al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 18 -- Will
full parallel manuscript · complete bitext
الإنسان الكامل · الباب الثامن عشر في الإرادة
The eighteenth chapter of al-Insān al-Kāmil, rendered as a full parallel manuscript: every segment, aligned line by line. The third of the dedicated attribute-chapters, it treats Will — “the first of the [tender] inclinations,” the first movement of the love by which the Hidden Treasure brings itself forth to be known. The opening twelve-verse qaṣīda sets Will at the origin of manifestation (its rule “preceding” the other attributes), and the prose defines it as the disclosure of the Real’s knowledge specifying the known-objects with existence — “created” only in respect of its ascription to us, in itself the pre-eternal Will of God. al-Jīlī then maps the nine loci of Will as the ascending stages of love — inclination, ardent-attachment, tender-yearning, infatuation, passion, consuming-love, and passionate-love (ʿishq), which he calls “the pure, sheer Essence” — gives a plain definition of annihilation (fanāʾ), and closes with a second open correction of his master.
Editorial note. Two things stand out. First, this chapter, like the one before it, openly corrects Ibn al-ʿArabī by name (§35-38) — here on divine free-choice. Ibn al-ʿArabī had held, in the Futūḥāt, that God cannot strictly be called “free-choosing” (mukhtār), because He acts not by choice but according to what the fixed entities eternally require of themselves. al-Jīlī states the view fairly, grants that his master “won a secret of the Will-disclosure” but that “more escaped him than he won,” and corrects it from “the self-disclosure of Might”: God is genuinely free-choosing, “not by necessity” — clinched by scripture itself, “And your Lord creates what He wills, and chooses” (28:68). Taken with Bāb 17’s correction (on the independence of divine knowledge), the two together defend God’s freedom and self-sufficiency against the necessitarian drift of the fixed-entities doctrine — and show al-Jīlī thinking with, and past, his master. Second, the chapter’s nine stages of love and its definition of fanāʾ deserve a careful reading: fanāʾ is given plainly as “the absence of the person’s awareness of himself” under the overmastering of love — an experiential effacement of self-regard, not an ontological dissolution into God (which the laṭīfa doctrine of Bāb 14 already excludes); and the highest ʿishq in which “the lover is named lover and beloved” is the love-identity of Bāb 13 §15 (“not two essences”), not a substantial merger. A second-reader pass is advisable.
الباب الثامن عشر في الإرادة
Chapter Eighteen: On Will (al-Irāda)
وفيها قال رحمه الله:
And concerning it he (may God have mercy on him) said:
إن الإرادةَ أولُ العَطَفاتِ ....... كانت لنا وله من النفحاتِ
Truly the Will is the first of the [tender] inclinations; / it was, for us and for Him, of the [gracious] breaths.
ظهر الجمالُ بها من الكنزِ الذي ....... قد كان في التعريفِ كالنكراتِ
By it the Beauty appeared, from the Treasure which / had been, in [respect of] definiteness, as the indefinite [things].
'The Treasure' is the Hidden Treasure of the famous ḥadīth qudsī ('I was a hidden treasure and loved to be known, so I created the creation that I might be known'). It is the structural motif of the chapter: Will is the first stirring of that love-to-be-known, the first movement of self-manifestation. The tradition is a cornerstone of Sufi cosmology but is not found in the canonical hadith collections.
فبدت محاسنُه على أعطافِه ....... وهو الخليقةُ صورةُ الجَلَواتِ
So its beauties appeared upon its [own] flanks -- / and it [the creation] is the creation, the form of the [bridal] unveilings.
لولاه -- أي لولا محاسنُه -- اقتضت ....... من نفسها إيجادَ مخلوقاتِ
Were it not for it -- that is, were it not for His beauties -- [which] required, / of themselves, the bringing-into-existence of creatures,
ما كان مخلوقاً، ولولا كونُهم ....... ما كان منعوتاً بحُسنِ صفاتِ
[the creation] would not have been created; and were it not for their being, / He would not have been described by the comeliness of attributes.
The mutual-manifestation (Bāb 8, Bāb 14 §40): the creation appears by God, and God is 'described by the comeliness of attributes' through the creatures who manifest them. This is the correlativity of disclosure, not a dependency of God's being -- as the next verses make clear with the two-mirrors image.
ظهروا به، وبهم ظهورُ جمالِه ....... كلٌّ لكلٍّ مظهرُ الحسناتِ
They appeared by Him, and by them [is] the appearing of His beauty; / each, for each, is the locus-of-manifestation of the good things.
