The linguistic foundation of Islamic art: the aesthetics of the unseen

Does Islamic art have a prerequisite relationship with existence and ontological determination? Does it have a relationship with history and time? Or are its relationships not connected to time or events, but to a perception of a different nature? What is the connection of art with memory and effect? Is art related to the aesthetics of manifestation and consequently to the aesthetics of presence?
This discussion is based on the study of old Arabic scripts, of poetry, of Sufi texts, and of literature of the visual physical art.
If we refer to the meanings of the word ‘memory’ in French, as an example and not exclusively, in one of the main recent books on this issue Memory, History and Forgetfulness (1) by Paul Ricoeur, it is stated that in discussing memory, the author departed from two ancient Greek proposals.
The first proposal is Platonic – it considers memory as the present manifestation of something unseen. This requires imagination within memory. The second is Aristotelian; here the memory is the representation of a thing already observed and saved or acquired. In this case the image is included in remembering.
What the two types have in common is that both rely on the perspective of ‘manifestation, which means remembering what is past or imagining what lies beyond the vision, in terms of what is possible to be picked up visually – in other words, what the eye may encounter and can liken to another experience.
This is related to the ‘existential memory’ in that it preserves what is known and saved and that it accepts from what already is in existence, even though it may be out of sight (2) and nothing more than another form of something similar (or a substitute). This means that the memory preserves and reprocesses, whether completely or partially, what had already been seen and has vanished later on.
Also, it indicates that memory assimilates what is unseen (absent), in that it imagines it. However, this imagination is of something not non-existing, but is considered to be of human perception (3). Both are also based on the process of preservation, which renders the memory to be a human act linked to the temporal and makes the relationship between the preserver and the preserved necessarily determined in existence in respect of what man encounters, and subsequently imagines. Both are actually linked by the existence itself; the locale of manifestation with all that derived from it or reverted to it.
Therefore, I confirm the following: The memory is a human faculty with an aspect of forgetfulness; it recollects what had been preserved, despite its deficiencies, projections and omissions, out of what happened in time. The memory reprocesses what it has already preserved, or it imagines it – it builds something out of the human perception (4).
What about the word memory (thakerah) in the Arabic language? Thekr is preserving something and remembering it. It means also the words currently used or uttered. In addition, it means the opposite to forgetfulness or ‘in memory’. The poet Kha’b bin Zuhair said: “Whenever imagination occurs to you, its roaming is a reminder and a thrill to you”. Thekr is remembering by the tongue, recollecting the already studied for remembrance: studying in order to memorise, while remembrance is to recollect what is forgotten.
Thekr is also used for reputation and laudation; books which have details of religion and the status of denominations; holy books of prophets (peace be on them); praying to God, imploring and praising Him; prayer and reciting the Holy Quran; invocation, extolment of God; thanking God and obeying Him (the root thekr, the Tongue of Arabs).
With reference to the derivative words and the use of the linguistic and the various denotations of its root, thekr, according to the Dictionary of the Tongue of Arabs, reveals analytically two facets; namely a linguistic verb is being discussed in the first place and not a visual verb and an esoteric-psychic and not an ontological visual one.
This view negates the relation with time established by the memory with an occurred impact, which is liable to be inspected. That is to say on one hand, the remaining effect in the storage of images. On the other hand, the Arabic recollection thekr establishes a relationship with the linguistic texts, on the basis of reciting and reading, and for purposes related to gratitude, praise, and the pleasure of proximity to God (because of recalling Him).
Some Greek philosophers such as Socrates draw an analogy between the function of memory with the wax-work of an artist, or with the work of the painter in producing ‘the image-like’, and other descriptions which produce materialistic arts related to the principle of imitation. Thus, it could be alternatively used, from memory to art. The art would be in the form of reprocessing or imagining what was or what could have been, of what happened or what could have been believed to have happened. This is especially true of novels, paintings and poems, which link art with the visual existence or the believed existence as mentioned above.
This is evident with respect to another link, between the two kinds of identifying memory, namely the ‘representation’ aspect, displaying what is preserved or what is imagined. This explanation is based on a visual, exposed, illustrative and figurative foundation of the existence – and of that preserved therein or imagined thereabout. Therefore, the artistic demonstration cannot exist without building an image about it: art is a manifestation of the existence, or ‘imitation of nature’, as stated by the ancient Greek philosophy and Western philosophy.
If I wished to summarise methods of presentation, and not methods of thinking, which link the memory and the void within the framework of art, and by studying old Arabic art in particular, I would say that what I have studied of the Greek thought is characterised by observation being the basis of memory, which deals with the impact and the imprinted as being a sense or knowledge of something.
Meanwhile, I found out that recollection thekr in the Arabic language refers mostly to repetitive linguistic recitations, while remembrance refers to knowing what is unknown through the exegeses of the religious text. This is what I could visualise beyond the framework of time. The Greek text deals with memory as part of the past. As stated by Socrates, “memory is part of the past” as a departure point from the moment of the ‘present’ which occurs out of that remaining or the impact of events therein.
However, forming the memory in the Arabic conception beyond time provokes problems that need to be examined and dealt with. The believer, by returning to the Qu’ran citation, retrieves old sayings previous to the present moment, but following the direction of the text does not help to identify the past – impossible unless within that which is depicted by the ancient stories and the news of the ancestors, including what has been mentioned by the Quran itself – rather discovering what the believer does not know or ‘revelation’, particularly for the Sufi through a form of ‘receiving’ the gnosis which is already preserved in the ‘Preserved Tablet’ according to the Quranic text.
Such a discussion causes many problems concerning identifying the past and the present, examination and citation, manifestation and assimilation, absence and impact, and knowledge and art. Thus, the scene of memory in the Greek text is just a visual assimilated scene or an image of similar or reflection of the artistic scene itself. That is to say the relationships are not based on borrowing a scene from one trend in order to understand another trend, but are based on stronger and deeper foundations among themselves, namely the relationships of memory with art. Therefore, art is just a reflection of what is presented before the eye, or what it remembers imagines, and attempts to achieve.
This matter would be detected in a long historical trend of the Greco-Roman artistic production, followed by the European then the Western one, and in
similitude art as well as its counter, plastic art, and its other image, abstract art (5). According to this concept, I have concluded with what I have already emphasised from the beginning of this article, that the topic of this discussion lies in the determination of aestheticism according to a perspective which evaluates the production of art in accordance with relations between memory and space determination, a matter which refers in an implied way to the visual presence as being a mainspring to art.
Thus, this is what I ask to be examined in the old Islamic context in three fields: the visual materialistic art, the poetic text, and the Sufi text. Eloquence as a basis of improvement “Stop both of you and let us mourn the memory of the beloved ones and abodes…” These opening verses of the poem of Mru’ul Qais had attracted my attention earlier when I realised an existential and artistic observation absolutely different from any other in Abbasid and Umayyad poems in Damascus, Baghdad, Kufa, Khurasan, and other cities, away from the desert and its memory as well.
The first stop is an existential one, as it were, while the second is not based on remembrance but on structuring a poetic tradition which has been called “the column”. Some pre Islamic (jahiliya) poems followed the same method, while other poems – including Mu’allaqat (the oldest collection of complete ancient Arabic poems) – did not confine itself to it, giving it a value that exceeds the pure poetic approach. Thus, this stop is an examination of the pre-Islamic presence; a confirmation and a deletion of what the human and materialistic existence are all about. It could also be depicted in ‘tracking’, which was adopted as a science – a specialised knowledge – and was necessitated by such an existence with its variable circumstances. The same would be applied to other pre-Islamic knowledge, namely physiognomy, astrology and other sciences related to visual follow-up of the pre-Islamic existence.
Do these sciences not seek to achieve various studies of the presence signs as being the signs of existence, whether the human or materialistic? Such studies are related to examination, preservation and verification, to the passage of time itself and could be applied to a broad aspect of pre-Islamic poems, for they are actualised through coexistence, sensual receptions, and materialistic descriptions of their surroundings.
On the other hand, the Umayyad and Abbasid poem (and others that adopted this poetic tradition), which begins with the stop besides the ruins, indicates renouncing the said attachment to the existence. In the meantime, this attachment to existence could be found, particularly in the Abbasid period, in the poems that cut short the specific aspect of stopping by the ruins, particularly in the poems of Abi Nawas and Ibn al-Roumi (6) which have such a rich and more significant poetry that they could not in any way be classified according to the traditional prevalent criticism as dead or dull, as in the poetry of al-khamriat (the wine poems) or ‘description’.
The Abi Nawas and Ibn al-Roumi poetry is thus a poetry which enjoys structuring its meaning through coexistence, including the existential observation. In other poems of Ibn al-Rumi, it is clear that the poet remembers and reprocesses what he has already experienced himself. Therefore, in the poem entitled The Raziqi Grapes, he does not describe this kind of grapes, but describes a ‘feast of grapes’ in which he met with some Abbasids. The same could be applied to Abi Nowas’ sense of smell regarding some kinds of barbecues in the streets of Baghdad, or many other poems which deal sensually and sometimes lustily with the human and materialistic aspect of existence.
However, what is stated by certain poets is not based on remembering and narrating events but on building a beautifully well-structured poem through the inclusion of the outcome of such memories within the space and structure of the poem. If I was requested to review what Abu Nowas said regarding how he dealt with the aspect of ‘stopping beside the ruins, suffice to mention his clause which invites people to sit down instead of stopping besides the ruins. Nevertheless, poems remain rare, and differ from each other. As will be displayed in this analysis, be it in poetry or in materialistic art or in Sufi text or in critical texts of arts.
In short, all the various forms of arts sought, specifically since the beginning of the Umayyad period, to build art traditions (7) or an authoritative reference for art based on linguistic and aesthetic eloquence. This is exemplified in the processes of ‘combining the language’ and complicating it, attempting to teach the Arabic language to non-Arabs instead of letting them acquire it spontaneously, classifying the pre-Islamic poetry in books and anthologies, including the Mu’allaqat (the oldest collection of complete ancient Arabic poems).
This subject was the core of discussion of the ‘council’, whether in court or among the scholars or in poetry forums such as Marbad al- Basra (Fair of al-Basra) and others, or in language and deliberation forums of such arts. Speaking about eloquence is merely the linguistic and stylistic naming of something beyond that, which is the seeking of the arbitration of the authoritative religious references of which the Qur’an constitutes its main structure.
It is the basis of reading and learning, debate and exegeses, fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and legal decisions, worship and jihad (holy war), and other related practices. In short, the Qur’an is a code for replication and imitation in lieu of nature in the Grecian thought. This is the substance of the ‘theory of the wondrous nature of the Qur’an’, the most refined theory of the ancient critical thought since al-Jahith and afterwards. It is this wondrous and miraculous nature – albeit emanating from the revealed word – that is actualised in the perfection of composition and the connection of the revealed words to each other, as the writers usually do despite the fact that they do not reach that level of perfection.
The same would be said upon reviewing the elements of the materialistic art, that which is called Islamic art. Such a discussion needs a great deal of exposition and elaboration, for determining the specifications of this art is controversial in relation to Western classifications. I will deal with exposing and reviewing some elements of this art as they existed in the old Islamic experiences and contexts – be it just a Qur’anic manuscript, a vessel, architecture, a sword or a ring. The external surfaces of such elements are adorned reflecting different art forms such as calligraphy, ornamentation, decoration, and others. What is true for the decoration of these elements is that the artist avoids any existential observation or examination of the topics he deals with artistically. Thus, it is an art that is not based on observation, emanating neither from existence nor memory except in the case of ‘transitive memory’ – the traditional memory by which the artist reprocesses what has previously been accomplished by other artists before him.
Some critics considered iconoclasm as the basic structure of this art, thereby failing to understand what iconoclasm is all about and the foundations of Islamic art. Religions have certain prohibitions. In the case of Islam, religion is very adamant and strict with respect to abandoning idolatry. However, other artistic practices, including the existential representation such as al-Muzawaqa and others, were not prohibited. Since Islamic religion has this figurative ‘domain’, this prohibition is not sufficient to explain the determined approach which characterised Islamic art as being based on the iconoclasm principle.
