As a controversial figure, Ibn Arabī is also a source of understanding of religious diversity and dialogue. The greatest and most creative minds in the history of religions have always been at the center of some controversy. From Maimonides to Augustine to Shankara to al-Shāfi`ī and Ibn Rushd, the historical record is replete with stories about the trouble caused by particularly gifted religious geniuses. If, in the process of mining the riches of our tradition, we wish to fairly and accurately assess the orthodoxy of a religious thinker, we need to do so on the basis of a fair and open analysis of his teachings and not on whatever propaganda may exist for or against the figure in question. With regard to Ibn ‘Arabī and the way his teachings can be seen as expressions of Islamic orthodoxy on the issues of religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue, this process of fair analysis may be simpler and more straightforward than many would suspect.
In one of his well-known essays on biblical hermeneutics, Michael Fishbane noted that the tradition of rabbinic mystical exegesis known as Sod turned on the principle that the words of sacred scripture speak to the reader “without ceasing.” Thus, “There is a continual expression of texts; and this reveals itself in their ongoing reinterpretation. But Sod is more than the eternity of interpretation from the human side. It also points to the divine mystery of speech and meaning.” Fishbane spoke of the “prophetic task” of “breaking the idols of simple sense” and restoring “the mystery of speech to its transcendent role in the creation of human reality.” He asserted that one of the primary functions of the mystical exegete – an individual such as Ibn ‘Arabī -- is “to continue this prophetic mission.” It is “in the service of Sod [i.e., mystical exegesis],” that mystical exegete mediates “a multitude of interpretations” as “he resists the dogmatization of meaning and the eclipse of the divine lights of speech.” Taking Fishbane’s lead, we can assert that, as a mystical exegete, our master seeks to “transcend the idolatries of language” and to condemn “hermeneutical arrogance in all its forms….”
In his approach to canonical scripture, Ibn ‘Arabī fulfills the role of mystical exegete as Fishbane interprets it for us. He believed unequivocally in an infinitely readable text, and championed this infinite readability in hopes of combating the “idolatries of language” and “hermeneutical arrogance.” According to Ibn ‘Arabī, each word of the Qur’an has unlimited meanings, all intended by God. Correct recitation of the Qur’an allows readers to access new meanings at every reading. “When meaning repeats itself for someone reciting the Qur’an, he has not recited it as it should be recited. This is proof of his ignorance.”In fact, Ibn ‘Arabī regarded words as symbolic expressions, subject to interpretive efforts, which he called ta’bīr (the act of “crossing over”). Thus, for him the truth of the interpretive effort presents itself in the act of crossing over from one state to another, and difference becomes the root of all things since for something to be in a constant state of crossing, it is constantly differentiated, not only from other things, but also from itself.
Thus, with respect to scriptural hermeneutics, Ibn ‘Arabī appeared convinced of the infinite potential for meaning inherent in divine revelation, especially in sacred scripture. Such an understanding of the nature of scripture can be invaluable in dialogue because it demands that the person of faith not only take a stance of conviction within the teachings of his or her sacred texts, but also that they realize this conviction, however deep, does not restrict or exhaust in any way the potential meaning of these texts. In addition, the insights of the masters with respect to the infinite readability of scripture are particularly relevant to dialogue. If dialogue is authentic and brings about authentic transformation, then the encounter with the religious other should have some effect on our religious self-understanding, and therefore on our own readings of our own texts.
For some, religious diversity may be viewed as a problem, but certainly not for Ibn ‘Arabī and his school of thought. In fact, Ibn ‘Arabī has an explicit theology of religions. In Ibn ‘Arabī’s own words, “There are as many paths to God as there are human souls.” The reality, however, of how religious diversity has been dealt with in Islamic history varies from context to context. To generalize, much the same as the case of Christianity (which tended, at least in the medieval period, to be significantly less tolerant of intra- and interreligious diversity than Islam), some Muslim scholars have emphasized an exclusivist approach, while others emphasized a more open and inclusivist one. Ibn `Arabī seems to be the most sophisticated and profound thinker of this second category.
