Mashrabaمشربة

Textual apparatus

Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, chapter 1: The Ringstone of Divine Wisdom in the Word of Adam · our method · grammar practice on this text

Chapter synthesis

The arc

The chapter opens with the Real's will to see His Names, or Himself, in an all-comprehensive being (kawn jāmiʿ), and explains this need through the image of a mirror that adds a form not seen in self-seeing. It then describes the cosmos as a proportioned but spiritless form, an unpolished mirror, and names Adam as its polish and spirit, the angels being only some of the faculties of this cosmic form. Knowledge of this is said to come only by unveiling. The comprehensive being is named insān, as the pupil of God's eye, and khalīfa, as the seal that guards the King's treasury. The angels' objection to Adam becomes a lesson in adab, and it leads into a digression on universal realities such as life and knowledge. These universals show a two-way bond between intelligibles and concrete things, and an a fortiori argument extends that bond to God and the world. We know God through ourselves in every attribute except essential necessity. Our need and His independence remain the one differentiator, and the world stays forever behind its own veil. The chapter closes with the two hands and the two forms Adam unites, the mutual need of the Real and the cosmos, the reading of ittaqū as reciprocal protection, and the author's account of the twenty-seven wisdoms he was shown and set down.

Key moves

  1. The Real wills to see His Names in an all-comprehensive being, because seeing oneself in a mirror gives a form that seeing oneself by oneself does not.1
  2. The cosmos was a proportioned form without spirit, like an unpolished mirror. Adam is its polish and spirit, while the angels are only some of the faculties of this 'great human', each veiled by itself.2, 3
  3. This knowledge comes only by unveiling. The comprehensive being is called insān because he gathers all realities and is the pupil through which God looks on creation, and khalīfa because, like a seal, he preserves the cosmos.4, 5
  4. The angels' objection to Adam came from their own limited constitution and their ignorance of the names Adam held. God relates it to teach adab, so that no one claims more than he has realized.6, 7
  5. Universal realities such as life and knowledge have no concrete entity yet rule concrete things and are ruled by them, remaining undivided in each instance. This shows a bond (irtibāṭ) between intelligibles and existents.8, 9, 10
  6. By an argument from the lesser to the greater, the bond between God and the world, both existent, is firmer still. The originated thing bears God's form, so we infer Him from ourselves in every attribute except essential necessity.11, 12
  7. The sole differentiator is our need (iftiqār) for Him and His independence. The world is itself a veil that is never lifted, so the Real stays unknown by tasting in respect of essential necessity.13, 14, 15
  8. Adam unites the form of the Real and the form of the cosmos, the 'two hands', and this grounds his vicegerency. The mutual need of Real and cosmos, the reciprocal protection read into ittaqū, and the list of the twenty-seven wisdoms close the chapter.16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Where the sources agree

  • The all-comprehensive being is the perfect human, Adam, who gathers all the divine names and all the realities of the cosmos. Other beings manifest only some names, partially and separately.

    al-Qāshānīal-QayṣarīJāmīBosnevî· AI Englishal-JandīBālī Zādeal-TilimsānīAI translation

  • The human's vicegerency (khilāfa) rests on this comprehensiveness, and in full it belongs only to the perfect human.

    al-QayṣarīJāmīBālī ZādeBosnevî· AI Englishal-QāshānīAI translation

  • The one thing that separates creature from God is the creature's need for Him in existence, set against His independence and essential necessity. The creature has no share in essential necessity and cannot know it by tasting.

    al-Jandīal-QayṣarīIbn TurkaJāmīBosnevî· AI Englishal-TilimsānīBālī Zādeal-QāshānīAI translation

  • Universal realities such as knowledge and life are one and undivided. They rule their bearers and receive rulings from them, as knowledge is eternal in God and originated in the human, and this models the bond between the Real and the world.

    al-Qāshānīal-Jandīal-QayṣarīJāmīBālī ZādeBosnevî· AI EnglishIbn Turka

  • The angels' objection arose from their own constitution, which lacked Adam's comprehensiveness, and the story teaches the seeker adab: not to claim unrealized ranks and not to find fault with others.

    al-QayṣarīJāmīIbn TurkaBosnevî· AI Englishal-JandīBālī Zādeal-Qāshānī

  • Receptivity and preparedness (istiʿdād) are themselves God's gift, so the Real appears in each thing according to its preparedness, and recipient, capacity and gift all come from Him.

    al-Qāshānīal-JandīJāmīBosnevî· AI EnglishBālī Zādeal-Qayṣarī

Live divergences

  • Who or what 'Adam' is in the chapter: the historical father of mankind, the perfect human, or a cosmic principle.

    • al-Qayṣarī Adam is the Perfect Human, though in reading the 'single soul' of Q 4:1 he takes it as the First Intellect or Muhammadan Spirit, applied on three levels of the world.3, 19
    • Bālī Zāde Adam is the Universal Spirit, the 'greater Adam' or First Intellect, and not the Adam made of clay.3, 19
    • Jāmī In the verse Adam is the father of mankind, and the Shaykh's wording rules out taking him as the Universal Intellect or Soul.19
    • al-Qāshānī Adam is the reality of the human as such, an isthmus between necessity and possibility and the spirit of the world.3, 19
    • al-Tilimsānī Adam and his descendants are those who speak about the whole cosmos, and calling him its 'spirit' is a metaphor.3

  • Whether the Real's need for the cosmos is real or only relational.

    • al-Qāshānī The Real really needs the cosmos for His manifestation through His relational names, though this could not be stated outright.18
    • al-Qayṣarī The names by their very essences seek the cosmos, so the mutual need is established in reality.18
    • Bosnevî· AI English The Lord's need is relational and privative, properly a need between the names al-Bāṭin and al-Ẓāhir. Whoever witnesses the Real's essential encompassing sees no need at all.18
    • al-Jandī The need of the nominal relations concerns only the appearance of traces and rulings, and is not a need in existence for any specific world or locus.17

  • Whether the originated thing that bears God's form is the human alone or every originated being.

    • al-Qayṣarī It is the Perfect Human manifest in the Real's form, recalling the chapter's opening.12
    • al-Jandī It is the vicegerent, manifest in the form of the One who appointed him in what was delegated to him.12
    • Bosnevî· AI English It is the originated in general, since God is manifest with the name-related form in all creatures.12
    • Ibn Turka It is the contingent as such, manifest in the form of the Necessary as His 'likeness' (mithl).12

  • Whether blame truly belongs to the creature or is ascribed to it only out of courtesy.

    • al-Qayṣarī By the unity of acts good and evil both go back to God, so ascribing blame to oneself is chiefly a discipline for the wayfarer.19
    • Jāmī Both blame and praise go back to God, so blaming oneself is courtesy while praising God is knowledge of the reality.19
    • al-Jandī What comes from the Real is pure good and deficiencies really belong to possibility, so blaming oneself is both courtesy and verification (taḥqīq).19
    • Bosnevî· AI English Divine effusion is pure good and blame belongs to the locus that alters it, against freethinkers who blame the divine will for their sins.19

  • Which angels objected to Adam.

    • al-Qayṣarī The earthly angels, jinn and satans; the higher angels of the Jabarūt know the perfect human's rank and would not contend.3, 7
    • Ibn Turka The objection comes from a sanctified constitution, so if any group is meant, the angels of the Jabarūt fit better.7
    • Bosnevî· AI English The objectors were the Highest Assembly under the Universal Intellect, whose luminosity, unlike Adam's constitution, caused the reproach.7
    • Bālī Zāde Every being called an angel is included, even those lost in rapture.3

Left open

  • Does the Real's need for a mirror, and for the cosmos as the locus of His names, imply that He is perfected by something other than Himself? Jāmī admits the usual answer remains problematic, and the chapter's later talk of mutual need sharpens the question.
  • How can the creature bear God's form in every attribute except essential necessity and still be separated from Him by need alone, given the saying that 'there is nothing like unto Him'?
  • Is the veil between the world and the Real ever lifted? Some readers tie its lifting to a witnessing of identity, while others hold that where veil and veiled are one, lifting is impossible.
  • Do ordinary humans share in the vicegerency and the knowledge the chapter restricts to the comprehensive Adam, or is it held by one perfect human at a time?