As such, the practice of Islamic art is based on choices (even though it began with prohibition in a certain field), thus artists are to explore therein encouraging and favourable motives for art. Neverheless, some Western studies on Islamic art reveal that the Muslim artist was always in the position of the suppressed observer who is unable to practise figurative reproduction; consequently, he resorts to manoeuvring to counteract that which is prohibited and exerts his artistic effort and experience in ornamentation and calligraphy and other forms. These Western studies could not perceive and acknowledge artistic forms and kinds of production other than what they knew and adopted as the only foundations and structures of art.
There are two noteworthy points about these various artistic elements. The first is that there is a controversy which has seldom attracted the attention of critics and historians, namely that the determination of such artistic elements, their categorisation, and the evaluation of their artistic value does not correspond with what was known about them in the old Arabic- Islamic tradition. In brief, the bulk of writings entitled ‘Islamic art’, as it was written and collected, and in the way it is taught now, does not have a corresponding origin in the past tradition. It remains, therefore, a controversial subject at the very least. For example, the Muzawaqa of al- Wasiti, as mentioned in the books of arts and as it is studied now, is separated from its context, which was an essential part of it, ie – al-Kitab al-Muzawaq (the embellished book). Moreover, the ring identified in the front part of one of the halls of the Louvre Museum, or in the book History of Arts was presented or exhibited in the same manner in the ancient tradition, as the private property of an individual person and as a human accessory. The same is true of a large number of artistic elements, taken out of their initial contexts to suit Western ways of exposition and conservation and Western taste.
The same is also true for classified Islamic artistic elements for they do not constitute special artistic productions with distinguishing features differentiating them from other works of the same nature but in other contexts. Thus, a portrait is not similar to another one in the house, nor is a sculpture. On the other hand we can compare elements of the same nature in terms of ornamentation such as rings, vessels, and swords, but elements of different nature cannot be compared because they serve different functions. The same is true in calligraphy. When calligraphers produce similar work, it is differentiated in terms of the distinguishing styles of each artist. Interestingly enough, these artistic productions in calligraphy are made in accordance with a certain writing method, and so the signs themselves which constitute the artistic works: letters, sentences, geometrical forms or calligraphic forms and others, and nathm (composition) of the signs. I have borrowed the term ‘composition’ from al-Jarjani to indicate the changes made to such signs in the process of producing the design of the artistic work displayed to the recipient. This was done by al-Jarjani earlier, by examining and following the inscriptions to guide him and draw for him the method of compositions in linguistics. T
He states in his book Dala’el al-I’jaz (the Evidences of the Wondrous): “Also, for them, nathm composition was synonymous to weaving, formation, moulding, structuring, brocade, and embellishment and the like, a matter which necessitates considering positioning the parts next to each other in the right place in order to satisfy a certain pattern necessitating such a position, thus defection occurs if any part is replaced by another one (9).”
Unlike others, do you agree that al-Jarjani makes an analogy between the literary data and the artistic materialistic data; that is to say he considers the artistic model as the basis of comparison? Most importantly, he regards the process of brocading and weaving from the perspective of ‘positioning the parts next to each other in the right place’, in other words, the parts’ relations to each other which necessitates putting them in certain fixed positions. It is a comparison that al-Jarjani makes again in his same book where he discusses further the aspect of composition. He states that “his method of compiling parts together is similar to collecting pearls through a thread with the aim of merely combining them together; or arranging piles of things without the intention of creating a certain form only with the aim of displaying them correctly to the viewer.” If we apply the principle of Al-Jarjani, we realise and understand how the Arabic writing style was formed – from right to left to cover the surface of the artistic element regardless of the kind of material used. So, the calligrapher writes on the golden sword, on the vessel and on the wall in a precise way, to the extent of measuring the diameter of the vessel or the dish he is writing on, to ensure that the writing is proportionate to the size of the surface.
