About The Book

This work will, we are convinced, reach two groups in the present culture and affect them profoundly. One, the personal seeker who wishes to learn the true science of the Sufis and not a Zionist-orchestrated fantasy of sufic-dancing devoid of either method or system – and two, those scientists who are searching for an underlying framework which allows them to view the multiplicity of existence, the realms of form, while recognizing that reality is One.

Mention should also be made of Ibn al-Arabi’s place in the Muslim world today. It is a recognizable sign of the times and an indication of how deeply politics is embedded in the groves of academic that the modern Arab is brought up programmed to denounce Ibn al-Arabi by emotive dismissal while in almost every case not having read one of his vast opus which includes over three hundred volumes. I have never met any intellectual opposition to Ibn al-Arabi’s system. I have encountered inadequate philosophical assessments which attempt to reduce his dynamic over-view to a flat two-dimensional Aristotelian grid, and I have encountered vituperative and often irrational attacks which dominant flavor Ibn was antipathy rather than disagreement. Hostility is never a sound basis for either argument or illumination of a subject

Lastly, it is our hope that by the publication of this work in English the Muslim community will cease repeating the slogans they took from the western propagandists that Ibn al-Arabi was a monist who denied the “otherness” of the object. His teaching is nowhere naive as it is nowhere pantheist. Individual statements of his out of context can appear quite staggering but they must be seen within their setting. Sometimes that setting is a series of deliberate contradictions. Sometimes it is made in a series of negations to drive the intellect to a point where definition collapses. The intention then is never anarchic but specific. It is the intention of the Greatest Master to awaken in the intellect of the seeker that state of bewilderment from which there IS no exit – for there is no dilemma to get out of, as there is no one to get out of it. But already we have abolished the object? No. the reader must make the journey and find out for himself or herself. - From the Introduction by Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi

1. The Seal of Divine Wisdom in the Word of Adam

2. The Seal of Wisdom of the Breath of Angelic Inspiration in the Word of Shith (Seth)

3. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Breath of Divine Inspiration in the Word of Nuh (Noah)

4. The Seal of the Wisdom of Purity (Quddûs) in the Word of Idris

5. The Seal of the Wisdom of Being Lost in Love in the Wisdom of Ibrahim (Abraham)

6. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Real in the Word of Ishaq (Issac)

7. The Seal of the Wisdom of Elevation in the Word of Isma'il (Ishmael)

8. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Spirit (Rûh) in the Word of Ya'qub (Jacob)

9. The Seal of the Wisdom of Light in the Word of Yusuf (Joseph)

10. The Seal of the Wisdom of Divine Unity (Ahadiyya) in the Word of Hud

11. The Seal of the Wisdom of Revelation (Futuh) in the Word of Salih

12. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Heart in the Word of Shu'ayb

13. The Seal of the Wisdom of Power (Malk) in the Word of Lut (Lot)

14. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Decree (Qadar) in the Word of 'Uzayr (Ezra)

15. The Seal of the Wisdom of Prophethood in the Word of 'Isa (Jesus)

16. The Seal of the Wisdom of Mercy in the Word of Sulayman (Solomon)

17. The Seal of the Wisdom of Existence (Wujud) in the Word of Da'ud (David)

18. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Breath (Nafas) in the Word of Yunus (Jonah)

19. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Unseen in the Word of Ayyub (Job)

20. The Seal of the Wisdom of Majesty in the Word of Yahya (John the Baptist)

21. The Seal of the Wisdom of Possession in the Word of Zakariyya (Zachariah)

22. The Seal of the Wisdom of Intimacy in the Word of Ilyas (Elijah)

23. The Seal of the Wisdom of Ihsan in the Word of Luqman (Lokman)

24. The Seal of the Wisdom of the Imam in the Word of Harun (Aaron)

25. The Seal of the Wisdom of Sublimity in the Word of Musa (Moses)

26. The Seal of the Wisdom of What One Turns to (as-Samad) in the Word of Khalid

27. The Seal of the Unique Wisdom in the Word of Muhammad

About Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi

Mystic, philosopher, poet, sage, Muhammad b. Ali Ibn 'Arabi is one of the world's great spiritual teachers. Known as Muhyiddin (the Reviver of Religion) and the Shaykh al-Akbar (the Greatest Master), he was born in 560 AH (1165 AD) into the Moorish culture of Andalusian Spain, the center of an extraordinary flourishing and cross-fertilization of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought, through which the major scientific and philosophical works of antiquity were transmitted to Northern Europe. Ibn 'Arabi's spiritual attainments were evident from an early age, and he was renowned for his great visionary capacity as well as being a superlative teacher. He traveled extensively in the Islamic world and died in Damascus in 1240 AD.

He wrote over 350 works including the Fusûs al-Hikam, an exposition of the inner meaning of the wisdom of the prophets in the Judaic/ Christian/ Islamic line, and the Futûhât al-Makkiyya, a vast encyclopaedia of spiritual knowledge which unites and distinguishes the three strands of tradition, reason and mystical insight. In his Diwân and Tarjumân al-Ashwâq he also wrote some of the finest poetry in the Arabic language. These extensive writings provide a beautiful exposition of the Unity of Being, the single and indivisible reality which simultaneously transcends and is manifested in all the images of the world. Ibn 'Arabi shows how Man, in perfection, is the complete image of this reality and how those who truly know their essential self, know God.

Firmly rooted in the Quran, his work is universal, accepting that each person has a unique path to the truth, which unites all paths in itself. He has profoundly influenced the development of Islam since his time, as well as significant aspects of the philosophy and literature of the West. His wisdom has much to offer us in the modern world in terms of understanding what it means to be human.