43 Facts About Ibn Arabi

In some of his works, Ibn 'Arabi referred to himself with fuller versions of his name as Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn al-'Arabi al-Ta'i al-Hatimi, where the last three names indicate his noble Arab lineage.

Ibn Arabi came from a mixed background, whose father was an Arab descended from emigrants to Al-Andalus in the early years of the Arab conquest of Iberia, while his mother was presumably of Berber descent.

Ibn Arabi married Maryam, a woman from an influential family, when he was still a young adult and lived in Andalusia.

Ibn Arabi ask me whether I was aspiring to the Way, to which I replied that I was, but that I did not know by what means to arrive at it.

Ibn Arabi then told me that I would come to it through five things: trust, certainty, patience, resolution and veracity.

Ibn Arabi said that from this first meeting, he had learned to perceive a distinction between formal knowledge of rational thought and the unveiling of insights into the nature of things.

Ibn Arabi then adopted Sufism and dedicated his life to the spiritual path.

Ibn Arabi left Andalusia for the first time at age 28 and arrived at Tunis in 1193.

Ibn Arabi's father died soon after Ibn Arabi arrived at Seville.

Ibn Arabi returned to Cordoba, Andalusia in 1198, and left Andalusia crossing from Gibraltar for the last time in 1200.

Ibn Arabi then visited various places in the Maghreb, including Fez in Morocco, where he accepted spiritual mentorship under Mohammed ibn Qasim al-Tamimi.

Ibn Arabi left Tunisia in 1201 and arrived for the Hajj in 1202.

In 1204, Ibn Arabi met Shaykh Majduddin Ishaq ibn Yusuf, a native of Malatya and a man of great standing at the Seljuk court.

The next four to five years of Ibn Arabi's life were spent in these lands and he kept traveling and holding reading sessions of his works in his own presence.

Ibn Arabi died on 22 Rabi' al-Thani 638 AH at the age of 75.

Ibn Arabi was buried in the Banu Zaki cemetery, family cemetery of the nobles of Damascus, on Qasiyun Hill, Salihiyya, Damascus.

Ibn Arabi's writings were not limited to Muslim elites but made their way into other ranks of society through the widespread reach of the Sufi orders.

Ibn Arabi's work is popularly spread through works in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu.

Many prominent Ibn Arabi scholars, including Addas, Chodkiewicz, Gril, Winkel and Al-Gorab, contend that he did not follow any madhhab.

Goldziher held that Ibn Arabi did belong to the Zahirite or Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence.

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.

Ibn Arabi expounded on Sufi allegories of the Sharia, building upon previous work by Al-Ghazali and al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi.

Ibn Arabi is counted as the founder of the great schools of mystical thought in Islamic history.

Ibn Arabi referred to nearly seventy teachers in one of his works.

Ibn Arabi believed that true knowledge, namely knowledge of something in itself, belonged only to God and that every definition of knowledge is useless.

Ibn Arabi interpreted imagination as follows: all beings are images of real Being and non-being.

In developing his explanation of the perfect being, Ibn Arabi first discusses the issue of oneness through the metaphor of the mirror.

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 further explained the perfect man concept using at least twenty-two different descriptions and various aspects when considering the Logos.

Ibn Arabi contemplated the Logos, or "Universal Man", as a mediation between the individual human and the divine essence.

Ibn Arabi believed Muhammad to be the primary perfect man who exemplifies the morality of God.

Ibn Arabi regarded the first entity brought into existence as the reality or essence of Muhammad, 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 maintained that Muhammad was the best proof of God and, by knowing Muhammad, one knows God.

Ibn Arabi described Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all other prophets and various Anbiya' Allah as perfect men, but never tires of attributing lordship, inspirational source, and highest rank to Muhammad.

Ibn Arabi compares his own status as a perfect man as being but a single dimension to the comprehensive nature of Muhammad.

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.

Ibn Arabi was known by the title of Sultan al-'Ulama, the Sultan of scholars, was a famous mujtahid, Ash'ari theologian, jurist and the leading Shafi'i authority of his generation.

Ibn Arabi used to show us the scar on his face which, by that time, had closed.

For Ibn Daqiq al-'Id could only hear Ibn 'Abd al-Salam in Egypt, that is, a few years after Ibn 'Arabi's death.

William Chittick, a specialist on Ibn 'Arabi, citing Osman Yahya's definitive bibliography, states that of the 850 works attributed to him, around 700 are authentic, and over 400 remain extant.

Two years before his death, Ibn 'Arabi finished a second draft of the Futuhat in 1238, of which included several additions and deletions as compared with the previous draft, that contains 560 chapters.

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.