There is a linguistic and literal foundation for the Islamic artistic work, evident in its features or in the method of its composition, but mainly with respect to its aesthetic basis. So, what is this foundation? It has been said earlier that Islamic art avoids and proscribes clearly the existential observation and relies on the Qur’an in lieu of nature as a basis of contemplation and recollection. But how could this be the case if some of the processes of this art needed geometrical forms and adaptations which were available neither to any Muslim artist nor to the great artisans, had it not been for some geometricians – as I stated in my book The Islamic Art in the Arabic Sources – who laid down some ornamental geometrical solutions, such as drawing a square inside a circle and other various complicated forms. Still, other processes required other resources and skills, but what are they?
In reference to the artistic elements under consideration, we realise that the Muslim artist is skilful or seeks to be distinguished in certain handicraft skills such as gilding, inscription, calligraphy and embellishment. However, they are skills which are based on writing material (including stating sentences or Qur’anic verses and others), a writing style and a method of composition, religious reflections and meditations; a certain expression Sufism, or Sufi spiritual exercises. The ancient beliefs, including the pre-Islamic ones, formed a conception of a humanly structured entity of the universe, similar to the sayings of the old Arabic language regarding the relation of man with what is above him, such as referrinng to the roof of the tent as his sky.
This notion could be also noted when discussing the verse on ‘the heavens with pillars’. Moreover, one can find in some mystical inspirational exegeses and others, a perception of the structure of the universe based on the ‘tree’ (neither of the East nor of the West), which links earth to heaven – the ‘perfect man’, as has been said. According to them, it is a conception called transcendence which links the earthly with the heavenly, the seen and the unseen, and what makes ‘detachment’, essential for worthiness and uprightness, possible for at least a few. Some are able to perform such a thing that they seek to achieve. It is a unique and not a spontaneous or intuitive act – rather it is based on practice and experience.
Contemplators or ascetics and other ‘elites’ (9) proceed from the Qur’an as the infrastructure underlying their actions and practices. The Holy Qur’an in letter and in spirit is a treasure of meanings and rhetoric, a memory kept as ‘active witness’ or ‘Preserved Tablet’. Thus, its meditation is based on archetypes such as ‘the Divine Throne’ and ‘the tree’; in terms such as ‘transcendence’ and ‘alienation’. However, from where are these realisations and artistic and literary works derived? (Aesthetic experiences like recollection and invocation, confidential talk, and others). Artistic realisations emanate from acquaintance with the linguistic sciences, prose, poetry, interpretation and others. Therefore, the writings of the Sufis, interpreters, and theologians are essentially based on such sciences in specific – insofar as one of the grammarians considered syntax similar to ancient Greek philosophy and thus requiring different kinds of studies: visual and linguistic reading, emotional coexistence or experience and others.
How is that? Where is the source of the artistic work determined? Is it in memory or another source? Some of such works are determined in memory where the artist deals with the Qur’anic data and thoroughly reviews it with the aim of affirming, demonstrating and manifesting it, such as in the writings of the laity. It is what some people say about the perception of the ‘eclipsed (unseen) through the witness or observable’. So what is the meaning of ‘sight’? Two kinds of knowledge are distinguished by the rhetoricians: the first is ‘the essential knowledge’ which arises from sensual perceptions and from frequent narrations; the second is the ‘theoretical knowledge which is obtained in the aftermath of thorough thinking’. Al-Baqlani says: “It is a science realised in the aftermath of verifying and considering the object of consideration, or remembering a viewpoint about it.”
Sight then does not mean only the visual act, but also ‘thinking about the object’. According to al-Mu’tazili Judge Abul Jabbar in his book Sharh al-Usul al- Khamsah (Interpretations of the Five Sources), there is a visual sight and an insight, a matter which could be detected in other verbs and sources such as see, vision, and others. Although these terms are initially applicable to physical and existential observation, in Arabic writings their uses and recent prevailing significances strongly indicate the acts of meditation, reading, and interpretation. Concerning calligraphy, Ibn al-Rumi says: “It is a witness to something. Contemplating the witness would reveal its secrets.” It is the art of contemplating the witness (the linguistic effect and the sign or the ornamental form) in order to capture its unseen beauty: the aesthetic of the artistic work is fulfilled only through being a witness, an external sign or outcome for a more beautiful esoteric implicit reality. By the same token, calligraphy could be described as an aesthetic space limited by the boundaries of the page or the ornamental object. It can also designate an artistic space being the totality of the work of art in relation to its unseen reality. An artistic frame, yet after it was extended by the hand of the Creator, His own place, and there is none who shares it with Him.
