One of the major themes of Ibn ‘Arabi’s writings is the timehonored
principle of the Judeo-Christian tradition that God
created man in his own image.Muhammad’s version of this saying
reads, “God created Adam in His own form.”
I translate the Arabic word sura as “form”rather than “image”
to retain its technical meaning. It is used in Islamic philosophy
in the Aristotelian sense, in contradistinction to matter (the
doctrine of hylomorphism,“matter-form-ism”). In Sufism, the
same word is used to designate the appearance of things, in contrast
to their “meaning” (ma‘na), which is their invisible reality,
the spiritual substance that gives rise to their appearance in the
outer world. Ibn ‘Arabi uses the word in both senses, though
usually in the latter.
As for the word “image,” it can serve well as a second translation
for the word khayal,which we have already met as “imagination.”
Khayal denotes not only our subjective power of
imagining things, but also the objective reality of images in the
world, such as reflections in a mirror.
In one respect, God is infinitely beyond understanding, and
the only proper response to him is silence. In another respect,
he discloses himself to his human forms, and he does so in two
basic ways: first, he discloses his undisclosability, and thereby
we come to know that we cannot know him.This is the route of
negative theology, and Ibn ‘Arabi frequently takes it. Second,
God discloses himself to human beings through scripture, the
universe, and their own souls. To the degree that he does so,
people can and do come to know him.
Ibn ‘Arabi calls the modality of awareness that discerns
God’s undisclosability “reason,” and he calls the modality of
understanding that grasps his self-disclosure “imagination.”
“Unveiling” is then fully actualized and realized imagination,
which recognizes the divine reality in its images. Rational
thought pushes God far away, but imaginal thought brings him
close. Reason discerns God as absent, but unveiling sees him
present.
When reason grasps God’s inaccessibility, it “asserts his
incomparability” (tanzih). When imagination finds him present,
it “asserts his similarity” (tashbih). Long before Ibn ‘Arabi,
asserting God’s incomparability (or transcendence) had been
normative for most versions of Islamic theology, and asserting
his similarity (or immanence) was often found in Sufi expressions
of Islamic teachings, especially poetry. Ibn ‘Arabi’s contribution
was to stress the need to maintain a proper balance
between the two ways of understanding God.
People are able to maintain the balance between incomparability
and similarity by seeing with “both eyes,” that is, both
reason and imagination. If we do not see God, the world, and
ourselves with the full vision of both eyes, we will not be able
to see things as they are.The locus of such a vision is the heart,
whose beating symbolizes the constant shift from one eye to
the other, made necessary by the divine unity, which precludes
a simultaneously dual vision.
To be human, then, is to be a divine form.To be a divine form
is to be a divine self-expression within which every name of
God – every real quality found in the cosmos,every attribute of
the absolutely Real (al-haqq) – can become manifest and
known. The human form is both different from God (incomparable)
and identical with him (similar). Correct understanding
of the situation demands seeing with both eyes.
The Muhammadan inheritors and the great friends of God
differ from ordinary human beings in the clarity of their vision
and the appropriateness of their activity.They have realized the
form in which they were created, so they grasp the realities in
proper proportion and respond to every situation as God himself
would respond,were he to take upon human form.
From: Ibn ‘Arabi Heir to the Prophets by William C. Chittick