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Dunalastair Water, Perth & Kinross, Highlands, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

Dunalastair Water is an entirely man made reservoir in Scotland which lies between Loch Rannoch and Loch Tummel in Strath Tummel in Perth and Kinross council area. The loch provides water power for the Tummel hydroelectricity power station and has the reputation as one of the best wild trout fishing locations in the United Kingdom.

Dunalastair Water lies at the approximate grid reference of NN697584 it has an area of 165 hectares, being 2.5 km long and 800 metres wide at its broadest point. It was formed by the damming of the River Tummel by the Grampian Electric Supply Company in 1933 as part of the Tummel hydro-electric power scheme. The reservoir is narrow at its head, taking the form of a slender wooded glen with the Dunalastair estate situated on the northern bank. The reservoir has roads running on both its northern and southern shores, the B846, which is the road between Pitlochry and Rannoch railway station runs on the northern shore while a minor road from Kinloch Rannoch runs on its southern side. The Water is hemmed in by high ground to the north and south, with Beinn a' Chuallaich to the north and Schiehallion to the south.

The dam itself is 65 metres wide and has two floodgates and several spillways due to the quantity of water which sometimes needs to be released Into the River Tummel. The main purpose of the dam is to act as an intake which supplies water to an open 15 metre wide concrete aqueduct that runs to the south of the River Tummel. The aqueduct flows for five km losing very little height, keeping to the 200 metre contour before feeding the Tummel hydroelectricity power station at the head of Loch Tummel through two large pipes.

Dunalastair Water is a shallow reservoir, having an average depth of only 1.5 metres and this provides unique biological conditions for birds with the site around the Water being declared a SSSI over an area of 241.6 hectares. Among the birds which can be seen on the site are Old World warbler, willow warbler, bittern, grey heron, egret, kinglet and goldcrest. Gives list of birds on loch. Dunalastair Water is a first-rate venue for fishing with the shallow waters warming quickly and generating good feeding for the fish and providing a huge variety of insect life. There are some very large brown trout which inhabit the water and feed mainly at night. Fishing is strictly from boats and outboard motors are banned. The dam incorporates a fish ladder this is of the pool and weir design and consists of 18 pools.

Perth and Kinross is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It is bordered by Highland and Aberdeenshire to the north, Angus, Dundee, and Fife to the east, Clackmannanshire to the south, and Stirling and Argyll and Bute to the west. Perth is the administrative centre.

The council area corresponds to the historic shire of Kinross-shire and the north-eastern part of Perthshire; the remainder of Perthshire is now part of Stirling. Perthshire and Kinross-shire shared a county council from 1929 until 1975, and from 1975 to 1996 Perth and Kinross was a local government district within the Tayside region. In 1996 the district was reconstituted as a unitary authority area, with a minor boundary adjustment.

Geographically the area is split by the Highland Boundary Fault into a more mountainous northern part and a flatter southern part. The northern area is a popular tourist spot, while agriculture makes an important contribution to the southern part of the area.

The area is run by Perth and Kinross Council, and is represented by members of the Scottish National Party within both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The historical counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire were separate entities prior to 1975. Under the terms of the 1973 Local Government (Scotland) Act Kinross-shire became part of the Tayside region, while Perthshire was split between the Tayside and Central regions. Under the terms of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 these regions were dissolved in 1996 and the unitary authority of Perth and Kinross was created from the areas of Perthshire and Kinross-shire which were previously part of the Tayside region.

The Highland Boundary Fault runs across the region from the northeast to the southwest. This roughly divides the area between highland Perthshire, including part of the Grampian Mountains, to the north, and lowland Perthshire and Kinross to the south. The highland area is intersected with glacial valleys, often containing ribbon lakes, including Loch Tay and Loch Earn. The lowland area is a fertile region lying within the Central Lowlands.

In the southern part of Perth and Kinross agriculture plays an important part of the local economy. This includes the cultivation of fruits, fodder, wheat and seed potatoes.

The scenic nature of the northern part of Perth and Kinross makes tourism an important part of the economy. The Forestry Commission controls large parts of the area, which is also home to a number of hydroelectric dams.

