#7 The Mysteries of Fasting in the Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya of Ibn Arabi with Dr Eric Winkel
Summary
One of the five pillars of Islām, fasting, is explored in its relation to the nature of man, its role as expiation, and as a means for spiritual elevation and growth. Dr. Winkel discusses Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Mysteries of Fasting in the Futūḥāt al-Makkiya, explaining the non-dual nature of fasting and its positing as a great ritual of dependency and a gateway to the Divine; the beauty of fasting as mirrored in its interior disposition to open the door to sincerity, servitude, and sacred adornment....
The conversation flows to cover Islamic jurisprudence, the Nur Muhammad (the Light of Muhammad), and Ibn al-ʿArabī’s role as the conveyor of the message of this Universal Light. Dr. Winkel talks about situational decision-making and governance in its connection to the اسم (ʾism), archetypal name, the حال (ḥāl), one’s state or condition, and the حكم (ḥukum), the ruling; fasting as a prompter of اجتهاد (ijtiḥād), prompting a soul conversation in its inward reality; moon sighting as it arises in the hearts of the عارفون (ʿarifūn), arising in the full moon of Truth as the truth of Muhammad ﷺ; and, the paradoxical outward disconformity amongst Muslims that parallels inward conformity and harmony.
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SPEAKERS
Host: Saqib Safdar
Guest: Dr Eric Winkel
Saqib
Greetings, as-salāmu ʿalaykum, welcome to another episode of The Ḥikmah Project podcast. My name is Saqib Safdar. I'm your host and today I'll be joining Dr. Eric Winkle to discuss the Mysteries of Fasting in Ibn al-ʿArabī's Futūḥāt al-Makkiya. You can access the translation to this chapter through our Patreon link, which you can find on our website, thehikmahproject.com. So in this podcast, we discuss the metaphysics of fasting. We look at also Ibn al-ʿArabī's legal perspective on fasting and moon sighting. So without further ado, here's the podcast.
Saqib
As-salāmu ʿalaykum, welcome Dr. Winkel, absolute pleasure to have you on the show again.
Dr. Winkel
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Saqib
So Sidi, what's Ibn ʿArabī's perspective on fasting?
Dr. Winkel
Bismi llāhi ar-Raḥmāni ar-Raḥīm. Let's look at what Ibn ʿArabī has to say in his Mysteries of Fasting. And I'll be reading some of the text, some selections from this first part of that chapter. And you'll be listening for... he's telling us that there's nothing like the fast. And of course we know that with God, with الله (Allāh), there's nothing like Him. And so, Ibn ʿArabī is going to connect those two. So after the beautiful poem of this chapter, he begins the prose passage with: “Learn, God assist you, that صوم (ṣawm) is abstaining and raising.”
Dr. Winkel
So this is very interesting because we know that it's—abstaining, we understand that you abstain from eating food, for instance, but also this raising, what does that mean? And he says, that “the word itself, ṣawm, in Arabic means to raise, to elevate.” And he quotes a pre-Islamic poet, who says, "when the day rises, ṣāma". Ṣāma is based on ṣawm. So there's something about the fast which is raised and elevated. So Ibn ʿArabī will tell us in the true dimension, fasting is a foregoing not a doing. So it's a negation, it's not a positive thing, it's not something you do, it's something you don't do. And negation is something about transcendence, you strip something away, you say that there's nothing like it, you're negating if there's anything like it. So Ibn ʿArabī says, this makes a correlation between fasting and God because both are transcendent, stripped away, they are nothing like them. So we know that in the القرآن الكريم (Qurʾān) there is nothing that is His likeness. So He negated that there should be to Him a likeness, and He Exalted beyond is the one who has no likeness; and we know this from intellect and from revelation. And then Ibn ʿArabī looks at the passage of a ḥadīth in الـنـسـائـي (Al-Nasāʾī): "I came to the Messenger of God ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) and I said, 'Give me a command that I can take from you'. He said, 'Do from you is ṣawm, because there is nothing that is His likeness, the likeness of ṣawm.'" Thus he negated that any of the rituals be made a likeness to ṣawm, none of the rituals made law for his creatures.
Dr. Winkel
So whoever recognizes that it is a negative description, as it is a foregoing of things that would break the fast, knows with certainty that there is no likeness to ṣawm, since he has no عين(ʿayn) described with any intelligible positive existence, to ṣawm. This is why God said, “The ṣawm is Mine”. So in the true dimension, it is neither a worship nor an action.
Dr. Winkel
Now, in daily life it is acceptable for the word action to be applied for fasting, you can say 'I am fasting' and it's acceptable to do that even though it's a negative and it's a not doing. And so then we go to another ḥadīth, this is more of the evidence that Ibn ʿArabī uses to understand what fasting is in the true dimension. So in the authentic collection of Muslim, we read from ابو هريرة (Abū Huraira), the Messenger of God ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said, "God said, 'Every action of the children of Adam is theirs except fasting, because fasting is Mine, and I recompense it'. And, 'The fast is a shield. When it is a day of fasting for one of you, do not be rude on that day and do not shout, if someone insults you, or attacks you, you should say, my situation is fasting, my situation is fasting'. And, 'I swear by the one in whose hand is the soul of Muḥammad, that the smell of the mouth of the one fasting is sweeter to God on the day of arising, than the wafting of musk. The one fasting has two joy's enjoyed. When one breaks the fast, one enjoys one's fiṭr, the breaking of the fast; and when one meets one's Lord, one delights in one's fast.' " So Ibn ʿArabī is going to look at these very precisely.
Dr. Winkel
Learn that as he negates likeness from ṣawm, as was established in what was preceded in this ḥadīth, the one fasting meets one Lord with a description of nothing is His likeness. So he said, you rejoice when you meet your Lord in your fast. So you're not rejoicing in your Lord, in meeting your Lord, in rejoicing in meeting your Lord one delights in one's fast. So that means that what is delighting the fast is that which nothing is its' like. So nothing is its' like, describes the Lord, and nothing is its' like describes fasting. So when you meet your Lord, you delight in your fast, and that means that: what nothing is like is met by one nothing is like. So, then the person who the True is one's sight, and then you see only by His seeing, so when you see by the sight of True, then you see the True by True.
