive and expanded to eco-imagination offers a way out of the destructive Imperiocene. Keywords  Axial Age · Aristoteles · Ma’at · Ikhwan as-Safa · Anna Teresa Tymieniecka · Ontopoiesis of life · Imperiocene · Eco-phenomenology/ imagination

D. Quintern (*) Faculty of Cultural and Social Studies, Türkisch-Deutsche Universität, Istanbul, Türkiye e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8_12

155

156

D. Quintern

1 Axial Ages Philosophies of history and histories of philosophies in German-speaking lands not rarely construct historical turns, very new beginnings, and revolutions. In his study “Axial Age” [Achsenzeit], Karl Jaspers identified such a new historical beginning cross-culturally and dated it to 800–200 BC.  In China and India, the Orient (Palestine, Persia) and the Occident (Greece) new ways of thinking, e.g., reflexive cognition, monotheistic beliefs, wisdoms, philosophies, and teachings of the immortal soul (Lebedev 2019, 550), emerged in parallel, shaping ways of thinking the following millennia decisively. The assumed beginning of the historical turn in the history of ideas and philosophy is associated initially with Zarathustra, Confucius, and Pherecydes (sixth century BC), the latter often linked to being a teacher of Pythagoras. When a “demythologizing revolution of consciousness” (Smith 2015, 321) is identified as a characteristic of the axial age and introduced by Carl Jaspers as a new, innovative, and somewhat revolutionary way of philosophical thinking, then the question arises whether there was no reflexive cognition and rationality before the historical breakthrough, which, with the “struggle against the myth (logos against mythos)” (Jaspers 1993, 3), led into the seemingly groundbreaking Axial Age. Should cognition and rationality, disconnected and free-floating in the sense of a purely mechanical reason, refer to a criterion to give a special predicate to a qualitative historical spring? Eric Voegelin followed Jaspers with his Seinssprung [“spring of being”], which he characterized as a historical qualitative spring separating God and the world. A differentiation, going hand in hand with human individualization, which the so-­ called Archaic World seems not to have known (Assmann 2018, 247). But hasn’t the progressing differentiation, accompanied by knowledge specialization, which, by marginalizing approaches to macrocosmic dimensions and broader contexts, gone hand in hand with a microscopic view of a purely empirically reduced reality? An apparent reality that equals a laboratory constructed “reality” detached from the interplay of all living beings. When Jaspers emphasized that it was in ancient Greece that philosophy, world history, and scientific thought continued to evolve crucially, he fell back into Hegelian Eurocentrism, imaging that real [wirkliche] philosophy began with Greece (Hegel 1978, 122): “Thus, in the nineteenth century, world history was regarded as that which, after its preliminary stages in Egypt and Mesopotamia, truly began in Greece and Palestine and led up to ourselves.” (Jaspers 1993, XIV). “In contrast to the East,” Jaspers wrote, “Greek rationality contains a strain of consistency that laid the foundations of mathematics and perfected formal logic. Modern rationality became decisively different from anything brought forth by the East with the end of the Middle Ages” (Jaspers 1993, 63). Were the construction of the pyramids or, to mention, a less prominent example, the Nilo-meter measuring precisely the water level of the Nile since the Old

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

157

Kingdom in Ancient Egypt, not based on highly precise and applied mathematics and formal logics? This is no less true for the root calculations in Ancient Iraq, which also found application in architecture. It is stigmatizing to claim that the Cosmo-philosophies in Ancient China, India, Iraq, or Egypt are “magical religion destitute of philosophical enlightenment” (Jaspers 1993, 13). In contrast, we agree with Clemens of Alexandria (circa 115–215 AC), who underlined that “philosophy was an extremely valuable resource [...] in that it rose like a light among the peoples, and only later did it come to the Greeks as well” (Clemens of Alexandria 1936, 65). The philosophical–historical studies of Clemens point out that supposedly Greek philosophy had its teachers in Egypt: “Pythagoras was a student of the Egyptian High Priest Sonchis, Platon of Sechnuphis von Heliopolis and Eudoxos of Knidos of Konuphis, also an Egyptian. […] Democritus adopted the ethical teachings of the Babylonians, before writing: ‘This is what Democritus says’” (Clemens 1936, 48). Throughout the long history of philosophy, science, and medicine, we repeatedly find European attempts to expropriate knowledge sources before incorporating them into the seemingly own canon without mentioning their origin. When Jaspers emphasizes the “conscious inwardness of personal selfhood achieved, in Jewish prophets, Greek philosophers and Roman statesmen, [as] a perennially decisive absoluteness” (Jaspers 1993, 63), Eurocentric bias, which is typical for imaginations of the so-called modernity, becomes obvious. Eric Voegelin criticized such Eurocentric imaginations. At this point, it is not possible to go into more detail, but the myth of the outstanding importance of rationalized sciences, which only in Europe had reached its peak and finally mouthed into the so-called modernity, e.g., reflective cognition, experimental verification, and mathematical proof, belongs to the outcomes of the Eurocentric Jaspersian Axes Period construct. In the context outlined here, neither fundamentals of sciences, e.g., mathematics, nor questions of logic shall be in the foreground, but the philosophy of Ancient Egypt, which Eurocentrism often reduced to mythology, will be evaluated regarding its potential for future-oriented eco-imagination, which will have to accomplish a catharsis with Aristotelean vertical philosophy. Apart from Eurocentrism, with its orientalist duality of East and West, it will be debated in the following whether the particularly emphasized Western self-­ consciousness, accompanied by self-centeredness, hinders an understanding of the communicative flow of everything-there-is-alive (Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka). Furthermore, the question arises whether the foremost Arabic written philosophy embedded in Islam—Arabic written philosophies flourished in the Mediterranean and its neighboring regions from the eighth to fifteenth centuries and beyond—did not contribute to philosophical development in Europe. The realization of Human Being’s free will and the responsibility for his/her actions—principles that we found already in Ancient Egypt before flourishing with the school of the Mutazilites in Iraq (Basra, Kufa, Baghdad) during the eighth and ninth centuries. After being thought ahead, the Mutazilite philosophy finally reached Ibn Rušd (Averroes, 1126–1198). These long-term historic philosophical lines are not only not

