Ibn Arabi On Imagination and The Creation Of The Universe

[dreamed that I] saw my Lord in the form of a youth.” He says, “The dreamer sees meanings in the form of objects, since the reality of imagination is to embody that which is not properly a body” (Futuhat al Makiyah), in the dream Allah took the form of a youth even though He isn’t bound by form and has none, the meaning behind the dream was what took form and this is the role of subatomic particles since in life they take form to create our physical world and in the dream they take form around the meaning of the dream.

If on the one hand Imam Ibn al-Arabi employs the term imagination to refer to the barzakh (the place) between the spiritual (subatomic) and corporeal (physical) world, on the other he uses it to describe the whole of created reality, which is an isthmus (barzakh) between Being (the universe) and nonexistence (what Allah hasn’t created), very literally the universe is a barzakh (barrier) between us and non existence.

Imam Ibn al Arabi’s understanding aligns well with what we know about subatomic space, the spiritual world ghayb is subatomic space, everything in the physical world originated from there, all Atoms begin from what occurred sub-atomically at the creation of the universe. If Atoms did not exist we would not exist, when the universe was created everything began with the creation of subatomic particles that then formed atoms and our world last of all, so the subatomic world is the barrier between existence and non existence.

This tells us to what extent Imam Ibn al Arabi understood this universe and how much he was in line with modern science.

In a well-known poem in the Fusus al ahkam he writes “Engendered (created) existence (al-kawn) is nothing but imagination (forms the particles have taken), though in reality it is Truth (haqq). Whoever understands this has grasped the mysteries of the Path”.

This is amazing because He is essentially saying everything is created from subatomic particles, but by using the word imagination He is giving us a complete picture because imagination is the act of creating with these particles, He then says “Whoever understands this has grasped the mysteries of the Path”, Islam, this is because every road to Allah goes through this route since all mysteries begin and end with what is occurring sub-atomically in the universe.

The term “engendered existence” is synonymous with the “cosmos” (al- alam), which is defined as “everything other than Allah” (ma siwa Allah). The first line of the poem (which paraphrases the shahada: “There is no god but Allah”) affirms that everything other than Allah is unreal or “imaginal” (because it isn’t lasting and given temporary form); they derive form from Allah, this is how He is the sustainer of the Universe  “Allah is the One who (literally) holds the heavens and the Earth (through the forces holding Atoms together), lest they cease to exist” (35:41)

We are given temporary form through these formless particles, we derive our form from Allah who “imagined” (gave form to) this universe with them and it is a self-manifestation of His reality (Haq). This phrasing is used because the human mind is on the archetype of Allah, the term imagined is the same as created in this respect. We are created in Allah’s image so when we imagine something we likewise move these particles to create the image in our mind, but Allah can give life to what He imagines while we can’t.

Imam Ibn Arabi says: The reality of imagination is transmutation (tabaddul: transformation of these particles) in every state and manifestation (zuhur) in every form (they take). There is no true being which does not accept (or undergo) transmutation except Allah; so there is nothing that possesses Real Being (al-wujud al-muhaqqaq) except Allah (what is our true form, if we loose our form once we die). As for that which is other than Allah, that is imaginal existence (temporary). So when Allah manifests Himself within this imaginal existence (this universe). He only appears in keeping with its reality, not in His Essence (dhat), which possesses true Being (Allah is more than what He has shown to this universe). This is what is meant by Allah’s words, “Everything is perishing except His Face” (28:88), i.e., except His Essence, since no state in the cosmos continues to endure. whether it be engendered (created and given form) or divine. . . . Hence, everything but Allah’s Essence undergoes transformation (istihala), rapid or slow; everything but Allah’s Essence is intervening imagination and vanishing shadow (by comparison). Therefore no engendered existent in this world, (or) in the next, and in whatsoever is between them, neither spirit (Jinn, Angel), nor soul, nor anything other than Allah’s Essence, remains in a single state; on the contrary, it is transmuted from one form to another constantly and forever: imagination is nothing but this, (and this universe is nothing but Allah’s imagination) (Futuhat al Makiyah).

Imam Ibn Arabi calls the imagination by other names, well-known to those familiar with the Imams teachings. Perhaps the most famous is the “Breath of the All-Merciful” (nafas al-rahman) mentioned in verse 32:9.

Imam Ibn Arabi says: “The cosmos (space) in the state of its existence is nothing but the forms that are received by the Cloud and that become manifest within it.” Hence the breath is Allah’s command to subatomic particles (the cloud mentioned earlier in ahadith) to take the form of this universe as He commanded.

This explains how miracles manifest in the physical world, they come into existence by Allah commanding particles to form into matter, Abdullah said “We used to consider miracles as Allah’s Blessings, but you people consider them to be a warning. Once we were with Allah’s Apostle on a journey, and we ran short of water. He said, “Bring the water remaining with you.” The people brought a utensil containing a little water. He placed his hand in it and said, “Come to the blessed water, and the Blessing is from Allah.” I saw the water flowing from among the fingers of Allah’s Apostle, and no doubt, we heard the meal glorifying Allah, when it was being eaten (by him)” (Bukhari).

Imam Ibn Arabi Continues…“So if you look at the reality of the cosmos (space), you will see it as a vanishing accident (aradh, better translated as “incidental characteristics” or temporary qualities). . . , while the fixed substance is the Cloud (solid matter is temporary, vanishes when matter is destroyed, but the smallest subatomic particles are more lasting), which is none other than the Breath of the All-Merciful. All the forms that become manifest in the cosmos are accidents ( have “incidental characteristics”) within the cosmos and may vanish; they are the possible existents (al-mumkinat) and are related to the Cloud as forms are related to a mirror [when different objects are placed in front of it]” (Futuhat al Makiyah).

This is an amazing statement by the Imam because it mirrors modern physics in it’s understanding of how atoms are created and in turn create the universe. The Imam simply said space is created from subatomic particles and it’s characteristics are temporary qualities that can easily change. The term Accident (aradh) is one taken from Islamic physics directly, Islamic scholars who were also physicists called the smallest indivisible particle in the universe ‘Al-Jawhar Al-Fard’ (lit. the unique essence), it is not important what subatomic particle is the indivisible one, this is the concern of modern physics, but that eventually when all particles are divided, the Atom, electron, proton etc we will reach one that is indivisible, they believed this because the universe as the Quran often explains is not infinite, it has an end.

Aradh which is often translated as “Accidents” is better translated as “incidental characteristics”, they are simply attributes (forces) that shape the particles (jawhar), neither of them can exist without the other, in essence this is very similar to modern physics understanding of how smaller particles make up larger particles, the qualities of the larger particle like the Atom only exist once the smaller particles come together to define what that Atom will be like, so because the universe is made from atoms and particles that have temporary qualities, then as the Imam was saying, space itself is temporary in the way it exists, it has “incidental characteristics”.

