Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī

Ibn al-ʿArabi

Muhyī d-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muhammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿArabī al-Hātimī at-Tāʾī ( Arabic محي الدين أبو عبد الله محمد بن علي بن عربي الحاتمي الطائي, DMG Muḥyī d-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī ), often also Ibn al-ʿArabī (born on August 7, 1165 in Murcia ; died on November 16, 1240 in Damascus ), was a Andalusian philosopher and mystic . He is one of the most famous Sufis . Because of his great influence on the general development of Sufism, he is also called asch-schaich al-akbar ("The Greatest Master") or in Latinized Magister Magnus . Many consider him an advocate for religious tolerance .

biography

youth

Ibn al-ʿArabīs father was a general in the service of Ibn Mardanīš († 1172), a local ruler of the region around Murcia, who then proclaimed his independence from the Almoravids . After Ibn Mardanīš was later defeated by the Almohads , the father Ibn al-ʿArabīs moved with his family to Seville and entered the service of the caliph Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf . Thus Ibn al-ʿArabī spent his childhood in Seville from 1172. Thanks to the position of his father, he enjoyed a quiet childhood in the aristocratic circles of the then Andalusian society. Given the circumstances, and as the only son, nothing stood in the way of him following in his father's footsteps and becoming a military man himself. But his life took a radically different direction during puberty. Around the age of fifteen he began to lead a withdrawn and ascetic life. During this time, as he himself reports, he had no teachers. At this age he already had numerous mystical experiences, visions and insights that he would later write down. Around the year 1184, around the age of nineteen, he can be described as a Sufi.

to travel

Until 1201 he traveled to various cities in Andalusia such as Córdoba , Algeciras , Ronda , Almería , Granada and Marchena . From 1193 he began to travel outside of Andalusia, 1194 to Tunis and Tlemcen , 1195 and then again from 1196 to 1197 to Fes , 1200 to Salé , 1200 to 1201 to Marrakech , then to Tunis. Eventually he left Adalusia and northwestern Africa and spent the rest of his life in the Middle East . His biography can thus be divided into an early phase in the west and a late phase in the east.

The first phase up to 1201, i.e. the first 36 years of his life, can be seen as the time of spiritual maturation. This is reflected in the numerous writings and books that he wrote during this period, such as B. 1- Kitāb al- Mašāhid al-qudsiyya , 2- al-Isrā , 3- at-Tadbīrāt al-ilāhiyya , 4- Inšāʾ ad-dawāʾir , 5- Mawāqiʿ an-nuǧūm or 6- ʿAnqāʾ muġrib . Most of his teachings are found in the works mentioned. He later dealt with them in detail, but did not revise them or even withdraw them. The second phase, which began with his decision to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and visit the East, was not intended for him to gain knowledge there that did not exist in his country of origin, but rather to make his own convictions known in these areas close. Indeed, Ibn al-ʿArabi was an authority on Sufism and Hadith during the second stage of life . There was also a meeting with several other theological scholars.

In 1201 he left Tunis for Mecca . On his way in 1202 he visited Cairo , Hebron , Jerusalem and Medina . When he arrived in Mecca he stayed there until 1204. Then he returned to Jerusalem that same year to travel to Iraq, where he visited Baghdad and Mosul . Between the years 1205 and 1207 he was in Jerusalem, Hebron and Cairo. In 1207 he traveled to Mecca again. In 1209 he was in Aleppo and in 1212 again in Baghdad. Between 1213 and 1215 he alternated between Mecca and Aleppo. In 1216 he made a trip to Anatolia, where he was in Sivas , Malatya , Kayseri and Konya . In 1220 he was finally back in Aleppo. The last trip before he finally settled in Damascus from 1223 was again to Malatya in 1221.

