Insight Editions · No. 165
Sufi Metaphysics and Qur'anic Prophets
Ibn 'Arabi's Thought and Method in the Fusus al-Hikam
Ronald L. Nettler
Ronald L. Nettler examines Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysics and interpretive method through Qur’anic prophet narratives in the Fusus al-Hikam.
A study guide to Sufi Metaphysics and Qur'anic Prophets by Ronald L. Nettler. 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
Ronald L. Nettler's Sufi Metaphysics and Qur'anic Prophets reads ten chapters of Ibn 'Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam closely, plus the Lut chapter as an epilogue. It shows how each Qur'anic prophet story carries a metaphysics of the One and the many.
The book moves from method to completion. An introduction sets out the man, the term "sufi metaphysics" and three themes. Then come Adam and Musa as foundations; Harun and Hud for paradoxical inversion; Ibrahim, Shu'ayb, 'Uzayr and Zakariyya on determination, the heart and mercy; Muhammad on triplicity, love and prayer; and a short Lutian epilogue on powerlessness.
In one sentence: for Ibn 'Arabi as Nettler reads him, a Qur'anic story and its metaphysical meaning are one reality at two levels, so that the most shocking inversions (the calf as worship, hell vanishing, power through powerlessness) fulfil the plain sense rather than cancel it.
The wisdoms in the chapter titles
Each Fusus chapter pairs a prophet with a wisdom (hikma), and Nettler keeps Ibn 'Arabi's pairings in his titles. The pairing is rarely obvious. Harun's wisdom is leadership, though in the story he fails to lead; Lut's is domination, though he laments his lack of power; 'Uzayr's is the divine decree, though he is censured for asking about it. Nettler shows that the wisdom is often revealed through its absence or its opposite, which is one more instance of the inversion that runs through the book.
Who this guide is for
1. Ibn 'Arabi, His Sufi Thought and the Fusus
Nettler's opening chapter (pp.1-16) introduces the man, names his thought "sufi metaphysics", and sets out the three ideas every later chapter relies on: the One and the many, the metaphysical and the ethical, and the Fusus and the Qur'an.
- The book reads ten chapters of the Fusus al-Hikam closely, without the standard commentaries.
- Ibn 'Arabi's thought is "sufi metaphysics": experience turned into a far-reaching intellectual system.
- Its bedrock is the One and the many, held together without an either/or.
- Ethics is absorbed into metaphysical unity, yet Ibn 'Arabi keeps strict fidelity to the Law.
- The Fusus is a new genre, "sufi metaphysical story-telling", built on Qur'anic prophet stories.
The man, in the book's dates
Ibn 'Arabi was born in Murcia in al-Andalus on 17 Ramadan 560, travelled through the Maghrib and the East, and in 1223 settled in Damascus. There he said he received the Fusus in a vision of the Prophet "at the end of [the month of] Muharram, in the year 627, in Damascus." He insisted on his own status: "I am neither a prophet nor a messenger, but merely an heir". Nettler draws the implication that the book is presented as an esoteric correlative of the Qur'anic revelation.
Sufi metaphysics
Nettler chooses the term "sufi metaphysics" for an outlook that is not a full philosophical doctrine but "a far-reaching intellectual expression of intertwined experience and ideas". Earlier sufism centred on personal religious experience; Ibn 'Arabi's achievement was its intellectualisation. Schimmel's contrast with the personal religion of Hallaj is quoted in support.
The One and the many
This is the bedrock: "From here all else issues and to this all returns." Ibn 'Arabi affirms an identification of God and creation, yet the two cannot be reduced to total identity. His traditional critics see the unitive theme "as the whole of Ibn ‘Arabi’s outlook", which leads them to charge him with deifying man and confusing the Law. Nettler's reply is the book's master key: an analysis "must not be based on the principle of ‘excluded middle’". Unity and the gulf between God and creation are woven together, not set against each other.
The vocabulary of being has two faces, absolute and conditional. The same tension appears as Essence and attributes, and as the God "created in the religious doctrines". Bridging concepts join the sides: self-disclosures and sites of manifestation, the world as shadow of the One, and the fixed essences.
The metaphysical and the ethical
If all is one, good and evil are distinctions of multiplicity. Nettler names two ways in which Ibn 'Arabi absorbs ethics. One is paradoxical inversion: in the Harun chapter the golden calf becomes true worship of God, who is in everything. The other is the fixed essences, which determine human action even "to the exclusion of God’s own ability to affect events and things in the world". Ethics becomes "relativised". Yet Nettler warns against calling him an antinomian: careful reading shows "an absolute fidelity to traditional ethics and law."
The Fusus and the Qur'an
Nettler's approach is Qur'anic. Ibn 'Arabi builds each chapter round a framework story taken from the Qur'an or hadith, sometimes directly, sometimes from passages with no overt link to the prophet named. For him the metaphysics is the meaning of the Qur'an. The result is a genre Nettler calls "sufi metaphysical story-telling", where popular scriptural narrative and high-culture metaphysics meet. The genius of the Fusus, he says, lies "precisely in this integration of religious story and abstract thought."
Links to the rest of this guide
The three themes return throughout. The One and the many is told as story in Adam (Part 2) and Musa (Part 3). The absorption of ethics drives the Harun and Hud chapters (Parts 4 and 6). The Fusus and the Qur'an meet in every chapter, most visibly in the grammar of the Muhammad chapter (Part 10), where even the gender of Arabic nouns carries metaphysical weight.
- Nettler chooses "sufi metaphysics" over "philosophy". What is gained and lost by the label?
- Why might reading the Fusus without its commentaries make Ibn 'Arabi seem more radical, or less?
- Keep a list, chapter by chapter, of where unity and difference are both affirmed. It becomes the backbone of the Synthesis.
2. Adam: The Mirror and the Return
The short Adam chapter (pp.17-24, Fusus 48-55) opens the Fusus and gives the creation story that frames everything else: God wished to see Himself, and Adam is the mirror in which He does.
- God wished to see His names in an all-encompassing being (kawn jami').
- Seeing oneself in a mirror differs from seeing oneself through oneself.
- The world was an unpolished mirror; Adam is the polishing.
- Creation is circular, not linear: all returns to its source.
- The angels are powers within the "Great Man" and lack Adam's universality.
Why a mirror
The motive of creation is God's wish to see the essences of His names in one being that holds the whole matter. The key sentence explains why self-sight alone was not enough: "because for something to see itself through itself is not the same as its seeing itself in something else which serves as a mirror for it". The world before Adam was like a body without spirit, a mirror not yet polished. Then: "Adam is the very polishing of that mirror".
A circle, not a line
Nettler stresses that creation in this chapter is circular. Ibn 'Arabi cites Qur'an 11:123, "To Him the whole matter returns." The world issues from God and comes back to Him in Adam's self-knowledge, which is also God's knowledge of Himself. This is the first appearance of the One-and-many structure in story form, and it frames the other chapters.
The angels
The angels objected to Adam's creation. In Ibn 'Arabi's reading they are faculties or powers within the form of the world, the "Great Man", and they did not see the whole. Their limitation is precise: "the universality of Adam is not for the angels". Only the being who gathers all names is the full mirror.
| Element | Story level | Metaphysical level |
|---|---|---|
| God's wish | to create Adam | to see the Names in a comprehensive being |
| The world | made before Adam | an unpolished mirror, body without spirit |
| Adam | first man | polishing of the mirror; kawn jami' |
| Angels | object to Adam | partial powers lacking universality |
| Return | 11:123 | circular creation |
- Why does Nettler place the Adam chapter early even though he reorders the rest from simple to complex?
