Ibn 'arabi Society

Dr. Pablo Beneito is Professor at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Faculty of Philology, University of Seville. He has edited and translated several of Ibn 'Arabi's works: the Mashahid al-asrar (with Souad al-Hakim, Spanish and Arabic edn.; with Cecilia Twinch, English version); the Kashf al-ma'na (El secreto de los Nombres de Dios) on the Divine Names; and, with Stephen Hirtenstein, Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad, translated into English as The Seven Days of the Heart. Among other works, recently he has published the anthology La taberna de las luces on Sufi poetry and the book El lenguaje de las alusiones on Ibn Arabi's doctrines of love, beauty and compassion. He is the Director of the collection Alquitara (devoted to Oriental literature) in Ediciones Mandala (Madrid).

Dr. Ghasem Kakaie is an Associate Professor and the Head of Theology and Islamic Sciences Department of Shiraz University in Iran. He was born in Shiraz in 1957. His main fields of researches are: Ibn Arabi, Sufism, Islamic Philosophy, and Comparative Mysticism. He has had a great and long time programme on interreligious dialogue from 1998 on. He has published more than 50 papers in international journals and also more than 10 books. He has won several scientific rewards in Iran, such as the best book of the year for his book: Oneness of Being from Ibn Arabi's and Meister Elkhart's viewpoints (2002).

Stephen Hirtenstein is editor of the Ibn 'Arabi Society Journal. He studied at the Beshara School in Scotland, and is co-founder of Anqa Publishing. His publications include a biography of Ibn 'Arabi, "The Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn 'Arabi" (1999), a translation with Pablo Beneito of Ibn 'Arabi's Awrad as "The Seven Days of the Heart" (2000) and with Martin Notcutt of Ibn 'Arabi's Mishkat al-anwar as "Divine Sayings" (2005). He is currently working on a translation of some of Ibn 'Arabi's shorter texts.

James W. Morris is professor in Theology at Boston College. He has written and taught in many areas of spirituality and religious thought, including the Islamic humanities, Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and cinema in spiritual teaching. His recent books include The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' (2005); Orientations: Islamic Thought in a World Civilisation (2004); Knowing the Spirit (2006); and Ibn 'Arabi: The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Denis Gril was born in Paris in 1949. He studied Arabic language and civilisation at the Sorbonne. He spent several years in Arabic countries for teaching or reseach. He was for five years a member of the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale in Cairo. Since 1981 he is a teacher of Arabic language and Islamic thought at the Universite de Provence. He is also a member of IREMAM (Institut de Recherche et d'Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman). He studied, published and translated some works of Ibn al-'Arabi and different aspects of his doctrine. He is also interested by lifes of saints as a source for History of Sufism and also by the foundation of Islamic spirituality in Koran and Sunna.

Shahram Pazouki is professor of Philosophy and religious studies at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy and head of the department. He researches and teaches in the subjects of comparative philosophy and religions, Sufism,philosophy of art, and has published books and articles on these subjects.

Carl W. Ernst is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of Islam and Sufism. His most recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003), has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement. His current projects include Muslim interpretations of Hinduism and the literary interpretation of the Qur'an. His publications include Sufi Martyrs of Love: Chishti Sufism in South Asia and Beyond (co-authored with Bruce Lawrence, 2002); Teachings of Sufism (1999); a translation of The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master by Ruzbihan Baqli (1997);Guide to Sufism (1997); Ruzbihan Baqli: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (1996); Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (1993); and Words of Ecstasy in Su

William C. Chittick is professor of religious studies in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He has spent forty years studying Ibn Arabi and his followers, not to mention the pre-modern Muslim intellectual tradition in general. Among his thirty books, five deal specifically with Ibn Arabi's thought: The Sufi Path of Knowledge (1989), Imaginal Worlds (1992), The Self-Disclosure of God (1998), Ibn Arabi: Heir to the Prophets (2005), and, as co-author, The Meccan Revelations (2002).

Sara Sviri studied and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies in Israel. In her studies, published in various compilations and journals, she has focused on the formation and characteristics of the early mystical schools of Islam, with special interest in the Malamati movement of Nishapur and in the mystical psychology of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi. Her book, The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path, portrays Sufism as a living tradition in which insights into the stations of the heart play an important role.

