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An Ocean without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the Book and the Law by Michel Chodkiewicz; David

StreightReview by: H. T. NorrisBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 58, No. 1(1995), pp. 125-126Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/620013 .

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REVIEWS 125works, Musira'at al-falisifa and Nihayatal-aqdimft'Wilml-kalam) that Shahrastani hada favourable view of the kind of 'wisdom'which was compatible with revealed truth anda negative view of extreme philosophical specu-lation, a fact which is also reflected in his useof the two terms hakTm'sage' and faylasif'philosopher' to distinguish different ranks ofphilosophers. In addressing the question ofwhy the Muslim Ibn Sind and his group areclassified in the second part among the holdersof arbitrarydoctrines, Jolivet suggests that thiswas due to Shahrastani's view of them asAristotelians who had preferred the teachingsof a pagan to those of the Islamic revelation.The difficult problem (common in Islamicsources) of the erroneous attribution to manyof the Greek philosophers of theories andapophthegms is dealt with by Jolivet in hisnotes. The annotation, generally, is of a highstandard. It covers a wide range of referencesand is meticulous in its elucidation of the text.The whole work is a valuable contributionto our knowledge of Shahrastdni and Islamicheresiography and history of religions.

TAMIMA BAYHOM DAOU

MICHEL CHODKIEWICZ:n ocean with-out shore: Ibn Arabi, the Book andthe Law. Translatedrom the Frenchby David Streight. xiii, 184pp.Albany, NY: State University ofNew York Press, 1993, $12.95(paper).

Michel Chodkiewicz is a leading authorityon the writing and thought of Ibn 'Arabi. Thetitles of his books might suggest that he isprincipally a specialist, yet this is not the casesince his interests cover every aspect of Suifismand, as this book rapidly reveals, of the relationof Siifi thought to the history of the turuqonthe one hand, and to Qur'anic ta'wil on theother. This is of wide interest and it will drawmany readers to the publication. The contentsinclude five closely argued and well annotatedchapters. In a sense these expand on a numberof points made by the author during theconference of the Legacy of Medieval PersianSilfism which was held in SOAS in 1990. Hispaper, entitled 'The Futihit Makkiya and itscommentators: some unresolved enigmas', wassubsequently published in The legacy ofmediaeval Persian Sufism (London, 1992).Commenting on the specific contribution ofChodkiewicz to the discussion, the editor Dr.Leonard Lewisohn remarked,' M. Chodkiewiczcharts a skilful course through the labyrinth ofenigmas in the Futihat al-Makkiya, citing theremarkable correlations between the chaptersequences of the Futahat and the structure ofthe Koran, demonstrating that the former'sstructure was precisely modelled upon thelatter.' This book may also be viewed as agloss, so to speak on the astonishing work ofscholarship by William C. Chittick, The Sufipath of knowledge(Albany, NY, 1989;reviewedin BSOAS, LIII,1990, 520).

The intention here is made plain on page 63:'The analogy that Ibn 'Arabi calls to mind(between the abrupt breaks in meaning inthe text of the Qur'an and those of hisown book) paradoxically constitutes a firstindication in this regard,for ... the disorderin the Holy Book is only an appearance:"There is [between consecutive versesseemingly without relationship to oneanother] a relationship of affinity, but it isextremely secret." "If you join each versewith the one that precedes and the onethat follows, the force of the Divine Wordwill make you see that this verse requiresthat which accompanies it, and does notattain its perfection but through that whichsurrounds it. Such is the vision of theperfect among spiritual men." This pro-found unity in the Qur'dn ... is neverthelessperceived by the gnostic ('dirif bi-Lldh).One can thus suspect that, for Ibn 'Arabi,it also exists-and that it is to some extentdiscoverable-in those Futahatwhere thereis nothing "that does not proceed from aninsufflation of the divine Spirit"...'.