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

IMG_2108 Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie by photographer695

Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie

Architect Work inspired by Ibn al-‘Arabī and the Oneness of Being by Hughes Songe

1

It seems to happen that once in a great while a figure of profound depth and purity blossoms within a major religion, summarizing, expanding, and living through example its most cherished aspects. Ibn al-‘Arabī, known as al-Shaykh al-akbar, “The Greatest Master”, born in Mucia, Spain in 1165, is arguably such a figure for Sufism. An extremely prolific figure, Ibn al-‘Arabī wrote hundreds of works (estimates range from 250 to over 800!), some of which are still today widely considered to be classics. His thinking ranged from the practical to the scientific, to the metaphysical and to the sublimely spiritual, and his ability to weave together and expound upon all of these aspects is unparalleled, prompting a prominent scholar of Sufism and Ibn al-Arabī’s work, William Chittick, to declare him “the most influential thinker in the second half of Islamic history” (Chittick, 1994). Running through most of his works, in some explicitly and others only implicitly, is his “most famous idea” (Chittick, 2007): wahdat al-wujūd, or “The Oneness of Being”. Trying to come to terms with this concept is essential for an understanding of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s contribution to Sufism; this essay is an attempt to briefly explore this concept and its implications for Sufism.

Ibn al-‘Arabī never explicitly used the term wahdat al-wujūd in his writings, although he did use a variety of similar terms (Chittick, 1994), such as ‘ain al-wujūd, the essence of existence (Neusser, 2005). The word wujūd is translated both as ‘being’ or ‘existence’ and as ‘finding’ or ‘to be found’. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s use is complex enough to encompass both of these meanings, and more besides. Yet the primary aspect of wujūd, for Ibn al-‘Arabī is always its absolute unity. In this sense, Ibn al-‘Arabī seems to be in agreement with the Vedic sentiments of the Upanishads, wherein the oneness of existence takes primacy over any multiplicity.

However, whereas the working out of this concept in Hinduism finds its ultimate expression in Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism), where the world and all its seeming multiplicities are taken to be the equivalent of empty illusions, Ibn al-‘Arabī takes a different tack, affirming also the many-ness of reality along with its oneness (Chittick, 1994). So in speaking of wujūd (existence), it is possible for Ibn al-‘Arabī to see it from multiple viewpoints.

The primary aspect of wujūd, as already indicated, is its absolute oneness. This can be called wujūd mutlaq, absolute existence, in contrast to the wujūd of the manifest, contingent world, which can be called wujūd mustafad, or borrowed existence. For Ibn al-‘Arabī, in the most ultimate sense, there is only the oneness of Allah, but this does not mean that the manifest multiplicity of the created things of the universe, including human beings, is an existence-less illusion. Rather, the beingness of the manifest world is, as it were, borrowed from the only true existence – that of Allah. Thus we have, from our human perspective, the tanzih nature of God, in which Allah is absolutely unlike any particular part of manifest creation. On the other hand, we have the tashbih nature of God, in which Allah is like the manifest creation.

Self-existence and reality can only be attributed to the transcendent nature of God, which is necessary and cannot not exist. Allah is without parts, and is a singularity of nondelimited perfection – there is only a single wujūd. This transcendent nature is unknowable, for to know it would be to have a knower and a known, but no such separation can exist within wujūd, understood in this higher sense.

Ibn al-‘Arabī is not simply a transcendent mystic, content to leave the manifest world behind. Rather, he appeals strongly to reason, and takes pains to clarify as best he can the way in which the manifest world relates to the unmanifest, transcendent reality of wujūd. This is a complicated but central aspect to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thinking; in fact the bulk of his works deal less with God’s transcendence than with his manifestation.

How then, if the only thing that has any real existence to it is the unity of God, can we explain the apparent multiplicity of the created world? What must be the nature of creation such that it can actually appear to us while not either making God dissectible into separate parts or taking the ground of being out from underneath the cosmos? Ibn al-‘Arabī answers that the things of perception have no separate existence apart from the ultimate wujūd of God. They cannot exist without ‘borrowing’ their wujūd from the only possible source: God. In this way, the wujūd of the manifest world is actually more of a metaphor than a reality; separate existent entities seem to have their own wujūd but do not – they exist by the continual creating will of Allah, and have no self-existence without Allah.

The metaphor that Ibn al-‘Arabī uses to describe this situation identifies God with Light, as stated in the Koran (24:35). The only thing that exists is Light – but this light becomes reflected and refracted into an infinite number of seemingly independent rays. Just as an individual ray of light may seem obviously separate from another: “this ray is red; that one is blue”, objects appear to us to have separate existence. But in pointing out the separateness of the objects we are not seeing their reality. In fact, the objects qua objectivity have no reality, and in this sense are described as nonexistent (‘adam). The nonexistence of the objects is precisely their nature. This is like the separate ray of red or blue light, which in fact cannot have any existence apart from the original Light itself, which is in fact the only thing which has existence in the first (and last) place. Every reflected or refracted ray is another veil through which the manifestation of God appears – but none of these manifestations themselves partake of their own existence, which is the sole domain of Allah. Ibn al’Arabī does distinguish between absolute nonexistence, which is nothingness in the most direct sense of the term, and relative nonexistence, which describes all that is approached as not God – i.e. the universe and its constituents. In this way, the manifest universe can be understood as an intermediary realm between absolute existence (wujūd mutlaq) and absolute nonexistence. It is the gray area that Ibn al-‘Arabī describes as “He/not He”, as it partakes of both ultimate existence and nonexistence simultaneously.

