Ibn al-'Arabi, by William C. Chittick (State University of New York)
EBN AL-'ARABI, MOHYI-al-DIN Abu 'Abd-Allah Mohammad Ta'i Hatemi (b. 17
Ramadan 560/28 July 1165; d. 22 Rabi' II 638/10 November 1240), the most
influential Sufi author of later Islamic history, known to his supporters as al-Shaykh
al-akbar, "the Greatest Master." Although the form "Ebn al-'Arabi," with the
definite article, is found in his autographs and in the writings of his immediate
followers, many later authors referred to him as 'Ebn 'Arabi', without the article, to
differentiate him from Qadi Abu Bakr Ebn al-'Arabi (d. 543/1148).
Life, views, terminology.
He was born in Murcia in Spain, and his family moved to Seville when he was eight.
He experienced an extraordinary mystical "unveiling" (kashf) or "opening" (fotuh)
at about the age of fifteen; this is mentioned in his famous account of his meeting
with Averroes (Addas, pp. 53-58; Chittick, 1989, pp. xiii-xiv). Only after this original
divine "attraction" (jadhba) did he begin disciplined Sufi practice (soluk), perhaps
at the age of twenty (Addas, p. 53; Chittick, 1989, pp. 383-84). He studied the
traditional sciences, Hadith in particular, with many masters; he mentions about
ninety of these in an autobiographical note (Badawi). In 597/1200 he left Spain for
good, with the intention of making the hajj. The following year in Mecca he began
writing his monumental al-Fotuhat al-makkiya; the title, "The Meccan Openings,"
alludes to the inspired nature of the book. In 601/1204 he set off from Mecca on his
way to Anatolia with Majd-al-Din Eshaq, whose son Sadr-al-Din Qunawi (606-73/
1210-74) would be his most influential disciple. After moving about for several years
in the central Islamic lands, never going as far as Persia, he settled in Damascus in
620/1223. There he taught and wrote until his death.
Ebn al-'Arabi was an extraordinarily prolific author. Osman Yahia counts 850
works attributed to him, of which 700 are extant and over 450 probably genuine.
The second edition of the Fotuhat (Cairo, 1329/1911) covers 2,580 pages, while
Yahia's new critical edition is projected to include thirty-seven volumes of about five
hundred pages each (vol. 14, Cairo, 1992). By comparison, his most famous work,
Fosus al-hekam (Bezels of widsom), is less than 180 pages long. Scores of his books
and treatises have been published, mostly in uncritical editions; several have been
translated into European languages. Although Ebn al-'Arabi claims that the Fotuhat is derived from divine
"openings"ómystical unveilingsóand that the Fosus was handed to him in a
vision by the Prophet, he would certainly admit that he expressed his visions in the
language of his intellectual milieu. He cites the Koran and Hadith constantly; it
would be no exaggeration to say that most of his works are commentaries on these
two sources of the tradition. He sometimes quotes aphorisms from earlier Sufis, but
never long passages. There is no evidence that he quotes without ascription, in the
accepted style, from other authors. He was thoroughly familiar with the Islamic
sciences, especially tafsir, feqh, and kalam. He does not seem to have studied
the works of the philosophers, though many of his ideas are prefigured in the works
of such authors as the Ekhwan-al-Safa' (q.v.; Rosenthal; Takeshita). He mentions on
several occasions having read the Ehya' of GHazali, and he sometimes refers to such
well known Sufi authors as Qoshayri. In short, Ebn al-'Arabi was firmly grounded in the mainstream of the Islamic
tradition; the starting points of his discussions would have been familiar to the
'olama' in his environment. At the same time he was enormously original, and he
was fully aware of the newness of what he was doing. Most earlier Sufis had spoken
about theoretical issues (as opposed to practical teachings) in a brief or allusive
fashion. Ebn al-'Arabi breaks the dam with a torrent of exposition on every sort of
theoretical issue related to the "divine things" (elahiyat). He maintains a uniformly
high level of discourse and, in spite of going over the same basic themes constantly,
he offers a different perspective in each fresh look at a question. For example, in
the Fosus al-hekam, each of twenty-seven chapters deals with the divine wisdom
revealed to a specific divine wordóa particular prophet. In each case, the wisdom is
associated with a different divine attribute. Hence, each prophet represents a
different mode of knowing and experiencing the reality of God. Most of the 560
chapters of the Fotuhat are rooted in similar principles. Each chapter represents a
"standpoint" or "station" (maqam) from which reality, or a specific dimension of
reality, can be surveyed and brought into the overarching perspective of the
"oneness of all things" (tawhid). Ebn al-'Arabi assumed and then verified through his own personal experience the
validity of the re-velation that was given primarily in the Koran and secondarily in
the Hadith. He objected to the limiting approaches of kalam and philosophy, which
