I want you to just think for a second. Well,
maybe don't close your eyes if you're driving,
but imagine the absolute maxed out stats for
a human being. The perfect run. The perfect run
in the game of life, exactly. If you could max
out every single potential a human has, what
would that even look like? That's it. I mean,
that's a massive question to start with. The
question of human potential. Right. And I don't
mean perfect like, you know, you never parallel
part crookedly. I mean, what is the absolute
peak of existence? Is it about getting cosmic
superpowers, knowing the secret code of the universe,
or is it something else entirely? Or is it being
a strictly obedient, humble servant who just
follows the rules perfectly? And never steps
out of line. That tension, it sounds like a philosophical
trap. But it's actually the engine behind almost
every religious tradition. And today we're looking
at a very specific, very high stakes version
of this debate. We are. We're heading back to
the medieval Islamic world to witness a real
clash of titans. We're doing a deep dive into
a brand new source, a memorial volume from this
year, 2026, called Sente -te a Heritage Prophétique
en Islam. Which translates to sainthood and prophetic
inheritance in Islam. It's a heavy title, I know.
But the content is incredibly grounding. It really
is. The book is dedicated to the late French
scholar Michel Tchadkiewicz, who is an absolute
giant in this field. But we're focusing on one
chapter in particular by Alexander Chee. The
Grease of Human Perfection and Sainthood. And
Knish basically sets up a cage match between
two medieval heavyweights who had completely...
opposite ideas of what a friend of God even looks
like. We're talking about Ibn al -Arabi and Ibn
Taymiyyah. And before you tune out thinking,
you know, this is just dusty history. Right.
Kanish's whole argument is that these two definitions
of perfection are actually the secret decoder
ring for understanding religious diversity today,
not just in Islam, but in Judaism, Christianity,
and well, honestly, even in secular spirituality.
So our mission today. is to understand these
two archetypes the cosmic bridge and well the
pious baker but first we have to set the stage
we're in the medieval islamic world was there
like a standard definition of a saint back then
oh far from it That's the first thing Ninch really
drives home. It was conceptual free -for -all.
You had philosophers, theologians, mystics, jurists
all throwing their hats in the ring. The definitions
were wild. I stumbled across one in the text
from the 10th century from a group called the
Brethren of Purity. Ah, yes. It sounds like they
were trying to build a superhuman by committee.
The eclectic ideal. It's a fascinating snapshot
of the time. Listen to this list. They said the
ideal man is Persian in derivation, Arab in faith,
Greek in science, Indian in interpretation. and
it just keeps going. And it ends with, but a
Sufi in his whole spiritual life. A Sufi in his
whole spiritual life. It's like the yes and approach
to perfection. They wanted it all. The intellectual
rigor of the Greeks, the deep interiority of
the Sufis, the religious grounding of the Arabs.
It just shows how cosmopolitan that world was.
But, you know, as time went on, that buffet -style
spirituality started to settle into camps. And
that brings us to our two contenders. In the
red corner, we have the heavyweight champion
of mysticism, Ibn al -Arabi, often called al
-Shaykh al -Akbar, or the Grand Master, died
in 1240. If you like metaphysics and the idea
that humans are cosmic royalty, he's your guy.
And in the blue corner, the challenger, Ibn Taymiyyah,
who comes a bit later, died in 1328. He's the
champion of the traditionalist view, the anti
-elitist. the scripturalist. If you believe perfection
is about keeping your head down and following
the text, you're on Team Tymia. Okay, let's start
with Ibn al -Arabi, because when I read his description
of the perfect human Al -Insan al -Kamil, it
didn't sound like a person I could meet for coffee.
Yeah, not at all. It's incredibly grand. For
Ibn al -Arabi, a saint isn't just a good person
who prays a lot. The perfect human is the axis
of existence. He is the center of the universe.
This is where my brain started to melt a little
bit. He calls them a bridge, right? Exactly.
