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Ibn ʿArabī and the unity of being

Ibn ʿArabī

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For everyone

The views of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ʿArabī were later called "waḥdat al-wujūd" (the unity of being): true being belongs to God alone, and everything in the world is a manifestation of God's names and attributes. The view had a deep influence in the Islamic world and also sparked fierce debate.

For specialists

Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam and al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya are his main works. The unity of being affirms transcendence (tanzīh) and immanence (tashbīh) together, yielding a paradoxical conception of God. Imām Rabbānī developed against it the view of "waḥdat al-shuhūd" (unity is in witnessing, not in being). Critics have associated the unity of being with pantheism; defenders reject this characterisation.

Claims

Positions

Imām Rabbānī (unity of witnessing)
Unity lies in the seeker's witnessing, not in being itself; Creator and creation are distinct.[1]
Ibn Taymiyya
The unity of being confuses Creator and creation and is contrary to Islamic creed.[3]

Connections

Parent

Sufism (taṣawwuf)

Argued against by

Aḥmad Sirhindī and the unity of witnessing

Related

al-Ḥallāj and "Anā al-Ḥaqq"Yunus Emre

This topic is a stop on these journeys

Reason and revelation: a debate in Islamic thought · stop 8/9

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Sources

  1. EncyclopediaVahdet-i vücûd. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisiislamansiklopedisi.org.trarchive
  2. BookChittick, W. C. (1989). The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination. SUNY Press, Albany
  3. BookKnysh, A. (1999). Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam. SUNY Press, Albany

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Cite this page

APA

Athena contributors. (2026). Ibn ʿArabī and the unity of being. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/ibn-arabi/

BibTeX
@misc{athena_ibn_arabi,
  title        = {Ibn ʿArabī and the unity of being},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/ibn-arabi/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 27, 2026 · Last changed: September 27, 2026 · Page history

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