Ibn 'arabi Society

Mukhtar Ali (Ph.D) (2007) University of California, Berkeley, is a Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in Sufism, Islamic philosophy and ethics, but his areas of interest also include Arabic and Persian literature, Qur'anic studies and comparative religion. He is the author of Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-'Arabi (Routledge, 2021) and The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al 'Arabi in the Muqaddimat al-Qaysari (Brill, 2020). He has translated some contemporary metaphysical texts, The New Creation (Sage Press, 2018) and The Law of Correspondence (Sage Press, 2021).

Jane Clark is a Senior Research Fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society and has worked particularly on the Society's Archiving Project as well as looking after the library. She has been studying Ibn Arabi for more than forty years, and is engaged in teaching courses and lecturing on his thought both in the UK (including Oxford University and Temenos Academy) and abroad (including Egypt, Australia and the USA), and in research and translation of the Akbarian heritage. She has a particular interest in the correlation of Ibn Arabi's thought with contemporary issues. She organises the MIAS Young Writers Award. Jane Clark was a co-founder of The Journal of Consciousness Studies and is currently editor of the Beshara Magazine. She has presented many courses as part of the program of the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education.

Gracia Lopez Anguita obtained her degree in Arabic Philosophy at the University of Cordoba. In 2005 she joined the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Seville, where she is currently Assistant Professor. Among other publications, her book Ibn 'Arabi y su epoca was published in 2018.

At Haverford College (BA), then the University of Pennsylvania (MA), then the University of South Carolina (PhD), Eric Winkel undertook eclectic studies, mostly religion at first, focusing on spiritual matters, then later including political science, and numerous languages to enable study of religious and spiritual texts (Sanskrit, Greek, Coptic, Tamil, Arabic, others, besides French and German). His book "Mysteries of Purity, Ibn al-'Arabî's asrar al-taharah" (Notre Dame, 1995) was Chapter 68 of the Futuhat al-Makkiyya. While Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies in Malaysia, he explored how the concepts of the "new sciences" opened obscure and difficult passages of the Futuhat. Shu'ayb Eric Winkel explains: ‘with Ibn Arabi, if one hasn't visualised or seen a picture, imaged in the imagination, of what he is talking about, one hasn't yet understood him. In my work translating and elucidating The Openings Revealed in Makkah, I depend entirely on Divine grace. In this talk we wi

Cecilia Twinch is a Senior Research Fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Oxford. Besides working as a teacher, translator and editor, she has written numerous articles and has lectured on Ibn 'Arabi and mysticism worldwide. She has studied at Cambridge University and the Beshara School. Her publications include an English translation of Ibn 'Arabi's Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries and a new translation of Know yourself: An explanation of the oneness of being by Ibn 'Arabi/Balyani

Hany Talaat Ibrahim completed his PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Calgary. He is currently teaching at the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University, Canada. He specializes in pre-modern Islamic thought, Arabic Sufi literature, and Islamic art & architecture.

Ibn Arabi’s Creative Imagination: Crossing Borders to Discover the Meaning of Being Human. Collaborative presentation between Language Acts and Worldmaking and the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. This event, originally an online seminar via Zoom, explores how Ibn Arabi’s creative imagination crosses philosophical, poetic, linguistic and artistic borders, and how his ideas continue to inspire contemporary poetry, film, and artistic expression to this day. Introduction: David Torollo The Meeting of the Two Seas – Ibn Arabi & Contemporary Literature: Rim Feriani Round Table Introduction: Bharatwaj Iyer (Chair) Artwork: Antonella Leoni Poetry: Nükhet Kardam Poetry Reading: David Torollo

Ibn Arabi’s Creative Imagination: Crossing Borders to Discover the Meaning of Being Human. Collaborative presentation between Language Acts and Worldmaking and the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. This event, originally an online seminar via Zoom, explores how Ibn Arabi’s creative imagination crosses philosophical, poetic, linguistic and artistic borders, and how his ideas continue to inspire contemporary poetry, film, and artistic expression to this day. Chair Dr David Torollo : Lecturer in Medieval & Early Modern Spanish Studies, King's College London. Catherine Boyle: Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies and Director of Centre for Language Acts and Worldmaking. Cecilia Twinch: Senior Research Fellow of the Ibn Arabi Society, Oxford.

