6.2. The Spiritual Hierarchy:
Another important example of the symbolic analogy between the metaphysical process and figures of the 'macrocosm' and more human realities is the hierarchy of the spirits of the prophets and saints (awliya) a central theme that runs throughout the Futuhat. To summarize the cosmological aspect of that theme, Ibn Arabi presents the lower realms of the cosmos as being ruled by a complex spiritual hierarchy largely 'invisible' to most human beings, though not to the spiritual 'knowers' consisting, among others, of the spiritual 'Pole' (al-qutb), the two Imams, the four Pillars (awtad), the seven Substitutes (abdal), the eight Nobles (nujaba ), the twelve Chiefs (nuqaba ), and in addition to other lesser known groups.[110] Each of these groups and figures has a special corresponding spiritual responsibility, some of which are have to do with maintaining the wider cosmic order. Those pure spirits have also have an ongoing series of living human 'representatives' or 'agents' (s. na ib) amongst us [II.6.6].
Some of these members of the celestial spiritual hierarchy, as Ibn Arabi presents them in scattered passages of the Futuhat, are assigned cosmological functions symbolically related, for example, to the twelve zodiacal signs, the seven heavens, and the seven 'climes' or geographical regions, the four cardinal points, or even the four corners of the Kaaba [II.13]. In particular, the highest level of the 'Pole', in this hierarchy, is the figure who apparently corresponds to the lofty metaphysical position of the Single Monad which Ibn Arabi often pointedly refers to simply as 'the Reality of Muhammad' (Al-Mu jam Al-Sufi: 158).