Ibn 'Arabi's Polished Mirror: Perspective Shift and Meaning Event

Maisonneuve & Larose

Ibn 'Arabi's Polished Mirror: Perspective Shift and Meaning EventAuthor(s): Michael SellsSource: Studia Islamica, No. 67 (1988), pp. 121-149Published by: Maisonneuve & LaroseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1595976 .

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IBN 'ARABI'S POLISHED MIRROR: PERSPECTIVE SHIFT

AND MEANING EVENT

While looking at a smudged mirror what the viewer sees is the mirror. If in the act of looking the mirror is simultaneously polished, a perspective shift occurs. The mirror is no longer noticed at all, only the image of the viewer reflected in it. Vision (the viewing by a subject of an outside object) has become self-vision. In the beginning of his Fusiis al-Hikam (Ring Settings of Wisdom), (1) Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi employs the above image to remarkable effect as a symbol of the mystical perspective shift. This shift is reflected in his notion of the perfect man or complete human being (al-insdn al-kamil). (2 ) The focus of this essay is not so much the theory of the complete human being, i.e. what is said, (3) but rather how

(1) The following translation and discussion is based upon the Affifi edition: Ibn 'Arabi, Fusis

al-h.ikam, edited with commentary by A. A. Affifi, 2 vols.

(Cairo: Dar Ihydi' al-Kutub al-'Arabiyya, 1946). (2) For a fine discussion of this doctrine see William Chittick, "The Perfect

Man as the Prototype of the Self in the Sufism of Jami," Studia Islamica 49: 135-158. In this translation I have used the terms "complete human being" and "complete human" to translate al-insdn al-kdmil. Unlike the English term "man," the Arabic insdn does not contain both a gender specific and a gender non-specific meaning. In addition, Ibn 'Arabi was quite emphatic and surprising in breaking with patriarchal notions of gender, as, for example, in his famous statement that Adam, the first exemplar of the first human, was in fact female since he (she) gave birth to Eve. Another nonpatriarchal side to Mulhyi al-Din's thought is its defense of nature, of change, of the necessity for receptivity, of all those elements that patriarchal thought associates with the feminine and relegates to at best an inferior position.

(3) For a comprehensive discussion of Ibn 'Arabi's thought see the first volume



122 MICHAEL SELLS

meaning is generated within the text. The perspective shift serves as the bridge between what is said and how it is said. It forms not only the subject of Ibn 'Arabi's discourse (the mystical experience of passing from duality to non-duality) but also the event experienced by the reader of the text, what I will call the meaning event.

To ask how meaning is generated in Muhyi al-Din's writings requires a reconsideration of the question of genre, a question complicated by the fact that Ibn 'Arabi, like many mystical writers, challenges conventional boundaries between poetry and prose, and distinctions between the philosophical, the religious, the aesthetic. A look at the genre of the first chapter of Ring Sellings of Wisdom reveals a bewildering complexity. The beginning is highly poetic in imagery and interior cadence (more so than much of Ibn 'Arabi's formal prosody). The text changes without warning into a sermon, then into a philosophical discussion of divine attributes, and finally back into an intensely poetic finale that includes mythic and philosophical elements. (4) A second look reveals further complexities. Passages that might normally be called expository, descriptive, narrative, or metaphorical are transformed by an inner mystical logic that subverts the dualisms (cause-effect, before-after, here-there, subject-predicate, subject-object, etc.) on which such features are based. At some points the text is a web of allusions: to the Qur'dn, philosophy, scholastic theology (kaldm), hermetic sciences, or to "secrets" within the text itself. Allusion is combined with polyvalence: a given term will be used simultaneously with several contexts in mind, a technique that creates

of Toshihiko Izutsu's A Comparative Study of the Key Philisophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Keio Institute, 1966). In a previous article ["Ibn 'Arabi's Garden among the Flames: a Reevaluation," History of Religions vol. 23, no, 4 (May, 1984): 287-314] I focus upon several doctrines in Ibn 'Arabi that this present discussion will drawn upon: binding (taqy1d), perpetual transformation (taqallub), mystic bewilderment as (hayra) as the highest knowledge, the eternal moment (waqt), and the station (maqdm) of no station. Because there is no room here to develop these doctrines in full, I will cite the "Garden among the Flames" article at appropriate points in this discussion. The two articles are meant to be complementary, the first focusing upon Ibn 'Arabi's doctrines (what is said), the second upon how his language operates (how it is said), though of course the two approaches can never be totally separated.

(4) The division corresponds to the following points in the Affifi text: Section 1 (p. 48--p. 50, line 11); Section 2 (50:11--51:12); Section 3 (51:12--53:11); Section 4 (53:11-56).



IBN eARABI'S POLISHED MIRROR 123

a series of undertones parallel to the main argument. The "main argument" itself continually changes and sub-themes become principle themes only to recede into undertones again. The radical Sufi hermeneutic of kashf (unveiling) invariably turns against its own formulations to avoid objectifying meaning.

In this essay I suggest that Ibn 'Arabi's language forms a comprehensive discursive dynamic or genre, a mystical dialectic in which the perspective shift symbolized by the polishing of the mirror plays a critical role. The essay is divided into the following sections: I. Translation of a sample passage and discussion of the problems involved in translating a text of mystical dialectic. II. Presentation of the major principles of Ibn 'Arabi's mystical dialectic. III. More detailed commentary on the text itself, with a focus on the special lexical and semantic features of mystical dialectic. IV. A reconsideration of the controversial nature of Ibn 'Arabi's writings in particular, and mystical writings in general, in view of the critical categories established earlier in the essay.

I. TRANSLATION

Interdisciplinary studies have brought into question the common division of texts into the literary and the expository. The notion that in exposition metaphors are mere aids for illustrating ideas has been challenged on several fronts. (5) Such a position highlights the difficulties of any translation and the impossibility of simply recasting an argument in terms that directly correspond to the original. Even if on a purely discursive level such direct equivalents could be found, complic- ations would arise on the level of metaphor. Sufi writings are particularly vulnerable to the loss of literary texture in translation. Much of the meaning in Sufi discourse comes through a refined use of divine names, an affective intimacy created by stretching the distance of the pronoun from the antecedent, and finally the deliberate blurring of the referent between the human and the divine. In Ibn 'Arabi's case these standard difficulties

(5) A good example of recent challenges to standard boundaries between the expository and the literary, the literal and the metaphorical, can be found in On Metaphor, ed. Sheldon Sacks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).



124 MICHAEL SELLS

in translating Sufi texts are compounded by a particularly complex use of use of metaphor, myth, and differing genres. (6)

The complexity of genre in Ring Settings of Wisdom puts into question even such seemingly mundane divisions as that between poetry and prose. The first section of chapter 1, for example, would not normally be classified as poetry, since it is written neither in formal meter nor in full saj' (rhymed prose). Yet its flowing syntax, assonance, and rhythmic development render it unsuitable for translation into prose paragraphs and sentences. I have found that a free verse based upon cadence allows the translator to re-create more closely the inner rhythmic texture, and to show visually how digressions impinge upon and trans- form the main argument. However, a later passage in the same chapter, the discussion of divine attributes, fits well into paragraphs but sounds forced and ackward in free verse. Another passage, a homily on the error of the angels, seems to lie somewhere in between the verse and paragraph. In Ibn 'Arabi's mystical dialectic, the central feature is not the idea in the sense of a fixed concept, but rather the process symbolized by the perspective shift, a process that will be seen to imply continual change. It is not surprising, though no less shocking for the translator, that Ibn 'Arabi is continually changing his mode of discourse.

A translation of the first section of the Adam chapter follows, a section that contains amply the qualities that earned its author the title of al-shaykh al-akbar (the grand master) of Islamic mystical thought. Here MuhyI al-Din presents his creation myth, the myth of the "breath of the merciful," and then interprets Adam as the first exemplar of the complete human, as the microcosm that reflects and brings to actuality all the divine attributes and all the essential forms of the cosmos. The text consists of myth, metaphor, allusion, digression, and philosophy, all held together by the central event of the perspective shift. The

(6) Among the translations of Fusils are T. Burckhardt's translation of selected chapters, Sagesse des Prophetes (Paris: A. Michel, 1955), trans. Angela Culme- Seymour as The Wisdom of the Prophets (Swyre Farm: Beshara Publications, 1975), and R. W. J. Austin's complete transtation, Bezels of Wisdom (New York: Paulist Press, 1980). An interesting solution to the translation problem was offered by Izutsu in his Comparative Study. Izutsu was able to render major sections of

Fusis. into well constructed paragraphs and sentences by continually using

parentheses and interpolations to fill in logical and syntactical leaps.



IBN CARABI S POLISHED MIRROR 125

creation myth, the emanation metaphors, the allusion to the conflict with the angels set an initial context. Within that context the hymn to the complete human being as the pupil of the divine eye, as the polishing of the mirror, as the khalffa (regent) or bestower of form and order upon the cosmos, follows with a steady, ineluctable buildup of dramatic and poetic tension. At the same the hymn is transformed from within by the mystical logic of the perspective shift (vision to self vision). When the real ( ) willed

from the perspective of its most beautiful names which are countless

to see their determinations or you could say when it willed to see its own determination in a comprehensive being qualified with existence that would contain its universal order to reveal to it(self) through it(self) its mystery

for the self-vision of a being through itself is not like its self-vision through something outside which acts as a mirror its self appearing to it in a form in a plane of reflection a form which could not occur without the existence of such a plane and the self-manifestation in it

and when the real ( ) had brought into being the universe a vague, molded shape without a spirit it was like an unpolished mirror

for divine providence never shapes a place without that place accepting the divine spirit which it called the breathing into



126 MICHAEL SELLS

and that is but the activation of that image's potential to receive the emanation, the eternal manifestation that always was and always will be

and outside of which there is only the vessel

which itself only exists from its most holy overflowing

for the universal order is from him

beginning and end

"and to him returns the entire order"

as from him it began

what was required was the polishing of the mirror that is the world

and Adam was the essence of the polishing of that mirror

and the spirit of that form

The angels were certain powers of that form which the folk call by the term "great human"

the angels were to it like the spiritual and perceptual powers in the human nature

but each power is veiled in itself and sees nothing that is better than it

for they (the angels) claim kinship to every high station and exalted rank before Allah to divine universality

whether it pertain to the divine side

or to the side of the reality of realities



IBN eARABIIS POLISHED MIRROR 127

or in the nature containing all these attributes to what is required by universal nature

which encompasses the vessels of the world all of them, high and low

and this no mind knows by speculation but only by that art of insight which originated in divine unveiling which reveals the origin of the forms that constitute the world

and receive the spirits

this nature that we have mentioned was named insdn (human being, pupil of the eye) and khalifa (regent) he is named insan because of the universality of his nature because he encompasses all realities

he is to the real as the insan (pupil) of the eye is to the eye the medium of perception so he is called insan because through him the real views its creation

and extends them compassion he is insan, originated and eternal

he is the living being, without beginning, without end

he is the word, discriminating and integrating he is to the world as the ringstone of the ring is to the ring

the plane of inscription the sign by which the king seals his coffer

he is called khalffa then since the transcendent guards through him his creation



128 MICHAEL SELLS

as long as the seal guards the treasure chest as long as it bears the seal of the king no one dares open it without his permission so he made him his khalifa charged with the safeguarding of his property and the world is preserved as long as the complete human being remains in it

don't you see that if he were no more or were broken off from the treasure chest that is the world the contents, which the real placed there, would spill out the parts would cling to one another (becoming undifferentiated) and the entire order would vanish into the afterworld

where he would be the eternal seal on the treasure chest that is the afterworld

II. INTERPRETATION

In Ibn 'Arabi's writings meaning is generated between two poles, neither of which can serve as an object of discourse. The problems posed by this bi-polar reference are contained in nuce in the Andalusian master's use of the term al-haqq (the real), and the effort to translate it (in the broader sense of translation) requires a strategy in dealing with these two poles.

The first pole is the dhat (Self, essence), (7) the ultimate, absolute unity beyond the dualistic structures of language and thought, and beyond all relation. For Ibn 'Arabi, as for other writers in the tradition of apophasis ("negative theology") (8) to

(7) I have attempted to avoid capitalizations except in cases of proper names since capitals introduce a distinction not made in the Arabic, and more importantly, since they tend to fix as denominations terms that Ibn 'Arabi means in a non- denominatory manner (see below on the shift from reference to realization). In this case, however, I am forced to capitalize the term Self to make clear its distinction from the (ego) self or nafs, as well as from the reflexive term "self" which will be used frequently in the translation and analysis.

(8) The apophatic aporia caused by the encounter of the delimitations of language with the notion of the unlimited is discussed in detail by Plotinus, Enneads 5.5. For a discussion of the aporia in several authors of mystical dialectic see M. Sells, "The Metaphor and Dialectic of Emanation in Plotinus, John the Scot, Meister Eckhart, and Ibn 'Arabi" (Chicago: University of Chicago,



IBN CARABI'S POLISHED MIRROR 129

speak of ultimate or unlimited reality as if it were an object or entity that could be named or given normal predications is to delimit it. And anything defined or delimited will no longer be infinite or unlimited. Language delimitation has a subtle but serious effect on consciousness and results in a grave error: we think we are referring to the unlimited when in fact we can only refer to the delimited entity that the act of naming posits. Language, based upon delimited reference, falls into an aporia, an unfathomable perplexity, when it attempts to deal with the Self. To give it any name, even to denominate it by the term "Self" or "the unlimited," is to pose a delimited entity. We cannot even call it 'it', since the pronoun implies a delimited entity marked off from other referents. But even to say "we cannot call it 'it' " requires us to call it 'it'. The writer falls into an infinite regress of retractions.

