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Index of articles on this site Variants of this saying, as cited by Ibn 'Arabi, include: References: FM -
Futûhât al-Makkiyyah;
The Society 1. He who knows himself (or his-self, his soul, his mind) knows his Lord (FM II 308.22; FH - Fusûs Al-Hikam; A
Membership C.312) - Ralph Austin, The
Bezels of Wisdom,
The Society Library 1980, Paulist Press /
2. When we know our souls we know our Lord (FM III 314.22; C.359) SPCK; C - William
Archive Project Chittick, The Sufi Path
of Knowledge, 1989,
Books published by the Society 3. He who knows himself has known his Lord (FM III 404.28; C.344)
State University of N.Y.
The Society Journal Press.
4. He who has no knowledge of himself has no knowledge of his Lord (FM III 552.12;
Other books for sale
C.154)
Reviews and bibliographies
Podcasts The Shaykh includes the hadith with those not established (thabit) by transmission (naql) but
Links to other sites considered sound (sahih) on the basis of unveiling (FM II 399.28; C.250).
Symposium & events worldwide
The following notes look (i) at some pre-Islamic instances of the saying and (ii) at 16 contexts
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where Ibn 'Arabi introduces the hadith in ways that indicate the importance of its theology for
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understanding the double paradox of continuous creation and of epectasy (of the perpetual
Site map (index of all pages) advance or taraqqi of mind to God through God's perpetual advance to us).
Knowledge of God established on this basis of unveiling conforms neither to the (non-
abrahamic) gnosis of Plato nor to the (anti-abrahamic) gnosis of those sects called 'pseudo-
gnostics' by Irenaeus (C.120-190).
I. The authentically Semitic act of gnosis (daath, yada 'to know') is always the fruitful
experience of the one living God as Lord and so as obliging us; e.g. knowledge of God's
goodness to us imposing on us goodness to others. It is the certitude of faith fruitful in deeds;
the knowledge that produces likeness and makes us like what we know, that deifies and makes
us deiform. The Greek concept reversing this makes likeness a necessary condition for
knowledge. True gnosis allows the perpetual dhikr of Philo at state banquets and of Ibn 'Arabi in
the market place, maintained abroad and in via (on the road) as in deuteronomy and the Rule
of S.Benedict. An energetic gnosis always in fieri, a progressive knowledge by epectasy as in
the Qur'an 'Increase me in my knowledge'. A pilgrimage or hajj on the endless road or via
eterna. A knowledge of God as continuously creating 'by breaths' through his self-gift by which
the eternal, immutable possibles (al-mumkinat) are actualised. Never a platonic divorce from
the conditions of time and place and createdness. The heart of mind (qalb) or apex mentis,
aware that future becomes present in the very instant the present is annihilated into past, is
aware that zero-time intervenes between future and past and that God or luminous being,
giving himself continuously, alone is and alone can say I am. We who receive being, and retain
it for zero-time, can say only I become. 'We are advancing perpetually towards God only
because he advances towards us.' (S.Basil.) Ibn 'Arabi, prior to 1209 (Book of Theophanies, cf
A153), had to teach this to the dead sufis when he found it eliminated asharite confusion and
demolished the fantasy constructions of some emanationist muslims who tried to correct the
Qur'an by pagan philosophy.
II. The knowledge of self, by circumcision of heart, that leads to this knowledge of God has only
a passing affinity with the Delphic maxim 'know yourself; gnothi sauton; scito (nosce) teipsum,
recorded by Xenophon (430-350) Memorabilia 4.2.21 in the dialogue of Socrates (469-399)
with Euthydemus, the meaning of which was taken as: 'know you are not a god'; or 'know your
ignorance, that is wisdom'; or 'know you are not immortal'. (See concluding note.) This maxim
was later attributed variously to three of the 'Seven Sages': Solon (fl. 600), Thales (fl. 585) and
Chilon (fl. 556), who had lived two centuries earlier, contemporary with Jeremiah (circumcise
your heart 4.4... all shall know me, for all shall be taught by me when I write the new
testament on the heart of their mind 31.33... an everlasting testament 32.39) and with Ezechiel
(I will put a new spirit within them, a new heart not of stone but of flesh 11.19) and with
Second Isaiah (all shall be taught by the Lord 59.13). All three, before and during the exile
(587) were proclaiming the inner meaning of the gnosis of God revealed through the Shema (Dt
6.4): "YHWH our God YHWH is one, love him with all your heart, soul, strength, write this on
your heart... speak it on the road." Jesus cited this prophesy at Capernaum (Jn 6.45), instituted
Rain in Urfa
the new covenant at the Last Supper and in his death, and promised the Spirit who would
'teach you everything' (Jn 14.26).
This is the knowledge no longer written by ourselves on the heart of our mind but unveiled and
found, through circumcision of that heart, to be written there in spirit by God so that all might,
by the coming of the Spirit, as Moses, Joel and Peter proclaim, be prophets and prophetesses
(ac 2.17). Gnosis is knowledge of God as revealing himself to us in scripture written with letters
through prophets only because already written in spirit on the prophets' circumcised hearts
where its meaning, unveiled and rediscovered, is not just that we are not a god, but that we are
made according to God's image and likeness, created 'upon his form'.
Full wise is he that can himselven know (Chaucer, The Monkes Tale)
All our knowledge is ourselves to know (Pope, An Essay on Man),
may seem to strike only a delphic note yet could have been intended to hint at the
contemplative theology of deification, of recovering our likeness to God when unlikeness is cut
away. The root (pit) for prayer in hebrew, cognate with the arabic for sharp point or edge, and
generally taken as 'to judge oneself' might well refer, not to the pagan rite of 'cutting the flesh',
but to the circumcision of heart, the sacrifice of a pure heart, the word of God being a
(sacrificial) two-edged knife penetrating between soul and spirit (Heb 4.12).
PRE-ISLAMIC
The earliest succinct form of the hadith (to which my attention is drawn by Bishop Kallistos
Ware) is in Clement of Alexandria (15d-217) The Pedagogue 3.1 'Of True Beauty':
Even the akbarian emphasis on 'his' Lord is implied here but its substance goes back over a
century to Philo of Alexandria (c20BC-50AD: the contemporary of Christ) On God sent Dreams
1.10, dealing with our need to start from Harran where we must go to study the pits, holes and
caves of that house of wisdom which is our body, and understand what we mean by seeing,
hearing, tasting, etc. since it is folly to study our cosmic dwelling and environment before
gaining knowledge of our private dwelling though even this we can never comprehend let alone
ever being able to make acquaintance with our soul and mind. Such a disposition 'to become
acquainted with yourself hebrews call Terah and greeks Socrates though the latter is only one
individual man while the former is taken as 'the whole principle according to which each man
should know himself. In Harran we only reconnoitre the place that wisdom inhabits, quite other
are those athletes who, like Abraham, quit Harran and everything to do with body-holes and
who practise in their migration the exercise of wisdom and on their journey 'attain to progress
in complete knowledge... for the more he knew himself the more he renounced himself to attain
accurate knowledge of the true living God'.
This 'turning-inward' to ask: what is hearing? who is hearing? who is asking this? is exactly the
meaning of hua t'ou, a 'turning-inward to contemplate self-mind, self-nature, head-of-thought
or fundamental-face' i.e. apex mentis, heart of mind, or qalb (Dr Hsu-yun cited in Charles Luk,
Secrets of Chinese Meditation, 1964). Only self-knowledge that reaches the instant of zero-
time, the interface of future with past, can attain to this knowledge of God in epectasy.
in The Life of Moses, based his whole theology of epectasy, as does Ibn 'Arabi, on abrahamic
self-knowledge: Leaving (1) what senses perceive and (2) what intelligence sees he enters into
(3) the invisible and unknowable (i.e. apex mentis) and there sees God...by seeing that he is
invisible...the more mind advances inward the more it sees that the divine nature is
invisible...the darkness in which Moses sees God is gnosis that gnosis of God transcends all
gnosis...what mind attains is never the living and life-giving God who is ever beyond, ever
inaccessible to epignosis.
Ambrose (340-397)
using the pre-vulgate Latin read (cant 1.8) 'Nisi cognoscas te...' (for Si ignoras te...) and (dt
15.9) 'Attende tibi...' (for Cave ne fiat...) comments e.g.: To know oneself is to recognise the
divine image and likeness in oneself (e.g. Sermo 2.13-14 on ps 118 PL 15.1214; Lib de Isaac
4.11-16 PL 14.509)
Know yourself, o beautiful mind, for you are the image of God (Hexaemeron 8.50). William of S.
Thierry (1095-1148), who died just before Ibn 'Arabi was born (1165), having compiled an
anthology of texts from Ambrose on the saying, wrote e.g. 'By advancing in self knowledge
ascend to knowledge of God.' (Golden Ep 2.(23)289.) Through him and S. Bernard (1090-1153:
'No-one is saved without self knowledge') what Gilson miscalls 'Christian socratism' became a
commonplace in Cistercian writings.
