IBN AL-'ARABI

in full Muhyi Ad-din Abu 'abd Allah Muhammad Ibn 'ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Al-'arabi Al-hatimi At-ta'i Ibn Al-'arabi, also called Ash-shaykh Al-akbar born July 28, 1165, Murcia, Valencia died Nov. 16, 1240, Damascus celebrated Muslim mystic-philosopher who gave the esoteric, mystical dimension of Isl amic thought its first full-fledged philosophic expression. His major works are the monumental al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah (The Meccan Revelations) and Fusus al-hikam (1229; The Bezels of Wisdom). Ibn al-'Arabi was born in the southeast of Spain, a man of pure Arab blood whose ancestry went back to the prominent Arabian tribe of Ta'i. It was in Seville, then an outstanding centre 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 travelled 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-'Arabi had a dramatic encounter with the great Aristotelian philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averros; 112698) in the city of Crdoba. Averros, 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, dumfounded, began trembling. In the light of the subsequent course of Islamic philosophy the event is seen as symbolic; even more symbolic is the sequel of the episode, which has it that, when Averros died, his remains were returned to Crdoba; 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-'Arabi, 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, he 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 Orient, 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-Makkiyah, which was to be completed much later in Damascus. In 560 chapters, it is a work of tremendous size, a personal encyclopaedia extending over all the esoteric sciences in Islam as Ibn al-'Arabi understood and had experienced them, together with valuable information about his own inner life. It was also in Mecca that he 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-'Arabi 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, he visited Egypt (also in 1201) and then Anatolia, where, in Qunya, he met Sadr ad-Din al-Qunawi, who was to become his most important follower and successor in the East. From Qunya he went on to Baghdad and Aleppo. 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-Makkiyah, but its importance as an expression of Ibn al-'Arabi's mystical thought in its most mature form cannot be overemphasized. Toshihiko Izutsu Additional reading A.M. Palacios, El Islam cristianizado; estudio del sufismo a travs de las obras de Abenarabi de Murcia (1931); R.A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (1921); A.E. Affifi, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid-Din Ibnul 'Arabi (1939); S.H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages (1963); M.M. Sharif (ed.), A History of Muslim Philosophy, vol. 2 (1963); Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (Eng. trans. 1969); Osman Yahya, Histoire et classification de l'oeuvre d'Ibn 'Arabi, 2 vol. (1964); T. Izutsu, A Comparative Study of the Key Philosophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism: Ibn 'Arab and Lao Tz, Chuang Tz, 2 vol. (196667). See especially the works of Palacios, Nasr, and Corbin for biographical information.