Ibn Arabi

Ibn al-'Arabi commonly known only as Ibn 'Arabi or Ibn Arabi was born 1165 in Murcia , Spain and died 1240 in Damascus . Sometimes described as a mystical philosopher he is best known throughout the Islamic world simply as the “greatest master” (al-shaykh al-akbar). Even in his lifetime he was acknowledged to be one of the most important spiritual teachers within Sufism , the mystical tradition of Islam . A vastly prolific writer and visionary, he is generally known as the prime exponent of the Unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud), even though that particular term by which his teachings came later to be designated was hardly used in his own milieu. His emphasis, as with any mystic, lay rather on the true potential of the human being and the path to realising that potential, which reaches its completion in the Perfect or Complete Man (al-insan al-kamil). Ibn ‘Arabi wrote at least 300 works, ranging from minor treatises to the huge 37-volume Meccan Illuminations (al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya) and the quintessence of his teachings, The Bezels of Wisdom (Fusus al-hikam). Approximately 110 works are known to have survived in verifiable manuscripts, some 18 in Ibn ‘Arabi’s own hand. He exerted an unparalleled influence, not only upon his immediate circle of friends and disciples, many of whom were considered spiritual masters in their own right, but also on succeeding generations, affecting the whole course of subsequent spiritual thought and practice in the Arabic, Turkish and Persian-speaking worlds. In recent years his writings have also become increasingly the subject of interest and study in the West, leading to the establishment of an international academic Society in his name. Ibn ‘Arabi’s life can be divided into three discrete phases: born in Murcia in south-eastern Spain in 560AH/ 1165 AD, he spent the first thirty-five years of his life in the Maghrib , the western lands of Islam which stretched from al-Andalus to Tunis ; then he embarked on pilgrimage and spent the next three years in or around Mecca , where a series of dramatic experiences initiated the writing of several works including his magnum opus, the Meccan Illuminations ; the final phase of his life was spent in the Levant and Anatolia , where he raised a family, and in addition to an unceasing literary output and instruction given to numerous disciples, he became adviser to kings and rulers. He settled in Damascus , where he lived for 17 years, dying in 638AH/ 1240 AD, and his tomb is still an important place of pilgrimage. A profound visionary capacity, coupled with a remarkable intellectual insight into human experience and a thorough comprehension of all the traditional sciences, marks out Ibn ‘Arabi from comparable figures in Islam. It has been tempting for scholars to characterise him as a mystical philosopher, a formulation which is rather at odds with his own teachings on the limitations of philosophical thinking. He was as much at home with Qur'an and Hadith scholarship as with medieval philology and letter symbolism, philosophy, alchemy and cosmology. He could write with equal facility in prose or poetry, and utilised the polysemous ambiguity of the Arabic language to great effect. The characteristic resonances of rhymed prose (saj’), which are to be found in the Qur'an , abound in his works. In recent years Western scholars such as William Chittick and Michel Chodkiewicz have begun to explore the radical way in which Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought is underpinned and inspired by the infallible revelation of the Qur'an . He adopts the rich vocabulary of spiritual phenomenology which previous mystics had built up, and gives it both a scriptural basis and an ontological root. This all-inclusiveness and flexibility equally make him one of the most demanding of authors, and one whose subtlety lesser minds have often struggled to comprehend, some falling into rejection and outright opposition. His writing was always considered to be the most elevated exposition of mystical thought in Islam , and therefore unsuitable for the untrained mind. He combines a detailed architecture of spiritual experience, theory and practice, with descriptions of the attainments of other masters he met as well as his own personal visions, insights and dreams. It is his propensity to recount stories from his own direct experience, primarily in order to make a teaching point, that allows readers to gain such a detailed insight into the inner world of one of the greatest mystics the world has known, and also allows us to reconstruct his life and times with some accuracy.¹