tied all understanding to reason ('aql), as well as to the approach of those Sufis
who appealed only to unveiling (kashf). It may be fair to say that his major
methodological contribution was to reject the stance of the kalam authorities, for
whom tashbih (declaring God similar to creation) was a heresy, and to make
tashbih the necessary complement of tanzih (declaring God incomparable with
creation). This perspective leads to an epistemology that harmonizes reason and
unveiling. For Ebn al-'Arabi, reason functions through differentiation and discernment; it
knows innately that God is absent from all things (tanzih). In contrast, unveiling
functions through imagination, which perceives identity and sameness rather than
difference; hence unveiling sees God's presence rather than his absenceótashbih.
To maintain that God is either absent or present is, in his terms, to see with only one
eye. Perfect knowledge of God involves seeing with both eyes, the eye of reason and
the eye of unveiling (or imagination). This is the wisdom of the prophets; it is
falsified by those theologians, philosophers, and Sufis who stress either tanzih or
tashbih at the expense of the other. If Ebn al-'Arabi's methodology focuses on harmonizing two modes of knowing, his
actual teachings focus more on bringing out the nature of human perfection and the
means to achieve it. Although the term al-ensan al-kamel "the perfect human
being" can be found in earlier authors, it is Ebn al-'Arabi who makes it a central
theme of Sufism. Briefly, perfect human beings are those who live up to the
potential that was placed in Adam when God "taught him all the names" (Koran
2:30). These names designate every perfection found in God and the cosmos
(al-'alam, defined as "everything other than God"). Ultimately, the names taught to
Adam are identical with the divine attributes, such as life, awareness, desire, power,
speech, generosity, and justice. By actualizing the names within themselves, human
beings become perfect images of God and achieve God's purpose in creating the
universe (Chittick, 1989, especially chap. 20). Even though all perfect human beingsói.e., the prophets and the "friends" (awlia')
of Godóare identical in one respect, each of them manifests God's uniqueness in
another respect. In effect, each is dominated by one specific divine attributeóthis is
the theme of the Fosus. Moreover, the path to human fulfillment is a never-ending
progression whereby people come to embody God's infinite attributes successively
and with ever-increasing intensity. Most of Ebn al-'Arabi's writings are devoted to
explaining the nature of the knowledge that is unveiled to those who travel through
the ascending stations or standpoints of human perfection. God's friends are those
who inherit their knowledge, stations, and states from the prophets, the last of
whom was Mohammad. When Ebn al-'Arabi claimed to be the "seal of the
MoHammadan friends" (khatam al-awlia' al-mohammadiya), he was saying that no
one after him would inherit fully from the prophet Mohammad. Muslim friends of
God would continue to exist until the end of time, but now they would inherit from
other prophets inasmuch as those prophets represent certain aspects of
Mohammad's all-embracing message (Chodkiewicz, 1986). The most famous idea attributed to Ebn al-'Arabi is wahdat al-wojud "the oneness
of being." Although he never employs the term, the idea is implicit throughout his
writings. In the manner of both theologians and philosophers, Ebn al-'Arabi
employs the term wojud to refer to God as the Necessary Being. Like them, he also
attributes the term to everything other than God, but he insists that wojud does not
belong to the things found in the cosmos in any real sense. Rather, the things
borrow wojud from God, much as the earth borrows light from the sun. The issue
is how wojud can rightfully be attributed to the things, also called "entities"
(a'yan). From the perspective of tanzih, Ebn al-'Arabi declares that wojud
belongs to God alone, and, in his famous phrase, the things "have never smelt a
whiff of wojud." From the point of view of tashbih, he affirms that all things are
wojud's self-disclosure (tajalli) or self-manifestation (zohur). In sum, all things
are "He/not He" (howa la howa), which is to say that they are both God and other
than God, both wojud and other than wojud. The intermediateness of everything that can be perceived by the senses or the mind
brings us back to imagination, a term that Ebn al-'Arabi applies not only to a mode
of understanding that grasps identity rather than difference, but also to the World
of Imagination, which is situated between the two fundamental worlds that make up
the cosmosóthe world of spirits and the world of bodiesóand which brings
together the qualities of the two sides. In addition, Ebn al-'Arabi refers to the whole
cosmos as imagination, because it combines the attributes of wojud and utter
nonexistence (Chittick, 1989).
