Within the depth-psychology corpus, Ibn Arabi (Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi, 1165–1240) occupies a singular position as the supreme theorist of what Henry Corbin terms ‘creative imagination’ in Islamic mysticism — the faculty by which the soul perceives, and indeed participates in generating, theophanic reality. The corpus is overwhelmingly shaped by Corbin’s monumental study, which treats Ibn Arabi not as a historical curiosity but as the indispensable philosopher of the imaginal world (‘alam al-mithal), the intermediate realm between pure intellect and sensory existence. Corbin’s reading situates Ibn Arabi at the convergence of Andalusian Sufism, Iranian Ishraqiyun theosophy, and Shi’ite Imamology, arguing that his removal from the rationalist West to the spiritually receptive Orient was itself a cosmically significant event. The core tensions in the corpus circle around the ‘created God’ — Ibn Arabi’s provocative doctrine that theophany is irreducibly relational, determined by the form of the worshipper’s love — and the question of whether such a position constitutes heterodoxy or the deepest fidelity to divine self-disclosure. Karen Armstrong’s adjacent treatment of imaginative theology offers a partial parallel. Altogether, the corpus presents Ibn Arabi as the axis around which Islamic esoterism, angelology, and the metaphysics of the imagination revolve.
the best explanation of Ibn ‘Arabi remains Ibn ‘Arabi himself. The only means of understanding him is to become for a moment his disciple, to approach him as he himself approached many masters of Sufism.
Corbin establishes the hermeneutical principle governing the entire study: Ibn Arabi can be understood only through participatory discipleship, not external scholarly analysis.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
God epiphanizes Himself to each of us in the form of what we love; the form of your love is the form of the faith you profess. Out of all this I ‘create’ the God in whom I believe and whom I worship.
This passage articulates Ibn Arabi’s doctrine of the ‘created God’ — that theophany is constitutively shaped by the worshipper’s own form of love, making the divine self-disclosure irreducibly personal and relational.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
For Ibn ‘Arabi the Angel represents the essential correlation between the form of a theophany and the form of him to whom it is disclosed. He is the ‘part allotted’ to each Spiritual, his absolute individuality, the divine Name invested in him.
Corbin presents Ibn Arabi’s angelology as the structural key to his theophany: the Angel is the precise correlate between the divine self-revelation and the individual soul that receives it.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
a decisive contemplation, far anterior to any such philosophical choice, a distant point to which we must also return if we wish to account for the deformations and rejections which the spirituality of Ibn ‘Arabi has so often incurred.
Corbin argues that the persistent misreading and rejection of Ibn Arabi’s spirituality stems from the refusal of self-knowledge, making his thought a diagnostic touchstone for the limits of philosophical and theological orthodoxy.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
‘I am neither a prophet (nabi) nor an envoy (rasul); I am simply an heir, someone who plows and sows the field of his future life.’
Ibn Arabi’s self-description as ‘heir’ to the prophets — the guiding hermeneutical stance of the Fusus al-Hikam — is analyzed by Corbin as the key to his esoteric doctrine of prophetic wisdoms.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the influence of Ibn ‘Arabi was responsible for the feeling which may have enabled Sufism to find the secret of its origins, witness for example Haydar Amuli (fourteenth century), himself a Shi’ite commentator of Ibn ‘Arabi, who proclaimed that the true Shi’ism was Sufism.
Corbin traces the convergence of Shi’ism and Sufism through Ibn Arabi’s influence, arguing that his theosophy enabled later thinkers to identify the two currents as secretly identical.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the way to Mulla Sadra’s work was paved by a long line of masters who integrated the doctrines of Ibn ‘Arabi into the Shi’ism of the twelve Imams.
Corbin maps the philosophical transmission from Ibn Arabi through the Iranian tradition, positioning his doctrines as the foundation upon which Mulla Sadra’s existential theosophy was built.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the same Averroes who expressed his eagerness to meet the young Ibn ‘Arabi, it attained at once its apogee and its end. This may have been the case if we consider only the destinies of philosophy in Western, if not in all Sunnite Islam.
