In essence, the higher human capabilities and higher human faculties required to overcome the impasse or the political and social schisms which emerge along regional, racial, and social lines in a state of cultural or civilizational decline is contained and embodied in the one which the Islamic tradition calls “The Complete Man” or “Insan al-Kamil.” As Ibn Arabi wrote, the “Insan al-Kamil” is distinct from all other persons in the sense that he “gathers together nature and intellect, so within him are the grossest and subtlest of compositions in respect of his nature, and within him is disengagement from substrata and the faculties that govern bodies.”
As a result of his ascension through the “hierarchy” of human faculties, this individual is “singled out” to receive theosophical discourse and in turn is “crowned” in a figurative sense given that “order is established and overthrown” through him by virtue of his theosophical discourse as Ibn Arabi argued. By logic, it is necessary that the “psychological attitude” of such an individual who is tasked with reinventing order be “superior to that whole world” which he is reinventing. Hence, by virtue of both his psychological attitude and his theosophical discourse which are garnered after painstaking physiological and psychological changes and transformations, this individual “is to the world what the ringstone is to the ring, which is the place of the signet and the mark with which the king sets a seal upon his treasures.” Ibn Arabi added:
“For this reason he was named Vicegerent, for through him the Real protects His creation, as the seal protects those treasures. No one would dare open them so long as the king’s seal was still upon them, unless by his leave. It is thus that he is entrusted with protecting the world. And so the world shall always be protected so long as this Perfect Man is found in it.”
And if the world is to be ‘devalued’ and ‘instrumentalized’ based on its telos as is contended by certain philosophical outlooks and schools of thought, then this devaluation and instrumentalization of the world is intended for the “Insan al-Kamil.” As the Quran states in Chapter 31, Verse 20: “See ye not how God hath made serviceable unto you whatsoever is in the skies and whatsoever is in the earth and hath loaded you with His favors both without and within? Yet of mankind is he who disputes concerning God, without knowledge or guidance or a scripture giving light.”
Why the devaluation and instrumentalization of the world is intended for this individual is because God is made known to the world through this individual. In turn, the telos of human history is for God to be known to man. As has been stated in the one of the most famous “Hadith Qudsi” of the Islamic tradition: “I was a Hidden Treasure; I loved to be known, so I created the creation in order to be known.” Thus, it is through the “Insan al-Kamil” by which God is ultimately known to all and sundry. And given that God is ultimately known through his attributes and essence, it follows that the “Insan al-Kamil” also contains within him such attributes and essence, for that which is being conveyed and made known cannot be made known without the attributes and essence having been embedded and instilled in the conduit of such knowledge and profundity.
Adam A. Azim 