Influence on Persian Sufis and Philosophers.
Tracing Ebn al-'Arabi's influence in any detail must await an enormous amount of
research into both his own writings and the works of later authors. Most modern
scholars agree that his influence is obvious in much of the theoretical writing of
later Sufism and discernible in works by theologians and philosophers.
Wahdat al-wojud, invariably associated with Ebn al-'Arabi's name, is the most
famous single theoretical issue in Sufi works of the later period, especially in the
area under Persian cultural influence. Not everyone thought it was an appropriate
concept, and scholars such as Ebn Taymiya (d. 728/1328) attacked it vehemently. In
fact, Ebn Taymiya deserves much of the credit for associating this idea with Ebn
al-'Arabi's name and for making it the criterion, as it were, of judging whether an
author was for or against Ebn al-'Arabi (on this complex issue, see Chittick,
forthcoming). Although Ebn al-'Arabi's name is typically associated with theoretical issues, this
should not suggest that his influence reached only learned Sufis. He was the author
of many practical works on Sufism, including collections of prayers, and he
transmitted a kherqa that was worn by a number of later shaikhs of various orders.
As M. Chodkiewicz (1991) has illustrated, his radiance permeated all levels of Sufi
life and practice, from the most elite to the most popular, and this has continued
down to modern times. Today, indeed, his influence seems to be on the increase,
both in the Islamic world and in the West. The Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, which
publishes a journal in Oxford, is only one of many signs of a renewed attention to
his teachings. Ebn al-'Arabi's first important contact with Persian Islam may have come through
one of his teachers, Makin-al-Din Abu Shoja' Zaher b. Rostam Esfahani, whom he
met in Mecca in 598/1202 and with whom he studied the Sahih of Termedhi. He
speaks especially highly of Makin-al-Din's elderly sister, whom he calls
Shaykhat-al-Hejaz ("Mistress of Hejaz"), Fakhr-al-Nesa' ("Pride of womankind") bent
Rostam, adding that she was also Fakhr-al-Rejal ("Pride of men") and that he had
studied Hadith with her. It was Makin-al-Din's daughter, Nezam, who inspired Ebn
al-'Arabi to write his famous collection of poetry, Tarjoman al-ashwaq (Nicholson,
pp. 3-4; Jahangiri, pp. 59-62). In 602/1205 Ebn al-'Arabi met the well-known Sufi Awhad-al-Din Kermani (d.
635/1238) in Konya and became his close friend; he mentions him on a number of
occasions in the Fotuhat (Chodkiewicz et al., pp. 288, 563; Addas, pp. 269-73).
