Proceedings

Expressing God in Ibn Arabi

Authors

  • Haci Mustafa Mutlu
    Erciyes University
Humans are beings who can and want to talk about God. Exis-tence and cognition gain meaning through language and the meanings that arise from language. Imagining God beyond these meanings is impos-sible. Philosophers and theologians have emphasized that God should be perceived only as a supreme being using a language based on abnegation. However, pure tenzih [aacquittal] is an agnostic/unknowable attitude hid-den within itself. Meanwhile, some movements (e.g., the Mujassimah, the Mushabbihah) perceive God through similarity using a language based on similitude. However, a similitude-based approach contains an anthropo-morphic attitude in its essence. Using one aspect of this dual-based appro-ach (i.e., perceiving God only as similar to the existence or only as exclusi-ve of existence) leads one to a dead end. For this reason, the possibility of expressing God deepens in the context of the intersection of opposites. For example, philosophers and theologians overlook the affective and cognitive dimensions of human beings by confining discussions of God to a single di-mension (e.g.,tanzih-tashbih [transcendent-anthropomorphic], zahir-bate-en [external/manifest-inner.hidden]). Mere sanctification based on cognitive grounds and similitude based on affective grounds limits God. Treating the-se two contexts as universal, Ibn ‘Arabī breathed new life into the linguistic expression of God. With the paradoxical language he used, Shaykh Akbar emphasized both the need to fulfill human beings’ need to establish a sacri-fice and the fact that God is a higher being than what is perceived with the affective dimension. The elements that bring these two together are God’s absoluteness and human nature. By addressing these two aspects with a representational language, language is given a wider field of action. As a result, Ibn ‘Arabī offered new horizons by showing that the possibilities and limitations of language and moving about in the wide field of language can be overcome with representational language.

Expressing God in Ibn Arabi

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Publication Information

Bela, B. (Ed.). (2025). Expressing God in Ibn Arabi. In 2nd Balkan Studies Congress Proceedings: Vol. Proceedings 03 (pp. 143-158). Idefe Publications. https://doi.org/10.5331/