QAISER SHAHZAD, Ibn 'Arabī's Metaphysics of The Human Body

Ibn 'Arabī's Metaphysics of the Human Body
Author(s): QAISER SHAHZAD

Source: Islamic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Winter 2007), pp. 499-525
Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad
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Islamic Studies 46:4 (2007) pp. 499-525
Ibn ' Arabi's Metaphysics of the Human Body

QAISER SHAHZAD
Abstract
In his important study Religion and the Order of Nature Seyyed Hossein Nasr has
pointed out that it is in Ibn 'Arabi that one finds the most elaborate picture of the
sacredness of body in the Islamic tradition. The present article relates doubly to Nasr's
work. Inasmuch as it discusses Ibn (ArabVs views on human body, it aims to carry
forward Nasr's discussion. It differs, however, from the latter in taking into account
the variety of approaches to human body in the traditional doctrines by concentrating
on the views that are disparaging to human body. What emerges from such contrast is
the existence of considerable variety among the traditional mystico-religious views on
human body. We try to show that Ibn 'ArabVs views on human body, which are
extraordinarily positive, are immersed in his unique understanding of the Qur'an. In
the conclusion an explanation of the difference in attitudes to body in Christianity
and Judaism-Islam is offered in the light ofFrithjof Schuon's work.
<*?
Introduction
Both modernist and post-modernist1 writers focus on the body from the
human-observer point of view by considering it a social construction. One
could point, by way of illustration, to the epistemological concern with
proving or disproving the existence of bodies, discussion of Jean-Paul Sartre
(d. 1980) about the role played by human body in the self-other relationship,
the various views regarding human sexuality and the feminist discourses.
On the other hand, traditional discussions of human body in traditional
religious and spiritual writings focus on its symbolic significance and its place
in a wider metaphysical perspective. These discussions focus on questions like:
"Are our souls bound in the prisons of flesh or do our bodies partake in our
1 For a brief overview of such views see, Scott Kugle, Sufis and Saints' Bodies: Mysticism,
Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2007),
"Introduction," 9-16. A postmodernist approach to body in Islam has also been taken up by
Farid al-Zahi in his, al-Jasad, al-Surah wa H-Muqaddasft 'llslam (Beirut: Ifriqiyya al-Sharq, 1999).
QAISER SHAHZAD
500
ultimate destiny?" and "do our bodies constitute hurdles in our way to
spiritual realization or are they our tools that can be used or misused?" Of
these the former question gave birth to questions regarding bodily resurrection
in various religious philosophies.
The phrase "theology of the body" has become very popular since Pope
John Paul II (d. 2005) gave his series of talks on the meaning of the human
body, sexuality, and marriage in the light of the Bible.2 Frithjof Schuon
(d. 1998) attempted to decipher the symbolism of human body by connecting
it to archetypal realities.3 In another work, he has also dealt with the spiritual
significance of human sexuality which, of course, is a facet of the metaphysics
of body.4
Seyyed Hossein Nasr has discussed the significance of human body in his
traditionalist response to the ecological crisis. In his Cadbury Lectures at the
University of Birmingham, published later as Religion and the Order of
Nature? Professor Nasr devotes a considerable portion to the wisdom of body
in various religious traditions of the world. The justification for discussing
human body in a work on environmental philosophy is, as Professor Nasr
rightly remarks, that body constitutes the medium between the self and the
outer world.6 Professor Nasr has pointed out that it is in the works of Muhyi
al-Din Muhammad b. 'All Ibn 'Arabl (d. 638/1240), especially al-Futuhdt al
Makkiyyahy that one finds the most elaborate picture of the sacredness of body
in the Islamic tradition. Presumably because of limited space, however,
Professor Nasr could not devote more than three illuminating passages to Ibn
'Arab! in this important work.
The present exploration of the subject relates doubly to Professor Nasr's
aforementioned work. Inasmuch as it discusses Ibn 'Arabi's views on human
body, it aims to carry forward Professor Nasr's discussion of those views. It
differs, however, from the latter in taking into account the variety of
approaches to human body in the traditional doctrines by concentrating on
the views that are disparaging to human body. Our intention is not to
contradict Professor Nasr, but to highlight the uniqueness of Ibn 'Arabl's
2 Pope John Paul II, Theology of the Body (Boston: Pauline, 1997).
3 See, Frithjof Schuon "The Message of the Human Body," in his, From the Divine to the Human
(Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1981).
4 See, Frithjof Schuon, "The Problem of Sexuality" in his, Esoterism as Principle and as Way
(Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1984).
5 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2004).
6 Professor Bronislaw Szerzynski remarked in the conference on "Religion and Environment:
Critical Perspectives" that attitude to human body is, in fact, a "litmus test" to check a person's
attitude towards environment. The first part of the present paper was presented at this
conference which was held in Birmingham on 18-19 September 2006.
IBN 'ARABI'S METAPHYSICS OF THE HUMAN BODY
501
views regarding human body by presenting them in contrast to other

traditional views. Using a theological jargon, we can say that while Professor
Nasr has presented Ibn ' Arabi's teachings in the tashbih paradigm, stressing his
similarity with other traditional views, we are taking up the issue in the tanzlh
paradigm with a view to highlight the uniqueness of Ibn 'Arabi's views on the
venerability of human body.
In the following presentation of traditional views on human body, we do
take care to choose only those figures and traditions that have been
acknowledged by Professor Nasr. Thus, while taking Mahayahana Buddhism,
we leave out Theravada Buddhism, as we leave out Protestantism, choosing
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
I
DISPARAGEMENT OF HUMAN BODY IN
THE TRADITIONAL DOCTRINES7
Classical Antiquity: Plato and Plotinus

Among the ancients, it is Plato (d. 348 bc) who disparages human body
presumably more than anyone else. He points out that the Greek word soma,
coined by the Orphic poets to denote body, itself connotes a prison house, and
that its inventors thought that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and
the body is a prison in which the soul is kept safe until the penalty is paid.8 At
another place he himself writes that the body is "a prison house which we are
now encompassed withal."9 It is also considered a tomb where we are now,
being dead, buried.10 Elsewhere he approvingly mentions the saying: "body is
the grave of the soul."11 This has something to do with the mode in which
body was created. According to the Platonic story of creation, God, instead of
creating bodies Himself, committed the task to "His offspring" who "received
the immortal principle of the soul from Him and fashioned round it a mortal
body and made it to be a vehicle of the soul."12
7 We are using this word in the special sense in which it is understood by Professor Nasr and
other intellectuals sharing his views. See, for instance, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the
Sacred (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), chapter 2, "What is Tradition?," 65
92.
8 See, Plato, Cratylus, 400c.
9 Idem, PhaedruSy 250 c.
10 Idem, Gorgias, 493 a.
11 Idem, Cratylus, 400 c.
12 See, idem, Timaeus, 69 c-d. It would be relevant to mention here that later on the Gnostics
produced a similar, albeit a more detailed, mythology according to which human body was not
QAISER SHAHZAD
502
Being prison, tomb and grave of the soul, the body plays a very negative
role in the soul's concern for the attainment to truth, felicity and purification.
Practically it constitutes a hindrance in that pursuit and is source of evil. At
this point Plato is very emphatic and clear. According to him the body
constitutes an impediment and prevents the soul from attaining to truth and
clear thinking.13 When the soul tries to investigate anything with the help of
the body, it is led astray.14 He also enumerates many ways in which the body
contaminates the soul and hinders its attainment of true knowledge:15
(a) It provides us with innumerable distractions in the pursuit of our necessary

sustenance and the diseases hinder our quest for reality.
(b) It fills us with loves and desires and fears so we never get the opportunity to
think at all about anything.
(c) Wars and revolutions and battles are due to the body and its desires.
(d) If we do obtain any leisure and turn to some line of inquiry the body
intrudes once more into our investigations interrupting, disturbing,
distracting and preventing us from getting a glimpse of the truth.
In view of the above, Plato advises that if we are ever to have pure
knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things
by themselves with the soul by itself.16 The purification of the soul consists in
separating it as much as possible from the body and accustoming it to
withdraw from all contact with the body, to have its dwelling freed from the
shackles of the body.17 These recommendations culminate in the assertion that
a philosopher should not grieve at death but rejoice at it because it brings him
freedom.18 On the other hand, Plato is equally emphatic when considering the
instrumentality of the body for the soul. Thus he considers body as existing
for the soul,19 as being its vehicle,20 as its index21 and as ruled by it.22
a work of the transcendent God but of the archons, that is to say, the henchmen of Ialdabaoth,
the emanation of rebelling divine wisdom, robbed the proper human image and polluted it with
beastly qualities and urges. See, Michael A Williams, "Divine Image?Prison of Flesh:
Perceptions of the Body in Ancient Gnosticism" in Michael Feher et al., eds. Fragments for a
History of the Human Body (New York: Zone Books, 1989), Part 1,131-133.
13 See, Plato, Phaedo} 66a.
14 See, ibid., 65c.
15 See, ibid., 66c-d.
16 See, ibid.
17 See, ibid., 67c-d.
18 See, ibid.
19 See, Plato, Laws, 9.870b.
20 See, idem, Timaeus, 69c.
21 See, idem,Cratylus, 400c.
22 See for example, idem, Laws, 5. 726.
503
The next figure we would like to mention in the present discussion is

