Insight Editions · No. 151
Patterns of Contemplation
Ibn 'Arabi, Abdullah Bosnevi and the Blessing-Prayer of Effusion
Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein
Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein examine the authorship, language, numerical patterns, geometry, and cosmology of a Sufi blessing-prayer on the Muhammadan Reality.
A study guide to Patterns of Contemplation by Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
Overview
Patterns of Contemplation (Anqa Publishing, 2021) by Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein is a study, critical edition and translation of a single devotional text: the Blessing-Prayer of Divine Effusion upon the Reality of Muhammad. The prayer has long been credited to Ibn 'Arabi. The authors argue it was composed by his Ottoman follower Abdullah Bosnevi.
The book makes three claims. First, the prayer is a contemplation of the Reality of the Human Being, the Perfect Man in whom God sees Himself, not only a eulogy of the historical Prophet. Second, its form carries its meaning: rhymes, letters, numbers and geometry are arranged so that the text enacts the circle of creation and return it describes. Third, its author was most likely Bosnevi (d. 1054/1644), whose signed treatises share its vocabulary, its grammar and its numerical habits.
To make the case the authors work through six lenses: letters, roots, scriptural echo, number, geometry and cosmology. They draw constantly on Ibn 'Arabi's Futuhat and Fusus and on Bosnevi's commentary on the Fusus. The result is part metaphysics, part literary forensics, part guide to recitation.
Argument Map
Chapter Map
| Edition part | Book section | Pages | Core move |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. A Prayer as Architecture | Introduction | 1-16 | Genre, structure, texts, the dream |
| 2. The Geometry of Reality | Chapters 1-2 | 17-62 | Circle, compass, Ka'ba; the mirror letters |
| 3. Two Effusions | Chapter 3 | 63-88 | Fayd, nine, Suryaniyya, the dad poem |
| 4. Be, and It Becomes | Chapter 4 | 89-102 | kun fa-yakun; Ghafur and Wadud |
| 5. Who Wrote the Prayer? | Chapter 5 | 103-144 | The case for Bosnevi |
| 6. The Prayer Itself | Chapter 6 | 145-188 | Guided walk through the translation |
| 7. The Kaleidoscope | Appendices A-E | 189-282 | Recitation, number systems, structures, al-Mahdawi |
Ten Ideas to Carry Away
- The prayer blesses a Reality, not only a person: the Reality of Muhammad is the reality of every human being.
- Blessing is circular: God begins the prayer, and our recitation returns it.
- Effusion is overflowing, not mere emanation: more than any receptacle can hold.
- There are two effusions: the Most Holy, in God's knowledge, and the Holy, in visible forms. Together they make one circle.
- No road is straight: every existent returns to where it began.
- The human being is the central point of the circle of existence, the pupil of God's eye.
- The nun is half a circle: the other half is hidden; five and fifty, seen and unseen.
- The waw links: it turns kun into kawn and Generosity into Being, as the Perfect Human links God and world.
- The prayer's sections spell Wadud, the Constantly Loving, and pair it with Ghafur, the Coverer.
- The likely author is Bosnevi, judged by style, vocabulary and number rather than by any document.
Reading Paths
Part 1. A Prayer as Architecture
The introduction (pp. 1-16): what the Blessing-Prayer of Effusion is, the tradition of prayers on the Prophet, how the prayer is built, its manuscripts and commentaries, and the question of who wrote it.
A masterpiece hiding in plain sight
The Blessing-Prayer of Effusion (al-Salat al-faydiyya), also called the Supreme Blessing-Prayer (al-Salat al-kubra), has always been attributed to Ibn 'Arabi (d. 638/1240). The authors call it "one of the most remarkable devotional contemplations on the reality of the true human being found in Sufi literature". This book gives the first critical edition of the Arabic, an annotated English translation and a Spanish version, with a study of the images, letters and numbers built into it, drawing on Ibn 'Arabi and his Ottoman follower Abdullah Bosnevi (d. 1054/1644).
They compare the prayer to the tile panels and muqarnas vaults of Islamic architecture: it flows naturally, yet a strict geometry lies under it. Ibn 'Arabi himself asked: "Is not poetry itself rhythm and proportion? So look at it and you will find it in every existent thing." He pointed to birdsong, beehives and spiders' webs. The authors set the prayer beside the Blue Mosque, the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra: a small text with the impact of a great building.
Is such technical analysis needed for a devotional prayer? The authors answer with a question: is the precise faceting of a diamond needed? "Art is necessary because human life and knowledge are arts in themselves." You can feel Las Meninas or a Bach fugue directly, but knowing their structure opens new dimensions.
Blessing the Prophet
The salat on the Prophet rests on the Quran: God and His angels bless the prophet. O you who have faith, bless him and greet him with peace (Q 33:56). A hadith has Gabriel bring God's promise: "He who greets you with peace, him shall I greet with peace. He who blesses you, him shall I bless." The blessing is reciprocal: whoever recites it receives it back from God. 'Umar (d. 23/644) said a supplication without it stays "suspended between heaven and earth".
| Prayer | Author and date (as printed) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| al-Salat al-Mashishiyya | Ibn Mashish (d. 625/1228) | Short, metaphysical; inspired the Shadhili line |
| al-Salat al-mubaraka | al-Mahdawi (d. 621/1224) | 24 salawat; first conscious use of numerical patterns |
| Qasidat al-Burda | al-Busiri (d. 694/1294) | The Ode of the Mantle |
| Dala'il al-khayrat | al-Jazuli (d. 870/1465) | Seven parts, rhyming prose |
| al-Salat al-faydiyya | Attributed to Ibn 'Arabi; the authors argue for Bosnevi | The culmination of the genre |
The genre grew in the Maghrib from the 6th/12th century, around Abu Madyan and the Shadhilis. Ibn 'Arabi dedicated the Futuhat to al-Mahdawi, and the authors place al-Mahdawi's prayer at the start of an akbarian tradition of salawat, which is why they translate it in Appendix E.
How the prayer is built
The prayer is a series of descriptions of the Reality of Muhammad. It has 99 end-rhymed sentences, which can be read as 99 names of the Prophet answering the 99 Names of God. The practice of listing the Prophet's names goes back at least to al-Qadi 'Iyad (d. 544/1149).
| Section | Opening | Content |
|---|---|---|
| I | Allahumma | Request for effusion; 20 couplets on the Human Being as cause and epitome of creation; 5 couplets on the beloved, the khalifa and the ascension |
| II | Allahumma | The reader's supplication: a salat and a salam, two faces of the door of Love |
| III | Allahumma | Light and vision between Lord and servant: request and fulfilment |
| IV | Allahumma | From darkness to Light, death to Life; seeing the Divine Face with two eyes |
| V | Ya arham al-rahimin | Blessings on the Prophet, his Family and Companions |
Five sections: five is the minor value of the letter nun (major value 50), a central symbol of the prayer.
Texts, commentaries and a dream
All known copies are late. The earliest date, 1141/1728, appears on copies with the commentary of 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731), who first records the prayer as attributed to the Shaykh al-Akbar without giving grounds. Commentaries followed by al-Baghdadi (d. 1197/1779), al-Bakri (d. 1162/1749), Nur al-'Arabi (d. 1305/1888) and others. Al-Nabhani first printed it in 1309/1891, and Michel Valsan's French version appeared in 1974.
| Commentary or edition | Date as printed | Note |
|---|---|---|
| al-Nabulusi, Wird al-wurud | copies from 1141/1728 | First record of the prayer and of the attribution |
| al-Bakri, al-Salat al-akbariyya | author d. 1162/1749 | Commentary |
| al-Baghdadi | composed 1190/1776 | Follows al-Nabulusi; sees the 5:5 structure |
| Nur al-'Arabi, al-Majali l-zahra' | dated 1283/1866 | Commentary used throughout the notes |
| al-Nabhani, first printing | 1309/1891 | Names it al-Salat al-Muhammadiyya, kubra, akbariyya |
| Michel Valsan, French version | 1974 | Etudes Traditionnelles |
Other names circulated too: al-Salat al-Muhammadiyya, the Muhammadian prayer, and al-Salat al-akbariyya, the prayer of the Greatest Shaykh. Ottoman Turkish versions followed. The many titles, the authors suggest, show how widely it was loved before anyone asked who wrote it.
The book opens with a Nasruddin story. Riding home, he counts nine donkeys and panics; walking, he counts ten. He forgot the one he was sitting on. The patterns of contemplation, it suggests, include the one who is counting.
Part 2. The Geometry of Reality
Chapter 1 (pp. 17-36): revelation as sound and vision, Ibn 'Arabi's diagrams, the Ka'ba as point, square and cube, the circularity of all things, and the compass as an image of creation.
Revelation to the heart
Ibn 'Abbas taught that the Quran came down twice: first whole, as qur'an, to the nearest heaven; then in pieces, as furqan, to Muhammad. Ibn 'Arabi reads the nearest heaven as the servant's heart, which receives the whole before the faculties each take their portion. "Uniting includes separation, but separating does not include uniting."