Teacher

By 1201 he will meet and benefit from a number of Sufis in Andalusia and North Africa. His relationship with his teachers was complex and did not correspond to the classic relationship between master and student, but was rather asymmetrical. He saw himself as both a student and a teacher. Ibn al-ʿArabī will later write down the names and experiences with these Western teachers in two books, namely in Rūḥ al-qudus fī maʿrifat an-nafs and in ad-Durra al-fāḫira . At the same time, he attended the classes of numerous scholars, where he studied the Koran, hadith, Fiqh and the other disciplines in which he later became an authority himself.

In Ibn al-ʿArabi the influence of the tradition of mainly four scholars in the field of taṣawwuf can be noted, namely Ibn al-ʿArīf, Ibn Barraǧān, Abū Madyan and Imam Ibn Muǧāhid. Most of the masters he met were either disciples or disciples of the disciples of the four Sufis mentioned. Some of the important masters Ibn al-Arabi met include Yusuf al-Kūmī, ʿAbd Allah Mawrūrī, ʿAbd al-ʿazīz Mahdāwī or ʿAbd Allah al-Qalfāt.

Ibn al-ʿArabī grew up in Andalusia, one of the centers of the Malikītic school. A few generations before Ibn al-ʿArabī, great Malikītic legal scholars worked in Andalusia who had a decisive influence on this school. B. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr , Abu al-Walīd al-Bāǧī , Ibn Rušd al-Ǧadd (whom Ibn al-ʿArabī had got to know as a child), Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī and al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ , to name a few. Ibn al-ʿArabī took lessons from the scholars who were in the lineage of these prominent figures in Andalusia. So he studied the main works of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr with Ibn Zarqūn, the chief judge of Seville and a direct student of al-Qaḍī ʿIyāḍ and Abū ʿImrān Mūsā, who was himself a student of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr. Ibn al-ʿArabī also studied with Ibn al-Faras al-Ḫazraǧī, the chief judge of Granada. After Ibn Zarqūn, he was considered the second authority in the Malikītic school of law in Andalusia. Thus Ibn al-ʿArabī studied with the two most important Malikīt scholars of his time. Another Malikītic teacher from whom he learned was the hadith scholar ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥaǧarī. At the same time as the teaching of al-Ḥaǧarī, he attended those of Ayyūb al-Fihrī, another hadith scholar. Furthermore, one of the prominent scholars from whom he took additional lessons, ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān as-Suhaylī, the commentator of Sīrat Ibn Hišām ; Ibn al-Ḫarrāṭ al-Išbīlī, the author of several hadiths; Ibn Miqdām ar-Ruʿaynī and Ibn aš-Šarrāṭ. In his idjāza to King al-Muẓaffar alone , Ibn al- ʿArabi mentioned sixty-six names with whom he had either studied or who had given him an ijāza . In his study of Ibn al-ʿArabi, al-Māliḥ was able to identify 253 teachers in his various writings.

Teaching

Ibn Arabi emphasized several times that the fiqh and its madhhab as well as theology as directions are only temporary and he is not their follower. These are only temporary arrangements to reach a higher goal, such as renouncing worldly things. His interpretation of tawheed ( monotheism ) in particular later made him a point of attack for his opponents. In particular his doctrine of the wahdat al-wudschūd ("unity of being"). It assumes a physical unity between creator and creation. In this context, Nūr ad-Dīn ar-Rānīrī accuses him of denying the creation of the world of God, which emerges in the Koran. In general, his opponents refer to the theory as kufr . Ibn Taimiyya compares it in this connection with the Trinity in Christianity.

Sufis, who interpreted the Tawheed differently than ibn Arabi, established the teaching of Wajibatul vujud . This states that the “essence of God” is not like anything else and does not exist in any unity with a creation. Rather, “oneness with God” is explained here as the dissolution of one's own will into God's will, to achieve the task of one's own ego. To get there, it takes a great effort ( jihad ) as a struggle against one's own inner being, the so-called "lower ego" ( an-nafs al-ammara ). The highest level is the “pure I” ( an-nafs al-safiya ), which, however, can only be reached by a few Sufis. see: Aʿyān thābita

Ibn Arabi also took the view that Jesus, in Arabic Isa ibn Maryam, was not, as a large number of Islamic schools believe, lifted up with the body into heaven. Only the soul of Jesus was lifted up into heaven by God and he therefore died a natural death.

