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225 7 The Universal Man in Ibn ‘Arabi As Ibn ‘Arabi asserts in his Futuhat, all knowledge of God, the Reality (al-h .aqq), is rooted in knowledge of the self: The root of existence of knowledge of God is knowledge of self. So knowledge of God has the property of knowledge of self, which is the root. In the view of those who know the self, the self is an ocean without a shore, so knowledge of it has no end. Such is the property of knowledge of the self. Hence, knowledge of God, which is a branch of this root, joins with it in property, so there is no end to knowledge of God. That is why in every state the knower says, “My Lord, increase me in knowledge!” (20:114). Then God increases him in knowledge of himself that he may increase in knowledge of his Lord. This is given by divine unveiling.1 To enter into the essence of the human self is, for Ibn ‘Arabi, tantamount to entering into the essence of the divine, because human existence is essentially linked to the divine existence. But for Ibn ‘Arabi, and subsequently for Sufis like Abdel-Karim al-Jili, strongly influenced by Ibn ‘Arabi, there must be a mediating link between the individual human being and the divine Essence in its utter transcendence. This mediating link is the Universal Man: the transcendent principle or logos of creation that is, importantly, also the immanent essence of human existence. As Titus Burckhardt puts it: “Universal Man is not really distinct from God; he is 1. III 121.25 in SPK, 345. 226 Noble or Universal Man like the face of God in his creatures. By union with him, the spirit unites with God.”2 As such, the Universal Man serves as the locus in and through which the individual human being, who, at least in principle, participates in the Universal Man by virtue of the comprehensive nature of his essence, may come to know God. He corresponds in many ways to the Universal or First Intellect or νοῦς of the Neoplatonists, the hypostasis that mediates between the unknowable, impenetrable divine Unity and creatures in general. As S. H. Nasr puts it: The Universal Man, who is also the Logos, is the total theophany of the Divine Names; he is the whole of the Universe in its oneness as “seen” by the Divine Essence . He is the prototype of the Universe as well as of man by virtue of which man, the microcosm, contains within himself all the possibilities found in the Universe. The microcosm and the macrocosm face each other as two mirrors in each of which the other is reflected, while both “echo” in themselves their common prototype, who is the Universal Man. The Universal Man is also essentially the Spirit, or First Intellect, which “contains” all the Platonic “ideas” within itself, like the Logos in the doctrines of Philo who is “the first born of God” and in whom all the “ideas” are assembled.3 Thus, the Universal Man is the mediating link or isthmus (or barzakh) between the divine Reality and the human knower.4 He serves as the divine archetype for creation as well as the vehicle in and through which human beings return to God by realizing the full potentialities of their own humanity . As such, the “words” of the realities of the various prophets in the Bezels represent various facets of the Universal Man or Logos, manifesting the qualities and attributes of the divine Unity, while at the same time calling human beings back to that Unity. But the realities of two prophets stand 2. ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jili, The Universal Man, ed. and trans. Titus Burckhardt (Roxborough: Beshara Publications, 1995), viii. 3. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages, 110. For this Neoplatonic aspect of Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought, in which the Universal Man corresponds to the First Intellect of philosophers like Plotinus and Proclus, see Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, 237 (“Thus the Prophet Muhammad on the cosmic level corresponds almost exactly to the Plotinian First Intellect”). By contrast, Affifi argues that, while there are many Neoplatonic elements in Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought, it is, strictly speaking, not Neoplatonic because of Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of the wāh .dat al-wujūd, in which the Divine Essence gives existence to all creatures directly and without the intermediate emanations of divine intelligences. See his Remarks, 9. 4. See Salman H. Bashier, Ibn ‘Arabi’s Barzakh...

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