Diagrams as contemplation
Ibn 'Arabi drew diagrams, especially in the Futuhat, because geometry bypasses ordinary concepts. He opens The Production of Circles by saying he wanted to put the realities in a visible diagrammatic mould for his companion Badr al-Habashi and anyone whose sight is not sharp enough. The human being is the central dot of the circle of existence: all other beings are peripheral, and even the highest angels prostrate to him.
Chapter 371 of the Futuhat has twelve diagrams: the Footstool and the two Feet as squares inside the circle of the Throne; levels of paradise inside the twelve constellations; earth and heavens inside the 28 lunar mansions; and the Plain of Assembly, crowned by an octagon with a central point, nine in all.
The Ka'ba: point, square and cube
At the Ka'ba the nameless Youth told Ibn 'Arabi to circle in his footsteps and observe him by the light of his moon. The Futuhat poured out in words; the diagrams show the silent moon. The Ka'ba is the heart of the world, the heart of the human being, and the Throne circled by angels. It is a cube (3x3x3 in Ibn 'Arabi's account), a square, and a point: the Black Stone, by tradition where God's Right Hand touches the world.
Everything returns in a circle
A circle is complete only when the line returns to where it began. If we left God in a straight line, His words and to Him you will return could not be true. Ibn 'Arabi denies there is any straight-line road: even the straight path is circular, and our sense of straightness is a limit of viewpoint.
Every order and every existent, for Ibn 'Arabi, is a circle returning to its start. Only an incision, a bisecting line, gives a circle an apparent beginning and end. He drew a bisected circle beside his chapter on closeness, for the Prophet's nearness "two arcs or [even] closer" (Q 53:9).
The compass
The lam-alif appears in a poem as two letters embracing like two lovers, their two-ness like a heartbeat: bringing into existence and taking out of it. Geometry, literally measuring the earth, measures the Vast Earth of Imagination. What lies beyond, the unseen, cannot be measured. Bosnevi distinguishes two Unseens: the real Unseen of the Essence and its Names, and a relational Unseen, the world of the Command, intellects and spirits.
The chapter closes with Ibn 'Arabi's poem of the Ark sailing on the waters of the Throne. The round Ark crosses an ocean without shore, from alif to ya', and always returns to its port of origin.
"suspended in latency within the highest peaks of dark covering."
"In Him I am you and we are you - and you are He -"
"the whole is He within He - ask one who has attained."
The poem, attributed to Ibn 'Arabi and to others, shows what the circle diagrams mean. The 28 letters on the circumference, matching the 28 lunar mansions, are differentiated; the sublime letters are still undifferentiated, suspended in latency in God's knowledge. The alif alone stands straight. It is the radius: the straight path is simply the line from any point on the circumference to the centre, and every letter curves around it.
Letters as a living community
Chapter 2 (pp. 37-62) opens with Q 68:1, Nun. By the Pen. For Ibn 'Arabi letters are a community like any other, with life and death, imams and emissaries, male and female. He holds that poetry is the origin of the whole creative order, yet warns that the science of letters is God's gift to His friends: "It is thus preferable to give up striving for it". The authors treat letters as objects of contemplation, not tools of magic.
The nun: half seen, half hidden
The nun's shape is a semicircle with a dot; its name, n-w-n, is built from nun, waw and nun. It sits in the middle of the alphabet and its name is shared in structure only with the alif. Of the 29 suras that open with isolated letters, the first begins with alif (Q 2) and the last is Nun (Q 68). In Futuhat I.60 the alif is the Being of the Essence, while the nun is half the universe, the manifest half; the other half, a spiritual Nun, lies hidden above the line. "So the alif is perfect and complete in all respects, while the nun is incomplete."
Bosnevi, in a treatise dated by him to Saturday 7 Safar 1028, speaks of the "Nun of Union": the reality of Muhammad as union in the form of separation. Al-Baghdadi's commentary opens on the same theme: the high letters issue from the Nun of Union through the Most Holy Effusion. A one-line poem of Bosnevi sums up the stance: "They say the colour of water is the colour of its receptacle".
The mirror letters: mim, nun, waw
Only three letters have names that begin and end with themselves: mim, nun and waw. Ibn 'Arabi wrote a whole treatise on them. They are mirror letters, folded back on themselves like lovers. The nun's name contains four nuns, four waws and one alif when fully spelled, which add to 45, the value of Adam. Laid in a 3x3 square the nun's letters circle a central alif with perfect symmetry; the tables for mim and waw have an empty centre.
| Letter | Value | Joined? | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|
| mim | 40 (minor 4) | joins | Adam and Muhammad, place of praise |
| waw | 6 | joins none forward | Ipseity; the Perfect Human; the link |
| nun | 50 (minor 5) | final, separated | the veil; the half-seen world |
The waw is the conjunction "and", which links the couplets of Section I. It is also the waw of iyya-ka in the Fatiha's middle verse, You alone we worship, the verse shared between God and servant. Six is a perfect number; it hides in five, since 1+2+3+4+5 = 15, which reduces to 6. In a poem Ibn 'Arabi calls the waw of You alone more holy than his own being.
Three letter-poems
For Ibn 'Arabi poetry, rhythm and number are one discipline. In chapter 2 of the Futuhat he wrote a short poem for each letter, in phonic order, the order of the voice from throat to lips. The authors read three of them closely.
The mim poem: the mim is like the nun, "if you realise the mystery of the two of them".
"The nun is for the Real, and the noble mim is for me"
In the nun poem the dot looks up at the vertical alif, the object of its adoration. The next line says her being comes from His Generosity. Take the first waw from wujud, Being, and jud, Generosity, remains; take the jim away and wadd, constant Love, appears. Being, Generosity and Love are one word, peeled back.
The mim poem has 9 mims, three in each line, which the authors connect with the triple nature of Muhammad. Its rhyme letter is worth 4, the mim; its extended rhymes are 5 and 6, the nun and the waw. Ibn 'Arabi calls the waw "the first perfect number" elsewhere, because 6 is the sum of its divisors 1, 2 and 3. Of 28, the next perfect number, the alphabet and the lunar mansions both partake.
| Poem | Rhyme value | Theme the authors find |
|---|---|---|
| Nun | three lines | The dot as eye adoring the alif; Being from Generosity |
| Mim | 4 (mim), extended 5 and 6 | The nun for the Real, the mim for the servant |
| Waw | four verses | The waw of You alone; the perfect number |
| Dad | ha' 5; metre al-kamil | The secret of Allah; the night journey (Part 3) |
Part 3. The Two Effusions and the Language of Numbers
Chapter 3 (pp. 63-88): what fayd really means, the Most Holy and the Holy Effusion, why nine matters, the primordial language called Suryaniyya, and a three-line poem on the letter dad read as a numerical diagram.
Effusion is not emanation
The prayer is named for fayd, effusion. Philosophers used the word to translate the Greek idea of emanation, and the authors argue that reading it only as emanation flattens it. The root carries images of water overflowing, light shining and speech pouring out. Ibn 'Arabi defines fayd as overflowing, "an increase above what a receptacle can contain", like the Nile bursting its banks.
Numbers make the same point. Two is one added to itself, as in a mirror; every number is the One appearing at a new degree. Yet Ibn 'Arabi keeps a fine distinction: "It is through His Name ['One', al-wahid] that there is extinction (fana), and it is through His Essence that there is subsistence (baqa)." There is no union of two essences: unification exists only in the world of number and nature.
The term had Sufi currency before philosophy reached it. Ibn Mashish speaks of the effusion of the Prophet's lights, and al-Mahdawi of the tree of the Prophet's luminous origin, shining on him from the effusion of God's Names. Al-Mahdawi's prayer, with 24 sections (the value of Muhammad with the doubled mim, read in minor values), is the first blessing-prayer built on numerical symmetry.
Two degrees of effusion
Ibn 'Arabi uses "the Most Holy Effusion" once in the Fusus, for the creation of Adam: the universe was "like an unpolished mirror" until it gained the aptitude to receive the divine spirit. Bosnevi, following earlier commentators, separates two degrees.
| Most Holy Effusion (al-fayd al-aqdas) | Holy Effusion (al-fayd al-muqaddas) | |
|---|---|---|
| What | Self-revelation of the Essence | Self-revelation through the Names |
| Where | Presence of Knowledge | Presence of witnessing |
| Produces | Potential realities and their aptitude | Created beings in forms |
| Al-Qunawi's name | First Individuation | Second Individuation |
| In the creative word | Be (kun) | so it becomes (fa-yakun) |
| Half of the circle | Upper: eternity without beginning, unseen | Lower: endlessness, visible |
Bosnevi: "It is through this 'ending' [which implies a new beginning] that the [continuous] circle of Being is completed." The pupil of the eye is called in Arabic the human being of the eye, and the Fusus says that through the human being "the Real looks upon His creatures and mercifies them."
The word fayd is worth 180 in the Western abjad Ibn 'Arabi used, so two effusions make 360, a full circle. Reduced, fayd is 9, and its final letter, the dad, is worth 90.
