Dunja Rašić

Paperback, 230 pages

9781905937684

 

The Cosmic Script and the Art of Ibn ʿArabī

 

Existence is a letter, you are its meaning

And in the world of creation I have no hope other than Him

– Ibn ʿArabī

 

This ground-breaking book introduces readers to one of the fundamental areas of symbolical knowledge in Sufism: the letters of the Arabic alphabet. For the first time in English there is a systematic overview of the science of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) according to the great Andalusian spiritual master, scholar, poet and philosopher Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240).

 

Ibn ʿArabī defined the science of letters as familiarity with the building-blocks of the sacred Qur’anic revelation and everything in the world of Nature. Letters are understood as visual and aural signs pointing to the mysteries of existence.

 

This book examines how the universe came to be, for what purpose it was created and the hierarchical structure it is endowed with.

 

This work contains over 60 images and illustrations, with many of Ibn ʿArabī’s own diagrams and drawings. These give a visual aid for how the meanings carried by the letters fully encompass the whole of existence.

 

Dunja Rašić is a research fellow at the University of Belgrade. Her expertise is in the Islamic philosophy of language, palaeography and Sufism, and this is her first book.

 

Contents

 

Part 1: The Cosmic Script

- Introduction

- The Letters and the Science of Letters

- The Path of Reflection and the Path of Revelation

 

Part 2: The Act of Genesis

- The Breath of the All-Merciful

- The Isolated Alif as the Divine Essence

- The Creator and the Created, as Symbolised by the Cherubim Letters and the Star of Lam-ALif

- Image of the Primordial Cloud and All It Contains: Hamza and Its Elongations

- The Throne and the Heavenly Spheres

- Za, Tha, Dhal, Fa, Ba, and Mim: The Six Kingdoms

- Conquest of the Great City: The Letter Was and the Step-levels of Spiritual Development