- The mirror returns in the Muhammad chapter as the "hall of mirrors" of prayer. Compare the two.
- How does the angels' partial vision anticipate the "veiled" believers of the Ibrahim and Zakariyya chapters?
Key passage
Note. The image puts man at the centre without making him God. The mirror is the world; Adam is its polish, the quality that lets it reflect. God's self-vision needs a place outside Himself, and that need is the reason for creation. The angels' objection fails because they are partial powers, each seeing one aspect. This structure, a whole seen only through a comprehensive part, returns in the Muhammad chapter, where the Prophet receives all the words that Adam's names refer to.
3. Musa: The Wisdom of Exaltedness
Nettler reads only one strand of the long Musa chapter (pp.25-37, Fusus 197-213): the Pharaoh's killing of the Israelite sons and the infant Musa set adrift in a box. Ibn 'Arabi turns a story of death into a story of gathered life and inspired knowledge.
- The killing of the sons was "for Musa": their lives revert to him.
- The younger dominates the older, because the young are fresh from their Lord.
- The box stands for humanity and the river water for knowledge through the faculties.
- God governs the world through the world itself.
- What looks like destruction is, in essence, salvation.
The sons' lives return to Musa
Ibn 'Arabi names the episode "the wisdom of killing the sons". Each child killed on Musa's account passed his life on, so that Musa holds "the collective life of those sons, who were killed because he was he". He was born only to gather many spirits. A spiritual force becomes cumulative: the killings, horrific on the surface, build up the prophet.
The child rules the adult
A digression explains why the young have power. The child moves the adult to care for it: "The adult here is dominated by the child without realising it." The reason is nearness to origin: "The young have most recently been with their lord". The Prophet, Ibn 'Arabi notes, would expose himself to rain because it was fresh from its Lord. The passage closes with a typical command, "So understand!"
Box and river
The mother casts the infant into the river in a box. For Ibn 'Arabi the box is the human form and the water is knowledge reaching it through the faculties. The sakina of Qur'an 2:248 is drawn in, a link 'Afifi relates to the Hebrew shekhina. Divine governance works through the created order: "He does not organise the world but through the world itself." We know God's names only through the world: "no name of God reaches us unless we have found the meaning of that name and its spirit in the world", which leads back to the hadith "God created Adam in His form."
The box, then, was "on the face of it destruction, while in essence it is his salvation". Qur'an 6:122, "Or one who was dead", is read as death by ignorance, revived through knowledge.
Story and truth
Nettler is careful about status. The Qur'anic story is "most definitely not a metaphor for his truth": the story and the metaphysical meaning are one reality seen at two levels. The source of that knowledge is divine inspiration, not reasoning.
| Story detail | Inner meaning in the Fusus |
|---|---|
| Killing of sons | Their spirits gathered into Musa |
| Infant and adult | The young govern the old, being nearer the Lord |
| Box (tabut) | The human form; the sakina |
| River | Knowledge through the faculties |
| Casting into the river | Surface destruction, inner salvation |
Key passage
Note. This sentence links the story to the system. If God governs only through the world, then the children's deaths, the mother's fear, the box and the river are all the means of divine governance, and each carries meaning. Nettler draws out the corollary that we know God's names only by finding their meaning in the world. Knowledge of God and attention to creation become the same activity.
- Why does Ibn 'Arabi focus on the killing of the sons rather than the encounters with Pharaoh or al-Khidr?
- How does the rule that the young rule the old fit with the hierarchy of knowledge in Part 4?
- Nettler denies that the story is a metaphor. What would change if it were?
4. Harun: The Wisdom of Leadership
The longest chapter of Nettler's book (pp.38-68, Fusus 191-197) turns the golden calf into true worship, digresses on subjugation, and ends with desire as God's greatest self-manifestation. It is the fullest display of paradoxical inversion.
- Harun's "wisdom of leadership" (hikma imamiyya) comes from his apparent passivity.
- Musa knew more than Harun, yet burning the calf was "an error in judgement" against his own deeper knowledge.
- The calf-worshippers worshipped God, who is in every image.
- Subjugation runs in every direction, even from creation to God.
- Desire (hawa) is the greatest divine self-manifestation.
The framework story
Nettler sets the Qur'anic accounts (sura 7 and sura 20) beside the Bible (printed as "Exodus, 33:1-7") and the rabbinic tradition. In the Qur'an the Samaritan is a kind of lightning rod who draws blame away from Harun, a "near-total exculpation". Aberbach and Smolar call the calf "the nearest Jewish equivalent to the concept of original sin".
Musa and Harun
Ibn 'Arabi grants the plain hierarchy: "Musa is greater than Harun in prophecy". Harun's plea, "son of my mother", appeals to mercy, which belongs to the mother; the plea "is a breath of [divine] mercy", an echo of the breath of the Merciful (nafas al-Rahman). Then the turn. Musa should have looked into the Tablets discerningly. He knew more of the matter: "Musa was more knowledgeable about that matter than Harun", and the rebuke of Harun was due to Harun's "lack of vision". So Musa saw further than Harun; yet his zealous burning of the calf was, Nettler says, "an error in judgement" against his own deeper gnostic knowledge.
The calf as worship
The gnostic's vision governs the reading: "For the gnostic is one who sees al-Haqq in everything; indeed, he sees [al-Haqq] as every thing." A saying of Jesus on heart and wealth (a variant of Matthew 6:19, Nettler notes, with a play on mal and mala) supports the point that "Material forms have no permanency". Musa called the calf a god by way of instruction, and his words "Look at your god" carry two readings. Nettler insists the tension stays: Ibn 'Arabi is "thus understanding, but in no way condoning the calf-worship".
The digression on subjugation
Fusus 193-194 analyses subjugation (taskhir) in four relationships: human and inanimate, human and animal, human and human, divine and creation. There are two types. One is by wish, as master over servant or sultan over subjects. The other is by circumstance, "the subjugation of position", as when a king must serve his subjects' needs. Qur'an 55:29 is cited: "Every day, He is there, prominent". The final step is the boldest inversion: God is subjugated by creation. Nettler notes a link to the idea of a social contract.
Harun's real leadership
Harun's leniency served "a wisdom from God, Most High, manifest in existence, in order that He be worshipped in every image." God is "Sublime in rank" (40:15), but ranks are not separate: "Ranks, then, are numerous in one essence."
Desire
The climax is a reading of 45:23: "The greatest and most sublime divine Self-Manifestation is desire (hawa)". Desire breeds itself, "The truth of desire is that desire gives rise to [further] desire." Error (dalala) becomes confusion (hayra), which is positive. The pagans' godliness is imagined but real. In Nettler's words, "The pagan practice may be ‘wrong’ according to Sharica, but it is ‘right’ in its underlying nature". The gnostic keeps this to himself, and "hides [this truth] from any prophet, any apostle and any of their heirs". Images and God belong together: "Thus are the images and God both necessary".
| Theme | Fusus pages | Inversion |
|---|---|---|
| Rebuke of Harun | 191-192 | Harun's passivity becomes leadership |
| The calf | 192-193 | idol becomes an image of God |
| Subjugation | 193-194 | God subjugated by creation |
| Desire | 194-197 | error becomes self-manifestation |
- Where exactly does understanding end and condoning begin in Nettler's account?