AI synthesis (Claude), built from the syntheses of each passage and the commentators' introductions to the chapter; every point names its sources. Public sources only. Each passage's own synthesis is under its translation in the reader.

Across the chapters so far

Themes & resonances of this chapter

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

  • The cosmos as an unpolished mirror, and Adam as its polishمِرْآةmirʾātroot رأي
  • The all-comprehensive being, the human as pupil of the eyeإِنْسَانinsānroot أنس
  • Vicegerency and the seal on the treasuryخَلِيفَةkhalīfaroot خلف
  • The Most Beautiful Names and their demand to be seenالأَسْمَاء الحُسْنَىal-asmāʾ al-ḥusnāroot سمو
  • Universal matters: nonexistent in entity, ruling in effectالأُمُور الكُلِّيَّةal-umūr al-kulliyyaroot كلل
  • Need as the one differentiator between creature and Realافْتِقَارiftiqārroot فقر
  • Knowing Him from ourselvesاسْتَدْلَلْنَاistadlalnāroot دلل
  • The cosmos as a veil that is never liftedحِجَابḥijābroot حجب
  • The two hands: majesty and beauty, Real and cosmosاليَدَانal-yadānroot يدي
What each theme is here
  • The cosmos as an unpolished mirror, and Adam as its polish. The Real wills to see His names in another, and a thing seen in a mirror takes a form given by the mirror, so the cosmos is a mirror that Adam polishes.
  • The all-comprehensive being, the human as pupil of the eye. Adam gathers all the divine names and all the realities of the cosmos, and he is named insān because he is to the Real as the pupil (insān al-ʿayn) is to the eye.
  • Vicegerency and the seal on the treasury. Like the ringstone that seals the king's treasury, the perfect human preserves the cosmos, and he is vicegerent because he unites the form of the Real and the form of the cosmos.
  • The Most Beautiful Names and their demand to be seen. Creation begins with the names seeking to see their entities, and the angels fall short because each knows only the names proper to itself.
  • Universal matters: nonexistent in entity, ruling in effect. Life and knowledge exist only in the mind yet rule the existents and are ruled by them, which grounds an a fortiori argument for the link between the Real and the world.
  • Need as the one differentiator between creature and Real. The creature is upon God's form in every attribute except essential necessity, and its need binds 'the whole to the whole'.
  • Knowing Him from ourselves. Because we are made in His form, we infer Him from ourselves, and every description we give Him is one we ourselves are, except essential necessity.
  • The cosmos as a veil that is never lifted. The veils of darkness are the natural bodies and the veils of light are the subtle spirits, and the cosmos is the veil over itself, so the Real is never known by tasting.
  • The two hands: majesty and beauty, Real and cosmos. Paired divine attributes, such as majesty and beauty or good-pleasure and wrath, are the two hands with which Adam was created, joining the form of the Real and the form of the cosmos.

Connections

Lineage 3

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

  • ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, al-Insān al-kāmil (The Perfect Human)Akbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · firm

    Al-Jīlī, writing about two centuries later, built a whole treatise on the perfect human that works out the doctrine this chapter states in brief: the human who gathers all the names and serves as the Real's mirror.

    Carried byالإنسان الكاملal-insān al-kāmilroot أنس“the perfect human”

  • The commentators on the Fuṣūṣ, above all ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī, read through Toshihiko IzutsuAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · firm

    The reading of this chapter as the names seeking manifestation, the immutable entities and the perfect human as mirror, reached modern readers largely through Kāshānī's commentary, which Izutsu used as his guide to the Fuṣūṣ.

    Carried byتجلّيtajallīroot جلو“self-disclosure”

    In the library:Path: The mirror

  • Liu Zhi, Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm (a Chinese version of Jāmī's Lawāʾiḥ)Daoism and Chinese thought · probable

    Akbarian teaching on the Real's self-manifestation and the human who comprehends all things reached Chinese Muslim scholars through Jāmī, and Liu Zhi rendered Jāmī's Lawāʾiḥ into Chinese in Neo-Confucian terms.

    Carried by“the Real and its manifestation”

Shared source 1

Both draw on a common ancestor by different routes; grounded like a lineage.

Resonance, not influence 10

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

  • Ibn ʿArabī, The Ringstone of Seth: 'He is your mirror and you are His mirror'Akbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · firm

    The next chapter turns the mirror of this one around: the one to whom the Real discloses Himself sees only his own form, and the Real is the mirror in which he sees himself.

    Carried byمرآةmirʾātroot رأي“mirror”

    In the library:Faṣṣ Shīth ¶11Faṣṣ Shīth ¶13Path: The mirror

  • Ibn ʿArabī, The Book of Circles: the human as two copiesAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · firm

    The earlier treatise already draws the human as a copy of the cosmos and a copy of the divine presence, the same two forms that here make Adam the one created with two hands.

    Carried byنسختانnuskhatānroot نسخ“two copies”

    In the library:Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir ¶52Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir ¶57

  • Plotinus, Ennead IV.3.12: souls that see their images as in the mirror of DionysusNeoplatonism · probable

    Plotinus also uses the mirror to explain why the higher comes down into a lower locus, though his souls are drawn by their reflections and are not the eye of the One.

    Carried byκάτοπτρονkatoptron“mirror”

  • Genesis Rabbah 8: the angels argue against the creation of manHebrew Bible and Judaism · probable

    The midrash has ministering angels dispute whether the human should be made, as Q 2:30 has the angels object, and Ibn ʿArabī reads their objection as the limit of beings who know only their own names.

    Carried by“the angels' objection”

  • Meister Eckhart, German sermons: 'the eye in which I see God is the same eye in which God sees me'Christian mysticism (Latin West) · firm

    Eckhart's single eye through which God and the soul see each other resembles Ibn ʿArabī's human as the pupil through which the Real looks upon His creation, without any known contact between them.

    Carried byإنسان العينinsān al-ʿaynroot أنس“the eye, the pupil”

  • Nicholas of Cusa, On the Vision of God (1453)Renaissance Platonism · probable

    Cusanus makes God's seeing and the creature's being seen one act, and says each sees God according to its own measure, close to 'no one knows of the Real anything except what his own essence gives him'.

    Carried by“vision, seeing and being seen”

  • Leibniz, Monadology (1714): each monad a living mirror of the universeEarly modern philosophy · probable

    Leibniz's monads each mirror the whole universe from their own point of view, as Ibn ʿArabī's angels and faculties each reflect only a partial share while Adam alone reflects the whole.

    Carried by“living mirror”

  • Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807): spirit coming to know itself through its otherGerman Idealism · probable

    In both, the absolute reaches a knowledge of itself only by passing through what appears as other than itself. Hegel places this in history, while Ibn ʿArabī places it in an eternal self-disclosure that has no before and after.

    Carried by“self-knowledge through the other”

  • Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka: the world as reflection (pratibimba) in the mirror of consciousnessVedanta and Hindu thought · probable

    The Kashmiri Śaiva teacher describes the world as an image appearing in the mirror of Śiva's consciousness, which comes to self-recognition, a structure close to the Real seeing Its names in the mirror of the cosmos.

    Carried by“reflection (pratibimba)”

  • Laozi and Zhuangzi: paired complements and the sage who holds them togetherDaoism and Chinese thought · probable

    The two hands of majesty and beauty, awe and intimacy, gathered in the perfect human, resemble the Daoist pairing of complements held together in the sage, a resemblance studied without any claim of contact.

    Carried byالجلال والجمالal-jalāl wa-l-jamāl“majesty and beauty; yin and yang”

Contrast 1

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

  • Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: the One as wholly self-sufficientNeoplatonism · firm

    Plotinus's One lacks nothing and has no need to see itself in anything, while here the Real wills to see His names in another, and the names need the cosmos for their manifestation.

