Logos (Islam)

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The concept of the logos exists in

Greek philosophy.[3] The concept has been documented as early as the 8th-9th century.[4]

Muhammad

Main article: Muhammad in Islam

In the writings of many of the most prominent

Quranic verses, hadith, and through the writings of the early mystics of Islam.[6]

Cosmological concepts

At the same time, the logos concept was also intimately tied in the works of the same authors to other important

Preserved Tablet [ar], in Quran 85:22),[7] ḳalam ("Divine Pen"),[7] umm al-kitāb ("Mother of the Book," in Quran 3:7, 13:39, 43:4),[8] and the Muhammad-related ideas of al-insān al-kāmil ("Perfect Man" or "Universal Man"), nūr muḥammadī ("Muhammadan Light"),[9] and al-ḥaqīqa al-muḥammadiyya ("Muhammadan Reality").[9] The logos was often presented as "created" in Islamic doctrine, and thus was more akin to Philo's understanding of the phrase than Nicene Christianity
.

ʿAql

Main article: 'Aql

One of the names given to a concept very much like the Christian Logos by the

Neoplatonist philosophers, such as al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950 AD) and Avicenna (d. 1037),[2] the idea of the ʿaql was presented in a manner that both resembled "the late Greek doctrine" and, likewise, "corresponded in many respects to the Logos Christology."[2]

The concept of logos in Sufism is used to relate the "Uncreated" (God) to the "Created" (humanity). In Sufism, for the Deist, no contact between man and God can be possible without the logos. The logos is everywhere and always the same, but its personification is "unique" within each region. Jesus and Muhammad are seen as the personifications of the logos, and this is what enables them to speak in such absolute terms.[10][11]

One of the boldest and most radical attempts to reformulate the Neoplatonic concepts into Sufism arose with the philosopher

Kalimah), as an aspect of the unique divine being. In his view the divine being would have for ever remained hidden, had it not been for the prophets, with logos providing the link between man and divinity.[12]

Ibn Arabi seems to have adopted his version of the logos concept from Neoplatonic and Christian sources,

Arabic rather than Greek) he used more than twenty different terms when discussing it.[14] For Ibn Arabi, the logos or "Universal Man" was a mediating link between individual human beings and the divine essence.[15]

Other Sufi writers also show the influence of the Neoplatonic logos.

Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī introduced the Doctrine of Logos and the Perfect Man. For al-Jīlī, the "perfect man" (associated with the logos or Muhammad himself) has the power to assume different forms at different times and to appear in different guises.[17]

In Ottoman Sufism, Şeyh Gâlib (d. 1799) articulates Sühan (logos-Kalima) in his Hüsn ü Aşk (Beauty and Love) in parallel to Ibn Arabi's Kalima. In the romance, Sühan appears as an embodiment of Kalima as a reference to the Word of God, the Perfect Man, and the Reality of Muhammad.[18][relevant?][clarification needed]

References

  1. ^ Gardet, L., "Kalām", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.
  2. ^ a b c d Boer, Tj. de and Rahman, F., "ʿAḳl", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.
  3. ^ a b Boer, Tj. de and Rahman, F., “ʿAḳl”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.
  4. ^ Hoffman, Valerie J. "Annihilation in the Messenger of God: the development of a Sufi practice." International Journal of Middle East Studies 31.3 (1999): 351-369.
  5. ^ Qur'an 33:40.
  6. ^ a b Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. William C. Chittick (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2007), p. 63.
  7. ^ a b Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966), p. 42.
  8. T.W. Arnold
    , R. Basset, R. Hartmann.
  9. ^ a b Rubin, U., “Nūr Muḥammadī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.
  10. ISBN 0-941532-75-5 p. 242. [1]
  11. ISBN 0-87395-233-2
    p. 148.
  12. ISBN 81-7625-266-2 p. 39. [2]
  13. ^ Charles A. Frazee, "Ibn al-'Arabī and Spanish Mysticism of the Sixteenth Century", Numen 14 (3), Nov 1967, pp. 229–40.
  14. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1987.tb02785.x
    . Ibn al-'Arabi uses no less than twenty-two different terms to describe the various aspects under which this single Logos may be viewed.
  15. ISBN 978-0813216775
    . For Ibn Arabi, the Logos or "Universal Man" was a mediating link between individual human beings and the divine essence.
  16. ISBN 0-415-24531-1
    , p. xxv.
  17. ISBN 81-7625-266-2 p. 98.[3]
  18. ^ Betül Avcı, "Character of Sühan in Şeyh Gâlib’s Romance, Hüsn ü Aşk (Beauty and Love)" Archivum Ottomanicum, 32 (2015).
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