Desiring the Sweet Perfume of Closeness in the Oscillating Tawajjuh of the Letter Rāʾ

Abstract

This article delves into the concept of tawajjuh through a poem and a prayer ascribed to the Arabic letter rāʾ, which expresses key themes in the Akbarian tradition. Using the hermeneutical approach of Ibn ʿArabī to interpret word polysemy in the texts, the article sheds light on the science of letters and key metaphysical ideas cultivated in this tradition. The letter rāʾ represents various aspects of cosmic duality and hence a strong desire for intimacy. The Arabic word tawajjuh, meaning the projection of spiritual energy, orientation, or attentiveness, refers to turning to face God. There is contemplation and continuous turning, like the phases of the moon facing the sun.

1. Introduction

In the opening line of the poem ascribed to the letter rāʾ in the ‘Discourse on the Letters,’ Muḥyīddīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. AD 1240) points to an elevated state of divine proximity in the spiritual station of arrival (maqām al-wiṣāl):

The rāʾ is in the station of lovers together, beloved,

always in the abode of his good fortune, never forsaken.1

This poem opens a concise passage in which Ibn ʿArabī expounds upon the Arabic letter rāʾ in the extensive and dense chapter devoted to the ‘science of letters’ (ʿilm al-ḥurūf). This poetic line calls to our attention the simultaneity of separation and closeness between created beings and God. It is precisely because of this seeming duality, a polarity of subject–object, that a yearning desire emerges within the lover to perpetually be in the presence of the Beloved.

In this article, we will be reading the above poem intertextually with a prayer called ‘The Orientation of the Unpointed Letter Rāʾ’ (tawajjuh ḥarf al-rāʾ al-muhmala).2 The contemplative letter–prayer is most likely a later attribution to Ibn ʿArabī after his death.3 It is a poetically rendered, whispered prayer (munājā) undertaken by a supplicant with spiritual aspirations to attain self-perfection and God’s nearness. The one who heeds the message of the Quran, which states, ‘Call on your Lord, humbly and secretly; He loves not transgressors.’4

The selected prayer is one of the twenty-nine contemplative prayers (awrād sing. wird) in an Arabic prayer book titled The Orientations of the Letters (Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf). This book enjoys wide circulation in both printed and freely downloadable forms on the internet. Such extensive distribution attests to the enduring legacy of Ibn ʿArabī and, by extension, reflects the continued relevance of the Akbarian tradition in contemporary spiritual practices. Each prayer is ascribed to one of the twenty-nine5 letters of the Arabic alphabet, with each letter having its own dedicated prayer. The prayer sequence begins with alif, the letter that is not a letter,6 hamza is excluded, and it ends with the combined letter lām-alif.

Despite its distinct Akbarian character, this text has not received considerable attention among scholars, most likely due to its apocryphal status. Although these prayers have circulated widely in the original Arabic form, the first English translation is likely The Seven Days of the Heart by Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein, published in 2000. While scholarly interest in Ibn ʿArabī’s works has been clearly increasing, the prayers attributed to him have not been the focus of a comparable number of studies. Therefore, this article aims to contribute to the study of this textual genre and spiritual practice from the Akbarian Sufi tradition by employing a hermeneutic and intertextual polysemy approach to fill a gap in the existing scholarship.

2. Structures

The arrangement of prayers in the Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf closely resembles the alphabetical sequence of the twenty-nine ‘original letters’ identified by Sībawayh, the renowned grammarian of the Arabic language (d. ca. AD 796).7 The only difference is in the first and final letters: Sībawayh starts with the glottal stop hamza and excludes the lām-alif. The lām-alif is also not included in the standard abjadī or the hijāʾī alphabetical sequence used in contemporary dictionaries and reference books. Notably, the letter arrangement in the Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf (

Table 1. Letter sequence from right to left on a seven-by-five grid, listing each letter per prayer in the Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf.

ق  qāf	خ  khāʾ	غ  ghayn	ح  ḥāʾ	ع  ʿayn	ه  hāʾ	ا  alif
ر  rāʾ	ل  lām	ي  yāʾ	ش  shīn	ج  jīm	ض  ḍād	ك  kāf
س  sīn	ز  zāy	ص  ṣād	ت  tāʾ	د  dāl	ط  ṭāʾ	ن  nūn
و  wāw	م  mīm	ب  bāʾ	ف  fāʾ	ث  thāʾ	ذ  dhāl	ظ  ẓāʾ
						لا  lām-alif

) shares similarities with the second chapter of the Futūḥāt’s on the ‘Discourses on the Letters.’ However, Ibn ʿArabī places the hamza after the alif,8 effectively covering thirty letters.9