Al-Halaj says: “The origin of the calligraphy is a dot (point omega); it is thus a group of dots, hence I said: every time I see calligraphy I see God therein.” That is to say, I write everywhere in order that He becomes omnipresent. Everywhere is His place as long as He is omnipresent; in space, in void, prior to, throughout, and after accomplishing the work of art. The work of art represents an inscription over a white surface; it has no other background but white colour, the void, and the universal domain – the universe that extends according to its geometrical dimensions and the nature of its materials. Thus, the artistic work appears to extend with the flat surface, taking the shape of the circle together with the column, exemplified in buildings, masterpieces, and on all other media such as ceramic, fabric, wood metal, stone, gravel, and mosaic. The Muslim artist expanded the being like a paper or a wall and his work was evident of the presence of God in every individual essence, space, and void. It is an art that fills the void without creating delusion of the place or the world. It is an art which generates another nature for nature and enhances its external appearance or displays it in the most beautiful form. Engraving and the remains of ornamented inscriptions indicate his present absence, or his absent presence – a concept, according to the mystic language, that lies in between the ‘form’ and the ‘trait’.
Some Sufi imams such as Imam al-Qushairi have said that the trait and the form are pre-eternity and post eternity, or “they are two attributes of the post eternity that happened in the pre-eternity”. In other words, the manner in which God predestined eternity in terms of knowledge and moral disposition. He is the First and the Last, the Eternal. Thus, the form and the trait are what are predestined by the One and the Everlasting; He is neither pre-eternal nor post-eternal. The form and the trait are created by the Eternal and are what He ordained in the pre-eternity and post eternity. The author of the book al-Luma (Illumination in Mysticism) states that the ‘form’ is the illustration of the outward form of the creation, that is to say the appearance of the creatures physically and mentally by bestowing the power of reality upon them. Some Sufis believe that he upon whom ‘divine reality’ was bestowed is not able to perceive other humans, forms, traces or ruins. He has thus departed from all creatures and is lasting in the ‘divine reality’.
Ibn Arabi distinguishes between ‘the foreknowledge of God’ (which is pre-eternal and post-eternal, neither in time nor in place) and the ‘creation of God’ (which is in time and in place). Therefore, the trait never varies because it is in God’s foreknowledge and nobody is able to know it beforehand. The form varies in terms of its different manifestations in the same way as the ‘effect’, therefore, the effect of the thing is the indication of its existence. The Sufi imams dealt with the same meaning of this term – the trace of a thing that had ceased to exist. When the Sufi engages in the path of spiritual exercises and efforts, he does not attain perception through theoretical or reflective cognition, but rather through mystic knowledge (thawq). Thus, the Sufis state that he who is incapable of consideration and observation would resort to tracking, but if he lost the trace, he would employ recollection. This means that he who does not follow reasoning and could not gain the enlightenment and grace of God then acquires the unveiling (kashf) and opening (fath) which guide him to follow the good example and the right track through divine inspiration, established truths, and revelations that bestow felicity on his heart and soul.
