The Queen of Sheba in the Mystical Thought of Ibn ‘Arabī

Abstract

The mystical commentary on the story of Bilqīs, the Queen of Sheba, from chapter 27 of the Qur’an carried out by the highly influential Sufi thinker Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240), shows that he differs radically from exoteric Sunni exegetes. The principal reason for this is Ibn ‘Arabī’s complete reliance on spiritual unveiling (kashf) as a hermeneutic tool. In the chapter on Sulaymān of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, Ibn ‘Arabī represents Bilqīs as the most perspicuous instantiation of the divine Name, “the Compassionate” (Al-Raḥmān). It is the divine trait of compassion, says Ibn ‘Arabī, that provides the existentiating impetus required to bring forth the entire cosmos. Due to her personification of this trait, Bilqīs’ ascent to the pinnacle of gnosis and her ontological superiority over her peers is extolled by Ibn ‘Arabī in her Qur’anic story.

1. Introduction

Bilqīs, the Queen of Sheba, has provoked the interest, not only of pre-modern scholars in the exoteric Sunni exegetical tradition (Ibn Kathīr 1998; Ibn Sulaymān 2003; Al-Ṭabarī 2005), but also of modern thinkers who have sought to understand her role and significance (Lamrabet 2016, pp. 25–35; Stowasser 1994, pp. 62–66). Recent scholarship has attempted to explain and come to terms with the divergent depictions of Bilqīs, attributing them to authorial accretions (Lala 2022c). This article analyses the mystical interpretation of the story of Bilqīs by arguably the most influential Sufi thinker in Islam, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240).1

Some have misinterpreted Ibn ‘Arabī’s compassionate inclusivism as ecumenical universalism thereby deracinating him and etiolating much of his juristic vigour (Corbin 1969, 1997; Geoffroy 2010, p. 95; Guénon 2004, p. 63; Nicholson 2002, pp. 88–89; Ibn ‘Arabī 2021, p. xxviii). Gregory Lipton has shown, however, that such perennialism is quite at odds with the Sufi’s intentions (Lipton 2018, pp. 24–34).2 Indeed, Lipton demonstrates that it is the Western gaze’s self-satisfaction with its own perception of spirituality that it imposes on other traditions, thereby foisting its culture on the Other under the guise of ‘culturelessness’ (Lipton 2018, p. 179). This is as true for the treatment Ibn ‘Arabī suffers through the perennialist lens as it is for other non-Western scholars. Yet it requires forcing Ibn ‘Arabī to fall in line with the Orientalist Procrustean paradigm, as Lipton observes,

Ibn ‘Arabi’s recourse to revealed law is tolerated within perennialist discourse only as long as he is anachronistically understood to “transcend” religious and political rivalry and thus pluralistically acknowledge the contradictory truth claims and practices of other traditions by situating them as secondary and accidental.

(Lipton 2018, p. 179)

Lipton shows that while “Ibn ‘Arabi is discursively open about his religious exclusivism”, Western scholars such as Frithjof Schuon and Immanuel Kant ‘conceal theirs within so-called universal discourses that claim to holistically include all (true) religions by acknowledging their essential core’ (Lipton 2018, p. 181). But Lipton clearly displays that “the modern Western conceit of ‘religion’ as a universally transcendent essence cannot exist in vacuo” (Lipton 2018, p. 182). So while many of Ibn ‘Arabī’s opinions and positions may appeal to modern readers vis-à-vis religious universalism in general and Islamic feminism in particular, one must be chary of the anachronistic assertions that he was applying feminist hermeneutics to the Qur’anic text. This is all the more important as such claims stand in direct opposition to the Andalusian’s proclamation that he did not actually write some of his works, including the one under consideration here.

