Interpretations of Desire

Mystical love poems by the Sufi Master Muyhiddin Ibn 'Arabi

Keith Hill

• Publisher: Attar Books
• eBook ISBN: 9780995120433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Poetry

In 1201, Shaykh Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi arrived in Mecca. Among the many people who impressed him one drew his attention above all others: Nizám, the daughter of a prominent religious teacher. As Beatrice did for Dante, Nizám soon inspired a sequence of love poems that are Ibn 'Arabi's poetic masterpiece, Tarjumán al-Aswáq ( The Interpreter of Desire ).

Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi was known as Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Shaykh), a title given him due to his profound knowledge as a mystic, theologian, philosopher and legalist. Scholars are devoting much labour to translating and interpreting Ibn 'Arabi's voluminous prose writings, but his poetry remains little known by Western readers compared with that of his fellow Sufis, Rumi, Attar and Hafiz.

This collection reveals that with his intense feeling, vivid imagery, and the playful way he reworked the conventions of Bedouin desert poetry, Ibn 'Arabi wrote poems that deserve to be placed alongside the best of his illustrious Sufi compatriots. Keith Hill's engaging new English language versions will be welcomed not just by those attracted to Sufi literature, but by all who enjoy enchanting love poetry.

THE LOVER'S LAMENT

I wish I knew if they knew

whose heart they had captured.

I wish my heart could know

what mountain pass they travelled.

Is it through living or dying

that they have endured?

Perplexed, lovers lose the path;

lost in love, they die enraptured.

A LOVER'S PLEA

When they departed, my patience

and endurance departed,

yet that absent traveller still

lives inside my churning chest.

I asked my guides where riders

at noon make their rest.

They answered: "Where desire

and absence spread their scent."

So I begged the East Wind:

"Go and search through the estates,

find where in the groves they shelter,

shaded beneath their tents.

"There give them greeting

from one whose life is one long lament

due to the age that, from his heart

companions, he has been absent."

1

Notes on the Poems

“I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known,

therefore I created the creatures so I might be known.” – Hadith

IBN ‘ARABI’S MYSTIC PHILOSOPHY

Revelation lies at the heart of all religions. However, worshippers rarely access revelation personally, the Divine being revealed to them via sacred scriptures. In contrast, for mystics revelation of the Divine involves the direct disclosure to them of aspects of spiritual reality. Ibn ‘Arabi defined revelation as the Divine’s self-disclosure. He viewed it as a continuous process in which, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, the Divine reveals signs of Its presence and discloses Its reality via the activity of Its attributes as they manifest in the world.

Central to Ibn ‘Arabi’s outlook is the insight that God is the only existent. Nothing exists but God.^[1] For this reason Ibn ‘Arabi called God the One, the Real. The word Ibn ‘Arabi uses most often to describe God is wujud, translated into English by the dual terms being and existence. Wujud is not a quality God has; God is wujud. This means individual creatures have their personal wujud, but it is contingent on God’s wujud, which encloses all existence.

Wujud also includes the notion of being found. God doesn’t just give creatures being and existence, God wants to be known. This is reflected in the hadith quoted above: embedded in all creatures is a desire to seek God, who from the human perspective is a hidden treasure. However, because nothing occurs except via God’s will, this means that whatever anyone finds doesn’t result from finding, but occurs because God has disclosed an aspect of Itself. To which creatures does God disclose Itself? To those who answer the call and seek the Divine. Yet the reality is that only God exists. Therefore when God discloses Itself to a questing creature, God is actually disclosing Itself to Itself. This is why Ibn ‘Arabi calls God’s revelation an act of self-disclosure: through the process of mystic exploration God comes to know Itself.

From the human perspective, God’s self-disclosure is on two levels. Objectively, God’s revelation comes in the form of the most Beautiful Names which God has embedded in the created world. The Prophet Mohammed stated that God has ninety-nine Names, but there is no definitive list. The Beautiful Names may be thought of as pointing towards God’s attributes. The Names include peace, holiness, strength, power, wrath, mercy, judgement, forgiveness, knowledge, wisdom and sublimity. Ibn ‘Arabi considered the Names are actually infinite in number, because God is infinite. As the Qu’ran states, “Wherever you turn, there is God.” (2:115). So creatures may potentially identify an infinite number of God’s Names and so potentially access an infinite number of self-disclosures.

The task mystics undertake is to absorb God’s attributes, as indicated by the Beautiful Names, and consciously incorporate them in their life. The person who achieves this becomes perfected and is embraced by God as a friend. It is for this reason that Sufis are called the friends of God. Friendship is underpinned by love. God brought the world into existence out of an act of love, and the gap between creatures and God is closed through love. So it is in love that mystics perfect their self and become worthy of God’s revelations. It is also in love that God acknowledges their efforts and graces them with ecstatic states and insights.

