At the age of thirty-six, Ibn al-‘Arabî went to Mekka and was greatly impressed by the Ka‘ba, a holy place, where the invisible (ghayb) world meets the visible (shuhûd) one. A noble Iranian shaykh gave him hospitality and, on the same occasion, Ibn al-‘Arabî met his daughter, who was gifted with the Eternal Wisdom (Sophia aeterna). In his Dîwân, he wrote: “Never have I seen a woman more beautiful of face, softer of speech, more tender of heart, more spiritual in her ideas, more subtle in her symbolic allusions. […] She surpasses all the people of her time in refinement of mind and cultivation, in beauty and in knowledge.” (Corbin 140) As the visible manifestation of Sophia aeterna, she is at the same spiritual level as Christ. She possesses the “Christic Wisdom” (Hikmat ‘îsawiyya). The Feminine figure symbolizes the secret of the compassionate God who gives birth to all beings. Woman represents the inner and hidden self of man who he must discover in order to know his Lord. Eve leads Adam back to himself, to his Lord whom she reveals. The theophany par excellence is manifested in the form of Beauty which is Feminine. The Feminine being is the Creator of the most perfect thing; she invests the newborn with a divine Name through which the goal of creation is completed. Thus Beauty is by no means an instrument of “temptation;” it is a manifestation of the Creative Feminine who is the source of transfiguration of all beings, for Beauty is the Redeemer. Ibn al-‘Arabî noticed that in Arabic all terms indicating origin and cause are feminine. The origin or source of anything is designated by the word umm, “mother.” Indeed the term Haqîqa is feminine and means the mystical Truth, the Essential Reality, the Origin of origins beyond which nothing is thinkable. In the Fusûs, Ibn al-‘Arabî confirmed: “Whatever may be the philosophical doctrine to which we adhere, we observe, as soon as we speculate on the origin and the cause, the anteriority and the presence of the Feminine.” (Corbin 167)
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 09:23:31 +0000
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