1. aspects of contemporary culture exhibit traits of the philosophy
2. About Ibn
2.1. Source #1
2.2. wrote over 200 manuscripts
2.2.1. most influential teacher was Fatima of Cordova (a woman Saint)
2.3. claims that his works are result of divine inspiration and mystical experiences
2.3.1. looks for the deeper hidden meanings in the Koran and Hadith
2.3.1.1. `Arabi divides religion into outer and inner religion. The outer is concerned primarily with maintaining a distinction between the Divine and the world of form and action, between the Name of God, such as the Creator, and the servants who relate to this divinity. In contrast, the inner religion is concerned with the inner experience of the identity of the Divine and the oneness between God and the world. (quote)
2.4. highest form of knowledge is knowledge of ones self
2.4.1. this can be interpreted to be God knowing Himself through the human conciousnes
2.4.1.1. "All the infinite objects of knowledge that God knows are within man and within the cosmos through this type of nearness. No one knows what is within himself until it is unveiled to him instant by instant" (Chittick 154) .
3. religion
3.1. explicit teachings for the masses and secret teachings for those who were prepared and capable of understanding deeper hidden truths. Basic in sufi teachings, seen in other religions
3.1.1. the path of the Sufi and other people is to come to know God and his will
4. Souce #2
4.1. After his death in 1240, Ibn 'Arabi's writings (and teachings) quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. A central figure in the process was Sadr al-Din Qunawi, his foremost student, to whom he bequeathed his collection of books.
4.1.1. did not rapidly spread past the core of the Muslim world
5. source #9
5.1. love is a divine attribute
5.1.1. Qur'an associates love only with human beings among all creatures. Hence love is a key term if we are to understand what differentiates human beings from other created things
5.2. Ibn al-'Arabi begins his long chapter on love (mahabba) in the Futûhât al-Makkiyya - as he begins most of the book's 560 chapters - by citing relevant Qur'anic verses and prophetic sayings
5.2.1. As the Shaykh says, 'He who defines love has not known it, and he who has not tasted it by drinking it down has not known it' (II 111.12).
5.3. The Shaykh writes, Many mistakes may occur in love. The first of them is that people imagine that the object of love is an existent thing... In fact, love's object remains forever nonexistent, but most lovers are not aware of this, unless they should be knowers of the realities. (II 337.17)
5.3.1. When people love something, they desire to achieve a nearness or a union with the object of their love. As long as they have not achieved the object of their desire, it does not exist in relation to them.
5.4. All things are rooted in wujûd, which is God, and love is no exception. Hence, if it is universally true that the object of love is nonexistent, the reason for this must be that God's love, which is the root of all love, takes a nonexistent thing as its object.
5.4.1. If love is directed toward the nonexistent, and if love is the source of all God's creative activity, it follows that nonexistence exercises power throughout existence. In other words, the whole universe is rooted in nonexistence and depends upon nonexistence to exist.
6. Love
7. source # 8
7.1. ‘Arabî has no single or exclusive ‘audience’
8. source #2
8.1. fter his death in 1240, Ibn 'Arabi's writings (and teachings) quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. A central figure in the process was Sadr al-Din Qunawi, his foremost student, to whom he bequeathed his collection of books.
8.2. bn 'Arabi's writings have been very influential - chiefly among elites and Sufi tariqas. Although his name was widely recognized, only a minority of people could have read his works directly. But many of his ideas reached ordinary people through the Sufis, and through popular poetry.
8.2.1. So far studies of Ibn 'Arabi's influence have been limited in scope to particular periods or regions, as any comprehensive study would need to take into account the intellectual history of Islam across the Muslim world.
8.3. Miguel Asin Palacios in the 1920s caused a furore when he suggested that Dante had drawn on Ibn 'Arabi's writings for his Divine Comedy. Orientalists began to study Ibn 'Arabi's works relatively late, and the first respon
9. source #14
10. Influence on his Time
11. Source #3
11.1. a number of people in authority read his bookks
11.1.1. influenced Ottoman officials
11.2. some of Ibn's works were aimed (fatwa) aimed at scholars of Egypt and Syria
11.3. Influenced several prolefic Islamic writers
11.3.1. . Molla Fanârî [9] (d. 834/1430). He is considered to be the first Ottoman shaykh-al-islam. His father was a Sufi master of the initiatic line of al-Qûnawî. He wrote a commentary on the Miftâh al-Ghayb of al-Qûnawî.
12. Source #1
12.1. path of the Sufi is to seek a 'oneness of being' or 'unity of existance' with God.
