The Meccan Revelations

Manuscript volume 14 · Page 38

Konya manuscript

Open Arabic sourceOpen English translation

Arabic

قد يقع في محظور أشد مما كان قد تاب عنه، فلا يغفل عنه.

وأما الدواء الملكي فلا يستعمله إلا العارفون السادة من رجال الله، وهم الذين يكون الحق سمعهم وبصرهم ولسانهم، وهو قوله، عقيب قوله: ﴿ولا يَغْتَبْ بَعْضُكُمْ بَعْضاً﴾ [الحجرات: 12] ﴿أَ يُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَنْ يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتاً فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ﴾، هٰذا خطاب عام، ثم قال: ﴿واتَّقُوا الله﴾، هٰذا هو الدواء، ومعناه اتخذوه وقاية بينكم وبين هذه الأمور المذمومة التي الغيبة منها.

(التقوى بمعنى اتخاذ الوقاية)

فإذا اتخذتموه جنة، تعاورت هذه الجنة سهام هذه الأفعال، وهي قوية لا تنفذها هذه السهام، فيكون المتقي بها في حمايتها، ولا يكون الحق وقاية للعبد، حتى يتلبس به العبد، كما يتلبس المتوقى بالجنن من الدرع الحصينة وغيرها، وصورة تلبسه أن يكون الحق سمعه ولسانه وجميع قواه وجوارحه في حال تصرفها فيما هي له، فيكون نورا كله.

فنبه الله في كتابه على هذه الأدواء الملكية[12] السلطانية، مثل قوله تعالى: ﴿فَأَلْهَمَها فُجُورَها﴾ [الشمس: 8]، والغيبة من الفجور ﴿وتَقْواها﴾، أي الذي تتخذه وقاية من هٰذا الفجور، ولم يجعل الفجور من أوصافها، وإنما جعله مجعولا فيها

Notes

[12]

(أثبتت الطبعة الأحدث أيضا لفظ «الأدواء» في هذا الموضع. أبقيت القراءة المنقولة، ولم تستبدل بلفظ «الأدوية» على سبيل التخمين.)

English

he may fall into a prohibition graver than that of which he repented. Let him not be heedless of this.

Royal medicine is used only by the masters among those who know God, the men of God whose hearing, sight, and tongue the Real is. It is His saying after “Let not some of you backbite others” [al-Hujurat 49:12], “Would one of you love to eat his dead brother’s flesh? You would abhor it.” This is a general address. He then says, “Be wary of God.” This is the medicine, meaning: take Him as protection between yourselves and these blameworthy matters, including backbiting.

(Godwariness as Taking Protection)

When you take Him as a shield, the arrows of these acts strike it in turn. It is strong: the arrows do not penetrate it, and the one guarded through it is within its protection. The Real does not become protection for the servant until the servant clothes himself in Him, just as one seeking protection clothes himself in shields such as fortified armor. The form of his clothing himself is that the Real becomes his hearing, tongue, all his faculties, and his members as they act in what they are for. He thus becomes entirely light.

God therefore pointed in His Book to these royal, sovereign diseases,[12] as in His saying, exalted is He, “He inspired it with its depravity” [al-Shams 91:8]—backbiting belongs to depravity—“and its Godwariness,” meaning what it takes as protection from this depravity. He did not make depravity one of its attributes, but made it something placed within it

Notes

[12]

(The newer edition also gives “diseases,” al-adwaʾ, here. The transmitted reading is retained and has not been replaced conjecturally by “medicines,” al-adwiya.)

Translator’s note TN4100-1: The text’s adwaʾ means diseases, not adwiya, medicines. The anomalous wording is retained both here and in the following page, in accordance with the original editorial note. Godwariness is interpreted through taking the Real as protection or a shield.

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Cairo source reference

Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 14 · Page 38 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=4100&text=both