Allah says in the Quran “(He is) the Knower of the Unseen. Not an atom’s weight (a general translation of the word “Zaratin”), or less than that or greater, escapeth Him in the heavens or in the earth, but it is in a clear Record” (34:3).

Allah referred the knowledge of what the smallest particle is back to himself, some modern translators assume the smallest particle here is referring to the smallest visible thing in the ancient world where by they are filling in the gaps of history, but this is a clear mistake because this subject was spoken about at length in the Islamic world. In Ash’ari and Maturidi Aqeedah which dealt with physics and the creation of the universe, scholars often discussed theoretical physics and how subatomic particles come into existence, particles they clearly stipulate have no magnitude or size until they are affected by the accident (Aradh, force) which is essentially the same as the forces governing our universe, the Atom can’t come into existence until subatomic forces bring protons and electrons together, so in no way was the smallest particle to them the smallest particle seen by the naked eye.

This verse in the Quran states clearly that everything smaller than the “Zaratin” is recorded, so this verse is a clear reference to the existence of subatomic particles, Allah began the verse by saying (He is) the Knower of the Unseen” He was pointing people towards particles the naked eye can’t see because the subjects of the unseen and  particles smaller than the eye can see are mentioned together.

Allah similarly says about His breath in the Quran directing people to what it is referring to;

32:6 Such is the Knower of the Invisible and the Visible, the Mighty, the Merciful,

32:7 Who made all things good which He created, and He began the creation of man from clay;

32:8 Then He made His offspring come into existence from an extract (sperm) of insignificant fluid;

32:9 Then He fashioned him and breathed into him of His (Own) Spirit; and appointed for you hearing and sight and hearts (that take advantage of this soul). Small thanks give ye!

Allah begins the passage about the creation of man by mentioning He is the knower of the visible and invisible, the visible is the physical matter we are created from and the invisible is the subatomic particles everything comes from, the invisible is most relevant to the verse “and breathed into him of His (Own) Spirit” because the soul is entirely made from subatomic particles, while the visible is a reference to clay.

The designation of what Allah breathed into man, to Himself (Of his Own Spirit) means the soul is made from particles from the deepest subatomic depth, above the Throne, these particles are mentioned in the hadith of Jabir they are similar to the first light (particles) He created creation from and the same light He gifted to the prophets to prove who they are, the light of prophethood. “Of His own spirit” then has a similar meaning to “Istiwa”, established Himself on the throne, it simply means the Arsh is the means by which creation can know Him, in modern terms the Arsh is the interface between the Universe and Allah, this is it’s role. Allah in essence “Istiwa” the human soul because at the subatomic depth of the throne that is were Allah established Himself for creation, while the soul is made of finer particles than the Arsh (throne) so it experiences that as well and it was created to do so.

“And they ask you about the soul. Say: The soul is one of the commands of my Lord, and you are not given aught of knowledge but a little.” (17:85), “His command, when He intends anything, is only to say to it: Be, so it is. Therefore glory be to Him in Whose hand is the kingdom of all things, and to Him you shall be brought back.” (36:82-83), “And Our Command is but a single (Act),- like the twinkling of an eye”(54:50).

The description of the soul as a command (Amr) is unique because it is a subtle reference to how Allah began the universe, the laws that govern it and how all particles come into existence from the first particles (light) Allah created, mentioned in the hadith of Jabir (as). There are specific ahadith which mention when the prophets soul was created at the first moments of creation and from what it was created, Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al Ginlani (d. 561) who was one of the major scholars of Islam, in his book Sirr al-asrar fi ma yahtaju ilayh al-abrar (p. 12-14 of the Lahore edition) said: “Know that…Allah first created the soul of Muhammad from the light of His beauty, as He said: I created Muhammad from the light of My Face, and as the Prophet said: The first thing Allah created is my soul, and the first thing Allah created is the Pen, and the first thing Allah created is the intellect”, these ahadith are referring to the many things Allah created at the first moments of creation from the same particles (light).

The soul was created around the same time as the pen more than likely from the same particle, while the Throne of Allah was created later, “when Allah wished to create creation, he divided that Light (particle) into four parts and from the first (type of particle) made the Pen, from the second (particle) the Tablet, from the third (particle) the Throne”.

In literal terms the verse says the soul is one of the Laws in the universe, meaning it is something that shapes this universe just like the Laws of Allah, the soul gives life and this is what it means to bring to life you are in command of the universe giving Life. The laws of physics are in command over what they affect, therefor the verse means the soul is subservient to Allah but just like one of the Laws in the universe it is in control of the universe within the physiology of man giving him life.

To illustrate this, to date there is one particle we have discovered that has some of these qualities, it behaves like one of the laws of the universe and is a particle, although it comes from a shallower part of subatomic space, the Higgs field which is made up of the Higgs boson particle gives other particles Mass, this particle essentially helped decide how matter would form in space when the universe was being created becouse Mass decides how particles move, this particle was so significant in deciding how things were to be in the universe that physicists took to calling it the god particle. It would not be surprising that other particles exist that also have significant consequences on life in space. The Higgs particle is more than likely the particle the prophet (saws) referred to as the “Angel” in the hadith we quoted earlier, because Angels govern this universe from subatomic space and that particle governed every subatomic particle that formed after it.

Allah says in the Quran “We certainly created man and know what his self whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein”(50:16). Allah doesn’t move He has no location so the closeness is what He gave us to be close to him, the jugular vein is in the neck it caries blood from the head to the face this vein is used as an expression of closeness to our face because the face is our identity, hence the jugular vein is the limit of physical closeness to our face, in Allah saying He is closer than our face to us, by referring to something inside us, He is referring to the subatomic part of our physiology.

Allah “istiwa” (is established) on the throne and because mans soul is made from the finest particles in the universe and it is a part of our physiology it means we are connected to this depth of the universe, man in his self can reach that depth to know Allah and what he created, this is a step above the Angels who were created from a part of the Universe created later, “when Allah wished to create creation, he divided that Light (particle) into four parts and from the first (particle) made the Pen, from the second (particle) the Tablet, from the third (particle) the Throne, and then he divided the fourth [part] into four [other] parts (particles) and from the first (particle) he created the bearer of the Throne, from the second (particle) the Chair (Kursi), from the third (particle) the rest of the angels.”

The Angels bore witness to this fact in the prophet (saws) when He (saws) went beyond “sidrat al muntaha” to the position of “two bows length”, meaning the prophet (saws) traveled beyond the Arsh to the limit of what the soul can reach, while Jibril (as) who was accompanying Him the entire journey said to Him ‘I can not go any further’, once they approached that depth.

A creature can only fly if Allah gave it “wings” so man can only reach this far because of what Allah placed in him.

