Unity and Becoming: A Dialogical Encounter Between Ibn ʿArabī and Hegel
Setting: A tranquil garden under a celestial dome. A fountain murmurs the rhythm of becoming. Birds sing in the dialectic of opposites. Ibn ʿArabī appears robed in luminous white, Hegel in somber 19th-century black. They sit on opposite sides of a stone table inscribed with the words ḥaqq (truth) and Vernunft (reason).
Ibn ʿArabī: Welcome, seeker of Spirit. You have traveled far through the corridors of thought to arrive here.
Hegel: And you, Master of Andalusia, have moved through the inner worlds to meet me on the path of the Absolute. Let us speak, then, of the Real.
Ibn ʿArabī: The Real (al-Ḥaqq) is One. All things are but its manifestations. There is no being but Being—it unfolds Itself in countless forms, each a face of the same Essence.
Hegel: And yet, the Absolute does not remain still. It becomes. It negates itself in order to return to itself at a higher level. Being passes into Nothing, and together they generate Becoming. Through contradiction, Spirit realizes itself.
Ibn ʿArabī: You speak of the dialectic. We, too, know its rhythm—not in logic alone, but in unveiling (kashf). The Names of God oppose and reflect one another: the Merciful and the Wrathful, the Manifest and the Hidden. Yet all return to the Essence.
Hegel: But for me, the movement is rational. The Real is the Rational. Reason is not merely a faculty—it is the very fabric of the world. History itself is Reason realizing freedom.
Ibn ʿArabī: Reason is a lamp, but it does not burn with the light of certitude unless kindled by Love. The Gnostic does not know through syllogism, but through tasting (dhawq). Have you tasted the sweetness of annihilation in the Beloved?
Hegel: No—but I have seen how the self negates itself and returns, not dissolved, but transformed—aufgehoben—in a higher unity. The self becomes universal through this process.
Ibn ʿArabī: And I say: the self annihilates in the Real and is reborn as the mirror of Divine Names. Each human is a microcosm, but the Perfect Human (al-insān al-kāmil) becomes the isthmus between the Unseen and the manifest. Not through thought alone—but through being.
Hegel: You mystics dissolve the individual too readily. But for me, the State is the realization of ethical Spirit—individuals achieve freedom through their roles in society.
Ibn ʿArabī: The State is a shadow upon the earth. True sovereignty belongs only to the Real. The laws of kings bind bodies, but the Real unveils hearts. My sultan is the One who veils and unveils by a single command: Kun—Be.
Hegel (pausing): Yet even in your vision, there is motion—levels, gradations, unveilings. A dialectic hidden within unity.
Ibn ʿArabī: You perceive rightly. Unity is not the flattening of difference, but its origin and end. Between the One and the many is a secret breath. I call it nafas al-Raḥmān—the Breath of the All-Merciful.
Hegel: We are closer than I thought. Perhaps dialectic and unveiling are twin mirrors. My Spirit seeks itself through history; your Real reveals Itself through being.
Ibn ʿArabī (smiling): Truth has many garments, yet beneath all robes is the same light. Reason dances, and Love sings. Shall we walk the path together, each with his lamp?
Hegel: Yes, but let us also write a book.
Ibn ʿArabī (laughing): I already did—fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam. But it can be rewritten in your tongue. Perhaps you shall call it The Phenomenology of Spirit Unveiled.
[Curtain falls. The fountain continues to murmur Becoming. The light shimmers between Unity and Motion.]