Nine, the horizon of number
Nine is the last unit. On a circle of numbers it stands farthest from one and right beside it; add one and it returns to one via ten. The Pythagoreans called it an unsurpassable limit and likened it to Oceanus circling the world. Group numbers in threes and each triad sums back to six: 1+2+3 = 6, 4+5+6 = 15 = 6, 7+8+9 = 24 = 6.
| Triad | Sum | Reduced |
|---|---|---|
| 1, 2, 3 | 6 | 6 |
| 4, 5, 6 | 15 | 6 |
| 7, 8, 9 | 24 | 6 |
| Multiples of 6: 6, 24, 42, 60, 78 | every third | 6 |
| Multiples of 9: 18, 27, 36, 45 | all | 9 |
| 1 to 9 | 45 | 9 (Adam) |
The Greeks concluded that "all number is formed by the dependence of triad on hexad." The authors point out that this returning six explains certain Islamic calligraphic patterns, such as four waws arranged in a mosque in Bursa.
Ibn 'Arabi said his knowledge of numbers came through unveiling: "If life were to be lengthened for me, I shall devote a book to the inner knowledge (ma'rifa) of numbers." No such book is known.
A further option, used sparingly: count a doubled letter twice. Muhammad written is m-h-m-d (92, reduced 2); spoken with its doubled mim it is 132, reduced 6. The authors read written and spoken forms as hidden and manifest levels.
Suryaniyya, the language of nine signs
The numbers 1 to 9 connect to a primordial language, Suryaniyya, said to have been taught to Adam to name all things and described by the Ikhwan al-Safa' and al-Sha'rani as a language of nine signs. Adam's 45 sciences echo 1+2+...+9 = 45. In this view every being speaks Suryaniyya, and every language reproduces the patterns of the nine numbers. Ibn 'Arabi writes that seekers "cut it in two: in annihilation they find Him, and in remaining they worship Him. It is in incapacity, perplexity and limitation that they truly realise Him."
The authors trace the name through its roots. Suryaniyya, they suggest, carries surur, intimate joy; sirr, mystery; and sarayan, the hidden permeation of things by night: "the intimate joyful (surur) mystery (sirr) which hiddenly diffuses and permeates in the night (sarayan) of the 'solar' speech of existence." The people of unveiling hear in each thing its secret suryani name, the Lord that rules it and praises God through it. Couplet I/5 of the prayer, the Secret of the He-ness that permeates each thing, uses the same root.
The dad poem as diagram
Ibn 'Arabi's three-line poem on the dad, from chapter 2 of the Futuhat, opens: "In the dad lies a mystery: if I were to disclose his rememoration, / you would see the secret of Allah in His supreme Unitedness (jabarut)."
The authors admit that many scholars dismiss abjad readings as naive.
Effusion in Ibn 'Arabi's own prayers
The authors do not rely on theory alone. Ibn 'Arabi's book of daily prayers, the Awrad, uses the verb of fayd repeatedly, and always with images of water and light. The Friday morning prayer asks: "O my Lord, from the seas of pure detachment of the Alif of the Most Holy Essence bathe (afid) me". Another prayer joins effusion to unveiling: "O my Lord, bathe (afid) me in the radiance of Your Light, unveiling for me all that is concealed within me, so that I may witness my existence from Your standpoint, not mine".
Light is the second image. Sunlight falls equally on all beings, and the Light verse (Q 24:35) and the hadith "God created all things in darkness and then sprinkled upon them some of His Light" both carry the sense of fayd. Sound and light both spread from their source in every direction, as a sphere, not a line.
Intellect and Soul
Ibn 'Arabi uses al-fayd al-aqdas once in the Futuhat, for the gift that passes from the Universal Intellect to the Universal Soul: "So the Intellect receives [Its gift] from the Real, exalted is He, and provides this benefit to the Soul, and the Soul receives [her gift] from the Intellect." At first sight this is classic emanation. The authors note the difference: the qualifier Most Holy stresses that both the effusion and its receiver are pure, and that the Soul, macrocosmic and microcosmic, receives the full meaning of the divine Self-disclosure.
| Source | Use of fayd | Sense the authors draw |
|---|---|---|
| Philosophers (translating Greek) | Emanation from the One | Issuing from a source |
| Ibn Mashish (d. 625/1227) | Effusion of the Prophet's lights | Light of Muhammad |
| al-Mahdawi (d. 621/1224) | Effusion of God's Names | Light of the Names |
| Ibn 'Arabi, Awrad | Bathe me; pour forth light | Cleansing, unveiling, receptivity |
| Ibn 'Arabi, Fusus | Most Holy Effusion, creation of Adam | Aptitude to receive the spirit |
| al-Baghdadi | Continuous action without reward | Overflowing with no need of return |
The book prints Ibn Mashish's death as 625/1227 in Chapter 3 and as 625/1228 in the Introduction; both are reproduced as printed.
The pupil of the eye
Bosnevi specifies that "the eye-entity of the servant" in the Presence of Knowledge is where the Most Holy Effusion appears. The circle becomes an eye, its central dot the pupil, which Arabic calls the human being of the eye. Ibn 'Arabi in the chapter on Adam: "He is to the Real as the pupil is to the eye, through which observing happens - and [here] this signifies vision. That is why he is called human being, for through him the Real looks upon His creatures and mercifies them."
A note offers a modern image: Chladni plates, where each sound frequency arranges salt into a particular geometric figure. The pattern is latent; the sound, the Name ruling the pattern, brings it out. "This is a classic metaphor for contemplation."
East and West, light and mystery
The authors are careful to say the people of lights are not Suhrawardi's school but anyone who ranks light above darkness, day above night. For Ibn 'Arabi the hidden root has priority over the manifest branches, as night precedes day.
The benefit of numbers
Ibn 'Arabi explains what numbers are for on the path. The seeker connects a letter's major value to its minor one, "bringing it back to its essential nature (dhat)". Units from alif to ta' are the same in both systems. Minor values relate a letter "back to you", major values "to [outward] inspirations that are intended for you". The authors draw the distinction: units are intrinsic to the person; full values express something arriving in the heart from outside, a warid.
| Level | Number | Column |
|---|---|---|
| God rich beyond the worlds | 45 | Units |
| Intellect | 450 | Tens |
| Nature | 4,500 | Hundreds |
| Elemental body | 45,000 | Thousands |
The dad poem, lines two and three
The second and third lines of the dad poem read: "Observe him as one: [you will see that] his unparalleled perfection lies in the two presences of His supreme Mercifulness (rahamut)." And: "His imam is the utterance through whose being / the All-Compassionate made him travel by night from His supreme Kingliness (malakut)".
The authors work the numbers line by line. Unity (wahid) is 19: when the 1 joins the 9 of the dad they appear together as 19 in the double presence of Mercy, since Rahman and al-Rahim each come to 19. The imam (10, reduced 1) is the alif-like 1 before the 9; it is an utterance (lafz, 19) that has being (wujud, 19). Behind it the authors hear the opening of Surat al-Isra', Glorified is the One who made His servant travel by night, where subhan is also 19. From the 19 of the malakut, the Rahman (19) made the dad (9), which is in the mulk (9), travel by night. The servant ('abdi-hi, 9) is first the Prophet, but equally the Perfect Human.
The dad, the authors conclude, is a symbol of Muhammad, last of the prophets, who reunites at the 27th degree (9), as in the 27th chapter of the Fusus, devoted to Muhammad. Its circular form recalls both nun and ha' (5).
Part 4. Be, and It Becomes
Chapter 4 (pp. 89-102): the creative command kun fa-yakun, the human being made with Two Hands, the hidden waw, and the two divine Names, the Coverer and the Constantly Loving, that the authors find mapped onto the whole prayer.
A threesome facing a threesome
The kaf (20, minor 2) joined to the nun makes kun, Be: When We desire a thing, Our Speech to it is 'Be', and so it comes to be (Q 16:40). In the Fusus chapter on Salih, Ibn 'Arabi pairs three aspects on God's side with three on the thing's side: "Thus a threesome faces a threesome".
| Divine side | Side of the thing |
|---|---|
| Essence | Its thingness, fixed in non-existence |
| Will or Desire | Its hearing |
| Word: Be | Its obedience, so it becomes |
The point is that creation is a meeting, not a one-sided act. Without the Essence, the Desire that faces toward the thing, and the Word, nothing could come to be; but without the thing's own capacity to hear and obey, the Word would fall on nothing. The prayer's couplets reproduce the meeting: first half hearing, second half obedience.
Most of the cosmos comes from Be alone; some things, such as the Garden of Eden and the Pen, from Be and the One Hand; only the human being from Be and the Two Hands, which is why Adam was created according to the Form. Bosnevi calls this the degree of "the most complete Perfect Human Being", uniting the Absolute Essence with the Names, Qualities and Actions.
The hidden waw
The u-vowel in kun is written as a small waw. Make it a full letter between kaf and nun and you get kawn, created existence. The appearing of the waw is the appearing of the world, and of the Perfect Human who links the two. The same waw turns jud, Generosity, into wujud, Being, and mim turns that into mawjud, existent. Couplet I.3 of the prayer reverses the order: God starts from Generosity and brings Being; the Human starts from being and shows generosity to the world.
