CHAPTER V Unicity and Multiplicity
Examine the origin of existence, and think it through:
you will see the same (divine) Generosity, both eternal and created.
And the (created) thing is like the (eternal) thing,
except that He made it appear in the actual reality of the worlds as created.
So if the viewer swears that his existence is eternal (in the Unity),
he is honest and truthful, not lying;
But if the viewer swears that its existence (emerges) after its non-existence,
(that is) more appropriate and then its [existence] is threefold.
[I.5.31]
In order to understand these novel concepts of time that we have explained in previous chapters, we need to shed more light on Ibn Arabi's controversial understanding of the oneness of being (wahdat al-wujud), because it is the key to understand his various views of time. Although he had never employed this famous term directly, it is quite evident that this characteristic understanding of the oneness of being strongly dominates Ibn Arabi's many writings: he explains almost everything based on the concept of ultimate unicity and oneness. More specifically, the metaphysical structure of the world, how it comes into existence, how it is maintained and its ontological relation with the Creator can only be explained on the basis of the oneness of being.
In light of the centuries of later polemics surrounding this conception, it must be stressed that Ibn Arabi's conception of the oneness of being is completely different from such views such as pantheism or monism. Ibn Arabi never denies the basic distinction between the Creator and creations, and certainly never contradicts the basic tenent of monotheism. Likewise, he strictly affirms the Muhammadan revelation (shari a) and accepts all the observed multiplicity on the usual planes of manifest existence. Instead, his focus in applying the oneness of being is on understanding the cosmos and how it works. It is these particular cosmological aspects that we shall be interested in throughout this chapter, so that we can explain Ibn Arabi's view of the creation in order to understand his unique concepts of time and eventually to situate all those conceptions within the comprehensive cosmological model outlined in Chapter VI below.