Muhyi al-Din Ibn `Arabi : On True Knowledge

How can true knowledge be obtained? What do we usually depend on
when we want to know things, especially the reality of existence, and
what is the role of sense perception and rational consideration? Can
the spiritual seeker gain insight by what is generally called
independant reasoning?

Shaykh Al-Akbar shows that whatever knowledge is acquired, reason
is always bound to follow an authority, for it cannot do otherwise. So
what then is the best course to follow, that is which authority can be
trusted, if any?

“The eye is never mistaken, neither it nor any of the senses. . .
. The rational faculty perceives in two modes: through an inherent
(dhâti) perception in which it is like the senses, never being
mistaken; and by a non-inherent perception. The second is what it
perceives through its instruments (âla), which are reflection and sense
perception.

Imagination follows the authority (taqlîd) of that which sense
perception gives to it. Reflection considers imagination and finds
therein individual things (mufradât). Reflection would love to
configure a form to be preserved by the rational faculty. Hence it
attributes some of the individual things to others. In this attribution
it may be mistaken concerning the actual situation, or it may be
correct. Reason judges upon this basis, so it also may be mistaken or
correct. Hence reason is a follower of authority, and it may make
mistakes.

Since the Sufis saw the mistakes of those who employ
consideration, they turned to the path in which there is no confusion
so that they might take things from the Eye of Certainty (`ayn
al-yaqîn) and become qualified by certain knowledge. (II 628.27)

Reason is full of meddling because reflection governs over it,
along with all the faculties within man, since there is nothing greater
than reason in following authority. Reason imagines it has God-given
proofs, but it only has proofs given by reflection. Reflection’s proofs
let it take reason wherever it wants, while reason is like a blind man.
No, it is even blinder in the path of God. The Folk of Allah do not
follow the authority of their reflections, since a created thing should
not follow the authority of another created thing. Hence they incline
toward following God’s authority. They come to know God through God,
and He is as He says about Himself, not as meddlesome reason judges.

How is it proper for an intelligent man to follow the authority of
the reflectivtive faculty, when he divides reflective consideration
into correct and corrupt? Necessarily, he has need for a criterion
(fâriq) with which to separate the correct from the corrupt, but he
cannot possibly distinguish between correct and corrupt reflective
consideration through reflective consideration itself. Necessarily, he
has need for God in that.

As for us, when we want to discern correct reflective
consideration from the corrupt so that we may judge by it, we first
have recourse to God, asking Him to bestow upon us knowledge of the
object without the use of reflection. The Tribe depends upon this and
acts in accordance with it. This is the knowledge of the prophets, the
friends and the possessors of knowledge among the Folk of Allah. They
never transgress their places with their reflective powers. (II 290.14)

No one can have knowledge unless he knows things through his [its]
own essence. Anyone who knows something through something added to his
own essence is following the authority of that added thing in what it
gives to him. Nothing in existence knows things through its own essence
other than the One. The knowledge of things and not-things possessed by
everything other than the One is a following of authority. Since it has
been established that other than God cannot have knowledge of a thing
without following authority, let us follow God’s authority, especially
in knowledge of Him.

Why do we say that nothing can be known by other than God except
through following authority? Because man knows nothing except through
one of the faculties given to him by God: the senses and reason. Hence
man has to follow the authority of his sense perception in that which
it gives, and sense perception may be mistaken, or it may correspond to
the situation as it is in itself. Or, man has to follow the authority
of his rational faculty in that which it gives to him, either the
incontrovertible (darûra) or consideration. But reason follows the
authority of reflection, some of which is correct and some of which is
corrupt, so its knowledge of affairs is by chance (bi’l-ittifâq). Hence
there is nothing but following authority.

Since this is the situation, the intelligent man who wants to know
God should follow His authority in the reports He has given about
Himself in His scriptures and upon the tongues of His messengers. When
a person wants to know the things, but he cannot know them through what
his faculties give him, he should strive in acts of obedience (tâ`ât)
until the Real is his hearing, his seeing, and all his faculties [see
hadith]. Then he will know all affairs through God and he will know God
through God. In any case there is no escape from following authority,
but once you know God through God and all things through God, then you
will not be visited in that by ignorance, obfucations, doubts or
uncertainties. Thus have I alerted you to something which has never
before reached your ear!