But man is made from constituent parts, the soul and the “clay” and “clay”, physical matter, was created last in this universe, in this way among the creatures Allah created we are the first with Him, and the lowest in our type of existence because of our bodies.

Referring to His (saws) light of prophethood, which was the first particle (light) the universe was created from before the light (particle) was divided, the messenger of Allah (saws) said “I am from Allah and the believers are from me, and Allah created all souls from me (my particles) in the spiritual world and He did so in the best form” (Abdul Qadir al Jilani).

It’s explained in Ahadith we quoted in the previous chapters that Allah created everything in the universe from the “cloud” (or smoke in that translation) which He extracted from the “water”. This is the exhalation of Allah from which all created beings take shape, just as the light of words take shape within human breath, we understand the reality behind them when we hear them, we don’t just hear a sound being made. It is called an exhalation because this is the Cloud (al-ama) “within” which was Allah—according to the Prophet—“before” He created the creatures, “within” here has a similar meaning to “Istiwa” because at this time there was no throne and it was almost the only thing in existence and Allah chose it to know Him.

When the prophet (saws) was asked were was Allah before he created the creatures, the prophet (saws) replied “in a cloud neither above which nor below which was any space.” (Tabari)

This may seem like it is talking about the time before the universe was created but it isn’t, this is a specific question referring to the moment before Allah created the Angels, who were his first creatures to exist. From the Hadith of Jabir and the other Ahadith quoted in the previous chapters, we know one of the last things Allah created was the Nun which is the space we see in the night sky and the first things created were the subatomic particles along with dark matter and dark energy, basically the stuff the blackness of space is made from. So their was no space at that point in time neither above or below the cloud because space hadn’t been created yet, but there where particles which is the cloud.

Our sense of direction comes from the fact space exists as we know it but if we unravel space we unravel time as well which is created by the universe, this is why space and time are joined together, and all directions as we know them would be gone.

So why is it called a cloud, if we look at the light coming from a light bulb that light is made from small subatomic particles called photons, when they are all bunched together they look like a “cloud” of light we see coming from the light bulb so the simile is very accurate, the smoke is another name translators sometimes use for this cloud.

The cloud is a simile for those particles and matter that existed at the beginning of the universe, so then why is there no space above or below, this is a technical question which has to do with time and the fact solid matter hasn’t been created yet.

To begin the particles that atoms are made from don’t look like Atoms because a particle as used in elementary particle physics is created because of an excitation in the subatomic field it comes from. Meaning the Higgs Boson particle is created when something excited the Higgs field, every particle is created from a particle field spread out in space and when something reacts with this field it creates the particle from it. Allah amazingly said this in the Quran, “Allah is the Light (particles) of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light (particles) is like a niche within which is a lamp” (24:35) a niche is a small hole in a large wall, the niche is the small pocket in the particle field and the particle (lamp) comes from this niche (field). So basically if we are at the point in time in the universe when only elementary particles exist and all that would have existed at this time are these flat particle fields that haven’t developed into solid matter, space or anything else, very literally there would have been no space above or below because it hadn’t been created.

Regarding time, “Time and space, according to Einstein’s theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called “space-time.” The mass of the Earth dimples this fabric, like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the curvaceous lines of the dimple (gravity is the result of the earth bending space which becomes a force on the things on it). Our planet spins, and the spin twists the dimple, slightly, pulling it around into a 4-dimensional swirl”, four dimensional because it includes time.

In 2004 scientists did an experiment in space to prove this, they “put a spinning gyroscope into orbit around the Earth, with the spin axis pointed toward some distant star as a fixed reference point. Free from external forces, the gyroscope’s axis should continue pointing at the star–forever. But if space is twisted, the direction of the gyroscope’s axis should drift over time. By noting this change in direction relative to the star, the twists of space-time could be measured.”

“More recently this year scientists recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, it made a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. That faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted. It completes the vision of a universe in which space and time are interwoven and dynamic, able to stretch, shrink and jiggle.”

If we unravel the particles and matter space is created from then we also unravel the flow of time because they are interwoven together since the creation of the universe created time with it.

Hence literally the deeper we go sub-atomicaly we are going into a part of the universe were the building blocks of time don’t exist and the closer we near the Arsh of Allah, the limit of subatomic space, the more timeless we become, dreams are good example of this, scientifically an hour long dream only takes about 2 or 3 seconds in real life, the dream world is simply a world we created from subatomic particles which we experience with our consciousness, and as physics is now understanding our consciousness is a state of matter created from subatomic particles, like solids or liquids or gas’s are and it is subject to the same laws of physics subatomic particles are including the fantastic things quantum mechanics has discovered.

Allah affirms this fact about the universe and time in the Quran, “The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day, the measure of which is fifty thousand years.”(70:4), “((Whereby) the angels and the Spirit) i.e. Gabriel (ascend unto Him) unto Allah (in a Day whereof the span) the span of ascending it for other than the angels (is fifty thousand years)” (Tanwir al Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas).

Ascending to him means they travel to his Arsh (throne), had this meant Gabriel traveled for 50000 thousand years of our time just to fulfil a single task then that would take more time than most of humanity had been on earth and the Angels actions would not be relevant to our lifetime because people would die before they return to carry out Allah’s decree. Another clear proof of this is the prophets (saws) night Journey the prophet (saws) traveled to Jerusalem and through the seven Heavens all the way to the Arsh (throne), saw what He did, learnt what He learnt and returned home all in a single night, the scholars said the event took no longer than the time it takes to have a dream, this was because he was traveling this universe through Ghayb (it’s unseen parts).

But the clearest example yet is found in another verse in the Quran which at it’s heart shows the nature of the Miraj of our prophet (saws). When Queen Bilqis went from yemen to visit the prophet Sulaiman (as) in Jerusalem He (saws) said “O chiefs! Which of you can bring me her throne before they come to me surrendering themselves in obedience (as Muslims).”

An Ifrit from the Jinn (the strongest type of Jinn) said: (Mujahid said, “A giant Jinn.” Abu Salih said, “It was as if he was a mountain.”) I will bring it to you before you rise from your place (throne, meaning instantly). And verily, I am indeed strong and trustworthy for such work. Sulayman, upon him be peace, said, “I want it faster than that.” When Sulayman said, I want it faster than that, “One with whom was knowledge of the Scripture said I will bring it to you within the twinkling of an eye!” (even faster than the Jinn).

Ibn Abbas said, “This was Asif, the scribe of Sulayman.” It was also narrated by Muhammad bin Ishaq from Yazid bin Ruman that he was Asif bin Barkhiya’ and he was a truthful believer who knew the Greatest Name of Allah. (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, 27:38-40)

In the twinkling of an eye means before you need to blink, both the Ifrit and Sulaiman’s scribe said they could bring it in no time at all because traveling in Ghayb takes no time by our awareness of time, we should also consider the fact Isa (Jesus) presently lives in Ghayb, a place not in “physical” space, Jannah.

