5.3.5 - Tarjuman al-Ashwaaq (Mecca, Rajab - Ramadan 611/1214)

We have mentioned in section

eftarjuman, in the previous chapter, the occasion why Shaykh Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi wrote his famous Diwan “Tarjuman al-Ashwaq”, and said that he devoted it to praising the beauty of his wife Nidham, the daughter of Shaykh Abu Shujaa Ibn Rustam al-Isfahani, whom he met in Mecca in 598 upon his first visit when he came from Andalusia. Contrary to what Othman Yahya said in his classification of Ibn al-Arabi’s books [766], Shaykh Muhyiddin did not write the Tarjuman in this year, but perhaps he wrote some of the poems to be included later in this book at different periods, starting in 598 and then compiled them in one book in Mecca during the period from Rajab to Ramadan of the year 611.

It is noticeable first that when Shaykh Muhyiddin mentions Abu Shujaa, in his preface of the Discloser of Desires, he adds the statement: may Allah have mercy upon him, which means that he wrote this after his death in 609/1212. [See for example: Ibn al-Imad, The Golden Nuggets: c. 5, p. 37]. In addition to that, in many of his poems the author refers to specific places in Baghdad and Basra, which he visited only in 601 and then 608, as we have seen in sections

efbaghdad601 and

efbaghdad608 above.

On the other hand, one of the manuscripts in Ragheb Pasha’s library indicates that this book was written over a period of ten years and ended on 25 Rajab 614/1217, which means that it began in 604, according to this manuscript [769 ???].

It is noteworthy here that many, or perhaps all, of the poems mentioned by Shaykh Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi in the Tarjuman are also mentioned in his other book “Lecturing of the Righteous” (Muhadarat al-Abraar), but we also do not know the exact date when Shaykh Muhyiddin wrote this later book.

We have mentioned before that Shaykh Muhyiddin said in his introduction to the Tarjuman that all the names and praises he alludes to in this book are references to some abstract spiritual and divine meanings. In Chapter 98 of the Meccan Revelations, he also adds that whatever he mentions in his poems, in the Tarjuman or other books, are all divine acquaintances in various poetical forms, including the names of places and qualities of women, and any other natural features such as rivers, places and stars [Meccan Revelations: c. 3, p. 562].

\%He added in the introduction to his explanation of the interpreter saying in his description of the system:

\%Were it not for the weak and weak souls of bad-purpose diseases, I would have explained what Allah Almighty has created in her creation of goodness, and in her creation which is the kindergarten of Almozn, a sun among scholars, an orchard among writers, a sealed right, through a system contract, an orphan of her age, the dignity of her age. Jiyad and her home from the eye black and chest-hearted, brightened by Tihama, and opened the kindergarten to neighboring sleeves ... by the smear of a king and the concern of a king ... We imitated it in our book (Turjman longings) the best necklaces in the mouth of the relative relative and the words of decent yarn, did not reported in This is some of the self-generosity of her friend and her old age ... It is the question and the hope, and the virgin virgin, but we organized some risk of longing, of those munitions and Alaq ... Every name I mention in this part Vaknai, and every house I condemn Vdara I mean. I did not remove what I organized in this part on gesture to the divine imports and spiritual concessions and Alawite occasions, and for the knowledge of God may Allah be pleased with it referred to, and does not foresee you like an expert, Amen with a glory from no other God, and God says the truth and guide the way. [771]

Nevertheless, the Tarjuman caused much criticism from some scholars at the time, especially from the jurists of Aleppo, which forced Ibn al-Arabi to write an explanation that he called Dhakhaer al-Aalaaq, as we will mention shortly when talking about his return to Aleppo in 617 AH.