The Bezels of Wisdom QUOTES

41 " All this is part of the effect of the young on the old. That is due to the strength of his station.
The young has a new covenant with his Lord because he has newly come into being. The old
person is further from Him. Whoever is nearer to Allah subjects whoever is further away
from Him, just as the elite of the near angels subject the further ones. The Messenger of
Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to expose himself to the rain when it
came down and to uncover his head so that it would fall on him. He said that it has a new
covenant with Allah. Look at this recognition of Allah on the part of this Prophet! What is
more glorious, more sublime and clearer than this? The rain subjected the best of men due to
its proximity to its Lord. That is a likeness of the Messenger on whom the revelation
descends. The rain called him by its own state, (2) and so he exposed himself to the rain in
order to receive from it what it brought from his Lord. If he had not received this divine
benefit from it by the rain, he would not have exposed himself to it. This is the message of
water from which Allah has fashioned every living thing "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

43 " When he brought the dead to life, it was said that it was him and not him. The onlookers fell
into bewilderment (hayra) just as the man of intellect becomes bewildered in his logical
reflection when he sees an individual human being bringing the dead to life, as that is one of
the divine qualities - bringing to life with speech, not mere bringing with animation. (12) The
beholder is bewildered because he sees the form of a man who possesses a divine effect. That
led some of them to speak of that as "incarnation" and say that 'Isa was Allah since it was by
Him that 'Isa brought the dead to life. Thus they are charged with disbelief (kufr) which is the
veil because they veil Allah, who brings the dead to life, by the human form of 'Isa. Allah
said, "They are unbelievers who say, 'Allah is the Messiah, the son of Maryam.'" (13) They
fell into both error and disbelief at the end of all they said, not because they say that he is
Allah nor by calling him the son of Maryam. But they made the attribution that Allah, insofar
as He brought the dead to life, was contained in the human form of the nasut which is called
the son of Maryam. There is no doubt that 'Isa was the son of Maryam. The hearer imagines
that they have attributed divinity to the form, and so they make divinity the same as the form.
That is not what they do. Rather, they make divine He-ness the subject in the human form which is the son of Maryam. They should differentiate between the form of 'Isa and the
divine principle because they have made the form the same as the principle. Jibril was in the
form of man who did not breathe and then he breathed. One differentiates between the form
and the breath, and the breath from the form. The form existed without the breath - thus the
breath is not part of its essential definition. For that reason, differences occurred among the
people of different [Christian] parties regarding 'Isa and what he was. Whoever looks at him
in respect to his mortal human form, says that he is the son of Maryam. Whoever looks at him
in respect to his mortal representational form relates him to Jibril. Whoever looks at him in
respect to what was manifested from him of bringing the dead to life, relates him to Allah by
the quality of the spirit, and says that he is the Spirit of Allah, (14) that is, by Him life was
manifested in whomever received his breath. Sometimes Allah is imagined to be the passive
principle in 'Isa, and sometimes the angel is imagined in him, and sometimes mortal
humanity is imagined in him. So the conception of everyone is based on what predominates
that person. 'Isa is the Word of Allah, (15) the Spirit of Allah, (16) and the slave of Allah.
(17) That is something which no one else has in the sensory form. Indeed, each person is
attached to his father of form, not to the One who breathed his spirit into the human form.
When Allah fashioned the human body as He said, "When I have shaped him," (15:29;38:72)
then He breathed into Him, that was from His spirit. Thus in its being and source, the spirit is
ascribed to Allah. That is not the case with 'Isa. The shaping of his body and mortal form is
implied in the breath of the spirit. Others, as we mentioned, are not like that. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

45 " Guidance is that man is guided to bewilderment (hayra). He knows that the business is
bewilderment. Bewilderment is being unsettled and movement. Movement is life. There is no
non-movement nor death. There is existence and not non-existence. It is the same with the
water which gives life to the earth. Its movement is His word, "so it quivers" and conceives,
"and swells" with pregnancy, "and sprouts plants in beautiful pairs." (7) It only gives birth to
what resembles it, i.e. has a nature like it. It has being linked in pairs (zawjiya) which is the
state of being doubled by what is born from it and what appears from it. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

47 " All existent things are the words of Allah which are inexhaustible (18) because they are from
"kun" and "kun" is the word of Allah. Is the word ascribed to Him according to what He
really is? His what-ness is not known. Or is it that Allah descends to the form of the one who
says, "kun", and so the word "kun" is the reality of that form to which he descended or in
which He is manifest? Some of the gnostics take one side and some take the other side, and
some of them are bewildered in the business and do not know. This is a question which can
only be recognised by taste (dhawq), as was the case with Abu Yazid al-Bistami when he
breathed into the ant which he had killed and it returned to life. He knew in that action by
Whom he had breathed, and that was an 'Isawian witnessing. As for the revival of meaning
by knowledge, that is the divine life, essential, eternal, sublime, and luminous, about which
Allah said, "Is someone who was dead and whom We brought to life, supplying him with a
light by which to walk among the people..." (6:123) Whoever gives life to a dead soul by the
life of knowledge in a particular problem connected to knowledge of Allah, has brought him
to life by it, and it is "a light for him by which he walks among the people, i.e. among his
likes in form. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom

49 " When the family of Pharaoh found him in the river by the tree, Pharaoh called him Musa. Mu
is water in Coptic and sha is tree. He named him by where he found him, for the ark stopped
by the tree in the river. Pharaoh wanted to kill him. His wife, speaking by divine articulation
in what she said to Pharaoh about Musa since Allah had created her for perfection as Allah
said about her when He testified that she and Maryam, daughter of 'Imran, have the
perfection which men have (8) - said, "he may be a source of delight for me and for you."
(28:9) She would be consoled by him with the perfection which she received as we have said.
The consolation of Pharaoh was with the belief Allah gave him when he was drowning. So
Allah took him pure and purified. There was no impurity in him since He took him in his
belief before he had acquired any wrong actions. Islam effaces what was before it. He made
him a sign of His concern so that none might despair of the mercy of Allah, for "no one
despairs of solace from Allah except for the unbelievers." (12:87) If Pharaoh been of those
who despair, he would not have embarked on belief. Musa, peace be upon him, was, as the
wife of Pharaoh said, "a source of delight for me and for you. Do not kill him. It may well be
that he will be of use to us." That is what happened. Allah gave them use of Musa, although
they were not aware that he was a prophet who would destroy the kingdom of Pharaoh and
his family. "

― Ibn Arabi , The Bezels of Wisdom