Ibn ‘Arabī’s discussion of religious pluralism begins with the assertion that God Himself is the source of all diversity in the cosmos. Thus, divergence of beliefs among human beings ultimately stems from God:
God Himself is the first problem of diversity that has become manifest in the cosmos. The first thing that each existence thing looks upon is the cause of its own existence. In itself each thing knows that it was not, and that it then came to be through temporal origination. However, in this coming to be, the dispositions of the existent things are diverse. Hence they have diverse opinions about the identity of the cause that brought them into existence. Therefore the Real is the first problem of diversity in the cosmos.
According to Ibn ‘Arabī, this diversity of opinion is one of the many signs that, to paraphrase the famous ḥadīth qudsī, God’s mercy takes precedence over His wrath. Thus, “since God is the root of all diversity of beliefs within the cosmos, and since it is He who has brought about the existence of everything in the cosmos in a constitution not possessed by anything else, everyone will end up with mercy.”
In addition, for Ibn ‘Arabī, religious diversity is a natural consequence of the infinity of God’s self-disclosure and the concomitant degree of preparedness of any element of the phenomenal world to be a maḥal or “locus” of self-disclosure. In other words, diversity in the phenomenal world is a direct function of the varying “preparedness” or capacity of creatures to receive the divine self-disclosure. For Ibn `Arabī, God’s self-disclosure (tajallī) is very much connected with the “receptivity” (qabūl) and “preparedness” (isti`dād) of the creatures or the vessels (maḥal). Thus, when God discloses God self, the degree to which a thing receives God’s self-disclosure is determined by its “preparedness” to bear it. In Ibn ‘Arabī’s teaching, receptivity “must be taken into account not only on the cognitive level, but also on the existential level.”About preparedness, Ibn ‘Arabī writes:
God says, “the giving of thy Lord can never be walled up (Q 17:20). In other words, it can never be withheld. God is saying that He gives constantly, while the loci receive in the measure of the realities of their preparedness. In the same way we say that the sun spreads rays over the existence of things. It is not miserly with its light toward anything. The loci receive the light in the measure of their preparedness.

According to the quotation above, the essence of God never manifests in the universe. Rather, God’s specific attributes and Names manifest themselves. Ibn ‘Arabī refers to God in God’s manifestation as the divine presence (al-ḥadra al-ilāhiyya), and he distinguishes this from God as non-manifest which Ibn ‘Arabī refers to as the primordial presence (al-ḥadra al-qadīma).This distinction plays an important role in Ibn `Arabī’s understanding of spiritual attainment. The master claims that no human being can go beyond the realm of God’s self-disclosure because the absolute in its essence is absolutely unknowable. The only and the highest possibility for the human being comes in seeking the absolute within the parameters of a particular instance of divine self-disclosure within the human self.
Now the viability of any particular instance of divine self-disclosure is ultimately determined by the receptivity or preparedness of the existent entity. For this reason, there is a distinction between God’s prophets and “friends” (awliyā’ or akhillā’), and ordinary people. The prophets and friends of God are loci of the manifestation for all the divine names, but other people are more limited in their receptivity and can only make certain names manifest. Although God’s self-disclosure depends on the receptivity and preparedness of the locus or vessel (maḥal), this does not mean that God’s self-disclosure, which is God’s mercy, is suspended.
