Farghani on Wahdat al-Wujud in the Four Journeys

Saʿīd b. Aḥmad Farghānī (d. 699/1300) was one of the foremost students of Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī, Ibn ʿArabī’s stepson and primary propagator. He was the author of the first commentary, in two versions, on Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s famous 760-verse qasida, The Poem of the Way. The first version was written in Persian, based on lectures delivered by Qūnawī, and the second in Arabic, with extensive additions and revisions. In the introduction to the Arabic, he provided relatively systematic expositions of many technical terms that were soon to become commonplace among scholars, among which was waḥdat al-wujūd, which had barely been mentioned before him. He also seems to be the first author to describe in detail the four journeys (al-asfār al-arbaʿa), an expression that is famously the short title of Mullā Ṣadrā’s magnum opus. In Farghānī’s understanding, waḥdat al-wujūd cannot be understood apart from the four journey

For the past several centuries in Islamic languages and for decades in the Western secondary literature, waḥdat al-wujūd has been a well-known term, typically understood as a specific doctrine founded by Ibn ʿArabī and supported or critiqued by later scholars. In fact Ibn ʿArabī had no such doctrine, given that he never used the expression. Moreover, everyone who has used the expres- sion, whether supporter or critic, has had some specific or vague meaning in mind, and these meanings have rarely coincided

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 al-Nūr al-muḥammadi – the Light of the Prophet », Mohammed in History, Thought, and Culture

Al-nūr al-muḥammadī, the “Muḥammadan light”, is an Arabic expression which designates the inner and transcendent reality of the prophetic being, alluding thereby symbolically to the meta-historical significance of the Prophet Muḥammad, especially within Islamic soteriology, cosmology, spirituality and metaphysics. One of the foremost doctrinal implications of the Muḥammadan light is the Prophet’s primordial existence and his spiritual paternity over mankind. The Muḥammadan light is also understood as the universal principle of prophecy of which the pre-Islamic prophets were partial manifestations while the historic Muḥammad corresponded to its full manifestation. Above all, the concept of al-nūr al-muḥammadī plays a central role in Islamic spirituality. Being the light with which God illuminates the heart of his saints, it highlights the intrinsic relation between spiritual illumination, the Prophet and sainthood.

Content Overview:

Discusses the identity and selection of the Imam after Muhammad.

Explores the significance of praise poetry (madih) in Arabic culture, particularly in relation to Muhammad.

Highlights the , a famous praise poem by al-Busiri, detailing its themes and spiritual significance.

Examines early Byzantine literature’s references to Muhammad and Islam.

Describes the maghazi, military expeditions led by Muhammad during the Medinan period.

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The Brain and the Making of the Modern Mind, Renovatio, Spring

Few today would deny that the brain holds a preeminent place in the scientific imagination. In modern science, the brain is often seen as the organ of consciousness, thought, and identity. This view, rooted in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, suggests that who we are —our emotions, memories, imagination, and even sense of free will—is fundamentally tied to and determined by the brain’s structure and function. With the rise of brain imaging (e.g., functional MRI and electroencephalograms), neuroplasticity research, and artificial intelligence (AI), the brain has become a new frontier for exploration. Neuroscientific breakthroughs have fueled speculation about everything from mind uploading to brain-machine interfaces, reinforcing the brain’s essential role in discussions about human potential and limitations.

Yet as Matthew Cobb’s illuminating The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience demonstrates, despite centuries of scientific inquiry, our understanding of the brain remains remarkably limited. The more we learn, the more the brain’s complexity defies reductive explanations. While we have built a solid foundation in neurophysiology, we still lack a clear understanding of how neurons—whether billions, millions, or thousands—interact to generate brain activity. To be sure, we know that the brain interacts with the world and the body, processing stimuli through both innate and learned neural networks. It predicts changes in stimuli to prepare appropriate responses and coordinates bodily actions through intricate neuronal connections and chemical signaling. Yet when it comes to truly grasping how neural networks operate at a cellular level or accurately predicting the effects of changes in their activity, we are still in the early days of neuroscience. For instance, while scientists can artificially induce visual perception in a mouse by replicating a specific pattern of neuronal activity, they do not yet fully understand how and why visual perception generates that pattern in the first plac

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Recognition (maʿrifa) (w/ William C. Chittick; St. Andrew’s Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2025)

Maʿrifa and the less commonly used ʿirfān are verbal nouns derived from the root ʿ-r-f (for the various meanings of this root, see Lane’s Lexicon, s.v. ʿ-r-f). Like ʿilm, which is often considered its synonym, maʿrifa means ‘to know’. Scholars in all disciplines have offered definitions and explanations for the word ʿilm, frequently explaining that maʿrifa has a comparable meaning, though with distinctive connotations. The best overview of the countless scholarly disquisitions on ʿilm remains Franz Rosenthal’s Knowledge Triumphant (2007; see especially 53–55, 108–129, 165–168). Here we focus on the distinctive meaning given to maʿrifa by Sufis and philosophers who have paid special attention to ʿilm al-nafs, ‘knowledge of the soul’ (usually translated as ‘psychology’), which they saw as preparation for maʿrifat al-nafs, ‘recognizing the soul’.

