Ibn Arabi · Chapter 2 of 10

One Light, Many Windows

وَحْدَةُ الْوُجُودِ

One light. You can feel far from it, never cut off.

A painting of deep space: many glassy petals of opal colour open outward from one white-hot light and all shine with it

Chapter 2 of 10Oneness of being

2a

One light, many panes

There’s only one true existence, and everything we see is that one light shining through different colored glass.

Seven tall panes of coloured glass, rose to violet, under one white light, each casting a pool of its own colour below

Tap a pane. Then take the glass away.

Six teardrops of coloured light around one bright centre pulse gently together, all lit by the same light.

Why it’s interesting

You and a tree and a star aren’t separate “existers”. You’re different colors of the same light.

The hard part

It can sound like “everything is the higher power”, which isn’t what he means.

Common misconception

That he believed the world is the divine itself (pantheism). The glass is not the light. Things only borrow existence.

Why it matters

This is the idea he’s most famous for, and the rest of the course builds on it.

From the Scholar’s notes4 passages · Arabic, with where to find it

He shows things and is their very being

فسبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها

Fut. II.459 (ch. 198)His own words

Light takes the glass's color

إن النور أخضر لخضرة الزجاج … فهذا نور ممتد عن ظل وهو عين الزجاج

Fus. 104 (Yūsuf, حكمة نورية, before Hūd at p. 106)His own words

Many in fixity, one in being

فاثبت الكثرة في الثبوت وانفها من الوجود واثبت الوحدة في الوجود وانفها من الثبوت

Fut. II.502 (end of ch. 213, on ghayra; just before ch. 214)His own words

The term waḥdat al-wujūd

وحدة الوجود

not his term; al-Qūnawī, al-Farghānī; made a label by Ibn Taymiyya's polemicA later reading

Each line is a short gloss of the passage, not a translation. “His own words” means the Arabic is from Ibn Arabi’s own text at that place.

2b

He, not He

The higher power is both beyond everything (“not He”) and showing up in everything (“He”), and you need both views at once.

A white sun-like light on the left; a leaf, a drop, a stone, a flame, a wave, a seed and a lotus around it; a gold slider beneath

Slide between He and not He.

Why it’s interesting

Most traditions pick one side, and he insists on holding both.

The hard part

It feels like a contradiction, which is the point.

Common misconception

That he only taught the “in everything” side. He warned that either side alone is half blind.

Why it matters

This balance is what keeps his teaching from tipping into extremes.

From the Scholar’s notes5 passages · Arabic, with where to find it

He / not he

لذلك نقول فيه هو لا هو، أنت لا أنت

Fus. 76 (Idrīs)His own words

Hold both: beyond and within

فإن قلت بالتنزيه كنت مقيدا وإن قلت بالتشبيه كنت محددا وإن قلت بالأمرين كنت مسددا

Fus. 70 (Nūḥ)His own words (verse)

Q 42:11 read as both at once

ليس كمثله شيء فنزه وهو السميع البصير

Fus. 70His own words

Chapter on the men of bewilderment

الباب الخمسون في معرفة رجال الحيرة والعجز

Fut. I.270 (ch. 50)His own words

Bewilderment as the highest station

لأنه المقام الأعلى

Fut. II.661 (ch. 292); cf. II.531, II.545 (ch. 246)His own words

Each line is a short gloss of the passage, not a translation. “His own words” means the Arabic is from Ibn Arabi’s own text at that place.

A closer look, in this chapter

PerplexityEvery picture of the Real is partial. Hold yours gently.

The one idea

Sunlight falls through a row of stained-glass windows: garnet here, sapphire there, a pool of gold at the end of the aisle. The colors are real, and each belongs to its glass. The light is one.

That is the heart of وحدة الوجود waḥdat al-wujūd, the oneness of being. There is one wujūd, one being, and it belongs to the Real. A stone, a tree, your mother, you: each one is a window it shines through. Your color is yours. The light is not.

And this is what it means on a hard day: you can feel far away, but you cannot be cut off. A window that holds any light at all is lit from the source. Cut off, it would not be there to feel the dark.

Noah

In the Fuṣūṣ, Ibn Arabi lingers over Noah. Noah told his people only that the Real is beyond everything, تنزيه tanzīh, beyond all likeness. The Qurʾān says they pressed their fingers into their ears and drew their cloaks over their heads.

What they heard, he says, was half a picture. The other half is تشبيه tashbīh, the Real close at hand, showing in the world they could see and touch. Had Noah offered both, they would have answered. Far and near belong together; either alone is half the sky.

Painting: Noah as a faceless figure of white-gold light, one arm raised, above a vast dark sea where a long glow lies on the water

لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ البَصِيرُ

“Nothing is like Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.”

Qurʾān 42:11. He reads its first half as far, its second as near · in plain words

Lent light

Only the Real shines by itself. Everything else is lit. Tap to look at a thing on its own.

The big idea
Only the Real exists by itself. Everything else has its being on loan, moment by moment, like a wall lit by the sun.
What’s hard to get
Things are not unreal. They are lit.
Common misconception
That borrowed means worthless. A lit window is still a thing of beauty.
Why it matters
You do not have to build your worth from nothing today. It came with the light.

