The Problem of “Being” in Sufism

In this chapter, I will discuss the ontological foundations of Sufi thought. The most prominent feature to be discussed is that Sufism is a nondualist worldview. With the bourgeois revolution, the dualist worldview, that is, the opposition between mental subjects and physical objects, as introduced by Descartes, became predominant. Later, with Marx and Hegel, dualism was replaced by monism. From this point of view, there is a unity of subjects and objects, but only in a contradictory manner. Throughout history, however, Sufis has argued for a nondualistic worldview. For them, there is neither the subject nor the object, neither the conceiving reason nor the conceived object. To explain this, I analyze Ibn Arabi, Avicenna, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s views on being and existence. I will also discuss the concept of existence and essence in Mulla Sadra and his successors. The views described here are taken from my comprehensive work on Sufism from cosmological, ontological, and epistemological perspectives, which is the result of 13 years of research.