The Wisdom of ­Animals

William C. C
­ hittick

More than any other Muslim thinker, Ibn ¡Arabi dedicated his
teachings to clarifying the presence of the divine wisdom in all
things and the human necessity of conforming to that wisdom.

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

The arguments he offers are at once metaphysical and scrip-
tural, cosmological and psychological, scientific and ethical. He
addresses every dimension of human and cosmic existence and
speaks constantly of the inherent goodness of all of creation and
the human duty to respect the rights (huq¬q) of all creatures – not
simply the rights of God and the rights of our fellow beings. If
there is a single scriptural theme to his writings, after tawh¨d, it
is certainly the prophetic saying: “Give to each that has a right
(haqq) its right”. He reads this in conjunction with the Quranic
insistence that God created the universe and everything within
it bi¤­l-­haqq, that is, by means of and through the right, the real,
the appropriate, the true. He understands this to mean that eve-
rything in the universe is right, true, and real. Human beings,
however, are not necessarily given the insight to recognize the
truth and rightness of all things. In order to achieve such recogni-
tion, they need prophetic guidance, and only then can they live
a life that is right, true, and appropriate. That right and appro-
priate life demands that they respond rightly and appropriately
to the rightness and appropriateness of all things – to the extent
of human capacity. In other words, the divine wisdom that has
created human beings has imposed upon them the duty of “giv-
ing to everything that has a right its right”.
One of the many sides to Ibn ¡Arabi’s project of clarifying the
rights and truths of all things is cosmology, that is, the explica-
tion of the nature of the universe, with its diverse types and sorts
of creatures. One should not, of course, confuse the traditional
notion of cosmology with what goes by this name in modern
times. Today, when scientists speak of cosmology, they mean
physical cosmography – that is, the structure of the universe as
28 William C. Chittick

perceived by means of the technological tools and mathematical

theories of modern physics. Physics can only deal with what is
traditionally called the “visible” or “corporeal” realm, and the
visible realm is the surface or skin of the cosmos. The cosmos,
in Islamic terms, is not simply physical manifestation. Rather,
the word cosmos (¡ålam) designates “everything other than God”
(må siwa¤llåh). It follows that “cosmology” in the proper sense of
the word must explain not only the nature of the visible realm
(shadåda), but also that of the invisible realms (ghayb), which

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

are infinitely more extensive than what we can perceive with
our senses, even if these are aided by the most sophisticated
­instruments.
Ibn ¡Arabi’s most famous cosmological scheme is that of the
Breath of the ­All-­Merciful (nafas ­al-­rahmån), in which he eluci-
dates Quranic references to the speech of God. The Quran tells
us in several verses that God brings things into existence sim-
ply by saying “Be!” to them, and that God’s words are in effect
infinite – if all the oceans were ink, and all trees were pens,
God’s words would not run out (Q. 18: 109, 31: 27). Ibn ¡Arabi
explains God’s words on the analogy of our own words, which
are also inexhaustible, at least potentially. We bring the words
out from our awareness, just as God brings His words out from
His infinite knowledge. We articulate words in our breath just
as God articulates words in His ­All-­Merciful Breath. Our words
disappear as quickly as we utter them, just as God’s words are
evanescent. “Everything perishes but His face”, says the Quran,
and Ibn ¡Arabi insists that this rule applies to every moment of
every existent thing. It follows that each moment of existence,
each moment of each thing, is a new creation, a new articula-
tion of the thing’s existence. Failing this new articulation, God’s
words – the universe – would simply disappear, for nothing can
exist without constant divine ­support.
Ibn ¡Arabi devotes Chapter 198 of ­al-­Fut¬håt ­al-­makkiyya, one of
the longer chapters of the book, to the Breath of the ­All-­Merciful.
He takes the Arabic alphabet as representing ­twenty-­eight primor-
dial divine letters. In order to create the cosmos, with all its invis-
ible and visible levels, God composes words and sentences and
books employing those ­twenty-­eight letters. The outline of this
 The Wisdom of Animals 29

cosmological scheme is well known – Titus Burckhardt wrote a

little book describing it many years ago. Each of the ­twenty-­eight
letters corresponds to several things, including one of the divine
names and one category of creature. Some of the letters repre-
sent creatures that appear on the descending arc of existence,
the movement from the invisible realms into the ­semi-­visible
realm of receptivity in which the visible cosmos is born. Other
letters represent creatures that appear on the ascending arc of
existence, which begins in visibility and then returns to the invis-

