Pilgrimage to Mecca Īfter spending time in Mecca, he traveled throughout Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Anatolia. In 1200 he took final leave from his master Yūsuf al-Kūmī, then living in the town of Salé. When he later moved to Fez, in Morocco, where Mohammed ibn Qasim al-Tamimi became his spiritual mentor. He then adopted Sufism and dedicated his life to the spiritual path. Ibn Arabi said that from this first meeting, he had learned to perceive a distinction between formal knowledge of rational thought and the unveiling insights into the nature of things. His father, on noticing a change in him, had mentioned this to philosopher and judge, Ibn Rushd ( Averroes), who asked to meet Ibn Arabi. Later he had several more visions of Jesus and called him his "first guide to the path of God". He had his first vision of God in his teens and later wrote of the experience as "the differentiation of the universal reality comprised by that look". Ibn Arabi writes that as a child he preferred playing with his friends to spending time on religious education. Seville, where Ibn Arabi spent most of his life and education He married Maryam, a woman from an influential family. Īs a young man Ibn Arabi became secretary to the governor of Seville.
Ibn Arabi grew up at the ruling court and received military training. His family then relocated from Murcia to Seville. When Ibn Mardanīš died in 1172 AD, his father shifted allegiance to the Almohad Sultan, Abū Ya’qūb Yūsuf I, and returned to government service. His father, ‘Ali ibn Muḥammad, served in the Army of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Mardanīsh, the ruler of Murcia. Al-Arabi writes of a deceased maternal uncle, Yahya ibn Yughan al- Sanhaji, a prince of Tlemcen, who abandoned wealth for an ascetic life after encountering a Sufi mystic. Ibn Arabi's paternal ancestry was from the South Arabian tribe of Tayy, and his maternal ancestry was North African Berber. Others scholars in his time like al-Munawi, Ibn 'Imad al-Hanbali and al-Fayruzabadi all praised Ibn Arabi as ''A righteous friend of Allah and faithful scholar of knowledge'', ''the absolute mujtahid without doubt'' and ''the imam of the people of shari'a both in knowledge and in legacy, the educator of the people of the way in practice and in knowledge, and the shaykh of the shaykhs of the people of truth though spiritual experience ( dhawq) and understanding''. Many popular poets were trained in the Sufi orders and were inspired by Arabi's concepts. Arabi's work also popularly spread through works in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu. His writings were not limited to the Muslim elites, but made their way into other ranks of society through the widespread reach of the Sufi orders. Īfter his death, Ibn Arabi's teachings quickly spread throughout the Islamic world. It is debated whether or not he ascribed to the Zahiri madhab which was later merged with the Hanbali school. Ibn Arabi was Sunni, although his writings on the Twelve Imams were also popularly received among Shia. 5.2.1 Critical editions and translations of Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam.5.2 The Bezels of Wisdom (Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam).5.1 The Meccan Illuminations (Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya).