'Those who believe are more intense in love': Ibn al-'Arabi and the Paradoxes of Love

Ibn 'Arabi Society

Love is mysterious and many splendored—the source of our greatest joys and deepest sorrows; easy to talk and sing about, but impossible to define. "One who defines love has not known it, and one who has not tasted it by drinking it down, has not known it," writes Ibn al-'Arabi. While Rumi is more associated with love in the contemporary imagination, love is equally central to the writings and tradition of the great Andalusian writer, thinker, and spiritual teacher, Ibn Al-'Arabi (d. 1240), known as al-Shaykh al-Akbar (The Greatest Master). Through an examination of his commentaries on two verses of the Qur'an (2:165 and 45:23), and exploration of the paradoxes and seeming contradictions therein, this workshop will explore how love is key to understanding Ibn Al-'Arabi’s vast and kaleidoscopic oeuvre, and how these writings and perspectives can, in turn, help us better understand the undefinable nature of love and longing. For Ibn Al-'Arabi, love is more than a feeling, it is the fundamental nature of consciousness, God, and reality itself.