ABSTRACT
This chapter looks in detail at a question touched upon in previous chapters: Who is the Perfect Human? Ibn ‘Arabī and his interpreters offer three possible answers, without ever fully resolving the issue: (1) all human beings are perfect; (2) the Perfect Humans are all of the prophets and Friends of God; (3) the Perfect Human is Muhammad. Al-Jīlī’s treatment of the question is much less ambiguous. In chapter 60 he is explicit in identifying the Prophet Muhammad as the one true Perfect Human. “Wherever the term ‘Perfect Human’ in an unqualified sense occurs in my writings”, he declares, “I only mean by it Muhammad.” While he allows that other individuals – specifically, the other prophets and Friends of God (whom he calls, following Ibn ‘Arabī, ‘general prophets’) – can be described as perfect, nevertheless he views Muhammad as the ‘most perfect’ (al-akmal) and deems the others to be perfect only insofar as they are loci of manifestation of the Muhammadan Reality. In making this argument, al-Jīlī again goes further than Ibn ‘Arabī and his interpreters.