Corbin uses the contrast between Averroes and Ibn Arabi to argue that the death of philosophy in Western Islam was matched by its living continuation in the Oriental Sufi-Shi’ite tradition.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
the triumph of Averroism in the West and Ibn ‘Arabi’s removal to the Orient are two events to which we shall here attach a symbolic significance.
Corbin frames Ibn Arabi’s eastward migration as a historically and symbolically decisive event, contrasting it with the rationalist triumph of Averroism in the Latin West.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the question, namely, of the affinity and reunion between the theosophy of Ibn ‘Arabi and the theosophy of the Sufism originating in Central Asia, and consequently of Shi’ite Sufism.
Corbin identifies the confluence of Ibn Arabi’s Andalusian theosophy with Central Asian Sufi traditions as a pivotal and insufficiently studied problem for Islamic intellectual history.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the visionary once again met his personal Holy Spirit, who, in communicating to him the order to undertake his pilgrimage, had announced himself as Ibn ‘Arabi’s companion and celestial guide.
Corbin analyzes the theophanic encounter at Mecca in which Ibn Arabi’s celestial alter ego inaugurates the composition of the Futuhat, illustrating the direct connection between visionary experience and his major work.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the entire ontology of the world of Idea-Images (‘alam al-mithal) is common to the theosophies of Ibn ‘Arabi and of Suhrawardi.
Corbin argues that Ibn Arabi and Suhrawardi share a common ontological structure centered on the imaginal world, positioning both thinkers as co-architects of Islamic visionary philosophy.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
On one side the master [Imam], on the other his works, the books he wrote. And Ibn Jubayr answered him: ‘You say I do not observe, O my child? I assuredly do.’
Corbin uses Ibn Arabi’s threefold encounter with Averroes — as disciple of Khidr, as visionary author, and as witness to mortality — to crystallize the whole of his spiritual identity.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi symbolizes it by the stars whose brilliance darkens as soon as the full moon of the other two stages rises, the stages in the course of which the Sufi is initiated into the ta’wil.
Corbin shows how Ibn Arabi employs the cosmological image of stars dimmed by moonlight to symbolize the supersession of literal religion by esoteric, symbolic interpretation (ta’wil).
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the affiliation by identification with Khidr’s state is accomplished in the longitudinal order connecting the visible with the invisible, an order cutting vertically across the latitudinal order of historical successions.
Corbin analyzes Ibn Arabi’s initiation by Khidr as a paradigm of transhistorical spiritual transmission, one that bypasses institutional chains of authority in favor of direct vertical connection with the divine.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi held the fuqaha’ in horror; he made no secret of his disgust at their stupidity, ignorance, and depravity, and such an attitude was not calculated to win their favor.
Corbin documents the structural conflict between Ibn Arabi’s spiritual Islam and the legalistic religious establishment, showing the personal danger this antagonism created for him in Cairo.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
While sojourning in Mecca in the course of the year A.H. 598 [A.D. 1201], I frequented a group of outstanding men and women, an élite of culture and virtue.
Corbin presents the biographical genesis of the Tarjuman al-ashwaq, establishing that Ibn Arabi’s sophianic poetry arose from a concrete mystical encounter in Mecca with a young woman of transcendent beauty.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the venerable shaikha still possessed such beauty and grace that she might have been taken for a girl of fourteen, and the young Ibn ‘Arabi could not help blushing when he looked at her face to face.
Corbin narrates Ibn Arabi’s relationship with his female Sufi teacher Fatima of Cordova as an early formation of the sophianic devotion that would structure his entire mystical vision.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
The cosmology of Sufism possesses a dimension — lacking in our view of the world — which takes account of such experience. It guarantees the ‘objective’ reality of the supersensory world in which are manifested the effects of a spiritual energy whose source is the heart.
Corbin uses an episode from Ibn Arabi’s life to argue that Sufi cosmology, unlike modern worldviews, provides an ontological framework in which paranormal spiritual experience has genuine explanatory standing.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi’s bibliography (the ‘list of his writings’) comprised more than four hundred titles, though he was far from having completed his work.