For Ibn ‘Arabī, the concepts of receptivity and preparedness are closely connected to the question of the divine measuring out of human “destiny” (qadar). Before it comes into existence, God knows the qualities and characteristics of each entity, because its “treasuries are with Him.” Then, in the process of creation, God measures out these qualities and characteristics, including one’s destiny (which ultimately is identical to one’s capacity to receive divine manifestation), according to the creature’s preparedness to receive. To illustrate this point, Ibn ‘Arabī had recourse to one of his favorite ontological metaphors, the metaphor of the mirror: “Try, when you look at yourself in a mirror, to see the mirror itself, and you will find that you cannot do so. So much is this the case that some have concluded that the image perceived is situated between the mirror and the eye of the beholder.” Thus, the recipient sees nothing other than his own form in the mirror of reality. Therefore, the existent entity, fixed forever in God’s knowledge, can never receive anything beyond what it demands in itself and according to its own capacity. This is one of the foundational principles behind Ibn ‘Arabī’s approach to the diversity of destiny among human beings, but also in his approach to the diversity of religions.
When God brings the cosmos into existence, God, the One, discloses itself in the diversity of modes, which means that the One, the unlimited, delimits itself in its delimited wujūd. The diversity of human beings is an expression of the infinite potentiality of being, underscored by the unrepeatability of the human soul. For Ibn `Arabī, diversity of religions results from the non-redundant diversity of human souls as they are brought into existence by the One. As constituent elements of the phenomenal world, each human being is by nature, as mentioned above, a maḥal (“place”) or maẓhar (locus of manifestation) in which the One discloses itself in and to the phenomenal realm. Because religious traditions manifest in the lives of human individuals who constitute any religious community, the diversity of persons as distinct and particular manifestations of the One being is reflected in the particular traditions as a whole. Speaking directly to the issue of religious diversity, Ibn ‘Arabī wrote:
You worship only what you set up in yourself. This is why doctrines and states differed concerning Allah. Thus, one group says that He is like this and another group says that He is not like this, but like that. Another group says concerning knowledge (of Him) that the color of water is determined by the color of the cup. . . . So consider the bewilderment that permeates (sariyya) every belief.
Ibn ‘Arabī was very fond of quoting the great ninth-century mystic master of Baghdād, Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad al-Junayd (d. 910) who once used the metaphor of water colored by its container as a metaphor for unity in diversity: “The color of the water is the color of its container.”Ibn ‘Arabī’s fondness for this metaphor, however, should not suggest that he considered all religions to be equally valuable, but that, like every other constituent element of the existing order, all religions have their origin in God. One might paraphrase Ibn ‘Arabī’s interpretation of Junayd’s water metaphor by asserting that if the water represents the divine being, the differences between religions is represented by the color or colors of the container. The color or colors, therefore, are directly related to the “preparedness” of a given religion to receive its particular manifestation of the real.
There are some religions that may be monochromatic or whose colors are strictly limited or faded. Other religions may have more distinct colors, but all of the same basic hue. “He who discloses Himself,” wrote Ibn ‘Arabī, “in respect to what He is in himself, is One in entity, but the self-disclosures -- I mean their forms [e.g. the various religions] -- are diverse because of the preparedness of the loci of self-disclosure.”As always, Ibn ‘Arabī rooted this idea in the Qur’an, with specific reference to Q 11:118-119: “If your Lord had willed [it], He would have fashioned humanity into one community, but they will not cease to differ, except those upon whom your Lord has been merciful.”
Just as God never ceases to love or desire to be recognized, or to be manifest, God’s self-manifestation also takes an infinite multiplicity of loci or receptacles (maḥallāt). Thus, phenomenal multiplicity, which is rooted in divine infinity, in fact has only one ontological entity, but because God’s self-manifestation never ends, the loci of manifestation (maẓāhir) are infinitely diverse. This logic carries straight over to the phenomenon of the diversity of religions. In more direct terms, Ibn ‘Arabī wrote, “every observer of God is under the controlling property of one of God’s Names. That Name discloses itself to him or her and gives to him or her a specific belief through its self-disclosure.”
