Islamic Mysticism

The last lecture on Ibn Arabi was very interesting. It was extremely insightful to see the similarities that the Sufi shared with another famous Sufi poet, Rumi. Rumi wrote many poems about the divine as a relationship between a lover and the beloved. The separation of these two is the interference of the material world or the ego. Arabi discusses much of this in his work. The most intriguing part was the similarities that Hinduism and Buddhism shared with Islamic mysticism. While Islam is perceived to be a more demanding and believing in blindly kind of a faith, there is a mystical aspect that discusses much of Islamic spirituality. While this term is very broad, sufis such as Ibn Arabi attempt to explain that religion is more than the exoteric practice but has a deeper, esoteric element. Arabi describes the polishing of the mirror as an act of polishing the soul to get a clearer image of the real. He says, the real "itself exists...what was required was the polishing of the mirror" (Sells 72-73). The real in this case refers to the divine and the mirror the soul of the human that is covered with dirt of the material world. Thus, one has to achieve the status of a complete human in order to completely cleanse the mirror and take-in the divine light. The state of fana-filla or becoming one with Allah is similar to Enlightenment or the state of complete consciousness where one is able to realize everything. In this state, the person leaves himself and becomes one with the divine. Thus, these two entities are one and the same. It is interesting to point out that in Arabic, the reflexive and non-reflexive forms of its are the same. Thus, it is ambiguous when the Qur'an refers to a pronoun to whom it is being referred. I have always found this fascinating. As a Muslim, it makes me believe that the Arabic language was particularly chosen for the Qur'an to display this ambiguity, but that is a side note.

I also found Arabi's binding of error very interesting. Essentially, it is stating that any one perception of the divine or the path to follow is committing a binding error since it is neglecting all other perceptions or paths. Thus, Arabi was much against Sufi orders. Ironically, he was a Sunni Muslim (Sunnis strongly followed the Sunna of the Prophet). Much of this idea of multiplism stems in the Qur'an as well.  God says, “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other) (Sura 49, Ayat 13). It is very astonishing that many people, including Muslims fail to realize this very important point that Islam is a faith of pluralism. Thus, it can be inferred that there is no one right way to achieve fana-filla, Enlightenment, or salvation. Much of the states of consciousness presented in Hinduism and Buddhism are similar to state of realization- the cleansing of the mirror- such as the reading for today that discusses the aspects of the Buddha's awakening. "Their mindfulness, intelligence, realization, meditation, incantation, and eloquence all were perfected. They had attained the intuitive tolerance of the ultimate incomprehensibility of all things" (Thurman). Overall, it is extremely interesting to find similarities among religions that are so different in their orthopraxy.