Saturday, November 7
1:30 pm
Workshop Session I options:
In the Footsteps of the Master
The Life and Times of Ibn ’Arabi
Stephen Hirtenstein, MA
This illustrated talk will describe Ibn ’Arabi’s life story through the places that he knew and the people he met. Ibn ’Arabi was a tremendous traveler, both spiritually and physically: His life spanned three great Islamic cultures, from the Almohads of al-Andalus (today’s Andalusia in Spain) to the Levant of the Ayyubids (sons of Saladin) to the great Seljuk Empire of Anatolia (modern Turkey). We will let him tell his story through his own words as much as possible, describing episodes from his outer and inner life, and showing how even his outer life became a teaching, an illustration of how to live. We will also be investigating some of the implications that his teachings have for us in the present day.
WORKSHOP CODE: AA01
The Anthropology of Compassion in Ibn ’Arabi’s Futuhat
Williams C. Chittick, PhD
In this workshop, we will look closely at a few seminal texts from Ibn ’Arabi’s 560-chapter magnum opus, al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (a work that is often neglected because of its length and which was deeply informed by a vision he had near the Ka’ba in Mecca), in which he deals extensively with compassion. We will explore how Ibn ’Arabi’s views on the centrality of compassion fit into the broader context of Islamic and Sufi teachings.
WORKSHOP CODE: AA02
Saturday, November 7
3:00 pm
Workshop Session II options:
Ibn ’Arabi’s View of the Cosmos
Mohamed Haj Yousef, PhD
Ibn ’Arabi’s model of the cosmos is based upon his controversial theory of the “oneness of being,” in which he affirms that all the visible forms in the cosmos are being perpetually created by a single entity he calls the “single monad” that keeps bringing these forms into existence. The discussion may be directed towards exploring the different aspects of Ibn ’Arabi’s view of the cosmos and its origins, and how one can reconcile the visible multiplicity of our material world with the oneness and uniqueness of the creator.
WORKSHOP CODE: AB01
How Ibn al-Arabi’s Mystical Love Can Overcome Fundamentalism
Salman Bashier, PhD
Ibn al-Arabi lived in the 13th century, but his strain of mysticism is very much a living tradition that is as relevant as ever, especially as a compassionate counterweight to religious fundamentalism. In this workshop, Salman Bashier will explore which thinkers in the modern intellectual tradition can be good candidates for a careful but serious and responsible comparative study to bring Ibn al-Arabi’s philosophy closer to the minds and hearts of modern society.
WORKSHOP CODE: AB02
Ibn ’Arabi and the Confucian Tradition
Sachiko Murata, PhD
In this workshop, we will delve deeper into the little known but remarkable intellectual and spiritual hybrid—Chinese Islam viewed through a Confucian prism, by exploring a few of the cosmological and psychological diagrams drawn up by Liu Zhi, an early 18th century Chinese Muslim scholar from Nanjing who was the most influential representative of the Huiru (Muslim Confucianist) school. Liu Zhi viewed his great work as revealing the underlying unity of Islamic (especially its Sufi variants) and Confucian ideas, which he viewed as the best of the East and West in his era.
WORKSHOP CODE: AB03
Conference speakers interviewed on WBAI-FM
Abundant Faith, Shrinking Space
Events: From The Ibn ’Arabi Society
