Encyclopedia of Islam

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din

---

were construed by others, outraged literal-minded 

ulama such as i

bn

  t

aymiyya

 (d. 1328) and even 

some leading Sufis. His main insight concerned 

the “oneness of being” (wahdat al-wujud): the 

belief that all created things were tangible reflec-

tions of God’s hidden essence, al-Haqq (truth, 

reality), which filled the universe. This idea was 

inspired by a 

hadith

  qudsi (holy hadith) favored 

by Sufis, wherein God said, “I was a hidden trea-

sure who wished to be known, so I created the 

universe so that I would be known.” Ibn al-Arabi, 

like mystics before him, understood 

creation

 as 

a mirror wherein God, the Truth, sought to know 

himself. His opponents accused him of panthe-

ism (equating God with creation)—an affront 

to the doctrine that God was transcendent and 

independent of creation. Ibn al-Arabi recognized, 

however, that God was both present in the world 

and beyond it.

Moreover, he maintained that God’s desire to 

know himself through creation was matched by 

man’s yearning to know himself through God and 

nature. Although man was a servant of God, he 

also had been created with God’s spirit. God and 

man, therefore, longed to be with each other, a 

longing that Ibn al-Arabi and his followers associ-

ated with love (mahabba). A form of this love was 

reflected in the mutual attraction between a man 

and a woman. Indeed, Ibn al-Arabi even taught 

in The Bezels of Wisdom that man’s knowledge of 

God was completed and perfected in contemplat-

ing how a woman reflected God’s transcendent 

reality. He recognized, nonetheless, that humans 

often became too attached to worldly concerns 

and desires, so they had to strive to sever these 

attachments and return to the source. Drawing on 

anecdotes from his own life experience, he often 

talked about detachment from the world and 

seeking God as an ascent or spiritual journey to 

the world of the unseen.

In addition to the themes of the unity of being, 

desire for reunion, and the spiritual journey, a 

fourth major theme found in Ibn al-Arabi’s writ-

ings is that of the p

erFect

 m

an

 (al-insan al-kamil). 

He saw the world, both physical and spiritual, as 

organized into hierarchies, such as those between 

the one and the many, the invisible and the visible, 

God and servant, man and woman. As humans 

were superior in rank to other creatures in the 

visible world, there were qualitative differences 

among human beings, too. The highest rank-

ings among them were the prophets and 

saint

s,

or “friends of God.” Unlike ordinary men, these 

were the ones who were most taken with spiritual 

ascents and mystical journeys. In this, they, and 

Muhammad being the foremost among them, 

came closest to the ideal of the Perfect Man, the 

image and reflection of God through whom the 

known universe came into being.

Although he never founded a Sufi order 

(

tariqa

), Ibn al-Arabi’s teachings and those of his 

disciples were widely embraced by Sufis in t

Urkey

, 

Persia,  i

ndia

, and i

ndonesia

. Sufis in Egypt and 

y

emen

 also found them attractive, but to a lesser 

extent than elsewhere. Translations and interpreta-

tions of Ibn al-Arabi’s work by modern scholars in 

Europe and the U

nited

 s

tates

 have helped spread 

his influence in the West. In 1977, the Muhyidin 

Ibn Arabi Society was founded in London to pro-

mote better understanding of his work and that of 

his disciples. Aside from Ibn Taymiyya, his many 

critics have included the historian i

bn

  k

haldUn

(d. 1406), Sufi shaykh a

hmad

 s

irhindi

 (d. 1624), 

members of the Wahhabi sect of s

aUdi

 a

rabia

 and 

beyond, and an array of modern Muslim revivalists 

and modernists. Controversy over his teachings 

flared again in 1979 when the Egyptian parliament 

attempted to ban the republication of the print edi-

tion of The Meccan Revelations. The attempt failed 

due to public outcry.

See also a

llah

; 

haqiqa

; 

prophets

 

and

 

prophecy

; 

s

UFism

; W

ahhabism

; 

walaya

.