by Robert Irwin
He had observed in the past that the parts of animals’ dead bodies were solid, having no hollows except those of the head, chest and abdomen. He felt certain that the vital organ he was looking for must occupy one of these three cavities, and it seemed to him most likely by far that it be in the central of the three. Surely it had to be centrally located, since all the other organs were equally dependent on it. Besides, in his own case, he could feel what must be such an organ in his breast. He could restrict the action of his other organs – hands, feet, eyes, nose, and ears; he could lose these parts and conceivably get along without them. Conceivably he could get along without his head. But when he thought of whatever it was he could feel in his breast he could not conceive of living for an instant without it. For this reason, in fact, when fighting with animals, he had always been especially careful to protect his breast from their horns – because he could feel that there was something there.
Certain that the organ where the hurt had settled must be in her breast, he decided to search for and examine it. Perhaps he would be able to get hold of the hurt and remove it. Still he was afraid this very operation might be worse than the original damage. His efforts might do more harm than good. He tried to think whether he had ever seen any animal recover from such a state; and, unable to do so, he lost hope of her getting better unless he did something. But there remained some hope of her recovery if he could find the critical organ and take away the hurt. So he decided to cut open her breast and find out what was inside.
He took chips of stone and dry splinters of wood, sharp as knives, and split her open between the ribs. Cutting through the flesh, he reached the diaphragm. When he saw how tough it was he was certain that this covering must belong to some such organ as he was searching for. If he looked beneath he was sure to find it. Hayy tried to cut through it, but this was difficult, since he had no tools but only stones and sticks.
He made fresh instruments and sharpened them. Then, cutting very carefully, he pierced the diaphragm and reached a lung. He supposed at first that this was what he was looking for and turned it round and round to see where it was impaired. What he found at first was only one lung, and when he saw that it was to one side (while the organ he was looking for, he was convinced, must be centered in the body’s girth as well as in its length) he went on exploring the mid-chest cavity until he found the heart, wrapped in an extremely tough envelope and bound by the strongest ligaments, cushioned in the lung on the side where he had entered. He said to himself, ‘If this organ has the same structures on the other side as it does here, then it really is directly in the center and it must be the organ I’m looking for – especially since its position is so good, and it is so beautifully formed, so sturdy and compact, and better protected than any other organ I have seen.’
He probed on the other side and there too found the diaphragm and the other lung, just as before. Now he was sure this was the central organ he wanted. He tried to split or cut its protective pericardial cover; and finally with a tremendous effort he was able to lay the heart bare.
On all sides it seemed firm and sound. He looked for any visible damage and found none. Squeezing it in his hand, he discovered it was hollow and thought, perhaps what I actually want is inside this organ and I have not yet reached it. He cut open the heart and inside found two chambers, a left and a right. The right ventricle was clogged with a thick clot of blood, but the left was empty and clear.
‘What I’m looking for,’ he said to himself, ‘must live in one of these two chambers. In this one on the right I see nothing but clotted blood – which cannot have congealed until the whole body got the way it is –’ for he had observed how blood thickens and clots when it flows out of the body, and this was simply ordinary blood, ‘I see that blood is found in all the organs, not confined to one as opposed to others. But what I’ve been looking for all along is something uniquely related to this special position and something I know I could not live without for the batting of an eye. Blood I have often lost in quantity fighting with the animals, but it never hurt me; I never lost any of my faculties. What I’m looking for is not in this chamber. But the left one has nothing in it; I can see that it is empty. I cannot believe it serves no purpose, since 1 have seen that every organ exists to carry out some specific function. How could this chamber, with its commanding position, have none? I can only believe that what I was searching for was here but left, leaving the chamber empty and the body without sensation or motion, completely unable to function.’
Realizing that whatever had lived in that chamber had left while its house was intact, before it had been ruined, Hayy saw that it was hardly likely to return after all the cutting and destruction. The body now seemed something low and worthless compared to the being he was convinced had lived in it for a time and then departed.