Corbin documents the enormous literary output of Ibn Arabi by the time of his settlement in Damascus, underscoring the scale of his intellectual legacy.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the contrasting trend represented in the Orient by the spread of the gnoses of the Ishraq, of Shi’ism and of Ibn ‘Arabi.
Corbin positions Ibn Arabi’s Oriental theosophy as the positive counterpart to the rationalist-legalist triumph in Western Islam, one of two divergent trajectories that determined the fate of Islamic spirituality.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi’s stay in Qunya was to assume an extraordinary importance for the destiny and orientation of the spiritual life of Sufism in eastern Islam. Here his principal disciple was the young Sadruddin Qunyawi.
Corbin traces the transmission of Ibn Arabi’s doctrine through Sadruddin Qunyawi, identifying Konya as the pivotal node where Andalusian and Oriental Sufi traditions were fused.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Perhaps it will be argued that Ibn ‘Arabi and his disciples, or even Shi’ism as a whole, represent only a small minority within the great masses of Islam. That is true, but have we come to the point where we can appreciate ‘spiritual energy’ only in statistical terms?
Corbin defends the study of Ibn Arabi against the objection of marginality by distinguishing qualitative spiritual significance from quantitative majority representation.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
all this constitutes the Prayer of God (Salat al-Haqq) as His existentiating theophany (tajalli ijadi).
Corbin expounds Ibn Arabi’s doctrine that God’s tripartite cosmogonic movement constitutes a divine prayer, structurally mirrored in the three movements of Islamic ritual prayer.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi’s comparison of his own experience with the Prophet’s experience of the Angel would lead us to group and to analyze the expressions describing the Archangel Gabriel as the Principle of Life.
Corbin shows how Ibn Arabi’s self-comparison with the Prophet’s angelic vision opens onto a theology of the Holy Spirit as Active Imagination, connecting Islamic and early Christian pneumatology.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
This visionary master provides an example of perfect scientific probity; every student of religions, every theologian, might well adopt his maxim.
Corbin presents Ibn Arabi’s method of direct testimonial inquiry as a model of rigorous first-person religious epistemology applicable well beyond Sufi studies.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
Ibn ‘Arabi calls the prophet of the Philosophers; from him are descended the Sages of Greece and Persia, who are followed by certain Sufis.
Corbin traces Suhrawardi’s genealogy of sages through Idris-Enoch, noting Ibn Arabi’s identification of this figure as the ‘prophet of the Philosophers,’ integrating Sufi and Hermetic lineages.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
how in Shi’ism Imamology (in so far as it permits a mental vision of the Holy Imams) and the theosophy of Ibn ‘Arabi mutually fecundated one another.
Corbin identifies the mutual fertilization of Imamology and Ibn Arabi’s theosophy as a central and underexplored problem in Islamic intellectual history.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
in view of the unusual fact that here a different text is commented upon by its own author, a complete translation would be extremely useful.
Corbin highlights Ibn Arabi’s self-commentary on the Tarjuman al-ashwaq as a unique hermeneutical document for understanding his symbolic method.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
the imaginal world that Henry Corbin describes in his eloquent commentaries upon the Sufi masters.
Harold Bloom’s preface validates Corbin’s imaginative scholarship on Ibn Arabi by invoking a personal adolescent encounter with the imaginal world as described in these commentaries.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969aside
Averroes: Ibn ‘Arabi at funeral of, 21, 24, 29, 42–43; Ibn ‘Arabi meets, 41–42, 58
The index entry documents the textual locations in Corbin’s study where Ibn Arabi’s encounters with Averroes are analyzed, serving as a structural marker of that comparative motif.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969aside
Corbin traced the influence of the Gnosis of antiquity upon the Iranian Sufis: ‘Gnosis was not born in Islam in the Middle Ages, any more than it is a simple Christian heresy.’
Bloom’s preface situates Corbin’s reading of Ibn Arabi within a broader claim about gnosis as a world religion predating both Christianity and Islam.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969aside