Quora Answer: Would Plato’s Dividing Line be Related to the Concept of Zhahir & Bathin?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Would you say Plato’s Dividing Line and the concepts of zhahir and bathin in Islam thought to share any similarities?” 

You are referring to the famous Analogy of the Divided Line from Plato’s Republic.  It is a hypothetical dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates.  In summary, it divides the world between the seen and the unseen.  But that division is unequal.  It further divides the world into shades of understanding from the intelligible, to hypothesis, faith, thought, and finally comprehension.  It can be said to address levels of consciousness from heedlessness at its fundamental level.  Everything else built on it from there can be said to be conjecture. 

The concept of the zhahir, manifest, and bathin, hidden, in Islam is simpler, and yet more profound in its nuance.  In taswawwuf, spirituality, the zhahir refers to the apparent reality of things, and even Creation as a whole.  The bathin refers to its intrinsic reality, and al-Haqq, the Ultimate Reality, here everything is actually an illusion or a reflection of Reality.  As a theological concept, it is used to explain the Transcendence and the Immanence of the Divine.  Therefore, whilst they may seem to have similarities, they actually address far different concepts.