The five chapters are an investigation ofselected verses from saras 31: 6, 36: 41 and 70.The discussion is developed from chosen worksof Ibn 'Arabi; Fusas al-hikam, al-Futahatal-Makkiyya (especiallyfasl al-mandzil), KitabManzil al-manazil, Kitab al-Tajalliyat and Ibn'Arabi's Rasa 'il. An index of Qur'dniccitationsfollows an index of names and technical terms.This is, in short, a convincing study whichdemonstrates how Sifft thought is formedwithin both the content and structure (withmathematical precision) of Holy Writ.Chodkiewicz remarks (p. 95):'The Qur'an's ubiquity in Ibn 'Arabi'swork, the permanent role that it plays inhis work's development and architectureare of exceptional character. Ibn 'Arabi'sdoctrine is not simply a meditation on theQur'in. It is so organically linked to himthat the two are really inseparable. ForIbn 'Arabi, the Word of God is "the Way,the Truth, and the Life." It is in the Qur'anthat the voyage is made that leads manback to his original status, to his divinesimilitude.'

While these chapters are of a special interestto those who are enamoured of the thought ofIbn 'Arabi, the introduction is of generalappeal. In a condensed manner it attempts tohighlight the influence of Ibn 'Arabi on thewritings of eminent SiOfsand on the individualpaths that are followed by respective turuq.This will surely be further expanded (perhapson the lines of the second volume, 'Survival'in Louis Massignon's ThePassion of al-Hallaj).Attention is drawn to the Khalwatiyya, theTijaniyya, the Rahminiyya, the 'Ayniyya, andto the writings of al-Hlijj 'Umar and Ibn Idris.Not only are the thoughts of Ibn 'Arabi, theShaykh al-Akbar, including those which areexpressed in his verse, clearly discernable, butlikewise in the Naqshabandiyya which, hitherto,has been regarded as an order essentiallyunfavourable to him. Chronologically, thisbrings the book almost to the present day. The

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126 REVIEWSauthor himself (p. 17) can only provide apartial explanation for Ibn 'Arabil's mpact:

'Obviously no one can claim to have ahistorically provable global response to aquestion of this type. Certainly there areprecise factors that help answer the ques-tion; for example, the patronage that theOttoman dynasty accorded the Shaykhal-Akbar. Ibn 'Arabi is said to havepredicted ... the coming of the Ottomansand, more specifically, their conquest ofSyria. The prediction brought him particu-lar veneration by numerous sovereigns anda status that undoubtedly considerablylimited the effect of attacks against hisdoctrine.... However, one must not over-estimate the importance of this imperialprotection; it is not sufficient to explainIbn 'Arabi's influence on Indian, Malay-sian, or Chinese sufism, for example.'

H. T. NORRIS

ALBRECHTHOFHEINzand others.(ed.and tr.): The letters of Ahmad IbnIdrTs, Rasid'il b. IdrYs. Generaleditors Einar Thomassen and BerndRadtke.viii, 184pp. London: Hurstand Company, 1993. ?35.This book marks a significant step forwardin the format for the publication of documentswhich shed light on the life, literary style andmethod of teaching of eminent Stfis, theirdisciples and their contemporaries. The letters,with great clarity, reveal the exchanges thattook place in the past (and to a degree it is stilltrue of the present time) between members ofconflicting, competing, allied or interrelatedturuq.All of this may be observed in the rulingswhich were given within the Siff orders for theresolution of pressing practical issues (forexample, legal or medical). We are here remote

