Since its earliest exposure to Iranian Sufis in the second half of the seventh century, al-Shaykh al-Akbar’s key texts, including al-Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (Bezels of Wisdom) and al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah (Meccan Revelations), have been the subject of lively discussion and examination. There exists more than one hundred commentaries and glosses on al-Fuṣūṣ, most of which are written by Iranian Sufis, who used Muḥy al-Dīn ibn ʿArabī’s (d. 638 H/1240) conceptual tools, including waḥdat al-wujūd, to explain the Islamic themes such as tawḥīd, prophethood, wilāya, and the like. Al-Fuṣūṣ is composed of twenty-seven faṣṣ (bezel), starting from faṣṣ-i ḥikmat al-Ilāhīyah fī Kalamata Ādamīyah (The bezel of the wisdom of divinity exists in the essence of Adam), and ends at faṣṣ-i ḥikmat al-fardīyah fī Kalamata Muḥammadīyah (The bezel of the wisdom of uniqueness exists in the essence of Muḥammad).[1]
However, for the author of Ḥikamat ʿIṣmatīyah fī Kalimat a-Fāṭimīyah (The bezel of the wisdom of impeccability exists in the essence of Fāṭimah), an independent chapter/bezel on the daughter of the Prophet and the wisdom exists in her essence, or the idea of ʿiṣma, was missing. Āmulī’s initiative is divided into eleven chapters, including al-nikāḥ, al-muʾālifa (intimacy) al-insān al-kāmil (the perfect man), tasmaytahā (the philosophy behind her name),ʿiṣmatīyah (her impeccability) al-mubāhilah, al-ʿadad al-khamsa (Number Five), Fāṭimah: laylat al-qadr (Fāṭimah as the Night of Decree), the modulations of beneficence (marātib ul-iḥsān), the modulations of revelation (marātib ul-waḥy), and last, the modulations of intuition (marātib ul-shuhūd).
For Āmulī, Fāṭimah stands for many themes and phenomena, chief among them a-nafs ul-kullīyah, ʿamal, al-badan, quiddity, and al-ʾarḍ, as opposed to al-ʿaql ul-kullī, ʿilm, al-rawḥ, wujūd, and al-samāʾ, which stand for ʿAlī. These two must be together as a pair, because each one alone cannot do its function, and because it is the law of nature. All natural phenomena around us follow the law of pairing and matrimony, and Fāṭimah and ʿAlī are not exceptions. Using both transmitted and rational sources, Āmulī ties the status of Fāṭimah to nature, fertility, and reproduction, portraying her as Mother Earth, which is one of the central themes of eco-feminism and is reminiscent of the image of female goddesses in ancient mythologies.
He defines nikāḥ as “a sacred love-bound motion” (p. 10), which is flowing through all levels and stations of existence and generates the five worlds (ʿālam). These anwāʿi khamsat al-mawjiba are including ʿālam al-maʿnawīyah, ʿālam al-rawḥīyah, ʿālam al-nafsīyah, ʿālam al-mithālīyah and ʿālam al-ḥissīyah, where love comes to be manifested in different forms. Motion, according to Āmulī, is of love and out of love, and any divine emanation is absolute love, because it causes motion (p. 10). Pertinent to this are the five typologies of nikāḥ, the last of which is assigned to kawn al-jāmiʿ, or the union between unseen and seen (ghayb wa a-shahādah), where the perfect man is born (p. 11). The next step is affinity, or al-muʾālifa, or the synthesis between rawḥ (husband) and nafs al-ḥaywānīyah (wife), which happened when God put them in love with each other. That love makes the body awake and vigilant (yaqẓān) (p. 12).
When the perfect man is represented by a woman (here Fāṭimah), it reflects a-nafa ul-kullīyah, which joins another river, i.e., al-ʿaql ul-kullī (or ʿAlī) and together they make an ocean, where “pearls and coral stones” (55: 22) are come forth (p. 17). On the appellation of Fāṭimah, Āmulī argues that her name is a derivative of His names, al-Fāṭir, meaning creator. In the same way, Fāṭimah means the source of higher lights (anwār ul-ʿalawīyah), niche (mishkāt)[2] of wilāya, and the mother of the Imāms, inter alia. Fāṭimah is impeccable without temptation, because ʿiṣma, in principle, is a divine light which preserves its owner from the improper, such as sin, defilement, negligence (sahw), forgetfulness and all other human vices. Āmulī brings several ḥadīth from al-Kāfī and other Shīʿa sources, as well as Qur’ānīc verses to strengthen his argument for the impeccability of Fāṭimah.
