Hany Ibrahim: The Mysticism of Letters: Language and Being in the Teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī (Part 2)

So this week we will examine the symbolic metaphysical movement, moving from the point, the dot, the nuqta, as the hidden primordial origin.

Everything began from the dot, which points to the divine loci in everything.

Then it moves to the alif, the alif as the vertical unity, and as the Sheikh described the alif from-- He called it qayyumiyya.

Qayyumiyya from the word qaama, qaama to raise.

So the alif is standing upright, vertical.

Then from the alif to the letter ba as the first threshold of, uh, relation and manifestation.

And then finally, the Basmala, where it begins with bisim.

And then the Sheikh describes the ba, the seen, and the meem, and there I will explain there is a hidden alif, aniya, b-is-m, uh, the structure of revealed articulation, the Basmala.

In my name.

The nuqta is the concealed origin of form and distinction.

It is the first point from which the line emerges.

Like when you begin writing, painting, doing anything, you begin by making a point.

So the point is the beginning of every writing, every articulation.

Even writing a musical piece [laughs] begins with the dot.

So, uh, the alif is the first extension of the dot, the nuqta.

It appears as the vertical line of unity, the alif, representing essence, straightness, transcendence, and qayyumiyya, the principle through which all things stand from the word qaam or qa'im, qa'im.

Then to the ba, which is the first threshold of relation and manifestation.

It represents movement from the hidden unity into existence, and this is represented in the dot, the nuqta, below the ba.

If we put the dot on top of the written ba, it becomes a nun.

So the dot moved from the containment of the nun to the outside of the ba.

So it represents the movement from the hidden unity, from the nun, into existence.

And Ibn Arabi says that through the ba of bisim, existence appears.

That's why all of the chapters in the Quran, the hundred and fourteen, hundred and thirteen begins with the Basmala, Bismillah, the ba at the beginning.

But Surah Bara'ah even begins with the ba.

Bara'atun min Allahi wa rasul.