“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
Muriel Ruckeyeser
Faith, Modernity, and the Question of God’s Presence
Religious traditions today, by and large, find themselves at odds with our material existence. People of faith across the spectrum struggle to cope with a drastically and quickly changing world, one that espouses an exponential individualism, globalisation, war, famine, oppression and the list goes on. In such a view, the mosque, church, synagogue or temple emerges as a sheltered seclusion and retreat from a savage world, where the signs of God can neither be found nor experienced.
And yet, such a perspective is not without its theological dilemmas, for many of the world’s great religious traditions also emphasise that God, higher truth and divinity cannot be bound by time and space, and Islam is no foreigner to such a position. We find verses in the Quran like: “Wherever you turn, therein is the countenance of God” (2:115), “He is with you wherever you are” (57:4) and others that highlight and balance God’s tashbīh (immanence) alongside His tanzīh (transcendence), which we find in other verses such as: “There is nothing like unto Him” (42:11).
Divine Immanence and Transcendence in the Qur’an
Religious communities and their representative scholastic niches struggle to negotiate God’s omnipotence and all-comprehensive presence with a lived reality that contradicts our understanding of goodness, as excavated from scripture and religious teachings. However, when we journey into the history of these religious traditions and the great metaphysical works of the past, we find a much more expansive appreciation of the world than is prevalent today. We find verses of poetry like: “There is a field beyond belief and unbelief, I will meet you there” in Mevlana Jalal Din Rumi’s Mathnawi that would disturb many religious sensibilities today. What distinguished this premodern religious practice and perception of reality from today’s polarized existence? How did our pious predecessors find meaning between the limits of light and darkness, goodness and evil, civility and savagery?
When we look at the heart of this matter, we realize that the distinction and separation across time and space does not revolve around content. In other words, Muslims today and centuries ago read the same Quran and Hadith literature. Instead, what is drastically different is the approach and lens through which we and they understood these sacred texts. What changed – and indeed colonized – is the epistemology: our very understanding of ʿilm (knowledge), what it means, what are its sources and how to attain it. Thus, it is at this philosophical foundation that we must start our journey.
Āyat as Verses and Signs of God
We begin with a key Quranic term, āyah, which we – almost always – translate as ‘verse’ in the Muslim scripture. However, this word also means ‘sign’ and herein emerges the crucial metaphysical node in our discourse. We find the following verse in (41:53): “We shall show them Our āyāt [signs/verses] in the horizons and in their own selves until it is clear to them that this is the truth.” But which meaning of āyāt (sg. āyah) is intended here: ‘verse’ or ‘sign’? Precisely both at the same time, because these two renditions are inseparable and intimately related.
The two meanings of this singular Arabic term are intentional, with the rendering of ‘sign’ as the original linguistic denotation from which emerged this religious connotation of ‘verse’. Thus, each verse in the Quran should also be regarded as one of God’s ‘signs’. However, in the above verse, (41:53), the Islamic scripture also situates God’s āyāt (signs) at the intersection of the human being (‘in your own selves’) and the horizons (space, time and the vertical movement from the physical to metaphysical). In this way, the linguistic relationship inherent in the term āyah manifests on a metaphysical landscape.
The Three Scriptures: Written, Ciphered, and Witnessed
Let us transition, for a moment, to the different types of kutub (sg. kitāb, books or scriptures) that the Quran discusses. Al-kitāb al-masṭūr – written scripture, refers to the written and recited scripture that all Muslims regard as the Quran, God’s speech. Al-kitāb al-marqūm – ciphered scripture, is interpreted as a reference to the human being whose somatic makeup is ciphered and coded in DNA. Lastly, there is al-kitāb al-manẓūr – witnessed scripture, which although is not a Quranic term can still be found in various interpretations as a reference to the cosmos. And so, the universe around us emerges in this network of scriptures as God’s uni-verse: a single among countless of His Āyāt (signs and verses).
This is an intricate mirroring effect, whereby each āyah (verse) in al-kitāb al-masṭūr (written scripture) has its corresponding āyah (sign) in both, al-kitāb al-marqūm (ciphered scripture, human being) and al-kitāb al-manẓūr (witnessed scripture, cosmos). In this network, God’s various scriptures can be found everywhere. In turn, reading His āyāt (verses) in the written Quran need not be in contention with living in the world and universe at large. Rather, for each of His āyāt (verses) that we read in His written scripture, there is a call to ‘reed’ the corresponding āyāt (signs) in His witnessed and ciphered scriptures as well.
More importantly, the tafsīr (exegesis) of the written scripture can no longer be confined to linguistic, legalistic, theological or rationally dialectic approaches as found in many interpretations from the past. Rather, the most relevant, revenant and reverent exegesis of the written scripture will always be these twin corresponding mirrors of al-kitāb al-marqūm (human being) and al-kitāb al-manẓūr (universe). In order to truly appreciate the full spectrum of this vision of universe and human kind as a tafsīr of the Quran or Divine scripture, we turn to the writings of the Andalusian mystic Muhyiddin Ibn al-ʿArabi.
Ibn al-‘Arabi on Knowledge, Mercy, and Signs
Ibn al-ʿArabi revitalizes key Islamic terms that have long since been confined within specific legalistic or theological categories. First, he looks at the foundational term ʿilm (knowledge) and – as he usually does – excavates a rich spectrum of meanings and linguistic narratives therefrom. The reason why the Quran often refers to the world as ʿālam is because it is a matrix of ʿalāmāt (signs) that point to al-ʿAlīm (All-Knower, God). Thus, Ibn al-ʿArabi states, ʿilm as true knowledge is inseparable from ʿalāmāt (signs).