Think of it this way. In his view, God, the ultimate
truth, Allah, he's so infinite, so absolute that
there's this huge ontological gap between him
and the fragile world we live in. You need a
connector. A transformer. A transformer. That's
a great way to put it. Something that can step
down that high voltage divinity into something
the world can handle. And that is the saint.
The source used this analogy of the ring and
the seal, which I found really helpful. This
is the most famous metaphor. Ibn al -Rabi says
the saint is to the world what a signet seal
is to a ring. In a medieval kingdom, the seal
wasn't just jewelry. Right. It was security.
It was used to secure the king's treasure. As
long as that seal is stamped and unbroken and
the treasure is safe. And the treasure in this
analogy is the whole world. Yes. The perfect
human literally preserves the universe. Ibn al
-Arabi argues that if the earth were ever emptied
of these perfect saints, the cosmos would collapse.
They are this synthetic exemplar. Synthetic exemplar.
That sounds so technical, almost like a sci -fi
term. Break that down. It means they are a synthesis,
a summary of everything. So God has these divine
names, the merciful, the powerful, the knower.
The universe reflects these in bits and pieces.
A mountain might reflect the firm. A flower reflects
the beautiful. Okay. But the perfect human. They
are a mirror that reflects all of those attributes
at once perfectly. They're a microcosm of God's
own nature. Wow. That is an unbelievable amount
of pressure. I mean, if you're the glue holding
reality together, you'd have to be flawless,
right? No mistakes. You would think so. But this
is where Ibn al -Arabi pulls a fast one, and
it's one of the most surprising parts of Nish's
chapter. He talks about slippage. This stopped
me in my tracks. He essentially says that even
these high -level saints can mess up, they can
sin, and it's okay. It's more than okay. It might
actually be necessary for their perfection. Ibn
al -Arabi argues that sometimes a saint commits
an error. But because they are so attuned to
reality, that slip becomes a vehicle for humility.
So falling down actually helps you climb higher.
In a way, yes. If you were truly flawless, you
would never experience God's forgiveness. you
wouldn't truly understand the divine name, the
forgiver. So the error integrates into your perfection.
It becomes a lesson. It's just, it's incredibly
sophisticated. You have this hidden government
of saints, the poles, the substitutes running
the universe, and their internal struggles are
what keep the lights on. It's so mysterious and
elitist. And you can see how that might annoy
someone who prefers things. Well, simpler. Enter
Ibn Taymiyyah. Right. If Ibn al -Arabi is playing
4D chess with the cosmos, Ibn Taymiyyah is playing
checkers. And he thinks Ibn al -Arabi is cheating.
The contrast could not be sharper. Kanishq calls
Ibn Taymiyyah's approach the democratization
of sainthood. It feels like he's looking at all
this cosmic bridge stuff and just saying, who
do you people think you are? Precisely. He hates
the elitism. He hates the idea of some secret
club of super saints. For Ibn Taymiyyah, a wali,
a friend of God, is simple. It's a pious believer.
The list in the text was great. He says a saint
can be a soldier, a merchant, a baker. A baker,
a governor. He's stripping away all the metaphysics.
You don't need to be a cosmic bridge. You just
need to obey the Quran and follow the sin of
the prophets example. So if you're a baker who
doesn't cheat his customers and prays five times
a day, you're closer to perfection than some
mystic in a cave. Nudge closer. In his view,
yes. It feels almost Protestant in a way. The
priesthood of all believers. There are definite
parallels. Yeah. It's accessible to everyone.
You don't need a special initiation. But he does
have a gatekeeping side. He really goes after
the God's fools crowd. Oh, absolutely. In the
medieval world, you had these so -called holy
fools people who were so drunk on God that they
stopped following the rules. Right. They wouldn't
pray. They'd act crazy. And some people revered
them for it. Ibn Taymiyyah has zero tolerance
for that. He draws a hard line. He says, if you
don't pray, you aren't a saint. Period. He calls
it antinomianism, being against the law. For
him, perfection is about sincere devotion and
obedience. It's about control, not losing control.