Dr. Winkel
The delight of the one fasting is attached to an instep level of negating like things, your delight in الفطر (the fiṭr), that is breaking the fast, in this world is for conveying the right of the animal soul, your animal soul which seeks nourishment. When the people who see God everywhere, the عارفون (ʾarifūn), when they see their animal soul dependent on them, and their plant’s soul, the growth soul, then they see that they must convey nourishment to her; to her, to the soul. And by doing so, they convey nourishment the way the hand of God gives nourishment to the soul. So they take the place and they stand in for what the True is doing when they break their fast. And so, their breaking of the fast, is when they are doing what the True does, that is responding to the need and dependency of a creature, to God and the soul to the person who's overseeing the soul. Both of them give nourishment, handover nourishment, and that's the divinity of the fast. And then the second divinity of the fast is that when you meet your Lord you delight in your fast. So you see the One nothing is like through the eyes of what nothing is like, you see God through the fast. So God is nothing like it, the fast is nothing like it, so you see God by God and we know that only God sees God.
Saqib
Before continuing, can I just ask a few questions?
Dr. Winkel
Yes, please.
Saqib
Mainly for our audience and just to sum up some of these very deep ideas. So firstly, the idea of the negative house, it's a word that's used the negative soul, it's non-doing non-action. And I believe in the Daoist tradition to call it Wu Wei. And maybe in some theocentric traditions, it's called level Vacre Deo, that cultivating the emptiness, the فقر (faqr) for Divine Reality. So it's that emptying out; what occurred to me was, I think it's in one of your books, you've got the image of the asymptote that goes up. And I think that that symbolism is, is very powerful to summarize, in a sense, these ideas because you've got the horizontal, which is on the plane of action, but then you've got the vertical which is going in, in the plane of being I guess. Could you say something about that?
Dr. Winkel
Right. Yes, so that the seeker, you know, what we seek is the vision of the Divine and we seek the proximity to the Divine. We seek to be close to the Divine, we seek to see the Divine. And so in most traditions, or what we often think, is that, well, I need to become a better person. I need to become more saintly, I need to be more this more that. And so, you could call that the positive way of trying to increase your—your spirituality, so that you can be close to God or see God. And Ibn ʿArabī tells us it's actually quite the other way around, that the way we get close to God is by becoming everything that God is not. And that is dependent. The way we approach God is not by becoming more—the more saintly, more pious; it's by becoming more needing, more dependent, more low. And so, Ibn ʿArabī is telling us that what makes us approach God is our lowness, and our need for God, our dependency. And of course, fasting is a great ritual, which tells us about dependency, we realize that our body needs things, that we need things, and that this need is what brings us close to God. And then this need then is where it comes from the idea of the prayer on the end, when we pray, as a مدد (madad), we ask for help, 'help me'. And 'help me' is the same words in God, which is the extension, which extends between us and the Divine. And so our need and our prayer ‘please help me’ creates a link between the dependent creature, me, and the Divine, who is the only one who can help me and the only one who can give to me. So this is how the fast teaches us that we are nothing; that it's not ours, we don't have the fast, we don't do the fast, we don't do things. And that's what's the fast. And that Allāh says, “The fast is Mine”. So when ‘the fast is Mine’ that means it's not for us. And so God sees God, and only God sees God. So if we want to be close, we have to be what Allāh doesn't have and that is low and dependent, and that brings us close to the Divine. And then when we are brought close to the Divine, we have that asymptote. When we get closer, close, closer, we never cross the line, because we never become God. Rather what we become is not ourselves. And so when we become not ourself, closer and closer to not ourself, then what is on the other side is the Divine. And so God sees God. So Ibn ʿArabī has many poems to help us embrace this.
Saqib
So Sidi on that asymptote image, could you just say for our listeners, what represents the horizontal axis and what represents the vertical axis?
Dr. Winkel
Okay. So in asymptopte you have a limit, so you approach the limit, and you get closer and closer to the axis. And so, as you get closer and closer and closer you get—you get infinitesimally close to the axis, but you never actually touch it and you don't ever cross it. So this imagery, is the imagery of the membrane, of theبرزخ (barzakh), where two oceans crash against each other but never touch and never cross the bound. So this is our picture for how we are; so we don't approach God as who we are, and becoming more and more who we are, we approach God by becoming less and less capable, less and less controlling, less than less able, more and more dependent, more and more humble and low. And that's the approach to God. And this is why Ibn ʿArabī honors the earth, Mother Earth, throughout is because Mother Earth as a mineral is the perfect Muslim, the perfect Muslim who accepts and receives completely from the Divine without standing up boldly like a mountain and saying 'here I am'. And so, arrogance is what keeps us away and humility and lowness keeps us close. And ابو مدين (Abū Madyan) taught Ibn ʿArabī that no one enters the garden with the tiniest piece of arrogance.
Saqib
That you mentioned no one sees God but God. So, it sounds very much like a non-dual state, the fast, the person fasting is entering.
Dr. Winkel
Yes, so the fast, the person fasting, and we are allowed to say that conventionally because the revelation comes with those words, the person fasting is actually entering a non-doing. And so, the person is not setting up a poll of 'here I am' or a duality of 'here I am'; and so without being 'here I am', without being more 'me' and actually foregoing, negating becoming less ‘me’, that is how I get closer and closer to the axis of this non-duality of this oneness.
Saqib
You said something around, you know, 'here I am' or standing like a mountain and being arrogant. How do you make the distinction rather between somebody who's arrogant but somebody who has the qualities of a spiritual warrior, like Ertuġrul. I've been talking talking to Dr. Reza about Ibn ʿArabī and Ertuġrul. So Ertuġrul, for example, embodies chivalry, فتوة (futtuwa), you know, very courageous qualities within the lineage of, I guess, coming from ʾImam ʿAlī رضي الله عنه (raḍī llāhu ʿanhu, r.a.) but surely, that's not arrogance, but that's cultivating a certain stand in the face of injustice.