والمؤمنُ الفردُ الوحيدُ لمؤمنٍ ....... فيما روى المختارُ كالمرآةِ
And the Believer (al-Muʾmin), the Single, the Unique, is, for a believer -- / in what the Chosen One [the Prophet] related -- like the mirror.
A double play: al-Muʾmin is a divine Name (the Believing / the Granter-of-security), and 'the believer is the mirror of the believer' is a prophetic saying (Abū Dāwūd, ḥasan). So God (al-Muʾmin) and the believing servant are 'two mirrors that face each other' (§10) -- the reciprocal disclosure of the two facing mirrors of Bāb 2 §19.
هو مؤمنٌ، والفردُ منّا مؤمنٌ ....... كمرآتينِ تقابَلا بالذاتِ
He is Believing (Muʾmin), and the singular one of us is a believer -- / like two mirrors that face each other, by the Essence.
فبدت محاسنُه بنا، وبدت محا ....... سنُنا به، من غيرِ ما إثباتِ
So His beauties appeared by us, and our / beauties appeared by Him -- without [any] affirmation [of duality].
وبنا تسمّى، بل تسمّينا به ....... كلٌّ لكلٍّ نسخةُ الآياتِ
And by us He was named -- nay, by Him we were named; / each, for each, is the copy of the signs [āyāt].
لولا إرادتُه التعرّفَ، لم يكن ....... للكنزِ إبرازٌ من الخفياتِ
Were it not for His will to be-known, there would not have been, / for the Treasure, a bringing-forth from the hidden [things].
فلذلك المعنى تقدّم حكمُها ....... عن سائرِ الأوصافِ والنِّسباتِ
So for that meaning, its [Will's] rule preceded / [that of] the rest of the qualities and the relations.
Will's priority among the attributes: because Will is the first movement of the love-to-be-known by which the Hidden Treasure brings forth the creation, 'its rule preceded' that of the other attributes -- it is the first 'inclination' (§3) toward manifestation.
اعلم أن الإرادة صفةُ تجلي علمِ الحق على حسب المقتضى الذاتي. فذلك المقتضى هو الإرادة، وهي تخصيصُ الحق تعالى لمعلوماته بالوجود، على حسب ما اقتضاه العلم.
Know that the Will is the attribute of the self-disclosure of the Real's knowledge, according to the essential requirement. So that requirement is the Will -- and it is the Real's (exalted is He) specifying of His known-objects with existence, according to what the knowledge required.
glossary: tajalli
فهذا الوصفُ فيه تسمى الإرادة. والإرادةُ المخلوقةُ فينا هي عينُ إرادة الحق سبحانه وتعالى، لكن لما نُسبت إلينا، كان الحَدَثُ اللازمُ لنا لازماً لوصفنا، بأن الإرادة مخلوقة -- يعني إرادتَنا.
So this quality, in it, is named 'the Will.' And the created will in us is the very [reality of] the Will of the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He); but since it was ascribed to us, the createdness necessary to us was necessary to our quality -- [namely,] that the will is created -- meaning, our will.
وإلاَّ فهي، بنسبتها إلى الله تعالى، عينُ الإرادة القديمة التي هي له. وما معناها -- من إبراز الأشياء على حسب مطلوبها -- إلاَّ لنسبتها إلينا.
Otherwise, it -- by its ascription to God (exalted is He) -- is the very [reality of] the pre-eternal Will that is His. And its meaning -- of bringing the things forth, according to its object -- is [reckoned 'created'] only by its ascription to us.
وهذه النسبةُ هي المخلوقة. فإذا ارتفعت النسبةُ التي لها إلينا، ونُسبت إلى الحق على ما هي عليه له، انفعلت بها الأشياء، فافهم.
And this ascription is the created [thing]. So when the ascription that it has to us is lifted, and it is ascribed to the Real as it is His, the things become passive [/responsive] to it. So understand.
The same logic as the laṭīfa doctrine of Bāb 14: 'created' belongs only to the ASCRIPTION of the will to us, not to the will itself, which is the Real's pre-eternal Will. When that creaturely ascription is lifted (in the friend annihilated from himself), the will is the Real's, and 'the things become responsive to it' -- the basis of the himma (creative aspiration) of the people of God (Bāb 14 §90).
كما أن وجودَنا، بنسبته إلينا، مخلوقٌ، وبنسبته إلى الله، قديمٌ. وهذه النسبةُ هي الضروريةُ التي يعطيها الكشفُ
[This is] as our existence: by its ascription to us, [it is] created, and by its ascription to God, [it is] pre-eternal. And this ascription is the necessary [truth] that the unveiling gives,
glossary: kashf
والذوقُ، أو العلمُ القائمُ مقامَ العين. فما ثَمَّ إلاَّ هذا، فافهم.
and [the] tasting, or the knowledge standing in the place of [direct] vision. For there is nothing [there] but this. So understand.
glossary: kashf
واعلم أن الإرادة لها تسعةُ مظاهر في المخلوقات:
And know that the Will has nine loci-of-manifestation in the creatures:
المظهر الأول: هو الميل، وهو انجذابُ القلب إلى مطلوبه. فإذا قوي جداً، سُمّي ولَعاً.