    Carried byαὐτάρκηςautarkēs“self-sufficient”

    In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 6

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

The whole Fuṣūṣ

Status of this text

The text in this reader is a working edition, not an authoritative one. It exists to be read and studied closely, and it answers to the scholarly editions listed below. Where we depart from them, or they from each other, this page says so.Since 2026-09-28 its letters follow the manuscript read before Ibn ʿArabī (al-Qūnawī's copy) wherever both critical editions agree, and its vowels were corrected to them; elsewhere it keeps its earlier base. The comparison was automatic and the AI vowelling of ¶12–13 and the remaining decisions have not yet been reviewed by a person.

Authorities and witnesses, in order of weight

  1. Golfetto (ed.), Brill 2024, based on the earliest extant manuscript: the copy al-Qūnawī read before Ibn ʿArabī, with the author's certificates. Fully vowelled, with a manuscript apparatus. The reference for disputed readings. In copyright: compared in the private layer only.
  2. Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad (ed.), Cairo (Maktabat Miṣr), a second critical edition of the same manuscript, fully vowelled, with notes on where the manuscript itself carries vowels or marginal corrections. Independent of Golfetto as an editorial reading. In copyright: compared in the private layer only.
  3. ʿAfīfī, Cairo 1946, the long-standard edition, from a different manuscript base, through the OpenITI OCR (witness B).
  4. The commentators, readers of the text in manuscript from al-Qūnawī's circle onward, who sometimes report readings (listed below).
  5. M. Haj Yousef's digital text (ibnalarabi.com), typed (witness A): our base before the re-base on the manuscript, and still where the editors differ. It follows ʿAfīfī's readings.
  6. Our working copy: vowelled from witness A, with AI vowelling where it was missing (¶12–13, marked in the reader). Derived, not a witness.

Versions

28 layers, each with its licence

The original

Golfetto's critical edition (Brill 2024)M. A. Golfetto · 2024Copyrighted: cited only
By
M. A. Golfetto (editor) · 2024
Source:
M. A. Golfetto (ed.), Ibn al-ʿArabī's Kitāb Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam wa-Khuṣūṣ al-Kalim: Edition Based on the Earliest Extant Manuscript (Leiden: Brill, 2024). From al-Qūnawī's copy read before Ibn ʿArabī, with the author's certificates (Evkaf Müzesi 1933) · link ↗
In the reader:
Cited only. Where it was compared, its readings appear only in the private layer; the public pages give counts and individually cited adopted readings
Licence:
In copyright (© Brill): compared privately, cited only, never shown
Notes
Based on the earliest extant manuscript: the copy al-Qūnawī read before Ibn ʿArabī, with the author's certificates. Fully vowelled, with a manuscript apparatus. The reference for disputed readings, first in order of weight. In copyright: compared in the private layer only. Compared word by word for chapter 1 (Faṣṣ Ādam) only; for the other chapters no licensed copy was available, it was not consulted, and every reading adopted from Niẓām al-Dīn's edition waits to be confirmed against it.
Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad's critical edition (Cairo)al-Sayyid Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
al-Sayyid Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad (editor) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
al-Sayyid Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad (ed.), Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam: taḥqīq li-aqdam makhṭūṭ (Cairo: Maktabat Miṣr, n.d. (UNVERIFIED)). Base: the same Evkaf Müzesi 1933 manuscript as Golfetto (siglum ق), with the Şehid Ali Paşa and Carullah manuscripts; notes where ق itself carries vowels or marginal corrections; cites al-Qayṣarī on readings
In the reader:
Cited only: counts, and each reading adopted from it listed one by one on the chapter's apparatus page
Licence:
In copyright (© the editor, reproduction forbidden): compared privately, cited only
Notes
A second critical edition of the same manuscript, fully vowelled, with notes on where the manuscript itself carries vowels or marginal corrections. Independent of Golfetto as an editorial reading. In copyright: compared in the private layer only. Its pages were read from page images by AI (in full for chapter 1; differences only for the others); see each chapter's own edition record.
UNVERIFIED:
The year of Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad's edition is not recorded in the repo.
ʿAfīfī's edition (Cairo 1946), through the OpenITI OCR (witness B)Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī, OpenITI · 1946Open licence
By
Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī (editor); OpenITI (Kraken OCR (0638IbnCarabi.FususHikam.Kraken21042913-ara1)) · 1946
Source:
Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ʿAfīfī (Cairo, 1946; vol. 1 the text, vol. 2 his Taʿlīqāt), the long-standard edition, from a different manuscript base. Used through OpenITI 0638IbnCarabi.FususHikam.Kraken21042913-ara1, an unvowelled OCR of an ʿAfīfī-based edition · link ↗
In the reader:
Not shown as a text: used to check the working edition, and to settle places where the worksheet stands alone against witness A
Licence:
OpenITI digital text: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ʿAfīfī's own editorial matter is not reproduced
Notes
Third in order of weight. Our former base (witness A) follows ʿAfīfī's readings; Golfetto's apparatus marks them ع. A digital transcription of ʿAfīfī with his variant markers (B′) and a scan of the print were also used, privately, for chapter 1; neither is a new witness.
M. Haj Yousef's digital text (witness A)Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef, OpenITI · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef (digital text (ibnalarabi.com)); OpenITI (barzakh IAC00077) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
OpenITI barzakh 0638IbnCarabi.FususHikam.IAC00077-ara1, typed, partly vowelled; copied from ibnalarabi.com/fusus/matn.php · link ↗
In the reader:
Our base before the re-base on the manuscript, and still where the critical editions differ or were not consulted; its readings are given in the word card
Licence:
OpenITI: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; the site states © 1999–2024. Used for private, non-commercial study; to be re-checked before public launch
Notes
Typed (witness A). It follows ʿAfīfī's readings. Fifth in order of weight, after the commentators.
UNVERIFIED:
The date of Haj Yousef's digital text (and of the OpenITI copy used) is not recorded in the repo.
The commentators' quoted lemmata (witness C)al-Jandī, al-Qāshānī, al-Qayṣarī, al-Tilimsānī, Ibn Turka, Jāmī, Bālī Zāde · 7th/13th–11th/17th c.Open licence
By
al-Jandī, al-Qāshānī, al-Qayṣarī, al-Tilimsānī, Ibn Turka, Jāmī, Bālī Zāde (readers of the text in manuscript) · 7th/13th–11th/17th c.
Source:
The commentaries aligned to each chapter (see Commentaries), from OpenITI barzakh pinned to commit 6b19bdc · link ↗
In the reader:
Their notes on readings are listed on each chapter's apparatus page, each linked to its line
Licence:
Classical texts; OpenITI digital texts CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Notes
Readers of the text in manuscript from al-Qūnawī's circle onward, who sometimes report readings (fī baʿḍ al-nusakh …) or how a word may be vowelled. Fourth in order of weight.

Our edition

The vowelled working copy (worksheet "NEW FUSUS AL-HIKAM", W)The editor of this reader · UNVERIFIEDOur work
By
The editor of this reader (worksheet (a vowelled copy of witness A, divided into reading passages)) · UNVERIFIED
In the reader:
Its vowels are the base of our vowels, corrected to the critical editions
Licence:
Our working copy; derived, not a witness
Notes
Derived from witness A; never an authority. Each chapter has its own tab and export (see the chapter's edition record). Where it stands alone against witnesses A and B, A/B are adopted by rule.
UNVERIFIED:
Who vowelled the worksheet, and when, is not recorded in the repo.
Our working edition of Faṣṣ ĀdamClaude (AI), The editor of this reader · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (readings of the edition's page images, collation and decisions by rule); The editor of this reader (editorial decisions (rules; the re-base)) · 2026-09-28
Source:
Worksheet W, col. H (identical Arabic across all six Drive versions); scripts/fusus/from_sheet.py, rebase.py; text record docs/texts/fusus-01-adam.md
In the reader:
In full, 20 passages. Consonants: the manuscript read before Ibn ʿArabī (al-Qūnawī's copy) where both critical editions agree; elsewhere witness A. Vowels: the working copy, corrected to both editions. Every adopted reading and decision is listed on the apparatus page
Licence:
Ours
Made by:
UNVERIFIED (the text record says "AI agents" / "AI readers" without naming the model), 2026-09-28 (AI transcription of Niẓām al-Dīn's page images (three agents), then an automatic three-way collation; decided by the editor on 28 Sept 2026 to apply the agreed readings)
Notes
A working edition, not an authoritative one: it exists to be read and studied closely, and answers to the scholarly editions. Re-based on the manuscript 2026-09-28 (scripts/fusus/rebase.py): where Golfetto and Niẓām al-Dīn agree, the manuscript's letters (53 changes) and their vowelling (65) were adopted; kept: 40 places where the editors differ and 2 Quran quotations (verbatim Tanzil). Our text now departs from the agreed editions on 0 words; of 2017 words compared, the two editors differ in vowelling on 36. Niẓām al-Dīn's PDF pp. 117–134 (the whole chapter) were transcribed from page images by three AI agents, vowel by vowel, into the private layer; Golfetto was read from a private copy (pp. 97–113). The collation is automatic (a private script, on the consonantal skeleton). Consonantal decisions: 4 editorial and about 200 mechanical (data/sources/fass-adam-corrections.json), all by AI; review pending, with the 40 editor disagreements. Not yet reviewed by a person.
UNVERIFIED:
The model of the AI agents that transcribed Niẓām al-Dīn's pages for chapter 1 is not named in the text record.

