Moses and Jesus in al-Insān al-Kāmil of Jīlī

The life of the prophets, as described in religious texts, was always an intersting subject of mystical thinking. Jīlī, who was a student of Ibn Arabī’s mystical school, studied the life of the divine prophets such as Moses and Jesus, which were revealed in Quranic verses and with allegorical interpretation he compared these stories with mental attitudes. Considering Moses’ life, Jīlī emphasizes the annihilation of human soul, unique truth of divinity, unveiling of duality in Divine creative being and at last the union of perfect man with God. He believes that Torah was the manifestation of qualitative names of God, while Gospel was the manifestation of essential name of God. God revealed Torah to Moses in nine tablets. He was permitted to preach seven tablets, but the other two tablets which were ''Power and Lordship'', belonged to Jesus. Jesus preached these two tablets to his people and as a result his people believed in Trinity and went astray. Jīlī believes that Gospel has esoteric and exoteric characteristics. According to him, the beginning verse of the Gospel, i.e. In the name of Father, Mother and Son, are the exoteric one. It could be compared with the beginning verse of Quarn, i.e. In the name of Allah, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful. The people of Jesus only comprehended the exoteric meaning of the verse and identified it with Spirit, Mary and Jesus. They ignored the esoteric meaning of the Gospel, that is the appearance of God in creation and the manifestation of divine names in bodily beings. Therefore they believed in anthropomorphism and restriction of the Infinite.