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Ibn al-'Arabi, by William C. Chittick (State University of New York)
(In this version of Professor Chittick's article, all of the diacritical
marks have been removed. For his
original article "EBN AL-'ARABI" with the complete diacritical
transliteration, see Encyclopaedia Iranica; you will also need to download
and install the font "Iran Web2.")
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).
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(WILLIAM C. CHITTICK)
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