Talk:Ibn Arabi

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[edit] NPOV

"A profound visionary capacity, coupled with a remarkable intellectual insight into human experience and a thorough comprehension of all the traditional sciences"? Also in the next paragraph refers to the Koran as 'the infallible Koran'. As this article is of interest to Muslims and non-Muslims should this be changed to refer simply to 'the Koran'?


It should be treated stylistically as the Bible or Torah. The Koran often has adjectives appended like "The Generous Koran", but they are not essential. Khabir786 (talk) 04:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wahabi attitude towards

  1. ^ If ibn Arabees words are not kufr then there is no kufr in the world.-[salaf.indiaaccess.com]Allaahuakbar An Invitation to Discover True Islaam [Salaf][Quran][Hadith][Islam] [sunnah][allaahuakbar.net]

Why is this link here? It is not the page of a scholar, newspaper, etc. It appears to be original research. Delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.249.33.114 (talk) 06:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

This paragraph seems oddly placed. Why is the opinion of a minority trend given such a prominance in the page? At the very least the opening sentence of this paragraph needs a gentler lead in and some context as to why this is relevant.

I think this is because the Wahabi/Salafi hostility towards Sufism is most pronounced in the present day and, given that the exporting of Wahabi doctrine from Saudi Arabia via Saudi money is having an enormous influence in the Exoteric Muslim world their criticism of people like Arabi is important to know about. Wahabi-funded Madrassahs and schools are often actively campaigning against Sufism and harrassing pilgrims to Sufi shrines. Given that Sufism is often regarded in some quarters as the more benign aspect of Islam and Wahabism is often seen as its opposite it makes sense to include this passage in such a way on this page. ThePeg 12:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subtle misspelling?

Isn't this a misspelling,

"... one whom subtlety lesser minds ..."

and should be something like

"... one whom subtly lesser minds ..."

(hey, I had to look up how to spell the word) Shenme 02:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it should actually be, "one whose subtlety less minds...". The whole thing could probably use a rewrite, though. Palmiro | Talk 09:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
For the context & grammar it should read "one whose subtlety lesser minds," and I've duly corrected it. However, I personally take issue with the tone of that sentence. The rather disparaging assumption that disagreement has stemmed only from being of "lesser minds" is not exactly an unbiased one, particularly when coupled with the generally derogatory term "Wahabis" being used as the only mention of a source of criticism, and coming in the context of a brief article which still finds space to refer to Arabi as a visionary twice. I do not mean to imply that the opposite position should be taken and criticism should dominate -- only that the balance here is tipped in favor of admiration as opposed to something more neutral. --208.101.153.146 18:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
You, as well as Palmiro, are absolutely right about this article needing a serious rewrite. The man was one hell of a thinker, but to present him as the sine qua non as this article does is a bit extreme and needs to be rethought/redone. Besides that, the article is an absolute mess, organizationally speaking. I plan to devote some time to it myself when I get the chance, but—of course—that'll require some research first ... —Saposcat 08:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Saposcat, I agree with the rest of you that this needs a serious rewrite. I'm a specialist on Ibn al-`Arabi and medieval Andalusi thought, so perhaps we can work together on this. I'm currently working on some other articles related to early modern Shi`ism, but I could probably devote some time to collaborating on a rewrite of this article soon. Have you drafted anything yet or thought of how to reorganize this? Masarra 23:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have to say that it's heartening to have a specialist willing to give their attention, since that's probably exactly what any article on the massively complex Ibn al-`Arabi would need. I haven't had the time yet to draft anything or give much thought to it yet—I've been busy with other things—but in terms of organization, as with any article on a writer/thinker, there should broadly speaking be a "Life" section, a "Works" section, and an "Influence" section. The "Works" section would obviously be the toughest bit, in that it would need to summarize the salient aspects of his thought in as clear a manner as possible—perhaps subsections devoted to the major stuff ("Bezels of Wisdom", "Meccan Openings", etc.) might help in this process, although from what I know of Ibn al-`Arabi, his different works are not as clear-cut in the way that, for example, Kant's three Critiques are. Anyhow, those are just basic organizational ideas. Thanks for offering to help: Ibn al-`Arabi certainly deserves a better page than I think he's got right now. —Saposcat 07:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

If anyone knowledgable is going to rewrite this soon, please include an explanation of wahdat al-wujud as many of us unfamiliar with this are very interested. Chris 12:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

William Chittick has pointed out that wahdat al-wujūd (the oneness of existence) was in fact not emphasized a great deal by Ibn 'Arabi himself, but was popularized by his disciples. Mohamadkhan 02:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of works

Ibn Arabi is known to have wrote 700 works, of which 300 are extant. The figures in the article are much reduced. Any opinion?--Connection 09:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know much more about every aspect of this man. For someone who, along with Rumi, is regarded as one of the giants of Islamic culture and Sufi thought this article is very sketchy. Can anyone flesh it out a little? ThePeg 12:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I have now included a link to Wahdat-ul-Wujood so that people needing to know more about this concept may read the main article. Ibn Arabi was a genuis whose works were misunderstood by his lovers as well as his haters. The reason was that he used the poetic language of Ayyam Jahilliya (pre-Islamic era). Intellectuals of early day Islam used this language and Arabic has changed a lot since then. Glimpses of that language is found in Quran only. I have included an example of Mushakila to explain his writing style.
There is another reason for misunderstanding. When Ghengiz Khan attacked and destroyed Baghdad, he did so with the help of a Vazier named Ibn Ulqami. Unfortunately he was an Ismaili Shia. Destruction of an entire civilization was a traumatic experience for Muslims and Ibn Taimiya reacted by developing hatred for anything that resembled Shias. Unfortunately for him, Sufism, especially Ibn Arabi's works looked like Shia to him. The further aggravate the situation, Mongols converted to Islam and adopted the Sufi method, hence connected to Ibn Arabi. Today's Islamic world is controlled by House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, due to their enourmous oil wealth and bloody capture of Hejaz (state that include holy cities of Mecca and Medina. They follow Wahhabism which claim heritage to Ibn Taimiya's teaching. As a result, Ibn Arabi has been demonized as Kafir (heretic). Hassanfarooqi 18:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wierd quotation marks

