1 [© James W. Morris. This is an unrevised, pre-publication version of an article or translation which has subsequently been published, with revisions and corrections as The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn 'Arabî and the Mi'râj. In Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 107 (1987), pp. 629-652, and vol. 108 (1988), pp. 63-77. This article contains additional translated materials from Ibn ‘Arabi’s earlier autobiographical K. al-Isrā’ and additional annotation which were not included in the Sindbad anthology, now reprinted as Ibn 'Arabī: The Meccan Revelations (co-author with W. Chittick). New York, Pir Press, 2002 If citing or distributing in any format, please include full reference to the actual corrected publication. Thank you.] The Mi'raj and Ibn 'Arabi's Own Spiritual Ascension: Chapter 367 of the Futūhāt and the K. al- Isrā’ Introduction The initial indications in the Koran and hadith concerning the Prophet's Ascension (mi'raj) or nocturnal voyage (isra', at Kor. 17:1) and the revelatory vision in which it culminated (Kor. 53:1-18) subsequently gave rise to a vast body of interpretations among the many later traditions of Islamic thought and spirituality.1 Ibn 'Arabi's personal adaptation of that material, in at least four separate longer narratives, reflects both the typical features of his distinctive approach to the Koran and hadith and the full range of his metaphysical-theological teachings and practical spiritual concerns. For him, the Prophet's "nocturnal journey"--an expression he prefers both because it is that of the Koran and because it is more appropriate to the complete, "circular" nature of the movement in question2--is above all an archetypal symbol of the highest, 1In this Introduction we have usually employed the expression "Mi'raj" ("Ascension") most commonly used in Islamic languages, although Ibn 'Arabi himself prefers to follow the Koran (for reasons detailed in the following note) in referring instead to the isra' of the Prophet and the saints. In most of the hadith accounts of this Ascension the revelations alluded to in the Koranic verses 53:1-18 play an integral (even decisive) role, and they are understood in that context by Ibn 'Arabi in all of his Mi'raj narratives. Ibn 'Arabi's own distinctive use of the canonical hadith materials is outlined in n. 9 below and followed in detail in the notes to the translation. For further references, see the general indications (from a historicist perspective) and bibliography in the articles "Isra'" (B. Schreike) and "Mi'raj" (J. Horovitz) in the SEI and EI1; the full range of hadith and legendary materials studied in the opening chapters of M. Asin Palacios' La Escatologia musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Madrid, 1919) (abridged English tr.--eliminating many references to the Arabic sources--as Islam and the Divine Comedy, London, 1926; repr. 1968); and G. Widengren, The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book, Uppsala, 1950. See also the striking pictorial representations of many stages of the Mi'raj--incorporating, however, a wide range of legendary or popular materials not used by Ibn 'Arabi--by the 15th-century Timurid school of Herat in "The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet"/Miraj Nameh (London/Paris, 1977). 2There are a number of shades of meaning in the Koranic expression asra (at 17:1 and in the related hadith) that help explain Ibn 'Arabi's preference for that term: in addition to its being used to describe a complete spiritual journey involving both "ascent" and "return" (ruju')--a fundamental dimension he emphasizes especially in the R. al-Anwar--the term refers more specifically to a "nocturnal 2 culminating stages in the inner, spiritual journey that must be followed by each of the saints or mystical "knowers" who would participate fully in the heritage of Muhammad,3 even if the subjective phases and experiences marking that route necessarily appear differently to each individual.4 Thus the theme of the Mi'raj provides Ibn 'Arabi with a single unifying symbolic framework for the full range of practical spiritual questions and theoretical issues (ontological, cosmological, theological, etc.) that are discussed in other contexts throughout the Futuhat and his other works.5 If each of his treatments of the Mi'raj approaches those issues from its own particular standpoint and purpose--and with, in addition, very different literary styles and degrees of autobiographical openness--they all do share what is perhaps the most fundamental feature of all of his writing: the continually alternating contrast between the metaphysical (universal and eternal) "divine" point of view6 and the "phenomenological" (personal and experiential) voyage," with all the implications of a "hidden," profoundly inner spiritual transformation that are so decisive for the "journeys" of the saints described in all these narratives. Finally, the verbal form clearly insists on God as the (ultimate) Agent and Source of this movement, pointing to the key factors of divine grace and individual "predisposition" that are also central to Ibn 'Arabi's consideration of this journey (whether for the Prophet or the saints), especially in the autobiographical context of the K. al-Isra'. (None of this is implied by the much broader and less specific Koranic usage of mi'raj--in the plural--at 43:33 and 70:3). 