- Compare the subjugated king with the Lut epilogue's powerless gnostic.
- How does the hierarchy of knowledge (Musa above Harun) survive the inversion?
Key passage
Note. The move from "in everything" to "as every thing" is the whole chapter in small. Seen this way, the calf is one more image in which God is worshipped, and Harun's leniency served the divine wish to be worshipped in every image. Yet Nettler keeps the two readings in tension: the gnostic hides this knowledge, and the Law that condemns the calf stays in force for the community.
5. Ibrahim: The Wisdom of Ecstatic Love
The Ibrahim chapter (pp.69-101, Fusus 80-84) builds a theory of mutual pervasion out of a pun on khalil, "intimate friend". God and creation interpenetrate, God is determined by the fixed essences, and each nourishes the other.
- Khalil is read through takhallul, "penetrating": Ibrahim permeates the divine attributes.
- God takes on even the attributes of deficiency and blame.
- Two mystical unveilings (kashf) show God as proof of Himself and as determined by us.
- Knowledge follows its object; God wills only what is as it is.
- God and creation nourish each other: we give Him determination, He gives us being.
Khalil and takhallul
The wisdom here is hikma muhayyamiyya, ecstatic or rapturous love. The opening derivation: "Al-khalil is called al-khalil because of his penetrating (takhallul) and encompassing everything by which the divine essence is characterised." Nettler marks three themes and the five Qur'anic references Ibn 'Arabi brings in (1:2, 6:149, 68:42, 4:133 and a verse on the known rank). The image is colour pervading the coloured thing; the scholastic pair of substance and accident, Nettler says, "falls very far short" of what is meant.
Both directions at once
Either attribution is valid: the creature takes God's attributes, and God takes the creature's, including "attributes of deficiency and blame". Even in "Praise be to God" the praiser and the praised are both God, because "God comprises what is blameworthy and what is praiseworthy". The rule of pervasion is stated so: "Know that nothing pervades something else unless it already resides within it." Water fills wool only where there is space. And so, "we, therefore, make God a god, through our own divinity", supported by the Prophetic saying that one who knows himself knows his lord
God is His attributes
The Essence stripped of all relations is not a god. Nettler puts it sharply: "Ibn ‘Arabi’s God is His attributes." Pious formulas about the "true God" are, read this way, "devoid of any significance".
Two unveilings
Fusus 81-82 describes two kinds of kashf. The first shows "That God Himself is the very proof of Himself". The second shows that our states come from ourselves: "we are not determined except through ourselves. No, indeed, we determine ourselves, through ourselves, but in God." The word hukm carries both sides, judgement and determination. Qur'an 6:149, "To God belongs the decisive argument", is turned against "those who are veiled", a term Nettler notes is not Qur'anic. The man of the second unveiling says "May God keep me from being among these ignorant ones."
Knowledge follows its object
The logic is strict: "God can indeed know them only as they are." And so "God does not wish [to do anything] except that which is as it is", for "how can God wish to do something which is not to be?" The principle: "Knowledge, then, has no influence on that which is known. Rather, that which is known influences knowledge." Revelation is shaped by its hearers, "The divine discourse is revealed only according to what is appropriate for those who are addressed by it". Hence "believers are numerous while the gnostics, possessors of mystical revelation, are few." The "known station" of each creature is its fixed essence.
Nourishment and the poems
So the ethical conclusion: "So do not praise or blame anyone other than yourself." The relation is mutual feeding: "You, then, are nourishment for Him through [your] determinative power while He is nourishment for you, through [your] existence." Two planes are kept apart in name: Allah as creator and man as created on one plane, the Bestower of being and the existent on the other. The poems state it: "He praises me [in my existence] and I praise Him", "He knows me and I know Him not", and finally "I have two faces, He and I", with God manifest in me as in a vessel (ina, a pun on ana, "I"). Ibrahim's hospitality closes the chapter: food pervades the guest, "indeed, here there are no parts".
| Concept | Arabic | Role in the chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Penetration | takhallul | root of khalil |
| Unveiling | kashf | two kinds, proof and self-determination |
| Determination | hukm | both judging and determining |
| Gnosis | ma'rifa | largely intellectual here |
| Bestowing being | ijad | contrasted with creating (khalq) |
Key passage
Note. This sentence carries the chapter. If God's knowledge follows the known, then the fixed essences, not an arbitrary will, settle what each creature is. God is not diminished, since the essences are themselves His known; but the usual picture of a God who could have made things otherwise is set aside. Nettler's phrase that God is "constrained" points to the same result. The ethical lesson follows at once: praise and blame belong first to oneself.
- How does the pun on khalil and takhallul prepare the theory of mutual pervasion?
- What separates the first unveiling from the second, and why is the second higher?
- Compare the mutual nourishment here with the "God who prays for us" in Part 10.
- Is making God a god through our divinity a claim about God or about our knowledge of Him? Nettler's two planes suggest an answer.
6. Hud: The Wisdom of Divine Unity
From the first four pages of the Hud chapter (pp.102-113, Fusus 106-114) Nettler draws Ibn 'Arabi's most inclusive claim: every walking creature is on the straight path of the Lord, and for the wrongdoers hell itself vanishes.
- The people of 'Ad are destroyed in the Qur'an; Ibn 'Arabi reads their story as one of nearness.
- The Fatiha's exclusive straight path becomes an inclusive one.
- Error and wrath are "accidental"; mercy is ontological.
- Hell is an imagined distance that vanishes.
- The inversion fulfils the plain sense; it does not reject it.
The story and the poem
The Qur'an tells of Hud sent to 'Ad (11:50), the destroying wind (46:25), and the curse on 'Ad, Hud's people. Ibn 'Arabi opens with a poem announcing that God has a straight path open to all, a summary of his later reading of the story. The Fatiha asks to be guided on the straight path, not the path of those who incur wrath or go astray; Ibn 'Arabi makes the path include everyone. Nettler notes that in the Qur'an mercy is usually conditional (7:156), while here mercy is ontological.
Every walker is on the path
Hell vanishes
The wrongdoers deserve closeness in their very being as wrongdoers. Hell is an imagined distance: "And for them the thing called hell vanishes." The law of compulsion (hukm al-jabr) governs. Two types of people walk the same path: the gnostic with insight (basira), and the follower by imitation (taqlid). The wind that drives them to hell also purges their souls, and they arrive at "the very greatest closeness" to God.
| Qur'anic item | Plain sense | Fusus reading |
|---|---|---|
| 11:56 forelock | God's power over all | all are on His path |
| 46:25 wind | destruction of 'Ad | carries them to nearness |
| Fatiha path | for the guided only | for every walker |
| Hell | place of punishment | imagined distance that vanishes |
Key passage
Note. The Fatiha's prayer to be guided on the straight path assumes that some are off it. Ibn 'Arabi reads the forelock verse to mean that God holds every creature, so every creature is on His path. Wrath and straying do not vanish from the description of the world; they are made accidental to a deeper mercy. This is the clearest case of what Nettler calls inversion as fulfilment.
- What distinguishes the gnostic and the imitator if both walk the same path?
- Hell "vanishes" for the wrongdoers. Does it vanish as a place or as a distance? Nettler's reading of the imagined distance matters here.
