The Written World of God: The Cosmic Script and the Art of Ibn 'Arabi

The Written World of God is the first systematic overview of the science of letters (?ilm al-huruf) according to the great Andalusian spiritual master, scholar, poet and philosopher Ibn 'Arabi (d. 1240). Ibn 'Arabi defined the science of letters as familiarity with the building-blocks of the Qur’anic revelation and everything in the world of Nature. Letters are understood as visual and aural signs pointing to the mysteries of existence. The present study examines how the universe came to be, for what purpose it was created and the hierarchical structure it is endowed with. It is an old story told anew – through the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, their orthographic forms and the meanings attributed to them, utilising Ibn ?Arabi’s own diagrams. Part One focuses on the Arabic letters as Cosmic Script, and Part Two describes the Act of Genesis by means of the letters. Although the story could be told through geometrical figures or numbers, letters were chosen on the basis of Ibn ?Arabi’s doctrine that the meanings carried by the letters fully encompasses the whole of existence: God and the universe, and the function of the Perfect Human Being. It also analyses and discusses over 60 illustrations, most drawn from the original manuscripts of Ibn 'Arabi. The first part of the book focuses on the Cosmic Script and how letters were viewed as imbued with the power to reveal divine mysteries to those worthy of them. The second part, entitled The Act of Genesis, examines the properties and symbolism of each of the twenty-eight Arabic letters.

Dunja Rašic (Ph.D) is a lecturer at the University of Belgrade. Her academic interests include the Islamic philosophy of language, the science of the letters and the philosophical and theological thought in the early Islamic Middle Ages.