Shaykh al akbar (The Great Shaykh) Ibn al Arabi is one of the greatest meta-physicians, lovers, and Muslim philosophers in Islamic history.
“Love has no definition through which its essence can be known. Rather, it is given descriptive and verbal definitions, nothing more. He who defines love has not known it, he who has not tasted it by drinking it down has not known it, and he who says that he has been quenched by it has not known it, for love is drinking without quenching. (Futuhat II 111.2)
“God’s love for the creatures is attributed to them in relation to their being. He is with them wherever they are, whether they exist [in the cosmos] or not. Just as he is with them in the state of their existence, so also he is with them in the state of their nonexistence, since they are objects of his knowledge. He witnesses them and he loves them for all eternity, because no property comes over him that he did not already possess. On the contrary, he always loves his creatures, just as he always knows them. His words, ‘I loved to be known,’ give us knowledge of the situation as it is in itself….
Though this world is finite, the things engendered within it are ever new, and their engendering has no end, since the possibilities have no end. The possible things never had a beginning with God, just as their endlessness is fixed and necessary with God. His Being has no beginning, so his love for his servants has no beginning.” (Futuhat II 329)
“The Prophet said, ‘God is beautiful and he loves beauty.’ . . . Hence God is described as one who loves beauty, and he loves the cosmos, because there is nothing more beautiful than the cosmos. At the same time God is beautiful, while beauty is intrinsically lovable. So the whole cosmos loves God. The beauty of God’s handiwork permeates his creation, while the cosmos is the place where he becomes manifest. Therefore the love of the different parts of the cosmos for each other derives from God’s love for himself.” (Futuhat II 114.8)
“The lover sees that he sees God only through God, not through himself, and that he loves God only through God, not through himself. It is God who loves him self-it is not the lover who loves him. The lover looks at him in every existent thing by means of him. Hence the lover knows that none loves him lover and beloved, seeker and sought.” (Futuhat II 331.17)
“None but God is loved in the existent things. It is He who is manifest within every beloved to the eye of every lover-and there is no existent thing that is not a lover. The cosmos is all lover and beloved, and all of it goes back to Him–although no lover loves any but his own Creator, the lover is veiled from him by the love for Zaynab, Su’ad, Hind, Layla, this world, money, position, and everything loved in the world. Poets exhaust their words writing about all these existing things without knowing, but the knowers never hear a verse, a riddle, a panegyric, or a love poem that is not about God, hidden beyond the veil of forms.” (Futuhat II 326.19)
“There are two kinds of silence: firstly, silence of the tongue, which consists of not speaking of other than God with other than God … and secondly, silence of the heart, which consists of refraining from all thought occurring to the soul that concerns any created thing. The one whose tongue is silent, even if his heart is not, lightens his burden. When someone’s tongue and heart are both silent, his innermost consciousness becomes manifest and his Lord reveals Himself to him. The one whose heart is silent but whose tongue is not speaks wisely. The one who possesses neither a silent tongue nor a silent heart remains under the domination of Satan and opens himself up to become an object of ridicule.”
