Ibn Arabi

Ibn Arabi (Arabic: ابن عربي; b. 1165-1240), full name Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī al-Ṭāʾī al-Andalusī al-Mursī al-Dimashqī, nicknamed al-Qushayri and Sultan al-ʿArifin, was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought.

Quotes

• Every self-manifestation bestows a new creation and removes a pre-ceding creation. Its removal is the essence of annihilation (fanaa) in the passing self-manifestation and subsistence (baqaa) in the bestowal of the following self-manifestation.
  • Binyamin Abrahamov.Ibn Al-Arabi's Fusus Al-Hikam: An Annotated Translation of "The Bezels of Wisdom" p. 92, كلَّ تجلٍّ يعطي خلقًا جديدًا ويذهب بخلق: فذهابه هو الفناء عند التجلِّي والبقاء لما يعطيه التجلِّي الآخر Bezels of Wisdom (فصوص الحكم) [1]

• I take love as my religion wherever its caravans lead, for love is my religion and my faith.
  • أدين بدين الحب أنَّى توجهتْ ركائبه، فالحب ديني وإيماني, [2]

• His is the wisdom of singularity because he is the most perfect existent in the human species. That is why the whole affair began with him and is sealed with him. For he was a prophet while Adam was between water and clay. Then, in his elemental configuration, he was the Seal of the Prophets. And three is the first of the singulars. Every singular beyond one derives from it.
  • About Muhammad, Fușūş al-ḥikam, as quoted by Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought (1992), p. 188.