Insight Editions · No. 163
Sufi Aesthetics
Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi
Cyrus Ali Zargar
Cyrus Ali Zargar examines how Ibn 'Arabi and Fakhr al-Din Iraqi connect divine beauty with human form, love poetry, gender, and mystical perception.
A study guide to Sufi Aesthetics by Cyrus Ali Zargar. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
About the Book
Cyrus Ali Zargar's Sufi Aesthetics studies how two medieval mystics, Ibn 'Arabi (560/1165-638/1240) and Fakhr al-Din 'Iraqi (ca.610/1213-1214 to 688/1289), saw God in beautiful forms, above all the human form, and why they wrote about it in love poetry.
The book moves in a clear line. It starts with perception: how the gnostic sees, with tanzih and tashbih together, through imagination as an isthmus. It then defines beauty as lovability and asks why the human form is its fullest locus. Two chapters follow on human beauty, one on Ibn 'Arabi's view of women and the three loves, one on 'Iraqi and the contested practice of shahidbazi. A last chapter reads the amorous lyric, and short Conclusions turn to paradise and to a warning against idealizing the Sufis.
In one sentence: for these mystics, meaning can only be met in form, so a beautiful face, a love poem and the delights of paradise are all ways of witnessing the Real, and the same principle that justifies their poetry also exposes where their practice went wrong.
Argument map
Chapter map
| Part | Book chapter | Question |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | What is a Sufi aesthetics, and why start from a dream? |
| 2 | Ch1 | How does Ibn 'Arabi say the gnostic perceives? |
| 3 | Ch2 | How does 'Iraqi turn that perception into love? |
| 4 | Ch3 | What is beauty, and why the human form? |
| 5 | Ch4 | How does Ibn 'Arabi treat women, youths and the three loves? |
| 6 | Ch5 | What was shahidbazi, and was it an error? |
| 7 | Ch6 | Why did love poetry become the medium? |
| 8 | Conclusions | What follows for paradise and for how we judge the Sufis? |
Before you start: ten ideas to hold
| Idea | In one line |
|---|---|
| Seeing in forms | The soul meets meaning only in form, in waking life as in dreams |
| Two eyes | Transcendence and similitude held together |
| Isthmus | Imagination stands between meaning and matter and shares in both |
| State-changing | God shows a new face in every instant and every receiver |
| Lovability | Beauty is what draws love; all of it belongs to God |
| Constitution | The receiver's make-up decides what pleases |
| The shahid | The beautiful one as witness and evidence |
| Three loves | Natural, spiritual and divine, joined in the gnostic |
| Ambiguity | The love poem keeps sacred and profane readings open |
| Accountability | The mystics are judged by the sources they accepted |
Who this guide is for
1. Introduction: Seeing in Forms
Zargar opens with dreams, where the soul sees abstractions as images, and uses them as a door into the claim of medieval Sufis that they saw the divine in matter and form. The Introduction (pp.1-10) states the book's aim, its two subjects, its key terms and its method.
- The study begins from Ibn 'Arabi's dream and the claim that the soul sees in forms.
- Aesthetics means a mode of perception and experience of beauty, drawn from the Sufis' own words.
- Two misreadings are in view: lust without spirit, and allegory without love.
- Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi share one cosmology of existence and self-disclosure.
- Poems are read for how they are received, not as codes.
A dream as the starting point
In dreams a friend may appear as someone else and still be recognized, and "strife" may appear as an animal or the wind. Yet dreams keep to the limits of human experience: the soul brings memories and familiar senses with it. Zargar's point is simple: "The soul sees in forms." He says plainly that "This is not a book about dreams." It is about mystics who met the world with the clarity we might have only in dreams, and who saw the divine in matter.
The editor's first point: the book is an argument about perception before it is an argument about beauty. If the sensory is taken seriously as a vehicle for what the soul beholds, Zargar argues, Sufi imaginative literature will seem far less imaginary, Sufi erotic poetry far less allegorical, and the Quranic paradise far less simplistically profane.
The polemical edge
Zargar says the study answers those who have mishandled the tradition: readers who demand a neat split of sacred and profane and so misread Sufi eroticism, and recent writers who present the Quranic paradise as meaningless sensual pleasure for "lascivious, self-righteous fanatics". His hope is that by the end a reader will see that "what is granted to mystics in this world can be granted to the believer in the next": visions of God, His attributes and names, in a manner suited to human experience.
The key Quranic scene is Moses asking to see his Lord (7:143). He is told vision is hopeless, told to look at the mountain, and swoons when it crumbles. Zargar notes that the Sufi term for God's manifestation, al-tajalli, "self-disclosure", comes from this one passage.
Why "aesthetics"
Zargar uses the word only because Sufi theory has its own account of beauty, centred on the human form. The word "aims solely to capture the observation that there existed among such mystics a distinctive mode of perception", one that led to an evaluation of beauty. He prefers it to "sacred" and "profane", which demand sharp divisions the Sufis did not make. Their own pair, metaphorical love ('ishq-i majazi) and real love ('ishq-i haqiqi), is inseparable: the metaphorical always points to the real.
Two Akbari visionaries
| Ibn 'Arabi | 'Iraqi | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates (as printed) | 560/1165-638/1240 | ca. 610/1213-1214 to 688/1289 |
| Language | Arabic only | Mainly Persian |
| Background | Sufis of al-Andalus | Persianate Suhrawardi line; seventeen years in Multan |
| Style | The language of the exoteric sciences, used in his own way | Poetic and terse |
| Link | The "Greatest Shaykh" | Met Qunawi, Ibn 'Arabi's chief student, late in life |
Both are "Akbaris", a term from Ibn 'Arabi's title al-shaykh al-akbar. 'Iraqi's Lama'at, Zargar says, represents the nexus of the two traditions.
The cosmology in brief
For both, witnessing and love pervade the cosmos because both come from one reality, existence itself; a complete distinction between God and creation "amounts to a sort of idolatry". Higher levels show themselves in lower ones, and lower ones fix the "form" of what is above them. The descent is pictured as meaning taking form, like a word: an idea becomes a mental word, then a spoken and written one; "generosity, for example, has become a giving hand."
Beauty as lovability
Beauty, for both writers, is "lovability": how far a thing evokes love in its perceiver. Every perceiver loves itself and seeks what mirrors it; when it sees its mirror, it delights and calls the object beautiful. That explains why humans are drawn to humans, and why the truly beautiful is the divine, since a breath of the divine spirit is every person's soul. One caveat governs the book: "The gnostic cannot witness the Real outside of the boundaries of form." Unveiling happens outside form; witnessing what is unveiled happens within it, and most fully in the human form.
Reading poems as a matter of reception
Zargar's case study is Hafiz (d. 792/1390). Scholars have argued whether he was a sincere mystic or a libertine, but none has explained why Sufis received his ambiguous erotic verse so warmly. Jami (d. 898/1492) said his utterances accord with Sufi disposition like no one else's. Zargar's answer is aesthetics: reception follows a set of values about perception and beauty. He quotes a love poem from Ibn 'Arabi's Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, a tryst with "the tribe's girl" at the hills of Najd, and notes that in Ibn 'Arabi's worldview the girl, the woman she represents and the human-divine communication in every image all "thrive simultaneously".
Reading the Introduction: notes and questions
The Introduction does three jobs. It sets out the claim (the soul sees in forms), it names the opponents, and it defines the word "aesthetics" narrowly enough to be useful. A reader who keeps those three jobs apart will find the rest of the book easier to follow.
| Job | What Zargar does | Where it returns |
|---|---|---|
| Claim | Starts from Ibn 'Arabi's dream and the line that the soul sees in forms | Every chapter; restated in the Conclusions |
| Opponents | Readers who see only lust in the poetry, and readers who see only allegory | Ch6 (Stetkevych, Baldick); Conclusions (Asín) |
| Definition | Aesthetics as a mode of perception, not a theory of art objects | Ch1-3 |
| Method | Contemplative texts read on their own terms | Ch6, reading for function |
The opening move is worth noticing. Zargar does not begin with a theory but with a report of experience, and then says plainly "This is not a book about dreams." The dream is a sample of a way of seeing, and the book is about that way of seeing.
The polemical edge is sharper than a first reading suggests. The phrase "lascivious, self-righteous fanatics" describes how the mystics have been caricatured, and the whole study can be read as a patient reply to that caricature. Yet the same Introduction prepares the ground for the critique of shahidbazi in Ch5, so the defense is never a blanket one.
- Why does Zargar prefer "aesthetics" to a phrase like mysticism of love as his frame? What does the narrower word let him do?
- If complete distinction between God and creation "amounts to a sort of idolatry", what kind of seeing counts as true monotheism?
- What is gained, and what is lost, by choosing two authors to stand for a whole tradition?
What to remember: the Introduction promises a study of perception that ends in poetry, and a defense that ends in judgment. Both promises are kept.
Links to other parts
The dream returns in the Conclusions, where the mystics' vision is said to anticipate the believer's vision in the hereafter. The two misreadings return as Stetkevych and Baldick in Part 7 and as Asín in Part 8.
2. Perception according to Ibn 'Arabi
Chapter 1 (pp.11-30) asks what exactly the gnostic perceives. Zargar's answer: God in forms. Witnessing (shuhud) rather than the Oneness of Being is the key that opens Ibn 'Arabi's account of beauty and love.
- Witnessing comes before any theory of being.
- The gnostic sees with two eyes, tanzih and tashbih.
- Imagination is an isthmus at three levels: cosmos, imaginal world, faculty.
- Unveiling and witnessing run in opposite directions.
- The gnostic's senses become God's hearing and sight.
Witnessing before ontology
Ibn 'Arabi is classed as the expositor of wahdat al-wujud. Zargar, following Chittick, notes the phrase emerged after his death, and argues that he was concerned, first and foremost, with vision. For Ibn 'Arabi, "everyone in existence is Real / and everyone in witnessing is a creation." Creation, being ontologically poor, is what receives existence and does the witnessing, like an uncluttered mirror in which God sees Himself. The Hidden Treasure hadith supplies the motive: "I was a Treasure", unknown, who loved to be known. The editor's verdict: Zargar's claim that "Oneness of Witnessing" describes the system almost as well as "Oneness of Being" is the hinge of the whole book. Note 7 adds that Sirhindi (d. 1034/1624) later made the two phrases rivals.
