Known as an Islamic scholar, Ibn-I Arabi was born in Murcia, Spain in the year 1165. With his approximate 500 written works, he opened a new road to explain "oneness" (uniqueness) matter which is known as the main purpose of Islam by declaring his new theory called Vahdet-I Vücud.

The way he approaches Sufism (Islamic mysticism, Tasavvuf) was genetic. (?) He completed his education in Sevilla. Arabi who spent most of his life alone has become the foundation stone of the Vahdet-I Vücud theory by concentrating on the knowledge based on the essence of Quran (the holy book of Islam). He was also influenced by Ebu Medyen’s (one of the famous Sufies) opinions. CrAnolOgically, he went to Tunis, then to Morocco and back to Tunis again, and later on he went on a pilgrimage to Hejaz. After having completed his sacret duty, he stayed in Mecca for two years, past through Anatolia, and went to Egypt via Jerusalem where he had to face with a great opposition, due to the fact that his thoughts and ideas didn’t coincide with what Sheriat (anonical obligations) said. And finally, the words he said in Damascus caused his being killed. What Muhiddin Arabi said as his last words were "The Gog you worship is under my feet". Being one of his great admirer, Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Selim dig the place he was murdered on the way back from the Egypt cruise and found jars of gold ornaments and jewelry. That’s what he mentioned with his last words (i.e. the God they worship was gold, money and jewelry etc.). Later on, he was burried in a tomb on a slope of the Kasiun Mountain.

Two of his well-known books are namely, Futuhat-y Mekkiye (conquest of Mecca) containing 560 chapters, and Fusus’ul Hikem ( ? ) describing the thoughts being represented by the prophets ranging St. Adam to Holy Muhammed.

According to Arabi, universe and it’s essence is an observation which starts, goes on and ends in Allah. According to him, starting from Allah, with the guidence of a trainer, the reality of the Holy Muhammed is finally reached. According to him, every being is programmed in a certain way. As a result of the changes on their programs and beings becoming mature, the "self" identification is released from the being. Actually, the "self" identification is relative. To release itself from the relative "self" acceptance of the being means to succeed in reaching the aim of Sufism. The so-called life style of Fenafillah is also known as Vahdet-i Vücud.

Definitely, there is no correspondance between Vahdet-i Vücud and pantheism which rather projects a superstitious approach. That is to say, according to the Vahdet-i Vücud concept, every single moment Allah observes his own meanings, as an obvious result of this observation, all existing things which are originally visionary, and in reality don’t exist emerge.

All the existing thing come from absence, and disappear again. Therefore, "the universe -as a whole- is Allah" approach is completely wrong. A visionary being or a being limited with five senses can not be the origin, however, takes his existence from Allah.

Pantheist approach, having pretty much narrow perspective, on the other hand, claims that all the existing things form Allah. An explanation of a whole being formed by the separate unites is far from reflecting the reality.

Actually, Muhittin Arabi was not the only one who claimed the Vahdet-i Vücud theory. Imam-i Gazali also discussed the subject in his written work called Mi?katül Envar (lamp of the spiritual light). All the prophets, and the saints living even today -although being rejected by the ones who don’t examine the matter in details- mention that there is only one God, namely Allah, and besides nothing else exists.

The concept of Vahdet-i Vücud migth sound a little odd to you, but you can find the evidences in Quran and hadiths (sayings of the Holy Muhammed). Here, it’s also necessary to state that the Holy Muhammed has the consept of Vahdet-i buhud which is above the Vahdet-i Vücud concept.

Muhiddin Arabi, at that time, was a saint belonging to a group of fours (evtad). In order to be appreciated fully while reading his books, a great deal of knowledge about Sufism has to be know and comprehended. Sufism is not an unessential ideology. It’s the knowledge of Allah. The metaphorical names indicated in the vocabulary of Sufism are the steps in order to reach the levels of perception leading to Allah.

Arabi’s written works, however, were translated without remaining accurate to the original text, and as a consequence, it caused misinterpretations which, I suppose, might closely be related with the translator’s lack of knowledge either on the Arabic and Persian languages or on the conception of Sufism, besides that it might even have a commercial purposes.

