The Perfect Human (al-insan al-kamil)

The Islamic mystical doctrine of the perfect human (al-insān al-kāmil), whose bodily existence is deemed to mark the culmination of the cosmic process of divine self disclosure, has had a lasting impact on Sufi thought and practice from the late medieval period onwards. It has also filtered into the wider culture of the Muslim world, including most notably the political theology of South and Southeast Asia. Strikingly esoteric in character, this theory forms the linchpin of the complex and highly influential system of philosophical Sufism developed by the thirteenth-century Andalusian mystic Ibn ʿArabī and his followers, for whom the perfect human is the endpoint of the spiritual path, the summit of the Sufi hierarchy, and the final cause of God’s creation insofar as he manifests the divine treasures that would otherwise have remained hidden in God’s unmanifest Essence.

The present article begins with an exploration of the scriptural elements and philosophical
antecedents – from the concept of the microcosm to Aristotelian teleology – underpinning
Ibn ʿArabī’s classic depiction of the perfect human as a mirror in which God’s attributes are
reflected. This is followed by an investigation of the key roles this theory plays in later Sufi
discussions of metaphysics, spiritual realization, and theological anthropology, in which the
perfect human’s metaphysical essence is the boundary between the divine absolute and
the determinate realm of creation.

Drawing on primary sources in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish, the article examines
how Sufis use the concept of the perfect human to develop a metaphysical understanding
of the rank and status of the Prophet Muḥammad, as exemplified most famously by ʿAbd
al-Karīm al-Jīlī’s al-Insān al-kāmil fī maʿrifat al-awākhir wa-al-awāʾil (The Human Who is
Perfect in the Knowledge of Things Last and First). It considers the extent to which Sufi
authors conceive of the perfect human as an entity that, in essence, transcends gender.
It also offers an analysis of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī’s portrayal of the degrees of theosis
beyond human perfection, before ending with an investigation of the perfect human’s
historical impact on Muslim political theology