Imaginal Worlds: Ibn Al-'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity

Abstract

Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-`Arabi and Problem of Religious Diversity, by William C. Chittick. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. vii + 176 pages. Notes to p. 186. Bibl. to p. 189. Indices to p. 208. $18.95. Reviewed by Eric Ormsby The study of Muhyi al-Din ibn al-`Arabi (11651240 AD) used to be vaguely disreputable. This voluminous and immensely influential thinker one of most original in history of Islam was often suspect not solely to certain traditional Muslims, but to many orientalists as well. Some 25 years ago, in a graduate course on Sufism, I heard a very distinguished scholar dismiss Ibr al-`Arabi as a mere pantheist, and, therefore undeserving of closer study. Happily, this attitude has changed, and author of present work is one of a small but dedicated group of scholars inspired by late Henry Corbin, who are work ing to accomplish this long-overdue change. Imaginal Worlds, though not an easy book, i; probably clearest introduction to though of al-Shaykh al-Akbar in English. William C Chittick appears to have a complete mastery of ar astonishingly vast oeuvre. Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, Ibn al-'Arabi's magnum opus, will, aa Chittick notes, occupy some 15,000 printed pages when full text has been published, and this is only one of al-'Arabi's key works. The huge extent of corpus is one problem; terminology is another. Earlier translators, such as Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, grappled with texts but all too often succeeded only in finding vague or misleading equivalents. By contrast, Chittick elucidates characteristic terms with great care and attention. For example, in discussing term al-manazir al-'ula, which Nicholson had incorrectly rendered as the divine ideas, Chittick not only explains that term correctly denotes the loci of vision, but places this more precise rendering in its proper intellectual context: As a technical term in cosmology, is contrasted with (asfal). The higher world is invisible realm, inhabited by angels and spirits. The lower world is visible realm, inhabited by bodies. Hence lower loci of vision would be things that we perceive with our sensory eyes, or our sight (basar), while higher loci of vision are things we perceive through inward, spiritual faculty called by such names as insight (basira), unveiling (kashf), and tasting (dhawq) (pp. 68-9). Virtually every page of Imaginal Worlds contains useful expositions or insights of this sort. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 12 citations exist upstream.