Moses and Jesus in al-Insān al-Kāmil of Jīlī

Subject Areas : Christianity

محمد علی یوسفی ¹ (ندارد)

Received: 2009-06-08 Accepted : 2009-08-03 Published : 2009-03-21

Keywords: Moses, Jesus, Jīlī, Perfect Man, Torah, Gospel,

Abstract :

The life of the prophets, as described in religious texts, was always anintersting subject of mystical thinking. Jīlī, who was a student of IbnArabī’s mystical school, studied the life of the divine prophets such asMoses and Jesus, which were revealed in Quranic verses and withallegorical interpretation he compared these stories with mentalattitudes.Considering Moses’ life, Jīlī emphasizes the annihilation of humansoul, unique truth of divinity, unveiling of duality in Divine creativebeing and at last the union of perfect man with God.He believes that Torah was the manifestation of qualitative namesof God, while Gospel was the manifestation of essential name of God.God revealed Torah to Moses in nine tablets. He was permitted topreach seven tablets, but the other two tablets which were ''Power andLordship'', belonged to Jesus. Jesus preached these two tablets to hispeople and as a result his people believed in Trinity and went astray.Jīlī believes that Gospel has esoteric and exoteric characteristics.According to him, the beginning verse of the Gospel, i.e. In the nameof Father, Mother and Son, are the exoteric one. It could be comparedwith the beginning verse of Quarn, i.e. In the name of Allah, MostBeneficent, Most Merciful. The people of Jesus only comprehended theexoteric meaning of the verse and identified it with Spirit, Mary andJesus. They ignored the esoteric meaning of the Gospel, that is theappearance of God in creation and the manifestation of divine names inbodily beings. Therefore they believed in anthropomorphism andrestriction of the Infinite.