Pages

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Life of Ibn Arabi (d.1240, Damascus)


Quest for Red Sulphur:The Life of Ibn Arabi by Claude Addas. 
Translation (and second edition) from the French 'Ibn Arabi ou La quete du Soufre Rouge' by Peter Kingsley.  
Published by Suhail Academy)


"In the drama of both his inner and outer life his companions and his contemporaries were far from being mere onlookers. His writings are inseperable from his life."

"This major study is based on a detailed analysis of the whole range of Ibn Arabi's own writings as well as a vast amount of secondary literature in both Arabic and Persian. The result is the first-ever attempt to reconstruct what proves to have been a double itinerary: on the other hand the journey that took Ibn Arabi from his native Andalusia to Damascus - and on the other, the 'Night Journey' which carried him along the paths of asceticism and prayer to the ultimate stage of revelation of his mystic quest."

The book has a total of 10 chapters including chapters on Vocation, Ibn Arabi and the Savants of Andalusia, The Great Pilgrimage and Damascus, 'Refuge of the Prophets'.