Excerpt: The Ontology of Imagination
Henry Corbin and others have demonstrated the importance of imagination for Sufism and Islamic philosophy.6 Ibn al-‘Arabi insists that it is impossible to gain a true understanding of the Islamic revelation without perceiving the role of imagination within the cosmos. “He who does not know (ya’rif) the ontological status (martaba) of imagination (al-khayäl) has no knowledge whatsoever” (II 312.2). Long before Ibn al-’Arabi imagination had been employed in interpreting Islamic eschatological teachings; Avicenna had suggested its relevance and al-Ghazâlï had made extensive use of the explanatory possibilities it provides.7 But Ibn al-’Arabi is the great exponent of the concept as the indispensible means for understanding the true nature of after-death experience.
The term imagination refers to an ontological and epistemological reality that plays a fundamental role in both the macrocosm and the microcosm, though the individual faculty of the mind that goes by this name participates in its nature only imperfectly. Perhaps the most striking feature of imagination is its ambiguous character; as Ibn al-’Arabi says, “It is neither existent nor nonexistent, neither known nor unknown, neither affirmed nor denied” (I 304.23; 4, 408.11). The common example of an imaginal (not “imaginary”) reality is the image that a person perceives in a mirror: “He knows for certain that in one respect he has perceived his own form, but he also knows for certain that in another respect he has not perceived it” (I 304.24; 4, 408.12).
Ontologically, imagination is situated between the spiritual and the corporeal, possessing characteristics of both sides. Hence it is often referred to as an “isthmus” (barzakh), which is defined as “something that separates two other things.”8 A standard example in the sensory realm is the line that divides shadow from sunlight; though we see the line, it exists as such only in virtue of the two realities it separates. In the same way, imagination separates the spiritual or unseen world from the corporeal or visible world; all of its specific characteristics derive from its intermediate situation. In the macrocosm the imaginal world stands between the spirits (al-arwäh), which are disengaged or disembodied (mujarrad), luminous, simple (noncompound), and one, and the corporeal bodies (al-ajsäm), which are tenebrous, compound, and multiple. In the microcosm imagination corresponds to the animate soul (al-nafs al hayawànï), which acts as an intermediary between the body and the disengaged spirit, which was breathed into the human reality by God (S. 15:29; 38:72).9
The characteristic activity of imagination is to embody (tajsid) that which is disembodied and to spiritualize (tarawhun) or sublimate (taltif) that which is corporeal. Its intermediate status means that everything that leaves the unseen world for the visible world, or the visible world for the unseen, must first be imaginalized. Thus, for example, the angels appear to human beings in imaginal form, and revelation is first imaginalized before it takes the sensory form of a scripture. Likewise the visions of spiritual things experienced by the saints take place in the imaginal world; relatively few of them are able to leave imagination behind and enter into the realm of disengaged spirits and purely intelligible meanings (al-ma’ani al-ma’qûla).
The vast majority of people experience the reality of imagination most directly in dreams. For, says Ibn al-c Arabi, “God placed dreams in the animate world so that all men might witness the World of Imagination and know that there exists another world, similar to the sensory world” (HI 198.23).10 In dreams “Meanings are transferred from their state of disengagement from material substrata (mawädd) into the clothing of material substrata” (II 379.24). The traditional basis for establishing a connection between dreams and disengaged meanings lies in Qur’anic references to Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams (S 12:144, 100) and the many ahädith which demonstrate that the Prophet used to exercise this power. Ibn al-’Arabi is particularly fond of referring to a hadith found in al-Bukhäri:
“In a dream I was given a cup of milk, so I drank it until I saw that even my fingertips were quenched. Then I gave the rest to Umar.”
The Prophet was asked, “How do you interpret it, oh Messenger of God?”
He replied, “Knowledge.”
Here, says Ibn al-‘Arabi, a disengaged meaning has assumed an appropriate form and become embodied within the world of imagination.11 Ibn al-’Arabi also likes to refer to the Prophet’s saying, “I [dreamed that I] saw my Lord in the form of a youth.” For, Ibn al-’Arabi says, “The dreamer sees meanings in the form of sensory objects, since the reality of imagination is to embody that which is not properly a body” (II 379.3).
Read the full paper at Academia.edu