Plotinus (d. 270 ce). In his views concerning the status of the world, matter
and bodies, Plotinus is generally thought to be inconsistent as he opposes the
Gnostic assertion that the world, matter and the souPs descent into matter are
evil while at the same time he deviates from the Platonic disparagement of
human body.23 As against the Gnostic view he holds that "the world never was
deprived of divinity and never will be."24 The sensible beings, in his view,
"show in a lower degree the beauty found in the intelligible beings."25 His
divergence from Plato becomes obvious when we find him maintaining that
the world of the sense, as a copy of the intelligible world, exhibits the order
and beauty appropriate to it and those who have had an experience of
intelligible harmony will not fail to be touched by their sensuous copies.26 On
the other hand, he himself asserts27 that life in the body is of itself an evil and
much like Plato, that the soul enters its good only through virtue by holding
itself apart from the body. Also he is fond of the Platonic lamentation of the
necessary existence of evil in the physical world and that the best thing is to
flee from it to a holier region.28 As his disciple and biographer Porphyry
(d. ca. 309) tells us, Plotinus seemed to be ashamed of being in his body and
even refused to disclose the date of his birth, as he thought that the entry of
his soul into the body was a cause of mourning rather than celebration.29
Whether inconsistent or not, Plotinus did condemn corporeality, and hence
the body, in certain parts of his work.30
23 See, for instance, Joseph Katz, "Plotinus and the Gnostics," Journal of the History of Ideas, vol.
XV (1954), 289-290. For a summery of the attempts to remove the contradiction, see, Edward
B. Costello, "Is Plotinus Inconsistent on the Nature of Evil?," International Philosophical
Quarterly, vol. VII (1967), 483-497.
24 Plotinus, Enneads. II, ix, 16.
25 Ibid., E, ix, 17.
26 See, Katz, "Plotinus and the Gnostics," 289.
27 See, Plotinus, Enneads. I, vii, 3.
28 The Platonic passage is found in Theaetetus, 176a and Plotinus has referred to it in Enneads. I,
viii, 6-7. The latter has been accused of not being able to see that desire is not evil because of the
association of the self with the body, but may be spiritualized. See, John Watson, "The
Philosophy of Plotinus," The Philosophical Review, vol. XXXVIII (1928), 500.
29 Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, ed. A.H. Armstrong (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1966), I: 2.
Recently, Margaret Miles has accused Porphyry of reading his own negative views of human
body into Plotinus and has tried to show the Plotinus did not disparage human body. She has
admitted, however, that Plotinus' views are confusing, even if not self-contradictory on matter
and body and tries to resolve the apparent contradiction in the same way as was done by
Costello. See Margaret Miles, Plotinus on Body and Beauty: Society, Philosophy and Religion in
Third Century Rome (London: Blackwell, 1998), 89-93.
30 This is to be found in its most elaborate form in Plotinus, Enneads, I, viii.
QAISER SHAHZAD
504
Judaism: Philo Judeaus31
Philo of Alexandria (d. 45) has stated that the leathern mass which covers us is
an evil thing by nature and plots against the soul. Only a mind that has
abandoned the contemplation of divine things does look upon body as
something friendly. Unlike an athlete who cares only for his body and
disregards his soul, the true philosopher disregards his body, which is dead.
The name 'Er,' in the words of Moses: "The wicked Er was an enemy of the
Lord," according to Philo stands for the body.32 This fact constitutes the
reason why, in Philo's perception, God hates the body.33
Christianity
St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. circa 395) is venerated as "the Father of Fathers," "the
Star of Nyssa" and the "father of Christian mysticism." He elaborated the
Biblical doctrine of man's creation in the image and likeness of God in his
celebrated work On the Making of Man (De Hominis Opificio).M
In the main, St. Gregory is not a despiser of human body. Yet there are
certain places in his writings where the negative part played by the body in its
relationship with the soul is very clear. As Ladner has noted, Gregory's whole
anthropology is directed towards the overcoming of corporeality, as it exists in
human beings after the fall.35 Although Gregory does not consider it the
ultimate cause of evil, he does consider body to be the great occasion of evil
for the spirit. In his view, body is apt to drag the spirit down to an ever lower
material level.36 Some passages from Gregory's writings might remind one of
the Platonic condemnations of body as a hindrance to spiritual pursuits. In his
treatise On Virginity, he says, "no more can the soul whose body drags it
down look any longer upon the beauty above."37 In the manner it is
impossible to be master of two arts simultaneously, "so, there are these two
marriages for our choice, the one affected in the flesh, the other in the spirit;
and preoccupation in the one must cause of necessity alienation from the
31 See n. 44 below.
32 See, Philo, The Allegorical Interpretations of the Laws, HI: 22, in Charles Duke Young, tr. and
ed. The Works of Philo Judaeus Contemporary of Josephus (London: H.G. Bohn, 1854-1890),
available at: <http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com>, visited on 07-07-07.
33 See, ibid. IE: 24.
34 Included in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, ed. Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises etc. (New
York: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1892), 385-428. All references to the writings
of St. Gregory are to this edition.
35 See, Gerhart B. Ladner, "The Philosophical Anthropology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa" in
Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 12: 89.
36 See, ibid. 82-83.
37 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity in Wace, ed. Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, 351.
505
other."38 A person worthy to be called "son of the light will not try to gain
strength and health by bodily training and feeding, but by all that is the
contrary of this, perfecting the spirit's strength in the body's weakness."39
Accusing body of dragging spirit downwards, Gregory writes:
... the ruling element of our soul is more inclined to be dragged downwards by
the weight of the irrational nature than is the heavy and earthy element to be
exalted by the loftiness of the intellect; hence the misery that encompasses us
often causes the Divine gift to be forgotten, and spreads the passions of the flesh,
like some ugly mask, over the beauty of the image.40
John Scottus Eriugena (d. 877), the ninth century Irish philosopher, a
firm believer in the doctrine of imago dei and, consequently, in human dignity,
taught that everything returns to God through man, because he contains
everything in the created nature.41 However, while explaining the creation of
man in the divine image he said that man was made in the image of God in the
soul only.42 Hence, human body has no share in the creation upon divine
image. Under the influence of St. Gregory of Nyssa,43 Eriugena declared body
to be external to the human nature which is made in the image of God and
superimposed upon us because of our sin and as such would have no existence
if man had not dishonoured the beauty of divine image in which he was
created.44 In this context he also said, quoting St. Maximus the Confessor
(d. 662), that man was condemned to a material, corruptible and bodily mode
38 Ibid. 365.
39 Ibid. 366.
40 St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Making of Man, ch. VIII, sec. 6., in Wace, ed. Gregory of Nyssa:
Dogmatic Treatises, 408.
41 John Scottus Eriugena, Periphyseon, tr. I.P. Sheldon-Williams (Washington DC: Dumbarton
Oaks, 1984), II: 3. For a discussion of Eriugena's doctrine of containment, see, George J.E.
Gracia, "Ontological Characterization of the Relation between Man and Created Nature in
Eriugena,"/o?nW of the History of Philosophy, vol. XVI (1978), 156-158.
42 Eriugena, Periphyseon, IV: 799A.
43 On the influence of St. Gregory on Eriugena on this point see, Edouard Jeauneau, "Pseudo
Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor in the Works of John Scottus
Eriugena," in Uta-Renate Blumenthal, ed. Carolingian Essays (Washington DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1983).
44 Eriugena, Periphyseon, IV: 799D. Eriugena is, much like Ibn 'Arabl, a controversial figure in
the history of Christian theology and his writings have been officially condemned thrice. See for
a discussion of this issue, William Turner, "Was John the Scot a Heretic?," Irish Theological
Quarterly, vol. V (1910), 391-402. However, including Eriugena in this section will not be an
anomaly because Professor Nasr has chosen him to represent the medieval Platonic view of the
order of nature. So he seems to consider Eriugena as a representative of the "perennial
tradition." See, Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature, 97-98. These remarks are also applicable
to the case of Philo.
QAISER SHAHZAD
506
of birth, like that of other brutes, because he voluntarily preferred the worse
to the better (i.e. original sin).45 The body is thus a consequence of the original
sin. In another sense, it caused the sin too.46 The fall of man is the seduction of
reason by sensuality, the exterior part of human nature.47
Eriugena, and Gregory before him, explained human sexuality also as a
consequence of the sin and the fall, in other words, not belonging to the
original divine plan. The negative view of human sexuality, even within the
boundaries of law and the consequent emphasis on celibacy, is a characteristic
feature of early Christianity.48
It is not difficult to find disparaging views of human body even among
those theologians and mystics who take great pains to be positive towards it.
St. Gregory Palamas (d. 1359) taught that we should not consider the pleasure
experienced in procreating children within the lawful bound of marriage as a
divine gift, for it is fleshly and the gift of nature rather than that of Grace,
although nature was created by God.49 Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) and St.
John of the Cross (d. 1591), although by no means less positive towards
human body than Palamas, both speak of body as the prison of the soul.50
However, in the final analysis, the attitude of early Christianity towards
human body is not purely negative; rather, as Father Kallistos has said,
ambivalent.51 This ambivalence is rooted in the sources of the religion itself
because, on the one hand, it teaches the doctrine of original sin, and on the
other, it affirms the idea that God became flesh. Anyway, we find this
ambivalence constantly on the decrease in favour of human body until the
advent of so called body theology in early nineteen eighties.52
45 See, Eriugena, Periphyseon, IV: 812D-813A.