So before Allah created the Angels He hadn’t finished the building blocks of time yet, and our space relies on the existence of time because the reactions of particles, matter and energy occur with our flow of time and it is movement and direction, if this seems difficult imagine our space existing but time doesn’t, it isn’t possible the two rely on each other. Time in the universe has to be thought of like it is a substance because it is attached to space, many still hold to the belief that what is referred to by time here is the ticking of the clock after which they assert that because it is just human observation or something we are measuring time then does not really exist, many philosophers and islamic scholars asserted this, like Imam Ibn Arabi, but this is time in relation to human awareness and consciousness, we invented the measurement of time we didn’t invent time itself.

When the Imam makes His argument he quotes the following verses in the Quran; “the Imam’s ultimate argument is that time, as he says, is an illusory thing, non-existent. Because of this, Allah attributes it universally to Himself, in His words, Allah is to everything All-knowing [Q. 33:40] and To Allah belongs the matter, before and after [Q. 30:4], and in the Sunna, the petitioner’s phrase is confirmed, Where was our Lord before He created His creation? If Time were an existent thing itself, Allah would not be truly removed from limitation, as the force of Time would limit Him. So we understand that this phrasing has over it no existent matter.”

As we will see time only exists in our universe because our universe created it, and Allah isn’t bound by the universe or anything in it.

When Allah wanted to teach man about time He related the matter back to physics, the forces in the universe and the revolution of the planets around the sun to show how it exists. It isn’t certain if the Imam was aware of the following Hadith because it is more literal than the verses He quoted to make his argument. In a hadith Qudsi Allah said the “Sons of Adam inveigh against [the vicissitudes of] Time, and I am Time, in My hand is the night and the day” (Bukhari, Muslim), when Allah says He is something it means it exists and has a strong relationship to his qualities, because all events occur in time Allah’s qualities are known through time so He said “I am Time”. The other remarkable thing about this hadith is the relationship between time and the alternation of night and day, when Allah says something is in his hand He is referring to a force in the universe, here the sun’s gravity which pulls on the planets making them rotate around it, so Allah is pointing towards gravity which is the bending of spacetime to understand what time is.

What we are referring to is the time that the universe created and matter relies on. If time didn’t exist for the universe then gravity wouldn’t be accelerating falling objects to earth at 9.8 meters per second and on the moon at 1.62 meters per second, irrespective of whether humans existed or not, this is the time matter relies on. “If time didn’t exist then all events would be simultaneous and there would be no defined points. Space curves and bends with events in time so it must exist.”

“Time is not an independent variable, it is strictly related to space. So if time does not exist then space would not exist. Think of “time” as a clock like the one that makes computer CPU’s run: it is something “orthogonal” (at right angles) to space. What I mean is that time is a fourth dimension whose spacial projection is the center of any mass (from which actually 3d space coordinates departs). So “time” is not perceivable nor measurable like “space”, rather its measurement is in term of “space modification”.

If time didn’t exist then the flow of time, our experience of time, in the universe would be constant everywhere but it isn’t. Time is the movement of all matter, when you go subatoimicly you expierince time direfently, you experience more time, you live longer in a shorter period of time compared to earth. In the Quran Allah says the Angels ascend to him in a day whose length is 50,000 years (by our account), the prophets (saws) Isra wal Miraj occured in the same time it took to have a dream, and the scrbe of Sulaiman brought Him the throne of Bilqees from yemen to Jerusalem in a shroter amount of time than it took to blink. When we go sub atomically we become more timeless because our flow of time relies on the existence of Mass and there is less of it sub atomically.

Because matter and particles in subatomic space created the universe in stages until it reached the inkwell (our space, the container of all subatomic matter) the flow of time was progressively created with it, the Higgs field exists at a specific subatomic depth it gives particles greater than it Mass and as physics states “time exists only where mass exists” and Mass in the universe increases as you approach the physical world.

We should note much of this is still being established in physics because scientists haven’t been able to establish the direct connection between the physical world represented by the general theory of relativity which explains gravity and large-scale phenomena such as the dynamics of stars and galaxies in the universe and quantum mechanics which explains microscopic phenomena from the subatomic to molecular scales.

There is gap in our understanding of how these are connected, obviously they are because there is no gap in space between the physical and subatomic but it isn’t known how space and time are literally interwoven. Presently it is emerging that quantum entanglement is the source of space time, “Space-time, is just a geometrical picture of how stuff in the quantum system is entangled”, the term space time here is interchangeable with how every 3 dimensional object is created because every particle it is made of is entangled with those around it to make it form like that.

Quantum entanglement explains how particles form the objects of our world almost as if particles have a DNA blue print to follow; “Gravity in a three-dimensional volume (an object) can be described by quantum mechanics on a two-dimensional surface surrounding the volume (object) (think particles are relatively flat to solid matter so gravity is treated in objects layer by layer of particle in the object). In particular, the three dimensions of the volume should emerge from the two dimensions of the surface.”

Quantum entanglement is a subatomic “information carrier”, if we think about a heater heating a room the hot particles from the heater make contact with the cold particles of the room, they then entangle with each other and quantum entanglement carries the information (state) of the hot particle and tells the cold particle to become like it, hot, in this way a room is heated as the cold particles slowly copy the state of the hot particles, quantum entanglement does this for every single type of reaction in the universe it is how all particles interact with each other, essentially it is how everything occurs.

Presently it is believed quantum entanglement decides how the particles of all physical objects shape or create the object layer by layer, almost like a 3d printer prints the object layer by layer, not just because entanglement passes on information, the entanglement of all particles in a region like a giant spider web creates an atmosphere that influences what occurs sub atomically. Even though we are in the process of establishing all this, it is very significant Islamically because Allah states that He literally surrounds all things in Knowledge (65:12) which means every particle, and knowledge here does not mean words in a book it is a reference to how things come to be created.

“It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the earth, it’s like. The command (laws of physics) comes forth between them (subatomic space) so that perhaps you would know that Allah is Powerful over everything and that Allah, truly, enclosed everything in Knowledge.” (65:12), after Allah mentions the laws of physics and subatomic space He then explains how everything is enclosed in knowledge, the term here relates to the laws of the universe just mentioned in the verse and refers to how objects form since the verse begins with Allah creating the universe, the context of the entire verse.

Quantum entanglement projects data on the two dimensional surface of all objects as it forms, this allows for the computation of energy density which is a source of gravitational interactions, this method is emerging as a possible way to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics.