- Compare the inclusive path with the God of belief in Part 7.
7. Shu'ayb: The Wisdom of the Heart
The Shu'ayb chapter (pp.114-136, Fusus 119-126) says the gnostic's heart is wider than God's mercy, sees God in the form of every belief, and turns ceaselessly as God's self-disclosures change. Nettler finds here a pluralism grown from non-dualist ontology.
- The gnostic's heart derives from mercy yet is wider than it.
- Mercy then encompasses God Himself: a "conceptual knot".
- Each heart receives God as a stone shapes its ring setting.
- Most people see only the "God of belief"; the gnostic sees Him in every form.
- The heart (qalb) turns (taqallub) with each new creation, and every belief is a branch.
Story and frame
Shu'ayb was sent to Madyan, a people given to fraud, and they were destroyed by an earthquake (7:91, 29:37). Nettler gives four Qur'anic places: 7:85-93, 11:84-94, 26:177-190 and 29:36-37. As often, the Fusus chapter barely touches the story.
The heart and mercy
The heart of the gnostic "derives from God’s mercy and is more comprehensive than it", so that "mercy has no dominion in Him". Then the reversal: since "His mercy encompasses everything", it encompasses God (al-Haqq) as well. Nettler calls this a "conceptual knot" and a "creative ambiguity": the remote God is beyond mercy, the manifest God within it. Bistami is cited: "If the Throne and what encompasses it were one hundred million times in a" corner of the gnostic's heart, he would not feel it. Junayd adds: "When the temporal joins with the eternal, there remains no trace of [the temporal]."
The ring setting
The heart receives God as a ring holds a stone: "the setting is in keeping with the dimension and shape of the stone". Ibn 'Arabi reverses the view of the Folk (al-ta'ifa), who said God discloses Himself in conformity with the preparedness of the servant. There are two self-disclosures, hidden and seen; 20:50, "He gave to each thing its nature."
The God of belief
; indeed
"The eye [of the servant], then, sees nothing but the God of belief."The exclusivist
"will reject Him in anything other than his own fixed conception". The gnostic prays "My Lord increase me in knowledge" (20:114), for
"Thus the matter is infinite from both sides."Nettler stresses that this pluralism comes from non-dualist ontology, not from liberal tolerance.
Heart, not reason
Qur'an 50:37 speaks of a reminder for one who has a heart; Ibn 'Arabi notes that "God did not say “for the one who has reason”", "For [conventional] reason is restrictive". On 3:91 and its helpers, Ibn 'Arabi says that both the one helped (al-mansur) and the helper (al-nasir) are the totality. The heart's turning matches the new creation at each moment (khalq jadid), which the Sophists and the Ash'aris saw only in part. The chapter ends with branches (shu'ab), "because every belief is a branch".
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| qalb | heart, the receptacle |
| taqallub | turning, fluctuation |
| khalq jadid | new creation at every moment |
| shu'ab | branches; every belief is one |
| al-ta'ifa | "the Folk", the sufis |
Key passage
Note. The God of belief is not a false god; it is God as received by a particular heart. The fault lies in exclusivity, rejecting Him in other forms. The gnostic's knowledge is wider because his heart turns with each self-disclosure. Nettler presses that this pluralism follows from the ontology and is not a modern liberal stance, and he leaves the "conceptual knot" of the heart and mercy open by design.
- How can the heart be wider than mercy, and mercy encompass God?
- Why does Ibn 'Arabi reverse the Folk on preparedness?
- What role does reason play once it is called restrictive?
8. 'Uzayr: The Wisdom of Divine Decree
The 'Uzayr chapter (pp.137-153, Fusus 131-138) is, in Nettler's phrase, a "metaphysical morality play": a prophet asks to know the secret of the divine decree and is censured, because a legislating prophet is not prepared for that knowledge.
- Qada' is the eternal decree; qadar is its timed implementation.
- God abides by His own order: the legislated legislates over the legislator.
- Messengers are also saints and gnostics, but they teach at the level of their community.
- 'Uzayr sought the secret of the decree in the wrong way and was censured.
- The wisdom is defined by its absence.
The figure of 'Uzayr
'Uzayr is named in the Qur'an only at 9:30. Ibn 'Arabi links him with the unnamed man of 2:259 whom God caused to die for a hundred years. Nettler takes the legend from the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, and says in n.35 that he will not hunt for sources.
Qada' and qadar
Qada' is the eternal decree, qadar its implementation in time (tawqit). God abides by His own order, so that "that which is legislated actually legislates over the legislator, in compelling him to legislate over it in a certain way." Every judge is also judged (hakim and mahkum 'alayhi). The paradox is resolved by immanence: God is both sides. The secret of the decree (sirr al-qadar) is tied to the "keys to the unknown" of 6:59.
Messengers and saints
Every messenger is also a saint (wali) and a gnostic, but his message stops at the level of his community. Qur'an 2:253, on God setting some messengers above others, and 16:71 on provision (rizq), spiritual and sensual, mark the differences. Prophets' "hearts are intellectually simple": their knowledge is taste (dhawq), given, not sought.
The censure
Passing a town in ruins, the man asked how God would revivify it after its death. He wanted to know the decree through God's power directly. Ibn 'Arabi reflects: had 'Uzayr "sought the sort of mystical unveiling" of the secret of the decree that the gnostics receive, "perhaps he would not have been censured". A legislating prophet has no preparedness (isti'dad) for that. The commentators differed: Jalalayn speaks of haughtiness, while Zamakhshari names the man as 'Uzayr or al-Khidr and calls him kafir, "a strong word indeed", as Nettler says. Nettler calls the whole a "metaphysical morality play", and notes Thackston's label of religious folklore.
| Term | Sense in the chapter |
|---|---|
| qada' | eternal decree |
| qadar | implementation in time (tawqit) |
| sirr al-qadar | secret of the decree, 6:59 |
| isti'dad | preparedness, which 'Uzayr lacked |
| dhawq | taste: the prophets' mode of knowing |
Key passage
Note. The point is not that creatures override God, but that God's decree is bound by the order of His own knowledge, which follows the fixed essences. 'Uzayr's error, in this light, was to seek this secret through God's power, as a legislating prophet, rather than through the unveiling given to gnostics. Nettler calls the chapter a "metaphysical morality play": the wisdom of the decree is shown by the prophet who lacked the preparedness for it.
- Draw the three circles of meaning and place each Fusus passage in one.
- Why are prophets' hearts called intellectually simple, and is this praise or limit?
- Compare 'Uzayr's censure with Musa's hierarchy over Harun in Part 4.
9. Zakariyya: The Wisdom of Divine Sovereignty
The Zakariyya chapter (pp.154-175, Fusus 177-181) makes mercy the deepest name of being. Mercy encompasses everything "in its existence-giving nature" and "in its ontological governance", even wrath and pain.
- Ibn 'Arabi drops the conditional half of 7:156: mercy reaches everything.
- Mercy works wujudan wa hukman, by giving existence and by governing.
- Wrath itself exists through mercy toward wrath.
- The people of unveiling ask that mercy inhere in them; the veiled ask God for mercy in their belief.
- Mercy comes by two ways: obligation and pure divine favour.
Story and frame
Zakariyya's prayer for a son and the story of Mary (3:35-41, 19:1-16) frame the chapter. Ibn 'Arabi opens: "Know that the Mercy of God encompasses everything", where the Qur'an (7:156) says "My mercy encompasses everything" and then names those for whom it is prescribed. Nettler identifies three themes and notes that nine Arabic words carry the key formula.
