Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-'Arabi HB

Mukhtar H. Ali

Hardback, 232 pages

9781032019024

Analyzing the intersection between Sufism and philosophy, this volume is a sweeping examination of the mystical philosophy of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 637/1240), one of the most influential and original thinkers of the Islamic world. This book systematically covers Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ontology, theology, epistemology, teleology, spiritual anthropology and eschatology.

While philosophy uses deductive reasoning to discover the fundamental nature of existence and Sufism relies on spiritual experience, it was not until the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī that philosophy and Sufism converged into a single framework by elaborating spiritual doctrines in precise philosophical language. Contextualizing the historical development of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s school, the work draws from the earliest commentators of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s oeuvre, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. ca. 730/1330) and Dawūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), but also draws from the medieval heirs of his doctrines Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 787/1385), the pivotal intellectual and mystical figure of Persia who recast philosophical Sufism within the framework of Twelver Shīʿism and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), the key figure in the dissemination of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ideas in the Persianate world as well as the Ottoman Empire, India, China and East Asia via Central Asia.

Contents

1. Ontology

2. The Divine Names and Attributes

3. Divine Knowledge

4. The Origin of Multiplicity

5. The Universal Worlds 

6. The Imaginal World

7. Unveiling

8. The Human Vicegerency

9. The Existential Circle

10. The Supreme Spirit in the Microcosm

11. Prophethood, Messengership and Sainthood

12. Resurrection