Unity of Existence in Jaami’s and Ibn Al- Arabi’s Thoughts

Abd-ul-Rahman Jaami is one of the poets who have been familiar with the works and thoughts of Ibn Arabi and has been influenced by him. One of the poems from Jaami’s ‘Haft Orang’ is the Tuhfat al-Abrar, which is based on the thoughts of Ibn Al-Arabi particularly his ‘Unity of Existence’. Jaami is one of the first poets to provide explanations on the thoughts of Ibn Al- Arabi regarding unity of Existence and has been highly influenced by his thoughts. One of these effects is the oxymoron, i.e., unity and multiplicity, assimilation and dissimilation, the outer and the inner, etc. related to unity of Existence. In the present study, an attempt has been made to show Jaami’s perspective on unity of Existence and its exemplification (tashbih or attributing human characteristics to God) and tanzih (not assigning human features to God or differentiation between God and human), the world and human being, the inner and the outer (appearance, etc.) in the extended poem of Tuhfat al-Abrar. Although Jaami has acted paradoxically in this regard, he seeks to find a unified conclusion in his mind.  The results of the present study showed that, he has been under the influence of Ibn Al- Arabi in reaching this conclusion and these two mystics (i.e., Ibn Al- Arabi and Jaami) express their thoughts and ideas paradoxically.