Across the medieval Mediterranean, scholars contemplated the
heavens through astronomy, philosophy, theology, and an intricate inheritance
of ancient symbolism. Within Islamic intellectual life, such inquiries could
illuminate the relationship between God, the visible universe, and the human
search for meaning. Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165 to 1240), born in Murcia in
Muslim Spain, transformed this inherited intellectual landscape through a
remarkably original vision of existence. After travelling through North Africa,
he reached Mecca in 1202, and by 1223 he had settled in Damascus, where he
completed his major writings. His vast "Al Futuhat al Makkiyya"
("The Meccan Openings") took shape from the early thirteenth century
until its final revision in 1238. In another influential work, "Fusus al
Hikam" ("The Bezels of Wisdom"), he explored the wisdom
associated with different prophets within an overarching account of revelation.
His spiritual tradition is commonly called Sufism, the inward pursuit of
knowledge of God through discipline, contemplation, and experience. For him,
existence is perpetually dependent upon God, whose manifestations disclose
different qualities without exhausting the inexhaustible source from which they
proceed. The divine names, called al asma al husna or the most beautiful names,
include scriptural designations of God such as the Merciful, the Knowing, and
the Living. Each name reveals an aspect of how the world can be understood,
although God in the fullness of the divine essence surpasses every such
description. In this perspective, the cosmos reflects a plurality of attributes
while remaining radically dependent on a single creator. The heavens therefore
possess meanings that exceed their usefulness for calculating dates or
describing planetary motion. The twelve zodiacal signs belong to the inherited
astronomical framework of the period, in which the apparent course of the sun
was divided into twelve sections. Ibn Arabi employed these divisions in a
language of correspondences linking the visible heavens to orders of spiritual
reality. In passages of "Al Futuhat al Makkiyya", he describes rulers
associated with the twelve zodiacal signs and periods of their governance
within an ordered universe. Such rulers are subordinate to God, never
independent deities, and the imagery must be read within his broader
theological framework. He also works with the twenty eight lunar mansions,
conventional stations along the apparent course of the moon, which had long
been used by astronomers and astrologers. Their number is set beside the twenty
eight letters of the Arabic alphabet, allowing speech and celestial motion to
become parallel ways of thinking about manifestation. These correspondences are
developed notably in chapter 198 of "Al Futuhat al Makkiyya", where
lunar stations, letters, levels of existence, and divine names appear together.
An especially striking image is the Breath of the All Merciful, a symbolic
account of how multiplicity emerges from an undivided source, as distinct
sounds arise through a single human breath. The Arabic expression nafas al
Rahman means Breath of the Merciful, and it provides a metaphor for the appearance
of distinct realities without suggesting that God breathes in a bodily manner.
The analogy also gives language a fundamental philosophical role, because
letters become symbols of the structure of being rather than merely marks upon
a page. Numbers such as seven, twelve, and twenty eight thus recur in his
account, although they refer to different patterns and should never be reduced
to one rigid formula. The seven days of the week are associated with
fundamental attributes such as life, knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight,
and speech. Day, week, month, and year become interconnected measures through
which created things undergo successive transformations. Ibn Arabi also
distinguishes between ordinary chronological measurement and the deeper
dependence of every moment upon divine activity. This is closely related to the
doctrine often described as the renewal of creation, according to which the
world depends on the creative action of God at every instant. In a remarkable
passage, he mentions a cycle of 78,000 years between the hidden prophetic
reality of Prophet Muhammad (circa 570 to 632) and his bodily appearance in
history. Other Islamic esoteric writings also describe a 78,000 year cycle
distributed among the twelve signs, but numerical resemblance alone cannot
establish direct borrowing or an identical system. The modern idea of
successive precessional ages of approximately 2,160 years each should therefore
be distinguished from these medieval schemes of sacred chronology. Later
interpreters, notably Titus Burckhardt (1908 to 1984) in "Mystical
Astrology According to Ibn Arabi", organized such correspondences into a
particularly accessible symbolic picture. Burckhardt illuminated important
elements of the original texts, yet his synthesis remains a modern
interpretation and cannot be substituted for the words of Ibn Arabi himself.
What endures is an extraordinary philosophical vision in which celestial order,
language, revelation, and human consciousness all disclose the dependence of
the world upon God.
Roberto Minichini