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

ible realms of spirit and consciousness from which it arose. On
this returning arc, the ­twenty-­seventh letter represents human
beings, and the ­twenty-­eighth designates the stations and stages
of perfection achieved by those human beings who enter into the
presence of God. The ­twenty-­sixth letter represents the jinn, and
the ­twenty-­fifth the angels, inasmuch as these are creatures that
are present in the invisible realms of the returning arc. Letters
23 through 25 designate the visible creatures, that is, minerals,
plants, and animals. Notice that modern cosmology deals almost
exclusively with the ­twenty-­third letter of the alphabet, the other
­twenty-­seven letters lying outside the realm of its competence.
This is why it hardly deserves the name “cosmology”.
Today I want to look at the ­twenty-­fifth cosmic letter in an
attempt to sum up Ibn ¡Arabi’s understanding of the role of ani-
mals in creation. In other words, what is the rightful and truth-
ful situation of the animal realm? How can we as human beings
give to animals their rights? Ibn ¡Arabi has a great deal to say
about this issue, so I can only make a few quick comments. I am
drawing from the section of Chapter 198 on the ­twenty-­fifth
letter, and from Chapters 357 and 372, both of which announce
in their titles that they will address the nature of bahå¤im, “the
dumb beasts”.

* * *
The word for animal in Arabic is hayawån, “living thing”. Given
that each of the ­twenty-­eight letters is governed by one specific
divine name, one might guess that the divine name related to
animals would be ­al-­hayy, the Alive, or perhaps ­al-­muhy¨, “the
30 William C. Chittick

­ ife-­Giver”. This is not the case, however, and the reason is not
L
too difficult to understand. Ibn ¡Arabi tells us repeatedly that
everything in the universe is in fact alive, but that the life of most
things is hidden from our sight. This is so because life is presup-
posed by every divine quality. Knowledge, power, desire, mercy,
justice, and so on have no meaning unless they are the qualities
of something that is alive. In other words, God must be alive to
know, desire, and act. It follows that life permeates all divine
attributes. Hence, life also pervades all creatures, because crea-

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

tures are simply the traces and properties of the divine names.
Ibn ¡Arabi writes,

The name Alive is an essential name of the Real – glory be to Him!

Therefore, nothing can emerge from Him but living things. So,
all the cosmos is alive, for indeed the nonexistence of life, or the
existence of something in the cosmos that is not alive, has no
divine support, but every contingent thing must have a support.
So, what you consider to be inanimate is in fact alive. (Fut¬håt,
vol. 3, p. 324, line 20)

In Ibn ¡Arabi’s way of looking at the universe, all things are

living words articulated in the Breath of the ­All-­Merciful. This
is to say that the divine life and the divine mercy are in fact the
same thing. When God says in the Quran, “My mercy embraces
everything” (6: 156), this means, according to Ibn ¡Arabi, that
“He has mercy on the cosmos through life, for life is the sphere
of the mercy that embraces everything” (Fut¬håt 2: 107. 25).
Elsewhere he explains that everything in the three visible
realms – that is, minerals, plants, and animals – is under the con-
trol of the angels called “souls” (nuf¬s). By means of their souls,
all creatures receive life from God and also know Him. People
refer to things as “animals”, that is, hayawån, “living things”,
only when they perceive the obvious signs of life. “But”, says
Ibn ¡Arabi,

All are pervaded by life, so they speak the praise of their Creator
from whence we do not hear. God teaches them things through
their innate disposition (fitra) from whence we do not know. So
there remains nothing wet or dry, hot or cold, inanimate, plant,
 The Wisdom of Animals 31

or animal, that does not glorify God with a tongue specific to its
kind. (Fut¬håt 2: 678. 14)

