Articles in this section

After Ibn 'Arabi

After his death in 1240, Ibn 'Arabi's writings (and teachings) quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. A central figure in the process was Sadr al-Din Qunawi, his foremost student, to whom he bequeathed his collection of books. Sadr al-Din wrote in both Arabic and Persian, and attracted a group of very influential students to Konya, in Seljuk Turkey, where he lived at the same time as Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, author of the renowned Mathnawi.

Ibn 'Arabi's writings have been very influential - chiefly among elites and Sufi tariqas. Although his name was widely recognized, only a minority of people could have read his works directly. But many of his ideas reached ordinary people through the Sufis, and through popular poetry.

So far studies of Ibn 'Arabi's influence have been limited in scope to particular periods or regions, as any comprehensive study would need to take into account the intellectual history of Islam across the Muslim world. As one example, see Mustafa Tahrali's article about the Ottomans on this page.

Ibn 'Arabi's impact outside the historic Muslim countries is not easily traced. Miguel Asin Palacios in the 1920s caused a furore when he suggested that Dante had drawn on Ibn 'Arabi's writings for his Divine Comedy. Orientalists began to study Ibn 'Arabi's works relatively late, and the first response was frequently frustration. The first work to be translated into English appeared in 1911. Recognition of the depth and richness of his writings has extended to new audiences over the past century, particularly since the 1970s. At the same time there has been a great revival of interest and publishing in the Islamic world.

Articles in this section

Sadr al-Din Qunawi

The last will and testament of Sadr al-Din Qunawi, by William Chittick

Including notes on Sadr al-Din Qunawi, his commentaries on Ibn 'Arabi and other works. After a discussion on the importance of this last will and testament, William Chittick provides a translation.

The Central Point - Qūnawī's Role in the School of Ibn 'Arabî, William Chittick

Including information of Sadr al-Din Qunawi and Ibn Arabi, the term wahdat al-wujûd (Oneness of Being), and the Station of "No Station". It has translated passages from Qunawi's al-Nafahât al-ilâhiyya (The Divine Inblowings), and I'jâz al-bayân.

Commentary on a Hadith by Sadr al-Din Qunawi, William Chittick

An introduction and then translation of Qunawi's discussion of the 21st hadîth in his work "Commentary upon Forty Hadîths".

The Key Concepts of al-Farghâni's Commentary on Ibn al-Fârid's Sufi Poem, al-Tâ'iyyat al-Kubrâ (pdf), Giuseppe Scattolin

Sa'id al-Din al-Farghani (d. 699/1300) wrote a very influential commentary on Ibn al-Farid's great poem, al-Tâ'iyyat al-Kubrâ. Al-Farghani was a student of Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, and said that he took his explanation of Ibn al-Farid's poem directly from his master Sadr al-Din. The Introduction to his commentary was long considered to be one of the clearest early expositions of Ibn 'Arabi's ideas. The extended summary in this paper is the first substantial exposure of al-Farghani's Introduction in a European language.

'Abd al-Rahman Jami

Jami on Divine Love and the image of wine, William Chittick

An introduction with notes on symbolism and meaning, and translations.

The Ottomans

Early Best-sellers in the Akbarian Tradition (pdf), Jane Clark

The dissemination of Ibn 'Arabi's teaching through Sadr al-Din Qunawi. Ibn 'Arabi's connection with Sadr al-Din Qunawi, biography, and a discussion of the spread of Ibn 'Arabi's teaching in the Seljuk period.

A General Outline of the Influence of Ibn 'Arabî on the Ottoman Era, by Mustafa Tahrali.

This paper reflects the great respect accorded to Ibn 'Arabi by the Ottoman state, and includes short descriptions of some thirty people whose writings reflected his influence in the course of six centuries.

Ibn 'Arabi and Ottoman Dervish Traditions: The Melami Supra-Order (Part One), by Victoria Rowe Holbrook

In general, melâmet has been defined as a kind of deprecation of the self, whether this is taken as a denial of being to the self in a philosophical sense, or as a practice of behaving in such a way as to conceal one's advanced spiritual states and draw upon oneself the censure of others... The Melâmî are said to have emerged as a Turkish tarikat or sûfî "way" when Emir Sikkini walked into a blazing fire and came out having lost only his dervish robe and crown...

