The Meccan Revelations

Manuscript volume 32 · Page 29

Konya manuscript

Open Arabic sourceOpen English translation

Arabic

فلينظر العبد من كونه مرآة ما تجلى فيه. فإن تجلى فيه ما يقيّده بشكله فالحكم للمرآة لا للحق، فإن الرائي قد يتقيد بحقيقة شكل المرآة من طول وعرض واستدارة وانحناء وكبر وصغر، فترد الرائي إليها ولها الحكم فيه.

فيعلم بالتقييد المناسب لشكل المرآة أن الذي رآه قد تحول في شكل صورته في أنواع ما تعطيه حقيقته في تلك الحال. وإن رآه خارجا عن شكل ذاته فيعلم أنه الحق الذي هو ﴿بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ مُحِيطٌ﴾ [فصلت: ٥٤]، وبأي صورة ظهر فقد سلم من تأثير الصورة الأخرى فيه، لأن حضرة السلام تعطي ذٰلك.

أ لا ترى الرجل الذي رأى الحق عند رؤية أبي يزيد فمات، وقد كان يرى الحق قبل رؤية الحق في رؤية أبي يزيد فلا يتأثر، فقد رأى الحق في غير صورة مرآته؟

ومثاله رؤية الشخص نفسه في مرآة فيها صورة مرآة أخرى وما في تلك المرآة الأخرى، فيرى المرآة الأخرى في صورة مرآة نفسه، ويرى الصورة التي في تلك المرآة الأخرى في صورة تلك المرآة الأخرى. فبين الصورة ومرآة الرائي مرآة وسطى بينها وبين الصورة التي فيها.

وقد بينا ونبهنا على هٰذا ورغبنا في هٰذا المقام في رؤية الحق بالرؤية المحمدية في الصورة المحمدية، فإنها أتم رؤية وأصدقها.

(السلام في خطاب الجاهلين)

وهذه الحضرة لمن لم يشرك بالله شيئا:

English

let the servant, insofar as he is a mirror, consider what discloses itself within him. If what discloses itself within him is constrained by his shape, the ruling belongs to the mirror, not to the Real. The viewer may be constrained by the reality of the mirror’s shape—length, breadth, roundness, curvature, largeness, or smallness. Thus the mirror returns the viewer to itself and rules over him.

Through the constraint corresponding to the mirror’s shape, he knows that what he saw has changed into the shape of his image, within the varieties his reality gives in that state. If he sees Him outside the shape of his own essence, he knows that He is the Real who ‘encompasses everything’ [Fussilat 41:54]. Whatever form He appears in, He is safe from the other form’s effect upon Him, for the Presence of Peace gives this.

Do you not see the man who saw the Real when seeing Abu Yazid and died? Before seeing the Real in seeing Abu Yazid, he had seen the Real without being affected. He had thus seen the Real in a form other than that of his own mirror.

An example is someone seeing himself in a mirror containing the image of another mirror and what is within that other mirror. He sees the other mirror in the image of his own mirror, and sees the image within that other mirror in the image of that other mirror. Thus between the image and the viewer’s mirror is an intermediate mirror, between it and the image within it.

We have explained this, drawn attention to it, and urged this station in seeing the Real through Muhammadan vision in a Muhammadan form, for it is the most complete and truest vision.

(Peace in Addressing the Ignorant)

This Presence belongs to those who associate nothing with God:

Notes

Translator’s note: In the passage on the other form’s effect, the compressed pronouns are read as referring to the Real’s safety. They may instead concern the servant’s safety in this Presence; the wording does not settle the reference.

Manuscript imageManuscript volume 32 · Page 29

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Cairo source reference

Ibn al-Arabi, The Meccan Revelations — Manuscript volume 32 · Page 29 — https://www.futmak.com/english/konya/pages.php?id=9353&text=both