Page Text: Ibn Arabi and Ottoman Dervish Traditions: The Melami Supra-Order (Part one) | Victoria Rowe Holbrook
In general, melamet has been defined as a kind of deprecation of the self, whether this is taken as a denial of being to the self in a philosophical sense, or as a practice of behaving in such a way as to conceal one’s advanced spiritual states and draw upon oneself the censure of others. The Melami are said to have emerged as a Turkish tarikat or Sufi “way” when Emir Sikkini walked into a blazing fire and came out having lost only his dervish robe and crown. – Read also part two of this article.
Molla Fanari and the Misbah al-Uns: The Commentator and the Perfect Man (PDF) | Alan Godlas
Molla Fanari (1350–1431), the first Ottoman Shaykh ul-Islam, is significant because of central ideas that he contributed to Ottoman intellectual life. Like Davud-I Kayseri before him, he worked to introduce major Arabic works into Turkish, while making Ibn Arabi’s ideas on the unity of existence the basis of the philosophical and religious systems being developed among the ulema in training for the emerging Ottoman state. His famous commentary on the Miftah al-ghayb of Sadr al-din Qunawi is still studied. In spite of his importance, and his renown in Turkey and Iran, he has until recently largely been ignored by Western scholars. The paper is reproduced with the kind permission of the editors of the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Molla Fanari, held in Bursa, 4–6 December 2009.
The Enigma of the Shajara al-nu‘maniyya fi’l-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, attributed to Ibn Arabi | Denis Gril
The text entitled Shajara al-nu‘maniyya fi al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya is written in coded language, and its author remains so far unknown. The prevailing view in the Ottoman era was that the authorship was Ibn Arabi, but Denis Gril shows how this attribution cannot be right, and also how the two main commentaries on the work, one of which is attributed to Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, are clearly apocryphal. This kind of clarification is important. The Emir ‘Abd al-Qadir put is forcefully when he said, “All works on alchemy and command of this world that are attributed to our master, the seal of sainthood, Muhyi al-Din Ibn Arabi, and to other saints who call men to God, is but lies and calumny. It is not possible for one of God‘s saints to teach God’s servant that which will distance them from God.”
Other
On Two Books Attributed to Ibn Arabi – Kitab al-mabadi wa l-ghayat li ma‘ani l-huruf and Kitab mahiyyat al-qalb | Claude Addas and Michel Chodkiewicz
A good deal of the writings ascribed to the Shaykh al-Akbar raise questions as to their authenticity. This article examines publications of two works attributed to Ibn Arabi, which on examination can be seen not be by him, and some general criteria for making attributions of a work to Ibn Arabi. It concludes by making a recommendation to researchers wishing to explore what Ibn Arabi says.
The Diffusion of Ibn Arabi’s Doctrine | Michel Chodkiewicz
Many authors have pointed out for a long time the extent in Moslem geographical space – from the Maghreb to the Far East – of the influence of Ibn Arabi. In this article Michel Chodkiewicz underlines, beginning with some examples taken in the main from the Arabic-speaking Moslem world, the depth of this influence. The stamp of akbarian teaching is not only printed on “intellectual” Sufism, but may also be detected in a world of brotherhoods which embrace the most diverse social classes and cultural levels.
“At the distance of two bows’ length or even closer” – The Figure of the Prophet in the Work of ‘Abdal Karim Jili, Part 1 | Part 2 | Claude Addas
For many Muslims the implementation of the Sunna consists, first and foremost, of reproducing the outward behaviour of the Prophet as he was in his daily life, and to model their eating and dressing habits, etc., on his. Claude Addas shows how conformity to the Muhammadan model is the keystone of “initiatic training” in Islam through the study of a brief pamphlet Qab Qawsayn by ‘Abd al-Karim Jili (d.811/1409).
Ibn al-Arabi: The Doorway to an Intellectual Tradition | William Chittick
By “intellectual tradition” I mean the branch of Islamic learning that puts its primary effort into actualizing the intellect (‘aql), understood as a living awareness of the way things actually are. Those who can be classified as members of this tradition have usually been looked back upon as philosophers or Sufis. They held that the final goal of all Islamic learning – and, indeed, of all religion – is to awaken people to their own intellectual and spiritual nature, which is the divine image found in the heart.
The Unity of Being in Liu Chih’s “Islamic Neoconfucianism” | Sachiko Murata
From the middle of the seventeenth down to the end of the nineteenth century, the school of Ibn Arabi had a significant presence in the Chinese language. The first Muslim scholar to explain Islamic teachings in Chinese was Wang Tai-yü, who published his major book in 1642. He tells us that his ancestor had come to China three hundred years earlier. He himself was educated in the traditional Islamic manner, and only when he was old did he begin to learn classical Chinese. His intention was to explain Islamic teachings to fellow Muslims educated in the Chinese manner and ignorant of the literatures of their own languages. As far as we can tell, up until this time most Islamic learning in China had been transmitted in Persian, though of course the Arabic Qur’an played the same basic role in China as it did elsewhere.
Physical Sustenance in Sufi Literature: A Case-study of a Treatise by ‘Abd Allah al-Busnawi | Stephen Hirtenstein and Hülya Küçük
Physical sustenance is a topic dealt with in many books on Sufi terms and spiritual etiquette. It may be mentioned under headings such as knowing oneself (including the body), eating and drinking less as part of ascetic austerities, earning lawful (halal) food, patience (sabr), being thankful to God (shukr), entrusting oneself to God (tawakkul), fasting, healthy nutrition (physical and spiritual). In this article the authors give brief preliminary notes on the subject in various Sufi books, and then examine a short treatise by ‘Abd Allah al-Busnawi (d.1054/1644), entitled “The Kernel of the kernel regarding the explanation of eating and drinking” (Lubb al-lubb fi bayan al-akl wa l-shurb).
Malatyan Soil, Akbarian Fruit: From Ibn Arabi to Nyazi Misri | Stephen Hirtenstein
Malatya is a settlement in Eastern Anatolia close to the upper Euphrates, lying at the intersection of ancient trade routes. It has long been a border town between competing powers, Roman and Persian, Byzantine and Muslim. Ibn Arabi lived there for at least six years from 1215 before finally moving to Damascus. The famous Turkish poet and mystic Nyazi Misri was born there in 1618, 400 years later. This article traces the connection between Ibn Arabi and Niyazi not only in relation to the town of Malatya, but more importantly in terms of their thought.