Dr. Winkel
Yes, so when, when the ego and the self's desires and all of that are emptied, what can enter in are Divine Names; enters in Divine Forces, Divine Names. And Ibn ʿArabī says that there are two modes of this utter العبودية (ʿubudiyya), utter slavehood, being a completely a creature. There are two modes, one mode is السجدة (as-sajda), the prostration, and prostration is our nature. And so Ibn ʿArabī says, “Look, when you get sick, what happens? You fall down, and you lie down.” And so being on the floor is our nature and it is utterly dependent, sick, needing, not able to stand, that is our nature. And so when we fall to the floor, we are returning to our nature. But there's a second mode and he says this mode is actually even more why we are created. So it's even more our true nature. And that is when we stand up in the صلاة (ṣalāt), after the prostration we stand up in the prayer, and when we stand up in the prayer, we are an absolute creature, still, we are an absolute slave, because we have been told to stand up. And so, our nature, if we are not told anything, we just fall down on the ground, but if we are told by the Divine to stand up, then we stand up as a complete utter slave or utter creature. And so this is, Ibn ʿArabī says, “this is a beautiful mode, because now you are taking your nature, which is to be flat on the ground, and you are standing up because a Divine Name is saying stand, and then you stand up”. And so now the Divine Name works in you. And that Divine Name does not work in you the same way as if you have your own ego, if you're standing up because I feel like standing up or because I'm a great guy, all of those things will prevent the sound reception of Divine Names. And of course, the Sufi path is the تخلق (takhaluq)—is to be able to take on as clothing these Divine Names. So we want to train ourselves, work with ourselves, in order to be able to receive in a most beautiful way these Divine Names and then we are خليفة (khalīfa). So khalīfa comes from the word خلف (khalf), which is behind. So the khalīfa is the one from behind whom the One acts. And so if you are standing because you're commanded to stand, and you're doing this without any of your own volition or self will, you're standing because you're told to stand by the Divine then your standing is a Divine Name from behind whom the One is acting.
Saqib
So Sidi what what else does the Ibn ʿArabī say around fasting?
Dr. Winkel
He also has, he looks at the story which is a very humorous story and it's one where the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) laughs until you could see his eyeteeth and so the levity is there, the humor is there, and this is the—the uncultured man or the بدوى (Bedū) or the desert Arab or the someone who is not a civilized or city kind of person, and he comes in and he has a problem and he tells the Prophet ﷺwhat his problem is.
Saqib
Wonderful. So what's Ibn ʿArabī's take on this ḥadīth?
Dr. Winkel
So the man enters the mosque and sits before the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) and he says, and he asked the Prophet ﷺ, he said, "Tell me what I should do, it's the month of Ramadan, and I broke the fast by having sex with my wife, what should I do?" And so the Prophetﷺ starts giving him some things that he should do. And the first one, he says, "You should fast for two months, because you intentionally broke your fast." And he says, "Two months fasting! It was the fast that got me in this trouble in the first place." And then he says, "Well, then you should free a slave, and you know, pay the money to free a slave." And he says, "But in my possession, there's only this slave—me, I have no slaves, I have no money." And then he says, "Wait here." And so, as they're waiting and working out this issue, a group, a caravan arrives from afar and brings a bushel of dates and brings them to the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) and gives them to him. And so the Prophet ﷺ then says, "Here you go, take these dates, and feed the poor." And the man says, "The poor? Between these two mountains, there is no one more poor than me and my family." So the Prophet ﷺ says, "Here, take these dates, go home and eat them with your family." And he laughs and laughs until the eyeteeth can be seen. And this is, it's a—the hilarity comes from here's a man saying, what should I do? And first he goes from two months fasting, that's what you should do to fix all of this. And then he gets to well that can't be done. 'How about then free a slave?' There is an 'I can't free a slave, I'm—the only slave there is is me.' 'Okay, give these dates to someone who's poor. ' And he says, 'There's no one poorer than me.' So he goes from two months of fasting, down to ‘here are the dates, take them home and eat them’. So Ibn ʿArabī says there's a lot to be learned from this—this story. So when he talks about that, this issue, then becomes expiation. So of course, the scholars, the legal scholars have to come up with all of these things; what do you do if this happens if that happens, and so in Ibn al-ʿArabī's Futūḥāt there are probably 2,400 pages of 'what to do if' surrounding only these religious rituals like fasting and prayer, he hasn't even gotten into the other issues like marriage and contracts, and trading and selling and all these kinds of other things. So it's a huge, huge field. And what Ibn al-ʿArabī' does, is, he tells us how it works, and it works in the most beautiful way.
Dr. Winkel
The area here is, is expiation, which is الکفارة (kaffāra), and kaffāra, is the same word asكفار (kuffār). And كفر (kufr) you know, so disbeliever, ungrate, ingrate, ungrateful person, and all of that, because kuffār are the people who cover up that they should be thanking God. So they're ungrateful, covering up the truth that God gives them, and therefore they should say thank you God. So expiation is something to do with covering up and what is covering up is that when you make an error like this man did, he needs to cover it up, he has to cover over it. And so the first thing is to cover over it using the fast and he says, "How can I do the fast? It was the fast that got me in trouble." And so, Ibn al-ʿArabī writes it this way: "As for this one who joined in sex while fasting Ramadan, the Messenger of God ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) told him to fast as an expiation. That is, be described by an adjective of the True, because the fast belongs to the True. Remember the fast is His. His response was, 'It was the fasting that got to me.' The Messenger of God ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) laughed and his laughter was a sign of the levity of the matter. He recognized that the True had made him articulate what he meant by means of that speaker, even if that uncultured Arab was ignorant of it. It was as if he had said in his speaking, cover yourself up by the fast, that is, be True, be Haqq. Then this uncultured Arab was made to say 'It was the True that got to me. So how can I cover up by being the True when the problem—that was the problem that got me into this situation in the first place?'"
