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Ibn al-'Arabi
Following the establishment of Umayyad rule in Spain in the beginning of the eighth century, towering Umayyad rulers like
Ibn al-ʿArabī (also Ibn ʻArabi; full name: Abu ʻAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn al-ʻArabi al-Ṭaʼi al-Hatimi; b. July 28, 1165 [17 Ramadan 560 AH], Murcia, Taifa of Murcia [now Murcia, Region of Murcia, Spain] — d. November 16, 1240, Salihiyya, Damascus, Ayyubid Sultanate), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought. Out of the 850 works attributed to him, over 400 are still extant. His cosmological teachings became the dominant worldview in many parts of the Muslim world.
Ibn al-Arabi's traditional titular is Muḥyiddin (Arabic for The Reviver of Religion). After he died, and specifically among practitioners of Sufism, he was renowned by the honorific title Shaykh al-Akbar. This, in turn, was the name from which the "Akbarian" school of Sufism derived its name, making him known as Doctor Maximus (The Greatest Teacher) in medieval Europe. Ibn ʿArabī is considered a saint by some scholars and Muslim communities.
Ibn ʿArabi was born in Murcia, Al-Andalus on the 17th of Ramadan 560 AH (28 July 28, 1165 CC). His birth name is Muhammad, but he was later called 'Abu 'Abdullah ['Abu 'Abd Allah] (meaning the father of Abdullah)—according to classical Arabic tradition—after he had a son. In some of his works, Ibn ‘Arabi referred to himself with fuller versions of his name as Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn al-‘Arabi al-Ta’î al-Hatimi, with the last three names indicating his noble Arab lineage.
Ibn ʿArabi's maternal ancestry was North African Berber. In his Futuhat al-Makkiyah, Ibn Arabi writes of a deceased maternal uncle, Yahya ibn Yughan al-Sanhaji, a prince of Tlemcen who abandoned wealth for an ascetic life after encountering a Sufi mystic. Whereas his paternal ancestry came from Yemen and belongs to one of the oldest Arab strains in Andalusia. His paternal ancestors emigrated very early to Andalusia, probably during the second wave of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
Ibn 'Arabi's father, ‘Ali ibn Muhammad, served in the Army of Ibn Mardanish, the ruler of Murcia. When Murcia fell to the Almohad Caliphate in 1172, Ibn Mardanīsh did not survive the defeat and was killed in battle, leading to his father pledging allegiance to the Almohad Caliph Abū Ya’qūb Yūsuf I. At that time, Ibn ʿArabī was only seven years old, and his family relocated from Murcia to Seville to serve the new ruler.
Ibn ʿArabī had three wives. He married Maryam, a woman from an influential family, when he was still a young adult and lived in Andalusia. Maryam also shared his aspiration to follow the Sufi path.
When Ibn ʿArabī stayed in Anatolia for several years, according to various Arabic and Persian sources, he married the widow of Majduuddin and took charge of the education of his young son, Sadruddin al-Qunawi. Ibn ʿArabī also mentioned his third wife in his writings, the mother of his son Imaduddin, to whom he bequeathed the first copy of Futuhat al-Makkiyah.
Ibn ʿArabī grew up at the ruling court and received military training. As he confessed in Futuhat al-Makkiyah, he preferred playing in military camp with his friends rather than reading a book. However, it was when he was a teenager that he experienced his first vision (fana); and later he wrote of this experience as "the differentiation of the universal reality comprised by that look".
His father, on noticing a change in him, had mentioned this to philosopher and judge, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), who asked to meet Ibn Arabi. Ibn Arabi said that from this first meeting, he had learned to perceive a distinction between formal knowledge of rational thought and the unveiling insights into the nature of things. He then adopted Sufism and dedicated his life to the spiritual path. When he later moved to Fez, in Morocco, Mohammed ibn Qasim al-Tamimi became his spiritual mentor. In 1200, he took leave from one of his most important teachers, Shaykh Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Yakhlaf al-Kumi, then living in the town of Sale.