Existence and governance
Mercy works wujudan wa hukman, "in its existence-giving nature" and "in its ontological governance". Ibn 'Arabi says plainly that God is mercy, and that "the existence of [His] wrath derives from God’s mercy toward His wrath". The fixed essences seek existence, and mercy answers. "Within mercy’s application there is no consideration of achieving any goal". Even pain: "Through mercy to the pains [of those suffering] the pains [themselves] are brought into being." Nettler's summary: "Hell is real but ‘irrelevant’".
Two kinds of asking
The people of unveiling ask for mercy to inhere in them; the veiled ask God to be merciful to them in their belief. Nettler sets this against a sufi background in which Bistami was reported to have chastised God for presuming to punish any of His creatures. Nettler hears a Mu'tazili echo: attributes as relations (nisab), and the modal state (hal), with R. M. Frank cited. God "is not a locus for created things". "Everyone whom Mercy has remembered has thereby become merciful". Abu'l-Qasim b. Qasi, "a twelfth-century sufi", held that "all the names indicate one essence", so one may even seek mercy through the Avenger, al-Muntaqim.
Two ways of mercy
There are two ways: the way of obligation (tariq al-wujub), as in 7:156 for the God-fearing who give alms, and the way of divine favour (tariq al-imtinan al-ilahi), "not connected with any [human] action". Qur'an 48:2 on the forgiveness of sins and the hadith qudsi "Do what you will, God has already forgiven you." belong here. Nettler insists there is no antinomianism. He also calls the treatment "long, sometimes obscurantist, and often disjointed".
| Way | Arabic | Basis | Text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obligation | tariq al-wujub | conditional on action | 7:156 |
| Divine favour | tariq al-imtinan al-ilahi | unconditioned | 48:2; "Do what you will" |
Key passage
Note. If mercy is existence, then everything that exists, including pain, exists by mercy. The sentence is startling because it does not deny pain; it explains its being. Hence Nettler's summary that hell is real but irrelevant. The two ways of mercy then restore a place for the Law: the way of obligation stays, beside a way of pure favour.
- Why does Ibn 'Arabi quote only the first half of 7:156?
- What difference is there between asking mercy to inhere in oneself and asking God to be merciful?
- Does "Do what you will" open a door to antinomianism? Nettler says no; weigh his reasons.
10. Muhammad: The Wisdom of Singularity
The last Fusus chapter (pp.176-203, Fusus 214-226) hangs on a hadith of three loved things: women, perfume and prayer. From it Ibn 'Arabi builds a theory of triplicity, of the vision of God in woman, and of prayer as a dialogue in which God prays for us.
- Muhammad's wisdom is singularity (fardiyya), and the first singular number is three.
- Woman was made from man; love is the whole's attraction to its part.
- Man's vision of God in woman is the most complete.
- Perfume is breath, the fragrance of creation; even the "bad" is good in itself.
- Prayer is divided between God and servant; God also prays for us.
Singularity
He was a prophet when Adam was "between water and clay". Ibn 'Arabi's arithmetic:
"The first odd prime number is three". Muhammad
"received the whole array of the words which are the referents of Adam’s names", with a reference to 2:37.
Women
The hadith (Nasa'i) says three things of this world were made beloved to the Prophet: women, perfume and prayer. Woman is part of man (the rib of Genesis 2:21-23; the single soul of Q 4:1, with Jalalayn and Ibn Kathir). So "man’s knowledge of himself precedes his knowledge of his Lord". Love is the attraction of the whole for its part, and "love occurs only for the one who was made from [the lover]". A divine yearning is cited, "Oh David, I yearn more for them", of which Nettler notes "This is obscure and does not appear in the standard collections". The hadith of hesitation: "I do not hesitate in anything I do as much as I hesitate in taking my believing servant who loathes death". Most strongly put, the divine breath lies in the very stuff that makes man man. The triplicity of God, man and woman leads to the claim: "Thus is man’s vision of God in woman the most complete and the most perfect". The hadith uses the passive, "made beloved", not "I love".
The grammar of three
Ibn 'Arabi notices that the hadith says "three" in the feminine form, without the ha ending, and that perfume, a masculine noun, stands between two feminines. Feminine words such as dhat (essence), sifa, qudra and 'illa show the feminine at the origin of things. Nettler refers to a medieval grammarian (n.60).
Perfume
. Perfume links with breath:
"speech is breath and is virtually the same as scent". The story of 'A'isha and 24:26 (the good for the good) is read through tayyib and tib. Mercy runs through the cosmos as the scents of creation (rawa'ih al-takwin). Garlic is disliked for its odour, not in itself, and God's mercy is in the bad and the good, and
"The bad in itself is good".
Prayer
Prayer is intimate dialogue (munaja) and witnessing (mushahada). The book prints 2:172 for "Thus, remember Me, I will remember you". A hadith qudsi divides the Fatiha: the first verses belong to God, one is shared, the last belong to the servant. God "prays for us", under His name al-Akhir, as we pray to Him. Junayd: "The colour of water is the colour of the vessel". So "the believer’s praise of the thing in which he believes is [really] his praise for himself", and God says "I am present in my servants’ belief about me". Nettler calls prayer "a hall of mirrors".
Key passage
Note. The claim follows from the triplicity: man is made in God's form, woman from man, and so in loving woman man loves his own part and, through it, his origin. Nettler sets out the steps carefully, including the hadith's passive "made beloved" and the grammar of the feminine. The reader may still ask how far the account sees woman as a subject. The chapter ends with prayer, the most reciprocal relation of all, where God and servant each have their verses.
- Why is three, not one, the number of singularity?
- How do perfume and breath connect with the breath of the Merciful in Part 4?
- Compare prayer as "a hall of mirrors" with Adam as mirror in Part 2.
11. A Lutian Epilogue
Nettler closes (pp.204-216) with the Lut chapter (Fusus 126-131), whose "wisdom of domination" (hikma mulkiyya) is shown, typically, through Lut's powerlessness. It gathers the book's themes: inversion, the fixed essences, and the reciprocity of God and man.
- Lut wished for power over his people; the hadith says he already had a strong support.
- Worldly effective power (himma) is "an accidental power", essentially futile.
- The more gnosis, the less worldly efficacy.
- The messenger spares people; miracles convince few.
- Determinism is "metaphysical, not personal"; everything is from us and from them.
Lut's lament
Lut's story is in 7:80-84 and 11:77-83. At 11:80 he cries: "Would that I had power over you or recourse to a strong support". The Prophet answered for him in a hadith (Bukhari): "May God be merciful to my brother Lut who has indeed found a strong support". The support is God.
Accidental power
Such worldly power is "that effective determination (himma) so typical of humanity", yet "an accidental power", futile because it cannot really change anything. And "no prophet was sent until after [his] fortieth year", the time of returning weakness, as verses from two suras (30:54, 16:70) set out the pattern: weakness, strength, weakness. Ibn 'Arabi then states the rule that gnosis diminishes worldly power.
Two reasons
Ibn 'Arabi gives two reasons why the gnostic does not use himma. One is servanthood ('ubudiyya). The other is the unity of actor and acted-upon: the gnostic sees that the one he would act on is himself, and that the opponent does not deviate from his true nature. He acts by himma only by divine command, not by choice. A letter play joins two verses on heedlessness and covered hearts (30:7 and 2:88).