A vocabulary of seeing
Chapter 209 of the Futuhat makes witnessing (mushahadah) the first sign of the gnostic. Two scriptural failures show what it means: the Queen of Sheba says of her own throne "it is as if it is it!" (27:42), and the Companions see only Dihyah al-Kalbi when Gabriel takes his form. One cannot see an object as itself; the other cannot see it as something else.
| Term | What it names | Relation to form |
|---|---|---|
| shuhud | Witnessing in general; creation's receptive stance | Within matter |
| mushahadah | A grade of witnessing, "fettered by signs" | Preceded by knowledge of the witnessed |
| ru'yah | Direct vision, no intermediary | Not preceded by knowledge; Moses' wish at 7:143 |
| mukashafah | Unveiling of meanings, governed by the Names | Strips the forms away |
Witnessing parallels the philosophers' definition of knowledge as the presence of a form in the intellect, except that the trace (shahid) lodges in the heart or soul. Ibn 'Arabi sides with al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) that unveiling ranks above witnessing, against Qushayri (d. 465/1072) and Ansari (d. 481/1089): "unveiling makes subtle that which is gross, while witnessing makes gross that which is subtle."
Imagination as isthmus
Imagining an object gives it mental existence, sustained only by attention; so all we call existence is "imagination within an imagination", and only God's essence truly is. Imagination is a barzakh in the cosmos (the objective imaginal world, al-khayal al-munfasil) and in the person (the subjective faculty, al-khayal al-muttasil). Senses supply its raw matter; the form-giving faculty and fantasy (wahm) shape it; knowledge appears in dreams as milk. The gnostic sees awake what others see asleep. Gabriel's appearance to Mary as "a shapely man" (19:17) shows tamaththul: the form belongs to the viewer, not to an indwelling.
The senses of the gnostic
The hadith of supererogatory works is Ibn 'Arabi's favourite proof text: God becomes "his hearing through which he hears, his sight through which he sees". In the Fusus chapter on Hud he reads it literally, like one water tasting sweet or bitter by place. Zargar then turns to Jandi (d. ca. 700/1300), a fellow disciple of Qunawi with 'Iraqi. Self-surveillance and evening self-reckoning cover eight organs; adding the heart's bestirrings (khawatir) is, for Jandi, the mark of the Seal of the Saints. Ibn 'Arabi confirms it: "I surpassed them in this regard, since I recorded bestirrings."
The inner aspect of the soul is the heart
Sight outranks the other senses: the eyes hold the place that lovers hold in the cosmos. A Futuhat couplet sets "The ear is in love and the eye is in love", the eye loving what is sensed in forms, the ear what fantasy depicts.
Seeing with both eyes
Tashbih (similitude) and tanzih (transcendence) must be held together. The model is 8:17, "You did not throw when you threw, but God threw": one eye sees God as thrower, the other the corporeal Muhammadan form. Reason's transcendent God cannot be loved; revelation's positive reports make love possible: "we loved him for the sake of these positive attributes."
Takeaway: witnessing needs form, form means similitude, similitude breeds love, so love is a mode of perception. That syllogism carries the rest of the book.
Key passage
"There must always be an acknowledgment that descriptions of God based on similitude fall short of him; otherwise, God becomes confused with his creation."
Note on the key passage. These two sentences are the safety rail of the whole book. Zargar defends tashbih at length, and this is where he states its limit. The gnostic may see God in a face, a poem or a garden, but only while knowing that the likeness falls short. Everything later, from the praise of human beauty to the critique of shahidbazi, can be measured against this rail: the error in Ch5 is, in effect, a failure to keep the acknowledgment alive in practice. The passage also shows how close the Akbari position stays to ordinary Islamic theology. Shirk is named as the worst error, and the defense of similitude is built inside that boundary, not against it.
Reading Chapter 1: notes and questions
Chapter 1 is the theoretical base of the book. Everything later depends on two ideas set out here: that witnessing comes before ontology, and that the gnostic sees with both eyes. If the reader grasps why tashbih is not idolatry, the defense of the love poetry in Ch6 follows almost automatically.
| Term pair | First term | Second term | Why both are needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tanzih / tashbih | God beyond all likeness | God seen in likeness and form | One alone gives either an absent God or an idol |
| Kashf / shuhud | Unveiling, subtle from gross | Witnessing, gross from subtle | Two directions of the same perception |
| Reason / love | Binds and limits | Scatters and bewilders | Ibn 'Arabi claims an excessive share of love and the ability to control it |
| Existence / witnessing | All is Real | All is creation | The same thing seen from two sides |
Zargar's own summary of the existence-witnessing pair is direct: "everyone in existence is Real / and everyone in witnessing is a creation." The verse lets Ibn 'Arabi hold oneness without denying the plain experience of many things.
The Treasure hadith gives the motive. The Real wished to be known, so creation is the mirror in which he sees himself. Zargar ties this to the claim that the gnostic cannot witness the Real outside the boundaries of form. Form is therefore not a barrier to God; it is the only place where he is seen.
The section on the senses matters for later chapters. The hadith of the servant whose hearing and sight become God's own, "his hearing through which he hears, his sight through which he sees", means the gnostic's senses are not left behind. They are transformed. This is what makes it possible, in Ch4 and Ch5, to speak of witnessing God in a human face with open eyes.
- Why are Noah's people both blamed and praised in the Fusus? What does that double verdict teach about tashbih?
- If the cosmos is imagination within an imagination, in what sense is it still real?
- Ibn 'Arabi says he recorded bestirrings that others did not. What does that boast imply about the role of writing in mystical life?
What to remember: perception, for Ibn 'Arabi, is never neutral. It is either one-eyed or two-eyed, and only two-eyed seeing is complete.
Links to other parts
Two-eyed seeing is the basis of 'Iraqi's three visions (Part 3), of the defense of human beauty (Parts 4 and 5), and of the reading of ambiguous poems (Part 7). The limit on similitude stated here is the measure behind the critique in Part 6.
3. Perception according to 'Iraqi
Chapter 2 (pp.31-44) shows that 'Iraqi, writing tersely and in Persian, confirms Ibn 'Arabi's account of witnessing, and specializes in its two subjects: witnessing and love.
- Creation is Love looking at itself in the mirror of the cosmos.
- God changes form in every instant (tahawwul).
- The cross-eyed fool sees two where there is one.
- Wine, cup and Saqi carry the doctrine in poetry.
- Seeing God in forms is neither union nor incarnation.
Creation as Love looking at itself
For 'Iraqi, creation is self-love, then self-speaking, then self-witnessing. Love in itself is free of every entification; to manifest its perfection it showed itself in the looking-glass of lover and beloved. The Lama'at gives the rule in three clauses: "None loves God other than God; none sees God other than God; and none mentions God other than God." Every lover re-enacts divine self-admiration: "All that exists is a mirror for his beauty", so everything is beautiful.
Note: the step from cosmology to practice is short. Zargar says the view that gazing at beautiful faces enacts divine self-admiration was explicitly stated, sanctioned and probably put into practice by 'Iraqi. Chapter 5 returns to this.
State-changing (tahawwul)
The fifth of the twenty-eight flashes treats tahawwul: "Every instant, the Beloved shows a different face in a mirror". "Every instant" (har dam) is Ibn 'Arabi's indivisible moment, and 55:29, God "is upon a new affair", means constant re-creation. The heart follows: "the color of the water is the color of its container", so the lover takes the beloved's colour. Ibn 'Arabi adds that only the heart, not the intellect nor the senses, can keep pace.
The commentator Barzishabadi (d. 872/1467) reads expansion and contraction as the heart showing God's opposite attributes, Fortifier and Inhibitor. The gnostic then accepts both, so that "constriction is just like expansion".
The cross-eyed fool
'Iraqi rarely acknowledges the eye of transcendence. His tarji'band refrain says: "in this universe there's no one other than you". One bayt admits multiplicity: "Sometimes one, sometimes you become many". Those who see creation as a second thing are ahwal, cross-eyed. A ghazal ends with all images and forms as "the second image seen by the cross-eyed one."
Wine, cup and Saqi
Zargar sides with Hirawi and Chittick: the glossary Istilahat attributed to 'Iraqi probably derives from Tabrizi's Rashf al-Alhaz (fl. 761/1360). Note 29 counts 300 terms in Tabrizi, 271 of them in the 'Iraqi version, about 90 percent. Its definition of saqi, "a cupbearer", is unhelpful next to Tabrizi's "the self-disclosures of love that bring drunkenness". In 'Iraqi's own ghazals the drinking terms describe witnessing:
all three are one, though the cross-eyed fool sees one as two.
| Image | Equated with | Zargar's reading |
|---|---|---|
| wine-house | the Saqi's beauty | Source of rapture |
| wine-drinker | his drunk eye | The Real admiring itself |
| goblet | his lip | Nearness, a kiss |
| cup / wine / Saqi | one | Form, meaning, the Agent |
In the Lama'at the wine is existence and the cup nonexistence: "All is the cup, and it seems there's no wine". The gnostic sees one or the other, never both, alternating by tahawwul. The sea image does the same: wave, pearl and sea are one thing whose forms bring in distinction.
Three visions
Jami (d. 898/1492) and Barzishabadi explain why form brings pleasure: a medium allows understanding, so the viewer is not wholly bewildered. The third vision admits no words; 'Iraqi gives only a hemistich, "the affair of governance [wilayah] is ruined by two." Qashani (d. 736/1335) gives a parallel triad ending in shuhud as "a vision of the Real through the Real."
Cup, wine and Saqi as one vision
In the ghazals the wine-house is the Saqi's beauty, the drinker is his drunken eye, the goblet his lip. The last bayt collapses the triad: in 'Iraqi's vision cup, wine and Saqi are one, though the cross-eyed fool sees one as two. Form (cup), meaning/existence (wine) and the Real as Agent (Saqi) are not three beings. The Lama'at presses the same image: the Saqi pours the wine of existence into the cup of nonexistence until cup and wine trade places each instant. That alternation is tahawwul in a tavern key. The sea metaphor says the same: wave, pearl and sea are one thing; form alone introduces distinction.