Dr. Winkel
And then, so he said, "So I can't keep fasting; I can't become staying in this Truth. It's not my truth. My truth is, I am a slave. I am a creature, I am dependent." And then it becomes take these dates and give them to a poor person. So this uncultured man says, "Shall I give these dates to someone more needy than me? There is not between the two tracks of Medina anyone needier than me!" So he attached perfect, complete neediness to himself, because he was returning to his creature hood after being a master. So because 'there's no one poorer more dependent than me' he's returning to it in an absolute state. So his humility and his neediness are magnified. Now, if he had been accustomed to poverty, there would have been no peace associated with that neediness matching the pain felt by the one who was rich and then became poor. So Ibn al-ʿArabī is saying that, while this man was being a master for a while there, he was fasting for a while being very lordly and then he plunged down into recognition that I am not God, I am not Lord, I am the slave, I am the creature. And so plunging down from that height made him realize that 'I am the lowest of the low, I am the most needy of all the needy' and that's why the dates are going home with him. And so, Ibn al-ʿArabī is saying now consider the wisdom of God, in making all of these truths flow through his creatures in ways they do not recognize. He's saying that look how God is speaking wisdom through this uncultured person. And this uncultured man has no idea that he's saying these great truths. So God is the one who speaks, not them. So these words are actually coming from God. They're not coming from this person who has no idea what he's saying. This is the property of expiation for the one whose behavior this is, and praise belongs to God, الحمد لله (al-ḥamdulillāh). And then what he does, Ibn al-ʿArabī will take this, and he'll go into another issue that's come up among the scholars, the legal scholars, and the legal scholars are asking, "Well, what is the expiation for the woman when she yields to her mate for what he wants from her, that is sex?" Among them, one argues she performs expiation and among them one argues there is no expiation due from her. And I so argue, Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "I so argue that there is no expiation for her because the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) in the ḥadīth of this uncultured Arab, did not mention the woman and did not focus on her, nor did he ask about her. Therefore, it is inappropriate for us that we should make a law which God did not give us license to make." This is so important. What happened to communities before religious communities before, in the Semitic tradition, in the Abrahamic tradition, is that they got carried away with making laws. They made all sorts of laws. And the problem and the disease in this community, this mother community of Muslims, is that people think we should use analogy, قياس(qiyās), and opinion رأي (ra'ī), all of these ways to make new laws and Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "You do not make new laws. If the Prophetﷺ did not give a judgement about what the woman should do, then there is no judgment about what the woman should do. It's not entering the law books. It's not in the law."
Dr. Winkel
And so, and this is so very important, it is inappropriate for us to make law which God did not give us license to make. And so, and if you think about this situation, well, let's say that the woman later on, comes to the mosque and wants to ask the Prophet ﷺ the same question that the husband asked, you know, 'What should I do?' The Prophet ﷺ would say, "Leave off of me what I leave off of you." And so this is the Prophet's ﷺ answer to so many requests. People said, "Should I do this? Should I do that? What should I do? What should I do? Give me a law." And the Prophet ﷺ says, "Leave off of me what I have left off of you." So don't—don't take on anything if I've left it away from you, then you keep it away from you. And this is the Prophetic reason why he did not answer many questions, he disliked questions about law, because people would say, "Oh, we need to sacrifice a cow. Well, how old should the cow be? What color? Should the cow's fur be, you know, hair be? What size should the cow be?" All of these questions and he says 'don't ask these questions.' In other words, the law has come down and it is complete. Don't try to find any details that haven't been covered and create new laws there. And his example about analogy, qiyās, which is a major pillar for so many schools of law, and he utterly, he cannot, cannot stand to see this happening. It's creating law. And so he says, "You have here people talking about, well, what can I do with my parents? If I strike my parents, can I strike my parent in the chest or on the cheek or on their shoulder?" And Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "Quit making laws. Do not say uff to your parents. Don't even say tisk tisk tisk to your parents." So if you have that, you don't need to find out what else you can't do. It's already clear. So Ibn al-ʿArabī is trying to say, speaking for the Prophet ﷺ, "Leave off of me what I have left off of you." And so these 2,500 pages of legal discussions are saying: 'We have a law that is absolutely complete. We do not need any mechanism to create new laws.'
Saqib
That's amazing. So what is the Akbarian perspective then on the four schools of Sunni legal thought, and maybe by extension, the Jaʿfari legal system? Does Ibn al-ʿArabī discard them? Does he assimilate them? Would he be bound by one of them, for example?
Dr. Winkel
Okay. Well, we have to step back and see what Ibn al-ʿArabī's mission is, why he was born, why he was given this mission. His mission is to, well, let's start from the beginning. In the beginning, so we have the Nur Muḥammad, the Light of Muḥammad, and that Nur Muḥammad is a Prophet, a guide, before Adam and Eve are a lump of clay. And so then, this Light of Muḥammad enters into the historical physical world that we are familiar with, in the body of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam), and it's خديجة (Khadīja ʿalayha as-salām), when he's in her lap, saying, "You are this Light, and you're not insane." And so Khadīja (ʿalayha as-salām, a.s.) recognizes that he is the embodiment, the physical reality of the Light of Muḥammad. And so the Light of Muḥammad is that which guides all of humanity, from the very beginning, from Adam and Eve, as a lump of clay, to the last person born. Their guide, all of our guides, humanity's guide, is this Light of Muḥammad. And this Light of Muḥammad comes into the physical form in the body of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam).
