III.4.2 The Universal Spirit and the
Origin of Light
Based on the hadith that declares that Allah created the
(perfect) human upon His own Image [I.163.20, II.395.25], Ibn al-Arabi asserts
that the cosmos itself, on its turn, is created upon the human image
[II.652.25]. For this reason the cosmos is often called as the great human
and the human is called a microcosm [II.150.25, III.11.18]. This same analogy
between the human and the cosmos led the Sufis to use the terms such as the
Universal Spirit , the Universal Intellect , the Universal Soul and the
Universal Body in connection with their theories of creation and ontology.
Similar to the human body, the body of the cosmos was first
prepared for the breath of the divine Spirit. The body, however, in its
ultimate meaning, is -quite opposite to the spirit- pure darkness which is
nothing but the preparedness and the readiness for the acceptance of light or
life that is about to be breathed into it. It is the possible nonexistence that
is about to become existing, denoted as the Cloud or the Primordial Matter that
is a form of the potential Nature [III.21.34]. In this sense we can also say
that the abstract initial body of the cosmos is the divine foreknowledge
according to which the cosmos shall be created, and when this creation started
to take place it exactly followed that prototype and took the same shape that
was already designated in this primordial Cloud that the philosophers call it
chaos , as we discussed in the Introduction.
The Spirit, in its highest ultimate form, is attributed to
Allah, and it is the Breath of the Merciful [I.275.3, II.172.5, III.33.21].
This Spirit manifested in the creation in the form of the Universal Spirit that
can be described as the most perfect divine image in creation. Ibn al-Arabi
usually refers to this entity using different names such as the Holy Spirit,
the Secretary Spirit or the Greatest Element. Also, because all things are mere
images or forms of this Universal Spirit that alone can be described as having
real existence, it is thus called as the real , but not the Real as a divine
Name. Ibn al-Arabi sometimes calls it as the
real-through-whom-things-are-created , alluding to the verse in Quran where
Allah says: (We created not the Heavens, the Earth, and everything in between,
but by the real [15:85, 30:8, 44:39, 46:3].
Ibn al-Arabi then explained that the name for spirit in
Arabic (rouh), can be connected to two different but closely related roots; the
first one means to rest or to relieve , and this indicates that the spirit
is always in ease, happiness and rest, and the second root means to go ,
because it goes in ease, or without resistance or inertia, throughout the
capacious orbs of the knowledge. For this reason, the Universal Spirit is so
called because it consumed all the three possible cycles or goings : through
the divine states to receive knowledge, through the states of the cosmos to
deliver to them this knowledge, and through knowing itself. Thus, because it
has exhausted all these three comprehensive levels of knowledge, it is then
called Universal, because there remains nothing else to go through, as Ibn
al-Arabi explains in his important book the White Pearl , whose title also
alludes to the Universal Spirit or maybe to the Single Monad.
The science of Time is a noble science, that reveals the secret of Eternity. Only the Elites of Sages may ever come to know this secret. It is called the First Age, or the Age of ages, from which time is emerging.
