DEATH AND THE WORLD OF IMAGINATION: IBN AL-CARABÏ'S ESCHATOLOGY Teachings about eschatology or the "return" (al-mctad) to God make up the third of the three principles of Sunni Islam, after Divine Unity (al-tawhììd) and prophecy (al-nubuwwa). Those Sufis who discuss eschatology cover a wide variety of topics, two of the most important being the "voluntary return" (al· rujü al-ikhtiyärT) and the "compulsory return" (al-rujif al-idfirari)1; the first deals with the path of attaining spiritual perfection in this life, the second with the nature of physical death and bodily resurrection.2 The great Ibn al-c Arabi (d. 638/1240) discusses both topics voluminously and sets the stage for all subsequent treatments by Sufis, philosophers, and theologians down to recent times. In the present article an attempt will be made to outline a few of his teachings on the compulsory return and suggest how they fit into his overall world view. Revelation and Reason Sufi teachings are often looked upon as a departure from "orthodox" Islam, but in most cases this view rests upon a misuse of the term "orthodoxy" and an ignorance of the exact content of the teachings in question. More careful examination tends to support the thesis of Stephen Katz and others as to "The 'Conservative' Character of Mystical Experience"3; the specifically Sufi explanations of Islamic teachings are not made to subvert the dogma but to support it and to open the way to faith for those individuals who find the unidimensional explanations offered by the theologians and jurists intellectually or spiritually stultifying. Ibn al-'Arabi's exposition of Islamic eschatology fits into this category. Far from rejecting such articles of faith as the two angels who question the soul in the grave, the blast on SeraphiePs trumpet that awakens the dead, the Balance set up to weigh human deeds at the Resurrection, and the division of human beings into the inhabitants of paradise and hell, Ibn al-c Arabi maintains that anyone who attempts to turn these doctrines into metaphors or allegories
1
Cf Ibn al-cArabi, al-Futûhàt al-Makkiyya (Beirut Dar 5âdir, n d ) , III, 223 For an overview of Islamic teachings on eschatology, see William Chittick, "Eschatology," in Islamic Spirituality Foundations, ed S H Nasr [vol 19 of World Spirituality An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest] (New York Crossroad, 1987), pp 378-409, for the teaching of a well-known Sufi, see Chittick, "Rumi's View of Death," Alserat, XIII, 2 (1987), 30-51 Ibn alc Arabrs doctrines provide a good deal of the data and principles with which the later philosphers constructed their systematic treatments of eschatology, cf Mulla Sadrá, The Wisdom of the Throne, tr J W Morns (Princeton Princeton University Press, 1981) For an excellent summary of Islamic eschatological dogma with, however, no attempt to explain how it has traditionally been interpreted, see Jane I Smith and Yvonne Y Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany State University of New York Press, 1981) 3 See Katz's chapter by this name m his Mysticism and Religious Traditions (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1983), cf Annemarie SchimmeFs chapter in the same volume 2
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