Dr. Winkel
And so, there's six things given to him that no one else was given. And one of them is: he is universal. And second, another one is: he takes all of the characteristics and shows that they're all virtuous characteristics. And so you take things like greed or envy, which we think are negative and bad and he says, "Be envious of the person who has a ability to recite the Qurʾān. Be greedy for knowledge." So he takes all of these characteristics and shows how they're all good, they all can be turned to good. Now, Ibn al-ʿArabī is the dragoman, is the conveyor, of the message of this universal Light of Muḥammad that came in the body, practice, and Sunna and Qurʾān, which is Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) because عائشة رضي الله عنها (ʿĀ'ishah radiyya Allāhu ʿanhā, r.a.) said his character is the Qurʾān.
Dr. Winkel
So Ibn al-ʿArabī's job is to take the life of Muḥammad ﷺ, the Qurʾān, to take the Arab language, which stops at the death of the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam), and take all of that and show that it is the universal, complete guidance for humanity. So therefore, he has to go through every one of these legal scholar ideas/issues, and show how they all can be turned to the truth, how they all can be turned to True. And so, his job is to say, look at each issue and say, 'This school says this, that school says the other thing, another school says the other thing.' And he has to show that outwardly, they're different, and that inwardly if they are True, they will be true to the inward source. So he will go to the inward source and show if you see it this way, you will see this truth. And you will see if you go inward, you will see that this outward truth is true. So he has to validate the outward law based on its inward validity. And those things which have no inward validity, for instance, ideas that people had, by analogy, or laws that were made, which are wrong, he's saying, 'You know, everyone quit following that.' Because your ʾImam, let's say, he is أبو حنيفة (Abū Ḥanīfa), or he is the بن حنبل (Ibn Ḥanbal), or he is جعفر (Jaʿfar), whoever your ʾImam is, your ʾImam said, "If there comes evidence, which contradicts me; if there comes a ḥadīth which contradicts what I've said, then toss what I've said onto the garbage heap and take what the ḥadīth says." So Ibn al-ʿArabī is saying that means go to the source and the source is Muḥammad ﷺ(ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) and that source is the Universal Truth and guidance of the Light of Muḥammadﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam).
Saqib
Beautiful, and so Sidi, the other question is, you mentioned Ibn al-ʿArabī's perspective is not to make new laws, unnecessary laws. If Ibn al-ʿArabī, hypothetically speaking, was physically present in the world today, and with the modern era, some, you know, issues that have arisen relating to fasting actually, for example, have been the reducing of fasting hours to about 16, especially in western sort of northern countries, whether they can be 18 and people's lifestyle, you know, have a nine to five job or have to go to school or have got exams and so forth or don't allow for an afternoon, etc, etc. what would Ibn al-ʿArabī have to do with the legal framework to apply it to our condition today?
Dr. Winkel
Yeah. Ibn al-ʿArabī, to look at all of those things, in a perfect fashion, let's look at three words:اسم (ʾism), means name, حال (ḥāl), means state or condition, and حكم (ḥukum), means property. So Ibn al-ʿArabī says, “That the ḥāl and the ʾism are connected to a ḥukum, a property.” So that connection between the property, the ruling, and the state is one; it's there, and we know them. What happens is that we have different ḥāl, we have different conditions. And so in fasting, for instance, you have the ḥāl, in Urdu you say کیا حال ہے (kya hal hai), "Hey, you say, what's your ḥāl?" And you might say, ‘I'm sick.’ So if you are sick, that's your ḥāl, then your ḥukum is you don't fast. So that's very clear that if you're sick your ḥukum is you don't fast. And so the only question then becomes not ‘what is the connection between the ḥāl and the ḥukum?’; the only question is: ‘What is my ḥāl?’ And here, ‘what is my ḥāl?’, is answered that only you can know that. That's something Ibn al-ʿArabī is telling us: you go to the inside and the inside is you, you personally have to go to your inside and take a فتوى (fatwā) from your heart and find out what is your ḥāl. So if your ḥāl is X, then the ḥukum is Y. And so, for instance, that Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) was coming in a caravan back to Medina and عائشة عليها السلام (ʿĀ'ishah ʿalayha as-salām, a.s.) she was coming in another caravan, and this was during the month of Ramadan, and when they reached home and greeted each other, the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) said, "We were travellers and so we we did not continue the fast." And that's because a traveller is the ḥāl and the ruling is the traveler does not fast. But that ḥāl is the ḥāl that he had. Because he said, "ʿĀ'ishah, what did you do?" And ʿĀ'ishah (a.s.) said, "I am the المؤمنين ام (ʾumm al-muʾminīn)." I am the mother of the faithful. "So whenever I stopped, I went to a house of one of my children. And since I was in my house with my children, I continued the fast." And the Prophet ﷺ(ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) said "ʿĀ'ishah, you did well." So what we have with this is that you've got to find your ḥāl, when you know your ḥāl, it's relatively easy to find out what the ḥukum is, what the law is.
Dr. Winkel
And so if you're in a situation where you are, if you are sick, and you want to do the ṣalāt, there are various احكام (ʾaḥkām), various rulings, that you can follow. If you are very sick, you would pray lying down and you wouldn't leave your bed; if you are somewhat sick or sick and to this extent, you might sit down and do all the motions you could while seated; if you are, in a sense better than that, you're more capable than that, then you would do what you're capable of and that is you would stand up, sit down and instead of sajda, you would stay sitting down, but you would bend your body forward. So there you have the ṣalāt, the different positions, all of them dictated by your state. So it's the same way with the fast. What the fast looks like will be dictated by how you are. And so, if you are in a certain situation where the day is, let's say the night is one hour, and the day is 23 hours, then would you think that a one hour is the fast? Or would you say that 'I am going to connect myself to Mecca, and follow Mecca.' When you follow the moon, if you see the moon yourself, who says whether they see the moon? All of that depends on your ḥāl, if you see the moon, then you cannot say that this is a day of doubt. If you don't see the moon, you're in a different situation. So the name and the condition is everything. And you mentioned about you know, working nine to five and things like that, well, one of the Akbarian ways of doing this is to focus on the name. And so let's say I have a situation where I cannot leave my work for جمعه (jumaʿa) or for some other thing or I'll get fired; now in that situation, I am not an independent man who can come and go as he pleases. You actually should call me therefore a slave because I am—it's not under my control about where I am at one time. And of course, the slave is not required to go to jumaʿa. The other one is: if I am a man at home, taking care of an infant and as you know, infants cannot be left on their own, and I'm the only one there, the only way to take care of this infant, and the call for the jumaʿa prayer comes then what is my situation? My situation is I am a mother and a mother is not required to go to jumaʿa. So, I am not required to go to jumaʿa because I am a mother taking care of this child. So you see this and you find out what the name is and Ibn al-ʿArabī goes as far as saying "that you are who you are biologically but you are gendered and your gender changes." There are times when you are gendered as a woman, then, you're gendered as a man, even though biologically you're whatever you are. And so he's telling us that you are a cosmos, and you have inside you all of these names. So which of these names is acting, that will dictate what you do in the ruling.
