"Listening Heart"...

The “listening heart in the writings of Shayk ‘Ibn 'Arabî as he tried to unravel the meaning of the Qur’an.

The Qur'an repeatedly emphasizes God's extraordinary closeness and proximity to the human heart (e.g., at 8:24, "He passes between the man and his heart"), as well as the uniquely all-encompassing divine knowledge of "what is in their hearts" (4:66, 33:51, etc.).

That divine awareness of what is in the heart extends in particular to people's innermost intentions (especially in contrast to their words and ostensible actions). From the Qur'anic perspective a spiritually crucial dimension of the human heart is the integral involvement - together with God - of our own "will" and intimate intentions, which are portrayed as somehow inseparable from the degree and nature of our awareness of the divine. In consequence, the Qur'an can even speak of the heart (as more commonly of the soul, al-nafs) as the enduring "self" or ongoing seat of our moral and spiritual responsibility, as at 2:225: "...He will call you to account for what your hearts have earned...."

Perhaps most obvious of all in the Qur'an is the consistent stress on the divine "responsibility", indeed the ongoing divine Activity, expressed in all the different states of our hearts, including especially our recurrent failures to "remember" God. In this respect, as those familiar with the Qur'an will recognize, the larger metaphysical "paradox" with which we began this discussion is certainly not, to begin with, Ibn 'Arabî's own invention: almost half of the Qur'anic references to the heart directly mention God's responsibility for its states, often without any explicit reference to the shared role of the human "actor."

In several famous Qur'anic passages, repeated throughout Sufi literature and in popular piety, the enlightened or divinely supported heart (whether in this world or the next) is said to be the locus of true Remembrance of God (dhikr Allâh, at 13:28) and the grace of divinely bestowed Peace and Tranquillity, as well as the receptacle for the sending down of the Spirit and Gabriel and other special acts of divine support. But the Qur'anic references to these special states of enlightened hearts are limited to what in context usually seems like a very small and elect group: Muhammad and other divine prophets, certain of their disciples or saints, or some of the blessed in the Gardens of Paradise...

With far greater frequency, the Qur'an refers instead to God's sealing, veiling, hardening, locking, binding, closing, or frightening hearts - to hearts that as a result (of their own misdeeds or the divine reaction) are "sick" or "blind" and "suffering." Typical of this disproportionate emphasis are the many references to hearts that "fail to understand" (lâ yafqahûn), far more frequently than those who do perceive the divine "Signs," whose hearts are 'âqilûn. In the Qur'an, therefore, the starkly contrasting dimensions and potentialities of the human heart with which we began are, if anything, even more predominant and vividly drawn. The Qur'anic account of the heart and its situation is repeatedly cast in an intensely dramatic and unavoidably existential form. That intrinsic inner drama is certainly presupposed in each of Ibn 'Arabî's own discussions of the heart, whatever the particular language or context of each discussion.

Against that sharply drawn dramatic backdrop, the Qu'ranic verses that indicate the actual ways or conditions for us to move from these "negative" or perverse states of the human heart to full awareness of God and the corresponding divine Peace and understanding are relatively few, but certainly all the more worth noting: these practically decisive verses include references to the "softening" and "humbling" or "purification" and "strengthening" of hearts, to the necessity of a "sound" or "repentant" or "mindful" heart (qalb salîm or munîb), and so on.

(Editor’s note: The short presentation is based on the 28 – page article by James Morris on Ibn ‘Arabi)