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al-Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn ʿArabi إبن عربـي | |
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Born | 28 July 1165 |
Died | 16 November 1240 (aged 75) |
School | Founder of Akbariyya |
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Arabic name | |
Personal (Ism) | Muḥammad |
Patronymic (Nasab) | ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibnʿArabī |
Teknonymic (Kunya) | Abu Abdullah |
Epithet (Laqab) | Ibn ʿArabi |
Toponymic (Nisba) | al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī |
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Ibn ʿArabi (Arabic: ابن عربي) (1165 – 1240; full name: Muhyī al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī al-Ṭāʾī al-Andalusī al-Mursī al-Dimashqī; Arabic: محي الدين أبو عبد الله محـمـد بن علي بن محمـد بن العربي الحاتمي الطائي الأندلسي المرسي الدمشقي; nicknamed al-Qushayri and Sultan al-ʿArifin), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought. Out of the 850 works attributed to him, some 700 are authentic while over 400 are still extant. His cosmological teachings became the dominant worldview in many parts of the Muslim world.[3]
He is renowned among practitioners of Sufism by the names al-Shaykh al-Akbar ("the Greatest Shaykh"; from here the Akbariyya or Akbarian school derives its name), Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi, and was considered a saint.[4][5] He is also known as Shaikh-e-Akbar Mohi-ud-Din Ibn-e-Arabi throughout the Middle East.[6] In medieval Europe, he was known as Doctor Maximus (Greatest Teacher).[7]
'Abū 'Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī (أبو عبد الله محمد ابن علي ابن محمد ابن العربي الحاتمي الطائي) was a Sufi mystic, poet, and Arab philosopher from the Tayy tribe[8][9] born in Murcia, Al-Andalus on the 17th of Ramaḍān 560 AH (28 July 1165 AD).[10]
Ibn Arabi was Sunni, although his writings on the Twelve Imams were also popularly received among Shia.[11] It is debated whether or not he ascribed to the Zahiri madhab which was later merged with the Hanbali school.[12]
After his death, Ibn Arabi's teachings quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. His writings were not limited to the Muslim elites, but made their way into other ranks of society through the widespread reach of the Sufi orders. Arabi's work also popularly spread through works in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu. Many popular poets were trained in the Sufi orders and were inspired by Arabi's concepts.[13]
Others scholars in his time like al-Munawi, Ibn 'Imad al-Hanbali and al-Fayruzabadi all praised Ibn Arabi as ''A righteous friend of Allah and faithful scholar of knowledge'', ''the absolute mujtahid without doubt'' and ''the imam of the people of shari'a both in knowledge and in legacy, the educator of the people of the way in practice and in knowledge, and the shaykh of the shaykhs of the people of truth though spiritual experience (dhawq) and understanding''.[14]
Ibn Arabi's paternal ancestry was from the South Arabian tribe of Tayy,[15] and his maternal ancestry was North African Berber.[16] Al-Arabi writes of a deceased maternal uncle, Yahya ibn Yughan al-Sanhaji, a prince of Tlemcen, who abandoned wealth for an ascetic life after encountering a Sufi mystic.[17] His father, ‘Ali ibn Muḥammad, served in the Army of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Mardanīsh, the ruler of Murcia.[18] When Ibn Mardanīš died in 1172 AD, his father shifted allegiance to the Almohad Sultan, Abū Ya’qūb Yūsuf I, and returned to government service. His family then relocated from Murcia to Seville.[6] Ibn Arabi grew up at the ruling court and received military training.[18]
As a young man Ibn Arabi became secretary to the governor of Seville. He married Maryam, a woman from an influential family.[18]
Ibn Arabi writes that as a child he preferred playing with his friends to spending time on religious education.
He had his first vision of God in his teens and later wrote of the experience as "the differentiation of the universal reality comprised by that look".
Later he had several more visions of Jesus and called him his "first guide to the path of God".[citation needed] His father, on noticing a change in him, had mentioned this to philosopher and judge, Ibn Rushd (Averroes),[19] who asked to meet Ibn Arabi.
Ibn Arabi said that from this first meeting, he had learned to perceive a distinction between formal knowledge of rational thought and the unveiling insights into the nature of things.
