Ibn Arabi

Muḥyī d-Dīn ibn ʿArabī
محيي الدين أبو عبد الله محمد بن علي بن عربي الحاتمي الطائي
Tomb of Ibn Arabi, Damascus, Syria
Personal life
Born(1165-07-28)28 July 1165
Died16 November 1240(1240-11-16) (aged 75)
Salihiyya, Damascus, Ayyubid Sultanate
Resting placeMount Qasioun, Damascus, Syria
NationalityAndalusian, Ayyubid
ChildrenSa'ad al-Din, Imad al-Din; Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi (stepson)
Parent
  • Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Arabi al-Hatimi al-Tai (father)
EraMedieval philosophy
RegionMiddle Eastern philosophy
Main interest(s)
Notable work(s)Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya
OccupationMufassir, Muhaddtih, Theologian, Philosopher, Academic, Poet
Religious life
ReligionIslam
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceMujtahid (often confused for Zahiri, Maliki or Hanbali)
TeachersShaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Tamīmī (Junaydiyya), Shaykh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mahdawī (Qadiriyya)
CreedFounder of Akbarism
Muslim leader
Influenced
Arabic name
Personal (Ism)Muḥammad
محمد
Epithet (Laqab)Muḥyī d-Dīn
محيي الدين
Toponymic (Nisba)al-Ḥātimī
الحاتمي
aṭ-Ṭāʾī
الطائي

Ibn 'Arabī (July 1165–November 1240) was a Sunni Muslim Arab scholar, Sufi mystic, poet, and Muslim philosopher from al-Andalus, who exercised notable influence within Sufi metaphysics and Islamic thought in general. There are 850 works attributed to Ibn 'Arabi, though only 700 of these are considered authentic, and only 400 are extant. His cosmological teachings became a dominant intellectual framework in many regions of the Muslim world.

His traditional title was Muḥyiddīn (Arabic: محيي الدين, lit.'The Reviver of Religion'). After his death, practitioners of Sufism began referring to him by the honorific title Shaykh al-Akbar (Arabic: الشيخ الأكبر, lit.'The Greatest Shaykh'), from which the term Akbarism is derived.

Ibn ʿArabī is considered a wali (saint) by some scholars and Muslim communities.

Ibn 'Arabī is known for being the first person to explicitly delineate the concept of wahdat al-wujūd (unity of existence), a monist doctrine that claimed that all things in the universe are manifestations of a singular reality. Ibn 'Arabī equated this reality with the entity he called "the Absolute" (al-wujūd al-muṭlaq, "the Absolute Existence").