“This is the book of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, take it, and go with it to people so they may benefit from it” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 47). It was Prophet Muḥammad who said these words to Ibn ‘Arabī in a dream.3 A book from the Prophet of God himself is how Ibn ‘Arabī describes the Fuṣūṣ in his introduction to it. To this, he claims, he neither added nor deleted a word (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 47). This sets up a stark contrast with exoteric Sunni tafsīrs because whereas they have to delineate their methodology of exegesis and justify why their model is the most correct (Saleh 2010), the Andalusian Sufi is unencumbered by such trivial concerns. His interpretation has to be the most correct because it is not his at all—it came from the Prophet.4 In this regard, he is effecting the same sort of elevation of Qur’anic interpretation that Taqī al-Dīn ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) intends (Saleh 2010, p. 128) when he recasts it from being hermeneutical to epistemological (Saleh 2010, p. 143), but the Sufi does so in a completely different way.

Gershom Scholem explains how the mystical experience—what Ibn ‘Arabī calls kashf, or “spiritual unveiling”—in effect becomes a continuation of the revelation that is afforded to non-prophets. As such, it becomes divinely-ordained exegesis without competing with or intruding upon the sacred text. On the contrary, it becomes a divine exegesis of Scripture (Scholem 1995, p. 28). It is telling that Ibn ‘Arabī, in describing his vision, uses the prophetically-designated Qur’anic terms “mubashshira” (glad tidings)5 and “unzila” (revealed) (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, pp. 47–48),6 thereby at once declaring his obedience to the Prophet and continuing his divinely-inspired message in a non-prophetic capacity.7

There are those who, understandably, question Ibn ‘Arabī’s claim that the Fuṣūṣ was handed to him by the Prophet. Abū’l-‘Alā’ ‘Afīfī writes that Ibn ‘Arabī, far from using his metaphysics to explain the true meaning of the Qur’an, uses the Qur’an to further his pantheistic metaphysics (‘Afifī 1939, p. 402). He attributes deliberate enterprise to the Sufi and insinuates that he surreptitiously hijacked the sacred text.8 Yet he simultaneously asserts that the mystic wrote the works under divine ”influence” (ta’thīr) or some kind of “revelation” (waḥy) or “[divine] inspiration” (ilhām) (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, pp. 10–11). If ‘Afīfī’s contradictory assertions undercut his own critique of Ibn ‘Arabī, there are others who seem to embrace the paradox in Ibn ‘Arabī’s writing. Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd alleges that at times Ibn ‘Arabī wrote under divine inspiration, and at others, under his own steam (Abū Zayd 1998, p. 257). It is this that gives his work the hue of inscrutability of which it is so infamous, whereas ‘Afīfī asseverates that it is deliberate obfuscation (Abū Zayd 2002, p. 135; Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, pp. 9–10).

The assertion that Ibn ‘Arabī deliberately sought to exploit the Qur’an to advance his own pantheistic ideas has been seriously called into question by recent scholarship (Chittick 1994; Mayer 2008; Sharify-Funk and Rory-Dickson 2013, pp. 157–58). The remaining debate about when and to what extent he wrote under divine inspiration, in many ways, misses the point. Ibn ‘Arabī clearly believed that he was divinely inspired when he wrote the Fuṣūṣ,9 and, for him, it was the deeper meaning of the Qur’an. But this does not mean that it is the only meaning of the Qur’an. Recent research has elaborated on how Ibn ‘Arabī operates at two levels of exegesis: one for the vulgum pecus, which is the ostensible (ẓāhir) meaning of the Qur’an, and one for the spiritually-enlightened, for whom he discloses the deeper meaning (Lala 2022a, 2022b). Without undermining the ostensible meaning and without addressing the inherent contradiction between it and the deeper meaning, Ibn ‘Arabī holds both meanings to be concurrently true.10 Every major prophet in the Qur’an has, for Ibn ‘Arabī, a pivotal moment, event, interaction, or quality that constitutes the essence of his prophecy. The pivotal moment or quality and the knowledge derived from it constitute the ostensible (ẓāhir) Qur’anic message. While maintaining the legitimacy of this message, Ibn ‘Arabī excavates an esoteric, inner (bāṭin) message, or wisdom (ḥikma), that seems—in many cases—contradictory to the ostensible one. This is central to the current study because the wisdom of Sulaymān for Ibn ‘Arabī is that of compassion (raḥmāniyya). Yet it is not Sulaymān who is the most perspicuous bearer of this wisdom, it is Bilqīs.

