The World of Images: Where ʿĀlam al-Mithāl Sits Among Mulk, Malakūt, Jabarūt and Lāhūt

The spirit sent to Maryam takes "the likeness of a well-formed man"; death is brought as a ram; two sūras come like clouds; Paradise and the Fire appear in a wall. Where do such things happen? Some Sufi masters answered: in a world of its own, ʿālam al-mithāl, the world of images. But where does that world sit among the worlds the Sufis name: mulk, malakūt, jabarūt and lāhūt, the world of command and the world of creation, the barzakh? This illustrated video follows the sources, from the Qur'an and hadith to Ashraf ʿAlī Thānawī: the lexicographers and exegetes, Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī and al-Ghazālī, Suhrawardī the Master of Illumination, Ibn ʿArabī and his school (al-Qūnawī, al-Kāshānī, Jāmī), the dictionaries of al-Jurjānī and al-Munāwī, Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, Shāh Walī Allāh, Qāḍī Thanāʾullāh Pānīpatī and Sirhindī; the hadith commentators; and the theologians al-Taftāzānī, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Suyūṭī and al-Haytamī. The finding: everyone who defines the world of images puts it in the same place, beneath the spirits and above the bodies. What changes is its name, and that depends on where each school puts jabarūt. The illustrations never depict a prophet, an angel or God: they appear as names only, and the Throne as an abstract arc of light. Qur'an verses and hadith are shown as text. Chapters 0:00 A Likeness of a Man 0:35 The Question 0:58 Words, Not Floors 1:27 Dominion 1:55 Might, and a Borrowed Pair 2:30 Creation and Command 2:58 The First Ladder 3:28 The Ship Between Land and Water 3:59 The Philosopher's Mirror 4:31 "And So It Is With Me" 4:59 A Rung Between Spirit and Body 5:25 The Label Slides 5:52 The Middle Is Fixed 6:21 Anchored at the Throne 6:50 The Case From Hadith 7:18 The Same Texts, No World 7:46 The Theologians' Verdicts 8:17 Three Barzakhs 8:40 A Created Likeness 9:14 The Map and the Path Sources • Qur'an 1:2, 6:73, 6:75, 7:54, 19:17, 23:100. Hadith: Abū Dāwūd 873 (graded ḥasan by Ibn Ḥajar, Natāʾij al-afkār 2/74, as listed in the Dorar database); al-Bukhārī 4730 and Muslim 2849; Muslim 804; al-Bukhārī 749. • Ibn Kathīr and al-Ṭabarī, tafsīr on 1:2, 6:73, 6:75 and 23:100; al-Rāghib, al-Mufradāt; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab. • al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal 2/25; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād VIII:126. • al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb 14:272; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-maʿānī. • Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Qūt al-qulūb I:408; Sirr al-asrār (attributed to ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī). • al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn IV:250 and IV:500–501; Mishkāt al-anwār. • Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, pp. 146, 201, 211–212. • Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya II:129, II:310–311. • Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, Miftāḥ al-ghayb p. 106; Jāmī, Sharḥ Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam p. 190. • ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī, Iṣṭilāḥāt al-ṣūfiyya pp. 95, 118; al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Taʿrīfāt pp. 88–89; al-Munāwī, al-Tawqīf p. 141. • Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, Rūḥ al-bayān III:546 and VIII:115; Shāh Walī Allāh, Ḥujjat Allāh al-bāligha 1:43–45; Qāḍī Thanāʾullāh Pānīpatī, al-Tafsīr al-Maẓharī; Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī, Maktūbāt I/34 and I/217. • Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ al-Bārī 1/21 and 11/421 (with al-Māzarī and al-Qurṭubī); al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 16/112 (al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ). • al-Juwaynī, Lumaʿ al-adilla p. 86; al-Ījī, al-Mawāqif with al-Jurjānī's Sharḥ; al-Taftāzānī, Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid 2:56–57; Ibn Taymiyya, Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql 10:105–109 and al-Radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn pp. 195–196; al-Suyūṭī, al-Ḥāwī li-l-fatāwā; Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, al-Fatāwā al-ḥadīthiyya. • ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, al-Kamālāt al-ilāhiyya p. 329. • Ashraf ʿAlī Thānawī, Risālat al-Qaṭāʾif min al-laṭāʾif, in Bawādir al-nawādir (Lahore: Idāra-i Islāmiyyāt), pp. 560–579.