The Bezels of Wisdom QUOTES

21 " Then know that Allah has described Himself as the Outawardly Manifest and the Inwardly
Hidden; He brought the universe into existence as a Visible world and an Unseen world
so that we might know the Hidden by the Unseen and the Manifest by the Visible. He
described Himself with pleasure and wrath, and so He brought the world into existence as a
place of fear and hope so we fear His wrath and hope for His pleasure. He described Himself
with majesty and beauty, so He brought the universe into existence with awe and intimacy. It
is the same for all that is connected with Him, may He be exalted, and by which He calls
Himself. He designates these pairs of attributes by the two hands which He held out in
the creation of the Perfect Man. Man sums up all the realities of the universe and its
individuals. So the universe is seen and the Khalif is unseen. It is with this meaning that the
Sultan veils himself, even as Allah is mentioned and described as having with veils of
darkness, which are natural bodies, and luminous veils which are subtle spirits (arwâh). The
universe is composed of both the gross and the subtle. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

22 " The universe is its own veil on itself and cannot perceive the Truth since it perceives itself. It
is continuously in a veil which is not removed, since it knows that it is distinct from its
Creator by its need of Him. It has no portion of that essential necessity which belongs to the
existence of Allah, so it can never perceive Him. In this respect, Allah is never fully known
by the knowledge of tasting and witnessing because the in-time has no hold on that. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

23 " Allah only applied "between His two hands" to Adam as a mark of honour, and so He said to
Iblis, "What prevented you prostrating to what I created with My two Hands?" (38:76) That is
none other than the union in Adam of the two forms - the form of the universe and the form
of the Real: and they are the two hands of Allah. Iblis is only a fragment of the universe
and does not possess this comprehensive quality. It is because of this quality that Adam was a
khalif. Had he not had the form of the One who appointed him khalif, he would not have been
khalif. If there were not in him all that is in the world, and what his flocks, over whom he is
khalif, demand of him because of their dependence on him (and he must undertake all they
need from him) he would not have been khalîf over them. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

24 " The Shari'a makes something
reprehensible because of what Allah made known or which He made known through
someone He has instructed. So Allah prescribed retaliation by necessity for the preservation
of the human race and to prevent people exceeding the limits of Allah. Allah says, "There is
life for you in retaliation, O you who possess intelligence (lit. cores)!" (3) (2:179) They are
the people of the core who stumble onto the secret of divine laws and wisdoms. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

25 " Knowledge is perfected in the breasts of those who are given knowledge, "and
none denies Our signs but the unbelievers," (29:47) for they cover up the signs when they
recognise them through envy, meanness and injustice. We only see from Allah in respect of
Himself disconnection (tanzih) or non-disconnection by definition in any ayat which He has
sent down or in transmissions which have reached us from Him. Otherwise He has the Great
Mist (al-'Ama') (13) which has no air above it and no air beneath it. Allah was in it before He
created creation. Then He mentioned that He "established Himself firmly on the Throne."
(57:4) This is also definition. Then He mentioned that "He descends to the nearest heaven."
(14) This is also definition. Then He said that "He is in the heaven and in the earth," (15) and
"He is with us whever we are." (16) and He tells us that He is our source. We are limited, so
He only describes Himself by limitation. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

26 " When Allah undertakes the destruction of this organism by what is called "death", that is not
negation (i'dam) , but rather separation. He takes man to Him, and what is meant is only
Allah's taking man to Him, "and to Him the whole affair will be returned." (11:123) When He
takes him to Him, He fashions him a different composition than this composition. The new
composition is from the genus of the abode to which he has moved, that is, the Abode of
Going-on, because equilibrium exists. The creature thus will never die, i.e. his parts will
never be separated. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

27 " The Names of Allah are endless because they are known by what comes from them, and what
comes from them is endless, even though they can be traced back to the limited roots which are the matrices of the Names or the presences of the Names. In reality, there is but one of the
Names or the presences of the Names. In reality, there is but One Reality which assumes all
these relations and aspects which are designated by the Divine Names. The Reality grants
that each of the Names, which manifest themselves without end, has a reality by which it is
distinguished from another Name. It is that reality by which it is distinguished which is the
Name itself - not that which it shares. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

