4.1.4  Trinity of the Cosmos

The following poem from Ibn al-Arabi’s famous “Discloser of Desires” (“Tarjuman al-Ashwaq”) is based on complex allusions to his conception of the fundamental relations of the cosmological “trinity” underlying the creation of the manifest world. Within this poem, as in other places where he elaborates those threefold principles of creation, Ibn al-Arabi’s imagery explicitly builds around a set of distinctively Christian imagery and threefold literary forms that he associates with this underlying “trinitarian” metaphysical theme: ‘In Dhu-Salam and in the monastery around the quarter, there are does that make you see the Sun in the form of dolls. I observe the orbs, serve in the church, and guard the decorated garden in spring. Hence, I am sometimes the herder of does in the wilderness, and I am called a priest and sometimes an astronomer. My beloved has become threefold, and he was one, just as they made the hypostasis in essence three. My friend, don’t deny me when I say: a gazelle/Sun lights up other gazelles that are walking around the dolls. Because the doe has a graceful neck, the Sun has faces, and the white doll has a chest and a wrist. Just as we lend clothes to the boughs, morals to the gardens, and a smile to the thunder.’ The concept of this poem is that observations are inevitably some kinds of approximation, since the ultimate reality is beyond direct perception as we have seen in the previous section. For this reason, we often use idioms and other figurative phrasing, that may not have literal meanings, or at least completely different meanings. For example, In Arabic love poetry, it is very common to refer to a woman as doe, or gazelle, because they share beauty and elegance, while the word “gazelle” in Arabic is also another name for the Sun, maybe because they share brilliance, all as a form of metonymy.

In order to grasp the three-fold metaphysical imagery developed throughout this poem, we must recall that the cosmos is made up of the manifestations of the most beautiful Names of the All-Merciful. Allah reveals these manifestations in the world through the Universal Intellect, who is also called the First Intellect or the Pen. According to Ibn al-Arabi, the divine Names are grouped into three categories: Names of Essence, Names of Descriptions or Attributes, and Names of Actions [I.423.20, I.67.28]. Therefore the Universal Intellect, or the Adamic “Perfect Human Being”, who is created “according to the Image of the All-Merciful”, came out with three faces because he is based on these three unique divine dimensions [I.446.19, II.434.16], although he is in essence one indivisible entity.

That is why Ibn al-Arabi asserts that (everything in) the cosmos is built on a kind of metaphysical trinity [III.126.21], and he later explains this further by saying: ‘The body is (composed of at least) eight points, just as the knowable (aspects) of the Real are the Essence and the seven Attributes (see section 4.8): They are not Him, and They are not other than Him. (Likewise) the body is not other than the points, and the points are not other than the body.

We said that eight points are the minimum (required to compose) bodies because the name “line” is for two points or more, and the origin of the plane is from two lines or more, so the plane is from (at least) four points. And the origin of the body is from two planes or more, so the body is from eight points.

Therefore the name (or attribute) of “length” is applicable to the body from the line (that is included in it); the name “width” is applicable to it from the plane; and the name “depth” is applicable to it from the combination of two planes. Thus the body is built on a trinity, just as the formation of proofs (in syllogistic logic) is based on a threefold structure, and just as the Source of existence, that is the Real, only becomes manifest through the bestowing of existence through three realities: His Entity, His Willing intention and His Speaking (the Command “Be’). Thus the world became manifest “according to the Form” of the One Who gives it existence, both in physical sensation (i.e. the visible world) and in (its spiritual dimensions of) meaning.’ [III.276.1]

Because of this threefold structures underlying all generative processes, Ibn al-Arabi emphasizes that we need two elements (subject and object) in order to produce a result (act) [I.278.14], because “from the one alone nothing may be produced” [III.126.1], as we have discussed in section 1.2.

In fact, the metaphysical trinity of subject, object and resulting act is fundamental throughout Ibn al-Arabi’s cosmology. Thus he summarizes the process of creation by saying that the Universal Intellect (subject or symbolic “father”) is writing down in the Universal Soul (the object or “mother”) all that Allah wants to create till the Last Day (i.e., the result or “son’), as we have already seen in section 3.1 when we talked about the symbolic process of cosmic progeny.

For this reason, Ibn al-Arabi regards the number three as the first “single”, or odd, number, since he consistently considers that one is not a number, because at least in Arabic the word for “number” implies multiplicity, while two is the first number, but it is even, from which nothing may be formed without a third, intermediate principle, to link or interface: ‘No contingent entity has come to exist through one (alone), but only through a plurality (or “conjunction” of elements), and the least of plurals is three. So since the (divine) Name “the Singular” is threefold in its effects, He gives to the contingent entity that He brings into existence those three things (i.e., Essence, Will, and the creative Command) that He must unavoidably consider, and (only then) He brings (the contingent thing) into existence. ... Therefore this (metaphysical principle of) trinity runs inwardly through the totality of all things, because it exists in the (divine creative) Source.’ [III.126.5]

Now the Universal Intellect is the intermediary reality between Allah and the world, and therefore it has two interfaces: it faces Allah from the side of His unity, and it faces the world from the side of His threefold creative dimensions. When it faces Allah (in order to perceive knowledge), it turns away from us (the world), and this is our “night’; and when it faces the world, this is our “day-time” or manifest existence. The Perfect Human Being or First Intellect is, according to the famous Hadith, the “Image” or “Form” of the Real, and likewise the world is the subsequent image of this Perfect Human Being. Hence the manifest world, like the Perfect Human Being, is “according to the Image” of the Real Himself, although without the Perfect Human Being it couldn’t participate in this perfection. So if we consider the manifest images of the world, we can potentially discover the face of the Perfect Human Being reflected in it, and if we come to know the Perfect Human Being, then we also come to know Allah. This is the fundamental ontological trinity of “Allah-Human Being-world” or “Allah-Intellect-world” [I.125-6].

According to Ibn al-Arabi, this fundamental trinity is manifested again within each human being as in our threefold nature of spirit-heart-body. The spirit is the single immaterial and mysterious divine reality that is the principle underlying life and creation, while the body is the place where this creation occurs in many different ways, so it is composed of many different material multiplicity. And the heart is the link between the body and the spirit through which the spirit exerts its effects on the multiplicity of the body. On the other hand, the sensations collected through the different organs of the body are eventually elevated to the spirit as spiritual or abstract meanings and realities.

Another favorite symbolic trinity for Ibn al-Arabi, deeply rooted in the symbolism of the Quran and certain key Hadith, is the astronomical trinity of the Sun-Moon-Earth. The Earth gains its life from the Sun, and when the Sun doesn’t face the Earth from a specific direction, the Moon takes part and reflects the light of the Sun with a degree that is small or large according to its relative place in space. In fact, if one wants to look at the Sun, one is instead obliged to look at the Moon when it is full, because the Sun can’t be seen unveiled at all, since it will burn up everything that its direct light falls on. This symbolism is directly connected, for Ibn al-Arabi, with the famous “Hadith of the veils”, according to which Allah has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness, such that if He removed those veils His light would burn everyone who tried to see Him directly.

Indeed the trinity of Sun-Moon-Earth particularly well illustrates Ibn al-Arabi’s view of the creation and its relation to the Creator. For although the creation by Allah is done “through” the Universal Intellect, Ibn al-Arabi also emphasizes, as we have seen above, that Allah also has a direct, “individual face” turned toward every single entity in the world. Similarly the Sun doesn’t only give its light indirectly through the Moon, but also much more directly to the Earth, so everything on Earth is connected with the Sun in the course of the day with different degrees and at different times.