12.1.1. quote: "simply stated, there is only one Being, and all existence is nothing but the manifestation or outward radiance of that one Being" (Chittick 79)
12.1.1.1. quote: Our purpose is to know God, but Ibn al-`Arabi reminds us that it is God who wishes to be known. The very longing itself to see the Beloved is the Beloved longing to see us. God reveals Himself through us. Our knowing is God's Knowing through us.
12.1.1.2. more quote:The whole purpose of creation and the explanation of who we are is summed up for Ibn al-`Arabi in one of his most often quoted Hadith, "I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known."
12.2. aplicable to our goals todya ex Christianity
12.2.1. "None knows God but God."
12.2.2. "There is no God but God,"
12.3. The Cosmos is the body of God. It reveals the multiplicity of God. In Essence God cannot be other than One in Himself, but since God is also infinite in possibility, the universe represents God's multiplicity.
12.4. ana, meaning the ever-fading, and baqa, the ever-enduring. One first loses oneself in order to find oneself. To know who we really are we have to first give up all the notions of who we are.
12.4.1. For Ibn al-`Arabi, this fana and baqa, this death and resurrection, is endless. It never ends, because the Sufi must give himself up every single moment, which is the true meaning of Islam, surrender to God.
12.4.2. Ibn al-`Arabi sees everything in terms of a relativity between two opposite cosmic poles, which he usually defines as the spiritual and the corporeal, but he also refers to other possible polarities, such as luminous and dark, subtle and dense, unseen and visible, high and low.
12.4.2.1. quote: "Understanding imagination is the key to various kinds of knowledge that are normally hidden from our rational minds, since imagination is able to combine opposites and contradictions" (Chittick 121).
12.5. opposition
12.5.1. Some Sufi teachers, such as Ahmad Sirhindi (d.1624) of the Naqshbandi Order, regarded this world as fundamentally evil, or in opposition to light (probably influenced by Zorastrian concepts), and the Divine Attributes were to redeem the world through the prophets and saints (or Perfect Man).
12.5.1.1. It is this radical `Unity of Being' that gets Ibn al-`Arabi in trouble with orthodoxy. The contemporary Islamic scholar, Fazlur Rahman describes Ibn al-`Arabi's doctrine as monistic and pantheistic, "representing a radical humanism"
12.6. imagination plays a fundamental role in the nature of being human. We are self-reflective creatures, and the world in which we do this is the world of imagination.
12.6.1. quote: "The soul, which develops gradually as a human being grows and matures, becomes aware of the world with which it is put in touch in a never-ending process of self-discovery and self-finding. Ultimately it may attain to complete harmony with the spirit... The soul -- that is to say our own self-awareness -- represents an unlimited possibility for development... the process whereby it moves from darkness to light is also a growth from death to life, ignorance to knowledge, weakness to power..." (Chittick 17).
12.6.1.1. The highest possibility of man and woman is called, "The Perfect Man" (insani kamil). He is the archetype of Self-actualization and the goal of the Sufi path.
12.6.1.1.1. aka a saint
13. source #6
14. 11
14.1. Sufism is the name given to Islamic mysticism, a word based on the Arabic word Suf, meaning undyed wool
14.1.1. As one scholar has described it, “If one were to seek a parallel with Christian movements, one might say that, on the whole, the Sufis were more like friars than monks.” That is to say their vision of God compelled them in the direction of public preaching and sermonizing rather than of monastic seclusion. Their experience of God was, for them, something to be shared with the rest of their community
14.2. Sufism, like Romanticism, represented a revolt against the formalism and intellectual dogmatism that seemed to them to dominate the lives of fellow religionists.
15. source #12
15.1. Ibn Arabi's doctrine of pantheism was a combination of Manichean, Gnostic, Neo-Platonic, Vedantic and Christian philosophies and speculations,
15.1.1. Muhiyddin Ibn Arabi, one of the leading authorities on Sufi mysticism, who captured the imagination and the adulation of Sufis around the world,
15.1.1.1. "Such learning and accompanying practices," R.J. Austin wrote, "often led Ibn Arabi, even while he was still young man in Seville, to spend long hours in the cemeteries communing with the spirits of the dead."
15.1.1.1.1. He talked about his "cemetry revelations" as matters of fact, and managed to compile a massive compendium on Sufism entitled Al-Futoohat Al-Mekkiyyah (the Meccan Revelations). Of this, Ibn Arabi wrote, "Some works I wrote at the command of God sent to me in sleep, or through mystical revelations."
16. source #13
16.1. Sufism had an important part in the formation of Muslim societies as it educated the masses and met their felt needs, giving spiritual meaning to their lives and channeling their emotions. Sufis were also great missionaries who converted new regions to Islam.
16.1.1. Its cultural contribution was a rich poetry in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Sindi, Pashto and Punjabi, which spread its mystical ideas all over the Muslim world and enriched local literature and identity.