Ibn Arabi left Andalusia for the first time at age 36 and arrived at Tunis in 1193. After a year in Tunisia, he returned to Andalusia in 1194. His father died soon after Ibn Arabi arrived at Seville. When his mother died some months later, he left Andalusia for the second time and travelled with his two sisters to Fez, Morocco in 1195. He returned to Cordoba, Andalusia, in 1198, and left Andalusia crossing from Gibraltar for the last time in 1200. While there, he received a vision instructing him to journey east. After visiting some places in the Maghreb, he left Tunisia in 1201 and arrived in Mecca for the Hajj in 1202. He lived in Mecca for three years, and there began writing his work Futuhat al-Makkiyya, -- The Meccan Illuminations—only part of which has been translated into English.
After spending time in Mecca, Ibn Arabi traveled throughout Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Anatolia. In 1204, Ibn Arabi met Shaykh Majduddin Isḥaq ibn Yusuf, a native of Malatya and a man of great standing at the Seljuk court. This time Ibn Arabi was travelling north. First, they visited Medina and in 1205 they entered Baghdad. This visit offered him a chance to meet the direct disciples of Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani. Ibn Arabi stayed there only for 12 days because he wanted to visit Mosul to see his friend ‘Alī ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn Jāmi’, a disciple of the mystic Qaḍīb al-Bān (471-573 AH/1079-1177 CC).] There he spent the month of Ramadan and composed Tanazzulat al-Mawṣiliyya, Kitab al-Jalal wa’l-Jamal ("The Book of Majesty and Beauty") and Kunh ma la Budda lil-MuridMinhu.
In the year 1206, Ibn Arabi visited Jerusalem, Mecca and Egypt. It was his first time that he passed through Syria, visiting Aleppo and Damascus. Later, in 1207, he returned to Mecca where he continued to study and write, spending his time with his friend Abū Shujā bin Rustem and family. The next four to five years of Ibn Arabi's life were spent in these lands and he also kept travelling and holding the reading sessions of his works in his own presence.
After leaving Andalusia for the last time at the age of 33 in 1198 CC and wandering throughout the Islamic world for about 25 years, at the age of 58 Ibn Arabi chose Damasus as his final home and dedicated his life to teaching and writing. In this city, he composed Fushush Al-Ḥikam in 1229 and finalized two manuscripts of Futuhat al-Makkiyya in 1231 and 1234.
Ibn Arabi died on 22 Rabī‘ al-Thānī 638 AH (16 November 16, 1240 CC) at the age of seventy-five. He was buried in the Banu Zaki cemetery, family cemetery of the nobles of Damascus, on Qasiyun Hill, Salihiyya, Damascus.
After his death, Ibn Arabi's teachings quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. His writings were not limited to the Muslim elites, but made their way into other ranks of society through the widespread reach of the Sufi orders. Arabi's work also popularly spread through works in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu. Many popular poets were trained in the Sufi orders and were inspired by Arabi's concepts.
Although Ibn Arabi stated on more than one occasion that he did not blindly follow any one of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. He was responsible for copying and preserving books of the Zahirite or literalist school, but there is fierce debate whether or not Ibn Arabi followed that school.
Ibn Arabi did delve into specific details at times and was known for his view that religiously binding consensus could only serve as a source of sacred law if it was the consensus of the first generation of Muslims who had witnessed revelation directly.
Ibn Arabi also expounded on Sufi allegories of the sharia building upon previous work by Al-Ghazali and al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi.
The doctrine of perfect man (Al-Insan al-Kamil) is popularly considered an honorific title attributed to Muhammad having its origins in Islamic mysticism, although the concept's origin is controversial and disputed. Ibn Arabi may have first coined this term in referring to Adam as found in his work Fusus al-hikam and as explained as an individual who binds himself with the Divine and creation.
