Ibn al-‘Arabi is one of the most important medieval mystical writers of the Sufi sect of Islam. He
is sometimes called al-Shaykh al-Akbar (The
Greatest Shaykh), while Muhyi a-Din, his honorific name, means “reviver of religion.” Ibn al-
‘Arabi was born in Murcia, in Andalusia, and
moved to Seville with his family after the Almohads conquered southern Spain. He was educated
in Seville, and having been introduced to Sufi mysticism, became a wandering scholar through Spain
and northern Africa for some years, seeking out
Sufi masters. Making his pilgrimage (hajj) to
Mecca in 1201, he is said to have fallen in love with
a young Persian woman who became for him his
inspiration, the physical manifestation of the
beauty of God’s universe (this story may be apocryphal, since falling in love on pilgrimage was a
common motif in Arabic literature).
Ibn al-‘Arabi’s monument to this woman,
whom he calls by many names, is his Tarjuman alAschwag (The interpreter of desires), a collection
of 61 QASÍDAS (conventional love poems) that express allegorically his love of God through his expressions of love for the woman. The collection
was misunderstood, and Ibn a-‘Arabi wrote a
“Treasury of Lovers,” an explanation of the mystical allegory in his poems, to clarify their spiritual
intent: The young girl represents the perfect soul,
the longing for her is the longing of the soul that
seeks union with God.
After his experiences in Mecca, Ibn al-‘Arabi
traveled further throughout the Middle East, and
finally settled in Damascus in 1223. Here he did
much of his writing. More than 900 works are attributed to him, but most, of course, cannot be his.
His most famous mystical treatise is al-Fut¯uh¯ at alMikkiyya (The Meccan revelations). This is largely
a prose work, though it contains many poems.
Chiefly it attempts to explain the hidden, mystic
meaning of much of the universe. In one chapter
of this text, “The Alchemy of Happiness,” Ibn al-
‘Arabi describes a trip through hell and the heavens. Another text, describing Mohammad’s night
journey through the seven heavens, is Ibn al-
‘Arabi’s Shajarat al-Qawm (The Tree of existence).
For Ibn al-‘Arabi, the Prophet’s journey is an allegory for the journey of the heart of the mystic,
seeking reunion with God. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s other
better known works are Fuses al-Hiram (Bezels of
Wisdom), in which each chapter is presented as a
“bezel,” or jewel, of spiritual wisdom; and Divan, a
substantial collection of some 900 poems, some
mystical, a few personal.
In Ibn al-‘Arabi’s thought, the unity of all Being
was essential to religion, and seeking union with
the Godhead, with sheer Being, was the goal. For
Ibn al-‘Arabi, all religions sought this same goal,
and therefore, all faiths were ultimately one faith.
His enemies cursed him for heretical pantheism (a
belief in the divinity of the whole universe), but
Ibn al-‘Arabi defended himself by reference to sacred and orthodox texts.
Ibn al-‘Arabi said that he was driven by God to
write and that his texts were responses to God’s
urging rather than his own productions. Still one
of the most influential of medieval Sufis, his tomb
in Damascus continues to be an important pilgrimage center for that city.
Bibliography
Ibn al-‘Arabi. The Bezels of Wisdom. Translated by
R. W. J. Austin. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.
Ibn al-‘Arabi. The Tarjumán al-ashwáq: A Collection of
Mystical Odes. Edited by Reynold A. Nicholson.
London.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978.
Irwin, Robert, ed. Night and Horses and the Desert: An
Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1999.