Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī (Arabic: ابن عربي, ALA-LC: Ibn ʻArabī; full name: أبو عبد الله محـمـد بن عربي الطائي الحاتمي, Abū ʻAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʻArabī al-Ṭāʼī al-Ḥātimī; 1165–1240) was an Andalusi Arab scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought. Out of the 850 works attributed to him, some 700 are authentic while over 400 are still extant. His cosmological teachings became the dominant worldview in many parts of the Muslim world.
Ash-Shaykh al-Akbar Muḥyī ad-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī | |
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| ابن عربي | |
| Born | 28 July 1165 Murcia, Taifa of Murcia (now Murcia, Region of Murcia, Spain) |
| Died | 16 November 1240 (aged 75) |
| Era | Medieval philosophy |
| Region | Middle Eastern philosophy |
| School | Founder of Akbariyya |
Main interests |
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| Arabic name | |
| Personal (Ism) | Muḥammad |
| Patronymic (Nasab) | ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArabī |
| Teknonymic (Kunya) | Abū ʿAbd Allāh |
| Epithet (Laqab) | Ibn ʿArabī |
| Toponymic (Nisba) | al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī |
| Part of a series on Islam Sufism |
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| Islam portal |
His traditional titular is Muḥyīddīn (Arabic: محيي الدين; The Reviver of Religion). After he died, and specifically among practitioners of Sufism, he was renowned by the honorific title Shaykh al-Akbar (Arabic: الشيخ الأكبر). This, in turn, was the name from which the "Akbarian" school of Sufism derived its name, making him known as Doctor Maximus (The Greatest Teacher) in medieval Europe. Ibn ʿArabī is considered a saint by some scholars and Muslim communities.
Ibn 'Arabi is known for being the first person to explicitly delineate the concept of "Wahdat ul-Wujud" ("Unity of Being"), a monist doctrine which claimed that all things in the universe are manifestations of a singular "reality". Ibn 'Arabi equated this "reality" with the entity he described as "the Absolute Being" ("al-wujud al-mutlaq").