The universal glorification of God is a frequent theme in Ibn

¡Arabi’s writings. He takes the frequent Quranic references to
the speech of things quite literally. In contrast to Muslim philo-
sophers, theologians, and scientists, he makes no attempt to
make a ta¤w¨l of these verses – that is, an “interpretation”, or an
“explaining away” – by having recourse to notions of metaphor

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

or symbolism. This points to one of his constant critiques of
people who follow their “rational” understanding of things – that
is, what we know as “common sense”. In the two chapters that
talk about dumb beasts, Ibn ¡Arabi devotes a good part of the
discussion to showing that rational, commonsense interpreta-
tions of Quranic verses about the speech of inanimate things
are m
­ isguided.
His basic argument against commonsense interpretations
comes from two directions. First, in order to conclude that things
do not talk, people have to claim that God does not mean what
He says in the Quran. Second, Ibn ¡Arabi and his peers – that is,
those whom he commonly calls the “gnostics” (¡urafå¤) or “the
folk of unveiling” (ahl ­al-­kashf ) – actually hear and understand
the speech of all things, so they know by ­first-­hand experience
that everything is alive. They do not take God’s words on ­faith.

* * *
In both chapters on dumb beasts, Ibn ¡Arabi explains why they
have this name, bah¨ma, which the Arabic dictionaries define as
quadruped or animal. Ibn ¡Arabi suggests that we can understand
the significance of the term if we remember that it derives from
the same root as mubham, which means dubious, obscure, vague,
unclear. For example, in Chapter 378 he writes,

Each created thing has a specific speech taught to it by God. It

is heard by those whose hearing God has opened up to its per-
ception. All movement and craftsmanship that become manifest
from animals and do not become manifest save from a possessor
32 William C. Chittick

of reason, reflection, and deliberation, along with all the measures

that are seen therein, signify that they have a knowledge of this in
themselves. (Fut¬håt 3: 488. 4)

Ibn ¡Arabi goes on to explain that animals perform many skillful

deeds and construct marvelous things in a manner that suggests
that they must be intelligent and rational. Yet observers cannot
perceive any sort of rational faculty within them, so they remain
puzzled as to how animals can do such things. This puzzlement,

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

of course, has not been diminished by modern science, which
still struggles to explain the multifarious skills of animals. So,
Ibn ¡Arabi writes,

This may be why they are called “dumb beasts”, that is, because of
the “obscurity” of the affair – except for us, because it is as clear as
it can be. The obscurity that has overcome some people is because
of their lack of unveiling in this, so they know the created things
only in the measure of what they witness from t­ hem.

In continuing this discussion, Ibn ¡Arabi has recourse to a few

Quranic verses to show that faith is on the side of those who
witness the real nature of things through ­unveiling.

Even though the rational thinkers and the common people say
that something in the cosmos is neither alive nor an animal, in
our view God gave every such thing, when He created it, the innate
disposition to recognize and know Him. Each is alive and speaks
rationally in glorifying its Lord. The faithful perceive this through
their faith, and the folk of unveiling perceive it in its actual entity.
(Fut¬håt 3: 489. 6)

As is always the case with Ibn ¡Arabi’s writings, he soon gets

around to explaining why we should be concerned about the
fact that all things have knowledge from God and that all things
express their knowledge through speech. Here I can mention one
basic lesson, and this is that the awareness of all things should
encourage us to have shame. “Shame” (hayå¤) is not considered
a great virtue nowadays in the West, but it certainly has had an
honorable role to play in many civilizations, not least Islam. The
Prophet said, “Every religion has its character trait [khuluq], and
 The Wisdom of Animals 33

the character trait of Islam is shame” (Ibn Måja, Zuhd 17). Shame
is a close ally of ihsån, “doing the beautiful”, which the Prophet
described as “worshipping God as if you see Him”. If one acts
as if one sees God, shame will be a constant companion. And, if
we understand that all things are aware and all have the ability
to speak, this can only increase our sense of shame. Everything
is watching us, and everything has the ability to speak to God
about our activities. Ibn ¡Arabi writes,

Someone may come to know that there is no existent thing that is

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

not alive and speaking. In other words, there is nothing that is not
a rational animal, whether it is called inanimate, plant, or dead.
This is because there is nothing, whether or not it stands by itself,
that does not glorify its Lord in praise, and this attribute belongs
only to something that is described as a ­ live.