Three visions of the Beloved
The Lama'at names three disclosures. Beauty in the robe of form lets the lover take pleasure in witnessing. Splendor from behind the curtain of meaning seizes the lover so that neither name nor trace remains. Beyond form and meaning, the awesomeness of the essence leaves no room for two. Commentators (Barzishabadi, Jami) say the vision of form still allows understanding; the vision of meaning bewilders; the third is beyond words. Zargar links this triad to Ibn Arabi's three senses of mushahadah and to later schemes of dispersion, gathering and gathering of gathering.
Against unification and incarnation
'Iraqi seldom polemicizes, but witnessing the divine in forms forces an admonition. Ittihad (unification) and hulul (incarnation) both assume a multiplicity of essences. His reply is brief: the divine essence is unique and untouched by the multiplicity of properties. One light appears as many colors through glass; the gnostic sees the one essence behind the veil. Far from sliding into incarnation, that vision is a stricter tawhid.
Key passage
"Then the gnostic encounters something more direct."
Note on the key passage. 'Iraqi's three visions are not three opinions but three stages. In the first the gnostic sees creation; in the second, the Real in creation; in the third both visions fall away. Zargar links the structure to Ibn 'Arabi's discussion of witnessing, which leans on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's definitions. The point for the rest of the book is that the vision of forms is not the end of the path. The poet who sees the beloved's face as a mirror is still on the second stage, and the poems record the passage between stages more than any final rest.
Reading Chapter 2: notes and questions
Chapter 2 repeats the structure of Chapter 1 for 'Iraqi, and the comparison is the point. Where Ibn 'Arabi writes as a theorist, 'Iraqi writes as a lover, and the same ideas acquire a voice. The Lama'at turns metaphysics into a love story without changing the metaphysics.
| Idea | Ibn 'Arabi (Ch1) | 'Iraqi (Ch2) |
|---|---|---|
| Why creation | The Real wished to be known | Love looking at itself in a mirror |
| Constant change | Each instant a new creation | Tahawwul: the Beloved shows a different face in every mirror |
| Error | One-eyed seeing | The cross-eyed fool who sees two where there is one |
| Image | Imagination as isthmus | Wine, cup and Saqi |
| Goal | Seeing with both eyes | The vision of the Real through the Real |
'Iraqi's own line makes the theme memorable: "Every instant, the Beloved shows a different face in a mirror". Zargar ties this to the hadith of tahawwul in Sahih Muslim, a source he returns to in the Conclusions to show that the idea is not foreign to Islam.
The water image deserves attention. "the color of the water is the color of its container" explains why God appears differently to each receiver. The image anticipates the doctrine of constitution in Ch3, where each thing finds pleasant what suits its make-up.
The cross-eyed fool is the negative example. He sees "the second image seen by the cross-eyed one." In other words, multiplicity is real as appearance and false as a claim about essence. This is why 'Iraqi can deny both union and incarnation while affirming that God is seen in forms.
- Why might a poet's version of a doctrine persuade readers that a theorist's version does not?
- In the wine and cup image, which is form and which is meaning? Can the two be told apart?
- What does 'Iraqi gain by locating state-changing in the heart as well as in the world?
What to remember: 'Iraqi adds no new metaphysics; he adds desire, and with it the language of the ghazal.
Links to other parts
The water and container image prepares the doctrine of constitution (Part 4). Wine and cup return in the ghazals of Part 7, and tahawwul returns in the Conclusions as the hadith from Sahih Muslim.
4. Beauty according to Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi
Chapter 3 (pp.45-62) defines beauty as "that which causes love" and shows why the human form, a comprehensive world, reflects divine beauty more completely than any other locus.
- Beauty is lovability, and love follows beauty.
- All comeliness and excellent action belong to God.
- Taste depends on constitution; ugliness is relative.
- The human form is the fullest locus of beauty.
- The shahid is both witness and evidence.
One sentence on beauty
Ibn 'Arabi's whole conception fits one line in which he extends a famous hadith: "God is beautiful and loves beauty," so He loves Himself. Two companion claims follow: "Love is caused by beauty [al-jamal ]," and beauty is beloved by its very essence. Zargar's working definition, beauty as that which causes love, gathers jamal, husn and tibah under one idea.
Beauty in action: ihsan
Love is also caused by ihsan, "excellent action", which Ibn 'Arabi derives from husn. The Gabriel hadith defines ihsan as worshipping God as if you see Him; Ibn 'Arabi reads that as "worshipping him through witnessing [al-mushahadah]." Since all God's names are the Most Beautiful Names, witnessing attributes is witnessing beauty. Note 9 adds a striking point: humans never meet God's true majesty, only the "majesty of beauty".
Answering Tirmidhi's question "From where?", Ibn 'Arabi says love comes from the self-disclosure of the name the Beautiful; the cosmos is loved, so "there is nothing more beautiful than the cosmos." Every thing is created disposed to love of itself; it loves itself seen in another. Implicitly, Zargar argues, the beauty of every beloved lies in its nonexistence, its function as an empty place where the lover displays himself.
Comely and more comely
In a chapter on speech, where every created thing is a divine word, Ibn 'Arabi holds that speech is all comely or more comely. What we call vile is really less comely; words that suit personal desire seem more comely. On vileness in acts, "none should say this but God": the shari'ah is God's decree, and the vile is vile by decree, not by nature. So beauty has two modes: the graded beauty known to all perceivers, and the omnipresent inherent beauty known only to gnostics.
Taste: garlic, angels and the dung beetle
The Fusus chapter on Muhammad explains inclination by receptivity. Verse 24:26 on goodly and foul people becomes literal: honest speech is fragrant breath. The Prophet said of garlic, "it is a plant the odor of which I abhor", faulting not the plant but what comes from it.
| Perceiver | Dislikes | Why (constitution) |
|---|---|---|
| The Prophet | Odor of garlic | Constitution matches the divine will precisely |
| Angels | Human odor | Unchanging spirit versus changeable mud (15:26) |
| Dung beetle | Scent of roses | Its own foul constitution |
| Corrupt people | Truth | A beetle's constitution in meaning and form |
Ibn 'Arabi lists the causes of dislike: custom, unsuitability to one's nature, personal aims, holy law, and lack of a sought perfection. Qashani notes all of them belong to the receiver. The highest discernment is when "the perception of the [essential] loveliness in a phenomenon distracts such a person from sensing its [relative] foulness."
'Iraqi's seventh flash
when I looked at it, the face was my own.
True self-love loves the Real in all things; false self-love loves only the individual veil. 'Iraqi admonishes: "obliterate [it]! So that your path becomes beautiful." Like Ibn 'Arabi on love of a form without spirit, he chides lust.
The shahid
No human reaches beauty outside form. 'Iraqi doubts any claim to absolute love: "Do not listen to professions of absolute love from the progeny of Adam". Love is a bride-dresser who "bedecks reality in the color of metaphor." The shahid is at once the trace in the heart and a beautiful human being. A quatrain admits it: "I confess that the evidential locus [shahid ] of the heart is meaning", while the eye seeks form.
The ghazal of the beautiful Turk ends: "'Iraqi goes door-to-door, searching after you" though the beloved resides in his heart. Zargar reads this not as a stale call to look within but as the inner disclosure, too vast to be witnessed in itself, pushing the gnostic outward to its loci.
Spiritual physicality
'Iraqi's beloved is human and godly at once, physical yet subtle, recalling Daylami's (fl. 363/974) account of beauty as subtlety. In the poem of the Christian boy, the glossary's tarsa means meanings and realities when fine; the boy has a Jesus-like breath, rivals Moses' serpent with his hair-lock, and imitates Muhammad's inimitable speech. The key line: "The materiality [nasut] of his existence, through fineness and purity" shows the face of lahut in human form. In the wine-server poem the beloved is lovelier than spirit itself (khushtar az jan), "apparent and you're [also] hidden".
Key passage
Note on the key passage. This is the hinge between relativism and meaning. Taste is relative, yet it is not trivial, because every physical thing represents an unseen reality. The dung beetle's aversion to roses represents a moral state, the disinclination of corrupt people to the truth. So the relativity of taste does not empty the world of value; it makes taste a sign of the receiver's inner state. The same idea returns in the Conclusions, where Hell's inhabitants enjoy what suits their constitution.
'Iraqi's version is the line that follows in the book: love shows a face from beyond the veil, and the face is the lover's own. Love is self-recognition at the deepest level, which is why 'Iraqi's descriptions of lovers fit every kind of love.
Reading Chapter 3: notes and questions
Chapter 3 gives the book its definition of beauty, and the definition is relational. Beauty is what is lovable, and what is lovable depends on the one who loves. This lets Zargar hold two claims that look opposed: that only God is truly beautiful, and that each receiver finds beauty in different things.
| Claim | Source in the chapter | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| God is beautiful and loves beauty | The hadith, read by Ibn 'Arabi | Love follows beauty, even in God |
| Nothing is more beautiful than the cosmos | Ibn 'Arabi | The world is not a lesser beauty to flee |
| Comeliness and excellent action belong to God | Ibn 'Arabi on husn and ihsan | All love, of anything, is love of God |
| Liking depends on constitution | Garlic, angels, the dung beetle | Ugliness is relative, not essential |
| The human form is the fullest locus | Meaning takes the shape matter allows | Human attraction is the deepest contemplation |
The garlic story is small but telling. The Prophet avoids garlic, saying "it is a plant the odor of which I abhor", yet does not forbid it. Dislike belongs to the receiver, not to the plant. Zargar sums it up: liking or disliking a thing "has little to do with the thing itself."
The gnostic, then, has a trained perception. For such a person "the perception of the [essential] loveliness in a phenomenon distracts such a person from sensing its [relative] foulness." This is the aesthetic version of seeing with both eyes: the relative foulness is still there, but the essential loveliness is seen first.
'Iraqi's seventh flash and the figure of the shahid bring the chapter to the human beloved. The shahid is both witness and evidence; the heart's evidential locus is meaning, yet meaning is met in a face.
- If constitution decides taste, can there be any shared standard of beauty? How does Zargar answer?
- Why does the human form, rather than nature or art, become the fullest locus of beauty?
- Note 33 says toddlers are drawn to toddlers. What does that example add to the argument about attraction?
What to remember: beauty is lovability; all lovability is God's; and the receiver's make-up decides how it is received.
Links to other parts
Constitution returns in the Conclusions with Hell's pleasures. The human form as fullest locus opens the two chapters on human beauty (Parts 5 and 6).