The fa' is also the root of the word for mouth. Ibn 'Arabi called the presence of divine-human speech fahwaniyya. Read as one phrase, kun fa-yakun totals 29 in minor values, the number of letters in the Arabic alphabet counting lam-alif.
The Coverer and the Constantly Loving
The four later sections have 6, 4, 6 and 4 couplets, which spell w-d-w-d: Wadud, the Constantly Loving. The Quran ties this Name to circularity: It is He who initiates and brings back. And He is the Coverer, the Constantly Loving (Q 85:13-14). Ghafur reduces to 7, matching the 25 couplets of Section I; Wadud is 20, matching the 20 couplets that follow.
Wadud carries the return. Ibn 'Arabi, on chapter 558 of the Futuhat: "the Name al-Wadud has no other meaning than this". And: "The whole cosmos is a single Human Being, who is the beloved; the individuals in the cosmos are the members of that Human Being." The doubled w-d echoes He loves them and they love Him (Q 5:54).
| Perspective | Section I | Sections II-V |
|---|---|---|
| Divine Name | al-Ghafur (25 = 7) | al-Wadud (20) |
| Couplets | 25 | 20 (6+4+6+4) |
| Creative word | kun: kaf 20 + nun 5 | fa-yakun |
| Sentences | 52 (value of hamd, praise) | 40 (mim) |
| Total | 92, the value of the name Muhammad as written | |
Wadud and Ghafur together make 45, the sciences of Adam, matching al-nafs al-natiqa, the speaking self, which Bosnevi links to Muhammad. Bosnevi's treatise on the degrees of Being, The Spiritual Hospitality, comments on a poem by his friend Muhammad Ghars al-Din al-Rifa'i, itself based on al-Jili's work on the forty degrees of Being. Its title and prelude repeat waw and dal, the letters of wadd, love, and wujud, Being. The note gives its date as 1036, with the author's copy made on 27 Rabi' I 1044, and the authors read both as reducing to 1, like the Name Wadud. Of its 28 prelude rhymes, 15 end in -ud and 13 in other letters: 6 and 4, waw and dal again.
Three ways of coming to be
Ibn 'Arabi distinguishes kinds of creation by what accompanies the word Be. The passage underlies the prayer's emphasis on the human being as the one who unites.
| Kind | Brought into being by | Examples in the text |
|---|---|---|
| First | Be alone | Most of the cosmos |
| Second | Be and the One Hand | The Garden of Eden, the Pen, the writing of the Torah |
| Third | Be and the Two Hands | Only the human being, made according to the Form |
The Two Hands, a note adds, imply a 5:5 relation like the two arcs of the nun, returning to unity as 5+5 = 10 = 1. The realised human being unites what flows from the two arcs: Lordship and servanthood, Uniqueness and Oneness (couplet I/13).
Kun in numbers
| Item | Value given | Echo |
|---|---|---|
| kun (kaf + nun) | 20 + 50 = 70, reduced 7 | 'ayn (70), the seeing eye |
| name nun (n-w-n) | 106, reduced 7 | Equal to kun |
| amr, command | 241, reduced 7 | Equal to kun |
| kun fa-yakun, minor values | 29 | Letters of the alphabet with lam-alif |
| yakun, it becomes | 14 | kun (7) doubled through the fa' |
| al-salat + al-salam | 19 + 15 = 34, reduced 7 | kun |
The authors also read kun fa-yakun as a single phrase, the content of God's Speech rather than a command followed by an act: "Be-so-it-comes-to-be". On this reading creation is one composed order with two sides, like a couplet.
Covering as prayer
The idea of covering reaches into prayer itself. Salat, the authors note, can mean asking for God's covering. The Prophet is reported to have said that he was sent to pray over the people of the Baqi' cemetery, or in another version, "I was ordered to ask for God's covering/forgiveness for them." A Quranic prayer joins the two Names' themes: My Lord, cover with forgiveness and mercify [me], for You are the best of Mercifiers (Q 23:118). And Compassionate Mercy, for Ibn 'Arabi, means first giving existence and only then being kind.
In one sentence Bosnevi gathers Generosity, Love and Being, the circles of effusion, and the Cloud. This is the vocabulary of the Blessing-prayer's first couplet, the First of the individuations overflowing from the Lordly Cloud. For the authors it is one more sign of a single hand.
Part 5. Who Wrote the Prayer?
Chapter 5 (pp. 103-144): the case against Ibn 'Arabi's authorship, the portrait of Abdullah Bosnevi, and five of his treatises whose rhymed preludes share the prayer's style, vocabulary and numerical habits.
The case for doubt
Every manuscript names Ibn 'Arabi, but the attribution traces back to one source: al-Nabulusi's commentary, the earliest known copy. And al-Nabulusi hedged. He says an inspiration came to him "from one of the lovers [of God] (muhibbun) of the land of Rum" to comment on a prayer "attributed to" the Shaykh al-Akbar. "Attributed to" can mean said to be by him, or merely related to him, and "the land of Rum" points to Anatolia.
| Evidence | What the authors found |
|---|---|
| Date of copies | All 18th century or later; no earlier trace |
| Misattribution | Common for akbarian texts; they cite works by al-Farghani, al-Jilani and al-Maqdisi once credited to Ibn 'Arabi |
| Rhyme | Consistent internal as well as end rhyme |
| Most Holy Effusion | Only two or three uses in Ibn 'Arabi; never contrasted with the Holy Effusion as in I/11 |
| Individuation (ta'ayyun) | One use in the Futuhat; a later development, prominent in al-Qunawi |
| Grammar | Stacked adjectives and chains of three or four linked nouns, rare in Ibn 'Arabi, common in Bosnevi |
Abdullah Bosnevi
Five treatises compared
| Treatise | Subject | Echo in the prayer |
|---|---|---|
| The Freshness of the Eye of Witnessing (Qurrat 'ayn al-shuhud) | Commentary on the Ta'iyya poem; nine spheres | Eye, witnessing and generosity; closing word ghurra |
| The Removing of the Sandals | Q 20:12; the sandals as Book and Sunna | Two-ness: the circle with two faces and two arcs |
| The Unlimited Covering | Ghafr and separation (farq) | Covering as liberation; 28 rhymes |
| The Spirit of Following | The pledge under the tree, Q 48:10 | Following and allegiance linked as in II/4-5 |
| The Secret of Effusion and Collection | Surat al-'Asr | Effusion; the middle prayer as isthmus |
The Freshness of the Eye takes its title from the maiden Qurrat al-'Ayn of Ibn 'Arabi's Tarjuman, and Bosnevi claims the same source of inspiration. The Sandals opens: "Praise be to God who brought into being (awjada) through the two letters", followed by a circle of existence with two faces and two arcs. The doubling runs through every rhyme of the prelude. Its 16 couplets rhyme in -ayn. In the prayer the same two-ness shows in the paired sentences of each couplet; its two halves have 49 sentences each, with sentence 50 as fulcrum.
The Unlimited Covering contrasts ghafr (covering, reduced 1) with farq (separation, reduced 2). They share fa' and ra'; only ghayn and qaf differ. When the qaf of imagined separation drops away, the ghayn of covering appears: "the Covering Veil of Absolute Unity that totally liberates" from separation, in the authors' rendering.
The Spirit of Following opens: "Praise be to God who made the Perfect Human Being an indicator of Himself". Allegiance to the Prophet is allegiance to God: twofold, like the faces of a cube.
Inside the treatises
The Freshness of the Eye. Bosnevi's longest treatise here comments line by line on the 436-verse Ta'iyya poem attributed to Ibn 'Arabi. Its prelude rhymes in -an (alif plus nun, 1 and 5) and it unfolds through nine spheres, each a metaphysical presence. In the ninth he describes his source of inspiration: the opening poem of Ibn 'Arabi's Tarjuman, and the maiden Qurrat al-'Ayn, whose name means the freshness of the eye. He claims the same muse as the Shaykh, and implies that his commentary on the Ta'iyya parallels Ibn 'Arabi's own commentary on the Tarjuman. The authors note that the Ta'iyya's attribution to Ibn 'Arabi is itself late: the earliest copy they saw dates from about 879/1474, and the poem is absent from his great Diwan.
The Removing of the Sandals. The two sandals of Moses (Q 20:12) become the Book and the Sunna: descent and ascent, the two halves of the circle that the traveller must cross until he arrives. The prelude's first verb, awjada, brought into being, is worth 14 (5), the rhyme letter nun, and is built of two sevens. There are seven verbs of divine action in the praise and seven sections in the treatise, echoing the seven levels of reading the Quran.
The Unlimited Covering. Its prelude rhymes in -af (9), praising God "who opened up the storehouses of the nun and the kaf". There are 28 rhymes, six following the name of Muhammad. The authors render its key phrase as a covering that totally liberates, freeing from "the veils and chains of limitation".
