Ibn ʿArabī on the Circle of Trusteeship and the Divine Name al-Wakīl

With special reference to chapters 119 and 558 of the Meccan Revelations , the article draws out Ibn ʿ⁠Arabī’s (d. 638/1240) understanding of the divine Name al-Wakīl (“The Trustee”) and the nature of trusteeship ( wakāla ). In the process, it demonstrates how for our mystic trusteeship forms a circle that begins with the human being entrusting his affairs to God, and returns to its point of origin with God entrusting him to be His vicegerent ( khalīfa ). Trusteeship, which finds its archetypical perfection in the divine Wakīl , descends through various degrees of perfection, to all levels and strata of human society. The capacity to embody and manifest the Name al-Wakīl is, for Ibn ʿ⁠Arabī, itself made possible by the theomorphic nature of the human being, a child of the primordial Adam fashioned in the image of God.