Yousef is Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He received his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Yale University in 2014. He was formerly a Humanities Research Fellow at New York University, Abu Dhabi, where he completed his award-winning book, The Mystics of al-Andalus. He is currently completing an Arabic edition and full English translation of  ‘Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani's (d. 1291) commentary on the divine names for the Library of Arabic Literature, NYU Press. Born in Egypt and raised in Morocco, Yousef has traveled throughout the Islamic world, and has studied with Muslim scholars in Morocco, Syria, and Mauritania.

Hina Khalid has completed an MPhil in Theology at the University of Cambridge. Her work has previously examined the theological discourse of the Muslim mystic and philosopher ‘Ibn Arabi, in dialogue with selected aspects of the Buddhist philosophical tradition. Her current research centres on Sufism in the subcontinent, and the distinctive and multi-faceted patterns of Islamic practices as they have been shaped by indigenous cultural and religious forces therein.

Todd Lawson is Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Dept. of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. He has published widely on Quran commentary (tafsir), the Quran as literature, Sufism, Shi’i Islam and the Babi and Bahai traditions. His book Jesus in Islamic thought, The Crucifixion and the Quran was published in 2009 (Oneworld), his Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam in 2011 (Routledge). This and other of his publications are listed at www.toddlawson.ca

Stephen Hirtenstein has been editor of the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society since its inception in 1982, and is a co-founder of Anqa Publishing. He read History at King’s College, Cambridge, and then studied at the Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education in Gloucestershire and Scotland. After a teaching career, he began writing and giving talks on Ibn Arabi’s thought at conferences across the world. In addition to lecturing and writing, he organises and leads tours "in the footsteps of Ibn Arabi". He currently works as a Senior Editor for the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, and lives near Oxford.

Dunja Rašić (PhD Free University Berlin) is a lecturer at the University of Belgrade. Her academic interests include philosophy of language, Akbarian cosmology and the philosophical and theological thought of the early Islamic Middle Ages. She is currently working on several book projects, including The Devil Within: Jinn Doppelgangers, Mages and the Sages and a critical edition and translation of al-Bosnevī’s commentary on pseudo-Ibn ʿArabī’s al-Qaṣīda al- tāʾiyya.

Luca Patrizi is part of the University of Turin, Italy, and research fellow at Exeter University, UK.

Carlos Berbil is the Alexander von Humboldt Kolleg for Islamicate Intellectual History at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.

Cyrus Ali Zargar is Al-Ghazali Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida. His first book, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in Ibn ʿArabi and ʿIraqi, was published in 2011 by the University of South Carolina Press. His most recent book, The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, was published in 2017 by Oneworld Press. Zargar’s research interests focus on the literature of medieval Sufism in Arabic and Persian. This includes metaphysical, aesthetic, and ethical intersections between Sufism and Islamic philosophy, as well as Sufi ethical treatises, the writings of Ibn Arabi and early adherents to his worldview, Sufism in contemporary cinema, and satire in medieval and modern literature. He is the author of articles in The Muslim World, The Journal of Arabic Literature, and Encyclopædia Iranica. Currently, he is completing a manuscript on the corpus of the 13th-century Persian poet, Farid al-Din Attar, and t

Gracia Lopez Anguita obtained her degree in Arabic Philosophy at the University of Cordoba. In 2005 she joined the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Seville, where she is currently Assistant Professor. Among other publications, her book Ibn 'Arabi y su epoca was published in 2018.

Alexander Knysh is professor of Islamic Studies and former chair (1998–2004) of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He obtained his doctoral degree from the Institute for Oriental Studies (Leningrad Branch) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1986. Since 1991 he has lived and worked in the United States of America and England. His research interests include Islamic mysticism and Islamic theological thought in historical perspective as well as Islam and Islamic movements in local contexts (especially Yemen and the Northern Caucasus). He has numerous publications on these subjects, including Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (1998).

Michele Petrone is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Universite catholique de Louvain

Rim Feriani is Educational Director at The Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, UK. She had previously lectured in Arabic language at King’s College, London and taught Arabic language and cultural studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Westminster, London. Prior to her lecturing position, Rim worked as Director of Languages securing a governmental funding for improving the profile of languages at De Le Salle School and Language College. Additionally, from 2014 to 2016, Rim headed the Arabic department at the British School Al Khubairat, in Abu Dhabi.