In Islamic history, Ibn-i Arabi is the sufi whose work was the most harshly debated.
His ‘divinely inspired’ writings gave rise to two opposing groups: those who accepted his work and those who disputed it.
His vast knowledge gained him the title Sheikh-i Akbar, meaning ‘The Greatest Sheikh’, from his admirers, while those who disputed him called him Sheikh-i Kafir, ‘The Most Ungodly Sheikh’, arguing that the knowledge he attained through inspiration could be incomplete and wrong.
One of his most disputed ideas, ‘The Infinite Human is Eternal and Permanent in terms of Hadith, Appearance and Essence’, attracted immense opposition and many scholars responded by writing works to refute his claims.
In this book, we will attempt to examine the apparent meaning, the mystical meaning and the hidden knowledge about the saying, ‘The enlightened are not bound by religion’, which made Ibn-i Arabi famous. We will answer questions such as, ‘Why is there no religion for the enlightened?’ or ‘Who are religions for?’
I had the opportunity to examine Ibn-i Arabi’s original Arabic texts, which had been brought from Syria. I very much wanted to visit the grave of this expert of spiritual discovery, in the Damascus region of Syria. However, due to the civil war’s affect on that region I could not gain permission from the authorities to cross the border. Despite not being able to go physically, in my dreams I visited him and wandered around his grave. When he was alive, Arabi also assigned great importance to the knowledge conveyed by dreams. For this reason, my intuition tells me that the insights and knowledge I have gained through the spiritual journeys of my dreams is the truth. I have sometimes found that the flow of information channeled to me through my dreams, lasting until sunrise, enabled me to fully understand the knowledge found in the texts of Arabi’s original work. I have realized, by both witnessing and hearing its cry, that the knowledge of Truth seems complex yet it has a very simple meaning. Experiencing these states helped me to conceive that, in truth, none of the enlightened ones have died and the abandonment of their bodies does not mean that they have stopped existing. I have consulted my master, Mehmet, about my visions, journeys and conversations with the enlightened ones. Mehmet, a graduate of Syrian Higher Islamic Sciences, completed his Ibn-i Arabi training in Syria and has visited Ibn-i Arabi’s grave numerous times. His clear answer to me was: ‘Not everyone sees them in their dreams and they don’t visit everyone’s dreams. They are immortal. Know that when you think about them, they are also thinking about you. There are channels and bridges from one spirit to another and being in body is not a barrier to this. In your dreams, you travel towards the mystical and in the mystical world you comfortably attain and understand knowledge, which you cannot attain in the world, and when you wake up you try to remember in the world of appearance and your delusional body, and you translate everything that seems complex into a simple language.’ I offer my gratitude again to my master Mehmet and the owner of his heart.
While writing this book, Ibn-i Arabi became my mystical master and friend. He accompanied me on my journey of observation to my Truth. He didn’t leave me incomplete in terms of inspiration, intuition, witnessing and enjoying the states for each line. Through divine influence, he conveyed the secrets of his works one-by-one, to my heart and my soul. His immortal soul is still with us; he touches and will continue to touch until eternity, the bodies and souls of those who wish to reach him. He is the master of the Way of Spiritual Discovery. The Way of Spiritual Discovery is the knowledge of Suveyd. It is the witnessing of the invisible world beyond the mystical, in other words the Unknown World. Spiritual Discovery is the knowledge of the Unknown World, the source of wisdom and the knowledge of the divine attributes. He is a Sheikh of Divine Inspiration. He is a genius of the mystery of the letters. As he mentions, ‘All of us were High Letters, we descended and became words in the lines of the universe.’ We still continue to read the words between those lines. The human being is the greatest book and each one of us is a word. We continue and will continue to read the verses in our cells.
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