One might also note that, from a slightly different angle, Ibn ‘Arabī’s teaching on the diversity of religions can be inferred from his statements on perpetual creation. His teaching emphasized, “the Real does not manifest Itself twice in one form, nor in a single form to two individuals.”He strongly asserts that creation is a never ending process and that God never manifests in a single form twice. Thus, the belief of believers is the cognitive manner in which self-disclosure of the real is understood or misunderstood, cognitively conceived or misconceived.In a similar vein, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), who appears to have been highly influenced by Ibn ‘Arabī, asked: “If you pour the ocean into a jug, how much will it hold?” Thus, every believer worships God the real according to the particular “Lord” (rabb) whom she or he recognizes in her or himself. “Since there are as many cups as drinkers at the Pool which will be found in the abode of the hereafter,” Ibn ‘Arabī wrote, “and since the water in the cup takes the form of the cup in both shape and color, we know for certain that knowledge of God takes on the measure of your view, your preparedness, and what you are in yourself.”This statement is very similar to the words of Thomas Aquinas: “Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower.”“Although the Real is One,” said Ibn ‘Arabī,
beliefs present Him in various guises. They take Him apart and put Him together, they give Him form and they fabricate Him. But in Himself, He does not change, and in Himself, He does not undergo transmutation. However, the organ of sight sees Him so. Hence location constricts Him, and fluctuation from entity to entity limits Him. Hence, none becomes bewildered by Him except him who combines the assertion of similarity with the declaration of incomparability.
This explanation is based on the opinion that the God of belief is Being (wujūd),which manifests itself to every believer. Because every one of God’s self-manifestations is single and never repeats, every belief is single and exclusive. Furthermore, because the object of every belief is single, the “God of belief” or the “God worshipped by each believer” differs from the God of every other believer. Ibn ‘Arabī attempted to emphasize this point by discussing a multiplicity of “Lords” manifesting the one God:
Every believer has a Lord in his heart that he has brought into existence, so he believes in Him. Such are the People of the Mark on the day of resurrection. They worship nothing but what they themselves have carved.That is why, when God discloses Himself in other than that mark, they are confounded. They know what they believe, but what they believe does not know them, for they have brought it into existence. The general rule here is that the artifact does not know the artisan, and the building does not know the builder.
Ultimately, for Ibn ‘Arabī, the believer must transcend the “God created in belief.”The path ultimately leads one to transcend the color of religious affiliation. This is not, however, a prescription for a relativistic approach to religion. We should remember that in Ibn ‘Arabī’s mind, God’s law (Sharī‘a) is crucial for the realization of the real (lā ḥaqīqa bi lā sharī’a). Thus, the path to God must be facilitated by the purest and most correct beliefs and practices possible. For Ibn ‘Arabī, these are found in the proper interpretations and practices of the Sunnah of Muḥammad, the Seal of the Prophets -- i.e., the religion commonly referred to as “Islam.”
Ibn ‘Arabī does not conclude, like many Muslims, that certain exclusive verses in the Qur’an abrogate (naskh) certain inclusive verses in the Qur’an -- thereby asserting that Islam abrogates previous religions. Instead,

All the revealed religions (sharī’a`) are lights. Among these religions, the revealed religion of Muḥammad is like the light of the sun among the lights of the stars. When the sun appears, the lights of the stars are hidden, and their lights are included in the light of the sun. They being hidden is like the abrogation of the other revealed religions that takes place through Muḥammad’s revealed religion. Nevertheless, they do in fact exist, just as the existence of the lights of the stars is actualized. This explains why we have been required in our all-inclusive religion to have faith in the truth of all the messengers and all the revealed religions. They are not rendered null (bāṭil) by abrogation -- that is the opinion of the ignorant.

Ibn ‘Arabī suggested it is encumbent on Muslims to follow the path of their Prophet Muḥammad and adhere to the guidance of the Qur’an. At the same time, he also emphasized that the Qur’an is inclusive of the paths of all the prophets preceding Muḥammad:
Among the path is the path of blessing. It is referred to in God’s words, “To every one of you We have appointed a right way and a revealed law” (5: 48). The Muḥammadan leader chooses the path of Muḥammad and leaves aside the other paths, even though he acknowledges them and has faith in them. However, he does not make himself a servant except through the path of Muḥammad, nor does he have his followers make themselves servants except through it. He traces the attributes of all paths back to it, because Muḥammad’s revealed religion is all-inclusive. Hence the property of all revealed religions has been transferred to his revealed religion. His revealed religion embraces them, but they do not embrace it.