Works

During his travels and in the last years of his life, Ibn Arabi wrote an almost incalculable amount of works that influenced almost all Islamic mystics after him to a greater or lesser extent. It is said that there is no greater love poetry than his and that no Sufi has impressed orthodox theologians more than he with the inner meaning of his life and work .

A small selection of his works:

• ʿAnqāʾ muġrib ("The Fabled Griffin of the West"); Important early work on the concept of the seal of the saints (Jesus) and the idea of ​​the perfect human being, the translation into German (Wolfgang Herrmann) is based on the English translation by Gerald T. Elmore (embedded in his monograph Islamic Sainthood in The Fullness of Time ) and was published by Edition Shershir in 2012, ISBN 978-3-906005-09-6
• Awrād al-usbū' (also called "Week prayers" Will , "devotional prayer"); German edition as: The seven days of the heart: The greatest Sufi master's day and night prayers for every day of the week , transmitted, commented and edited by Pablo Beneito and Stephen Hirtenstein, Xanten: Chalice, 2020, ISBN 978-3-942914- 38-3
• al-Dawr al-aʿlā (“The sublime turning”; also called Ḥizb al-wiqāya , “protective prayer ”); a protective prayer from his pen, popular in the Islamic world, German edition as: And protect me on the way to you , translated, commented and edited by Suha Taji-Farouki, Xanten: Chalice, 2019, ISBN 978-3-942914-42-0
• ad-Durrah al-fāḫirah fī ḏikr man intafaʻtu bi-hi fī ṭarīq al-āḫirah ("The perfect pearl that tells stories of those who helped me on my way to the other world")
• al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīya ("The Meccan Revelations").
  • Chapter 178 appeared as a treatise on love ; Zurich: Chalice, 2009; ISBN 978-3-905272-74-1
• Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam ("ring stones of divine wisdom"); First translated into German in 1947 by Hans Kofler , published in 1970 as The Book of Signet Ring Stones of Wisdom Sayings in the Graz Academic Printing and Publishing Institute (2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-201-01333-1 ). In 1955 there was an (incomplete) translation into French by Titus Burckhardt ; this French translation was translated into German by Wolfgang Herrmann and published in 2005 as Die Weisheit der Propheten von Chalice in Zurich ISBN 3-905272-71-7 .
• Lubbul Lubb (“the innermost core”) and Kitāb al-Ajwibah (“who knows himself ...”); both texts were published in German under the title Der Verborgene Schatz ISBN 3-905272-72-5
• Risālat al-anwār (“Journey to the Lord of Power”) and chapter 367 of the Futūḥāt al-Makkīya (“My journey was only within myself”); both texts with detailed comments in German appeared under the title Journey to the Lord of Power ISBN 978-3-905272-73-4
• Rūḥ al-quds fī munāṣaḥat an-nafs ("The spirit of holiness that guides the soul")
• Turǧumān al-Ašwāq ("interpreter of longings"); 61 mystical love poems, commented verse by verse by Ibn Arabi himself, Volume 1 of a two-volume translation of the entire work (including all commentaries) from Arabic was published in 2013 by Edition Shershir, ISBN 978-3-906005-12-6 ( Translator: Wolfgang Herrmann)

reception

The teachings of Ibn ʿArabī were already an extremely controversial topic among Muslim scholars during his lifetime, but also in the centuries thereafter. Numerous scholars wrote comments on his works after his death and explained their mystical terminology, including several leading scholars of the early Ottoman state such as Dawūd al-Qaisarī (d. 1350), the head of the first Ottoman madrasa , Sheikh Bedreddin (d. 1416) , Ottoman lawyer and rebel, and Mollā Fanārī (died 1430), the first Shaikh al-Islam of the Ottoman Empire. They saw in him the greatest spiritual master.