Published translations

R. W. J. Austin, The Bezels of WisdomR. W. J. Austin · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
R. W. J. Austin (translator) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
R. W. J. Austin (tr.), Ibn al-ʿArabī: The Bezels of Wisdom (UNVERIFIED: publisher and year not recorded in the repo)
In the reader:
Never shown; the AI translator was told not to reproduce or imitate it
Licence:
In copyright: private study layer only, cited only
UNVERIFIED:
Austin's Bezels of Wisdom: publisher and year are not recorded in the repo.
Caner Dagli, The Ringstones of WisdomCaner K. Dagli · 2004Copyrighted: cited only
By
Caner K. Dagli (translator) · 2004
Source:
Caner Dagli, The Ringstones of Wisdom (2004) (publisher UNVERIFIED)
In the reader:
Never shown; compared privately in the triangulation of chapters 5, 6 and 15, where differences are described in our words with short cited quotations
Licence:
In copyright: private study layer only, cited only
UNVERIFIED:
Dagli's Ringstones of Wisdom: publisher not recorded in the repo.
Binyamin Abrahamov, Ibn al-ʿArabī's Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamBinyamin Abrahamov · 2015Copyrighted: cited only
By
Binyamin Abrahamov (translator) · 2015
Source:
Binyamin Abrahamov, Ibn al-ʿArabī's Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (2015) (publisher UNVERIFIED)
In the reader:
Never shown; compared privately in the triangulation of chapter 4
Licence:
In copyright: private study layer only, cited only
UNVERIFIED:
Abrahamov's translation: publisher not recorded in the repo.
Bursevi (English translation of his commentary)UNVERIFIED · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
UNVERIFIED (translator) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Named "Bursevi" among the published translations held in the private layer (docs/ROADMAP.md; the chapter 1 text record); edition not recorded (UNVERIFIED)
In the reader:
Never shown
Licence:
In copyright: private study layer only, cited only
Notes
Possibly Bulent Rauf's English version made through Bursevi's Turkish commentary (docs/research/market-landscape.md names such a version); not confirmed.
UNVERIFIED:
The "Bursevi" translation in the private layer: translator, title, publisher and year are not recorded in the repo.
Portuguese working translation (Engastes de Sabedoria)UNVERIFIED · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
UNVERIFIED (translator) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
NEW FUSUS AL-HIKAM (Engastes de Sabedoria), a Portuguese working translation with the Arabic; rights assigned to Logos Editora
In the reader:
Never shown; compared privately in the triangulation of chapters 4, 5, 6 and 15
Licence:
In copyright (assigned to Logos Editora): private study layer only
UNVERIFIED:
The Portuguese working translation: translator and date are not recorded in the repo.

AI layers

Vowels supplied by AI (¶12–13)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-27Our work
By
Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-27
In the reader:
Underlined in amber in the reader (102 words in ¶12–13)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-27 (scripts/fusus/ai_vowel.py (headless, model opus); date = first commit of app/src/data/fusus-1.json)
Notes
Passages ¶12–13 were left (partly) unvowelled in the working copy; their vowels were completed by AI, with every letter checked unchanged and each added mark recorded. The AI also flagged 14 places where the working copy's vowels look wrong or the reading is open; none has been applied (listed on the apparatus page). Not yet reviewed by a person.
English translationClaude (AI) · 2026-09-27Our work
By
Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-27
In the reader:
Under each passage
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-27 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/fusus-1.json (the file has no generatedOn); scripts/fusus/ai_translate.py; the 17 passages changed by the re-base were translated again on 28 Sept 2026)
Notes
Translated from the Arabic with a fixed Akbarian glossary (headless, minimal context); told not to reproduce or imitate any published translation (Austin, Dagli, Abrahamov, Burckhardt). Not a published translation; not scholar-reviewed.
Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-27Our work
By
Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-27
In the reader:
One gloss per word, in the word card
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-27 (made with the translation, same file and call (app/src/content/ai/fusus-1.json); date = its first commit)
Term notes, key words and their historyClaude (AI) · 2026-09-27Our work
By
Claude (AI) (term notes) · 2026-09-27
In the reader:
Term notes in the word card; the 30 key words of the chapter, each with the tradition's readings in order of death
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-27 (made with the translation (app/src/content/ai/fusus-1.json); date = its first commit)
Notes
The term notes are AI, made with the translation. The key words (app/src/data/fusus-1-keywords.json) are selected by rule from them and from frequency; their history (fusus-1-term-history.json) quotes Ibn ʿArabī's Iṣṭilāḥ, the aligned commentaries and al-Jurjānī from OpenITI, with AI English.
Wordplay and Quran readingsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (readings) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Anchored to the words they read
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/ai/fusus-1-intertext.json)
Notes
AI readings. Each phrase is anchored in the text; each Quran reference was checked against the Tanzil text (the verse exists and shares words with the phrase); items failing the mechanical checks were dropped.
The four lenses on the rootsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (lenses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
In the word card, per root (45 roots)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/lenses/fusus-1.json (scripts/fusus/ai_lenses.py))
Notes
Every entry is AI-generated: it explains and connects the cited sources (led by Ibn Fāris's aṣl); it is not a quotation of any author and has not been reviewed by a scholar.
English of the commentariesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-27Our work
By
Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-27
In the reader:
Beside each commentary entry
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Sonnet; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-27 (scripts/fusus/ai_translate_commentaries.py (model sonnet); date = first commit of app/public/data/commentaries/fusus-1.json)
Notes
Commentators aligned in this chapter: al-Qāshānī, al-Jandī, al-Qayṣarī, al-Tilimsānī, Ibn Turka, Jāmī, Bālī Zāde, al-Qūnawī, Bosnevî; 1416 entries translated, plus the introductions. Keyed by a hash of lemma and comment, so re-alignment keeps it. The introductions' English was trimmed on 4 Oct 2026 when the running page header was removed (not re-translated). Bosnevî (Ottoman Turkish, Istanbul 1873) is aligned for this chapter only: 195 lemmata from a collation of two OCRs (docs/texts/bosnevi.md).
Synthesis of the interpretationsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (synthesis) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Per passage, and for the chapter (on the apparatus page)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/synthesis/fusus-1.json (scripts/synthesis.py))
Notes
From public sources only: our AI translation, the classical commentaries (with our AI English), our intertext notes and key words. No copyrighted translation was given to the model.
Themes and resonancesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
On the apparatus page (chapter level) and per passage
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of app/src/content/resonances/fusus-1.json (scripts/resonances.py))
Notes
Made by the method in docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md, without web access. Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.
What the scholars say (summaries)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (summaries of the cited pages) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
On the apparatus page, with 11 sources (Chittick, Sells 1988, Suʿād al-Ḥakīm 1981, articles of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society …)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (the file's own "updated" date (app/src/content/scholarship/fusus-1.json); scripts/scholarship (model opus))
Notes
Each summary was written by AI from the cited page and checked against it; quotations are verbatim and short. The full texts stay private; the works themselves are in copyright and cited only.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis: CAMeL ToolsCAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi), scripts/fusus/analyze.py, analyze_ch.py · 2026-09-27Open licence
By
CAMeL Tools 1.6 (CAMeL Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi) (morphological analyser (calima-msa-r13 + MLE)); scripts/fusus/analyze.py, analyze_ch.py (our pipeline) · 2026-09-27
Source:
CAMeL Tools 1.6, calima-msa-r13 database with the MLE disambiguator, constrained by the text's vowelling (scripts/fusus/analyze.py; analyze_ch.py strips the Quranic annotation marks of the verbatim Tanzil quotations before lookup) · link ↗
In the reader:
Lemma, root, part of speech and clitics in the word card, with a grey "Automatic" badge; words where the analysis disagrees with the vowels are flagged
Licence:
Code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2 (used offline to produce our analysis layer, not redistributed)
Notes
Automatic, not generative AI. The date is the first commit of chapter 1's data; each chapter was analysed when it was established.
Quran quotations, matched and given verbatim (Tanzil)Tanzil Project, scripts/fusus/edition_ch.py, scripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Open licence
By
Tanzil Project (Uthmani Quran text); scripts/fusus/edition_ch.py, scripts/quran_refs.py (automatic matching) · 2026-09-28
Source:
Tanzil Uthmani text, reproduced verbatim; quotations found by an automatic match on the consonantal skeleton (≥ 0.8, letter-exact for short quotations), corrections recorded per chapter (quoteOverrides) · link ↗
In the reader:
Quran quotations in the text are given in the verbatim Tanzil text; listed on each apparatus page
Licence:
Tanzil: free to use with attribution and a link to tanzil.net; the text may not be modified
Notes
Automatic, not generative AI. Date: first commit of app/src/data/quran-refs/fusus-1.json. Adapted quotations are kept in Ibn ʿArabī's wording and marked.
Quoted in: later works that reuse the chapter (KITAB)KITAB project (passim), scripts/fusus/kitab_reuse_map.py, reuse_build.py · 2026-09-28Open licence
By
KITAB project (passim) (text-reuse alignments); scripts/fusus/kitab_reuse_map.py, reuse_build.py (mapped to our word ids) · 2026-09-28
Source:
KITAB text reuse (passim) for OpenITI RELEASE 2025.1.9, against 0638IbnCarabi.FususHikam.Kraken21042913-ara1; mapped to this text by Mashraba · link ↗
In the reader:
Per passage: the later works that reuse it
Licence:
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Notes
Automatic, not generative AI. passim finds long overlaps only: short citations (a sentence or two) are missed. Date: first commit of app/src/data/fusus-1-reuse.json.