The Secret of Effusion and Collection. 'Asr means mid-afternoon, time, and pressing or extracting juice. Bosnevi contrasts four worlds in two pairs: the world of rapturous love and inebriation against the world of possession and time; the world of unlimited release against the world of containment. The first eight words of the prelude each reduce to 11, a pairing of 1 with 1. The image of two handfuls dissolving into God's single handful pictures the union of spiritual and material in the human being.
| Bosnevi habit | Example in his treatises | Parallel in the prayer |
|---|---|---|
| Rhyme letter matches theme | -an in the Freshness; -ayn (dual) in the Sandals | 5:5 rhymes; paired sentences |
| Counts carry meaning | 28 rhymes; 16 couplets; 100-verse ode | 99 sentences; 25 + 20 couplets |
| Dates as symbols | 1031 reduces to 5; day of 'Arafa | Five sections |
| Two effusions | aqdam and muqaddam rhymes | Couplet I/11 |
| Bridal imagery | Title of the Fusus commentary | The bridal pavilion, I/21 |
| Ghafr as covering | The Unlimited Covering | Ghafur structure of Section I |
The Fusus commentary
Bosnevi's commentary is titled The Unveilings of the Brides of the Truth-declarations on the Bridal Beds of the Wisdoms of the Bezels. Its prelude speaks of "the nun of essential Union" and recasts the two effusions so that they rhyme in mim, aqdam and muqaddam. His introduction sets out 12 principles, each with a term whose value matches its place in the order. On idolatry he writes that the Real "has a private face" in everything worshipped, "be it stone or tree, sun or moon". The commentary ends with a 100-verse ode, 50 verses on each opening, mirroring the two arcs of the nun.
Part 6. The Prayer Itself
Chapter 6 (pp. 145-188): a guided walk through the authors' annotated translation, section by section, with the key images and the commentators' readings. The prayer's full text is in the book; here we follow its movement.
Section I: the Human Reality in 25 couplets
The prayer opens with the imperative that names it, afid, effuse: "Effuse the freely given bestowing of Your blessing-prayers, and the health-giving security of Your peace-greetings upon:". Al-Nabulusi reads it as asking God to manifest His primordial effusion; its value, 18, reduces to 9, full expression. The two mims of Allahumma, he adds, recall the two mims of Muhammad.
Then come 20 couplets, each an epithet of the Reality of Muhammad in two halves, Most Holy and Holy, joined by "and". The first sentence starts the circle: "the First of the individuations overflowing from the Lordly Cloud, and the Last of the revelations descending to the human species".
| Couplet | Epithet | Image |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | the Emigrant | From the Mecca of God alone to the Medina of He is now as He always is |
| 3 | the Recorder of the Five Presences | Counting and collecting all levels of being |
| 4 | the Dot of the basmala; the Dot of Be | Point under the ba'; centre of every circle |
| 5 | the Secret of the He-ness | Permeating all, free of all |
| 9 | the Grandest Mountain; the Vastest Ocean | Unlike Moses' mountain, unmoved by revelation |
| 10 | the Pen of Light; the Breath of Compassion | Ink of the high Letters |
| 13 | the Line of Unity between two arcs | The diameter of the nun |
| 14 | the Minor Transcript; the White Pearl | Microcosm as origin of macrocosm |
| 17 | the Quran of integration; the Furqan of separation | Synthesis and distinction |
| 19 | the Centrepiece; the Clasp | The jewel in the middle of a necklace; the isthmus |
| 20 | the Epitome; the Centre | Closes the circle opened in couplet 1 |
"the Line of Unity [that lies] between the two arcs of Uniqueness and Oneness"
"the Abstinent who fasts in the day-time of 'I spend the night with my Lord', and the Awake who stands in the night-time of 'my eyes are asleep but my heart does not sleep'"
The word habibu-ka, Your Beloved-Lover, breaks the series. Five couplets follow on the bridal pavilion where God unveils His beauty, the qibla, the robe of Names and the crown of the supreme Representative, and the night journey "to the distance of two arcs or even closer". The authors read couplet 21 as two triads: lover, beloved and bridal bed in private; worshippers, qibla and mosque in public.
Section II: the reciter enters
Here the "I" of the reciter appears for the first time: "through which my branch joins up with my root, and my part with my whole". Joining is a matter of awareness, the note says, since the branch is already joined. The salat and the salam then open "the door of Your Love for me with the key of following him", echoing If you love God, follow me (Q 3:31).
Section II ends with the citadel of "there is no god but God" and the retreat-cell of "I have a moment with God", then a stern line: anyone who seeks God without the Prophet "will be driven back with the staff of courtesy to the animals' stable." The pronoun "he" may also be read as Huwa, He, making the gateway God Himself.
Section III: light and the inner eye
"O You whose veil is nothing but Light, whose hiddenness is nothing but the intensity of Manifestation!" The servant asks that the inner eye be anointed with light sprinkled in eternity, "so that I may witness the passing-away of 'what has never been' and the remaining of 'what has never ceased to be'". The notes trace this to Ibn al-'Arif (d. 536/1141). The servant asks to see that things "never smell the fragrance of Being", the doctrine of the fixed entities.
Section IV: from darkness to Light
"restore me to life with the first death and the second birth"
"observing with the two eyes of uniting and separating, distinguishing clearly between the unreal and the Real"
Afid returns, now rendered "bathe", a cleansing rain of divine Unity. Six requests begin with the connective waw (6). The two eyes are the culmination: physically we see the whole and its parts; inwardly, oneness and multiplicity, without confusing them.
Section V: the seal
The final invocation, O Most Merciful of mercifiers, blesses the Prophet, his Family, "the people of visionary witnessing", and his Companions, "the possessors of experiential taste", as long as the night of creation lasts and "the shining mark on the daytime brow of eye-witnessing is unveiled!" That shining mark, ghurra, is the word Bosnevi corrected in his own manuscript. In Bosnevi, Family and Companions also mean those close to the Prophet's inner reality.
Reading closely: the commentary in the notes
The translation in Chapter 6 carries over a hundred notes, drawing on al-Nabulusi, al-Baghdadi, Nur al-'Arabi, Bosnevi and Ibn 'Arabi. They are where much of the book's thinking happens. What follows gathers the most useful readings, couplet by couplet, so the reader can see how the authors work.
| Couplet | What the notes draw out |
|---|---|
| A | sila (bestowing) and salawat share three letters; salama and taslimat share a root. The mirroring starts in the opening words. |
| 1 | The alif appears in both first and last; akhir (last) is worth 9, the last number. |
| 2 | One of three couplets with a single term in two aspects: the Emigrant from and to. The sayings are a hadith Ibn 'Arabi often quotes and a saying attributed to 'Ali or al-Junayd. |
| 3 | Recorder (muhsi, 19) also means collector into an aggregate; Mercifier gives existence after recording in Knowledge. |
| 4 | ba' (2) plus nun (5) mirror kaf plus nun: kun. The first Dot is unitive, the second in constant motion. |
| 5 | sirr, secret, is related to joy, the bed, Suryaniyya and permeation. Al-Baghdadi: the first sentence refers to the world of Command, the second to the world of Creation. |
| 6 | Amin, trusted Keeper, recalls the trust of Q 33:72; the Apportioner echoes "I am Abu l-Qasim. God gives to me, and I divide it up". |
| 7 | kalima, Word (13), links Muhammad as Word of the Supreme Name with Jesus as His Word; the Opener recalls the Fatiha. |
| Couplet | What the notes draw out |
|---|---|
| 9 | Moses' mountain crumbled at the revelation; this one stays unmoved. The pollution is literally corpses floating at sea: negligence is death. |
| 10 | The high letters are feminine plural, persons rather than things; Bosnevi prefers al-nafas al-rahmani (45) to the more common form (40). |
| 13 | Al-Nabulusi: "essential selfrevelation is a circle" and "the arc is half of a circle". |
| 14 | Minor Transcript: the microcosm as origin of the macrocosm. White pearl: First Intellect; red ruby: Universal Soul. |
| 15 | Potential utterances are, in modern terms, phonemes: vowel-movement and rest. Kun itself has one movement and one rest. |
| 17 | Quran (9) and Furqan (8) total 17; the octad as the first cube, the 8 corners of the Ka'ba. |
| 18 | Nur al-'Arabi calls the day-fast "the uninterrupted fasting of two lovers being together". |
| 19 | wasita is also the central jewel of a necklace; the barzakh between the sea of Nature and the sea of knowledge of God. |
| 20 | Circular, like a ship sailing round the ocean of the nun; Section I-A began with first and last and ends with hidden and manifest. |
Three couplets up close
Couplet 6: the Keeper of the storehouses. The bounties are the divine Names, preserved by the Perfect Human. The image recalls Joseph keeping Pharaoh's granaries. The Quran uses mustawda' for a place of deposit (Q 6:98, 11:6), but the commentators read it here as a person: a depositary, not a repository. The Prophet does not merely store; he apportions according to each receiver's need.
