Mahdi according to Ibn ‘Arabi: a spiritual figure between history and symbolism

Many Hadiths of the Prophet, cited in authority collections, present to us this great spiritual figure expected at the end of time that is Mahdi. Even if it is difficult to define with precision his mission and his spiritual role, the hadiths allow us to understand that he will be both a temporal leader of the Muslim community and a spiritual guide responsible for enlightening believers at a time when darkness, confusion and injustice will dominate. He will have to fight against the Antichrist (Al-Dajjal) who will try to reign all powerful until the return of Jesus:

Mahdi will therefore be a divinely inspired caliph and in the words of the Prophet:

The Mahdi expected at the end of time has always been the subject of particular attention in Islam: through the centuries, it has fueled popular piety as much as the reflection of theologians. But it is, undoubtedly, the mystics and the spiritual masters who offer us the most precious presentations.

The spiritual role of the Mahdi, described in many hadiths, could not fail to inspire the one who was named Al-Chaykh al-Akbar, The spiritual master par excellence. Indeed, Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240) devotes an entire chapter of his immense’ ‘Spiritual sum’ ‘ al-futuhat al-makkiyya To the role that will assume, alongside Jesus, the Mahdi and its advisers at the end of time.

It is therefore both the importance of the subject and the quality of the author who decided us to translate and present this chapter which occupies an important place in the Future and some passages are crucial for understanding the work of Ibn ‘Arabi as we show in the introduction (p.10 to 26).

As always in the work of Ibn ‘Arabi, the deepest interpretations have their ultimate justification in the Koran and the Hadith. In return, the exegesis of the great mystical restores to the two fundamental sources of Islam their magnitude and their depth. This is how in this chapter of FutureIbn ‘Arabi declares that all his teaching has its roots in the depths and lights of the Koran:

“Thus, everything we are talking about in our assemblies and our written works comes from the Presence of the Koran and its treasures: I received the key to understanding and the spiritual support that is its own (Al-Imdad Minhu). All this so as not to get out of the Koran because nothing higher can be granted: only one knows the value who has tasted it, who has contemplated the initiation home (manzil) like an inner state and to whom the real speaks (by projecting verses) on the intimate of his being (FI SIRRIHI). »»

To grasp what bases the possibility of going beyond the simple literal sense of the Koran, it is necessary to meditate an important hadith which occupies a discreet but central place in the teaching of Ibn ‘Arabi:

إ Whether sides ل sale لرآرآنOU بَطناً وَظبهْراً (

رواه ابن حبان في صحيحه.

“The Koran has an interior (Batn) and an exterior (Zahr)a limit (hadd) and an ascent point (Matli ‘). »»

(Cited by Ibn Hibban in his Sahih))

Thus, for Ibn ‘Arabi, each verse has, on the one hand, a clear external meaning and accessible to any believer and, on the other hand, interior senses which are only revealed that which walks towards reality (Al-Haqq). This hadith – and in particular the notion of Matli ‘ – is the scriptural foundation of the spiritual interpretations of Ibn ‘Arabi and he is the guarantor of the orthodoxy of his approach.

For the sake of clarity and in order to highlight certain teachings of this sage, we wanted, as far as possible, to underline the relations which bind the text of Ibn ‘Arabi to the Koran, which explains the abundant annotation. On the other hand and to allow the reader to deepen the reading of the chapter of Future that we present, we have added in the appendix the unprecedented translation of texts relating to Mahdi and the end of time, belonging to spiritual masters of the school of Chaykh al-Akbar : two passages from the Koran commentary (Al-Ta’Wilat) of ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Qachani (m. 1329), a passage ofal-insan al-kamil of Abd al-Karim al-Jili (m. 1428) and finally two mawqif of the Emir ‘Abd al-Qadir (m. 1883).

One of the important messages that Ibn ‘Arabi transmits in these presentations is the affirmation that one of the spiritual roles of the Mahdi will consist in bringing back Islam to its original simplicity beyond the meanders of theological elaborations which have developed over the centuries:

“He will manifest religion as it is truly so that if the envoy of God (ص) was alive, he would exercise authority in accordance with religion thus heard. It will end all legal schools on earth: only the ” pure religion “will remain (Al-Din al-Khalis). His enemies will be the theologians who blindly follow people of the jurisprudential effort (Ahl al-ijtihad) when they see that the authority will be exercised in contradiction with (some) positions of their imams … The common of Muslims will be delighted more than those who have an official function. »»

It is a remarkable fact that today – and this for more than a century – Islam has been crossed by a certain number of currents claiming to operate a return to the original breath of this religion. It must be admitted that attempts to step over the centuries and return to what some people think to be “the Islam of the prophet” often led to impoverish Islam and to empty it of its substance. By wanting to purge traditional Islam without spiritual and wisdom discernment, religious and political movements claiming toIslah Or Salafism are likely to get lost and fall into obscurantism.

It is obviously from a very different perspective that the work of the Mahdi according to Ibn ‘Arabi is located: the Mahdi and its advisers are elders accomplished benefiting from a spiritual inspiration of force majeure and their influence results above all from their spiritual influence. This radiation is, according to Ibn ‘Arabi, the expression of their virtues: purity of intention, lack of ambition and total detachment and, finally, unshakable certainty (yaqIn).

When concluding, it seems useful to me to recall that Ibn ‘Arabi announces very clearly, in one of his first works entitled’ Anqa ‘Mughrib (the amazing phoenix), that all his teaching must be understood in the light of the correspondence between macrocosm and human microcosm:

“When I evoke in my book that here, or elsewhere, one of the events of the outside world, my goal is only to establish it firmly in the ear of the one who listens and then to compare what, in man, corresponds to this. »»

This allows us to understand that in the teaching of masters, Mahdi is a spiritual figure that is both historical and symbolic: its presence preexists to its advent exterior because it is above all a event interior.

In times when the messianic expectations of each other sometimes arouse febrile reactions, where the temptation of withdrawal and the fear of upcoming events push for extreme positions, we form the vow that this translation can humbly help some to receive a little of peace and the deep serenity that cross the work of Ibn ‘Arabi.

Mahdi and its advisers (wisdom for the end of time) is published by editions A thousand & a light.