The Vision of God as Viewed by Asharites and Ibn Arabi

The historical evidence shows that the concern to see God predates Islam. In Islam too, ever since the call to monotheism, the vision of God has been among the central preoccupations of the Muslims. In contrast with the visibility of the idols, the invisibility of God was appealed to by the pagans in order to mislead the newly converted Muslims. Regardless of this controversy, which was short lived, there was a controversy among the theists and the Islamic thinkers over the problem of the vision of God. Asharites were the most remarkable exponents of the vision of God among the Muslim community. In addition to providing evidence from the Quran and traditions, they claimed that the vision of God is rationally justified. Meanwhile, the vagueness of the position taken by the mystics and the apparent similarities between Asharites and the mystics with regard to some issues have prepared the ground for the hypothesis that the latter are associated with the former and are their followers, one way or another. By investigating into the Asharite views and arguments in this regard and comparing them with those of Ibn Arabi, who is the unexampled founder of theoretical mysticism, the present paper tries to show the relationship between these two positions.