5. Ibn 'Arabi and Human Beauty
Chapter 4 (pp.63-84) places Ibn 'Arabi beside the Persian "School of Passionate Love" and argues that his statements, poetry and cosmology show sympathy with its way of witnessing God in human beloveds, women above all.
- Honesty about one's state matters more than the object of love (Ruzbihan).
- Woman offers the man the fullest witnessing, with knowledge.
- Companionship with youths is for gnostics, not novices.
- Natural, spiritual and divine love combine in the gnostic.
- Accurate love poetry is valid even with a human beloved.
The School of Passionate Love
The madhhab-i 'ishq was a unity of sensibility, not a chain of initiation. Witnessing absolute beauty in the sensory and admiring the human form served as unofficial principles of this unofficial school. Zargar traces the phrase through 'Ayn al-Qudat (d. 526/1131), Ibn al-Farid, whose commentator Farghani (d. 699/1300) renders hubb as 'ishq, Ruzbihan Baqli and Awhad al-Din Kirmani. Jami describes the circle of Ahmad Ghazali and Kirmani who "in those forms witnessed absolute beauty of the Real" without attachment to sensory form. It also had critics: Rumi (d. 672/1273) used the imagery but disapproved of gazing at beardless youths, and Hujwiri (d. 465-69/1072-77) called the practice a remnant of the Incarnationists. Ibn Daniyal (d. 710/1311) mocked pederasty as its own madhhab.
The Tarjuman's "Religion of Love" (din al-hubb) belongs to the heart "receptive to every form". Zargar admits that din and hubb are not madhhab and 'ishq, but the parallel, he says, cannot be ignored.
The human form, and woman above all
Only two loves enrapture the whole lover: love of the Real, or of someone of the lover's own kind, a human being, "whether girl [ jariyah] or boy [ ghulam]." The Real cannot be witnessed apart from matter, and the Fusus chapter on Muhammad calls witnessing the Real in women the greatest, most perfect and most complete witnessing.
The ground is the hadith: "Three things have been made beloved of me from this world of yours: women, perfume, and the delight of my eye has been placed in the prescribed prayer." They were made beloved, so the love is not chosen. Note 24 records that the Ibn Hanbal and Nasa'i versions lack the word "three" found in Ibn 'Arabi's citation. The rule beneath it: self-knowledge through the medium of otherness.
Woman's love for man is "the longing of the whole for its part", a love of native place; man's for woman fills the void where the rib was, since "there will not remain any emptiness in existence." In chapter 380 man sees woman as a place of creation (mahall al-takwin); the finest perfume is "the embrace of the beloved." Creation runs in triplicity: essence, a medial participant, a third; Intellect and Soul, Pen and Tablet, Breath and Cloud, joined in conjugal union (nikah) and unified as the Muhammadan Reality.
Ibn 'Arabi confesses that for eighteen years on the path he detested women, then learned better: "only one given knowledge and understanding from God knows the value of women." Note 29 cites Sa'diyya Shaikh: his gender view can be called patriarchal, yet he takes positions against traditional views of women.
Gazing at beardless youths
Some scholars infer that Ibn 'Arabi opposed the practice. Zargar reads the passage on the "recent ones" (al-ahdath) against that view: the gnostic gazes at the beardless youth "because he is smooth [amlas]", a reminder of the Station of Detachment and of one fresh from his Lord. The precedent is the rain hadith: the Prophet bared himself to rain "Because it is recent from its Lord". Companionship of the young is forbidden to novices and to "Sufis"; it is allowed to gnostics. The passage ends: "Were it not for the intellect, natural desire would be praiseworthy."
| Element | Ibn 'Arabi's move | Editor's comment |
|---|---|---|
| Smooth cheek | Detachment (tajrid) | A cosmological, not erotic, sign |
| Youth | Freshness from the Lord; reminds of God's eternity | Echoes Daylami on proximity to Universal Beauty |
| Innovation | Saints may set good customs (tasnin); 21:2 and 26:5 | Zargar notes the verses go on to condemn |
| Who may gaze | Only achieved gnostics | Note 17: concupiscent gazing explicitly forbidden (FM ch.108) |
Qunawi (d. 673/1273-74 here) told the Parwanah of Konya that the innovation of the Friends of God is like the customary practice of the prophets.
Three loves
Supererogatory works win God's love; the world itself is an augmentation (ziyadah) in being. So every beloved is nonexistent and unnecessary: the lover creates the beloved in imagination. Ibn 'Arabi writes: "she is a virgin for me, and I have been previously wed." The true object is Love itself: "I am a beloved of Love, if only you knew". Natural love seeks only its own desire; spiritual love merges wills; divine love in the full sense is beyond humans. Loving God "for the combination" of Himself and His forms is "more complete in terms of love", because witnessing needs form and form is composite.
Key passage
Note on the key passage. This sentence explains why Ibn 'Arabi can comment on a caliph's worldly poem as if it were a mystical text. Lovers describe the effects of love precisely, whatever they think love is for. The caliph may not know that his bridle is held by One Meaning, but his description is accurate. Zargar draws the wider lesson that love and beauty are each One Reality, communicated in shared images and seen at different degrees. For a reader, this is the warrant for taking all love poetry seriously: its accuracy does not depend on the poet's theology.
Spiritual love, in this passage from Ibn 'Arabi, is measured by how comprehensive the relationships between lover and beloved are. Where they fall short, it is not such love. The wills merge so that the lover wills what the beloved wills.
Reading Chapter 4: notes and questions
Chapter 4 brings the theory down to persons. Ibn 'Arabi's views on women, on youths and on the three kinds of love show the principle of seeing in forms at work in actual relationships. The chapter's test case is whether a human beloved can stay a medium of love and not become its final object.
| Topic | Ibn 'Arabi's position as Zargar reports it | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The School of Passionate Love | Engaged with it, critical of some practice | The Ruzbihan story |
| Woman | The fullest witnessing for the man; women are among the three things made beloved to the Prophet | The longing of the whole for its part |
| Beardless youths | Forbidden to novices, allowed to gnostics, who gaze at one fresh from his Lord | The rain hadith; Zargar reads against those who say he opposed the practice |
| Three loves | Natural, spiritual, divine | The gnostic loves with all three at once |
| Love poetry | Valid even when the beloved is only human | Harun al-Rashid's three maidens |
The Ruzbihan story sets the tone. Ruzbihan refuses to let his ecstasy pass for divine love: "I do not want to lie about my spiritual state." The honesty is the lesson. Ibn 'Arabi does not condemn the love; he praises the refusal to disguise it.
On woman, the key line is the Prophet's: "Three things have been made beloved of me from this world of yours: women, perfume, and the delight of my eye has been placed in the prescribed prayer." Ibn 'Arabi reads women first in the list as a sign of their place in witnessing. For him, union with a woman can be a comprehensive witnessing of the Real as active and receptive, but only with knowledge; without it the act is a form without spirit.
The three maidens of Harun al-Rashid show the method in miniature. A worldly poem about three singers becomes, in Ibn 'Arabi's reading, a poem about One Meaning appearing in three. Zargar draws the general rule that lovers describe the sway of their beloveds precisely, which explains the validity of all love poetry.
- Why does Ibn 'Arabi allow the gnostic, but not the novice, to keep company with youths? Is the line between them workable?
- How does the idea of the longing of the whole for its part shape his view of marriage?
- Can a poem with no spiritual intent still carry spiritual meaning? What does the bridle image suggest?
What to remember: Ibn 'Arabi's theory of human love is generous, but it carries its own limit: knowledge must accompany the act.
Links to other parts
The rain hadith returns in the commentary on poem 46 (Part 7). The three maidens anticipate the claim in Part 7 that a profane poem can carry the whole vision.
6. 'Iraqi and the Tradition of Shahidbazi
Chapter 5 (pp.85-119), the longest, traces the Persian tradition of gazing at beautiful faces (shahidbazi) from Ahmad Ghazali to 'Iraqi, reads 'Iraqi's legendary biography as its saintly precedent, and ends with Zargar's own judgment of the practice.
- Shahidbazi runs from Ahmad Ghazali to 'Iraqi.
- For these Sufis it was not sexual.
- Each defender receives a fair hearing.
- The Qalandar ideal of courting blame shapes 'Iraqi's voice.
- Zargar still judges the practice a grave error by the Sufis' own sources.
Terms and stakes
Shahidbazi means roughly "entertaining oneself with the shahid", a term negative in connotation. Zargar is plain: "for the Sufis in question shahidbazi was in no way a sexual practice." He calls it a platonic, or aesthetic, appreciation of divine beauty in human forms, shaped by a culture that admired beardless young men, often sexually outside Sufism. The second controversy is 'ishq. Hubb, mahabbah and wadd are healthy loves; 'ishq is excessive and originally desirous, so some held it encroaches on God's transcendence. Note 5 gives Ibn 'Arabi's etymologies: hubb from the seed, wadd from the peg, 'ishq from the bindweed, hawa from a sudden drop.
Ahmad Ghazali: beyond reproach
In the hagiographies, Ghazali seeks reproach. He asks from the pulpit for a beautiful boy, kisses one in public, and plays chess with boys. Shams-i Tabrizi (d. 645/1247) defends him; Ibn al-Jawzi condemns him. Zargar reads two things into the stories. Shahidbazi could serve the Qalandari aim of killing the ego. And, for saints, it was finally tolerated.
'Ayn al-Qudat: medial love
In the Tamhidat, a beautiful face is the metaphorical shahid in which a portion of the real shahidbazi has been inscribed upon hearts. His three loves map onto Ibn 'Arabi's:
| 'Ayn al-Qudat | Meaning | Ibn 'Arabi parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Minor love | Our love for God | Spiritual love alone |
| Major love | God's love for His servants | Divine love |
| Medial love | Human for human, left unsaid | The natural and spiritual combination |
He cites two hadiths that notes 41-42 show to be weak or sourceless: "Beware of gazing at beardless youths, for truly theirs is a color like the color of God." The second tells of seeing the Lord as a beardless adolescent on the Night of Mi'raj. Zargar calls the reading close to interpretive manipulation. He also records 'Ayn al-Qudat's vision of two lights joining into a beautiful form, and the cry "Do you know what this station is? It is shahidbazi."
