Abstract

Qurrat al-ʿAyn is the name of the enigmatic Maiden who appeared alongside Ibn ʿArabī when he was inspired to recite the four verses that open The Interpreter of Desires, as he was wandering around the Kaʿba. In this article, through the analysis of the passage in which she is mentioned, the identity of the Maiden is explored from various perspectives typical of the author’s theo-anthropo-cosmovision, characterised by his concept of theophany (tajallī) or divine self-revelation, resorting especially to both the analysis of the lexical inter-reference in the roots of the Arabic terms used by Ibn ʿArabī in his Tarjumān al-ashwāq, as well as the study of the symbolism characteristic of the Arabic alphanumeric system. Furthermore, the article proposes that the kaleidoscopic structure of this collection of odes, studied here for the first time, is the result of a themenophany of the Kaʿba: the Tarjumān has been “inspired” by/on the Kaʿba itself, so that in a sense it is a bibliophany of the so-called House of God, to whose geometry—four corners, six faces, seven ritual turns, eight vertices—its structural conception corresponds. The symbolism of Arabic geomancy in relation to the structure of the Tarjumān is also considered.

Highlights

  • Accepted: 23 February 2021 a symbolic reference frame that refers to a structural geometry in the background of the texts, and (2) the use of associations characteristic of lexical inter-reference, so significant when it comes to understanding the framework of his writings (Beneito 2006, p. 25 ff.) as well as (3) the constant practice of intertextuality, principally with the written references of the Koran and the Hadith and with his own work, with the works of other Sufis or Arab authors.1.1

  • I will comment in particular on the passage, relating to the female figure of Qurrat al- Ayn, that appears both in the original short preface of the Tarjumān3, where there is not a single mention of the young maiden al-Niz.ām—who is generally considered to be the inspiration for this collection—and in the longer preface to the extensive commentary on the work, the Dhakhā ir al-a lāq (Ibn Arabı 1995, pp. 179–81), which includes the whole of the original text of the Tarjumān

  • Qurrat al- Ayn as a dih.yıgynaecophany—that is, the possibility that the themenophany of the Ka ba may take the imaginal form of al-Niz.ām21, just as Gabriel adopted for Muhammad the appearance of the young Dih.ya

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Summary

Introduction

Accepted: 23 February 2021 a symbolic reference frame that refers to a structural geometry in the background of the texts, and (2) the use of associations characteristic of lexical inter-reference (ishtiqāq or morphosemantic derivation), so significant when it comes to understanding the framework of his writings (Beneito 2006, p. 25 ff.) as well as (3) the constant practice of intertextuality, principally with the written references of the Koran and the Hadith and with his own work, although also, of course, with the works of other Sufis or Arab authors.

The Passage from Ibn Arabı’s Tarjumān on Qurrat al- Ayn
The Dating of the Tarjumān in Relation to Its Structure
On the Meaning of the Expression Qurrat al- ayn
Around the Four Corners of the House of God
Circumambulating on the Sand
The Arrival of the Four Verses
Six Aspects and Four Attributes of the Maiden
On the Name and Ascent of the Maiden and the Imaginal Earth
Qurrat al- Ayn according to Bosnevi
Conclusions
Full Text
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