2.3.12 - His Meeting with Spirits

Shaykh Muhyiddin, may Allah be pleased with him, was an experienced practitioner in the world of spirits, as he was not obscured by the physical world. He was in constant connection with them and communication with them as if dealing with the physical world alike. He is used to doing this in sleep as well as in wakefulness, with countless encounters that he mentioned in various places in his books. For example, he met with the pole Ahmad Ibn Harun al-Rashid (died 184/800), as we shall see in more detail later: “I met him on one Friday after prayer in the year of 599 AH, while he was circumambulating the Kaaba, and I asked him and he replied. His spirit was manifested to me in the sense, just as Gabriel used to manifest in the form of an Arabian man” [Futuhat: II.15]. When Shaykh Muhyiddin saw him in the circumambulation he was surprised and he doubted his situation because: “I saw walking in the crowd and penetrating between the two men without separating them, so I said to myself: there is no doubt this is a spirit that became embodied, so I saluted him and he replied and we had some discussion.” [Futuhat: I.638].

Ibn al-Arabi explained also that it is possible to extend the influence of sight to recognize the luminous and fiery spirits without their will to manifest or emerge into the imagination, such as what happened with Ibn Abbas and Aisha, may Allah be pleased with them, when they perceived Gabriel, peace be upon him, as he was speaking with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and he did not intend to appear to them [Futuhat: III.332].

Also the Shaykh, may Allah be pleased with him, mentioned some different ways in which spirits could be embodied to him to learn from or teach them. He said that in poetry in chapter 72 of the Meccan Revelations about the secrets of Hajj:

Some of them incarnate to me on the Earth, and some are embodied in the air.

And some of them incarnate wherever we were, and some are incarnated in heaven.

So they tell us, and we tell them, with knowledge, but we aren’t alike.

Because I am steadfast in every blink, while they cannot survive.

They are manifested in every form: the water is painted with the color of its vessel.

Therefore, the Shaykh used to meet with the souls of prophets, angels, and some righteous companions and others as they are embodied in the forms of the images of physical senses; and he said that spirits demand bodies to manifest, so wherever any abstract meaning appears embodied in the sense, such as good deeds may appear in the form of a young man with a good face, origin and smell, so the spirit is always attached with him [Futuhat: I.755].

Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi said that his Shaykh was able to meet with the spirits of prophets and saints, in three ways:

God willing, the spirit is lowered into this world so that he can realize in an idealized image similar to the sensual image that the person had in his life.

God willing, he could bring them to see in his sleep.

Or he himself could be stripped out of his own body and meet their spirits.

[Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, Explaining the Treatise of Lights, p. 102].