2. Method

In order to carry out a forensic analysis of how Bilqīs is portrayed by Ibn ‘Arabī in the chapter on Sulaymān in the Fuṣūṣ, this study considers three key moments in the narrative. But before these three key moments are considered, and before the reasons for their selection are delineated, a brief overview of the story, as presented in verses Q27:20–44, is in order:

The story begins when Sulaymān, who has dominion over animals and jinns,11 as well as the majority of humans, notices the absence of a hoopoe. Sulaymān resolves to punish the hoopoe but it exculpates itself from blame by stating that it has brought news of great import that Sulaymān is not privy to: there is a vast sun-worshipping people ruled by a woman with a magnificent throne in Yemen. Sulaymān accepts this news as a valid excuse for the hoopoe’s absence and sends it with a letter bidding the people and their queen to come to him in submission. Upon receiving the letter, Bilqīs, the queen, consults her advisors who recommend military action. She, nevertheless, sends Sulaymān placatory gifts in order to assess his reaction. Sulaymān is infuriated by the attempt to buy his allegiance. Realising that her diplomacy has failed, the queen and her army march to Sulaymān in submission.

In order to test her, Sulaymān has the majestic throne of Bilqīs transported to him and its jewels reconfigured. He then asks her whether her throne is like the one presented before her to which she replies that it is as though it were the very one. Due to reasons that are unclear, Sulaymān then has a palace of glass constructed with water flowing under it. Bilqīs is asked to enter the palace and folds her garment in order to prevent it getting wet, exposing her legs in the process. Sulaymān apprises her that the water is shallow and has glass under it so she will not get wet. When she hears this, she becomes a believer.

Ibn ‘Arabī identifies three key moments in this story that display the cosmic importance of Bilqīs. It is on these moments that our analysis will focus:

• The reception of and reaction to Sulaymān’s letter. The analysis of this point in the narrative will include: the mystical significance of the letter, Bilqīs’ reaction to the letter, and the importance of Bilqīs’ course of action upon receiving the letter.
• Seeing her throne. The analysis of this will include: Bilqīs’ reaction to seeing her throne, the possible meaning behind her enigmatic response to seeing it, and the true significance of her response.
• The events of the glass palace. The analysis of this will include: the reason behind Sulaymān’s constructing the glass palace, the reason for Bilqīs exposing her legs, why Bilqīs became a believer, and why she submitted in the way she did.

3. Discussion

In the chapter on Sulaymān in the Fuṣūṣ, Ibn ‘Arabī writes that the hidden wisdom of the eponymous prophet is compassion (raḥmāniyya); yet, his analysis seems to dedicate an inordinate amount of space to Bilqīs. In his excavation of this hidden wisdom, Ibn ‘Arabī identifies the aforementioned three moments as being key to understanding the cosmic importance of Bilqīs, and how her importance relates to Sulaymān.