The first locus: it is inclination (al-mayl) -- and it is the heart's being drawn to its object. So when it grows very strong, it is named ardent-attachment (walaʿ).
وهو المظهرُ الثاني للإرادة. ثم كذا اشتدّ وزاد، سُمّي صَبابةً. وهو إذا أخذ القلبُ في الاسترسال فيمن يحبّ، فكأنه انصبَّ كالماء إذا فرغ، لا يجد بُدّاً من الانصباب.
And it [walaʿ] is the second locus of the Will. Then, [when] it likewise intensified and increased, it is named tender-yearning (ṣabāba). And it is when the heart takes to flowing-out toward the one it loves -- as though it poured itself out, like water [which], when it is emptied, finds no escape from pouring.
وهذا هو المظهرُ الثالث للإرادة. ثم إذا تفرَّغ له بالكلية، وتمكّن ذلك منه، سُمّي شَغَفاً.
And this [ṣabāba] is the third locus of the Will. Then, when [the heart] is wholly emptied for it [the beloved], and that becomes firmly established in it, it is named infatuation (shaghaf).
وهو المظهرُ الرابع للإرادة. ثم كذا استحكم في الفؤاد، وأخذه عن الأشياء، سُمّي هوىً.
And it [shaghaf] is the fourth locus of the Will. Then, [when] it likewise took firm hold in the heart, and took it [away] from [all other] things, it is named passion (hawā).
وهو المظهرُ الخامس. ثم كذا استوفى حكمَه على الجسد، سُمّي غراماً.
And it [hawā] is the fifth locus. Then, [when] it likewise fulfilled its rule over the body, it is named consuming-love (gharām).
وهو المظهرُ السادس. والعشقُ هو الذاتُ المحضُ الصرف، الذي لا يدخل تحت رسمٍ ولا نعتٍ ولا وصف. فهو -- أعني العشق -- في ابتداء ظهوره، يُفني العاشقَ، حتى لا يبقى له اسمٌ ولا رسمٌ ولا نعتٌ ولا وصف.
And it [gharām] is the sixth locus. And passionate-love (al-ʿishq) is the pure, sheer Essence, which does not enter under [any] mark, nor descriptor, nor quality. So it -- I mean al-ʿishq -- at the onset of its appearing, annihilates the lover, until there remains for him neither name, nor mark, nor descriptor, nor quality.
glossary: dhat al-Jīlī's ascending stages of love as the loci of the Will: inclination (mayl), ardent-attachment (walaʿ), tender-yearning (ṣabāba), infatuation (shaghaf), passion (hawā), consuming-love (gharām), and finally passionate-love (ʿishq) -- which he calls 'the pure, sheer Essence' itself. The digital witness explicitly numbers only through the sixth (gharām) and then treats ʿishq as the culmination without numbering the remaining stages; the stated 'nine' (§21) is thus not fully enumerated in this witness, a point for print-scan collation.
فإذا امتحق العاشقُ وانطمس، أخذ العشقُ في فناء المعشوق والعاشق. فلا يزال يفنى منه الاسمُ، ثم الوصفُ، ثم الذاتُ، فلا يبقى عاشقٌ ولا معشوق. فحينئذٍ يظهر العاشقُ بالصورتين، ويتصف بالصفتين، فيُسمّى بالعاشق، ويُسمّى بالمعشوق. وفي ذلك أقول:
So when the lover is effaced and obliterated, passionate-love takes to the annihilation of the beloved and the lover [together]. So there does not cease to be annihilated, of it, the name, then the quality, then the Essence -- [until] there remains neither lover nor beloved. And then the lover appears in the two forms, and is qualified by the two qualities, [and] so is named 'lover' and is named 'beloved.' And concerning that I say:
glossary: dhat The lover-becomes-beloved is the love-identity of the highest ʿishq, not a merger of two substances: it is the same union al-Jīlī defines elsewhere as 'the very self of the lover [being] the beloved' (Bāb 13 §15), 'not two essences.' The 'annihilation of the beloved and the lover together' is fanāʾ, defined plainly in §32-33, not the ḥulūl/ittiḥād the book denies throughout.
