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The third period: establishment of the doctrines and
the theory of Sufism |
The Al-Hallaj
tragedy put a final point on mystic rapture; Sufism is recognized and understood by virtue of the
high spiritual values that it propagates and because
of the intellectual efforts of the great thinkers of
this time. These scholars used all due discretion
when they addressed matters of high spirituality. They respected the social and cultural hierarchies of
their time and spoke to everyone according to their
level of understanding.
This time was
marked primarily by a proliferation in the number of
treaties on Sufism and in particular by the
personality of Ghazali (424/1050), considered by some
as the greatest philosopher of Sufism. This famous
Sufi was not however regarded as such by many others
as he criticized Greek philosophy and the philosophers
of his time, notably in his book
‘Tahafut Al
Falasifat’. Nevertheless that did not prevent
him
from influencing influential Western thinkers such as
Kant. It is very probable that Kant benefited from
the Muslim inheritance expressed in the thought of Al Ghazali. It is certainly no coincidence that the two
most famous books of Kant, ‘Critique of Pure
Reason’ and ‘ Critique of Practical Reason’
carry a point by point correspondence with Ghazali’s
books, ‘ Mahak Nadhar’
(Critique of Theoretical
Thought’ and
‘Mizane Al’a Amal’ (The
Evaluation
of Action).
Another Sufi, no
less famous than Ghazali, lived across the second and
third period. This was of course Ibn Al Arabi;
Shaykh
Al Akbar (The greatest master,
Kibrite Al Ahmar (The
red sulphur), the man who wrote more than four hundred
volumes on Sufism. His monumental work draws its
genius through a literal reading of Quranic text
using a deep knowledge of the Arabic language and its
subtitles. Ibn Arabi was a contemporary of the
Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd ( Averroes). The
relations and relationship between this exceptional
trio ( Ghazali, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Arabi ) is worthy of
study. Averroes is regarded as the Arab thinker who
had a profound influence on Western thought during
the period of the Renaissance that was known as the
Enlightenment. He is presented as a rationalist
philosopher, an interpreter of Socrates and a
proponent of the separation of science into
disciplines????. Averroes was originally a
faqih
(theologian) and a lawyer. The
richness of his thought came from his training in the
Islamic sciences and contributions he received from
the philosophers and Sufis of his time. Averroes was
however much irritated by scholarship of Ghazali whom
he reproached for being ‘ an Ashari with the
Asharities’, a philosopher with the philosophers
and a Sufi with the Sufis. He was particularly
disconcerted by ‘ the formidable capacity of Ghazali
to mix the various fields of knowledge… and to
interlace their objects and their forms…’ Ibn Rushd.
A contemporary
philosopher, Dr.Taha Abder Rahman, has commented, ‘This
complete introduction of logic is, in our opinion, an
essential event in interdisciplinary (Tajdid
Al Minhaj edition m.t.a. Casablanca 1994)
Ibn Arabi met with
Ibn Rushd and attended his burial. During the first
meeting of these two famous men Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
was an elderly man renowned for his books of learning
and Ibn Arabi was a young man known as a
‘wali’
(saint). Contrary to the traditional view that a man
must pass through three stages (sharia,
Tariqa and
Haqiqah) to reach realization, Ibn Arabi received
the ‘fath’ (literally ‘the opening’ or direct
Gnostic knowledge) when he was barely ten years old.
It was only thereafter that he followed the
Tariqa
(the spiritual way) and acquired book knowledge. In
his work ‘Futuhat Al Makkiya’ he tells of his
first meeting with Ibn Rushd:
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He received with
great courtesy, even though he was both a famous and
an elderly man and I was only young. After a short
interval of silence, he asked me:
‘Yes?’
I answered;’ Yes’.
His face then
opened out in a broad smile of satisfaction.
Then I said: ‘No’.
His smile
immediately disappeared and he asked in an anxious
tone; ‘How?’
I answered; ‘Yes
and no.’
He then became
disconcerted.’
Explanation:
Ibn Rushd had
invited Ibn Arabi in order to ask him a question about
a theory, which he held dearly. The question was as
follows: ‘The knowledge (gnosis) which you (i.e. the
Sufis) have arrived at we (i.e. the scholars) can
arrive at by reason and logic. Yes or no?’ In order to
put Ibn Arabi’s understanding to the test he addressed
him in a purely mental way i.e. without speaking.
Ibn Rushd reasoned that if Ibn Arabi was an authentic
‘wali’ (saint)
then he would be able to read his thoughts. Ibn
Arabi guessed Ibn Rushd’s question but decided to
answer it by leaving the debate open.
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The debates between
these three famous characters of the 3rd
century AH/ 12th & 13th century
CE related to such fundamental topics as ‘the
independence and interdependence of sciences’ and
‘knowledge arising from rationalist thought and that
inspired through the opened heart.’ It is worthy of
note that these debates are still topical. Ibn Rushd
is to some extent the ‘father’ of modernistic thought
and Ghazali and Ibn Arabi the ‘fathers’ of
post-modernist thought.