In this manner, Ibn al-Arabi explains that the various kinds of knowledge can be ranked, according to excellence, in three levels. The first is the science of reason, which is every kind of knowledge* which is arrived at by the fact that it is self-evident or after examining and considering proofs, on condition that the purport of that proof is discovered. The second science is the science of conditions (ahwal), which cannot be reached except through taste. It cannot be reached through reason, nor can a man of reason reach it or establish a way to find it. It comes naturally such as knowing by intuition, through your heart, passion, and yearning. It is impossible for anyone to know any of these sciences without experiencing those qualities. The third science is the science of mysteries (asrar). It is the knowledge which is beyond the realm of reason, and it is specific only to the prophets and the saints. Thus, the mystic knowledge is superior to the intellectual cognition; the Sufi is the one who transcends his physical domain and his surroundings of forms and traces from which he detaches himself. Instead, he resorts only to the True God and to recollection – “recalling God in the heart through contemplation” – a kind of proximity to God without a veil. When the contemplator (mureed) takes the divine path, he is equipped with mystical knowledge and taste instead of reason and sense. At this very point, he experiences revelation manifestations, and the unveiling of truth or enlightenment. He, thus sees, discovers, examines and understands through taste and insight rather than reflection and sensation.
The first state reached at by the contemplator or the seeker is the presence, then the unveiling, until he attains the contemplative order. Presence is invocation of the heart upon recurrence of proof – when the believer possesses a proof from the Divine Being. In this way, he recalls his heart from behind a veil, and consequently becomes prepared for receiving the Divine Inspiration. In the process of the unveiling, the heart is certain about the disclosure of the Real or the Truth; he knows no proof for it by which it is supported except what he finds in himself. As for the highest contemplative order in which the saint perceives the Real, either through the sound of speech (a voice) or through a vision (the visual effect), knowledge in this order is incontrovertible. In the divine self-disclosure given to its possessors, there is no room for confusion and uncertainty. This is explained in the same way according to some Sufis in ‘the science of nun’ as: “Nun is the comprehensive knowledge which is similar to the inkwell, whereas the letters which are the forms of such science are generally available in its ink.”
Also in the Quranic verse Nun and by the Pen, there is an analogy between the nun which is the comprehensive knowledge exemplified in the One Divine Presence, and the pen which is the presence of forms thereof. Similarly, this is described by Sheikh Abu Nasr al-Seraj al-Tousi in portraying a sea without a beach: “If the ocean were ink wherewith to write out the words of my Lord, sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the words of my Lord, even if we added another ocean like it for support(10).” (The Holy Quran, verse 109, sura 18).

Footnotes
1 . Paul Ricoeur: La mémoire, l'histoire; l'oubli; Seuil; Paris; 2001:
2 . It meets what is stated in the novel criticism of "liable to be believed":
3 . This could be applied to Cyrillic art, on one hand, and to science fiction stories and movies on the other hand. Therefore, the elements of such art or of science fiction remain the outcome of what man realises, recognises and identifies, albeit he has never known it and consequently has not the ability to remember it as an element or as relationships.
4 . In a composition in a receptive way – unlike retroactive – as the case in the ways of reviving the memory and redeeming it to the extent of the capability of the past to be in the present.
5 . I have in mind in this respect that the outset of the identification of abstract art in the European experiences in the first two decades of the 20th century is based on describing it as ‘non-assimilation art’ – that it is not thus disconnected from the assimilation art itself.
6 . How could we understand the poem of al-Buhturi on describing the pool of al-Mutawkel: is it a poem in which he is examining and admiring or praising? By the same token, is the poem of Abi Tammam on Fath Ammuriyah (the conquest of Ammuriyah) an examination of a timely battle or is it a praise poem?
7 . This is especially true regarding the ‘column’ and other rules of the artistic structure.
Moreover, it is difficult to date and chronicle, for they get lost in the darkness of time, and are serialised in sub categories of the various artistic works according to form and purpose.
8 . Abdul Khader al-Jarjani, revised by Mamohammad Abduh and Mohammad Rashid Ridah, Dar al-Ma’refah (Ma’refah Publishing House), Beirut 1978, pp 41,42.
9 . It is necessary, according to mystics and to social consideration of the different classes of the Islamic society, to distinguish between the elite and the laity; hence the former is capable of pursuing the highest knowledge, while the latter is incapable of doing the same. They only grasp the exoteric form.
10 . Sheikh Abu Nasr al-Seraj al-Tousi, Al-Luma, The Publishing Committee of the Sufi Tradition, p 442..
(Islamic arts, quarterly magazine, first issue, autumn 2009, London, pp 38-45).