The Meccan Revelations
Konya manuscript
منه رجل في طريق الله فالحرمة أصل في الفلاح.
الباب الثاني والثمانون ومائة في معرفة مقام السماع
خذها إليك نصيحة من مشفق
ليس السماع سوى السماع المطلق
واحذر من التقييد فيه فإنه
قول يفند عند كل محقق
أن السماع من الكتاب هو الذي
يدريه كل معلم ومطرق
إن التغني بالقرآن سماعنا
والحق ينطق عند كل منطق
والله يسمع ما يقول عبيده
من قوله فسماعه بتحققي
أصل الوجود سماعنا من قول كُنْ
فبه نكون ونحن عين المنطق
انظر إلى تقديمه في آية
تعثر على العلم الشريف المزهق
from him a man in God’s way. Respect is the root of success.
Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Two: Knowing the Station of Listening
Receive this counsel from one who cares:
listening is only unrestricted listening.
Beware of restricting it, for that
is a statement every realizer refutes.
Listening from the Book is what
every teacher and one bowing his head knows.
Melodious recitation of the Qur’an is our listening;
the Real speaks whenever speech occurs.
God hears what His servants say
from His speech; His hearing is through my realization.
Our listening to “Be” is existence’s root;
through it we come to be, and are speech itself.
Consider its precedence in a verse:
you will find noble knowledge that lays low.
Translator’s note TN4797-1: Listening renders technical samāʿ, distinguished from the hearing faculty, samʿ. The poem’s unvowelled m-n-ṭ-q is read as manṭiq, speech; munṭiq, one causing speech, is another possibility. “One bowing his head” follows muṭriq. Muzhiq in the final line has a force of making vanish or laying low; the object is unstated.
Arabic and English are linked by the same Konya page ID. Page alignment is approximate; consult the manuscript image for verification.
Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 16 · Page 103 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=4797&text=both