In addition to eluding delimited reference or names, the unlimited Self eludes predication. To say "it thinks," or "it wills," is also to delimit. The predication implies that the actor engages in an activity and is thus in some way separate from the activity. To say that "it transcends the world" is to imply a space, physical or conceptual, from which it is excluded (the world, the low). It is the act of predication rather than any particular predication which delimits: a predication of transcendence or majesty is just as much an act of delimitation as a predication of smallness.

One solution to the delimitations inherent in reference and predication lies in the coincidence of opposites: it is both here and there, transcendent and immanent, first and last, the same and other. Another solution lies in violating the rule of excluded middle: it is neither here nor there, neither same nor other. It is often maintained that such paradoxes are only "seeming contradictions," but the contradiction is real. It cannot be explained away or paraphrased in a non-contra- dictory fashion. Nor is it merely a device for gaining the reader's attention. It results inexorably from the aporia of trying to use language based upon delimitation to refer to the unlimited. Though real, the contradiction is not illogical

Ph. D. diss., 1982). The aporia in Plotinus is discussed further in M. Sells, "Apophasis in Plotinus: A Critical Approach," Harvard Theological Review, 78:1 (1985): 47-65.

5



130 MICHAEL SELLS

because the logical rules of excluded middle and non-contradiction apply precisely to delimited reference. The paradox is both a means of shifting discourse from the realm of delimited reference toward the unlimited, as well as the result of language's encounter with the unlimited. Like a poetic metaphor it can never be reduced to a purely discursive paraphrase. And just as a seemingly simple metaphor can take on extraordinary resonance when used in a poetic context, so a simple paradox like those cited above can become a wellspring of meaning when occuring in a mystical context. In order to distinguish such language from the common notion of paradox as a "seeming contradiction," I use the term dialectic, and define it as a real, yet logical violation of normal logic. The dialectic forms a new logic based upon a transformation of syllogistic logical rules at certain rigorously defined points. The mystical, apophatic dialectic shares with other forms of 'dialectic' its status as a rigorous and comprehensive method, but it should be distinguished from the syllogistic dialectic of the medieval schools as well as from Hegelian and post-Hegelian dialectic which, though often involving similar paradoxes, differs from mystical dialectic in the particular emphasis placed upon history. (9)

While the Self lies apophatically beyond normal language, there is another aspect of the real that can be invoked with language. This second aspect is the realm of the divine names. Though in traditional Islamic thought there are said to be 99 divine names used in the Qur'dn, for Ibn 'Arabi the divine names represent the entire range of references and predications that can be applied to divine reality. The number of divine names is therefore infinite, though Ibn 'Arabi usually has in mind the standard attributes of will, knowledge, life, perception, compassion. Thus when we speak of the real we refer simultaneously to two poles: the unmanifest, apophatic self (which of course continually resists any intended reference or predication), and the manifest aspect of the divine names.

(9) Apophatic dialectic can be historical. Joannes Scotus Eriugena's Periphyseon integrates an apophatic dialectic into Christian sacred history. But it is not historical in quite the same way as Hegelian dialectic, since the notion of beginning and end, before and after, though used, are challenged by the Eriugenan dialectic more continuously and integrally.




Even so, we cannot speak of an objective referent in the case of the divine names any more than in the case of the apophatic Self. The divine names are neither predications nor subjects of predication, but rather constitute an event. This event is symbolized by the complete human being in which the names are actualized, and is represented in Ibn 'Arabi's myth of creation and metaphor of the polished mirror: 1) Before the creation of the universe, the real existed only in its unmanifest stage, and thus did not know itself through its names. The names were non-existent or unactual. 2) The names, non- existent in themselves, can exist and be actual only in a cosmos in which they inhere. In order to actualize the names the real is said to have created a cosmos. 3) The cosmos is like an unpolished mirror, or a spiritless substance. In order for the mirror to shine and for the divine names to achieve actuality, the complete human being is needed.

The event of the polishing of the mirror is a mythic version of an event that earlier Sufis had discussed in terms of the experience of the doctrine of fand', the passing away of the ego- self in contemplation of the divine. At that moment the perspective shift would occur: instead of the human contemplat- ing the divine (a subject-object relation) the divine would reveal itself to itself within the heart of the mystic. Earlier discussions often dramatized this event through the

shath., the

mystical utterances in which such a non-predicative divine self-revelation would take place. In the shahiydgt of Bistfimi (subhdnti, glory to me) and Hallfij (and al-haqq, I am reality) this event was acted out in a dramatic social context. Ibn 'Arabi was critical of the more provocative elements within the

shaf.h tradition: sufism had given up its more provocative stance and had come to embrace all strata of Islamic society. However, the abandonment of the context of social drama did not entail an abandonment of the event expressed in the earlier

shaf.hiyadt. Ibn 'Arabi placed that event at the heart of his discourse at all levels, cosmological, mythological, metaphorical, philosophical, using it as a central dynamis for the creation of a comprehensive- ly apophatic, mystical language. (10)

(10) For a discussion of the question shathiydt see Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985). For an excellent discussion of earlier Sufism see Peter Awn, Satan's Tragedy and Redempt- ion: Iblis in Sufi Psychology (Leiden: Brill, 1983).



132 MICHAEL SELLS

From the divine standpoint the perspective shift is expressed in the famous hadfth qudst, "I (Allah) become the hearing by which he hears, the perception by which he sees, the hand with which he gropes, and the feet with which he walks." (11) From the human perspective the event is expressed as fand': when the ego-self passes away the self-manifestation of the divine occurs in the heart of the mystic. The divine names such as hearing and seeing are no longer predications. But though the apophatic critique excludes them as predication, they are retrieved as realizations.

This is the event of perspective shift. "Who sees whom in whom" is a question that cannot be answered without transforming the referential structure of language. From the divine perspective the eternal manifestation always has occured and always is occuring. From the human perspective it is eternal but also a moment in time, an eternal moment that cannot be held onto but must be continually re-enacted. It is at this moment of perspective shift that the Sufi realizes (both in the sense of "make real" and "understand") the divine name. The perspective shift marks the transformation from a language of reference and predication to a language of realization and manifestation. Coincidence of opposites and the logic of mystical dialectic are generated. The relationship of a manifestation to that which it manifests is dialectical: it is what it manifests while on the other hand what manifests itself transcends its manifestations.