Jane Clark is a teacher who lives in Oxford. She has been studying Ibn 'Arabi's thought for nearly thirty years as a student of the Beshara School, and in 2000 took a degree at Oxford in order to read him in the original Arabic. She is particularly interested in the way that his ideas have spread throughout the world, and as Society Librarian has done research work on the early manuscripts. She has written and lectured on Ibn 'Arabi's thought and is most concerned with the universal appeal of his writings, especially as revealed in Fusus al-hikam.

After receiving his Ph.D. degree in International Studies, Eric Winkel taught at the International Islamic University, Malaysia. He has been a Fulbright scholar in Pakistan. From 2001-2008 he taught at a small school he co-founded in New Mexico based on constructivist learning strategies and learning teams. Currently, he is joining the National College of Arts, Lahore. He has written numerous articles and monographs on religion and sacred law. His latest work is a novel, Damascus Steel. Eric Winkel's other published works include Mysteries of Purity: Ibn al-'Arabi's asrar al-taharah (1995) and Islam and the Living Law: The Ibn al-'Arabi Approach (1997). Current research interest is "The Openings Project," a digital dars which is an effort to assist searchers to gain access to the Futuhat in their own ways. He and Ely have two children, Aman (6) and Amnah (5 months).

Ian Almond is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature at Georgia State University, Atlanta. He is the author of four books, mostly on Islam and its representation in the Western tradition. He lived for six years in Turkey, where he taught for the most part at Kayseri and Istanbul.

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 five books.

Th. Emil Homerin is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester, where he teaches courses on Islam, classical Arabic literature, and mysticism. Homerin completed his Ph.D. with honors at the University of Chicago ('87), and has lived and worked in Egypt for a number of years. Among his many publications are From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint (2nd revised edition, Cairo: American University Press, 2001), his anthology of translations, Ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verse & Saintly Life (Paulist Press, 2001), The Wine of Love and Life (Chicago, 2005) and several chapters on Islam in the volume The Religious Foundations of Western Civilization (Abingdon Press, 2006). Homerin has been the recipient of grants from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also won a number of awards including the American Association of Teachers of Arabic Translation Prize, the Gol

Peter Yiangou is currently the senior partner of an architectural practice based in the Cotswolds in the UK. His interest in Ibn 'Arabi started in 1972 when he met Bulent Rauf, the founder member of the MIAS. His interest in Ibn 'Arabi has continued since then through the activities of the Beshara School, also founded by Bulent Rauf. He spent time as head of the first Beshara Centre at Swyre Farm in the UK in 1975, and a period as Chairman of the Beshara Trust in the early 90's. He has attended 6 month and short courses at the Beshara School where Ibn 'Arabi is part of the core curriculum. In recent years he has been involved in running 10 Beshara School courses in Australia and Indonesia.

Angela Jaffray received her PhD from Harvard University's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 2000. Her translations of Lorca's Sonnets of Dark Love were published in Collected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca. Since graduating, she has dedicated herself to translating and commenting on various texts of Ibn 'Arabi, including The Universal Tree and the Four Birds: Ibn 'Arabi's Treatise on Unification, recently published by Anqa Publishing, and Unveiling from the Effects of the Voyages. She lives in Chicago.

Jane Carroll is a founding member of the Muyhiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society and is Chairperson on the board of the Society in America. She works as an architect in Ojai, California.

Suleyman Derin teaches at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Marmara in Istanbul. He obtained a Ph.D. from Leeds University, with a thesis titled Towards Some Paradigms on the Sufi Conception of Love: from Rabia to Ibn al-Farid, including a chapter on Ibn 'Arabi. His most recent work was on the subject of Ibn Arabi's approach to the verses of qisas "retaliation" titled "The Tradition of Sulh among the Sufis with Special Reference to Ibn 'Arabi and Yunus Emre"

Niels Detert has been a long-time student of Ibn 'Arabi under the umbrella of the Beshara School. He works as a Clinical Psychologist at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, specialising in Neuropsychology. His work is mainly clinical in the cognitive assessment and psychological therapy of people with neurological disorders. He lives in Oxford with his partner and young son.

Samer is an intellectual historian and architectural theoretician with expertise in Islamic philosophy and mysticism. He has studied extensively the works of Ibn 'Arabi and his later follower 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1731). His Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (SUNY 2005) focuses on the influence of Ibn 'Arabi's teachings on architectural thinking, while his forthcoming book on Islam and the Enlightenment (Oneworld 2007) traces the development of Ibn 'Arabi's ideas through al-Nabulusi's life and works.