158

D. Quintern

recapitulated in the Achsenzeit construct—to the contrary, but they are also overlaid by an apparently coherent narrative. In the history of philosophy, parallel developments across distant spaces are to be considered and studied, but it is out of question—and here, I follow the theory of long waves (Khella 2007)—that philosophical and scientific knowledge moves across the globe over long periods of time before being transmitted to other places, adapted and received in various languages, cultures, and religions. Already tenth/eleventh-century Ibn Sīnā (lat. Avicenna, circa. 980–1037) discussed the Aristotelean understanding of the soul, thus not without thinking ahead of the concept. For Ibn Sīnā, a characteristic of the Human Being is a specific societal and collective mode of being (Seinsweise) that communicates with language (Gara 2003, 35). He also added a fourth science, universal science (al-‘ilm al-kullī), to the division of physics, mathematics, and theology. Avicenna’s Prima philosophia sive scientia divina (the most common Latin translation of the “Metaphysics” in his book Kitāb aš-šifā’/The book on Healing) provided the starting point for most scholastic discussions on metaphysics (Kukkonen 2012, 37). For a long historical wave, Ibn Rušd’s (lat. Averroes, 1126–1198) commentaries, discussions, and thinking ahead of Aristotle’s philosophy are other layers in the long chains of transmission that go hand in hand with the thinking ahead of the “First Teacher,” as Aristotle was honored in Arabic. The assumption that thinking in general develops in isolated spaces and sequenced times, independent of the universal interplay of cultures, beliefs, and values, is misleading. Of course, Jaspers also assumed such an interplay. However, he ignores the quite decisive Arabic and Persian scientific, medical, and philosophical contributions for the further development of sciences and thinking in Europe. Additionally, the historical and sociocultural contexts in which philosophy and thinking unfold or not unfold are faded out. Knowledge can serve widely divergent and contradictory intentions. Nautical, geographic, or astronomical knowledge that enabled the Spanish and Portuguese to navigate the world’s oceans did not serve the peaceful cultural exchange of peoples but was aimed at imperial conquests (Quintern 2021). With a new wave of the long Imperiocene at the turn of the sixteenth century, the principles of the main Arabic transmitted early enlightenment, which was not aimed at subordinating life, turned into its opposite. Jaspers understands the historical developments of the so-called discovery and unification of the world at the turn of the sixteenth century as a specific European achievement, the destructiveness of the enslavement of Africa, the destruction of civilizations in the Americas, and the consequences of monocultural plantations that continue to have a disastrous impact, especially on the biosphere/ Earth, up to the present day. Jaspers nevertheless took a critical stance toward progressing technological developments and the capitalist machinization of European societies: The horizons of man’s life become extraordinarily restricted in respect to the past and the future; he loses his cultural heritage and his quest for the final goal; he lives in the present alone. However, this becomes increasingly empty, the less it is sustained by the substance of memory and the less it bears the already germinating seeds of future possibilities. Work

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

159

becomes a mere effort in exertion and haste, and the expenditure of energy is followed by fatigue, both of which are devoid of reflection. In fatigue, nothing is left but the instincts, the need for pleasure and sensation. (Jaspers 1993, 111–112)

As in the writings of Jaspers, approaches of sociocritical thinking, here of a sociopsychological nature, and Eurocentrism are not rarely found side by side. Critical thinking is not necessarily immune to Eurocentrism and the imperial desires of world supremacy. It is thanks to Jan Assmann to have directed the awareness to theories of the Axial Period before Jaspers—universalistic and humanistic ways of thinking, which are in accordance with orientations toward a New Enlightenment (Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka), leaving behind Eurocentric pretensions and not least merging the philosophy of life into an eco-imagination that turns the wheel before the abyss. Assmann recently noted the current importance of the studies on the Axial Age [Achsenzeit] as being opposed diametrically to Eurocentrism (Assmann 2018, 25), tracing the historical approach back to studies before Jaspers, e.g., the orientalist Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil (1731–1805), who followed an egalitarian cosmopolitism to which various cultures contributed, among them the Arctic peoples with their eco-sensitive cosmology (Assmann 2018, 26).

2 The Hierarchization of Life: Aristotle The teachings of Aristotle, which can be counted among the pillars of Western thought in the broadest sense, represent a cornerstone of philosophies, which has its starting point during the long-lasting Axial Age from Greek Antiquity onward. Aristotelian philosophy and understanding of science have an effect since then, and if we follow Jaspers, its secondary phase in late antiquity, before, often through Arabic mediation, mouthing into the “present.” There is hardly a school of Western thought in the broadest sense, reaching from the wider Mediterranean region to central European lands, that is not infused with Aristotelian concepts, be it Thomas Aquinas, Karl Marx, or Heidegger. Aristotle took up the Platonic conception of the soul. This is no less true for his political teachings and other writings. The characteristic for Aristotle became an evolutive and hierarchizing categorization of life, which follows its specific purpose teleologically. According to his soul doctrine, life individualizes itself as a consequence of a prima causa in ascending shapes and forms from plants and animals to “man,” endowed with reason (Quintern 2020). In the following centuries, Aristotelian philosophy was melting into a synthesis with religious conceptions of “man” as the crowning of creation; the understanding of first causes was identified with divine sciences (Augros 2022). The endeavor to systematize all living beings and allocate them into defined categories and classifications to crystallize their specificity went hand in hand with the consequence that the permanent creative interplay of all living beings was progressively lost from sight.

