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The renowned mystical thinker Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) believes uncertainty (ḥayra) has a higher epistemological value than certainty. This is because certainty is only of ostensible reality, which ignores the true ontological underpinnings of phenomenality. To become cognisant of the reality that palpitates beneath the facade of the sensible world, we only have recourse to uncertainty. Uncertainty makes us realise that all existents are loci of divine manifestation. Nevertheless, God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, which means we can only know God through discarding the rule of the excluded middle. This, says Ibn ‘Arabī, gives rise to metaphysical uncertainty. Ibn ‘Arabī’s notion of uncertainty was subsequently taken up by an important commentator, Nūr al-Dīn al-Jāmī (d. 898/1492), who systematises uncertainty into different levels and offers an original hierarchy that defines which types of uncertainty are positive and which are negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The night journey (isrā') and ascension (mi'rāj) represent arguably the most significant and unique events in the life of Prophet Muḥammad. However, the influential Sufi thinker Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240) argues that the Prophet had thirty-four night journeys of which only one was physical. This physical night journey, and the ascension that took place with it, was the one in which he was given the five daily prayers. Ibn 'Arabī thus employs the secondary night journeys and ascensions of Prophet Muḥammad to delineate a point of emulation between the Prophet's spiritual experience and those of his nation. Muslims can also have their own ascensions, but their journeys cannot be physical, and, analogously, cannot have autonomous legislative authority. They can, nevertheless, cause a change in their perception that allows them to see the world as it truly is: a manifestation of the divine Names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts a qualitative analysis of teleological verses in the Qur'an, which reveals that they only demonstrate the power of God to resurrect, and the will of God to punish/ reward as He pleases, not His perfection. Subsequently, a quantitative analysis of the term most used to refer to teleological proofs ("āya," sign) is conducted. It demonstrates that the term most frequently denotes miracles, emphasizing the power of God, and punishment, underscoring the will of God. The locational proximity of the putative teleological verses to eschatological ones corroborates that the overall objective of these verses is eschatological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the prophetic tradition in Islam, which states that the fabric of time will become erratic with the coming of the Antichrist. The temporal ontology of one of the most influential philosophical thinkers in the Islamic tradition, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240), is employed to decode the tradition and expatiate on the nature of time and how it will manifest in the apocalyptic future. Ibn 'Arabī explains that there are three modalities of temporal reality: 'the day of rest' (yawm al-sabt), 'the omitted days' (ayyām al-salkh), and the 'rotary days' (ayyām al-takwīr). While the first is entirely beyond human perception, the others are not. These three types of days delineate the nature of the future during the apocalyptic days of the Antichrist when the first day of his emergence will be the length of a year, the second a month, and the third a week. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mystical thinker Muhyi al-Din ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240) had many audiences with the dead. This article explores who Ibn 'Arabī interacted with, and how. Usually as dreams and visions, the meetings Ibn 'Arabī had with messengers were generally at key milestones in his life, or to confer particular distinctions upon him. A special subset of these visions was of Prophet Muḥammad specifically, and these were to derive a legal ruling from him, or because he was under the special care of the Prophet. Conversely, the audiences he had with departed saints were largely to do with more quotidian issues, either regarding his relationship with spiritual masters, or to correct a misapprehension about someone. Finally, but more seldom, he had physical interactions with corporealised spirits from beyond. As these betrayed a higher rank than mere visions, they were reminiscent of his audiences with messengers in that they confirmed his exalted spiritual rank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kafka explores many elements in 'Jackals and Arabs' that are found in the Judeo-Christian tradition of Gog and Magog, the Alexander Romance, and the Qur'anic story of Dhu'l-Qarnayn. A comparative analysis of these works reveals Kafka's criticism of the Zionist movement. Kafka rejects Zionist exceptionalism and separatism through the narrator's rejection of the jackals' cause. Kafka's jackals are compared to Gog and Magog, who are portrayed as corruptors of the land in the aforementioned texts. The categorisation of corruptors of the land is significant because this reverses Zionist claims of a profound connection to the land, which Kafka, likewise, reverses when the jackals claim that the desert is their home from which the Arabs should be removed. Zionist avowals of Arab backwardness are countered by Kafka as he makes the Arabs superior, which is also how the indigenous population are depicted in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions since they are contrasted with the barbarity of Gog and Magog. Finally, the Zionist trope of the European Jewish hero who flees persecution is inverted by Kafka who confers on the narrator a quasi-prophetic/royal status similar to that of Dhu'l-Qarnayn and Alexander the Great. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between the unity of God and the multiplicity seen in the universe represents the central concern for the Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240). It deeply affected the thought of the Southeast Asian mystic, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī (d. 1590?), and his alleged disciple, Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatra'ī (d. 1630). Traces of this idea, through its popularisation in the poems of Fanṣūrī, exert a powerful influence on the Indonesian intellectual topography to this day. This article investigates the concept of unity and multiplicity, of the One expressed as the many in the phenomenal world, in Ibn 'Arabī's Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Ringstones of Wisdom). Through a close textual reading of the chapters of Ādam (Adam) and Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and their various commentaries by the most influential followers of Ibn 'Arabī, it concludes that the representation of 'oneness of being' (waḥdat al-wujūd), which was extensively taught by Fanṣūrī in Aceh, as an erasure of the God-Man divide, is untenable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asceticism or renunciation (zuhd) is generally viewed as turning away from the world and all it has to offer in order to connect to the divine. The well-known mystical theorist, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240), adds a denotation of asceticism to this conventional definition. Ibn 'Arabī argues that the impetus for the creation of the cosmos was the divine wish to be known by something other than Itself. As the fulfilment of this wish, the universe is nothing but a manifestation of the cataphatic aspect of God described as His 'most beautiful Names' (al-Asmā' al-ḥusnā) in the Qur'an, which is not God as He truly is in His apophatic essence that can never be comprehended, much less manifested. This means that there are two forms of asceticism or connecting to the divine: one is to assert God's transcendence and His true apophatic nature by renouncing the world, while the other is to emphasise His comparability by embracing the world as a manifestation of God's most beautiful Names. Ibn 'Arabī presents the world-renouncing form of asceticism through the chapter of Prophet Idrīs in his most popular work, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, and he presents the world-embracing from of asceticism through the chapter of Prophet Ilyās. He then combines both forms of asceticism in the chapter of Prophet Muḥammad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of transcendental happiness in the philosophies of arguably the two most important figures in Islamic intellectual thought, Abū 'Alī ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) and Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240). The most striking parallels between the philosophy of Ibn Sīnā and that of Ibn 'Arabī is in their agreement on the Aristotelian principle of transcendental happiness as the comprehension of God, combined with their emanationist cosmologies. Based on Neoplatonist emanationism, especially as it is put forth by Plotinus, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn 'Arabī argue that there is a necessary emanation from God that results in the existence of the universe. As corollaries of the divine emanative process, those endowed with rationality seek to return to the divine in a reciprocal upward motion that aims to 'reverse' the downward motion of the original divine descent. The impetus for the two-way process incorporating divine descent through emanation and the longing for ascent found in humans is love. Despite these points of confluence, there are others of divergence. Ibn 'Arabī disagrees with his predecessor that transcendental happiness is found in absolute annihilation in the divine, while still maintaining that annihilation of the self is a necessary first step in the attainment of transcendental happiness. Transcendental happiness, argues Ibn 'Arabī, is ultimately the realization of human potentiality to become a complete locus of divine manifestation. This is carried out through the body for Ibn 'Arabī, whereas for Ibn Sīnā, transcendental happiness requires the divestment of materiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kierkegaard raises many issues in his account of the near sacrifice of Isaac by his father. Responding to and critiquing Hegelian and Kantian depictions of Abraham, Kierkegaard moves to elevate Abraham into a position as a knight of faith. The Sunnī perception of the incident in the exegetical tradition is far more ethically unequivocal than that of the Latin philosophical tradition. The ubiquitous Sufi theorist, Ibn 'Arabī, however, in a single act of interpretive ingenuity, managed to extirpate the central root of contention raised by the philosophers when he alleges that Abraham was only ever commanded to sacrifice a ram. Despite his abiding commitment to spiritual unveiling (kashf) and his insistence on the personal nature of God, Ibn 'Arabī advocates the employment of a Kantian criterion of universal rationality to adjudicate between literal and metaphorical dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cosmos emerges from a series of divine outpourings in the metaphysical outlook of Ibn c Arabī. This article addresses the process by which this occurs and the effect it has on the creation. It employs the term outpourer (mufīḍ}), and its correlated terms outpouring (fayḍj) and receptacle (qābil) to understand the relationship between God - the Outpourer, and His creation - the receptacle of this divine outpouring. This study also scrutinises how much and how far c Abd al-Razzāq al- Qāshānī, a notable disseminator of Ibn c Arabi's teachings, veers from the intentions of his master, and what overall effect this has on our comprehension of the God/creation interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]