Once someone comes to witness the life of all things, he will

be full of shame, not only when he is in jalwa, that is, in public
with other people, but also when he is in khalwa, that is, alone
in a private retreat. He will see that in fact he is never alone, for
he can never escape a location that surrounds him. And, even
if he could escape his surroundings, he would still have shame
before his bodily members and organs, for they are the means
whereby he does what he does. He knows that on the Day of
Resurrection, his bodily members will be called to witness, and
they will bear witness truthfully. So, someone like this can never
be in khalwa. “When someone achieves this state”, Ibn ¡Arabi
writes, “he has joined the degree of the dumb beasts”, who are
aware of the presence of ­God.
In short, Ibn ¡Arabi maintains that dumb beasts possess an
exalted knowledge and understanding from God, and he con-
cludes that anyone who considers himself superior to the beasts
is ignorant of his own situation. He stresses that such ignorance
is characteristic of the philosophical and theological approaches
to Islamic learning – not to speak of the modern scientific disci-
plines. In short, his advice to his readers – if they are not among
the folk of unveiling – is as ­follows:
34 William C. Chittick

Consider, O you who are veiled, how your level compares to that
of the dumb beasts. The dumb beasts recognize you, they recognize
that to which your situation will go back, and they recognize that
for which you were created. But you are ignorant of all of this.
(Fut¬håt 3: 489. 29)

* * *
Let me turn to a second topic that Ibn ¡Arabi commonly addresses
when he talks about animals. This is related to the specific divine

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

name that exercises its sway over the ­twenty-­fifth letter of the
Breath of the ­All-­Merciful. This name is ­al-­mudhill, the Abaser,
which is typically contrasted with ­al-­mu¡izz, the Exalter. People
naturally assume that it is much better to be exalted than to be
abased, but Ibn ¡Arabi wants to show that animals, who are ruled
by the name Abaser, have a much more exalted position with
God than most human beings. This is precisely because animals
gladly accept their abasement, whereas human beings tend to
forget that they are nothing in the face of God. They always want
to be something, so they seek exaltation. By claiming to be what
they are not, however, they fall into heedlessness and they rebel
against their own ­God-­given situation. Hence, the most exalted
of all human beings in God’s eyes are in fact those who are the
most abased before Him. Abasement at root is nothing other than
¡ub¬diyya, the quality of being an ¡abd, a servant or slave. That
is why, in Ibn ¡Arabi’s reading, the most exalted of all human
beings, the perfect human being, is also “the perfect servant” (al-
¡abd ­al-­kåmil), that is, the most abased of all creatures before ­God.
In explaining the nature of abasement, Ibn ¡Arabi turns to the
Quranic notion of taskh¨r, “subjection”. It is God inasmuch as
He is the Abaser who subjects some creatures to other creatures.
In fact, Ibn ¡Arabi spends most of the section on animals in the
chapter on the Breath of the ­All-­Merciful unpacking and explain-
ing the reality of subjection. He begins the section like ­this:

God says, “We abased [the cattle] to them, and some of them they
ride, and some they eat” [36: 72]. He also says, “He subjected to you
everything in the heavens and everything in the earth, all from
Him” [45: 13], so animals are included in this. This is the ruling
 The Wisdom of Animals 35

property of the name Abaser in the cosmos... God made some of

them subjected to others through the name Abaser.... He says, “He
has elevated some of them over others in degrees so that some of
them may take others in subjection” [43: 32]. (Fut¬håt 2: 465. 12)

Ibn ¡Arabi continues this discussion by pointing out that subjec-

tion is ­two-­sided. In other words, when something is subjected to
you, you are subjected to it. He explains how this works with the
example of a king and his subjects. The Quranic verse just cited

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

says that God has elevated some over others with the “degree”
(daraja) that He has given them. In the case of a king, God has
given him the degree of kingship, and this degree allows him to
rule over others. The king subjects his citizens precisely because
of the degree, and hence the citizens are abased before the king
and must do what he commands. However, it works the other
way too, for, as Ibn ¡Arabi says, “Among the divine names, the
Abaser rules over both sides”. He writes,

