The Horizons of Being

Mukhtar H. Ali (editor)

English and Arabic

Hardback

9789004425248

The Metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī

The Horizons of Being explores the teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī by examining Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s (d. 751/1350) Prolegomena to his commentary on the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, popularly known as the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī. A masterpiece of Sufism, the Muqaddima is both a distillation of the Fuṣūṣ and a summary of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s entire metaphysical worldview. As such, it is a foundational text that delves into the most important subjects characterizing the philosophical Sufi tradition: Being, God’s attributes, divine knowledge, the universal worlds, unveiling, creation and the microcosm, the perfect human, the origin and return of the spirit, prophethood and sainthood. The present work is a complete translation of the Muqaddima and a commentary that incorporates the ideas of the main exponents of this tradition.

Contents

Translation and Edition of the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī

1. Author’s Preface

2. On Being, and that it is the Truth

3. The Divine Names and Attributes

4. The Permanent Archetypes and a Comment on the Manifestations of the Names

5. Substance and Accident According to God’s Folk

6. The Universal Worlds and the Five Divine Presences

7. The Imaginal World

8. The Degrees of Unveiling and its Main Types

9. The World is the Form of the Human Reality

10. The Vicegerency of the Muḥammadan Reality and that it is the Ultimate Pole

11. The Supreme Spirit, its Degrees and Names in the Human World

12. The Spirit’s Return to God with its Manifestations upon the Greater Resurrection

13. Prophethood, Messengership and Sainthood