Review of Sufism and Deconstruction: A Comparative Study of Derrida and Ibn ‘Arabi by Ian Almond

Abstract:

“When William C. Chittick published his encyclopedic Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination almost thirty years ago, he made readily available to the English speaking world,for the first time, lengthy excerpts drawn primarily from the thirteenth century Andalusian thinker’s most comprehensive summation of Sufi thought in the Meccan Revelations. Chittick’s most significant contribu-tion, arguably, lay in the virtually unparalleled lucidity with which he introduced and translated a range of key passages authored by a medieval figure notorious for his often elliptical and allusive style of writing. This was a tremendous accomplishment for a single scholar, the full extent of which can be measured today by SPK’s standing as probably the most widely cited secondary source in the field of Ibn al-‘Arabi studies“