Commentaries

al-Qūnawīal-Fukūk fī asrār mustanadāt ḥikam al-FuṣūṣOpen licence
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), al-Fukūk fī asrār mustanadāt ḥikam al-Fuṣūṣ
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/qunawi.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
al-TilimsānīSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/tilmasani.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
al-JandīSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. c. 691/1291), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/jandi.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
al-QāshānīSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (d. 730/1330), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/qashani.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
al-QayṣarīMaṭlaʿ khuṣūṣ al-kilam fī maʿānī Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikamOpen licence
Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), Maṭlaʿ khuṣūṣ al-kilam fī maʿānī Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/qaysari.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
Ibn TurkaSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Ibn Turka (d. 835/1432), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/taraka.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
JāmīSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/jami_matn.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
Bālī ZādeSharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḤikamOpen licence
Muṣṭafā b. Sulaymān Bālī Zāde (d. 1073/1663), Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
Edition:
Not recorded by OpenITI: the barzakh file has no .yml metadata record, and the ibnalarabi.com page it was taken from names no printed edition.
Licence:
OpenITI distributes its texts under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; ibnalarabi.com states © 1999–2024. The commentary itself is a classical work in the public domain; the edition behind the digital text is unidentified.
Taken from:
ibnalarabi.com/fusus/bali.php. The OpenITI file's own header (#META# source) names this page: the text was copied from the Ibn ʿArabī website directed by Dr Mohamed Ali Haj Yousef. Every IAC-coded file used here names a page of that site in its header; barzakh is OpenITI's repository for texts awaiting integration into the corpus.
BosnevîTecelliyât-ı ʿarâʾis en-nuṣûṣ fî menaṣṣât ḥikem el-FuṣûṣPublic domain
ʿAbdallāh al-Bosnawī (Abdullah Bosnevî, d. 1054/1644), Tecelliyât-ı ʿarâʾis en-nuṣûṣ fî menaṣṣât ḥikem el-Fuṣûṣ
Edition:
Istanbul, 1290/1873 (Ottoman Turkish), vol. 1; the scan of Princeton University Library's copy at HathiTrust (catalog record 008919315).
Licence:
Public domain (1873 print); our OCR collation is ours. Each comment links to its page in the HathiTrust scan.
Taken from:
HathiTrust. Full view of the scanned volume.

Audio

Machine voice: Arabicar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:
Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:
ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/fusus-1-audio.json)
Notes
Machine voice reading the vowelled Arabic; a reading aid, not a recitation.
Machine voice: Englishen-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (text-to-speech) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Each passage can be heard, each word highlighted as it is read
Licence:
Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:
en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/fusus-1-audio-en.json)
Notes
Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid, not a recitation.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

Checked against the critical editions

Both critical editions are in copyright, so their text is not shown. We collated ours against them privately, word by word, and adopted their readings only where the two agree. Each adopted reading is listed below with the reading it replaced.

  • 53 readings of the manuscript replaced our former base (ʿAfīfī's text, via witness A), and the vowelling of 65 words was corrected to both editions. 40 places where the editors differ, and 2 Quran quotations (kept verbatim), were left as they were.
  • The two editors read the manuscript alike: of 2017 words compared, they differ in vowelling on 36. Our text now departs from both where they agree on 0.

Collated 2026-09-28. Niẓām al-Dīn's pages were transcribed from page images by AI; the collation is automatic and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

Readings adopted from the manuscript (53)
  • 1تَظْهَرُ←يُظْهِرُ
  • 1∅←كُلَّهُ
  • 2وَلَا بُدَّ أَنْ يَقْبَلَ←وَيَقْبَلُ
  • 2∅←سُبْحَانَهُ
  • 3بَيْنَ مَا←مِمَّا
  • 3وَكُلُّ←فَكُلُّ
  • 4فَرَحِمَهُمْ←فَيَرْحَمُهُمْ
  • 4نَظَرَ←يَنْظُرُ
  • 4∅←بِهِ
  • 4بِهِ←∅
  • 4وَهٰذَا←وَ هَذَا
  • 5بِبَعْضِهِ←بِبَعْضٍ
  • 5العَالَمِ←المُلْكِ
  • 5∅←بِهِ
  • 5∅←بِهَا
  • 5هُوَ←وَهُوَ
  • 5فَتَمَّ←قِيَامُ
  • 5وَالنَّشْءُ←وَالنَّشَأُ
  • 6∅←تَقْدِيسَ آدَمَ
  • 6وَٱنْظُرْ←سَأَنْظُرُ
  • 6الصُّورَةِ←الصُّوَرِ
  • 7أَنَا←نَحْنُ
  • 7لِي←لَنَا
  • 7وَحَاوٍ←وَحَاوُونَ
  • 7أَنَا مُحَقَّقٌ←نَحْنُ مُتَحَقِّقُونَ
  • 7التَّقْدِيسِ وَالتَّسْبِيحِ←التَّسْبِيحِ وَالتَّقْدِيسِ
  • 7فَلَوْلَا←فَلَوْ لَا
  • 8هِيَ←أَنَّ
  • 8المَوْجُودُ←الوُجُودِ
  • 9بِأَنَّهُ←أَنَّهُ
  • 9∅←وَالحَيُّ
  • 9الحَيُّ←∅
  • 10شَخْصٌ←∅
  • 10وَمَعْلُومٌ←وَ مَعْلُومٌ
  • 11يَرْتَبِطُ←مُرْتَبِطٌ
  • 13∅←الأَوَّلِيَّةُ
  • 13يُنْسَبُ←تُنْسَبُ
  • 13وَلَوْلَا←وَلَوْ لَا
  • 14وَالعَالَمُ←فَالْعَالَمُ
  • 14وَلِهٰذَا يُحْجَبُ←وَلِذَا تَحَجَّبَ
  • 14تَوَجَّهَتَا←تَوَجَّهْنَا
  • 14وَنَرْجُو←وَيَرْجُو
  • 14فَنَخَافُ←فيَخَافَ
  • 17لٰكِنْ←وَلَكِنْ
  • 19جَسَدِ←∅
  • 20وَمِنْ ذٰلِكَ←∅
  • 20∅←مِنْ
  • 20نُسِبَتْ←تُنْسَبُ
  • 20يَحْيَوِيَّةٍ←يَحْياوِيَّةٍ
  • 20دَاوُدِيَّةٍ←داوُودِيَّةٍ
  • 20∅←سُبْحانَهُ وتَعالى
  • 20∅←فيها
  • 20تَعَالَىٰ←سُبْحانَهُ وتَعالى

∅: the word is absent. Struck: our former reading (ʿAfīfī's text). Evidence: Golfetto (Brill 2024); Niẓām al-Dīn Aḥmad (Cairo).