Awhad-al-Din's biographer tells us that Ebn al-'Arabi entrusted his stepson Qunawi
to Awhad-al-Din for training (Foruzanfar, pp. 86-87), and Qunawi confirms in a
letter that he was Kermani's companion for two years, traveling with him as far as
Shiraz (Chittick, 1992b, p. 261 ). Qunawi is the most important intermediary through which Ebn al-'Arabi's
teachings passed into the Persian-speaking world. He taught Hadith for many years
in Konya and was on good terms with Jalal-al-Din Rumi, but there is no evidence in
Rumi's works to support the oft-repeated assertion that he was influenced by the
ideas of Ebn al-'Arabi or Qunawi (Chittick, forthcoming). Nevertheless, Rumi's
commentators typically interpreted him in terms of Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings, which
had come to define the Sufi intellectual universe. Qunawi is the author of about fifteen Arabic works, including seven books and a
number of relatively short treatises. These works are much more systematic and
structured than those of his master. His focus on certain specific issues in Ebn
al-'Arabi's writings, such as wojud and the perfect human being (al-ensan
al-kamel), helped ensure that these would remain the central concern of the school.
Certain terms typically ascribed to Ebn al-'Arabi, such as al-hadarat al-elahiya
al-khams, "the five divine presences," seem to be Qunawi's coinages. In al-Fokuk
(ed. M. Khúajavi, Tehran, 1371Sh./1992), Qunawi explains the significance of the
chapter headings of the Fosus; this work was used directly or indirectly by
practically all the Fosus commentators (Chittick, 1984). Qunawi wrote a few minor Persian works, but probably not Tabserat al-mobtadi
or Matale'-e iman, both of which have been printed in his name (Chittick, 1992b,
pp. 255-59). However, from at least 643/1245 he taught the Ta'iya of Ebn al-Fared
in Persian, and his lectures were put together as a systematic commentary on the
poem by his student Sa'id-al-Din Fargani (d. 695/1296) as Mashareq al-darari (ed.
S. J. Ashtiani, Mashhad, 1398/1978). This work was extremely popular, but even more
so was his much expanded Arabic version of the same work, Montaha'l-madarek
(Cairo, 1293/1876). The most widely read Persian work by Qunawi's students was no doubt the
Lama'at of Fakhr-al-Din 'Eraqi (d. 688/1289), which is based on Qunawi's lectures
on Ebn al-'Arabi's Fosus (Chittick and Wilson). Mo'ayyed-al-Din Jandi (d. ca.
700/1300), who was initiated into Sufism by Qunawi, wrote in Arabic the first
detailed commentary on the Fosus (ed. Ashtiani, Mashhad, 1361 Sh./1982) as well as a
number of Persian works, including Nafhat al-ruh (ed. N. Mayel Heravi, Tehran,
1362 Sh./1983; despite the editor's claim of a unique Tehran manuscript, there are at
least two other copies in Istanbul [Shehit Ali Pasha 1439, Haci Mahmud Efendi 2447],
the first an expanded version). Jandi taught the Fosus to 'Abd-al-Razzaq Kashani (d. 730/1330), who wrote one of
the most widely disseminated commentaries (Cairo, 1386/1966); it often summarizes
or paraphrases Jandi's text. Kashani wrote several other important works, both in
Arabic and Persian, all of which are rooted in Ebn al-'Arabi's universe of discourse.
His Ta'wil al-Qor'an has been published in Ebn al-'Arabi's name (Beirut, 1968; for
passages in English, see Murata); although permeated with Ebn al-'Arabi's basic
world view, there are important differences of perspective that mark Kashani as an
independent thinker (Lory; Morris, 1987, pp. 101-06). A Persian work on fotowwat
(fotuwa) has also been published (Tohfat al-ekhwan fi khasa'es al-fetyan, ed. M.
Sarraf in Rasa'el-e javanmardan, Tehran, 1973). Persian commentaries on the Fosus are frequently based on the Arabic
commentary of Kashani's student, Dawud Qaysari (d. 751/1350), author of a dozen
other Arabic works. His systematic philosophical introduction to Sharh al-Fosus
(Tehran, 1299/1882; Bombay, 1300/1883) itself became the object of commentaries
(for the latest, see Ashtiani, 1385/1966). Certainly, Qaysari's influence is obvious and
acknowledged in the first Persian commentary on the Fosus, Nosus al-khosus
(partly edited by R. Mazlumi, Tehran, 1359 Sh./ 1980), written by his student Baba
Rokn-al-Din Shirazi (d. 769/1367). The Persian commentary by Taj-al-Din Hosayn b.
