Theme paths
AI The choice of stops, the notes and the word pairings are AI suggestions; each note says what it rests on. Progress is kept only in this browser.
The four stages of return
After Stefan Sperl's talk on Neoplatonism and the Islamic tradition: contemplation, purification, unification and love, each crossing Plato and Plotinus with the Quran, Ibn ʿArabī and the philosophers of light.
Contemplation: the signs
آيةāyaσημεῖονsēmeionsign; verse
The first turn home is to look: at the sign (āya) in the world and in the text, at light that hides by being too bright, and at the point and the circle that hold the many round the One.
8 passages: Faṣṣ Nūḥ · Mishkāt al-anwār · al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya · Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir · Awrād: Sunday …
Read the path →Purification: polishing the mirror
طهارة · تزكيةṭahāra · tazkiyaκάθαρσιςkatharsispurity; purifying the self
Before union, stripping away: the mirror of the world waits to be polished, the body's claims are thinned by fasting and vigil, and the exile throws off what nursed it. Sperl sets two ways side by side, al-Muḥāsibī's reckoning with the self and al-Kindī's polished mirror, and has al-Ghazālī join them; their own words open the path, then the texts of the library.
8 passages: al-Muḥāsibī, Ādāb al-nufūs (OpenITI) · al-Kindī, al-Qawl fī al-nafs (OpenITI) · al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (OpenITI) · Faṣṣ Ādam · Hayākil al-nūr …
Read the path →Unification: the soul at peace
جمع · فناء · بقاءjamʿ · fanāʾ · baqāʾἕν · ἕνωσιςhen · henōsisgathering; passing away; remaining; the One
Rest after the ascent: Plotinus's stillness, the Quran's soul at peace called back to its Lord, and the Sufis' passing away (fanāʾ) and remaining (baqāʾ). al-Ghazālī keeps the line: union by metaphor, oneness in truth. al-Qushayrī sets out passing away and remaining as a ladder of three steps.
8 passages: Faṣṣ Ādam · Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) · Mishkāt al-anwār · al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya · al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, on fanāʾ and baqāʾ (OpenITI) …
Read the path →Love: the soul's longing back
عشق · محبةʿishq · maḥabbaἔρωςerōspassionate love; love
Diotima's Love as the go-between, the dove that fell and weeps for the dwellings above, and the Quran's love that runs both ways. Here Sperl marks the difference: Plotinus's One is loved but does not love; the God of the Quran loves them and they love Him.
8 passages: Symposium · al-ʿAyniyya · Hayākil al-nūr · Ibn Sīnā, Risāla fī al-ʿishq (Mehren 1894) · al-Dawr al-aʿlā …
Read the path →
Further paths
Motifs traced in the Lyrics of Ascent anthology (ed. Stefan Sperl and Yorgos Dedes), followed through the texts already in the library.
The fall and the return of the soul
هبوط · رجوعhubūṭ · rujūʿἐπιστροφήepistrophēdescent; return
The descent into the body and the way back, told by Ibn Sīnā as an ode and a recital and answered by Suhrawardī's exile, with the Syriac Hymn of the Pearl as its older kin.
8 passages: al-ʿAyniyya · Risālat al-Ṭayr · Ḥayy (Ibn Sīnā) · Hymn of the Pearl · al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya …
Read the path →The mirror
مرآة · إنسان العينmirʾāt · insān al-ʿaynκάτοπτρον · κόρηkatoptron · korēmirror; the pupil of the eye
Adam as the polish of the world's mirror, the pupil through which the Real looks, and the lover who sees himself in another's eye.
7 passages: Faṣṣ Ādam · Faṣṣ Shīth · Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) · Tarjumān al-ashwāq · a figure …
Read the path →Light and its veils
نور · حجابnūr · ḥijābφῶςphōslight; veil
The seventy thousand veils of light and darkness, the Niche, the Temples, and the sun greeted as a living light.
6 passages: Mishkāt al-anwār · Hayākil al-nūr · Taqdīs al-shams · Lyrics of Ascent: Rūzbihān Baqlī …
Read the path →The Beloved's face at the House
طوافṭawāfχορείαchoreiacircumambulation; the round dance
Circling the Kaʿba and circling the centre: the youth met at the House, the heart as the place of the rites, and the heart that becomes a Kaʿba.
7 passages: al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya · Tarjumān al-ashwāq · a figure · Ennead VI.9 · Lyrics of Ascent: Ibn ʿArabī, Tarjumān XI …
Read the path →
The knower
How the traditions say the knower must change before the highest things can be seen.
Seeing with the heart
عين القلب · بصيرةʿayn al-qalb · baṣīraτὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμμαto tēs psuchēs ommathe eye of the heart; the eye of the soul
Several traditions say the highest things are seen with an inner eye: that the eye already exists, must be turned and made like what it sees, and that teaching can show the road but not the sight. A route through what they claim.
10 passages: Alcibiades I · Republic VI–VII · Ennead I.6 · Ennead VI.9 · Mishkāt al-anwār …
Read the path →