Just how deeply love for God animated Ibn ‘Arabi’s own life is seen in an experience he recounted in The Meccan Openings. For a period his inward focus on God became so intense, and his heart so intoxicated with love, that for several days his Beloved manifested to him in external form. During this time Ibn ‘Arabi was unable to eat.

Whenever the dining cloth was spread for me, He would stand at its edge, look at me, and say in a tongue I heard with my ears, “Will you eat while gazing on Me?” I was prevented from eating, but I was not hungry, and He kept my stomach full. I even put on weight and became plump from gazing on Him. He took the place of food.

My companions and family were amazed at my becoming plump without eating food, for I remained many days without tasting anything, though I became neither hungry nor thirsty. During all this time, He never left from before my eyes, whether I was standing or sitting, moving or still.^[2]

Ibn ‘Arabi considered love incorporates two of God’s Beautiful Names, beauty and light. Beauty stimulates love and love lights the lover within. Of beauty, Ibn ‘Arabi wrote: “God discloses Himself to entities through the Name Beautiful, and they fall in love with Him.”^[3] Light illuminates, and illumination equates to knowledge.

In The Symposium Plato described a process in which the lover first becomes infatuated with the beloved’s beautiful outward form. Then, as lover and beloved come to know each other, the lover comes to appreciate and love the beloved’s inner qualities. Finally, the lover sees in the beloved the Divine, the One Source which transcends all individual beings, qualities, forms and names. Accordingly, Plato’s concept of love is that what begins as physical attraction and infatuation ends in knowledge of the One. This same notion, that love for an individual person leads to ultimate knowledge, underpins Ibn ‘Arabi’s mystic outlook.

In the Islamic tradition knowledge comes in two forms. ‘Ilam refers to what we know impersonally and objectively. For example, knowledge of biology is available to everyone equally; it doesn’t change whether one is an expert or beginner. Yet an expert sees much more deeply than a beginner. So there is a personal aspect to objective knowledge, in the sense that experts know more than others due to their diligence and application. This personal, subjective element, grounded in personal experience, plays a significant role in the acquisition of revelatory spiritual knowledge. In Arabic, ma’arif denotes knowledge that is known personally and subjectively. Ma’arif differs according to the knower’s level of being and understanding. Ma’arif is usually translated into English as gnosis, which identifies direct, personal knowledge of God. It is for this reason that Sufis are also called gnostics, those who know. For Ibn ‘Arabi, knowledge comes in the form of God’s self-disclosures, which are experienced as openings, as direct insights into Reality. This is why his greatest book is called Al-Futúhát al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Openings). So when an instance of God’s self-disclosure occurs, Ibn ‘Arabi didn’t just objectively perceive a new insight, his awareness subjectively entered a new level of perception. Because God is infinite and creative, each instance of self-disclosure is unique. God is infinite, so knowledge of God must be infinite. This implies that human beings, as finite and limited creatures, can never know either God or the fullness of All That Is.

Ibn ‘Arabi further differentiates between two modes of knowing. The first is rational, the second imaginative. We use rational thinking to logically link disparate beings, forms, activities and processes. Theology relies on reasoning to tease out the implications of God’s revelations as they are expressed in sacred scriptures. Yet we can’t reason ourselves into revelation. Rational thinking reveals that God’s wujud can ne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction
• The Lover's Lament
• Nizám is Glimpsed
• Nizám Leaves
• Nizám Has Gone
• The Search for Nizám
• A Lover's Plea
• The Pebble Heaps at Miná
• A Hopeless Offer
• The Veiled Gazelles
• The Garden at Dhú Salam
• At Abraqáyn
• When Ravens Croaked
• A Dove Sighs
• Desert Lightning
• If I Do Not Pass Away
• The East Wind's Advice
• Alluring Maidens
• The Ruins at Ráma
• Writhing Black Serpents
• A Verdant Valley's Welcome
• On the Road to Medina
• Illuminated White Tents
• Tasting the Sweetest Honey
• Do Not Cry Out
• An Absurd Lament
• The East Wind's Lies
• A Moon at Hájir
• What the Invisible Weaves
• When Black Clouds Loomed
• In al-Tan'ím
• The Desire
• The Most Alluring Town
• Her Presence Floods Me
• The Flash Flood
• The Moment She Unveiled
• Heedless Camel Drivers
• She is So Slight
• The Pilgrims at al-Abraqán
• A Pulsing Pearl
• I Am Helpless
• Locks Like Vipers
• The Meadow at Radwá
• Where is the Kindness?
• Destination: Baghdad
• Absence and Presence
• Covenant in Najd
• Her Allure Still Afflicts
• The Stations of Love
• Approaching Where They Are
• Beauty Itself is Bewildered
• Notes on the Poems
• Glossary
• Concordance