Hasan Khwarazmi (d. ca. 835/1432; ed. N. Mayel Heravi, Tehran, 1364 Sh./1985) is
almost a verbatim translation of Qaysari. Other Persian commentaries include
Hall-e Fosus by Sayyed 'Ali Hamadani (d. 786/1385); this work has been wrongly
attributed to Khwaja Parsa in its printed edition (ed. J. Mesgarneëad, Tehran, 1366
Sh./1987; see Mayel Heravi, 1988, pp. xxi-xxvii). In his comprehensive list of the more
than one hundred commentaries on the Fosus, Osman Yahia mentions ten in
Persian, some of which, however, may be repeats (introduction to Amoli, pp. 16-36).
Persian commentaries that he does not mention include the following: 1. Khatam
al-Fosus, attributed to Shah Ne'mat-Allah Wali (d. 834/1437); this is much longer
than any of Shah Ne'mat-Allah's printed rasa'el (manuscripts include Nadwat
al-'Olama' 35; Andhra Pradesh State Oriental Manuscript Library, Tasawwof 254,
Jadid 715; Khodabakhsh, Farsi 1371). 2. Another long commentary is also attributed to
Shah Ne'mat-Allah (Andhra Pradesh, Tasawwof 185). 3. Shaikh Mohebb-Allah
Mobarez Elahabadi (d. 1048/1648), Ebn al-'Arabi's most faithful Indian follower,
wrote a lengthy Persian commentary and a shorter Arabic commentary. 4. Hafez
GHolam-Mostáafa b. Mo-hammad-Akbar from Thaneswar wrote Shokhus al-hemam fi
sharh Fosus al-hekam, a commentary of 1024 pages in the Andhra Pradesh copy
(Tasawwof 296), apparently in the 11th/18th century. The last Persian commentary
on the Fosus in India seems to be al-Ta'wil al-mohkam fi motashabah Fosus
al-hekam by Mawlawi Mohammad-Hasan Saheb Amruhawi; he was living in
Hyderabad (Deccan) when this 500-page work was published in Lucknow in 1893. A number of Qunawi's contemporaries not directly connected to his circle were
important in making at least some of Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings available to Persian
speakers. Sa'd-al-Din Hamuya (d. 649/1252), a Persian disciple of Najm-al-Din
Kobra, corresponded with Ebn al-'Arabi and spent several years in Damascus,
where he met both Ebn al-'Arabi and Qunawi. He wrote works in both Arabic and
Persian; these are often extremely difficult, especially because the author delighted
in letter symbolism (for a Persian work, see al-Mesbah fi'l-tasawwof, ed. N. Mayel
Heravi, Tehran, 1362 Sh./1983). His disciple 'Aziz-al-Din Nasafi (d. before 700/1300)
was responsible for making some of Ebn al-'Arabi's terminology well-known in
Persian; his popularizing works can hardly be compared in sophistication to those of
'Eraqi or Fargani (see, e.g., his Ensan-e kamel, ed. M. MoleÇ, Tehran, 1962; an
English paraphrase of his Maqsad-e aqsa was published by E. H. Palmer as
Oriental Mysticism, London, 1867; see also Morris, pp. 745-51). Shams-al-Din
Ebrahim Abarquhi began to write Majma' al-bahrayn (ed. N. Mayel Heravi,
Tehran, 1364 Sh./1985) in 714/1314. The work represents an early effort to integrate
Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings into Persian Sufism; more sophisticated than Nasafi, the
author does not have the strong philosophical orientation typical of Qunawi and his
circle. Among early Persian poets influenced by Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings and terminology
were 'Eraqi, Maghrebi, and Mahmud Shabestari (d. ca. 720/1320). Mohammad Lahiji
(d. 912/1506) commented on Shabestari's thousand-verse Golshan-e raz in Sharh-e
Golshan-e raz, a long Persian work rooted in the writings of Kashani and Qaysari.
