Ibn Arabi’s Theory of Cognition

Abstract

The text entitled as above analyses essential distinctions of Ibn ‘Arabi’s epistemology with a particular emphasis on its mystic consideration. The essence of his epistemology was put fonvard in accordance with the rules of metaphysical preference for the sources of cognition and cognitive process that a spiritual traveller has to go through on his way towards the Truth. Ibn ‘Arabi bases his theory of cognition first of all on those sources of cognition that elude the epistemological field at a historical level, but he does not neglect the latest sources of cognition either, from whose perspective derived is that ascending-cognitive evolution of human genius that tries to observe the whole Truth in the perspective of the historical level too. This means that Ibn‘Arabi, when perceiving the Truth, exposes himself equally to metacosmic Grace and cosmohistorical Wisdom.

After defining the essential sources of Ibn ‘ Arabi’s epistemology, the author classified the basic patterns of cognition that the spiritual traveller (Sâlik) reaches in an ascending-cognitive order, starting from the knowledge taken from the world (al- ‘Ilm), via theosophical wisdom which is specifıcally Sophia divina or Sophia perennis (al-Hikma al-Lâduniyyâ), fmding peace in the pure wisdom of the Divine Spirit, which is (the wisdom) fundamental glory, living gnosis of the Divine Essence (al-Ma ‘rifa). With each new spiritual phase, the spiritual traveller (Sâlik) acquires a new profile of his spiritual feature that is identical to the intemal nature of the acquired cognitive form.

Then follows the presentation of the spiritual pattern which reflects the internal physiognomy of that path, the ascending-spiral cognitive path that Salik is to walk in the existential span of his own spirit from Sâlik to ‘Arif. In the institution of the Messenger’s Mi‘râğ - the night of ascent of the Messenger of Islam (a.s.) up the vertical of the Divine Spirit, to which a philosopher of Andalusia adds one eminently philosophic dimension, ‘Arabi recognized a spiritual traveller or companion in the figure of a philosopher. Ibn ‘ Arabi’s Epistemologia spiritualis, as both a sapiential and an existential act in one, appeases its epistemological and existential power in the transparent light of eternal principles of the Divine Super-Being, which is the eternal peace of Sâlik' s soul and the eternal celestial home of its heart.