28 " Rububiyyah: Lordship, the quality of being a lord. A term derived from the Qur'anic
descriptions of Allah's lordship over creation. One might say the ecology of natural existence.
It is an essential element in Sufic cosmology and is a most sophisticated concept which
surpasses the crude specificity and mechanistic views of evolutionist biology. It is an energy
system of relationships in constant change and altering dynamics. It functions through the
different realms, the atomic, the mineral, the plant, and so on. It relates the levels of living
organisms from the uni-cellular up to man, and the interpenetrations of organism and
environment. It re-defines "event" from crude historicity to a picture of organism/event in a
unified field. It is the underlying concept which allows us to abandon the dead mind/body
split of the dying culture. It permits us to utilize and develop the energy concepts of
Islamic/Chinese medicine - which hold a common energy concept at base. Rububiyya permits
us to observe ONE PROCESS at work throughout every level of the creational realities. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

29 " Whenever a person of unveiling sees a form which communicates to him
gnosis which he did not have and which he had not been able to grasp before, that form is
from his own source, no other. From the tree of himself he gathers the fruits of his
cultivation, as his outer form opposite the reflected body is nothing other than himself, even though the place of the presence in which he sees the form of himself presents him with an
aspect of the reality of that presence through transformation. The large appears small in the
small mirror and tall in the tall, and the moving as movement. It can reverse its form from a
special presence, and it can reflect things exactly as they appear, so the right side of the
viewer is his right side, while the right side can be on the left. This is generally the normal
state in mirrors, and it is a break in the norm when the right side is seen as the right and
inversion occurs. All this is from the gifts of the reality of the Presence in which it is
manifested and which we have compared to the mirror. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

30 " Adam was in
possession of Divine Names which the angels did not have, so that their praise and
glorification of Him was not the same as Adam's praise and glorification of Him. Allah
describes this to us so that we may ponder it and learn adab with Allah, and so that we
will not lay claim to what we have not realised or possessed by pinning down. How can we
allege something which is beyond us and of which we have no knowledge? We will only be
exposed. This divine instruction is part of Allah's discipline of those of His slaves who are
well-mannered, trusting and khalifs. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

31 " Lubb: In Arabic there is no word for mind. However, in the Qur'an the word that
designates a central locus of awareness in the human being is lubb, which means core. It is
the heart viewed as an organ of gnosis and not merely as a valave which pumps blood to the
head. Ibn al-'Arabi says that it is that part of knowledge which is protected from the hearts
which are attached to phenomenal being. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

32 " Let us return to those gifts which are either the gifts proceding from the Essence or the
Names. As for the favours, gifts and graces of the Essence, they only come by means of
divine tajalli. (7) Tajalli only comes from the Essence by means of the form of the
predisposition of the one to whom the tajalli is made. It never occurs otherwise. The one who
receives the tajalli will only see his own form in the mirror of the Real. He will not see see
the Real, for it is not possible to see Him. At the same time, he knows that he sees only his
own form. It is the same as a mirror in the Visible world inasmuch as you see forms in it or your own form but do not see the mirror. At the same time, however, you know that you see
the forms, or your own form, only by virtue of the mirror. Allah manifests that as a model (8)
appropriate to the tajalli of His Essence, so that the one receiving the tajalli knows that he
does not see Him. There is no model nearer or more appropriate to vision and tajalli than this.
When you see a form in a mirror, try to see the body of the mirror as well - you will never see
it. It is true that some people who perceive this say that the reflected form is imposed between
the vision of the seer and the mirror. This is the most that it is possible to say, and the matter
is as we have mentioned. We have clarified this in the The Makkan Revelations. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

33 " 7. A manifestation by which something is made clear and unobscured, as the bride is
displayed to the husband or the rust removed from a sword or mirror so that it shines. The
tajalli is the unveiling of a spiritual reality in the realm of vision. It is a direct-seeing into the
nature of existence, a showing forth of the secrets of the One in the celestial and terrestial
realms. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