In the above sample passage, the myth of creation forms the explicit subject of discourse. The myth is presented here in rather abbreviated form, but reappears in fuller form throughout Ibn 'Arabl's writings. On one level it is a mystical retelling of the Biblical-Qur'Znic genesis story, a context signaled by the use of specific words from the Qur'anic account: the act of molding or kneading (sawwd) [the clay from which Adam is formed], and the breathing into (nafkh fThi) by which the creator brings the creature to life. (12) This creation myth is in continual

(11) Bukhdri LXXXI: 38. For a specific passage showing Ibn'Arabi combining this hadith with the doctrine of fand', as they were combined in earlier Sufism, and then making it the basis for the perspective shift, see Ibn 'Arabi Fuiis 1: 121-122.

(12) Allah is pictured as molding the clay from which Adam was formed in several Qur'anic passages (Q 85:38, 87:2, 18:38, 82:8, 32:9). It is the last mentioned




tension with the dialectic, forming a mythic-dialectic. The dualistic structures (before-after, here-there, cause-effect, subject object) upon which the myth narrative depends are fused from within. The myth continues to generate meaning through narrative but the meaning is transformed by the underlying aporia and its dialectical logic.

Within the creation myth are imbedded a set of metaphors. One of the most common is the ringstone/ring-setting image. In the sample passage Ibn 'Arabi refers to the ring as the seal ring, and to the complete human being as the khalffa or regent whose seal holds the cosmos together by imparting to it form. More commonly, the stone and setting image symbolizes the human being who, like a ring setting, holds a particular divine manifestation within itself. Thus the twenty seven prophets discussed in Ring Settings each receive a divine manifestation or wisdom (hikma), but in the perspective shift, that which receives the manifestation (al-mulajalla lahu) becomes (is) the same as that which gives the manifestation (al-mutajallf), and thus the ringstone and the ring-setting become (are) one. (13) The dualities (such as vessel-content) upon the metaphor is based are fused.

Finally, the metaphors and mythic terms often have a meta- physical correspondence. Thus the shaping or kneading of Adam corresponds to the receptive capacity of materia prima while the breathing into Adam represents the infusion of form and life into that receptive material substrate. Again, dualisms are subverted or fused forming a philosophical dialectic. (14) Though I have separated these three forms of dialectic for the

which is the immediate reference for out text: thumma sawwdhu wa nafakha flhi min rihihi (then the molded him and breathed into him of his spirit). This anthropomorphic image of the divine kneading with its hands as it were the primordial clay is picked up again by Ibn 'Arabi at the end of chapter 1 of FusPi where the two hands of Allah are given an extraordinary series of interpretations, each interpretation of which is transformed by the mystical dialectic.

(13) Ibn 'Arabi, Fusas: 1:121. (14) The arbitrary nature of the division between the philosophical and the

metaphorical is demonstrated by Paul de Man in an analysis of how texts that explicitly claim to dispense with metaphor entirely are in fact based upon metaphor, even in the statement of their claim to being rid of metaphor: Paul de Man, "The Epistemology of Metaphor," in On Metaphor (above, note 5), pp. 11-29. Whether a term like Ibn 'Arabi's "first matter" (al-hayiald al-uld) is metaphorical cannot be directly answered without an examination of the genre of the text as a whole.



134 MICHAEL SELLS

purposes of discussion, more often than not they occur simultaneously in a given text.

Ibn 'Arabi's language is thus based upon three intertwined principles: (1) the apophatic aporia which makes it impossible to treat the unlimited with normal reference, predication, or logic; (2) a perspective shift symbolized by the polishing of the mirror, a shift through which normal reference, predication, logic, metaphor, and myth narration are transformed into language of realization, manifestation; and (3) a dialectical logic that results from the event of the perspective shift. A closer look at the sample passage will show how the perspective shift, like a mirror that continually turns from a direct reflection to an oblique flash of light, operates within the text, transforming the normal features of language.

III. THE DYNAMIC OF DISCOURSE

At this point we can turn again to the sample passage to see how these principles operate within our text. This section is divided into a discussion of each of the three segments of the sample passage as it was divided above.

Part 1. Perspective Shift and Split Reference

"When the real ( ) willed / from the perspective of its most beautiful names / which are countless / to see their determinations // or you could say / when it willed to see its own determination // in a comprehensive being / qualified with existence / that would contain its universal order // to reveal to it(self) through it(self) its mystery...."

Who reveals to whom whose mystery? On first glance, the problematic phrase wa yuzhira bihi sirrahu ilayhi would mean "it reveals through it its secret to it," an awkward, but literally correct translation. (15) It is awkward in English because

(15) Alternately, the passage could be read: wa yazharu bihi sirruhu ilaghi (and its mystery would appear to it through it). This translation reading has the advantage of avoiding putting the real into a subject-predicate relation. The ambiguity of the split reference of the pronoun hu is compounded by the ambiguity between

yazhara sirruhu and yuzhiru sirrahu.




English demands that we choose between reflexive and non- reflexive pronouns. Ibn 'Arabi does not make such a distinction, and it is the deliberate ambiguity between reflexive and non-reflexive usage that characterizes the perspective shift. It becomes impossible to determine whether the antecedent of the pronoun is the divine or the human.

A) Through whom is the mystery revealed?

1. The mystery is revealed through the complete human being who acts as the polishing of the mirror.

2. But insofar as the complete human being is the polishing of the mirror, all that is left "in the picture" so to speak, all that exists, is the real. The polishing of the mirror as symbol of fancd' is the disappearance of everything (including the mirror) but the real's self-manifestation. What remains is the divine self-manifestation revealed in him(self), it(self). The referent of the pronoun is both the divine and the human, both the self and other. The perspective shift inherent in the image of the polished mirror brings about a splitting of the reference and that in turn brings into operation the dialectical logic and the coincidence of opposites.

B) To whom is the mystery revealed?

1. The mystery is revealed to the real, in the act of self- revelation.

2. But the real as Self is beyond all duality and thus beyond being an object (indirect object of revelation, "to whom" the revelation occurs), or a subject of predication (a entity said "to know"). To say either would be to pose it within a dualistic, delimited, and already manifest state. In another sense it is the complete human being that is the realization of the divine manifestation. The mystery is revealed to Adam, to the complete human being. This reference "slide" can operate in two directions depending upon which meaning is primary or most evident within a particular expression. But whenever the experience of fand' or the metaphor of the polished mirror are involved such a slide will occur.



136 MICHAEL SELLS

C) Who reveals the mystery? 1. The real reveals the mystery. 2. But insofar as it can be given a predication (it reveals) it is

no longer the real in its aspect of Self, but rather in its manifest aspect of the divine names, the totality of which comprise the complete human being. The real as subject of predication is actualized within the complete human being. The real as Self continually recedes to its transcendence of such predicative delimitation.