العشقُ نارُ اللهِ -- أعني المُوقَدةْ -- ....... فأفولُها فطلوعُها في الأفئدةْ
Passionate-love is the Fire of God -- I mean, the kindled [one] -- / so its setting, then its rising, is in the hearts.
'The Fire of God, the kindled' (nāru llāhi l-mūqada) is al-Humaza 104:6 -- which al-Jīlī reads as the fire of divine love kindled in the hearts, setting and rising there.
نبأٌ عظيمٌ، أهلُه هم فيه ....... مختلفونَ -- أعني في المكانةِ والجِدةْ
A mighty tiding -- its people, in it, / are differing -- I mean, in [their] rank and [their] portion.
'A mighty tiding, concerning which they differ' weaves Ṣād 38:67-68 / al-Nabaʾ 78:2-3 -- here applied to love: the people of love differ only in rank and portion, scattered around the one 'point' of ʿishq (§31).
فتراهم في نقطةِ العشقِ الذي ....... هو واحدٌ، متفرقينَ على حِدةْ
So you see them, in the point of passionate-love -- which / is one -- scattered, [each] apart.
واعلم أن هذا الفناء هو عبارةٌ عن عدم الشعور، باستيلاء حكم الذهول عليه. ففناؤه عن نفسه عدمُ شعوره به، وفناؤه عن محبوبه باستهلاكه فيه.
And know that this annihilation is an expression for the absence of awareness, by the overmastering of the rule of stupefaction upon him. So his annihilation from himself is his not being aware of it, and his annihilation from his beloved is by his being consumed in it.
فالفناءُ في اصطلاح القوم هو عبارةٌ عن عدم شعور الشخص بنفسه، ولا بشيءٍ من لوازمها.
So annihilation (al-fanāʾ), in the terminology of the folk, is an expression for the absence of the person's awareness of himself, nor of anything of its [the self's] concomitants.
al-Jīlī's plain technical definition of fanāʾ -- the absence of self-awareness under the overmastering of love -- a useful corrective to popular over-readings: it is a psychological/experiential effacement of self-regard, not an ontological dissolution of the self into God (which the laṭīfa doctrine of Bāb 14 already rules out).
فإذا علمت هذا، فاعلم أن الإرادة الإلهية المخصِّصة للمخلوقات على كل حالةٍ وهيئةٍ، صادرةٌ من غير علةٍ ولا بسبب، بل محضُ اختيارٍ إلهي. لأنها -- أعني الإرادة -- حكمٌ من أحكام العظمة، ووصفٌ من أوصاف الألوهية. فألوهيتُه وعظمتُه لنفسه، لا لعلة.
So when you have known this, [then] know that the divine Will -- [which is] the specifier of the creatures upon every state and configuration -- issues without [any] cause and not by [any] reason; rather, [it is] pure divine choice (ikhtiyār ilāhī). Because it -- I mean the Will -- is a rule of the rules of Grandeur, and a quality of the qualities of Divinity. So His Divinity and His Grandeur are for Himself, not for a cause.
The thesis al-Jīlī will defend against Ibn al-ʿArabī: the divine Will issues 'without cause... pure divine choice,' grounded in His Grandeur, which is 'for Himself, not for a cause.' God's acting is free, not necessitated by the natures of things.
وهذا بخلاف ما رأى الإمامُ محيي الدين بن العربي رضي الله عنه. فإنه قال: لا يجوز أن يُسمّى اللهُ مختاراً، لأنه لا يفعل شيئاً بالاختيار، بل يفعله على حسب ما اقتضاه العالَمُ من نفسه. وما اقتضى العالَمُ من نفسه إلاَّ هذا الوجه الذي هو عليه، فلا يكون مختاراً.
And this is contrary to what the Imam Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (may God be pleased with him) held. For he said: it is not permissible that God be named 'free-choosing' (mukhtār), because He does not do anything by choice; rather, He does it according to what the world required of itself. And the world required, of itself, nothing but this aspect that it is upon -- so He is not [strictly] free-choosing.
al-Jīlī's SECOND explicit correction of his master in two chapters (cf. Bāb 17 §11). At issue: Ibn al-ʿArabī's quasi-necessitarian position that God does not act by free choice but according to what the fixed entities (the 'world') eternally require of themselves -- so that 'free-choosing' (mukhtār) is not strictly predicable of Him. The position is stated fairly, with full honorifics, before being answered (§37-39). The two corrections together defend the divine freedom and self-sufficiency against the necessitarian drift of the aʿyān-thābita doctrine.
هذا كلامُ الإمام محيي الدين في الفتوحات المكية. ولقد تكلّم على سرٍّ ظفر به من تجلي الإرادة، وفاته منه أكثرُ مما ظفر به. وذلك من مقتضيات العظمة الإلهية.
