The Wisdom of Animals | by William Chittick | www.ibnarabisociety.org
For God has made you more needy of them than they are needy of you… By God, when the dumb beasts have more independence than you, how can it occur to you that you are superior to them?… Very true are the words of him who said, “No man will be destroyed if he knows his own worth”.
(Futūhāt 3: 490. 10)
More than any other Muslim thinker, Ibn ‘Arabi dedicated his teachings to clarifying the presence of the divine wisdom in all things and the human necessity of conforming to that wisdom. The arguments he offers are at once metaphysical and scriptural, cosmological and psychological, scientific and ethical. He addresses every dimension of human and cosmic existence (‘cosmic’ refers to Muslim Cosmology based on The Quran – as appose to Big Bang Universe theory, Plasma Universe theory, etc.) and speaks constantly of the inherent goodness of all of creation and the human duty to respect the rights (huqūq) of all creatures – not simply the rights of God and the rights of our fellow beings.
If there is a single scriptural theme to his writings, after tawhīd, it is certainly the prophetic saying: “Give to each that has a right (haqq) its right”. He reads this in conjunction with the Quranic insistence that God created the universe and everything within it bi’-l-haqq, that is, by means of and through the right, the real, the appropriate, the true. He understands this to mean that everything in the universe is right, true, and real.
Human beings, however, are not necessarily given the insight to recognize the truth and rightness of all things. In order to achieve such recognition, they need prophetic guidance, and only then can they live a life that is right, true, and appropriate. That right and appropriate life demands that they respond rightly and appropriately to the rightness and appropriateness of all things – to the extent of human capacity. In other words, the divine wisdom that has created human beings has imposed upon them the duty of “giving to everything that has a right its right”.
Divine Reality of Animals and Particles
In both chapters on dumb beasts, Ibn ‘Arabi explains why they have this name, bahīma, which the Arabic dictionaries define as quadruped or animal. Ibn ‘Arabi suggests that we can understand the significance of the term if we remember that it derives from the same root as mubham, which means dubious, obscure, vague, unclear. For example, in Chapter 378 he writes,
Each created thing has a specific speech taught to it by God. It is heard by those whose hearing God has opened up to its perception. All movement and craftsmanship that become manifest from animals and do not become manifest save from a possessor of reason, reflection, and deliberation, along with all the measures that are seen therein, signify that they have a knowledge of this in themselves. (Futūhāt 3: 488. 4)
Ibn ‘Arabi goes on to explain that animals perform many skillful deeds and construct marvelous things in a manner that suggests that they must be intelligent and rational. Yet observers cannot perceive any sort of rational faculty within them, so they remain puzzled as to how animals can do such things. This puzzlement, of course, has not been diminished by modern science, which still struggles to explain the multifarious skills of animals. So, Ibn ‘Arabi writes,
This may be why they are called “dumb beasts”, that is, because of the “obscurity” of the affair – except for us, because it is as clear as it can be. The obscurity that has overcome some people is because of their lack of unveiling in this, so they know the created things only in the measure of what they witness from them.
In continuing this discussion, Ibn ‘Arabi has recourse to a few Quranic verses to show that faith is on the side of those who witness the real nature of things through unveiling.
Even though the rational thinkers and the common people say that something in the cosmos is neither alive nor an animal, in our view God gave every such thing, when He created it, the innate disposition to recognize and know Him. Each is alive and speaks rationally in glorifying its Lord. The faithful perceive this through their faith, and the folk of unveiling perceive it in its actual entity. (Futūhāt 3: 489. 6)
As is always the case with Ibn ‘Arabi’s writings, he soon gets around to explaining why we should be concerned about the fact that all things have knowledge from God and that all things express their knowledge through speech. Here I can mention one basic lesson, and this is that the awareness of all things should encourage us to have shame. “Shame” (hayā’) is not considered a great virtue nowadays in the West, but it certainly has had an honorable role to play in many civilizations, not least Islam. The Prophet said, “Every religion has its character trait [khuluq], and the character trait of Islam is shame” (Ibn Māja, Zuhd 17).
Shame is a close ally of ihsān, “doing the beautiful”, which the Prophet described as “worshipping God as if you see Him”. If one acts as if one sees God, shame will be a constant companion. And, if we understand that all things are aware and all have the ability to speak, this can only increase our sense of shame. Everything is watching us, and everything has the ability to speak to God about our activities. Ibn ‘Arabi writes,
Someone may come to know that there is no existent thing that is not alive and speaking. In other words, there is nothing that is not a rational animal, whether it is called inanimate, plant, or dead. This is because there is nothing, whether or not it stands by itself, that does not glorify its Lord in praise, and this attribute belongs only to something that is described as alive.
Once someone comes to witness the life of all things, he will be full of shame, not only when he is in jalwa, that is, in public with other people, but also when he is in khalwa, that is, alone in a private retreat. He will see that in fact he is never alone, for he can never escape a location that surrounds him. And, even if he could escape his surroundings, he would still have shame before his bodily members and organs, for they are the means whereby he does what he does. He knows that on the Day of Resurrection, his bodily members will be called to witness, and they will bear witness truthfully. So, someone like this can never be in khalwa. “When someone achieves this state”, Ibn ‘Arabi writes, “he has joined the degree of the dumb beasts”, who are aware of the presence of God.
