4.4.7  Significance of the Week

In most mystical books that talk about cosmology, we find many diagrams and tables that associate each day of the seven days of the week with specific letters of the alphabet and specific divine Names of Allah, in addition to certain planets and constellations or zodiacal signs. For example, Ibn al-Arabi explained in the long chapter 198 of the Meccan Revelations [II.390-478] the creation of the world by Allah and the role of His divine Names on the different parts of Heavens and Earth, and then he relates each divine Name and the thing He creates to a letter from the Arabic alphabet, a mansion from the twenty eight lunar mansions, a day of the seven days of the week, and one of the seven circulating heavenly bodies, the five planets, the Sun and the Moon. This type of symbolic association based on the days of the astronomical week is also found in many other cosmological books of other religions and cultures dealing with astrology and related mythology.

Following repeated indications in the Quran and Hadith, Ibn al-Arabi understands that those planets, along with other constellations associated with signs of the zodiac and lunar mansions, are associated with or inhabited by certain spirits or angels whom Allah appointed and organized in a specific hierarchy to manage the whole cosmos beneath them, including the Earth [III.433-434]. This is different from earlier cosmological doctrines, because the pagan astrologers believed that these spirits were deities and gods, while Ibn al-Arabi stresses that they are nothing but servants created and appointed by Allah.

Ibn al-Arabi stresses that “everything in the world has to be based on (specific) divine Attributes” [I.293.5], and as we showed in section 1.2, that he considers them to be countless [III.146.35], but he again stresses that these many divine Names are all based on four fundamental Attributes: Living, Knowing, Ability and Will, that are necessary and sufficient for Allah to be described as God. Therefore those are considered to be the ultimate sources or “mothers” of all other divine Attributes [I.469.25]. In relation to creation, however, three more Attributes are also necessary for Allah to be Creator: Hearing, Seeing and Speaking. Together, that makes the principal divine Attributes of Allah to be “seven mother Attributes ...: Living, Knowing, Ability, Will, Hearing, Seeing and Speaking’ [I.525.32].

Because Allah created (the Perfect) Human Being “according to His Image” [I.163.20], these same divine Attributes are potentially manifest in every human. Also, as Ibn al-Arabi says, Allah created the world and everything in it on the image of (the Perfect) Human Being [II.652.25], and so the world with the Human Being is “on the Image of the Real”, but without the Human Being it would not have this perfection [III.343.25]. Therefore, these same attributes should be available and essential in the world as well. That is why, he explains, the numbers four and seven play central roles in the world: the four elements in Nature (earth, water, air, fire), the four time-cycles (year, month, week, day), the seven heavens, the seven days, and so on. The two cosmologically fundamental four-fold groups that emerged out of the four mother Attributes that are the four aspects of the divine Presence of the Essence are the four elements and the primordial cosmological principles of the Intellect, Soul, Dust and Nature, as depicted in Figure 4.9.

Figure 4.9: The Quadratic Divine Origins. Ibn al-Arabi showed that everything in the world is based on some divine realities, and because there are four fundamental divine Names or Attributes: Living, Ability, Knowing, and Willing; the emergent worlds are always based on four fundamental facts, such as the four classical elements of Nature.

This quadratic cosmological rule was reflected in the four main time cycles: the day, the week, the month and the year, as Ibn al-Arabi says: ‘Time is restricted to the year, month, week and day. Time is divided into these four divisions because the natural seasons are four, since the origin of the existence of time is Nature, whose level is below the (universal) Soul and above the Dust that philosophers call the Universal Matter (as depicted in Figure 4.4). The influence of this (fundamental) quaternity in Nature is from the influence of the (same principle of) quaternity in the divine origin from (the fundamental Names): Life, Knowledge, Ability and Will. For by these four (Names), godship is confirmed for the God.