The messenger and the guided
Of the messenger facing his people Ibn 'Arabi says: "So he spares them." Miracles convince few. The Prophet could not guide his uncle Abu Talib (28:56). God says "He knows most about those who are guided", and His knowledge here is not that of the God of 2:272 who guides whom He wishes: the guided give God knowledge of themselves through their fixed essences. Nettler links this with the Ash'ari doctrine of acquisition (kasb), citing Razi, and insists that the determinism of the fixed essences "is metaphysical, not personal"; it does not remove moral agency.
The closing poem
Ibn 'Arabi ends: "Everything is from us and from them." "The exchange is between us and them" "So realise, Oh friend, this wisdom of domination in the word of" Lut, and finally "And that which is called odd is indeed implicit in the even." Nettler names this "the quintessential esoteric knowledge" (lubab al-ma'rifa).
| Figure | Relation to power | Book's reading |
|---|---|---|
| Lut | laments powerlessness | already has God as support |
| Gnostic | refrains from himma | servanthood; unity of actor and object |
| Messenger | spares people | miracles convince few |
| The guided | guided by God | through their fixed essences |
Key passage
The exchange is between us and them
Note. The closing poem compresses the book. God and man, the One and the many, the odd and the even are not opposites to be chosen between but partners in exchange. The Lut story gives the moral form: the prophet who lacks power already has the strongest support, and the gnostic who sees most acts least.
- How does the inverse law of gnosis and power fit with prophets as active leaders?
- Is "metaphysical, not personal" determinism enough to keep moral agency?
- Why might Nettler have kept Lut for last, after Muhammad?
12. Notes on the Text: Slips Kept as Printed
Below are the inconsistencies and misprints found in a full reading of the text, the notes, the bibliography and the index. Page numbers are the book's printed pages.
Contradictions between two places in the book
| Pages | What the book prints | The problem |
|---|---|---|
| 70 vs 91-92 | The verse on the "known rank" listed as 38:164, later cited as Qur’an, 37:164 | Two sura numbers for one verse |
| 139 (n.7) vs 142 | The verse on the one who has a heart cited as 50:37, then as Qur’an 50:38 | Two verse numbers for the same words |
| 130-132 vs 134 | The helpers verse discussed as 3:91, then printed Qur’an 3:191 | Verse number changes |
| 172 vs 175 | 48:2 quoted with past and future, then past and present | Two wordings of one verse |
| Contents vs 154 | Divine Sovereignty in the contents; Divine Sovereignity at the chapter head | Spelling differs |
| Ch1 note vs bibliography | Evstariev in the note; Evstatiev in the bibliography | Name spelled two ways (possibly a scan fault) |
| Index vs n.1 Ch5 | Index Parat, R.; note Paret | Index misspells the name |
| Index vs bibliography | Index Neusner, V.; bibliography and note Neusner, J. | Initial differs |
Misprints inside one passage
| Page | As printed | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 149 | request bring upon him God’s chastisement | Verb form; "brought" seems meant |
| 178 | metaphysically and as prophet and metaphysically | Word repeated |
| 206 | Heading POWERLESNESS | One letter missing (flagged with caution) |
| Index | Adam (Adam) | Entry repeats its own name |
Items noted but not judged
The Bible reference for the golden calf is printed "Exodus, 33:1-7" (p.39). Likewise the Qur'an verse numbers are checked only against the book's own other citations, never against a Qur'an.
Words this guide does not quote
Passages containing them are reported in plain words rather than quoted.
13. Synthesis
Twenty-two takeaways
- Nettler reads ten Fusus chapters from the text alone, without the classical commentaries, and reorders them from simpler ideas to more complex ones.
- "Sufi metaphysics" names an intellectual system grown from experience, not a formal philosophy.
- The One and the many is the bedrock, and it must be read without the "excluded middle": unity and difference stand together.
- The Fusus is a new genre, "sufi metaphysical story-telling", in which a Qur'anic story and a metaphysical meaning are one reality at two levels.
- The story is not a metaphor: Nettler insists both levels are real.
- Paradoxical inversion is the main device: the calf becomes worship, hell vanishes, powerlessness becomes power.
- Inversion fulfils the plain sense rather than rejecting it, and Ibn 'Arabi keeps fidelity to the Law.
- Creation is circular: from God through the world and Adam back to God's self-vision.
- Divine names are known only through the world, and God governs the world through the world itself.
- The calf episode shows the gnostic seeing God in every image while still not condoning idolatry.
- Subjugation runs both ways; at the limit God is subjugated by creation.
- Desire is the greatest divine self-manifestation, and error becomes positive confusion.
- Ibn 'Arabi's God is His attributes; the bare Essence is not a god.
- Knowledge follows its object: God knows and wills things only as their fixed essences are.
- God and creature nourish each other: being from God, determination from the creature.
- Every walking creature is on the Lord's straight path, and for the wrongdoers hell vanishes.
- The gnostic's heart is wider than mercy, and receives God as a ring setting takes its stone.
- Most believers see only the "God of belief"; the gnostic sees Him in every form.
- The secret of the divine decree is not for a legislating prophet; 'Uzayr was censured for seeking it the wrong way.
- Mercy gives existence and governs; even wrath and pain exist through it.
- In the Muhammad chapter, love, women, perfume and prayer express triplicity, and prayer is a dialogue in which God prays for us.
- In the Lut epilogue, gnosis reduces worldly power, and determinism is "metaphysical, not personal".
The book in six paragraphs
Method. Nettler wants the Fusus heard in its own voice. He sets aside the commentary tradition, follows Ibn 'Arabi's order of argument within each chapter, and reorders the chapters into a teaching sequence. He asks the reader to hold contraries together.
Foundations. The Adam and Musa chapters show the One and the many in story form. Adam polishes the mirror in which God sees Himself; Musa gathers the lives of the killed sons and is saved in the box that seemed to doom him.
Inversion. The Harun and Hud chapters push the plain story to its opposite: the golden calf is worship of God in an image, and the destroyed people of 'Ad arrive at closeness. Nettler keeps repeating that this is understanding, not approval.
Determination. The Ibrahim and 'Uzayr chapters work out the fixed essences. God's knowledge and will follow the essences, so creatures determine themselves "in God". 'Uzayr's censure shows the cost of seeking this secret without preparedness.
Mercy and the heart. The Shu'ayb and Zakariyya chapters make mercy ontological. The heart is a receptacle that turns with each self-disclosure; mercy brings even wrath into being.
Completion. The Muhammad chapter gathers all this into triplicity and prayer, and the Lut epilogue closes on powerlessness as the sign of true power and on the reciprocity summed up in "Everything is from us and from them".
The prophets compared
| Prophet | Wisdom named | Qur'anic frame | Main inversion or claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adam | (opening chapter) | creation, angels | man as polished mirror |
| Musa | exaltedness | killing of sons, box | destruction as salvation |
| Harun | leadership | golden calf | idol as image of God |
| Ibrahim | ecstatic love | khalil | mutual pervasion |
| Hud | divine unity | 'Ad and the wind | hell vanishes |
| Shu'ayb | the heart | Madyan | heart wider than mercy |
| 'Uzayr | divine decree | man of 2:259 | legislated legislates |
| Zakariyya | divine sovereignty | prayer for a son, Mary | mercy gives being to wrath |
| Muhammad | singularity | three loved things | God seen in woman; God prays |
| Lut | domination | "strong support" | power in powerlessness |
Two patterns stand out. First, the Fusus chapter rarely retells the story at length; a phrase or a single episode is enough to carry the metaphysics. Second, the wisdom named in the title is often shown by its opposite: domination through Lut's weakness, leadership through Harun's passivity, the wisdom of the decree through 'Uzayr's failure. Nettler's reading makes this pattern of absence a feature of the genre.
