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The Unlimited Mercifier
Extract from Chapter 14: Of Love and Beauty
It is a commonplace that the most essential instinct to be found in the animal and plant kingdom is the preservation of life. All the functions of living seem to be geared to the continuation of the species, with the strongest surviving and the weakest being left behind. All the efforts, all the comings and goings, are expended in order to "keep going", but to what end, for what purpose? When humans have contemplated this, some have concluded that life is futile and pointless, but carry on living anyway. Some make their creed "eat, drink and be merry", enjoying the pleasures of life as much as possible and putting out of their minds any question of why or to what end. But those who question existence come to a much deeper understanding of motive forces. For Ibn 'Arabi the preservation of life is only the most immediate level of understanding, since it emphasises the motive of fear: he gives as example the way in which Moses left Egypt after killing the Egyptian. Aware that such a crime merited capital punishment:
Moses fled, apparently out of fear [for his life], but really [according to the spiritual meaning] out of love, love of his salvation. For movement is always a matter of love, but the observer may be veiled in it by other causes that are not this.
Thus for Ibn 'Arabi love is the central feature of all existence, and the task of the real human being is to see beyond the veils of apparent motivation to the love which underlies all. The concern of the human being is the preservation of love, not just life. He relates this directly to the creation of the universe as described in the hadith: "I was a Hidden [Unknown] Treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known". Without love, the universe would not have come into being. Without love, everything would remain in a state of non-motion, pure possibility buried in non-existence. Without love, the Divine treasury would not be known. And love permeates every movement, every action, every level, whether we are aware of it or not.
It has often been said that Ibn 'Arabi is a great mystical philosopher whose writings are a tour de force of intellectual insight – the implication being that others have described the feelings of the heart more beautifully and eloquently. Such a person has never read Ibn 'Arabi's poetry or his descriptions of love, especially the vast Chapter 178 in the Futuhat, which is devoted to the knowledge of the Station of Love. It is impossible not to be struck by his extraordinary passion, by the absolutely central role that love plays in his writing, and above all by the fact that his writing itself is nothing but an outpouring of love. It is equally impossible not to notice the precision with which he portrays the arena of love, and the depth of his insight into its true nature.
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