46 How can this be? Can one thing simultaneously cause another thing and be caused by it?
Ordinarily, no. But with Eriugena, yes. The reason is that Eriugena believes in timeless creation,
that God made everything at once. See, ibid., IV: 807B.
47 See, Brian Stock, "The Philosophical Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena," Studi
Medievali, vol. VHI (1967), 40-45.
48 An indispensable source book in this connection is Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men,
Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press,
1988).
49 St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), I. i. 22. In view of the
importance of Gregory's teachings on the subject of human body, Professor Nasr has devoted
considerable space to him. See, Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature, 248-250.
50 See, Catherine of Siena, "A Treatise of Obedience" in The Dialogues of Seraphic Virgin
Catherine of Siena (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1907), 124; St. John of the
Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, tr. William Whiston (Grand Rapids MI: Christian Classics
Ethereal Library, 1994), I. hi. 3 and I. xv. 1.
51 See, Kallistos Ware, '"My Helper and My Enemy': the Body in Greek Christianity" in Sarah
Coakley, ed. Religion and the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 28.
52 See, n. 2 above for the views of a proponent of body theology.
IBN 'ARABl'S METAPHYSICS OF THE HUMAN BODY
507
Hinduism
According to the most representative Hindu view, the essential self is attached
to the body as a result of the operation of avidya (i.e. ignorance). The gross
physical body (sthiila sharira) is produced out of earth, water, light, wind and
ether. At the death of an individual this physical body is believed to perish,
dissolving into five elements out of which it was produced.53
The laws of Manu urge the ascetic to quit his body, likened to a dwelling,
which is "foul smelling, filled with urine and ordure, infested by old age and
sorrow, the seat of disease, harassed by pain, gloomy with passion and
perishable."54 This book also declares that the one who leaves body is freed
from the misery of this world.55
Similar views are to be found in many of the Upanishads. It is said, for

instance, that "there is no use in enjoyment of pleasures in this offensive
pithless body, "a mere mass of bones, skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood,
mucus, tears, phlegm, ordure, water, bile, and slime," which is, moreover,
"assailed by lust, hatred, greed, delusion, fear, anguish, jealousy, separation
from what is loved, union with what is not loved, hunger, thirst, old age,
death, illness, grief and other evils."56 For fulfilment and becoming Brahman, it
is necessary to cast far aside this body which is the offspring of parental
exudations and whose status is no better than that of an outcast.57 There is
nothing as pitiable, low and meritless as the body. Only those who are given
to illusions and see steadiness in the lightning, clouds in autumns and cities in
the sky can trust it.58 The fool who takes delight in this body, a conglomerate
of flesh, blood, pus, faeces, urine, marrow and bones, he will be happy in the
hell as well!59
Mahay ana Buddhism

According to Aryadeva60 body is a source of evil and an enemy. The
possibility and eventual certainty of death makes embodiment a source of
53 See R.N. Dandekar, "Hinduism," Stadia Religionum, II (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1971), 316.
54 The Laws of Manu, Volume 27 of Sacred Books of the East (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965),
Chapter VI, laws 76-77, 212.
55 See, ibid. Chapter VI, law 78.
56 See, Maitryana-Brahmana/Upanishad, I. 3.
57 See, Adhyatma Upanishad, 6.
58 See, Mah Upanishad, II: 27-38.
59 See, Narada-Parivrajaka Upanishad, IE: 48.
60 Aryadeva (3rd Century BC) was a disciple of Negarjuna and author of Several Important
Mahayana Madhyamaka Budddhist texts.
QAISER SHAHZAD
508
discomfort.61 In principle, suicide is condemned in Buddhism, because the one

who commits suicide must attain a worse incarnation instead of nirvana.
However, according to some schools, suicide is nothing other than the
indifferent rejection of a mortal skin or the disintegration of a dream.62 In the
Lotus Sutra, we are told about a Bodhisattva who burnt himself alive to make
an offering to Buddha. The eighty Buddhas who appeared on the occasion
praised this action: "Well done, well done, young man of good family! ...
Sacrificing one's own body, young man of the good family, is the most
distinguished, the chiefest, the best, the very best and the most sublime
worship of the Law."63 Under the influence of the Lotus Sutra and some other
texts, burning of the body became one of the most obvious features of Chinese
Buddhism.64 Fanwang Jing, a fifth century Buddhist text, considers setting fire
to the body, one's arm or finger as necessary for being a true renunciant
bodhisattva and advises that one should sacrifice the feet, hands and the flesh
of the body as offerings to hungry tigers, wolves, and lions and to all hungry
ghosts.65
We must admit that by itself suicide does not imply disparagement of
human body. In fact the religious and sacrificial suicide delivers quite the
contrary message. A sacrifice, by definition, is offered of something considered
most precious and dear. However, when the praiseworthiness of suicide is
considered in conjunction with the stated animosity towards human body, it
does signify disparagement.
n
IBN 4ARAB! ON HUMAN BODY
The Islamic Background

In this brief discussion of the Islamic attitude to human body
show that Ibn Arabl's views66 are immersed in his unders
Qur'an and the Hadith. We will explore the place of human
61 See, Paul Williams, "Some Mahayana Buddhist Perspectives on the Bod

