Ta’wīl
Ta’wīl (Arabic: تأويل) is the Islamic hermeneutical practice of symbolic or spiritual exegesis — turning the outer, literal meaning of a sacred text (or the sensory world itself) inside out to reveal its inner, esoteric dimension. In Henry Corbin’s framework, ta’wīl is the method of perceiving the mundus imaginalis: it is not arbitrary interpretation but a disciplined mode of perception that discloses the imaginal, spiritual reality within and beyond the literal.
Etymology and Method
The Arabic root ‘awwala means “to return” or “to restore to the origin.” Ta’wīl is thus a return to the original, inner meaning — the spiritual reality that the literal form both conceals and reveals. It is distinguished from tafsīr (literal or exoteric commentary): tafsīr explains what the text says; ta’wīl discloses what the text is — its imaginal and spiritual truth.
Ta’wīl is not subjective or arbitrary. It requires purification, contemplation, and the cultivation of himma (active imagination). The practitioner does not project meaning onto the text or world but perceives the meaning that is genuinely there, hidden within the outer form.
Corbin’s Use
Corbin used ta’wīl to describe the visionary hermeneutics of Islamic mystics like Suhrawardī and Ibn ‘Arabī. For these thinkers, the Quran, the cosmos, and the soul all require ta’wīl: each has an outer (zāhir) and an inner (bātin) dimension, and the spiritual path involves moving from the outer to the inner through disciplined imaginal perception.
Ta’wīl is thus not merely a textual practice but a mode of being in the world. To practice ta’wīl is to see all of reality as symbolic — not in the sense of arbitrary signs but in the sense of genuine icons, transparent to the divine.
Connections
- Henry Corbin — Introduced ta’wīl to Western readers.
- The World Turned Inside Out — Cheetham’s exposition includes ta’wīl.
- Mundus Imaginalis — Ta’wīl is the practice that reveals the imaginal world.
- The Imaginal — Ta’wīl is imaginal hermeneutics.
- Mysticism — Islamic mysticism is the context for ta’wīl.