William C. Chittick 
The Self-Disclosure of God [PDF ebook] 
Principles of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Cosmology

The Self-Disclosure of God offers the most detailed presentation to date in any Western language of the basic teachings of Islam’s greatest mystical philosopher and theologian. It represents a major step forward in making available to the Western reading public the enormous riches of Islamic teachings in the fields of cosmology, mystical philosophy, theology, and spirituality.




The Self-Disclosure of God continues the author’s investigations of the world view of Ibn al-ʿArabī, the greatest theoretician of Sufism and the 'seal of the Muhammadan saints.’ The book is divided into three parts, dealing with the relation between God and the cosmos, the structure of the cosmos, and the nature of the human soul. A long introduction orients the reader and discusses a few of the difficulties faced by Ibn al-ʿArabī’s interpreters. Like Chittick’s earlier work, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, this book is based primarily on Ibn al-ʿArabī’s monumental work,
al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah 'The Meccan Openings.’ More than one hundred complete chapters and subsections are translated, not to mention shorter passages that help put the longer discussions in context. There are detailed indices of sources, Koranic verses and hadiths. The book’s index of technical terminology will be an indispensable reference for all those wishing to delve more deeply into the use of language in Islamic thought in general and Sufism in particular.

Spis treści

Introduction



Knowledge of the Cosmos



Ibn Basic Themes



The Principles of£ Ibn Cosmology



The Breath of the All-Merciful



Cosmic Language



The Translator’s Dilemmas



A Note on Format




I. God and the Cosmos



1. Wujud and the Entities



Signs, Marks, and Proofs



Selves and Horizons



Wujud



From Chapter 73: The One Hundred and Third Question



Causality



God’s Knowledge



Chapter 475: God’s Waymarks



Chapter 411: The Precedent Book



God’s Form



The Nonexistent Entities



From Chapter 463: The Third Pole



Chapter 493: New Arrival



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of Lights



The Entities and the Names



Chapter 406: Nothing Has Become Manifest



Chapter 451: The Stairs



Thingness of Fixity



2. Perpetual Self-Disclosure



Creation



From Chapter 73: The Thirtieth Question



From Chapter 558: The Presence of the Creation and the Command



Self-Disclosure



Unending Renewal



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Bringing Back



Infinity



From Chapter 198: The All-Merciful Breath



Chapter 524: God’s Infinite Words



The One Entity



From Chapter 360: The Ninth Deputyship



From Chapter 198: The Twenty-First Tawhid



Bewilderment in the Many and the One



Chapter 507: Shame



Chapter 542: Blindness



Chapter 391: The Quick-Flowing Course



Chapter 430: Bewilderment in Arrival



From Chapter 369: Annihilation and Subsistence



Chapter 473: Your God Is One God



From Chapter 72: Trotting around the Kaabah



3. The Face of God



The Face



Perishment



Chapter 165: Realization



From Chapter 73: The Ninety-Seventh Question



Discerning the Face



From Chapter 351: Yielding



Chapter 527: Desiring the Face



The Veil



Chapter 254: The Curtain



Revelation



Chapter 384: Mutual Waystations



4. Veils of Light



The Veil of Self



Occasions



From Chapter 198: The Twenty-Fifth Tawhid 127/From Chapter 198: The Third-Second Tawhid



The Identity of the Veil and the Face



From Chapter 370: The Path of Exaltation



Chapter 514: Trust in God



The Specific Face



From Chapter 198: Depending on What Falls Short



Witnessing the Specific Face



From Chapter 379: The Servant of the Praiseworthy



Chapter 265: The Arriver



Chapter 396: The Veils of Knowledge



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of Teaching



Glories



Chapter 458: The Facial Glories



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Light



Chapter 100: The Station of Fear



Chapter 101: The Station of Abandoning Fear




II. The Order of the Worlds



5. The Roots of Order



The Unity of Manyness



Unity and Totality



The Even and the Odd



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Bringing Together



Ranking in Excellence



God’s Choices



From Chapter 73: The Fifty-First Question



From Chapter 72: Eating the Forbidden



From Chapter 198: The Twenty-Third Tawhid



Order



From Chapter 360: The Sixth Deputyship



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of the Servant’s Posteriority



6. Divine and Cosmic Relations



The First and the Last



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Firstness



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Lastness



The Manifest and the Nonmanifest



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Manifestation



From Chapter 558: The Presence of Nonmanifestation



Chapter 256: The Shining of the Full Moon



Witnessing the Nonmanifest



Chapter 472: Following the Most Beautiful



Chapter 400: Manifest Mercy



Chapter 394: Arrival through Courtesy



The Center and the Circumference



Chapter 410: The Circle of Mercy



Circles of Wujud



The Two Arcs



Chapter 427: Two Bows’ Length



Modalities of Wujud



7. The Worlds of the Cosmos



Absent and Witnessed



Chapter 492: Knowledge of the Absent



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of Nature



Command and Creation



Heaven and Earth



From Chapter 73: The Forty-Third Question



From Chapter 558: The Presence of the Food-Giver



Two and Three Worlds



From Chapter 69: On the Mysteries of the Night Salat




III. The Structure of the Mocrocosm



8. Spirits and Bodies



Self and Soul



Chapter 267: The Soul



The Divine Spirit



Governance



Chapter 447: Essential Governance



The Spirit from the Command



Chapter 268: The Casting of Knowledge



Bodies



Corporeous Bodies



The Rationally Speaking Soul



Chapter 216: The Subtlety



From Chapter 373: The Wisdom of the Inheritors



Chapter 397: The Soul’s Ascent



9. The Natural Constitution



Spirit and Nature



Chapter 225: Increases



The Light of Guidance



From Chapter 71: Fasting on Sunday



Chapter 418: Understanding



From Chapter 73: The Twelfth Question



Chapter 52: Weakness



Constitution



From Chapter 558: The Presence of All-Embracingness



10. The Imaginal Barzakh



Imagination



Appetite



Imagination and Understanding



Bodies Forever



From Chapter 360: The Tenth Deputyship



The Trumpet



Chapter 302: The Spirit’s Subsistence



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of the Final Issue



From Chapter 369: The Storehouse of Humanity



From Chapter 198: The Real Situation



Appendix I: Ibn Views on Certain Sufis



Appendix II: Translation of Technical Terms



Notes



Bibliography



Index of Sources



Index of Koranic Verses



Index of Hadiths and Sayings



Index of Proper Names



Index of Arabic Words



Index of Terms

O autorze

William C. Chittick is Professor of Comparative Studies at State University of New York, Stony Brook. He has published numerous books, among them, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity; Faith and Practice of Islam: Three Thirteenth-Century Sufi Texts; The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination; The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi; and A Shi’ite Anthology, all published by SUNY Press.