One of Ebn al-'Arabi's most learned and successful popularizers was the poet
'Abd-al-Rahman Jami (d. 898/1492), especially through his gazals and mathnawis;
about 1,000 verses of his Selselat al-dhahab carefully follow the text of Ebn
al-'Arabi's Helyat al-abdal (Mayel Heravi, 1988, pp. xxxvii-xl). Jami's Persian
prose works dealing with Ebn al-'Arabi's teachingsóthe Lawa'eh, Lawame',
Ashe''at al-lama'at, and Naqd al-nosus fi sharh Naqsh al-Fosusóas well as his
Arabic commentary on the Fosus, were also widely read (see introduction to Jami,
1977). Jami was especially popular in India, and most of the numerous followers of
Ebn al-'Arabi in the subcontinentówho were much more likely to write in Persian
than in Arabicóare indebted to his explications of the Shaikh's works (Chittick,
1992d). Mohammad b. Mohammad, who was known as Shaikh-e Makki (d.
926/1020) and considered himself a disciple of Jami, defended Ebn al-'Arabi against
attacks by narrow-minded critics in his Persian al-Janeb al-garbi fi hall moshkelat
al-shaykh Mohyi-al-Din Ebn 'Arabi (ed. Mayel Heravi, Tehran, 1364 Sh./1985). The poet and Sufi master Shah Ne'mat-Allah Wali was one of Ebn al-'Arabi's most
fervent admirers and followed closely in the tracks of Kashani and Qaysari. He
wrote over one hundred rasalas (treatises) on theoretical and practical Sufism that
fit squarely into Ebn al-'Arabi's universe; four of these comment on the Fosus or
Naqsh al-Fosus, Ebn al-'Arabi's own treatise on the essential ideas of the Fosus.
The Perso-Indian poet Mirza 'Abd-al-Qader Bidel (=Be@dil, q.v.; d. 1133/1721)
demonstrates an intimate knowledge of Ebn al-'Arabi's school in such mathnawis
as 'Erfan. Even Sufi authors critical of Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings adopted much of his
terminology and world view. Thus in Persia 'Ala'-al-Dawla Semnani (d. 736/1337)
and in India Shaikh Mohammad Hosayni, known as Gisu-Deraz (d. 825/1422), and
Shaikh Ahmad Serhendi (d. 1034/1634) do not diverge markedly from most of the
teachings established by him and his immediate followers. Most Sufis did not take
the criticisms of these authors too seriously. Typical are the remarks of Sayyed
Ashraf Jahangir Semnani (d. probably in 829/1425), who studied with 'Ala'-al-Dawla
Semnani but sided with Kashani in his defense of Ebn al-'Arabi against Semnani's
criticisms (see Landolt, 1973). After providing the views of the participants in this
debate and those of a number of observers, Sayyed Ashraf tells us that Semnani had
not understood what Ebn al-'Arabi was saying and that he had retracted his
criticisms before the end of his life (Yamani, Latáa'ef-e ashrafi, latáifa 28, pp.
139-45; Mayel Heravi, 1367, pp. xxxi-xxxv). In a similar manner, Shah Wali-Allah
Dehlawi (d. 1176/1762) wrote a work showing that there was no fundamental
difference between Ebn al-'Arabi's wahdat al-wojud and Serhendi's wahdat
al-shohud. From the 8th/14th century onward Ebn al-'Arabi's influence is clearly present in
many works written by authors known primarily as theologians or philosophers.