One water, many cups

One water, poured into five cups. Then pour it out.

The big idea
One water takes the color of each cup; one light shows differently in each thing.
What’s hard to get
The difference comes from the one who receives, its readiness (istiʿdād), not from the source.
Common misconception
That the water itself changes. It stays clear the whole time.
Why it matters
If a moment feels dark, it may be the cup you are holding, not the light.

Not this, not this, but this

Two pictures he turns down, and the one he keeps. Tap a panel.

The big idea
The Real is not shut inside things (ḥulūl), and things do not melt into the Real (ittiḥād). Windows stay windows.
What’s hard to get
One being does not mean that everything is the Real.
Common misconception
That oneness erases the line between you and the Real.
Why it matters
You can feel close to the Real and still be wholly yourself, limits and all.

Try it now

Think of someone who got under your skin this week. Hold their face in mind for ten seconds and say, silently: same light, different glass. You do not have to love the glass. Only notice whether your jaw unclenches anyway.

Go deeper

4 short sections. Open any one; each stands on its own.

1Shadows of one light1 min

Before the glass image, Ibn Arabi uses an older one: the shadow. The world, he says, is like a shadow cast by the Real. A shadow has no light of its own. Take the light away and there is no shadow at all: "shadows have no being when there is no light" (فإن الظلال لا يكون لها عين بعدم النور, Fus. 103, Yūsuf). And a shadow always returns to what cast it, as the Qur'an says, "then We draw it back to Us, a gentle drawing" (Q 25:46).

وَفِي نَفْسِ الْأَمْرِ لَا لَوْنَ لَهُ ، وَلٰكِنْ هٰكَذَا تَرَاهُ

"In itself it has no color. But that is how you see it." (Fus. 103, Yūsuf)

Your darkest day is still a shadow. It is real as a shadow, and it is only there because light is.

2Both answers are true1 min

The stained glass on the main page comes from a passage about green glass. Ibn Arabi says that if you look at light through green glass and say "the light is green", you are right, and your eyes are your witness. If you say "light has no color", you are also right, and reason is your witness (Fus. 104, Yūsuf; paraphrase). Then he closes:

فَهٰذَا نُورٌ مُمْتَدٌّ عَنْ ظِلٍّ وَهُوَ عَيْنُ الزُّجَاجِ ، فَهُوَ ظِلٌّ نُورِيٌّ لِصَفَائِهِ

"This is light streaming from a shadow, and the shadow is the glass itself. It is a shadow made of light, because it is so clear." (Fus. 104, Yūsuf)

The clearer the glass, the more light comes through. You don't have to stop being glass. You can just get clearer.

3Only His face1 min

In a long passage about forms, Ibn Arabi says the Real is not something added on top of things: it is "the very self of every form", in minerals, plants, animals, stars and angels (Fut. II.459, ch. 198; paraphrase). Then he breaks into praise:

فَسُبْحَانَ مَنْ أَظْهَرَ الْأَشْيَاءَ وَهُوَ عَيْنُهَا ، فَمَا نَظَرَتْ عَيْنِي إِلَى غَيْرِ وَجْهِهِ ، وَمَا سَمِعَتْ أُذُنِي خِلَافَ كَلَامِهِ

"Glory to the One who made things appear and is their very self. My eye has looked at nothing but His face, and my ear has heard nothing but His speech." (Fut. II.459, ch. 198)

Try it on the walk to the train. The noise of traffic, a stranger's face, rain on a window: not distractions from the Real, but where it is showing up today.

4The middle way, in verse1 min

The Noah story on the main page has a short poem behind it. Here are its first lines:

فَإِنْ قُلْتَ بِالتَّنْزِيهِ كُنْتَ مُقَيِّدًا ، وَإِنْ قُلْتَ بِالتَّشْبِيهِ كُنْتَ مُحَدِّدًا

وَإِنْ قُلْتَ بِالْأَمْرَيْنِ كُنْتَ مُسَدَّدًا

"If you say only 'beyond', you tie Him down. If you say only 'like', you fence Him in. If you say both, you hit the mark." (Fus. 70, Nūḥ)

And it ends: "You are not He. No: you are He, and you see Him in the very things, set free and held in place" (فما أنت هو: بل أنت هو, Fus. 70). Holding both is not indecision. It is what aim looks like here.

The phrase waḥdat al-wujūd, "the oneness of being", was given to his teaching by those who carried it after him; it became the name his whole school was known by.

Key words

وجودwujūdbeing, existence. Root و ج د (w-j-d): to find. The same root gives وَجْد wajd, rapture. To be is to be found, and being found is a joy.
ظلّẓillshadow, shade. Root ظ ل ل (ẓ-l-l): to stay, to cover. Shade is also shelter.
عينʿayneye, spring, and "the very self" of a thing. Root ع ي ن (ʿ-y-n). When he says the Real is "their very self" (عينها), he uses the word for eye and spring.
زجاجzujājglass. Root ز ج ج (z-j-j). The Qur'an's Light Verse (24:35) puts the lamp "in a glass".

If there is only one light, how does it show itself? Through its Names.

Next · Chapter 3: The Names →‹ Chapter 1: His life and works · Course home

Sources