indeed from an exchange over such issues as'Oneness of Being'. Yet this is in all probabilityonly a half-truth. Earthly problems have ahabit of surfacing,whatevermay be the spirituallevel of attainment of the greatest Siffi minds.How rare it is that quite mundane issues areresolved satisfactorily and simply in strictlylegalistic, literalistic or spiritually intuitiveterms.The joint translators (five in all, of variousnationalities) point out at the start of this shortbook that it will provide 'primary materialsthat further illustrate themes dealt with' inother works (namely, R. S. O'Fahey'sEnigmaticsaint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi tradition,London, 1990, reviewed in BSOAS, LVI, 1,1993, 151; and A. S. Karrar's The Sufi brother-hoods in the Sudan, London, 1992). Thisstatement is certainly true, but the content ofthese letters ought to be recommended to anextended readership who take a keen interestin Islamic reform in the nineteenth century andthe history of Islam in Africa and not merelyStifismthere.The eight chapters cover the correspondencebetween Ahmad b. Idris and eminent men offaith in the Sudan and in Arabia (not all of

them are Sfuf Shaykhs; ch. vii is a letteraddressed to 'Ali b. Mujaththal, the ruler of'Asir), and all are printed in full here. Thecollection involved journeys between Bergenand Khartoum. The Arabic texts are clearlyprinted and edited, occasionally vocalized, andare presented with a facing-page translation.The translation is close to the original andflows with admirable fluency. Despite a multi-national translating team, there is a unity ofstyle which helps to bind the chapters together.The book ends with a bibliography and anindex of proper names and Arabic terms.Footnotes and introductions provide commentwhere needed and full biographical inform-ation.The topics which are raised here are some-times unusual and almost naive. Severalexamples are listed on page 12. They areincluded in the correspondence with Makki b.'Abd al-'Aziz; topics such as the lawfulness ofamputating an otiose finger (polydactylism), orthe lawfulness and usefulness of eating burntdate stones, or the lawfulness of leaning a lawhupon which verses from the Qur'finare writtenagainst a wall. On occasions, the criteria forstatus and office in the saintly hierarchy seem,in our eyes, somewhat bizarre. Between pages65 and 67, for example, the sanad of the chainof initiation of the master of Ahmad b. Idris,Shaykh Muhammad al-Mujaydri (Limjayderi,in Hassdniyya) al-Ya'qfibi_ (from theTashumshaof Mauritania, the Idayqub) makesstrange reading.lhmad b. Idris met him inMorocco, although the latter had stayed forsome time in the Middle East, Egypt inparticular. In a letter to Muhammad 'Uthmqinal-Mirghaini, concerned especially with thedangers of becoming absorbed with matters 'ofthe world', Ahmad b. Idris remarks thatLimjayderi received the Way (tarTq)' rom 'thepole of the jinns' (qutbal-jinn),who is specific-ally named as Muhammad al-QaqawTvocaliza-tion uncertain). this nisba defies attempts atidentification. It looks vaguely Maghribi orSahelian and one thinks of such nisbas asal-Qalqami, or al-(Tin) Wajiwi (both from thearea of the Hodh), or looking further to theeast, to Gao, Kawkaw, etc. The pole (qutborbadal) of the inn is puzzling. Was Muhammadhuman or not? If one turns to the pages ofAhmad b. al-Amin's Kitsb al-WasTtt tar5jimudabe'

Shinq.it(Cairo, 1958), one observes thatScifismwas a preoccupation of several amongstthe Idayqub. One great poet, al-'Atiq b.Muhammad (p. 221) would have earned apoet's prize amongst his peers had his preoccu-pations with Sfifism been less time-consuming.According to Ahmad b. al-Amin (pp. 214-16),Limjayderi was one of four who were unsur-

passed; namely, 'Abdalldh b. Muhammadal-'Alawi, known as Ibn Rdzga, Sidi 'Abdallihb. al-Hajj Ibrahim al-'Alawi, and Muhammadal-Yaddli al-Daymdni, that is, 'two 'Abdallahsand two Muhammads'.This group of four, was preceded by another,similarlynamed (Muhammads and 'Abdallihs)if Ahmad b. al-Amin is correct (pp. 578-9).There is some lineal linkage (see my 'Sanhajascholars of Mauritania', in John Ralph Willis(ed.), The cultivators of Islam: studies in WestAfrican Islamic history, London, 1979, 148-9).They were taught by a mystic qutb, seemingly

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