Sībawayh arranges the twenty-nine letters according to their respective points of articulation, which are determined by the constrictions in the vocal tract that either partially or completely obstruct the airflow. The sequence follows an ascending order, starting from the far end of the vocal tract and ending at the front with the lips. Ibn ʿArabī conforms to the early Arabic classical arrangement and delves deeper into the science of letters, correlating the emergence of Arabic letters at each location in the articulatory system to the order in which God created the cosmos. As God emerged from His essence, the cosmos was made visible through the letters spoken upon His breath. Just as the vocalized letters of the alphabet came from human breath, all existing things emerge from the exhalation of divine breath. He made crucial connections between letters, breath, and the heart. He explains that breath, which is the spirit (rūḥ) of the life force, is the air that exits from the heart (qalb), spreading out through the mouth and forming letters on the way.10 In this scheme, the human heart corresponds to God’s essence, which is the source of all things in existence. As such, all the letters emerge from the heart just like the universe emerges through the creative process based on God’s imperative Be! (kun).11 Ibn ʿArabī maintains that the true cause for human hearts (qulūb sing. qalb) being passionately in love (mutaʿashshiqa) with the breath is due to the latter’s co-relation to the breath of the Merciful. His advice to the spiritual aspirant is in keeping with the saying of the Prophet Muhammad, ‘Surely God has fragrant breaths (or ‘breezes’, nafaḥāt), so go toward the fragrant breaths of your Lord (rabb).’12

The Arabic alphabet is the key to comprehending the structure of the letter–prayers in the Akbarian tradition.13 Through its twenty-nine letters, the alphabet provides a way to examine the connections between the human breath and the creative breath of the Merciful (nafas al-raḥmān), which brings into manifestation the unlimited potential of the letters. This understanding of the letters as expressions of divine breath is significant to the Akbarian view of the cosmos and its relationship to the divine. By examining the structure and meanings of the letter–prayers, one gains insight into concept of tawajjuh, the projection of spiritual energy and attentiveness towards God. In this sense, the alphabet serves as a key that reveals the deep connections between language, breath, and the divine.

3. Ibn ʿArabī’s Alphabetic Cosmography

For Ibn ʿArabī, mastery of the science of letters is a way of participating in God’s creative command.14 He also frequently employs the word ‘spirit’ as a synonym for the meaning of letters, which can also refer to the power that these letters possess. His approach to the science of letters is rooted in a hermeneutic perspective derived from the Quran.15 This approach provides a means to discern revelatory signs in nature and all the beautiful names and attributes of God in the created beings. His works do not discuss the practical applications of letters, which is the domain of sympathetic medicine or alchemy. Rather, they explain a cosmogonic and cosmological scheme in which letters are the fundamental building blocks of everything. Thus, for Ibn ʿArabī, the letters become the hermeneutic principle not only of the Quran but of all realities.16

Ibn ʿArabī consistently emphasizes the importance of seeking the inner secrets of letters to his students. He reminds them that ‘The meaning of these letters is unknown to the scholars of the outward (who ignore the inner dimensions), but is revealed to the family (the children) of the moments,’17 referring to the Sufis, who have deep spiritual insight. These spiritual elites understand the intricate relationship between the knower, the thing known, and the knowledge itself.18 In the Akbarian tradition, the science of letters provides a metalinguistic and metaphysical approach to advance along the path of spiritual initiation.19 Ibn ʿArabī advises his earnest students, saying, ‘We have told (qiṣṣa) you what you, yourself, should put into practice concerning the world of letters; it will lead you to spiritual unveiling (kashf)20 of the world, and information about its realities, and comprehend the meaning of His exalted word: “there is nothing except it celebrates Him with His praise, but you do not understand their praising” [Q.17:44].’21

Dunja Rašić summarizes Ibn ʿArabī’s explanations of the properties of each letter, which are determined by three aspects: the letter’s shape, its locus of articulation, and the spirit (rūḥ) that governs it.22 Certain Sufi litanies make extensive use of the Arabic letters. In some practices, the repetition of specific letter combinations may be used as a vehicle to transport aspirants to higher levels of awareness. Although this is not the case in the Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf, there is a strong emphasis on the use of the letter within each prayer. For example, in the edition we consulted, we found fifty-one uses of the letter rāʾ in the rather short prayer ascribed to this letter. However, the poem in the Futūḥāt contains very few letter forms or phonations of the rā.

The letters, according to Ibn ʿArabī, are spirit beings (rūḥānīya); hence, in the passage following the poem dedicated to the letter rāʾ, he describes the multiple aspects of its nature. For instance, Ibn ʿArabī explains that the rāʾ belongs to both the visible (mulk) and the intermediary realms (jabarūt). The latter is an isthmus (barzakh), which simultaneously joins together and keeps separate the invisible (malakūt) and the visible. Correspondingly, the rāʾ belongs to the category of eighteen letters that ‘stay with the angels,’ belonging to the step level (martaba) of angelic letters.23 Similarly to the role of angels, these letters represent the subtle connections (raqāʾiq) or intermediaries between the two realms.24

Furthermore, the rāʾ exists amongst the most special letters that form the basmala, specifically as the letter unit of the divine names, the All-Merciful (al-raḥmān) and the All-Compassionate (al-raḥīm).25 It is also one of the ‘luminous’ (ḥurūf nūrāniyya) or disjoined (muqaṭṭaʿāt) letters that appear at the beginning of 29 out of the 114 chapters of the Quran.26 According to Ibn ʿArabī, in the universe that the community of the letters inhabit, they are accorded a ranking. The luminous letters are the favored (khāṣṣa) letters. In this hierarchy, the letter rāʾ is also described as amongst ‘the pure, extracted favored of the favored’ (safā’ khulāṣat khāṣat al-khāṣa)27 and having ‘the Heights’,28 which are associated with the great, early Sufi masters, Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. ca. AD 801) and Abū Yazīd Bisṭāmī (d. ca. AD 874),29 who are famous for declaring that their worship was not for the desire of heaven nor for fear of hell.

