4.1.2  Unicity versus Multiplicity

Ibn al-Arabi cited the story of his meeting with Averroes in the context of explaining the words of the central spiritual Pole and Prophet Idris, known in the Bible as Enoch, who, as Ibn al-Arabi said, the most knowledgeable of everything concerning the natural world and the effects of the higher world on it. Thus this Pole explained that: “the world exists between the circumference and the point” [I.154.22]. The “point” here refers to the self-existent Real, as the “Necessary Being” (see also section 2.4), Who is the only “true” existence, while the “circumference” is the circle of creations, or the “possible”, contingent entities, whose existence is depending on the Real, all the time. Beyond this circumference is the “sea” of non-existence, or the “impossible”. In terms of our cosmological model, these three levels of existence are two extremes states of vacuum and void, and the multiplicity of the world are various spatial and temporal superpositions between these two primordial states.

This relationship is illustrated in Figure 4.1 that Ibn al-Arabi depicted in chapter 360 of the Meccan Revelations [III.275].

Figure 4.1: The Real, the possible existents or the contingent world, and the impossible. Despite their multiplicity, the indivisible central point denoting the Real meets each point from the circumference of the circle of creation. This One-to-Many relation can only be conceived with the oneness of time; that the individual entities of the multiplicity of creation may exist only one at a time.

With regard to this image, Ibn al-Arabi also explained in chapter 47 of the Meccan Revelations [I.260.1], that the (divine creative Source-) point in the center of the circle meets any point in its circumference with its whole entity, without division or multiplicity. Similarly, the multiplicity of all of creation appears or emerges out of the Unicity of the Real; or the manyness of the world proceeded from the One Creator, without affecting His unique Oneness or Unicity. The problem, however, is that physical creation is different from the above abstract mathematical, or purely geometrical, example of the circle and its center point. Nevertheless, when we understand the real floe of time, these two images become equivalent. Time, therefore, reveals the ultimate true mathematical or geometrical nature of creation.

Ibn al-Arabi was well aware that this paradoxical relation between the Creator and all manifestations is in clear apparent contradiction with the widely accepted philosophical maxim, a central assumption in the prevailing contemporary Neo-Platonist philosophical cosmology of Avicenna and his followers, that “from the One only one can emerge (or proceed)”.

Given the assumption of this maxim, an obvious problem encountered by philosophers and theologians, when they want to explain how Allah created the world, is that Allah is One, while the world is many. So logically it is not possible to imagine a relation between the One and the many without affecting the unique Oneness of the One, because He meets each individual one at the same time.

However, Ibn al-Arabi’s analogy between the pure geometrical symbol of the circle and its center, and the cosmological process of creation by the One Creator, is not fully justifiable without further explanations. Among other problems, mathematics and geometry work with infinitely small, or dimensionless, points, while our contemporary science of physics and cosmology deals with corporeal worlds that have dimensions. But we shall see below that Ibn al-Arabi’s unique understanding of time provides here the essential link between physics and mathematics, in the same way as it does provide the necessary link between unicity and multiplicity.

Ibn al-Arabi quotes the above-mentioned emanationist philosophical maxim quite often [I.42.14, I.260.5, II.31.14]. Although he disagrees with this general proposition [I.260.5, I.715.12, II.434.20], he sometimes explains further that this notion can be held true for physical beings but not for God Himself, because Allah, the unique One, can obviously create multiple creations as we can clearly see. Speaking about the two divine names “the First“ and “the Last”, he explains:

‘Without their dependence (for actual existence) on the existing-entity (or essence) of the servant (or creation in general), there would be no ruling for those two Names (“the First” and “the Last”), because there (in eternity), the (divine) Essential-entity (or Essence) is (uniquely indivisible) One, not united (from different parts). But with regard to the servant, (the existing-entity) is united (from different parts) and not (uniquely) one, because (ultimate) Oneness is for Allah (alone), while unification, and not the (divine) Oneness, belong to the servant (or the physical creation). This is because the servant can only be perceived in relation to another (Who is his “Lord” or his Creator), and (does) not (exist) by himself: so he has no trace of (the absolute divine) Oneness at all. Whereas for the Real, Oneness may be conceived (as applying) to Him (by Himself), or (as applying to Him) with relation (to others) as well, since everything belongs to Him, and indeed He is actually the Essence of everything. (This unique divine Oneness refers) not to the wholeness uniting a collection (of different entities), but rather to the (unique) Reality of Unicity on which (all) multiplicity depends, and this (unique Oneness) can only apply specifically to the (divine) Real.

According to the determination of the (human) intellect, only one thing can ever emerge from the One, but the Unicity of the Real does not fall under that rule. How could He Who has created this rule be ruled under it?! He is the (true) Ruler, there is no god but Him, the Almighty, the All-Wise.’ [II.31.11]

To be able to explain how the apparent multiplicity of creation appears from the One Creator, without affecting the ultimate reality of oneness, we need to explain how the abstract geometrical point at the center of a circle meets all the (infinite number of) points in the circumference, and then apply this on physical creation.

Ibn al-Arabi solves this riddle through understanding the real flow of time, although significant analysis was needed to explain his various visions in a clear manner that could be converted into a comprehensive theory of time that can unite the modern theories of physics and cosmology. He says: ‘He (the Real) has a special face towards everything that exists, because He is the cause of everything. Now since every (single) thing is one, not multiple; and He is One, so from Him there appeared only one, because He is in the oneness of every one (existing thing). Multiplicity exists only with regard to the oneness of time that is the container (of that apparent multiplicity), because the existence of the Real in this multiplicity is always in the oneness of every (individual) one. So (in reality) there appeared from Him only one.