Therefore, in one sense when we see the things of the world, we are in fact seeing only the wujūd of God. Additionally, God, who “encompasses all things in knowledge” (65:12), has ‘in mind’ as it were, even all the potential objects of the cosmos. God’s knowledge of these things is immutable, fixed, and absolute; this knowledge corresponds to the object’s entire reality. But neither the manifest nor the unmanifest plurality of objects requires God Himself to be of a plural nature – just as all of the colors of light are contained in the primal Light of God as a singular unity, upon which they depend for their entire existence.

Apart from the ultimacy of wujūd, the relative nonexistence of the manifest world occurs as a continuum, stretching away from God towards ultimate nonexistence. Each “thing” is, as described by Ibn al-‘Arabī, a “locus of manifestation” of God. Each locus of manifestation is nonexistent in itself, but contains rather the properties or effects of the object, which ultimately derive from God. Thus, when we encounter the things of the universe, we are in actuality finding only God’s wujūd. Just as a single breath may contain many words, the “Breath of the All-merciful” may give rise to many objects – but some of these objects partake of a greater part of wujūd than others.

Even though God’s breath doesn’t need to contain words, He speaks in His overflowing generosity, and all the world is created. Multiplicity is real because God speaks many words – an infinite number of them, in fact, corresponding to the infinity of manifested objects. What characteristics the objects have depends upon the words God speaks. Thus there are ninety-nine different names of God (The Merciful, The Abaser, The Guarantor, etc.) which act as intermediaries between existence and nonexistence. Things of the manifest world are formed out of the conflation of any number of these names with any amount of purity. These ninety-nine names are all aspects of the one name: Allah, which encompasses all possible names in every possible way, both manifest and non-manifest.

Within this situation, the human being also exists as a relatively non-existent entity, described by a concatenation (with relative purity) of the names. In some people and at some times, one or another of the names becomes more manifested and understood than the other names. According to Ibn al-‘Arabī, the goal of a spiritual seeker is to manifest all of the ninety-nine names with equal perfection and harmony, thus becoming “the Perfect Man”. Humans are unique among beings of the world because they have the potential to comprehend and manifest allof the names, because God taught Adam all the names (2:30); all other things (minerals, plants, animals, angels) are created within known and fixed stations. If this perfection is achieved, the human would be a manifestation of what Ibn al-‘Arabī calls the “Muhammadan Reality” (Chittick, 1994), where instead of being stationed within any one or combination of names, the human stands equally within all the names at once: the “Station of No Station”. In order to achieve this state, rather than try to manifest all the divine names, which can lead to an arrogance of assuming that “I am like God”, it is better to try to get rid of all the particularly human attributes, so that what is left is the wujūd of God alone. The path of this struggle is one of surrendering oneself to God, of submission (islam) to God.

As we can see, the concept of wahdat al-wujūd is a central aspect of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thought. Although he did not initially conceive of the idea, Ibn al’Arabī’s portrayal and discussion of the oneness of being clarified and brought to new light one of the most foundational aspects of Islam. According to Chittick, wahdat al-wujūd “is the most famous single theoretical issue in Sufi works of the later period, especially in the area under Persian influence.” (Chittick 2007). The concept was not universally accepted however, and was attacked by scholars such as Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328 C.E.), who actually did much to associate the concept with Ibn al-‘Arabī (Chittick 2007).

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Dornie Hotel & Bar, Dornie, Ross-shire, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

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Dornie is a small former fishing village in the Lochalsh district in western Ross-shire Highlands of Scotland (2006 census). It is near the meeting point of Loch Duich, Loch Alsh and Loch Long.

The A87, the main road to Skye, passes just outside the village. Before the construction of the bridge, the main road passed through the centre of the village and crossed Loch Long via a short ferry ride. Amongst bagpipers, the tune "Dornie Ferry" is a well-known strathspey.

Eilean Donan is a famous castle on a nearby island. The village itself runs alongside the water hosting a variety of village homes, one tiny shop, a hotel and two bars.

St Duthac's Catholic Church dates from 1860 and was designed by architect Joseph A. Hansom. It is in the Gothic style with a stone reredos of polished granite shafts and a demi-octagonal stone pulpit, an unusual feature in a Scottish church.

In 2022, two people were injured in Dornie during the Skye and Lochalsh attacks.