3While acknowledging the uniquely "physical" nature of the Prophet's Mi'raj (in section II below), Ibn 'Arabi stresses the primary importance of the spiritual isra'at--even for Muhammad--in the proportions implied by the Prophet's "thirty-three" other, purely spiritual journeys mentioned at the end of that section (n. 46 below). The crucial importance of the notion of the saints' participation in the prophetic "heritage" (wiratha) is assumed throughout all of these Mi'raj narratives: for Ibn 'Arabi, its ultimate verification (and perhaps even its source) is to be found in the revelation of the "Muhammadan Station" in section IV-I and in the corresponding passage from the K. al-Isra' (pp. 12-14: see our translation and commentary in our article on "The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn 'Arabi and the Mi'raj, cited at n. 13 below.) For further references to this key notion in Ibn 'Arabi's religious thought, see Chodkiewicz, Sceau, chapter 5; and Hakim, Mu'jam, pp. 1191-1201. 4A fundamental point that is openly stressed here in the reminder of Yahya (= John the Baptist, at the beginning of IV-F, the sphere of Aaron) that "each person has a path (tariq) that no one else but he travels," which ."..comes to be through the traveling itself." The more specifically personal, "autobiographical" dimensions of Ibn 'Arabi's Mi'raj accounts are most evident in the K. al-Isra' (see the important passage translated in our JAOS article cited at n. 13 below) and in the concluding section (IV-I) of this chapter from the Futuhat. 5This is brought out more fully in the cross-references in the notes to this translation. In particular, it is clear that the spiritual phenomena underlying this particular schema provided by the Mi'raj are not essentially different from the realities Ibn 'Arabi discusses elsewhere in terms of other traditional Sufi categories, such as the metaphor of the spiritual "journeys in God" (asfar) or the complex distinctions of "stations" (maqamat), "stages" (manazil), etc. employed throughout the Futuhat itself: see, for example, his revealing remarks concerning Ansari's classic Manazil al-Sa'irin and his own Manahij al-Irtiqa' near the end of the Ascension outlined in chapter 167 (II, 280; Alchimie, pp. 112-113). 6In addition to Ibn 'Arabi's own explicitly metaphysical language, that perspective is more dramatically represented in chapter 367 of the Futuhat (translated below) by the spirits of the different 3 perspective of each individual voyager. The aim of this sort of dialectic, as he pointedly reminds his readers at the very beginning of chapter 367 (= section I of the translation below), is quite clear: if the journey in question necessarily appears to move through time and distance, that is not so that we can eventually "reach" God--since "He is with you wherever you are"--but rather "so that He can cause [us] to see His Signs" (Kor. 31:31) that are always there, "on the horizons" and "in the souls." The heavens of this journey, the prophets and angels who populate them, the Temple or the Throne where the final "unveiling" takes place--all of these, he insists, are so many places of the Heart.7 Modern readers who want to understand these narratives on this ultimate and most intimate level, however, must first find their way through an extremely complex set of symbols and often only implicit references to what are now largely unfamiliar bodies of knowledge: the task of interpretation is therefore not unlike that facing students of Dante's Divine Comedy (and more particularly the Paradisio). Therefore our annotation to this translation of chapter 367 of the Futuhat concentrates on providing that indispensable background in the following areas: (1) the actual Islamic source-materials in the Koran and hadith which provide the basic structure and key symbols for all of Ibn 'Arabi's Mi'raj narratives;8 (2) the cosmological and astrological presuppositions which he generally shared with other traditions (more or less "scientific") of his time;9 (3) his own personal metaphysical and cosmogonical theories or "doctrines," which are prophets, especially Adam, Idris and Aaron--all of whom tend to speak here, as is often the case with God in the Koran, from a transcendent divine or "supra-temporal" perspective. 7Hence the central importance of the celebrated divine saying (hadith qudsi) with which he concludes the opening section (at n.