I have used parentheses in the translation in order not to lose the perspective shift by being forced to choose between the reflexive or the non-reflexive: "it reveals to it(self) through it(self) its mystery." Elsewhere I have used both capital and non-capital to show how in the mystical moment of fand' the reference splits between the divine and human referents: He/he gives him/Him of Himself/himself in accordance with the image in which He/he appears to Him/him." (16) Another example of this split or sliding reference is the Sufi's attempt to achieve laqallub, perpetual transformation in every moment, so that in every moment the perspective shift occurs. Ibn 'Arabi states that individuals have an eternal moment (waqt) of various lengths. The Sufi tries to make the moment as short as possible to achieve perpetual transformation, to align his breath and dhikr with the divine "breath of the merciful": "So that he attempts to make his moment His/his breath." ("7)

The problem involved in the example C above can be seen more clearly through a review of the principle stages of the myth: 1) The real is unrevealed before the creation of the cosmos. 2) The real wills to be manifest and creates a cosmos to be as a mirror for its self-revelation. 3) The complete human being ts the polishing of that mirror. The aporia here is that before ihe creation of the cosmos and the complete human being, we cannot speak of the real as willing or creating. Such predications are part of its self-manifestation. But that self- manifestation is a result of its creation of the cosmos. Normal causality is subverted from beneath and falls into a circular or

(16) M. Sells, "Garden among the Flames," p. 299. (17) Ibid., p. 307.




reciprocal causality (A results from B which is the result of A), an infinite regress that underlies all attempts to link causally the transcendent or unlimited to phenomenal reality through delimited reference. The regress also serves as the active principle in turning all such predications into perplexities, what the grand master calls hayra or mystical bewilderment.

This linguistic implosion is often signalled in Ibn 'Arabi by the terms

subh.anahu, la'dla, and 'azza wa jalla. These terms

are not primarily marks of piety as is implied by normal translations ("praised be [or is] he" or "exalted be he"). Rather, they evoke the entire apophatic dialectic, and might be translated as follows: "May he (or it) be praised through the attribute being attributed to him here, but also exalted beyond this attribute." In my translation I have used the sign ( ) to indicate these extra-discursive markers. (Though la'dla might be taken to represent the apophatic exaltation beyond all attributes, and subhdnahu the praise through attributes, Muhyi al-Din some- times seems to use them interchangeably to mark the apophatic dialectic).

The aporia is also inherent in the phrase "from the perspective of" (min haythu): "When the real willed from the perspective of its most beautiful names..." Once again a diagram shows a deliberate ambiguity.

a) The real wished to see its determination from the standpoint of its divine names, since its Self could never be revealed or determined in any way. The phrase modifies the predicate- object relation.

b) Insofar as we can give the real a predicate, we are speaking of it from the standpoint of its manifest aspect, the divine names. The phrase modifies the subject-predicate relation.

A similar problematic occurs in the phrase: "to see their determinations." 'Ayn is one of the more difficult terms in all of Ibn 'Arabl's writings. An 'ayn is a determination, delimitation, or entification of the undetermined, unlimited, non-entified real. In Ibn 'Arabi's emanation scheme, there are two phases. First, the real flows forth into the a'ydn thdbita or established determinations. These determinations are the eternal archetypes of all phenomenal reality. The emanation through which the archetypes are formed is called the most holy overflowing

(al-fayd. al-aqdas). The second phase of



138 MICHAEL SELLS

emanation, or second emanation, is the holy overflowing or creation. In the second phase the real, in its manifest aspectas creator, commands the archetypes to come into phenomenal existence. (18)

This would be a relatively straightforward schema were it not for the fact that it is also transformed from within by the perspective shift. One first senses a hint of trouble in Ibn 'Arabi's use of the same term, a'yan, for both the eternal archetypes or established determinations and the phenomenal existents. The reader must decide through context whether the term refers to the archetypes or phenomenal existents. (19)

The tension in the use of the term a'ydn can only be released through the perspective shift. The archetypes are non existent. They are intelligibles in the mind of the real and exist only insofar as they flow out into the phenomenal. Like the story of the divine names asking the real to let them exist, (20) the very notion of a non-existent realm of realities evokes an aporia. Just as the divine names can only come into actuality through the creation of the cosmos and the complete human being, a creation which is brought about by the divine names (will, etc.), so the determinations of the real can only really exist insofar as they flow into phenomenal existence. But phenomenal existence, like the divine self-revelation, only receives form and determination through the complete human being. "To see their determinations" can be diagrammed as follows:

a) To see the archetypes of the real (in its manifest aspect of divine names) in the mirror of the cosmos.

(18) For the two phases of emanation see Izutsu, p. 37. These two phases of emanation correspond remarkably well to Meister Eckhart's two emanations, bullilio (the "bubbling forth" within the divine realm) and ebullitio (the "bubbling over" into creation). The problem of the a'ydn can only be touched upon briefly here. It was a point of such difficulty that the grand master's successors felt it necessary to write a systematic treatment of the problem. For an illuminating treatment of the question see William Chittick, "Sadr al-Din Qrinawi on the Oneness of Being," International Philosophical Quarterly, XXI (1981): 171-184.

(19) E.g., Ibn 'Arabi, Fu~is.

1:51, lines 15-16, especially the phrase a'ydn al-mawjuddt al-'ayniyya.

(20) See Ibn 'Arabi, Inshi' al-Daw5'ir [Construction of the Circles], Kleinere Schriften des Ibn Al-'Arabi, ed. H. S. Nyberg (Leyden: Brill, 1919), 36-38 for this vivid and paradoxical account of the divine names coming before Allah in a delegation to ask to be given actuality and existence. Allah orders the name al-rahmdn to "breath" into existence a cosmos in which the names (including al-rahmdin) will be realized and existent.




b) Insofar as these archetypes are seen, they are seen through the real/complete human being in the real/complete human being.

c) Insofar as they are seen they are not the archetypes but rather the phenomenal existents. The archetypes remain perpetually hidden (bSain).

d) The verb "see" then shifts from normal dualistic vision (the seeing of a pre-existent, exterior object) to creative vision, the simultaneous creation/seeing of what is self/other. The meaning shifts from "seeing" in the normal sense of the term, to "realizing," the simultaneous bringing into actuality and perception of the actuality. The transformation from predication to realization that occurs in Ibn 'Arabi's discourse on the linguistic level is mirrored or represented here on the level of myth or cosmology.

This transformation is elucidated in a passage not much further down in the poem: "for divine providence never shapes a place / without that place accepting the divine spirit / which it called / the breathing into // and that is but the activation / of that image's potential / to receive the emanation, the eternal manifestation / that always was and always will be // and outside of which there is only the vessel // which itself exists / from its most holy overflowing.

