Ibn Arabi: Dieu voulut se voir…

Dieu [al-haqq] voulut voir les essences [a’yân]¹ de Ses Noms très parfaits [al-asmâ al-husnâ], que le nombre ne saurait épuiser, — et si tu veux, tu peux également dire : Dieu voulut voir Sa propre essence [’ayn]³, résume tout l’ordre divin [al-amr]⁴, afin de manifester par là Son mystère [sirr] à Lui-même ⁵. Car la vision [ru’yâ]⁶ qu’a l’être ⁷ de lui-même en lui-même n’est pas pareille à celle que lui procure une autre réalité dont il se sert comme d’un miroir : il s’y manifeste à lui-même sous la forme qui résulte du « lieu » de la vision ; celle-ci n’existerait pas sans ce « plan de réflexion » et le rayon qui s’y reflète. Dieu a d’abord créé le monde entier comme une chose amorphe ⁸ et dépourvue de grâce ⁹, et semblable à un miroir qui n’a pas encore été poli ¹⁰ ; or, c’est une règle de l’Activité divine de ne préparer aucun « lieu » sans que celui-ci ne reçoive un esprit divin, ce qui est exprimé [dans le Coran] par l’insufflation de l’Esprit divin en Adam ¹¹ ; et ceci n’est autre chose [d’un point de vue complémentaire du premier] que l’actualisation de l’aptitude [al-ist’dâd] que possède telle forme, préalablement disposée, à recevoir l’effusion [al-fayd] ¹² inépuisable de la révélation [at-tajallî]¹³ essentielle. Il n’y a donc [hors de la Réalité divine] qu’un pur réceptacle [qâbil] ¹⁴ ; mais ce réceptacle provient lui-même de « l’Effusion très-sainte » [al-fayd al-aqdas] [c’est-à-dire de la manifestation principielle, métacosmique, où les « essences immuables » sont divinement « conçues », avant leur apparente projection dans l’existence relative] ¹⁵. Car la réalité [al-amr] ¹⁶ tout entière, de son commencement à sa fin, vient de Dieu seul, et c’est vers Lui qu’elle retourne ¹⁷. Ainsi donc l’Ordre divin [al-amr] exigeait la clarification du miroir du monde ; et Adam devint la clarté même de ce miroir et l’esprit de cette forme ¹⁸.

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The Reality wanted to see the essences of His Most Beautiful Names or, to put it another way, to see His own Essence, in an all-inclusive object encompassing the whole [divine] Command, which, qualified by existence, would reveal to Him His own mystery. For the seeing of a thing, itself by itself, is not the same as its seeing itself in another, as it were in a mirror; for it appears to itself in a form that is invested by the location of the vision by that which would only appear to it given the existence of the location and its [the location’s] self-disclosure to it.

The Reality gave existence to the whole Cosmos [at first] as an undifferentiated thing without anything of the spirit in it, so that it was like an unpolished mirror. It is in the nature of the divine determination that He does not set out a location except to receive a divine spirit, which is also called [in the Qur’an] the breathing into him.¹⁹ The latter is nothing other than the coming into operation of the undifferentiated form’s [innate] disposition to receive the inexhaustible overflowing of Self-revelation, which has always been and will ever be. There is only that which is receptive and the receptive has been only from the most Holy Superabundance [of the Reality], for all power to act [all initiative] is from Him, in the beginning and at the end. All command derives from Him,²⁰ even as it begins with Him.

Thus the [divine] Command required [by its very nature] the reflective characteristic of the mirror of the Cosmos, and Adam was the very principle of reflection for that mirror and the spirit of that form…

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Aisha Bewley

When Allah – glory be to Him! – willed that the source of His most Beautiful Names – which are beyond enumeration – be seen [or you can equally say that He willed His source to be seen], He willed that they be seen in a microcosmic being which contained the entire matter, ²¹ endowed with existence, and through which His secret was manifested to Him. For how a thing sees itself through itself is not the same as how it sees itself in something else which acts as a mirror for it. So He manifests Himself to Himself in a form which is provided by the place in which He is seen. He would not appear thus without the existence of this place and His manifestation [tajalli] to Himself in it.

Allah brought the entire universe into existence through the existence of a form fashioned without a spirit [rnh], like an unpolished mirror. Part of the divine decree is that He does not fashion a locus without it receiving a divine spirit, which is described as being “blown” ²² into it. This is nothing other than the result of the predisposition of that fashioned form to receive the overflowing perpetual tajalli which has never ceased and which will never cease. Then we must speak of the container [qabil]. The container comes from nothing other than His most sacredly pure Overflowing. So the whole affair has its beginning from Him, and its end is to Him, and “the whole affair will be returned to Him” [11:123] as it began from Him. Thus the command decreed the polishing of the mirror of the universe. Adam was the very polishing of that mirror and the spirit of that form.