In the Futuḥāt Ibn ‘Arabī further explored the phenomenon of the diversity of religions. For him, God self-discloses in numerous ways, infinitely diverse and thus unique and different from one another. Although God is immeasurably greater than all God’s manifestations, God also manifests in the form of every belief. But God does not constrain Godself within one particular belief. One belief may well be more accurate than another (e.g., “I believe there is only one God” versus “I believe there is no God”), but God is too glorious to delimit Godself to one form of belief rather than another.
Ibn ‘Arabī plays with the root `QL to convey the inherent potential of discursive language and rationalist thought to delimit that which cannot be limited. The trouble with speculative thinking, especially when taken to the extreme, is that the `aql or “intellect” that enables us to engage in such thought, acts like a “fetter” (`iqāl -- from the same root), which at times is very useful (i.e., in helping us to develop categories to better understand ourselves and our world), but at other times can be very dangerous. The danger lies in the capacity of the intellect to attempt to fetter and pin down that which is beyond fettering. Ibn ‘Arabī criticized speculative thinking and formulation when it acts to confine the infinite essence of God. He strengthened this argument by reflecting on the word roots of “creed” (`aqīda) and “belief” (i`tiqād). The root is `QD,which has to do with “binding” and “tying” a knot. He did not attack creeds and beliefs because they have their place in the life of faith. He did criticize the attempt to absolutize creeds and statements in the futile (and perhaps even blasphemous) attempt to ‘tie a knot’ around God. He wrote:
God is known through every knotting. Although the beliefs are totally diverse, their aim is one. He is a receptacle for everything that you tie Him to and every knotting you make concerning Him. And within that He will disclose Himself on the day of resurrection, for it is the mark which is between you and Him.
For Ibn ‘Arabī, only the `ārif (“gnostic”) who has attained the station and state of the perfect human can see God as manifested in every belief, and as unconstrained by any belief. The true `ārif identifiesthe truth in any belief and understands that any belief involves a self-disclosure of the real. He or she understands that, while some beliefs may be true and others false, all beliefs are delimitations of the non-delimited wujūd, which embraces reality on whatever level it is envisaged.As the locus of manifestation of the all-comprehensive Name of God (i.e, Allāh), and thus as one who stands in the “station of no station,” the perfect human acknowledges any station and any belief insofar as it corresponds to one of the infinite multiplicities of the self-disclosure of God.
Perhaps the Qur’anic text Ibn ‘Arabī quotes most frequently in support of his argument that all religions are manifestations of the real is: “Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God” (2:115).Commenting on this and other similar verses, Ibn ‘Arabī wrote, “God has made it clear that He is in every direction turned to, each of which represents a particular doctrinal perspective regarding Him.”Indeed, for Ibn ‘Arabī, because God is the wujūd or essential reality of all phenomenal multiplicity, no path is essentially distorted or warped; every path according to him essentially brings believers to God. Quoting “To Him all affairs shall be returned” (Q 11:123), Ibn ‘Arabī wrote, “certainly, all roads lead to Allāh, since He is the end of every road.”Thus, every believer serves God based on God’s self-disclosures and their own preparedness, so all beliefs in fact are rooted in God the infinite. This does not mean that all beliefs are similar and have the same effect on the transformation of human consciousness toward God. Instead, each belief manifests truth and then is part of the path to human perfection in service to God.
