Few individuals have influenced Sufi thought as profoundly as Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240). Revered by some as “Shaykh al-Akbar,” he authored hundreds of works that continue to circulate across the Muslim world. This article outlines his background, outlines his beliefs, and presents the scholarly responses to his ideas.
His full name is Abû ‘Abdallâh Muhammad ibn ‘Alî ibn ‘Arabî. He was a descendant of the famous Arab tribe of Ṭāʾī. He was born in Murcia in south-eastern Andalus in 560 AH (1165) and his father was a prominent Sufi.1
Political and religious climate in Andalus
In 1031, almost a century before Ibn ʿArabī’s birth, the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba collapsed, leaving al-Andalus fragmented into competing principalities known as the Ta’ifa kingdoms. Their political weakness allowed the northern Christian kingdoms to impose heavy tribute payments in exchange for temporary non-aggression, though raids on Muslim territories continued regardless. As Christian pressure intensified, the Muslim ruler of Seville appealed to the Murābiṭūn (Almoravids), a rising Berber power in North Africa, to intervene in defence of al-Andalus. When Toledo fell in 1085, the Murābiṭūn leader Yūsuf b. Tāshfīn crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and decisively defeated Alfonso VI at the battle of Zallāqah. The continuing inability of the Andalusi kings to govern effectively compelled Yūsuf b. Tāshfīn to remain, and by the time of his death much of al-Andalus had come under Murābiṭūn rule.
The Murābiṭūn were staunch Mālikī Sunnis who viewed Greek philosophy, Ismāʿīlī esotericism, and Sufism with suspicion. Works promoting Sufism and Ashʿarism were publicly burned, and a number of Sufi figures were imprisoned.2 They opposed any attempts to reinterpret revelation through philosophical speculation. Prominent Andalusī scholars of this period include Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071), al-Ṭurṭūshī (d. 520/1126), and Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī al-Mālikī (d. 543/1148).
The Rise of the Almohads
In 1147, the Murābiṭūn were overthrown by the Muwaḥḥidūn (Almohads), a movement founded by Ibn Tūmart, who openly claimed to be the Mahdī. Ibn Tūmart had travelled through the eastern Islamic lands, where he encountered Muʿtazilī kalām, Greek philosophy, and Ismāʿīlī-style teachings that emphasised hidden meanings and the authority of a divinely guided leader. He blended these heretical ideas into a new ideology and called it “true tawḥīd,” even though it departed sharply from the tawḥīd of the prophets and messengers.
Under the Almohads, this speculative approach became the state religion. They imposed their creed, encouraged the spread of philosophy, metaphysical Sufism, and reinterpretations of Allah’s names and attributes. Scripture was no longer taken according to its apparent meaning. Instead, hidden layers, allegories, and symbolic interpretations were promoted in official teaching. Even the Ashʿarī scholar Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544/1149) was forced into exile, eventually dying in suspicious circumstances.
This is the environment in which Ibn ʿArabī grew up, a world that normalised secret, inner meanings of revelation, a philosophical reinterpretation of tawḥīd, and the belief that true knowledge comes through visions and not adherence to revealed texts.
Ibn ʿArabī’s Journey East and His Major Works
So it was in 1198 that Ibn ʿArabī claimed to have a vision commanding him to leave Spain and travel east. He first visited Mecca (1201), where he “received a divine commandment” to begin his major work Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyyah (“The Meccan Revelations.”) This work, consisting of 37 volumes, was to be completed much later in Damascus. He also visited Egypt (where he was briefly imprisoned), Anatolia, Baghdad, Aleppo and Damascus. It was in the latter city that he composed his Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (“The Bezels of Wisdom”). He died in Damascus in 638 AH (1240) having authored several hundred works, many of which have been published and translated into multiple languages.
