Network Model of Sharia in Epistemology of Ibn Arabi and Its Anthropological Outcomes

Ibn Arabi’s epistemology has an irrevocable tie with sharia. For Ibn Arabi, Sharia is the single route to the truth. Sharia is criterion for cognition, source of cognition and provider of double certitude in his epistemology. Sharia, in his view, acts as a criterion in the field of theory and practice. In theory, sharia is also a criterion in both intellectual knowledge and visionary knowledge both of which, the author believes, are comprehended with or without a mediator. The one who travels with his intellects toward the truth takes the divine religion as his model and imitates it so that he acquires the trinary of justice, knowledge and etiquette. Realization of these characteristics in the sacred realm necessitates attending the secondary causes. Ibn Arabi introduces these secondary causes as human “identity” and although considers it a barrier believes that it is an inevitable one and knowledge requires reverence to this barrier.