One of the most touching and profound aspects of Ibn ‘Arabī’s teaching on the diversity of religions can be found in the al-Futūhāt where he refers to God as “taking care of the needs of misbelievers” and “giving them to drink.”According to Ibn `Arabī, all those who worship God, even if they do so falsely by attaching the name ‘God’ to their idols, are nonetheless the loci of God’s self-disclosure, and as such are de facto recipients of God’s mercy. “God takes care of their need and gives them to drink,” Ibn `Arabī wrote, “He punishes them if they do not honor the Divine Side in this inanimate form.” Here Ibn ‘Arabī’s phrase “giving them to drink” echoes his discussion of “the drinking places,” a discussion in which he refers to many Qur’anic verses:

The drinking places have become variegated and the religions diverse. The levels have been distinguished, the divine names and the engendered effects have become manifest and the names the gods have become many in the cosmos. People worship angels, stars, Nature, the elements, animals, plants, minerals, human beings and jinn. So much is this the case that when the One presented them with His Oneness, they said, “Has He made the gods One God? This is indeed a marvelous thing” (23:117)…There is no effect in the cosmos which is not supported by a divine reality. So from whence do the gods become many? From the divine realities. Hence you should know that this derives from the names. God was expansive with the names: He said, “Worship Allāh (4:36), Fear Allāh, your Lord (65:1), and Prostate yourself to the All-merciful (25: 6). And He said, “Call upon Allah or call upon the All-merciful; whichever,” that is Allāh or the All-Merciful,” you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful names” (17: 110). This made the situation more ambiguous for the people, since He did not say, “Call upon Allāh or call upon the All-merciful; whichever you call upon, the Entity is One, and these two names belong to it.” That would be the text which would remove the difficulty; God only left this difficulty as a mercy for those who associate others with Him, the people of rational consideration -- those who associate others with Him on the basis of obfuscation.
In fact, one of the most important and striking features of Ibn ‘Arabī’s teachings on the nature of the real (al-Ḥaqq) and its connection to religious pluralism is that they are thoroughly grounded in Qur’anic exegesis. One of the most important verses upon which he bases these teachings is: “Then high exalted be God, the King, the Real! There is no God but He, the Lord of the noble Throne” (Q 23:116). Commenting on this verse, Ibn ‘Arabī said:
This is the tawhīd of the Real, which is the tawhīd of the He-ness. God says, “We created not the heavens and the earth and all that between them, in play” (21:116, 44:38). This is the same meaning as His words, “What do you think that We created you only for sport?” (23:115). Hence, “there is no God but He” [in the above passage] is a description of the Real.
Here Ibn ‘Arabī described how the verse in question (Q 23:116) speaks about a particular expression of the divine oneness. In doing so he made two critical points for understanding his teaching on religious diversity. First, the Qur’an reveals multiple dimensions of the divine oneness -- the Qur’an discusses more than one type of tawhīd. According to Ibn ‘Arabī, there are thirty-six different types of tawhīd in the Qur’an. The dimension of divine oneness expressed in Q 23:116 is that of the “He-ness” of God or the degree to which the real is God and God alone. Second, Ibn ‘Arabī suggested in this brief commentary on Q 23:116 that every element of phenomenal existence is a purposeful expression of the divine oneness (i.e., no aspect of creation exists as play or sport.) For Ibn ‘Arabī, this included the diversity of religions, and the abundant Qur’anic references to the plurality of religions is by no means a reference to an accident of fate, but is rather the nineteenth type of tawhīd that the Qur’an most directly addresses in the following verse: “We never sent a messenger before thee [i.e., Muḥammad] except that We revealed to him, saying, ‘There is no god but I, so worship Me!’” (Q 21: 25). Commenting on this verse, Ibn ‘Arabī said:
This is a tawhīd of the I-ness…It is like God’s words, “Naught is said to thee but what was already said to the messengers before thee” (41:43). In this verse God mentions “worship” (`ibāda), but not specific practices (a`māl), for He also said, “To every one [of the prophets] We have appointed a Law and a way” (5:48), that is, We have set down designated practices. The period of applicability of the practices can come to an end, and this is called “abrogation” (naskh) in the words of the learned masters of the Sharī`a. There is no single practice found in each and every prophecy, only the performance of the religion, coming together in it, and the statement of tawhīd. This is indicated in God’s words, “He has laid down for you as Law what He charged Noah with, and what We have revealed to thee [O Muḥammad], and what We charged Abraham with, and Moses, and Jesus: “Perform the religion, and scatter nor regarding it’” (42:13). Bukhārī has written in a chapter entitled, “The chapter on what has come concerning the fact that the religion of the prophets is one,” and this one religion is nothing but tawhīd, performing the religion, and worship. On this the prophets have all come together.