Here the Qur'anic creation story is interpreted through a double emanation paradigm. The place or vessel (q~dbil) corresponds to a materia prima, an intelligible matter or substratum. This prime matter or archetypal substratum is said to be non-existent. It only comes into existence through the second emanation, the breathing into Adam (nafkh fihi). But that "breathing into" is both the actualization of the archetypes as phenomenal existents and the passing away of the phenomenal existence through the polishing of the mirror! Insofar as Adam, the insan kabir (great human, or macrocosm), comes to life through the breathing into him, he becomes the insdn kdmil (complete human being), the mirror is polished, and the dualistic division between the real and phenomenal reality is transcended in the perspective shift. Thus the two emanations or phases of emanation are also transcended in a perspective shift to non- duality: vessel and content are one: the vessel is the content, the most holy overflowing is the holy overflowing.



140 MICHAEL SELLS

The two emanations, and the double use of a'ydn are a cosmological reflection of the perspective shift symbolized by the polishing of the mirror. In Ibn 'Arabi being is continually transformed from the "objective" to the dynamic. Ibn 'Arabi does not really give an account of "the world" since for him being cannot be objective. It can only be realized dynamically through the perspective shift that occurs when the ego-self passes away in fand'. This shift also occurs when the reader of the text experiences the transformation from duality to non- duality, when the reader no longer reads the divine names (such as seeing and willing), as predications but experiences them, if not mystically at least aesthetically, as realizations.

The first section of the sample passage ends with the following verses: "for the universal order is from him / beginning and end / "and to him returns the entire order" / as from him it began // what was required / was the polishing of the mirror / that is the world // and Adam was the essence / of the polishing / of that mirror // and the spirit of that form." The amr, which in Ibn 'Arabi means both order in the sense of command, or, more generally, a state or affair, is the divine will or logos. (21) The mystery of that logos is that it is both first and last, beginning and end, polarities that are used in their strong, non-dualistic

(21) Amr is one of the more difficult terms in Ibn 'Arabi. At times he uses it as it is often used in the Qur'in to mean simply the a state of being, an "affair." At other times it refers to the divine creative command, the creative imperative kun as the logos (Fusgps 1: 116). This notion of amr is called amr takwini. Finally, amr can be distinguished from mashi'a as two kinds of divine will, the amr referring to the explicitly formulated divine will of the sharia, and the mashl'a referring to the absolute divine will. In our passage only the meaning of command or logos seems to be intended, though the first, general meaning of "affair" cannot be excluded. I have thus used the word "order," with its meanings of command and arrangement to parallel the ambiguity between amr takwini (creative logos as divine will or command) and the more general meaning of affair. See Izutsu, p. 121. Muhyi al-Din's use of the logos doctrine and the terms kalima and amr recall a similar doctrine in Isma'ili theory. That doctrine has been related by S. Pines to the long recension of the Theology of Aristotle (an interpretive translation of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Enneads of Plotinus). More recently Pines has compared the Islamic logos doctrine to Porphyrian prototypes exposed in P. Hadot's remarkable study, Porphyre et Victorinus (Paris: 1968). See S. Pines, "La Longue Recension de la Th6ologie d'Aristote dans Ses Rapports avec la Doctrine Isma6lienne," Revue des tltudes Islamiques (1954), pp. 8-20, and "Les Textes Arabes Dits Plotiniens et le Courant 'Porphyrien' dans le NBopla- tonisme Grec," Le Ndoplatonisme (Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique: 1971), pp. 303-317.




sense: the end is the beginning, the amr can only proceed once it has returned. The perspective shift here is expressed in the classical Neoplatonic paradox of procession and return, that there can be no real procession until the return.

In the first section of the sample passage the perspective shift is represented symbolically and metaphorically through the image of the polished mirror, mythically through the emanation and creation myth, and cosmologically through the double use of the term a'ydn, forming at once a metaphoric, mythic, and philosophical dialectic. The references to the mirror that evoke the perspective shift are separated by philosophical and mythic "digressions" that refract the metaphorical perspective shift into other languages, even as they build poetic tension by delaying the realization of the shift, the actual reference to the polishing of the mirror, a reference that does not come until the third section of the sample text.

Part 2. The Angel's Claim

At this point there occurs the digression on the angels. The angels are said to be certain powers of that nash' ('nature' in the sense of 'formation') that is the "great human" (al-insdn al- kabTr). The great human represents the entire amr (affair, command, cosmos) of which the complete human being is the actualization. We might think of it as Adam before the divine inbreathing brings him to life. Angels represent powers of this cosmos, but each power is limited to itself, just as each human sense is limited to its own sphere of activity. For example, the eye cannot hear. The angels, regardless of the intensity of their powers, are not universal. Only human nature can achieve universality or completeness.

The superiority of human nature to angelic nature is developed more fully in the second section of the Adam chapter. There, Mu1hyi al-Din uses the Qur'anic story of the angels' prostration to Adam as a basis for a homily on the error of laqyrd (binding), the belief that the form, name, or determination in which one views the real is the only form in which the real manifests itself. The angels are said to have boasted that they praised Allah through the divine names (sabbahahu bihd) and exalted him above them (qaddasahu 'anhLd). However, since each angel is veiled from the other and represents only one power, no angel



142 MICHAEL SELLS

can perform a complete lasbh.

(praise) and laqdTs (affirmation of transcendence of all forms and praises). (22)

The angelic boast is an example of the error of laqyTd. To bind the real into a particular form is the fundamental error, and Ibn 'Arabi's critique of it forms the basis for his critique of all forms of dogmatism. Since the real has an infinite number of names and manifestation, and those names and manifestations are in constant flux, it transcends all fixed forms. The divine self-manifestation is realized in the polished mirror of human consciousness, and human consciousness is also in constant flux. Both the real and the complete human being are in a state of laqallub (perpetual transformation), and an individual can only realize union with the divine by realizing a state of complete, perpetual transformation. (23)

The critique of binding has been neglected in discussions of Ibn 'Arabi's supposed claim to be the complete human being. The complete human being is not an entity, a thing, an object. It is an event or process, the polishing of the mirror. In the perspective shift of fand' the individual ego-self passes away and the divine self-manifestation occurs. But no individual human being can hold on to this event or even claim it qua individual. Though it is eternal in the sense that it is beyond time, it must be continually reenacted or reachieved by the individual human being within time. Any claim the Sufi grand master might have made concerning the complete human being should be interpreted within the tradition of perspective shift within the shath.

In the digression on the angels three kinds of completeness are mentioned, that of the divine side, the side of the reality of realities (haqfqal al-haqd'iq), and that of the universal nature

(al-.abra al-kulliyya). This is an eliptical reference to the fact that human nature is said to be universal not only horizon- tally in the sense of including all the divine names, but also verti- cally, in the sense of including all the strata of reality, in each stratum of which it achieves universality. The divine aspect is the universality of the divine names, the universality of pure consciousness. Universal nature is the universality of the

(22) Ibn 'Arabi, Fusgis 1:50-51. (23) For a discussion of taqyfd and taqallub, see my "Garden among the Flames"

290-294, 306-315.



