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His story began in Andalusia and ended in Damascus .. Ibn Arabi, a Sufi who
traveled the countries of the East for 23 years due to a vision..

 Amal K24/05/2021

0151 5 ‫دقائق‬

 SUNNAFILES.COM

He dreamed about a bird flying around a great throne carried on pillars of flame.
The bird approached him and whispered in his ear: “Go east and I will be your
heavenly guide, while a human companion will wait for you from the city of Fez.”
Because of this vision, Muhyiddin Bin Arabi moved from his city Murcia traveled in
the countries of the East for 23 years and became one of the great Sufis and Muslim
philosophers throughout the ages.

Ibn Arabi, the elder Sheikh, and Sultan of knowledgeable

For the Sufis, Ibn Arabi is not just a poet and philosopher. Rather, his followers
consider him among the saints and named him “the great sheik” and “the Sultan of
the knowledgeable,” and they attribute to him the great Sufi order.
Ibn Arabi was born in the Andalusian city of Murcia in 1164, to an Arab father who
was from the famous Tayy tribe, and a Berber mother from North Africa.
He grew up in a religious, Sufi family. His father, Ali bin Muhammad, was one of
the imams of jurisprudence and hadith, and one of the flags of asceticism, piety,
and mysticism in Andalusia, and he was eager to teach his son the science of
religion from a young age. And he studied jurisprudence and hadith at the hands of
the most well-known jurists of his time.
When Ali bin Muhammad began working in the service of the Sultan of the Almohads,
Abu Ya`qub Yusuf I, he moved with his family to Seville, where Ibn Arabi was
brought up in the court of government and received military training, and as soon
as he reached adulthood, he assumed the position of deputy governor of Seville and
married a woman belonging to the most popular Seville families called Mariam.
Ibn Arabi’s life in Andalusia seemed to be perfect, as he was a religious person
who enjoyed the respect of those around him, who had a leading position, and the
head of a respectable family. Nevertheless, there was a reason for him to leave.

Visions of Ibn Arabi

The story of Sufi is hardly left without a vision or dream that led to the entry of
the Sufi into the world of spirituality, and Ibn Arabi is not an exception.
It is said that he had a severe illness in his youth, and while he was in a severe
case because of a fever, he saw in his dream that he was surrounded by a huge
number of armed evil forces who wanted to eliminate him, and suddenly a strong,
bright-faced man appeared, attacking those souls and leaving no trace of them, and
when a son asked him Arabic: Who are you? The man said: I am Surat Yassin.
After that, Ibn Arabi woke up to find his father sitting near him reciting Surah
Yassin to him, and he was cured of his illness soon after that.
Ibn Arabi considered that this was an indication of his readiness to enter the
world of mysticism, and he did not complete his second decade without being
immersed in the books of mystics, sages, scholars and philosophers, and ready to
walk on the path of spiritual life to the end.

“Travel east and I will be your heavenly guide.”

It is said that Ibn Arabi appeared – in a state of awakeness, an exquisitely made

bird flying around a great throne carried on pillars of flame. The bird approached
him and whispered in his ear: “Travel east and I will be your heavenly guide, while
a human companion will wait for you from Fez.”
And that vision was the reason for Ibn Arabi’s desertion of his stable life in
Andalusia and the start of his long journeys in the countries of the East, so he
visited Mecca, Taif, Mosul, Cairo, Aleppo, Armenia, and Baghdad, where he met the
well-known Sufi Shihab al-Din Omar al-Suhrawardi.
He also visited the turkish Konya, where its Seljuk prince welcomed him with a huge
ceremony, and there he married the mother of Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, one of his Sufi
students.
After nearly 23 years of travel, he finally settled in Damascus and carried in his
heart nothing but Nizam, his sweetheart, and muse, who wrote in praise of “Tarjuman
Al-Ashwaq”.

Tarjman Al-Ashwaq in praise of the Persian “Nizam”

When Ibn Arabi visited Mecca in the year 1201, he was welcomed by a great Persian
sheik named Abu Shuja bin Rustam al-Isfahani. Al-Isfahani had a daughter who was
endowed by God with a good face, a shining spirit, and a bright mind named “Nizam”.

800 books on poetry, jurisprudence, and philosophy

Ibn Arabi’s books exceed 800 volumes on poetry, philosophy and jurisprudence, and
today we have no more than 100 volumes left.
It should be noted that there are some of Imam Ibn Arabi’s writings in which it was
inscribed with blasphemous phrases of which he was innocent. To read more about
this matter click here
The influence of this Sufi poet’s teachings was not limited to the Arab world, but
his writings spread around the world and were translated into Persian, Turkish and
Urdu languages.
Ibn Arabi’s books were not exclusive to the Muslim elite, but also found their way
to all classes of Islamic society, as a result of the spread of the Sufi tide and
the consideration of Ibn Arabi as an inspiration to many Sufis who belong to
different classes of society.
Among his most prominent works are “Tarjuman al-Ashwaq”, a poetry collection he
wrote in praise of the Persian “Nizam”, and “Meccan Futures,” a book that included
Ibn Arabi’s Sufi views and spiritual principles, and was said to have been written
at the request of his heavenly guide who visited him again in one of his
meditations.
He also wrote, “The Interpretation of Ibn Arabi” which includes an interpretation
of the Qur’an and an explanation of its meanings. He also has a book “The
convenience and Informing the Signs of the People of Inspiration” and “The Tree of
the Universe” and many others.

Damascus is the end of the story

After more than two decades of travel, Ibn Arabi finally landed in Damascus in
1223, and settled there for the rest of his life, and its prince was one of his
students who believed in his knowledge and followed his teachings.
Ibn Arabi lived the rest of his life as a teacher and jurist in Damascus, where he
had a council of scholarship and mysticism intended by many students seeking
knowledge from all around the world, and the most famous of whom was his student is
Sufi Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Rumi known in Turkey as “Mawlana”.
Ibn Arabi remained in this ailment until he died in 1240 and was buried at the foot
of Mount Passion