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181 the Mantle of Khidr1 Mystery, Myth and Meaning ARAM, 20 (2008) 181-194. doi: 10.2143/ARAM.20.0.2033128S. HIRTENSTEIN 181 THE MANTLE OF KHIDR1 MYSTERY, MYTH AND MEANING ACCORDING TO MUHYIDDIN IBN ‘ARABI2 Mr. STEPHEN HIRTENSTEIN (Ibn ‘Arabi Society) INTRODUCTION At first sight there seems to be little connection between Elijah, George and Khidr, apart from the fact that in the Middle East they are frequently associ- ated with the same place by different religious traditions. Is it then a simple case of overlapping traditions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, all of whom fo- cus on the Holy Land as part of their own heritage and take Abraham as their forefather? Certainly there is a view which suggests that Khidr is to Muslims what Elijah is to Jews, in respect of them both acting as initiator to the true believer, and which in itself is testimony to attempts to find common ground between the three traditions. The sacred sites associated with them over centu- ries seem to have accumulated worship in various forms, so that one sits quite literally on top of or next to another. The sites often exhibit similar attributes: for instance, the presence of water and greenness, suggesting fertility in a bar- ren land; or perhaps a cave, which represents a meeting-place of two worlds, the manifest and the hidden (and on occasion both elements are present, as at Banyas). Then there is the ancient theme of the spiritual side of man being dominant over the material, as suggested in the stories by the holy rider on a chariot or horse (or in the case of Khidr, a fish3). This is a clear picture of the divinised human, who comes to deliver mankind: Elijah is zealous for God and the destroyer of false prophets, while St George is the conqueror of animality in the form of the dragon; Khidr’s role is rather less vividly mar- tial – he brings real self-knowledge, delivering the individual from the false and base nature of the soul. In all three cases one can remark the polarity of the monotheist or true believer and the pagan or ignorant: Elijah and the prophets of Baal, St George and the emperor Diocletian, and perhaps most 1 His original name seems to have been al-Khadir (“the green one”), which over time in many places became al-Khidr or Khidr or Hizr. In the modern Middle East the spelling Khodor is often used as a person's name. For the purposes of this paper I shall use the shortened form, Khidr. 2 Presented at ARAM conference on “Iconography and Mythology of Prophet Elijah, St George and al-Khodor in the Syrian Orient”, July 4–6 2006, Oxford 3 This image is well-known in the Indian sub-continent, for example. 07-0398_Aram20_11_Hirtenstein 181 09-16-2008, 17:17 182 THE MANTLE OF KHIDR strikingly in this respect, Khidr who points out the interior meaning of this opposition and is thus the educator of Moses4. However, we should note significant differences in their status, which in part reflect the religious context in which they appear: Elijah is a prophet, in a long line of prophecy; St George is a saint, martyred for his faith in the tradi- tion of Christianity; Khidr, however, is almost a nobody – he is neither saint nor prophet, but an ordinary person graced with immortality and initiatic sig- nificance. While the first two are usually portrayed as mounted, Khidr has his feet upon the ground (or just above it in some stories) or walks on water; as we shall see, he has a most particular role to play in mystical teaching. This paper will focus on some of the ways in which the figure of Khidr has been treated by the great master of Islamic spirituality, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabî (1165-1240). Like his near-contemporary Maimonides, Ibn ‘Arabî was an Andalusian who spent his early years in the Maghrib and then moved to the Mashriq, especially Damascus where he is buried. His life coincided with the flowering of three empires, Almohad, Ayyubid and Rum Seljuk, a time of Arab power and confidence prior to the catastrophe of the Mongol invasion. He has often been bracketed with Meister Eckhart and Shankaracharya as the greatest exponent of non-dualistic unity (The Unity of Being or wahdat al- wujud as his school later became known). His numerous and profound writings have influenced most subsequent spiritual authors in the Islamic world; even the ground-plan of one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, the Taj Mahal, is based upon one of his drawings representing the Resurrection. He acted as a bridge between oral and written esoteric tradition, as well as be- tween Western and Eastern forms of Islamic spirituality, and in our own