Other Muslim scholars, especially those from Orthodox Islam, viewed Ibn ʿArabi as a heretic or even an apostate . The best known opponent is Ibn Taimiya . Many similarly thinking scholars after him rely on his teachings, for example Ibn Qayyim al-Jschauziya , Imam Birgivi or Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab . About the same period as Ibn Taimiya was Ibn Kathīr , who is also considered an opponent of ibn Arabi. Nūr ad-Dīn ar-Rānīrī , Kadızade Mehmed and ʿAlī al-Qārī can be named as further notable opponents . There are few who maintain a neutral stance towards ibn Arabi like some of the Deobandi scholars . In the Middle Ages, most of the opponents of ibn Arabis came from the camp of the Hanbalites , who followed the Athari theology, and from the camp of the Orthodox Maturidiyyah . Today, especially the supporters of Salafism , who strongly lean towards the Hanbalites in their views, can be seen as opponents.

literature

Primary texts

• The perfect harmony . OW Barth, Munich 2002. ISBN 978-3-502-61302-2
• Primeval cloud and world: mystical texts by the “Greatest Master” . German translator Alma Giese. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48055-1
• Richard Gramlich : Islamic mysticism, Sufi texts from ten centuries . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-17-011772-6
• Journey to the Lord of Power : A Sufi Manual on Retreat, engl. Translated from Rabia Harris. Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT 1991. German: Journey to the Lord of Power. My journey was just within myself. Chalice Verlag, Zurich 2007. ISBN 978-3-905272-73-4 .
• The wisdom of the prophets : The Fusus al-Hikam after the transmission of Titus Burckhardt. Chalice Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-905272-71-0 .
• Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, A commemorative volume. Edited by Stephen Hirtenstein and Michael Tiernan for the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society . Element, Shaftesbury 1993.

Secondary literature

• C. Addas: Quest for the Red Sulfur: The Life of Ibn 'Arabî . The Islamic Texts Society , Cambridge UK 1993
• C. Addas: Andalusi Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn `Arabi . In: Salma Jayyusi (Ed.): The Legacy of Muslim Spain . EJ Brill, Leiden 1992, pp. 909-933.
• WC Chittick : The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-'Arabî's Metaphysics of Imagination . State University of New York Press, Albany 1989.
• Selahattin Akti: God and Evil: The Theodicy Question in the Existential Philosophy of the Mystic Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi. Chalice Verlag, Xanten 2016, ISBN 978-3-942914-15-4 .
• WC Chittick: Ibn 'Arabî ”and“ The School of Ibn' Arabî . In: SH Nasr, O. Leaman (Ed.): History of Islamic Philosophy . Routledge, London 1996, pp. 497-523.
• WC Chittick: Ibn 'Arabi: Heir to the Prophets . Oneworld, Oxford 2005; German translation under the title Ibn Arabi: Erbe der Propheten by Peter Finckh. Edition Shershir, 2012, ISBN 978-3-906005-01-0
• WC Chittick: Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity . State University of New York, 1994; German translation under the title Pictorial Worlds: Ibn al-'Arabi and the question of religious diversity by Peter Finckh, Edition Shershir, 2015, ISBN 978-3-906005-14-0
• Stephen Hirtenstein: The Boundlessly Merciful - The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn Arabi. First German-language biography of Muhyiddin Ibn Arabis. ISBN 978-3-905272-79-6
• M. Asín Palacios: El Islam cristianizado . Madrid 1931. French transl .: L'Islam christianisé: Étude sur le Soufisme d'Ibn 'Arabî de Murcie. Guy Trédaniel, Paris 1982.
• Fateme Rahmati: Man as a reflection of God in the mysticism of Ibn ´Arabis . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007
• Bülent Rauf : On the move in the unity of being. Collected Writings. Chalice Verlag, Xanten 2017. ISBN 978-3-942914-23-9 .
• Annemarie Schimmel : Mystical Dimensions of Islam. The history of Sufism. Diederich, Munich 1985
• MH Yousef: Ibn 'Arabi - Time and Cosmology . Routledge, London 2007.

