Philosophy and Insight

It is this paradox which is beautifully described in a meeting between Ibn ‘Arabi and the chief judge of Seville, the celebrated jurist and philosopher Ibn Rushd (known to the Latin West as Averroes, who wrote a famous commentary on Aristotle).
I spent the day in Cordoba at the house of Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd. He had expressed a desire to meet me in person, since he had heard of certain revelations I had received while in retreat and had shown considerable astonishment concerning them. In consequence my father, who was one of his closest friends, took me with him on the pretext of business, in order to give Ibn Rushd the opportunity of making my acquaintance.
“I was at the time a beardless youth. As I entered the house, the philosopher rose to greet me with all the signs of friendliness and affection, and embraced me. Then he said to me “Yes”, and showed pleasure on seeing that I had understood him. I, on the other hand, being aware of the motive for his pleasure, replied “No”. Upon this Ibn Rushd drew back from me, his colour changed and he seemed to doubt what he had thought of me. He then put to me the following question, “What solution have you found as a result of mystical illumination and divine inspiration? Does it coincide with what is arrived at by speculative thought?” I replied “Yes and no. Between the Yea and the Nay the spirits take their flight beyond matter, and the necks detach themselves from their bodies.
At this Ibn Rushd became pale, and I saw him tremble as he muttered the formula ‘there is no power save from God’. This was because he understood my allusion… After that he sought from my father to meet me in order to present what he himself had understood: he wanted to know if it conformed with or was different from what I had. He was one of the great masters of reflection and rational consideration. He thanked God that in his own time he had seen someone who had entered into the retreat ignorant and had come out like this – without study, discussion, investigation or reading.
‘Sufis of Andalusia’ transl. by R. W. J. Austin, 1971. Reprint Beshara Publications, 1988. p23.
The difference between Ibn ‘Arabi and Ibn Rushd is not that between the unworldly, unlettered mystic and the erudite philosopher. Ibn ‘Arabi was neither unworldly nor unlettered in any orthodox sense. (Note: The real ‘unlettered’ person, Ibn ‘Arabi says, is someone who “does not use rational proofs to attain to the knowledge of divine things.” (Futuhat I. 644)). He was extremely well-versed in the philosophical thinking of his time, and many of his books deal quite specifically with philosophical problems. The real difference lies in the way in which knowledge is reached, whether by reflective thinking or by mystical insight. This is graphically depicted in a second meeting, this time in a vision which Ibn ‘Arabi had:
A thin veil separated me and him in such a way that I was able to see him while he was unable to see me and ignorant of my presence. He was so absorbed that he paid me no attention and I said to myself ‘He is not destined to follow the same path as me’.
Futuhat I. 154. Trans. C. Addas, ‘La Quete pour la Soufre Rouge’.
Philosophical wisdom, it is implied, is based on reflection, and limited to the divided and personal realm of the ‘Yes’ and the ‘No’; whereas mystical wisdom is founded on direct experience – often referred to as ‘taste’ – and is as incontrovertible as the acts of sense perception. The reality of the ‘thin veil’ between the two is only seen from the side of the mystical contemplation, although the possibility can be admitted philosophically. But Ibn ‘Arabi would be the first to confirm that all human beings have this self-same capacity for mystical wisdom, just by the sheer fact of being human. It is not the privilege of a select few but open to all who choose it. What he strives for is the complete integration of the human being, with all his or her faculties, upon the task of fulfilling “that for which you were created”.
The Spiritual Path As a young man Ibn ‘Arabi put himself under the direction of various spiritual masters, both in southern Spain and elsewhere, but always there was a slightly ambiguous relationship between master and pupil. In one way he was required to learn all he could from those whose experience of the spiritual path was greater; in another way, his innate spiritual understanding and ability to learn commanded tremendous respect. Among the many gnostics that he mentions in his book on the Sufis of Andalusia was a woman called Fatimah:

She lived in Seville. When I met her, she was in her nineties. Looking at her in a purely superficial way, one might have thought she was a simpleton, to which she would have replied that he who knows not his Lord is the real simpleton.
She used to say ‘Of those who come to see me, I admire none more than Ibn ‘Arabi’. When asked the reason for this, she replied ‘The rest of you come with part of yourselves, leaving the other part of you occupied with your other concerns, while Ibn ‘Arabi is a consolation to me, for he comes with all of himself. When he rises up, it is with all of himself, and when he sits it is with his whole self, leaving nothing of himself elsewhere. This is how it should be on the Way’
‘Sufis of Andalusia’, p143.
When reading this or other episodes of his life, one is immediately conscious that Ibn ‘Arabi is not simply tossing out an anecdote about his own experience, but exhorting others to learn from it.

A late 16th Century Persian miniature, Safavid period, representing Ibn ‘Arabi on horseback with two students. Courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
By the time he left Spain in 1200 at the age of 35, never to return, Ibn ‘Arabi was already renowned as a spiritual master, and his knowledge and state were of an extremely high order. The Andalusia that he left behind was gradually engulfed by the Christian reconquista, and even today little is understood or appreciated of the achievements of Moorish Spain. The Middle East into which he now travelled was struggling to consolidate the apparent stability that Saladin had snatched out of the chaos of the Third Crusade. Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Palestine were united somewhat flimsily under one flag.
Ibn ‘Arabi made his way via Cairo and Jerusalem to Mecca, where he performed the pilgrimage in 1202. There he spent some two years in the company of the most influential and learned families in the city, studying and writing. It was here that he was inspired to compose his famous collection of poems, the ‘The Interpreter of Desires’ – love poems that give astonishing insight into the moods and conditions of the spiritual path. Many people were scandalised by their apparently erotic and sensuous imagery, and he was compelled to write a commentary on them in his own defence. It is fortunate for us that he did so, since his comments do much to illuminate the extraordinary depth of meaning that he brings to bear on poetic images.

Source:www.ibnarabisociety.org