times he has been seen as one of the founders of what can be called the wider ecumenism, i.e. a universal human spiritual teaching not confined to any one tradition.5 Ibn ‘Arabî provides a spiritual and psycho-cosmological context for viewing each of these three figures, which allows us to see how they may be related to each other as typologies of “men of God”. KHIDR AND THE QURAN There is a rich tradition in Islam surrounding the figure of Khidr. Customar- ily he is associated with the story in the 18th Sura, the Sura of the Cave (kahf), 4 It might at first sight seem outrageous to suggest that Moses is spiritually pagan or ignorant, but in the context of the Khidr myth this is indeed how he is portrayed. 5 The ‘narrow ecumenism' refers to the interface between the three monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is not my focus here to look at the ways in which the represen- tation of these figures have influenced each other, but rather to explore Ibn ‘Arabi's treatment of them as universal meanings. 07-0398_Aram20_11_Hirtenstein 182 09-16-2008, 17:17 S. HIRTENSTEIN 183 which relates the mysterious meeting between Moses and “one of Our serv- ants, on whom We have bestowed mercy from Ourselves and whom We have taught knowledge from Our own Presence (ladun)”.6 In this story we find Moses, the great prophet of his time, the one who spoke with God and saw Him face to face, utterly at a loss in the face of the Truth which this “servant” propounds. Despite promising compliance, he cannot bear the apparent contra- dictions in the actions of this unnamed person: holing a perfectly serviceable boat, killing a young boy, and rebuilding a wall without payment for people who had withheld the customary hospitality. In every other situation, whether dealing with the Pharaoh or the troublesome Israelites, Moses is presented as confident in God, knowledgeable and capable of speech and action. Here he appears as impatient, uncomprehending and incapable of holding his tongue or keeping his promise. Some authorities, perturbed by this account, have even questioned whether the Musa mentioned in this Sura was actually a different Moses7. This story disturbs precisely because Moses, one of the greatest of God’s prophets, should surely not behave like this, and because Sacred Scrip- ture itself is pointing to another kind of teaching than the one brought by a prophet, one which by implication only the Quran as all-embracing revelation can contain. Now clearly this is intended as a great teaching story, not bald historical fact. This is not to suggest that it is untrue – on the contrary, it is of the nature of myth and shows a truth and reality that may be far more important than our worldly truths. For this reason some have said that this figure who instructs Moses is really a meaning who is not part of this world. The unnamed figure, “one of Our servants”, is traditionally known as Khidr, the mysterious person who is not a prophet and yet is in the position of being instructor to a prophet8. Ibn ‘Arabî discusses the figure of Khidr under four different headings: a) the figure himself, his post-diluvian origins and the story of his achieving immortality b) his role as the spiritual teacher of Moses, which provides a textual basis for the doctrine of an esoteric, inner teaching within Islam: this provides many important doctrines, including the creative tension between the outer and the inner or between conformity and realisation, how the knowledge of divine mysteries is unacceptable to the ordinary human mind, and so on9 6 Q.18.65ff 7 They mention Musa b. Misha (= Manasseh) b. Yusuf b. Ya’qub, ie a grandson of the prophet Joseph (for example, see al-Razi, Mafatih al-ghayb iv.333). 8 This is the only case where such an apparent anomaly happens in the Western tradition, as far as I am aware: while angels can readily be accepted as bringers of inspiration, as they are beings made of light, not clay, it is much more problematic to accept a human being who is said to have received special Divine knowledge, as being in a position to teach something to a prophet who brings a new Divine dispensation. 9 This is a complex topic which Ibn ‘Arabi treats in some detail in the Chapter on Moses in his Fusûs al-Hikam. 07-0398_Aram20_11_Hirtenstein 183 09-16-2008, 17:17 184 THE MANTLE OF KHIDR c) his spiritual status as one of the four Supports (awtâd) of the world: ac- cording to Ibn ‘Arabî, there are four ever-living guides, who have not tasted death (Enoch/Idris; Elijah/Ilyas; Jesus/’Isa; Khidr), of whom two are heav- enly, having ascended (Enoch and Jesus), and two are earthly (Elijah and Khidr).
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