Vowelling corrected to both editions (65)
  • 1نَفْسُهُ←نَفْسَهُ
  • 1آخَرَ←آخَرٍ
  • 1مُتَّصِفًا←مُتَصِّفًا
  • 2كَمِرْآةٍ←كِمِرْآةٍ
  • 3كُلِّهِ←كُلَّهُ
  • 3الإِلٰهِيَّةِ←الإِلَهِيِّةِ
  • 3الأَهْلِيَّةَ←الأَهْلِيَّةُ
  • 4كُلَّهَا←كُلِّهَا
  • 5خِزَانَةِ←خَزَانَةِ
  • 5خِزَانَةِ←خَزَانَةِ
  • 5يَحْفَظُ←يَحْفُظُ
  • 5خِزَانَتِهِ←خَزَانَتِهِ
  • 5العَالَمُ←العَالَمِ
  • 5الدَّائِمُ←الدَائِمُ
  • 6لِلّٰهِ←للَّهِ
  • 6الإِلٰهِيَّةِ←الإِلَهِيِّةِ
  • 6لِلّٰهِ←لِلَّه
  • 7الكُلِّيَّةَ←الكُلِّيَةَ
  • 7الإِلٰهِيُّ←الإِلَهِيِّ
  • 7وَتَسْبِيْحَهُ←وَتَسْبِيحِهِ
  • 8مُتَمَيِّزَةٌ←مُتَمَيَّزَةٌ
  • 8كَنِسْبَةِ←كِنَسْبَةِ
  • 8الكُلِّيَّ←الكُلِّيُ
  • 8الأَمْرَ←الأَمْرُ
  • 8وَاحِدَةٌ←وَاحِدَةً
  • 8نِسْبَةٌ←نِسْبَةً
  • 8الكُلِّيِّ←الكُلِّيِ
  • 8غَيْرَ←غَيْرُ
  • 8العَيْنِيُّ←العَيْنِيِّ
  • 8الكُلِّيَّةِ←الكُلِّيَةِ
  • 8كُلِّ←كُلُّ
  • 8مَعْقُولِيَّتُهَا←مَعْقُولِيَّتِهَا
  • 8أَعْيَانُ←أَعْيَانِ
  • 8مَعْقُولَةً←مَعْقُولَةٌ
  • 8العَيْنِيَّةِ←العَيْنَيَّةِ
  • 10مَعْقُولَةً←مَعْقُولَةٌ
  • 10بَرِحَتْ←بَرَحَتْ
  • 10التَّفَصِيلَ←التَفْصِيلَ
  • 10مَعْقُولَةً←مَعْقُولَةٌ
  • 10الكُلِّيَّةَ←الكُلِّيَةِ
  • 10الأُمُورَ←الأٌمُورُ
  • 11وَاجِبَ←وَاجِبُ
  • 11المُسْتَنَدُ←المُسْتَنِدُ
  • 11ٱرْتِبَاطَ←ارْتِبَاطُ
  • 11ثَبَتَ←ثَبُتَ
  • 11بَعْضِهَا←بَعْضُهَا
  • 13فِي←فَيِ
  • 13غَيْرُ←غَيْرَ
  • 13لِلْمُقَيَّدِ←لِلْمُقَيِّدِ
  • 13أَوَّلِيَّةَ←أَوَّلِيَّةُ
  • 13الأَوَّلَ←الأَوَّلُ
  • 14إِدْرَاكَهُ←إِدْرَاكَُهُ
  • 14الطَّبِيعِيَّةُ←الطَبِيعِيَّةِ
  • 14الظُّلْمَانِيَّةِ←الظُلْمَانِيَّةِ
  • 14السُّلْطَانُ←السُلْطَانُ
  • 14الجَامِعَ←الجَامِعَِ
  • 14الصِّفَتَيْنِ←الصِفَتَيْنِ
  • 14وَيُسَمَّىٰ←وَيُسَمّى
  • 15عِلْمَ←عِلْمُ
  • 15غَيْرَ←غَيْرُ
  • 19خُلِقَ←خَلَقَ
  • 20عُلْوِيَّةٌ←عَلَوِيَّةٌ
  • 20قُدُّوسِيَّةٌ←قُدُوسِيَّةٌ
  • 20سُبُّوحِيَّةٌ←سَبُّوحِيَّةٌ
  • 20حُدَّ←حَدَّ

Consonantal decisions (4)

Our vowelling against the authoritative edition

The word-by-word comparison with Golfetto's edition is available in the private layer.

Readings discussed by the commentators (27)

Where a commentator reports another manuscript reading, or how a word may be vowelled.

Vowelling supplied or questioned by AI

Passages ¶12–13 were left (partly) unvowelled in our working copy; their vowels were completed by AI, with every letter checked unchanged, and are underlined in amber in the reader. The AI also flagged these places where the working copy's vowels look wrong or where the reading is genuinely open. None has been applied.

Quotations

Mechanical clean-up (200)

sukūn on alif (non-standard) (4) · sukūn on long ū (108) · sukūn on long ī (81) · doubled nunation mark (2) · detached conjunction wa (4) · Quran 2:30 spacing (1)

Scholars

55 findings from 11 works

What modern and older scholars have found in this text, in our words, with the page. Each summary was written by AI from the cited page, then checked against it; quotations are the scholars' own and short. Parallels claim a likeness only, never an influence. In the reader, switch on Scholars (under Layers, or in the toolbar) to see them beside each passage.

Readings (40)

  • Reporting Jāmī's commentary on Ibn ʿArabī's summary: the wish to see is assigned to the Names, meaning the Essence qualified by attributes. It is not assigned to the Essence itself, since the Essence in its absoluteness takes no property or delimitation.

    “attributed this demand to the Names - which are the Essence qualified by attributes - and not to the Essence Itself”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1

    William C. Chittick, p. 35 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm reads the opening of the chapter as using the mirror's capacity for reflection to explain why the cosmos exists. The Real wished to see the entities of His names, so He brought the world into being as a mirror.

    On 1, 2, 3

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 500 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm holds that Ibn ʿArabī's Adam, while the Qur'anic figure, is detached from his particular time and place. He becomes a symbol of the human reality and of the perfect human, who gathers into himself all the realities dispersed through the cosmos.

    «رمز للحقيقة الانسانية وللانسان الكامل الذي جمع في حقيقته كل الحقائق»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1, 3, 4

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 54 summary by AI

  • On this reading, Adam in the Fuṣūṣ is at once the comprehensive being (kawn jāmiʿ), the spirit of the cosmos, and God's vicegerent on earth. The dictionary supports this with the passages on the unpolished mirror and the naming of 'human' and 'vicegerent'.

    On 1, 3, 4

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 54 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm cites the opening passage for a third sense of the divine name, its locus of manifestation. All of existence is where the names appear, so the world itself may loosely be called the divine names.

    «فالوجود باسره مظهر ومجلى للاسماء الالهية»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 600 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm defines the 'all-comprehensive being' as Ibn ʿArabī's name for the perfect human, since he gathers in his being all the realities of both the divine and the created presences.

