Friday, November 6
6 pm
Assembly Hall
KEYNOTE
The Anthropology of Compassion
Ibn ’Arabi and the Quest for Human Perfection
William C. Chittick, PhD
Ibn ’Arabi’s teachings on compassion, as on other topics, need to be situated in the “spiritual anthropology” that forms the backdrop of his work. In this session, one of the greatest American Ibn ’Arabi scholars who has spent 40 years studying the great mystic’s legacy will explore what Ibn ’Arabi’s teachings tell us about the relationship between compassion and the quest for human perfection. Can such an exalted goal really be actualized in the course of a human lifetime?
Saturday, November 7
9 am – 12 pm
Assembly Hall
The Mystic’s Ka’ba: The Wisdom of the Heart According to Ibn ’Arabi
Stephen Hirtenstein, MA
“The greatest crime is that which kills the heart, and nothing kills it but lack of knowledge of God.” — Ibn ’Arabi
The Ka’ba, the cube-shaped building in Mecca, is the most sacred site in Islam, representing the center of the world where heaven and earth meet. Muslims direct their prayers to it five times a day, no matter where they are, and during pilgrimage, it is circumambulated by vast throngs. Likewise, the human heart is viewed as the most sacred core of a person, not only as a physical organ but as the “seat” of the spirit, the place that “contains” the Divine. This talk will explore some of the many ramifications of the heart in Ibn ’Arabi’s teachings, as the Ka’ba of our being.
Ibn ’Arabi: The Treasury of Absolute Mercy
Mohamed Haj Yousef, PhD
Ibn ’Arabi’s work contains some very extensive descriptions of his cosmology, his understandings of creation and of the universe. One subject upon which he places perhaps the most emphasis is the central importance of mercy and compassion—he often states that the world originated from absolute mercy and to mercy it would return and that any pain or agony is therefore purely temporary. He felt that Allah had made him a “treasury of mercy” so that he could remain absolutely merciful despite his knowledge of hardness and suffering. Join Professor Yousef, a great specialist in Ibn ’Arabi’s cosmology, as he explores with us this crucial aspect of Ibn ’Arabi’s model of creation.
Conference Break
Ibn ’Arabi in Dialogue with the Confucian Tradition
Sachiko Murata, PhD
When Chinese Muslims began in the 17th century to write about their ancestral religion in their native language—that is, Chinese—they produced a body of literature that is a synthesis of the Neo-Confucian and Islamic worldviews. On the Islamic side, they drew largely from Sufi teachers in the lineage of Ibn ’Arabi. Sachiko Murata, one of the great specialists of this insufficiently known but fascinating syncretic tradition at the crossroads of two great civilizations, shares her insights about this unique religious culture and how two such seemingly different approaches to life as passionate Sufi mysticism and Confucian discipline can coexist.
Between Annihilation and Subsistence
Ibn al-Arabi’s God of Compassion versus Fundamentalist Nihilism
Salman Bashier, PhD
Salman Bashier is an advocate of a dialogue between Islamic and Western thought, and he feels that the rich tradition and practice of Islamic mysticism can play a key role in countering the destructive aspects of modern fundamentalism, something that has not been sufficiently recognized by scholars or policy makers. In this talk, he will focus on Ibn al-Arabi’s philosophy as a tool for examining the roots of Islamic fundamentalism in the context of both other fundamentalisms and other currents in modern Islam.
Conference speakers interviewed on WBAI-FM
Abundant Faith, Shrinking Space
Events: From The Ibn ’Arabi Society