Taking an idea already common within Sufi culture, Ibn Arabi applied deep analysis and reflection on the concept of a perfect human and one's pursuit in fulfilling this goal. In developing his explanation of the perfect being, Ibn Arabi first discusses the issue of oneness through the metaphor of the mirror.
In this philosophical metaphor, Ibn Arabi compares an object being reflected in countless mirrors to the relationship between God and his creatures. God's essence is seen in the existent human being, as God is the object and human beings the mirrors. Meaning two things; that since humans are mere reflections of God there can be no distinction or separation between the two and, that without God the creatures would be non-existent. When an individual understands that there is no separation between human and God they begin on the path of ultimate oneness. The one who decides to walk in this oneness pursues the true reality and responds to God's longing to be known. The search within for this reality of oneness causes one to be reunited with God, as well as, to improve self-consciousness.
The perfect human, through this developed self-consciousness and self-realization, prompts divine self-manifestation. This causes the perfect human to be of both divine and earthly origin. Ibn Arabi metaphorically calls him an Isthmus. Being an Isthmus between heaven and Earth, the perfect human fulfills God's desire to be known. God's presence can be realized through him by others. Ibn Arabi expressed that through self- manifestation one acquires divine knowledge, which he called the primordial spirit of Muhammad and all its perfection. Ibn Arabi details that the perfect human is of the cosmos to the divine and conveys the divine spirit to the cosmos.
Ibn Arabi further explained the perfect man concept using at least twenty-two different descriptions and various aspects when considering the Logos. He contemplated the Logos, or "Universal Man", as a mediation between the individual human and the divine essence.
Ibn Arabi believed Muhammad to be the primary perfect man who exemplifies the morality of God. Ibn Arabi regarded the first entity brought into existence as the reality or essence of Muhammad (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muhammadiyya), master of all creatures, and a primary role-model for human beings to emulate. Ibn Arabi believed that God's attributes and names are manifested in this world, with the most complete and perfect display of these divine attributes and names seen in Muhammad. Ibn Arabi believed that one may see God in the mirror of Muhammad. He maintained that Muhammad was the best proof of God and, by knowing Muhammad, one knows God.
Ibn Arabi also described Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all other prophets and various Anbiya' Allah (Muslim messengers) as perfect men, but never tires of attributing lordship, inspirational source, and highest rank to Muhammad. Ibn Arabi compares his own status as a perfect man as being but a single dimension to the comprehensive nature of Muhammad. Ibn 'Arabi makes extraordinary assertions regarding his own spiritual rank but qualifies this rather audacious correlation by asserting his "inherited" perfection is only a single dimension of the comprehensive perfection of Muhammad.
Some 800 works are attributed to Ibn Arabi, although only some have been authenticated. Recent research suggests that over 100 of his works have survived in manuscript form, although most printed versions have not yet been critically edited and include many errors. Some of the more notable of Ibn Arabi's works are the following:
- The Meccan Illuminations (Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya), his largest work in 37 volumes originally and published in 4 or 8 volumes in modern times, discussing a wide range of topics from mystical philosophy to Sufi practices and records of his dreams/visions. It totals 560 chapters. In modern editions it amounts to some 15 000 pages.
- The Ringstones of Wisdom (also translated as The Bezels of Wisdom), or Fusus al-Hikam. Composed during the later period of Ibn 'Arabi's life, the work is sometimes considered his most important and can be characterized as a summary of his teachings and mystical beliefs. It deals with the role played by various prophets in divine revelation. The attribution of this work (Fusus al-Hikam) to Ibn Arabi is debated and in at least one source is described as a forgery and false attribution to him reasoning that there are 74 books in total attributed to Sheikh Ibn Arabi of which 56 have been mentioned in Al Futuhat al-Makkiyya and the rest mentioned in the other books cited therein. However, many other scholars accept the work as genuine.
