Reports

There are reports of conferences and other events held round the world since late 2008 on the Reports page.

Locations: New York, Baku, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford, Fes, Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, Konya, Jakarta...


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If you would like to be kept up to date with details of events by email, please contact the Secretary.

If you know of an event relevant to Ibn 'Arabi studies, please tell us about it.

The Symposium

Each year the Society organizes Symposia in the U.K. and the U.S.A. on an aspect of Ibn 'Arabi's work.

These international gatherings bring together people from many different fields and traditions, and include scholars, students, and anyone interested in what Ibn 'Arabi has to say. These events provide a unique opportunity for both speakers and delegates, specialists and non-specialists, to enrich their understanding of the Shaykh's teachings and their relevance today. The Society also encourages public seminars and lectures and can provide speakers on request.

October 15-16, 2010: Berkeley, California

Symposium: "Response and Responsibility"
The 2010 Symposium of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society in the USA will be held in partnership with the Center for Islamic Studies of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Location:
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Galleria
2301 Vine Street, Berkeley, CA 94708

Speakers:

Giv Nassiri

Giv Nassiri, Pacific School of Religion, History Department, title to be announced.

With Bachelors and Masters degrees in fields related to the political economy of developed countries and community development from UCB and Sorbonne he began work as a community planner and public management consultant. During his professional career he was struck by an article on Ibn Arabi’s description of his spiritual dream of visitation with prophets and decided to study Sufism. In 2002, he received his PhD from UCB in the History of the Near East with a focus on its social and Sufi history. His PhD dissertation documents and analyzes the fusion of the Turco-Persian civilization through the mechanism of its scholars’ extensive interactions, often through travel and migration. His work in progress includes a descriptive catalogue of rare Sufi manuscripts found in an ancient manuscript library in Istanbul. His published works include articles on the role of pious religious scholars in reviving Islamic cosmopolitanism, and Islam and modernity.
Since 1996, he has taught courses on the history of Sufism and Islamic social history at the Graduate Theological Union and co-teaches comparative spirituality and religious interfaith.

James Morris

James Morris, Boston College, Theology Department, title "Whose Calling, Whose Response? Ibn 'Arabi on Divine and Human Responsiveness".

Prof. Morris has taught Islamic and comparative religious studies at the University of Exeter, Princeton, Oberlin, and the Sorbonne, and lectures widely on the Islamic humanities, Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and the use of cinema in spiritual teaching. Recent books include Ostad Elahi's Knowing the Spirit (2007); The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabī's 'Meccan Illuminations' (2005); Orientations: Islamic Thought in a World Civilisation (2004); [Turkish translation: Yonelimler: Bir Dunya Medeniyetinde Islam Dusuncesi. (Istanbul, Insan yayinlari, 2006)] and The Meccan Revelations (2003).

Prof. Todd Lawson

Todd Lawson, University of Toronto, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, title "Ibn Arabi's Joseph: Imagination as Holy Communion".

Todd Lawson, PhD, teaches Islamic Thought at the University of Toronto. His interests include the Qur'an and its interpretation over time, Islamic Gnosis, Shi'ism and its later developments such as the Babi and Bahai religions. He has published numerous articles on these and other topics as well as two books, Reason and Inspiration in Islam (London 2005) and The Crucifixion and the Qur'an (Oxford 2009). His book Gnostic Apocalypse in Islam is scheduled to appear later this year.

Jane Carroll

Jane Carroll, Board Member Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society USA and Architect, title "The Eye's Response".

This illustrated talk on the Alhambra in Granada, Spain will focus on the spiritual and philosophical understanding underlying the architecture and geometry, which was greatly influenced by the study of Ibn 'Arabi and his contemporaries. In particular we will look at how the visual response can transcend art historical study to bring forth a direct experience of unity. The bare materials of wood, stone and plaster were transformed by intelligent design to create a unitative experience which inspires our own responsibility towards ourselves, each other and our environment.
Jane Carroll first studied the works of Ibn 'Arabi at the Beshara School in the 1970's. Concurrently she studied at the Architectural Association under Keith Critchlow with a specific interest in sacred geometry and Islamic architecture. She is on the board of the Ibn 'Arabi Society in America and currently works as an architect in Ojai, California.

Program:

October 15
7:30 p.m. Opening address, First speaker
October 16
9:30 Second speaker
10:45 Third speake
12:30 Lunch and book sales
1:15 Fourth Speaker
2:30 Break out/discussion sessions
3:30 Closing Gathering
4:00 Ends

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November 2011: New York

Ibn Arabi and Rumi Conference

After the extremely successful conference at the Riverside Church in New York in 2009 in conjunction with the Open Center, the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society in the USA is planning three major conferences on Ibn 'Arabi and Rumi to take place over the next 5 years. The first would be in early November 2011 in New York City, and is to involve 4 or 5 speakers with several additional workshop leaders as well as music and poetry recitation.

The Society said in its announcement of the conference:

We consider the study of these two supreme teachers in a series of conferences to be very important. Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and Jalaluddin Rumi are the two great pillars of sufism. Ibn 'Arabi has been hailed as the pinnacle of the way of knowledge and Rumi that of love but this obscures how completely each manifested in their own way the complete correlation of love and knowledge in the unitative vision, as Henri Corbin wrote: "Both are inspired by the same theophanic sentiment, the same nostalgia for beauty, and the same revelation of love".
Because of the scale of these conferences (last year's attracted 200 attendees) we are mounting a major fundraising drive. The Society ran a deficit after the last event but nonetheless considered it a significant success.

For more information contact the Secretary of the Society in the USA.

Other events

October-December, 2010: Oxford

"Journeying in Perfection: Human Fulfilment in Islamic Mystical Thought" a course offered by the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education on Wednesday evenings over 10 weeks from 6 October 8 December, 2010. Presented by Jane Clark and Stephen Hirtenstein, these sessions will focus on the way Ibn 'Arabi uses the metaphor of the journey to discuss the fulfilment of human potential. Journeying describes both the process of coming to knowledge, and the state of realisation itself, which is seen as an open-ended voyage with infinite possibilities of progress. Discussion will be based on primary texts, in particular the semi-autobiographical The Holy Spirit in the Counselling of the Soul and the newly translated Book of Journeys, as well as some poetry. For more information, see www.conted.ox.ac.uk

January-February, 2011: Oxford

"Gemstones of Wisdom: Readings from Ibn 'Arabi's Fusus al-hikam" a five day course offered by the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education on Wednesday evenings from 19 January to 16 February, 2011. Staffed by Jane Clark and Stephen Hirtenstein, the course will be based on reading one of the chapters of the Fusus, in a new unpublished translation with supporting material as required. For more information, see www.conted.ox.ac.uk