Ruzbihan Baqli: a defense
Ruzbihan (d. 606/1209) saw God "in the appearance of the Turks". Unlike Ghazali and 'Iraqi he also admired women: "beauty is never content to be alone". His 'Abhar al-'Ashiqin answers a female beloved's question about how human 'ishq relates to Godly 'ishq. For him nearly every lover begins with the shahid: "The beginning of all lovers proceeds from the path of shahids [shawahid ]". He cites Dhu al-Nun (d. 246/861), who says that one intimate with God "becomes intimate with every beautiful thing and every pretty face."
Kirmani: form and meaning
Kirmani (d. 635/1238) was the notorious practitioner. Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (d. 632/1234) called him an innovator, and Shams teased him for gazing at the moon in a basin. His quatrains defend the practice:
There is no one who does not delight in beautiful forms.
His key distinction is between the shahid of form and the shahid of meaning: "meaning cannot be seen except in form." He warns that "it is not good, if you do not see the shahid in the shahid,", and that the shahid of form alone is "nothing but a headache."
Qunawi and Ibn al-Farid
Qunawi asked to be buried with Kirmani's prayer-rug in his grave. He prized Ibn al-Farid and drove Farghani's commentaries on the Nazm al-Suluk, which turn "every place of manifestation" into "in every human form and place of manifestation." 'Iraqi quotes Ibn al-Farid in the Lama'at: "Every comely man's beauty from Her pulchritude is" borrowed, and every comely woman's too.
The legend of 'Iraqi
Zargar reads the biography attached to the Diwan as hagiography, built on the pattern of 'Attar's Shaykh of San'an. The principle: "Metaphor is the bridge of reality [al-majaz qantarat alhaqiqah]."
| Stage | Shaykh of San'an | 'Iraqi |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness | Pious, 400 disciples, a dream of Byzantium | Learned; the Qur'an memorized at five in nine months; a moving voice |
| Immolation | A Christian girl; burns the Qur'an, tends pigs | A Qalandar boy; throws off frock and turban, brows shaved |
| Gnosis | The Prophet intervenes; the girl converts and dies | Baha' al-Din Zakariya in Multan; ecstasy in ten days |
'Iraqi's own letter confirms seventeen years with Zakariya. The biography gives 25, which Zargar calls mistaken. Even after repenting, 'Iraqi kept gazing: at the singer Hasan, and at a shoemaker's son he paid eight dirhams a day so that his lips would not touch leather.
The verdict: a great interpretive error?
Note: this is the book's most valuable critical move. Zargar takes the inner logic seriously and still judges the practice by the tradition's own scripture.
Key passage
"In other words, shahidbazi is reported to have begun as a profane practice emerging from metaphorical love but persists as a spiritual practice emerging from love of the Real."
Note on the key passages. The first sentence ties shahidbazi to the book's central principle. The practice is not a strange add-on; it is seeing in forms applied to a living face. That is why the critique is so delicate. Zargar cannot reject the principle without undoing his own book, so he rejects the application: the principle is sound, the practice in its social setting was not. The second sentence, about 'Iraqi, shows the arc of the legend. A profane love recruits him to the path, and the gazing continues as a spiritual practice after his repentance. Ruzbihan's treatise even holds that most lovers of God begin with the shahid, and that beginning without one is a rarity.
Reading Chapter 5: notes and questions
Chapter 5 is the longest and the most contested. It traces shahidbazi through the School of Passionate Love to 'Iraqi, gives each defender a fair hearing, and then delivers a verdict. The chapter is unusual because the author defends the sincerity of his subjects and still calls their practice an error.
| Figure | Dates as printed | Position in the chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Ahmad Ghazali | d. 520/1126 | Beyond reproach; gazing as witnessing, perhaps also a battle with the ego |
| 'Ayn al-Qudat | d. 526/1131 | Medial love: one loves beauty or the lover of beauty |
| Ruzbihan Baqli | d. 606/1209 | A defense of human love as a step to divine love |
| Kirmani | d. 635/1238 | Form and meaning; Rumi said he left a bad legacy |
| Qunawi, Ibn al-Farid | Qunawi with three printed dates; Ibn al-Farid d. 632/1235 | Akbari and poetic links |
| 'Iraqi | ca.610/1213-1214 to 688/1289 | The legend; the Qalandar as sincere lover |
Zargar's first claim is that "for the Sufis in question shahidbazi was in no way a sexual practice." The practice was meant as witnessing. 'Ayn al-Qudat states the logic in a striking form: "One must either be in love with that beauty or with the lover of that beauty. This is a great secret."
His second claim is that sincerity does not settle the question. The sources the Sufis themselves accepted already warned against the gaze. Zargar's charge is less about desire than about indifference: the gazers disdained the perceptions of other intelligent Muslims, and the tradition paid for it in public regard.
The Qalandar thread explains part of the candour. Where piety won devotion, courting blame was a way to stay sincere. 'Iraqi's line at the convent door, "Come on in 'Iraqi, for you're our drinking pal as well!", shows how the blame-seeking stance became a poetic voice that Hafiz would inherit.
- Can a practice be sincere in intent and still wrong in effect? How does Zargar weigh the two?
- Why does he judge the Sufis by their own sources rather than by modern standards?
- What does the Qalandar ideal of courting blame add to the understanding of 'Iraqi's poetry?
What to remember: the chapter is a model of fair criticism: full hearing first, then a verdict grounded in the subjects' own authorities.
Links to other parts
The verdict here is restated in the Conclusions (Part 8). The Qalandar candour explains the takhallus and the tavern images discussed in Part 7.
7. The Amorous Lyric as Mystical Language
Chapter 6 (pp.120-150) asks why sensual love poetry became the main medium for the vision described so far. Zargar's answer is that poetry, like the beloved, unites the sacred and the profane.
- The amorous lyric suits a vision that joins sacred and profane.
- The Tarjuman commentary is not a cipher.
- Counting Sufi lines misses how one line colours a poem.
- Love joins contradictories; the cruel beloved expresses majesty.
- Poetry comes from perceptiveness, and the veil allows longing.
Hermetic or aesthetic? Answering Stetkevych
Ibn 'Arabi wrote his Tarjuman commentary because two disciples heard a jurist of Aleppo deny that the poems came from divine secrets. Stetkevych, in The Zephyrs of Najd, calls the commentary "trapped in its own hermeneutic logic, detached and esoteric." Zargar respectfully disagrees. Prophetic miracles beat their rivals with the rivals' own means, and gnostic love language likewise wears the traits of profane love while holding a vision the profane lover cannot follow. The proof that the commentary is not a code: there was no commentary in the first version, and one image gets many readings.
- "Plump of ankle" becomes "stout of shank", recalling "the day when the shank is exposed [yawm yukshaf 'an saq],": the beloved's beauty carries the majesty of beauty.
- The wind passing "from proximity" recalls the rain hadith: things fresh from their Lord.
- The crow can no longer divide lovers, since "there is no veil after self-disclosure and no erasure after inscription upon the heart."
- Sunrise stands for imaginal forms, sunset for the heart that contains all.
The heart is "at war" because the natural world veils the Highest Panoramas. The veil, Zargar says, is necessary, since "The veil allows for the longing to unveil." Ibn 'Arabi justifies the genre: he used the amorous lyric "because souls fall passionately in love with such expressions."
Sacred and profane ambiguity as a value
Baldick's thesis sorts 'Iraqi's poems by how many lines are overtly Sufi. Zargar finds two flaws. First, one hemistich of gnostic insight colours the whole poem. Second, Akbari influence need not show up as Akbari vocabulary: Jamali (d. 942/1536) even credited the Lama'at to Sadr al-Din 'Arif. A Sufi takhallus at the end does not force a sacred reading onto a profane poem; it shows the poet saw no real difference between the two.
The glossaries
The ghazal is a mode of ambiguity, and a glossary a mode of disambiguation that does not cancel it. Tabrizi holds that the World of Meanings cannot be perceived "except in the clothing of form." Shabistari (d. ca. 740/1339-40) says the terms were set with their meanings "from the very outset."
| Term | Glossary definition | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| husn (comeliness) | "the collection of all perfections in one essence" | The Real only |
| jamal (beauty) | The beloved's perfections made manifest through the lover's longing | Any lover and beloved |
| jafa (estrangement) | Covering the wayfarer's heart from gnosis and witnessings | The gnostic |
| nalah (groan) | "whispered prayers" | The gnostic |
Profane lovers as models
In the commentary on the "Religion of Love" poem, Ibn 'Arabi says the love of Bishr, Qays and Ghaylan and the gnostics' love "is one reality". The difference is that they love the beloved in the created world, while we love the Source. That is why they are models, even proofs against anyone who claims to love God less passionately. Yet elsewhere such lovers are veiled by Zaynab, Su'ad, the dirham and status. The gnostics, by contrast, hear every ghazal as "he who is behind the veil of forms." 'Iraqi applies Anwari's (d. ca. 582/1186) court verse to gnosis.
Contradiction, cruelty, form
Love combines opposites because the human is made in the form of the One who is the First and the Last. The lover must love the beloved's love of separation and still love union. In the Nizam poem, the Arab lover and Persian beloved, "Yemen and 'Iraq", share wine "without the use of fingers", which signals transcendence. 'Iraq stands for harshness, from the pilgrim's prayer at the 'Iraqi Corner, and Yemen for faith and tenderness. Ahmad Ghazali grounds the beloved's cruelty in theory. 'Iraqi's "what a shame" ghazal shows a beloved who never asks after the dying lover. As 'Iraqi says, "Needlessness is an attribute of the beloved and poverty an attribute of the lover." Separation is better for the lover, because in it "he takes on the attribute of the beloved's will."
Finally, the third celestial sphere belongs to Joseph, to the name Form-giver, and to Venus, and it helps poets. Ibn 'Arabi says "poetry [al-shi'r] comes from perceptiveness [al-shu'ur]", so poetry sums meaning up where prose takes it apart. Zargar notes the parallel with Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) on poetry as imaginative speech. In the Salma poem the beloved asks whether it is not enough that he witnesses her in his heart at every moment; the irony is that it never suffices.
Key passage
"The veil allows for the longing to unveil. This is true of the veil that exists between the Highest Panoramas and the heart that discerns the limits of the natural world."
Note on the key passages. Perplexity is the lover's true condition, and poetry, unlike discursive prose, can portray perplexity without the burdens of logic and continuity. That is the strongest version of Zargar's claim about the amorous lyric. The second passage gives the veil a positive role. Distance makes desire possible, both between the heart and the Highest Panoramas and between the poet and the woman he loves. Note that the book here spells Panoramas correctly; the misspelling noted in Part 9 appears in a quotation from the commentary.
