ABSTRACT
The reader is introduced to al-Jīlī’s Sufi metaphysical worldview, which provides the framework for his idea of the Perfect Human. This chapter sets out two of his most important Sufi metaphysical ideas: the idea of universal theophany – the notion that the entirety of existence is a locus of God’s manifestation; and the idea of the levels of existence, according to which the divine manifestation within existence occurs to different levels of completeness. The chapter shows how al-Jīlī’s conception of these ideas constitutes a development of similar ideas found in the earlier Ibn ‘Arabian tradition, such as the idea of five ‘presences’ or levels of existence developed by Ibn ‘Arabī’s leading student al-Qūnawī.