In a dense explanation of how the Creator manifests the shape and sound of each letter, Ibn ʿArabī compares their development to the waxing and waning moon phases (Figure 1):

‘According to us, from the door of kashf—when some of them come out from being…the first is more elevated (ashraf)30 than the second; and it is this way for each subsequent one until the halfway mark….The last and the first are the most elevated that come out.…and in this way up to the night of the new moon during the first of the month and his setting during the end of the month. The waning moon night is then equal to the full moon (badr) night—so understand.’31

Ibn ʿArabī uses the term ashraf, which also means ’an eminence rose into view’, to describe the manifestation of the letters in the cosmos. He emphasizes the eminent status of the first (alif) and the last (lām-alif) letters and points out the metaphysical significance of the phases between the full moon and the new moon.

When the moon diagram (Figure 1) and the alphabetical sequence (Table 1) are viewed together, they reveal a connection between the letters rāʾ and wāw, which correspond to the fourteenth and twenty-eighth prayers in the Tawajjuhāt, respectively. The fourteenth prayer (rāʾ) is analogous to the full moon, while the twenty-eighth prayer (wāw)32 is analogous to the darkest waning phase. The diagram does not depict the moon on the twenty-eighth (wāw) and twenty-ninth (lām-alif) days. This absence alludes to the most subtle knowledge of the ‘spirit completed’ (the perfectly completed human being, insān al-kāmil) represented by the wāw and of the ‘intimate lovers’ of the lām-alif.

Ibn ʿArabī compares the Arabic alphabet to the moon mansion and equates the twenty-ninth position of the lām-alif as that of the quṭb33 (a pivot and the ‘tent pole’ holding up the cosmos). The significance of these aspects are underscored in his saying, ‘If not for that twenty-ninth, the (other) twenty-eight would not be stabilized.’34 He also asserts that the lām-alif and the moon share the same quality, which he refers to as ‘the night of secrets’ (layla al-sirār).35 The placement of the lām-alif at the final sequence in the Tawajjuhāt (Table 1) alludes to God being described as the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward.36 The knot of the lām-alif, which depicts a figurative shape of the entwined bodies of two lovers, is a symbol of the divine omnipresence and that He is to each person ‘Closer to him than the jugular vein.’37 Beneito and Hirtenstein, referring to the Tawajjuhāt, perceive that the ordering of twenty-nine letters indicates a cycle that begins and finishes in the same point, with the alif signifying the Essence Itself. They underline the relationship between the twenty-eight Arabic letters and the twenty-eight days of the lunar cycle, where each letter has a unique ‘temper’ and inherent meaning in reference to the entire cosmological cycle.38

Interestingly, the rāʾ and the wāw, which are made to face one another in Figure 1, correspond to Beneito and Hirtenstein’s calculation of the letters’ numerical values. They observe that the rāʾ is equal to or has the same quality as the wāw. Of significance to our discussion in the subsequent sections, the authors pointed out a special relationship between these two letters: ‘Wāw and rāʾ may be combined to produce rūḥ (spirit) or rawḥ (joy).’39

As previously mentioned, rāʾ is one of fourteen disjoined or ‘luminous letters’ of the Quran. According to Beneito and Hirtenstein, the luminous letters belong to the unseen semi-circle in the ‘mystery of the circle’ (of being),40 while the wāw and the other fourteen letters are known as dark letters (ḥurūf ẓulmāniyya) that belong to the manifest semi-circle.41 However, as depicted in Figure 1, wāw is positioned on the ‘dark’ and thus invisible side, while the rāʾ is situated on the ‘bright’, visible side. The classification of these letters as bright and dark evokes an imagery of division, as they appear to divide the universe into darkness and light, just as Revelation becomes comprehensible only when these letters are combined, offering a complete sight. The number fourteen is significant in relation to the lunar cycle, as it is a symbol of the most complete beauty, where the light of the sun is fully reflected. It stands for the perfect human soul (nafs kāmila) that is fully receptive to the action of the divine spirit.42 Each phase of the moon exhibits a different degree of light and absence of light. Ibn ʿArabī employs the full moon as a symbol of purity and the ascent of the heart in God’s presence.43

The human heart, as the receptacle of God’s instruction and guidance, possesses an immense capacity. Given this capacity, a supplicant seeks God’s attention through supererogatory prayer, which would carry him or her to the stations of proximity (maqām al-qurb) and arrival (maqām al-wiṣāl), as mentioned in the Tawajjuhāt’s prayer and in the Futūḥāt’s poem, respectively. In chapter 330 of the Futūḥāt, a longer poem with the rāʾ as the rhyming letter (rawī)44 in each line (bayt)45 speaks of the station of the moon and the knowledge of concealed divine essence. According to Ibn ʿArabī, the moon’s station is an intermediary station, as depicted by the cycle of increasing and decreasing light in the viewer’s eye. He draws a semantic link between the word for moon crescent, hilāl, and words with the same Arabic triliteral root h-l-l that describe pilgrims proclaiming, ‘There is no god but God’ during the ḥajj. However, there are days when the moon is obscured, such as on the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth. The opposite is true in the mid-cycle of day fourteen, during the full moon (badr) when our eyes will not miss the ‘true, visible, not concealed’ universalization (ʿumūm) of light over the moon’s essence (dhat).46 This imagery portrays the total receptivity of the devoted supplicant, now at the mid-station of the rāʾ, facing the opposite end where the wāw is stationed:

‘A wāw: You alone, more holy than my being,

and more precious!

