Encyclopedia of Islam

revelation

---

the wider community of their devotees. One of the 

most prominent Sufi visionaries who claimed to 

have such revelations was i

bn

 

al

-a

rabi

 (d. 1240), 

one of whose most important works is entitled 

The Meccan Revelations (al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya). 

At the beginning of this book he wrote,

The essence of what is included in this work 

comes from what God inspired in me while 

I was fulfilling circumambulations of [God’s] 

house (the k

aaba

), or while I was contem-

plating it while seated in its holy precincts 

(adapted from Ibn al-Arabi 8).

Ibn al-Arabi also claimed that a vision of 

Muhammad inspired him to write another of his 

major works, The Bezels of Wisdom. Visions and 

dreams of Muhammad are widely attested in Sufi 

literature, as well as popular lore. Among the most 

desired goals of Sufis, moreover, was to obtain a 

vision and intimate experience of God through 

their spiritual discipline and God’s grace-acts, 

much as Muhammad had been able to do. In addi-

tion to inspiration (ilham), they also spoke of rev-

elation in terms of “unveiling” or “illumination” 

(kashf), but, in doing so, they sometimes also 

posited equivalence between prophets and saints.

The Persian mystic r

Uzbihan

  b

aqli

 (d. 1209), 

a contemporary of Ibn al-Arabi, spoke of mes-

sengers, prophets, angels, and saints as all being 

God’s lovers to whom God unveiled himself and 

revealed not only secret knowledge and wisdom, 

but even his essence and divine attributes. Claims 

to have such divine knowledge sparked negative 

reactions from conservative religious authorities, 

who had the authority to level charges of innova-

tion (

bidaa

), 

blasphemy

, or even 

apostasy

 against 

the visionaries and their proponents.

See also 

angel

; 

aya

; 

fiqh

; 

holy

 

books

; 

prophets

and

 

prophecy

; s

UFism

.