I want to clarify my point with an example. According to the translator, Muhiddin Arabi says that "knowledge depends on malum" (all known and unknown things that had been created and will be created -universe).

Let’s first examine what "knowledge depends on all created things" means. The explanation of "all created things informing the knowledge, and Allah having taken the knowledge from all created things, and therefore determining the destiny of the beings" supports the acceptance of cüz-i irade (will-power of the beings). Here malum, as a meaning, includes all existing infinitive things in the universe. According to this approach, knowledge is Allah’s knowledge. Since Allah observed everything that had happened and might happen, Allah knew all about that. As a consequence, Allah determined their fate accordingly. In other words, those beings informed Allah about their capacity and skills which would be the basis of their formation, and Allah depending on these information wrote their destiny. (This is the explanation of "the knowledge depends on the all created thing".) Briefly, before the universe had been created, what would happen from the past eternity to the future eternity and what the created beings would do and their disposition were pre-known, and therefore predestinated accordingly by Allah.

Second approach is all created things depend on knowledge. That is to say, Allah created being depending on the existing meanings in his knowledge. To say in another way, Allah’s knowledge didn’t exist depending on the names forming all known created beings. Allah’s knowledge accomplishes infinitive numbers of meaning in itself, thus, it doesn’t take any meaning from the beings, and therefore all created things depends on Allah’s knowledge.

Under the light of all the information given above, first of all, it’s necessary to mention that for a saint who has the Vahdet (uniqueness, oneness) knowledge, and especially who reaches that level without any effort, it’s definitely impossible to approve the "knowledge depends on created things" approach.

Because in the knowledge of nübüvvet (prophethood) belonging to a Velayet-i Kübra ( ? ) level what’s valid is Allah’s condescension to people, what happens is a descent, rather then an ascent. The level of unity is the level of attribute and at this level, there is no obligation of depending on the names, therefore, in the knowledge of that level, all created things depend on the knowledge.

After having realized all these matters, although what St. Abdülkadir Ceyli (the grand child of the Holy Muhammed) who is the author of the book called Insan-i Kamil (universal man) and who himself belongs to the Insan-i Kamil level said about Muhiddin Arabi and his explanations about Vahdet (uniqueness, oneness) and Sufism reflect the trueth, the interpretation of Ceyli about Arabi’s acceptance of knowledge depending on all created things is a misunderstanding originating from the translator of the book, namely Abdülkadir Akçiçek, rather than Ceyli himself who, I believe, has no bad intentions, however, has done some other mistakes in the mentioning book. Consequently, according to Ibn-i Arabi it’s not the knowledge which dependes on all created thing but the created thing depend on knowledge. This fact is also very well known by the ones who are profoundly aware of the matter.

Muhiddin Arabi also has original ideas about Astrology depending the knowledge brought by St. Lucy. It goes like this:

"Now, the earth is under the influence of the Cancer Sign. The state of Berzah (between post-death and pre-judgement), however, is under the influence of Virgo Sign. During the period of the earth transforming to the fire, Cancer Sign’s dominancy replaces itself to the Libra Sign. When the sufferings of the ones condemned to hell completed, on the other hand, Gemini Sign takes the control in hand. Furthermore, the right to accompany the residents of heaven and hell is given to the twelve sign and the commands of the heaven are taken out from the twelve sign, as well."

Another point here I want to mention is the strong opposition and severe criticism of the Sufi’s towards Ibn-i Arabi. We are terribly sorry about those offensive criticisms pointing at Ibn-i Arabi who is known as the author of the Islamic constitution. However, it should not be forgotten that the mentality sentenced Galileo due to his thoughts about the earth being round at the courts of the Inquisition, now sentences Ibn-i Arabi.

There is a beautiful saying:

If you can not reach the high levels of perception, then at least,

release yourself from the simplicity of denial.

May Allah be your helper, good bye.

Ahmet F. Yuksel