Quantum entanglement is very significant because it is believed that it creates time and Allah says He is time, when Allah says He is something it means it is encompassing of all His qualities, translators often translate verse 65:12 as “enclosed everything in His knowledge” and Allah says elsewhere in the Quran His Kursi surrounds all things, “His Kursi (footstool) encompasses the heavens and the earth”(2:255), the Kursi is a subatomic field at the lowest depths in space like the Higgs field, while the Arsh is sidrat al muntaha (the furthest depths of subatomic space), the companions explained that His Kursi is His knowledge (buhkari) hence it has a role in quantum entanglement and the data it projects onto objects. (Our article “The Depth Of The Heart Is The Depth Of The Subatomic Universe and It Ends With The Arsh Of Allah” in the Islamic Journal (05) explains the Arsh and Kursi further).

Quantum entanglement relies on particles and the forces of the universe that create them. Concerning the day of resurrection, Allah says: ‘On that Day eight shall bear the Throne of thy Lord’ (69:17), Imam Ibn al-Arabi said that when this verse was recited before the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he said ‘And today (in the world) they are four’, ‘And tomorrow (in the Hereafter) they will become eight’ (Futuhat).

“Imam Ibn al-Arabi then explains that al-ʿarsh (usually translated as ‘the Throne’) in Arabic has two meanings: it can either mean the chair of the king, or it can also mean the kingdom itself (the kingdom is the Universe since the Arsh like the Kursi is a subatomic field spread out in space). According to the second meaning, he says that the bearers of the Throne or the Kingdom are those who are in charge of its affairs (carying it in the hadith means responsible for it’s affairs, they don’t literally carry it), and these are like the four supports or pillars (awtad) that hold up the tent or the house (the universe).”

“These four Throne-bearers who maintain the Kingdom (Universe) of Allah in this world (before it ends) are the four primary archangels: ʿAzraʾil (the angel of death), Jibraʾil (Gabriel, the Messenger of Allah), Mikhaʾil (Michael who is in charge of the earths and nature) and Israfil (Seraphiel who will blow the trumpet, in charge of ending the universe). With respect to the angels, Imam Ibn al-Arabi indicates in his book Insha al-Dawaʾir (Constructing the Circles): ‘They are called angels (malaʾika) because they are links or conductors that link the godly rules (laws of physics) and the divine effects with material worlds, because al-malak, the angel, in Arabic means force or intensity’.”

“Thus, we can correlate these four archangels that bear the Throne with the four fundamental forces in Nature, which are: the force of gravity, the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force, on which the Cosmos is constructed. Thus, these four forces can be conceived as manifestations of these four prime archangels.”

The Angels are created from Light, Light in the Quran is a simile for subatomic particles, hence keeping in mind these are the first Angels Allah created at the beginning of the universe one after the other from the first particles in existence; “In explanation of this, if we want to compare these four angels with the four fundamental forces that operate in Nature, we can clearly see, for example, a correspondence between gravity and the angel of death, since both operate upon forms or bodies, and they always attract everything down to the earth. We can also see a clear relationship between the electromagnetic force and Michael (who is charge of nature and the planets), because both are responsible for subsistence and nourishment, when we recall that all the food we eat is in some way produced by light and heat, both of which are electromagnetic waves (forces) emitted by the sun and other energy sources.”

Jibril is the Angel of revelation, in charge of inspiration in mans heart, the strong nuclear force is the strongest of the four and is responsible for binding together the fundamental particles of matter to form larger particles, essentially the creation of matter in the universe. This corresponds with Jibril who brings together the subatomic elements in mans heart responsible for his inspiration and the visions that prophets see. Dreams are a miniature universe we experience and both they and visions are made from subatomic particles that have bound together to create it. The weak nuclear force corresponds to Israfil the Angel who will end the universe because the weak force plays a greater role in things falling apart, or decaying and after He blows the trumpet the universe will unravel, particles will fall apart and disintegrate into nothingness.

Jibril (as) corresponds to the forces of creation and guidance in the universe because Allah teaches what is being created has meaning and purpose behind it, these are the higher aspects of life. Mikail (as) correspond to the forces of life, what creates it and what sustains it, of the two Angels Mikail is the elder, Life is the most precious thing with Allah and He placed Mikail in charge of it. Azrail (as) corresponds to the forces of Death and the things that bring it about, and Israfil (as) to the forces of destruction.

The following are technical notes but the matter should be explained; The arrow of time is the “one-way direction” of time, it moves forward, the arrow of time relies on the reactions of subatomic particles to exist, particles need energy to react, the thermodynamic arrow of time is explained by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that in an isolated system, entropy (complexity and disorder in the universe) tend to increase with time, entropy is also the energy that is unavailable for use (the remainder of energy) in the universe and time is the measurement of the rate of entropic change (complexity which causes energy to be unavailable for use by things in the universe) because that is the overall direction of the universe as it expands.

Think of the building blocks of the universe getting more complex over time from it’s beginning, it is a general law that this occurs, the universe kept getting more complex until all physical matter and creatures were created, physical matter was the limit of how particles evolved.

Looking at the bigger picture, the cosmological arrow of time points in the direction of the universe’s expansion. It may be linked to the thermodynamic arrow, with the universe heading towards a Big Chill as the amount of usable energy in the universe becomes negligible, so from all this it means the continued expansion of the universe relies on time existing and the expansion created the space (direction) and time we know today.

In Ahadith the prophet (saws) points to a point in time when Allah began this expansion, so before that it hadn’t started yet, this is the same point in time we are referring to when the “cloud” was extracted from the “water” Allah began expanding the universe after this, essentially the big bang and the moment Allah began expanding the universe are two seperate events.

This understanding sheds light on what the soul actually is, since it is made from the first particles in existence which are almost timeless because they exist at the deepest levels of subatomic space almost free from the constraints of spacetime.

Some of the classical scholars of Tassawwuf understood this but not in the context of particles that the soul is made from; The soul quickens the body this is how it give’s it life from death, inanimate means complete stillness of matter while animate is movement and life. Inanimate objects are dead in time and a complete slave to it’s flow and laws, which means in contrast the soul is almost timeless and has qualities closer to Allah who is free of the universe. Allah is not bound by time, if we consider the flow of time in the universe and the creation of space neither are the particles of the soul, what this means is that in the material sense death is to be a complete slave to the flow of time and the laws of the universe while life means to be free of them and to have choice and free will. Man has this because of his soul but his body limits him to the constraints of the universe, so it is the soul that gives life to the dead body. All subatomic particles move through space ignoring it’s laws as if the universe was not even there but they are bound by the laws of subatomic space, the particles of the soul are even less bound by these laws because of the depth of subatomic space they exist in.

Allah entangled the particles of the soul with the Human body in the womb, this process He likened it to breathing the soul into the womb, “And (remember) her (Marry) who guarded her chastity: We breathed into her of Our spirit (“Our spirit” means the particles come from the deepest subatomic depths), and We made her and her son a sign for all peoples” (21:91), “then [He] formed him (man) and breathed of His (own) Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show!” (Surat as-Sajda:9).

