Writings
Much of his time in Mecca must have been occupied in writing – several major works were completed, and a start was made upon the enormous encyclopaedia of esoteric knowledge, the ‘Futuhat al-Makkiyah’. Apparently while writing this he used to fill three notebooks a day, wherever he happened to be. This process must have gone on for the best part of 30 years, since the first edition or redaction was not finished until 1231. It is interesting that all his work seems to have sprung from the same maturity of vision. There is no sense of progression in understanding from one work to the next, simply a shift of focus according to the nature of the topic and the audience. His works therefore have the rich flavours of a master chef displaying the full range of tastes in his kitchen. This may in part be explained by the manner in which he wrote. As he himself describes:
In what I have written, I have never had a set purpose, as other writers. Flashes of divine inspiration used to come upon me and almost overwhelm me, so that I could only put them from my mind by committing to paper what they revealed to me. If my works evince any form of composition, that form was unintentional. Some works I wrote at the command of God, sent to me in sleep or through a mystical revelation… My heart clings to the door of the Divine Presence, waiting mindfully for what comes when the door is opened. My heart is poor and needy, empty of every knowledge. When something appears to the heart from behind that curtain, the heart hurries to obey and sets it down in keeping with the prescribed limits.
‘Sufis of Andalusia’, p48. And Futuhat I. 59. (Trans. Chittick)
Nowhere is this principle more evident than in the ‘Fusus al-Hikam’ (Wisdom of the Prophets) which, though relatively short, has been called by one modern scholar ‘the spiritual testament of the master’. It is an extended meditation upon the meaning of the major prophets as portrayed in the Quran. Ibn ‘Arabi tells us in the introduction that he received the whole bo ok in a veridic dream from the Prophet Muhammed, who told him “This is the book of the Fusus al-Hikam; take it and bring it out to the people who will benefit by it”.
If the 560 chapters of the ‘Futuhat’ can be compared to an encyclopaedia, which details every aspect of the spiritual life – the meaning of Islam, events in the life of the Prophet, the Quran and Hadith, principles of jurisprudence, the constitution of the human being, the path by which human perfection may be realised, cosmology, the role of political institutions, etc, etc – then the ‘Fusus’ can be seen as a single world map of Divine Wisdom, where each prophetic country is displayed in its global setting. Obviously the book treats of the Semitic heritage from Adam (who is considered in Islamic esotericism as the prototype of the human being) to Muhammed, without venturing into the teachings of the Far East. Here there is certainly a rich area of study for future generations, to see what Ibn ‘Arabi has to offer in terms of the wider ecumenism of world spirituality.
Influence
The ‘Fusus al-Hikam’ in particular played a central role in the succeeding Islamic tradition, and inspired several commentaries which are classics of mystical literature in their own right. Through his stepson and disciple, Sadruddin Konevi, his teachings flowed into Eastern Sufism, notably to Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi, Jelaluddin Rumi and Abdul Karim al-Jili. According to some scholars, much of Dante Alighieri’s writing was influenced by Ibn ‘Arabi’s exposition of the spiritual quest, whilst in recent times, with the advent of several translations, his work has begun to be read more widely in the West. As Dr Austin of Durham University, a student and translator of Ibn ‘Arabi’s works, has put it:
“Ibn ‘Arabi gave expression to the teachings and insights of the generations of Sufis who preceded him, recording for the first time, systematically and in detail, the vast fund of Sufi experience and oral tradition, by drawing on a treasury of technical terms and symbols greatly enriched by centuries of intercourse between the Muslim and Neo-Hellenistic worlds… all who came after him received it through the filter of his synthetic expression.”
‘Sufis of Andalusia’, p48.
The fact that his work is situated on such a universal level is especially relevant in our own time where there is, on the one hand, a great danger of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’, of abandoning all religious tradition and practice in the striving for an understanding appropriate to the modern world; while on the other hand there is a tendency to remain in the bath for too long, in the apparent security of a form or belief. “The man of wisdom,” Ibn ‘Arabi reminds us, “will never allow himself to be caught up in any one form or belief, because he is wise unto himself”. (From ‘The Kernel of the Kernel’, Beshara Publications.)