160

D. Quintern

In his late 1820s Berlin lectures, the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt already hinted at a cautious criticism of Aristotle. In the Aristotelian collection of natural things, he saw an objectifying approach. Humboldt was critical of the Aristotelian understanding of society and its long-lasting tradition. “The most unpleasant and in later times so often repeated about the unequal entitlement of men to freedom and about slavery as a natural institution is found unfortunately! very systematically developed in Aristotle’s Politica” (Humboldt 1845, 492). Humboldt was also deeply concerned about Aristotle’s fall behind the worldview of the Pythagoreans (Humboldt 1845, 409). The magazines of European museums, with their innumerable objects of prepared and preserved life objects, are a materialized expression of scientific derailment. Although they seem to be perfectly suited for observation and research, they have been deprived of their vitality and the process of becoming and decaying in their specific habitat. The insects spitting on the finest needles, presented and systematized in endless rows, bear no relation to the herbaria, the dried plants. Insects always communicate and cooperate in life, not least with plants. Can only dead nature be studied? The rupture of the communicative mesh of life can be traced back to the Aristotelian hierarchy of souls and the corresponding life’s classification. An ontological archetype of the derailment into the present catastrophe. No other life but the human is responsible for it. In the Imperiocene, however, it was not human beings but the destructive man [Herrenmensch] who was responsible for the catastrophic derailment. Was Jean-Jacques Rousseau right after all when he critically questioned the progressive drifting away of man from the state of nature, despite all confidence in progress at that time? Aristotle’s teleological purpose corresponds to his hierarchical view of society, which he feeds into his constitutional doctrines. Here, it is the propertied male, the nonworking citizen, who decides on policy. Slaves, women, and children are excluded. His image of women was close to that of plants, which are understood as living beings because they are reproductive. “For Aristotle’s hierarchic concept of society to function, the slave devoid of reason or soul had to be governed by the rational master” (Ward 1992, 260). Slaves were considered by Aristotle animated tools. Justice cannot exist toward slaves. Aristotle slaves are similar to farm animals, horses, or cattle (Aristoteles 2020, 853). The fiction of white supremacies, which Karl Marx reproduced in his studies on the capitalization of enslavement-based plantations in the so-called Cotton Belt in southern North America, contrasts with the fact that the slave needs a master while the free worker learns to control himself (Ford 2010, 27). Aristoteles, who introduced the economic concept of use vs. exchange value, is among the rare examples of thinkers mentioned in the works of Karl Marx praiseworthy. Aristotle excluded the so-called barbarians of any kind from shaping social, political, and cultural life in the polis. The hierarchization of life, including Human Beingness itself, seems to be a kind of archetype for the legitimization of European supremacy. Because they are determined by telos, it is obvious that a dominion over

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

161

nature and slaves is self-evident. A cornerstone of thinking in the Imperiocene, standing in the way of an eco-imagination in a post-Aristotelean New Enlightenment, will have the symbiotic ontopoiesis of life in the focus. Has anything changed regarding the Aristotelian understanding of life? Let us leave aside the fact that women in Western politics certainly, as is said in German, “stand their man?” Aristotelian thinking is the archetype of white men’s superiority illusions. This is not only regarding social domination (the term in German resonates with the patriarchal image of man) but also in regard to the subjugation and consumption of the so-called “extrahuman nature”: soils, forests, seas, air, the universe, and everything alive in it. Before Aristotle, the Ancient Egyptian understanding of barbarians was not a stereotype. In Ancient Egypt, the word, later adopted into Greek, formerly served only to name people living outside settlements (the vitamin B-deficient Beri-Beri is a reminder of this). Since Herodotus, who visited and appreciated Egyptian wisdom and science, we know that Euro-national–historical projections back into the Mediterranean area of the Axis Time did not withstand the historic reality. The Mediterranean Sea did not know borders for the travel of knowledge. In contrast, it bridged the waves of knowledge in its widest sense and in all directions before warrior cultures dominated the peaceful flows, which can be dated back to the Roman conquering of Egypt since 30 BC, which introduced the long Imperiocene.

3  Ma’at Philosophy in Ancient Egypt Not only is Pythagoras believed to have visited Egypt—Plato’s teachings were also close to Egyptian wisdom and sciences. “The laws of the city were ordered by wisdom (phronesis), as are the laws of Egypt to this day,” Solon’s story is echoed in the Timaeus (Voegelin 2000, 227). Barta compared Solon’s Eunomia with Ma’at, emphasizing the overlacings and similarities: “truth, justice, right, order, wisdom, genuineness, sincerity” (Barta 2007). The ancient Athenian wisdom was based on the teachings of Ma’at in Ancient Egypt. Herodotus already reports that 12 deities from Egypt were adopted in Greece (Pfeiffer, 287), taking their place in the system of the upper and lower world and reminding the Egyptian kingdom of death (hades). Böhlig assumed that the Greeks, after the long inculturation of ancient Egyptian knowledge, reimported it to Egypt (Böhlig and Markschies 1994, 249). During Hellenistic times, Egypto-Greek knowledge became melted again into graecized forms of expression. Aristotle did not write only a study on the Nile; he adapted Egyptian philosophy through Plato and probably Pythagoras. In contrast to Aristotle’s ontological verticalization, in Egyptian Ma’at philosophy, we find the principle of justice and truth, which, to prevent injustice and chaos (ifset), is followed by all-living beings in the universe. The principle is based on a horizontal and creative interplay of life, above which the universal Ma’at order guarantees balance in becoming.