3.1. The Reception of and Reaction to Sulaymān’s Letter

“And Bilqīs said about it [the letter], ‘I have been sent a respectful letter,’ that is, respectful to her” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 151). The letter that Sulaymān sent to Bilqīs, for Ibn ‘Arabī, epitomises the wisdom of the entire chapter. There is an evident shift in tone from most of the exoteric commentaries that attribute respectability to the letter, and by extension, to the writer, Sulaymān, not to the way in which it is respectful to Bilqīs—and why she merits such respect (Ibn Kathīr 1998; Ibn Sulaymān 2003; Al-Ṭabarī 2005). But it is in the way that Ibn ‘Arabī extrapolates from these mundane events issues of cosmic importance that we see the real value he places in the wisdom of Bilqīs. The letter, for Ibn ‘Arabī, does not only betoken the queen’s exalted rank; her reaction to it shows “Bilqīs’ wisdom and her soaring knowledge (‘ulū ‘ilmihā)” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 154). In not mentioning who the letter was from, Bilqīs exhibits her power over her subjects. By omitting details, she projects awareness, for as Ibn ‘Arabī apprises us, “she only did that so her companions would know that she has connections to matters, the course of which they do not know” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 154), whereas she is portrayed in the Sunni exoteric commentaries of Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) and ‘Imād al-Dīn ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373) as fickle and indecisive (Ibn Kathīr 1998, vol 3, p. 481; Al-Ṭabarī 2005, vol. 9, p. 514), someone who merely inherited her position (Ibn Kathīr 1998, vol. 3, p. 480; Al-Ṭabarī 2005, vol. 9, p. 513). Ibn ‘Arabī ascribes to this act profound, almost otherworldly wisdom, by which “she merited precedence over them” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 155).

The Andalusian Sufi explains that everything about the wisdom of Sulaymān is to do with his manifestation of divine mercy. Yet, mercy, for Ibn ‘Arabī, is of two kinds. He defines these as:

… the mercy of gracious bestowal (raḥmat al-imtinān) and the mercy of obligation (raḥmat al-wujūb), which are [from the divine Names:] the Compassionate (Al-Raḥmān) and the Merciful (Al-Raḥīm). So He graciously bestows by the Name, the Compassionate, and He is obligated by the Name, the Merciful, but this obligation comes from gracious bestowal, thus, [the Name] the Merciful is contained within [the Name] the Compassionate.

(Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 151)

Due to Sulaymān’s mentioning of these two divine Names in his letter to Bilqīs, Ibn ‘Arabī believes he was given both these types of mercy. Ibn ‘Arabī’s fidelity to linguistic accuracy and his ability to tether it to a deeper mystical significance is borne out in this interpretation. For the Sufi recognises that the Name “the Compassionate” (Al-Raḥmān) is far more emphatic than the Name “the Merciful” (Al-Raḥīm). In this, he is in agreement with other grammarians, such as Abu’l-Qāsim al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), who writes that Al-Raḥmān “has intensification (mubālagha) that Al-Raḥīm does not,” because it refers to mercy in this world and the next, as opposed to Al-Raḥīm, which only pertains to mercy in this world (Al-Zamakhsharī 1987, vol. 1, p. 6).

The mercy of gracious bestowal, according to Ibn ‘Arabī, is the mercy that proceeds from the uncontrollable outpouring (fayḍ) of God and brings everything into existence. The divine creative force is thus divine mercy, and everything in existence, by the very fact that it exists, is a recipient and a manifestation of this mercy. The mercy of obligation, on the other hand, has an ethical dimension in that it is warranted by acts of piety (Nettler 1978). Sachiko Murata expatiates on the difference between these Names, and the primariness of the Name, “the Compassionate” (Al-Raḥmān), when she remarks that

Ibn al-‘Arabî and his followers distinguish between the fundamental mercy of God, called the mercy of the All-merciful (al-rahmân), and the secondary mercy of God, called the mercy of the All-compassionate (al-rahîm). The first permeates all things, while the second may be held back. The second manifests itself most clearly in paradise.

(Murata 1992, p. 55)

The reason Ibn ‘Arabī believes Sulaymān’s wisdom is of compassion (raḥmāniyya) and not mercy (raḥīmiyya), or of gracious bestowal and not obligation, is because although Sulaymān asked God for sovereignty, and the dominion that he was given was in response to that, which seems to be a straightforward case of the mercy of obligation, God still declared, “This is Our gift, so bestow or withhold, without reckoning” (Qur’an, 38:39). Ibn ‘Arabī writes,

A gift is something the giver grants as a favour (in‘ām); it is not something that is in accordance with an agreement (wifāq), nor is it based on merit (istiḥqāq). So it is a complete favour (al-ni‘ma al-sābigha), an undisputable proof (al-ḥujja al-bāligha), and an incontestable stroke (al-ḍarba al-dāmigha) [of blessing].

(Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 156)

This gift was simply granted to Sulyamān by God, not in response to something that was agreed upon or because he earned it on account of some deed, but “purely because his preparedness merited it,” observes Nūr al-Dīn al-Jāmī (d. 898/1492), an important commentator on Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fuṣūṣ (Al-Jāmī 2009, p. 373). This, in turn, was because Sulaymān himself was a gift from God to his father, Dāwūd, according to Ibn ‘Arabī (2002, p. 156). The classification of the sovereignty afforded Sulaymān as a “gift,” Ibn ‘Arabī argues, was also because he was commanded to make such a supplication:

We know from spiritual tasting on the path (dhawq al-ṭarīq) that his [Sulaymān’s] asking for that [sovereignty] was a command from his Lord. And if a request is made due to a divine command, the one who asks is given full reward for his request.

(Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 158)

This leads the Sufi to regard the sovereignty Sulaymān was granted as an amalgamation of divine compassion and divine mercy, or of mercy that is graciously bestowed and mercy that is obligated by supplication. And because the latter is contained within the former, the wisdom of Sulaymān is that of compassion.

These two types of mercy are epitomised for Ibn ‘Arabī in the attachment of Sulaymān to Bilqīs and Āṣaf ibn Barkhiya, Sulaymān’s scribe who transported Bilqīs’ throne; the former is an emblem of gracious bestowal, the latter of obligation, or the former is a symbol of ontological mercy and the latter is a symbol of emotive mercy. Yet, this emotive mercy was contained within ontological mercy, of which Bilqīs is the clearest symbol. This is why Ibn ‘Arabī begins his explanation of the wisdom of Sulaymān in Naqd al-nuṣūṣ—his own summary of the Fuṣūṣ12—with the statement: “Since she [Bilqīs] was for him, without knowing it, she said forcefully, ‘Surely, it is a noble letter’” (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 140). It was because Bilqīs was chosen by God to believe in Sulaymān’s message, writes Al-Jāmī, that she recognised the nobility of Sulaymān’s letter (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 140). Sulaymān and Bilqīs had “an innate connection (munāsaba fiṭriyya) of similarity (mujānasa)” (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 140), which meant that, not only did she become a believer, she also became Sulaymān’s wife.

Ibn ‘Arabī suggests that Bilqīs personifies the trait of compassion because she saves her people from destruction at the hands of Sulaymān and his army in the same way the ant (in the same chapter of the Qur’an) saved its colony from Sulaymān and his army (Qur’an, 27:18). It was “the wisdom of Bilqīs and her sublime knowledge (‘uluw ‘ilmihā)” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 154) that enabled her to rescue her people from this fate, thereby becoming an instantiation of divine compassion because she, in a way, gave her people life when she did this; she “existentiated” them, and in so doing, became a personification of the divine Name, Al-Raḥmān.

3.2. Seeing Her Throne

Another reason Bilqīs is an emblem of the Name, Al-Raḥmān, according to Ibn ‘Arabī, is that she comes to recognise the existentiating power underpinning ostensible reality due to the incident with her throne. Ibn ‘Arabī writes,

When Bilqīs saw her throne, despite her knowledge of the great distance and the impossibility of it being transported in that time in her opinion, She said, “it is as though it were the very one” (Qur’an, 27:42), and she believed in what we mentioned about renewal of creation by likenesses (tajdīd al-khalq bi’l-amthāl).13

(Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, pp. 156–57)