What distinction did Ibn ‘Arabī make between Qur’an 23:116 and 21:25? He distinguished between two expressions of tawhīd. The first is an expression of tawhīd where God refers to Godself in the third person (as “He”) and where He mentions Himself as “King” (al-malik) and “The Real” (al-ḥaqq), and also makes reference to His “Noble Throne” (al-`arsh al-karīm). In a sense, this can be interpreted as the Qur’an’s own use of the language of discursive or speculative theology that can only speak of God in the third person, and thus takes as its appropriate object the divine “He-ness” (huwiyya). In 21:25, however, God expresses His oneness in the first person (as “I”). In this context, God refers to the Prophet Muḥammad himself (the recipient of this specific revelation) in the second person singular, to all the messengers sent before Muḥammad, and to acts of worship.
For Ibn ‘Arabī, this verse makes a direct connection between the succession of messengers (and by extension the different forms that authentic religion takes) and acts of worship which ideally mediate a direct experience of the “I-ness” of God in which God acts as the subject beyond objectification. Thus, when one juxtaposes the two verses, one sees the divine oneness expressed in two very different verbal modalities that reflect two very different human activities: the cognitive activity of speculative thought and the more affective experience of ritual worship. One modality is not a more authentic expression of tawhīd than the other, but rather both represent two very important dimensions of tawhid.
As Ibn Arabī more explicitly developed his teaching on religious diversity, he derived a key insight conveyed by the second of the two verses analyzed above. The succession of prophets and messengers, culminating in the messengership of Muḥammad, which characterizes all orthodox Islamic perspectives on the history of revelation, is one where an underlying unity of encounter with the one and only God (and the one immutable religion for which all of humanity for all time has been created) is historically expressed in a multiplicity of forms: “The ‘path of Allāh’ is the all-inclusive path upon which all things walk, and it takes them to Allāh.”Thus, commenting on Bukhārī’s title, mentioned above, “The chapter on what has come concerning the fact that the religion of the prophets is one,” in which Bukhārī uses an article in the word “religion” (“the religion,” instead of a “religion”). Ibn ‘Arabī wrote,

He brought the article which makes the word “religion” definite, because all religion comes from God, even if some of the rulings are diverse. Everyone is commanded to perform the religion and to come together in it…As for the rulings which are diverse, that is because of the Law which God assigned to each of one of the messengers. He said, “To everyone (of the Prophets) We have appointed a Law and a Way [shir`a wa minhājan]; and if God willed, he would have made you one nation” (5:48). If He had done that, your revealed Laws would not be diverse, just as they are not diverse in the fact that you have been commanded to come together and to perform them.

Thus, Ibn ‘Arabī differentiated between dīn, which means primordial ideal religion and “path,” or shir`a wa minhājan (“law” and “way”; or contextualized/historicized religion”). Although the din is always singular and unitive, the various “paths” or “laws” are numerous. “The paths to God are numerous as the breaths of the creatures,” he wrote, “since the breath emerges from the heart in accordance with the belief of the heart concerning Allāh.”Such approach endorsed by Ibn ‘Arabī is very essential in enhancing interfaith dialogue and acceptance of different religious perspectives.
