IV.1.4 Mirror Symmetry and the Isthmus

In a similar manner, Ibn al-Arabi often describes the world of all creation as a kind of mirror on which Allah s Image is reflected [IV.430.1]. If someone looks at the world from the real side of actual existence, then he will see the Image of the Real, Allah the Exalted and the most Glorious; but if he considers the world only from the side of its non-existence (if we suppose this is possible), then he will see an image of the unreal, or absolute darkness:

Therefore the reason why this (ontological) isthmus, which is the possible (realm of contingent things) between (pure) non-existence and (absolute) Existence, is described by both permanence and non-existence, is because its essence corresponds to both of these sides. That is because the absolute non-existence stood up like a mirror for the Absolute Existence, and the (divine) Existence saw His Image in it, so that this (temporal) Image is the essential reality of the possible. That is why this possible (as the Perfect Human, or Universal Intellect) had a permanent individual-essence (or immutable essence, described further in section IV.2) and a state of (definable) thing-ness already while still in the state of non-existence. That s why it emerged (in its contingent, created existence) according to the Image of the Absolute Existence, and that s why it can be also described as non-finite (possibility), or referred to as infinite.

Likewise, the Absolute Existence is also like a mirror for the absolute non-existence, which saw itself in this mirror of the Real, but the image that it saw was itself the essential reality of non-existence by which this possible (existence) is described. Therefore it is also described as infinite, just as the absolute non-existence is infinite, hence the possible is described as (inherently) non-existing. Like the image that appears between the mirror and the person looking in the mirror: that image is not that very person himself, but it is not other than him. Likewise: the possible, with respect to as its (very limited kind of) permanence, is not the very essence of the Real Himself; yet it is not other than Him, and with respect to its (only relative) non-existence, it is not the same thing as of the (absolutely) impossible, yet it is not entirely other than it. It is as though it is something relative (depending on how it is viewed). [III.47.32]

The he explains further in another chapter by saying that if the unreal (or non-existence) had a tongue to speak, it would tell you: you are created according to my image , because it sees in you nothing but its own shadow, just as the absolute Existence has told you: you are (created) according to My Image , because He saw in you His own Image [IV.154.23].

Therefore, the world may not have a constant real (self-subsistent) existence, because only Allah may be described by that; and at the same time the world is not in constant non-existence, or it wouldn t be there at all. Instead it is perpetually fluctuating, at every instant of creation, between existence and non-existence. In fact, Ibn al-Arabi points out [II.303-4], that this is the real meaning of the Quranic symbols of the day-time and the night : when the Universal Intellect (Allah s Messenger) faces the Real, this would be a kind of night for us, but when the Intellect/Messenger faces us, in each divine Act of creation, this is our manifest day. All the entities of the world are being continually created in series or in one linear chronological order , one entity at a time, of the real flow of time; so no two entities may gain real existence at the same time, because they gain their existence only through their constant re-creation by the Real who is One, as it is also depicted in Figure IV.2.