Muslim tradition makes Khidr the master of all who seek a mystic truth

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" Ibn al-Arabi did not believe that the God he knew had an objective

existence. Even though he was a skilled metaphysician, he did not

believe that Gods existence could be proved by logic. He liked to

call himself a disciple of Khidr, a name given to the mysterious

figure who appears in the Koran as the spiritual director of Moses,

who brought the external Law to the Israelites. God has given Khidr

a special knowledge of himself, so Moses begs him for instruction,

but Khidr tells him that he will not be able to put up with this,

since it lies outside his own religious experience. It is no good

trying to understand religious " information " that we have not

experienced ourselves. The name Khidr seems to have meant " the

Green One, " indicating that his wisdom was ever fresh and eternally

renewable. Even a prophet of Moses stature cannot necessarily

comprehend esoteric forms of religion, for, in the Koran, he finds

that indeed he cannot put up with Khidrs method of instruction. The

meaning of this strange episode seems to suggest that the external

trappings of a religion do not always correspond to its spiritual or

mystical element. People, such as the ulema, might be unable to

understand the Islam of a Sufi like Ibn al-Arabi. Muslim tradition

makes Khidr the master of all who seek a mystic truth, which is

inherently superior to and quite different from the God which is the

same as everybody elses but to a God who is in the deepest sense of

the word subjective.

 

Karen Armstrong, A History of God

 

 

 

" Ibn Arabi: Teacher

 

The teacher (Quotations from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al- Arabi) Ibn

Arabi was above all the disciple of Khidr {an invisible master}...

such a relationship with a hidden spiritual master lends the

disciple an essentially " transhistorical " dimension and presupposes

an ability to experience events which are enacted in a reality other

than the physical reality of daily life, events which spontaneously

transmute themselves into symbols. (p. 32)

 

Khidr {is} experienced simultaneously as a person and as an

archetype... To have him as a master and initiand is to be obliged

to be what he himself is. Khidr is the master of all those who are

masterless, because he shows all those whose master he is how to be

what he himself is: he who has attained the Spring of Life... he who

has attained haqiqa, the mystic, esoteric truth which dominates the

Law, and frees us from the literal religion. Khidr is the master of

all these, because he shows each one how to attain the spiritual

state which he himself has attained and which he typifies...

 

Indeed, Khidr's " guidance " does not consist in leading all his

disciples uniformly to the same goal, to one theophany identical for

all, in the manner of a theologian propagating his dogma. He leads

each disciple to his own theophany, the theophany of which he

personally is the witness, because that theophany (pp. 32-33)

 

.... each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal

invisible guide, or ... he entrusts himself to the collective,

magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and

Revelation. (p. 33)

 

All these are matters that cannot be taught uniformly to all,

because each man is the measure of what he can understand and of

what, in accordance with the " economy " of esoterism, it is fitting

to set before him. "

 

© 1999 by Deb Platt