Religion and the Body, 208.
62 See, Jean Baechler, Suicides, tr. Barry Cooper (New York: Basic Books, 1979
63 The Saddharma-Pundarikasutra: The Lotus of the True Law, tr. H. Kern, vol.
of the East, 379-380.
64 See, James A. Benn, "Where Text meets Flesh: Burning the Body as an Apo
Chinese Buddhism," History of Religions, vol. XXXVII (1998), 295.
65 See, ibid. 299.
66 For the much needed metaphysical background of Ibn 'Arabi's teachings on
see, William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Lahore: Suhail Academy
509
through its three major components, i.e., creed, law and morality/spirituality.
Thus, we start with the foundations and proceed to the manifestations, instead
of going the other way round as anthropologist Fuad Khuri does.67
The Qur'an uses the word nafs (pi. anfus) to denote human person in its
entirety, usually without specifically differentiating between soul and body.
However, there are exclusive references to the physical side as well. We find
these, for example, at places where the Qur'an mentions the creation of
human beings from dust or clay or various human organs. An important
feature of the Qur'anic view of human body is that it is put forth as "sign of
God" (ayah) "It is among His Signs that He created you from dust..."
(Qur'an 30: 20). "Verily in the heavens and the earth are Signs for those who
believe and in your creation/physical constitution (khalq).." (Qur'an 45: 3-4).
At other places the important organs of the human body are also described in
a similar manner (Qur'an 90: 8-10). Moreover, it is stated that God has created
man "in the best of moulds" (Qur'an 95: 4). The Islamic version of the concept
of imago dei, expressed by the saying of the Prophet: "God created Adam
upon His image" should be seen and understood in this light.68
Unlike those Christian fathers who declared the division into sexes to be
a consequence of the original sin, the Qur'an has described this phenomenon
also as one of the signs of God (Qur'an 30:21). This consideration is
fundamental for the positive attitude in Islamic tradition towards human
sexuality and married life. Particular instances of this attitude can be easily
collected from the Qur'an, from the life and sayings of the Prophet (peace be
on him) and the early Muslims.
According to the Qur'anic narrative, God asked the angels to bow down
before Adam in prostration. All obeyed except Satan. He said: "I am better
than he: You created me from fire, and him from clay" (Qur'an 7: 12). The
venerability of the human corporeality is implied in God's rejection of Satan's
argument and his consequent eternal condemnation.69
67 Cf. Fuad I. Khuri, The Body in Islamic Culture (London: Saqi Books, 2001). Khuri infers from
several Islamic teachings, e.g. about covering and purifying human body that "in Islam, the
human body is a source of shame.ibid., 35. We will argue that when we take the specific
teachings in the light of their creedal foundations and place them in the fuller context, no
inference can be drawn about the defilement of human body from them. Besides, argument
from action to belief involves, in our opinion, the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (if p
then q; q: therefore p).
68 This saying is found in Muslim b. al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Birr wa 'l-Silah wa l-Adab,
Bab al-Nahiy 'an Darb al-Wajh. Interestingly, the context in both places is the physical
appearance of man, so there is no room for excluding human body from the privileged position
if one takes this saying of the Prophet (peace be on him) seriously.
69 Various interesting attempts have been made in the later Islamic tradition to show the
superiority of clay over fire. This can be seen in many prominent commentaries on the relevant
QAISER SHAHZAD
510
In the context of the issue under discussion, Islam has two features which
delibeate its positive attitude towards human body. First, belief in bodily
resurrection after death is a crucial part of the Islamic creed. Second, human
body plays a significant role in the Islamic rituals ('ibdddt), for instance the five
daily prayers (salawdt), which include, as a pre-requisite, the cleansing of body.
These two features signify, on the one hand, that body is not a disposable part
of human personality, to disappear at the end, as in Hinduism, and on the
other hand, that our bodies are our companions on the path of our spiritual
realization and not hurdles to be overcome.
The Islamic view that we do not own our bodies but hold them on trust
from the Creator, further adds to the sanctity of human body. It underlies the
majority opinion that the trade of human organs is an affront to humanity and
as such prohibited.70
Coming to law, the safety of human person (nafs) comes second in the list
of the objectives of the SharVah. The SharVah strictly forbids homicide and
suicide in order to fortify this objective. The Qur'an (4: 93; 25: 68-70), and the
Sunnah71 prescribe "everlasting punishment in hell" for those who violate these
boundaries. The approbation of recourse to medication and treatment implies
the same thing.72
That human body participates fully in the religious life is obvious from
the fact that the rituals ('ibdddt) are normally divided into the bodily
(badaniyyab) and financial (mdliyyah). As is known, ritual cleansing of the
body (taharab) is a pre-requisite for some basic acts of worship and bodily
excretions like blood and semen, etc. are considered impure. This latter fact
has been regarded by Fuad Khuri as amounting to the impurity of body itself
in Islam.73 The Islamic tradition seems to consider excretions something
accidental to human body and not an essential part of it and hence one cannot
Qur'anic verses, and specifically in Badr al-Din al-Shibll, Akam al-Marjan ft Ahkdm al-Jann
(Karachi: Noor Muhammad, n.d.).
70 See, Ismat Allah Inayat Allah, al-Intifd* bi Ajzd* al-Adml ft Sl-Fiqh al-Isldmi (Lahore:
Maktabah-'i Chiragh-i Islam, 1993), 55-57.
71 For example the Prophet (peace be on him) said: "He who killed himself with steel (weapon)
would be the eternal denizen of the Fire of Hell... and he who drank poison and killed himself
would sip that at fire where he is doomed for ever and ever...," Muslim b. al-Hajjaj Sahih
Muslim, Kitab al-Iman, Bab Bayan Ghalaz Tahrim Qatl al-Insan Nafsahu. A man who migrated
to Madman with Tufayl b. 'Amr committed suicide by cutting his finger-joints. After some time
Tufayl sees him in dream in a good state except that his hands are wrapped. On being asked he
tells that God said to him, "We would not set right anything of yours which you damaged
yourself...* See, Muslim b. al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Iman, Bab al-Dalil 'ala anna Qatila
Nafsihi la yakfur.
72 See, Abu Dawud, al-Sunan, Kitab al-Tibb, Bab fi 1-Rajul Yatadawa.
73 See, Khuri, The Body in Islamic Culture, chapters 4-6.
511
infer the impurity of body itself from these impure substances. One must also
note that it is in order to keep the body itself healthy that Islamic teachings
stress bodily cleanliness. As the Prophet (peace be on him) has said that in
Paradise human beings will be free from excretions, so there would be no
impurity;74 the bodies will be resurrected and continue to constitute the
human self in the state of felicity, hence they are not the impure part of
human personality.
Some Islamic rituals like fasting might seem to be aimed at hurting the
body. But far from that, these rituals help in training human will driven by
animal desires, to act with rigorous self-restraint. If we go through the
practical guidelines as regards fasting, we would notice that care has been taken
here to give the body its due, for example, by insisting on eating something
before starting the fast,75 by urging promptness in iftar,7*3 by granting the
permission of having intercourse in the nights of the month of fasting
(Qur'an 2: 187) and the prohibition of continuous fasting.77 Moreover, when a
person has sexual relationship with one's spouse he or she is rewarded, as a
tradition from the Prophet (peace be on him) affirms.78
Besides, Ibn 'Arabi, whose views we are going to present below, has
claimed that the body is held back from eating, drinking and having sexual
intercourse so that the soul might be aware of its dependence upon these
needs. The soul, as he writes, becomes conceited when it observes that the
governance of the body belongs to it, and it becomes haughty and starts
contending with God. 79 Therefore, if attitude towards sexuality is another
litmus test for checking any given perception of human body, then it would
hardly be possible to identify any other religion to be more positive in its
attitude towards human body than Islam.
Decoding the Symbolism of the Body