Allah in contrast to man is not bound by creation but as the prophet (saws) said about free will for us it is half and half, the body must follow the laws of the universe while the soul gives us freedom. If we consider the creatures Allah created we have the most free will because our soul is unique while the rest have it to lesser degrees until we reach the Angels who don’t have it, they can make choices within their constraints but their isn’t enough freedom to call them free. The qualities we see in the Human soul are only there because of the qualities that exist in the subatomic particles it is created from, we only have free will because Allah placed it in the very things we are created from and they give us this ability.

The forms created from the cloud, that exists in the universe whether living or inanimate are the manifestation of Allah’s Names (qualities) and Attributes, names like the breath of the merciful or His Imagination draw a more complex picture for mankind living 1400 years ago of how this occurred because we can relate to them in our self, Imam Jalal al Din Rumi wrote:

“Know that the creatures are pure and limpid water,

shining within them the Attributes of Almighty Allah.

Their knowledge, their justice,

their kindness are stars of heaven reflected in flowing water.

Kings manifest Allah’s Kingness.

the learned display His Knowledge.

Generations have passed, and we are a new generation—

the moon is the same, but the water has undergone change . . . .

All pictured forms are reflections in the river’s water—

when you rub your eyes, you see that all are He!”.

This understanding of how the universe came into existence was common knowledge among the scholars of that time, Imam Ibn Arabi for example lived in Spain while Imam Rumi lived in Persia yet He (as) was writing poetry about the same knowledge. Did the scholars literally understand all matter was created from small particles and they intern where created from smaller particles and this went on and on, absolutely, the fact is many debates where held over the nature of these particles and whether the universe was infinite or these particles had an end, orthodox Islam came to the conclusion that eventually there was an end and the universe is not infinite, Allah states this in the Quran very clearly when he mentions sidrat al muntaha, literally the end or limit of the subatomic universe beyond which no created being has any knowledge, exactly as the prophet (saws) explained.

Imam al Ghazali, Imam Suyuti and many others all wrote very similar things, some expanded on it more than others but the underlaying knowledge was all the same, the foundation for it all where the words of the prophet (saws) and physics and in the ancient world the schools of Aqeedah (creed and theology) dealt with physics and taught how the universe was created, these scholars expanded on that foundation. Most of them followed the Ashari school of Aqeedah and some followed the Maturidi school, the former was more common among the great scholars of Islam and the later among the common people. They essentially taught the same thing but where they differed was on the big questions of cosmology, how the Universe was created and it’s nature.

Some scholars understood better than others that ghayb is the subatomic part of our universe and put the bigger picture together clearer than others, Imam Ibn al Arabi was one such scholar whose work was well ahead of his time.

To understand this picture better we should envision the Prophet Musa (saws) when Allah removed the veils so He (as) could see Him, what direction was that occurring in was He looking up at the sky into the darkness of space or the mountain in front of Him (as). Allah didn’t show Him (as) the furthest distance in the Universe because that is where the Arsh (throne) is, He removed the veils from the space directly above the mountain in front of him until He reached Allah’s light and the mountain crumbled, which means Allah unraveled the forms particles and matter had taken (these are the veils) until He reached the end of subatomic space which is the Arsh, then Allah unraveled it so He could see His light directly which is beyond it, the Arsh is the largest thing Allah created because it exists throughout all created space at it’s furthest subatomic depths and surrounds the universe as well, the term Arsh is a metaphor it isn’t a throne and never was, the Higgs field exists everywhere in space and gives all particles their Mass, in a similar way the Arsh is a field that exists in space and allows everything in the universe to connect with Allah and know Him.

Because all creatures are signs displaying Allah’s Names and manifesting His creative Word, all are constantly “speaking”, in other words displaying His qualities that He endowed them with throughout their life: “There is nothing that does not proclaim His glory, but you do not understand their glorification” (27:44). Imam Ibn al Arabi comments: “No form that exists in the world, and the world is nothing but forms, that is not glorifying it’s creator with a special praise with which He has inspired it” (al Futuhat, II).

Man plays a unique role among the world’s creatures since he was created to be vicegerent (khalifah) to Allah, meaning containing the most of His qualities within him. According to the Prophet, man was created “upon Allah’s Form”; he manifests the All-Comprehensive Name (Allah) and thus reflects all other Names (qualities) as well, this is one meaning of the Quranic declaration that Allah “taught Adam all the Names”, He placed them in his heart to manifest their qualities in his self.

Allah created the Universe with two realms one unseen, the subatomic realm, and one sensory the physical realm; Imam Ibn al Arabi says: “Know also that the Reality (Allah) has described Himself as Being the Outer (al Zahir) and the Inner (al Batin). He brought the Cosmos into being as constituting an unseen realm and a sensory realın …” So one reflects one type of qualities while the other another type of qualities, man is unique among the creatures because he is made from a complete spectrum of matter, with Allah’s “two hands”, hence he can display all the qualities.

Imam Ibn al-Arabi divided the Cosmos into five hierarchical planes or types of existence. They are as follows 1-Hadharat ‘Alam al Ghayb or al-Mutlaq, i.e. the Divine Existence; 2-Hadharat ‘Alam al-A’yan al-Thabita, i.e. the presence of the archetypes, this is Allah’s knowledge of everything before He created it, 3-Hadharat Alam al-Malakut, i.e., the presence of the purely spiritual and angelic existences, the creatures made of subatomic particles; 4-Hadharat Alam al-Mulk, i.e., the presence of the material existences, animals etc; 5-Hadharat Alam al-Insan al-Kamil, I.e., the presence of the Perfect Man, the highest type of existence because it combines the full spectrum of matter both spiritual and physical.

Imam Ibn al Arabi said the Cosmos as a whole is evolutionary, and it is a result of the continuous evolutionary process of the divine order “Be” As everything is a gradual expression of Allah’s power, it belongs to a defined level of graduation in the Cosmos, the creation began with a command and continued to evolve from a single particle (light) over time into the complex universe we see today.

Evolution of the universe was a common understanding among many muslim scholars and the source for Darwin’s theory on evolution who learnt it from Islamic text prevalent at the time, his family was also known for studying them, Imam Ibn al Arabi goes on to say “Then creation continued in the earth, minerals, then vegetations, then animals, and then Man. Allah made the last of every one of these kingdoms of the first of the next kingdoms…The last of the animal and the first of mankind is the monkey”, translators in Europe would have taken this statement at face value, a common mistake in almost everything they translated, but the Imam is saying that Allah created creatures in gradual steps independent of each other but they are related archetypes.

Considering science at the time hadn’t discovered everything their is to know about the universe, the Imam identified 28 different kingdoms of existential graduation, between every kingdom is a transitional species and some link, beginning with the Angelic and spiritual type of existence and the last kingdoms are the earthly existences.