Reading Chapter 6: notes and questions
Chapter 6 completes the argument by moving from experience to expression. Its claim is that the amorous lyric was not a disguise for doctrine but the natural form for an experience that joins sacred and profane. The poem, like the beloved, is a form in which meaning is met.
| Reading strategy | Who holds it | Zargar's response |
|---|---|---|
| Commentary as hermetic code | Stetkevych | Images have many readings; the first version had no commentary |
| Count the Sufi lines | Baldick | One line of insight colours the whole; vocabulary is not the test |
| Sacred only | Pious readers | Loses the genuineness of human love |
| Profane only | Sceptical readers | Misses the deified images |
| Both at once | Zargar | Ambiguity keeps the experience true for all lovers |
The Ibn 'Arabi justification is frank. He wrote love poetry "because souls fall passionately in love with such expressions." The form is chosen for its effect on the hearer, which fits the book's steady attention to reception.
The glossaries play a quiet but useful role. They show that the tradition itself recognized the double meaning of its words and tried to fix the sacred sense without denying the profane one. A glossary disambiguates without erasing the ambiguity, because the reader must still meet the meaning in the clothing of form.
The cruel beloved is the hardest image for modern readers. Zargar's reading through majesty and beauty, and 'Iraqi's line that needlessness belongs to the beloved and poverty to the lover, turn cruelty into a theological pattern. The lover's abasement comes from desire, not from the beloved's will to harm.
- Is Zargar's defense of ambiguity a literary judgment, a theological one, or both?
- Why might a takhallus at the end of a profane poem show that the poet saw no real difference between the two loves?
- How does the link between poetry and perceptiveness change the status of the poet?
What to remember: the amorous lyric is the book's final form of seeing in forms. Read it one way only and half the experience disappears.
Links to other parts
Ambiguity applies the two eyes of Part 2 to language. The cruel beloved draws on majesty and beauty, and the third sphere links the poet to Joseph, the prophet of beauty.
8. Conclusions: Paradise, Constitution, and a Warning
The Conclusions (pp.151-156) widen the argument in two directions. They defend Islamic sensuality against a Western misreading, and they refuse to idealize the Sufis.
- Sufi poetry is neither mere allegory nor a false claim to spiritual meaning.
- Asín Palacios misread Islamic sensuality.
- Paradise is spiritual significance in sensory forms.
- Constitution decides reception, even in the next life.
- The Sufis were human and are judged by their own sources.
The method, restated
Zargar names his three steps: perception (above all tashbih and its link to love), then beauty, then the lyric. His summary verdict on the poetry is that it is "neither mere allegory nor false in its claims to have spiritual significance." The sensory and supersensory collaborate "to yield something more comprehensive than either alone."
Against Asín Palacios
Miguel Asín Palacios (d. 1944) is called a sensitive researcher of Ibn 'Arabi, but one "burdened by unfavorable assumptions held vis-à-vis Islam." In his Dante study he calls Islam "the bastard offspring of the Gospel and the Mosaic Law", and he reads the mystics' celestial bride as an escape from the houris. Zargar answers: "This is emphatically untrue."
| Asín | Zargar |
|---|---|
| Mystics, shaped by Christian monks, recoiled from Qur'anic sensuality | Human beauty and sexual pleasure hold an important position in Ibn 'Arabi's vision |
| Sensual paradise came from outside sources | Witnessing God in forms comes from canonical hadith (tahawwul, Sahih Muslim) |
| Celestial bride replaces houris | Paradise is "spiritual significance in sensory forms." |
The tahawwul hadith says the Lord comes to people in the lowest form in which they had seen him, and "He will change [tahawwala] into his form in which they saw him the first time." The mystics differed from other Muslims mainly in claiming this vision before death.
Constitution decides reception
In Ibn 'Arabi's account, those whose time of punishment has ended find bliss in Hell itself, since Paradise would not suit their constitution. The image is the dung beetle, which suffers from the fragrance of the rose. His conclusion is that "every constitution in the cosmos derives pleasure from that which accords with it". Zargar admits the idea goes beyond the traditional texts. Still, the central argument holds: constitution determines how one receives the spiritual. Paradise is "a sublime fulfillment filtered through what has been acquired from sensory existence." Adam, the clay that angels bowed to, shows that the mix of body and spirit "is most purposeful."
Paradise as sensory significance
Zargar's answer to Asín rests on a hadith of tahawwul in Sahih Muslim and on Qur'anic promises that join gardens to the greater satisfaction of God's face. Paradise is not an escape from the houris into a "celestial bride" invented against Islamic sensuality. It is spiritual significance filtered through sensory existence. The mystics differ from other believers mainly in claiming that vision before death. The same constitution that tastes the rose or the dung in this world filters bliss and punishment in the next. Hell can become bliss for a constitution that has finished its term, because Paradise would not suit it. Zargar notes that this last image stretches the traditional texts, but the hinge remains: mizaj decides reception.
Accountability by the sources
The warning against idealizing Sufis is not a retreat from the aesthetic thesis. Shahidbazi shows that gnostic ideas of beauty cannot be reduced to poetic fashion, and that misuse of young men harmed the tradition's public standing. Jurists who resisted that practice sometimes held what Zargar calls a more contemporary perspective. Medieval and modern writers alike can be held to the standards they themselves cite.
The warning: do not idealize
Zargar's second target is an idealization of medieval Sufi writers. Shahidbazi shows that gnostic ideas of beauty "cannot be reduced to poetic practices." The use of young men "had a debilitating effect on public regard for their own tradition." In this case he credits the jurists: they "held what might be considered a more contemporary perspective". Both sides gain, since the exoteric picture of the afterlife benefits from the saints, and "applied" shahidbazi would have benefited from juridical rigor. Writers medieval and modern "can always be held accountable by the sources that they themselves deem ultimate standards of interpretation."
Reading the Conclusions: notes and questions
The Conclusions are short, but they carry two arguments that reach beyond Sufism. The first concerns how Islam is read in the West; the second concerns how Muslims read their own saints.
- Does the dung beetle passage strengthen or weaken the case for a spiritual reading of paradise?
- Zargar says the jurists' view was more contemporary only if time can judge. Is that a strong or a modest claim?
- What does the closing reminder that the mystics were human ask of the reader?
Links to other parts
The Conclusions gather Parts 1 to 7: the dream (Part 1), tahawwul (Part 3), constitution (Part 4) and the verdict on shahidbazi (Part 6).
9. Notes on the Text: Slips Kept as Printed
Below are the inconsistencies and misprints found in a full reading of the text and the endnotes. Page numbers are the book's printed pages.
Contradictions between two places in the book
| Pages | What the book prints | The problem |
|---|---|---|
| 3, 75, n.42 (p.171) | Qunawi (d. 673/1273-1274); 673/1273-74; 673/1274 | Three forms of one death date, the last naming a single CE year |
| 109 vs n.15 (p.189) | Baha' al-Din Zakariya (d. 661/1262); the note speaks of Shaykh Baha' al-Din's death in 666/1267 | Two different death years for the same shaykh |
| Preface vs n.3 (p.157) | The Futuhat edition is Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-Islami in the Preface and Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi in the note | Two publisher names for one edition |
| n.50 (p.175) vs p.166 n.2 | Chittick and Lamborn | Elsewhere the Divine Flashes translators are Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson; Lamborn is a middle name |
| Concl n.5 vs Ch2 n.8 | Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Iman (1/80), #183 against (1/81), #183 | Same hadith number, two volume pages |
| 117 | no Islamically legal means for the satisfaction of love for a bearded youth | The argument concerns the beardless youth; the adjective looks reversed |
| 139 vs elsewhere | the Highest Panaromas | Spelled Panoramas elsewhere in the same discussion |
Dates printed in unusual forms
| Page | Printed | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 119 | Sa'di (691/1292) | No "d.", unlike every other date in the book |
| n.30 (p.181) | Tabataba'i (1402/1981) | Same omission |
| Ch6 | Khwarazmi d. 839 or 840/1435-6 | Kept as given |
| Ch4 | Hujwiri d. 465-69/1072-77 | A range, kept as given |
Grammar and spelling in the main text
| Page | Printed |
|---|---|
| 16 | Yet all that seen in the bounded dimension |
| 23 | Jandi's description ... emphasize |
| 24 | The poetry and prose of the Akbaris often describes |
| 56 | Note marker 50 missing (49 is followed by 51) |
| 57 | but what am I do? |
| 78 | neither has absolute existence or necessity |
| 81 | The closing mark after natural love. printed as an opening mark |
| 106 | When the Christian girls sets |
| 112 | would also became |
| 129 | what is in actually profane poetry |
| 135 | Thus the importance difference |
| 155 | realized in a systematic matter |
10. Synthesis
- The subject is a way of seeing, not a theory of art. "Aesthetics" here means perception and the experience of beauty, taken from the Sufis' own descriptions.
- Zargar's thesis fits in four words from Ibn 'Arabi's dream: "The soul sees in forms."
- The book argues against two errors at once: the Western reading of Islamic sensuality as coarse, and the modern habit of idealizing the Sufis.
- For Ibn 'Arabi, witnessing comes before ontology. The doctrine called the oneness of being describes what the gnostic sees.
- Transcendence (tanzih) and similitude (tashbih) must hold together; the gnostic sees with both eyes.
- Imagination is an isthmus, and the cosmos itself is "imagination within an imagination".
- 'Iraqi turns the same vision into a story of love: creation is Love looking at itself in the mirror of the cosmos.
- State-changing (tahawwul) means God shows a new face in every instant; the colour of the water is the colour of its container.
- Seeing God in forms is neither union (ittihad) nor incarnation (hulul), since both need two essences.
- Beauty is lovability. In Ibn 'Arabi's reading of the hadith, "God is beautiful and loves beauty," and love follows beauty.
- Anything loved is loved for comeliness or for excellent action, and both belong to God alone.
- Ugliness is relative. Constitution (mizaj) decides what each receiver finds pleasant, from garlic to the dung beetle.
- The human form is the fullest locus of beauty, because meaning descending into matter takes the shape matter allows, and humans are drawn to humans.
- Woman, for Ibn 'Arabi, gives the man the most complete witnessing, uniting receptivity and activity.