He is a spirit completed (rūḥ mukkamal),

and he is a secret six-fold…’47

4. Word Polysemy

Using intertextual polysemy, we can examine the poem and the prayer to explore the rich semantic fields of the selected key words. Arabic words derive their basic lexical meaning from roots that can be modified to produce different derivatives, resulting in a rich constellation of meanings. For example, the triliteral root, r-w-ḥ, which features frequently in the letter rāʾ prayer, has a variety of forms and meanings, such as rūḥ (spirit), rīḥ (breeze, wind), rawḥ (ease, relief, repose, joy, breeze), rāʾiḥ (back and forth), rāʾiḥa (perfume), rawḥa (journey in the early evening), rayḥān (sweet basil or aromatic plant), and rūḥānīya (spirituality).

Federico Salvaggio observes that polysemy is a significant aspect of Ibn ʿArabī’s hermeneutics, and every meaning of a single term, if it follows the rules of the Arabic language, can represent an acceptable explanation, even if it contradicts common understanding and challenges agreed-upon interpretations of scripture.48 William Chittick remarks that for Ibn ʿArabī, each Arabic letter of the Quran is significant because it manifests divine realities in both form and meaning.49 Furthermore, Michel Chodkiewicz suggests that the extensive polysemy of Arabic vocabulary, coupled with rigorous adherence to the letter of Revelation, does not preclude but rather necessitates a plurality of interpretations.50 Concurring with Chodkiewiz, Salvaggio highlights that for Ibn ʿArabī, form is meaning, and vice versa: meaning necessarily needs to acquire a form to be communicated. Ibn ʿArabī’s interpretative methods suggest that it is only through form that a plurality of possible meanings can be simultaneously and synthetically contemplated. However, the ultimate confirmation of the correctness of any interpretation lies with the divine speaker Himself, who takes charge of the instruction of His servant, and if the latter is endowed with a prepared heart, He will explain and interpret what is really meant:51 ‘It is I who take charge of his instruction.’52 From the position of the servant, this point is reflected in the letter rāʾ prayer, where the supplicant implores God to take charge of his or her upbringing and education.

Ibn ʿArabī frequently establishes semantic connections between words, not only through the conventional Arabic linguistic method of exploring words that share the same root, but also when the words share less than three radical letters in a different order.53 An example from the prayer is the variation between the three different roots, r-d-d (raddada, radda), r-d-y (ridā), r-ḍ-y (riḍwān), and w-r-d (mawārid):

‘…oscillate (raddada) me between a ‘hopeful longing’ for You and a ‘reverent fear’ of You. Restore (radda) to me the cloak (ridāʾ) of satisfaction (riḍwān) and bring me to the wellsprings (mawārid) of the welcome.’

Besides the rhythmic movement of the consonant [r], the near sounding [d] and [ḍ], the long and short vowels, and the polysemous derivations from these roots, this example also features a contranym. The term radda can mean to return or to restore something to someone, as well as to repel or to turn away. Similarly, ridāʾ (cloak) can sound like riḍā’ (satisfaction) and, while not a strict contranym, shares the same root with radan, which means perished or destruction.

Another term derived from the same root is mawārid, which is related to wird (pl. awrād), referring to a private supererogatory prayer, a portion of the Quran recited on this occasion, or a watering place. The Quranic term warīd (jugular vein), mentioned earlier, is also derived from the same root and has multiple meanings, including to arrive or approach, or the first flowers that blossom. These linguistic connections emphasize intimacy, as the prayer is a personal petition to be brought to the station of closeness to God, while the poem announces freshness and an arrival.

According to Salvaggio, Ibn ʿArabī’s hermeneutical method is not arbitrary but rather based on his understanding of the intricate structure and ontology of the universe. There are multiple levels of existence corresponding to the multiple levels of meaning that can be discovered behind linguistic and cosmological phenomena. Thus, Ibn ʿArabī presents a methodology that is both textured and elastic, able to accommodate both the semantic and trans-semantic components of reality. Teachers and students in the Akbarian tradition have delighted in playing with the lexical roots of words and their derivatives, since these often bring together seemingly unconnected words, often highlighting previously unsuspected links.

5. The Poem and the Prayer

In both the poem and the prayer, the spiritual aspirant accepts the two fundamentally distinctive levels: the presence of the Lordship (rubūbiyya) and the ontological poverty (faqr) of humanity’s servanthood (ʿubūdiyya).54 However, the two texts indicate a varying degree of closeness to the divine presence. In the poem, Ibn ʿArabī speaks of the conditional ‘if’, alluding to varying levels of kashf and spiritual stations, thereby implying an infinite movement towards higher stations of nearness: ‘Someone brought so close, and beloved, and most complete’, akin to the reunion of the last lām-alif with the first and the transcendent alif. The prayer, meanwhile, represents the servant seeking for the agency of Mercy in order to accomplish the spiritual ideal of absolute servitude to God and in God, which entails the effacement of all illusions of autonomy. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. circa AD 1329–35), one of the chief disseminators of Ibn ʿArabī’s teaching, believes that the letter rāʾ is ‘An allusion to the Mercy that is the Muḥammadan essence.’55

5.1. Poem: Among Them Is the Letter Rā (wa-min dhālika ḥarf al-rāʾ)56

‘The rāʾ is in the station of lovers together, beloved (maqām al-wiṣāl),

always in the abode of his good fortune, never forsaken.