The careful reader of Ibn ‘Arabī will see that his teachings on the underlying unity of all human systems of belief and practice are part of an elaborate esoteric commentary on the first article of Islamic faith La ilāha illā Allāh (there is no God except God). We can see a very direct example of this by returning briefly to his exegesis of Qur’an 23:115.
That within which the existence of the cosmos has become manifest is the Real; it becomes manifest only within the Breath of the All-Merciful, which is the Cloud. So it is the Real, the Lord of the Throne, who gave the Throne its all-encompassing shape, since it encompasses all things. Hence the root within which the forms of the cosmos became manifest encompasses everything in the world of corporeal bodies. This is nothing other than the Real Through Whom Creation Takes Place. Through this receptivity, it is like a container within which comes out into the open (burūz) the existence of everything it includes, layer upon layer, entity after entity, in a wise hierarchy (al-tartīb al-ḥikamī). So It brings out into the open that which had been unseen within It in order to witness it.
Another verse central to understanding Ibn ‘Arabī’s teaching on religious diversity is: “Everything is perishing except His Face [or Essence] (Q 28:88). This verse refers to the sense of the relativity of all things in the face of God, which is helpful in cultivating the humility necessary for openness to other perspectives and other stories of encounters with the divine. Equally important are references such as:

And unto God belong the East and the West; and wherever ye turn, there is the Face of God (Q 2:115).
He is with you, wherever you are (Q 57:4).
We are nearer to him [man] than the neck artery (Q 50:16).
God cometh in between a man and his own heart (Q 8:24).
Is He not encompassing all things? (Q 41:54).
He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward (Q 57:3)

These verses express a profound sense of the immanence of the divine which, Ibn `Arabī rightly argued, are set in balance with those preeminent verses such as we find in Surat al-Ikhlās (Q 112)and the famous “Throne Verse” of Surat al-Baqara (Q 2:255)For Ibn Arabī, the balance between the tanzīh (transcendence) and tashbīh (immanence) of God plays a major role in his thinking about religious diversity. Tanzīh involves the fundamental assertion of God’s essential and absolute incomparability “with each thing and all things.”It involves the assertion that His being transcends all creaturely attributes and qualities. At the same time, however, “each thing displays one or more of God’s attributes, and in this respect the thing must be said to be “similar”(tashbīh) in some way to God.”Thus, a certain similarity can be found between God and creation. Unlike traditionalist theologians, who opine that these two concepts are diametrically opposed and cannot exist together in harmony, for Ibn ‘Arabī, both tanzīh and tashbīh are in this sense compatible with each other and complementary. Tanzīh and tashbīh “derive necessarily from the Essence on the one hand and the level of Divinity on the other."
Out of this distinction, Ibn ‘Arabī challenges, that anybody who exercises and upholds tanzīh or tashbīh in its extreme form is either an ignorant man, or one who does not know how to behave properly toward God, because such extremes are attempts to delimit God’s Absoluteness. To deny completely the authenticity of other religious “ways” is to insist that there is no divine self-disclosure to be found there. In doing so, one sets limits on God much in the same way as those who only know God through cognitive activity (which tends to place emphasis on transcendence) and not through affective experience (which can convey a profound sense of divine immanence). Only when one combines tanzīh and tashbīh in one’s attitude can one be regarded as a ‘true knower’ (`ārif) of the Absolute. Ibn ‘Arabī said,

When the Gnostics know Him through Him, they become distinguished from those who know Him through their own rational consideration (naẓar), for they possess nondelimitation, while others have delimitation. The Gnostics through Him witness Him in each thing or in the entity of each thing, but those who know Him through rational consideration are removed far from Him by a distance which is required by their declaration of His comparability. Hence they place themselves on one side and the Real on the other. Then they call Him “from a far place” (Qur’an 41:44).

An Excerpt from Sufi Hermeneutics of Ibn ‘Arabī and its Application for Interfaith Dialogue

Published in the Journal, International Institute of Islamic Thought

http://www.iiit.org/Research/SummerI...5/Default.aspx