:: Post No. 8: 'And Everything Have We Confined into a Manifesting Imam' (36:12) ::

Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025

Part 1. Knowledge Section

In this Enlightenment post, I would like to address the issue of 'everything in 'manifesting Imams' which appears in an ayat which we recite in the second part of our Holy Du'a. In order to do this, I would like to first present two excerpts from the work of the Greatest Sheikh, Ibn al-'Arabi, and then follow these up with a footnote from S. V. Mir Ahmed Ali's translation of the Holy Qur'an. The first two steps provide a strong background to understand how perfect men, Prophets and Imams are created. The footnote provides great insights into the Noore Muhammad and Noore Ali. I hope this post will enable us to fully understand the spiritual and luminous authority of our present and living Imam, NOOR Mowlana Shah Karim Al-Hussaini Hazar Imam (a.s.).

1. The Character of Muhammad
   (Source: Ibn al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge by William C. Chittick, State University of New York Press, 1989)

   Chittick writes: What is the nature of this divine book whose truths cannot be grasped through rational interpretation? As is well known, the word Koran, Arabic qur'an, derives from the root q.r.'., and is generally said to mean "recitation." But the primary significance of the root is "gathering" and "collecting together" and some of the early authorities maintained that this is the significance of the name. From this point of view, the two primary names of the holy book, al-Qur'an and al-Furqan (the latter of which means "separation" or "discrimination") together mean that the Koran gathers everything together and at the same time separates everything out in clear and distinct domains. Ibn al-'Arabi often employs the term Koran strictly in accordance to the literal meaning, which is particularly significant to him because it is synonymous with the word 'jam', "bringing together,' "gathering," or "all-comprehensiveness." The name Al-lah is the "all comprehensive name" (al-ism al-jami') of God, since it gathers in itself all other [Divine] names. Perfect man is the "all-comprehensive engendered thing" (al-kawn al-jami'), because he gathers within himself everything in Divine Reality and everything in the cosmos. The Koran is "al-Qur'an", because it gathers together all the revealed scriptures that were sent down before it and thereby all knowledge of God. "The Koran is one book among others except that, to the exclusion of other books, it alone possess all-comprehensiveness (jam'iyya)." (III 160.34) Ibn al-'Arabi comments upon the all comprehensive nature of the Koran in many contexts, most commonly in conjunction with the perfect and all-comprehensive character of the Prophet, which made him the only possible receptacle for the Koran. "The Koran unveils all the knowledges send down in the scriptures and contains that which is not contained by them. He who has been given the Koran has been given the perfect luminosity (diya) which comprises every knowledge. ... Because of the Koran it is true to say that Muhammad was given "all-comprehensive words" (jawami' al-kalim). So the sciences of the prophets, the angels, and every known tongue are comprised in the Koran and elucidated by it to the "Folk of the Koran"." (II 107.20) The "Folk of the Koran" are those whom we have met elsewhere as the 'Folk of Allah", since, according to a hadith, "The Folk of the Koran are the Folk of Allah and His elect". In Ibn al-'Arabi's view, "The most felicitous people with God are the Folk of the Koran" (II 443.4). (p.239)

2. Human Perfection
   (Source: Ibn al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge by William C. Chittick, State University of New York Press, 1989)

   Chittick writes: God created the universe to manifest the fullness of His generosity and mercy. Through the cosmos, Being displays the infinite possibilities latent within Itself. But It only manifests Itself in Its fullness through perfect man, since he alone actualizes every divine character trait, or every quality of Being. He is the human individual who has attained to the total actualization of his theomorphism, such that the name of Allah shines forth in him in infinite splendor. On the level of the outward, corporeal world, perfect man not appear different from other human beings, certainly not in the eyes of deniers and misbelievers. The Koran reports the words of some of Muhammad's contemporaries as, "What ails this Messenger that eats foods and goes into the markets?" (25:7). But the corporal world is but distant Sun reflected in dust. The real fullness of perfect man's existence must be sought in the inward domains, the innumerable intermediate worlds that lie between this sensory shell and his divine kernel. He is in fact the "Barzakh of barzakhs" (barzakh al-baraazikh), the interworld who encompasses all interworlds. the intermediary who fills the gap between the Absolute Being and absolute nothingness. His cosmic function is everything, because in fact he is in effect identical with the cosmos. In perfect man the microcosm and the macrocosm have become one through inner unity. In other terms, the macrocosm is the body, perfect man the heart. In him, all things are brought together, whether divine or cosmic. Just as Allah is the "all-comprehensive name" (al-ism al-jami'), so the perfect man is the 'all-comprehensive engendered thing" (al-kawn al-jami') in which the divine names receive full manifestation on every level of the cosmos. In perfect man can be seen the unity of dynamic and static dimensions of Ibn-'Arabi's cosmology. As an existent thing who lives at once on every level of the cosmos, the perfect man embraces in himself every hierarchy. But as a human individual who has come into existence and returned to his Creator, he has tied together the Origin and the Return. He lives fully and consciously on all the levels of the descent through which light becomes separate from Light and on all levels of the ascent through which light retraces its steps and human intelligence rejoins divine knowledge. He is the part and the Whole, the many and the One, the small and the Great, everything and All. Just as he turns round about God, so does the cosmos turn around about him. (p.30)

3. 'Imamim-Mubin
   Let us reflect on the following ayat of the Holy Qur'an which addresses the issue of 'Imamim-Mubin (36:12):

Here is the footnote (p.1320-1321) for the above ayat from S. V. Mir Ahmed Ali's translation of the Holy Qur'an:

 

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

Allâhumâ salli alâ Muhammadin wa âle Muhammad:
O Allah! Bestow Peace on and through Muhammad and his Descendants

Al-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin.
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds!

 

 

Forty Deeper Spiritual Insights

 
 
 

Article by Dr. Noorallah Juma