One time he says, ‘I am the single one (al-waḥīd),

and I do not see other than me!’ And another time, ‘O me, you were never ignored!’

If your heart were with your Lord in this way,

you would be someone brought so close (muqarraba), and beloved, and most complete (akmal).’

According to Ibn ʿArabī, the rāʾ and wāw, together with eleven other unpointed letters arranged in a specific order, belong to the ‘station of unification’ (maqām al-ittiḥād).57 These letters are alif, ḥāʾ, dāl, rāʾ, ṭāʾ, kāf, lām, mīm, ṣād,ʿayn, sīn, hāʾ, and wāw. Denis Gril notes that the combination of the first three letters formed the word aḥad (unique).58 The notion of the ‘unificationism’ of two independent beings is considered a heretical doctrine.59 Likewise, Ibn ʿArabī rejects this outright. When the term ‘union’ (ittiḥād or wiṣāl) is used, it is in the sense that things are non-existent and what seems to be their existence is in reality God’s. In another instance, the term is used in reference to the experience of oneness with God.60

5.2. Prayer: The Orientation of the Unpointed Letter Rāʾ (tawajjuh ḥarf al-rāʾ al-muhmala)61

‘O my Lord (rabb), instruct me (rabba) with the subtle benevolence (laṭīf) of Your Lordliness (rubūbiyya), as one who is conscious of being in total need (muftaqir) of You should be instructed (tarbiya), as one who never claims to be independent of You. Watch over me with your eye of attentive care (riʿāya), vigilantly protecting (muraqaba) me from all the knocks that may befall me, or anything that may afflict me or cause me to be troubled at any moment or in any perception, or that may write one of the lines upon the tablet of my destiny. Provide me with the ease (rāḥa) of intimacy with You and raise (rāqqa) me to the station of closeness (maqam al-qurb) to You. Revive (rawwiḥ) my spirit (rūḥ) with Your remembrance and oscillate (raddada) me between a ‘hopeful longing’ (raghab) for You and a ‘reverent fear’ (rahab) of You.62 Restore (radda) to me the cloak (ridāʾ) of satisfaction (riḍwān) and bring me to the wellsprings (mawārid) of the welcome (qabūl). Grant me Mercy (raḥma) from You, re-establishing harmony in my disorder, rectifying where I am deviating, perfecting where I am lacking, restraining me when I am astray and guiding my perplexity (ḥāʾira).

Indeed, You are ‘Lord of every thing’ and its instructor (murabbīh). You mercify (raḥim) the essences [of all beings] and You elevate (rafaʿ) the degrees. Your closeness (qurb) is the joy (rawḥ) of the spirits (arwāḥ), and the perfumed sweetness (rayḥān) of joyous satisfaction (irtiyāḥ); the epitome of true prosperity, and the repose (rāḥa) of all those who are at ease (murtāḥ).

May You be blessed, Lord of lords. Liberator of slaves (riqāb)!63 Lifter of suffering! You ‘embrace everything in mercy (raḥma) and in knowledge.’64 You forgive wrongdoing with loving tenderness and clemency. You are the most kind (raʾūf), the compassionate (raḥīm).

May the blessing of God be upon our master Muhammad, the prophet, and upon his family and companions.’

The prayer’s title–heading foregrounds the shape of the rāʾ (ḥarf al-rāʾ al-muhmala), known as muhmala, which refers to all the letters of the Arabic alphabet without diacritical dots, also called ‘neglected’ or ‘unpointed’. These dots are used to establish the difference between letters like rāʾ (ر) and zāy (ز). Ibn ʿArabī describes the dot on a letter (iʿjām) as its face, used to recognize and distinguish one letter from another. He categorizes letters without diacritical marks as unpointed, dry letters, stating that ‘The unpointed letter is the one you recognize by looking at it, or alternatively, by transmitting its special qualities.’65 This seems to parallel the Sufi’s terminology of direct recognition or gnosis (maʿrifa). In turn, the rāʾ appears in its pure simplicity, engendering the state of ‘direct witnessing’66 as we witness it unambiguously and without obscurity, like true lovers, who recognize each other instantly. Ibn ʿArabī calls the ‘orbit of direct witnessing’ (mushāhada) the ‘station of the Heights’ personified by Abū Yazīd Bisṭāmī, who, like the letter rāʾ, is also ‘unpointed’.67

This intimate prayer focuses on a personal relationship with God through open and heartfelt communication. It is a mode of contemplation and self-reflection in the interiority of the heart. The lyrical verses of the prayer interlace divine names and Quranic verses, mediated by the sounding of rāʾ with the aim of filling the heart with spiritual meaning. In Quranic terminology, adhered to in the Akbarian’s doctrine, the heart is the seat of faith, the place of witnessing, and the wellspring of intention.

The prayer’s structure prescribes certain words and good manners (adab) for approaching God, with the praise and glorification of God taking precedence. Although not explicitly written in this particular text, every prayer commonly starts with the basmala, a formula for praising God and mentioning His attributes, the Merciful and the Compassionate. Addressing the personal ‘my Lord’ (rabbī), the supplicant proceeds with states of humility, repentance, confession, neediness, gratefulness, and seeking good outcomes and noble traits, before ending the conversation by praising God and invoking blessings on the Prophet Muhammad.

