4.3.4  The Stars Constellations

Then beneath the Seven Gardens comes the orb of the apparently fixed stars, or the stars constellations, including the twenty eight Moon houses or lunar mansions. However, as we mentioned in the introduction above, Ibn al-Arabi maintained that those stars are not fixed at all, but our human time-scale is too short to notice their proper motion.

The orb of fixed stars is, also conventionally, divided into twenty eight constellations or houses through which the Moon appears to pass. Then inside this sphere of the stars orbs, Allah created the seven heavens and the Earth. Here Ibn al-Arabi again points out that in relation to the Pedestal, the dimensions of our Earth, together with the seven heavens, with their respective planets that make together the solar system, are like a ring in a vast desert, just as the Pedestal stands in that same relation to the immensity of the divine Throne.

We should note that Ibn al-Arabi, following normal Arabic usage, also calls the Sun and the Moon as planets, which generally means in Arabic: shining object, but at the same time he clearly distinguishes between the nature of planets and the Sun itself, observing that the Sun alone “is responsible for illuminating all other planets above and below” [II.170.22]. As is normal in Arabic writings, including astronomical ones, he also calls the stars by the same term as planets, yet he also knows that those stars are like the Sun in that they emit their own light [I.217.18].

Furthermore, a first quick reading of Ibn al-Arabi’s texts about the world might reveal the same traditional Aristotelian geocentric cosmological world view, because, like most other ancient cosmologies, and apparently the Quran and Hadith, he talks about seven celestial heavens around, or above, the Earth, each inhabited by a planet, including the Sun and the Moon, as shown in his Figure 4.7. But Ibn al-Arabi stresses in many places [III.548.21, I.123.17, II.441.33] that this is only the apparent view for a person who is sitting on the Earth, thus distinguishing between this apparent earthly view and the actual motion of the planets and stars themselves. So, for Ibn al-Arabi, Aristotle’s view is a view of the world “as we see it ... while in itself it can’t be described like that” [III.548.31]. Otherwise, he stresses the central position of the Sun, which he considers to be in the heart, or center, of the seven heavens, and he emphasizes the superiority of the Sun over other planets that are even above it with relation to the Earth: “So the elevation of this place, the Sun’s orb, comes from its being the heart of other orbs, so it is a high place for its status and the orbs that are above it in distance with relation to our heads, are still below it in status” [III.441.33]. His actual view of the local world is therefore in some sense heliocentric, at least in relation to the unique central status or rank of the Sun.

Figure 4.7: The orbs of star constellations and what they contain down to the planet Earth. These Constellations form the twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, and they are different from the twelve Zodiac Constellations depicted in Figure 4.6

Table 4.9: The twenty eight Lunar Mansions, or the Star Constellations which different from the Zodiac Constellations described in Table 4.1. Ibn al-Arabi explained, however, that these constellations are only some human convention, which do not necessarily relate to the actual positions of those particular stars [III.37.27]. He also explained that those stars are actually moving with relation to the zodiac that lies far deep in the background space, that is why it takes thousands of years for their motion to be noticed [II.676.28]. Therefore, the zodiac signs that are given in this table correspond to the current relative positions where these Star Constellations are housed.

As for those areas of the sphere of the fixed stars and the visible constellations normally specified by the twelve zodiacal constellations, or the twenty eight lunar mansions, or houses of the Moon, Ibn al-Arabi considers them as mere convention, which do not necessarily relate to the actual positions of those particular stars. He says: “The zodiac (constellations) are approximate positions, and they are houses for the moving planets (stars)” [III.37.27]. And for the Moon mansions he says that “those stars are called houses because planets move through them, but otherwise there is no difference between them and other stars that are not houses ... They are only assumptions and proportions in this body (of the sky)” [III.436.30]. However, this specific abstract division, by twelve and twenty-eight, bears a fundamental significance to the space-time structure as we shall see in chapter V.

On the other hand, we can’t strictly separate the material world from the abstract or spiritual world, as they are really overlapped, or rather, all of the physical worlds, from the Pedestal and the visible heavens and the Earth below, are effectively contained within the immaterial divine Throne. This is why Ibn al-Arabi sometimes mixes the two views: for example he drew a pillar to refer to the Perfect Human Being, whom he considers to be the “image of the Real”, i.e. of God, in the cosmos, so that without him the cosmos would collapse. He also speaks, following scriptural symbolism, about the seven heavens as being supported on the seven (levels of the) earths. But Ibn al-Arabi does not consider that to be the actual physical picture of things, because he clearly states that the Earth is spherical and that it rotates around its center: “but the motion of the Earth is not apparent for us, and its motion is around the middle (center) because it is a sphere” [I.123.17]. He even nicely explains why we don’t feel the motion of the Earth and the cosmos in general. For example he says that people and most other creatures don’t feel the motion of the cosmos because it is all moving so the witnessed dimensions don’t change, and that is why they imagine that the Earth is stationary around the center [II.677.21].

As we pointed out in the beginning of chapter II, the seven heavens and seven earths are actually the two extreme states of the seven levels of time, which correspond to vacuum and void, from which all the states of matter are composed, and this is directly connected with the four classical elements of Nature, together with their quintessence, which correspond to the various possible degrees of freedom, or the dimensions of space, starting from the metaphysical oneness, which is the quintessence, and up to the three dimensions,, andof physical multiplicity that is dynamically evolving through the outer time, corresponding to water, fire, air and earth.