Newsletter 22 - Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society

MuhyiddinIbn ‘Arabi SocietyNew PublicationsNotes by Jane Clark on books received by the LibraryThe Reflective Heart: Discovering SpiritualIntelligence in Ibn ‘Arabî’s Meccan Illuminations, byJames Winston Morris. Fons Vitae, Louisville, 2005.420pp.In this important book for a generalaudience, Morris gathers togetherpapers and talks given over a numberof years. Based upon his practicalexperience of presenting the ideas inclassrooms and workshops, his aim isto demonstrate the relevance of theShaykh’s vision to a modern audienceand to show how the difficulties oflanguage can be overcome so that hiswritings speak directly to the process of“spiritual intelligence” in each reader.Making explicit the Qur’anic contextand including much new translationfrom the Futûhât itself, he covers suchthemes as “Journeying (Wandering andascent)”, “Listening (Contemplation and the PurifiedHeart)”, “Seeing (Spiritual vision and the mysteriesof ihsân)”, “Discerning (Learning to translatefrom God)”, and “Returning (Exploring the Divineshadow-play”. Essential reading.Ibn ‘Arabî, Heir to the Prophets, by WilliamChittick. Oneworld, Oxford, 2005.152pp.This is a general introduction tothe thought of Ibn ‘Arabî which summarisesthe themes which Chittick hasdeveloped in his longer works, The SufiPath of Knowledge, (SUNY, 1989) and TheSelf-disclosure of God (SUNY, 1998).There are very few short “entrylevel” introductions to the Shaykh’sthought, and this does a very good job,covering a great deal in a few pages. Itdeals only very briefly with his life andworks, but plunges straight into topicssuch as “The Muhammadan Inheritance”,“The Divine Roots of Love”, “TheCosmology of Remembrance”, “Knowledge andRealisation” and “The Hermeneutics of Mercy”.New Critical Essays: On the Present State andFuture Tasks of the Study of Sufism, by Bernd Radtke.M.Th. Houtsma Stichting, Utrecht, 2005. 330pp.This important collection of essays, writtenfor the most part in German, includes a new translationof Ibn ‘Arabî’s Risalat al-Anwâr. This shortwork on retreat has already been translated by RabiaTerri-Harris as Journey to the Lord of Power (East-West Publications, New York, 1981), and Radtkehas included her version here, alongside an Arabictransliteration of a critical edition based upon verifiedmanuscripts, and translations into French andSpanish by Chodkiewicz and Palacios. He has alsoproduced a new translation into German himself,and his collaborator John O’Kane has brought thisinto English. The result is fascinating because notonly does it give us a new, and more accurate, versionof the text, but also gives a chance to comparethe different translations.Paths to Transcendence, according to Shankara,Ibn ‘Arabi and Meister Eckhart, by Reza Shah-Kazemi. World Wisdom, Indiana, 2006. 262ppAn informed comparative study which looksat the essential message of these three great mystics.The bulk of the book is taken up by summariesof their thought structured around the themes of“the doctrine of absolute transcendence”, “thespiritual ascent” and “existential return”. Thenthere is a short chapter at the end which looks at“essential commonalites”, followed by an interestingappendix entitled “Against the reduction oftranscendence: a critical appraisal of recent academicapproaches to mystical experience”. Dedicatedto Frithjof Schuon, it shows the influence ofhis thought in its final assertion that “the attainmentof the transcendent essence of religion entailssurpassing, but not bypassing, the boundaries offormal religion.”The Tree of Being, by Ibn ‘Arabî. Interpreted byShaykh Tosun Bayrak. Archetype, Cambridge UK,2005. 254pp.An interpretative rendering of Shajarat alkawn,which Bayrak calls “an ode to the perfectman”. The text has already been translated intoEnglish by A. Jeffery (in Studia Islamica, 1959),and into French by Maurice Gloton (L’Arbre duMonde, Les Deux Océans, Paris, 1982). Both previouseditions are more scholarly. However, the mostimportant information for students of Ibn ‘Arabiis that this is now considered to be an apocryphalwork, the real author probably being ‘Abd al-Salâmb. Ghânim al-Maqdisî (d. 1280).Contact InformationUK Secretary: Caroline NotcuttPO Box 892, Oxford OX2 7XL, UK.Tel: 01865 511963e-mail: mias.uk@ibnarabisociety.orgContinued on page 5US Secretary: John MercerPO Box 45, Berkeley, CA 94701-0045, USAe-mail: mias.usa@ibnarabisociety.orgNewsletter Editor this edition: Martin Notcutte-mail: newsletter@ibnarabisociety.orgWebsite: http://www.ibnarabisociety.org