Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240),
unquestionably one of the most profound and remarkable figures in the history of world spirituality, was unafraid of exposing hypocrisy and crossing traditional boundaries. His passion for what it means to be a “friend of God” is graphically expressed in his account of meeting Abraham in the seventh heaven in a spiritual ascension. In his monumental
Futuhat al-Makkiyya,[1] Ibn 'Arabi describes the ascension in terms which are at once wryly amusing and deadly serious. We are presented with two kinds of travellers, both of whom are searching for knowledge of Truth: the one follows a prophet or messenger, responding to revelation with acceptance, and committing themselves heart and soul to Truth; the other is a speculative thinker, who takes reason as his yardstick and wants “to discover the path to knowledge of God by myself.” While the speculative thinker thinks he needs to seek knowledge, using all the powers at his disposal, the follower strives only to make himself nothing before the Truth, like an empty vessel, empty of selfish individuality, ready to receive whatever is deposited in him, without laying claim to owning it. There are interesting comparisons to be made here with the modern divide between left and right brain typologies.
Not only are their methods different, says Ibn 'Arabi, but the fruits of their investigations are also different: “everything the speculative thinker acquires, the follower also acquires, but not vice versa.” This is due to that special and intimate relationship to the Divine that each creature possesses, which Ibn 'Arabi calls the ‘private face.’ It is through this private face that he receives a knowledge which the speculative thinker cannot understand.