Goodman (trans.), Ibn Tufayl’s ‘Hayy ibn Yaqzan pp. 109–14
COMMENTARY
Having cut open the heart and searched in vain for the source of life, Hayy is about to leave the doe’s body to rot, when he sees a raven burying another raven. Thus inspired, Hayy gives his foster-mother a decent burial before resuming his investigations into the nature of existence. He discovers fire, experiments with vivisection, dresses himself in animal skins, and so on.
Sufi themes infuse the text of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan. From at least the eleventh century onwards, Sufis made a major contribution to Arabic literature. The writings of al-Hallaj have already been discussed in previous chapters and those of al-Ghazzali and Ibn al-Farid’s poetry will be discussed in Chapter 7. Muhyi al-Din Abu Bakr Muhammad IBN AL-’ARABI (1165-1240) was perhaps the most influential as well as one of the most prolific of Sufi writers. His honorific name, Muhyi al-Din, means ‘Reviver of the Religion’. Ibn al-’Arabi was born in Murcia in southern Spain where his father had been in the service of the ruler, but after the place was conquered by the Almohads, the family moved to Seville. Ibn al-’ Arabi was educated in Seville, but subsequently he extended his education by travelling from teacher to teacher (for this was the age of the wandering scholar). At first he pursued his peripatetic studies in Spain and the Maghreb, but in 1201 he went on the hajj to Mecca. There he met and fell in love with a young girl from a family of Persian Sufis – or so he claimed, but one should bear in mind that falling in love with a woman seen on the hajj had long been a stock theme in Arabic prose and poetry. Although Ibn al-’Arabi’s love for this girl was never consummated, it was to inspire him for the rest of life, in much the same way that the vision of Beatrice was to inspire Dante. After a sojourn in Mecca, Ibn al-‘Arabi travelled more widely in the Middle East, encountering many other famous Sufis. At some point in his travels he received a special initiation by al-Khidr, ‘the Green Man’, a supernatural figure who served God as the guardian of the Spring of Eternal Life. In 1223 he settled in Damascus and devoted his time to prayer, meditation and writing until his death in that city. His tomb there remains an important centre of pilgrimage.
In his writings Ibn al-‘Arabi set out the elements of an immensely complex spiritual psychology and cosmology. He described visions he had been granted of such marvels as the invisible hierarchy which governed the universe, and of the Divine Throne resting on a pillar of light. The perception of the transcendent unity of Being was central to his thinking. This doctrine brought him perilously close to what was, in Muslim terms, the heresy of pantheism and his enemies did indeed accuse him of this. However, Ibn al-’Arabi was careful to support his position with quotations from the Qur’an and the haditbs. Indeed, he actually claimed to be a Zahirite – that is, a strict literalist of the same stamp as Ibn Hazm. Al-lnsan al-Kamil, ‘the Universal Man’, a macrocosmic figure who was simultaneously the guide and model of the universe, played a key role in Ibn al-’Arabi’s thinking, as did the concept of al-Alam al-Mithal, the world of similitudes or images. In Ibn al-’Arabi’s cosmology, man sought to return to his origin by achieving union with the Divine. Despite their superficial differences,
he held that all religions were fundamentally one, as these lines from the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq indicate:
My heart is capable of every form:
Pasture for deer, a monastery for monks,
Temple for idols, pilgrim’s Ka’bah,
Tables of Torah and book of Qur’an.
My religion is love’s religion: where turn
Her camels, that religion my religion is, my faith.
Martin Lings (trans.), in Ashtiany et al.(eds.), The Cambridge
History of Arabic Literature: “Abbasid Belles-Lettres, p. 252
Ibn al-’Arabi was a prolific author who wrote on many subjects (though it is certain that much of what has been ascribed to him – over 900 titles – is not by him). Divine forces drove him to write. As he put it, ‘influxes from God have entered upon me and nearly burned me alive. In order to find relief … I have composed works, without any intention on my own part. Many other books I have composed because of a divine command given during a dream or unveiling.’ (Ibn al-’Arabi’s way of creating literature does not seem so very far removed from the automatic writing espoused by the Surrealists in the 1920s.)
Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah, ‘The Meccan Revelations’, is his most substantial work on metaphysics and mysticism. It is an esoteric encyclopedia in which the hidden meaning of everything is expounded. Special stress is placed on the power of Divine Names. In a chapter entitled ‘The Alchemy of Happiness’ Ibn al-’ Arabi describes a journey into Hell and then an ascent through the heavens. Although Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah is essentially a prose work, it nevertheless contains hundreds of poems. Fusus al-Hikam, ‘Bezels of Wisdom’, is a mystical treatise which Ibn al-’ Arabi first saw in a dream in the hand of the Prophet. Each chapter is a ‘bezel’, or jewel of sacred wisdom. In Shajarat al-Qawm, or ‘Tree of Existence’, Ibn al-’ Arabi described the Prophet’s night journey through the seven heavens, and his encounters with tutelary prophets of these heavens. To Ibn al-’ Arabi, the Prophet’s night journey is an allegory of the journey of the mystic’s heart.
Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, ‘The Interpreter of Desires’, is Ibn al-’ Arabi’s poetic masterpiece. It is a small collection of sixty-one qasidas, addressed to that young daughter of a Persian Sufi friend, whom Ibn al-’Arabi had encountered in Mecca. The girl is called by various names in the poems (presumably to meet the exigencies of rhyme and metre). ‘Virtuous, learned, devout and modest, she was a feast for the eyes and bound in chains all who beheld her. Were it not that pusillanimous minds are ever prone to think of evil, I would dwell at greater length upon the qualities with which God has endowed both her body and her soul which was a garden of generous feeling.’ Although Ibn al-’Arabi formally dedicated these love poems to her, as far as he was concerned there was no sensual content in them. They were allegories; the girl’s beauty was an exteriorization of divine beauty and the poet’s fervent devotion was actually directed to God. ‘If, to express these lofty thoughts, I used the language of love, it was because the minds of men are prone to dally with such amorous fancies and would thus be more readily attracted to the subject of my songs.’
Ibn al-Arabi was the first mystic to turn the traditional imagery of the qasida, with its deserted campsite, lament for lost love and so on, to mystical purposes. In doing so, he borrowed lines and themes from earlier secular poets. (This process of creative stealing, or allusion, was accepted in the Arab literary world and known as muarada.) The mystical purport of the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq was not obvious to everyone and some of the “ulama accused him of having produced a collection of poems dedicated to profane love. Stung by this, Ibn al-’Arabi produced a commentary entitled The Treasury of Lovers’. In this he expounded his obscure allegories: the young girl signified the perfect soul, the flash of lightning signified a centre of manifestation of the divine essence, the camels were spiritual transports, and so forth. The poet’s journey by camel through the wasteland ended in annihilation in the Divine.
Endurance went, and patience went, when they went.
Gone, even they, tenants of mine inmost heart!
I asked where the riders rest at noon, was answered:
“They rest where the shih and ban tree spread their fragrance.’
So said I to the wind: ‘Go and o’ertake them,
For they, even now, in the shade of the grove are biding,
And give them greetings of peace from a sorrowful man,
Whose heart sorroweth at severance from his folk.’
Martin Lings (trans.), in Ashtiany et al.(eds.), The Cambridge
History of Arabic Literature: “Abbasid Belles-Lettres, p. 252
Besides the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, Ibn al-’Arabi also produced a Diwan, a large collection of mystical poetry, including over 900 poems. Quite a few are drearily didactic efforts, in which verse and metre are firmly in the service of education. These poems are devoted to such matters as the chapters of the Qur’an, the Names of God and the letters of the alphabet. There is a lot of esoteric word-play. In other, more interesting poems, Ibn al-’ Arabi sought to render in words the ineffable experience of ecstasy; but as T. S. Eliot put it, ‘Words strain, / Crack and sometimes break under the burden’. In other poems again, Ibn al-’Arabi reveals a certain amount about his own life and there are verses on such topics as troublesome disciples, burying a young daughter, and the pains of old age. In some poems he made use of the muwashshah, and indeed he did a great deal to make this verse form respectable.
