Ibn 'Arabi's Polished Mirror: Perspective Shift and Meaning Event

While looking at a smudged mirror what the viewer sees is the mirror. If in the act of looking the mirror is simultaneously polished, a perspective shift occurs. The mirror is no longer noticed at all, only the image of the viewer reflected in it. Vision (the viewing by a subject of an outside object) has become self-vision. In the beginning of his Fusiis al-Hikam (Ring Settings of Wisdom), (1) Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi employs the above image to remarkable effect as a symbol of the mystical perspective shift. This shift is reflected in his notion of the perfect man or complete human being (al-insdn al-kamil). (2 ) The focus of this essay is not so much the theory of the complete human being, i.e. what is said, (3) but rather how