Imagination employed as a synonym for the Cloud or for the Breath of the All-Merciful is described as being “non delimited” (mutlaq, without limit), since (the subatomic particles) as the infinite Self-manifestation of Allah, it can act as a receptacle for any form (Allah wants them to have) whatsoever.

In contrast the particular ontological realm within the cosmos (the universe) which is also known as “imagination” and which acts as an isthmus (barrier, this is the nun and Barzakh) between the spiritual world and the corporeal bodies (space where the particles our imagination manipulates, exist) is described as “discontiguous” (munfasil, disconnected because it is a barrier); while space is dependant on the imagination of Allah to exist it is independent of creatures; the Imagination of Allah in turn is contrasted with “contiguous (muttasil, connected) imagination,” the imagination (of man) that is reliant on the existence of the universe, that is the imagination of “animal man” (al-insan al-hayawani), the individual who has not attained to the spiritual degrees of the saints and the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil).

Imagination is discontiguous if it is independent of the subject that perceives it, “contiguous” if it depends upon the individual mind.

Hence, Imam Ibn Arabi says: The contiguous kind disappears with the disappearance of the imaginer (man), while the discontiguous kind (Allah’s and the perfect man) is an essential ontological level, forever receptive toward meanings and spirits, which it embodies through its intrinsic nature. (Al Futuhat II)

To the extent that it is perceived by man, discontiguous imagination comes from “outside” (min kharij). “It is an independent and integral ontological level made up of embodied forms that are put on like clothing by meanings and spirits” (Futuhat II).

In the Imams words is the explanation for the miracles of the prophets and saints, when they attain perfection they can Will the type of miracle they want into existence because Allah gives them this ability over the universe, as they imagine it the universe and it’s particles move for them. This is clearly expressed in many miracles of the prophet’s and companions where they wilfully choose the type of miracle they want to occur and it occurs as they will it, they are independent of influence (contiguous).

Allah affirms the imams understanding in a number of Ahadith Qudsi, referring to man’s imagination and his relationship to Allah the Prophet (saws) said, “Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks I am (the universe is as the person sees it to be). I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’” (Bukhari)

The universe is as the person sees it to be, the imperfect person will suffer his imperfections as his delusions rule his self, while the perfect person will see it and Allah as it is. The underlaying knowledge is that a person can shape his universe or be shaped by it and the path to achieving this is Ihsan (perfection of the self), for the person who reaches perfection Allah raises them to Himself, makes their image of Him complete, so they can shape the universe (create miracles) as they want which the following ahadith state.

The prophet (saws) then said “If Allah has loved a servant [of His], He calls Gabriel (on whom be peace) and says: ‘I love So-and-so, therefore love him.’” He (the Prophet – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “So Gabriel loves him. Then he (Gabriel) calls out in heaven, saying: ‘Allah loves So-and-so, therefore love him.’ And the inhabitants of heaven love him.” He (the Prophet – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Then acceptance is established for him on earth. And if Allah has abhorred a servant [of His], He calls Gabriel and says: ‘I abhor So-and-so, therefore abhor him.’ So Gabriel abhors him. Then Gabriel calls out to the inhabitants of heaven: ‘Allah abhors So-and-so, therefore abhor him.’” He (the Prophet – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “So they abhor him, and abhorrence is established for him on earth.” (Bukhari, Malik, Tirmidhi)

The first step in this is Allah establishing acceptance in the universe for the person who reaches perfection, then the Messenger of Allah (saws) said: “Allah (mighty and sublime be He) said: Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. I do not hesitate about anything as much as I hesitate about [seizing] the soul of My faithful servant: he hates death and I hate hurting him.” (Bukhair)

Allah takes hold of the persons senses until they see His signs through them, they gain knowledge about the universe from their experiences other people who haven’t experienced this couldn’t, this is why Allah described the scribe of Sulaiman (as) in the Quran as “One who had knowledge of the scripture”, his knowledge was the prerequisite for the miracle He displayed which opened the way for him to achieve this ability, Allah states this prerequisite very clearly in the Quran elsewhere “Has he the knowledge of the unseen so that he can see?”(53:35), while for the Jinn it was his strength since Allah called him a Ifrit. The miracles of the prophets and saints occur as they will them to occur, this is what the phrase, “Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him” means and many ahadith indicate this.

In the following hadith we see the saintly person commanding something to occur and it does, it isn’t the result of an answered prayer before hand it occurs at the persons will and many ahadith reporting miracles are like this; Abu Hurayrah reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, “No human child has ever spoken in the cradle except for ‘Isa ibn Maryam, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the companion of Jurayj.” Abu Hurayrah asked, “Prophet of Allah, who was the companion of Jurayj?”

The Prophet replied, “Jurayj was a monk who lived in a hermitage. There was a shepherd who used to come to the foot of his hermitage and a woman from the village used to come to the shepherd. “One day his mother came while he was praying and called out, ‘Jurayj!’ He asked himself, ‘My mother or my prayer?’ He concluded that he should prefer the prayer. She shouted to him a second time and he again asked himself, ‘My mother or my prayer?’ He thought that he should prefer the prayer. She shouted a third time and yet again he asked himself, ‘My mother or my prayer?’ He again concluded that he should prefer the prayer. When he did not answer her, she said, ‘Jurayj, may Allah not let you die until you have looked at the faces of the evil women.’ Then she left.

“Then the village woman was brought before the king after she had given birth to a child. He asked, ‘Whose is it?’ ‘Jurayj’s,’ she replied. He asked, ‘The man in the hermitage?’ ‘Yes,’ she answered. He ordered, ‘Destroy his hermitage and bring him to me.’ They hacked at his hermitage with axes until it collapsed and was broken to pieces. They bound his hands to his neck with a rope and dragged him along to the king. When he passed by the evil women, he saw them and smiled. They were looking at him along with the people.

“The king asked, ‘Do you know what this woman claims?’ ‘What does she claim?’ he asked. He replied, ‘She claims that you are the father of her child.’ He asked her, ‘Where is the child?’ They replied, ‘It is in her room.’ He went to the child and said, ‘Who is your father?’ ‘The shepherd,’ he replied. The king said, ‘Shall we build your hermitage out of gold?’ ‘No,’ he replied. He asked, ‘Of silver?’ ‘No,’ he replied. The king asked, ‘What shall we build it with?’ He said, ‘Put it back the way you found it.’ Then the king asked, ‘What made you smile.’ ‘Something I recognized,’ he replied, ‘The curse of my mother overtook me.’ Then he told him about it.” (Imam Bukhari’s Adabul Mufrad)

Imam Ibn Arabi explains that Allah brings the three worlds—the spiritual (subatomic), imaginal (the water or nun or Barzakh in ahadith, the subatomic space closest to us), and corporeal (physical)—into existence within the Breath of the All-Merciful or non-delimited imagination, which (the particles), acting as an isthmus (a place) between the Light of Being and the darkness of nonexistence, manifests the properties of both sides, (literally the subatomic part of our universe is a barrier between us and the non existence beyond our universe, we think that beyond our universe is another place but if time doesn’t exist outside the universe then space can’t exist, and everything is simultaneous, it is non existence since particles can only exist in time). The macrocosm (physical universe) in turn has these three primordial states in it’s nature —Being, imagination, and nonexistence—in its three ontological levels (because the material part of our universe has a subatomic depth and beyond that is non existence): the spiritual world manifests the Light of Being, the corporeal world displays the darkness of nonexistence (it contains lifeless creations), and the imaginal world embraces the properties of both (because it is the subatomic space between us and the spiritual existence).