Later Years
Having travelled extensively for nearly twenty years, visiting Jerusalem, Baghdad, Konya, Aleppo, Ibn ‘Arabi finally settled in Damascus in 1223 and made it his home for the last 17 years of his life. His influence and fame had spread far and wide throughout the Arab world, and he was named as the Shaykh al-Akbar, the Greatest Master. His students included people from all walks of life, including kings and beggars. One particular man lived in Egypt, but found the conditions there unbearable, so he walked all the way to Damascus, a distance of some 500 miles. When he arrived, he was addressed by the Shaykh with the following poem:
There are places which offer but scant consolation while others offer one great delight. However, make the Lord the mainstay and refuge of your soul, wherever and however you may be.
An unpublished poem from Ibn ‘Arabi’s ‘Diwan’, courtesy of Dr Austin.
Ibn ‘Arabi was by no means afraid to get involved in the social and political life around him. Not all was plain sailing, however, as he often came into conflict with the religious authorities and once was even forced to leave Egypt to avoid accusations of heresy and possible execution. Indeed this attitude has lasted until our own time as well – the Egyptian government banned his works in the 1970s, and in many Islamic countries they remain quite inaccessible. But in his own day he formed good and influential relationships with several notable rulers. One of them, Zahir the king of Aleppo, had wanted to execute a man of his court for revealing a state secret, and when Ibn ‘Arabi heard about it, he said to the king: “You imagine you have the dignity of kingship and that you are a Sultan! By God, I know of no sin in the world which is too much for me to forgive, and I am only one of your subjects. How is it then that you cannot bring yourself to forgive a crime which is no transgression according to God’s Law? Indeed your kingly magnaminity is meagre indeed”. At this the king was overcome with shame and set the man free.
Ibn ‘Arabi died in Damascus on November 16th 1240 AD (638AH), aged seventy-six. His vast achievement has had enormous repercussions throughout the Islamic world and beyond. It would belittle his greatness to limit his message to Muslims in any strict sense, unless we were to take the word Muslim in its literal meaning – as Ibn ‘Arabi so often encourages us to do – ie. those who have surrendered their will to the will of God. The universal character of his teachings makes them superlatively appropriate to the present day. As one eminent professor of semitic studies remarked to me recently, after reading Ibn ‘Arabi you read the Greeks differently. One might add without fear of exaggeration that for any sincere seeker after truth, after you read Ibn ‘Arabi you read all things differently. The religion of Love that he so ardently professes is founded on reason, but it is not just a brilliant metaphysical exposition, as some people have characterised it, nor a theory to rival or supersede other theories. It is, for Ibn ‘Arabi, the essential human birthright and prerogative, and his whole life was dedicated to the verification and explanation of what it means to be truly human.
In his own words:
God appeared to me in the inmost heart of my being and said to me “Make known to My servants that which you have verified of My generosity… Why do My servants despair of My Mercy when My Mercy embraces anything?
His best known works are:
Fusûs al-hikam (“The Ringstones of Wisdom”)
Considered to be the quintessence of Ibn ‘Arabi’s spiritual teaching, it comprises twenty-seven chapters, each dedicated to the spiritual meaning and wisdom of a particular prophet. Over the centuries Ibn ‘Arabi’s students held this book in the highest esteem and wrote over one hundred commentaries on it.
Al-Futûhât al-makkiyya (“The Meccan Openings”)
“This is a vast compendium of metaphysics, cosmology, spiritual anthropology, psychology, and jurisprudence. Topics include the inner meanings of the Islamic rituals, the stations of travellers on the journey to God and in God, the nature of cosmic hierarchy, the spiritual and ontological meaning of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, the sciences embraced by each of the ninety-nine names of God, and the significance of the differing messages of various prophets.” This work was written over a twenty-year period as Ibn ‘Arabi travelled in the Near East, and revised in a second recension during the time he lived in Damascus.
Tarjuman al-ashwaq (“The Interpreter of Yearnings”)
This short collection of love poetry was inspired by his meeting during his first pilgrimage to Mecca with Nizam, the beautiful and gifted daughter of a great scholar from Isfahan. He later wrote a long commentary on the poems to prove to one of his critics that they deal with spiritual truths and not profane love. It was the first of Ibn ‘Arabi’s works to be translated into English.