Other

The Diffusion of Ibn 'Arabi's Doctrine, Michel Chodkiewicz

Many authors have pointed out for a long time the extent in Moslem geographical space – from the Maghreb to the Far East – of the influence of Ibn 'Arabi. In this article Michel Chodkiewicz underlines, beginning with some examples taken in the main from the Arabic-speaking Moslem world, the depth of this influence. The stamp of akbarian teaching is not only printed on "intellectual" Sufism, but may also be detected in a world of brotherhoods which embrace the most diverse social classes and cultural levels.

The Unity of Being in Liu Chih's "Islamic Neoconfucianism", Sachiko Murata

From the middle of the seventeenth down to the end of the nineteenth century, the school of Ibn 'Arabi had a significant presence in the Chinese language. The first Muslim scholar to explain Islamic teachings in Chinese was Wang Tai-yü, who published his major book in 1642. He tells us that his ancestor had come to China three hundred years earlier. He himself was educated in the traditional Islamic manner, and only when he was old did he begin to learn classical Chinese. His intention was to explain Islamic teachings to fellow Muslims educated in the Chinese manner and ignorant of the literatures of their own languages. As far as we can tell, up until this time most Islamic learning in China had been transmitted in Persian, though of course the Arabic Qur'an played the same basic role in China as it did elsewhere.

God and the Perfect Man in the Experience of 'Abd al-Qâdir al-Jaza'iri, Itzchak Weismann.

Itzchak Weismann is the author of Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus, Brill, 2001.

Reflections of Ibn 'Arabi in Early Naqshbandî Tradition, by Hamid Algar.

"It is often assumed that the Naqshbandî tariqa has formed a singular case of imperviousness to the almost universal diffusion of the teachings and concepts of Ibn 'Arabi... The imaginary antithesis between the Naqshbandîya and Ibn 'Arabi also derives, perhaps, in a more general sense, from the obstinate notion that Sufism and sharî'a have represented polar opposites throughout Islamic history..."

Reality and Image in the Tafsīr of Kubrā and Rāzī, Paul Ballanfat.

"We have never been so surrounded and permeated by images as we are at the beginning of the twenty-first century." In a study of a Quranic commentary attributed to Najm al-dīn Kubrā, a great contemporary of Ibn 'Arabi, Paul Ballanfat reflects on man in the image of God, and the question of vision. In doing so he asks questions about the nature and function of images, which "seems to be an urgent need in our time of extreme confusion".

The Occult Tradition of the Tarot in Tangency with Ibn 'Arabi's Life and Teachings (pdf), by Jereer El-Moor.

Most researchers today would probably agree that playing cards were introduced to Christian Europe as an importation from the Arab world, however, the details of this are not well-established. In the first part of this long article, the author reviews the known facts of the history of playing cards (and the related history of the Tarot). He sets out to present "a credible case for regarding the Tarot as of Near Eastern provenance", and gives a personal view of its interpretation through the centuries. In the second part he goes on to interpret one of the trumps in the light of Ibn 'Arabi's 'Anqa' mughrib. (Both parts of this article are big pdf files of about 480kb, and each will take some time to download).

Ibn 'Arabi and his Interpreters - articles by James Morris

Ibn 'Arabi: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Perspectives, by James Morris.

Part II - Influences in the Pre-Modern Islamic World. Introduction to the seven articles in this section::

Part III - Later Muslim Critics and Polemics (a collection of four articles): (pdf)


Ibn Masarra: A reconsideration of the primary sources (pdf 6.0 mb), by James Morris.

Ibn Masarra (born in Cordoba in 883 AD/268 AH) was an Andalusi Muslim ascetic and scholar. He is often considered one of the first Sufis as well as one of the first philosophers in al-Andalus. He is sometimes quoted by Ibn 'Arabi, and two passages from the Futûhât are included in this unpublished study. Undertaken at Harvard in 1973, it remains a useful reference in this field, and includes copies of two of his works from a rare edition.