162

D. Quintern

The immortality of the soul in ancient Egyptian philosophy should be understood against this cosmological background. In ancient narratives, the soul of a deceased person rises along a high growing sycamore from the realm of the dead to the sunlight. The sycamore serves as a resting place for the soul birds and is home for several goddesses, be it Hathor, Nut or Isis, who nourish the tree at the same time. Deity, plants, and soul pervade each other in the sycamore, which is not only a life-unfolding channel but also a “subject” that communicates with everythingthere-is-alive, including the human soul (ba). At first glance, disjointed juxtaposition is a horizontal–vertical interplay of all material and immaterial life when viewed from an eco-visionary perspective. Perhaps the image of a spiral, moving in all directions, is suitable when we think horizontal and vertical communication in life is a simultaneous movement. In ancient Egyptian culture, fables and fairy tales in which plants act as “subjects” are known. Plants are not yet differentiated by the interplay of life. This is not to say, contrary to the racist differentiation of Human Beingness, that any botanical or zoological specification is to be questioned. Only categorical formation and classification, which is based on a hierarchical understanding of the soul, has led to the ontopoiesis of life becoming out of sight. However, in the Egyptian cosmogony, the Prime Mover unfolds out of Prime Matter, e.g., the primordial waters Nun, with Aristoteles’s first philosophy (metaphysics), and a certain dualism emerges. Order and chaos (ifset), both present at every moment in the Ma’at philosophy, were no longer grasped simultaneously. With Aristoteles, a hierarchical and teleological concept of becoming/development broke fresh ground. Every being in nature strives for what is believed to be its most perfect and suitable form. The philosopher became the incorporation of the perfect, while the masses were seen as tending more toward pleasures—a concept that mouthed later not only into Islamic-shaped state philosophies, among them Farabi’s “Perfect State” (madīna al-fāḍila), before entering to a certain extent the philosophy of tenth-century Ikhwan as-Safa. Notably, Aristotle’s Politics was neither translated nor received in Arabic. This is also true for other Aristotelian doctrines of rule, including the “naturalization” of slavery. The Arabic discussion of Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian writings—the latter often going back to Plotinus—is accompanied by fundamental correction and catharsis. Only the hierarchical layers of the soul were continued to a certain extent but were at the same time clearly questioned by horizontal levels. In Western state philosophies, based on vertical and nonparticipative structures, the long Aristotelean wave peaked in “The Prince” (Il Principe) by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1521), whose understanding of a ruler’s virtue prioritizes being better reckless than deliberate. “Fortuna” is associated with the female, which, to be subdued, must be beaten. Machiavelli broke explicitly with ethically and morally embedded politics as taught by the long-living heritage of good governance, which, since the Ancient Egyptian and later Arabic and Persian animal fables, had been conveyed allegorically. The Ancient Egyptian Ma’at Philosophy included all living beings, heavenly bodies, seasons, plants and animals, human beings, life and deaths. “Everything in

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

163

the world and the world itself is dependent on Ma’at for its continued existence; nothing can sustain itself in perpetuity on its own. Therefore, the term Ma’at encompasses all realms of Egyptian reality: the world of gods and the world of men, the cosmos and the state, society and the individual” (Assmann 1990, 37). Egyptian philosophy was not based on magic—as it not rarely connotated negatively but rather on divine and, at the same time, on the creativity of all living beings. Justice, which is broader than a pure social understanding, is the principle of Ma’at, ensuring harmony and bringing macrocosm and microcosm into balance. “Not Being but Becoming is the focus of Ancient Egyptian Thought” (Assmann 1990, 32). Worldwide, Cosmos and all living beings (human, animals, plants) are understood to be in a process that is balanced and brought in harmony by the Ma’at principle, avoiding imbalance, chaos (ifset) and injustice. In this context, injustice is not inherent to Ma’at but is in the responsibility of Human Being—a principle that we later elaborated in the Arabic school of Mutazilites, emphasizing the responsibility of the Human for her/his actions. The ancient Egyptian philosophy of justice has no evolutionary ladder of being determined by purpose. Hierarchy and thinking in lower and higher categories are unknown to the understanding of the harmonious interaction of life. Aristotelian philosophy represents a setback in relation to Ma’at ethics, whose catastrophic consequences become apparent only today. We agree with Eric Voegelin, who was aware of the dangers that go along “with radical dissolution of the complexities of experiences, which are bounded together by the myth” (retransl. DQ) (Voegelin 2002, 132). However, is Ma’at philosophy just a myth? Does a myth necessarily contradict philosophy? Although the Ma’at philosophy does not know strict classification and systems, it clearly philosophizes, e.g., on questions of Human Beingness and the soul, rather than being assumed by Jaspers, in radical self-reflective manners. Later texts of the 12th dynasty around the middle of the fifteenth century BCE show impressive examples of a kind of existentialist philosophy. “The Dialogue of a Man and His Soul” is a good example in which the philosophical poem takes the form of a dialogue between a man contemplating death and his soul. The soul takes the voice of the Life-affirming, while the Life-tired longs for death. To whom can I talk today? He who should attend another with his bad deed Makes everyone laugh with his evil crime. To whom can I talk today? Plunder is rife; Every man robs his fellow. To whom can I talk today? The wrongdoer is a friend. The close brother has become an enemy. To whom can I talk today? Yesterday is not remembered; No one helps him who gave help then. To whom can I talk today? Brothers are bad; One resorts to strangers for honesty.

164

D. Quintern To whom can I talk today? Faces are blank; Every man’s face is downcast against his brothers. To whom can I talk today? Minds are greedy; Nobody’s heart can be dependent upon it. To whom can I talk today? There are no righteous people; The land is abandoned to the unrighteous.

Obviously, the man is desperate in the face of his societal surroundings. Like an inner second voice, it is the soul that gives encouragement, confidence and hope to the despairing man, ensuring a joint journey to the west, symbolizing the “kingdom of the death”: What my soul said to me: ‘Throw lamentations over the fence, My partner, my brother! May you make offerings upon the brazier? And fight for life as you have said. Love me here (and now), having set aside the West, but still desire to reach the West When your body is laid in earth. I will alight when you are weary, And we will reach harbour together!’ (Writings 2016, 225–228)

Certainly, this is not a rigorous and strict philosophical treatise. Rather, advice is based on morality. Karenga gave his book a title corresponding to ethical–moral philosophy, “Maat. The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt. A Study in classical African Ethics” (Karenga 2004). In the ancient Maat philosophy of Egypt, justice was central. The opposite of justice, injustice, is synonymous with chaos (ifset). No living-­ beingness is outside of Ma’at. Socioecological practices in harmony with nature (here, the Nile flood), e.g., straitening the land (Nederhof 2017, 39–40), are no less prevalent than speaking the truth. In regard to “ontology,” the self-assurance of the female Pharoah Hatshepsut (reigned c. 1479–1458 BCE) reflects reciprocal unity with Goddess. Karenga, emphasizing that there is no “ontological” gap between humans and God, quoted Hatshepsut with the following words: I have offered the Maat which he loves I know he lives by it. It is my bread and I drink of its dew I am as one body with him (Karenga 2004, 215).

“He,” the Goddess Amun Ra, is no less nurtured by Ma’at than the female king and all-living-beingness acting along the principle of reciprocity. In ancient Egyptian fables, among which are plant and animal fables, the ethical and moral principles of reciprocal Ma’at philosophy are allegorical and metaphorical. Human arrogance and imagination of superiority are counteracted. The illusion of strong animals, such as the lion, apparently not dependent on any cooperation, is brought down to earth when a small mouse frees the lion, the king of the animals from the net of a trap (Quintern 2020). The motif of reciprocal justice

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

165

migrated from Egypt in two directions: to Greece and, via India and Persia, to the Abbasid Baghdad in the middle of the eighth century. In the fable collections of Ibn al-Muqaffa’—he also translated the Isagoge (Introduction to Logic) of Porphyrios into Arabic—doves are freed from the net of the hunter by a mouse. The reciprocal help of the animals in order to free themselves from the traps of the hunter serves the ethical orientation of “man.” Morally not embedded reason appears here as cunning and trickery, symbolized in the hunter. The latter may be equipped with reason, but his entrapments can do nothing against the emphatic solidarity of the animals. Close to madness, the hunter finally flees the forest, which seems to be spooked. The morally oriented fables are adapted from the European Fürstenspiegel literature (Fürstenspiegel = Prince’s Mirror = something like “manual of statecraft,” although this translation fades out the moral and ethical principles that are reflected in the term mirror = self-knowledge). The Abbasid tenth-century collegium of philosophers and scientists, Ikhwan al-Safa, took its name from the mid-eighth-century Fable of the Ringdove, identifying the collective as sincere and faithful brethren and sisters. The motif of reciprocal solidarity much later entered the literature of the French Enlightenment, e.g., with the adaptation of the Lion and the Mouse motif in the animal fables collection of Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) (Quintern 2016). Jean-­ Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) claimed that animals had the right not to suffer unnecessarily and that all sentient living beings had the right to be protected from suffering and the infliction of pain. Ikhwan as-Safa, who belongs to the philosophical and cosmological school of the Pythagoreans, inserted in their extensive transdisciplinary textbook a fable between the basic sciences (philosophy of numbers), natural sciences (mineralogy, botany, zoology), and human sciences (anthropology, politics, etc.). The actors in the fable, first the farm animals—as a result of bad treatment by humans—sheltered in inaccessible forests and mountainous regions, where they consulted democratically with the other animals. In this fable too, animals act in sentient solidarity and in an exemplary manner for Humans. Finally, a court hearing is held, presided over by a Djinn. The supposed and claimed superiority of man over the animals is on trial. While during the trial, the animals consult democratically, the humans try to bribe the court. Ultimately, the result of the trial is that humans are warned to use their reason, with which they are endowed, in an ethically embedded way. Animals are treated well by humans. The fable is reminiscent of reciprocal justice doctrine, as it had already evolved with the ancient Egyptian Ma’at philosophy. It seems that Pythagoras followed the Ancient Egyptian Harmony Doctrine, which he philosophically abstracted into numbers. Ikhwan al-Safa adopted Pythagorean philosophy, calling themselves the Pythagorean brothers.

166

D. Quintern

4 Pythagorean Ikhwan as-Safa Ikhwan al-Safa refers to Pythagoras at various points in their extensive oeuvre. Pythagorean number philosophy plays a central role in the philosophy of harmony of Ikhwan al-Safa, as the understanding of all-existing (al-mauğūdāt) corresponds to the nature of number. They follow the Pythagorean gradation (hypostasis) in its nineness, which can be traced back to ancient Egyptian thinking before entering Gnostic texts. The Hermetic Text on Eighthness and Nineness, probably written in Egypt in the second century ACE and currently part of the Nag Hammadi Library, reflects the spiritual experience of the knowledge process of a disciple, who ascends the successive stages to the knowledge of universal reason in the eighth and ninth stages. The universal reason stands for the original, intelligent, and creative potential inherent to all-beingness. At the highest reachable level of knowledge, the ninth dimension, the unification of the universal reason and the individual reason of the student, occurs (Quintern and Ramahi 2005, 145). Pythagorean number philosophy and cosmology follow an original decrease in knowledge before finally turning into an increase in spiritual knowledge. At the same time, it opposes vertical orders with horizontal and harmonious systematics. The hypostasis of life continues up to the Nine, the last stage of the Ones, the minerals, plants and living beings, and the last existing universal things, thereby following an understanding of emanation: Just as from the repetition of the One, the number emerges and grows from the emanation and the fullness of grace of the sublime Creator, the creatures emerge from their completion (tamām) and their perfection (kamāl). Just as the Two is the first number that arises from the repetition of the one, the intellect is the first existence that emanates from the Creator’s fullness of grace. (transl. DQ) (Diwald 1975, 44)

The philosophy of number, which is based on the principle of unity, is not only applied to opposites, e.g., light/darkness in their duality, the three dimensions in their trinity (length, width, depth) or the four elements (fire, air, earth, water) but also used to distinguish world views, which are abstracted to an essence expressible in numbers (e.g., trinity in Christianity). These are not less natural than other appearances, dimensions, or things. Like all-beingness, they can be traced back to the one, which itself is not a number but rather the beginning, cause and reason of all numbers. According to the descending line, the hypostases of creative power flowing out of the One (emanation) descended to sublunary minerals, plants, and living beings. The ascending of knowledge to its origin, the Creator, can be interpreted along a vertical line. Both movements and lines unite in the macro-micro cosmological interplay of all-beingness. Werner Karl Heisenberg, who developed a pathbreaking mathematical formula for quantum mechanics in the late 1920s, praised the Pythagorean philosophy of numbers as belonging to the strongest impulses of human science at all. According to Heisenberg, “the mathematical structure is recognized as the essence, then also the meaningful order of the nature surrounding us

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

167

must have its reason in the mathematical core of the laws of nature” (Heisenberg cit. in Böhlig 1989, 51). Heisenberg explicitly gives the example of music (51). The possibility of musical tones being mathematicized hints at the horizontal level of Pythagorean number philosophy. An orchestra cannot play together if musical tones do not move horizontally through space and time. Therefore, the Pythagorean philosophy of numbers in its further development and application to various scientific disciplines by Ikhwan al-Safa is particularly suitable for being related to the symbiotic philosophy of life by Anna Teresa Tymieniecka and the New Enlightenment, which encompasses an eco-vision. In the face of the omnipresent destruction of life, philosophy is challenged today more than ever to show possible ways out and alternatives. The escalating destruction of all-living urges people to stop the inevitable and galloping plunge into the abyss. Consistent and sustainable rethinking and the recovery of philosophies of justice, accompanied by individual and social practices, to redirect ways of living that unfold in harmony with everything-there-is-alive, are necessary for the survival of the world.

5 Towards an Eco-visionary Symbiosis For the destructive derailment, which has thrown Human Beingness off a constructive course, not least the sciences bear responsibility. The Aristotelian verticalization of life, an archetype of European metasciences in the Imperiocene, is at the same time guided by autodestructive anthropo-Egoism, striving for herrschaft, exploiting and destroying all resources of life ruthlessly. No less for Human Beingness than for life as a whole: the consequences are existential. Animals, plants and minerals are equally affected in the dwindling biosphere, which has begun to resemble an increasing number of death zones. A sad example is the south of Iraq. As early as 1991, a Western proto-coalition of the “willing,” as the militaristic alliance was called later in 2003, used uranium-­ depleted munitions as a tank-breaking weapon. Approximately 300 tons of uranium-­ depleted shells were left in the soil of Iraq after uranium-containing particulate matter was released into the air. Clouds carried this fine dust even as far as London, where it rained. The authors of these lines had visited hospitals in southern Iraq in Basra at the beginning of 2003. Not only has the number of leukemia patients increased immensely, but above all, the large number of malformed infants was beyond imagination. This is an obvious example of how to demonstrate the destructiveness and militarization of science. An eco-imagination needs for preconditions first and no less peace than a new enlightenment. Anna Teresa Tymieniecka draws attention to this issue regarding the moral dimension of human beings: Our whole being long for harmony and peace, however, we remain in a perilous chaos. Aware now that our existence is endangered at every instant by its very situation and nature, and with all our forces challenged and on trial in the task of reestablishing and maintaining

168

D. Quintern

our vital balance even provisorily with constantly renewed efforts in the face of the menacing extinction hanging over us like the sword of Damocles, we seek for a point of reference, a point of orientation, a foothold in the total void that has opened before us. Where else can we find this point of reference if not in retreat to our moral dimension? (Tymeiniecka 2012, 137–138)

The philosophy of unity and life opens paths in the direction of a mode of living, which is driven by a new, because universalistic enlightenment, in which all creative ways of thinking will have their share. Motivated by the realization and subsequent restoration of the communication of everything-there-is-alive, it shows the potential to stop autodestruction in the Imperiocene.

6 Symbiosis of Life in a New Enlightenment More recent research, not least in micro- and cell biology, questions the old classifications of life that experienced an early peak in Aristotle and developed further with the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus (binomial nomenclature) in the mid-­eighteenth century. The great animal–plant divide that has held sway since before Aristotle is crumbling. Radical revision overtakes our classification systems. Biologists have explored the astounding details of microbes, including their toughness in the face of adversity and their tendency to survive by making symbiotic evolutionary commitments. (Margulis 1998, 47)

Although they provide new insight into the symbiosis of life, evolutive teachings follow a more microscopic approach, although they add helpful classifications to thus far reductionisms (e.g., mushrooms). The vertically horizontally communicatively unfolding web of life nevertheless requires a macroperspective, as envisioned by the Ontopoiesis of Life philosophy, calling for Eco-Imagination. Faced with the autodestructive and catastrophic de-evolution [Entwerdung] in the Imperiocene, a reconsideration of reciprocal teachings of justice is a matter of survival. This is by no means merely a matter of animal ethics; rather, it seems necessary to once again uncover a morally and ethically oriented approach to life in which humans are creatively enmeshed. In an understanding, as introduced in the Logos of Life philosophy, founded by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, symbiotic communities of life have a future-oriented meaning, enmeshing human beings into the poly-logical communicating web of life in which minerals (the earth), plants, animals, humans, and the cosmos feed each other constructively and reciprocally. The self-individualizing man is the only person responsible for the destruction of the fine web of life. From a historical point of view, creative harmony with the biosphere has prevailed in the history of the human society as a societal beingness. Equipped with moral sentience, the human is not determined to be the damnation of destruction. Long historical waves of domination over life were historically pushed back and overcome.

