The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-Arabī's Cosmology (Islam)

Chittick at his best!

I have been studying this and SPK and the Holy Mysteries for 5 years, the truths come alive, and miracles will happen all else is just kicking rocks.Know that blindness is a bewilderment, and the greatest blindness is bewilderment in knowledge of God. (page 81-82)

"This is what shows you His Omnipotence, Exalted be He; that He hides himself from you by that which has no existence outside of Him" -- Ibn Ata'allahChittick is refining the art of translating Ibn Arabi. Unlike other medieval Arabic texts that are more or less straightforward -- hence translatable -- Ibn Arabi is an exception. The anti-systematic nature of his thought compounded by its deep interconnection with the Arabic language renders translations almost impossible.The Great Shaikh's hermeneutics of Islamic Scripture (the Koran and Prophetic traditions) is at once mystical and linguistic. Mystical through kashf, (lit. 'unveiling,' a type of spiritual opening to knowledge), and linguistic through retracing each Divinely revealed word to its etymological root. To a reader unfamiliar with either mystical philosophy or classical Arabic, understanding Ibn Arabi can be excrutiatingly difficult. A natural response is to question the source of Ibn Arabi's radically subversive worldview.Taking these factors into consideration, Chittick should be commended in undertaking a task so academically daunting that it prevented even an Orientalist of R.A. Nicholson's repute from publishing his own translations.Chittick is meticulous in his translations and tries to be loyal to both the literal and implied meanings of technical Arabic words. He introduces each translated section with a brief summary to acquaint the reader what s/he is about encounter, simplifying the complexity of the passage and contexualising it within the (fluid) framework of Ibn Arabi's nondualistic ontology.Finally, it should be noted that Chittick's other major work in the field of Akbarian scholarship, the Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination, makes an excellent introduction to this work. SDG is not easy reading, so preliminary works might be useful before jumping full fledge into Ibn Arabi's "ocean without shore" of mystical metaphysics. In strange and unfamiliar waters, the weight of ignorance can drown. But the ultimate ignorance, as Ibn Arabi would say, is not that of books written by the dead -- for "the servant is nonexistent!" -- but of the Living (al-Hayy) who reveals Himself through the cosmos around us, through His Self-Disclosure.

A highly significant contribution to Islamic studies in the area of sufism in particular. Extensive passages from Ibn Arabi's Futuhat al-Makiyya have been translated into a European langauge for the first time by one of North America's leading Islamicists.Highly recommended.

Good but hard to follow in places.

The title of the book should be The Self-Disclosure of Allah.Allah is not God. This is absolutely clear in the Qur'an, Hadith [traditional stories] and Islamic law.In Arabic, the Qur'an and Sharia, Almighty God is Ilah and Allah is ‘the god’ in English.Almighty God is Ilah, Ar Rahman, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful, the Most Gracious.Therefore the Qur’an was named The Criterion, the criterion between good and evil.Qur’an 41:84 It is He Who is the only God in the heaven and the only God on the earth.Ibn Kathir: This means He is the God of those who are in the heaven and the God of those on earth.Qur’an 43:84 It is He Who is Ilah, God in the heaven and on the earth.Qur’an 19:65 Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, so worship Him and abide patiently in His worship. Do you know of any other with His Name?Ibn Kathir: Ibn Abbas says, ‘There is no one named Ar-Rahman (the Most Beneficent) other than Him, Blessed and Exalted is He. Most Holy is His Name.’See Quran chapters 19, 21, 25, 26, 36, 37, 41, 43, 67, etc.Allah is always and only called Allah in Arabic.Qur’an 6:3 And He is Allah in the heavens and on the earth.Ibn Abbas: He is the One who is called Allah in the heavens and on the earth.The Qur'an states that the religion of Allah abrogates the religion of Abraham.The Shahada, the Muslim pledge of faith, denies God:La ilaha ill-Allah, there is no God/god but Allah.The sentence comprises a denial and an affirmation.Negation: 'La ilah' negates all forms of God or god.Affirmation: 'illAllah' affirms that there is only Allah.Before you can say ‘I believe in Allah’(illa Allah) you have to reject or disbelieve in any other god or God (La illaha).Question 179 Islam Q&A (...)Questions 114, 6703, 11819, 20239, 20815

A very thorough study of Ibn Arabi's thought. Unless you have a real scholarly interest in the subject, this might be a little heavy for the average spiritual seeker. You really have to dedicate yourself to the book and can't just read for an hour at night after work.