I.4.1 The Three Hypothesis of the Single Monad Model

The Single Monad Model of the Cosmos can be summarized into the following three complementary hypotheses:

1.The Single Monad: At any real single instance of time, there is only one Single Monad that alone can be described by real continuous existence. By perpetually manifesting in different forms, this Monad creates other individual monads, thus imaging itself to make a comprehensive image as one single frame of the entire cosmos. This still picture is created in one full Week of the original Cosmic Days of events, which are the inner levels of time, but this creative process is equivalent only to one single moment, that is the outward atom of time.

2.The Re-creation Principle: The forms of manifestation of the Single Monad cease to exist intrinsically right after the instant of their becoming, to be re-created again by the Single Monad in every original creative Week, from Sunday to Friday. Being one of these discrete instances, we don t witness this creation process, since we only observe the created World on Saturday, the last Day of creation. So the seven Days of the divine Week are in all one abstract geometrical point of space-time, which then creates the space-time container which encompasses the whole World, both spatially and temporally. Due to this re-creation, although the internal flow of time is real and continuous, the outward time is discrete and imaginary, as we shall describe further below.

3.The Actual Flow of Time: Since the World takes seven Days to be re-created by the Single Monad, which manifests the forms of the individual monads one by one in chronological order, observers have to wait, out of existence, six Days, from Sunday to Friday, in order to witness the next moment of creation, that is the next frame of space, on the following Saturday. In each Day of these Days of creation, a corresponding dimension of the World is created. Therefore, the real flow of the actual created time doesn t go linearly, but rather is intertwined with the observable, normal earthly days in the special and rather mystifying manner that have been summarized in Chapter Iv of Volume II.

This complex view of space-time and creation will lead to the Duality of Time hypothesis on which we will be able to explain many persisting problems in terms of the genuinely-complex time-time geometry, including Quantum Gravity as we shall explain further in Chapter II. Einstein s theory of General Relativity was able to explain Gravity in terms of space-time geometry, but it could not realize this hidden discrete symmetry which is the only way to reconcile it with Quantum Mechanics. The complex time-time structure of the Duality of Time is naturally discrete, and it explains Gravity as well as all other fundamental forces in terms of its complex-time geometry. Furthermore, this encompassing view of time will include not only the physical world, but also the psychical and spiritual worlds that will be described in the coming chapters.

Ibn al-Arabi stresses that this continuously renewed return to non-existence is an intrinsic condition of all created forms, and not due to any external force [II.385.4]. Typically he relates this fundamental insight to the Quranic verse: (but they are unaware of the new creation) [50:15], which he frequently quotes, along with the famous verse concerning the Day of the divine Task/Event [55:29] that he always cites in relation to his intimately related concept of discrete time. Therefore, the existence of things in the World is not continuous, as we may imagine and deceitfully observe, because Allah is continuously and perpetually creating every single thing at every instance, or in every single Day of Event [II.454.21, II.384.30]. If any entity in existence would remain for at least two instants of time, it would be independent from God, so with this re-creation everything is always in need for the Creator to bring it into existence.

Additionally, Ibn al-Arabi argues that there are no two truly identical forms, since otherwise Allah won t be described as the Infinitely Vast . Because of this unique divine Vastness [I.266.8], the Single Monad will never wear two identical forms: i.e. it never wears exactly the same form for more than one instance; so nothing is ever truly repeated [I.721.22]. The new forms, he admits, are often similar to the previous ones but they aren t the same [II.372.21, III.127.24]. Ibn al-Arabi summarized this by saying:

At every instance of time, the World is (perpetually) re-formed and disintegrated, so the individual entity of the substance of the World has no persistence (in existence) except through its receiving of this formation within it. Therefore the World is always in a state of needfulness, perpetually: the forms are in need (of a creator) to bring them forth from non-existence into existence; and the substance (being the substrate for the created forms or accidents] is also in need to preserve its existence, because unavoidably a condition for its existence is the existence of the formation of those (newly re-created forms) for which it is a substrate. [II.454.19]

As we mentioned in the previous two volumes, this Single Monad is also called the Universal Intellect, and also the Pen, among many other different names or descriptions. However, some confusion may occur with the Greatest Element that is creating the Single Monad itself; sometimes it is not very clear for some of these many variant names whether they are really for the Single Monad or the Greatest Element. One of these interesting names is the real through whom creation takes place , that is the most perfect image of the Real, as divine name of Allah, the Creator of the Worlds. Everything in the Creation is rooted in the Single Monad, just as the leaves and the fruits of a tree are rooted in the stalk that spring out of the seed. The Single Monad is like the seed for the tree of the cosmos, while the Greatest Element, is what makes up the seed down to the cells, atoms and subatomic particles inside it, just as the leaves were also determined in the seed even before it was planted.

Furthermore, one of the most interesting name of this Single Monad is Everything ! This name is interesting because Ibn al-Arabi says that in everything there is everything, even if we don t recognize that . This is another way of saying that: the Single Monad is in everything , but it also mean that the internal structure of the Single Monad is as complicated as the World itself because: in everything, even the Single Monad, there is everything, even the World! This is plausible since both the Single Monad, that is the microcosm, and the whole World, that is the macrocosm, are both created on the divine Image. This reminds us in mathematics with fractals such as Mandelbrot set, Julia set and Sierpinski triangle, where the structure keeps repeating itself on any larger or smaller scale, as we shall describe further in section I.2 below. This also means that although each instance of the outward time is an indivisible moment, it is internally divided into sub-moments, just as the visible day, where the Sun rises, moves gradually in the sky and then sets to rise again in the next day. So on the outward dimension, this whole day forms an indivisible unit of time, but internally it seems to be continuously divisible into ever smaller time intervals, at least potentially. Therefore, just as the Single Monad might be identical with the World, the moment might be identical with the day. It just depends on the scale we are using; if we were inside the Single Monad we might see creations such as the Sun, planets and the stars, but because we are outside we see it as a point. Similarly, if we suppose we go outside the Universe, we shall see it as a point; that is as the Single Monad, indivisible but compound. This is also similar in modern cosmology to the black hole, which occupies a single point in our space but itself is considered a complete world.