34 " 15: The Seal of the Wisdom of Prophethood
in the Word of 'Isa (Jesus)
He was manifested from the water of Maryam
and the breath of Jibril in the form of man existing from clay.
The spirit was in an essence purified of nature
which it called prison.
For that reason, the spirit stayed in it
for more a thousand years in the designation of time. (1)
A spirit from Allah, no other.
For that reason, he revived the dead and formed the bird from clay.
Since his relation with his Lord is proven,
by it he has effective action in both the higher and lower worlds.
Allah purified his body, and made his spirit pure,
and He made him a model of taking-form. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

35 " Know that among the special qualities of the spirits (arwah) is whenever they touch anything
life flows into it. This is why the Samiri (2) seized a handful of dust from the track of the
messenger, who was Jibril, and he is the Spirit. The Samiri had knowledge of this matter.
When he recognised that it was Jibril, he knew that life would flow into whatever he had
walked on, so he took a handful of dust (3) from the track of the messenger or he filled his
hand or the ends of his fingers, (4) and threw it into the Calf. The Calf made a noise like the
sound of a cow mooing. If it had been in another form, the name of that form's sound would
have been ascribed to it - as grumbling to the camel, baa-ing to rams, bleating to sheep, and
voice or articulation and speech to man. That power from the life which flows in things is
called lâhût. The nâsût is the locus on which the spirit is based. The nâsût may be called a
spirit by what is based on it. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

36 " It is ignorance if, when Allah afflicts someone by what gives him pain, he does not call
on Allah to remove that painful matter from him. The one who has realization must
supplicate and ask Allah to remove that from him. For that gnostic who possesses unveiling,
that removal comes from the presence of Allah. Allah describes Himself as "hurt", so He
said, "those who hurt Allah and His Messenger." (33:57) What hurt is greater than that Allah
test you with affliction in your heedlessness of Him or a divine station which you do not
know so that you return to Him with your complaint so that He can remove it from you?
Thus the need which is your reality will be proven. The hurt is removed from Allah by your
asking Him to repel it from you, since you are His manifest form. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

37 " One of the gnostics was hungry and wept. Someone who had no tasting (dhawq) in that area
censured him for that. The gnostic said, "But Allah makes me hungry so that I might weep.
He tests me by affliction so that I might ask Him to remove it from me. This does not lessen
my being patient." We know that patience is holding the self back from complaint to other-
than-Allah. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

38 " Isa brought the dead to life because he is the Divine Spirit, and bringing to life belongs to Allah. The breath which 'Isa has is like the breath which Jibril has. The word belongs to
Allah. The bringing the dead to life by 'Isa is an actual revival inasmuch as it was manifested
from his breath as he was manifested from the form of his mother. His bringing to life is also
imagined to be from him, but it actually belongs to Allah. He joined the two by the reality on
which he is based even as we said that he is created from imaginary water and actual water.
Bringing-to-life is ascribed to him by means of actualisation in one aspect, and by
imagination in another aspect. In respect to actualisation, it is said of him that he brings the
dead to life. In respect to imagination (tawahhum), it is said that he breathes into it and it
becomes a bird by the leave of Allah. (7) The agent is in the prepositional phrase "by Allah's
permission", even though He did not breathe into it. It is also possible that the agent is the
one who breathes into it. It became a bird as regards physical form. In the same way, 'Isa
healed the blind and the lepers. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

39 " The wisdom of the killing of the male children in respect to Musa was in order to give him
the support of the life of each of those killed for his sake because each of them was killed for
being Musa. There is no ignorance, so the life of the one killed for his sake had to return to
Musa. It is pure life in the natural state (fitra). The desires of the self have not soiled it; rather,
it is in its natural state of "Yes (bala)." (1) Musa was the sum of the lives of those killed for
being him. All that was prepared for the murdered ones in the way of the predisposition of
their spirits was in Musa, peace be upon him. This is a divine favour to Musa which no one
before him had. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

40 " Musa was only born being a synthesis of many spirits. He was a concentration of effective
forces since the young have an effect on the old. Do you not see how the child has an effect
on the older person by the special quality the child has? The older person descends from his
leading position to play with the child and rock him in his arms and to show himself at the
child's level of intellect he descends to the level of the child's intellect. He is under
subjugation even though he is not aware of it. He occupies himself with instructing and
protecting the child, seeing to his needs and consoling him so that the child is not distressed. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom