Professors Michael Sells and Hany Ibrahim explore the poetry of Muḥyī ad-Dīn Ibn al-‘Arabī (1165-1240), the Andalusian scholar, mystic, poet, and author known as the Shaykh al-Akbar, “The Greatest Master.” One of the most influential Islamic thinkers and spiritual figures of all time, Ibn al-‘Arabi is best known for his voluminous Futuḥāt al-Makkiya, The Meccan Openings, once called “the greatest spiritual encyclopedia ever written by a single author,” and his highly influential and shorter philosophical-mystical work, al-Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, The Ringstones of Wisdom; both works are filled with his unique style of spiritually didactic poetry. But Ibn al-‘Arabi was also a gifted lyrical poet with an distinctive, but highly influential style, and the most recent edition of his Diwān, or collection of poetry, fills five volumes and over 2,000 pages. His theories of poetry and his metaphysical frameworks and terminology came to be used to interpret Sufi and other Islamic poetry, as well as inspiring generations of poets in virtually every Islamic language from his time down to the present-day.

Links and Further Reading/Listening:

Michael Sells (trans.), The Translator of Desires (Princeton University Press, 2021)

Denis McAuley, Ibn `Arabi’s Mystical Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2012)

Claude Addas, “The Ship of Stone” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society

Cyrus Zargar, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn’ Arabi and ‘Iraqi (Univ of South Carolina Press, 2013)

Hany Ibrahim, Love in the Teachings of Ibn al-‘Arabi (Equinox Press, 2023).

Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Poetry: https://ibnarabisociety.org/poetry-poems

William Chittick, “Ibn ‘Arabî”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Claude Addas, The Voyage of No Return (Islamic Texts Society, 2000).

William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination (SUNY Press, 1994)

Online Collection of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Poetry: https://www.aldiwan.net/cat-poet-Ibn-Arabi

Host: Oludamini Ogunnaike

Guests: Michael Sells and Hany Ibrahim

Edited By: Alana Bittner, WJTU