ABSTRACT

Muh. yı¯ l-Dı¯n Muh. ammad ibn Alı¯ al-Arabı¯ is perhaps the most influential S. u¯f ı¯ of the medieval period and continues to inspire S. u¯f ı¯ movements in the contemporary world as well as institutions devoted to him such as the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society in Oxford. Popularly known as Ibn Arabı¯, he is often also given the honorific of al-Shaykh al-Akbar (The Greatest S. u¯f ı¯ Master) because of his influence, his writings and spiritual authority for S. u¯f ı¯s throughout the ages. His impact on Islamic intellectual history has been such that one might appropriately paraphrase A. N. Whitehead’s famous saying about Plato and argue that the subsequent history of thought, metaphysics, and self-realization in Islam is a series of footnotes to Ibn Arabı¯.