His creed
To understand the nature of Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings, it is necessary to first outline the Islamic creed regarding the distinction between the Creator and creation. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said:
“The doctrine of all the messengers, and of those who follow them among the believers and the People of the Book, is that Allah, exalted is He, is the Creator of the worlds, the Lord of the heavens and the earth and whatever lies between them, the Lord of the Mighty Throne; and that all creation are His servants and are in need of Him.”3
This is the essence of tawḥīd: that the Creator and the created are separate and distinct entities. Neither is the Creator part of His creation, nor is His creation part of the Creator. Ignorance of this basic yet fundamental concept leads to the worship of God’s creation. To deny the separate existence of Allah is essentially atheism, even if the person claims to believe in God.
In contrast to the belief of the prophets and messengers, Ibn ʿArabī ascribed to a doctrine which is the diametric opposite of tawḥīd – that of ittiḥād. This is the belief that the Creator and creation are one single existence, with no distinction between them. Allah is all of existence, and there is no existence besides Him. Thus the Creator, according to him, has no existence separate from created things. This is also known as Waḥdat al-Wujūd (unity of existence), i.e. nothing exists besides Him.
These doctrines were not always stated openly. Ibn ʿArabī clouded his creed through his contradictory and evasive writings. Instead of stating his doctrine plainly, he relied on riddles, symbolism and ambiguity, deliberately masking ideas that blur the line between Creator and creation.4
But erudite scholars, foremost among them Ibn Taymiyyah, carefully examined Ibn ʿArabī’s writings and exposed the true nature of his doctrine. The following passages, taken directly from his major works, reveal the essence of his creed:
In a line of poetry, Ibn ʿArabī said:
“The Lord is a servant, and the servant is a Lord.
I wonder, which of the two is the one obliged (with worship)?
If you say ‘servant’ then that is a Lord;
If you say ‘Lord’, how can He be obligated?”5
He says about the Name of Allah “al-ʿAlī” (the Most High):
“High above what?
There is nothing in existence except Him!”6
He says about Allah, the Most High:
“He created me and I created Him, and he brought me into existence and I brought Him into existence.”7
Ibn ʿArabī and the faith of Pharaoh
Every Muslim knows of Pharaoh’s claim to divinity, where he said: “I do not know for you any god other than me,” and he said: “I am your Lord Most High.”
Allah, Most High, informed us that he will be severely punished:
“But Pharaoh disobeyed the Messenger, so We seized him with a severe punishment.”
And the Most High said: “So Allah seized him as an example for the last and the first.”
In stark contrast to the Book of Allah, Ibn ʿArabī states:
“Coolness of the eye for Pharaoh by the faith which Allah gave him at the time of drowning, so He took him (i.e. caused him to die) pure, purified, in whom there was nothing of filth, for He took him at the time of his faith before he acquired anything of sins, and Islam erases what was before it.”8
Regarding Pharaoh’s statement, “I am your Lord, the Most High,” Ibn ʿArabī objects to Pharaoh’s restricting lordship to himself alone, because, according to Ibn ʿArabī, all people are lords. Thus he interprets Pharaoh’s drowning as a form of “purification,” removing the illusion that lordship is exclusive to any one being.9
Ibn ʿArabī’s justification of idolatory in the story of Prophet Nūḥ
Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrine holds that Allah is present within every created thing; animals, humans, and even stones. According to this belief, the one who worships a stone is, in reality, worshipping Allah, since He is believed to be present within the stone itself. Thus Ibn ʿArabī comments on the verse regarding the people of Nūh: “And they said: Do not abandon your gods, and do not abandon Wadd, nor Suwāʿ, nor Yaghūth, and Yaʿūq, and Nasr.”10
“For if they were to abandon them (the idols), they would become ignorant of al-Ḥaqq (i.e., Allah) to the extent that they abandoned these idols, for al-Ḥaqq has, in every existent thing, a ‘face’ which is recognised by whoever recognises Him, and is unknown to whoever is ignorant of Him.”11
Ibn ʿArabī goes on to interpret the destruction of Nūḥ’s people as a spiritual reward, claiming that they “drowned in the seas of knowledge of Allah.”12
Banī Isrāʾīl were right to worship the calf
This distortion continues further in his interpretation of the incident of the golden calf. Allah informs us in the Qur’an that when Prophet Mūsā returned from meeting his Lord and found his people worshipping the calf, despite Prophet Hārūn having warned them, he became extremely angry. When he saw it with his own eyes, his anger intensified; he threw down the Tablets, breaking them, and grabbed his brother by the beard, dragging him in anger and saying: “O Harun! What prevented you, when you saw them going astray” Prophet Hārūn repleid: “O son of my mother, do not seize me by my beard or by my head…”13
Ibn ʿArabī completely distorts the Quranic narrative claiming: “Mūsā only seized Hārūn’s beard to rebuke him for forbidding the calf-worship! He said to him: Why did you not let them worship the calf?!”14
Hell-fire is bliss
His distortion is not restricted to stories of the prophets, but even extends to matters of the Hereafter. Allah has informed us of the lasting nature of the punishment for the disbelievers, saying, “It will not be decreed for them that they should die, nor will its punishment be lightened for them.”