The letter rāʾ prayer begins by invoking God’s subtle Lordship, affirming that the supplicant is in total need and submission, pleading for protection, guidance, and acceptance. As the name of the book suggests, the prayers of the letters entail an orientation, tawajjuh, meaning the turning of the face. In Sufi texts, the face (wajh pl. wujūh) relates to a variety of meanings, such as attention, will, and essence. Ibn ʿArabī states that God ‘possesses faces,’68 in reference to the verse, ‘Wherever you turn there is the face of Allah.’69 These prayers, therefore, express the desire of the supplicant to turn towards God, and that God would turn towards the supplicant. In his discourse on the shape of the letter lām-alif, Ibn ʿArabī contends that ‘turning to face’ (tawajjuh) is the condition of the impassioned one (maʿshūq) seeking out his or her object of passion (ʿāshiq).70 Thus, the letters are the material configuration of the words71 uttered in the prayers, conditioning this movement of orientation of lover and Beloved to each other.

The prepositions that weave together the verbs, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives can be seen as indicators of the servant’s orientation towards God. Of particular relevance is the often-repeated preposition ‘bi’ in the prayer. Ibn ʿArabī relates this preposition to humility and lowering oneself, which is the condition of servanthood. He says that ‘every humble person is broken’ and that the movement of prostration (sujūd) signifies servanthood.72 The sound /i/ from the vowel kasra (which means breakage) is often repeated throughout the letter rāʾ prayer, intimating the servant’s awareness of his or her broken nature.

The letter rāʾ is specifically associated with words that express its nature, such as spirit (rūḥ) and Mercy (raḥma), which are derived from the same roots. According to Ibn ʿArabī, ‘The cosmos is identical with Mercy, nothing else.’73 In the prayer, the supplicant seeks Mercy and requests harmony and guidance through Mercy´s intercession ‘by Her’ (bi-hāʾ). Raḥma, which shares a root with womb (raḥim), is repeatedly invoked as the grammatical feminine noun, through which such blessings may be bestowed. Additionally, as the first letter of the divine names al-Raḥmān and al-Raḥīm, the letter rāʾ in the prayer turns one’s attention to the encompassing nature of Mercy and how ‘all people and creatures end up with Mercy.’74 This echoes the Quran´s chapter al-Raḥmān, where one hears of the plentiful bounties bestowed by God in this world and the next. Both in the chapters al-Raḥmān and in the following al-Waqiʿa (‘The Inevitable’), there is a sense of freshness from the fountains and the extended shade in the gardens. Like in the prayer of the letter rāʾ, there is a desire for relief, repose, and proximity to God.

Based on Ibn ʿArabī´s description of the nature of letters, the three consonants that form the word rūḥ (spirit), rāʾ-wāw- ḥāʾ, indicate a movement of the breath of Mercy. The hot and dry rāʾ, the hot and moist wāw, and the wet and cool ḥāʾ illustrate a movement from the heat towards a fresh, fragrant, and fertile rest, as raḥma soothes all things.75 Ibn ʿArabī speaks of Mercy as bringing relief by ‘eliminating straightness and constriction,’ which are identical to non-existence.76 He describes this relief through Mercy as applying both to the divine names and to all beings. When a thing knows its possibilities but does not yet exist, it is in a state of constriction and only the Merciful´s breath can relieve it by bringing it into existence.77

In various chapters of the Futūḥāt, Ibn ʿArabī recurrently cites the prophetic saying, ‘A breath of the Merciful comes to me from Yemen,’ referring to the joy of relief after experiencing one’s chest constricted due to exile from homeland and enduring oppression.78 This leitmotif reappears in a qaṣīda in chapter 49 titled ‘A Breath of the Merciful’, echoing the earlier counsel to turn and follow the trace of God’s fragrant breath. In this poem, the letter rāʾ serves as the rawī, maintaining the sound /ri/ throughout the buyūt, accomplished through the grammatical form of lowering (khafḍ) indicated by the kasra.79 As previously mentioned, the repeated sound /i/ from the kasra vowel alludes to the servant’s awareness of his or her ‘lowly’ and ‘broken nature’. Notably, the poem reciter80 singled out the reason for choosing the letter rāʾ:81

‘ʿIbn Thābit said, “… My eyes and my breasts are impassioned by sleeplessness;

tears fall on my place of weeping and my place of pooling.”

Now, my mother was illiterate, related to the Anṣār, so I say:

For this I made his narrative a rāʾ, which

is one of the letters of restoration (raddi)82 and reiteration (takrār)83

…The choosing one alluded to the breath which

came to him from Yemen, at the fated moment.’

In the Tawajjuhat prayer, the letter rāʾ highlights the supplicant’s total dependency on his or her Lord for liberation from a state of constriction. Within the prayer, the recurrent verbalization of words with the letter rāʾ guides the supplicant towards humility, prostration, the recognition of his or her need for guidance and protection, and the recognition of the presence of Lordship (rubūbiyya) and the absolute lowliness of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya). There is a constant sense in the prayer that raḥma turns harshness into softness, difficulty into ease, and pain into delight. The concept of tawajjuh, or the turning of the face towards God, is illustrated by the verb raddada in a plea from the servant to be oscillated between desire and fear, alluding to the image of the heart being turned between God’s two fingers.84 Here, it is made clear that the position of the supplicant must be flexible, so that he or she does not ignore certain divine names by being fixed on a certain face.