Although Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Musa ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (121386) was a poet in his own right, he is best known for an anthology of Spanish Arabic poetry which he produced in Cairo in 1243, after having left his native Granada. The Kitab Rayyat al-Mubarrizin, The Book of the Banners of the Champions’, is a collection of extracts, mostly from qasidas.(The lines from Ibn Khafaja quoted on page 289 were extracted in Ibn Sa'id's anthology.) Ibn Sa'id included specimens of his own verse in the collection. His aim in compiling the collection seems to have been to show that poetry produced in the West was as good as anything the East had to offer (and that stuff by Ibn Sa'id and his family was especially good).
1
Pass round your cups for there’s a wedding feast on the horizon – although it would be enough for us just to feast our eyes on your beauty.
The lightning is a henna-dyed hand, the rain, pearls, and, like a bride, the horizon is led forth to her husband – and the eyes of the dawn are lined with kohl.
2
If you had only been with us at the wedding-like battle, when red saffron blood was the perfume of heroes.
The sun was a flower, the evening, crescent moons, the arrows were rain, and the swords were lightning flashes.
3
How fine were the warriors whose banners hovered overhead like birds around your enemies!
And lances punctuated what their swords had written, the dust of combat dried it, and the blood was its perfume.
Bellamy and Steiner, Ibn Said al-Magbribi’s ‘The
Banners of the Champions’, pp. 7, 152, 153
After the Almohads suffered a massive defeat at the hands of an alliance of the Christian kings of Spain at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, their power in Spain and North Africa declined very rapidly. The Almohads withdrew from Spain and Cordova was lost to the Christians in 1236; Seville followed in 1248. Eventually Muslim power was confined to the southernmost part of the Iberian peninsula. From 1232 until the expulsion of the last of its rulers in 1492 the Nasirid dynasty ruled this region from their capital in Granada. Their palace-citadel in Granada, which was in practice a series of interlinked palaces, came to be known as the Alhambra, ‘the Red’. The Nasirid kingdom was vulnerable to Christian attacks and for much of their history the Nasirids paid tribute to their neighbours in the north. Nevertheless, the Nasirids presided over a splendid literary and intellectual culture.
Although Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunisia, he was of Andalusian stock and he was briefly to serve the Nasirids of Granada as a diplomat. ‘Abd
al-Rahman ibn Muhammad IBN KHALDUN (1332-1408) is one of the towering geniuses in the history of Arab thought (indeed his writings remain influential today, not just in Arab countries, but throughout the world). Ibn Khaldun spent most of his life in the service of various rulers in Spain, North Africa and Egypt. His political career was chequered and it was during a period of political disgrace and temporary retirement in a North African castle in the years 1375—9 that he wrote the greater part of his masterpiece, the Muqaddima (‘The Prolegomena’). The Muqaddima was designed as a lengthy historico-philosophical introduction to an even longer but more conventional historical chronicle, the Kitab al-Tbar, ‘The Book of Examples’. From 1382 onwards Ibn Khaldun sought to pursue an academic career in Cairo, then the capital of the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria. When Timur invaded Mamluk Syria and briefly occupied Damascus in 1400, Ibn Khaldun went to meet him and was welcomed by the great Turco-Mongol warlord as one of the world’s most renowned scholars. Ibn Khaldun wrote up his debates with Timur in a brief history-cum-autobiography, the Ta’rif. Ibn Khaldun died in Cairo.
He initially intended his big history-book, the Kitab al-lbar, to be an account of the Maghreb and al-Andalus only. Although he subseq uently expanded its coverage to the rest of world, Ibn Khaldun’s treatment of the histories of China, India and Christian Europe is perfunctory and ill-informed. As the title, ‘The Book of Examples’, suggests, he designed it as a historical narrative from which one should take lessons. The past contains lessons for the present and the future, for – as he put it – ‘the past resembles the future more than one drop of water does another’.