Professor Nasr has referred to the way human body was understood in some
traditional writings as symbolizing higher realities. Among the most
prominent examples he mentions are the Ikhwan al-Safa' in the Islamic
tradition and Robert Fludd in the Christian tradition.80 We find in both
74 See, Muslim b. al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Jannah, Bab fi Sifat al-Jannah wa Ahliha.
75 See, ibid., Kitab al-Siyam, Bab Fadl al-Suhur.
76 See, ibid.
77 See, ibid., Kitab al-Siyam, Bab al-Nahyi 'an Sawm al-Wisal.
78 See, ibid., Kitab al-Zakah, Bab anna Ism al-Sadaqah....
79 See, Muhyi al-Din Muhammad b. 'Ali Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat al-Makkiyyah (Beirut: Dar Sadir,
n.d.), 1: 647; tr. William C. Chittick, The Self Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-'ArabVs
Cosmology (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2000), 315; cited henceforth as SDG.
80 Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature, 250-251.
QAISER SHAHZAD
512
sources elaborations of the correspondence between human being as

microcosm and the world as macrocosm. The same approach to the human
body is found in Ibn 'Arabl.
To begin with, as the Adamic form manifests the form of Muhammad
(peace be on him), the Perfect Man, therefore we find human body
representing that name in written: "Adam's head is the circle which goes
round about to make the first Mm in his name, the sticking out of his arms at
the side is in the form of the letter Hd\ his belly is in the form of the second
Mim, and his two legs spread apart are in the form of the letter Ddl"n
Elsewhere Ibn 'Arab! has stated that "God created man's body in the
form of the scale. He made the two panes his right hand and his left hand,
while He made the tongue the pillar of himself. So man belongs to whichever
side he inclines."82
In al-Futuhat, Ibn 'Arab! likens the world-Perfect Man relationship with

various states of human body. According to him, the state of the world before
his appearance was like a proportioned body, before the inblowing of soul. At
the moment of his death the world became like a sleeping body. When he is
resurrected on the Day of Judgment the world would be like a person
awakening from sleep.83
As for the correspondence between human body and macrocosm, the
bones are likened to mountains; blood to the water either running like the
rivers or static like the sea, parts of body to earth, fertile and barren. The spirit
which illuminates the body, according to this symbolism, is like the sun
created in the outer world, the intelligence like the moon, and the five senses
like the five stars. Parts of human body also correspond to the worlds of
heaven. The heart corresponds to the Divine Throne (al-'arsh); the breast, as
having stored all the attainments of knowledge, to the Footstool (al-kursi); the
tongue to the Pen (al-qalam), the breast, again, to the'Tablet (al-lawh) as in it is
written whatever is uttered by the tongue.84 Furthermore, Ibn Arabl says that
"Lote-tree of the extreme limit (sidrat al-muntahd) is configured according to
human configuration."85 The symbolic significance of human body is then
extended to include even the number of certain things pertaining to specific
organs. Consequently, the five fingers of the right hand represent the Prophet
(peace be on him) along with his four Caliphs; those in the left hand remind us
81 Muhyi al-Din Muhammad b. 'All Ibn al-'Arabi, Shajarat al-Kawn, tr. Arthur Jeffery (Lahore:
Aziz Publishers, 1980), 49.
82 Idem, al-Futuhat, 3: 6; tr. SDG, 173.
83 See, Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 3:187.
84 See, idem, Shajarat al-Kawn, 48-51.
85 See, idem, al-Futuhat, 3: 350.
IBN 'ARABl'S METAPHYSICS OF THE HUMAN BODY
513
of him with the five figures of the ahl aUBayt. Five toes in each feet are
appointed to keep one mindful of five prayers made obligatory by God and
the statutory amount (five dirhams) on which zakdh must be paid.86
Prostration (sajdah) is the most important and central part of Muslim ritual
prayer, during which the servant is closest to his Lord, according to a
tradition.87 Ibn 'Arabl comments that a person, while prostrating before God
seeks the origin of his frame, which is water and clay.88 Obviously, to
prostrate is to place the most eminent part of human body, the head, upon
earth, which is usually trodden by feet.
Doing Justice to the Body

Body and the Soul
A "body," says Ibn 'Arab!, is "every spirit or meaning that appeared in the
form of luminous or elemental body, so that "the other" may witness it."89
According to this statement, the spiritual has an ontological primacy over the
physical. However, as the ensoulment took place after the creation of the body,
Ibn 'Arab! says that, "the soul is the child of the human being's natural body,
which is its mother, and the Divine Spirit which is its father."90 Ibn 'Arab!
infers several things from this historical primacy of the body: firstly, "the
body has a right (haqq) due to it from the soul that is born from it?as long as
the soul governs the body, it must not move the bodily parts except in
obedience to God...."91 The second implication of the soul's becoming
manifest between the divine in-blowing (al-nafkh) and the proportioned body
is that the latter displays traces in the souls."92
Unlike Plato, Gregory Palamas and others Ibn 'Arabi does not equate
embodiment and imprisonment. He has explicitly stated that it is out of His
mercy that God has joined spirits with the bodies.93 Bodies are just the houses
of the souls. Ibn 'Arab! considers Adam to be dignified not only because God
86 See, idem, Shajart al-Kawn, 55-56.

87 See, Muslim b. al-Hajjaj, Sahth Muslim, Kitab al-Salah, Bab ma yuqal fi l-Ruku* wa 1-Sujud.
88 See, Ibn 'Arab!, al-Futuhat, 1: 427.
89 Ibid., 2:130.
90 Ibid., 1: 476; tr. SDG- 312. It must be noted that this is only a "manner of speaking." At
another place he is more explicit "... so He created our souls from the earth of our bodies." Ibn
'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 3: 250.
91 Idem, al-Futuhat, 3:171, tr. SDG, 353.
92 See, Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 2: 568; tr. SDG, 271.
93 He writes: "Through the third compound mercy, from the third way station, He joined the
rationally speaking souls to the governance of the bodies.* Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 3:171; tr.
SDG, 353.
cjj^ QAISER SHAHZAD
blew in him His own spirit but also because his body was made with God's
own two hands (Qur'an 38: 75).94 Ibn 'Arabl says, "Know that the makeup of
man, in its perfection of spirit, body, and soul, was created by God in His
Image."95 This position is opposed to that of the Christian philosopher
Eriugena who said that man's creation upon the divine image does not extend
to the body.96 Ibn 'Arabl asserts:
Know that houses (diydr) may be of two sorts: A house that is inhabited by the
soul that is the proportioned and balanced natural body that God created with
His two hands and to which He directed His two attributes. After creating it, He
settled it in another house that is house of the house (ddral-ddr).97
Hence the soul is housed in the body just as the latter is housed in the world.
The analogy Ibn 'Arabl draws between the body and the world is suggestive.
Just as human descent into the world is not a punishment but a test to
ascertain, among other things, how humans conceive and interact with the
world, the presence of soul within a body is not a punishment but a test of
how the soul interacts with this abode, which also constitutes, according to
Ibn 'Arabi, the subject or instrument of the soul. This analogy culminates in
Ibn 'Arabi's identification of human body as "God's vast earth" (ard Allah al
wasi'ah), in which the sensory faculties are God's vicegerents, just like in the
macrocosm, human being is.98
Moreover, bodies exist in order that the spirit may be manifested. It is

only through their attachment to bodies that the souls are known and
conceived: "the soul cannot be conceived in abstraction from its relationship
to a frame which it governs."99 In this regard Ibn 'Arabl likens the soul-body
94 Most of the interpreters of the Qur'an agree that creation with two hands implies Adamic
dignity. Mahmud b. 'Umar al-Zamakhshari is perhaps the only exception here, as he believes
that the words "with two hands" only emphasize the word "created," so the verse on the whole
implies Adam's 'createdness' and not his dignity, as Iblis did not want to prostrate before a
creature. In al-Zamakhshari's view, God granted that Adam was a creature and inferior to
Angels but Iblis should have obeyed God in prostrating before him. See, his, al-Kashshaf 'an
Haqa'iq al-Ta'wil wa Ghawamid al-Tanzil (Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi, 1948), 105-106.
For a summary of the mainstream interpretation, see, Shahab al-Din Mahud al-Alusi, Ruh al
Ma(ani (Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi, 2000), 23: 298-299.
95 Muhyi al-Din Muhammad b. 'Ali Ibn 'Arabi, The Ringstones of Wisdom [Fusils al-Mkam], tr.,
Intro, and Glosses, Caner K. Dagli (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2004), 201.
96 See, Eriugena, Poriphyseon, IV: 796A.
97 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 3: 244.
98 See, ibid., 3:189; tr. SDG, 290.
99 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Fatuhat, 4: 423.
515
relationship to the God-world relationship. He says: "Allah (God) cannot be

conceived except as ilah (god)."100 God is knowable only in relationship to the
world He has created. So "the world is for the Real like the body is for the
spirit."101 In a verse he writes:
The power of the Living, the Self-Abiding,