This is the speech of the Imam Muḥyī al-Dīn, in the Meccan Openings (al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya). And he spoke upon a secret he won from the self-disclosure of the Will -- and there escaped him, of it, more than what he won. And that is of the requisites of the divine Grandeur.
glossary: tajalli A precise source-citation: al-Jīlī attributes the view to Ibn al-ʿArabī's al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. His verdict is generous but firm -- his master 'won a secret' of the Will-disclosure, but 'more escaped him than he won,' because the fuller truth belongs to a higher disclosure (that of Might, §37).
ولقد ظفرنا بما ظفر به، ثم عثرنا -- بعد ذلك -- في تجلي العزّة، على أنه مختارٌ في الأشياء، متصرّفٌ فيها، بحكم اختيار المشيئة الصادرة، لا عن ضرورةٍ ولا مريداً.
And we [too] won what he won; then we came upon -- after that, in the self-disclosure of Might (al-ʿizza) -- [the truth] that He is free-choosing in the things, disposing in them, by the rule of the choice of the issuing Will -- not by necessity, nor [merely as] a willer.
glossary: tajalli al-Jīlī claims to have surpassed his master by a higher disclosure (the 'self-disclosure of Might'): God is genuinely 'free-choosing... not by necessity.' The Will-disclosure alone (Ibn al-ʿArabī's vantage) shows God specifying things per their natures; the higher Might-disclosure shows that this specifying is itself a free divine choice, not a necessity imposed by the things.
بل شأنٌ إلهيٌّ ووصفٌ ذاتي، كما صرّح الله تعالى عن نفسه في كتابه، فقال: {وَرَبُّكَ يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَيَخْتَارُ} [القصص: 68].
Rather, [it is] a divine affair and an essential attribute -- as God (exalted is He) declared plainly, of Himself, in His Book, [and] so said: 'And your Lord creates what He wills, and chooses' (28:68, al-Qaṣaṣ).
Qurʾān 28:68: al-Qaṣaṣ 28:68, 'wa-rabbuka yakhluqu mā yashāʾu wa-yakhtār' -- the explicit Qurʾanic affirmation of divine choosing (wa-yakhtār), al-Jīlī's decisive proof-text against the denial of God's being mukhtār glossary: dhat The clinching argument: scripture itself attributes 'choosing' (yakhtār) to God explicitly -- so to deny that He is mukhtār contradicts the Qurʾanic self-description. al-Jīlī lets revelation settle the dispute with his master in favor of genuine divine freedom.
فهو القادرُ المختارُ، العزيزُ الجبارُ، المتكبّرُ القهارُ.
So He is the Powerful, the Free-choosing; the Mighty, the Compeller; the Proud, the Subduer.
Collation. Two-witness collated, staged 2026-06-03. Bāb 18 of the foundational opening band (al-Irāda, Will) -- the third of the dedicated attribute-chapters. Witness-2 (ibnalarabi.com id=21) clean of navigation chrome; the trailing site-search widget EXCLUDED. Two poems (a 12-verse opening qaṣīda §3-14 on Will and the Hidden Treasure; a 3-verse 'fire-of-God' poem §30-32). Sets out the NINE loci of Will as the ascending stages of love (mayl through ʿishq), the fanāʾ definition, and -- doctrinally notable -- a SECOND explicit correction of Ibn al-ʿArabī (§36-39), this time on divine free-choice (that God IS mukhtār). The witness explicitly numbers the love-stages through the 6th (gharām), then treats ʿishq as the culmination, so the stated 'nine' (§21) is not fully enumerated in the digital witness; flagged at §27. Several kāf-as-alif OCR garbles restored. No lossy drop of authorial prose.
Qurʾān. One Qurʾān locus verified verbatim against alquran.cloud, tag correct: al-Qaṣaṣ 28:68 'wa-rabbuka yakhluqu mā yashāʾu wa-yakhtār' (§39, al-Jīlī's proof-text that God is genuinely free-choosing, against Ibn al-ʿArabī). Allusions: 'the mighty tiding concerning which they differ' (§31, the love-poem), woven from Ṣād 38:67-68 / al-Nabaʾ 78:2-3; the Hidden-Treasure ḥadīth qudsī 'I was a hidden treasure and loved to be known' (§4, §13, the structural motif of the chapter, a Sufi tradition not in the canonical collections); 'the believer is the mirror of the believer' (§9-10, Abū Dāwūd, ḥasan), played against the divine Name al-Muʾmin. The two poems are al-Jīlī's own.