Saqib
That's amazing. Sidi what about situations where it's issue about performance, say a student studying for an exam, or going to an interview, where you're not technically bound by anyone, but the fast might impact your performance in that situation?
Dr. Winkel
Yes, so this is the beauty of fasting. Because it's so interior, it's everything that has got to do with the interior. No one knows whether you're fasting or not, only you know. And in fact, they say that culturally, when Muslims have communities outside of Muslim majority places, they often, these communities might lose a lot of sort of Islamic looking or Muslim cultural things. The last thing they lose though, the one they hold on to is fasting because fasting is such a very personal interior situation. And so what fasting does is you have to ask: ‘Am I sick? Or am I Well?’ If I am well, I fast, if I am sick, I don't. And only you know whether you're sick or not and only you can say; and then travelling, so if you're travelling, you're not obligated to fast. And so, what is travelling? Well, someone might say, ‘oh, it's 40 miles’ but we live here in northern New Mexico, I've got a highway to go to Santa Fe, I can go to Santa Fe 60 miles away and be there in 50 minutes and come back again and it's as if I haven't, you know, it's as much effort as a sneeze. And so the question then becomes is that travelling? Or I might be in a tropical area in Malaysia, Indonesia, and I'm hiking through a jungle. And there are jungles where you can you can go a half mile and it takes you all day to go a half-mile. So is that travelling? So in other words, only you can tell what is travelling, what is sickness, and only you can know whether you should fast or not, and that's the absolute beauty of it, it forces you to go straight to your soul and speak to your soul and say, ‘Should I fast?’ Should you fast or should you not fast? And that is, only you can know and only you can and say what your decision is.
Dr. Winkel
And that's also then اجتهاد (ʾijtiḥād), ʾijtiḥād is your personal decision. And your personal decision may be wrong, but you're still rewarded for having a personal decision. And if it's right, you're rewarded twice. And Ibn al-ʿArabī says everyone is doing ʾijtiḥād all the time. They're having to determine, based on the evidence, what they should do. So given the evidence, whether it's vaccination, eco-energy, climate green, whatever, it's going to be you looking at the evidence and you deciding what is the determinative evidence, what is the evidence that is decisive for you? And the same way, so if you're going to an exam, you've got to ask yourself, 'do I fast?' or 'do I not fast? ' And only you will be able to come up with the answer. And then you'll be face to face with because no one outside of you is judging what you should do, you know that you're able to fool yourself and you know that you're able to be fooled, so you have to face it directly. And so this is the opposite of being a hypocrite see, a hypocrite says, 'You know, I closed my shop, because it's jumaʿa time, not because I want to pray or not because I think God told me to do it. But because I'll get hit on the head if I don't close my shop.' That kind of system or culture creates hypocrisy. And so fasting is the place where there can be no hypocrisy on the outside it is only on the inside; you can look at yourself and say, 'Am I fooling myself? And how can I protect myself from being fooled?' And you can't protect yourself from being fooled by seeking outside opinions. You have to face it yourself.
Saqib
Well, mashāʾllāh and Sidi another legal question around fasting; the beginning of Ramadan, and obviously the عيد (ʿEīd), especially in countries in the West, for example, where the sighting is not always possible and so, therefore, you might have a city in which different mosques are doing on different days, I've even heard of a household where people in the household are doing it on different days and I know Ibn al-ʿArabī actually in the chapter on fasting in the Futūḥāt has discussed his moon sighting, so what would he say about issues around that?
Dr. Winkel
Yeah, so the moon sighting, so what's very interesting, so when you see the moon, then your situation is clear. And that's why it's so beautiful to see the moon because you just know I just saw the moon the month has started whether it's you know, Ramadan month or Shawwal month, I know it started, and that's a beautiful thing. And then when it's clouded over, that's probably typical of most people's lives is that the clarifying light is clouded over and so you don't really see clearly and so you have to say what should I do? And Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "For the ones who recognize Allāh everywhere, the عارفون (ʿarifūn), these ones, they understand how the moon rises in their heart. So they've seen the moon rise in their heart and the moon rising in the heart is the Truth of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam), arising in the full moon of Truth, we talk about things like that. So when your heart is accustomed and has learned how to read the rising and setting of the moon and travel through the mansions of the moon, then you are able to say, 'I can't see the moon at this moment but I know it's there.' And so Ibn al-ʿArabī is saying that therefore, citing by calculation, the idea that I know that the moon was here yesterday, and therefore will be there tomorrow, just the way in my heart, I can see where the moon is in my heart as it goes through. And so that's how Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "That this is what you do when the moon is clouded over for you, you have to refer to the process of the moon through the mansions of the heart." And this process of the moon then, is for us today, is, astronomers of whatever religion or no religion who say, "This is where the moon is, right now. This is how, you know, this is the angle of incidence, and this the visibility of this moon, today and tomorrow and the next day." And so this corresponds to us saying, "Those who can see where the moon is, even when the moon isn't visible, you say 'there, they can tell you that this is where the moon is and you follow that.'" And then having, you know, different people fasting at different times in the house, this is all also based on ʾijtiḥād, everyone has their personal decision. And it's never—you never follow someone's personal decision, nor do you negate or deny someone's personal decision. So if someone says, ‘I'm fasting today’ and I say, ‘well, it was ʿEīd’ and he said, ‘well, it's not ʿEīd for me I'm fasting today’ and it's my ijtiḥād that leads me to this, then it's up to me to say I accept your ʾijtiḥād; I'm not going to follow it, I'm doing what my ʾijtiḥād says and that it's ʿEīd day today. So this can happen within two people or within a household. And then the jumaʿa is an interesting one because you're only supposed, you're not supposed to have two jamaʿat, two jumaʿa's, two jamaʿat in a city. And of course, nowadays, you have jumaʿa's all over the place and within easy walking distance of each other, but in the old days, you're supposed to have one per city. And so they didn't get that problem. So the problem that it comes up now we have so many of them, then we have to go back to there is no outward conformity among Muslims, there's inward conformity, there's inward harmony. So inwardly we say, 'We, all of us, accept the command of Allāh, we all want to do what's pleasing to Allāh, we all are making our individual decisions on what is most pleasing to Allāh.' And based on that, that's how I am. So the inward is in complete harmony in the Muslim society and in the Mother Community, the outward can be quite different and quite, you know, look disharmonious. But that's not anything to worry about. It's not something to be, you know, ashamed about, or how can we believe in one God and have many, many of these different opinions and so on. And so this is, for Ibn al-ʿArabī, you say 'you look at the source, and you find out what's inside, and then the outside will be, will be very different.'