This is the same realisation to which the Sufi draws attention in the Naqd, remarking, “And because she said about her throne, ‘it is as though it were the very one,’ [it enables] detection of her knowledge about the renewal of creation in every moment” (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 142). It was the perpetual regeneration of the cosmos, explicates Ibn ‘Arabī, that was responsible for the throne of Bilqīs miraculously appearing in the court of Sulaymān:

In that moment Sulaymān, peace be upon him, saw with his own eyes the throne of Bilqīs established in front of him, so that he would not imagine that he was seeing it whilst it was in its place without being transported. In our opinion, there is no such thing as transportation [from one place to another] in the same moment. And it was only disappearance [in one place] and reappearance [in another] in a way that no one perceived, except he who was made aware of it [by God].

(Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 155)

As all phenomenally existent beings, says Ibn ‘Arabī, are recreated each moment, the throne of Bilqīs was not transported at all, it was just that the recreation occurred in the court of Sulaymān instead of its original location. The Andalusian credits the Ash‘arites with getting this right,14 but where they fall short, he argues, is that they do not recognise that all accidents (a‘rāḍ) which are perpetually recreated have the same underlying substance (jawhar) (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 156).15 It is this perpetual creation that Bilqīs becomes aware of when she sees her throne in the court of Sulaymān. Her reply of, “it is as though it were the very one,” when asked whether her throne was like the one she was presented with, displayed that she had become cognisant of the true nature of reality as a continuous renewal of creation. This is because she did not state that it was actually the one, says Ibn ‘Arabī, instead using the “kāf of comparison (kāf al-tashbīh)” (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 142). Elaborating on this point, ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (d. 736/1335?), the hugely influential commentator of Ibn ‘Arabī,16 adds that the reason Bilqīs makes this distinction is “a renewal of the likeness (mathal) [is] not a renewal of the thing itself (‘ayn)” (Al-Qāshānī 1892, p. 198).

Ibn ‘Arabī maintains that everything in phenomenal reality is a new creation in one sense, created for the first time each instant, but it is not a new creation in another sense because the underlying divine substance is the same. Upon seeing her throne in the court of Sulaymān, Bilqīs becomes aware of the enduring renewal of creation, but she does not yet fully grasp that there is a divine substance that underpins all these renewals. It is to apprise her of this that Sulaymān constructs the glass palace (Qur’an, 27:44).

3.3. The Events of the Glass Palace

After Bilqīs’ astute response to seeing her throne, which showcased her attainment of the reality of the perpetual renewal of creation, Sulaymān constructs a glass palace. Revealing the significance of this event, Ibn ‘Arabī writes in the Naqd,

He [Sulaymān] showed her the glass palace as if it had deep water [running under it], but it did not have deep water, just as the throne that was seen was not the same throne in terms of its [physical] form, but the substance (jawhar) was the same.

(Al-Jāmī 2005, pp. 142–43)

The appearance of the throne as a renewal of creation was reflected in the flickering water that Bilqīs saw in the glass palace. When she observed the water, she appreciated that this was the nature of reality, but she turned up her dress, believing that the shallow water was deep, that it was the only reality, without appreciating that these renewals take place within the same divine substance that lies beneath them and remains unseen, just as the glass beneath the shallow water was unseen. Sulaymān’s apprising her that the water was actually shallow and that it only appeared deep because she could not see the glass beneath, made her realise that there is a divine substrate that lies beneath the ostensible façade of physical reality in the form of renewals (Al-Jāmī 2005, p. 143). Al-Qāshānī and ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413?) make clear in their respective Sufi lexicons (Al-Jurjānī 1845, p. 83; Al-Qāshānī 1992, p. 43) that, according to Ibn ‘Arabī, the perpetual renewal of creation takes place in the same divine substance (jawhar). It is this realisation of the existentiating divine power, the ontological divine mercy that underpins reality, which, along with her saving of her people, makes her the clearest instantiation of the divine Name Al-Raḥmān.