He also completely flips the timeline. Ibn al
-Arabi has this vertical hierarchy that exists
right now. Ibn Tamiyya looks backward. That's
his hierarchy of time. For him, perfection isn't
renewable. The absolute peak of human existence
was the Prophet Muhammad. Everyone else is ranked
by how close they stood to him in history. So
it's a graph that just... It only goes down.
It only goes down, exactly. Abu Bakr is the best,
then Umar, then the companions. Every generation
after that is progressively diminished. Can't
be better today than someone who walked with
the prophet. Which explains his view on jihad,
right? The greater jihad versus the lesser jihad.
That's a famous Sufi distinction. Many mystics
say the greater jihad is the internal war against
your ego. The physical war is secondary. And
Ibn Taymiyyah says. He looks at that and says,
no, he prefers action. He argues that active
service, struggling for the community, yes, arms
struggle against infidels. That is peak perfection.
Why? Because that's what the Companions did.
They were active. They were building a society.
So we have the cosmic bridge versus the pious
baker, the mystic versus the activist. But the
real fireworks in Kenesha's chapter happen when
we get to imagination. This is the battle of
the mind. It all centers on the concept of kayal,
or imagination. Okay, we need to be careful here.
When Ibn al -Rabi says imagination, he doesn't
mean like make -believe. Correct. For him, the
imaginal realm is a valid, objective plane of
existence. It sits between the physical world
and the spiritual world. It's a land of truth.
It's where abstract meanings take on shapes.
So if a saint has a vision in this realm, an
unveiling or kash, that's hard data to him. As
real as the microscope. Maybe more so. It's a
source of direct knowledge from God. And Ibn
Taymiyyah. Let's just say he is not a subscriber
to that channel. He thinks the channel is hacked.
He calls imagination Satan's favorite playground.
There's a quote in the source that made me laugh
out loud because it was so visceral. He compares
this realm of imagination to, well, it wasn't
a flattering list. He compares it to latrines,
public baths, and hashish dens. Hashish dens.
That is a very specific burn for a medieval theologian.
It is a brutal takedown. He's saying when you
let your imagination run wild, you aren't connecting
to God. You're opening yourself up to delusion,
to demonic influence. You think you're seeing
angels, but you're just seeing your own desires
projected on the wall. And this is why he gets
so angry about the Seal of Saints idea. That's
the core heresy charge. Ibn al -Rabi and others
talked about a seal of saints, someone who culminates
all sainthood. Ibn Taymiyyah saw that as a direct
threat to the prophet Muhammad. Because if a
saint can get direct news from God through their
imagination, then who needs a prophet? Exactly.
It bypasses the scripture. It creates a backdoor
to the divine. Ibn Taymiyyah insists that saints
cannot claim direct knowledge independent of
the Quran. He's protecting the monopoly of revelation.
It's safety versus discovery. Ibn Taymiyyah offers
a safe... paved road with guardrails, Ibn al
-Arabi offers a rocket ship that might explode.
But it might also take you to the stars. That's
a great way to put it. So, Alexander Nisch, the
author, he pivots here. We've spent this time
in the 13th century. But he argues this isn't
just history. He says this debate is crucial
for modern interfaith dialogue. Why? It's about
combating essentialism. Essentialism so. The
idea that Islam is just one thing. Right. You
hear it constantly in media or politics. Islam
is a religion of absolute submission and law.
Or on the other hand, true Islam is purely mystical
and peaceful, Nish says. Look at these two guys.
They're both giants, both orthodox, and they're
completely different. So Islam isn't a monolith.
Exactly. It contains both the Agbarian view,
transformative, mystical, and the Tamian view,
ethical, obedient. And realizing that helps when
you're talking to a Christian or a Jew. Immensely.