He then adopted Sufism and dedicated his life to the spiritual path.[19]
When he later moved to Fez, in Morocco, where Mohammed ibn Qasim al-Tamimi became his spiritual mentor.[20] In 1200 he took leave from one of his most important teachers, Shaykh Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Yakhlaf al-Kumi, then living in the town of Salé.[21]
Ibn Arabi left Andalusia for the first time at age 36 and arrived at Tunis in 1193.[22] After a year in Tunisia, he returned to Andalusia in 1194. His father died soon after Ibn Arabi arrived at Seville. When his mother died some months later he left Andalusia for the second time and travelled with his two sisters to Fez, Morocco in 1195. He returned to Córdoba, Andalusia in 1198, and left Andalusia crossing from Gibraltar for the last time in 1200.[23] While there, he received a vision instructing him to journey east. After visiting some places in the Maghreb, he left Tunisia in 1201 and arrived for the Hajj in 1202.[24] He lived in Mecca for three years,[6] and there began writing his work Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (الفتوحات المكية) – 'The Meccan Illuminations'.
After spending time in Mecca, he traveled throughout Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Anatolia.[6]
In 1204, Ibn Arabi met Shaykh Majduddīn Isḥāq ibn Yūsuf (شيخ مجد الدين إسحاق بن يوسف), a native of Malatya and a man of great standing at the Seljuk court. This time Ibn Arabi was travelling north; first they visited Medina and in 1205 they entered Baghdad. This visit offered him a chance to meet the direct disciples of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qādir Jīlānī. Ibn Arabi stayed there only for 12 days because he wanted to visit Mosul to see his friend ‘Alī ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn Jāmi’, a disciple of the mystic Qaḍīb al-Bān (471-573 AH/1079-1177 AD; قضيب البان).[25] There he spent the month of Ramaḍan and composed Tanazzulāt al-Mawṣiliyya (تنزلات الموصلية), Kitāb al-Jalāl wa’l-Jamāl (كتاب الجلال والجمال, "The Book of Majesty and Beauty") and Kunh mā lā Budda lil-MurīdMinhu.[26]: 176
In the year 1206 Ibn Arabi visited Jerusalem, Mecca and Egypt. It was his first time that he passed through Syria, visiting Aleppo and Damascus.
Later in 1207 he returned to Mecca where he continued to study and write, spending his time with his friend Abū Shujā bin Rustem and family, including Niẓām.[26]: 181
The next four to five years of Ibn Arabi's life were spent in these lands and he also kept travelling and holding the reading sessions of his works in his own presence.[27]
On 22 Rabī‘ al-Thānī 638 AH (8 November 1240) at the age of seventy-five, Ibn Arabi died in Damascus.[6]
Although Ibn Arabi stated on more than one occasion that he did not blindly follow any one of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, he was responsible for copying and preserving books of the Zahirite or literalist school, to which there is fierce debate whether or not Ibn Arabi followed that school.[28][29] Ignaz Goldziher held that Ibn Arabi did in fact belong to the Zahirite or Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence.[30] Hamza Dudgeon claims that Addas, Chodkiewizc, Gril, Winkel and Al-Gorab mistakenly attribute to Ibn ʿArabī non-madhhabism.[31]
On an extant manuscript of Ibn Ḥazm, as transmitted by Ibn ʿArabī, Ibn ʿArabī gives an introduction to the work where he describes a vision he had:
“I saw myself in the village of Sharaf near Siville; there I saw a plain on which rose an elevation. On this elevation the Prophet stood, and a man whom I did not know, approached him; they embraced each other so violently that they seemed to interpenetrate and become one person. Great brightness concealed them from the eyes of the people. ‘I would like to know,’ I thought, ‘who is this strange man.’ Then I heard some one say: ‘This is the traditionalist ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm.’ I had never heard Ibn Ḥazm’s name before. One of my shaykhs, whom I questioned, informed me that this man is an authority in the field of science of Hadeeth.”
