If you read the pdf in post #57, (3) The third ideology is that of wahdatul-wujood, i.e. that all in existence is a single reality, and that everything we see is only aspects of the Essence of Allaah. The chief claimant of this belief was Ibn 'Arabee al-Haatimee at-Taa'ee, who was buried in Damascus having died in the year 638H. He himself says about this belief in his book al-Fatoohaat-ul-Makkiyyah”
“The slave is the Lord and the Lord is a slave, [38 :: 26]
As-Salāmu ‘alaykum.
You write:
‘The third ideology is that of wahdatul-wujood, i.e. that all in existence is a single reality, and that everything we see is only aspects of the Essence of Allaah. The chief claimant of this belief was Ibn 'Arabee al-Haatimee at-Taa'ee, who was buried in Damascus having died in the year 638H. He himself says about this belief in his book al-Fatoohaat-ul-Makkiyyah”.
‘Ibn ‘Arabî has typically been called the founder of the doctrine of ‘wahdat al-wujûd’, the Oneness of Being or the Unity of Existence, but this is misleading, for he never uses the expression. Passages in his writings that approximate it have no special significance, nor are they out of place in the general trend of contemporary philosophy and theology, both of which affirmed the unity of the Necessary Being. Why ‘wahdat al-wujûd’ was singled out to typify Ibn ‘Arabî's position is not clear. Part of the reason is that he highlights ‘tawhîd’ as his guiding principle and gives ‘wujûd’ a special prominence in his vocabulary. It was utterly obvious to him that there is no Real Being but God and that everything other than God is unreal being; this is another way of saying what Avicenna says, that all things are possible or contingent save the Necessary Being. In short, Ibn ‘Arabî, and even more so his followers like Qûnawî, focused on the Real ‘Wujûd’ as the one, unique reality from which all other reality derives. On the rare occasions when his immediate followers used the expression ‘wahdat al-wujûd’, they did not give it a technical sense. The first author to say that Ibn ‘Arabî believed in ‘wahdat al-wujûd’ seems to have been the Hanbalite polemicist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who called it worse than unbelief. According to him, it means that no distinction can be drawn between God and the world. His attack set in motion a long controversy over the term, often with little or no attempt to define it. At least seven different meanings were ascribed to it in the later literature, and Orientalists followed suit, declaring that Ibn ‘Arabî invented the doctrine, and then interpreting it negatively (à la Ibn Taymiyya) or, less commonly, positively (à la ‘Abd al-Rahmân Jâmî [d. 1492], the first of Ibn ‘Arabî's defenders to embrace the expression). (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy; quoting Chittick; 1994b).
As you can see, the term ‘waḥdat al-wujūd’ is a misunderstood – and frequently misquoted – concept.
Taken literally, the term means ‘unity of existence’; but this is far from saying that Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla) and His creation are one and the same essence; or that, somehow, He exists inside everything as an integral part of their own existence; while they are an integral part of His. The term is not to be confused with any notion of incarnation (as you suggest); such as exists in Christian Trinitarian doctrines, or in the beliefs of the Hindus. Such notions are kufr.
In a famous ‘proof’ for the existence of God, the Dominican theologian (St) Thomas Aquinas argues that the universe is composed of contingent beings; by which he means beings that cannot bring themselves – or anything else – into existence; and that cannot guarantee their continued existence. Aquinas argues that if contingent beings are the only ones that have ever existed, then nothing could have come into existence at all. There has to be a 'Necessary Being'; one that does not depend on any other for its existence, and which is the ‘First Cause' of all other beings. This 'Necessary Being'......this ‘First Cause' we call God.
IbnʿArabī employs the term: ‘wujūd’ when referring to this ‘Necessary Being’. He declares that wujūd belongs to Allah (Sallallahu a’laihi wa sallam) alone. He writes that: ‘Wujūd is the unknowable and inaccessible ground of everything that exists. God alone is true wujūd, while all things dwell in nonexistence, so also wujūd alone is nondelimited (muṭlaq), while everything else is constrained, confined, and constricted. Wujūd is the absolute, infinite, nondelimited reality of God, while all others remain relative, finite, and delimited.’ (‘The Seals of Wisdom’).
This is what IbnʿArabī has to say concerning the Exalted’s unique essence (my emphasis in every case):
‘Praise belongs to Allāh the Great; His Majesty is part of the manifestation of His Beauty. In His proximity He is the Near, in His loftiness, the Observer. Power, splendour, grandeur, and magnificence are His WHOSE ESSENCE IS GREAT BEYOND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO OTHER ESSENCES.
‘His essence is exalted above all motions and stillnesses, all bewilderment and mindfulness. It is too high to be overtaken by any explanation, express or implied, just as it is too great to be limited and described. It is beyond any physical descent or ascent, any tangible enthronement upon any throne, any haste to seek an object, and – when an object is gained – any satisfaction at reuniting with something that had been missed.
‘Just so, it is too great to be described in detail or in summary, to be the basis for creeds, to alter with the differences among creeds, to find pleasure or pain in action, or to be qualified with anything but eternity.
‘It is too great to draw together or be divided; FOR ANYTHING THAT REFERS TO BODIES TO REFER TO IT; for understanding to encompass the core of its reality; to be as imagination would describe it; to be as wakefulness or dream would seek to perceive it.
‘It is too great for times and places to hold it, for the permanence of its being to be measured with the passing of months and years, for above and below, right and left, behind and before.
‘It is too great for denial or confusion to hinder its majesty. It is too great to be comprehended by intellectual reflection, by the spiritual practices of masters of illumination, by the Knowers' secrets, by the majestic range of leaders' vision – for it is too great to be confined behind veils and curtains, and so cannot be comprehended by anything but its own light.
‘It is too great either to EXIST IN THE SHAPE OF A HUMAN BEING OR TO LOSE ANYTHING BY THE EXISTENCE OF PARTICULAR ESSENCES; EITHER TO ACCEPT AN ALIEN CONDITION BELONGING TO THE ENTITIES IT HAS CREATED, or to be defined by negative conditions (though it is confirmed by faith); either to be the place of manifestations, or to be known as past, present or future time.
‘It is too great for the senses to rest upon, for doubt and confusion to affect, for likeness and analogy to comprehend, FOR MATERIAL CLASSIFICATION, or for the intimacy of the man of knowledge.
‘It is too great to be the third of three in company. It is great beyond spouse and parents, BEYOND THERE BEING ‘A SINGLE THING LIKE UNTO IT’ (Ikhlas), beyond anything preceding its existence, beyond being attributed limbs, hands, fingers, feet, beyond anything else being with it in eternity.
‘It is great beyond the laughter and joy promised for the repentance of servants, beyond wrath, beyond habitual wonder, beyond alteration of state as it exists among humankind.
‘So glory be to Him, Mighty in His magnificence, Grand in His splendour. "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing." – Shûrâ 11.’ (‘Kitâb Al-Jalâl Wa-l Jamâl).
According to you (quoting Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din bin Abdil-Qadir Al-Hilali), IbnʿArabī said: ‘The slave is the Lord and the Lord is a slave’.
This is incorrect. The opponents of IbnʿArabī accuse him (frequently) of stating that: ‘The Lord is a servant and the servant is lord.’
This is a deliberate distortion of what he actually wrote; namely: ‘The Lord is Real and the servant is real’ (The Meccan Revelations: Volume One; Part Two - The Reality of Existence).
Later in this same chapter IbnʿArabī writes of Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla):
‘He is, the Exalted, The Granter (al-Wāhib) Who does not weary (of giving out), the King (al-Malik), Whose Power is great and Immaculate (in the earth and in the heavens), the Kind (al-latif) to His servants and the Expert (al-Khabir) Who is ‘nothing like Him, and He is the Hearer and the Seer’ - Surah 42: 11.’
Tell me…who does IbnʿArabī portray as the servant here: Allāh (Subḥānahu ūta'āla) or humankind? Only a fool (or a liar) would declare it to be the former.
Very best regards.
saws1