4.1.1  Sufism versus Philosophy

We mentioned in chapter II how Averroes had a great impact on Western philosophy for his detailed commentaries on Aristotle, while his philosophical ideas were considered controversial by some Asharite scholars, led by the famous Sufi Algazelus, who wrote the Incoherence of the Philosophers, to which Averroes replied with a lengthy rebuttal entitled the Incoherence of the Incoherence.

Ibn al-Arabi himself mentions his first encounter with Averroes, as he was still relatively young, less than twenty years old, but already famous for his immense divine knowledge and unique mystical views. According to that account, Averroes, in his seventies at the time, purposely arranged with Ibn al-Arabi’s father, who was his close friend, to meet the young mystic in order to hear what he had to say about his Aristotelean philosophy.

We want to quote this story here because it accurately demonstrates the contrasting approaches of philosophy, and all other sciences in general, versus Sufism, as we already introduced in chapter I when we talked about the difference between the heart and mind in section 1.4, since obviously the Sufis rely on the heart in their observations and contemplations, unlike scientists who only trust logic. Additionally, in this short dialog between Averroes and Ibn al-Arabi, the latter symbolically alludes to his Single Monad Model in the shortest possible account, which Averroes then understands and subsequently appears to get severely fateful because his Aristotelean philosophy, though fully logical, had completely missed the subtle truth, that can only be realized through the heart.

Ibn al-Arabi recounts this story in the Meccan Revelations, by saying: ‘I entered one day in Cordoba into (the house of) the (Chief) Judge Averroes, as he wished to meet me, having heard about what Allah opened up for me in my spiritual retreat, and he had been expressing his admiration of what he had heard. Then my father, because he was one of his friends, sent me to him for something on purpose. I was still young; my face hadn’t yet put forth a beard, and my mustache hadn’t yet grown.

When I entered, he stood up for me, showing great love and respect, he embraced me, and said (exclaiming): “Yes’! I then replied (in confirmation): “Yes”. So his joy was magnified because I understood what he is referring to, but, realizing what made him feel happy, I reversed: “actually, No!” Then he turned gloomy, his color changed and he doubted his philosophy.

He then asked (plainly): “Tell me how did you find it according to (your mystical) unveiling and divine effusion, is it the same as what thought had led us (i.e., the philosophers) to?” I then replied: “Yes and No, and between the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’, spirits fly away from their (bodily) matter and necks are cut off their bodies’. So, his (face) color turned pale, he began to tremble and sat down reciting, and he knew what I alluded (in responding) to him.’ [I.153.33]

This mysterious exchange of words and gestures between the two pillars of Islamic thought, a Sufi and a philosopher, is an attempt to express symbolically what is very difficult to explain in explicit language. Ibn al-Arabi alludes here to some essential realization that is beyond normal human comprehension, something that is apparently against our everyday experience, or otherwise very difficult to believe. Yet it is something that can be ultimately summarized in only two words: “Yes” and “No”, or even “Yes” alone, because “No” is “not Yes”. In fact, this “digital” answer here: “(Yes, No)”, or “(1, 0)”, or “(True, False)”, which ultimately amounts to: (existence, non-existence), or (vacuum, void); is the best and shortest expression of the nature of creation, or re-creation, to be more precise.

The difficulty of expressing this universal Reality in simple words comes from the fact that we live in a diverse world of infinite multiplicity, while at the same time the reality behind this world is too simple to believe. The ultimate Real is Allah, and Allah is uniquely One, while the world is apparently many, so the challenge is how to link the imaginary multiplicity of the world to the Real One, through some unseen intermediaries and levels of hierarchy.

Philosophers, and scientists in general, try to understand the world through observations and analysis, while the methods of Ibn al-Arabi and other Sufis rely upon modes of perception that jump directly into the unseen, in order to approach the Real directly through, or in, the heart. As Ibn al-Arabi often points out, observations are subject to many mistakes, due to the inaccuracy of the tools employed, whether human senses or technical equipments, while true visions, as opposed to our sometimes problematic interpretations of them, are always correct [I.307.12, III.7.21]. On the other hand, philosophers and scientists rely on logic and experiments to deduce their theories and explain their observations, while Sufis in general often describe their visions without paying too much attention to explaining them in any logical manner, especially when some of their visions, though real and true, may be outwardly or apparently illogical; and in fact some mystical experiences are truly illogical, because, after all, logic is only a local law of the mind.

As a result, certain Sufis like Ibn al-Arabi, may attain extreme high states of knowledge of reality more quickly and more accurately than philosophers, but they find it very difficult to explain their views to others who have not “tasted” it their way. So when they try to explain their insights, not many people will understand what they are saying.

The problem with the current laws and theories of physics and cosmology is that, although they have proved to be quite accurate and powerful in applications, they have admittedly failed to unveil the ultimate reality behind the world. All scientific theories are descriptive rather than determinative. The reason why science wasn’t able to determine the reality of the world is that all cosmological models need a boundary condition, an exact description of what was the initial state when the world started, something which seems to be impossible to achieve by the intellect alone. That is why scientists normally work backwards, by trying to find out the initial state of the cosmos through extrapolating in various ways from the current observations.

As a result, all physics theories and known cosmological models, though they have achieved higher levels of understanding, have also brought new contradictions and paradoxes. They have succeeded in providing approximate possible creation scenarios, but failed to describe the reality itself.

The intellect alone can’t describe the origin of the world, because it is necessarily part of it. Ibn al-Arabi affirmed this simple conclusion when he said that the limit of all observations, whether philosophical or the astronomical, is up to the Isotropic Orb which is the outermost, and first created, material orb [II.677.1]; they cannot see or detect anything beyond that, because it is not physical. That is why the Sufis rely on the “heart”, the locus of spiritual “tasting” and inspiration, that is far more accurate and comprehensive than the discursive “intellect”.