Online Zoom Forum: Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi: The Spiritual Vision and Influence of his Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 10 September 2025.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Sarida Brown:
Bio: Sarida Brown has been a teacher and guide in the Sufi Order/Inayatiyya since 1979. Having a special interest in healing, Pir Vilayat asked her to re-establish the Healing Order in Europe, which was her work from 1979 to 2021. Her Sufi journey includes being a guide and teacher in the Inner School; a teacher for three Suluk courses; offering courses throughout Europe; teaching in the Alps Camp since the 1980s. She founded, and for 20 years edited, Caduceus Journal, an international magazine uniting many traditions of healing, spirituality, psychotherapy, ecology and existential issues of our time. She is an acupuncturist and has extensive training in psychotherapy, in particular the BodySoul training of Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman. She is deeply interested in all aspects of spiritual eldering.
Speakers:
Stephen Hirtenstein:
Title: Inspiration and Reception – examples from the life and legacy of Ibn ‘Arabi.
Description: Ibn ‘Arabi maintained that everything he wrote was the result of divine inspiration. This talk will focus on his prose commentary on two lines from a poem in his celebrated Tarjuman al-ashwaq (The Translator of Desires), where he speaks of the life-giving power of the Spirit in unusually direct terms. We will also explore the life-giving quality of the texts themselves and some implications for how they can be read today.
Bio: Stephen Hirtenstein is an honorary fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society (MIAS) and director of the MIAS Archive project, as well as founder of Anqa Publishing, dedicated to publishing the works and studies of Ibn ‘Arabi in English. He also works as an editor for Encyclopaedia Islamica and lecturer at Oxford University on Islamic mysticism.
Prof Mukhtar Ali:
Title: The Sufism of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Mirror of Jāmī: Studies on the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam.
Description: Scheduled for publication in September 2025, Inscriptions of Wisdom: The Sufism of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Mirror of Jāmī presents the first full English translation and study of Jāmī’s Naqd al-nuṣūṣ on Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ. In this talk, Professor Mukhtar Ali will discuss the significance of the Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ as both a concise summary and interpretive key to Ibn al-ʿArabī’s larger work, the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. He will explore how Jāmī distills the metaphysical and spiritual insights of the Fuṣūṣ, making them accessible to his contemporaries while preserving their depth and subtlety. The talk will situate the text within Ibn al-ʿArabī’s larger corpus, highlighting its place in the Islamic mystical tradition, and considering its enduring relevance for students of Sufism, philosophy, and Islamic thought today.
Bio: Mukhtar Ali is Associate Professor of Islamic studies, specializing in Sufism, philosophy, and ethics. His research explores Islamic theories of knowledge—reason, revelation, and mystical experience—while engaging broader questions in epistemology and religious thought. He is the author of Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-ʿArabī, and his forthcoming book, Inscriptions of Wisdom, examines the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam through the lens of Jāmī’s commentary. Alongside his work in Islamic studies, Professor Ali is also a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Prof Cyrus Ali Zargar:
Title: The Source of Beauty in the Thought of Ibn ʿArabī.
Description: In this short lecture, Cyrus Zargar explores Ibn ʿArabī’s theory of beauty, its origins in God’s creation of the cosmos, and its expression in art. As we will discover, beauty ties together Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of why we exist with his practices centered on how to live most fully. Indeed, beauty is one of the most pivotal themes in Ibn ʿArabī’s philosophical Sufism.
Bio: Cyrus Ali Zargar, Ph.D., is the Endowed Al-Ghazali Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida. A scholar of Classical Sufism, Islamic philosophy, and Arabic and Persian Sufi literature, Zargar explores the intersections of ethics, aesthetics and spirituality in Islamic thought. He earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from U.C. Berkeley and has authored several acclaimed works, including The Polished Mirror and Sufi Aesthetics. His latest books, Religion of Love and The Ethics of Karbala, delve into Sufi poetics and Islamic virtue ethics.
Prof Pablo Beneito:
Title: Ibn Arabi's Dynamic Perspectivism and Transjectivity.
Bio: Pablo Beneito is currently Professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting in the Faculty of Letters, University of Murcia, Spain.
He has been studying the works of Ibn ?Arabi since he chose to do his doctorate in Arabic philology at the Complutense University of Madrid, after which he spent 9 years teaching at the University of Seville in the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies. He has also been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne in Paris (Ecole Pratique des Hauts Etudes), in Kyoto University (ASAFAS) and in Toledo (Escuela de Traductores).
As a specialist in Sufi thought, he has given courses throughout the world, and helped organise more than 14 international conferences. He heads MIAS Latina, a branch of the Ibn ?Arabi Society for speakers of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
He has edited and translated (into Spanish) Ibn ?Arabi Mashahid al-asrar and Kashf al-ma’na. He is currently working on several of Ibn ?Arabi shorter treatises.
Dr Faris Abdel-hadi:
Title: Ḥaydar Āmulī and the Circles of Religious Diversity.
Description: Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 787/1385) is an original thinker within the Shīʿa school of thought who utilises and adapts Ibn ʿArabī's teachings to create an extremely interesting synthetic ʿirfānī or gnostic vision, particularly within the framework of Ibn ʿArabī's controversial magnum opus, the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Particularly unique to Āmulī are the mandalas he creatively draws as a visual illustration of Ibn ʿArabī's ideas, and this short talk will explore two of his mandalas pertaining to religious diversity among Muslims and non-Muslims.
Bio: Dr Faris Abdel-hadi has lectured and conducted seminar workshops on the Akbarian school and interfaith relations across the globe, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Lebanon and Jordan.
Abdel-hadi has recently published a monograph with Routledge's series on Islamic Philosophy, on the subject of Ibn Arabi’s religious inclusivism, with a focus on the way the Shaykh conceptualises non-monotheistic religions outside of the Abrahamic tradition, in addition to several journal articles. He is currently working on a translation of the Kitāb al-Ajwiba al-ʿArabiyya which is expected to be published sometime next year, and has a special interest in the way Akbarian frameworks can be used to approach other religions. Abdel-hadi has a background in commercial law and translation services. He currently resides in Amman, Jordan.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Donation:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Account Name: Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
Bank: Bank of Scotland
Bank Address: Edinburgh Royal Mile Branch
Account Number: 06131159
Sort Code: 802000
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GB70 BOFS 8020 0006 1311 59
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