The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabi's Cosmology (Suny Series in Islam) [Paperback]

William C. Chittick (Author)

Book Description

Series: Suny Series in Islam | Publication Date: December 30, 1997

The Self-Disclosure of God continues the author's investigations of the world view of Ibn al-'Arabi, the greatest theoretician of Sufism and the "seal of the Muhammadan saints. The book is divided into three parts, dealing with the relation between God and the cosmos, the structure of the cosmos, and the nature of the human soul. A long introduction orients the reader and discusses a few of the difficulties faced by Ibn al-'Arabi's interpreters. Like Chittick's earlier work, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, this book is based primarily on Ibn al-'Arabi's monumental work, al-Futuhat al-makkiyya "The Meccan Openings. More than one hundred chapters and subsections are translated, not to mention shorter passages that help put the longer discussions in context. There are detailed indexes of sources, Koranic verses, and hadiths. The book's index of technical terminology will be an indispensable reference for all those wishing to delve more deeply into the use of language in Islamic thought in general and Sufism in particular.

Product Details

• Paperback: 526 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (December 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791434044
• ISBN-13: 978-0791434048
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Translations by a Leading Akbarian Specialist, April 2, 2002

By 

C. King Khidr (Damascus, Syria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabi's Cosmology (Suny Series in Islam) (Paperback)

"This is what shows you His Omnipotence, Exalted be He; that He hides himself from you by that which has no existence outside of Him" -- Ibn Ata'allah

Chittick is refining the art of translating Ibn Arabi. Unlike other medieval Arabic texts that are more or less straightforward -- hence translatable -- Ibn Arabi is an exception. The anti-systematic nature of his thought compounded by its deep interconnection with the Arabic language renders translations almost impossible.

The Great Shaikh's hermeneutics of Islamic Scripture (the Koran and Prophetic traditions) is at once mystical and linguistic. Mystical through kashf, (lit. 'unveiling,' a type of spiritual opening to knowledge), and linguistic through retracing each Divinely revealed word to its etymological root. To a reader unfamiliar with either mystical philosophy or classical Arabic, understanding Ibn Arabi can be excrutiatingly difficult. A natural response is to question the source of Ibn Arabi's radically subversive worldview.

Taking these factors into consideration, Chittick should be commended in undertaking a task so academically daunting that it prevented even an Orientalist of R.A. Nicholson's repute from publishing his own translations.

Chittick is meticulous in his translations and tries to be loyal to both the literal and implied meanings of technical Arabic words. He introduces each translated section with a brief summary to acquaint the reader what s/he is about encounter, simplifying the complexity of the passage and contexualising it within the (fluid) framework of Ibn Arabi's nondualistic ontology.

Finally, it should be noted that Chittick's other major work in the field of Akbarian scholarship, the Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination, makes an excellent introduction to this work. SDG is not easy reading, so preliminary works might be useful before jumping full fledge into Ibn Arabi's "ocean without shore" of mystical metaphysics. In strange and unfamiliar waters, the weight of ignorance can drown. But the ultimate ignorance, as Ibn Arabi would say, is not that of books written by the dead -- for "the servant is nonexistent!" -- but of the Living (al-Hayy) who reveals Himself through the cosmos around us, through His Self-Disclosure.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good overview plus extensive translations, July 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabi's Cosmology (Suny Series in Islam) (Paperback)

The 40 page introduction is a good summary overview of Ibn Arabi's metaphysics. The rest of the book contains extensive translations of Ibn Arabi with explanatory commentary.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extensive Translations from Ibn Arabi's Mekkan Revelations, June 9, 1999

By 

"aspiringsufi" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabi's Cosmology (Suny Series in Islam) (Paperback)

A highly significant contribution to Islamic studies in the area of sufism in particular. Extensive passages from Ibn Arabi's Futuhat al-Makiyya have been translated into a European langauge for the first time by one of North America's leading Islamicists.

Highly recommended.