Soufisme

The question of "defining the human being"' always represented a philosophical and religious stake. That is why many thought systems tried to compare man to what is superior to him: angels or inferior: animals. During the 10th century, the Muslim society was at the climax... but also questioning itself. Some wise persons (probably Ismailian Shiites) wrote a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge: "the 52 Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity".

Arabî didn’t write a history of Jesus. The events about "the Son of Mary" that drew his attention have no historical context. Indeed, he is interested by the events which show that Jesus is a revelation of God. Each prophet, according to the Shaykh, is an apparition of a divine attribute or of one of its infinite aspects. Jesus is to Ibn ´Arabî the condensing of the Breath of the Merciful since the angel Gabriel instilled the divine Breath in Mary.

Henry Corbin meant by "hierohistory" a holy or sacred history which occurred within the world of the soul, within the being, to which external happenings are the reflection and the consequence. The fifth chapter of the Futûhât al-Makkiyya by Ibn ‘Arabî, dedicated to the commentary of the first sura of the Koran, the Fâthia, "the one which opens" the Book, gives an illustration.

The Koran is the sacred book of Islam. He is considered by Muslims as the speech of God literally transmitted to the prophet Muhammad as a divine dictation. He is the source of the faith and the religious practice of nearly a billion followers in the world. As most of religious texts, the Koran was subject to many interpretations. Pierre Lory distinguishes three important movements of Koranic exegese, it means three different ways to try to understand the sacred text:

Mystic, poet, wise, Moheïddine Ibn Al ’Arabî is one of the most important representative of the "way of love" within mystic  in Muslim tradition. He was born in Andalusia in 1165, his huge works are still studied, meditated not only in the Arab and Muslim world but also in Western countries and in Asia: they contain indeed the initiating and spiritual science of Islam.

The theme of love is often mentioned in foundational texts of Muslim tradition, in its physical as well as in its spiritual dimension. For our cameras Jean Annestay gets into relations between men and women, celibacy, sexuality in Islam, through three levels of lecture.
- according to the hadiths (the prophets' words)
- for those who follow the Way of Tasawwuf, Muslim mystic (Sufism)
- and in the writings of female Muslim Sufi saints, especially from Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya

What are the Futûhât? That is the questions which Dominique Penot Asks. Ibn'Arabî is both praised and attacked.  Verbose author of 846 books (his Futûhât al-Makkiyyah, if they were translated entirely, would occupy more than fifteen thousand pages), he reached a universality rarely reached suggesting a new vision of Islam. Coming from an Andalusian chivalrous tradition, he was a man of knowledge which knew a universal saintliness and a physical spirituality. In an unusual work in his presentation, he delivers a relieved teaching, perplexing at  the first reading and yet depositary of a great science through the Futûhât.  

Within the frame of the "Jeudis de l'Institut du Monde Arabe", Jean Annestay opened the conference "Ibn'Arabi and the Revelations of Mecca"  on November 12th 2009 and presented the exceptional figure of this erudite, mystic and thinker.
Nicknamed the Shaykh al-Akbar, "the greatest master", Ibn'Arabi (1165-1240) influenced Muslim culture and continues to be the major reference of Sufi masters, from Maghreb to Far East. His huge work by its size and its content mixes the deepest esoteric teaching and fundamental religious prescriptions going through varied styles like history, grammar, poetry, hagiography, etc.

To Ibn'Arabi,  as all the grand Sufi masters, the word and the spirit of tradition, esotericism and exotericism of Islam don't oppose, he says. The spirit's sacred law is dependent, on the contrary, on a good knowledge of the word. Is ignorant to his eyes, the one who pretends we can't reach true knowledge or the the one who thinks we can't subject to the Law. There couldn't be, indeed, an inner Way without the support of the sacred law which organizes and guides the one who seeks to channel his urges to rise spiritually.

Is Ibn'Arabî a philosopher? Between Al Gazalî and Averroes, he is the mystic philosopher the most close to Islam, says the author. Ibn'Arabî, who reached the highest degrees of spiritual realization, acquired his knowledge by inspiration. Non rational, it comes from the heart. God is the great inspiring; Ibn'Arabî the great servant. Great erudite, this one integrated in his work many philosophic and theological references.
What is the relation between Sufism and the philosopher himself?