Yet even in her acceptance of Islam, Ibn ‘Arabī sees her superiority over male counterparts, as she declares, “I submit with Sulaymān to Allah, Lord of the worlds” (Qur’an, 27:44). The Sufi is quick to point out that “she did not submit to Sulaymān, she submitted to Allah, Lord of the worlds” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 157). Moreover, the deliberate use of the preposition “with,” says Ibn ‘Arabī, is significant because, had she predicated her faith on Sulaymān’s belief, as did Pharaoh when he proclaimed that he believed in “the Lord of Mūsā and Hārūn” (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 157), her faith would have been predicated on Sulaymān’s faith. In announcing that she believes with Sulaymān, she removed any barrier between her and God.

4. Conclusions

The mystical exegesis of Ibn ‘Arabī regarding Bilqīs’ interaction with Sulaymān and her conversion to Islam shows that his interpretation stands in stark contrast to that of his exoteric Sunni counterparts (Ibn Kathīr 1998; Ibn Sulaymān 2003; Al-Ṭabarī 2005). By elucidating that Bilqīs was the most pellucid manifestation of divine compassion, and in extolling this attribute, which for him is the highest of all divine attributes as all others are subsumed under it (Izutsu 1983, pp. 99–107), he adverts to the cosmic significance of Bilqīs. Where some exoteric exegetes see “feminine” indecision (Ibn Kathīr 1998, vol. 3, p. 481; Al-Ṭabarī 2005, vol. 9, p. 514), the Sufi perceives mystical wisdom (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, p. 155); where they see undeserved sovereignty (Ibn Kathīr 1998, vol. 3, p. 480; Al-Ṭabarī 2005, vol. 9, p. 513), he discerns ontological superiority (Ibn ‘Arabī 2002, pp. 154–55).

The test of seeing her throne and the events of the glass palace, which are explained through a matrix of “legitimate” male domination and quiet female acquiescence in exoteric commentaries (Ibn Kathīr 1998, vol. 3, p. 486; Al-Ṭabarī 2005, vol. 9, pp. 529–30), are seen as gradations of mystical progress, first in the cognisance of the perpetual renewal of creation through the trial of the throne and then in the awareness of the unity of the divine substrate in which the renewal occurs through the events of the glass palace. Even her eventual conversion is carefully extricated from predication on Sulaymān.

There are many potential reasons why Ibn ‘Arabī’s exegesis differs so fundamentally from exoteric Sunni commentaries: his method of exegesis is radically different to that of his counterparts. Relying solely on mystical unveiling (kashf), he “posits the epistemological priority of mystical insight” (Shaikh 2012, p. 66) and is less vulnerable to cultural and social biases.17 In addition, the Sufi acknowledges the ongoing interpretability of the Qur’an due to his ongoing spiritual unveilings, which means his mystical hermeneutics is far less static than that of the more exoteric exegetes (Bauer 2015, p. 19). Elaborating on this, Sa‘diyya Shaikh observes that “Ibn ‘Arabī’s multiple interpretations of gender thus point to the fluid nature of a Sufi method where deeper layers of meaning are always present in seemingly fixed phenomena” (Shaikh 2012, p. 115). This is not to suggest that Ibn ‘Arabī was not affected by or susceptible to the cultural and social biases of his time, he was a man “grounded in a patriarchal context” (Shaikh 2012, p. 119); yet, his radical mystical hermeneutics allows for a degree of freedom that makes him less vulnerable to these powerful biases.

This study demonstrates that Ibn ‘Arabī’s analysis of the cosmic significance of Bilqīs as a manifestation of God’s highest Name has to be included as part of the exegetical literature on her in order to impart a comprehensive portrait of how she was perceived in Muslim intellectual history, as opposed to the parochial picture that is offered by the exoteric tradition alone. Thus, the impact of this study, lies in compelling us to take another look at the tradition in toto so that hitherto held convictions about the status of Bilqīs specifically, and women more generally, in the commentary tradition are challenged.