This notion is further emphasized when, in the prayer, God is invoked as the Liberator of slaves (riqāb). However, a literal reading of this expression reveals the meaning of the Liberator of necks. The noun raqaba (pl. riqāb) also means ‘the nape of the neck’85 or ‘thick neck’.86 Riqāb appears several times in the Quran, mostly as a figure of speech to mean slave or bondsperson.87 The word is commonly associated with restriction and the necessity for humility. When the neck is shackled (bondsperson) and constricted, movement is impeded, preventing the individual from freely turning. Conversely, freedom of the neck allows the face to turn towards the signs of God, which in turn activates the senses of sight, smell, hearing, and taste. Therefore, a literal reading of this passage invites an understanding of the essence of tawajjuh and of the way that the letter rāʾ carries the Mercy that relieves fixity.

When God created Adam from clay with His two hands,88 He breathed unto him the breath of Mercy, relieving him of fixity and granting him life. Out of dry, fixed clay, into moist flexibility, humans were given the ability to move and to turn. To be hard and unmoving is to be dead. In his works, Ibn ʿArabī often points towards the need to understand polarities, such as those of the divine names, or what stands between ‘a yes and a no’.89 His writings on the faculty of imagination and the realm of barzakh imply the flexibility required in our attempt to perceive the lofty knowledge of what is and is not (existence and non-existence). The ritual prayer (salah) concludes with the action of turning one’s face to the right and then to the left, although the person’s orientation (qibla) remains fixed towards the Kaʿba, the ‘navel of the earth’ from which space and time unfold: ‘the place of the Placeless’.90 Here, we perceive an embodied orientation that remains flexible.

Tawajjuh, as an orientation, has a close connection to taqallub, a fluctuation, which in Sufi terminology is regarded as a property of the heart capable of turning and changing. The turning of the heart is what allows for the perception of the different divine names, and the plurality in the One. Therefore, the heart, neck, and face represent the faculties that turn towards the signs of God. Thus, a voyage, essentially, is an act of turning and orientating oneself. As Ibn ʿArabī describes, the Prophet’s night journey is undertaken ‘In order to show him some of Our signs.’91 Therefore, in the context of prayer, when the servant calls upon the Liberator of necks, he or she is not pleading to be freed from the essential condition of servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), but rather to be liberated from the restraints that prevent them from turning to witness and recognize the signs of God.

Both the prayer and the poem of the letter rāʾ convey a sense of movement akin to that of a simple pendulum, oscillating between the divine names or different directions or different faces. The imagery of an oscillating pendulum invites an imaginative vision of the supplicant–lover turning and moving between polarities in his or her desire for closeness with the divine. It is interesting to note that the Arabic word for pendulum (raqqāṣ) shares the same root (r-q-ṣ) with dance (raqṣ) and trembling heart (raqṣa). Just like the length of the pendulum’s thread influences its oscillation period, a longer thread requires more time to complete each oscillation, while a shorter thread results in shorter swings between the opposites. The magnitude of oscillations decreases as the mass at the bottom of the pendulum’s thread approaches the dot from which it hangs and depends. We can thus see the human being as the swinging pendulum that dances between the opposite aspects of creation, pleading to be brought closer to his or her Beloved. The closer to the source of the pendulum’s thread, the faster the tawajjuh, and the more frequent the awareness of the polarities. A long thread implies hanging far from the source, potentially necessitating a lifetime to complete a single swing. On the other hand, a constricted pendulum loses its ability to oscillate at all. Thus, the prayer of the letter rāʾ speaks of the servant’s need to be liberated from the shackles that hinder his or her continuous turning and swinging.

This also applies to the understanding of the Quran, as Ibn ʿArabī states, ‘Every revealed verse has two senses (wajh): A sense which they see within themselves and a sense which they see outside of themselves.’92 The breath of the Merciful blows and moves the pendulum, relieving it from fixity. Furthermore, raḥma is the movement that pulls and shortens the pendulum’s thread, drawing the lover closer to the Beloved. As the servant turns his or her attention to the signs within himself or herself and on the horizon, it is worth observing that a pendulum does not always move in a single linear trajectory. Due to the earth’s rotation, it appears to change trajectory and actually draws different lines within a circle, thereby encountering different pairs of opposites at different times. Similarly, the servant at different times may be turning to different pairs of letters, signs, or divine names. These variations in the pendulum’s movement stem from the forces of gravity and inertia, which exert a pull from the center of the earth and a pull from the origin where it hangs from, just like the human being experiences the pull between spirit and clay.

Sufis speak of direct knowledge from God (maʿrifa), which entails both outwardness and inwardness at the same time, and opposites are resolved in God. Thus, Ibn ʿArabī recounts that it had been asked of Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. AD 899):

‘”Through what have you known God?” He replied, “Through the fact that He brings opposites together.” So every entity qualified by existence is it/not it. The whole cosmos is He/not He. The Real manifest through form is He/not He. He is the limited who is not limited, the seen who is not seen.’93

The same statement is also cited in the Futūḥāt’s chapter 24, titled ‘Existence-Based Knowledge,’ where it concludes with, ‘Then he [al-Kharrāz] recited, “He is the First, and the Last, and the Outward, and the Inward.”’94 Considering the potential confusion that may arise from turning back and forth between opposites, the supplicant petitions God to guide his or her perplexity. The pulsating movement of a pendulum appears in the poem, marking different moments of revelation. It says ‘waqtan…waqtan’, indicating the shifting nature of perception, that at one time something is perceived, and at another time something else comes into awareness.

