Ibn Arabi

A Sufi author of great influence in the history of Sufism and Islamic thought; he is known by the title al-Shaykh al-Akbar. His full name is Muhyi al-Din Muhammad b. 'Ali b. Muhammad al-'Arabi al-Ta'i al-Hatimi. Those who esteemed his views expressed his authority in Sufism with the title "al-Shaykh al-Akbar" and his role as a renewer in the religious sciences with the title "Muhyi al-Din." To distinguish him from the Maliki judge Abu Bakr Ibn al-'Arabi, some sources write his name as Ibn 'Arabi; he himself records his name in many places as Muhammad Ibn al-'Arabi.

He was born on 17 Ramadan 560 (28 July 1165) in Murcia in south-eastern al-Andalus. What is known of him rests largely on the notes in his own works. He came of a noble Arab line of the Banu Tayy and states that Hatim al-Ta'i, famed for his generosity, was among his forebears. He describes his father 'Ali b. Muhammad as a pious man who recited the Qur'an much and occupied himself with jurisprudence and hadith; his mother Nur was of Ansari descent. The family lived in Murcia until he was eight, then moved to Seville. He says that around puberty, following a spiritual sign, he withdrew into seclusion. When he was about fifteen or sixteen he attracted the attention of the philosopher Ibn Rushd; the meeting between them, which he himself recorded, carries symbolic weight as a comparison of the philosophical and the Sufi outlooks.

He took his first Qur'an lessons from his neighbour Abu 'Abd Allah al-Khayyat and read hadith with traditionists such as Ibn Hubaysh, Ibn 'At, Ibn Baqi and Ibn Wajib. At eighteen he learned the Qur'anic readings from al-Lakhmi, and studied with 'Abd al-Rahman al-Suhayli and the judge Ibn Zarqun, receiving a licence. After adequate training in the outward sciences he turned to retreat and contemplation; in 580 (1184), still at the beginning of his path, he attained certain Sufi stations. In his works he speaks of the states and sayings of more than 300 people from whom he benefited. He names Abu'l-'Abbas al-'Uryabi as his first guide; by his own account, his true entry into the path of realisation came after he met Khidr in these years and received a cloak from him.

At twenty-six he went to Tunis and met Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Mahdawi, to whom he would later dedicate al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya. He stayed about four years in Fez, where he met 'Abd Allah Badr al-Habashi, who would be his companion for twenty-three years. After Granada and Cordoba, following a spiritual sign received in Marrakesh, he turned East in 596 (1200). Abu Madyan, whom he wished to see in Bijaya, had died in 594 (1198); still, he says he benefited from his spirit all his life. In 597 (1201) he set out from Tunis on pilgrimage; passing through Egypt, Jerusalem and Hebron, he visited the Prophet's tomb in Medina (Dhu'l-Hijja 598 / September 1202) and reached Mecca. In Mecca he attended study circles, read a work of Khwaja 'Abd Allah Ansari and taught al-Ghazali's Ihya'. It was here that al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, to be completed over twenty-three years, first began to be inspired in him; he says that what he wrote was opened to him while circumambulating the Ka'ba or sitting in contemplation in the Sanctuary.

In 601 (1204) he went to Baghdad and then to Mosul, where he wrote al-Tanazzulat al-Mawsiliyya. In Dhu'l-Qa'da 602 (June 1206) he came by way of Urfa, Diyarbakır and Sivas to Malatya. With him was Majd al-Din Ishaq, father of Sadr al-Din Qunawi; when Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw I summoned Majd al-Din to Konya, Ibn al-'Arabi went with him and there met Awhad al-Din Kirmani. He travelled again to Aleppo, Jerusalem, Egypt and Mecca, returned to Baghdad and Konya, and in 615 (1218) settled in Malatya. When Majd al-Din Ishaq died, he married his widow in accordance with his testament. He wrote letters of counsel to the Seljuq Sultan 'Izz al-Din Kaykawus I, and had relations also with the Ayyubid emirs of Aleppo and Damascus.