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Al-Daghistani, R. (2022): “Invoking God`s Name and the Practice of Dhikr”

The chapter aims to systematically outline some of the most important aspects and features of dhikr – the central meditative technique of Islamic spirituality in general and of Sufi “initiatic practice” in particular. Dhikr, which can be translated as “remembrance”, “recollection”, “mentioning” or “invocation” of God or God’s most beautiful Names, is primarily discussed in every major Sufi manual about the “spiritual stations” (maqamat), which a Muslim mystic must reach on his or her inner spiritual ascent towards the ultimate Reality (al-Haqq). This paper intends to illuminate some of the ritual, experiential, epistemological and metaphysical aspects of dhikr, elaborating thereby on various forms, levels, and manifestations as well as on its relationship to the overall structure of the Sufi “initiatic path”. The article closes with some expositions and remarks on spiritual relevance and implication of dhikr for today’s context.

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The Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East, 12-13th Centuries: Metaphysics and Theology – Fedor Benevich

This is the first in a series of sourcebooks charting the reception of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d.1037) in the Islamic East (from Syria to central Asia) in the 12th-13th centuries CE. Avicenna was the dominant philosophical authority in this period, who provoked generations of thinkers to subtle critique, defense, and development of his ideas. The series will translate and analyze hundreds of passages from works by such figures as al-Ghazālī, al-Suhrawardī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, and many more. This volume focuses especially on issues in metaphysics, dealing with topics like the essence-existence distinction, the problem of universals, free will and determinism, Platonic Forms, good and evil, proofs of God’s existence, and the relationship between philosophy and theology.

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Returning to the Central Question of the Humanities: What Does it mean to be Human and to share Human consciousness?

Caner Dagli’s Metaphysical Institutions: Islam & the Modern Project is an interdisciplinary treatise on the nature of shared thinking—with an emphasis on interdisciplinary. What strikes the reader first and foremost is both the many topics Dagli covers—religion, modern philosophy, human consciousness, and of course Islam and modernity, inter alia—and the rationally coherent employment of various disciplines—from various subdisciplines of the humanities and social sciences to linguistics and the physical sciences by which he explores them. Dagli examines the modern academic project of defining and conceptualizing Islam

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Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi

The human soul, whose initiation the recitals “image,” has itself the structure of a pair, formed of the practical intellect and the contemplative intellect. In its superior state, the state of intimacy with the Angel of Knowledge and Revelation, the second of these “terrestrial angels,” the contemplative in tellect, is qualified as intellectus sanctus and prophetic spirit. § 1. Between Andalusia and Iran AflatBn). Ibn ‘Arab! was to be surnamed the Platonist, the “son of Plato” (Ibn AflafUn). This clarifies certain coordinates of the spiritual topography which we are here trying to establish. Anticipating the projects of Gemistos Pletho and Marsilio Ficino, this oriental Platonism, this Zoroastrian Neoplatonism of Iran escaped the rising tide of Aristotelianism which invaded the Latin Middle Ages and for several centuries determined not only their philosophy but also their world feeling. Accordingly, when in Cordova the young Ibn t ArabI attended the funeral of Averroes, the great master of medieval Aristotelianism, the melancholy scene becomes transfigured into a symbol which we shall do well to consider attentively.

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Pripovijedanje kao filozofskapedagogija: primjer Suhrawardīja

Abstract:

Sažetak: Ovo je prijevod teksta koji tretira možda najpoznatiju simboličku pripovijest Shihāb al-Dīna Suhrawardīja (u. 587/1191), a to je njegovo djelo Āwāz-i par-i Jibrā’īl (Odjek Džibrilovog krila). Naime, među spisima Suhrawardīja, osnivača Škole prosvjetljenja i ključne ličnosti u postibnsīnāovskoj islamskoj filozofiji, nalazi se niz vizionarskih kazivanja, jer je korištenje

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La Grande chaîne de la conscience – Par Mohammed Rustom

Dans son Essai sur l’homme, le poète britannique Alexander Pope proposait au XVIIIèsiècle une formulation succincte d’une ancienne doctrine philosophique de la réalité. Cette doctrine, à laquelle Arthur Lovejoy a donné le nom de “grande chaîne des êtres,” soutient que l’existence est une structure organique, entremêlée et hiérarchisée, reposant sur les degrés décroissants d’états de l’existence. La réalité vient de Dieu et elle part de Lui, l’Être Suprême; et elle vient trouver sa fin dans la plus infinitésimale des formes d’existence. Chaque élément du cosmos, y compris le cosmos lui-même, nourrit un lien vital avec les autres éléments qui en composent la grande chaîne. Pour citer Pope:

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