Recurring images
| Image | Chapters | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
| Mirror | Adam, Muhammad | God's self-vision in creation; prayer as a "hall of mirrors" |
| Path and feet | Hud | every walker on the Lord's straight path |
| Water and vessel | Musa, Ibrahim, Muhammad | knowledge in the faculties; water in wool; colour of the vessel |
| Ring and stone | Shu'ayb | the heart shaped by self-disclosure |
| Breath and scent | Harun, Muhammad | breath of the Merciful; perfume as breath |
| Food | Ibrahim | mutual nourishment of God and creature |
| Wind | Hud | destruction that brings near |
| Three | Muhammad, Lut | singularity; the odd implicit in the even |
Frameworks at a glance
| Framework | Chapter | Elements | What it explains |
|---|---|---|---|
| One and many | 1 | absolute and conditional being | the whole system |
| No excluded middle | 1 | both/and reading | how unity and difference coexist |
| Circular creation | 2 | Names, world, Adam, return | why man is God's mirror |
| Surface and essence | 3 | destruction outside, salvation inside | reading hard stories |
| Two subjugations | 4 | by wish, by circumstance | power relations, even God's |
| Two unveilings | 5 | God as proof; self-determination in God | stages of gnosis |
| Mutual nourishment | 5 | being and determination | God-creature reciprocity |
| Inclusive path | 6 | every walker, accidental wrath | universal nearness |
| Ring and stone | 7 | self-disclosure and receptacle | the God of belief |
| Qada' and qadar | 8 | eternal decree, timed implementation | why the legislated legislates |
| Two ways of mercy | 9 | obligation, divine favour | conditional and unconditional mercy |
| Triplicity | 10 | God, man, woman; three loved things | love and prayer |
| Inverse power law | 11 | gnosis against himma | why the gnostic does not act |
Pairs the book keeps distinct
| Pair | First term | Second term | Why the distinction matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Being | absolute (mutlaq) | conditional (muqayyad) | the frame of the One and the many |
| God | Essence, remote | attributes, manifest | only the God of attributes is a god for us |
| Knowers | believers, many | gnostics, few | who sees the inner meaning |
| Ways of seeing | veiled (mahjubun) | people of unveiling | how mercy and belief are asked for |
| Following | imitation (taqlid) | insight (basira) | two walkers on one path |
| Decree | qada' | qadar | eternal order and its timing |
| Mercy | by obligation | by divine favour | Law kept beside grace |
| Bringing forth | creating (khalq) | bestowing being (ijad) | two planes of God and creature |
| Faculties | reason, restrictive | heart, turning | how God is received |
| Roles | messenger | gnostic | teaching the community versus inner knowledge |
Objections and the book's answers
Objection: this is pantheism. The book answers that Ibn 'Arabi identifies God and creation without reducing them to total identity; the remote Essence and the gulf between God and creature remain. Reading him through the excluded middle produces the charge.
Objection: inversion destroys morality. Nettler answers that the inverted reading is held alongside the plain one, that the gnostic hides it, and that Ibn 'Arabi's practice shows fidelity to traditional ethics and law. The golden calf is understood, not condoned.
Objection: the fixed essences make God powerless. The answer is that the essences are God's own known, so in following them God follows His own knowledge. The constraint is internal to the divine order, which is why the legislated can be said to legislate over the legislator.
Objection: universal mercy makes the Law pointless. The Zakariyya chapter keeps a way of mercy by obligation alongside the way of pure favour. Hell is real, though relativised; mercy does not remove the Law but places it inside a larger frame.
Objection: the stories are only pretexts. Nettler holds that the Qur'anic story is not a metaphor: the story and its meaning are two levels of one reality, and the genius of the Fusus is their integration.
Objection: Ibn 'Arabi claims prophetic rank. He says he is no prophet or messenger but an heir. Nettler takes the Fusus as an esoteric correlative of revelation, not a rival to it.
Debates the book joins
Monism and the critics. Traditional critics took the unitive theme as the whole of Ibn 'Arabi and accused him of deifying man. Nettler answers that unity is always paired with difference.
Antinomianism. Bold readings of the calf, of hell and of "Do what you will" invite the charge that Ibn 'Arabi dissolves the Law. Nettler repeatedly denies it and points to his fidelity.
Determinism and agency. The fixed essences seem to remove freedom. Nettler links Ibn 'Arabi with Ash'ari acquisition and calls the determinism metaphysical, not personal.
Theology of attributes. The Zakariyya chapter echoes Mu'tazili and Ash'ari debates on attributes as relations; Nettler cites R. M. Frank.
Mercy in the Qur'an. The Qur'an often makes mercy conditional; Ibn 'Arabi makes it universal by reading only half of 7:156.
Common misreadings the book corrects
- That Ibn 'Arabi is a simple pantheist. The book shows the gulf between God and creation kept alongside unity.
- That the stories are mere allegory. Nettler says the story is not a metaphor for the truth.
- That inversion means approval. Understanding the calf-worship is not condoning it.
- That pluralism here is liberal tolerance. It comes from non-dualist ontology.
- That gnosis brings worldly power. The Lut chapter says the reverse.
Open questions
- If the fixed essences determine God's knowledge and will, what does prayer change?
- How can the gnostic keep the Law while seeing its distinctions as accidental?
- Is a reading that sets aside the commentaries more faithful, or only differently partial?
- Why should the gnostic hide what he knows from prophets and their heirs?
- Does the vision of God in woman honour women, or use them as a means?
A reading plan for this guide
- Read Part 1 and Figure 3 for the master key.
- Read Adam and Musa together as the foundations.
- Read Harun and Hud for inversion.
- Read Ibrahim and 'Uzayr for determination.
- Read Shu'ayb and Zakariyya for mercy and the heart.
- Finish with Muhammad and Lut, then the frameworks table above.
How to read a Fusus chapter: a short guide drawn from the book
- Find the frame. Identify the Qur'anic story or hadith. Often only a phrase is used, and sometimes the passage has no overt link to the prophet named.
- Find the key word. Ibn 'Arabi often builds on a root or a pun: khalil and takhallul, qalb and taqallub, ina and ana.
- Read the plain sense first. Nettler always sets out the Qur'anic and exegetical meaning before the inversion.
- Watch for the inversion. Ask what is turned to its opposite: the calf, hell, wrath, power.
- Place it on the One and the many. Ask which side of being each element belongs to, and how the bridge is made.
- Look for the return to the Law. Nettler repeatedly shows that the plain sense is kept for the community.
- Read the poems slowly. Ibn 'Arabi's verses often state the conclusion most compactly, as in the Ibrahim and Lut chapters.