This is the true meaning of “from the One only one may proceed”, even if the entirety of the world appeared from Him, only one is proceeding from Him (at a time), because He is “with” every one (of the creatures) with respect to its own oneness.

This is something that can only be perceived by the (truly enlightened) “people of Allah”, whereas the philosophers mean an entirely different sense (that from one cause only one effect can proceed), and this is something about which they were mistaken.’ [II.434.18]

Because of the rarity of the underlying spiritual perception of this reality restricted, as Ibn al-Arabi stresses, to the fully enlightened “people of Allah”, this passage just quoted above is not readily understood. Perhaps it is because of its great importance and central role in Ibn al-Arabi’s cosmology, that Emir Abdelkader al-Djezairi (1808-1883 AD), the famous editor of the original Bulaq edition of the Meccan Revelations, that is the basis for most modern editions, added a rare long footnote comment at this point in the Meccan Revelations [II.434-435] to explain it in terms of the oneness of being. Because his comments here are very helpful in this regard, we shall analyze them at length.

Emir Abdelkader explains that this passage refers to two related issues: “the oneness of every being” and “the unicity of Being”. He begins by pointing out that everyone and every thing has a unique “face” or individual reality that makes it distinctive; thus there are no two persons or entities with the same reality, since otherwise they would be one and the same, and not two different things. So this means that there appears from the One Creator only one (total) reality because this unique “special face” is never repeated.

This explanation, however, is not entirely satisfactory, at least for our purposes, because the negation of repetition doesn’t imply the negation of multiplicity, which is clearly witnessed in the world.

Abdelkader then goes on to explain that we can reconcile the apparent multiplicity with the actual oneness of creation by correcting our view of time and space. He says that our imagination pictures time as a container which contains the things in the existence, so we see things arranged in time (and space), and then we imagine multiplicity. But if we imagine ourselves “out of time”, and look at the whole existence in time and space, we shall see a single existence without a beginning and without an end, and without any relation to a self-subsistent distinct time and space as we usually imagine them. For example, every person is one despite his having arms and legs and many visible and invisible parts.

But again this elucidation is not entirely satisfactory, since it shows the unity of all being, but not its unique metaphysical “unicity”. It shows that the whole of existence is “one” when we look at it as a single whole, or from outside space and time. But still, since we actually perceive (or imagine) ourselves as existing inside this space-time whole as partial entities, we also see many other entities, or manifest multiplicity. So we still need to explain how this multiplicity appears from the unique Oneness of the Real.

Abdelkader then goes on to explain that if the philosophers meant by saying: “from the one only one can proceed” that Allah created only the First Intellect, which is the way this maxim was understood by Avicenna and most Islamic philosophers, according to the Neo-Platonists theory of emanation, then this Intellect (alone) gave rise to the world. But in that case they are contradicting, or at least failing to illustrate the relevance of, their own proposition, because again the world is many and the First Intellect is one; so we still need to explain how this multiplicity of the world appeared out of the oneness of the First Intellect.

In Ibn al-Arabi’s view, however, every individual entity in the world always has a direct creative relation with Allah, and that is how its existence is maintained. If Allah didn’t maintain this creative “special face” between Himself and each entity, it would instantly cease to exist.

Therefore, in order to solve the problem of unicity-multiplicity relation, Ibn al-Arabi actually asserts that this interface between the One and all the many existent things doesn’t happen all at once. Rather, at any single instance of time, there is in reality only one single relation or interface, a unique divine “with-ness”, as he calls it (following the Quran), between the One and only “one” of the entities of the world. But what happens at this particular instance with the other entities, since their existence is also preserved only through this unique creative relation between them and their Creator, the unique One? The answer is: they do cease to exist, and then they are (immediately) re-created again and again [II.385.4], as we shall discuss this central metaphysical principle of the “ever-renewed creation” in section 2.1.

Therefore, in order to understand the relation between the unique Oneness of the Real and the apparent multiplicity of the creations, Ibn al-Arabi adds time to the previous philosophical statement, which can be then reformulated as:“from the One only one can proceed at a time.” This re-statement is indeed the key to understanding Ibn al-Arabi’s unique view of time and the oneness of being, and to solving the mystery of the relation between the Real and His creation. In this way the world is created by Allah “in one linear sequence”, as the repeated images of a movie are displayed on the screen, as we shall discuss this analogy further in section 2.7.

Ibn al-Arabi, however, affirms that this particular mode of creation was chosen by Allah to be like that, although in fact He might have created the world in any other way, so it is not any (external) restriction imposed over Him, the Exalted. In other words, this principle is not necessarily implied by the Existence of the Real, that only one can proceed from Him at a time, and that it is impossible otherwise. But He willed that, and if He had wished that the world should exist all at once, and that nothing were dependent on anything else, it wouldn’t be difficult for Allah to create it like that.

The meaning of this ontological principle is in fact derived directly from the well-known verse in the Quran: (each Day He is upon one task) [55:29]. Ibn al-Arabi quotes this verse most frequently in his discussion on time, and it is the basis of his unique “quantization” of time, as we will explain further in section 4.3. So since Allah is One, He does only one single creative task each “Day’, of course not this normal observable day that we encounter, in which an almost infinite number of tasks or events are happening, although they are in fact equal, as explained below.