    On 1 · the word كون جامع

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 987 summary by AI

  • Reporting ʿAbd al-Qādir's account of creation: God, knowing Himself in His essence, wished to see His perfection through His names, which are known only by their effects, and so manifested as the comprehensive Spirit holding the general image of all things.

    “He then desired to perceive His perfection through His names, though these are determined only by their effects.”

    On 1

    Itzchak Weismann, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Addas holds that for Ibn ʿArabī the human being is the mirror in which God beholds His Names. Without that mirror God would stay a hidden treasure, unknown.

    “man is the mirror in which God contemplates His Names”

    On 1, 3

    Claude Addas, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Addas separates two standpoints. Under absolute Oneness the Essence needs nothing and ignores even its Names. Under the Unity of multiplicity the Names require loci where each can exercise its own ruling authority, so they seek human existence.

    “His Names demand places of manifestation, they seek our existence in order to be able to display themselves in us.”

    On 1, 6

    Claude Addas, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Langhi takes Ibn ʿArabī's ontological Adam to come forth from the Absolute because He wished to see Himself in concrete form. She treats Eve's extraction from Adam as a parallel step that makes divine manifestation possible.

    “Parallel to the emanation of the ontological Adam from the Absolute who desired to see Himself in concrete form”

    On 1

    Zahra’ Langhi, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Sells lays out the mythic sequence in stages. Before creation the Real did not know itself through its names, which were unactual. The names need loci to be actualized, so a cosmos was made. This cosmos, an unpolished mirror, requires the complete human for the names to become actual.

    “In order for the mirror to shine and for the divine names to achieve actuality, the complete human being is needed.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1, 2, 3

    Michael A. Sells, p. 131 summary by AI

  • Sells argues that Ibn ʿArabī deliberately leaves unclear whether pronouns in the opening refer to the divine or the human. The polished mirror image produces a shift in perspective that splits the reference and brings about a coincidence of opposites.

    “It becomes impossible to determine whether the an the pronoun is the divine or the human.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1, 3

    Michael A. Sells, p. 135 summary by AI

  • For Sells, the mystery is revealed both to the Real in its self-revelation and to Adam as the complete human being. The reference slides between the two whenever passing away (fanāʾ) or the polished mirror is in play.

    “whenever the experience of fand' or the metaphor of the polished mirror are involved such a slide will occur.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1, 3

    Michael A. Sells, p. 135 summary by AI

  • Hakim reads the image of the unpolished mirror as the whole world before Adam. Adam's appearance is what polished the world's mirror, so that it could show the divine image.

    “The whole world is, however, an unpolished mirror, and the appearance of Adam polished the mirror of the world.”

    On 2, 3

    Souad Hakim, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Sells takes the opening image of the smudged mirror being polished as a symbol of the mystical perspective shift. At that shift, a subject viewing an outside object gives way to self-vision, and the mirror itself ceases to be noticed.

    On 2, 3

    Michael A. Sells, p. 121 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Sells reads the account of the proportioned locus receiving the divine spirit as the Qur'anic creation story recast through a double emanation. The receptacle acts as a nonexistent prime matter, and the inbreathing both actualizes it and polishes the mirror.

    “Here the Qur'anic creation story is interpreted through double emanation paradigm.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 2

    Michael A. Sells, p. 139 summary by AI

  • Reporting Jāmī: the Perfect Man is the world's spirit and the world his body. He governs cosmic affairs through the divine Names in the way the spirit governs the body through its faculties.

    “the Perfect Man governs the affairs of the world and controls them by means of the divine Names”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 3, 17

    William C. Chittick, p. 35 summary by AI

  • The mirror image also serves to address unity and multiplicity. One Real appears in many mirrors, so plurality is only relative. Mirrors differ in rank: the human mirror, which polishes the cosmos, surpasses the cosmic mirror, and Muhammad's mirror ranks highest.

    «فمرآة الانسان افضل من مرآة العالم»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 3

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 500 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Rauf renders amr as 'order' and adds a gloss taking it as the order of being as a whole. On this reading, the whole of existence begins from God and returns to Him.

    “The totality of the order (of being) returns to Him as it started from Him.”

    On 3 · the word الأَمْر

    Bulent Rauf, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Reporting Jāmī: God manifests in the world only through the Perfect Man. When he departs, the world perishes as a body decays once the rational soul leaves it, and its perfections pass to the hereafter.

    “God does not manifest Himself within the world without the intermediary of the Perfeet Man”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 5

    William C. Chittick, p. 38 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Reporting al-Qūnawī: the Perfect Man is the pillar of heaven and earth. His departure from the world brings the Resurrection, and the hadith about someone saying 'Allah, Allah' is read as referring to the Perfect Man.

    “It is as if he said. The hour will not come as long as there is a Perfect Man in the world!”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 5

    William C. Chittick, p. 39 summary by AI

  • The commentary explains the Fuṣūṣ line on the edifice moving to the hereafter. While the Perfect Man remains, the world and its divine treasuries are kept. When he leaves and no qualified successor remains, the world's perfections and the vicegerent's task pass to the next world.

    “As long as the Perfect Man is in the world, the world is preserved and the divine tea- suries pretected.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 5

    William C. Chittick, p. 40 summary by AI

  • In her typology of seals, al-Ḥakīm treats the perfect human as the seal of the cosmos. Each seal closes one reality, and Muḥammad is the seal of seals because he comprehends them all.

    «والعالم له ختم [الانسان الكامل]»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 5

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 375 summary by AI

  • In an inserted gloss, Rauf identifies the figure who might leave the world as the Perfect Man. He reads this figure as the seal that keeps the world's treasuries preserved for God.

    “(that is to say, the Perfect Man being the seal of the treasuries of the world)”

    On 5

    Bulent Rauf, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The hymn to the complete human returns to the polished mirror image. It casts him both as khalīfa, the agent governing the cosmos, and as the medium of divine self-perception. Its paradoxes, such as eternal yet originated, come from the chapter's perspective shifts.

    “The comple being is seen as fulfilling two roles: that of khalfa”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 5, 9

    Michael A. Sells, p. 144 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm holds that Ibn ʿArabī goes beyond calling the human a microcosm. The perfect human also contains all the realities of the divine presence, so he is a compendium of both the divine and the cosmic.

    «هو المختصر الجامع لحقائق الحضرتين الالهية والكونية»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 6

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 396 summary by AI

  • Reporting ʿAbd al-Qādir: Adam's wisdom is divine because he comprehends every divine name turned toward the world, except the name of the necessarily existent. Other creatures reflect one name each, while man gathers all names under the name Allah.

    “the only, though important, exception being that of the necessarily existent”

    On 6, 15

    Itzchak Weismann, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The digression on the angels names three completenesses: divine, the reality of realities, and universal nature. Sells reads this as an elliptical way of saying that human nature is universal horizontally, holding all names, and vertically, spanning all strata of reality.

    “human nature is said to be universal not only horizontally in the sense of including all the divine names, but also verti-”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 6

    Michael A. Sells, p. 142 summary by AI

  • Rauf glosses the universal matters, which have no concrete being yet are intelligible, with examples such as life, knowledge and power.

    “certainly all orders (like Life, Knowledge, Power,) have no being in their essence”

    On 7, 8

    Bulent Rauf, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Sells takes the angels' boast as an instance of taqyīd, the error of confining the real to one particular form. He treats this error as the ground of Ibn ʿArabī's wider critique of every kind of dogmatism.

    On 7

    Michael A. Sells, p. 142 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm reads the perfect human as the 'form of the Real': he alone among creatures can bear every divine name except essential necessity. The form of the Real is thus his manifestation of the divine attributes and names.

    «يمكن ان نطلق عليه جميع الاسماء الالهية، ماعدا الوجوب الذاتي ، فصورة الحق اذن هي مظهره الصفاتي الاسمائي»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 12

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 705 summary by AI

  • Reporting an unnamed Sufi cited in the commentary: God's two hands are the Names of Majesty and Beauty. Adam alone joins both, while all other creatures were made with one hand, such as angels of mercy or of chastisement.