This quaternity (first) became manifest in Nature. Then the (divine) Command descended until the (principle of quaternity) appeared in the longest time (cycle), which is the year, so that it was divided into the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, which was brought about by the motion of the Sun through the stations (of the zodiac), which have been divided by Nature into their (seasonal) divisions according to the (natural) elements that are the fundamental principles (of fire, air, water and earth).’ [III.548.17]

Ibn al-Arabi defines the normal day as all that is included within the revolution of the Isotropic Orb, which encompasses all of material existence. This day is astronomically called the sidereal day as defined by the revolution of the Earth, and it is conventionally divided into smaller units such as hours, minutes and seconds. The divine Day, however, is the corresponding effects, or manifestations, of each of the seven fundamental divine Names on the entire cosmos, which all together make up the Week. On the other hand, Ibn al-Arabi distinguishes between the witnessed lunar month, which is from new Moon to another new Moon, and the divine Month which is the time needed for the Moon to perform one full revolution in the orb of the zodiac, as witnessed from the Earth: that, as Ibn al-Arabi says, is exactly twenty-eight days [III.548.28]. He also recognizes the solar month as the Sun’s observed motion throughout the zodiac, where the zodiac is conventionally divided into twelve parts, each corresponding to one month [I.388.20], though he does not give any details about the length of solar months in terms of these days. The year, for Ibn al-Arabi, is the time needed for the Sun to perform one full revolution in the orb of the zodiac [III.548.28], as witnessed from the Earth. Like the Babylonians, Ibn al-Arabi considers the year to be exactly 360 days [III.434.9], and not like our calendar year of 365.25 days.

Ibn al-Arabi regards our solar year and the solar (and lunar) month as conventions set up by human observers, while the 360-day year, the 28-day month, the 7-day week, and the (sidereal) day are divine periods of time set up by Allah when He created the heavenly orbs and made them move [III.548.27]. It is noteworthy in this regard that the 360-day year does not equal twelve of the twenty-eight-days months. These four time cycles that Ibn al-Arabi talks about are not meant for calendar purposes; they are said to be the actual measures of time set up by Allah when He created the world. Moreover, Ibn al-Arabi shows that this non-integer ratio is preordained and essential for the vastness of creation, because the creation is built upon the act of generation, and with complete ratios no generation could happen; so there have to be integers as well as fractions [II.440.7].

While Ibn al-Arabi considers the Week (of Creation) to be the primary time cycle, only the week among these four cycles does not seem to have any apparent astronomical significance. We can only say that the week is approximately one quarter of the divine lunar month, but from the observed astronomical point of view, the day should be the primary time cycle, because it is the smallest standard period of time as far as the solar system and the Earth are concerned, and all other three cycles (as defined by Ibn al-Arabi) are integer multiples of the day, while the year is not an integer multiple of the week. However, Ibn al-Arabi does not consider the day to be the primary cycle because the Days of the divine Week are not similar to each other, as they might appear to us. Since each Day of the Week is based on one of the seven fundamental divine Attributes of Allah, so these Days are not identical because those seven divine Attributes are not the same. Therefore the Week, rather than the day, is the primary cycle of divine time, and each day of the seven Days of that Week is ruled by one of the seven fundamental divine Attributes.

However, in keeping with Ibn al-Arabi’s essential understanding of the re-creation, as described in section 2.1, this does not mean that any particular day of this week is identical to that of another week. They are only similar to each other because they are originated from the same divine Attribute. Ibn al-Arabi says: ‘Nothing is actually repeated, because of divine vastness; so (everything) is in ever-new, not renewed, existence. If we call the new (thing) renewed, that is because it is extremely similar (but not identical) to its counterpart, so that they can’t be distinguished from each other. ... and the day-time and night are called ‘the two-new’, and not ‘the two-renewed’, because Saturday is not Sunday and it is not Saturday from the other week, or from another month or from another year.’ [III.127.23]

This is clearly evident in modern astronomy, because whatever periodical motions we see locally in our solar system are actually part of a more global motion that, in the end, never repeats itself in the same way, because everything is moving. In fact, Ibn al-Arabi always stresses that there can’t be any two identical forms in the world, and that this is because: “Allah never manifests in the same form twice, nor in the same form to any two persons” [III.127.33], as we also explained in sections 1.3 and 2.1.

Therefore, Ibn al-Arabi maintains that although there are many days, the real order of events reduces them into seven days only, which are the seven days of the week; and then these days iterate in months and years, and this is due to the fact that the main divine Attributes are seven, not more, which made the Age not more than seven distinctive Days [II.437.30].

However, the observed, earthly week and its days that we witness and live through in our normal time flow, does not seem to be distinctive in any natural way; as noted earlier, but it appears to be purely conventional. The reason for that is the intertwining between the underlying divine seven Days of creation and the days that we live. This intertwining of the two kinds of days is a complicated concept that Ibn al-Arabi explained partially in his short book Ayyam al-Shaan, and in few related passages in the Meccan Revelations. We shall this real flow of time in sections 4.10.1, 4.10.2 and 4.10.3.