He spent his last years in Damascus. By his own account, following a heralding vision, he composed Fusus al-hikam there in 627 (1230); he devoted much of his time to revising and rewriting al-Futuhat, completing this second copy about a year before his death. He died on 22 Rabi' al-Akhir 638 (10 November 1240) in Damascus at the estate of the Banu Zaki and was buried in the Salihiyya quarter at the foot of Mount Qasiyun, in the family cemetery of the judge Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Zaki. He married first in Seville, second in Mecca, and third in Malatya, to the mother of Sadr al-Din Qunawi; it is recorded that his fourth marriage was to the daughter of al-Zawawi, the Maliki judge of Damascus. His sons were Muhammad 'Imad al-Din and Muhammad Sa'd al-Din; the latter is regarded as Sadr al-Din Qunawi's half-brother.

His Circle of Influence — His views were first taught through his students Ibn Sawdakin, Sadr al-Din Qunawi and 'Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani, and were given systematic form by Fakhr al-Din 'Iraqi, Sa'id al-Din al-Farghani, Mu'ayyid al-Din Jandi, 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashani and Dawud al-Qaysari. The most important figure of this first period is Qunawi, the first commentator to interpret his views; after the title al-Shaykh al-Akbar this line is called the Akbariyya. Through a line running from Qunawi to Qutb al-Din Shirazi and on to Mulla Sadra and Hajji Hadi Sabzawari, the Iranian madrasa tradition was influenced as well. 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili, 'Aziz al-Din Nasafi, 'Abd al-Rahman Jami, 'Abd Allah Bosnawi, Niyazi-i Misri, 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi and Isma'il Hakki Bursawi are among those influenced by his views. He stayed nearly four years each in Malatya and Konya, holding gatherings of learning and gnosis. It is reported that Shaykh Edebali, the spiritual founder of the Ottoman state, attended his gatherings in Damascus and became his disciple; that Dawud al-Qaysari, commentator on the Fusus, was the first official chief professor and Molla Fenari, commentator on the Miftah al-ghayb, the first shaykh al-islam, is counted among the signs of the tie between this school and the Ottomans. Sultan Murad III had the Fusus al-hikam translated; poets such as Nabi and Sünbülzade Vehbi wrote eulogies of him.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — He says that he did not write his works by deliberation but by "divine dictation," and that his books contain what was given him by unveiling. He relates that one night in Cairo in 603 (1206), in a state he describes, he was told, "He is, and you are not"; according to the source this saying led him to focus his whole attention on true being. For him being is in essence one, and existents are its self-disclosures. According to the first section of the source, the expression wahdat al-wujud does not occur as a technical term in his works; he conveyed this meaning with many phrases and metaphors, and the expression was first used in something like its known sense by Sadr al-Din Qunawi and his student al-Farghani. He viewed poetry from the same angle: al-Futuhat contains 1428 poems of his, 7102 verses in all. When the poems of his Tarjuman al-ashwaq, written in Mecca using the name of Nizam, daughter of the Isfahani scholar Makin al-Din, were interpreted by exoteric scholars as a love affair, he wrote a commentary on them explaining that his aim was to use Nizam as a symbol to express divine love.

His Works — His first list, in al-Fihrist, names 248 works; in al-Ijaza, given about six years before his death, he counts 289; of these ninety-eight have survived. Osman Yahya examined a total of 856 works, found that 137 of them had been ascribed to him, and estimated the number that can be called his at around 550; today about 245 of his works can be said to have survived. The main ones: his greatest and fundamental work al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (the thirty-seven-volume copy he wrote out a second time in his own hand is in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul); Fusus al-hikam (the copy written by Sadr al-Din Qunawi and seen by the author is in the same museum; many commentaries have been written on it); his lost commentary al-Jam' wa'l-tafsil, which reached verse 60 of Surat al-Kahf; al-Tadbirat al-ilahiyya; and the Tarjuman al-ashwaq, consisting of sixty-one odes and their commentary. Risalat al-anwar, Ruh al-quds, al-Tajalliyat al-ilahiyya and 'Anqa' mughrib are among his other printed works.

His Tomb and Complex — His grave in Salihiyya, where his two sons were also later buried, fell into neglect and was nearly forgotten because of anti-Sufi currents that spread in the Damascus region in later periods. Sultan Selim I, stopping in Damascus on his return from the Egyptian campaign, had the site of his grave identified as his first act and built a tomb over it, with a mosque and a lodge beside it. The tomb was restored by Abdülhamid II and is still visited today. Ottoman archival documents show that until the late period the state took responsibility for the upkeep of the tomb and mosque in Damascus, appointing staff there and assigning them salaries.