Ibn ʿArabī, however, claims that both Paradise and Hell-fire are forms of bliss, and that the people of Hell are enjoying themselves just as the people of Paradise. He said:
“And if they enter the abode of misery, then they are in pleasure; and it is bliss for them, differing from the bliss of the Gardens of Eternity. For the matter is one, and between them at self-disclosure (tajallī) is a distinction that is called ‘punishment’ from the sweetness of its taste; and that is for them like the peel, and the peel is a protector.” 15
Scholarly verdict on Ibn ʿArabī
Given the severity of these doctrines, the verdicts of the scholars were decisive. Ibn Taymiyyah said about someone who merely praises Ibn ʿArabī:
- “It is not imaginable that anyone praises these people except a disbeliever, an atheist, or an ignorant misguided person.”16
Ibn Taymiyyah also said:
“The statements of these people (Ibn ʿArabī and his like) are worse than the statements of the Jews and Christians, and in them is the same kind of contradiction that is in the statements of the Christians. For this reason they sometimes say ḥulūl and sometimes ittiḥād and sometimes waḥdah. It is a inherently self-contradictory doctrine, and for this reason they confuse those who do not understand it. All of this is disbelief inwardly and outwardly by the consensus of every Muslim. Whoever doubts the disbelief of these people after knowing their statement and knowing the religion of Islam is a disbeliever, like the one who doubts the disbelief of the Jews and Christians.” 17
Imām al-Dhahabī said: “If there is no disbelief in (Ibn ʿArabī ‘s) book Fuṣūṣ, then there is no disbelief in this world.”18
Ibn Khaldūn: “The writings of Ibn ʿArabī are filled with explicit disbelief.”
Al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām said : “Ibn ʿArabī is an evil shaykh, a liar, who claims the world is pre-eternal and does not regard any private part as unlawful.”19
Al-Subkī said: “Ibn ʿArabī and others like him are deviants and ignoramuses, outside the path of Islam.”20
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar said: “I had asked our shaykh Sirāj al-Dīn al-Balqīnī about Ibn ʿArabī, and he immediately answered: ‘He is a disbeliever.’”21
An excuse for Ibn ʿArabī?
Those who defend Ibn ʿArabī claim that his statements are nothing more than ecstatic utterances made during a state of so-called spiritual “intoxication,” and therefore should not be taken literally. Others argue that his words are so subtle and profound that only a handful of specialists can truly grasp their meaning.
This excuse collapses upon inspection of his works. They are meticulously composed, organised into books, arranged into chapters, subdivided into sections, and written in deliberate, carefully crafted prose. Anyone who reads his works will see the deliberate deceit and depravity of the author, with explicit statements of disbelief filling nearly every page.
