bestowed upon those servants whom God favours, for whom this had already been ordained in the Presence of His making them witness. When informed, such a servant knows that Divinity entails this division, and that it belongs to the subtle connections of the Beginningless. Glory be to Him beside whom there is no agent, and apart from whom none exists through itself[156] and from itself. “God created you and what you do” [Qur’an 37:96]; “He is not questioned about what He does, but they are questioned” [Qur’an 21:23]; “To God belongs the conclusive argument; had He willed, He would have guided you all” [Qur’an 6:149].
The Second Testimony
Just as I have called God, His angels, all His creation, and you to witness my affirmation of His unity, so I call Him, glory be to Him, His angels, all His creation, and you to witness my faith in the one He singled out, chose, and elected from His existence: our master Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. He sent him to all humanity as a bearer of glad tidings and a warner, calling to God by His permission, and as an illuminating lamp [Qur’an 33:45–46].[157] He conveyed what was sent down to him from his Lord, fulfilled his trust, and counselled his community faithfully. At his Farewell Pilgrimage he stood before all his followers who were present, preached and reminded, inspired fear and cautioned, gave glad tidings and warnings, promised and threatened, rained and thundered. By permission of the One, the Self-Sufficient, he excluded no one from that reminder.
Then he said: “Have I conveyed the message?” They replied: “You have conveyed it, Messenger of God.” He said: “O God, bear witness!”[158]
I believe in everything he brought, both what I know and what I do not know.
Notes
[156]
Ibn al-Arabi divides things with regard to existence into three ranks: necessary, possible, and impossible. This is the same traditional division employed by theologians such as Ibn Sina. God is necessarily existent through Himself. (The Perfect Human is also necessarily existent, but through God’s making his existence necessary, not through himself.) The whole cosmos is possibly existent. The impossible is invalid existence, or sheer nonexistence. We shall return to this issue repeatedly within the book; we have also discussed it in detail in Nazariyyat al-Jawhar al-Fard (p. ??? [reference unfinished]).
[157]
He alludes here to God’s saying: “O Prophet, We have sent you as a witness, a bearer of glad tidings, and a warner [45], calling to God by His permission, and as an illuminating lamp [46]” [Qur’an 33:45–46].
[158]
This occurs in the authentic report of the Farewell Pilgrimage sermon in many books, including Sahih al-Bukhari (vol. 1, nos. 105, 1654; vol. 3, nos. 4141, 4144; vol. 4, nos. 5230, 6403, 6667, 6753, 6722, 7009), Sahih Muslim (vol. 2, no. 901; vol. 3, no. 1679), and others.