IBN eARABI2S POLISHED MIRROR 143

materia prima, of prime matter as the pure receptor or vessel (qdbil). Before pure consciousness can be realized, pure receptivity must be realized. Ibn 'Arabi even goes so far as to say that the complete human being is more complete than the divine, since only the complete human being encompasses both the divine names and the pure receptivity or pure elementality of prime matter. (24) This defense of nature, elementality, receptivity, and constant flux is reminiscent of much of the modern feminist critique of "disembodied," patriarchal thought. The notion of the prime matter and receptivity in Ibn 'Arabi also has some close parallels to the notion of collective unconscious in Jungian thought, though MuhyI al-Din unlike the alchemists studied by Jung, does not project the unconscious out onto matter, but sees it as an intimate component of the human personality. His defense of the material and elemental realm and his defense of the human in face of the angelic claims marks a movement parallel to Jung's defense of "completion" as opposed to "perfection." The originality of Ibn 'Arabi's notion of insan kdmil lies in his shifting the meaning of kdmil to "complete," encompassing all realms including the corporeal and mortal, rather than perfect. (25) The final realm mentioned, the universality of the reality of realities, is a reference to the complete human being as the barzakh or intermediary between divinity and elementality, spirit and matter, the eternal and the temporal. (26)

The digression closes with the statement that such mysteries cannot be known by rational speculation (nazar) but only by divine unveiling (al-kashf al-ildhT). Once again the perspect-

(24) This doctrine is developped in Ibn 'Arabi, Inshd' (cited above, note 17). (25) C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton,

N.J.: Bollingen), 1953, 1968, and Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (Princeton, NJ.: Bollingen, 1959). Jung's critique of the striving for perfection rather than completion is a major theme of Aion. Ibn 'Arabi develops his notion of completion in his treatment of the prophets Idris (Enoch) and Ilyis (perhaps Elijah) in Fusis. Idris rises through the spheres, through successive realms of purification and spirituality. Ilyfis descends into animal, vegetal, and mineral reality, and finally into pure elementality. The complete human being consists of movement in both directions as opposed to other systems which stress only the upward movement and focus upon perfection.

(26) For a rich discussion of the "reality of realities" see Masataka Takeshita, "An Analysis of Ibn 'Arabi's Inshd' al-Dawd'ir with Particular Reference to the Doctrine of the 'Third Entity'," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 41, no. 4 (1982): 243-260.



144 MICHAEL SELLS

ive shift is alluded to. The unveiling of kashf by which an individual receives a manifestation of the divine, is a polar complement to tajallF, the active divine self-manifestation through the complete human being. In the perspective shift, the act of tajall and the act of kashf are one act.

Part 3. Insin and Khalifa

In the third section of the sample passage, a hymn to the complete human being, the author finally returns to and completes the image of the polishing of the mirror. The complete human being is seen as fulfilling two roles: that of khalfa (regent), the informing and controlling agent of the cosmos, and as insan, the reflection of the divine, its medium of self-perception. The passage consists of series of dialectical statements (that the complete human is both eternal and originated), a dialectic flowing directly from the perspective shifts and split references that preceded, and explained more fully in the third section of the Adam chapter. There, attributes such as knowing or living are said to be eternal from the divine perspective and temporal or originated from the human perspective. But in the perspective shift, the act of knowing is the one act, an act that occurs in the eternal moment. Insofar as the human really knows, that is the divine self-knowing. Insofar as the divine knows, that divine name (knowing, the knower) is actualized through the knowing of the complete human.

The complete human is the word (kalima) which is both discriminating and integrating. For Ibn 'Arabi it is discursive intellect ('aql) that differentiates the real into various forms. His criticism of binding (laqyTd) which was alluded to in the discussion of angels, is a criticism of mistaken use of 'aql, of intellectual analysis. This leads to a world of conflicting beliefs, each of which sees the real in its own form and denies the form appearing in other beliefs. What is necessary is the dialectically complementary activity of synthesis or reintegrat- ion that Muhyi al-Din associates with the heart (qalb) and with mystical intuition (ma'rifa). It is through ma'rifa that the knower overcomes binding. Through the perspective shift one sees a form not as encompassing the real but as a manifestation of it and is thereby freed from binding. The shift occurs in three modes: (1) union of subject, object, and act of




knowing; (2) union of human subject and divine subject; (3) union of the various divine attributes (life, knowledge, seeing, etc.). And all three unions constitute the one event of perspective shift. This event might be summarized by Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine that in the act of manifestation, the one who receives the manifestation (al-mulajalld lahu) is identical to the one being manifested (al-mutajallf).

MEANING EVENT

Such is the manner [a series of metaphors] in which Ibnul 'Arabi explains this vital point of his Philosophy, but no metaphor whatever can be adequate to serve as a medium for expressing a philosophical theory. (27)

A. A. Affifi filled out the above cited general criticism of metaphor in Ibn 'Arabi with specific examples of misleading metaphors: "'mirrors' reflecting the One Light, or lights emanat- ing from one source, or circles developing from one center." (28) These criticisms are much less in evidence in his Arabic edition and commentary which has done so much to open up study of Ring Settings of Wisdom. The shift in attitude toward metaphorical language from those Affifi felt compelled to adopt in Cambridge in 1939 has allowed Ibn 'Arabi a more sympathetic audience in succeeding years.(29) Several studies of the Andalusian master have appeared since that time. (30) In this

(27) A. A. Affifl, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Din-Ibnul 'Arabi (Cambridge: University Press, 1939), p. 18.

(28) Ibid., p. 62, note 1. (29) The prevailing attitude toward both metaphor and mysticism at this

period in British scholarship is also illustrated by A. H. Armstrong, "Emanation in Plotinus," Mind 46 (1937): 61: "The difficulty is to see what the precise philosophical meaning of this conceptions [emanation] is, or rather, as it is fairly clear that it has not got any precise philosophical meaning, to explain how a great and subtle thinker like Plotinus came, at a most critical point in his system, to conceal a confusion of thought under a cloud of metaphor." It is important to note that both Affifi and Armstrong had taken considerable risk in venturing to study authors like Plotinus and Affifi. Both went on the make major contributions and to present a far more appreciative view of the authors they helped introduce to modern scholarship. The harshness of their original criticism reveals the attitudes of their audience and times.

(30) In addition to Izutsu (cited above, note 3), see Titus Burckhardt, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: Muhammad Ashraf,



146 MICHAEL SELLS

essay I suggest that the metaphor of the mirror is a central and integral feature within the Andalusian master's writing, one that leads the reader into a reenactment of the perspective shift.

Another common criticism of Ibn 'Arabi is represented in Annemarie Schimmel's comment upon his expression: "He sent Himself with Himself to Himself." Professor Schimmel argues that Ibn 'Arabi has lost the element of transcendence, saying of the above expression: "This does not sound like a transcendent God." (31) The statement "He sent Himself with Himself to Himself" is an exact parallel to "it reveals to it(self) through it(self) its mystery," that was seen above to be controlled by split reference and perspective shift. In fact, mystical dialectic is led to such a split reference through a critique of normal affirmations of transcendence and through a committ- ment to a more genuine affirmation.