Saqib
That's amazing. So Ibn al-ʿArabī is supporting multiplicity and diversity, but obviously, you know, rooted in unity. So just to sum up, the discussion around the moon sighting, Ibn al-ʿArabī would therefore say that, you know, a system based on calculation on the visibility of the moon, in countries where it's clouded, or, you know, they don't tend to see the moon very often, the new moon that is, is to take the calculation approach and to begin your fast based on how evident it would be to view the moon in your city?
Dr. Winkel
Right. Because the idea is that the moon is there, it's clouded over, so I don't have to see the moon to know that the moon is there. And by there I mean visible.
Saqib
Right.
Dr. Winkel
So you can know where the moon is without seeing where the moon is. Yeah, and Ibn al-ʿArabī has to be utterly applicable to all of these situations in our life because his job, and he succeeded in doing it, is to be the dragoman, the conveyor, of the message of the Universal Light of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) as embodied in Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam). And so therefore, there can be no area or no place which is devoid of Divine Guidance.
Saqib
What about legal scholars, الفقهاء (fuquhāʾ), who would say ʾijtiḥād is reserved to the عالم (ʿālims), or those people who are trained in فقه (fiqh)? And because they would know all the permutations and the conditions etc. What would Ibn al-ʿArabī say in response to that then?
Dr. Winkel
Well, by putting preconditions and conditions and preconditions on who can do ʾijtiḥād, those people are creating law. They're making new rules where there were no rules before. So if we have, "Take a fatwā from your heart", said three times by the Prophet ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam), "Take a fatwā from your heart." And so 'take a fatwā from your heart', we don't now say, 'Where exactly is this heart? And could the heart also be something else? It could mean this it could mean that and what does the fatwā...' we don't add conditions to it, and we don't say, 'Oh, take a fatwā from your heart only when you're feeling good, or only if you're a Muslim, or only if you're this or only if you're that, that would be adding law to where there is no law. And so there is no condition. ʾIjtiḥād is the personal struggle to reach a decision. And so there you go. And then, and that's, it's even amazing that, you know, some of these fuquhāʾ even accept some kind of ʾijtiḥād because for a long time, they kept saying, "Oh, the gates of ʾijtiḥād are closed." And Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "Well, the interesting," and I wonder if there's a word for catch-22 in Arabic, the word, that the idea of that the gates of ʾijtiḥād are closed, Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "You could close the gates of ʾijtiḥād using ʾijtiḥād." So it just doesn't work. So then you get to 'Oh okay, ʾijtiḥād is there' and then, but then the scholars they still want to constrict, where things should be expanded; and, constricting is making law where there shouldn't be, where the law has not been made and should not be made. And this constriction, Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "This is the horrible calamity of legal scholarship." Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "Is this constriction? When the law is made to be... were made to remove burdens." So you take away the حرج (ḥaraj), the difficulties and the burdens, and that's why we have law, and then they're just adding burden upon burden and making things harder and harder. So he says, because they'll say, "If you're a شافي (Shāfī) you can't accept easier ruling from the حنفي (Ḥanafīs) or from the حنبلي (Ḥanbalīs)." And Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "This is nothing but creating law where there is no law." You go to wherever it is, to find the law, which has removed burden from you.
Saqib
That's amazing. And Sidi so what about I'm sure some listeners might have a question about a person following theirوهم (waham) or their ego, egotistical sort of judgments, as opposed to their heart and not being able to decipher between the two?