This means that one cannot hope to have ʿilm (knowledge) of anything in the universe if one cannot yet perceive it as a sign of God. It is neither the grammatical, rational, legalistic, theological, chemical, physical or mathematical comprehension of something that signifies knowledge of it. Although all these dimensions can certainly be facets of our knowledge, until they are united in a narrative of signs, they remain mere fragments of information. Here, Ibn al-ʿArabi gives us another, more anthropically pragmatic, anchor around which to understand the notion of āyāt (signs): ʿilm (knowledge) is not a static or passive state, but rather an active process whereby we continually decipher the ʿalāmāt/āyāt (signs) in the kitāb al-manẓūr (witnessed universe) and kitāb marqūm (ourselves, the human being) then cross over to find their mirrored āyāt (verses) in the kitāb al-masṭūr (written scripture, the Quran).
Ibn al-ʿArabi also stipulates that true ʿilm (knowledge) is inseparable from mercy: “Whoever claims knowledge but does not adhere to God’s all-comprehensive mercy, then they have no claim to knowledge.” Here, yet again, the Andalusian mystic has a cosmic vision in mind. Elsewhere, he regards the entire canvas of creation as surrounded by nafas al-Raḥmān (breath of the Most-Merciful), which envelops the cosmos just as a raḥim (womb) embraces a fetus. Ibn al-ʿArabi is paying homage in this analysis to the Hadith Qudsi wherein God says: “I am al-Raḥmān [Most-Merciful] and this is the raḥim [womb]. So, whoever is reverent to it, I will maintain My connection with them, and whoever neglects it, I will neglect them as well.”
These networks of etymological connections do not end here. Ibn al-ʿArabi weaves yet another narrative pertaining to the act of deriving tafsīr (interpretation). He opts less for this term or the other common notion of taʾwīl (lit. taking back to the awwal (first)) and instead focuses on taʿbīr (expression). As was his strategy with ʿilm, Ibn al-ʿArabi focuses on the linguistic roots of this term and regards the most genuine form of scriptural interpretation as an ʿubūr (crossing over), from the ʿibāra (outward sentence or expression) to the ʿibra (parable) hidden therein, just as – he states – one crosses over from body to spirit and metaphor to meaning.
Universe as God’s Words
This bewilders us into an entirely new way of perceiving the universe, not just as ʿalāmāt (signs) of God but also His kalimāt (words). Ibn al-ʿArabi begins this investigation from the story of Jesus and Mary in the Quran, wherein the mother of Jesus is described as “believing in the words of her Lord” (66:12). These ‘words’ Ibn al-ʿArabi regards as a reference to Jesus, just as the latter is also described as one word of God “that He cast to Mary” (4:171). He is one kalima (word) from the aspect of his singular being, while each of his limbs and parts also constitute different kalimāt (words).
This allows Ibn al-ʿArabi to continue declaring that, just as Jesus is the word of God, so is the “universe God’s words that do not expire”, both created through the creative command kun (be!). However, if the universe, a ‘witnessed scripture’, is a mirror of the ‘written scripture’, the Quran, then what is the relationship between all of creation, as words of God, and His uncreated Divine speech?
Ibn al-ʿArabi returns to the story of Mary and conception of Jesus to clarify this matter. He states that what Mary received from God was not His kalām (speech), rather only one kalima (word), Jesus. Had she received His eternal and uncreated speech, as did Moses, she would have fainted like the latter. In other words, Ibn al-ʿArabi presents the universe as an endless procession of kalimāt (words), ʿalāmāt (signs) and āyāt (signs and verses) that emanate from the spring of God’s kalām (speech), the Quran. But the Andalusian mystic also excavates a creative analogy from Jesus’ description as a kalima (word) of God in lieu of this vision of cosmic writing.
He relates the term kalima (word) to its derivative term kalim (wound) whereby God’s words imprint themselves upon the empty canvas of existence just as pen engraves ink on paper. Ibn al-ʿArabi also returns us to his earlier sojourn with ʿilm (knowledge), raḥma (mercy), nafas al-raḥmān (breath of the Most-Merciful), raḥim (womb) and now the kaʿba. He positions four prophets and their aqṭāb (saintly representatives) as spiritual custodians of the four corners of God’s house. The shāmī, Iraqi, Yemeni and black stone corners are granted to the poles ‘on the hearts’ of Adam, Abraham, Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad, respectively. But what is the significance of the Yemeni corner and its association with Jesus? The connection lies in the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: “I find nafas al-Raḥmān [breath of the Most-Merciful] arriving from Yemen.”
And so it is that Jesus, who is created through God’s breath, also embodies the universal state of the cosmos as surrounded by the same Divine breeze. For just as he is the word of God, so is the entire cosmos also a matrix of His words that are uttered by Him continuously. Ibn al-ʿArabi emphasizes this point from another angle whilst describing the letters of the Arabic alphabet as ‘one of the nations that God created’. The orthography and calligraphy of their shapes is like the human skeleton. Their accents and diacritics are akin to our flesh and skin. Then, a speaker brings them to life just as God’s breath brings us into being.
Returning to God’s Command
We return to our starting point and highlight that any attempt to divorce al-kitāb al-masṭūr (written scripture, Quran) from its corresponding mirrors, al-kitāb al-manẓūr (witnessed scripture, cosmos) and al-kitāb al-marqūm (ciphered scripture, human being) leads to an unsustainable spiritual life in today’s world. Instead, Ibn al-ʿArabi brings to relief an ancient prism through which written scriptures were seen as sacred cartographies that humanity can use to traverse our own inner depths and the universe around us. Moreover, all of this should deliver us to critical questions regarding the nature of existence as prose or poetry and the imprint within each of us of God’s ʿibārāt (expressions, sg. ʿibāra) that are found in the Quran and cosmos. Indeed, this is a return to God’s eternal command: “Recite your book” (17:14).