- The Diwan, his collection of poetry spanning five volumes, mostly unedited. The printed versions available are based on only one volume of the original work.
- The Holy Spirit in the Counselling of the Soul (Rūḥ al-quds), a treatise on the soul which includes a summary of his experience from different spiritual masters in the Maghrib. Part of this has been translated as Sufis of Andalusia, reminiscences and spiritual anecdotes about many interesting people whom he met in al-Andalus.
- Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries (Mashahid al-Asrar), probably his first major work, consisting of fourteen visions and dialogues with God.
- Divine Sayings (Mishkāt al-Anwār), an important collection made by Ibn 'Arabī of 101 hadīth qudsī.
- The Book of Annihilation in Contemplation (K. al-Fana' fi'l-Mushahada), a short treatise on the meaning of mystical annihilation (fana).
- Devotional Prayers (Awrad), a widely read collection of fourteen prayers for each day and night of the week.
- Journey to the Lord of Power (Risalat al-Anwar), a detailed technical manual and roadmap for the "journey without distance".
- The Book of God's Days (Ayyam al-Sha'n), a work on the nature of time and the different kinds of days experienced by gnostics
- The Astounding Phoenix regarding the Seal of Saints and the Sun of the West (ʻAnqāʼ al-Mughrib fī Maʻrifat Khatm al-Awliyāʼ wa-Shams al-Maghrib), a book on the meaning of sainthood and its culmination in Jesus and the Mahdi.
- The Universal Tree and the Four Birds (al-Ittihād al-Kawnī), a poetic book on the Complete Human and the four principles of existence.
- Prayer for Spiritual Elevation and Protection ('al-Dawr al-A'lā), a short prayer which is still widely used in the Muslim world.
- The Interpreter of Desires (Tarjuman al-Ashwaq), a collection of nasibs which, in response to critics, Ibn Arabi republished with a commentary explaining the meaning of the poetic symbols. (1215)
- Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (At-Tadbidrat al-ilahiyyah fi islah al-mamlakat al-insaniyyah).
- The Four Pillars of Spiritual Transformation (Hilyat al-abdāl) a short work on the essentials of the spiritual Path
Ibn Arabi began writing Futuhat al-Makkiyya after he arrived in Mecca in 1202. After almost thirty years, the first draft of Futuhat was completed in December 1231 (629 AH), and Ibn Arabi bequeathed it to his son. Two years before his death, Ibn ‘Arabī embarked on a second draft of the Futuhat in 1238 CC (636 AH), of which included a number of additions and deletions as compared with the previous draft, that contains 560 chapters. The second draft, the more widely circulated version, was bequeathed to his disciple, Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi. There are many scholars who attempted to translate this book from Arabic into other languages, but there is no complete translation of Futuhat al-Makkiyya to this day.
In the Turkish television series Dirilis: Ertugrul, Ibn Arabi was portrayed by Ozman Sirgood. In 2017, Saudi Arabian novelist Mohammed Hasan won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel A Small Death, a fictionalized account of Ibn Arabi's life.
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Books by Ibn 'Arabi
This is a small selection of Ibn 'Arabi's many books.
In Arabic
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vols. 1–4. Beirut: n.p.; photographic reprint of the old edition of Bulaq 1329/1911 which comprises four volumes each about 700 pages of 35 lines; the page size is 20 by 27cm. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī, Ibrāhīm Madkūr, and ʻUthmān Yaḥyá. Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Vols. 1–14,. al-Qāhirah: al-Hayʼah al-Miṣrīyah al-ʻĀmmah lil-Kitāb, 1972. Print. this is the critical edition by Osman Yahya. This version was not completed, and the 14 volumes correspond to only volume I of the standard Bulaq/Beirut edition.
- Ibn ‘Arabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-'Arabī. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Sharḥ Risālat Rūḥ Al-quds fī Muḥāsabat Al-nafs. Comp. Mahmud Ghurab. 2nd ed. Damascus: Naḍar, 1994. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Inshā’ al-Dawā’ir, Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-‘Ilmiyya. 2004. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Rasā’il Ibn ‘Arabī (Ijāza li Malik al-Muẓaffar). Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2001. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Rasā'il Ibn al-'Arabî (Kitāb al-Jalāla). Hyberadad-Deccan: Dā’irat al-Ma‘ārif al-‘Uthmāniyya, 1948. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Kitāb al Bā’. Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira, 1954. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī, Risālat ila Imām al-Rāzī. Hyberadad-Deccan: Dā’irat al-Ma‘ārif al-‘Uthmāniyya, 1948. Print.
In English
- Ibn, 'Arabi (1997). Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom. Translated by Tosun Bayrak. Fons Vitae.
- Ibn, Arabi (1992). What the Seeker Needs: Essays on Spiritual Practice, Oneness, Majesty and Beauty, with Ibn 'Arabi's Glossary of 199 Sufi Technical Terms. Translated by Tosun Bayrak. University of Virginia: Threshold Books.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Nasab al-Khirqa. Trans. Gerald Elmore. Vol. XXVI. Oxford: Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society, 1999. Print.
- Ibn ‘Arabī. Divine Sayings The Mishkāt Al-Anwār of Ibn 'Arabi. Oxford: Anqa, 2005. Print.
- Ibn 'Arabi. The Meccan Revelations. Pir Press, 2010
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Ibn al-ʿArabi, in full Muḥyi al-Dīn Abu ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn ʿAli ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabi al-Ḥatimi al-Ṭaʾi Ibn al-ʿArabi, also called Al-Sheikh al-Akbar, (b. July 28, 1165, Murcia, Taifa of Murcia [now Murcia, Region of Murcia, Spain] — d. November 16, 1240, Salihiyya, Damascus, Ayyubid Sultanate), was a celebrated Muslim mystic-philosopher who gave the esoteric, mystical dimension of Islamic thought its first full-fledged philosophic expression. His major works are the monumental Al-Futuḥat al-Makkiyyah (“The Meccan Revelations”) and Fusus al-hikam (1229; “The Bezels of Wisdom”).
Ibn al-ʿArabi was born in the southeast of Spain, a man of pure Arab blood whose ancestry went back to the prominent Arabian tribe of Taʾi. It was in Sevilla (Seville), then an outstanding center of Islamic culture and learning, that he received his early education. He stayed there for 30 years, studying traditional Islamic sciences. He studied with a number of mystic masters who found in him a young man of marked spiritual inclination and unusually keen intelligence. During those years he traveled a great deal and visited various cities of Spain and North Africa in search of masters of the Sufi (mystical) Path who had achieved great spiritual progress and thus renown.
It was during one of these trips that Ibn al-ʿArabi had a dramatic encounter with the great Aristotelian philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes: 1126–98) in the city of Cordoba. Averroes, a close friend of the boy’s father, had asked that the interview be arranged because he had heard of the extraordinary nature of the young, still beardless lad. After the early exchange of only a few words, it is said, the mystical depth of the boy so overwhelmed the old philosopher that he became pale and, dumbfounded, began trembling. In the light of the subsequent course of Islamic philosophy the event is seen as symbolic. However, even more symbolic is the sequel of the episode, which has it that, when Averroes died, his remains were returned to Cordoba. The coffin that contained his remains was loaded on one side of a beast of burden, while the books written by him were placed on the other side in order to counterbalance it. It was a good theme of meditation and recollection for the young Ibn al-ʿArabī, who said: “On one side the Master, on the other his books! Ah, how I wish I knew whether his hopes had been fulfilled!”
In 1198, while in Murcia, Ibn al-ʿArabī had a vision in which he felt he had been ordered to leave Spain and set out for the East. Thus began his pilgrimage to the East, from which he never was to return to his homeland. The first notable place he visited on this journey was Mecca (1201), where he “received a divine commandment” to begin his major work Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyyah, which was to be completed much later in Damascus. In 560 chapters, it is a work of tremendous size, a personal encyclopedia extending over all the esoteric sciences in Islam as Ibn al-ʿArabi understood and had experienced them, together with valuable information about his own inner life.
It was also in Mecca that Ibn al-ʿArabi became acquainted with a young girl of great beauty who, as a living embodiment of the eternal sophia (wisdom), was to play in his life a role much like that which Beatrice played for Dante. Her memories were eternalized by Ibn al-ʿArabī in a collection of love poems (Tarjuman al-ashwaq; “The Interpreter of Desires”), upon which he himself composed a mystical commentary. His daring “pantheistic” expressions drew down on him the wrath of Muslim orthodoxy, some of whom prohibited the reading of his works at the same time that others were elevating him to the rank of the prophets and saints.
After Mecca, Ibn al-ʿArabi visited Egypt (also in 1201) and then Anatolia, where, in Qonya, he met Sadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawi, who was to become his most important follower and successor in the East. From Qonya he went on to Baghdad and Aleppo (modern Ḥalab, Syria). By the time his long pilgrimage had come to an end at Damascus (1223), his fame had spread all over the Islamic world. Venerated as the greatest spiritual master, he spent the rest of his life in Damascus in peaceful contemplation, teaching, and writing. It was during his Damascus days that one of the most important works in mystical philosophy in Islam, Fusus al-hikam, was composed in 1229, about 10 years before his death. Consisting only of 27 chapters, the book is incomparably smaller than Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyyah, but its importance as an expression of Ibn al-ʿArabi’s mystical thought in its most mature form cannot be overemphasized.
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- Addas, Claude (1993); Quest for the Red Sulphur; Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge.
- Addas, Claude (2019). Ibn Arabi: The Voyage of No Return. Cambridge, Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge.
- Akkach, Samer (1997). Ibn 'Arabi's Cosmogony and the Sufi Concept of Time, in: Constructions of Time in the Late Middle Ages. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois.
- Austin, R.J.W. (1988). Sufis of Andalusia: The Ruh Al-Quds & Al-Durrat Al-Fakhirah. New Leaf Distributing Company.
- Chandra, Mahajan, Bipan, Sucheta (2007). Composite Culture in a Multicultural Society. Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India.
- Chittick, William C. (2007). Ibn 'Arabi: Heir to the Prophets. Oneworld Publications, Oxford.
- Chodkiewicz, Michel (1993). An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arabi, the Book, and the Law. SUNY Press.
- Corbin, Henry (1969). Alone with the Alone; Creative Imagination in the Sufism of IbnʿArabi. Bollingen, Princeton (reissued in 1997 with a new preface by Harold Bloom).
- Corbin, Henry (2014). Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi.
- Dobie, Robert J. (2010). Logos and Revelation: Ibn 'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Mystical Hermemeutics. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C.
- Elmore, Gerald T. (1999). Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-‘Arabi's Book of the Fabulous Gryphon. Brill, Leiden.
- Fitzpatrick, Coeli and Walker, Adam Hani (2014). Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California.
- Haddad, Gibril Fouad (2015). The Biographies of the Elite Lives of the Scholars, Imams and Hadith Masters. Zulfiqar Ayub.
- Hirtenstein, Stephen (1999). The Unlimited Mercifier, The Spiritual life and thought of Ibn 'Arabi. Anqa Publishing & White Cloud Press, Oxford.
- Knysh, Alexander (1999). Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The making of a polemical image in medieval Islam. SUNY Press, Albany, New York.
- Lipton, Gregory A. Lipton (2018). Rethinking Ibn 'Arabi. Oxford University Press.
- Nasr, Hossein (1976). Three Muslim sages : Avicenna, Suhrawardi, Ibn ʻArabi. New York: Caravan Books.
- Renard, John (2009). Tales of God's Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation. University of California Press.
- Yahia, Osman (1992). Mu'allafat Ibn ʻarabi: Tarikhuha Wa-Tasnifuha. Dār al-Sabuni, Cairo.
- Yousef, Mohamed Haj (2007). Ibn 'Arabi - Time and Cosmology. Routledge, London.
- Yūsuf, Muhammad Haj (2006). Shams Al-Maghrib. Dar al-Fussilat, Allepo.
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Ibn al-ʿArabī | Muslim Mystic, Sufi Philosopher | Britannica
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While all of Ibn ‘Arabî’s writings – and most especially the Futuhat – are replete with autobiographical discussions of his extraordinary inner visionary life and spiritual experiences, everything that is known about him from external sources indicates that in his later years he rigorously lived up to his own ideal of the hidden, “solitary” Friends of God (the afrâd or malâmîya) as the highest of the spiritual ranks, “invisible” in their outward conformity to the normative practices of the revelation and the ethical and social obligations common to all – carefully avoiding the public, visible “spiritual gifts” (karamât) popularly associated with many shaykhs and the then-nascent forms of institutionalized Sufism. Although he was accompanied by a small group of friends and close disciples, who became the eventual vehicles for his later wider influence, Ibn ‘Arabî seems to have been best known in his own day as a religious scholar and student of hadith, an impression that could only have been encouraged by his phenomenally prolific literary output of hundreds of works, of which the Futuhat was apparently by far the longest and most comprehensive. [5]
Even Ibn ‘Arabî’s most skeptical biographers have been compelled to note the remarkable way subsequent history has come to confirm his self-conception of his destined role as the “Seal of Muhammadan Sainthood”, [6] whose voluminous writings – and more important, the underlying spiritual “Reality” that they are meant to reveal and convey – were specially intended to open up the inner spiritual meanings at the heart of all preceding prophetic revelations (and especially the Qur’an and hadith). At the time of his death, Ibn ‘Arabî himself was virtually unknown, in any wider public sense, in that Mongol/Crusader period when Islamic public authority almost vanished for some decades from all but a handful of Arab cities (and permanently from most of his native Andalusia).
Moreover, all of his “books” discussed here existed only in a handful of manuscript copies, left behind in the Maghreb or restricted to the assiduous students and future transmitters of his teachings during his final years in Damascus. Yet within a few centuries, through one of those mysterious developments so familiar to the historian of religions, his writings – foremost among them the Bezels of Wisdom (Fusûs al-Hikam) and these Meccan Revelations – had come to constitute the constantly cited source of inspiration, and justification (and, as a result, a frequent polemic target) for that vast movement of religious, cultural, social, and literary creativity that brought into being the institutions and masterworks of the Islamic humanities. It was through those creative developments, in a wide gamut of languages, cultures and new institutions, that Islam became a true world religion, with its new cultural and political centers stretching from Southern and Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa across to Central Asia, India and Southeast Asia. [7] Despite the historically quite recent ideological responses to colonialism, the transformations of modernity and the new demands of the nation-state, most Muslims throughout the world have lived for the past six or seven centuries in cultural, spiritual and religious worlds [8] whose accomplished forms would be unimaginable without the profound impact of ideas rooted in and expressed by Ibn ‘Arabî. Even his later honorific title, “the greatest Master” (al-Shaykh al-Akbar), does not really begin to suggest the full extent of those influences.
A second, equally mysterious stage in Ibn ‘Arabî’s ongoing influence has been the ways his writings and concepts have served, over the past century, to inspire contemporary intellectuals and students of religion and spirituality outside traditionally Islamic cultures. Faced with a cosmopolitan, multireligious world not unlike the great Muslim empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Moguls, these thinkers have increasingly relied on Ibn ‘Arabî’s works and ideas for the task of creating the common language and subtle conceptual structure required to communicate universal spiritual realities in an increasingly global civilization. [9]
