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RENEWING OF CREATION AT EACH INSTANT T

expression of all possible succession, then it is said that
the “projection’ of the archetype into existence is
renewed at each instant in such a way that the same
state of “reflected” existence never subsists. Thus a
relative being is subject to continual annihilation and
continual renewal. In his Fusus al-Hikam Muhyi-d-Din
ibn ‘Arabi writes that “man does not spontaneously
arrive at a clear idea of the fact that at each ‘breath’
he is not and then again is (lam yakun thumma kana).
And, if I say, ‘then’, I am not supposing any temporal
interval but only a purely logical succession. In ‘the
Renewing of Creation at each breath’ the instant of
annihilation coincides with the instant of the mani-
festation of its like (mathal)” (from the Chapter on
Solomon). In the same sense °‘Abd ar-Razzaq al-
Qashani! writes in his commentary on The Wisdom of
the Prophets that “there is no temporal interval between
annihilation and remanifestation so that we do not
perceive any interruption between two analogous and
successive creations, and thus existence appears to us
to be homogeneous.” According to Muhyi-d-Din ibn
‘Arabi this illusion of continuity is “expressed by the
saying in the Quran that ‘they are deceived by a new
creation,”’? which means that for them not an instant
passes without their perceiving what they perceive . .. ”
(The Wisdom of the Prophets). This recalls the Buddhist
parable which compares existence to the flame of an

1. A Thirteenth Century Sufi master who wrote a commentary on the
Fusus al-Hikam of 1bn ‘Arabi,

2. ““Are We exhausted by the first creation ? Assuredly they are deceived
by a new creation” (L. 14).