— Goldziher, The Ẓāhirīs: Their Doctrine and Their History (1971)
Goldziher says, “The period between the sixth (hijri) and the seventh century seems also to have been the prime of the Ẓāhirite school in Andalusia.”[32]
Ibn Arabi did delve into specific details at times, and was known for his view that religiously binding consensus could only serve as a source of sacred law if it was the consensus of the first generation of Muslims who had witnessed revelation directly.[33]
Ibn Arabi also expounded on Sufi Allegories of the Sharia building upon previous work by Al-Ghazali and al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi.[34]
The doctrine of perfect man (Al-Insān al-Kāmil) is popularly considered an honorific title attributed to Muhammad having its origins in Islamic mysticism, although the concept's origin is controversial and disputed.[35] Arabi may have first coined this term in referring to Adam as found in his work Fusus al-hikam, explained as an individual who binds himself with the Divine and creation.[36]
Taking an idea already common within Sufi culture, Ibn Arabi applied deep analysis and reflection on the concept of a perfect human and one's pursuit in fulfilling this goal. In developing his explanation of the perfect being, Ibn Arabi first discusses the issue of oneness through the metaphor of the mirror.[37]
In this philosophical metaphor, Ibn Arabi compares an object being reflected in countless mirrors to the relationship between God and his creatures.
God's essence is seen in the existent human being,
as God is the object and human beings the mirrors.
Meaning two things;
When an individual understands that there is no separation between human and God they begin on the path of ultimate oneness.
The one who decides to walk in this oneness pursues the true reality and responds to God's longing to be known.
The search within for this reality of oneness causes one to be reunited with God, as well as, improve self-consciousness.[37]
The perfect human, through this developed self-consciousness and self-realization, prompts divine self-manifestation. This causes the perfect human to be of both divine and earthly origin.
Ibn Arabi metaphorically calls him an Isthmus. Being an Isthmus between heaven and Earth, the perfect human fulfills God's desire to be known.
God's presence can be realized through him by others. Ibn Arabi expressed that through self manifestation one acquires divine knowledge, which he called the primordial spirit of Muhammad and all its perfection.
Ibn Arabi details that the perfect human is of the cosmos to the divine and conveys the divine spirit to the cosmos.[37]
Ibn Arabi further explained the perfect man concept using at least twenty-two different descriptions and various aspects when considering the Logos.[37] He contemplated the Logos, or "Universal Man", as a mediation between the individual human and the divine essence.[38]
Ibn Arabi believed Muhammad to be the primary perfect man who exemplifies the morality of God.[39]
Ibn Arabi regarded the first entity brought into existence was the reality or essence of Muhammad (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muhammadiyya), master of all creatures, and a primary role-model for human beings to emulate.
Ibn Arabi believed that God's attributes and names are manifested in this world, with the most complete and perfect display of these divine attributes and names seen in Muhammad.
Ibn Arabi believed that one may see God in the mirror of Muhammad. He maintained that Muhammad was the best proof of God and, by knowing Muhammad, one knows God.[40]
Ibn Arabi also described Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all other prophets and various Anbiya' Allah (Muslim messengers) as perfect men,
but never tires of attributing lordship, inspirational source, and highest rank to Muhammad.[40][41]
Ibn Arabi compares his own status as a perfect man
as being but a single dimension to the comprehensive nature of Muhammad.[41]
Ibn 'Arabi makes extraordinary assertions regarding his own spiritual rank,
but qualifying this rather audacious correlation by asserting his "inherited" perfection is only a single dimension of the comprehensive perfection of Muhammad.[41]
The reaction of Ibn 'Abd as-Salam, a Muslim scholar respected by both Ibn Arabi's supporters and detractors, has been of note due to disputes over whether he himself was a supporter or detractor. All parties have claimed to have transmitted Ibn 'Abd as-Salam's comments from his student Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, yet the two sides have transmitted very different accounts. Ibn Taymiyyah, Al-Dhahabi and Ibn Kathir all transmitted Ibn 'Abd as-Salam's comments as a criticism, while Fairuzabadi, Al-Suyuti, Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari and Yusuf an-Nabhani have all transmitted the comments as praise.[42]
His best-known book, entitled 'al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya' (The Meccan Victories or Illuminations) which begins with a statement of doctrine (belief) about which al-Safadi (d. 764/1363) said: "I saw (read) that (al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya) from beginning to end. It consists of the doctrine of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari without any difference (deviation) whatsoever."[43][44]
Some 800 works are attributed to Ibn Arabi, although only some have been authenticated. Recent research suggests that over 100 of his works have survived in manuscript form, although most printed versions have not yet been critically edited and include many errors.[45] A specialist of Ibn 'Arabi, William Chittick, referring to Osman Yahya's definitive bibliography of the Andalusian's works, says that, out of the 850 works attributed to him, some 700 are authentic while over 400 are still extant.[46]
According to Claude Addas, Ibn Arabi began writing Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya after he arrived in Mecca in 1202. After almost thirty years, the first draft of Futūḥāt was completed in December 1231 (629 AH), and Ibn Arabi bequeathed it to his son.[54] Two years before his death, Ibn ‘Arabī embarked on a second draft of the Futūḥāt in 1238 (636 AH),[54] of which included a number of additions and deletions as compared with the previous draft, that contains 560 chapters. The second draft, which the most widely circulated and used, was bequeathed to his disciple, Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi. There are many scholars attempt to translate this book from Arabic into other languages, but there is no complete translation of Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya to this day.