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

169

In this process, moral sentience, centered around justice, has the role of a compass for the recovery of life in harmony with nature and the cosmos. The testimonies and traces, which humans left in their long history, predominantly involve the constructiveness of autocreative modes of living. Nevertheless, in the current Imperiocene, moral sentience threatens to be progressively lost. Supposedly old wisdom and philosophies, such as Ma’at, can serve the reorientation to understand justice in an expanded sense rather than a purely social one. Currently, survival is a question of justice, not only of the human but also of life in general. Never in the long history of life on the globe, it has been threatened in such a totality as it is currently. The complete extinction of life as a result of a combined wave of destruction now appears to be possible. In her later writings, with regard to the erasing of the “moral pattern,” Tymieniecka warned: With this common pattern broken, all the appeals and moral claims it has supposedly guaranteed us—claims to love, devotion, attachment, understanding, goodness, even those to universal charity and pity—denied, broken against a wall of resentful indifference, we are seized anew by the terror of a vitally endangered animal being now willfully abandoned to perish. (Tymieniecka 2012, 139)

In the long and so extraordinarily creative work of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the question of moral sense has already taken a central place in her earlier writings, for example, in the late 1970s, in connection with a debate on human rights, which must be “in order to clarify the foundation and significance which the multifarious types of claims made in their name, with all their nuances, have for the social and individual existence, as the basis for their claim to be respected, […] to discover their sense in their origination and foundations within the self-interpretative genesis of the human life-course” (Tymieniecka 1983, 47). In the Philosophy of Life/Ontopoesis of Life, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka expands the dimension of moral sentience, woven into the symbiosis of everything-there-is-­ alive and paving the way for an eco-imagination going hand in hand with the ontopoiesis of life. The human life-course is enmeshed into the infinite branching web of life. All-living beings are characterized by perpetual communications and cooperation, which were identified by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka as being woven into the symbiotic unfolding of life to which graduations of higher and lower beings are unknown. Presumed boundaries, as the classifications into species, subspecies, and varieties suggest, do not exist in this flourishing and communicative process, unfolding the web of live. In contrast, the creative–communicative unity of everything-­ there-­is-alive, driven forth by the logos of life, overcomes the idea of isolated modes of singularities; thus, in the sense of assuming that under the earth there is a mineral slumbering, on the ground a flower growing, circulated by a bee and the human observing finally each object microscopically in a museum collection, or—the latest virtuality—digital on the smartphone. The recovery and unfolding of the long and specific human heritage of moral sentience is new; as such, it finds its multifarious forms of expression in the rich and living on in universal material and immaterial cultures and offers ways out of

170

D. Quintern

the autodestructive Imperiocene. They confront the raging worlds of forgetfulness with the memory of the long creative and sentient self-individualization of the human as a symbiotic beingness, driven forward by “symbiotic empathy” (Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka).

References Aristoteles. 2020. Nikomachische Ethik, übers., eingeleitet und kommentiert von Dorothea Frede, erster Halb Band. Übersetzung und Einleitung. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Assmann, Jan. 1990. Ma’at. Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im Alten Ägypten. München: Beck. ———. 2018. Achsenzeit. Eine Archäologie der Moderne. München: Beck. ———. 2017. Die Achsenzeit. Zur Geschichte einer Idee, in Polylog. Zeitschrift für interkulturelles Philosophieren. 38. “Theorie der Achsenzeit?, 23–39. Wien: Wiener Gesellschaft für Interkulturelle Philosophie. Augros, Michael. 2022. The Opening Line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Thomas Aquinas College, New England, January 14, 2021. https://www.thomasaquinas.edu/news/dr-­michael-­augros-­ opening-­line-­aristotles-­metaphysics. Accessed 29 Mar 2023 Barta, Heinz. 2007. Solons “Eunomia” und das Konzept der Ägyptischen Ma’at. Ein Vergleich. Zu Volker Fadingers Übernahms-These. Innsbruck: Digesta. http://www.digestaonline.gr/index. php/24-­2006/257-­2007-­barta2 Böhlig, Alexander. 1989. Gnosis und Synkretismus, Teil 1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Böhlig, Alexander, and Markschies, Christoph. 1994. Gnosis und ManichÄismus, Forschungen und Studien zu den Texten von Valentin und Mani sowie zu den Bibliotheken von Nag Hammadi und Medinet Madi. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Diwald, Susanne. 1975. Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaften in der EnzyklopÄdie Kitab Encyclopedia Ihwan as-Safa (III). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Ford, James Edward. 2010. From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion. The Slave in Marx’ Capital. Rethinking Marxism 23 (1): 22–30. Gara, Nizar Samir. 2003. Die Rezeption der Philosophie des Aristoteles im Islam als Beispiel die Rezeption der Seelenlehre des Aristoteles bei Ibn Sīnās Buch (Ilm al-nafs): Die Wissenschaft der Seele). Inaugural-Dissertation. Heidelberg: Philosophischen FakultÄt, Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients, Ruprecht–Karls–UniversitÄt Heidelberg. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1978. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Band 12. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Jaspers, Carl.1993. The Origin and Goal of History. Translated by Michael Bullock. New York: Routledge. Karenga, Maulana. 2004. Maat. The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt. A Study in classical African Ethics. New York/London: Routledge. Khella, Karam. 2007. Die Universalistische Erkenntnis- und Geschichtstheorie. Hamburg: Theorie und Praxis Verlag. Klemens von Alexandria. 1936. Des Klemens von Alexandreia Teppiche wissenschaftlicher Darlegungen entsprechend der wahren Philosophie (Stromateis), Buch I  – III, aus dem Griechischen übersetzt von Otto Stählin, Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, Band IV.  München: Kösel & Pustet. Kukkonen, Taneli. 2012. Dividing Being Before and after Avicenna. In Categories of Being. Essays on Metaphysics and Logic, ed. Lila Haaparanta and Heikki Koskinen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lebedev, Andrej. 2019. The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus. A Sophistic Treatise on the Origin of Religion and Language: A Case of Prodicus of Ceos. In Presocratics and Papyrological