For an apophatic thinker like MuhyI al-Din, to say that the real is beyond the world, or transcendent to it, is a delimitation. There is a space, the world, from which the real is excluded. And the terms "beyond" and "transcend" imply a spatial relation (even if we are speaking of a conceptual space) that lead inevitably to a reification of the real. Recent emphasis upon the primacy of metaphor in language highlights what the apophatic mystics also held: terms like "beyond space" or "transcending space" are misleading since "beyond" and "transcend" reflect the inherently spatial structures of their primary meanings. They can never be taken completely out of its spatial context, dualism, and delimitation. (32) The simple, non-dialectical statement that the real is transcendent is doubly dangerous because it seems to be affirming transcendence, when in fact the unlimited real is being objectified, entified, and delimited. It leads to the error of binding.

Ibn 'Arabi uses the perspective shift to retrieve affirmation of

1959); Seyyed Husein Nasr, Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Ibn 'Arabi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), and Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sifism of Ibn 'Arabi, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969).

(31) Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), p. 268.

(32) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).




the transcendent. A look at the use of the term sirr (mystery) in the statement "To reveal to it(self) through it(self) its mystery" will show how that retrieval functions. What is the mystery that is revealed? On one level, it is the unmanifest Self that reveals itself through the divine names and the complete human being. However, insofar as it reveals itself it is delimited within a particular manifestation. Thus the true mystery can never be revealed, even to itself. Or we could say that the very question, "what is the mystery?" is misleading. The mystery is a mystery because it is beyond "whatness" or quiddity. Though revealing itself in a continuing flow of images and manifestations, it is confined to none.

This mystery of transcendence cannot be affirmed or experienced unless the normal bounds of delimited reference are transcended. Nothing "bound" within a delimitation can be the transcendent and unlimited. The revelation of the mystery as mystery then is the act of perspective shift. At this moment delimitations of language and syllogistic logic are temporarily suspended, and a non-delimiting or genuine notion of transcendence is affirmed. "He sent him(self) through him(self) to him(self)." A true affirmation of transcendence can only occur through a radical immanence. In such a formulation, the real manifests itself in a form but it is no longer bound (muqayyad) into either a "here" or a "there," a self or an other, a subject or an object. The true affirmation of transcendence then is an experiencing of the mystery (sirr) that underlies all encounters with the unlimited or the notion of the unlimited. It is the realization of the unfathomable aporia just beneath the surface of delimited language and logic. In fand', when the human becomes the polished mirror and the delimitations of human consciousness pass away, it reveals it(self) to it(self). A quiddity or "what" is posed but that quiddity is transformed from entity or object to event. The mystery as "something" is transformed to the mystery as event.

If the mystery cannot be known as an object, but only experienced as an event, does one then have to be a mystic to understand a text of mystical dialectic? It is this question which puts mystical dialectic in such a problematic relationship with culture. In this essay I have attempted to address such a question through a reconsideration of the question of genre. The audience of a tragedy must in some sense experience the



148 MICHAEL SELLS

tragedy in order to understand it. Without that experience of catharsis one cannot really understand the play. Yet one doesn't necessarily have to be a tragic hero in order to have such an experience. Similarly, the reader of mystical dialectic will need to experience the perspective shift in some way in order to understand the text. The perspective shift is just beneath the surface of the text, and within the dualistic narrative and expository framework. It is a secret or mystery that the reader continually uncovers in the act of reading and in each uncovering or unveiling the reader experiences what I have called the meaning event.

The meaning event can be interpreted mimetically as an imitation or recreation of the mystical perspective shift. What the mystic experiences in fand', the reader experiences aesthetically and noetically when the perspective shift underlying the text forces a breakthrough beyond normal delimited reference and predication.

This breakthrough or meaning event is constantly being repeated. Since it is an event it cannot be held onto. It governs a form of meditation on the divine names. The continual shift from predication to realization keeps the mind in constant activity, never allowing it to fixate on an "object," and the infinite regresses built into the narrative lead the reader deeper into the aporetic meditation.

By seeing the perspective shift and meaning event not only as the experience of the mystic, but also as the central feature of mystical dialectic as a genre we can reinterpret the change in Sufism represented within Ibn 'Arabi's writings. The text is open to all sensitive readers, including the vast majority who probably do not consider themselves to be mystics. This participation in the mystery of perspective shift, in hayra or mystic bewilderment, is the primary aesthetic and existential effect of mystical dialectic. The meaning of narrative, philosophical, mythological, and poetic discourse is not negated, but "what" (33) is meant becomes one with the event of the

(33) Paul Ricceur distinguished between the event (the act of predication) and the meaning (as sense and reference, the "what" and the "what about"): Paul Ricceur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976). I use the term "meaning event" without such distinction because in mystical dialectic the event of predication is transformed into the event of realization, just as the notion of "reference" is




perspective shift. In the meaning event, meaning overflows any particular image or particular paraphrase.

In the Hermetic text Poimandres the complete human being (anthropos), bearing the form (eik3n) of his divine father, looks down upon nature and sees his divine form reflected in it as in a mirror. Becoming infatuated with it he falls into the embrace of nature. (34) In this myth the mirror serves as a metaphor for separation and alienation, and the love of the image reflected within the mirror is interpreted along the lines of the Narcissus myth. In Ibn 'Arabi, the mirror functions in a reverse fashion. The reflection occurs only when the narcissism of the ego-self passes away. At this moment the mystical reunion and self- revelation occurs. Ibn 'Arabi would probably see both movements as complementary in the same way he relates elsewhere that the complete human being rises through the spheres to pure spirituality and plunges through the animal and vegetal nature to pure elementality. The image of the mirror functions as a symbol for both the procession out into the phenomenal world and for the return to unity, echoing the Heraclitean view that the way up is the way down, and the Plotinian paradox that the procession is the return. (35)

Michael SELLS (Haverford, U.S.A.)

altered by the aporia that any reference to the unlimited delimits it. In the transformation of both predication and reference into realization, the distinction between meaning and event is superceded. In mystical dialectic there is no meaning without event, just as the divine names are non-existent without the polishing of the mirror.

(34) Corpus Hermeticum, ed. and translated by Walter Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), Libellus I, p. 122.

(35) This article was originally presented at the 1983 Middle East Studies Association, Classical Islamic Literature Panel, Chicago, Illinois, under the title: "Ibn 'Arabi: Translation, Interpretation, and the Texture of Discourse." Among the many who have contributed to this study I owe special thanks to Fazlur Rahman, Bernard McGinn, Jaroslav Stetkevych, and Larry Berman.



Documents

Ibn 'Arabi's Polished Mirror: Perspective Shift and Meaning Event