شرح شطرنج العارفين
The Chessboard of the Gnostics
An inner map of the stations, the falls and the returns. A Sufi board to read the movements of the soul: its passions, its virtues, its illusions and its ways of return toward God.
Board attached to the tradition of Ibn ʿArabī · commentary by al-Hāshimī al-Tilimsānī
كيف حالُ قلبي اليوم؟
How do I feel today?
Don't know your square yet? Start here. Choose your state of the moment:
angerfeardesiresadnesspeacebad companysatisfaction Find my squareThe Chessboard is neither a game one wins, nor a test, nor a way of ranking oneself or judging others. It is a pedagogical map of the inner path. It shows how a human being can rise, fall, return, go astray, correct himself, receive a help — then be tempted again. A virtue can raise; but if the self appropriates it, it can become a fall. A fall can save, if it provokes a sincere return. The path is not a straight line.
First visit
How to enter without getting lost
Don't look first for “your square”. Enter as into a mirror: a square reveals a movement of the soul, an arrow shows a consequence, a remedy opens a return. The Chessboard is worked slowly.
- Choose a door. For a first time, begin with “How I feel” or the first step.
- Open a square. Read the Arabic term, its plain sense, then what it shows inwardly.
- Spot the movement. An arrow raises; a chain or a grapnel signals a fall or a regression.
- Receive a question. Diagnose no one: observe only what resonates in you.
- Lay down a note. The journal stays on your device and keeps a trace of the inner work.
How I feel today →
Enter through what you are living now; the board points you to the nearest movement of the soul.
First step
Seven squares, hand-held, to grasp the movement if you are new.
How to use it
A square is not an identity; the danger is to settle in. The bearings of daily use.
The full board (FR) →
The hundred squares and their commentaries — for now available in French.
The hundred squares are reconstructed on Michon's text and the Arabic commentary. The confirmed arrows and grapnels are added gradually, inventing no link the text does not allow.