Becomes manifest only in the configuring of bodies,
There is nothing but a tracing,
So there is nothing but a body.102
In addition to being the loci of manifestation for the souls, the physical
bodies also provide the principle of their hierarchical organization:
Thus the spirits are ranked in excellence because of the ranking in excellence of
the configurations. They do not come to be in one level except in that they are
governors. So the governing spirits become manifest only in the forms of the
constitutions of the receptacles.103
This is a highly vague position and is amenable to more than one

interpretation. Does Ibn 'Arabl maintain that except for their attachment to
particular bodies, all souls are on the same level of excellence? Or is he simply
stating that the bodies provide the principle of differentiation and
individuation for the soul? In spite of his extremely positive views regarding
human body, the first possibility seems too far-fetched for a mind like that of
Ibn 'Arabl.
Ibn 'Arab! tells us that the permanent attachment of the soul with the
natural body performs a very positive Divinely ordained function: it weighs
down and humbles the soul. The soul, being breath, is more like air and as the
air is one of the most powerful things, the soul is powerful, unlike the bodily
constitution which is week. In fact body is "the weakest of the weak."104 The
soul acquired weakness from the body. Had it disengaged itself from the
matter, its original power would have manifested and there would have been
nothing more proud than it.105
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid., 3: 315.

102 Ibid., 4: 389; tr. SDG, 283.
103 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 4: 62; tr. SDGf 275.
104 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 1: 275.
105 See, ibid., 1: 275. Ibn 'Arabi uses this point to explain why the mystics like Mansur al Hallaj
(d. 309/922) and Ba Yazid al-Bistami (d. 261/875) claim divinity for themselves during ecstatic
moments: "Don't you see it (i.e. the soul) during the times of its self-negligence, how it falls and
embarks boldly upon the divine station and claims lordship for itself like Pharaoh and says,
QAISER SHAHZAD
516
Body and Knowing God

Ibn Arabi, who considers the world (al-'alam) to be a collection of the signs
('aldmat), emphasizes that body is one of the loci of Divine manifestation. At
the end of the following passage, he submits that it is an error to neglect one's
bodily configuration while trying to decipher the signs of God in oneself and
secluding with the Lord (i.e. khalwah). This shows once again that Ibn Arab!
does not consider human body an obstacle in the pursuit of gnosis. Here is
what he says:
... God made a manifest (zdhir) and a non-manifest (batin) for man only so that
he could seclude with his Lord in his non-manifest and witness Him in his
manifest... otherwise he would never know Him. When I come to know for the
first time that reality is as I have described it, I disengaged myself from this frame
of mine, intellectually and factually (hdliyyan), due to my ignorance of the Real's
placement in respect of this frame (al-nash'ah) and not knowing that for God
there is a specific face in everything.106
Having seen that the body itself has a proper place in the process of
knowing God through His signs, let us have a look at Ibn Arabi's views about
the five senses. This is important because of the condemnation of the senses as
an obstacle to gaining knowledge goes hand in hand with the disparagement of
human body. This was most clearly seen above in Plato, who said that the
body contaminates the soul and hinders its attainment of true knowledge.
Although Ibn Arab! considers intellectual intuition to be the most
important source of knowledge, he does assign a proper place to sensory
knowledge. In his view the senses perform a function in relation to the inner
faculties which has its root in the divine name al-Wahhdb (All-Bestower):
... these [i.e. sensory] faculties are the most complete faculties, because to them
belongs the name the All-Bestower al-Wahhab, for it is they that bestow upon the
spiritual faculties everything within which they act freely and through which
they have their cognitive life, whether the faculty be imagination, reflection,
memory, form-giving, fantasy, or reason.107
Ibn Arab! mentions two more pieces of evidence to prove the eminence of
physical senses over the inner ones: they are more eminenent firstly, because
these have been mentioned in the context of union with the One, and
under the domination of that state over it, "I am God" and "Glory be to Me," as it was said by
some Gnostics." Ibid., 1: 276.
106 Ibid., 3: 265.
107 Ibid., 3:189, tr.5DG,290.
517
secondly, because they, unlike the inner faculties, manifest certain Divine
attributes:
This is why God says concerning him among His servants whom He loves, "I am
his hearing through which he hears and his eyesight through which he sees." He
mentioned the sensory form, but He mentioned nothing of the spiritual faculties,
nor did He put Himself in their (i.e. spiritual faculties') way-station (maqdm), for
their way-station is poverty toward the senses, but the Real does not descend to
the way-station of that which is poor toward other than He....
In reality the sensory faculties are the vicegerents of God in the earth of this
configuration. Do you not see how He has described Himself as hearing, seeing,
speaking, living, knowing, desiring? All these attributes that have traces in
sensory objects, and human beings sense from themselves that these attributes
abide with them. But God did not describe Himself as rational, reflecting or
imagining.I have let you know that all eminence is found in sensation... So, if
you know yourself you would know your Lord.108
The significance of earth-body parallelism will be discussed below. At

present let us observe that in the last sentence Ibn 'Arab! brings out the
function performed by the senses in the process of knowing God. Unlike
Plato, he does not believe that the senses hinder one from attaining that
knowledge. Far from it, it is through contemplating their nature and
relationship with Divine names and attributes that they help us know the
Lord.
Body and Worshipping God

If body and bodily senses do not constitute an obstacle to knowing God and
knowledge of God is incomplete without giving proper attention to the
physical configuration, the spiritual realization and worship are also not
possible without the body. An ordinary reader of the Qur'an would suffice to
point towards the participation of human body in many forms of Islamic
worship as its significance but a mystic like Ibn 'Arab! prefers to go deep into
certain Qur'anic texts. The verse in question is: "But was not God's earth vast
[all-embracing], thus you might have emigrated in it?" (Qur'an 57: 97).
You should know, dear brother, that the earth of your body is the true "all
embracing earth" in which the Real commanded you to worship Him.109
Hence for Ibn 'Arab! "God's vast earth" is the human body; it is within
its perimeters that God is to be worshipped and migration hijrah is to take
108 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Frtuhat, 3:189.

109 Ibid., 3: 247; tr. SDG, 350.
QAISER SHAHZAD
518
place. Before asking Ibn Arabi what sense does it make to require one to
emigrate within one's own body, let us quickly note that this is in stark
contrast with the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa who advised his readers
thus: "Therefore, my beloved friend, counsel the brethren to be absent from
the body to go to our Lord, rather than to be absent from Cappadocia to go to
Palestine".110
Contradistinguished from that, Ibn Arabi does not require leaving body
behind for "going to our Lord" but doing that within the body. We can now
turn to the question of the sensibility of such an emigration (hijrah). Ibn
Arab! explains:
As for His words, Thus you might have emigrated in it, this is because the body is
both a locus of caprice and a locus of reason. Thus you might have emigrated from
the earth of its caprice to the earth of its reason, while in all this you were in it?
you did not emerge from it. If caprice put you to work, it ruined you and you
perished. But if the rational faculty within whose hand is the lamp of SharVah put
you to work, you were saved and God gave you salvation through it. ...
Therefore, employ the earth in the path of rightful claims and "Give to each that
has a haqq its haqq.9 He who does not worship God in the all-embracing earth of
his body has not worshipped Him in the earth from which he was created.111
It would seem that Ibn Arabi is only using "emigration" as a metaphor

for giving up one's caprices for the life of reason. But he makes it clear that
both the origin and destination of the metaphorical migration are manifested
in the body, so the blame of leading one astray can not be solely attributed to
it, as according to Ibn Arabi, body is the locus of manifestation of reason as
well. This last statement simply entails that one can employ one's body
rationally or otherwise.
We now turn to the question of the responsibility of human body in
detail.
Body and the Responsibility for Sin