12  Eco-imagination Beyond the Verticalization of Life

171

Tradition. A Philosophical Reappraisal of the Sources, ed. Christian Vassalo, 491–608. Berlin/ Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Margulis, Lynn. 1998. Symbiotic Planet. A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books. Nederhof, Marc-Jan (Creator). 2017. Eloquent Peasant. https://mjn.host.cs.st-­andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Peasant.pdf. Accessed 29 Mar 2023 Pfeiffer, Stefan. 2005. Die Entsprechung ägyptischer Götter im griechischen Pantheon, in Ägypten Griechenland Rom. Abwehr und Berührung, ed. Herbert, Beck. StÄdelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, 285–290. Frankfurt am Main/Tübingen: Wasmuth. Quintern, Detlev. 2016. The Lion and the Mouse – Travelling Ethics. In Papers Presented to Alicia Maravelia, Nadine Guilhou with the help of ed. Antigoni Maniati. Oxford: Archaeopress Egyptology. ———. 2020. On the Soul’s Hierarchization: From Aristotle via Heidegger to Phenomenology of Life. The Quarterly Journal of Philosophical Investigations 14 (22). https://doi.org/10.22034/ jpiut.2020.11563. ———. 2021. How to Conquer the World? Cartographical Knowledge in an Early Colonial Context, in Kerstin Knopf (Guest Editor), Postcolonial Interventions, An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Abin Chakraborty (Editor). Volume VI, Issue 1. January 2021. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4484007 Quintern, Detlev, and Kamal Ramahi. 2005. Qarmaten und Ihwan as-Safa. Gerechtigkeitsbewegungen unter den Abbasiden und die universalistische Geschichtstheorie. Hamburg: Theorie und Praxis. Smith, Andrew. 2015. Between facts and myth: Karl Jaspers and the actuality of the axial age. International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 76 (4): 315–334. https://doi.org/10.108 0/21692327.2015.1136794. Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. 1983. Foundations of morality, human rights, and the human sciences. Analecta Husserliana. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Ed. in Chief). The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research. Vol. XV. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Reidel. ———. 2012. The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life. Book II. Christo-Logos. Metaphysical Rhapsodies of Faith (Itinerarium mentis in Deo). Analecta Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Ed. in Chief). Vol. CXI. Dordrecht/ Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer. Voegelin, Eric. 2000. Order and History. Collected Works Vol. III, Plato and Aristotle. Edited and introduced by Germino Dante. Columbia/London: University of Missouri Press. ———. 2002. Ordnung und Geschichte. Herausgegeben von Peter J.  Opitz und Dietmar Harz, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 1, Die kosmologischen Reiche des Alten Orients  – Mesopotamien und Ägypten, herausgegeben von Jan Assmann, aus dem Englischen von Rheinard W. Sonnenschmidt, von Humboldt, Alexander. 1845. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Leipzig: J. G. Cotta‘scher Verlag. Ward, Thomas Butler. 1992. Toward a concept of unnatural slavery during the Renaissance: A Review of primary and secondary sources, in Inter-American Review of Bibliography. Vol. XLII, No. 2. Washington: Pan-American Union, Division of Philosophy and Letters, Department of Cultural Affairs. Writings from Ancient Egypt. 2016. Writings from Ancient Egypt. Translated and introduced by Wilkinson, Toby. London/New York: Penguin.

Index

A Acedia, 6, 34, 37–39, 43–45 Aristoteles, 2, 160, 162 Avicenna, 28, 29, 96–99, 158 Axial Ages, 156–159

Existential feelings, 43–45

B Being, 2, 13, 25, 33, 49, 74, 87, 105, 114, 130, 144, 156 Birth and death, 132, 135 Byzantium Poems, 7

G God, 4, 14, 25, 34, 48, 77, 89, 105, 114, 130, 146, 156

C Consciousness, 24–32, 40, 42, 95, 144, 145, 156 Constancy, 147 Cosmos, 2, 5–7, 31, 35–37, 40, 106–108, 148, 163, 168, 169 D Divine ownership, 6, 11–21 Divine resourcefulness, 11–21 E Ecology, 6, 13, 148 Eco-phenomenology/imagination, 1–3, 6–8, 11–21, 23–32, 156–170 Essence of God, 116, 118 Existence, 2, 15, 25, 34, 49, 73, 87, 107, 115, 135, 147, 163

F Fana (annullment), 144–153

H Haqq, 89, 91, 94, 99 Hindu influence, 132 I Ibn ‘Arabī, 6, 48–65 Ibn al-Arabi, 90 I-centre, 7 Ikhwan Al-Safa’s Al-Aql Al-Kuli, 107 Ikhwan as-Safa, 107, 162, 165–167 Imaginal world, 36 Imagination, 7, 12, 36, 49, 82, 89, 104, 128, 145, 157 Immateriality, 74 Imperiocene, 4, 158, 161, 170 Islamic mysticism, 73, 114, 122 Islamic view, 12, 14, 15 J Journey of the soul, 133

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 D. Quintern, D. Verducci (eds.), Eco-Imagination towards a Sustainable Future, Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67659-8

173

Index

174 L Logos, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 24, 27, 29–32, 106, 121, 169

R Re*source, 7, 104–110

M Ma’at, 7, 161–165, 169 Moral community, 122 Mulla Sadra, 2, 72, 98, 124 Mullah Sadra, 99 Mysticism, 7, 114

S Simurgh, 7, 119, 120, 122, 123 Sufi phenomenology, 6, 23–32 Sustainable futures, 2, 7, 144–153 Sustainable source study, 104–106 Symbols, 3, 5, 6

N Non-European sources of Shakespeare, 104

T Thoth’s One, 106, 107 Tree, 3, 25, 48, 82, 105, 129, 146, 162 Tymieniecka, A.-T., 1–3, 5, 7, 31, 40–44, 137, 157, 159, 167–169

O Ontopoiesis of Life, 1, 161, 162, 168, 169 P Phenomenology, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 24, 40, 41, 45 The Perfect Human, 6, 53, 55, 57–64, 124 Plato, 2, 45, 72–78, 80–86, 89, 91–94, 97, 146, 161 Presence, 28, 118, 121, 123, 144, 147, 148

U Unity, 4, 12, 30, 41, 73, 90, 106, 114, 152, 164 Universality, 75, 82, 94 Y Yeats, W.B., 7, 128–138