72 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

The arguments adduced by certain philosophers
against the existence of the Platonic ‘Ideas’ fall comp-
letely to the ground if it is understood that these ‘Ideas’
have no existence, as Ibn ‘Arabi puts it, or in other
words that they are not of the nature of distinct subs-
tances and constitute only possibilities inherent in the
Intellect and principially inherent in the Divine Essence.
Further, the whole of the philosophical discussions on
““universals > proceeds from a confusion between arche-
types and their reflections on a purely mental level.
It is clear that, as mental forms, general ideas are only
pure abstractions, but to establish this does not touch
the Platonic archetypes or “Ideas”, since these are
only intellectual dispositions or possibilities, possibili-
ties presupposed by the ‘“abstractions” which without
them would be wholly lacking in intrinsic truth. To
deny the “immutable essences ”’, the source of all rela-
tive knowledge, would be like denying space on the
pretext that it has no spatial form. In fact the arche-
types are never manifested as such either in the sensory
or in the mental field. None theless everything within
those fields comes back, principially, to them. If we
seek to grasp them they elude distinctive vision; they
can only be known intuitively, either through their
symbols or by indentification with the Divine Essence.

Here let it be noted that the expression dhikr in the
Quran means “memory >’ in the Platonic sense of reflect-
ed knowledge of the archetypes, with this shade of diffe-
rence that the word dhikr means literally ‘“mention .
Thus the Quranic phrase fadhkuruni adhkurkum (11, 152)