5.6. The Sixth 'Day of Gathering' (al-jum a, Friday) and Its Special Hour:

Friday holds a special importance for Muslims and especially for Ibn Arabi who says that in this Day our Tablet (i.e. the souls) received its secrets from its Lord, through the pens (i.e. the intellects). Ibn Arabi then says that 'the motion of the Day of Gathering (Friday) came into being through the (divine) Attribute of Knowledge: so there is no part of the world but that it knows the One Who gives it existence, with regard to its own essence, not the Essence of the One Who gives it existence' [II.438.13].

Venus is in the second sphere of the heavens from the earth and this heaven was brought into existence by the self-disclosure of the divine Name 'the Shaper' (al-Musawwir, the One Who gives form). Allah created this heaven, its planet (Venus), the Day of Gathering (Friday), and the letter ra ( ) in the lunar mansion of the constellation Gafr (which is the fifteenth station of the twenty-eight stations of the moon), and He made it a dwelling place for the prophet Joseph [II.445.23].

Before the advent of Islam, the Arabs called Friday Uruba ('the day of beauty and adornment') [I.645.25], because it was a distinguished day in which people meet. But in Islam Friday is called al-jum a ('the Day of Gathering') because that is the day people gather in prayer in one mosque. Ibn Arabi, however, gives another explanation of the deeper ontological meaning for Jum a. On this Day Allah created the Human Being (Adam) in His Image, so on this Day Allah 'gathered together' (Arabic verb jama a) the form of the Truly Real (al-Haqq) and the form of all creation in the theomorphic human being (insan), so that is why this Day is called Jum a [I.643.27]. And this special divine 'gathering' of the theomorphic human being has occurred on a specific hour of this Day, which made this whole Day holy, noble and the best of all Days.

Ibn Arabi affirms that Allah created humanity (Adam) on Friday [I.466.15], following a well-known hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad said: 'The best Day the sun rises on is Friday: Adam was created in it, he entered into Paradise in it, he was taken out of Paradise in it, and the Hour (of the Resurrection) will only come on Friday' [Kanz: 21050].

Ibn Arabi goes on to explain, on the basis of another hadith [Kanz: 21063], that some people argued about the best day of the week to celebrate or commemorate God in, and that the people of the three major religions each followed a different way, especially since Allah did not specify which day is best, but left it for them to discover:

So the Christians said the best of days and Allah knows best is the First Day (Sunday), because it is the day of the sun and it is the First Day in which Allah created the heavens and the earth and what is between them. He started the Creation in it due to its pride over the rest of the days. So they took it as a festival. And the Jews said: 'But it is Saturday, because Allah completed the Creation on Friday and He rested on Saturday' .

Then for this community (of Islam) Gabriel came to Muhammad, may Allah have peace and mercy on him, with the Day of Jum a in the form of a polished mirror in which there is a spot (nukta), and he said unto him: 'this is the Day of Jum a and this spot is an hour in which no Muslim servant happens to be praying (when it comes to pass), but Allah shall forgive him.' [Kanz: 21063]. So the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace and mercy be upon him, said: 'So Allah guided us to what the people of the Book disagree about, which is the divine explanation with the mirror' and he assigned the guidance to Allah. And the reason behind its superiority is that it is the Day in which Allah created this human kind, for whom He created the creatures from Sunday to Thursday, so it has to be the best of times. And the creation (of human kind) was in this Hour which appeared as a spot in the mirror. And this Hour in the Day of Jum a is like the night of destiny [laylat al-qadr, which according to Qur an, is better than a thousand months (97:3)] in the year.

[I.466.6]

So, he concludes, that is why Allah chose this Day over the other Days:

As He, the Exalted, did with all the existents, He has chosen as the best one thing from each kind. He has chosen as the best from the Beautiful Names the Name 'Allah'; He has chosen as the best from the people the prophets; He has chosen as the best from His servants the angels; He has chosen as the best from the heavenly spheres the (divine) Throne; He has chosen as the best from the elements water; He has chosen as the best from the months Ramadan; He has chosen as the best from worshipping fasting; He has chosen as the best from the centuries the century of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah have peace and mercy upon him; He has chosen as best from the Days the Day of Gathering (al-jum a); He has chosen as best from the nights the Night of Destiny; He has chosen as best from (good) deeds the prescribed deeds (al-fara id); He has chosen as best from the numbers the number ninety-nine (in the hadith on the ninety-nine 'Most Beautiful Names' as mentioned above) .

[II.169.5]

Then Ibn Arabi goes on to explain why Allah has chosen as best these particular things in each kind. With regard to the Day of Gathering, he says:

As for (the reason) for His choosing Friday as best from the Days (of the divine creative Week), that is because in it the Two Forms appeared [i.e., of the cosmos and of the theomorphic human being, in their final perfected state]. Allah made that Day (of the Gathering) for the form , and it is (uniquely) a feminine Day, for which is the beautiful adornment and the completion of the creation (through Adam).

And [alluding to the hadith just cited above] Allah has chosen an Hour of its hours that is like a spot in the mirror. That is the place (of manifestation for) the form of the one [i.e., Adam, as the emblematic fully human being and divine vice-gerent] who is disclosed in the mirror of this Day. Thus He/he sees in it/him H/himself.[60] And through that Form [of all human being] that appears between the mirror (of creation) and the One Who looks in it, there takes place the (divine) Addressing (of each human soul) and the imposition of responsibility (taklif: on each human being).

[II.173.15]

So this Hour is the most precious hour, because in it the divine Form of the Real (al-Haqq) and the form of the theomorphic human being meet together (yajtami an from the same Arabic root as al-jum a), and by this 'gathering' the Real is manifested and at last perceived in the Creation in the most perfect form, which is the form of the perfect human being. In another passage, Ibn Arabi explains this further:

And there is no Day among the Days (of Creation) more perfect than the Day of Jum a, because in it there is made manifest the Wisdom of (God's) Capability, through His creating on that Day the human being whom Allah created on His Image. So there remained no (more) perfection for the divine Capability to create, since nothing is more perfect than the Image of the Real (surat al-Haqq) .

Now since God specially distinguished (this Day) by that 'Hour' which does not belong to any other Day and time (zaman) is nothing but those Days therefore this Hour does not pertain to any other times but to the Day of Jum a. It is one part of the twenty-four parts of the Day, and it is in the half of the Day which is called daytime (nahar). So it is in the manifest dimension (zahir) of that Day, and in the inner dimension (batin) of human being, because the outer dimension of human being corresponds to the inner dimension (night-time) of the Day, while the inner dimension of human being corresponds to the outer dimension (daytime) of the Day.

[I.645.26]

Ibn Arabi also comments on the imperative question of whether this Hour is fixed; or is it floating all over the Day, so that each Week it comes at a different time, since the original hadith above [Kanz: 21063] did not give any explicit indication of its exact location 'in' the Day of Gathering. Ibn Arabi, in any case, does not rule either possibility. He suggests that if we have to take the strict sensational meaning of the analogy between the Day and the mirror and the forms that appear in them, then that specially chosen Hour would be fixed. But if we want to take it as an abstract meaning in the imagination, without moving it into the world of senses which is quite plausible in this context then we could say that it may be floating all over the Day of Gathering. So he affirms that both possibilities are plausible and that the issue may not be resolved without a further divine specification [I.466.17]. However, because it denotes the creation of the Human Being as the Image of the Real, this Hour must be fixed (on the Day of Gathering) among the original (divine) Days that are the 'Days of events', although it might be floating in the normal 'circulated days' that we actually experience, because they are 'intertwined' with the 'Days of events'.