A major charge made against human body in the Christian religious and
mystical teachings is that it distracts the soul and makes it sin. Islam and the
Qur'an, as we said, rarely makes the difference between the soul and body
while talking about the responsibility for sin. To determine Ibn Arabi's
precise position on this issue is very perplexing indeed. Various passages, some
of which do not seem to fit together are interpreted by us in the light of the
110 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Pilgrimages, in Wace, ed. Gregory o/Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, 525.
111 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futiihat, 3: 249-250; tr. SDG, 350.
519
general spirit of his teaching in view of certain other passages that we present
here. In our opinion, instead of stating his point of view clearly, Ibn 'Arab!
opts for a very complex original position. On the one hand he extenuates
human body and implicates the self/soul for the sinning. On the other hand,
he extenuates the latter while implicating the former. This situation can easily
lead the reader to conclude that Ibn 'Arab! is contradicting himself. In fact he
is arguing in a manner characteristic of him that ultimately both human body
and human soul must be ultimately felicitous as both have extenuating reasons
that can save them. So his whole argument is meant to establish his
eschatological optimism, the doctrine that the ultimate victory is that of
Divine mercy which will lead to salvation for all.112
1. Exonerating the Body

Here are some of the reasons Ibn 'Arab! puts forward to show that the blame
of sinning cannot He on the bodies.
(a) Firstly, the bodily organs have no knowledge of the rightness or
wrongness of the actions. So they cannot be blamed:
If the bodily parts knew the determination of what constitutes disobedience and
what [constitutes] obedience that is known by the governing soul they would
never have cooperated with it in misdemeanour. For they never observe any
being except in a state of glorifying God and His majesty. However, they have
been bestowed with great capacity of preservation. Therefore, the self never
disposes them in any thing but they preserve in it and know it.113
(b) The physical organs, moreover, are only instruments subjected to the self
and incapable of deviating from its commands:
As for the evil and prohibited actions, the self will be punished for them because
of intention. The bodily parts will not be punished because they are incapable of
refusing the movements intended from them by the selves. ... On the other hand,
if the selves did what is just, the reward is for them and for the bodily parts too,
as the selves are the Real's governors on these organs and these are the subjects
and coerced.114
Though the organs cannot refuse to follow the commands issued by the
self, they can and do submit their discomfort at following the commands
112 For Ibn 'Arabi's eschatological optimism see, pp. 522 ff. below.
113 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhdtt 3: 75-76.
114 Ibid., 3: 123. At another place in the same work he writes "They (i.e. bodily parts) are
compelled under the force and subjugation of the self that governs them. God will save them
instead of the self from the chastisement of the Painful day." Ibid., 3: 3.
QAISER SHAHZAD
520
which are against those of the SharVah:
All his body, inasmuch as its nature, is obedient to God and caring. When a
servant sends any of his bodily organs to violate some Divine commandment, it
calls him saying, 'Don't send me to do what God has forbade thee to send me to,
I will be a witness against thee.' All bodily parts are like that.115
(c) The Qur'an speaks at several places of the bodily organs as witnesses
against the sinners on the Day of Judgment (see, e.g., Qur'an 24: 24). By
contrasting "witnessing" with "confessing," Ibn 'Arab! proffers this an
additional argument for the innocence of the organs:
They witness only as outsiders, for there must be someone against whom they
witness. If it were not as we say and if the witness were identical with the one
against whom he witnesses, that would be "confession," not "witnessing." But
God did not mention that this is a confession.116
Hence the organs of the body are not responsible for the acts of transgression
that proceed through them.
(d) While discussing the relationship of body and soul we saw Ibn Arab!
saying that the latter is "a child of" the former. Basing himself on this claim he
says that:
... the body has a right due to it from the soul that is born from it-as long as the
soul governs the body, it must not move the bodily parts except in obedience to
God.... The body commands the soul only to the good.117
In this setting Ibn Arab! also reminds his readers that children have been
commanded by the Qur'an (31: 15) to do what is beautiful toward the parents,
to show them loving kindness, and to observe their commands "so long as
neither of them commands opposition to the command of the Real."118
For these reasons Ibn Arab! completely exonerates human body from
guilt, saying, "inasmuch as his frame, a person is completely felicitous."119
The Qur'an at various places singles out bodily organs for chastisement.
Hence it would appear extremely unorthodox to say that the bodily organs
115 Ibid., 3: 3.
116 Ibid., 4: 62.
117 Ibid., 3: 171, tr. SDG, 353.
118 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhdt, 3: 138; tr. SDG, 323. Chittick writes: "The general principle at work
here is that the receptacle exercises influence on what it contains. In Junaid's words "The water
takes on the color of its cup." Ibid., 324.
119 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhdt, 2: 560.
521
will not be punished. Ibn 'Arab! is well aware of the difficulty and tries to
justify his position by interpreting some Qur'anic terms and statements.
According to him, it is the self which is chastised with the burning of bodily
parts, as for those parts themselves, "they would find every kind of
chastisement ('adhab) that befalls on them sweet ((adhb)" and "they have
nothing but perpetual felicity in the Hell." Ibn 'Arab! makes a distinction
between "being in hell" and "suffering chastisement" and maintains that the
organs do not feel pain due to its feeling by the self; rather, the self feels pain
for what is borne by the body. To explain this he comes up with an ingenious
example of the patients who cease to feel pain while asleep though they remain
alive and the ailment still exists because the self which is "the finder of pain has
turned his face away from the Witnessed World to barzakh, so he has no news
and physical pains are lifted from him." Hence the bodily organs bear pains
without feeling them while the self feels them without bearing them. Ibn
'Arab! goes to the extent of maintaining that the organs will find a reason to
rejoice over the chastisement to which the self would be subjected just like
when a king gets hold of an unjust governor and punishes him on the
complaints launched by his subjects, they rejoice on seeing the revenge being
taken from their governor.120
Moreover, referring to the Qur'anic words "but it (i.e. the admonition)
will be avoided by those most unfortunate ones who will enter the Great Fire
in which they will then neither die nor live" (Qur'an 87: 11-13), Ibn 'Arab! says
that it is in fact the human self which "will not die" so that "it could taste the
chastisement" while it is the body which "will not live" so that it could not
taste the chastisement.121 It is clear that what we have heard is merely a
different, though a novel, interpretation of the Qur'anic text, rather than
something contradicting it. Although it is difficult to see how his two
explanations fit together, namely, the statement that the bodies will be void of
all feeling in hell and that chastisement will be sweet for them. Whatever
strategy one might want to adopt to deal with this question, it is abundantly
clear how keen Ibn 'Arab! is to marshal arguments from different, sometimes
mutually incompatible, perspectives to exonerate human body from any
responsibility for sin.
2. Exonerating the Self

At least at some places in the Futuhat Ibn 'Arab! takes a position opposite to
the one just stated, namely, that the soul or self is completely felicitous.
120 See, ibid., 3: 75-76.

121 See, ibid., 3: 3.
QAISER SHAHZAD
522
Likening the soul to a rider and the body to a beast, which can either be docile
or unruly, Ibn 'Arab! declares the soul to be felicitous in this world and the
Last because it cannot "possibly be in opposition" since its origin is in the
world of preservation from sin and of pure spirits:
When punishment falls on the day of judgement, it falls only on the animal soul.
... The rationally speaking soul does not disobey; rather, the animal soul fails to
assist it in what it seeks from it.122
Thus Ibn Arabl exonerates the soul on two grounds: first, because of its
Divine origin, and second, because disobedience occurs due to the natural non
compliance of the animal soul or the body. However, he takes care, even here,
of finding an extenuating reason for the body's failure to assist the rationally
speaking soul. He reminds his readers that because the body has no knowledge
of the SharVah and it is not addressed by it, it can not intend opposition to it,
nor can it disobey. If it happens to be recalcitrant it is only due to its specific
nature which, as a bare matter of fact, is unlike the soul.123
The two positions outlined above can easily be taken as contradicting
each other. In our opinion, however, that Ibn Arabl is just looking at the
question from two different perspectives and he finally introduces a third
perspective in order to synthesize both of these positions.
3. Felicity for All

Ibn Arabl concludes the passage paraphrased above with the following
statement:
So know this, and know that God will include everyone in His Mercy, for
"God's mercy takes precedence over His wrath" when the two vie with each
other over the human being.124
This crowning statement most probably indicates that both body and self,
that is human personality in toto, is felicitous. This is not the only place where
Ibn Arabl argues for universal salvation. There are many other instances in
which he emphasizes the infinity of Divine mercy as a source of hope for all.
It is noteworthy that claims, that God has made him [i.e. Ibn Arabl] "the
unlimited mercifier."125 In any case, in our view, Ibn Arabl seems to argue for
122 Ibid., 3: 262-3; tr. SDG> 287-8.