Dr. Winkel
Well, that's the path that we're on if we're on—if we're on a طريقه (ṭarīqa)—or if we're on a path, this path is one that has, you know, many obstacles, and many, and also many exercises and practices that we can use to make ourselves, to train ourselves, to see things as they truly are. And so seeing things as they truly are means that you have to struggle with yourself. And of course, that's called the major جهاد (jīhad) is that to struggle with yourself. And I have to struggle with myself so that I can be clear on when I hear something I'm hearing clearly, when I'm making a decision, I'm making a clear decision, and that I am motivated by wanting to be doing things that are well pleasing to Allāh. So that is, that's the path and and that's what we do. It's not—if I look at someone else, it's not for me, you know, in fact, it's to mind my own business, it's not for me to to to say what's happening to them on their inside. I can't know whether they're having a tremendous struggle with their fantasy, with their waham and their delusions, or whether they are making a decision based on a very true heart that has shown what the truth is. I can't know other people's insights. And because of that, when it says, you take the situation of حجاج (Ḥajjāj), who was by all accounts you know, a horrible, horrible person, you know, murdered people and just a betrayer, traitor, all these bad things outwardly. So Ibn al-ʿArabī says that the Sufi's at that time they were asking themselves "Should we pray behind this man? Is our prayer valid if we pray behind him as the ʾImam?" and Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "He didوضوء (wuḍūʾ) and he said الله اكبر (Allāhu ʾAkbar) and he led the prayer. So he is your ʾImam. What happened with Ḥajjāj in the past, I don't know, and what will happen, what Allāh will have for him in the future, I cannot know. All I can know is in the present he did wuḍūʾ, he did his ablutions, and he announced the beginning of the prayer. And that's all I can do, is the present." And so Ibn al-ʿArabī is telling us, that is how we interact with other people. We don't know what in the past brought them to this position, what traumas they've had, what problems they've had, we don't know that tomorrow—this horrible person may become a great saint. We don't know that. And so we only deal with the present. And in the present, I can't deal with the inside, I can only deal with the outside. Has that person done what is good to me outwardly, and I can't be divining and thinking about what happened on the inside.
Saqib
Amazing. And so again, not to put a condition on that, as you've just said, or make another ruling, for somebody to exercise ʾijtiḥād, as you said, it's not reserved for the أولياء (ʾawliyāʾ) or people who've got a very elevated station of the development of the نفس (nafs). But it's for that person simply to turn inwardly to their heart and seek counsel from that?
Dr. Winkel
That's right. Yeah. And then when we have the person, a person who is on a path—on a path of wanting to get closer to Allāh, wanting to be well-pleasing to Allāh, that person will be looking at all of these things and saying, 'How can I go that way? How can I get closer?' And the way that they'll get closer is by, they'll struggle with their insides, in the inside, they'll struggle with themselves to say, 'What brings me closer to Allāh what pushes me farther away from Allāh?' And then they'll call out to Allāh directly, 'Allāh! Bring me close to you.' And then they will look around and say, 'Who are my guides? And the guides are the ones are the أهل الذكر (ahl al-dhikr), the people of the Qurʾān, the people of the Qurʾān, which means the people of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam) because his character is the Qurʾān. They're the ones who have seen the guidance of the Light of Muḥammad embodied in the person of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam). And they're the ones who are in constant remembrance of this embodied Reality in this embodied Guidance. So you we are looking for them as our teachers. So if you're on the path, you are looking for those who can guide you. And the ones who guide you will be those who are the people of dhikr, as the Qurʾān tells us and these are the people of the path of Muḥammad ﷺ (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhī wa-ʾālihī wa-sallam).
Saqib
That's amazing. And Sidi just to round up the podcast sessions, somebody asked me a question, actually, funnily enough, just related to this about dhikr. They were curious as to know, when it's mentioned about perpetual dhikr, day and night, you know, lying or standing or sitting, somebody to be in perpetual dhikr, does that necessarily mean they're verbally advocating the Divine Name? Or is it the state of being? In other words, what they were trying to say is how can somebody be in a perpetual state of dhikr?
Dr. Winkel
Well, there's—I better get this answer out there first or I'll forget: All of creation is in perpetual dhikr. The human being and the jinn, we can have the self that we call ourself, it can be silent or not remembering of Allāh, but our skin, our bones, our body is always in in perpetual dhikr of Allāh. And so when the, when the wind blows through the branches, you hear hu hu, that's a dhikr of Allāh, that's the هو (hu) dhikr of Allāh. And so, when we breathe out, and we, if you're breathing out, you're breathing out hu and that hu comes from the chest from the first place, which the تجلی (tajallī), that brilliant radiance of Allāh hits, it comes out and then get shaped by the mouth into different letters and different sounds. But they're all the breath coming out. And it's coming out, it's the hu. And so the breath that comes in is the نفس الرحمن (nafas Ar-Rahmān), is the breath of Ar-Rahmān), and the breath that goes out is singing هو (hu), even though that hu can be altered by the mouth to make a different sound. So this is also how the people who are ever in their prayer على صلاتهم دائمون (ʿala ṣalātihim daʾimūn) these are the ones who are ever in their ṣalāt. So the ṣalāt here is both blessing, because ṣalawāt is a blessing, and it's also the prayer. So their heart is prostrated, their heart is, is prostrating before the Divine. So, what this is showing is that dhikr is the natural truth of all creation, and the ṣalāt, blessing of the Divine, and these, the intimate conversation, the مناجاة (munājāt) with the Divine, is something that is ever, is always, it's always continuing. We're not aware of it, if we're a human origin, most of us are not aware of it, if we are an animal, a plant or a mineral, we are utterly aware that every x, the breath that comes out of a plant, of an animal, is coming out as hu and that every movement of the plant and the animal and the stone sitting there, all of that is, is for the Divine celebration, the تسبيح (tasbiḥ) of the Divine, their celebration of the Divine. And so that's happening all the time, it's only the human beings who tend not to recognize that this is happening. And so our skin, for instance, is very intelligent and knows that that the skin is through its pores is receiving from the outward nutrition and is giving out through the pores of our skin, to the rest of creation. And that filtering and that in that inspiration and expiration is its tasbiḥ. And so Ibn al-ʿArabī says, "The skin is intelligent, but don't let the skin be more intelligent than you." Even though he knows that the skin is more intelligent than us but at least it is challenging us to be not less intelligent than our skin.
Saqib
Mashāʾllāh thank you so much Sidi Shuʿayb. It's been an absolute pleasure and honor to be having this conversation with you and I certainly, I'm fasting, I can certainly feel much, much, more elevated over the course of this conversation. Mashāʾllāh.
Dr. Winkel
Al-ḥamdulillāh.
Saqib
So, wish you a blessed Ramadan. Until next time, inshāʾllāh.
Dr. Winkel
Thank you. Al-ḥamdulillāh. It's good to be with you. Thank you very much.