Fāṭimah is one of the Number Five, but what does that mean for the significance of her status? Āmulī argues that al-ʿadad al-khamsa indicates the circle of wujūd as well as the two bows of ascendence and descendance (qawsayn al-ṣaw ūd wa nuzūl). In the following, he brings numerous instances of the importance of the number five, as well as examples of five in Islamic cultures, such as ḥaḍarāt al-khams, anwāʿ sāʿat al-khams, al-ʿurush al-khamsa, anwāʿ qalb al-khamsa, al-sinat al-ḥamd al-khamsa (pp. 31-34), and so on. So, Fāṭimah is not just the daughter of a prophet, but a divine personality, with roots well assorted in the most mystical corners of the Islamic culture.
She is also laylat al-qadr (Night of Decree), where all the realities of wujūd are culminated and whose gnosis is equated to the gnosis of Fāṭimah. Here again, Āmulī brings verses and ḥadīth from Shīʿa sources to prove that laylat al-qadr is the source from which the perfect man gains his vital force and fortitude. So, in one word, Fāṭimah is qalb, from which the stamina and vivacity of life flow. In the following, he discusses different kinds of qalb and their functions, although emphasizes that in any definition, the heart, like Fāṭimah, is the reservoir of ḥikmat and the summation of risālat.
Āmulī argues that since prophethood is not just assigned to men, but expands to include women too, Fāṭimah should be regarded as the holder of the office of prophethood, because she enjoys the status of iḥsān (lit. mercy). Iḥsān has three modulations, including a: looking at everything with mercy and compassion, b: worshiping the Lord (rabb) with full presence of heart as if seeing Him (aka ḥadīth-i iḥsān), and c: perceiving Him in and with everything, and by doing so submitting himself to His will, or mashīyyah (pp. 47-49).
She is also the recipient of waḥy, because, due to its modulated nature, waḥy can have various recipients, such as angels,[3] women (the mother of Moses),[4] ants,[5] and skies.[6] However, Fāṭimah receives waḥy, because she has been carrying an egg in her womb since the time of the covenant with Adam, which, according to His qaḍā wa qadar, is determined and inevitable, and must only be mingled with a freeman’s (ḥurr) sperm. Furthermore, Fāṭimah’s status indicates to us the Qur’ānīc tawḥīd (pp. 50-51). She is named muḥadditha (the one who was talked to by the angels), and was called by Him as was Maryam, the mother of Jesus. She is the one who is selected, purified, and prioritized over all other women (p. 52).
There are four levels of intuition (shuhūd), including seeing things by the light of heart or baṣīrat, seeing things by baṣīrat in imagination, seeing things with the eye of heart and the eye of head (baṣīrat wa baṣar) both, and finally, the true perception that is abstract from sensational images, until one comprehends the meaning of tawḥīd and enjoys the level of shuhūd. The one who has reached shuhūd, is irrigated with “the pure wine” (sharāban ṭahūra) from his/her Lord, and Fāṭimah occupies such a position (pp. 55-57).
As to the reason Āmulī has named his treatise Ḥikamat ʿIṣmatīyah fī Kalimat a-Fāṭimīyah, he narrates a story when one of his students suddenly (and according to him in a dream) came up with the title and asked his master to write a faṣṣ on Fāṭimah to complete al-Fuṣūṣ, which lacked an independent chapter on the daughter of the Prophet, who shares all the faculties of the office of nubuwwa and as such should be treated as one of the anbīyāʾ (Ibid., p. 58).[7]
[1] - For the translation of the “bezels” as well as other Akbarīan themes, I benefitted from the following book: Abrahamov, Binyamin, Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam; an Annotated Translation of ‘The Bezels of Wisdom’, 2015 (London and New York: Routledge). [2] - Sūrat a-Noor: 35. [3] - Sūrat al-Infāl:12. [4] - Sūrat al-Qisas: 7. [5] - Sūrat al-Naḥl: 68. [6] - Sūrat al-Fuṣṣilat: 12. [7] - The book has received a decent attention in the following link: https://hawzah.net/fa/Article/View/18503/%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%81%D8%B5%D9%91-%D8%AD%DA%A9%D9%85%D8%A9%D9%8D-%D8%B9%D8%B5%D9%85%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%91%D8%A9%D9%8D-%D9%81%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A9%D9%8D-%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%85%DB%8C%D9%91%D8%A9, last accessed 01/09/2021.
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