The degree of the citizens and the subjects requires that they subject
the king to themselves, for he must guard and defend them, fight
against their enemies, judge disputes among them, and seek their
rights [huq¬q]. (Fut¬håt 2: 465. 22)

Ibn ¡Arabi then points out that subjection also applies to the
relationship between God and man. The name Abaser rules
over both sides. Although man is abased before God, God is
also abased before man. This is a version of Ibn ¡Arabi’s famous
discussion of the mutual relationship between Lord (rabb) and
vassal (marb¬b), or the God (ilåh) and that which is “godded
over” (ma¤l¬h). His explanation runs like ­this:

God says, “He is God in the heavens and in the earth” [6: 3]. He
says, “He subjected to you what is in the heavens and what is in the
earth, all together” [45: 13]. Luqman said to his son, “O my son, if it
should be but the weight of one grain of ­mustard-­seed, and though
it be in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, God shall bring
it forth” [31: 16], for God is in the earth, He is in heaven, He is in
the rock, and He is with us wherever we are. The Creator is never
separate from the created thing, nor is the Abaser separate from
36 William C. Chittick

the act of abasing. If the two were to be separate, this description

would be separate from God, and the name would d ­ isappear.

Ibn ¡Arabi then explains that when God says in the Quran,
“I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me” [51: 56], this
means that He created them to abase themselves before Him, so
He created them with the name Abaser. At the same time, God
describes how He guards over all things and preserves all things.
Like the king in the example, God’s degree of Godliness subjects

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

Him to what the cosmos seeks from Him, that is, the preserva-
tion of its e­ xistence.
In continuing his argument, Ibn ¡Arabi explains that God
abases human beings by placing within them the attributes of
poverty, indigence, and need. As the Quran says, “O people,
you are the poor toward God, and God – He is the Rich, the
Praiseworthy” (35: 15). Because of their need, people then
become abased before anything in which they see what they
need, and everything needs something else. The cosmos is filled
with mutual need, which is in fact the need of all things for God,
whose attributes are displayed in the needed objects. It follows
that it is need that ties all of existence together. The ­well-­being
(salåh) of the entire cosmos depends upon need. So, Ibn ¡Arabi
concludes, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole,

No other name bestows general ­well-­being on the cosmos like the

name Abaser, and there is nothing in the Divine Presence that has
a property like this name. Its property permeates this world and the
next world constantly. When the Real allows one of the gnostics to
witness it and when He discloses Himself to the gnostic within it
and from it, there is no one among God’s servants more felicitous
than he, and no one with more knowledge of God’s mysteries
through unveiling. (Fut¬håt 2: 466. 3)

As for the rest of us, the lesson we need to learn from the
mutual abasement of all things is to understand who we are in
the cosmic economy. We should never overestimate our own
worth. We should not consider ourselves exalted, because in fact
we are abased before the divine power. Ibn ¡Arabi explains this
in one of the chapters on the dumb b ­ easts:
 The Wisdom of Animals 37

Know that even though God has subjected and abased the dumb
beasts to man, you should not be heedless of the fact that you are
subjected to them. You look to their ­well-­being by watering and
feeding them, by cleaning their places, by coming into contact with
dung and waste because of them, and by protecting them from the
heat and cold that harm them. This and similar things are because
the Real has subjected you to them and has placed need for them
in your ­soul. ...
So, you have no superiority over them through subjection, for
God has made you more needy of them than they are needy of you.

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009

Do you not see how God’s Messenger became angry when he was
asked about the stray ­she-­camel? He said, “What is she to you? She
has her feet and her stomach. She will find water and eat from the
trees until her master finds her” (Muslim, Luqta 1).
So, God did not make the animals needy toward you, but He
placed within you the need for them. All dumb beasts that have
the means to flee from you will do so, and this is only because they
have no need for you, and they have been given the innate know-
ledge that you will harm them. The fact that you search for them
and that you exert effort in acquiring things from them shows that
you are needy toward ­them.
By God, when the dumb beasts have more independence than
you, how can it occur to you that you are superior to them? Very
true are the words of him who said, “No man will be destroyed if
he knows his own worth”. (Fut¬håt 3: 490. 10)
Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, Vol. 46, 2009