    “Everything other than Adam had been created with one hand”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 16

    William C. Chittick, p. 35 summary by AI

  • In Ibn ʿArabī's terms, Langhi says, God made al-insān, the most perfect image and complete form, with His Two Hands. She reads this Adam as collective humanity, created in an androgynous divine image containing male and female.

    On 16, 17

    Zahra’ Langhi, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Young reads the vicegerent, shaped between God's two hands, as joining the active divine realities with the receptive realities of the world and its creatures. Being a complete, all-gathering locus of manifestation is what earns him the title of vicegerent.

    “the man is a complete and totalising place of manifestation, that he deserves to be called ‘the viceregent’.”

    On 16, 17

    Peter Young, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The translated commentary says Adam combines aspects of lordship and servanthood, which makes him vicegerent. Perfect descendants hold vicegerency over the world and imperfect ones over their own domains. Only humans therefore fall into claiming lordship, like Pharaoh, or into worshipping idols.

    On 17, 19

    William C. Chittick, p. 42 summary by AI

  • Al-Ḥakīm cites this passage as evidence for her view of the perfect human. He is an isthmus between the manifest and the nonmanifest, and he is the cause and preserver of the cosmos. His outer form is drawn from the world's realities and his inner form is patterned on the divine form.

    «انه حد بين الظاهر والباطن يمنع الظاهر من اندراجه في البطون»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 17

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 162 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Citing Ibn ʿArabī, Addas says Adam alone received the vicegerency because he was made in God's form. A deputy must appear in the likeness of whoever appointed him.

    “to the exclusion of the other creatures of the universe, because God created him in His form.”

    On 17

    Claude Addas, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The perfect human both joins and separates the two sides, giving each side its due. In this he mirrors God, of whom he is the full image, as both Creator and created. What belongs to one side must never be attributed to the other.

    “He both unites these two sides and divides, keeping what is due to each side for that side”

    On 19

    Peter Young, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Young takes God's showing Adam his descendants in one handful and the world's receptivities in the other as showing Adam the multiplicity latent in the oneness of his own self. Humans, being Adam, hold this knowledge potentially and can realise it.

    “when Adam was shown his descendants he was shown the plurality implicit within the oneness of his own self.”

    On 20

    Peter Young, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The complete human being is an ongoing event, the polishing of the mirror, and not a fixed entity. No individual can possess it, so it has to be enacted again and again within time.

    “The complete human being is not an entity, a thing, an object. It is an event or process, the polishing of the mirror.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Michael A. Sells, p. 142 summary by AI

Context and history (7)

  • Al-Ḥakīm lists several of Ibn ʿArabī's terms as synonyms in content: copy, form, small world, comprehensive program, comprehensive word, perfect human, vicegerent and all-comprehensive being.

    «نسخة، صورة ، العالم الصغير ، البرنامج الجامع ، الكلمة الجامعة ، الانسان الكامل ، الخليفة ، الكون الجامع»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1, 5 · the word الكون الجامع

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 396 summary by AI

  • She lists terms that function as synonyms of the all-comprehensive being in Ibn ʿArabī: the noble epitome, the comprehensive word, the form of the two presences, and the copy of the Real and the cosmos. All of them express the quality of comprehensiveness.

    On 1, 5 · the word كون جامع

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 987 summary by AI

  • Rauf records a manuscript variant in the seal passage. Some copies speak of the Perfect Man not remaining permanent, where others speak of him leaving the world.

    “(or as in certain copies:) if he were not permanent and (the seal) was removed from the treasuries of the world”

    On 5

    Bulent Rauf, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Gril argues that the angels, by provoking divine anger, unknowingly contributed to man's descent to earth. Earth is the abode of vicegerency, where the full divine form, including anger and vengeance, can become manifest in the human being.

    “in order for there to manifest in man the fullness of the Divine Form (kamâl al-sûra)”

    On 6, 7

    Denis Gril, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Gril reads the angels' objection to Adam's vicegerency (Q 2:30) as a double breach of adab. They opposed the divine will and put themselves forward, although they spoke from knowledge and acted according to their own nature.

    “The angels are speaking in knowledge of course, but doubly contravene adab, since they oppose the divine will, and put themselves in the forefront.”

    On 7

    Denis Gril, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Drawing on the Futūḥāt, Gril says the angels' protest against man's appointment as vicegerent lacked adab. The correction they received reminded them that they had overstepped their limits.

    “When they protested against the appointment of man as Vicegerent of God on earth, the angels were lacking in adab.”

    On 7

    Denis Gril, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Rauf's translation records variant manuscript readings for this passage. Some copies read that the Sultan is hidden, and some describe the veils as the bodies of Nature, where others speak of elemental bodies.

    “And by this he hid, (and in certain copies:) the Sultan is hidden”

    On 14

    Bulent Rauf, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

Lineage (documented) (5)

  • Reporting al-Qayṣarī's commentary on the opening passage: the comprehensive being is the perfect human called Adam, and nothing else has the receptivity and preparedness for this role.

    «والكون الجامع هو الانسان الكامل المسمى بآدم وغيره ليس له هذه القابلية والاستعداد»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1 · Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam → al-Qayṣarī, Maṭlaʿ khuṣūṣ al-kilam

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 58 summary by AI

  • Weismann presents ʿAbd al-Qādir, following Ibn ʿArabī, as treating the Perfect Man as the comprehensive being joining divine and worldly realities, God's vicegerent, through whom and for whom the world exists though he appeared last.

    “The world was thus created through man and for man, even though in the visible world man appeared the last.”

    On 1, 5

    Itzchak Weismann, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Sells treats the polishing of the mirror as a mythic recasting of the fanāʾ experience voiced in the ecstatic sayings of Bisṭāmī and Ḥallāj. He argues that Ibn ʿArabī kept that event at the core of his discourse and set aside its provocative social staging.

    “The event of the polishing of the mirror is a mythic version of an event that earlier Sufis had discussed in terms of the”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 3 · earlier Sufi fanāʾ and shaṭḥ (Bisṭāmī, Ḥallāj) → Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam

    Michael A. Sells, p. 131 summary by AI

  • The translated commentary cites al-Qūnawī's al-Fukūk to explain the Perfect Man. Al-Qūnawī calls him the isthmus between Necessity and possibility, through whom divine effusion reaches and sustains the world, and without whom the world would cease.

    “The true Perfect Man is the isthmus between Necessity and possibility”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ (Faṣṣ Ādam) → Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, al-Fukūk

    William C. Chittick, p. 39 summary by AI

  • Weismann says ʿAbd al-Qādir worked out the divine and worldly sides of the Perfect Man's perfection chiefly in his commentary on the Adam chapter of the Fuṣūṣ, where Adam is the prototype of all humans.

    “These are explored by ‘Abd al-Qadir mainly in his elucidation of the first chapter of Ibn ‘Arabi’s Fusus al-Hikam”

    Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Faṣṣ Ādam) → ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazāʾirī

    Itzchak Weismann, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

Parallels (no influence claimed) (3)

  • Al-Ḥakīm places beside Ibn ʿArabī's comprehensive Adam al-Ghazālī's remark that God gave Adam an abridged form containing every kind of thing in the world, making him a condensed copy of the cosmos.

    «كما يشير الغزالي الى كون آدم الجامع»

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 1 · al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-anwār → Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam

    Suʿād al-Ḥakīm, p. 58 summary by AI

  • Sells likens the claim that the affair returns to God as it began from Him to the classical Neoplatonic paradox of procession and return, in which procession requires the prior return.

    On 3

    Michael A. Sells, p. 141 summary by AI

  • Gril explains Ibn al-ʿArabī's reading of God's two hands in Q 38:75 as standing for the world of composition. Within that world, Adam relates to human bodies as intellect relates to the rest of manifestation. The page does not cite the Fuṣūṣ itself.

    On 16 · Ibn al-ʿArabī, Futūḥāt (answer to Tirmidhī on Q 38:75) → Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Ādam

    Denis Gril, web text (no page numbers) summary by AI

Works cited (11)

Updated 2026-09-28. Works in copyright are summarised only; their full text is not published.