Because their religions have the exact same split.
It allows you to map the terrain of faith much
more accurately. I see where he's going. The
source mentioned the tension in Judaism specifically.
Think about Kabbalah. The figure of the tzaddik
is almost identical to Ibn al -Arabi's perfect
human and cosmic pillar sustaining the world.
But then you have someone like Maimonides, the
rationalist, who's all about law and intellect.
Maimonides looks a lot like Ibn Taymiyyah. He
does. So a Jewish rationalist and a Muslim salafi.
might actually have more in common structurally
than they do with the mystics in their own traditions.
And a Christian mystic who loves the cloud of
unknowing might vibe better with a Sufi than
with his own local pastor who focuses strictly
on church rules and doctrine. Exactly. It creates
these cross -border alliances. You stop seeing
Muslim versus Christian and start seeing mystic
versus legalist across the board. And Krish points
out that Ibn al -Arabi's metaphysics offers huge
resources for pluralism. If God is infinite,
he reveals himself in infinite ways. Religious
diversity isn't a bug, it's a feature. That sounds
great for the dialogue crowd. But what does Ibn
Taymiyyah offer? He seems less open. He's less
open theologically, sure. But he offers a different
bridge. His ethical universalism. The Baker argument
again. Yes. If what matters is doing good works
and being honest. That resonates deeply with
virtue ethics. You can build an alliance on orthopraxy,
correct action. You can say we may disagree on
God, but we both agree on feeding the poor. So
you can build bridges using either model. You
just have to know which tool you're using. But,
and this is a big but that Nish insists on. We
have to avoid cherry picking. The warning label.
It is very tempting for modern folks to look
at Ibn al -Rabi and say he's the inclusive hero
and look at Ibn Taymiyyah as the strict villain.
But the reality is much messier. So much messier.
Ibn al -Rabi was still a Muslim particularist.
He believed Islam was the superior revelation.
And Ibn Tamiyya was deeply concerned with justice
and protecting the common believer from charlatans.
He was trying to empower the average person.
We have to engage them as they were, not as we
want them to be. Exactly. We have to respect
the integrity of their arguments. Before we wrap
up, I do want to take a moment for the man this
whole volume is honoring, Michel Chotkovitz.
He was a remarkable figure, a French scholar
who really embodied this kind of bridge. He was
a rigorous academic, but he also had a deep personal
spiritual commitment to these texts. He's the
one who really brought Ibn al -Arabi to the West
in a serious way. Books like Seal of the Saints
and Ocean Without Shore completely changed the
game. But what I appreciate most is that he insisted
on rooting Ibn al -Arabi in the Quran. He showed
that these Wild cosmic ideas weren't just hallucinations.
They were hyper -close readings of the scripture.
So let's bring this all home. We have walked
down two very different roads today in our search
for the perfect human. We have the road of the
cosmic bridge, the Agbarian path. This is where
the human being expands. You become a mirror
for God. You sustain the universe. It's a path
of expansion, imagination, and cosmic function.
And we have the road of the obedient servant,
the Taimean path. This is where the human being
shrinks into absolute servitude. You find perfection
in humility, in history, in sticking to the script.
And in being a good baker. It's a path of safety,
action, and clear boundaries. Both claim to lead
to the truth. Both have shaped the Islamic world
for 800 years. And really, they've both shaped
the human experience. That's the crux of it.
The tension isn't just in the history books.
It's in the human condition. We all have days
where we want to feel connected to the cosmos
and days where we just want a clear set of rules.
So here is my final thought for you listening.
If you had to choose a definition of perfection
for your own life right now, would you rather
be the seal that preserves the king's treasure,
expanding your soul to mirror the cosmos? Or
would you rather be the baker who simply, quietly,
and perfectly follows the recipe? Expansion or
servitude? which one feels more like perfection
to you thanks for diving deep with us see you
next time