Evagrius (345-399)
Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself (cited in 1954 Early Fathers from the
Philokalia p. 109 from a Russian collection of his miscellaneous sayings).
Augustine (354-430)
For mind (apex mentis) to find itself mind must cut off all that mind has added to itself for it is
not only more interior than objects outside itself but more interior than its images of
objects...the instant that mind understands what it means when it tells itself to know itself it
knows itself because it is present to itself (De Trin 10.8-9). O God ever the same let me know
myself, let me know you: 'noverim me noverim te' (Soliloques).
What I know of myself I know through your light shining in me (Quod de me scio, te
mihi lucente scio (5)7);
Into my mind shines that which space cannot contain and what is tasted there cannot
be diminished by eating (6)8;
Your God is to you the life of your life (6)10;
By my mind itself I ascend to God (6)11;
I mount toward you ever above me (17)26;
My body lives by my soul, my soul lives by you (21)29;
You are not mind itself because you are the Lord God of the mind (25)36;
Where did I find you that I might learn you but in you above me (26)37.
S. Nilus (360-430)
When you know yourself you are able to know God (Ep 3.314).
Two knowledges are received from without: the natural (what the senses perceive) and the
spiritual (concerned with what the spirit receives) but the third knowledge is manifest in mind's
inmost depths, for the kingdom is within; its coming cannot be observed for the kingdom comes
without observation: it reveals itself by itself without thoughts, further in than any image
imprinted on the hidden mind (cited in Early Fathers from the Philokalia pl96).
The mind... rising to knowledge of itself... prepares a path to contemplate the substance of
eternity and extends itself to itself by climbing which it enters into itself and from itself tends
(in epectasy) to its maker (Morals 5.61-62).
IBN 'ARABI
II 308.22 (C.)
When man becomes aware of the true knowledge of himself...he finds nothing but his
possibility, poverty, lowliness, subjection, need and misery...his need for someone to guide
him...to the path which will take him to felicity with God...he needs knowledge of...the law...so
as to perform secondary worship (that of servanthood) as well as primary (that of all actualised
possibilities). He now combines both forms of worship for he has knowledge of himself and
everyone who knows himself knows his Lord and who knows his Lord worships him by his
command.
II 472.35 (C.)
...this knowledge of God which follows knowledge of self may be either a knowledge of one's
incapacity to attain knowledge of God or a knowledge of the fact that he is God. (Cf. Philo: We
can know that he is, not what he is.)
II 500.16 (C.)
He is related to us by bringing us into existence so we are related to him through our existence.
Hence we know ourself (as being brought into existence) and God (as bringing us into
existence).
Noah (A.74)
'Who knows himself etc' links knowledge of God and of self in our experience of the
inseparability of transcendence and immanence as in Q40.53 'Showing our signs on the horizon'
(in the world outside ourself) 'and in yourself (i.e. at apex mentis) 'till it becomes clear, etc',
(i.e. you are to him as body to mind; he is to you as spirit governing your physical form), (cf
Augustine: My body lives by my soul, my soul by you.)
Abraham (A.92)
'Whoever knows etc' means we cannot know God as God without reference to the cosmos...
only knowledge of the dependent as dependent can confirm the independence of the
independent.
Shu'ayb (A.153)
He who knows himself in this way knows his Lord and this is the way of which the amazing
thing is that such a one is always advancing, even if, since the veil is so fine, he is unaware of
it. (Like the dead Sufis whom Ibn 'Arabi says he instructed in 'advancement' or epectasy.)
Similars in the sight of the gnostics are different from each other. (Mind being always in self-
modification and never simply the same as itself.) Since this can't be known by speculation, it
can't be attained by scholastic theologians and was never understood by (ancient greek)
philosophers.
Mohammad (A.272)
Since man's knowledge of himself comes before his knowledge of his Lord which results from it,
we may understand: either that one is not able to know and attain or that gnosis is possible.
Concluding Note
Doubts as to Plato's authorship of the First Dialogue of Alcibiades are strengthened by its
philonic view of Delphi: 'I will tell you what I suspect to be its meaning and lesson. To know
yourself, let soul look at that part of soul which is like herself where virtue resides, which is
most divine, which has to do with wisdom and knowledge, and which resembles the divine...
one who, looking at this, knows that which is divine is the most likely to be he who knows
himself... and his self-knowledge is wisdom.
The 16 texts from Ibn 'Arabi show how the hadith unifies the double movement of descent and
ascent. Continuous creation requiring the continuousness of epectasy, advancement, or taraqqi.
This is what gives stability to the entire framework of Akbarian thought.
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