Soteriology of the Qu’ran according to Ibn al-Arabi

One is to accept the Quran based on faith. Unveiling adds nothing but fills in the details- We cannot be sure that unveiling is from God and there is no Satanic intervention; rationality is important, but cannot override God’s word- if rationality contradicts revelation recognize that revelation is limited by the powers that brought it into existence. The friend is always a follower of the prophet and never independent. Anything going against the Qu’rans literal sense must be abandoned. Knowledge is of two kinds- reports and rulings.  Reports deal with faith, i.e. God, the angels, the last day; rulings embrace the sharia proper, i.e. information concerning all dimensions of life and practice. Unveiling adds clarity to reports but adds nothing to rulings. The practitioner should listen to the authorities of hadith and not accept it from anyone else. The law and the reality are directly related. Thus Ibn al-Arabi- in contrast to many Sufis- denies a distinction between sharia and haqiqa. Some people suppose once divine presence is understood multiplicity is overcome and no more distinctions can be drawn. Ibn al-Arabi overcomes this by affirming manyness at the level of divinity, so that the law offers a mirror of reality. . . .