- The difficulty is keeping the human beloved a medium of love and never its final object, as the Ruzbihan story shows.
- The School of Passionate Love (Ahmad Ghazali, 'Ayn al-Qudat, Ruzbihan, Kirmani, 'Iraqi) practised shahidbazi, gazing at a beautiful face, often a beardless youth's, as witnessing.
- Zargar insists the practice was in no way sexual for the Sufis concerned, and also judges it a grave interpretive error.
- His standard is internal: the Qur'an, the hadith, Ghazali and Rumi already condemned it.
- The amorous lyric is the natural medium for this vision because, like the beloved, it joins sacred and profane.
- Ambiguity is the point. A poem read both ways keeps the experience genuine for every kind of lover.
- Ibn 'Arabi's commentary is not a cipher; images carry several readings, and the first version had no commentary at all.
- Love joins contradictories: union and separation, majesty and beauty, the cruel beloved and the abject lover.
- Paradise is spiritual significance in sensory forms; the mystics claimed that vision before death.
- For all their visions, the mystics never claimed to be more than human.
The book in eight paragraphs
Introduction. Zargar opens with Ibn 'Arabi's dream and the claim that the soul sees in forms. He defines aesthetics as a mode of perception and of experiencing beauty, and he sets his study against two misreadings: those who find only lust in the poems and those who find only allegory. He names his two subjects, Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi, and lays out the cosmology they share: one existence, many self-disclosures, and a human being made to witness them.
Chapter 1. Ibn 'Arabi's account of perception rests on witnessing, not on a prior theory of being. The gnostic sees with two eyes, tanzih and tashbih, and refuses both the absent God of pure reason and the idol of pure likeness. Imagination is the isthmus where meanings take form, at the levels of the cosmos, the imaginal world and the human faculty. The senses of the gnostic are not left behind; God becomes the hearing and sight by which he perceives.
Chapter 2. 'Iraqi tells the same story as a lover. Creation is Love looking at itself. God changes form in every instant, as the hadith of tahawwul says, and appears in the colour of each container. The cross-eyed fool sees two where there is one. The images of wine, cup and Saqi give the doctrine its poetry, and the path ends in a vision of the Real through the Real, which is neither union nor incarnation.
Chapter 3. Beauty is lovability. God is beautiful and loves beauty, and all comeliness and excellent action belong to him. Taste depends on constitution, so ugliness is relative. The human form is the fullest locus of beauty because meaning takes the shape matter permits, and humans are drawn to humans. 'Iraqi's seventh flash and the figure of the shahid bring the theory to the face of the beloved.
Chapter 4. Ibn 'Arabi's views on human love are generous but bounded. The Ruzbihan story shows honesty about one's state. Woman offers the fullest witnessing, combining receptivity and activity, but only with knowledge. Companionship with youths is forbidden to novices and allowed to gnostics. The three loves, natural, spiritual and divine, combine in the gnostic, and even a worldly poem like Harun al-Rashid's can carry One Meaning.
Chapter 5. Shahidbazi runs from Ahmad Ghazali through 'Ayn al-Qudat, Ruzbihan and Kirmani to 'Iraqi. Zargar insists it was not sexual for these Sufis and treats their sincerity seriously. Yet he judges it a grave error, measured by the Qur'an, the hadith, Ghazali and Rumi, and he faults the gazers' indifference to the views of other Muslims.
Chapter 6. The amorous lyric was the natural medium for this vision because it joins sacred and profane. Zargar answers Stetkevych on the commentary and Baldick on quantifying Sufi content. The glossaries show the tradition aware of its double language. Love joins contradictories, the cruel beloved expresses majesty, and poetry comes from perceptiveness.
Conclusions. Against Asín Palacios, Islamic sensuality is spiritual at its source: paradise is spiritual significance in sensory forms, and constitution decides reception even in the next life. Against idealizing readers, the Sufis were human and can be judged by their own sources. The mystics never claimed to be more than human.
Recurring images
| Image | Where it appears | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
| Mirror | Ch1, Ch2, Ch5 | Creation as the place where the Real sees himself; one human as mirror for another |
| Water and container | Ch2 | God appears in the colour of each receiver |
| Glass and light | Ch2 | One light, many colours, no division of the Essence |
| Wine, cup, Saqi | Ch2, Ch6 | Self-disclosure, receptacle, the beloved who pours |
| The cross-eyed fool | Ch2 | Mistaking appearance for a second essence |
| Dung beetle | Ch3, Concl | Constitution decides pleasure |
| Rain fresh from its Lord | Ch4, Ch6 | Newness as nearness to the book |
| The veil | Ch6 | Necessary, since it allows the longing to unveil |
| Yemen and 'Iraq | Ch6 | Tenderness and harshness joined in love |
| Adam and the angels | Concl | The purpose of the mix of body and spirit |
Debates the book joins
| Debate | Positions | Zargar's place |
|---|---|---|
| Is wahdat al-wujud a philosophy? | System of being, or report of vision | Report of vision: witnessing comes first |
| Is Sufi love poetry allegory? | Code to decipher, or plain love song | Neither alone; deliberate ambiguity |
| Was shahidbazi sexual? | Critics say yes; defenders say no | Not sexual for these Sufis, still an error |
| Is Islamic paradise coarse? | Asín's view, or a spiritual reading | Spiritual significance in sensory forms |
| Should modern readers idealize Sufis? | Saints beyond critique, or humans in history | Humans, judged by their own sources |
How to read an Akbari love poem: a short guide drawn from the book
- Read it first as a love poem. Zargar's whole case rests on the profane reading being real.
- Look for the hemistich of insight. One line can colour the whole, as Baldick's counting misses.
- Notice the paired opposites. Union and separation, majesty and beauty, Yemen and 'Iraq signal that love is joining contradictories.
- Ask what the image receives. Wind, rain and youth often mean freshness from the Lord.
- Check the commentary, but do not treat it as a key. One image may have several readings.
- Keep both readings open. The ambiguity is the experience, not a flaw in it.
Frameworks at a glance
| Framework | Where | Elements | What it explains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two eyes | Ch1 | Tanzih and tashbih | Why seeing God in forms is not idolatry |
| Unveiling and witnessing | Ch1 | Kashf makes the gross subtle; shuhud makes the subtle gross | Two directions of mystical perception |
| Three tiers of imagination | Ch1 | Cosmos, imaginal world, the human faculty | Where forms meet meanings |
| Mirror and container | Ch2 | One light, many glass colours; water takes the cup's colour | Multiplicity without division of the Essence |
| Three visions | Ch2 | Seeing creation, seeing the Real in creation, the Real through the Real | Stages of 'Iraqi's path |
| Husn and ihsan | Ch3 | Comeliness and excellent action | Why all love returns to God |
| Constitution (mizaj) | Ch3, Concl | Receiver shapes reception | Taste, ugliness, Hell's pleasures |
| Three loves | Ch4 | Natural, spiritual, divine | How the gnostic loves a human |
| Sacred-profane ambiguity | Ch6 | One poem, two readings, both true | Why the amorous lyric became the medium |
| Majesty and beauty | Ch6 | Cruel beloved, abject lover | Cruelty and needlessness in the ghazal |
Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi compared
| Aspect | Ibn 'Arabi | 'Iraqi |
|---|---|---|
| Dates as printed | 560/1165-638/1240 | ca.610/1213-1214 to 688/1289 |
| Main language | Arabic | Persian |
| Main works used | Futuhat, Fusus, Tarjuman, Dhakha'ir | Lama'at, Kulliyat |
| Voice | Theorist and commentator | Lover and poet |
| Link to the other | Teacher of Qunawi | Student of Qunawi |
| On human beauty | Woman as fullest witnessing; youths allowed only to gnostics | Practised shahidbazi throughout his life, by the reports |
| Poetic stance | Writes love poems and then explains them | Keeps the ambiguity, signs with a takhallus |
| Zargar's verdict | Generous theory with its own limits | Sincere, candid, but part of a practice judged an error |
The pairing is the book's quiet method. Each idea appears twice, once as theory and once as experience, and the reader learns to see the second as the first lived out.
Common misreadings the book corrects
- Misreading: Sufi love poems are coded theology. Correction: the code view fails because one image has many readings and the first version of the Tarjuman had no commentary.
- Misreading: The mystics fled the body. Correction: human beauty and sexual pleasure hold an important position in Ibn 'Arabi's vision, as the Conclusions say against Asín.
- Misreading: Oneness of being is pantheism. Correction: tashbih is held together with tanzih, and the likeness always falls short of God.
- Misreading: Seeing God in forms means union or incarnation. Correction: 'Iraqi rejects both, since both need two essences.
- Misreading: Shahidbazi was simply sexual. Correction: for these Sufis it was not; it was still, in Zargar's judgment, a grave error.
- Misreading: The saints are beyond criticism. Correction: they were human and are accountable to their own sources.
Open questions the book leaves
- How far does the aesthetic reach? The study is Akbari and Persian. Whether the same perception governs Sufis outside that line is left for other work.
- What of women's own voices? The female beloved is a locus of witnessing throughout. The book does not test the masters' view against women's own experience.
- Where is the line in practice? Ibn 'Arabi allows gnostics what he forbids novices. The book shows why this line failed socially but does not say what a workable line would be.
- What of visual art? "Aesthetics" here is perception and poetry. Architecture, calligraphy and music are outside the frame.
- How do the commentaries differ? The Lama'at's commentators and the Tarjuman's later readers appear in passing; a full comparison would test the claim of many readings.