Couplet 7: the Supreme Name and the sealed treasure. Ibn 'Arabi takes the Supreme Name as the 100th beyond the 99, tied to the fullness of Mercy; the notes observe that it lies beyond number, since 99 reduces to 9 while 100 returns to 1. Word (kalima) and Opener (fatiha) are both feminine: the kaf of kalima hides kun, and the fa' of fatiha voices fa-yakun. The fa' (8) evokes the eight corners of the Ka'ba, the sealed treasure circled seven times.
Couplet 12 and 13: sun and line. Nur al-'Arabi glosses couplet 12: "Know that the place of manifestation of the Essence is the Qualities, and the place of manifestation of the Qualities is the Names, and the place of manifestation of the Names is the Acts." On couplet 13 the commentators converge on geometry. For al-Baghdadi the line is "the line that goes through the [central] point of the circle dividing it into two [semi-circular] arcs"; for Nur al-'Arabi it is "the uniting isthmus (al-barzakh al-jami() between the Unity of Essence and the plurality of individuations."
| Level | Is manifested in |
|---|---|
| Essence | Qualities |
| Qualities | Names |
| Names | Acts |
| Acts | The Prophet as manifestation of the Names, first created from His Light |
Section I-B: the love story
The habib break. The authors translate habibu-ka as Beloved-Lover because the word is both active and passive. It begins five couplets, one rhyming in kaf and four in a long -a, which can be read as a bridge between the 40 sentences before and the 40 after. The bridal pavilion, minassa, is where a bride is first unveiled; the commentators think of a public seat, but the authors also read it as the intimate bridal bed, a figure Bosnevi loves (it appears in the title of his Fusus commentary).
The heart "did not deny what it saw" (Q 53:11). The note explains ma kadhaba as two things: the heart did not take what it saw for anything other than real, and did not alter it.
Sections II to V: the reciter's path
| Place | Note |
|---|---|
| II opening | Begins with sad (6) of salli, pointing to 6 couplets: the first waw of Wadud |
| II/1 | Joining branch to root is a matter of consciousness; it is already joined |
| II/3 | Untranslatable plays on 'ayn (eye, source, entity) and bayn (between, separation) |
| II/5 | The niche of Q 24:35, semi-circular in shape, holds guidance and conformity |
| II/6 | "I have a moment with God": a saying frequent in Sufi literature, not in the canonical collections |
| B | The staff recalls Moses; paths and doors are many, the gateway is one |
| III | Rabb (4) added to the invocation matches the 4 couplets; "intensity of Manifestation" also hints at shadda, doubling |
| IV/1 | Echoes Q 33:43: He blesses you to bring you out of darkness into the light |
| IV/1 | nushur, Unfurling, means spreading out and becoming green after rain, usually rendered Resurrection |
| IV/2 | The cleansing rain recalls the morning dew of resurrection in Isaiah and Hosea |
| IV/4 | Q 6:122: a light by which he walks among the people |
| V | arham al-rahimin is worth 40 (4): four recipients and four rhymes in -an |
More from the notes: robe, crown and kohl
Couplet 22 pictures the robe of honour a ruler bestows on a favourite. Al-Baghdadi expands it into a discussion of the pure servant's realisation and adoption of the divine Names, sorted by the Presences of Essence, Qualities and Acts as in Ibn 'Arabi's Production of Circles. The crown is the supreme caliphate, which includes that of Adam and David and is given in full to Muhammad alone; the note cites the hadith "I am the lord of the sons of Adam on the Day of Resurrection - without boasting."
Section III's anointing of the inner eye recalls Ibn 'Arabi's image of kohl. Those who circle the Ka'ba are "the kohl of the eye of unveiling", and the adoption of beautiful traits is like painting kohl on the two eyes. The authors add that kohl traces a curve on the eyelid like a nun.
"Intensity of Manifestation." The note reads shiddat al-zuhur as dazzling brilliance and hears in it shadda, the doubling mark: the Lord of the upper semicircle hidden in the lower one as a doubled letter is written once with a mark above it, like the two mims of Allahumma and Muhammad. His veil is light upon light.
The pairing absent and present (mafqud and mawjud) goes back, the note says, to al-Junayd: the one wholly present in God is lost to self, absent and present at once. Being (wujud) belongs only to God; the existent (mawjud) is what appears.
Section IV in the notes
| Phrase | The note's reading |
|---|---|
| bring me out | Echoes Q 33:43; He blesses you to bring you out of darkness into the light |
| bathe me | The second afid; effusion now poured on the reciter |
| foulness | rijs, root meaning a frightening noise such as a thunder-clap; hence what is abominable |
| first death, second birth | Q 30:40: He will cause you to die, then give you life; passing-away and remaining |
| illusion or confusion | ishtibah, looking like something else; iltibas, being unrecognised in different clothing |
| wherever I turn | Q 2:115: Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God |
Section V in the notes
The final section is laid out as nine lines in a triangular pattern, with 26 mims arranged as two triangles of 10 and one of 6. 26 mims at 40 each make 1040. The authors find it tempting to imagine this came from an original copy, as a graphic allusion to the Hijri date of the prayer; 1040 is a date given in some of Bosnevi's other writings, such as the Unlimited Covering. They offer it as a question, not a finding. In Bosnevi's writings, Family and Companions mean more than the historical circle: they include those inwardly close to the Prophet, the people of witnessing and of taste.
Part 7. The Kaleidoscope: Appendices
Appendices A to E (pp. 189-282): a transliteration for recitation, a Spanish version, the letter-number systems, a full structural analysis, and the earlier prayer of al-Mahdawi.
A and B: reading aloud, and in Spanish
Appendix A gives a full transliteration "so that readers of the prayer who do not know Arabic writing may read it in two different ways: as a normal reading or as a formal recitation". Special marks show vowels that can be lengthened in formal recitation, bold for resonating rhymes, and places where a reciter may extend a vowel. Appendix B gives Pablo Beneito's Spanish version, Oracion mayor de la divina efusion.
The marks turn the book's analysis into practice. A reader who never counts a letter still hears the 5:5 resonance, the pairing of hidden and manifest, the pause before "until" and the lift into the ascension.
C: the systems of letter and number
Appendix C sets out the tools behind all the counting, which the authors note were especially marked in the Bayrami-Malami tradition to which Bosnevi belonged.
| Ordering | Basis | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Abjad (Western and Eastern) | Numerical value, 1 to 1000 | Major and minor values |
| Phonic order, Futuhat ch. 2 | Point of articulation, hamza to waw | Order of the letter-poems |
| Phonic order, ch. 198 | Letters in the Breath of the Compassionate | Links to lunar mansions and constellations |
| Dictionary order | Similarity of shapes | Teaching only; not significant in arithmosophy |
The appendix opens with the hadith of the seven modes: Gabriel told the Prophet that God ordered his community to read the Quran in one mode (harf); the Prophet asked for pardon, saying his community could not do this, until the permission reached seven modes. The authors note that harf means letter and particle, but also limit, edge and mountain ridge: a letter is a limitation of the writing line or of the breath. To recite in a single letter-mode, they suggest, would be to recite in full consciousness of that limit.
They also distinguish speech (lafz) from writing (abjad) as two bases for ordering letters, both felt as divinely inspired, against the dictionary order devised by grammarians for teaching. When Ibn 'Arabi counts the letters that make up a letter's name, he leaves out the name-letter itself: alif is spoken as hamza, lam and fa', and its elements, read backwards, spell hamza and alif again.
Both phonic orders run from the innermost point of the throat to the lips: speech as a journey from inside to outside. Arranged in groups of nine (units, tens, hundreds, plus 1000), the letters form the three dimensions of a cube; Julian Cook's spiral diagrams show them as a winding stair like a minaret.
1. Every couplet has a word whose value matches its number: awwal, first (reduced 1) in couplet 1; thani, second (reduced 2) in couplet 2.
2. Every sentence (1 to 40) has a key word matching its number, announced openly with "the Five Presences" in sentence 5.
3. Each couplet names two epithets, inner and outer.
4. The two sentences mirror each other in vocabulary and grammar.
5. They share inner rhymes as well as the end rhyme.
6. Each sentence has a 5:5 pattern, a 5 in the inner rhyme and a 5 at the end, the two halves of the nun.
Al-Baghdadi's manuscript raises the final letters of salatan wa-salaman in Section V above the line, a sign, the authors argue, that he saw the 5:5 structure.
D: one text, many structures
The authors warn that this appendix "might be difficult for a general reader". They call the prayer a kaleidoscopic structure: turn it and it falls into 4, 5, 6 or 9 sections, each tied to a letter.
| Structure | Division | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| Mim | 4 Allahumma sections plus closure; 40 + 10 + 40 sentences | mim (Muhammad) |
| Nun | 5 invocations; 49 + 1 + 49 sentences | nun, visible and hidden |
| Waw | 6 sections with I-B separate; 42 + 10 + 42 | waw (6+1+6) |
| Dad | 9-fold; 54, 36, 9 sentences | dad (9), fayd |
| Ka'ba | 4 corners, 6 faces, 7 circlings | the heart |
The authors set the translation in the GW structure because the numbers in the text (first, second) fit it best. Amin, worth 101, can be counted as the odd sentence that makes the whole prayer witr, odd. The prayer mirrors the Fatiha: the first 40 sentences praise the Human Reality as the Fatiha's first part praises God; the last 40 ask guidance; the middle verse is shared. Even the Fatiha's verse endings, the authors show, follow a 5:5 resonance.