‘One time (waqtan) he says, ‘I am the single one,

and I do not see other than me!’ And another time (waqtan), ‘O me, you never ignored!’’

All three buyūt of the poem end with the letter lām-alif,95 which signifies proximity. Comparable to the prayer of the lām-alif in the Tawajjuhāt, the servant proclaims, ‘Until it does not exist in me a vision of other except You.’96 In the first bayt, Ibn ʿArabī writes that the letter rāʾ resides in the station of union (maqām al-wiṣāl). The notion of waṣl, denoting a joining or union between two, implies a sense of duality. This alludes to the Quran verse (57:4): ‘He is with you wherever you are,’ emphasizing God’s perpetual state of waṣl with created beings.97 The shape of the lām-alif (لا) visually represents an embrace between the two letters, symbolizing the desire expressed in the prayer and the poem for closeness (qurb) and intimacy (uns) between servant and God, the lover and the Beloved. In the prayer, one feels the thread of the pendulum becoming increasingly shorter, moving towards the desired union. The shared root of insān (person) and uns (intimacy) reflects the essential desire of human beings for such intimacy. However, this movement towards closeness is not realized by the servant´s own effort or merit, but only through the Beloved´s Mercy.

Due to the semantic and symbolic meanings it carries, the letter rāʾ serves as a means for accessing vast spiritual knowledge. In this sense, the letter acts as an intermediary in both the prayer and poem, leading to a heartfelt awareness that ‘God is closer than the jugular vein (warīd).’ As mentioned previously, warīd also means the first flowers and it resonates beautifully with the evocation of the sweet fragrance (rayḥān)98 in the prayer. The word ‘fragrance’, which is often found in many Sufi texts, hints at a blissful trace of the Beloved’s presence. In the poem, this trace leads to the lām-alif embrace at the end of each bayt, symbolizing union and reunion.

When the alif and the lām unite, they form a shape resembling the letter hāʾ (ه) at the base of the embrace.99 Therefore, the lām-alif (لا) is seen as containing all the letters of the word Allah (alif, lām, and hāʾ). The lām-alif is considered by Ibn ʿArabī to be the beginning and the end of everything,100 just as all begins and ends with raḥma. Thus, poetically, one sees how it all begins and ends with the Merciful embrace. In the last bayt of the poem Ibn ʿArabī states that ‘If your heart were with your Lord in this way, you would be someone brought so close…most complete (akmal).’ Moving from a perception of not seeing other than me to not seeing other than You, the twirling embrace of the lām-alif represents the mutual turning of the lover and the Beloved towards one another. Chodkiewicz reminds us that ‘Taken to its farthest degree, ʿubūdiyya is cancelled out, is reabsorbed into ʿubūda, which is pure presence with God, with no trace of duality,’ and that perfect prayer therefore happens when ‘The person who prays is absent, leaving all the place to God.’101

6. Conclusions

This article has presented an overview of the contemplation of Tawajjuhāt al-ḥurūf using the example of the fourteenth letter to illustrate a thematic example of the entire series. Through a close reading of the prayer jointly with the poem on the letter rāʾ in the Futūḥāt, several key themes have emerged, and we have outlined a few prominent ones. The recurring sound of the letter rāʾ in the prayer, as well as in the poems found in chapters 49 and 330 of the Futūḥāt, directs our attention back to the function of the alphabet and the power of language in relation to the origins of existence, the revelation of the Quran, and the role of human beings. While the poetic medium condenses these ideas mnemonically, the language of the prayer is direct. In both modes of expression, the speakers are able to express themselves earnestly and eloquently.

In Akbarian cosmology, letters are the fundamental building blocks of creation, originating from the divine sigh that brings forth beings from the Mist, from this state of potentiality into manifestation. The divine exhalation, known as the breath of the Merciful (nafas al-raḥmān), that continually maintains the existence of the universe, corresponds to the human speech. Throughout the Futūḥāt, Ibn ʿArabī elucidates how the letters correspond to the various levels of existence and action of the cosmos. The letters serve as a means of accessing a whole range of knowledge due to their semantic and symbolic meanings. Notably, Ibn ʿArabī encourages his students to learn about the letters and experience them for themselves. The collection of twenty-nine prayers in the Tawajjuhāt focuses the attention and intention of the spiritual aspirants on their own process of personal transformation through contemplation. In this practice, the science of letters does not have any real connection with the magical significance of letters, which Ibn ʿArabī recognizes as effective while also warning of the dangers.102 Rather, the science demonstrates key ideas in the Akbarian tradition; namely, the metaphysics of Mercy.

In this article, the letter rāʾ has been contemplated as an orientation or guide in the oscillating movement towards intimacy, following the sweet fragrant traces towards the Merciful embrace. Since in the Akbarian tradition prayers and poems are forms of condensed wisdom and teaching, it would be insightful to see in the future more explorations of intertextuality between these two textual expressions regarding the other letters of the Arabic alphabet.