The rational thinkers from among the people of consideration
imagine that they know what consideration, sense perception, and reason
have bestowed upon them, but they are following the authority of these
things. Every faculty is prone to a certain kind of mistake. Though
they may know this fact, they seek to throw themselves into error, for
they distinguish between that within which sense perception, reason,
and reflection may be mistaken and that within which it is not
mistaken. But how can they know? Perhaps that which they have declared
to be a mistake is correct. Nothing can eliminate this incurable
disease, unless all a person’s knowledge is known through God, not
through other than Him. God knows through His own Essence, not through
anything added to It. Hence you also will come to know through that
through which He knows, since you follow the authority of Him who
knows, who is not ignorant, and who follows the authority of no one.
Anyone who follows the authority of other than God follows the
authority of him who is visited by mistakes and who is correct only by
chance.

Someone may object: “How do you know this? Perhaps you may be
mistaken in these classifications without being aware of it. For in
this you follow the authority of that which can be mistaken: reason and
reflection.”

We reply: You are correct. However, since we see nothing but
following authority, we have preferred to follow the authority of him
who is named “Messenger” and that which is named “the Speech of God.”
We followed their authority in knowledge until the Real was our hearing
and our sight, so we came to know things through God and gained
knowledge of these classifications through God. The fact that we were
right to follow this authority was by chance, since, as we have said,
whenever reason or any of the faculties accords with something as it is
in itself, this is by chance. We do not hold that it is mistaken in
every situation. We only say that we do not know how to distinguish its
being wrong from its being right. But when the Real is all a person’s
faculties and he knows things through God, then he knows the difference
between the faculties’ being right and their being mistaken. This is
what we maintain, and no one can deny it, for he finds it in himself.

Since this is so, occupy yourself with following that which God
has commanded you: practicing obedience to Him, examining (murâqaba)
the thoughts that occur to your heart, shame (hayâ) before God, halting
before His bounds, being alone (infirâd) with Him, and preferring His
side over yourself, until the Real is all your faculties, and you are {
upon insight } (Sura 12 verse 108) in your affair.

Thus have I counselled you, for we have seen the Real report about
Himself that He possesses things which rational proofs and sound
reflective powers reject, even though they offer proofs that the
report-giver speaks the truth and people must have faith in what he
says. So follow the authority of your Lord, since there is no escape
from following authority! Do not follow your rational faculty in its
interpretation (ta`wil)! (II 298.2)

By following the authority of God, the wayfarer thereby passes
beyond mere following authority, for then the knowledge he has received
through the revealed Law can be “verified” within himself. Thus
“verification and realization” (tahqîq) (of what he has learned)
completes and perfects following (taqlîd).

This Tribe works toward acquiring something of what the divine
reports have brought from the Real. They start to polish their hearts
through invocations, reciting the Koran, freeing the locus [of God’s
self-disclosure] from taking possible things into consideration,
presence (hudûr), and self-examination (murâqaba). They also keep their
outward manifestation pure by halting within the bounds established by
the Law, for example by averting the eyes from these things such as
private parts which it is forbidden to look upon and by looking at
those things which bring about heedfulness and clear seeing [?]. So
also with the hearing, tongue, hand, foot, stomach, private parts, and
heart. Outwardly there are only these seven, and the heart is the
eighth. Such a person eliminates reflection from himself completely,
since it disperses his singleminded concern (hamm). He secludes himself
at the gate of his Lord, occupying himself with examining his heart, in
hopes that God will open the gate for him and he will come to know what
he did not know, those things which the messengers and the Folk of
Allah know and which rational faculties cannot possibly perceive on
their own.

When God opens the gate to the possessor of this heart, he
actualizes a divine self-disclosure which gives to him that which
accords with its own properties. Then he attributes to God things which
he would not have dared to attribute to God earlier. He would not have
described God that way except to the extent that it was brought by the
divine reports. He used to take such things through following
authority. Now he takes them through unveiling which corresponds with
and confirms for him what the revealed scriptures and the messengers
have mentioned. He used to ascribe those things to God through faith
and as a mere narrator, without verifying their meanings or adding to
them. Now he ascribes them to Him within himself, with a verified
knowledge because of that which has been disclosed to him. (I 271.27)

True knowledge cannot be other than unveiled by God to His
creature, and this a knowledge without the intermediary of reflection
or any other faculty. It is a given, according to the saying,
“Knowledge is a light which God throws into the heart of whomsoever He
will.”

Sound knowledge is not given by reflection, nor by what the
rational thinkers establish by means of their reflective powers. Sound
knowledge is only that which God throws into the heart of the knower.
It is a divine light for which God singles out any of His servants whom
He will, whether angel, messenger, prophet, friend, or person of faith.
He who has no unveiling has no knowledge (man lâ kashf lahu lâ `ilm
lahu). (I 218.19)