123 See, Ibn 'Arab!, al-Futuhdt, 3: 263. Ibn 'Arabi also says that in the world hereafter the soul
will be provided with a purified configuration which will assist the soul in what is desired from
it. See, ibid., 4: 422.
124 Ibid., 4: 263.
125 Ibid., 3: 431, trans, by Stephen Hertenstein in his biography of Ibn 'Arabi, The Unlimited
!BN 'ARABl'S METAPHYSICS OF THE HUMAN BODY
523
the ultimate felicity for the whole human being, physical as well as spiritual.
Before concluding this paper it must be admitted that it is not impossible
to find here and there in Ibn Arabi's major work remarks about the body that
might be considered to be disparaging. But it is abundantly clear that these
remarks are less overt and emphatic and their author takes no pains to argue
for them. Consider the following:
The souPs death is the fact that it is within this configuration.126

So long as the soul is in the body it is dead and lying down in its grave.127
Verily (the real) life is the heart's life, not body's.128
Ibn Arabl also speaks of the soul as being "abased through the abasement
of its root"129 and of the body as "pure darkness" in contrast with the soul and
the God Who is its creator.130 Yet at another place he suggest that the body
diverts those who are ignorant of (Divine) names.131
All these instances should be understood in the light of Ibn Arabi's belief
in the hierarchical levels of being. Accordingly, there is no denying that
despite all positive value that Ibn Arab! bestows on the body he never does or
can maintain that it belongs to a level of existence higher than that of the soul.
Epithets like those of death, darkness and abasement are being attached to the
body only in a relative sense, i.e., in relation to higher levels of existence. As
for the statement that body diverts people from higher pursuits, the remarks
made about the question of responsibility should suffice by way of
explanation. Anyway, it is not our claim here that Ibn Arab! says absolutely
nothing negative regarding the body; rather, that in the history of mystico
religious thought, he is the only one who has gone farthest in the direction of
being positive towards the body.
m
CONCLUSION
We have seen that the attitude of Plotinus and early Ch

is ambivalent. In contrast, the Hindu, Buddhist a
traditions, being more negative, are less ambivalent towar
Mercifier: Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn 'Arabi (Oxford: Anqa Pub
126 Ibn 'Arabi, Al-Futuhdt, 4: 434; SDG, 273.
127 Ibn 'Arabi, Al-Futuhat, 4: 394.
128 Ibid., 4: 291.
129 Ibid., 4: 422; tr. SDG, 349.
130 Ibn 'Arab!, Al-Futuhdt, 2: 239.
131 Ibid., 4: 47.
QAISER SHAHZAD
524
In Islam we saw Ibn 'Arab!, the most influential of its mystics, taking great
pains to reinstate human body to its rightful place. In this way we roughly get
a spectrum of traditional religio-metaphysical attitudes towards human body,
stretching from the negative views of Hinduism and Buddhism ranging from
the ambivalence just mentioned to the more positive attitude in Jewish and,
among Islamic thinkers, a prominent one among them being Ibn ' Arabi. Thus,
there is a considerable variety among the traditional mystico-religious views
on human body. Our aim in this article was just to emphasize the existence of
this variety and not to argue that it is inexplicable. A plausible explanation of
the difference in attitude to body in Christianity and Judaism-Islam within Ibn
'Arabi's perspective is to be found in Frithjof Schuon. Schuon starts from the
fact that "human body, male or female, is theophany."132 As theophany or
Divine manifestation one can look at it from two different standpoints. The
first standpoint takes into account the fact that the body is a manifestation of
Divinity, hence a positive attitude towards the body. The other standpoint
bases itself on the fact that the body, though a divine manifestation, is still just
a manifestation and not the manifested. As a manifestation it is necessarily
separated from the manifested, hence the negative attitude to the human body
in Christianity. Each of these two standpoints is valid, says Schuon, on its own
level provided it recognizes the other one as well.133
We have labelled the above explanation as Akbarian in nature because Ibn
'Arabl's positive attitude to body is rooted, in addition to his reading of the
Qur'an and traditions, in his metaphysical views regarding the ontological
status of multiplicity (al-kathrah), i.e., the world which he considers a
theophany. He expresses the two-faced nature of this theophany by calling it
He/not He, that is, simultaneously identical with God and other than Him.134
Hence, while ascribing absolute reality only to unity and the manifested, Ibn
'Arab! does not ascribe illusory or sheer non-existent character to multiplicity
and manifestation. It is only in relation with and as compared to the One and
the manifested that multiplicity and the manifestation are unreal, that is to
say, they are relatively unreal. They are, as Schuon says, "less than reality,
more than play."135 Nevertheless, they are ontologically embedded in the
absolute reality itself, as Ibn 'Arab! describes God as One/Many (al-wahid al
132 Schuon, "The Problem of Sexuality" in his, Esoterism: As Principle and As Way, 135.
133 See, ibid., 139.
134 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 2: 379. This can be understood with the help of illustration Schuon has
mentioned to clarify his interpretation. He refers to the inverted reflection of a tree in water.
This reflection, being inverted, is different from the real tree, but as it is reflection of the tree, is
also its continuation. See, Schuon, Esoterism: As Principle and As Way, 129.
135 A line from his poem "Creation" excerpted at<http//: www.worldwisdom.com>, last
visited on August 21,2007.
525
kathir).1* Though the Divine Essence is one, God has many names and
attributes, which in turn have many loci of manifestation in the world. This
multiplicity of Divine names and attributes is the ontological root of
multiplicity in the world. Corporeality belongs to multiplicity, therefore,since
it has the same ontological status it cannot be held absolutely illusory, evil or
non-existent. On this ontological foundation stands Ibn 'Arabf s masterly
apology for the body which we have attempted to expound in the preceding
pages.
$ ? $
136 Ibn 'Arab!, al-Futilhat, 3:420.

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Ibn 'Arabī's Metaphysics of the Human Body

Author(s): QAISER SHAHZAD

Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad is collaborating

Ibn ' Arabi's Metaphysics of the Human Body

views regarding human body by presenting them in contrast to other

Classical Antiquity: Plato and Plotinus

(a) It provides us with innumerable distractions in the pursuit of our necessary

The next figure we would like to mention in the present discussion is

Judaism: Philo Judeaus31

45 See, Eriugena, Periphyseon, IV: 812D-813A.

Similar views are to be found in many of the Upanishads. It is said, for

Mahay ana Buddhism

discomfort.61 In principle, suicide is condemned in Buddhism, because the one

The Islamic Background

61 See, Paul Williams, "Some Mahayana Buddhist Perspectives on the Bod

Decoding the Symbolism of the Body

sources elaborations of the correspondence between human being as

In al-Futuhat, Ibn 'Arab! likens the world-Perfect Man relationship with

Doing Justice to the Body

86 See, idem, Shajart al-Kawn, 55-56.

Moreover, bodies exist in order that the spirit may be manifested. It is

97 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Futuhat, 3: 244.

98 See, ibid., 3:189; tr. SDG, 290.

99 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Fatuhat, 4: 423.

relationship to the God-world relationship. He says: "Allah (God) cannot be

The power of the Living, the Self-Abiding,

This is a highly vague position and is amenable to more than one

101 Ibid., 3: 315.

Body and Knowing God

The significance of earth-body parallelism will be discussed below. At

Body and Worshipping God

108 Ibn 'Arabi, al-Frtuhat, 3:189.

It would seem that Ibn Arabi is only using "emigration" as a metaphor

Body and the Responsibility for Sin

1. Exonerating the Body

which are against those of the SharVah:

2. Exonerating the Self

120 See, ibid., 3: 75-76.

3. Felicity for All

122 Ibid., 3: 262-3; tr. SDG> 287-8.

The souPs death is the fact that it is within this configuration.126

We have seen that the attitude of Plotinus and early Ch

136 Ibn 'Arab!, al-Futilhat, 3:420.

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