As for the allegation that he wrote in a “special language” that only its “people” can understand, this too is false. His writings are in clear, eloquent Arabic, with explicit, detailed meanings, outward and inward, that openly convey doctrines of kufr and heresy. No one fails to grasp his intent except someone who is simply ignorant of the Arabic language itself. The qualified scholars of Islam who read these works, examined them closely, and understood the author’s objectives, were under no illusion as to what they contain.22
Conclusion
Ibn ʿArabī was a highly educated and articulate disbeliever who cloaked his kufr under the guise of Islam. His teachings amount to a demolition of the Islamic creed and are more harmful to the Muslims than atheism, Zionism, or Western imperialism. Ibn Taymiyyah said:
“These (followers of waḥdat al-wujūd), they give the people to drink the drink of disbelief and atheism in the vessels of the Prophets of Allah and His awliyāʾ, and they wear the garments of the fighters in the path of Allah while inwardly being among the ones who wage war against Allah and His Messenger. They display the speech of the disbelievers and hypocrites in the frames of the expressions of the awliyāʾ of Allah. A man enters with them thinking he is becoming a believer, a walī of Allah, but he becomes a hypocrite, an enemy of Allah.”23
Ibn ʿArabī’s doctrines remain influential today. His writings have spread globally in multiple languages, giving popularity to ideas that undermine the very foundations of Islam. It is therefore no surprise that the enemies of Islam eagerly promote his heresies.
Thinktanks such as RAND explicitly recommend supporting and disseminating Sufism to counter what they label “fundamentalism.” Policy papers such as Minds, Hearts, and Dollars propose measures including the restoration of Sufi shrines, the translation of classical Sufi manuscripts, and the cultivation of ties with Sufi shaykhs across the Muslim world. Writers like Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and Stephen Schwartz contrast Sufism, with its mystical spiritual language and tendency to interpret religion through symbols rather than revealed texts, with traditional Sunnism, which they portray as a challenge to Western interests.
Western cultural institutions reinforce this agenda through conferences and academic programs dedicated to Sufi orders and figures such as Ibn ʿArabī. In their eyes, Sufism is simply the version of Islam most useful for maintaining Western hegemony over the Muslim world.24
Dr. Farasat Latif
References
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-al-Arabi ↩︎
- Amira K. Bennison, The Almoravid and Almohad Empires (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 243–45. ↩︎
- al-Waṣiyyah al-Kubrā li-Ibn Taymiyyah. ↩︎
- https://zahawi.org/?p=4804&lang=ar ↩︎
- Al-Futūḥāt, 1/42 ↩︎
- al-Fuṣūṣ, p. 76 ↩︎
- https://zahawi.org/?p=4804&lang=ar ↩︎
- (Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, p. 187–188) ↩︎
- al-Rājihī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allāh. Sharḥ al-Waṣiyyah al-Kubrā li-Ibn Taymiyyah. Transcribed from audio lessons by IslamWeb. Accessed from https://shamela.ws/book/37013) ↩︎
- Surah Nūḥ: 23 ↩︎
- Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, p. 57 ↩︎
- Fuṣūṣ, p. 73 taken from https://www.dd-sunnah.net/forum/showthread.php?t=70124 ↩︎
- Surah Ṭā Hā: 94 ↩︎
- Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, p. 295 ↩︎
- Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, p. 154 taken from https://www.dd-sunnah.net/forum/showthread.php?t=70124 ↩︎
- Fatāwā, 2/367 ↩︎
- Fatāwā, 2/368 ↩︎
- Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 23/48 ↩︎
- Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 23/48 ↩︎
- as cited in Mughnī al-Muḥtāj of al-Shirbīnī (3/61). ↩︎
- Lisān al-Mīzān, 4/318 ↩︎
- https://ar.islamway.net/article/6098/%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%AE-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86-%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A ↩︎
- Fatāwā, 2/359 ↩︎
- https://midad.com/article/198908/%D9%86%D9%82%D8%B6-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1-%D8%B1%D8%A4%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%81%D9%8A ↩︎