In the Wahhabi criticism section there are alot of quotation marks. It actually looks like the whole section is a quotation. Could someone fix this if they know what is going on? The section is reproduced below:

"Some Sunnis reject the notion that Ibn Arabi was a Muslim. Reasons for Ibn Arabi being branded a heretic were some of his statements in his books such as Fusoos Al-Hikam and Al-Ahkaam. One example is where Ibn Arabi said, "Al-`Abdu Rabbun Warrabbu `Abdun" meaning The slave (human) is the Lord/God and the Lord/God is the slave (human)." Sufis claim that such statements were always considered to be the most elevated exposition of mystical thought in Islam, and therefore unsuitable for the untrained mind. Ibn Arabi has also said, "Al-Rabbu Rabbun Fa in tanazzal, wal abdu abdun fa in tarakka" (Lord is Lord however low He comes down and a slave is a slave however high in status he goes up). This clearly shows that he accepted the existence of creations."

--Barastert 18:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Does it look any better now? Some Wahhabi editor had put his POV. I never remove POVs but put a caption "xx's view and its defence". Since Takfeer upon the Grand Sheikh (or for that matter any Sufi scholar) is common among Wahhabi scholars, I did not remove it but added the other side's defence. I consider criticism (not swearing) is an important part of any article, a little defence should be enough. Hassanfarooqi 00:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

I'm considering rewriting this article, or at least the Works section as formulated by Saposcat above. If we were to restructure it into Life, Works, and Influence, I'd prefer that somebody else take care of the "Life" part of it. I don't think that I would divide the Works section into a discussion of his various books....in fact, come to think of it, it might be better to divide the article in Life, Works, Thought, and Influence, the Works section being a brief description of his major books, while the Thought section would outline the crucial points of his thought--and there are many of them. One thing is for sure: the sections that are grammatically flawed almost to point of being nonsensical have to go! Mohamadkhan 02:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


Hi, this article seems sadly underdeveloped to me, for such a notable figure. I am an MA student in religious studies, and would like to help collaborate on this article. My senior thesis includes a great deal about Ibn Arabi's cosmology, and I could easily adapt some of that. I notice some interest in collaboration above, has anything come of it? May I participate? Thank you kindly.

Dear mystery contributor, you could just create a new subheading, 'His cosmology', and put your material there. Everyone else will indicate what they think of it soon enough. ;-) Mporter 09:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't correct that Murcia is in Andalusia.

[edit] Murcia

Murcia was a muslim kingdom in Al-Andalus (Medieval Muslim Spain). It is not Andalusia(Spanish region) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.24.178.127 (talk) 11:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Reference is highly important

I have taken out this quotation, because it does not belong to him.


“ There was a time when I used to reject those who were not of my faith. My heart has grown capable of taking on all forms. A pasture for a gazelles, a convent for Christians. A temple for idols, a Kabba for the pilgrim. A table for the Torah, a book of the Koran. My religion is love. Whatever path the caravan of love shall take, that path shall be the path of my faith. ”

— Ibn Arabi(1165-1240)
Generally when you have an unreferenced quote, the proper thing to do is to place the citation needed tag behind it. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Except for the first line (There was a time when I used to reject those who were not of my faith.)the rest of the quote is an accurate translation from Tarjuman al-Ashwaq or "Interpreter of Desires". I don't have a copy of the Nicholson edition, which includes the poetry in the original Arabic, his translation and a translation of the second edition which was published with Ibn Arabi's explanation of the allegories he used in his poetry. Even in his own time he created controversy, and by unpacking the meanings of his verse, he responded to critics (who could only see what their small minds allowed ;)Khabir786 (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

If he had a rebuttal, then make sure to find it as that does seem relevant. As far as his critics, whether they were small minded or not is just your POV, remember that as editors we aren't here to judge, just inform. MezzoMezzo (talk) 12:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ibn Arabi, Nostradamus, Edison

I think there must be a section about the prophecies of ibn Arabi.

"many Muslims believe that Nostradamus had first hand contact with some lost works of Muhyiddin ibn Arabi (1165-1240) and that ibn Arabi is actually Nostradamus' source of information about the 'future.'" http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=129348&bolum=135

In contrast to Nostradamus who used an implicit way for his prophecies fearing the reaction from the Church, ibn Arabi had more direct writing. He forecasted the invention of telegraph from centuries. It is known that Edison said 'I found my way to electricity in Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya of ibn Arabi'. He predicted the conquest of Istanbul and that Damascus will be taken by Sultan Yavuz. http://www.astrolojiokulu.com/yazi-detay.asp?makaleID=57

Currently I cannot provide English sources on this issue. Anyone with reliable references please take the lead :) Obuli (talk) 00:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)