Editor's verdict, chapter by chapter
| Chapter | Strength | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Introduction | clear statement of method and key themes | term "sufi metaphysics" asks for trust |
| 2 Adam | short and foundational | angels' role is brief |
| 3 Musa | clean example of surface and essence | only one strand of a long chapter |
| 4 Harun | fullest account of inversion | long; the subjugation digression is dense |
| 5 Ibrahim | sharp on fixed essences and knowledge | poems need slow reading |
| 6 Hud | vivid inclusive path | based on four Fusus pages only |
| 7 Shu'ayb | ring analogy and God of belief | conceptual knot left open by design |
| 8 'Uzayr | decree explained in three circles | wisdom defined by absence |
| 9 Zakariyya | mercy as being | Ibn 'Arabi's text is, in Nettler's words, often disjointed |
| 10 Muhammad | richest chapter: love, grammar, prayer | gender claims need care |
| 11 Lut | neat summary of the whole | short |
Timeline from the book's own dates
| Date as printed | Event |
|---|---|
| 17 Ramadan 560 | Ibn 'Arabi born in Murcia |
| twelfth century | Abu'l-Qasim b. Qasi, "a twelfth-century sufi" |
| 1223 | Ibn 'Arabi settles in Damascus |
| end of Muharram 627 | vision of the Prophet giving the Fusus, in Damascus |
The book gives few dates.
Ten passages worth rereading
- "From here all else issues and to this all returns." (Ch1) The One and the many.
- "Adam is the very polishing of that mirror" (Ch2) Man as God's mirror.
- "He does not organise the world but through the world itself." (Ch3) Governance through creation.
- "Ranks, then, are numerous in one essence." (Ch4) Hierarchy within unity.
- "Knowledge, then, has no influence on that which is known. Rather, that which is known influences knowledge." (Ch5) Knowledge follows its object.
- "And for them the thing called hell vanishes." (Ch6) The inclusive path.
- "The eye [of the servant], then, sees nothing but the God of belief." (Ch7) Belief as receptacle.
- "that which is legislated actually legislates over the legislator" (Ch8) The judge judged.
- "Within mercy’s application there is no consideration of achieving any goal" (Ch9) Mercy without purpose.
- "And that which is called odd is indeed implicit in the even." (Ch11) The closing line.
A closer look
Strengths. The book is disciplined: it stays with the text, explains the Arabic, and shows each chapter's logic step by step. Its warning against the excluded middle is the right key, and its repeated care to separate understanding from approval protects Ibn 'Arabi from easy charges. The Qur'anic framing makes the Fusus readable as scripture-centred thought rather than free speculation.
Limits. Setting aside the commentaries is a choice with costs: Nettler himself admits help from Qashani and 'Afifi, and readers cannot easily see where his readings depart from the tradition. Only ten of twenty-seven chapters are treated, and some (Musa, Hud) only in part. The reordering helps teaching but hides the Fusus's own sequence. The claims about women in the Muhammad chapter are explained but not much questioned. The book also carries a small number of citation slips (see Part 12).
Open to debate. Whether fidelity to the Law can be squared with readings in which wrath is accidental and hell vanishes is argued rather than shown, and depends on accepting the both/and logic the book proposes.
Who's Who (dates as printed in the book)
| Name | Role in the book |
|---|---|
| Ibn 'Arabi | Author of the Fusus; born in Murcia 17 Ramadan 560; settled in Damascus 1223 |
| Abu'l-Qasim b. Qasi | "a twelfth-century sufi"; all names indicate one essence |
| Abu Yazid al-Bistami | Sufi; the Throne in a corner of the heart; chastised God for punishing |
| Junayd | Sufi; the temporal and the eternal; colour of water and vessel |
| Hallaj | Named in Schimmel's contrast of personal religion |
| Qashani | Commentator on the Fusus whose Sharh helped Nettler |
| A. 'Afifi | Editor of the Fusus; comments on sakina and shekhina |
| Zamakhshari | Exegete; calls the man of 2:259 kafir |
| Jalalayn | Commentary; haughtiness; woman and the single soul |
| Ibn Kathir | Exegete on 4:1 |
| Fakhr al-Din al-Razi | Cited on Ash'ari acquisition |
| Annemarie Schimmel | As Through a Veil (1982) |
| Toshihiko Izutsu | God and Man in the Koran (1964); also on the Fusus |
| William Chittick | Imaginal Worlds (1994); The Sufi Path of Knowledge (1989) |
| Richard M. Frank | Beings and their Attributes (1978) |
| William Graham | Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (1987) |
| M. Aberbach and L. Smolar | On the golden calf (1968) |
| W. M. Thackston | Translator of al-Kisa'i's prophet tales |
| Da'ud Rahbar | On Qur'anic ethics and justice |
| R. Paret | Encyclopaedia article on Ibrahim (index "Parat") |
14. Glossary
Arabic terms as the book uses them, without diacritics.
| Term | Meaning in the book |
|---|---|
| a'yan thabita | fixed essences: the pre-existent patterns of things, which determine what they are and do |
| 'abd / 'ubudiyya | servant / servanthood; one reason the gnostic does not use his power |
| 'arif | gnostic, the one who knows by unveiling |
| basira | inner insight |
| dalala / dalal | going astray, error; read as positive confusion |
| dhat | Essence of God; also a feminine noun in the Muhammad chapter |
| dhawq | taste, direct experiential knowledge |
| fardiyya | singularity, the wisdom of Muhammad |
| Fusus al-Hikam | "Bezels of Wisdom", Ibn 'Arabi's book of prophets' wisdoms |
| ghadab | wrath, accidental in the Hud chapter |
| al-Haqq | the Real, God |
| hawa | desire, the greatest self-manifestation in the Harun chapter |
| hayra | bewilderment, positive confusion |
| hikma | wisdom; each chapter names one (imamiyya, muhayyamiyya, mulkiyya and others) |
| himma | concentrated effective power of the soul; "an accidental power" |
| hukm | judgement and determination at once |
| ijad | bringing into being, contrasted with khalq |
| isti'dad | preparedness, capacity to receive |
| kashf | unveiling; two kinds in the Ibrahim chapter |
| kasb | acquisition, the Ash'ari account of human acts |
| kawn jami' | all-encompassing being, Adam |
| khalil / takhallul | intimate friend / penetration, pervasion |
| khalq jadid | new creation at each moment |
| lubab al-ma'rifa | "the quintessential esoteric knowledge" |
| ma'rifa | gnosis, largely intellectual in Ibn 'Arabi |
| al-mahjubun | the veiled, those without unveiling |
| mazahir | sites of manifestation |
| munaja / mushahada | intimate dialogue / witnessing in prayer |
| nafas al-Rahman | breath of the Merciful |
| nisba / nisab | relation(s); attributes as relations |
| qada' / qadar | eternal decree / its timed implementation |
| qalb / taqallub | heart / turning |
| rasul / nabi / wali | messenger / prophet / saint |
| sakina | indwelling tranquillity (2:248), linked with the box |
| sirr al-qadar | secret of the decree |
| al-ta'ifa | "the Folk", the sufis |
| tajalli | self-disclosure, self-manifestation |
| taqlid | imitation, following without insight |
| taskhir | subjugation, by wish or by circumstance |
| wujud mutlaq / muqayyad | absolute / conditional being |
| wujudan wa hukman | in existence-giving and in governance (of mercy) |
About this book
Sufi Metaphysics and Qur'anic Prophets: Ibn 'Arabi's Thought and Method in the Fusus al-Hikam by Ronald L. Nettler, 2003. 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