Web links

• Literature by and about Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī  in the German Digital Library
• Short biography and annotated list of the main works of Ibn ¡Arab∆
• Pablo Beneito, Stephen Hirtenstein: "... because I am time". Ibn Arabis 'Awrād al-usbū' (morning and evening prayers) . In: Magazine from Chalice Verlag. Xanten 2020.
• William C. Chittick:  Ibn Arabi. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• William C. Chittick: Article , in: Encyclopedia Iranica ( simplified typesetting ) (English)
• The Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society (English)
• Ibn Arabi Foundation Pakistan (English and Urdu)
• Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi . irfanokulu.net (selected transl. primary texts) (English)
• I. Arnel: The Concept of the Perfect Man . (PDF; 6.6 MB) in the thought of Ibn 'Arabi and Muhammad Iqbal: A comparative study, Diss. McGill University , Montreal 1997
• German language website about the teachings of Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi and his followers

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Meccan Revelations. World Digital Library , accessed July 14, 2013 (1900–1999). 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Ali Ghandour: The theological epistemology Ibn al-Arabis . Editio Gryphus, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-9817551-3-8 , p. 44 f .
3. ^ Ali Ghandour: Ibn al-Arabi's theological theory of knowledge . 2018, p. 45 f .
4. ^ Ali Ghandour: Ibn al-Arabi's theological theory of knowledge . 2018, p. 46 .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Ali Ghandour: The Theological Epistemology Ibn al-Arabis . 2018, p. 47 ff .
6. ^ Ali Ghandour: Ibn al-Arabi's theological theory of knowledge . 2018, p. 47 f .
7. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 131.
8. ^ Ali Ghandour: Ibn al-Arabi's theological theory of knowledge . 2018, p. 55 .
9. ↑ Muḥammad Riyāḍ al-Māliḥ: aš-Shayḫ al-Akbar Muḥyī ad-Dīn Ibn al- ʿ Arabī . Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi 2007, p. 87-109 .
10. ↑ Claude Addas: Ibn ' Arabī, ou, La quête du soufre rouge . Gallimard, Paris 1989, p. 365-367 .
11. ^ Mohammed Rustom: Review of Michel Chodkiewicz's An Ocean without Shore. (PDF; 18 kB)
12. ^ Charles Kurzman (ed.): The Proposed Political, Legal and Social Reforms. Taken from Modernist Islam 1840–1940: A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press, New York 2002, p. 281
13. ↑ Who was Ibn 'Arabi? islam-qa.com
14. ↑ sozlerkosku.com ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. sk: “Allah'ın Varlığı, Zatının İcabıdır” Sözü Ne Demektir? 
15. ^ Digitized version of the 1911 Būlāq edition by Menadoc .
16. ↑ Fateme Rahmati: Man as a reflection of God in Ibn ʿArabīs mysticism (= Studies in Oriental religions . Volume 55). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007, p. 6.
17. ↑ Mustafa Tahrali: A General Outline of the Influence of Ibn 'Arabi on the Ottoman Era . In: Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society , 26, 1999, pp. 43-54.
18. ↑ Al-Suyuti, Tanbih al-Ghabi fi Tanzih Ibn 'Arabi (pp. 17-21)
19. ↑ Zubair Ali Zai: The Takfeer of Ibn Arabee . (PDF; 42 kB). Trns. Abu Khuzaimah Ansaari. Maktabah Ashaabul Hadeeth, 2009.