Ibn 'arabi Society

Olga Louchakova, M.D., Ph.D., is the core faculty professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and the director of Transpersonal Education and Research Specialization. An acknowledged teacher of Advaita Vedanta, Kundalini Yoga and Prayer of the Heart, Olga received her teaching mandate in the Russian spiritual underground. She published many articles in neuroscience, spirituality and transpersonal psychology, and is currently working on the book-project dedicated to the Prayer of the Heart. She maintains private practice consulting on psychospiritual transformation in Bay Area, California.

Ibrahim Kalin is an assistant professor of Islamic studies at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA. He received his B.A. in history from the University of Istanbul, Turkey, M.A. in Islamic thought from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Malaysia, and Ph.D. from the George Washington University, Washington DC. He is the recipient of the CTNS Religion and Science Course Award, 2002 for his seminar "Religion and Science: Traditional and Modern Encounters". His book on Mulla Sadra's theory of knowledge entitled Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on the Unification of the Intellect and the Intelligible will appear among Oxford titles in 2006.

Salman Bashier graduated from The University of Utah in August 2000. Since then he has been working as a visiting lecturer at Haifa University in the departments of Philosophy and Arabic Language and Literature. He is the author of "Ibn al-Arabi's Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World". He is now completing a second book on the linkage between mystical and philosophical thought. His interests extend to Greek and Islamic philosophy and mysticism, Islamic theology, law, and Arabic literature and poetry.

Elias Amidon is the spiritual director of the Sufi Way International, a western Sufi Order in the lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan. He has worked as an architect and urban planning consultant. For a number of years he worked with indigenous tribes in northern Thailand and Burma on land rights issues, and has led citizen-to-citizen delegations to Burma, Thailand, Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. He is currently a director of the Abraham Path Initiative. He is co-editor of the books Earth Prayers, Life Prayers, and Prayers for a Thousand Years

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.

Vincent J. Cornell is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. From 2000-2006, he was Professor of History and Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. From 1991-2000, he taught at Duke University. His published works include over twenty articles and three books, including The Way of Abu Madyan (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996) and Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998). His most recent publication is Voices of Islam, Vincent J. Cornell General Editor (Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger, 2007), 5 volumes. This comprehensive introduction to Islamic religion, thought, life, and civilization includes chapters by 50 Muslim authors, including many of the premier scholars of Islamic Studies. Volume titles and editors: Volume 1 Voices of Tradition (Vincent J. Cornell); Volume 2 Voices of the Spirit (Vince

Born in Lancashire, UK. Married with two grown up children. Read Philosophy and Religious Studies at Lancaster University and postgraduate research at Keble College, University of Oxford. Formerly Senior Lecturer at University of Lincoln, Department of Psychology specialising in courses on the Philosophy of the Self and Philosophy of Science. Retired in 2003. Student of Ibn 'Arabi form very many years. Co-director of the Chisholme Institute, Scotland which runs courses on behalf of the Beshara Trust in Intensive Esoteric Education. Published "Ibn 'Arabi and Modern Thought" (Anqa Publishing, Oxford, 2002).

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).

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).

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.

Cecilia Twinch read Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University. She has studied Ibn 'Arabi's work for many years and is actively involved with the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society based in Oxford, being Reviews Editor of the Journal. She has also studied at the Beshara School in Scotland. Besides working as a teacher, translator and editor, she has written numerous articles and has lectured on Ibn 'Arabi in Europe, America, North Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Publications include "Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and the Interior Wisdom" in Los Dos Horizontes (The Two Horizons), "Julian of Norwich: 'All shall be well'" in Mujeres de Luz (Women of Light) and an English translation, with Pablo Beneito, of one of Ibn 'Arabi's earliest works, "Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries" (Mashahid al-asrar).

Caner Dagli is currently a professor in the Religion and Philosophy department at Roanoke College in Salem, VA. Dagli earned a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from George Washington University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. His dissertation is titled "From Mysticism to Philosophy and Back." He specializes in Islamic philosophy, mysticism in world religions and Sufism. He recently published a translation and study of the Fusus al-hikam, entitled "The Ringstones of Wisdom".

Michael Sells, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), is a John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Michael Sells studies and teaches in the areas of qur'anic studies; Sufism; Arabic and Islamic love poetry; mysticism (Greek, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish); and religion and violence. He is currently completing a new and expanded edition of his 1999 book Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations. He has published three volumes on Arabic poetry: Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes; which focuses upon the pre-Islamic period; Stations of Desire, which focuses upon the love poetry of Ibn al-'Arabi; and The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Al-Andalus which he co-edited and to which he contributed. His books on mysticism include Early Islamic Mysticism, translations and commentaries on influential mystical passages from the Qur'an, hadith, Arabic poetry, and early Sufi writings; and Mystical Languages of Unsaying, an examination of