Among Shi'ites, Sayyed Haydar Amoli (d. 787/1385) was especially important in
bringing Ebn al-'Arabi into the mainstream of Shi'ite thought. He wrote an
enormous commentary on the Fosus, Nass al-nosus, the 500-page introduction of
which has been published (representing about 10 percent of the text). Amoli
investigates the meaning of the Fosus on three levels: naql (the Koran and Hadith,
making special use here of Shi'ite sources), 'aql (meaning kalam and falsafa),
and kashf (referring both to his own experience and the writings of major members
of Ebn al-'Arabi's school). Amoli also wrote several Arabic works on metaphysics;
especially significant is Jame' al-asrar (ed. Corbin and Yahia, Tehran, 1347 Sh./1969;
see Morris, 106-08), which was written in his youth during his initial movement into
Ebn al-'Arabi's universe. Sa'en-al-Din 'Ali Torka Esfahani (d. 835/1432) completed a commentary on the
Fosus in 831/1427; his treatise on wojud "being," Tamhid al-qawa'ed (ed. S. J.
Ashtiani, Tehran, 1396/1976), frequently paraphrases Jandi's Fosus commentary. A
number of Torka's Persian treatises (Ùahardah rasa'el, eds. S. 'A. Musawi
Behbahani and S. E. Dibaji, Tehran, 1351 Sh./1972) make explicit or implicit
reference to Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings. Molla Sadra (d. 1050/1641) frequently
quotes at length from the Fotuhat in his Asfar. His student Molla Mohsen Fayd
Kashani (d. 1090/1679) wrote an epitome of the Fotuhat and frequently quotes from
Ebn al-'Arabi in his works (EI2 V, p. 476). Even Molla Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi
(d. 1110/1669), well-known as a critic of Sufis in general and Ebn al-'Arabi in
particular, quotes on occasion from Ebn al-'Arabi in his monumental Behar
al-anwar (Beirut, 1983; e.g., ba'd ahl al-ma'refa in vol. 67, p. 339, refers to Ebn
al-'Arabi in the Fotuhat, Cairo, 1911, vol. 2, p. 328.15). In the modern period,
Ayat-Allah Khomeini differentiated himself from many other influential 'olama'
by his intense interest in Ebn al-'Arabi (Knysh, 1992b). The first of Ebn al-'Arabi's works to be translated into Persian was the Fosus, not
as an independent work, but rather in the midst of the commentaries by Baba
Rokn-al-Din and others. A translation without commentary was made by
'Abd-al-Ghaffar b. Mohammad-'Ali; an autograph version, written in 1008/1685, is
found in the Salar Jung Library in Hyderabad (Deccan) (Tasawwof 33; other
copies are found in the Andhra Pradesh State Library, Tasawwof 464 and Jadid
4248). Several short works by Ebn al-'Arabi on Sufi practice, including al-Anwar,
Asrar al-khalwa, Haqiqat al-haqa'eq, and Helyat al-awlia' were translated in the
8-9th/14-15th centuries (for the Persian text of these and other minor works, see
Mayel Heravi, 1988). A manuscript (Andhra Pradesh, Jadid 1461) called Sharh-e
Fotuhat, probably by Shaikh Mohebb-Allah Elahabadi, is the second volume (fols.
357-747) of a work that includes translations of and commentary on long passages
from the Fotuhat. Several of Elahabadi's long Persian works provide extensive
translations from the Fotuhat. Among Persian Sufis who were especially influential in the Arabic-speaking
countries of Islam, one can mention 'Abd-al-Karim Jili (d. 832/1428), author of
numerous independently-minded works, who settled in the Yemen and contributed to
the widespread interest in Ebn al-'Arabi's writings there (see Knysh, 1992a).
Finally, it is worth noting that most followers of Ebn al-'Arabi in Persia wrote their
theoretical works in Arabic. In contrast, the Indian subcontinent witnessed an
enormous outpouring of Persian writing pertaining to this school of thought, a
legacy largely ignored by modern scholars, even in the subcontinent itself (Chittick,
1992d). Bibliography: (For cited works not given in detail, see "Short References.") The
most comprehensive and best documented account of Ebn al-'Arabi's life is C.
Addas, Ibn 'Arabi ou La quête du Soufre Rouge, Paris, 1989; tr. as Quest for the
Red Sulphur, Cambridge, 1993. N. Z. Abu Zayd, Falsafat al-ta'wil, Cairo, 1983.
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