In short, Ibn ‘Arabi maintains that dumb beasts possess an exalted knowledge and understanding from God, and he concludes that anyone who considers himself superior to the beasts is ignorant of his own situation. He stresses that such ignorance is characteristic of the philosophical and theological approaches to Islamic learning – not to speak of the modern scientific disciplines. In short, his advice to his readers – if they are not among the folk of unveiling – is as follows:
Divine Relationship of Human with Animals
Let me turn to a second topic that Ibn ‘Arabi commonly addresses when he talks about animals. This is related to the specific divine name that exercises its sway over the twenty-fifth letter of the Breath of the all-Merciful. This name is al-Mudhill, the Abaser, which is typically contrasted with al-Mu’izz, the Exalter. People naturally assume that it is much better to be exalted than to be abased, but Ibn ‘Arabi wants to show that animals, who are ruled by the name Abaser, have a much more exalted position with God than most human beings. This is precisely because animals gladly accept their abasement, whereas human beings tend to forget that they are nothing in the face of God.
They always want to be something, so they seek exaltation. By claiming to be what they are not, however, they fall into heedlessness and they rebel against their own God-given situation. Hence, the most exalted of all human beings in God’s eyes are in fact those who are the most abased before Him. Abasement at root is nothing other than ‘ubūdiyya, the quality of being an ‘abd, a servant or slave. That is why, in Ibn ‘Arabi’s reading, the most exalted of all human beings, the perfect human being, is also “the perfect servant” (al-’abd al-kāmil), that is, the most abased of all creatures before God.
In explaining the nature of abasement, Ibn ‘Arabi turns to the Quranic notion of taskhīr, “subjection”. It is God inasmuch as He is the Abaser who subjects some creatures to other creatures. In fact, Ibn ‘Arabi spends most of the section on animals in the chapter on the Breath of the all-Merciful unpacking and explaining the reality of subjection. He begins the section like this:
Ibn ‘Arabi continues this discussion by pointing out that subjection is two-sided. In other words, when something is subjected to you, you are subjected to it. He explains how this works with the example of a king and his subjects. The Quranic verse just cited says that God has elevated some over others with the “degree” (daraja) that He has given them. In the case of a king, God has given him the degree of kingship, and this degree allows him to rule over others. The king subjects his citizens precisely because of the degree, and hence the citizens are abased before the king and must do what he commands. However, it works the other way too, for, as Ibn ‘Arabi says, “Among the divine names, the Abaser rules over both sides”. He writes,
Ibn ‘Arabi then points out that subjection also applies to the relationship between God and man. The name Abaser rules over both sides. Although man is abased before God, God is also abased before man. This is a version of Ibn ‘Arabi’s famous discussion of the mutual relationship between Lord (rabb) and vassal (marbūb), or the God (ilāh) and that which is “godded over” (ma’lūh). His explanation runs like this:
Ibn ‘Arabi then explains that when God says in the Quran, “I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me” [51: 56], this means that He created them to abase themselves before Him, so He created them with the name Abaser. At the same time, God describes how He guards over all things and preserves all things. Like the king in the example, God’s degree of Godliness subjects Him to what the cosmos seeks from Him, that is, the preservation of its existence.
In continuing his argument, Ibn ‘Arabi explains that God abases human beings by placing within them the attributes of poverty, indigence, and need. As the Quran says, “O people, you are the poor toward God, and God – He is the Rich, the Praiseworthy” (35: 15). Because of their need, people then become abased before anything in which they see what they need, and everything needs something else. The cosmos is filled with mutual need, which is in fact the need of all things for God, whose attributes are displayed in the needed objects. It follows that it is need that ties all of existence together. The well-being (salāh) of the entire cosmos depends upon need. So, Ibn ‘Arabi concludes, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole,
The Truth of Mutual Abasement
As for the rest of us, the lesson we need to learn from the mutual abasement of all things is to understand who we are in the cosmic economy. We should never overestimate our own worth. We should not consider ourselves exalted, because in fact we are abased before the divine power. Ibn ‘Arabi explains this in one of the chapters on the dumb beasts:
So, you have no superiority over them through subjection, for God has made you more needy of them than they are needy of you. Do you not see how God’s Messenger became angry when he was asked about the stray she-camel? He said, “What is she to you? She has her feet and her stomach. She will find water and eat from the trees until her master finds her” (Muslim, Luqta 1). So, God did not make the animals needy toward you, but He placed within you the need for them. All dumb beasts that have the means to flee from you will do so, and this is only because they have no need for you, and they have been given the innate knowledge that you will harm them. The fact that you search for them and that you exert effort in acquiring things from them shows that you are needy toward them. By God, when the dumb beasts have more independence than you, how can it occur to you that you are superior to them? Very true are the words of him who said, “No man will be destroyed if he knows his own worth”. (Futūhāt 3: 490. 10)