The structures in detail
Mim. Four sections open with Allahumma, plus a closure. "The four primary sections contain a total of 90 sentences, corresponding to the value of the name mim (40+10+40=90)." The closing part adds 9 more, the reduced value of the name mim, "so that in total the Blessing-prayer is made up of two mims", like the doubled mim of Muhammad and of Allahumma.
Nun. Five invocations give five sections. Counted as 99 sentences, the prayer is two runs of 49 culminating in sentence 50, which ends on the word muntaha, the Limit: two series of 50, the visible and hidden nun completing a circle. Splitting Section I into its opening couplet, its 20 couplets and its habib passage gives seven sections, the value of the name nun.
Waw. With I-B counted separately there are six sections. The 42 sentences of I-A, the 10 of I-B and the 42 of II-V mirror the letters of the waw's name, 6+1+6.
Dad, the ninefold. Section I has 54 sentences (reduced 9) or 27 couplets (9). Sections II to IV have 36 sentences (9). From the start to the end of Section IV there are 90 sentences and 45 couplets (9). Section V has 9 sentences, and II to V together 45 (9).
Afid twice, and forty epithets
The prayer's first word after Allahumma is afid, effuse: alif (1), fa' (8) and dad (9), first and last in a single word. It returns once, in IV/2, where the reciter asks to be bathed. The two occurrences are the two effusions: the aqdas level of the Muhammadian Reality and the muqaddas level of the individual reciter. Section I-A holds 40 explicit epithets, one per sentence, or 41 if single and double terms are counted differently, matching the Five Presences (41 reduced to 5). Habibu-ka, Your Beloved-Lover, then completes them.
Section by section
| Section | Pattern the authors find |
|---|---|
| I-B | Night journey (isra, 7) plus ascension (mi'raj, 17) = 24, the couplet where the ascension culminates; God is subject of every verb until "until" |
| II | Two subsections, the salat (6 sentences) and the salam (6); bab, door, repeated: the door of Your love (couplet 5) and Your gateway (couplet 7); 16 occurrences of 'ayn (7) |
| III | Two affirmations of Lordship (through You; through Your unveiling) and two requests (to witness; to see), a 2+2 pattern matching Rabb |
| IV | Five imperatives, then five expressions of seeing the Face wherever one turns: the visible and hidden nun |
| V | Four couplets matching arham al-rahimin (40); the only salli wa-sallim upon our master Muhammad; sixfold grammar in three referents, six nouns, six elements |
The door of Section II, the authors say, is the self ('ayn) realised as a mirror, "the door" to the Self. Section III is the only place where the blessing on the Prophet appears in the centre of a section; they conclude that in this structure "the Muhammadian Reality actually is Salat."
Ninety-nine names of the Prophet
The 99 sentences can be read as 99 epithets of the Muhammadian Reality. The authors place this in a long tradition. Some hadiths say "I have five names" or "I have ten names". Al-Qadi 'Iyad listed many names in the Shifa'. Al-Jazuli (d. 870/1465) gives 201 attributes for recitation. 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili (d. 832/1424) treats the Names of God as attributes of the Prophet. 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri (d. 1300/1883) comments on 39 epithets, with the Muhammadian Reality itself as the 40th.
The Fatiha as hidden model
| Fatiha | Blessing-prayer |
|---|---|
| Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds | Section I-A: praise of the Human Reality |
| the Compassionate, the Merciful | Section I-B: the Beloved-Lover and the ascension |
| Master of the Day of Judgement | Section II |
| You alone we worship | Section III-A: the Light of His Essence and Names |
| and You alone we ask for help | Section III-B: seeing things as they truly are |
| Guide us on the straight path... | Section IV |
The waw in the Fatiha's central verse matches the blessing upon our master Muhammad (salat = 6) at the centre of Section III. Each Fatiha verse, the authors add, ends with the same 5:5 resonance. They call the prayer possibly "an epiphanic manifestation of the Sura, an 'opening key' (fatiha)".
E: al-Mahdawi's Blessed Prayer
Appendix E translates al-Salat al-mubaraka of 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi (d. 621/1224), which one copyist used to seal "these biographical notices with the prayer upon the Master of masters". It has 24 numbered blessings, each echoing its number. It opens: "O God, bless the tablet of Your all-embracing Compassion (rahmaniyya), upon which You have written with the pen of Your sheer Mercifulness (rahimiyya)".
"O God, bless the secret of Your Generosity (jud), the place of manifestation of Your Being (wujud) and the storehouse of Your Existence (mawjud)"
"O God, bless the lamp of Your Religion, the star of Your Certainty, the moon of Your Unity, the sun of the contemplation of Your Beneficence in Your bringing Your human being into existence."
The family resemblance is plain. Blessing 10 already runs the triad jud, wujud, mawjud that Chapter 4 finds in couplet I/3 of the Effusion. Blessing 3 calls the Prophet "the eye-pupil of the whole", the image Bosnevi and Ibn 'Arabi develop. Blessing 1 sets out tablet, pen and ink, the scriptorium of creation. Letter blessings spell names and suras: blessing 4 the opening letters of Sura Maryam (kaf, ha', ya', 'ayn, sad); blessing 6 the letters of Muhammad; blessing 8 alif, ha', mim and dal, the letters of Ahmad, each tied to a divine quality.
| Blessing | Subject | Note in the book |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | The "second One", given the Seven Repeated | The pen flowing with the ink of lordly support |
| 11 | The imam of the Presence of Uniting Power | imam spelled alif-mim twice: 1 + 1 = 11; the mihrab also a horse-racing term |
| 13 | The one who took on Your Qualities | Takhalluq, first expounded, it seems, by Abu Madyan |
| 14 | Our incapacity to bless him as he is | His character was the Quran |
| 16 | The original formation of Love | The Hidden Treasure that loved to be known |
| 17 | The good tree | Q 14:24, roots firm, branches in the sky |
| 19-21 | The Light verse | Niche, lamp and glass read as Muhammad, compared with Ibn 'Arabi |
| 23 | The four successors | "reunite us through You with You" |
| 24 | The community and the reciter | Gather us in his group |
Blessing 14 is the humblest moment: "we have been rendered incapable of blessing him according to what he really is." The note cites 'A'isha, asked about the Prophet's character: "his character was the Quran".
Synthesis
The Argument in Brief
The book moves from the outside of the prayer to its inside and back again. It begins with genre: the blessing on the Prophet, commanded in Q 33:56, grown in the Maghrib into an art form and, in the akbarian line, into numerically patterned contemplation. It then gives the tools: the geometry of point, circle and cube; the letters nun, mim, waw and dad; the two effusions; the major and minor values of letters; the creative word kun. With those tools it shows the prayer's architecture: 99 sentences, five sections, each couplet split between the hidden and manifest effusion, the later sections spelling Wadud, the ascension at the exact centre. It then asks who could have built such a thing, and answers Bosnevi. Finally it hands the reader the translation, the transliteration for recitation, and the earlier prayer of al-Mahdawi, so the argument ends where the authors say it should: in recitation and contemplation.
Takeaways
- The subject of the prayer is the Reality of the Human Being. Blessing Muhammad is blessing the Perfect Man, God's Image, in whom every person shares.
- Prayer is a returned gift. God blesses first; we complete the circuit, as breath returns to its source.
- Fayd means overflowing. It is what spills beyond the capacity of a vessel, poured continuously and with no need of return.
- Entrusting answers effusion. I entrust my affair to God (Q 40:44) is the conscious return of the existence we received.
- Two effusions, one circle. The Most Holy Effusion sets the potential realities in God's knowledge; the Holy Effusion gives them form. Each is 180, together 360.
- Circularity rules. Nothing goes in a straight line; even the straight path curves home.
- The compass is the cosmos in miniature. The alif closed, the ba' open, the hidden centre and the moving pen.
- The Ka'ba is point, square and cube, and the heart is its living counterpart.
- The nun shows half the truth. Fifty seen, fifty hidden; five sections, five matters.
- The mirror letters fold back on themselves, as the Real sees Himself in the human mirror.
- The waw is the link. It makes kun into kawn, jud into wujud, and joins the two halves of each couplet.
- Minor values point to essence; major values to manifestation. Ibn 'Arabi calls the minor "the first key".
- Nine is the horizon, the last unit before return to one, and the value of fayd reduced.
- The human being alone is made with Two Hands, uniting Lordship and servanthood.
- Create by good works, not by command. Courtesy toward God means renouncing displays of the power of kun.
- Ghafur is first a covering. The veil that lets anything appear other than God, and then protects from the illusion of separation.
- Wadud is constancy of love. It gives existence continually, every day at work.
- Form and content coincide. The prayer's structure enacts its doctrine, like the geometry under an arabesque.