Editor's verdict, chapter by chapter
| Chapter | Strongest point | Weakest point |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | A clear, narrow definition of aesthetics | Large title for a two-author study |
| Ch1 | Witnessing before ontology, argued from the texts | Dense vocabulary for new readers |
| Ch2 | The pairing of 'Iraqi with Ibn 'Arabi | Short; some images only touched |
| Ch3 | Beauty as lovability, with constitution | The move to the human form is quick |
| Ch4 | A full, fair account of women and the three loves | Women heard only through male authors |
| Ch5 | Fair hearing followed by a reasoned verdict | Date conflicts in the notes (Zakariya) |
| Ch6 | The case for ambiguity against two critics | Close readings few in number |
| Conclusions | Two arguments that reach beyond Sufism | Hell's pleasures passage admitted to go beyond the texts |
Timeline from the book's own dates
| Date as printed | Event in the book |
|---|---|
| r. 170/786-193/809 | Harun al-Rashid, whose three maidens poem Ibn 'Arabi reads |
| d. 428/1037 | Ibn Sina, poetry as imaginative speech |
| d. 505/1111 | Abu Hamid al-Ghazali |
| d. 520/1126 | Ahmad Ghazali, author of the Sawanih |
| d. 526/1131 | 'Ayn al-Qudat |
| 560/1165 | Birth of Ibn 'Arabi |
| d. 606/1209 | Ruzbihan Baqli |
| ca.610/1213-1214 | Birth of 'Iraqi |
| d. 632/1234; d. 632/1235 | Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi; Ibn al-Farid |
| d. 635/1238 | Kirmani |
| 638/1240 | Death of Ibn 'Arabi |
| d. 661/1262 or 666/1267 | Baha' al-Din Zakariya (two printed dates) |
| d. 672/1273 | Rumi |
| 673/1273-1274, 673/1274, 673/1273-74 | Qunawi (three printed forms) |
| 688/1289 | Death of 'Iraqi |
| d. 792/1390 | Hafiz |
| d. 898/1492 | Jami |
| d. 1944 | Asín Palacios |
Ten passages worth rereading
- "The soul sees in forms." (Introduction) The thesis in four words.
- "The gnostic cannot witness the Real outside of the boundaries of form." (Ch1) Form as the only place of vision.
- "Truly reason brings you together, while the better of the two [love] strews you apart!" (Ch1) Love against reason.
- "Every instant, the Beloved shows a different face in a mirror" (Ch2) 'Iraqi on tahawwul.
- "God is beautiful and loves beauty," (Ch3) The hadith behind the whole theory of beauty.
- "I do not want to lie about my spiritual state." (Ch4) Ruzbihan's honesty.
- "One must either be in love with that beauty or with the lover of that beauty. This is a great secret." (Ch5) 'Ayn al-Qudat's medial love.
- "because souls fall passionately in love with such expressions." (Ch6) Why love poetry.
- "spiritual significance in sensory forms." (Conclusions) Paradise.
- "never did such mystics claim to be anything other than human." (Conclusions) The last word.
A closer look
- Primary sources first. Arguments are built from Arabic and Persian texts, many translated here for the first time, including the Dhakha'ir and 'Iraqi's Kulliyat.
- A fair two-sided stance. Zargar defends the Sufis against Asín and Baldick, then holds them to their own standards on shahidbazi. Few studies in this field do both.
- A usable method for poems. Reading for function and reception, not for code, explains why one ghazal can be both a tavern song and a prayer.
- Clear terms. Husn and jamal, kashf and shuhud, tahawwul and tajalli are defined from the sources' own glossaries.
- Two authors carry a wide claim. The title speaks of Sufi aesthetics, but the evidence is Akbari and Persian, chiefly Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi.
- Women appear mostly as loci of witnessing. Nizam and the singer in the Ruzbihan story have no voice of their own in the book. The book reports the masters' views and does not test them against women's writing.
- The Christian comparison stays light. St. John of the Cross and the Song of Songs are mentioned and set aside.
- Copy-editing. Over forty slips, including two double death dates and a reversed adjective on p.117 (Part 9).
- The verdict on shahidbazi rests on hindsight. Zargar himself grants that the jurists' view is "more contemporary" only if time can serve as a judge.
Who's Who (dates as printed in the book)
| Name | Dates as printed | Role in the book |
|---|---|---|
| Ibn 'Arabi | 560/1165-638/1240 | The Greatest Shaykh; theorist of perception and beauty |
| Fakhr al-Din 'Iraqi | ca.610/1213-1214 to 688/1289 | Persian poet; author of the Lama'at |
| Sadr al-Din Qunawi | d. 673/1273-1274 (p.3); 673/1274 (n.42); 673/1273-74 (p.75) | Ibn 'Arabi's stepson; 'Iraqi's teacher |
| Abu Hamid al-Ghazali | d. 505/1111 | Forbids gazing to those who see a difference |
| Ahmad Ghazali | d. 520/1126 | Author of the Sawanih; theorist of love |
| 'Ayn al-Qudat | d. 526/1131 | Medial love |
| Ruzbihan Baqli | d. 606/1209 | Defender of human love as a ladder |
| Awhad al-Din Kirmani | d. 635/1238 | Famous gazer; criticized by Rumi |
| Ibn al-Farid | d. 632/1235 | Arabic poet of love |
| Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi | d. 632/1234 | Suhrawardi master, nephew of Abu al-Najib |
| Baha' al-Din Zakariya | d. 661/1262 (p.109); death in 666/1267 (n.15) | Suhrawardi shaykh of 'Iraqi in Multan |
| Jalal al-Din Rumi | d. 672/1273 | Critic of Kirmani |
| Shams-i Tabrizi | d. 645/1247 | Rumi's companion |
| Mu'ayyid al-Din Jandi | d. ca.700/1300 | Qunawi's pupil; commentator on Ibn al-Farid |
| Sa'id al-Din Farghani | d. 699/1300 | Commentator on Ibn al-Farid |
| 'Abd al-Razzaq Qashani | d. 736/1335 | Commentator on Ibn 'Arabi; divides shuhud into types |
| Dawud Qaysari | d. 751/1350 | Commentator on the Fusus |
| Mahmud Shabistari | d. ca.740/1339-40 | Author of the Gulshan-i Raz |
| Hafiz | d. 792/1390 | Heir of the Qalandar candour |
| Sa'di | (691/1292), printed without "d." | Records the damage to Sufism's name |
| 'Abd al-Rahman Jami | d. 898/1492 | Akbari-influenced poet; reader of Hafiz |
| Jamali | d. 942/1536 | Credited the Lama'at to Sadr al-Din 'Arif |
| Ibn Sina | d. 428/1037 | Poetry as imaginative speech |
| Ibn al-Jawzi | d. 597/1200 | Critic of gazing |
| Ibn Taymiyah | d. 728/1328 | Vehement critic of Ibn 'Arabi, cited in the notes |
| Harun al-Rashid | r. 170/786-193/809 | Poem of the three maidens |
| Anwari | d. ca.582/1186 | Court poet quoted in the Lama'at |
| Miguel Asín Palacios | d. 1944 | Spanish scholar answered in the Conclusions |
| St. John of the Cross | 1542-1591 | Christian comparison, set aside |
11. Glossary
Terms as Zargar uses and translates them. Arabic and Persian forms follow the book's transliteration without diacritics.
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| Akbari | Belonging to the school of Ibn 'Arabi, al-shaykh al-akbar |
| 'alam al-tamaththul | The imaginal world, where meanings take forms; sunrise in the Nizam poem alludes to it |
| amrad | A beardless youth, the usual object of shahidbazi |
| barzakh | Isthmus; what stands between two things and shares in both, above all imagination |
| dhawq | Taste; direct experiential knowledge |
| ghazal | Persian (and Arabic) love lyric, often ending with the poet's takhallus |
| hayrah | Perplexity, the fruit of love that reason cannot hold |
| hubb / 'ishq | Love / passionate love; Farghani renders the Arabic hubb with the Persian 'ishq |
| hulul | Incarnation, the indwelling of God in a thing; rejected by 'Iraqi |
| husn | Comeliness; in the glossaries, the collection of all perfections, belonging to the Real only |
| ihsan | Excellent action, beauty in deed; also worship as if seeing God |
| ittihad | Union of two essences; rejected by 'Iraqi |
| jafa | Harsh estrangement; in the glossary, the covering of the wayfarer's heart from gnostic realizations |
| jalal | Majesty, the divine attributes of awe and subjugation |
| jamal | Beauty; the beloved's perfections shown through the lover's longing |
| kashf | Unveiling; it makes subtle that which is gross |
| khayal | Imagination, at the levels of cosmos, imaginal world and human faculty |
| Lama'at | 'Iraqi's Divine Flashes, a prose and verse work on love |
| Malamati | One who hides worship and invites blame to stay sincere |
| mizaj | Constitution; the make-up that decides what a receiver finds pleasant |
| mushahadah / shuhud | Witnessing; it makes gross that which is subtle |
| nalah | The lover's groan, glossed as whispered prayers (munajat) |
| nasib | The amatory prelude of the Arabic ode |
| Qalandar | Antinomian dervish who defies custom; a model of candour for 'Iraqi |
| Saqi | Cupbearer; in 'Iraqi's verse, the beloved who pours self-disclosures |
| shahid | Witness; the beautiful one who is the evidential locus of witnessing |
| shahidbazi | "Witness play": contemplative gazing at a beautiful human face |
| takhallus | The pen name a poet places in the last line of a ghazal |
| tahawwul | State-changing; God appearing in constantly changing forms, from the hadith in Sahih Muslim |
| tajalli | Self-disclosure of the Real |
| tanzih | Transcendence; declaring God beyond all likeness |
| tashbih | Similitude; seeing God in likeness and form |
| Tarjuman al-Ashwaq | Ibn 'Arabi's collection of love poems, the Interpreter of Desires |
| Dhakha'ir al-A'laq | Ibn 'Arabi's commentary on the Tarjuman, prompted by the jurists of Aleppo |
| wahdat al-wujud | Oneness of being; for Zargar, a description of what the gnostic witnesses |
| Dhakha'ir | Short name for the commentary on the Tarjuman |
| Fusus al-Hikam | Ibn 'Arabi's Ringstones of Manifold Wisdom (the book's rendering), source of the Noah chapter on idol-worshippers as lovers |
| Futuhat al-Makkiyah | Ibn 'Arabi's Meccan Openings, the main source for his theory of perception and love |
| gnostic ('arif) | One who knows by direct witnessing; the book's term for the accomplished mystic |
| Kulliyat | 'Iraqi's collected poems |
| mukashafah | Unveiling, which brings verification (tahqiq) beyond witnessing |
| Sawanih | Ahmad Ghazali's treatise on love, which alludes to a cosmology of love |
| School of Passionate Love | Zargar's name for the line of Sufis who made human love a path: Ahmad Ghazali, 'Ayn al-Qudat, Ruzbihan, Kirmani, 'Iraqi |
| shirk | Associating others with God; the limit that similitude must never cross |
| tahqiq | Verification, the understanding that unveiling brings |
About this book
Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi by Cyrus Ali Zargar, 2011. 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.
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