Ibn al-ʿArabī's Barzakh

The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World

Salman H. Bashier

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780791462287, 9780791462270
• eBook ISBN: 9780791484340
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Explores the concept of the Limit (barzakh), which the great Sufi mystic Ibn al-'Arabi used to address the philosophical controversy regarding God's relationship with the world.

This book explores how Ibn al-'Arabi (1165–1240) used the concept of barzakh (the Limit) to deal with the philosophical problem of the relationship between God and the world, a major concept disputed in ancient and medieval Islamic thought. The term "barzakh" indicates the activity or actor that differentiates between things and that, paradoxically, then provides the context of their unity. Author Salman H. Bashier looks at early thinkers and shows how the synthetic solutions they developed provided the groundwork for Ibn al-'Arabi's unique concept of barzakh. Bashier discusses Ibn al-'Arabi's development of the concept of barzakh ontologically through the notion of the Third Thing and epistemologically through the notion of the Perfect Man, and compares Ibn al-'Arabi's vision with Plato's.

Table of contents

• Ibn al-'Arabi’s Barzakh
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Ibn al-'Arabi’s Liminal (Barzakhi) Theory of Representation: An Outlook from the Present Situation
• 2. Creation ex nihilo, Creation in Time, and Eternal Creation: Ibn Sina versus the Theologians
• 3. Ibn Rushd versus al-Ghazali on the Eternity of the World
• 4. Mysticism versus Philosophy: The Encounter between Ibn al-'Arabi and Ibn Rushd
• 5. The Barzakh
• 6. The Third Entity: The Supreme Barzakh
• 7. The Perfect Man: The Epistemological Aspect of the Third Thing
• 8. The Limit Situation
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index