There have been many commentaries on Ibn 'Arabī's Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam: Osman Yahya named more than 100 while Michel Chodkiewicz precises that "this list is far from exhaustive."[55] The first one was Kitab al-Fukūk written by Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī who had studied the book with Ibn 'Arabī; the second by Qunawī's student, Mu'ayyad al-Dīn al-Jandi, which was the first line-by-line commentary; the third by Jandī's student, Dawūd al-Qaysarī, which became very influential in the Persian-speaking world.
A recent English translation of Ibn 'Arabī's own summary of the Fuṣūṣ, Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ (The Imprint or Pattern of the Fusus) as well a commentary on this work by 'Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Naqd al-Nuṣūṣ fī Sharḥ Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ (1459), by William Chittick was published in Volume 1 of the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society (1982).[56]
The Fuṣūṣ was first critically edited in Arabic by 'Afīfī (1946) that become the standard in scholarly works. Later in 2015, Ibn al-Arabi Foundation in Pakistan published the Urdu translation, including the new critical of Arabic edition.[57]
The first English translation was done in partial form by Angela Culme-Seymour[58] from the French translation of Titus Burckhardt as Wisdom of the Prophets (1975),[59] and the first full translation was by Ralph Austin as Bezels of Wisdom (1980).[60] There is also a complete French translation by Charles-Andre Gilis, entitled Le livre des chatons des sagesses (1997). The only major commentary to have been translated into English so far is entitled Ismail Hakki Bursevi's translation and commentary on Fusus al-hikam by Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, translated from Ottoman Turkish by Bulent Rauf in 4 volumes (1985–1991).
In Urdu, the most widespread and authentic translation was made by Shams Ul Mufasireen Bahr-ul-uloom Hazrat (Muhammad Abdul Qadeer Siddiqi Qadri -Hasrat), the former Dean and Professor of Theology of the Osmania University, Hyderabad. It is due to this reason that his translation is in the curriculum of Punjab University. Maulvi Abdul Qadeer Siddiqui has made an interpretive translation and explained the terms and grammar while clarifying the Shaikh's opinions. A new edition of the translation was published in 2014 with brief annotations throughout the book for the benefit of contemporary Urdu reader.[61]
In the Turkish television series Diriliş: Ertuğrul, Ibn Arabi was portrayed by Ozman Sirgood.[62] In 2017, Saudi Arabian novelist Mohammed Hasan Alwan won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel A Small Death, a fictionalized account of Ibn Arabi's life.[63]
As of this edit, this article uses content from "A Concise biography of Ibn 'Arabi", which is licensed in a way that permits reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, but not under the GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed.
Ibn ‘Arabî referred to himself with fuller versions of his name, such as Abû ‘Abdallâh Muhammad ibn ‘Alî ibn al-‘Arabî al-Tâ’î al-Hâtimî (the last three names indicating his noble Arab lineage)
It is well known that Ibn 'Arabi, from the point of view of his madhhab was a Sunni...but it is also known that he wrote a treatise on the twelve Shiite imams which has always been popular among Shiites.
Like many Andalusians, he came of mixed parentage: his father's name indicates an Arab family, which had probably emigrated to Andalusia in the early years of the Arab conquest, while his mother seems to have come from a Berber family...
For Ibn Arabi, the Logos or "Universal Man" was a mediating link between individual human beings and the divine essence.
This is a small selection of his many books.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ibn Arabi. |