The fact that Allah is stoping this universe from going into non existence is affirmed in  the Quran; “Allah is the One who holds the heavens and the Earth (the universe), lest they cease to exist. And if they vanished no one could then keep hold of them. Certainly He is Most Forbearing, Ever-Forgiving.”(35:41)

The discontiguous Imagination (al-khayal al-munfasil) is the world of imagination that exists independently of the person, it is a specific part of the universe the subatomic space closest to us which Allah in the Quran calls the Barzakh. Just as discontiguous imagination is an isthmus (barzakh) between the spiritual and corporeal worlds, so non-delimited (Allah’s) imagination is the “Supreme Isthmus” (al-barzakh al-ala) or the “Isthmus of Isthmuses,” for “It possesses a face turned toward Being and a face turned toward nonexistence” (al Futuhat III), it is what is keeping everything from vanishing away.

Figure 1 illustrates the above scheme: The circle represents non-delimited imagination, “everything other than Allah’s Essence.” Nonexistence outside the circle (the universe) describes the state of the things (al-ashya’) all entities (al-ayan) of the cosmos before Allah brings them into existence, the Angels and Jinn exist in the world of spirits because they are made from subatomic particles only, while mankind exists in the corporeal part of the universe because he is made from physical matter.

The prophet (saws) said “Then Allah will drive out (resurrect) the creation with one driving (resurrection), and they will be like they were the first time: whoever was inside of it (the universe) will be inside of it (this is mankind), and whoever was on it will be on it (this is the Angels and Jinn).”(Ibn Kathir)

Concerning the ontological role of both non-delimited (divine) and discontiguous imagination (the Barzakh), Imam Ibn al-Arabi likes to quote the Qur’anic verse, “Allah let forth the two seas that meet together, between them an isthmus (barzakh) they do not overpass” (55:20) to illustrate the Barzakh (isthmus) between the physical world and the subatomic world. He says “If it were not for the isthmus (barzakh between us the unseen world) the two seas would not become distinct” (Futuhat), these “two seas” are Being and nonexistence.

Referring to the dead who go from the corporeal world to the world of spirits Allah says “ behind them (meaning the place of the living they left), there is a barrier (Barzakh) which prevents them from going back [to this world], until the day when they are raised” (23:100, Tafsir al Jalalayn).

As for contiguous imagination (of man), it reflects discontiguous imagination (the barzakh) at the level of the microcosm (subatomic) As was pointed out, the clearest access man has to contiguous imagination is through his dreams And since dreams are the imagination of the microcosm (subatomic), it is not surprising to find Imam Ibn al-Arabi calling the universe—non-delimited imagination—the dream of Allah.

Imam Ibn Arabi says: In reality, in respect of Allah’s Name the Inward (al Batin), the forms of the universe are related to Him like the forms of a dream to a dreamer, The “interpretation” (tabir) of His dream is that these forms (the things created) are His states (ahwal), so they are not other than He (in this respect), just as the forms of a dream are the states of the dreamer, nothing else—he sees only himself (al Futuhat II), who he is through what he created in the dream.

Allah’s Non-delimited imagination is infinitely vast, for it is the cosmos itself, everything “other than Allah” “It is the vastest of engendered (created and given form) beings, the most perfect of existents” (al Futuhat II) Even at the delimited level (the boundaries of existence), that is in its discontiguous and contiguous forms.

Imagination can encompass all things in a certain manner, pointing to the skeptical views of rational thinkers when presented with a description of imagination’s qualities, Imam Ibn al-Arabi states that even their ability to “suppose the impossible” (fard al-muhal) for the sake of an argument depends upon imagination. “If the impossible did not receive existence at some level or another, it could not be supposed” (al Futuhat II).

Because imagination is the moulding of matter to it’s will and has substance in this way Imam Ibn Arabi says: Nothing is vaster [than imagination], since, in its very reality, it governs all things and non-things (a person can imagine everything in existence and everything that isn’t in existence or real). It gives form to sheer nonexistence, to the impossible, to Necessity, and to possibility. It makes existence nonexistent and nonexistence existent. (Al Futuhat I).

Having already heard that imagination is characteristically “neither this nor that,” we should not now be surprised to be told that imagination is not only infinitely vast, it is also exceedingly narrow.

Imam Ibn al Arabi says: For imagination is not able to receive anything except as a form, whether it be something pertaining to the sensory or spiritual levels, or a relation, or an attribution, or Allah’s Majesty, or His Essence. Were imagination to attempt to perceive something without a form, its own reality would not allow it to do so. . . . It cannot in any way disengage meanings from material substrata (the meaning of something, it’s worth, can exist without form, the form given to it in the dream is meant to represents it’s value, but it’s value will always exist even if it isn’t given form). . . . Hence imagination is the vastest thing that can be known; yet, in spite of this amplitude, which allows it to be exercised over all things, it is unable to receive meanings as they are in themselves, disengaged from material substrata (it can’t understand things unless it’s value is given form, because the worth of something is truly invisible to man and only known to Allah who uses the universe and life to inform His creatures of it). Hence [and here Imam Ibn al-Arabi refers to a series of ahadith about the prophets dreams] it perceives knowledge in the form of milk, honey, wine, or a pearl; it sees Islam as a dome or a pillar; it sees the Qur’an in the form of butter and honey; it sees a debt in the form of a fetter; it sees Allah in the form of a human being or a light. Thus it is vast and narrow, while Allah Himself is only vast. (Al Futuhat I)

This is the relationship between the universe, man and Allah, man’s connection to it is through the subatomic particles he moulds in his dreams and shapes with his imagination, this is the ghayb Allah often mentions in the Quran and the underlaying knowledge required to unlock it’s meanings.

وَلِلَّهِ الْمَثَلُ الْأَعْلَىٰ

“To Allah belong the Highest Similitude”(16:60)

أَعِندَهُ ۥ عِلۡمُ ٱلۡغَيۡبِ فَهُوَ يَرَىٰٓ

ذَٲلِكَ عَـٰلِمُ ٱلۡغَيۡبِ وَٱلشَّهَـٰدَةِ ٱلۡعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