- Authorship is argued, not proven. The evidence is stylistic and numerical; no early manuscript names an author.
- Bosnevi shows a living tradition. Four centuries after Ibn 'Arabi, an Ottoman master writes in the same contemplative grammar.
- The reciter enters in Section II. The "I" asks that branch join root, part join whole.
- Vision is the goal. Sections III and IV ask for an inner eye that sees things as non-existent in themselves and the Face wherever one turns.
- The two eyes: seeing oneness and multiplicity together without confusing them.
- The Fatiha is the hidden model. Praise, a shared middle and a request for guidance shape the prayer as they shape the Sura.
- The ascension sits at the exact centre: sentences 49 to 51, reduced to 4, 5 and 6, mim, nun and waw.
- Creation is a meeting. Essence, Will and Word face thingness, hearing and obedience.
- Al-Mahdawi prepared the ground. His 24 blessings already join Generosity, Being and the existent, and call the Prophet the pupil of the eye of the whole.
- The analysis is optional. The authors say the prayer can be approached directly; structure is a door.
Frameworks at a Glance
A closer look
Strengths. The book offers the first critical edition, with careful attention to manuscripts and commentaries, and shows real philological discipline: the mubaya'a correction in II/4, the distinction between fayd and emanation, the history of the Most Holy Effusion and of ta'ayyun. Its comparison of Bosnevi's preludes with the prayer is concrete and new in a Western language. The translation is richly annotated.
Limits. The numerical method is flexible. Values can be major or minor, Western or Eastern, with or without the article, with or without doubled letters, and sections can be counted in four or more ways. With so many options, some matches are bound to appear by chance. The authors acknowledge that the correspondences are not explained "in the text or in any of the commentaries" they consulted. Their response, that Ibn 'Arabi himself gave the keys and Bosnevi used them, is plausible but leaves the reader to judge density rather than proof.
Authorship. The case for Bosnevi is cumulative and internal. It rests on vocabulary later than Ibn 'Arabi, grammar typical of Bosnevi, and shared numerical techniques. It would be strengthened by an early manuscript or a reference by Bosnevi's circle; the book reports none. Yet the case against Ibn 'Arabi, the late copies and al-Nabulusi's careful "attributed to", is strong in itself.
The new structural claims. The Fatiha mapping and the central placement of the ascension are among the book's most suggestive findings, because they rest on sentence counts that a reader can check against the translation rather than on letter values alone. The proposed allusion to the date 1040 in the final mims is offered by the authors as a question; it would, if right, place the prayer squarely in Bosnevi's lifetime, but it remains a conjecture built on a layout found in some copies.
Who's Who
Dates are as printed in the book.
| Person | Role in the book |
|---|---|
| Ibn 'Arabi (d. 638/1240) | The Shaykh al-Akbar; traditional author; source of the metaphysics |
| Abdullah Bosnevi, 'Abdi Efendi (d. 1054/1644) | Ottoman commentator on the Fusus; the authors' candidate author |
| 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi (d. 621/1224) | Author of al-Salat al-mubaraka; Futuhat dedicated to him |
| Ibn Mashish (d. 625/1228) | Author of al-Salat al-Mashishiyya; master of al-Shadhili |
| al-Shadhili (d. 656/1258) | Founder of the Shadhili line |
| al-Busiri (d. 694/1294) | The Ode of the Mantle |
| al-Jazuli (d. 870/1465) | Dala'il al-khayrat |
| al-Qadi 'Iyad (d. 544/1149) | Listed the Prophet's names in the Shifa' |
| 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731) | First commentator; first to record the attribution |
| al-Baghdadi (d. 1197/1779) | Commentator; defined fayd as continuous overflowing |
| al-Bakri (d. 1162/1749) | Commentator |
| Nur al-'Arabi (d. 1305/1888) | Commentator |
| al-Nabhani | First printed the prayer in 1309/1891 |
| Ibn al-'Arif (d. 536/1141) | Saying on what passes and what remains, echoed in III/3 |
| 'Umar (d. 23/644) | Supplication without the blessing stays suspended |
| al-Qunawi | Named the First and Second Individuations; Bosnevi buried beside him |
| al-Suhrawardi (d. 587/1191) | Cited in a note on philosophical uses of fayd |
| 'Abd al-Baqi Miftah | Modern Algerian researcher of akbarian arithmosophy |
Applying It
- Entrusting. At the end of a task, practise the sense of Q 40:44: return the result to its source, rather than keeping it as private achievement.
- The middle prayer. Use the mid-afternoon as Bosnevi's isthmus: a pause between appearing and setting, to hold both inner and outer.
- Two eyes. In a conflict, look once for the whole and once for the parts, and refuse to let either erase the other.
- Courtesy over force. When you have the power to command, ask whether good works would serve better than the word "Be".
- Recite slowly. Use the transliteration's marks to lengthen vowels and hear the rhymes; let structure become rhythm.
Discussion Questions
- How convincing is the authorship case without a manuscript naming Bosnevi? What evidence would settle it?
- What is gained by translating fayd as effusion rather than emanation?
- Why might Ibn 'Arabi prefer the minor values as "the first key"?
- How does the idea of Ghafur as covering change the usual idea of forgiveness?
- In what sense is the human being "the pupil of the eye" for God?
- If no road is straight, what does progress mean?
- Does it matter, for a reciter, who wrote the prayer?
Patterns Across the Book
| Pattern | Where it appears | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Circle | Compass, Ka'ba, Q 57:3, two effusions, the Ark | Origin and return are one movement |
| Half and whole | Nun, two arcs, aqdas and muqaddas, the dad | What is seen implies what is hidden |
| Link | Waw, fa' of fa-yakun, barzakh, the middle prayer | The human being as isthmus |
| Mirror | Mirror letters, paired sentences, Lord and servant | God sees Himself in the human Image |
| Nine | fayd, dad, Suryaniyya, Section V | Fullness of manifestation before return |
| Five and fifty | Nun, five sections, prayers on the ascension | The seen measure of an unseen whole |
"There is only continuous Being (wujud) and freshly established Witnessing (shuhud)."
"Above all other considerations, this is a blessing-prayer for recitation and contemplation."
Glossary
Prayer and devotion
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| salat (pl. salawat) | Blessing-prayer; here the blessing on the Prophet |
| salam | Peace-greeting, paired with salat |
| tasliya | The genre of blessings on the Prophet |
| Allahumma | "O God", the invocation opening four sections |
| Amin | Amen; value 101, the odd closing sentence |
| sajc | Rhymed prose, the form of the prayer |
Metaphysics
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| fayd | Effusion; overflowing beyond a receptacle's capacity |
| al-fayd al-aqdas | Most Holy Effusion; Self-revelation of the Essence in Knowledge |
| al-fayd al-muqaddas | Holy Effusion; Self-revelation through the Names in forms |
| ta'ayyun | Individuation; First and Second in al-Qunawi |
| 'ayn | Eye, source, entity; the eye-entity that sees |
| al-insan al-kamil | The Perfect or Complete Human Being |
Letters and numbers
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| abjad | Assigning numerical values to letters |
| major / minor value | Full value (mim 40) versus unit (mim 4), "the first key" |
| Western / Eastern system | Two abjad orders; Ibn 'Arabi favours the Western |
| mirror letters | mim, nun, waw, whose names begin and end with themselves |
| Suryaniyya | Primordial language of nine signs taught to Adam |
| arithmosophy | The wisdom of numbers, the authors' term for the method |
Creation and return
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| kun fa-yakun | Be, and it becomes (Q 16:40), the creative word |
| kawn | Created existence; kun with the waw made visible |
| jud / wujud | Generosity / Being; joined by the waw |
| tafwid | Entrusting one's affair to God (Q 40:44) |
| al-Ghafur | The Coverer; usually "the Forgiving" |
| al-Wadud | The Constantly Loving; spelled by sections II-V |
Geometry and cosmos
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| nuqta | Dot; the point at the centre, under the ba' |
| qaba qawsayn | Two arcs or closer (Q 53:9); final nearness |
| barzakh | Isthmus between two worlds |
| Ka'ba | Cube, square and point; heart of the world |
| Five Presences | Levels of being recorded in the Reality of Muhammad |
| isra' / mi'raj | Night journey / ascension; centre of the prayer |
Texts and structure
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| Futuhat | Ibn 'Arabi's Meccan Openings |
| Fusus al-hikam | Bezels of Wisdom; commented on by Bosnevi |
| khutba | Rhymed prelude to a treatise |
| couplet / sentence | A rhyming pair / each of its two lines |
| GW structure | The counting the translation follows |
| kaleidoscopic structure | One text falling into several valid divisions |
About this book
Patterns of Contemplation: Ibn 'Arabi, Abdullah Bosnevi and the Blessing-Prayer of Effusion by Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein, 2021. This is a chapter-by-chapter study of the book, with summaries, maps, tables and diagrams; short quotations keep their page references. It is shared free for personal study, is not for sale, and is not endorsed by the author or publisher. Please read and buy the original.
Insight Editions · rajeshrmahapatra.com/insight-editions